From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 1 07:59:25 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 07:59:25 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., LA., MO., KAN., CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605010759140.4476@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 1
ALABAMA:
Alabama court upholds 4 death sentences----Including man who killed 3
Birmingham officers
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the death sentence of a man
convicted of killing 3 Birmingham police officers more than a decade ago.
The judges rejected the appeal Friday of death row inmate Nathaniel Woods, who
claimed among other things that his lawyer wasn't effective during his trial.
Woods was condemned in the fatal shootings of officers Carlos Owen, Harley
Chisholm and Charles Bennett in 2005. Another man, Kerry Spence, also is on
death row for the slayings.
Separately, the appeals court upheld the convictions and death sentences of
Alonzo Morris and Anthony Lane, convicted in separate killings in Jefferson
County. The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the state to take another look at
Lane's case because of questions about his IQ.
The court also upheld the death case against John Russell Calhoun from
Talladega County.
(source: Associated Press)
LOUISIANA:
DA association backs bill aimed at troubled Louisiana Public Defender Board
The Louisiana Public Defender Board is under fire for how it funds defendant
representation in capital murder cases and is the target of a state House Bill
that would winnow its membership as the state's public defenders crisis
continues to deepen.
House Bill 1137, formerly House Bill 818, sponsored by Rep. Sherman Mack
(R-Albany), would reduce the Louisiana Public Defender Board's membership from
15 to 11 and would make other changes to the board's funding.
That legislation is one of the more recent developments in the state's public
defenders crisis. In March, the Louisiana branch of the American Civil
Liberties Union and the state's Supreme Court Chief Justice issued dire
warnings about the state's underfunded public defenders offices, a problem that
has been accumulating for years.
With strained operating budgets and no relief in sight, some parishes have
restricted the rights of indigent defendants, which have left many languishing
in jail. 33 of the state's 42 public defenders offices have been forced to
restrict services and as many as half of those offices are on the verge of
being insolvent.
A federal court is set to consider whether the public defenders crisis in
Louisiana has created a debtors prison system in the state.
Against that backdrop, House Bill 1137 would seem to be just 1 more flash
point, but Louisiana District Attorneys Association Executive Director E. Pete
Adams told the Louisiana Record that would miss its real importance.
"The bill is much more than that," Adams said in an email interview. "There is
mounting evidence that the board has been and is operating in a fiscally
irresponsible manner. This board must be re-organized to give local public
defenders more voice and a greater share of available funding. That is exactly
what HB 1137 seeks to accomplish. It removes four law professors from the
board, gives local (public defenders) some voice and directs 65 % of the state
appropriation to the locals."
The bill cleared the House on April 18 with a vote of 93 yeas to 3 nays, with
only Reps. Lawrence A. "Larry" Bagley (R - Stonewall), Dodie Horton
(R-Haughton) and Edward C. "Ted" James II, (D-Baton Rouge) voting against the
bill. Eight state Representatives -- Neil C. Abramson (D-New Orleans), James K.
Armes III (D Leesville), Kenny R. Cox (D-Natchitoches), Julie Emerson
(R-Carencro), Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville), Mike Johnson (R-Bossier City),
Barbara M. Norton (D-Shreveport) and Scott M. Simon (R-Abita Springs) -- were
absent.
The bill now is in the Senate Committee on Judiciary B.
Louisiana District Attorneys Association's interest in the legislation is
fairly recent, Adams said.
"The district attorneys had adopted a neutral position on this bill until
recently when we decided that the board's decisions were directly and
unnecessarily leading to halting felony prosecutions in many jurisdictions
across the state," Adams said. "The chief public defender recently admitted
that, if the board would direct only 60 % of the state appropriated $33 million
to local (public defenders), there would be no restriction of services in any
district. Why on Earth would they not have already done so to avoid stalling
hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases? Maybe to create a case for more funding?"
Louisiana's Public Defender, James T. Dixon Jr., who answers to the Louisiana
Public Defender Board, has repeatedly and vehemently denied accusations brought
up by the board's detractors, stating the board responsibly distributes its
insufficient resources. Board officials have said expenditures in the state's
death penalty litigation actually assist local offices because state-funded
non-profit law firms take over those cases, freeing local officers to handle
less complicated and less expensive cases.
Adams countered that those death penalty cases are not the whole problem.
"The issue of capital case funding is illustrative, but not exhaustive of the
board's failings," he said. "There are many other suspect policies that this
board should reconsider. Most local public defenders agree, but are fearful to
speak up. This bill was generated by a few brave local (public defenders). More
and more of them are having the courage to support it. They now have our
support as well."
(source: louisianarecord.com)
MISSOURI:
Hannibal man facing murder charges in January shootings
A Hannibal man who police believe is responsible for the Jan. 12 shooting death
of a Hannibal woman and is suspected of also shooting her husband was charged
with 1st-degree murder Friday.
Marion County Prosecuting Attorney David Clayton has not ruled out seeking the
death penalty against Timothy M. Brokes Jr., 35. Clayton on Friday charged
Brokes with 1st-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of
Brittany Gauch, 30, and first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the
shooting of her husband, Aaron Gauch, 32.
"My office has been in contact with Aaron's and Brittany's families, and they
will be advised every step of the process," Clayton said in a statement. "All
sentencing options are on the table, including possibly pursuing the death
penalty."
Brokes is being held in the Marion County Jail on $1.5 million cash-only bond.
He has been in jail since he was arrested after a Jan. 13 shooting between him
and a police officer in nearby Monroe County.
According to a probable cause statement filed in Brokes' case, he told Hannibal
police investigators that he was responsible for both shootings. Brokes and his
girlfriend, June B. Smith, 34, of Hannibal, gave investigators similar accounts
of what happened before the shootings.
Smith said she, Brokes, the Gauches and a juvenile went to Wal-Mart, 3650
Stardust Drive, at about 2 p.m. Smith said she stole batteries, while Brittany
Gauch bought pseudoephedrine pills. The two women then went to Pick-A-Dilly,
2601 St. Marys Ave., to buy coffee filters.
Smith told police she knew Brokes and Aaron Gauch were making methamphetamine.
Brokes told police he and Aaron Gauch made meth at Brokes' residence in the
2500 block of Chestnut Street the day of the Gauch shootings.
Brokes said he and Aaron Gauch went to County Road 432 to get wood. Marion
County Sheriff's Department deputies were dispatched to the driveway of 8953
County Road 432 for a possible shooting. Aaron Gauch was found lying on the
ground with multiple gunshot wounds to his abdomen. Gauch told police Brokes
shot him and ran him over with a truck.
Brokes told police he shot Aaron Gauch while he was at the back of the truck,
firing through a window. He said he pulled Gauch out of the truck, put him on
the ground, and ran him over with the truck. Brokes said Aaron Gauch had put
him in a headlock during the fight, and he shot Gauch because he feared Gauch
was going to steal the truck.
Brokes told police he shot Brittany Gauch at their residence in the 1100 block
of Summer Street. Hannibal police arrived there at 9:25 p.m. after a neighbor
called 911. Police said Brittany Gauch had two bullet wounds on the right side
of her back.
Brokes said he ordered Smith to clean the truck with bleach that night. He told
police he threw the spent shell casings from the shootings out his window as he
drove to Quincy, Ill., that night. He said he used a .357 Magnum revolver that
he had taken from his father, the same gun used in the Monroe City shooting.
The Marion County charges were filed more than 2 1/2 months after the shootings
took place.
"There are a number of reasons why the charges are being filed now," Clayton
said. "First, the defendant was immediately lodged in the Marion County Jail on
charges of assaulting a law enforcement officer from Monroe County. This
allowed all law enforcement agencies involved to complete their investigations
into the death and injury of the Gauch victims. Second, it has allowed my
office to monitor the condition of Aaron Gauch to determine the most serious
charges with which to charge Brokes. Finally, it has allowed my office to
research the possibility of seeking the death penalty against the defendant."
Brokes also has been charged with 1st-degree assault of a law enforcement
officer, armed criminal action and hindering prosecution of a felony in Monroe
County. He is alleged to have shot Monroe City police officer Jonathan "Travis"
Pugh as the 2 exchanged gunfire in Monroe City as Pugh was trying to take
Brokes into custody. He is being held on $500,000 bond in that case. He has
pleaded not guilty and is next due in court on June 2.
Smith has been charged in Monroe County with hindering prosecution of a felony.
She has pleaded not guilty to the charge and is scheduled to go to trial June
13. She is in the Marion County Jail on $50,000 cash-only bond.
(source: The Herald-Whig)
KANSAS:
Kansas House approves changes in judicial selection process
A proposal approved in the Kansas House would give the secretary of state a
role in how the nine-member commission that names three finalists for each high
court vacancy elects its members.
The bill approved Saturday would require that the secretary of state receive a
roster of lawyers eligible to participate in the elections of the commission's
attorney members. Another provision would give the authority for counting
ballots cast by lawyers for the commission members to the attorney general and
secretary of state.
Currently, 2 or more licensed lawyers chosen by the chief justice serve as the
canvassers. Democratic Rep. John Carmichael, of Wichita, said that change would
violate the separation of powers between branches of government.
"There has never in 50 years been any suggestion of any form of impropriety in
connection with those elections," Carmichael told The Associated Press. "They
run efficiently and inexpensively under the direct supervision of the clerk of
the Kansas Supreme Court."
Representatives voted 72-50 Saturday in favor of the bill following a turbulent
passage through the chamber. The Kansas House initially voted 57-56 against a
version of the bill to give the governor a bigger voice in who is nominated for
the Kansas Supreme Court, but later voted 64-56 to reconsider so that lawmakers
could draft a new version and try again.
The bill came amid broad discontent from Gov. Sam Brownback and other
conservatives over the court's rulings against the state on school funding and
overturning death penalty verdicts. The decision to overturn death sentences
for brothers Jonathan and Reginald Carr for the killings of four people in
Wichita in December 2000, they said, argues for the need to reassess the
selection process.
The state's high court judges are chosen by a nonpartisan nominating commission
consisting of 5 attorneys elected by other lawyers and 4 public members
selected by the governor. 1 of the 5 attorneys is the chairman. When a Supreme
Court opening occurs, the commission chooses three finalists whose names are
sent to the governor for a final selection.
Currently the chief justice of the Supreme Court chooses replacements if the
chairman or attorney commission members resign before their terms are
completed. Negotiators removed a controversial provision in the bill that would
have allowed the governor to appoint replacements instead.
The current judicial selection system arose after a 1957 scandal in which the
incumbent governor was defeated in the Republican primary and resigned. The
lieutenant governor then appointed him to fill a vacant Supreme Court seat.
Attorneys became part of the election process to avoid favoritism.
Supreme Court nominating commission selections also would now be open to the
state's open meetings and records acts, which Republican Rep. John Barker, of
Abilene, said would increase transparency. "I would like to see how the
attorneys vote on ... the judiciary committee."
But Carmichael argued that the measure still poses "serious constitutional
concerns."
"You do not make this major change and risk constitutional infirmities without
some good reason to do so," Carmichael said. "This legislation is unnecessary."
The Senate could vote on the measure Sunday.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Alleged baby killer case proceeds: DA: prosecutors consider 2 difficult,
emotional murders
A San Mateo County Superior Court judge reviewed 34 pieces of evidence as
prosecutors proceed with charging a 27-year-old Redwood City man for the murder
a 17-month-old girl.
The 2 1/2 day preliminary hearing culminated Friday in the case against Daniel
Contreras, who is accused of molesting and killing his girlfriend's daughter in
August.
District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said he expects to make a decision on whether
to seek the death penalty in the coming months, but will await a meeting with
Contreras' defense attorneys.
"We will give them a full chance to come up with whatever they want to,"
Wagstaffe said, noting issues such as mental health or a person's upbringing
are often factors the defense presents. "During my tenure as district attorney,
I have not sought the death penalty in any case, but ... there's going to be
some very serious discussions."
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Joseph Bergeron denied the defense's motion to
suppress statements Contreras made to police before and after his arrest.
Bergeron agreed Contreras can be tried on 5 felonies, including murder with
special circumstance of murder during child molestation, Wagstaffe said.
Contreras has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his defense attorneys could
not be immediately reached for comment.
The toddler, Evelyn Castillo, was found unconscious and unresponsive in an
apartment on the 400 block of Madison Avenue around 2:30 p.m. Aug. 6, 2015.
Contreras had been dating the mother for just 2 months when he convinced the
woman to leave him alone with the child for the 1st time, according to
prosecutors.
Over the course of several hours, Contreras allegedly repeatedly sexually
molested the girl, including by oral copulation. When the child wouldn't stop
crying, Contreras fatally beat her, according to prosecutors. He contacted his
mother and initially claimed the child fell off the changing table, but an
autopsy established his story was false, according to prosecutors.
The case was continued to May 13 for Superior Court arraignment.
The victim's family has been steadfast in their attendance through all of the
court proceedings and are "very interested in seeing justice occurs," Wagstaffe
said.
Although he's been to over 250 murder scenes during his tenure as a prosecutor,
Wagstaffe noted cases such as these are never easy.
And currently, he has 2 pending in court. A 2nd man is also being charged with
murdering his girlfriend's child.
Marco Antonio Alvarado-Cisneros, 24, is accused of murdering his girlfriend's
18-month-old son in unincorporated Redwood City in August 2014.
Alvarado-Cisneros was caring for the baby named Dante Nava, at their apartment
while the mother went to work. That night, the man called 911 claiming the baby
may have had a seizure and fallen off the bed. An autopsy revealed numerous
injuries including several human, adult bite marks, according to prosecutors.
Alvarado-Cisneros continued to live with the girlfriend after the baby's death
and even had another child with her. About a year later, the mother reported to
police numerous domestic violence attacks, kidnapping and robbery of her by
Alvarado-Cisneros.
He was arrested and a subsequent investigation led to his arrest for murder of
the baby. He is charged with murder, kidnapping, battery and willful infliction
of corporal punishment, according to prosecutors.
Alvarado-Cisneros is facing 35 years to life in prison. His case does not meet
the state's criteria for consideration of the death penalty, Wagstaffe said. A
preliminary hearing has been scheduled for August.
Both Alvarado-Cisneros and Contreras remain in custody without bail.
Wagstaffe noted the cases appear "to be simply incidental as to the 2 occurring
in the same general time frame."
He even recalled a particularly unusual period in the late 1990s when five
cases of a baby being murdered struck the county in just 2 or 3 years.
Wagstaffe noted these are the types of cases that undoubtedly have an effect on
the public. Having helped select juries and questioned when a potential juror
might support the death penalty, suspects who kill children never fare well, he
said.
"There is one thing that is a truism; when it is a child that is a victim of a
murder, no matter what, the emotion that gets stirred is very strong,"
Wagstaffe said. "When you're dealing with a vulnerable victim, there's far less
tolerance or sympathy. The act remains inexplicable and horrific."
(source: San Mateo Daily Journal)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 1 08:00:12 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 08:00:12 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----UAE, PAKIS.,
INDON., PHILIP., INDIA, AFGHAN.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605010800030.4476@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 1
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
Alarm over requests for blood money
Lawyers and legal advocates are appalled by families who exploit the killing of
a relative to demand huge sums of blood money from the perpetrator's family.
Although blood money, or diyya, is set at Dh200,000, some bereaved families
have asked for millions of dirhams to overturn a death sentence for the killer.
"When a person has committed a murder and is sentenced to death, the victim's
family is called in and asked 3 questions: Will you pardon the person? Will you
accept Dh200,000 in exchange for a pardon? Do you insist that they be
executed?" said a judge at the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.
According to judicial officials, any amount above Dh200,000 in blood money that
a family asks for is agreed to outside of court.
"Blood money is strictly set at Dh200,000, anything additional is considered
compensation or reconciliation money so that the death penalty is not
enforced," a judge said.
"It is a personal agreement between the 2 families, so they do not insist on
the death penalty and are encouraged to pardon instead. It does not fall under
the court's jurisdiction."
Lawyer Rashed Al Hajri said it was unacceptable for families to ask for huge
sums of blood money, decrying that as a clear sign of greed.
"You cannot put a price on an individual or use his life as a bargaining tool
to get as much money as possible. [But] it is understandable if the victim left
behind young children and the family calculated the amount they would need to
support these children."
Mr Al Hajri said the civil courts would determine the amount of compensation to
the bereaved familes, "but to use something as big as pardoning a death
sentence is not acceptable".
Lawyer Huda Al Falamarzy said she did not encourage families to ask for
millions of dirhams in exchange for a pardon."Those who pardon will be rewarded
by God and if they do pardon they should follow the legal course and not abuse
the system by asking for millions," she said.
The law should place a limit on the amount of money that families can ask for,
Ms Al???Falamarzy said.
(source: The National)
PAKISTAN:
SHC rejects appeals of 3 death row convicts
3 death convicts who had sought commutation of their sentence into life
imprisonment for being 'young offenders' lost their appeals before the Sindh
High Court (SHC) on Saturday.
An anti-terrorism appellate bench, comprising justices Naimatullah Phulpoto and
Aftab Ahmed Gorar, dismissed their appeals and maintained capital punishment
awarded to them by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in a kidnapping case.
The bench passed its judgment after re-hearing appeals filed by convicts Qasim
alias Umair, Farhan Khan and Raheel.
An ATC had awarded death sentences 'twice' to them after finding them guilty of
kidnapping a 12-year-old boy for ransom and later murdering him in the limits
of Landhi police station.
In April, 2013, the SHC had commuted the capital punishment handed down to them
on the count of murder 'as the appellants were young boys at the time of
incident' and the 'murder was not caused due to sectarian rivalry'.
However, the high court had maintained the death sentence awarded on the second
count of kidnapping for ransom under the anti-terrorism law.
Later, the state challenged the commutation of their sentences from death to
life imprisonment in the murder case before the Supreme Court (SC), which set
aside the high court's judgment and directed the SHC bench to decide the
'quantum of sentence' of the appellants.
Advocate Abdul Rasheed Nizamani argued that the young age of the appellants
constituted extenuating circumstances for lesser penalty for them. He claimed
that Qasim was 21, Raheel 18 and Farhan 25 at the time they recorded their
statements before the court.
The state prosecutor opposed the argument, saying 'the young age of the accused
is not mitigating circumstance to convert the death to life imprisonment'.
"There is no iota of reliable piece of evidence available on record of exact
ages of the appellants," he added.
During the re-hearing, the appellants' lawyer did not press the merits of the
appeals after the SC had already maintained conviction of the appellants, but
pleaded that the court commute their capital punishment into life imprisonment,
considering their young age.
Re-hearing the case on the apex court's directives, the SHC judges observed
that the appellants had failed to produce any documentary evidence regarding
their exact age.
The judges observed that the young age of Raheel and Qasim was not mitigating
circumstance, while Farhan had himself mentioned his age in his statement as 25
years.
"We have given our anxious consideration for the determination of quantum of
sentence to be awarded to the appellant in [the] present case, in which a boy
of 12 year[s] has been murdered for ransom," the judges wrote in the 11-page
judgment, in which they also relied upon the judgments given by the SC, which
had dismissed appeals of death convicts requesting for converting their capital
punishment into life terms.
The bench ruled that no benefit can be extended in favour of the appellants for
their young ages, which does not constitute a mitigating circumstance in this
case. The judges said that according to the prosecution, the appellants had
kidnapped a boy for ransom and committed murder.
"Hence, [the] appellants do not deserve any leniency in sentence," they wrote
in the judgment, upholding the ATC's death sentence and dismissing the appeals.
(source: The Express Tribune)
INDONESIA:
Indonesian police, troops tighten security for next executions
Indonesian police and troops are tightening security on Nusakambangan prison
island in Cilacap, Central Java ahead of the next round of drug convict
executions.
An exact time and date have yet to be announced, but Central Java Police chief
Insp. Gen.Condro Kirono said on Saturday that police were ready to carry out
the executions.
"It's just a matter of time; the executors are ready. What I am doing is making
sure that everything is well prepared," Condro said after inspecting the venue
and readiness of police executors on the prison island.
The Central Java Police headquarters has also provided doctors and
spiritualists to check the physical and mental health conditions of the
convicts, Condro said.
The law and human rights minister has confirmed the next batch of executions
will be carried out, adding that all technical preparations, including the
venue of the executions had been prepared.
"We are waiting for the order to do so," Mulyanto, the custodial division head
of the Central Java office of the Law and Human Rights Ministry, told The
Jakarta Post.
Attorney General HM Prasetyo said earlier that a list of the convicts to be
executed had been made, but has not released the list.
Filipino excluded
Philippines national Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso has been excluded from the list of
the 3rd round of executions prepared by the Attorney General's Office ( AGO ),
as legal procedures continue in a separate but related case in her country.
Amid outrage from human rights activists worldwide and governments, Indonesia
executed 14 drugs convicts last year.
Veloso was on the execution list last year but was granted a stay of execution
because her alleged boss had been arrested in the Philippines, and the
authorities there requested Indonesian assistance in pursuing the case.
According to the AGO, there were 64 drug convicts on death row as of 2015. To
date, 14 drug criminals were executed in separate rounds on Jan 18 and April 29
last year, with s6 and 8 people in each batch, respectively.
Nusakambangan island is located in the Indian Ocean, separated by a narrow
strait off the southern coast of Java. The island is notorious for its maximum
security prisons, home to convicted murderers, terrorists, drug traffickers and
those convicted in high-profile corruption cases. It is also known as execution
island because the island is the central location for carrying out capital
punishment around Java
(source: The Jakarta Post)
PHILIPPINES:
Crime and punishment
Convicted rapist Leo Echegaray woke up on the morning of Friday, Feb. 5, 1999
feeling anxious yet defiant. It was, after all, his last day on Earth as he was
to be executed through lethal injection in the afternoon, as shown in the front
page of The STAR the following day.
The STAR wrote: He took his last meal of prawns, bulalo (beef stew) and grilled
fish, smoked several cigarettes and wrote a number of letters. A radio station
aired the taped message he had given his wife during her final visit on
Thursday.
In the tape, he repeatedly expressed his love for his wife and talked about his
dreams of them having a house, a business and a family together.
Dressed in orange prison uniform, clutching a maroon Bible and wearing a
crucifix around his neck, Echegaray was escorted to the lethal injection
chamber by guards after being roused from his rubber-padded cell at dawn.
His hair close-cropped and graying, Echegaray looked tired and emaciated as he
was escorted to the execution chamber one kilometer from his cell in the
Maximum Security Compound.
Accompanied by a priest and surrounded by prison guards holding his arms, he
wore a button on his chest that read, "Execute Justice not People."
The execution was carried out in front of 27 witnesses, who included
Echegaray's wife and relatives, Sen. Renato Cayetano, Justice Secretary Serafin
Cuevas, other government officials and 11 media representatives.
22-year-old reporter Grace Amargo, from The STAR's sister publication Pilipino
STAR Ngayon, described to The STAR's Joanne Rae Ramirez how the execution went
through: "3 minutes after the process began, Echegaray even started snoring. It
was a loud, guttural snore."
Amargo was 1 of the 11 media representatives who got the rare chance to witness
the first public execution of a convicted criminal in the Philippines in 2
decades (as well as the 1st execution using lethal injection). The 1987
Constitution had banned capital punishment until 1993 when President Fidel
Ramos signed Republic Act 7659 reinstating it.
What Amargo initially thought would be a bloody execution, with Echegaray
convulsing and foaming at the mouth, turned out to be different. Instead,
Amargo recalled, "He just closed his eyes. It was as if he just went to sleep.
He did not look scared or remorseful. He just looked sad."
According to Amargo, Echegaray closed his eyes at 3:01 p.m. They heard him
snore at 3:03 p.m. A minute later, they saw his left foot twitch. At 3:06 p.m.
they noticed his chest had stopped heaving. From that point onward until 3:18
p.m., prison officials closely observed his body. The prison doctors finally
pronounced him dead at 3:19 p.m.
Outside the viewing room, Echegaray's widow Zenaida Javier started railing at
the public and the media for their alleged unfair treatment of her husband.
In Malacanang, meanwhile, President Joseph Estrada hailed the execution as
proof that crime does not pay.
Let Mr. Echegaray's death serve as a strong warning against criminal elements,"
Estrada said 4 hours before Echegaray's execution. The death penalty and
Echegaray's execution were all part of his tough stance against crime that
propelled him to the presidency in the previous year's elections. Throughout
1999, he ordered 6 more convicted criminals executed as part of his anti-crime
campaign.
But, in a 2007 study conducted about the impact of the death penalty on
criminality in the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) found out
that crime in the country even went up despite the series of executions under
the Estrada administration.
"1999 was a bumper year for executions which were intended to abate
criminality. Instead, using the same year as baseline, criminality increased by
15.3 % as a total of 82,538 (from 71,527 crimes in the previous year)," the
study noted.
Eventually, before he was deposed in 2001, Estrada gave in to pressure from the
Catholic Church and human rights groups and issued a moratorium on executions.
Convicted criminals would have their executions deferred and carried over to
the next administration.
By 2006, capital punishment was scrapped once more after the staunchly pro-life
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Republic Act 9346.
The issue of capital punishment comes to the fore once more at a time when
presidential candidates are resorting to saber rattling about criminality and
promoting capital punishment to propel themselves to public office.
Let history be a reminder to us all that capital punishment never truly
deterred crime. It is the fear of hunger, poverty and powerlessness that drive
criminals to commit crime. Unless we address these fears, no punishment will
scare criminals from being on the wrong side of the law. Like Echegaray, they
will only face death defiantly.
(source: Philippine Star)
INDIA:
CPI(M) is not against punishing afsal; oppose against death penalty: Yechuri
Making it clear that the CPI(M) had never said that Afsal Guru, a Kashmiri
separatist, who was convicted for his role in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack
and received a death sentence for his involvement, should not have been
punished, Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri today said that his party had
opposed only the death penalty imposed on him.
Talking to newspersons here, Mr Yechuri said, ''We never said Afsal Guru should
not get punished. CPI(M) as a party has taken a position saying that we opposed
death penalty.''
Stating that over 100 countries in the world had already opposed death penalty,
the Marxist leader said, the UN was also thinking that the death penalty was an
anachronic issue when human civilisation reach this stage, and the death
penalty should be abolished by discussing globally.
Pointing out that majority of the world moved to the abolition of death
penalty, Mr Yachuri said that the CPM) has taken a stance that death penalty in
India should also be abolished. "That does not mean that the party is
supporting whatever Afsal Guru did,'' he reasoned.
Replying to a question, Mr Yechuri said that his party had a clear vision that
the terrorism has no religion, has no cast or has no region. Mahatma Gandhi was
assassinated by the bullet of a Hindu fanatic, Indira Gandhi was killed by the
bullet of a Sikh fanatic and Rajiv Gandhi was killed by the bullet of an LTTE
fanatic.
Unfortunately, many people were being killed in the North-East owing to various
groups, which have no religious affiliation, he said, adding, ''therefore,
understand terrorism is something that simply anti-national. Wherever it comes
from and from where the terrorism emanates, they must dealt with it sternly and
without resorting to any sort of compromise.
(source: webindia123.com)
AFGHANISTAN:
MoI urges capital punishment as 10 arrested over brutal killing of Abasin
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) urged the judiciary institutions to award
capital punishment for the perpetrators involved in the brutal murder of a
14-year-old boy who was kidnapped by a group in capital Kabul.
Gen. Abdul Rahman Rahman, senior deputy minister for security, told reporters
that the security forces have arrested at least 10 suspects in connection to
the brutal killing of Abasin.
He was speaking during a news briefing in capital Kabul to provide updates
regarding the security situation of the country.
According to Gen. Rahman, the suspects are currently in custody of the security
forces to undergo investigations process and will be introduced to the
judiciary institutions to face trial for their horrific crime.
Gen. Shaheem further added that the security institutions will respect the
verdict by judiciary institutions but urged to award death penalty to the
perpetrators for their crime which shocked the country.
Meanwhile, Faizullah Zaki, deputy to national security council internal
affairs, told reporters that the brutal murder case of Abasin will be closely
monitored from the start till the perpetrators are sentenced for their horrific
crime.
This comes as the National Directorate of Security said the Afghan intelligence
operatives have arrested a group of 5 kidnappers involved in the brutal murder
of Abasin.
The brutal murder of Abasin sparked anger among the Afghan people amid concerns
that kidnap for ransom cases have increased during the recent months.
According to reports, the kidnappers had initially cut a finger of Abasin and
demanded 100,000 US Dollars for his release.
(source: Khaama Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 2 10:25:19 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 10:25:19 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., FLA., ALA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605021025120.3604@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 2
TEXAS:
An Ex-Marine Killed 2 People in Cold Blood. Should His PTSD Keep Him From Death
Row?
At 12:44 p.m. on March 6, 2009, John Thuesen called 911. "120 Walcourt Loop,"
he told the dispatcher, breathing hard. "Gunshot victims."
The dispatcher in College Station, Texas, asked what had happened. "I got mad
at my girlfriend and I shot her," he said. "She has sucking chest wounds..."
He'd not only shot Rachel Joiner, 21, but also her older brother Travis.
Thuesen had broken into the house after midnight, not sure what he'd do but
wanting to see his estranged girlfriend. She was out with her ex-boyfriend, but
when she returned later that morning, things "got out of hand." Thuesen, a
25-year-old former Marine reservist, called 911 and almost immediately
expressed remorse. When he was arrested, he repeatedly asked the police about
the victims and tried to explain why he'd kept shooting Rachel and her brother:
"I felt like I was in like a mode...like training or a game or something."
The prosecution in the case gave it's opening statement on May 10, 2010. With
DNA evidence and no other suspects, it only took prosecutors three days to make
their case. Over the next week, the defense team touched on the facts that
Thuesen suffered from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from
his service in Iraq, but pleaded for leniency in his sentence. None of that
swayed the jury: On May 28, 2010, he was sentenced to death.
While on death row, Thuesen was given new lawyers, death penalty experts from
the state's Office of Capital and Forensic Writs. In Texas, there are often 2
trials, 1 to determine guilt or innocence and the 2nd to determine sentencing.
Lawyers argued in their 2012 petition to have both the death penalty and the
conviction vacated, and for a new sentencing trial, arguing that if his lawyers
had served him adequately, "John Thuesen would not be on death row today,
awaiting an execution date." In July 2015, Judge Travis Bryan III - the same
judge who had presided over the criminal trial - agreed, and ruled that
Thuesen's lawyers hadn't adequately explained the significance of his PTSD to
jurors, and how it had factored into his actions on the day of the murders.
Bryan also ruled that Thuesen's PTSD wasn't properly treated by the Veterans
Health Administration. He recommended that Thuesen be granted a new
punishment-phase trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could rule on
Bryan's recommendation at any time.
The ruling on his case has implications for a question that has concerned the
military, veterans' groups, and death penalty experts: Should service-related
PTSD exclude veterans from the death penalty? An answer to this question could
affect some of the estimated 300 veterans who now sit on death rows across the
country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But it's unclear
how many of them suffer from PTSD or traumatic brain injuries, given how uneven
the screening for these disorders has been.
Experts are divided about whether veterans with PTSD who commit capital crimes
deserve what is known as a "categorical exemption" or "exclusion." Juveniles
receive such treatment, as do those with mental disabilities. In 2009, Anthony
Giardino, a lawyer and Iraq War veteran, argued in favor of this in the Fordham
Law Review, writing that courts "should consider the more fundamental question
of whether the government should be in the business of putting to death the
volunteers they have trained, sent to war, and broken in the process" who
likely would not be in that position "but for their military service." In a
2015 Veterans Day USA Today op-ed, 3 retired military officials argued that in
criminal cases, defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges often don't consider
veterans' PTSD with proper due diligence. "Veterans with PTSD...deserve a
complete investigation and presentation of their mental state by the best
experts in the field," they wrote.
Courts "should consider the more fundamental question of whether the government
should be in the business of putting to death the volunteers they have trained,
sent to war, and broken in the process."
That idea is utterly unacceptable to Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation, a California-based victims-of-crime advocacy group, who
contends a process already exists for veterans' defense attorneys to present
mitigating evidence. To him, a categorical exclusion would be an "extreme step"
that would mean "1 factor - always, in every case - necessarily outweighs the
aggravating factors of the case, no matter how cold, premeditated, sadistic, or
just plain evil the defendant's actions may have been."
But presenting a case for service-related PTSD often doesn't happen. Richard
Dieter, the former director of the Death Penalty Information Center and author
of its report "Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty," says
PTSD defenses can backfire for defense lawyers. "What I hear from lawyers is,
'Look, we're a little hesitant about bringing this issue up before a jury
because it can cut both ways,'" Dieter says. "It sounds like you've got a very
dangerous person on your hands with this PTSD. And this person is not getting
better, and they're a threat to society."
Furthermore, the relatively small amount of relevant case law isn't consistent.
The US Supreme Court overturned a Korean War veteran's death sentence in 2009
after finding that his original lawyers didn't provide the convicting jury
enough background of his military service and the resulting physical and
psychological wounds. But Andrew Brannan, a Vietnam veteran with bipolar
disorder who was rated as 100 percent disabled on account of his PTSD, was
executed by lethal injection in January 2015 for murdering a Georgia deputy
sheriff. Brannan had hoped his case would bring attention to the issue: "I am
proud to have been able to walk point for my comrades," he said, according to
one of his lawyers, "and pray that the same thing does not happen to any of
them."
Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a retired general and an Army psychiatrist for 28 years,
has served as an expert witness in a number of veterans' trials and says most
of the men who've committed these crimes have had multiple problems -
everything from traumatic brain injuries and depression to concussive symptoms
and substance abuse - that can "lead to a situation and a state of mind where
they commit these horrendous offenses." Soldiers who served in Iraq and
Afghanistan have had a high rate of head and neck injuries; bullets are causing
proportionately less damage than explosions from roadside bombs and IEDs, and
highly trained medics are able to address the wounds more effectively than in
the past. By 2012, an Institute of Medicine study estimated that between 13 and
20 percent of the 2.6 million Americans who'd served in Iraq and Afghanistan
showed at least some of the symptoms of PTSD.
Add to that the training these soldiers receive. "The current efficacy of
military training means we are sending to war the most proficient and lethal
killers in our nation's history," Joshua London, a veterans' defense lawyer and
advocate for reformed judicial treatment of veterans, wrote in a 2014 law
journal article, "Why Are We Killing Veterans?" "Likewise, the warriors that
return home to our communities are conditioned in a manner that makes them more
dangerous, volatile, and amenable to violence than any previous generation of
veterans." If a soldier seems troubled, some psychiatrists have noted, often
the preferred treatment option is to provide psychotropic drugs without
additional follow-up. For some, especially when combined with other drugs or
alcohol, this can result in difficulty with self-control. In April 2014,
journalist Ann Jones documented dozens of killings by veterans since 2002.
During his trial, the jury was presented 2 stark versions of Thuesen. The first
was of a cold-blooded murderer. The night before the murders, Thuesen went to
see Rachel, but she told him to leave her alone. He broke into her house and
lay in her bed, and after she got home he shot her, then Travis, 3 times each.
But Thuesen was also presented as a deeply traumatized soldier who, one of his
fellow Marines testified, was forced to fire a heavy machine gun into a car
carrying several people and at least 1 child. Several experts agreed that
Thuesen suffered from PTSD and had tried to seek treatment over the course of
at least 2 years. 6 months before the murders, Thuesen was suicidal and taken
by the police to the VA Medical Center in Houston. He stayed just a few days
while he detoxed from alcohol abuse, and he was given anti-depressants and
referred to counseling sessions at his local VA clinic.
Tim Rojas, the Marine who'd served with Thuesen and testified about the time he
shot up the car, finds himself somewhere in the middle. "People are going to
say, 'Well then, post-traumatic stress does not give you the license to shoot
or kill," he says. "I agree with that. Of course not. But in this case, does
John deserve to be on death row? No. Absolutely not. Does he need to be
accountable for his actions? Yes. But there's no way, no way, he needs to lose
his life. No way."
(source: Mother Jones)
CONNECTICUT:
Home invasion prosecutor retiring after 46-year career
A prosecutor for 46 years, New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington says
the job was about more than just putting away criminals, even when it came to
one of Connecticut's most infamous crimes - the killing of a woman and her 2
daughters during a home invasion in 2007.
"I looked at it as helping people, working with victims, working with
witnesses," said Dearington, who at age 73 recently informed state officials
that he will retire effective June 1. "People who shouldn't be on the street, I
think it's a worthwhile effort to get them off the street. But I don't look at
it as getting the bad guys."
Widely respected by both fellow prosecutors and defense lawyers, Dearington has
been the top state prosecutor in the New Haven area since 1978 - believed to be
one of the longest tenures for a state's attorney. He became a state prosecutor
in 1972 after working 2 years as a prosecutor in Washington, D.C.
He is perhaps best known for convincing juries to impose death penalties on
Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, the killers in the Cheshire home
invasion murders.
The 2 paroled burglars killed Jennifer Hawke-Petit and left her 2 daughters,
17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, to die in a fire after a night of
terror. Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit, was severely beaten but
survived. Hawke-Petit and Michaela also were sexually assaulted.
"I've tried 20, 30, 40 murder cases. Certainly the tragedy in Cheshire was the
one that received the most publicity," Dearington said. "It was an
incomprehensible tragedy, an enormous tragedy."
Dearington, who grew up in Danielson and now lives in Madison, became close
with Dr. Petit and his family, as he had with victims in other cases.
Petit said Dearington was a calming influence during a time of immense grief
and anger. Shortly after his family was killed, Dearington visited Petit at
Petit's father's house and explained what was going to happen with the
prosecutions of Komisarjevsky and Hayes, Petit said.
"He really worked from the heart. He knew it was very personal," Petit said.
"He knew he was representing Jennifer, Hayley and Michaela. I consider him a
friend and I think my entire family feels the same way. He's the guy people
would want as a prosecutor."
The state would later abolish capital punishment, leaving Komisarjevsky and
Hayes to serve life sentences. It was only the 2nd time Dearington sought the
death penalty. In the other case, a jury opted instead for a life sentence for
Jonathan Mills, who stabbed to death his aunt and her 2 children in Guilford in
2000.
Dearington's career wasn't without setbacks. His prosecution of Branford
flooring store owner Anthony Bontatibus, charged with setting a 1996 fire at
his business that killed a volunteer firefighter, ended in 3 mistrials - 2 hung
juries and a third for juror misconduct. The charges against Bontatibus were
dropped in 2001.
On the other side of the aisle for many of Dearington's prosecutions was public
defender Thomas Ullmann, who has handled New Haven-area cases since 1985.
"He's really a well-respected state's attorney," Ullmann said, "not obsessed
with power, not a media hound, believes in trying his cases in the courtroom
and not in the press, respects the defense."
Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane said Dearington, whose father was a state
prosecutor and judge, is a role model for other prosecutors.
"He's a quiet guy who's been a terrific prosecutor," Kane said.
In his retirement, Dearington said he plans to travel with his wife of 38
years, Geraldine, who also is retiring soon. The couple has 3 adult children
and a granddaughter.
(source: Associated Press)
PENNSYLVANIA:
DNA evidence key in trial over East Liberty sisters' murders
For several weeks in early 2014, a double murder in East Liberty had the
community on edge as neighbors, friends and co-workers wondered and worried
about who would kill Susan and Sarah Wolfe in their home.
A web of surveillance cameras around the nearby East Liberty business district
and DNA analysis by the Allegheny County crime lab and an Oakland-based
contractor eventually pointed police to the sisters' neighbor, Allen Wade, who
was charged with homicide and is slated to begin his trial Monday before Court
of Common Pleas Judge Edward Borkowski.
"There certainly will be a lot of circumstantial evidence introduced, and you
can convict someone on circumstantial evidence, but I believe the evidence that
will be most persuasive or foremost in the jurors' minds will be that DNA,"
said John Burkoff, a criminal law professor at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Law.
He noted that Borkowski is a good judge to hear the case, given his history as
a prosecutor and his meticulous nature.
Wade, 45, faces the death penalty if convicted of 1st-degree murder. Borkowski
imposed a gag order April 19 prohibiting attorneys or witnesses from discussing
the case with the public or media.
A nervous neighborhood
Unnerving details about the crime scene trickled out after a friend discovered
the sisters' bodies Feb. 7: Susan, 44, a teacher's aide at the Hillel Academy
in Squirrel Hill, appeared to have been beaten, shot once in the head, then
stripped and doused in bleach and laundry detergent in the basement of the
Chislett Street home. Sarah, 38, a psychiatrist at Western Psychiatric
Institute and Clinic, was also shot once in the head. She was found at the top
of the stairs with her coat half off, a blanket covering her face and spattered
with more detergent.
There were no signs of forced entry, police said. Robbery was the suspected
motive because both women's bank cards, IDs and cellphones were missing.
Allegheny County property records show Sarah Wolfe purchased the house in
December 2013; it was foreclosed on by the bank in December 2014 after her
death and sat vacant until it was finally sold last month.
Neighbors at the time spoke of how the street was usually quiet, but said the
crime made them nervous. One even said she'd taken to sleeping on her couch
with her car keys in hand.
Suspect movements
Police found Sarah Wolfe's car abandoned on South Whitfield Street early on
Feb. 8, then quickly worked outward from there to review footage from more than
a dozen security cameras around the business district. Those cameras captured a
man in a red, hooded sweatshirt, gray sweatpants and bright white shoes walking
around the area and withdrawing $600 from the Wolfe sisters' bank accounts at a
Citizens Bank ATM between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m.
The man kept his face and hands covered but was seen at one point discarding
the sweatpants, which police later recovered, behind a muffler shop off North
Whitfield Street.
At 1:08 a.m., cameras at the Sunoco station on East Liberty Boulevard recorded
a man, later identified as Wade, walking up with his face uncovered and buying
cigarettes. His clothes were different from the earlier footage, but he wore
bright white shoes.
Police questioned Wade for hours on Feb. 19. They announced on Feb. 20 that he
was a "person of interest" but let him go.
Shortly after the Allegheny County crime lab matched DNA from the sweatpants to
Wade, police issued a warrant for his arrest for murder, and he was picked up
at a bus stop in Rankin on March 5. He has maintained his innocence.
DNA and delays
The crime lab also analyzed a sock found near Sarah Wolfe's car, material under
Susan Wolfe's fingernails and a knit cap found in the sisters' house after an
unsolved burglary a month or so before they were killed, but couldn't reach
conclusions about DNA on any of them. North Oakland-based Cybergenetics parsed
the crime lab's data with its "TrueAllele" program and concluded DNA on the hat
and under Wolfe's fingernails was very likely Wade's, while one of the sisters'
DNA was on the sock.
Defense attorneys Lisa Middleman, Lisa Phillips and Aaron Sontz argued for
months with Deputy District Attorney Rob Schupansky and Assistant District
Attorney Bill Petulla over evidence in the case and what would be admitted at
Wade's trial.
"This is not a case, after all, in which there were eyewitnesses to the crime,
or in which the accused confessed to having committed it," the defense
attorneys wrote in a motion seeking greater access to the TrueAllele program.
"The only direct evidence that the Commonwealth will present against Mr. Wade
that directly connects him to the crime scene will be the testimony of
TrueAllele, as presented by Dr. (Mark) Perlin."
Borkowski ultimately allowed the DNA evidence and denied the defense the
"source code" for TrueAllele.
Schedule conflicts, arguments, appeals and expert witnesses' analysis delayed
the trial's start for nearly 20 months.
Testimony is expected to begin Monday morning and last about 3 weeks. There
were almost 170 potential witnesses on the list given to potential jurors
during the 3-week selection process, though not all the witnesses are likely to
be called.
If the jurors convict Wade of 1st-degree murder, they will have to hear
additional testimony about why Wade should or should not receive the death
penalty, then return a separate verdict on whether the penalty should be death
or life in prison without parole.
(source: triblive.com)
***************
Man to go on trial in slaying of sisters of Iowa lawmaker
Trial is scheduled to open Monday in the western Pennsylvania robbery and
murder of 2 sisters of an Iowa state lawmaker 2 years ago.
Authorities in Allegheny County allege that 45-year-old Allen Wade killed Sarah
Wolfe after she returned home to find Susan Wolfe already slain in February
2014. The women were the sisters of Democratic Iowa state Rep. Mary Wolfe.
The sisters were found dead in the basement after they didn't show up for work.
Sarah, 38, was a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and Susan, 44, a teacher's aide at a
private school. Both women were shot in the head but had also been badly
beaten.
Prosecutors have said that they intend to seek the death penalty if Wade is
convicted of 1st-degree murder, citing the circumstances of the killings and
the defendant's criminal history.
Authorities have cited DNA evidence and surveillance videos they say link Wade,
a next-door neighbor, to a pair of sweat pants found near Sarah Wolfe's vehicle
and to bank cards belonging to the victims.
Defense attorneys unsuccessfully challenged the DNA evidence and a software
program that interprets such evidence using a statistical model, but the judge
barred prosecutors from using two previous convictions that they maintained
showed a pattern on the part of the defendant.
At the request of defense attorneys, Judge Edward Borkowski has issued a gag
order barring lawyers or investigators from talking about the case outside of
court.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Man booked for homicide in boater's death
Michael Paul Rodgers, 36, was arrested on homicide and sex offender violation
charges Saturday afternoon.
Rodgers, who was previously jailed in Louisiana on fraud and theft charges
after allegedly trying to assume the identity of a missing Gulf Shores man,
62-year-old James Gunther, has now been placed in the custody of Escambia
County Jail.
Gunther was reported missing April 1 after dropping out of contact with his
family during an annual boating trip from Gulf Shores to Port St. Joe. The
Escambia County Sheriff's Office became involved in the search April 5, and
Gunther's boat was found anchored and abandoned near Fort McCree shortly
afterward.
ECSO investigators contacted the Parrish County Sheriff's Office in Louisiana
where Rodgers was jailed, and were able to confirm that Rodgers had checked
into a hotel using Gunther's credit card and had tried to obtain a Louisiana
driver's license using his passport.
State Attorney Bill Eddins stated his office would seek the death penalty based
on Rodgers' criminal history, which includes rape and robbery convictions.
Rodgers 1st court date will be May 20 in circuit court. His bond for the sex
offender charges is set for $50,000. There is no bond for the homicide charge.
(source: Pensacola News Journal)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Alabama Prepares for Execution of Vernon Madison on May 12, 2016
Vernon Madison's execution is scheduled to occur at 6 pm CDT, on Thursday, May
12, 2016, at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. 65-year-old
Vernon is convicted of the murder of Officer Julius Schulte on April 18, 1985,
in Mobile, Alabama. Vernon has spent the last 30 years on Alabama's death row.
On April 18, 1985, Officer Julius Schulte was dispatched to the home of Cheryl
Green to investigate the disappearance of Cheryl's 11-year-old daughter.
Schulte was not in uniform or in a marked car, however, he was wearing a badge
that identified him as a member of the Mobile Police Department. Upon his
arrival, Cheryl's daughter had already returned, however, neighbors had asked
the police officer to stay until Cheryl's ex-boyfriend, Vernon Madison left, as
the 2 were having a domestic dispute.
Cheryl and Madison had broken up a few days before and he had returned to
Cheryl's home in order to retrieve some of his belongings. Madison was angry,
believing that Cheryl had called the police on him. When Officer Schulte
arrived, both Cheryl and Madison approached him in his vehicle and spoke with
him. Madison left the building a short time later. Madison walked a block away
to where a former girlfriend was waiting in her car.
Madison retrieved a pistol from the car and returned to the apartment building.
He walked up behind Officer Schulte, who was still in his vehicle and shot him
twice in the head at point-blank range. Officer Schulte died later that day. He
then shot twice at Cheryl before fleeing the scene. She survived her injuries.
He later admitted to an acquaintance that he had "just killed a cop."
Madison was arrested the following day. He was convicted and sentenced to death
in November of 1985. He had his sentence twice overturned and each time he was
re-sentenced to death. Madison's lawyers are arguing that since being in
prison, Madison has suffered from several strokes, which have caused him to
loose his sight and slur his speech. Additionally, they claim that the strokes
have impaired his mental competency and that he is no longer able to understand
why he is being executed. Madison's lawyers claim that his execution must be
halted.
Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Julius Schulte. Please pray
for strength for the family of Vernon Madison. Please pray that if Vernon is
innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be executed for
any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his execution.
Please pray that Vernon may come to find peace through a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, if he has not already.
(source: The forgivenessfoundation.org)
********************
Appeals court rejects Talladega County man's death penalty appeal
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday rejected the appeal of Alabama
death row inmate John Russell Calhoun in the 1998 death and robbery of a
Talladega man and the rape of his wife.
Calhoun had made ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims his appeal. Among
Calhoun's arguments was that a circuit judge erred by summarily dismissing his
claim that his appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to adequately
argue that he should be given a chance to demonstrate he is intellectually
disabled.
The Alabama Court of Criminal, which had heard arguments on the appeal in a
special session in October at the Cumberland School of Law, rejected Calhoun's
arguments regarding ineffective-assistance-of-counsel.
Calhoun, 48, alleges he suffers significant sub-average intellectual
functioning - a low IQ.
According to court records:
Calhoun was convicted of 4 counts of capital murder in the May 8, 1998 death of
Tracy Phillips during the course of a robbery, during the course of a burglary,
during the course of a sodomy, and during the course of a rape.
A judge sentenced Calhoun to death upon a 10 to 2 recommendation by the jury.
Calhoun was convicted of entering the Talladega home of Tracy Phillips and his
wife in Talladega wearing a stocking mask over his face. He then robbed the
couple of jewelry, killed Phillips, and raped, sodomized and beat Phillip's
wife.
The wife testified that she knew the man in the mask was Calhoun because he had
been to their house and had seen him while she was posting signs in front of
their house for a yard sale. That evening a neighbor called to say a man was
looking into the windows of their house.
Before Calhoun got into the house, Phillips' wife testified that she ran
upstairs and hid her daughter and one of her daughter's friends in a bedroom
and locked the door.
A person matching Calhoun's description was seen fleeing the murder scene and
neighbors saw Calhoun's car near the murder scene. One neighbor telephoned
emergency 911 and police issued a "BOLO" (Be on the lookout bulletin) for
Calhoun's vehicle.
The Talladega County Sheriff's Department found Calhoun's vehicle hidden in
some bushes where his mother lived. Law enforcement officers eventually found
Calhoun hiding under a bed at another home.
Forensic tests showed that the blood found on Calhoun's discarded clothes was
consistent with the wife's blood, DNA tests on semen from the victim was
consistent with Calhoun's DNA, and a bite-mark expert testified there was an
extremely high probability that the bite mark on the wife's neck matched
Calhoun's dental impression and that the bite mark on Calhoun's arm matched the
wife's dental impression.
Calhoun had claimed that, had appellate counsel conducted additional
investigation, counsel would have discovered readily available evidence outside
the record regarding Calhoun's mental retardation and a history of mental
retardation in his family.
The decision in Calhoun's case was among 4 appeals by Alabama death row inmates
upheld by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday.
The others included: Alfonzo Morris, a Jefferson County man, who was twice
convicted and sentenced to death in the 1997 beating death of an 85-year-old
woman, lost an appeal last week; Nathaniel Woods, the man convicted in the 2004
shooting deaths of 3 Birmingham police officers; Anthony Lane, who claims he is
intellectually disabled and shouldn't be executed for his conviction in the
2009 robbery and shooting death of an Indiana man who was in Birmingham on
business.
(source: al.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 2 10:26:28 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 10:26:28 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ILL., OKLA., CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605021026210.3604@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 2
ILLINOIS:
Sister Helen Prejean continues 35-year fight against death penalty
Standing behind a podium in one of the meeting rooms in DePaul's Student
Center, wearing her signature purple jacket, Sister Helen Prejean begins to
tell a story.
The story is about a man named Richard Glossip, who is currently sitting on
death row in Oklahoma for the 1997 murder of motel owner Barry Van Treese, a
murder Prejean believes Glossip did not commit.
Prejean found law yers to take Glossip's case pro-bono, but also mobilized a
national media effort to raise awareness about his case and his innocence. She
even managed to get Pope Francis and the Papal nuns to put pressure on the
state government not to execute him.
"People were calling ... the lines were filling up ... the world was watching
and people were getting it out on the social media," Prejean said. "When things
were at their height, 300 million people in the world had heard ... Richard
Glossip's name."
Prejean's efforts and a problem with the drug cocktail used for lethal
injection led to a stay of execution. This was but a minor victory for Prejean
and Glossip, who is still imprisoned and sitting on death row.
The story of Richard Glossip is one of the many stories Prejean has to tell.
This is Prejean's 3rd visit to DePaul since 2014. She spends most of her days
traveling around the country telling the story of her experience with the death
penalty and advocating for its abolition.
Prejean began her work with death row inmates in 1981. After moving into the
St. Thomas housing projects in one of New Orleans poorest neighborhoods,
Prejean became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, a convicted murderer waiting to
be executed by the state of Louisiana.
Prejean became Sonnier's spiritual advisor before ultimately witnessing his
execution. This experience awakened Prejean to the darkest realities of the
death penalty and she decided to dedicate her life to not only counseling
inmates sitting on death row but also to work towards abolishing the death
penalty.
In 1994, Prejean wrote a book detailing her experiences called "Dead Man
Walking: An Eye Witness Account of the Death Penalty." The book became a
bestseller, enjoying the No. 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for
31 weeks.
Just 2 years later, the book was adapted into a film, directed by Tim Robbins
and starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, who played Prejean.
Matt Cook, a junior at DePaul, saw Prejean's book and the film as eye opening.
"After watching and reading Dead Man Walking, I never really realized that the
justice system was so unjust and Sister Helen really emphasized that in her
book," Cook said.
Prejean credits the people she met while living in the St. Thomas housing
projects with teaching her how to write.
"I lived this privileged little white life of privilege in Baton Rouge and was
never in the company of people struggling with poverty and racism, and they
taught me, they graciously taught me ... and so I began to write."
Through her book and lectures, Prejean has become the face of the struggle
against the death penalty. But for DePaul students, like junior Maggie Mech,
she is also a role model.
"She's devoted so much of her time but she's also so well-respected and
so...well-known in the world just because of how smart she is and how much she
has done for all different types of people. I think she totally embodies
Vincentian values" Mech said.
The DePaul Office of Mission and Values described the Vincentian identity as
"...above all characterized by ennobling the God-given dignity of each person."
While values like community, service and reflection have guided Prejean's work,
she has always placed special emphasis on dignity.
On her website, Prejean expresses her belief "in the dignity and rights of all
persons and recognize that government-sanctioned killing ... is a violation of
those rights and a denial of human dignity."
Prejean hopes to raise public consciousness about the death penalty and the
impact it is having on society. One group that Prejean thinks is especially
important in the fight to end capital punishment is the millennial generation.
"We have a savvier, smarter group of young people coming up ... I am very
hopeful about young people in this country and how they are helping us,"
Prejean said.
DePaul junior Nora Melton agrees with Prejean's assessment that young people
should get involved with social justice issues.
"I definitely think that youth and millennials need to be involved in social
justice issues today," Melton said. "I love that Sister Helen Prejean is really
including us and making us feel important ... we have so much power even if we
don't realize that we do ... if we really apply ourselves to change something,
we can make a really big difference."
As she continues to travel the country and the world, Prejean is hopeful that
as more people are confronted with the inhumanity of the death penalty, the
movement to abolish capital punishment will grow stronger.
"It's never going to be 1 man, it's never going to be 1 thing. But I think of
consciousness raising in the culture (like) the way a pot comes to boil,"
Prejean said.
"When a pot comes to boil you don't have 1 great big fat bubble comes up...but
you have little bitty bubbles that start in the bottom ... I believe that???s
the way consciousness changes."
Prejean believes that no matter what the crime, or who the victim, the death
penalty does not constitute justice.
"(The death penalty) is pain, it's punishment for what you do wrong," Prejean
said. "The safety of society is another thing ... I believe, and we're
beginning to see the first seeds of it to go towards more restorative justice."
A shift away from capital punishment and towards restorative justice is what
Prejean has been working for her entire life. She is confident one day her
vision will be achieved.
"I have met the American people and what I have met is not people wedded to the
death penalty, it's just that we haven't reflected on it very deeply at all."
Racism is a fundamental part of Prejean's argument that the criminal justice
system on a whole needs to be reformed. Not only does the current system
disproportionately incarcerate African-Americans, but it is also biased against
them when it comes to sentencing their killers.
In her years of counseling death penalty inmates, Prejean has realized the
death penalty is reserved for people who kill white people.
"I don't know what made us think that we could design a process ... and that
we'd be so pure that there'd be no racism in it so if you killed people of
color or you killed white people," Prejean said. "It's the same, it's equal."
(source: depauliaonline.com)
OKLAHOMA:
Man convicted of killing Arkansas woman in eastern Oklahoma
A jury in Le Flore County has convicted an Arkansas man of 1st-degree murder in
the 2010 death of a woman in eastern Oklahoma.
Elvis Thacker was convicted Friday of murder and forcible sodomy in the death
of 22-year-old Brianna Ault. The jury will reconvene Monday to consider whether
Thacker should receive the death penalty or serve life in prison.
Ault was found dead in a pond in Pocola. Her throat had been cut.
Thacker's attorneys had blamed his brother, Johnathen Thacker, with killing
Ault. Johnathen Thacker pleaded guilty in 2014 to 1st-degree murder as part of
an agreement in which he testified that his brother cut Ault's throat with a
razor after forcing her to perform sex acts, then trying unsuccessfully to
drown her.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Supreme Court rejects death penalty case
The Supreme Court on Monday denied review of a case challenging the
constitutionality of long-delayed death sentences.
The case centered on Richard Boyer, who was sentenced to death in California 32
years ago. Boyer had asked the court to weigh whether the delay in carrying out
his sentence violated the Eight Amendment's protections against cruel and
unusual punishment.
In dissenting from the court's majority decision to reject the case, Justice
Stephen Breyer said the delays in Boyer's sentence were the result of a system
that the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice had called
"dysfunctional."
The commission released a report 8 years ago, Breyer said, which found that
that more than 10 % of the capital sentences issued in California since 1978
had been reversed. Many prisoners had died of natural causes before their
sentences were carried out and more California death row inmates had committed
suicide than had been executed by the State.
"Put simply, California's costly 'administration of the death penalty' likely
embodies three fundamental defects about which I have previously written: '(1)
serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably
long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose.'" Breyer
wrote in the order Monday. "For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the
denial of certiorari."
(source: thehill.com)
****************
The trial of alleged "Grim Sleeper" Lonnie Franklin Jr. headed to a close
Monday after months of testimony about a serial killer who stalked women during
the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, then laid low for 14 years before renewing
the grisly sex attacks
The trial of alleged "Grim Sleeper" Lonnie Franklin Jr. headed to a close
Monday after months of testimony about a serial killer who stalked women during
the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, then laid low for 14 years before renewing
the grisly sex attacks.
Closing arguments were scheduled to begin in the morning and could last 2 days.
Franklin, 63, could face the death penalty if convicted.
He is charged with killing 9 women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and
2007. They were shot or strangled and their bodies dumped in alleys and trash
bins in South Los Angeles and nearby areas.
He also is charged with the attempted murder of a woman who survived being shot
in the chest and pushed out of a car in 1988.
At his trial in February, the women identified Franklin as her attacker and
said he took a Polaroid photograph of her after the attack.
Prosecutors said a photo showing the wounded woman slouched over in a car was
found in Franklin's possession when he was arrested in 2010.
Prosecutors say many of the killings occurred in the midst of a crack cocaine
epidemic in South Los Angeles and many of the victims were prostitutes.
At one point, prosecutor Beth Silverman told jurors that Franklin targeted
women "willing to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their
dependency on this powerful drug."
Prosecutors allege that firearms or DNA evidence connects Franklin to the
killings. Before his arrest, a police officer posing as a busboy at a pizza
parlor got DNA samples from dishes and utensils Franklin had been using at a
birthday party.
Franklin's lawyers, however, argued that many DNA samples taken from "Grim
Sleeper" victims or their clothing didn't match Franklin.
Defense attorney Seymour Amster told jurors last month that many victims had
DNA from more than one man on their bodies and that more than 20 DNA tests
excluded his client.
Both Silverman and Amster acknowledged disliking each other and at times held
heated arguments in the courtroom out of the jury's hearing.
In March, Amster yelled at Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy after she
ruled that he would have to refile a subpoena.
"I am now going to rest. We have no defense," Seymour said to gasps in the
courtroom. "I cannot represent this man any further." However, he continued on
with the case.
Authorities dubbed the killer the "Grim Sleeper" because of a gap between
killings from 1988 to 2002.
(source: US News & World Report)
*****************
Kamala Harris picks her fights as criminal justice crusader
As district attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris looked at the criminal
justice system like a pyramid, with the worst crimes occupying the tip. The
largest mass of the pyramid, Harris wrote in her 2009 book, is the "truly
staggering" number of nonviolent offenders.
"The problem is that we have been using only the tools best suited to combating
the offenders at the top of the pyramid, and we have been using them on the
entire crime pyramid," she wrote in "Smart on Crime."
Offering a blueprint for how nonviolent offenders could be successfully
redirected, including initiatives she used in her own department, Harris
declared, "It's time to rock the crime pyramid."
Since taking office with an upset victory in 2010 over former Los Angeles
County District Attorney Steve Cooley, Harris has sought to do so by creating a
division to reduce repeat offenders, launching a pilot re-entry program at a
Los Angeles County jail and opening a bureau for children's justice.
Now as the Democrat campaigns for U.S. Senate, Harris also highlights broader
accomplishments, from fighting mortgage fraud and reducing elementary school
truancy to combating transnational gangs. She's battled for gay marriage rights
and supported a presidential order shielding unauthorized immigrants from
deportation.
Yet on issues that have reshaped the state's criminal justice system -
including historic prison realignment, an initiative changing certain felonies
to misdemeanors, and scores of public safety bills in the Legislature - Harris'
role has not been pivotal. The pyramid shook, but often it wasn't her doing the
shaking.
"Once she became attorney general, I didn't see the transition from those
initiatives: her writings and her overall philosophy," said Earl Ofari
Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. Harris, he
said, could have been "a more vigorous advocate for full criminal justice
reform."
"She's been confined to (her) comfort zone and unwilling to be big and bold."
Harris' reluctance to use the state's top law enforcement office as a megaphone
to advance her earlier work has disappointed allies in the fight, some of whom
question whether she's strategically avoided topics that put her at loggerheads
with the law enforcement community she worked hard to bring around since taking
office.
Last year, retired California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso testified in
favor of a bill that would have required the attorney general to appoint a
special prosecutor to examine police officers' lethal uses of force. He said
independent probes are needed to uncover the facts. Harris' office took no
position at the time.
"I hate to speculate why, except of course that many of the police agencies
would not want that," Reynoso said. "It may be, politically speaking, that she
does not want to be on the opposite side of those folks."
In an interview, Harris said she didn't support the measure, Assembly Bill 86,
because it would have taken discretion from district attorneys. Unless they
have been shown to abuse their powers, she thinks they should retain them.
Harris disputed that her relationship with law enforcement had bearing.
"Here's the bottom line: I am trying to change the system from the inside," she
said. "They (activists) are trying to change the system from the outside. And
together, change will occur."
Harris' supporters point to the statewide policy initiatives and dozens of
bills the attorney general's office endorsed to bolster their case that she has
accomplished far more than any of her predecessors to advance major, if not
always visible, changes to the system.
She reactivated the office's dormant powers to convene closed-door meetings
with law enforcement up and down the state where she presented ways to
coordinate and combat human trafficking, the need to adopt technology such as a
digital forensic crime lab and to work on plans to implement realignment.
They believe her standard definition for recidivism allows law enforcement
agencies across the state to accurately measure repeat offenses.
Back on Track LA, an expansion of the nationally recognized program she started
in San Francisco, connects inmates with an array of services in and out of
custody, such as therapy, health care, child support, education and
job-training skills, to help them become contributing, law-abiding members of
society.
"To look at where the dialogue was in the country before, and where it has gone
on criminal justice reform, in many ways it is catching up to what she has been
saying since before it was even popular," said Lenore Anderson, executive
director of Californians for Safety and Justice.
Last year, Harris initiated a web-based public portal showing years of arrest
and crime rates, and deaths in custody, among other data sets, by department.
She helped develop statewide policies regulating the use of body-worn cameras,
saying she favors the technology, and new training on racial profiling,
implicit bias and procedural justice, also known as officer communication,
which advocates say builds trust, noted Anderson, Harris' chief of policy when
she was district attorney.
"I think it would be impossible for anyone to conclude that the attorney
general has been shy about what she thinks on criminal justice," Anderson said.
"This has been a major theme of her tenure as an elected official, both local
and statewide."
Harris touts her career as a prosecutor as preparation for the U.S. Senate, an
office she said she'll use to speak up for society's voiceless, reduce
sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and take questions about criminal
backgrounds off job applications. In California, she's worked to prevent sexual
assault, eliminate the rape kit backlog in state labs, fight cyberexploitation
and protect sensitive immigrant communities.
Harris said there's an extensive amount she's done in cases in which she didn't
invite the media, or politicians, into the room.
"In order for a lot of this stuff to work, law enforcement has to understand
the viability and appropriateness so that they will actively participate and
cooperate," she said.
"True, I haven't been engaged in a lot of grandstanding," Harris added. "I
haven't sought a lot of publicity on it. But the work has happened. These are
things that did not occur before."
Harris was not the choice of law enforcement when she ran in 2010. Most of the
leading groups endorsed Cooley, some citing his unwavering support for the
death penalty. Harris had not sought death for the 2004 killer of San Francisco
police Officer Isaac Espinoza.
Law enforcement committees alone committed roughly $1.5 million in outside
spending for Cooley, with nearly $113,000 coming from the Peace Officers
Research Association of California. 22 days after the election, Cooley conceded
the close race. Harris quickly arranged meetings with groups such as PORAC.
"She came to law enforcement and many other groups and said, 'Here's what I
want to accomplish. Help me accomplish them. And how can we best get there?'"
PORAC President Mike Durant said.
In 2014, Harris had a nominal Republican opponent but the backing of most
public safety groups.
Asked about any areas of disagreement with Harris, Durant said, "Nothing comes
to mind."
Robert Weisberg, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center,
said the state AG's power over criminal issues is limited because county
prosecutors mostly operate on their own. Criminal appeals are generally handled
by deputy attorneys general, he said.
"She has seen her role as synthesizing ideas that have emerged as consensus
beliefs and tried to embed them into public discourse in a way that might
promote action by the agencies that have more direct power than she does,"
Weisberg said.
"It's just been the nature of criminal justice lately that the attorney
general, by its office, has not been the center of attention," he added.
Harris did not help shape the public safety realignment program championed by
Gov. Jerry Brown. Spurred by a federal order to reduce prison overcrowding,
Brown and lawmakers in 2011 moved to shift many state responsibilities for
lower-level felons to the counties, paying for it with a mix of sales taxes and
fees.
Harris said she created one of the first examples of successful realignment
with her program in San Francisco. Later, Brown's policy formed the impetus for
Harris' Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-entry as a way to embed the
responsibility in the Department of Justice, Harris said.
"I think I have played quite an active role of showing how it can be done
within the system," she said.
Death penalty opponents are discouraged by Harris' performance on the issue.
Despite being a lifelong critic of capital punishment, she promised to follow
the law. In office, she defended it in court. That "raised doubts" about her
commitment to changing the system, said Hadar Aviram, professor at UC Hastings
College of the Law in San Francisco.
"It was a big disappointment," Aviram said. "I was surprised to see a
proclaimed and vocal opponent of the death penalty take steps to actively to
defend it."
Harris' office appealed after Cormac Carney, a federal judge in Orange County,
2 years ago overturned the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones, sentenced
for the murder of his girlfriend's mother in 1995. In ruling it
unconstitutional, Carney said the death penalty takes too long and that
unpredictable impediments were unfair. His ruling was overturned by a panel of
the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Aviram, who at the time started a petition urging Harris not to appeal in the
Jones case, contrasted her appeal with her refusal to defend the Proposition 8
ban on gay marriage, which she said was unconstitutional.
"There is no way of knowing how that case could have come out if the attorney
general's office had put up a fight based on its ministerial role," Aviram
said. "I think the death penalty issue called for similar consideration."
Harris said she appealed the death penalty case because she wanted to ensure
Carney's arguments would not be used to hasten executions. She said the case
differed from her action on Proposition 8 because she had a duty as the state's
lawyer to represent its interest on the death penalty.
"On Prop. 8, that was in my independent capacity as attorney general," she
said. "And in Prop. 8, also, the governor agreed. So everyone was on the same
page."
Harris is cautious when ballot measures are before voters, arguing that she
should not take sides because her office prepares the title and summary seen by
voters. Her neutrality differs from recent predecessors, including Brown, Bill
Lockyer and Dan Lungren, but is consistent.
That meant she did not factor in the debate over Proposition 47, the 2014
measure pushed by Anderson and other criminal justice advocates, which reduced
certain drug and property crimes to misdemeanors.
Supporters would have liked to see Harris at their side, while some law
enforcement leaders believe she should have stepped in to oppose it. They blame
the law for a rise in crime.
Mike Ramos, the district attorney of San Bernardino County, said that while he
despises Proposition 47, calling it a "get out of jail free" card, he
understands. Making her opinion known would be a conflict, he said, given her
duties.
"Would I have loved for her to take my side against Prop. 47? Of course," said
Ramos, who is running for attorney general in 2018. "Do I understand why she
didn't? Yes, I do."
Jan Scully, former district attorney of Sacramento County, said Harris should
have been more involved from a prosecutor's standpoint. Scully and other
elected prosecutors and county sheriffs, who were unhappy with many of her
positions, wanted her to denounce Proposition 47, insisting it stood to
diminish consequences and accountability.
"We felt as prosecutors that Kamala was weak or missing when it comes to
matters of public safety or criminal justice, and far more political - always
looking for her next office," Scully said. "She didn't try to be everything to
prosecutors and law enforcement. But she didn't go so far out there on the
liberal side, either. If anything, she was nothing to anyone."
Harris has been circumspect about most legislation relating to criminal
justice, though her office sometimes provides technical assistance not
appearing on the record. She sponsored or supported about 60 bills, including 8
dealing with human trafficking, 6 with firearms and 4 with truancy. In that
time, more than 440 bills were referred to public safety committees and
subsequently passed by the full Legislature. Brown signed about 85 % of the
bills, vetoing the rest.
In addition to staying out of debate over the lethal-force bill supported by
Reynoso, Harris did not take a position on landmark racial- and
identity-profiling legislation, steered clear of a bill limiting law
enforcement's ability to confiscate property from people not convicted of
crimes, and did not support statewide standards regulating body-worn cameras by
police officers, siding with law enforcement in contending there's no
1-size-fits-all approach to the issue.
Harris did back a less-fractious bill requiring agencies to report to her
department incidents in which an officer is involved in the use of force.
Lockyer said Harris has had an "outstanding record," but one that "doesn't
necessarily involve jumping into every public controversy."
"I think she is careful, and that's a smart thing to do," Lockyer said. "Some
people want more active engagement with the issues they get involved in. And
again, that's one way people can do these things. Another is to do the job and
try to do the job well."
(source: Sacramento Bee)
USA:
Presidential Candidates and the Death Penalty
Unlike in past elections, national interest in the presidential candidates'
position on the death penalty has waned, partly due to a decline in the number
of states that no longer allow capital punishment. Also, in U.S. the rate of
violent crimes decreased steadily for 20 years, until 2015 when, according to
the FBI, the numbers rose to 1.7 % with a 6 % increase in homicides.
History has shown that when the crime numbers are up, more people are pro-death
penalty and interest in the position political candidates take on the issue
becomes more important to voters.
Lessons Learned?
A good example of this was the 1988 presidential election between Michael
Dukakis and George H.W. Bush. At the time, the national murder rate was
averaging around 8.4 % and 76 % of Americans were for the death penalty, the
2nd highest number since recording began in 1936.
Dukakis was pegged as being too liberal and soft on crime and received a fair
amount of criticism because he was opposed to the death penalty.
An incident that many believe sealed his fate as the presidential loser
occurred during an October 13, 1988, debate between Dukakis and Bush when the
moderator, Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis if he would be in favor of the death
penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. Dukakis replied that he would not
favor it and reiterated that he was opposed to the death penalty all of his
life. The general consensus was that his answer was cold and his national poll
numbers plummeted that same night.
Despite the fact that the majority of the U.S. is still in favor of the death
penalty, opposition is rising and it is now at 38 % which is the highest it has
been in 40 years.
Bernie Sanders - Against the Death Penalty
During a February 2016 MSNBC debate, Bernie Sanders voiced concerns that there
have been innocent people, particularly minorities, who have been executed.
"Of course there are barbaric acts out there, but in a world of so much
violence and killing, I just don't believe that government itself should be
part of the killing," Sanders said. "I just don't want to see government be
part of killing."
Bernie Sanders has been against the death penalty for over 20 years.
Hillary Clinton - Supports the Death Penalty
Hillary Clinton has taken a more cautious stand than her counterpart. During
the same debate, Clinton said that she was concerned about how the death
penalty is handled on a state level and that she has a lot more confidence in
the federal system.
"For very limited, particularly heinous crimes, I believe it is an appropriate
punishment, but I deeply disagree with the way that too many states still are
implementing it," Clinton said.
Clinton was again confronted with questions about her views on the death
penalty during a CNN-hosted Democratic town hall on March 14, 2016.
Ricky Jackson, an Ohio man who spent 39 years in prison and came "perilously
close" to being executed, and who was later found to be innocent, was emotional
when he asked Clinton, "In light of what I've just shared with you and in light
of the fact that there are undocumented cases of innocent people who have been
executed in our country. I would like to know how you can still take your
stance on the death penalty."
Clinton again voiced her concerns, saying, "the states have proven themselves
incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all the rights
that defendant should have..."
She also said she would "breathe a sigh of relief" if the Supreme Court of the
states eliminated the death penalty. She then added that she still supported it
"in rare cases" on a federal level for terrorist and mass murderers.
"If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the
Supreme Court," Clinton added, confusingly, "that would, I think, be an
appropriate outcome."
Donald Trump - Supports the Death Penalty
On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump announced to several hundred police union
members in Milford, New Hampshire, that one of the first things he would do as
president would be to sign a statement that anybody that kills a police office
would get the death penalty. He made the announcement after he accepted the
endorsement of the New England Police Benevolent Association.
"One of the first things I do, in terms of executive order if I win, will be to
sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country -- out to the
world -- that anybody killing a policeman, policewoman, a police officer --
anybody killing a police officer, the death penalty. It's going to happen, OK?
We can't let this go."
Trump also earned his pro-death penalty status after taking out a full-page ad
in 4 New York City newspapers titled, "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! BRING BACK
THE POLICE!" It was assumed that his actions were in reference to the May 1989
brutal rape of a woman who was jogging in Central Park, although he never made
reference to the attack.
Ted Cruz - Supports the Death Penalty
Ted Cruz has been a long time supporter of the death penalty and believes that
the decision should be left up to each state.
In a September 2015 interview with POLITICO, Cruz said, "I spent a number of
years in law enforcement dealing with some of the worst criminals, child
rapists and murderers, people who've committed unspeakable acts. I believe the
death penalty is recognition of the preciousness of human life, that for the
most egregious crimes, the ultimate punishment should apply."
Cruz also supported the decision to execute a man in Texas who many were
fighting to keep alive because the man was mentally ill.
"I trust the criminal-justice system to operate, to protect the rights of the
accused, and to administer justice to violent criminals," Cruz said.
(source: about.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 2 10:27:11 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 10:27:11 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605021027020.3604@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 2
SAUDI ARABIA:
Women more resistant to beheading: Saudi Executioner----Most of those going to
execution appear to be in trance; The executioner denied reports that those
sentenced to death are drugged just before their execution.
Convicted women sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia have been more resistant to
beheading than men, prompting authorities to change the execution method to
shooting, a well-known Saudi executioner has said.
Abu Bandar Al Bishi, a massive man who has beheaded scores of convicted
criminals in public places in the Gulf Kingdom, said most of those brought to
the execution area appear to be in "trance" ahead of their death.
Quoted by the Saudi daily Sabq, he denied social media reports that those
sentenced to death are drugged just before their execution.
"Those brought for execution are not drugged...there is no medical intervention
in their execution...they just appear to be in trance or half dead," Bishi
said. "As for women, they are more resistant to execution than men...we used to
behead them but the verdict has been changed to executing them by shooting.
He said many convicts make requests just before their execution, adding that
one asked for a cigarette. "Of course we did not give him a cigarette...if he
had asked to pray before his death, then it would have been much better."
Bishi said he uses a gun to execute women by shooting them in the head, adding
that he does not stick to doctor's instructions to shoot them in the heart.
"The doctor draws a mark towards the heart on the convict's back...but I shoot
them in the head because the bullet may miss the heart target if the convict
moves.
(source: emirates247.com)
PHILIPPINES:
Filipino Catholic groups endorse opposition candidates ---- Son of late
dictator Marcos picks up support from key pro-life, charismatic groups
The Philippine's largest Catholic charismatic movement and other pro-life
groups have endorsed candidates identified with the country's political
opposition for the May 9 presidential and vice presidential race.
On May 1, the influential El Shaddai Charismatic Renewal Movement distributed
"sample ballots" that carry the names of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who are running for president and vice president,
respectively.
The group, which claims a following of 3 to 8 million Filipinos, earlier called
on its members not to vote for presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who has
come under fire for joking about the rape and murder of an Australian
missionary.
Binay, meanwhile, has figured in several money-laundering investigations of
alleged ghost accounts in a series of corruption charges, while support for
Marcos could pave the return to power of the Marcos family, who ruled the
country in a dictatorial grip for 2 decades until 1986.
El Shaddai leader Mariano "Mike" Zuniega Velarde, better known as Brother Mike
Velarde, said he will make the official announcement of candidates that his
group will support on May 3, when the result of an informal survey of members
comes out.
"On Tuesday, I will make it known to you," said Velarde. "I have distributed
something like a survey form. We will know the sentiments of everyone," added
the charismatic leader.
Velarde said candidates for president, vice president, and senators were
invited to address an overnight prayer vigil and celebration over the weekend,
but only Binay, Sen. Grace Poe, and administration candidate Manuel Roxas
attended the event.
Among the vice presidential candidates only Marcos and Sen. Francis Escudero
attended.
"We did not forget them. We invited them here. But it seems they forgot us. So
if they forgot us, we can also forget them," said Velarde.
'One step away from presidency'
Velarde allowed candidates who were present at the overnight vigil to speak
before the crowd after the celebration of the Eucharist.
Poe, who comes second in most poll surveys among presidential candidates vowed
a "fair government" if ever elected. "Like what God wants us to do, I will do
my best to fight poverty," she said.
"As a mother, I will look into the welfare of the family ..., a family with
enough income, a family that can provide education to the children, a family
with enough food on the table," Poe said.
Binay promised a leadership that "recognizes, respects, and follows the Word of
God ..., a leadership the respects women, a leadership that shows good example
to children."
Roxas, who arrived late during the celebration, reminded the people of their
responsibility during the coming elections. "Shall we continue with a path that
has already brought us this far, or are we going to turn around?" said Roxas.
"May the Lord guide us in our decision," he added.
Marcos, meanwhile, called for unity for the country to "experience change,
development, and a good life." He called on Filipinos to join him to face a
"beautiful future that we can only achieve through unity."
Anti-death penalty, anti-abortion
Other Catholic "pro-life" groups said they will be supporting the candidacy of
Binay and Marcos because of the candidates' anti-death penalty and
anti-abortion stance.
Congressman Lito Atienza, representative of the Catholic conservative Buhay
(Life) Party in Congress, said his group has banded with the Pro-Life
Philippines Foundation, which claims some 2.5 million members, to support Binay
and Marcos.
Atienza expressed fear that if Poe, who used to live in the United States, is
elected president, "she will promote abortion and the use of contraceptives
that pro-life groups oppose."
"Only Binay has a clear-cut position on preserving the sanctity of life. He
values life," said Atienza.
"We followed [Marcos'] political career and found that he is pro-life. All his
legislations are geared at protecting and preserving life," said Eric Manalang,
president of Pro-Life Philippines Foundation.
Another conservative Catholic group, the Servant Communities, also announced
its endorsement of Binay and his running mate Sen. Gregorio Honasan, a former
military colonel.
Velarde said whoever El Shaddai and the other Catholic groups will support in
the coming elections will win. "Remember this, whoever it is we agree to
support will win," he said.
(source: ucanews.com)
INDONESIA:
Next round of Indonesian executions doesn't include Mary Jane----The Filipina
on death row was given a last-minute reprieve last year
Filipina Mary Jane Veloso, who is on death row for allegedly smuggling drugs in
the country, will not be among the next round of criminals executed by the
Indonesian government.
In September, Indonesia halted executions, saying it was not their priority at
the moment, but has recently announced it would resume them again.
The update raised fears as to whether Veloso would be among those to be
executed, but the Attorney General's Office quelled concerns of Veloso's
inclusion.
"We respect the legal process that is taking place in the Philippines," said
Attorney General HM Prasetyo, as quoted by local reports.
He did not disclose as to when the next round of executions would be, only
saying it would not be in May, and that "it is only a matter of time."
Indonesia has been in the spotlight in past months due to their death penalty,
specifically their executions of foreign nationals.
Australia, for instance, had mounted a sustained campaign to save its citizens,
who had been on death row for almost a decade, with the prime minister
repeatedly appealing for them to be spared. The appeals did not work.
Amnesty International has also condemned the executions as "utterly
reprehensible" in a statement from research director for Southeast Asia and the
Pacific, Rupert Abbott.
The Penal Code of Indonesia states that death-sentenced inmates are to be
executed by firing squad, out of public view. The inmate is informed of his or
her execution only 72 hours in advance. The inmate can stand or sit, and have
his or her eyes covered by a blindfold or a hood.
Case pending
On April 29, 2015, the execution of Veloso, one of 9 drug convicts scheduled
for execution, was delayed.
The 8 other drug trafficking convicts - which included 7 foreigners and one
Indonesian - were put to death early that morning on a prison island after
Indonesia defied international criticism and heartrending pleas from relatives.
Prasetyo said an exception was made for Veloso "because there was a last-minute
plea from the Philippine President. There was someone who surrendered today.
She claimed she was the one who recruited Mary Jane."
In 2010, Indonesia sentenced the 30-year-old Veloso to death on charges of drug
smuggling. Veloso, a single mother of 2 from Nueva Ecija, had flown to Malaysia
with the intention of securing a job as a domestic helper.
She claimed that her recruiter, Maria Kristina Sergio, had duped her into
flying to Indonesia and bringing a suitcase with 2.6 kilograms of heroin hidden
in the lining. Veloso has consistently maintained her innocence.
Sergio's case is pending in Philippine courts.
In January however, Prasetyo told Rappler they have not yet decided when to
execute Veloso, but they "are ready" if ever it is ordered.
He said however, that the government is still waiting for the outcome of
Sergio's ongoing case - although a guilty verdict will not automatically change
her status of being on death row.
"We will look at the verdict, perhaps the verdict can be new evidence to appeal
for clemency from the president," he said. "But surely Mary Jane will not be
free from punishment."
He added, "The fact is that she smuggled drugs to Indonesia, and she was caught
red handed at the airport."
Urged whether the "punishment" means death, Prasetyo only said, "we'll see."
(source: rappler.com)
AUSTRALIA:
Operation Fox Hunt: Law council says extradition treaty with China is 'a joke'
The national peak body representing the legal profession in Australia has urged
the federal government not to ratify an extradition treaty with China, citing
concerns the mainland's criminal justice system lacked procedural fairness and
was "steadily marching in the wrong direction".
Addressing the parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in Canberra on
Monday, the Law Council of Australia said there was no way to guarantee those
extradited would be granted a fair trial, nor were there any effective measures
to prevent torture or China going against diplomatic assurances and
administering the death penalty.
"There's no consequence, what's Australia going to do?" David Grace, QC, of the
Victorian Bar told the committee.
"What's the reality? Is Australia going to haul China before the international
court of justice? I mean, it's a joke, that's a reality of it."
Australia has an extradition treaty with China that was signed in 2007 but
never ratified. The agreement, however, was tabled in March for the committee's
consideration, a month before Malcolm Turnbull's first visit to China as prime
minister.
China has recently stepped up international efforts to repatriate economic
fugitives and corrupt officials who have fled overseas.
Australia, meanwhile, is hoping to secure greater assistance from China to stem
the trade of illicit drugs, particularly crystal methamphetamine - also known
as "ice" - flowing from southern China.
The council also expressed concern over the omission of a "common safeguard in
Australia's extradition treaties to ensure protection of an extradited person's
right to a fair trial, namely the ability to refuse a request where extradition
would be 'unjust or oppressive'".
"Unless these concerns are addressed the Law Council opposes the ratification
of this treaty," council president Stuart Clark said.
The agreement with China, like other bilateral extradition treaties, has a "no
evidence" threshold which essentially takes information presented by Chinese
police seeking extradition at face value, without necessarily needing evidence
to substantiate the claim.
Legal experts and human rights groups share concerns that any extradition
agreement in force must inherently place faith in the integrity of China's
party-controlled law enforcement and judicial systems ??? frequently criticised
for pursuing the Communist Party's political agendas.
China last month relaunched its Fox Hunt and Skynet operations targeting
suspected economic criminals and corrupt officials hiding overseas. Chinese
authorities routinely cite Australia, along with the US and Canada, as the most
popular havens for the fugitives.
Leanne Close, deputy secretary of the criminal justice group in the
Attorney-General's Department, told the committee the treaty was "not an
automatic process for extradition, rather a framework for decision-making".
The unratified treaty provides grounds for refusal for political offences and
if there are fears of torture or inhumane punishment. In cases where the person
sought may be sentenced to death, Australia can "undertake" that the death
penalty not be imposed - or if imposed, that it not be carried out.
"Australia's longstanding experience with death penalty undertakings with
extradition cases is that such undertakings have been honoured," Ms Close said.
Asked by the committee whether China could execute those extradited without
Australia's knowledge, officials from the Attorney-General's Department said
the government "would know about it".
"In the arena of international crime co-operation that would be an extremely
serious event if it happened - and it would have consequences," said Catherine
Hawkins of the department's International Crime Co-operation Division.
Mr Grace cited a pervasive crackdown on hundreds of mainland lawyers who have
been detained, harassed or threatened for representing the interests of their
clients as further evidence that China's legal environment was deteriorating.
He also pointed out that other countries like the US and Canada were not moving
towards an extradition treaty despite China also pushing for the return of its
wanted fugitives.
Australia can already consider extradition requests from China under the United
Nations Convention against Corruption and the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organised Crime.
"Risks of torture, lack of due process and politicisation of the judiciary
should make the Australian government think long and hard before embarking on
an agreement which may serve to legitimise China's justice system," said Elaine
Pearson, Australia director of Human Rights Watch.
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
SINGAPORE:
Family of convicted murderer pleads for his life
Anguished family members of convicted murderer Jabing Kho, 32, are pleading
with Sarawak leaders to try and save him from the gallows by imploring
Singapore President Tony Tan to grant him clemency.
Jabing's mother Lenduk Baling, 55, said the family had exhausted every legal
avenue to save her only son after the Singapore Court of Appeal upheld Kho's
death sentence on April 5, 2016.
"We know that the odds are not in our favour. But we (family) will try any
means possible to overturn the death sentence against my son to life
imprisonment. I have lost my husband, I cannot bear to lose my only son," said
Lenduk who fought back tears when speaking at a press conference yesterday.
She also admitted to have spoken to the Singaporean authorities by offering
herself to undergo the death sentence in place of her son.
Also speaking was Jabing's sister Jumai Kho, 28 who said the unfolding saga has
become a mentally and physically challenging ordeal for the family ever since
her brother was arrested in the republic.
"We are mentally and physically tired. Despite that fact, we will never give up
on our desire for Jabing not be imposed the death penalty but granted clemency
for life imprisonment," said Jumai who together with her mother arrived in
Sarawak on April 13 after attending the sentencing by the Singapore Court of
Appeal on April 5.
She also said with the backing from Sarawakian state assemblyman or members of
parliament, at least their voices in the republic would be louder.
"I am just a sister and housewife. No one in Singapore is willing to hear the
pleading voices of mine or my mother's," she added.
Also present at the press conference were representatives of the Advocates'
Association of Sarawak who called on the Malaysian government to support any
further application for clemency.
"We are not condoning the actions by him (Jabing) but we are urging the
government to do its utmost to intercede with the Singaporean authorities to
commute Jabing's death sentence to one of life imprisonment," said association
president Leonard Sim explaining that their views were purely based on
humanitarian ground.
He said Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Nancy Shukri and Chief
Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem had given their assurance that the
State and Federal Governments were doing all they could to save Jabing from the
gallows.
Also present were representatives from the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty
Campaign (SADPC) and We Believe in Second Chances who will be submitting a
petition within this next few days to the Singapore president to grant clemency
to Jabing.
Kirsten Han, a member of We Believe in Second Chances during the press
conference revealed that the last clemency granted by the president was in
1998.
Both organisations, she said would also be urging the Cabinet of the Republic
of Singapore to advise their president in granting the clemency as they
strongly believed that every human being deserved a second chance in life.
Jabing was convicted of murder under Section 300 (c) of the Penal Code on May
24, 2011 which carried the mandatory death sentence at the time of conviction.
In 2012, the Singapore parliament amended the Penal Code to give judges the
discretion to sentence offenders convicted under Section 300 (c) to life
imprisonment with caning.
On Nov 18, 2013, Justice Tay Yong Kwang resentenced Jabing to life imprisonment
and 24 strokes of the cane.
However on Jan 14, 2015 the Court of Appeal by a majority decision (with 2 out
of the 5 judges dissenting) overturned Justice Tay's decision and sentenced
Jabing to death.
Jabing was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6, 2015 after his petition to
president of Singapore for clemency failed. However, the execution was
temporarily stayed pending the hearing on Nov 23, 2015 of his application to
review and set aside the sentence.
On April 5, 2016, the Court of Appeal upheld Jabing???s death sentence, lifting
the stay of execution that they had issued in Nov 2015 after Jabing's lawyer
filed a criminal motion at the 11th hour.
(source: theborneopost.com)
JAMAICA:
Hanging? No, minister!---Golding warns of backlash from int'l development
partners
The Opposition yesterday poured cold water on National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement that he is contemplating the resumption of hanging in
Jamaica, arguing that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder
and is not the solution the country's nagging problem of violent crime.
According to Opposition spokesman on justice and governance, Senator Mark
Golding, countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty generally
remain the safest, with the least number of murders.
"Those states in the United States which retain and apply the death penalty
(for example Texas) are not the states which enjoy the lowest murder rates in
the US. The active use of the death penalty in Jamaica did not prevent the
carnage of murders in 1980," Golding said.
Noting that it is not necessary for the resumption of hanging at this time, he
said that murders have declined by 40 % since the extradition of Christopher
'Dudus' Coke in 2010, during an era where the death penalty was not a factor.
He said that the Opposition is of the view that the death penalty cannot be the
solution to Jamaica's problem of violent crime.
"Violent crime in Jamaica has several root causes, and curbing it requires
solutions that address those causes," he said.
Golding suggested that Jamaica needs, among other things, growth with equity
that creates good-quality employment opportunities for our people, so that they
aren't drawn towards criminal organisations and violent crime.
He added that the modernisation and strengthening of the justice system need to
be continued, and the implementation of the Justice Reform Programme should not
be allowed to lose momentum.
"I do not regard minister Montague's announcement, that the Government is
seeking "to determine if there are any legal impediments for the resumption of
hanging in Jamaica", as a serious policy initiative that will be implemented.
The Government can't hang more people; nor, as a practical matter, can
Parliament. Only the courts can make that happen, and the courts are governed
by the rule of law and, in particular, the human rights guarantees in our
Constitution," Golding said.
In addition, he said that the reactivation of the death penalty after 28 years
would bring condemnation and adverse criticism on Jamaica from international
development partners that are not in support of capital punishment.
Last week, Montague said Government remains committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation". To this end, he said the Administration is
currently exploring the possible resumption of hanging.
Noting that it forms part of the crime-prevention strategies aimed at creating
safer communities by tackling "lawless elements", Montague said his state
minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, has been asked to consult with several
stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office,
to determine if there are any "legal impediments" to be addressed.
He said the ministry's overall approach to creating safer communities is based
on 5 key pillars of crime prevention: social development, situational
prevention, effective policing, swift and sure justice processes, and reducing
re-offending.
(source: Jamaica Observer)
************************
PNP warns of death penalty backlash
The Opposition Peoples' National Party (PNP) says Jamaica may face
international backlash if it carries out the death penalty.
National Security Minister Robert Montague has indicated that his ministry is
looking at how the barriers preventing the use of the death penalty can be
removed to allow the execution of criminals in a bid to tackle the country's
high crime rate.
However, the Opposition spokesperson on Justice & Governance, Senator Mark
Golding, argues that any legislation which seeks to broaden the circumstances
in which the death penalty may be imposed would be ruled by the Courts to be
unconstitutional.
Golding further argues that the reactivation of the death penalty will bring
condemnation on Jamaica, and even possibly adverse action by the country's
international development partners that are strongly against the death penalty.
(source: Jamaica Gleaner)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 2 16:24:40 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 16:24:40 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., LA., TENN., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605021624340.6212@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 2
FLORIDA:
Florida Supremes to Hear Pensacola-Related Death Row Appeal
Oral arguments are set for Thursday before the Florida Supreme Court, in the
case that forced a sentencing change in the state's death penalty procedure.
The case involves Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998
murder of a fast-food restaurant manager in Pensacola. In January, the U-S
Supreme Court ruled that Florida's method of imposing execution was
unconstitutional - because it gave too much power to judges rather than juries.
Among those in the gallery watching the proceeding will be Bill Eddins, the
State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit - and whose office prosecuted the
case.
"The Attorney General's Office argues the death penalty cases that go on
appeal," Eddins said. "However, because of the importance of the Timothy Hurst
case to this office individually, as well as to all the other death penalty
cases pending in the First Circuit, I'm going to be present."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Hurst prompted the Florida Legislature to
modify the death penalty sentencing law in this year's session, which was
quickly signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott. It requires a unanimous vote by a
jury that there are aggravating circumstances, which make the defendant
eligible for the death penalty.
"The 2nd thing that changed is [the jury] must recommend that by a
super-majority of 10-2 that the person receive the death penalty before the
defendant is eligible to receive the death penalty. Then the judge will review
all the facts and circumstances."
If at that point the death penalty is not applicable, the judge can still
impose life in prison without parole.
Thursday's arguments before the state's high court are expected to focus on
Hurst's contention that he should be given life without instead of facing
execution, because he received his death sentence under what his attorneys call
an "unconstitutional process."
Calls to Public Defender Bruce Miller, whose office is representing Hurst,
seeking an interview were not returned.
When that ruling comes down, how will that affect the other 390 or so inmates
on Florida's death row? Eddins believes all murder cases that have already been
adjudicated should not be affected by that, or by the new law.
"That matter has been argued before the Florida Supreme Court, and they have
not made a written ruling on that at this time," said Eddins. "It appears
that's going to be a close decision."
(source: WUWF news)
ALABAMA:
U.S. Supreme Court tells Alabama appeals court to reconsider death penalty
The U.S. Supreme Court has directed that an Alabama appeals court reconsider a
death penalty case in light of its January 2016 ruling that found Florida's
death penalty system is unconstitutional.
That ruling in Hurst vs. Florida, faulted Florida for letting a judge, not a
jury, determine the punishment. The court found that system unconstitutional.
Today, the high court directed the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to
reconsider the death sentence for Bart Johnson, who was convicted in 2011 of
killing a Pelham Police Department officer in 2009. The court's order said the
appeals court should consider the case, "in light of Hurst vs. Florida."
Alabama's death penalty system is very similar to Florida's. Today's order
could have far-reaching implications for the state's death penalty system.
The Alabama Attorney General's office has argued the Florida ruling doesn't
apply to Alabama since a jury - even if it recommends against a death sentence
- has to find an aggravating factor in order to convict a defendant of capital
murder.
Under Alabama's death penalty system the same jury that convicts someone of
capital murder is then asked to consider aggravating and mitigating factors in
determining if the death penalty or life in prison without parole is the right
sentence.
Alabama law requires 10 out of 12 jurors for a death penalty recommendation.
But either way, the judge gets the final say on sentencing and can overrule the
jury's recommendation.
10 of 12 jurors in the Johnson case recommended the death penalty and the judge
agreed.
(source: WHNT news)
LOUISIANA:
Study urges review of state's death penalty system
A new study published by the Southern University Law Center revealed serious
flaws with the Louisiana death penalty system, with reversals 4 times more
likely than an execution since capital punishment was reinstated in the state
in 1976.
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill political science professor Frank
Baumgartner and New Orleans documentation specialist Tim Lyman conducted the
study, which will appear in volume 7 of The Journal of Race, Gender, and
Poverty.
"The results of this research should prompt an immediate review of Louisiana's
death penalty system given the extremely high error rate and the troubling role
of race in the system," Lyman said.
>From 1976 to August 2015, juries handed down death sentences for 241 crimes,
almost all murders. From 1976 to 2011, the FBI reported 20,942 criminal
homicides in Louisiana. The numbers mean the death penalty has been imposed in
approximately 1 % of homicides. But executions have only been carried out in
roughly 10 % of these, for a total of 1/10 of a % of all murders.
Of 241 death penalty cases, 155 (64%) have been resolved.
Resolved means the appeals are over and the inmate has either been executed or
released from death row.
Of those 155, 82 % have been reversed.
Just 28 cases (18 % ) resulted in an execution.
50 reversals took place between 2001 and August 2015, with another 3 occurring
after that time period.
According to the study, 6 % of the resolved cases, about one in 15, resulted in
an exoneration, where the accused has been freed from death row because of a
wrongful conviction.
It concludes that one exoneration occurs for every 3 executions and in the 21st
century, there have been more exonerations than executions.
"If a plane were to fall out of the sky 1 out of every 15 trips, that would be
considered a completely unacceptable failure rate," Baumgartner said.
"Louisiana's death penalty is plagued by inaccuracies, costly mistakes, and
racial and geographic unfairness. The error-rate is much higher than the
national average."
Several statistics point to racial unfairness in the administration of the
death sentence. No white person has been executed in Louisiana for a crime
against an African-American since 1752. Killers of whites are more than 6 times
likely to receive a death sentence than murderers of African Americans, and 14
times more likely to be executed. In cases where the offender is an
African-American male and the victim is a white female, the death sentence rate
is 30 times higher than cases where both the offender and victim are
African-American males.
But there is no one-size-fits-all reason why the sentences are often reversed.
38 reversals were due to judicial error (e.g. a judge giving improper
instructions to a jury or failing to sustain a justifiable objection). 25 were
due to prosecutorial misconduct (e.g. a prosecutor withholding evidence from
the defense team). 20 were deemed to be constitutionally excessive (e.g. a
defendant was later found to be mentally incompetent). 20 were due to
ineffective assistance of counsel, 14 were due to a settlement with the court
to reduce the sentence, and 10 were due to a general review (e.g. the court
discovered problems with evidence or records).
Baumgartner acknowledges that the crimes committed in these cases are typically
horrifying and the suffering of the victims is painful to contemplate. But it's
the terrible nature of the murders that often makes prosecutors, judges, or
police officers commit errors that eventually result in reversal.
"The emotions are so high that people cut corners," Baumgartner said. "Once
we've demonized them (the accused) enough, it's hard to be concerned about
their constitutional rights."
Of the 28 executions in Louisiana, 25 occurred between 1977 and 1988 for crimes
committed between 1977 and 1984. Only 2 executions have been carried out in
Louisiana since 2001 and 1 was voluntary (the most recent execution, in 2010).
The busiest period for executions was June 1987-June 1988 when 11 people were
sent to the electric chair, with 8 in the summer of 1987 alone.
In an era where politicians scramble to curb government spending and reduce the
state's deficit, Baumgartner and Lyman believe the death penalty is exceedingly
costly to maintain.
"Can we afford this? What are we getting out of this?" Lyman asked.
Baumgartner believes that regardless of whether or not a person is morally
opposed to capital punishment, the current system is flawed, unwieldy and
expensive considering the amount of reversals that occur.
"We really have to confront the death penalty as how it exists, not how we wish
it would exist," Baumgartner said.
Both Baumgartner and Lyman believe Louisiana's death penalty cases are unfair
to everyone involved.
"Nobody wins with this system - the taxpayers don't win, the victims' families
don't win, and the inmates don't win," Baumgartner said.
(source: The Louisiana Weekly)
TENNESSEE:
Jury selection starts this week in 1st-degree murder, death penalty case
A jury will be selected this week in the trial of a man facing 1st-degree
murder charges in the death of his 79-year-old uncle, whose body was found
hidden underneath an apartment staircase in Claxton in 2012, authorities said.
Jury selection in the trial of Norman Lee Follis Jr., 52, is scheduled for
Wednesday through Friday this week, and the trial is scheduled to continue on
Monday, May 9, in Anderson County Criminal and Circuit Court in Clinton. 3 days
have been scheduled for the trial next week, although court officials said it's
possible that more time could be needed.
The state is seeking the death penalty against Follis and Tammy Sue Chapman,
47, who has also been charged with 1st-degree murder. The pair is accused of
killing Sammie J. Adams, 79, who was Follis' uncle, sometime between December
5, 2011, and January 24, 2012. Adams' body was found under a stairwell in his
home after friends and neighbors reported that they hadn't seen him in a while,
Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark said in an August 2014
press release.
Adams' age - he was over 70 - was an aggravating factor leading to the death
penalty request, Clark said.
It's the 1st death penalty case in Anderson County in decades. Deputy District
Attorney General Tony Craighead and Assistant DA Emily Abbott will prosecute
the case.
Follis is represented by defense attorneys Mart S. Cizek and Wesley D. Stone.
Follis and Chapman were indicted by a grand jury on the 1st-degree murder
charge in February 2014. They had both been previously charged with 1st-degree
murder.
There could be 3 death penalty trials this year: the 2 for Follis and Chapman
and one for Valerie Stenson, who has been charged in the death of her toddler
granddaughter, Manhattan Inman.
Besides 1st-degree murder, Follis and Chapman are facing additional charges.
Their February 2014 indictments alleged the couple obtained a 1997 Mercury
Marquis owned by Adams, as well as the keys to his home, without his
permission. Follis will also be facing charges of property theft over $1,000
and forgery in his trial this week and next.
A trial for Chapman has been scheduled starting August 9. Besides 1st-degree
murder, her charges include property theft over $1,000 and being an accessory
after the fact.
Adams' body was allegedly found underneath an apartment staircase on Patt Lane,
which is off Raccoon Valley Road across Clinton Highway from Edgemoor Road.
Clark said the state has requested the death penalty only 1 other time in
Anderson County (the Seventh District) in recent memory. A trial in that case,
the Valerie Stenson case, is scheduled to start September 21.
Authorities have alleged that Manhattan Inman, who was 18 months old and
Stenson's granddaughter, was found dead in a home on Teller Village Lane in Oak
Ridge on April 17, 2011.
The Anderson County Grand Jury indicted Stenson for 1st-degree murder and 4
counts of aggravated child abuse and neglect in 2012. Later, she was indicted
on 9 more counts of aggravated child abuse, aggravated child neglect, and
aggravated child endangerment in cases involving 3 other children.
Clark earlier said that aggravating circumstances in that murder case included:
--It was committed against someone younger than 12 by someone older than 18.
--It was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel "in that it involved torture
or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death."
Follis, Chapman, and Stenson all remain jailed in the Anderson County Detention
Facility in Clinton.
(source: Oak Ridge Today)
USA:
Breyer Renews Attack, Alone, on Capital Punishment
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer resumed his critique of the death
penalty in America on Monday, but without the help of any other justice.
Breyer alone dissented from the court's denial of review in Boyer v. Davis, a
California case in which inmate Richard Boyer claims that his extended stay on
death row - he was sentenced to death 32 years ago - violates the Eighth
Amendment.
Referring specifically to California's death row, Breyer wrote that the state
has executed "only a small, apparently random set of death row inmates" in
recent years. "A vast and growing majority remained incarcerated, like Boyer,
on death row under a threat of execution for ever longer periods of time."
Breyer quoted from his own dissent in the 2015 decision Glossip v. Gross, where
he declared that "the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a
legally prohibited 'cruel and unusual punishmen[t]'" under the Eighth
Amendment.
In that dissent, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breyer listed the
defects he saw in the administration of the death penalty. In his dissent from
denial on Monday, he invoked three of those "defects."
"Put simply," Breyer wrote, "California's costly administration of the death
penalty likely embodies 3 fundamental defects about which I have previously
written: "(1) serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3)
unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological
purpose."
Boyer was convicted on charges he murdered an elderly couple in Fullerton,
California in 1982. His 1st trial ended in a mistrial, and his conviction and
death sentence were reversed by the California Supreme Court. He had a 3rd
trial in1992, and his appeal was denied by the high court in 2006.
"These delays are the result of a system that the California Commission on the
Fair Administration of Justice, an arm of the State of California, has labeled
dysfunctional," Breyer wrote. "The commission added that California's death
penalty system was expensive, with its system for capital cases costing more
than 10 times what the commission estimated the cost would be for a system that
substituted the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of
parole."
In an interview with The National Law Journal last year, Breyer said he had
been working on his Glossip dissent "for a while" and waited for a case to come
along in which he could use it. "This case was there and it seemed an
appropriate place to say what I thought on the issue. I thought we should use
that case, as I said in the opinion, to go into the basic problem here, which I
thought was whether the death penalty itself is constitutional."
Asked then if he thought the dissent would result in an end to capital
punishment soon, Breyer said, "I am going to be Yogi Berra. I never make
predictions, especially about the future."
(source: nationallawjournal.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 2 16:25:20 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 16:25:20 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605021625120.6212@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 2
PHILIPPINES:
Miriam wants death penalty re-imposed
Presidential candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago now wants the death penalty
re-imposed following rampant criminality in the streets and thievery in
government.
She bared her change of mind on capital punishment during a no-holds barred
interview with STAR editors and reporters at the newspaper's offices in Port
Area, Manila last Saturday.
Santiago said she voted against re-imposing the death penalty when it was
discussed in the Senate.
"But today, yung mga ginagawa ng mga kababayan natin, eh makakapatay ka talaga
eh (With what our countrymen are doing, you would really want to kill). Yes,
I'm seriously reconsidering my previous decision."
Santiago said the influence of the Catholic Church had also swayed her previous
decision.
"Before the arguments were very clear-cut," she said. "And I felt I had no
choice because of the lobby of the Catholic Church perhaps."
Santiago said she also wants death penalty for plunderers.
"The moment (one) flunks an ... investigation, off you go," she said.
Santiago remains optimistic on her chances in the presidential race despite the
"commercial survey firms," which she said were in a conspiracy with her rivals
to force her to withdraw.
Santiago said she was still "enthusiastic," although the campaign had taxed her
physically.
"I could have rested but instead I went stumping all over the country and they
(grabbed) me all around," she said. "But I'm very enthusiastic because the
crowds are so big, you can see them on TV."
(source: Philippine Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 3 11:15:58 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:15:58 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., ALA.,
LA., UTAH, ID., CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605031115500.8104@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 3
TEXAS:
District Attorney to Seek Death Penalty for 3 in San Angelo Capital Murder Case
On Aug. 31, 2015, at approximately 4:05 a.m., 4 suspects forced entry into
69-year-old William Valdez's home, demanding money before they shot him. The
gunshot caused severe injury to Valdez, and resulted in the loss of a kidney,
spinal chord injury and a perforated colon. Valdez succumbed to his injuries on
Sept. 16.
The 4 suspects involved in the case, Elisa Victoria Losoya, 29, Eric Martinez,
26, Fernando Lavaris, 29, and Jonathan Marin, 27, all from San Angelo, were
arrested for the crime and indicted on Nov. 23, 2015 for Capital Murder by
Terror Threat.
Last month, on April 5, 2016, 51st District Attorney Allison Palmer submitted
the State of Texas' Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty should Losoya,
Lavaris and Marin be found guilty. On Nov. 23, 2015, Palmer submitted the
State's intent to waive the death penalty on Martinez.
According to court documents, during the early morning hours of Aug. 31,
William's son, G. Valdez, heard his dog barking and someone banging on his
sliding glass door. G. Valdez went outside to the front yard and observed
Losoya in the driveway. Losoya approached G. Valdez and told him they needed to
talk.
"[G. Valdez] was fearful and retreated back inside the house to call police,"
said the complaint. "[He] locked the front door. [He] heard [the] sliding glass
door being broken into as he entered his bedroom."
At that point, G. Valdez closed his bedroom door and heard the front door being
kicked open. He heard a male voice ask, "Where's the money?" The man also
warned, "Do not call the police."
That's when G. Valdez heard gunshots in his father's bedroom. Because he was
fearful of being shot, G. Valdez waited before exiting his bedroom.
"[G. Valdez] observed the back door open and believed [Losoya] and an unknown
male had fled through [it]," read the complaint.
G. Valdez found his father on the floor by his bed, and stayed with him until
SAPD officers arrived. The complaint notes that William Valdez had been shot
under his left arm, approximately 4-6 inches from his armpit. When officers
arrived, they assisted William with his gunshot injury and transported him to
Shannon Hospital for emergency surgery.
Later, G. Valdez was presented with a composed photo lineup and positively
identified Losoya, who "frequents his game room (Silver Sweeps) businesses."
G. Valdez believes, based on the unknown male's statement referencing money,
that a robbery attempt had taken place.
In addition to William's injuries, Detective Jason Chegwidden and SAPD Crime
Scene personnel recovered a bullet and bullet fragments from the scene.
Additionally, 2 9mm casings were recovered.
Losoya, Lavaris and Marin will be the 1st capital murder suspects to face the
death penalty in Tom Green County in almost 17 years.
The last individual to face the death penalty in Tom Green County was Luis
Ramirez, who was sentenced to death by a jury on May 14, 1999 for the murder of
San Angelo Firefighter Nemecio Nandin. He was executed Oct. 20, 2005.
At the time, in regards to the death penalty, Palmer said, "We have to do what
we believe is the right thing; we do what we believe justice dictates, and we
try to stay with what we believe our community standards have been."
Recently, Palmer stated she will not confer with San Angelo LIVE! on any of her
cases; however, she acknowledged the rise in capital murders since 2013
previously, and said execution will always remain an option in capital murder
cases unless repealed by the Texas Legislature.
(source: sanangelolive.com)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Prosecution cites DNA evidence as trial begins in killing of Wolfe
sisters----Prosecution relying on DNA evidence to link Allen Wade Jr. to the
crime scene. Defense says case is sloppy and contaminated.
Matthew Buchholz and Sarah Wolfe had been together about 8 months after meeting
in May 2013 on an online dating site.
So, on Feb. 7, 2014, when Sarah, 38, didn't show up for work at Western
Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, her colleague sent Mr. Buchholz a message
asking if he could check on her. He immediately drove to her home on Chislett
Street to see if she was there. As he was knocking on the door, a Pittsburgh
police officer arrived to check on Susan Wolfe, Sarah's sister, because she had
not shown up at work as a teacher's aide at the Hillel Academy in Squirrel Hill
that day.
"It was not like either one of them not to show up," he said.
After Mr. Buchholz drove to his nearby home to get a spare key, he and the
officer went inside. First, Mr. Buchholz glanced in the living room and saw
nothing. Then, he noticed that the basement door was ajar. He stuck his head
down the steps.
"I just saw a pair of bare legs in the basement," he testified Monday. "I
immediately pulled back and shouted for the officer."
As he turned to run out of the home and collapse on the front porch, he
continued, Mr. Buchholz noticed the table in the entryway was broken, and there
was blood on the walls. He alternated, he said, between numbness and sobbing.
"All I ever saw was a pair of legs."
Mr. Buchholz was the 1st of 5 witnesses called by the prosecution on Monday in
the opening day of trial for Allen Wade. The 45-year-old is charged with 2
counts of criminal homicide, burglary, robbery, theft and related charges.
The trial before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski is
expected to last about 3 weeks. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty.
During the afternoon, Kenneth Clark, the forensic pathologist who conducted the
Wolfe sisters' autopsies, testified, telling the jury that both victims died of
a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Susan Wolfe, 44, who was found
naked and prone in front of the washer and dryer, also sustained seven blunt
trauma strikes to the back of her head.
Sarah Wolfe, who was found clothed and with a comforter covering her face, had
some injuries to her extremities but not the severe wounds to her head.
During opening statements on Monday morning, assistant district attorney
William Petulla outlined the prosecution's case.
"The commonwealth is going to prove its case through the blunders and mistakes
of Allen Wade - through time, math and science," the prosecutor said. "All
roads lead back to Allen Wade."
Police believe that Susan was killed first, and that Sarah was killed when she
returned home later.
Mr. Petulla described in brutal detail the savage beating endured by Susan
Wolfe, telling the jury that the steps and walls of the home's unfinished,
"dungeon-like" basement were smeared in blood, like a "sinister and sadistic
and vulgar tapestry."
But, he continued, "As vulnerable as Susan Jeanette Wolfe was, she didn't go
down without a fight. Whether through a clutch, a scratch, a grab, she reached
out to her attacker that night, and she got DNA from him under her nails."
It was the DNA of Wade, their next-door neighbor, which had not been masked by
bleach and detergent poured on the scene.
"If this was the 1st mistake Allen Wade made, it was far from the last."
Mr. Petulla showed the jury a map of the neighborhood, showing where, he said,
he believes Wade drove Sarah Wolfe's car near the Carnegie Library's East
Liberty branch and parked at 12:32 a.m., and then a few minutes later, when he
walked past the security cameras of an apartment complex on Highland Avenue,
before walking to a Citizens Bank branch where he used Sarah Wolfe's ATM card
to take out $600. The prosecutor showed the jurors where police believe Wade
removed his sweatpants and left them near a Midas muffler shop and later when
they said that same man went to a Sunoco station to buy cigarettes and threw
away a pen with the words "Iowa Prison Industries."
The sisters grew up in Clinton, Iowa.
Later, when police found the sweatpants, Mr. Petulla said, there was a business
card with them with the name of a UPMC social worker on it. Susan Wolfe was one
of his clients, the prosecutor continued. A knit cap was found nearby, as well.
And near there, a pair of socks.
"Each one of these items has Allen Wade's DNA on them," the prosecutor said,
noting that the socks also had trace amounts of Susan Wolfe's DNA on them.
But defense attorney Lisa Middleman, in her opening, told the jury that the
computer program linking her client???s DNA to the crime, TrueAllele, should
not be trusted.
The Allegheny County crime lab purchased the program from Mark Perlin's Oakland
company, Cybergenetics, years ago, Ms. Middleman said, but still does not use
it.
"This man will not tell anyone, precisely, how this program works," she said.
Dr. Perlin will not release its source code.
"The Allegheny County crime lab won't use it. They won't use it, but you're
supposed to?" she asked. "In a murder case? If he can't explain to you in a
clear, concise manner, what the results are, and how he arrived at them, you
should reject them."
Ms. Middleman said she'd show "the horrible folly of developing a theory and
trying to force your evidence to fit that theory."
Prosecutors were so determined to make its evidence fit Wade, she continued,
that they ignored things.
"You will hear, generally, about a lack of integrity in the prosecution's
case," Ms. Middleman said. "You will hear a story of sloppy investigation and
contamination - both at the scene and at the crime lab."
The defense attorney discounted the prosecution's video evidence, saying that
the suspect at the ATM was unidentifiable because he was covered from head to
toe in clothing, and that in another video, the suspect appears to be white.
She believed there was pressure on detectives because the victims were white,
employed women from an influential family.
"They needed an arrest, and they got one," she said.
Ms. Middleman told the jury that her client has an alibi - that he was home
that night, sitting on the couch, with his sleeping girlfriend's head in his
lap. It was also not a robbery, she said, as jewelry, electronics and
prescription drugs were left behind.
"It was personal."
(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Winston-Salem man charged with killing 2-year-old now faces death penalty
A Forsyth County judge approved a request to seek the death penalty against a
Winston-Salem man accused of killing a 2-year-old boy.
Daryl Jerome Reed, 26, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of Corey
Joseph Plater on Aug. 12, 2014.
On Monday, a Rule 24 hearing, in which prosecutors formally ask for the death
penalty, was held. Judge Stuart Albright of Forsyth Superior Court granted the
prosecutor's request.
Assistant District Attorney Belinda Foster said in court that one of the
aggravating factors in pursuing the death penalty was that Reed had previously
been convicted of abuse. Foster said Reed also was convicted in 2007 of armed
robbery. According to the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Reed served 5 years
and 7 months in prison.
Reed rejected a plea deal on March 2 that would have taken the death penalty
off the table. Under the plea arrangement, Reed would have pleaded guilty to
1st-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of parole. He said in court that taking the plea would not be in
his best interest.
He also told Albright that he wanted to fire Julie Boyer, who was his attorney
at the time. Albright denied that request but Boyer withdrew from the case
after she received information about a conflict she had in the case. She
consulted with the N.C. State Bar, which said she had to withdraw and that she
could not disclose what the conflict was to anyone, including Reed.
Marie Hutto, a Winston-Salem lawyer, has been assigned to represent Reed and
was at Monday's hearing. Because Reed is now facing the death penalty, he will
be assigned a 2nd attorney, who will be appointed by the Capital Defender's
Office.
Winston-Salem police went to a house in the 2800 block of Piedmont Circle about
5:50 p.m. on Aug. 12, 2014. They found Corey in the bathroom, according to the
autopsy report. Corey died from a laceration of the liver caused by blunt force
trauma to his abdomen, meaning the 2-year-old boy was punched or hit in the
stomach, according to the medical examiner's findings. Corey also had bruises
on the left side of his face near his mouth and contusions on his upper right
chest and on his forehead.
The autopsy report said police believed Corey had been struck, possibly with a
belt.
Police said Reed and another adult had been taking care of Corey and that Reed
had been dating one of Corey's relatives. Police have not released the names of
either the other adult or the relative Reed had been dating.
No trial date has been set. Reed is in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond
allowed.
(source: Winston-Salem Journal)
FLORIDA:
3 former Florida Supreme Court chief justices urge court to overturn hundreds
of death sentences
3 former chief justices of the Florida Supreme Court and a group of legal
scholars and death penalty opponents want the state's highest court to overturn
hundreds of death sentences in Florida.
Former chief justices Harry Lee Anstead, Rosemary Barkett and Gerald Kogan
issued a friend-of-the-court brief in the pending case of Timothy Lee Hurst, a
death row inmate from Pensacola whose precedent-setting case resulted in the
U.S. Supreme Court declaring Florida's death row sentencing system
unconstitutional because it gave too little power to the jury in death cases.
The 7 justices will hear oral arguments Thursday on Hurst's petition to have
his death sentence reduced to life without parole for 1st-degree murder.
The 3 former chief justices write that "a straightforward application" of
Florida's death penalty law should now be interpreted to mean that "persons
previously sentenced to death for a capital felony prior to the decision in
Hurst v. Florida are entitled to have their death sentences replaced by
sentences replaced by sentences of life without parole." If the court agrees
with that argument, all 390 inmates currently awaiting death for capital crimes
would spend the rest of their lives in state prison.
Anstead, Barkett and Kogan were all appointed by Democratic governors. In their
brief, the justices were joined by Sandy D'Alemberte, a former American Bar
Association president, FSU president and state legislator; Martha Barnett, a
retired senior partner of the Holland & Knight law firm; Henry (Hank) Coxe, a
Jacksonville criminal defense lawyer and former president of the Florida Bar;
the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers; Florida Capital Resource
Center; and Florida Center for Capital Representation at the FIU College of Law
in Miami.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, on behalf of Florida's 20 million residents, has
taken the position that executions in Florida should continue.
(source: tampabay.com)
ALABAMA:
Innocence Commission proposal likely to die in Alabama House
A bill to create an Innocence Commission to review Alabama death penalty cases
is on its last legs in the state Legislature, which ends its session this week.
If the bill fizzles, so does much of the chance for a retrial for Billy
Kuenzel, the Goodwater man who still claims innocence in the 1987 murder that
sent him to death row.
"I'm extremely disappointed," said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, the
bill's sponsor. "I think the House chose to sit on this bill until it was
killed by committee inaction."
Brewbaker's bill would have created a 9-member commission to review the
convictions of death row inmates who make a claim of innocence and who can
bring evidence that has never been heard in a court before.
>From the outset, the bill seemed tailor-made to 1 inmate: Kuenzel, who was
convicted in 1988 of the murder of Sylacauga convenience store clerk Linda Jean
Offord.
Kuenzel was convicted on the testimony of a co-defendant, Harvey Venn, who told
investigators he waited in a car while Kuenzel entered the store and shot
Offord. The only other witness to place Kuenzel at the scene was a teen who
said she spotted Kuenzel at the store while riding by in a passing car. Police
found blood on Venn's pants, but there was no physical evidence tying Kuenzel
to the crime.
Kuenzel's lawyers in 2010 found grand jury testimony in which the passer-by
witness said she wasn't sure who she saw at the store. Arguing that state law
prohibits a murder conviction based solely on a co-defendant's testimony,
Kuenzel's lawyers have tried to seek a retrial, but courts so far have rejected
the case, largely because the inmate's earlier legal team missed a filing
deadline.
Days after the Alabama Supreme Court rejected Kuenzel's most recent appeal,
Brewbaker acknowledged on the Senate floor that his bill was inspired by
Kuenzel's case, and would allow him and perhaps one other inmate to have their
cases reviewed. The Senate passed his bill 20-6.
A month later, with the legislative session set to end as early as Wednesday,
the House Judiciary Committee has yet to act on the bill. The committee held an
impromptu meeting Thursday night, but voted to carry the bill over to a future
meeting. No such meeting has been scheduled so far.
Attempts to reach Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Jones, R-Andalusia,
since Friday were unsuccessful. A committee member, Rep. Chris England,
D-Tuscaloosa, says Brewbaker himself called for the bill to be put on hold
Thursday.
"It was carried over at the request of the sponsor," England said. "I don't
know why; you'll have to ask him."
Brewbaker said he did stop pushing for the bill on Thursday, but only because
the long delay in the House committee made it clear there was little chance of
passage.
"With everything that is going to be happening on the House floor in the next
couple of days, I didn't see how this bill would make it," Brewbaker said. "I
didn't want to get anyone's hopes up."
England said he supports the basic idea of the bill.
"I think it's at least a good concept," he said. "It may need some work, but we
should do as much as we can to make sure people who are convicted are in fact
guilty."
He described the bill as "dead" after Thursday's meeting.
A House staffer said the Judiciary Committee could meet with as little as 4
hours' notice and still send bills to the full House on Tuesday. The bill would
still have to pass other hurdles, including a vote in the powerful Rules
Committee, before it reaches the House floor.
Kuenzel's lawyers have repeatedly declined comment on the bill.
The Legislature reconvenes at 1 p.m. Tuesday. (source: Anniston Star)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana conservatives rethinking the death penalty ---- Some death penalty
advocates are rethinking their position as Louisiana grapples with a huge
deficit
In 1999, 6 men attempted a notorious escape from the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola. In the mayhem, a guard was beaten to death with a
hammer.
One of the inmates was killed, and the others, who became known as "the Angola
5," already were serving life sentences for other crimes. Prosecutors sought
the death penalty, and 5 capital murder trials ensued. 17 years later, none has
been executed. 3 either have pleaded guilty and received life sentences or
gotten juries that refused the death penalty.
Estimates show that last year more than $14 million was spent on just one of
those death penalty cases. Since then, a court ruling has reduced the number of
death sentences in that case to 2 - but because both defendants are still
exhausting appeals, the cost of trying to execute the 2 continues to climb.
Recent estimates also show that Louisiana spends about $10 million a year on
indigent capital defense - a number that doesn't cover the total cost of the
death penalty. That cost also includes housing inmates on death row, jury costs
and prosecutorial fees.
"Now, as Gov. John Bel Edwards attempts to close a nearly $600 million state
budget shortfall - a deficit that will result in cuts across numerous state
agencies - the price of the death penalty has lawmakers and taxpayers alike
questioning its value in Louisiana.
Among those shaking heads is state Rep. Steve Pylant, a conservative Republican
and the retired sheriff of Franklin Parish. Pylant long had supported the death
penalty as a moral issue, but in April he said he's shifting his viewpoint
given the fiscal burden the policy puts on the state.
"I think we've gotten to a place in a society that we live in that we have
regressed," Pylant said during a House committee meeting. "Maybe it's time we
rethink the situation and look at the death penalty. It may have come to that
point."
Many in Louisiana still publicly support the death penalty, at least in
concept, and experts who oppose it say it's unlikely the state will abolish the
practice any time soon.
But longtime conservatives who conclude it's too expensive in today's climate
aren't a political novelty. According to Death Penalty Information Center
Executive Director Robert Dunham, it's a trend.
"If money grows on trees, what it costs to finance the death penalty doesn't
matter," Dunham said. "But when Louisiana, for example, faces an extreme budget
crisis and cannot fund basic services, the question becomes, 'What is more
important for the public good: health care and education, or death sentences?'"
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of the reform group
Equal Justice USA founded in 2013, backs up Durnham. The group supports the
death penalty's growing opposition among conservative - and "very conservative"
- Americans who believe in fiscal responsibility and are pro-life, yet see
those qualities as incompatible with capital punishment.
"People have been against the death penalty for years, but didn't have an
outlet," Marc Hyden, national coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the
Death Penalty, told Red Alert Politics, an online publication for young
conservatives, in March.
Like other pro-death penalty states, Louisiana has faced scrutiny recently for
its death penalty practices.
In March, Michael Wearry became the 58th death row inmate in the state since
2000 to have his conviction overturned. His case is one of 129 reversals
(versus 28 executions) since 1977. Former inmate Glenn Ford was exonerated in
2014, after spending 30 years on death row. After his release, the prosecutor
in the case issued a public apology, calling the trial "fundamentally unfair"
because of an inexperienced defense and key evidence being withheld.
But when considering abolition of the death penalty, what resonates most with
legislators across party lines isn't the risk of wrongful conviction, the
question of prosecutorial conduct or argument over cruel and unusual punishment
- it's money.
"We hear about innocence and DNA and all that, but the point at which you to
begin to see an emerging drop in support of the death penalty among
conservatives was after the recession," Dunham said. "When you don't have money
to pay for basic functions and you're watching government collapse, you have to
ask questions you would of any other policy: Is it cost-effective?"
No comprehensive study has been completed that determines exactly how much the
death penalty costs Louisiana taxpayers. In 2014, the Legislature tasked the
Fiscal Impact Commission to study costs associated with capital defense,
prosecution and time on death row. It was slated to be finished this year, but
now isn't due until January 2018.
The issue has been researched in other states, however, and the results are
stark. In Nevada, the public spends an average of $500,000 more on death
penalty cases than it does on similar cases that call for lesser sentences,
such as life without possibility of parole, according to a 2014 state audit. In
Washington, a Seattle University study last year found that each death penalty
case cost an average of $1 million more than non-capital cases. A study
released in California in January found that the state spends roughly $307.7
million per execution. The number was based solely on incarceration costs and
doesn't take into account the additional costs of the appeals process, capital
trials or legal representation for inmates facing the death penalty.
Given the fiscal burden of the death penalty, legislators now are considering
bills to ensure new capital cases don't drive Louisiana further into debt.
The Louisiana House of Representatives has passed House Bill 1137 by Rep.
Sherman Mack, R-Albany, which would require the Louisiana Public Defender Board
to spend more of its budget on local public defender districts. Mack chairs the
House Criminal Justice Committee.
The bill, which was headed to a Senate judiciary committee in April, calls for
65 % of the state public defender board's $33 million in direct state funding
to go to local districts - a significant increase over the 50 % that goes there
now.
During an April hearing, local public defenders were divided on the proposed
law. Some felt it would secure much-needed funds to critically strapped
offices, while others said it wouldn't solve the bigger problem: that indigent
defense as a whole needs more money to work effectively.
Last week, a group of Louisiana district attorneys accused the statewide public
defender board of spending too much on private law firms that handle capital
cases and not enough on local public defender boards, which are struggling
financially. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association even alleged fiscal
mismanagement.
State Public Defender Jay Dixon disputed those claims. He told The Advocate the
private law firms are all nonprofits, and when local funds for public defender
offices are added in, only about one-sixth of the $66 million total spent
statewide on public defenders goes toward capital cases.
Supporters and opponents of the bill agree on one thing: The additional money
for local boards likely would come at the expense of statewide indigent capital
defense. With the state facing public defender budget crises, the board would
have nowhere else to draw money.
Currently about 28 % of the state public defender board's budget, or $9.5
million, is spent providing death penalty defense. It pays for mostly private
lawyers in nonprofit agencies to litigate about 40 capital cases.
By comparison, about $15 million of the public defender board's $33 million
budget goes to the local districts.
2 other bills filed in April - HB 1090, authored by state Rep. Cedric Glover,
D-Shreveport, and Senate Bill 450, authored by state Sen. Wesley Bishop, D-New
Orleans - would establish a Capital Cost Commission to determine if funds are
available before allowing capital prosecutions to proceed.
As of late April, the bills remained in committee. Opponents questioned whether
they would be too arbitrary, but supporters called the commission a best-case
scenario for limiting death penalty sentences.
Meanwhile, as lawmakers in Louisiana grapple with how to control death penalty
costs, a local criminal justice nonprofit has unveiled a new study showing the
majority of taxpayers in Louisiana no longer want to put their dollars behind
capital punishment.
According to a survey commissioned by the Promise of Justice Initiative, which
seeks to reform Louisiana's criminal justice system, 52 percent of taxpayers
throughout the state want to eliminate the death penalty.
The statewide poll of 600 Louisiana voters shows that respondents, by a 2-1
margin, prefer life sentences to the death penalty as a punishment for
1st-degree murder (the only crime in Louisiana punishable by a death sentence).
The declining support for capital punishment corresponds with a decline in
death sentences in Louisiana over the last 2 decades. During the 1980s and
1990s, Louisiana was sentencing approximately 80 people to death per decade.
Since then there's been a nearly 75 % decrease in new death sentences in the
state. Louisiana has sentenced 54 people to death since 2000, and only 1 person
was sentenced to death last year, according to Beth Compa, a staff attorney for
the Promise of Justice Initiative.
"People are coming away from the mid-'90s thought where 'tough on crime' was
best policy," Compa said. "With the number of wrongful executions and wrongful
convictions, it's so basic that people don't have to get into the weeds of
policy to understand it."
Local death penalty lawyers agree, including local attorney Nick Trenticosta.
Trenticosta, who has worked to abolish the death penalty since 1980, points to
his research: data compiled on every death sentence, exoneration and reversal
since 1977. It shows an 82 % reversal rate of death sentences handed down in
Louisiana in the past 40 years. That research was reinforced last month in a
new study released in the Journal of Race, Gender and Poverty, which also
showed Louisiana had double the number of exonerations than the national rate.
Statistically speaking, that means more than 60 % of inmates currently on death
row are likely to have their cases overturned - after the state spends millions
fighting their appeals.
"Are we getting our bang for our buck?" Trenticosta asked. "I'm still waiting
for someone to explain to me the cost-benefit analysis."
Louisiana long has been a pro-death penalty state, and high-profile politicians
have echoed that preference. During his tenure as governor, Bobby Jindal was an
outspoken supporter of applying the death penalty for cases of rape as well as
first-degree murder. "Child rape is in some ways worse than homicide," Jindal
has said.
Last year, then-Caddo Parish District Attorney Dale Cox gained notoriety for
saying Louisiana "should kill more people."
Hugo Holland, one of the prosecutors involved in the Angola 5 case, is another
outspoken supporter of capital punishment. In April, Holland told legislators
that attempts to fund capital defense is the work of "anti-capital punishment
zealots" on the Louisiana Public Defender Board, who are "trying to price it
out of existence" in the court system.
Holland spoke during a hearing on Mack's HB 1137, which the House subsequently
passed, saying the potential siphoning of funds from capital defense was one
reason he supported the bill, citing "the amount of time wasted in capital
cases because of the current system, the amount of money that's thrown at it."
Most Americans still support the death penalty for serious crimes. Last year,
61 % of Americans in a Gallup poll said they favor the death penalty; that
number represents a decline over previous decades. In 1994, 80 % supported the
death penalty. The Pew Research Center says support for the death penalty is at
its lowest since the early 1970s.
In Louisiana's current legislative session, at least some leading conservatives
are seriously reconsidering their support for the death penalty. In an April
interview with Gambit, House Criminal Justice Committee Chairman Mack said he,
too, might be changing his mind.
"Sometimes, you don't realize something until it hits you in the face," Mack
said. "While I can't say I've changed my position, I can tell you I'm thinking
about it. And that's what debate is about ... it allows you to consider
opinions of people around you that you normally might not have.
"As times change, opinions evolve."
(source: myneworleans.com)
UTAH:
Inmate admits murdering cellmate, now faces possible death sentence
An inmate pleaded guilty Monday to murdering another inmate at the Central Utah
Correctional Facility and now faces a possible death sentence.
No plea deal was offered to Steven Crutcher, 35, who pleaded guilty as charged
to aggravated murder, a capital offense.
A 12-member jury will be seated in January to determine whether Crutcher should
be sentenced to die or remain in prison without the possibility of parole.
On April 20, 2013, Rolando Cardona-Gueton, 62, was found dead in his prison
cell in Gunnison. After several months of investigation, Crutcher was charged
in Manti's 6th District Court. In July of 2014, prosecutors filed notice of
their intent to seek the death penalty.
Cardona-Gueton, a native Cuban, was in prison on a conviction of drug
possession.
Race is believed to be a motivating factor in the murder.
At the time of the killing, Crutcher was serving a sentence of 10 years to life
in prison for kidnapping an Iron County Jail officer in July of 2009 after
finishing a jail visit.
(source: KSL news)
IDAHO:
Lake Lowell sex rendezvous suspects could face death penalty
The 4 men who police say severely beat a man who later died of cardiac arrest
could face the death penalty.
On Monday, 3 Nampa residents, Kelly Schneider, 22, Kevin Tracy, 21, Jayson
Woods, 28, and Daniel Henkel, 23 of Caldwell were all arraigned in Canyon
County court.
The crime occurred just a few days ago, but deputies say they were able to make
arrests quickly because the victim lived long enough to tell law enforcement
what happened.
According to the Canyon County Sheriff, 49-year-old Steven Nelson was
responding to an internet add for sex which had been posted by 1 of the
defendants. Sheriff Donahue said Nelson then got in a car and was taken to
Gotts Point where the other defendants were waiting.
Court documents say Nelson was kicked repeatedly by someone wearing steel toed
boots, before being left stranded, beaten, and naked.
Between the 4 men who were arrested, there are a dozen charges and all of them
could face the death penalty. All of them are being held without bond and have
preliminary hearings scheduled for May 13.
(source: KBOI news)
CALIFORNIA:
Prosecutor: Evidence speaks for 10 'Grim Sleeper' victims
The victims were all young black women, some were prostitutes and most had been
using cocaine before their bodies were discovered in alleys in a rough part of
Los Angeles, hidden in trash bins or covered by mattresses or debris.
For decades, the serial killer dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" eluded police, dumping
at least 10 bodies and leaving one woman for dead after shooting her in the
chest.
After months of testimony, a prosecutor Monday said that the evidence
overwhelmingly points to Lonnie Franklin Jr. and speaks for the vulnerable
victims he silenced as he spent years hiding in plain sight.
"How do we figure out what happened here? How do we know who committed these
crimes?" Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman asked as she closed her case
in Los Angeles Superior Court.
"10 of the victims can't tell you themselves. The defendant took their voices
when he brutally murdered them. ... The evidence in this case is the voice of
the victims."
Franklin, 63, a former garbage collector who also worked as a mechanic for the
Los Angeles Police Department, could face the death penalty if convicted of the
slayings of a 15-year-old girl and nine young women. He has pleaded not guilty
to murder, as well as to attempted murder in the case of the woman who
survived.
Defense attorney Seymour Amster said victims had DNA from more than 1 man on
their bodies, and that more than 20 DNA tests excluded his client. Franklin is
1 of 3 men to face charges in slayings originally attributed to a single killer
called the "Southside Slayer" during the crack cocaine epidemic, when crime
spiked.
The killings Franklin is charged with were later dubbed the work of the "Grim
Sleeper" because while the 1st victim was found in 1985 and the last in 2007,
there was a 14-year gap when no bodies turned up, although prosecutors believe
his violence never ceased.
The most riveting witness was the sole known survivor.
Enietra Washington described being shot in the chest and sexually assaulted in
1988. She noticed her attacker taking a Polaroid picture of her as she slipped
into unconsciousness.
When Franklin was finally arrested 22 years later, the same photograph -
showing the wounded woman slouched over in a car - was one of many pictures
found in his house. When his arrest was announced six years ago, authorities
displayed dozens of photos of black women and appealed for the public's help in
identifying them. This trial has been focused on 11 victims, but police suspect
there were more.
Silverman said Franklin was connected to all 11 victims through ballistics or
DNA evidence. She also pointed out the similarities: Most were shot in the left
side of the chest with a .25 caliber pistol, or strangled.
Their bodies were all found in alleys, where they were dumped in bushes or
dumpsters or hidden under mattresses. Franklin targeted women who were "willing
to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their dependency on
this powerful drug," Silverman said earlier. Family members wept, and some
doubled over to avoid looking as photos of partly naked and decomposing bodies
were shown to the jury on a big screen.
Franklin, wearing black-framed glasses and a blue dress shirt, stared straight
ahead in court, showing no emotion during all-day arguments that continue
Tuesday.
The body of Janecia Peters, the final victim, was found in a fetal position in
a trash bin, her red nails visible through a hole in a garbage bag that was
discovered by someone rifling through the trash. Franklin's DNA was found on a
zip tie securing the bag.
20 years earlier and only a block away, another victim, Bernita Sparks, was
found.
"Is that merely another coincidence?" said Silverman, who described the
agonizing way Peters had been strangled for 2 to 3 minutes after suffering a
paralyzing shot in the back.
Franklin was finally arrested in 2010 after a police officer posed as a pizza
parlor bus boy to collect DNA samples from dishes and utensils he used at a
birthday party.
Amster said in his closing that prosecutors had built a circumstantial case
using inferior science and patterns that were nothing more than illusions. He
said Franklin was obsessed with sex and could have spread his DNA to the
breasts of murder victims because he often gave women bras and other garments.
"His DNA is probably on more women out there than we'll ever know," Amster
said, noting it wasn't a morality case.
Amster compared government work in the case to a rancher who calls himself a
marksman after drawing bullseyes around bullet holes in his barn.
(source: Associated Press)
*******************
U.S. Supreme Court turns down appeal of O.C. killer on death row
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal by an Orange County killer
who has spent more than 2 decades on death row.
The appeal by convicted murderer Richard Boyer argued that keeping someone
incarcerated for so long under the threat of execution is a violation of the
inmate's Constitutional rights.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that a 2008 report by the California
Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice described the state's death
penalty system as "dysfunctional."
The report pointed out that more California death row inmates have committed
suicide than have been executed by the state.
More than 900 people have been sentenced to death since 1978, including 64
people from Orange County. Only 13 have actually been executed, none since
2006.
Boyer was convicted of stabbing and bludgeoning to death an elderly Fullerton
couple during a December 1982 home robbery.
His 1992 trial ended in conviction and his current death row sentence.
(source: Orange County Register)
*********************
Justice Breyer Insists Death Penalty Is Cruel, Even When Supreme Court
Won't----The latest case comes from California, where 743 people wait on death
row.
Justice Stephen Breyer wanted to hear the California case, but the court said
no.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the case of a death-row inmate
that might have struck down California's death penalty system.
The court's rejection was just the usual two words: "Petition denied." But in a
separate dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer felt compelled to go
further, if only to beat the drum he's been beating since last summer: that the
death penalty overall is likely unconstitutional.
He suggested there's probably no better example of this than the dysfunctional
regime run by the Golden State.
"Put simply, California's costly administration of the death penalty likely
embodies three fundamental defects about which I have previously written,"
Breyer noted, pointing to his own 2015 dissent in Glossip v. Gross, the Supreme
Court's last major showdown over the constitutionality of sentencing a person
to die.
Breyer wrote that those 3 defects - "serious unreliability," "arbitrariness in
application" and unconscionably "long delays" in meting out the punishment -
were all evident in the case of Richard Delmer Boyer, the inmate whose appeal
the court turned away on Monday.
Boyer was first sentenced to death 32 years ago for the robbery and murder of
an elderly couple. But that was only the beginning of his court battles, which
by now include a mistrial, a conviction reversed on the grounds that it was
unconstitutional, and multiple appeals. There was even an earlier trip to the
Supreme Court in 2006.
"In all, 22 years elapsed between his 1st trial and our denial of his petition
for certiorari on direct appeal," Breyer wrote, referring to Boyer's 2006
appeal.
In this latest round, Boyer petitioned the Supreme Court to consider whether
this whole painfully slow process leading up to execution - which he called
"psychologically inhumane" - violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishment.
Without directly addressing that claim, Breyer recited the facts: that the
system is prohibitively expensive, that more than 10 % of the death sentences
doled out in California are ultimately reversed, that many prisoners on death
row die "of natural causes" long before they are put to death, that there are
more death row suicides than actual executions, and that the small percentage
of those who are actually executed seem to constitute a "random" group.
All of this, the justice said, was reason enough to take Boyer's case.
One detail Breyer left out: California has the most populous death row in the
country with 743 inmates, some of them waiting for decades. And not a single
execution has taken place since 2006. Only 13 men have been put to death in
California since 1978, when the state restored the punishment after a Supreme
Court-driven hiatus.
Maybe California's experiment with capital punishment, on which it has spent
some $4 billion since 1978, should be called off for good.
(source: Huffington Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 3 11:17:29 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:17:29 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605031117170.8104@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 3
IRELAND:
1916 court martials and executions: Sean MacDiarmada----Proclamation likely a
factor in death sentence
Sean MacDiarmada's court martial was one of the lengthiest of those carried out
involving the leaders of the Rising.
In addition to the charge of staging an armed rebellion with the intention of
assisting the enemy, MacDiarmada faced an additional charge of causing
"disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty".
He was found guilty of the former charge, but not guilty of the latter.
His court martial took place on May 9th, 1916, and was presided over by Lieut
Col Douglas Sapte assisted by Lieut Col Philip Bent and Maj Francis Woodward.
More time was taken over MacDiarmada's trial presumably because of pressure on
Gen John Maxwell from London to ensure that proper procedure was followed.
The 1st witness for the prosecution was Det Constable Daniel Hoey of the Dublin
Metropolitan Police, who was later assassinated by Michael Collins's "squad"
during the War of Independence.
Hoey said he had observed John McDermott (as he was known to the police) for 3
1/2 years and saw him associate with the leaders of the Irish Volunteers
including Thomas Clarke, Patrick Pearse and Joseph Mary Plunkett.
Hoey said the Irish Volunteer newspaper was MacDiarmada's chief source of
income. A copy of the newspaper was produced as evidence.
Second Lieut WH Ruxton of the 3rd Royal Irish Rifles said he encountered
MacDiarmada on the last day of the Rising when they were gathering surrendered
rebels at the top of Parnell Street.
MacDiarmada, who was struck down by polio in 1911 and lost the use of one leg,
told him that he could not walk to custody. Ruxton continued: "One of the
others told me his leg was paralysed. I asked the accused, 'how did you get
into this affair?' The accused replied to the effect that he had his place in
the organisation."
It would appear from MacDiarmada's file that the court martial members wished
to establish that the man known to the authorities as John McDermott was
actually Sean MacDiarmada.
Edward Gannon, a clerk at Mountjoy Jail, recounted that the accused had spent
time there in June 1915 and had signed his name Sean MacDiarmada.
The bottom half of the Proclamation with MacDiarmada's signature also appears
in his court martial file, but there is no account of the sequence of events
that led it to it being produced as evidence.
Maxwell was under a lot of political pressure to stay the executions so the
production of the Proclamation as evidence may have been significant in his
decision to approve the death penalty for MacDiarmada and Connolly.
Also there is a note written by MacDiarmada on Easter Monday which was produced
in evidence. It states: "I want all you men to report to me at Liberty Hall by
11am, today Monday with full equipment - Sean MacDiarmada."
He was the penultimate leader of the rebellion to be executed. He was shot by
firing squad on May 12th just before James Connolly's execution. In his last
letter he wrote to his brothers and sisters, "I die that Ireland might live."
**********
1916 courts martial and executions: Willie Pearse----Was he executed because of
his name?
Willie Pearse, the brother of Patrick, was the only one of those who were
executed to have pleaded guilty at his court martial.
Willie Pearse was tried on May 3rd, 1916, the same day his brother was
executed.
The court martial members were Brig Gen Ernest Maconchy, Lieut Coll Arthur Bent
and Maj Francis Willoughby Woodward.
3 other volunteers, John Dougherty, John McGarry and JJ Walsh, were tried with
Willie Pearse and each received the death penalty, but their sentences were
commuted, Dougherty and Walsh to 10 years' penal servitude; McGarry to 8 years.
Evidence against them was given by Lieut SL King, of the 12th Royal
Inniskilling Fusiliers who was taken prisoner by the rebels outside Clerys and
held in the GPO for the week.
King claimed Dougherty pointed a rifle at him and told him that he would shoot
him if he did not put his hands up. Dougherty denied the claim.
McGarry protested that he had "no intention of assisting the enemy. I had no
position or rank of any sort".
Walsh went further, stating that he was only a private in the volunteers, was
completely immersed in his business and never fired a shot in the GPO. Instead
he claimed to have been on "water and sand duty" in the event of fire.
King reported seeing Willie Pearse and surmised that he was an officer, but did
not know his rank.
Though Willie Pearse pleaded guilty, he denied any involvement in the planning
of the Rising. "I had no authority or say in the arrangements for the starting
of the rebellion. I was throughout only a personal attache to my brother PH
Pearse. I had no direct command."
Many historians believe that Willie Pearse was only executed because he was
Patrick Pearse's brother. His execution took place on May 4th, the day after
his brother.
(source for both: The Irish Times)
INDONESIA:
Indonesia sets up firing squads for new executions that could include Lindsay
Sandiford
Indonesian police have set up "several" firing squads ready for deployment to a
notorious prison island as the country finalises preparations for a fresh wave
of executions of drug smugglers.
2 British death row inmates, including grandmother Lindsay Sandiford, could be
among the next batch of prisoners tied to a stake and executed.
Commander Aloys Darmanto, the Central Java police spokesman, said on Tuesday
that the provincial mobile brigade unit has established several firing squads
to be sent when needed to Nusakambangan prison island.
A larger execution ground is also reported to have been prepared as Indonesia
is expected to press ahead "within weeks" with putting drug traffickers to
death, after a 1-year hiatus.
"Everyone is ready, including prison officials," he told the Jakarta Globe.
It was on Nusakambangan last April that 14 convicts were executed, including 2
Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were leaders of the Bali 9
drug trafficking ring.
"All firing squads from the mobile brigade unit are preparing themselves for
the execution," Cdr Aloys said. "We are just waiting for further instructions
from the Attorney General."
He refused to reveal how many firing squad members have been trained as that
might indicate how many inmates will be executed.
"1 team will consist of 7 to 8 shooters," the officer said. "The number will be
adjusted later."
Muhammad Prasetyo, the attorney general, said in April that the next round of
executions would be carried out "soon" and that the inmates would include some
foreigners currently on death row. Executions could be implemented any time
from June, diplomats believe.
Sandiford, a grandmother from Cheltenham caught trying to smuggle cocaine into
Bali in 2013, is the most high profile foreigner on death row.
A fellow Briton, Gareth Cashmore, 36, was sentenced to death in 2012, a year
after he was initially given a punishment of life imprisonment when crystal
meth was found in his luggage.
Joko Widodo, the president, ordered the re-implementation of the death penalty
after he was elected in 2014, saying that the "war on drugs" was a national
priority.
Mr Widodo recently toured Europe, including a two-day stop in London for
meetings with David Cameron focused on lucrative trade deals. Mr Cameron raised
Sandiford's fate when he visited Jakarta last year, but it was not clear
whether he mentioned the cases of the Britons at their latest meeting.
The Indonesian leader seems certain not be influenced by public international
condemnation after forging ahead with last year's executions despite outrage in
Australia.
On the German leg of his European tour, he described drug trafficking as
"national emergency" after Chancellor Angela Merkel talked of her country's
opposition to capital punishment.
The Diplomat, a regional news website, reported that Luhut Pandjaitan, the
country's security chief, wants to ensure the next round of executions are
completed with less "commotion" than last year.
(source: telegraph.co.uk)
SINGAPORE:
Singapore's 'Jolly Hangman' About to Strike----Changing laws send murderer on
torturous trip through justice system
On Feb. 17, 2008, a 24-year-old Sarawakian migrant working in a rag and bone
company in Singapore was drinking an apparently potent substance called
"Narcissus Ginseng Wine Tonic" with 4 friends when they got the idea to rob
someone. After they split up and 3 of them went their separate way, Jabing and
his friend, Galing Anak Kujat, also from Sarawak, went after 2 Chinese workers
whom they assaulted for the cellphone of one, named Cao Ruyin.
Jabing sneaked up in back of Cao and brained him with a tree branch. The victim
sustained 14 skull fractures and a brain injury and died 6 days later. Jabing
sold the cellphone for S$300 and the 5 split the money, with the extra S$50
going for wine.
The celebration didn't last long. Jabing and Galing were arrested 6 days after
the crime. In 2010, a high court sentenced the pair to death by hanging under
what was then Singapore's mandatory statute. But the intervening 6 years
illustrate the changing nature of Singapore's death penalty laws, in the
meantime subjecting Jabing to a distressing trip through the justice system,
which now is likely to kill him despite having previously vacated and otherwise
delayed his death sentence.
24 Hours from Death
Jabing was 24 hours from being hanged in November last year when his lawyers
saved him with a stay of execution, if temporarily. He and his allies,
including many of the world's human rights organizations, are now hoping
against hope that a clemency petition to President Tony Tam will save him. Tam,
however, has already rejected clemency despite widespread appeals attempting to
get him to reverse his decision. Sources in Singapore say that is probably
unlikely.
The case has attracted the attention of a wide range of representatives of
other countries and human rights organizations including the United Nations
Human Rights Office for Southeast Asia, which issued a statement in April after
Jabing's sentence was most recently upheld by the Court of Appeal.
"We are gravely concerned that Mr. Kho is at imminent risk of hanging as the
court has lifted the stay of execution," said Laurent Meillan, OHCHR's acting
regional representative in Bangkok, in a prepared statement. "We are also
concerned that he has been forced to endure years of immense suffering as his
sentence has been changed on a number of occasions."
Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch,
called Singapore's decision to defend the death penalty "a further indication
of complete disregard for international human rights standards."
Death Penalty Stance Changes
Whatever happens to Jabing, over the past 2 decades Singapore's approach to
capital murder has changed markedly. In the mid-1990s, the country had the
world's second-highest execution rate, estimated by the United Nations at 12.83
executions per million people. The highest was Turkmenistan, which has since
abolished the death penalty.
Singapore has undergone a revolution of sorts. With an unofficial ban in place,
it didn't execute anyone between 2011 and 2013 although executions resumed in
2014 with 2 and in 2015 with 4. Jabing is the 1st to face the gallows in 2016
although there are believed to be about 30 individuals on death row. Singapore
doesn't print figures and its executions are not publicized. Normally the
family receives a letter a week before the execution, scheduled quietly and
with only the letter for advance notice.
The justice system received a good deal of unwelcome notice in 2010, when a
British author named Alan Shadrake wrote a book, Once a Jolly Hangman, that
charged the Singapore judiciary system with an appetite for hangings of the
poor and the young for murder, drug trafficking and firearms offences, but
allowing high-ranking criminals, wealthy foreigners and well-connected drug
lords to escape.
Shadrake made the mistake of flying back into Singapore for the book launch and
was promptly arrested and charged with 14 counts of contempt of court. He ended
up spending 6 weeks in a Singapore prison.
Bell Tolls for Murderers
Jabing and Galing were sentenced in July of 2010. At that time, conviction for
murder earned a mandatory death sentence. Both appealed, with Galing's lawyers
arguing that Jabing had led the way against Galing's wishes, but that he had
gone along with the crime. His conviction was downgraded to "robbery with
hurt," as the statutes call it, in May of 2011. Galing ended up receiving 18.6
years in prison and 19 strokes of the cane.
In 2012, as Singaporean attitudes began to change - although 95 % of the
general public approve of the death penalty - with the parliament amending the
penal code to allow for limited discretion in capital cases, permitting judges
to hand down life sentences with caning should circumstances warrant. All death
row inmates were allowed to have their death sentences reviewed by a High Court
Judge.
In November 2013, Jabing's lawyers appeared before Justice Tay Yong Kwang to
argue that the Narcissus Ginseng Wine Tonic, which had been classified by the
Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore as containing excessive levels
of methanol in 2009 could have poisoned him to the point where it affected his
mental state.
Although Tay rejected the submission since it hadn't been raised at either the
trial or the 2011 appeal, the judge downgraded Jabing's sentence to life
imprisonment and partly because of his age and partly because the branch he
picked up to brain Cao was lying on the pavement nearby and that the attack was
"opportunistic and improvisational and not part of a prearranged plan.
Jabing's celebration of deliverance - although 24 strokes of the cane is itself
a barbaric form of punishment - didn't last long. The prosecution appealed. On
Jan. 14, 2015, 3 of 5 judges in the Court of Appeal again sentenced Jabing to
death. 2 of the 5 dissented, saying the condemned man had been on death row for
6 years and that he had earlier been given a life sentence with caning.
"We urge Your Excellency to be merciful and to commute the death sentence of
Kho Jabing to one of life," said a letter requesting clemency signed by 14
Singaporean citizens. "Our judicial system is the best in the world. We cannot
and should not allow this case to tarnish this image. To us, it is a clear case
of bias because the judgement of the majority reveals this when the majority
judges refused to review findings of fact made in the CA (Conviction)
decision."
There are no more legal avenues open. "Jabing's only hope is for the Singapore
cabinet to advise the President to grant him clemency," the 14 Singaporeans
wrote in their appeal for clemency. "It is a long shot, but Jabing's family are
ready to try. And as long as they are willing to keep fighting, we will
continue to support and help them however we can."
(source: asiasentinel.com)
BANGLADESH:
4 Pakistan collaborators of Kishoreganj to hang, another gets prison until
death
A war crimes tribunal has handed down death sentence to four Razakars of
Kishoreganj and prison until death to another.
These 5 were found responsible for abductions, torture and killings to help
Pakistan to abort Bangladesh's birth in 1971.
The 3-member International Crimes Tribunal headed by Justice Anwarul Haque
delivered the verdict in Dhaka on Tuesday.
Only Kishoreganj lawyer Shamsuddin Ahmed among the convicts was present in the
dock when the judgment was read out.
His brother retired army captain Md Nasiruddin Ahmed, Razakar Commander Gazi
Abdul Mannan, Ajharul Islam and Hafiz Uddin are all fleeing from justice.
All of them, except Ajharul Islam, have been given the death penalty.
The trial had brought up the crimes against humanity they committed at a number
of villages in Kishoreganj's Karimganj Upazila during the Liberation War.
Their counsel said they will appeal against the verdict as they did not get
justice.
The prosecution said they were pleased with it.
The convicts now have 1 month to move the highest court.
The court in its verdict said the government would be able execute those
awarded the death penalty by hanging or shooting them until they are dead.
It has also ordered the home secretary and the inspector general of police to
take the initiative to arrest the fugitive convicts, and seek assistance from
the Interpol if needed.
Right after the judges finished reading out the verdict, Shamsuddin Ahmed, the
only convict present in court, said, "False witness, false judgment... Verdict
based on fake witnesses."
However, as he was speaking in very low volume, it was not clear whether the
judges heard his protest from the dock at the end of the courtroom.
Then he was taken to the tribunal's lockup. Some of his family members were
also present in the courtroom.
The sentences
All 5 were accused in charges 1, 3, and 4 brought by the prosecution for
abduction, torture in captivity, and murder.
Nasiruddin was accused of killing under charge 2, Shamsuddin of murders under
charge 5, Mannan of abduction, torture in captivity, and murder under Charge 6
and arson under Charge 7.
Charge 1: The killing of 8 and wounding of another of Bidyanagar and Ayla
villages of Kishoreganj's Karimganj from 1pm to 5pm on Nov 12, 1971.
Sentence: Death penalty for Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin and Mannan. Imprisonment
until death for Ajharul and Mannan.
Charge 2: The murder of Miah Hossain of Ayla Village on Nov 13.
Sentence: Death penalty for Nasiruddin.
Charge 3: Abduction and murder of Karimganj Upazila's Md Abdul Gafur at Khudir
Jungle Bridge on Sep 26.
Sentence: Death for Hafiz. Prison until death for Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin and
Ajharul. Mannan acquitted.
Charge 4: The abduction of Md Fazlul Rahman Master and his confinement to a
bungalow used by Peace Committee as their office. He was tortured and murdered
there on Aug 23.
Sentence: Prison until death for all 5.
Charge 5: The killing of Paresh Chandra Sarkar in Ramnagar village on Sep 7.
Sentence: Death penalty for Shamsuddin.
Charge 6: Abduction, torture and murder of Abu Bakar Siddik and Rupali from
Purba Nabaid Kalipur Village on Aug 25.
Sentence: Prison until death for Mannan.
Charge 7: The torching of 20 to 25 houses at Atkaparha village on Sep 15.
Sentence: Mannan sentenced to imprisonment for 5 years.
Shamsuddin Ahmed
Kishoreganj District Bar Association member Shamsuddin was born in 1956 at
Karimganj Upazila's Karimganj Madhyaparha village, according to his school
records.
The chargesheet said he had joined the Razakars during the war in 1971 and
engaged in war crimes in the district.
He went underground for a while after Bangladesh won the war against Pakistan,
but surfaced later.
He completed BA in 1982 and LLB in 1991. Four years later, he completed BEd
from Mymensingh Teachers Training College.
After working as a teacher since 1985, the war criminal retired in 2004 and
later enrolled in Mymensingh District Bar Association as an advocate.
Nasiruddin Ahmed
Born in 1954, former army captain Nasiruddin, Shamsuddin???s elder brother, had
joined the Razakars when the war broke out.
Both brothers received training from Razakar Commander Gazi Abdul Mannan,
according to the chargesheet.
Nasiruddin went into hiding like his brother after the war. After coming out,
he joined the army of independent Bangladesh.
The army sent him into forced retirement in 2002 over ethical grounds.
Gazi Abdul Mannan
Born in 1927 at Karimganj's Charparha, Mannan became a Razakar commander during
the war and was the local organiser of atrocities.
The court documents showed that he was directly involved in different crimes
against humanity including abduction, torture in captivity, murder and arson
along.
Hafiz Uddin
Hafiz was born in 1949 at Karimganj's Khudir Jungle. He received education in
local madrasas.
The war crimes tribunal's investigators had found proof of his involvement in
many crimes during the war after he joined the Razakar Force.
Ajharul Islam
Ajharul was born in 1956 at Karimganj's Haidhankhali village and received
education in local madrasas like Hafiz.
He was also involved in many war crimes in 1971 after he joined the Razakar
Force.
Case details
The prosecution's investigation team started their probe against these 5 war
criminals in June 2013 and finished it in November last year.
Police arrested Shamsuddin Ahmed from Mymensingh's Nandail on Nov 27, 2014.
The tribunal had taken the charges into cognisance 3 days after they were
submitted on May 10 last year. The 5 were indicted on Oct 12, which paved the
way for their trial.
25 people, including the investigation officer, testified to the prosecution,
but the defence produced no witnesses.
On Apr 11, the tribunal kept its verdict pending after the arguments ended.
23rd verdict
After coming into power in 2009, the Awami League-led government set up the
International Crimes Tribunal on Mar 25 in 2010 to try war criminals.
Tuesday's verdict, sentencing 4 Kishoreganj Razakars to death and imprisonment
until death to the 5th, was the 23rd announced by the tribunal.
In its 1st verdict, the special court had sentenced former Jamaat-e-Islami
Rukon Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar to death on Jan 21, 2013.
He has been absconding since the case was filed and has not appealed against
the verdict.
On Feb 5 that year, the tribunal sentenced Jamaat assistant secretary general
Abdul Quader Molla to life imprisonment, which sparked a nationwide campaign
demanding his death sentence.
Forced by the mass protest, the government amended the International Crimes
Tribunal Act, arming the State, like the defendants, with the right to appeal
against tribunal verdicts concerning war crimes.
Following a prosecution appeal, the Supreme Court, on Sep 17, revised Molla's
sentence to death penalty after finding him guilty of previously unproven
murders and rape.
The Jamaat leader was executed on Dec 12.
In its 3rd verdict, the tribunal sentenced senior Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain
Sayedee to death on Feb 28, 2013 for his wartime atrocities.
The Appellate Division, however, commuted the punishment to imprisonment until
death on Sep 17 last year after Sayedee, known as 'Deilya Razakar' in 1971,
appealed against the death sentence.
In the 4th verdict, another Jamaat Assistant Secretary General Mohammad
Kamaruzzaman was sentenced to death on May 9, 2013. He was executed on Apr 11
last year after the apex court upheld the sentence.
In the 5th judgment, the tribunal, on Jun 15, 2013, sent former Jamaat chief
Ghulam Azam to jail for 90 years for engineering wartime atrocities in 1971.
However, the 92-year-old Jamaat guru died at the BSMMU hospital on Oct 23, 2014
while undergoing treatment.
On Jul 17, 2013, the ICT, in its 6th verdict, gave Jamaat Secretary General Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid the death sentence after he was proven guilty of mass
killings and torture of Hindus during the war.
The Appellate Division on Jun 16 last year upheld the sentence against the
former commander of Al-Badr, a militia Pakistan had raised to crush the Bengali
struggle for independence.
In its 7th verdict, the ICT sentenced former BNP MP and Chittagong's wartime
terror Salauddin Quader Chowdhury to death on Oct 1, 2013. His sentence was
upheld on Jul 29, 2015.
Both Chowdhury and Mujahid were simultaneously hanged for their horrific war
crimes in the Dhaka Central Jail on Nov 22 last year.
Next, former BNP minister Abul Alim was sentenced to imprisonment until death
on Oct 9, 2013.
The 84-year old died at the BSMMU hospital's prison cell on Aug 30, 2014 while
undergoing treatment.
In the 10th verdict, the ICT on Nov 3, 2013, sentenced Al-Badr leaders
Ashrafuzzaman Khan and Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin to death for killing 18 Bengali
intellectuals during the last days of the war.
Both are absconding.
The 11th verdict came on Oct 29 in 2014, in which Jamaat chief Motiur Rahman
Nizami was given the death sentence for his involvement in mass murders, rapes,
and the massacre of Bengali intellectuals.
Nizami, who, the verdict said, had 'consciously and deliberately' misused the
name of Allah and Islam 'to ruin and root out the Bengali Nation', had appealed
against the judgment.
The verdict on his petition will be delivered on Thursday.
In the 12th verdict, the ICT, on Nov 2, 2014, sentenced former Al-Badr leader
of Chittagong Mir Quasem Ali to death. The Jamaat executive council member was
also the organisation's financial backbone.
The Supreme Court scrapped his appeal against the sentence, upholding the death
penalty on Mar 8 this year.
In its next verdict, the tribunal, on Nov 13, 2014, gave Faridpur's former
Razakar commander Zahid Hossain, better known as Khokon Razakar, the death
sentence. He is still on the run.
On Nov 24 the same year, Md Mobarak Hossain, a former Razakar commander from
Brahmanbarhia and an expelled Awami League leader, was given the death penalty.
On Dec 23 that year, in the 15th verdict, former Jatiya Party minister Syed
Mohammed Kaiser was sentenced to death for his war crimes. In 1971, he was a
Muslim League leader from Habiganj.
On Dec 30, Jamaat Assistant Secretary General ATM Azharul Islam, who led the
notorious Al-Badr militia in Rangpur during the war, was sentenced to death for
the slaughter of 1,400 Hindus.?
In its 17th judgment, announced on Feb 23 last year, the ICT handed down the
death penalty to senior Jamaat Nayeb-e-Ameer Abdus Subhan.
On the next day, the tribunal sentenced Pirojpur's Razakar militia leader Abdul
Jabbar to prison until death. The former Jatiya Party MP and vice-chairman is
still absconding.
In the 18th verdict delivered on May 20 last year, Razakars Mahidur Rahman and
Afsar Hossain Chutu of Chapainawabganj were also sentenced to prison until
death.
On Jun 9 the same year, the tribunal sentenced Kishoreganj's absconding Razakar
commander Syed Md Hasan Ali to death.
The verdict said the "death be executed by hanging the accused by the neck till
he is dead or by shooting him till he is dead".
The tribunal, in the 20th verdict, delivered on Jul 16, 2015, awarded
Patuakhali's Forkan Mollik, who was a close and notorious associate of local
Razakars, the death penalty for rapes and killings during the war.
On Aug 11, Bagerhat's Razakars leaders Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias 'Siraj
Master' was given the death sentence and Khan Akram Hossain imprisonment until
death for their war crimes.
The tribunal, in its 22nd verdict, on Feb 2 this year, sentenced to death
former Razakar commander Md Obaidul Haq alias Abu Taher and member of the
notorious militia Ataur Rahman Noni for mass killings in Netrokona.?
(source: bdnews24.com)
******************
4 Bangladesh war crimes convicts get death sentences
A special tribunal in Bangladesh today handed down death penalty to 4 men for
committing war crimes during the 1971 Liberation War by siding with Pakistani
troops as the court directed authorities to seek help from Interpol in nabbing
3 of them who are on the run.
Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal (ICT-BD) in the capital also awarded
"imprisonment until death" to a fifth war criminal for carrying out atrocities
in northern Kishorganj.
The 5 were found responsible for abductions, torture and killings to help
Pakistan to abort Bangladesh's birth in 1971.
All the convicts were former members of Razakar Bahini, a Bengali-manned
auxiliary force of the Pakistan army in 1971.
7 charges were brought against them including mass killing, murder,
confinement, torture, arson and looting committed in their locality in 1971.
Gazi Abdul Mannan, 88, said to be a commander of Razakar camp, Nasiruddin
Ahmed, 62, his brother Shamsuddin Ahmed, 60, and Hafiz Uddin, 66, have been
given death, while Azharul Islam, 60, has been given imprisonment until death.
Only one of them, Shamsuddin, faced the trial in person while the rest,
including a former Bengali captain of the Pakistani force, were tried in
absentia.
Witnesses said the 3-member special tribunal led by Justice Anwarul Haque
sentenced one of the fugitives the imprisonment until death.
The court, in its 330-page verdict summary, ordered their immediate arrest and
directed authorities to seek help from Interpol if necessary.
The verdict came as Bangladesh Supreme Court said it will pronounce the final
verdict on May 5 on the death sentence it handed down to chief of
fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, Motiur Rahman Nizami, deciding his fate over
crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
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 Sheikh Hasina in 2008.
2 others have earlier been handed down "imprisonment until death" penalty
instead of capital punishment on grounds of their old age as they exceeded 80.
They subsequently died in the prison cells of a specialised state-run hospital
due to old age ailments.
(source: Press Trust of India)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 3 11:18:26 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 11:18:26 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605031118180.8104@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 3
PAKISTAN:
Pak army courts sentence 11 Taliban militants to death ---- The 11 belonged to
the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which is waging a bloody insurgency against the
military and the government.
Pakistan military courts have sentenced 11 Taliban militants to death for
terrorism-related offences, the army said on Tuesday.
The nation has hanged hundreds of people -- 326 last year alone -- since
lifting a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014.
The "hardcore terrorists" had been convicted of offences including killing and
kidnapping civilians, attacks on the armed forces and police, and destruction
of schools and communications infrastructure, an army statement said.
The 11 belonged to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan which is waging a bloody
insurgency against the military and the government.
Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for over a decade
following its decision to side with the US-led coalition which toppled the
Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Since June 2014 its troops have been engaged in a full-scale offensive against
Taliban and other militants in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal districts
in the northwest.
The fight gained renewed impetus following a Taliban massacre at a Peshawar
army school in December 2014 in which 134 children were killed.
The attack sparked widespread outrage and led to a series of measures aimed at
combating terror.
Among other measures the government ended a six-year moratorium on executions
-- initially only for people convicted of terrorism but later for all capital
offences.
Pakistan also amended its constitution to allow military courts to try terror
suspects for a 2-year period.
Supporters of the courts say cases previously dragged on for years and many
suspects escaped punishment due to legal loopholes or intimidation of
witnesses.
But the country's growing use of the death penalty has come in for
international criticism.
*****************
COAS confirms death sentence of 11 militants
General Raheel Sharif, Chief of Army Staff, Tuesday confirmed death sentences
awarded to another 11 hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing
heinous offences.
According to Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), the convicts were involved
in killings and kidnappings civilians, attacks on Armed Forces and Law
Enforcement Agencies, destruction of schools and communication infrastructure.
The convicts were tried by military courts.
Details of each case is attached.
1. Muhammad Umar S/O Daleel Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces of
Pakistan and Law Enforcement Agencies which resulted in death of soldiers and
injuries to police officials. He was also involved in fabrication of
explosives. He admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court.
He was tried on 3 charges and awarded death sentence.
2. Hameedullah S/O Muhammad Ghazi (Convict Number 1), Rehmatullah S/O Umar Din
(Convict Number 2), Muhammad Nabi S/O Dilawar Shah (Convict Number 3) and
Moulvi Dilbar Khan S/O Kashkar (Convict Number 4). These four convicts were
active members of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. They were involved in attacking
Law Enforcement Agency which resulted in death of Senior Superintendent of
Police Muhammad Hilal Khan, Colonel Mustafa Jamal and Captain Ishfaq. They were
also in possession of fire arms and explosives. The convicts admitted their
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. Convict numbers 1 and 2
were tried on 3 charges, convict number 3 was tried on 2 charges and convict
number 4 was tried on 1 charge and all were awarded death sentence.
3. Rizwan Ullah S/O Taj Mir Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in killing of a civilian,
kidnapping WAPDA employee and attacking Armed Forces which resulted in injuries
to an officer and a soldier. He was also in possession of fire arms and
explosives. He admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court.
He was tried on 5 charges and awarded death sentence.
4.Gul Rehman S/O Zareen. The convict was an active member of Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces which resulted in death of
a civilian and a soldier. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict
admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried
on 2 charges and awarded death sentence.
5. Muhammad Ibrahim S/O Maseen. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces and
destruction of Babu Chamtalai Bridge which resulted in death of civilians and a
soldier. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 4 charges
and awarded death sentence.
6. Sardar Ali S/O Muhammad Akram Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Armed Forces and
destruction of educational institutions which resulted in injuries and death of
soldiers. He was also in possession of explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 3 charges
and awarded death sentence.
7. Sher Muhammad Khan S/O Ahmed Khan. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in killing of a civilian and
attacking Armed Forces which resulted in injuries and death of soldiers. He was
also in possession of fire arms and explosives. The convict admitted his
offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was tried on 4 charges
and awarded death sentence.
8. Muhammad Jawad S/O Muhammad Musa. The convict was an active member of
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He was involved in attacking Law Enforcement
Agencies and killing of a civilian. He was also in possession of fire arms,
ammunition and explosives. The convict admitted his offences before the trial
court. He was tried on 4 charges and awarded death sentence.
(source: samaa.tv)
JAMAICA:
Opposition says no to hanging
The Opposition yesterday poured cold water on National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement that he is contemplating the resumption of hanging in
Jamaica, arguing that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent to murder
and is not the solution the country's nagging problem of violent crime.
According to Opposition spokesman on justice and governance, Senator Mark
Golding, countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty generally
remain the safest, with the least number of murders.
"Those states in the United States which retain and apply the death penalty
(for example Texas) are not the states which enjoy the lowest murder rates in
the US. The active use of the death penalty in Jamaica did not prevent the
carnage of murders in 1980," Golding said.
Noting that it is not necessary for the resumption of hanging at this time, he
said that murders have declined by 40 % since the extradition of Christopher
'Dudus' Coke in 2010, during an era where the death penalty was not a factor.
He said that the Opposition is of the view that the death penalty cannot be the
solution to Jamaica's problem of violent crime.
"Violent crime in Jamaica has several root causes, and curbing it requires
solutions that address those causes," he said.
Golding suggested that Jamaica needs, among other things, growth with equity
that creates good-quality employment opportunities for our people, so that they
aren't drawn towards criminal organisations and violent crime.
He added that the modernisation and strengthening of the justice system need to
be continued, and the implementation of the Justice Reform Programme should not
be allowed to lose momentum.
"I do not regard minister Montague's announcement, that the Government is
seeking "to determine if there are any legal impediments for the resumption of
hanging in Jamaica", as a serious policy initiative that will be implemented.
The Government can't hang more people; nor, as a practical matter, can
Parliament. Only the courts can make that happen, and the courts are governed
by the rule of law and, in particular, the human rights guarantees in our
Constitution," Golding said.
In addition, he said that the reactivation of the death penalty after 28 years
would bring condemnation and adverse criticism on Jamaica from international
development partners that are not in support of capital punishment.
Last week, Montague said Government remains committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation". To this end, he said the Administration is
currently exploring the possible resumption of hanging.
Noting that it forms part of the crime-prevention strategies aimed at creating
safer communities by tackling "lawless elements", Montague said his state
minister, Pearnel Charles Jr, has been asked to consult with several
stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office,
to determine if there are any "legal impediments" to be addressed.
He said the ministry's overall approach to creating safer communities is based
on five key pillars of crime prevention: social development, situational
prevention, effective policing, swift and sure justice processes, and reducing
re-offending.
(source: stluciatimes.com)
**************
An option to the death
The death penalty debate, we see, has returned in what is clearly an unending
cycle that inflames passions more than it stimulates rational discourse.
That is somewhat understandable, given Jamaica's perennial problem with crime,
especially murders, committed in an environment where our justice system is
struggling to cope with heavy case loads.
The current debate has been triggered by National Security Minister Robert
Montague's announcement at a police graduation last week that he is looking
into the possibility of a resumption of hanging.
In that address Minister Montague told guests, and by extension the nation,
that he had asked his junior minister, Mr Pearnel Charles Jr, to consult with
several stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney
General's Office, to determine if there were any "legal impediments" to the
Government applying the death penalty.
The measure, Mr Montague said, would form part of the Government's crime
prevention strategies aimed at creating safer communities by tackling "lawless
elements".
He added that the Administration remained committed to mobilising all the
resources at its disposal to wage a "relentless war" against criminal elements
"intent on destroying our nation".
Minister Montague will no doubt receive widespread public support on this
issue, given the number of heinous crimes committed in the country over time,
and especially so since the start of this year.
Readers will recall that in 2010, after the murders of eight people in the St
Catherine community of Tredegar Park, as well as other brutal crimes committed
in August that year, the call for a resumption of the death penalty was loud
from Jamaicans living in the United States.
We agree that the scum who commit these vile acts, for instance the 2 criminals
who gunned down police corporal Judith Williams last Thursday morning, should
not be allowed to simply roam free as if they did nothing wrong.
Neither should the villainous individual who commissioned her murder, if the
information we have received so far is proven to be true.
People who have no regard for the sanctity of life, and the fact that each
human being has a right to life, should be deprived of their freedom.
They belong in an institution that will not only punish them, but will
hopefully have some impact in reforming them into responsible adults.
Against that background, we reiterate our position that the Government should
look seriously at the option of having convicted murderers, especially those
found guilty of the most cold-blooded, premeditated homicides, serve life
sentences without the possibility of parole.
That, we hope, will send a strong message to those who believe that life is
theirs to take and that they can do so without facing the consequences of their
action.
(source: Editorial, Jamaica Observer)
VIETNAM:
Singaporean man gets death penalty in Vietnam for trafficking 2.5kg of heroin
A Singaporean man has been sentenced to death for trafficking 2.5kg of heroin,
according to a report by Vietnam's English daily Thanh Nien News.
Lee Loke Dah, 40, who appeared before a Ho Chi Minh City court last Friday
(April 29), had been arrested at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in December
2014.
He had in his possession a plastic bag with thousands of capsules in it, which
further tests confirmed was heroin.
Vietnamese news site VnExpress reported that the capsules had been disguised to
resemble peanut candy.
In his defence, Lee - who had entered Vietnam four days prior to his arrest -
told investigators that he had stolen the bag from a stranger in a hotel he was
staying at in District 5.
Prosecutors, however, rejected his claims and the court found him guilty of
drug trafficking.
Under Vietnam's drug laws, a person convicted of possessing or smuggling more
than 600g of heroin can face the death penalty.
(source: straitstimes.com)
IRAN:
Iran regime continues its spate of brutal hangings
Iran's fundamentalist regime on Tuesday, May 3, hanged 2 prisoners in the
north-western city of Ardebil.
The regime's judiciary in Ardebil Province said the 2 unnamed prisoners were
hanged in Ardebil Central Prison earlier in the day.
Separately, the mullahs' regime hanged 2 young prisoners earlier this week in
the north-eastern city of Mashhad.
The unnamed prisoners, aged 25 and 28, were hanged at dawn on Sunday, May 1 in
Mashhad Central Prison. The 28-year-old prisoner was only identified by his
initial A.
The regime's judiciary in Hamedan Province, western Iran, said that the
authorities have hanged a prisoner, identified only by the initials M. R., in
Nahavand's central prison.
On Monday there were reports that 3 death-row prisoners in Qezelhesar Prison in
Karaj, west of Tehran, and 1 death-row prisoner in Greater Tehran Prison
(Fashafouye Prison) were transferred to solitary confinement in Qezelhesar's
Ward 1 in preparation for their imminent execution.
They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza
Hosseini.
The hangings bring to at least 57 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran,
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."
"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with seven
EU commissioners for discussions with the regime's officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.
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 2,300 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 Wed May 4 11:10:19 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 11:10:19 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., OHIO, KY., MO.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041110120.7536@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
FLORIDA:
Legal Luminaries Join Amici in Death Sentence Case
With 2 days to go until the Florida Supreme Court hears arguments in Hurst v.
Florida, a coalition of legal luminaries is weighing in to urge the justices to
turn all pre-Hurst death sentences into life sentences.
The group, featuring Rosemary Barkett - now a judge on the Iran-U.S. Claims
Tribunal in The Hague - also includes former Florida Supreme Court chief
justices Gerald Kogan and Harry Lee Anstead, former American Bar Association
presidents Martha Barnett and Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, and former Florida
Bar president Henry Coxe.
Barkett was chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court and a member of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit before her 2013 appointment to the
international tribunal. D'Alemberte also served as president of Florida State
University and dean of its law school.
The group joins 3 organizations that filed the same amicus brief 2 months ago:
Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Florida Capital Resource
Center and Florida Center for Capital Representation.
"By asking the court to focus on the plain words of the statute and not
legislative history, these legal super heavyweights are urging the court to
bring an end to the death penalty in Florida, at least in its current statutory
form," said GrayRobinson partner Joel Hirschhorn in Miami, a former president
of the FACDL.
The timing is critical. On Thursday, the high court will consider the
resentencing issue for Timothy Hurst and 2 other death row inmates, Thomas
Bevel and Terence Oliver.
Florida has almost 400 inmates awaiting execution. What the justices decide
could affect hundreds of condemned prisoners whose sentences were thrown into
question by the U.S. Supreme Court's Jan. 12 decision in the Hurst case.
The Supreme Court held that Florida's sentencing procedure in capital cases is
unconstitutional because it doesn't require jurors to make all findings of fact
necessary to impose the death penalty. In an 8-1 decision, the court removed
judges from the equation but provided no guidance on an acceptable alternative
or whether the ruling should be applied retroactively.
The office of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has identified 43 inmates who
could qualify for resentencing under Hurst because their cases were unresolved
at the time it was decided. But Bondi opposes retroactive application to all
death row convicts.
The amicus brief filed Tuesday argues Florida law requires that all 396 death
row inmates must be resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole.
It relies on Florida Statutes Section 775.082(2), which states that if the
Florida Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court holds a capital felony
unconstitutional, the trial judge "shall sentence such person to life
imprisonment."
"Because the unambiguous plain language of section 775.082(2) produces a
reasonable, non-absurd result, the court need not consider the statute's
legislative history," the brief states, citing longstanding rules of statutory
construction.
The brief was signed by Robert Josefsberg of Podhurst Orseck in Miami, Karen
Gottlieb of the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida
International University College of Law in Miami, Robert Kerrigan of Kerrigan,
Estess, Rankin, McLeod & Thompson in Pensacola and Gainesville attorney Sonya
Rudenstine.
(source: dailybusinessreview.com)
*************
Former Palm Beach County jurists urge court to convert death sentences to life
A pair of former Palm Beach County jurists are among those filing a brief
Tuesday urging the Florida Supreme Court to order that life sentences be
imposed on almost 400 inmates awaiting execution.
Former state Supreme Court Justice Harry Lee Anstead, who served on the Fourth
District Court of Appeal, and Rosemary Barkett, formerly a county circuit judge
who also served as a state justice, were among a handful of leading lawyers
calling for the change.
Justices on Thursday will hear arguments about death row inmate Timothy Lee
Hurst, whose sentence was ruled unconstitutional in January by the U.S. Supreme
Court.
The high court ruled Hurst's right to a trial by jury was violated because a
judge ordered his capital sentence after the panel voted only 7-5 in favor of
the death penalty after he was convicted of killing a co-worker at a Pensacola
restaurant in 1998.
Gov. Rick Scott recently signed into law a possible fix approved by state
lawmakers, that requires at least 10 jurors to agree for a death sentence to be
imposed.
No executions have been carried out in Florida since the high court's January
ruling.
But Barkett, Anstead - joined by former Justice Gerald Kogan and 2 former
American Bar Association presidents - say all 389 inmates now on death row
should have their capital sentences converted to life in prison, because of the
federal ruling.
()source: Palm Beach Post)
****************
Commute all death sentences, lawyers argue
Arguing that state law requires it, a who's who of prominent attorneys urged
the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday to commute the death sentences of the
state's nearly 400 condemned inmates to life in prison.
The cadre of attorneys, including former Florida Supreme Court justices and
associations focused on capital punishment, filed a friend-of-the-court brief
on Tuesday, two days before the court is slated to hear arguments in a key case
that overturned the state's death-penalty sentencing structure and resulted in
an overhaul of the sentencing law.
The case involves Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998
killing of a fast-food worker in Pensacola. Hurst was the plaintiff in a legal
challenge that led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that Florida's
death-penalty sentencing system was unconstitutional because it gave too much
power to judges, instead of juries.
State lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott hurriedly overhauled the system during this
year's legislative session in an attempt to resolve the constitutional issues.
But the Florida Supreme Court, which will hear arguments Thursday in the Hurst
case, is grappling with whether the U.S. Supreme Court decision should apply
retroactively to the 390 inmates on death row.
Lawyers for death row inmates, including Hurst, contend that the prisoners
received death sentences under what was an unconstitutional process. Lawyers
for the state argue the court should consider the effect of the Hurst ruling on
a case-by-case basis and have identified fewer than four dozen cases in which
the Hurst ruling could apply.
In the 33-page brief filed Tuesday, the high-profile lawyers argued that a
state law crafted in 1972 requires that all of the current death sentences be
commuted to life imprisonment without parole. That law came in anticipation of
a ruling in a case known as Furman v. Georgia that resulted in a nationwide
moratorium on the death penalty.
The law provides that "in the event the death penalty in a capital felony is
held to be unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States
Supreme Court," the court having jurisdiction over a person previously
sentenced to death "shall sentence such person to life imprisonment."
Lawyers signing onto Tuesday's brief included former Florida Supreme Court
justices Harry Lee Anstead, Gerald Kogan and Rosemary Barkett; former American
Bar Association presidents Martha Barnett and Sandy D'Alemberte, who also
served as president of Florida State University; former Florida Bar Association
President Hank Coxe; the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers;
Florida Capital Resource Center; and the Florida Center for Capital
Representation at Florida International University.
In Tuesday's brief, the lawyers advised the Florida justices to repeat what the
court did following the Furman decision, when the death sentences of 100
inmates were reduced to life imprisonment without parole.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Hurst case, the Florida Supreme
Court has heard arguments touching on the impact of the ruling in a slew of
death penalty cases and has indefinitely postponed 2 scheduled executions.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
**************
Jury recommends 3rd trip to death row for Daytona sword killer James Guzman
A jury voted 11 to 1 on Tuesday to recommend death for the 3rd time for James
Guzman, who used a sword to hack and slice a man in a 1991 Daytona Beach
killing.
James "Chico" Guzman was found guilty last week of 1st-degree murder and
robbery with a deadly weapon for killing David Colvin, a 48-year-old
businessman from Norfolk, Virginia, on Aug. 10, 1991, at what was then the
Imperial Motor Lodge on South Ridgewood Avenue.
The jury's death recommendation is the 1st in the 7th Circuit since the U.S.
Supreme Court overturned Florida's death sentencing process in January, ruling
that judges had too much power in the decision of whether to impose death or
not. Since then the state has hurriedly approved a new death sentencing
process, although the jury instructions for the new method have yet to be
approved by the state Supreme Court.
It is the 3rd time that Guzman has been sentenced to death for killing Colvin.
The previous 2 convictions and sentences have been overturned on appeal.
Guzman, 52, showed no reaction and looked straight ahead as a clerk read the
death recommendation. The final decision will be up to Circuit Judge Terence
Perkins, who will hand down the sentence at a hearing to be set at the S. James
Foxman Justice Center. Perkins could also sentence Guzman to life in prison
with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
The jury of 8 men and 4 women deliberated about 4 1/2 hours last week before
reaching their guilty verdicts. They took about an hour on Tuesday to recommend
death.
Guzman is the first case in the 7th Circuit, covering Volusia, Flagler, Putnam
and St. Johns counties, in which prosecutors sought the death penalty since the
U.S. Supreme Court's decision in January.
The new death sentencing process has some key differences. Now jurors must
unanimously find and specifically identify at least one aggravator justifying
the death penalty. They must also check a box indicating they unanimously found
each aggravator, something that increases the egregious nature of the crime. If
the jurors do not unanimously find at least one aggravator then the person
cannot be sentenced to death. Before jurors did not have to say which
aggravator they found or check a box on a jury form indicating the aggravator.
Another key change is that at least 10 jurors must recommend death for a judge
to be able to impose death. Previously only 7 jurors needed to recommend death.
A judge could previously override a jury's recommendation for life, even though
that had not happened in a while. Now, a judge cannot override a life
recommendation.
Guzman's defense attorneys, Junior Barrett and Randall Richardson, objected to
the entire jury instructions since they have not been approved by the Florida
Supreme Court.
Barrett and Richardson said there are other issues, such as whether the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision overturning the death sentence for Timonthy Hurst, who
killed a woman in Pensacola, is retroactive to other death penalty cases,
including Guzman's.
And just on Tuesday, a group of prominent attorneys including former state
Supreme Court justices and former presidents of the American Bar Association,
asked the Florida Supreme Court to reduce the death sentences of the 390
inmates on death row to life in prison. The attorneys are arguing that Florida
Statutes 775.082(2) requires that if the death penalty is held unconstitutional
by the U.S. Supreme Court then death sentences must be reduced to life in
prison. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on Thursday in the Hurst
case.
Guzman's attorneys said he had been under the influence of drugs and asked the
jury for mercy. The prosecution presented four aggravators calling for death
for Guzman.
The jury unanimously agreed on the aggravators presented by prosecutor Ed
Davis: Guzman killed Colvin during a robbery, Guzman killed him to avoid
prosecution by eliminating a witness, the killing was especially heinous,
atrocious and cruel since Guzman hacked and sliced him with a sword. Davis said
the 4th aggravator was that Guzman had murdered before.
That prompted several jurors to write on their legal pads. Guzman sat looking
straight ahead between his 2 defense attorneys as he had done most of the
morning.
Guzman had served only 9 years of a 30-year sentence for killing a woman in
Miami when he was released from prison in April 1991 and made his way to
Daytona Beach, where four months later he killed Colvin, a businessman with a
drinking problem who had separated from his wife.
On Tuesday, retired Miami-Dade Police homicide detective Charles Hebding
testified that he investigate the case in 1982 when Guzman kidnapped 2 women
and shot 1 of them to death on Jan. 23, 1982. He drove them to a remote part of
northwest Miami-Dade County. He stopped on a dark road and had the women sit on
a canal bank in the beam of the car's headlights. Guzman then put the gun's
muzzle to the head of 1 of the women and shot her dead. But the other woman
managed to escape.
Hebding testified Guzman told police that he had been aiming the gun at 1 woman
and when 1 of them grabbed the gun causing it to go off, Hebding said.
Less than 10 years later, Guzman killed again.
Colvin's wife, Robin Colvin, has attended all 3 trials.
"Justice was served," she said.
(source: news-journalonline.com)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Judge rules that Alabama death row inmate is competent to be executed May 12
An Alabama circuit court judge has denied a request to suspend the May 12
execution date of Vernon Madison, who has been on the state's death row for 31
years.
Madison was convicted in September 1985 and sentenced to death in Mobile County
in the April 18, 1985, slaying of police Officer Julius Schulte, who was
responding to a domestic disturbance call. Madison was on parole at the time.
At a competency hearing April 14, testimony was offered by Dr. Karl Kirkland, a
court-appointed clinical and forensic psychologist; Dr. John Goff, a
psychologist hired by Madison's attorneys; and Carter Davenport, the warden at
W.C. Holman Correctional Facility.
Madison's attorneys argued that several strokes had caused such significant
mental decline that he no longer understood why the state intended to execute
him. His attorneys from the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative are
seeking a stay of execution.
Julius SchulteCorporal Julius Schulte was a 22-year veteran of the Mobile
Police Department when he was shot and killed April 18, 1985, while responding
to a domestic violence call.
Madison had a stroke in May 2015 and another in January of this year, causing
memory loss and slurred speech, making it difficult for him to move and
rendering him legally blind.
Goff testified that, consequently, he has retrograde amnesia and dementia, and
his IQ has declined significantly to 72 from previous scores.
The state attorney general's office argues that, based on the testimony of both
Goff and Kirkland, Madison does understand why the state is moving to execute
him. They say the testimony shows that Madison does not suffer from psychosis
or delusions, and no mental illness or defect would cause him to lack an
understanding of reality.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert Smith issued a ruling Friday saying that,
based on the testimony and arguments, Madison and his attorneys have not proven
that he is not competent to be executed.
Smith wrote in the order that Madison has a rational understanding that "he is
going to be executed because of the murder he committed and... that the state
is seeking retribution and that he will die when he is executed."
The judge noted that, during the competency hearing, Madison did not testify,
and it was "difficult to tell" if he was following the testimony. Smith wrote
that he appeared physically ill, confined to a wheelchair and wearing a neck
brace.
Madison, who has been on death row since Nov. 12, 1985, is one of Alabama's
longest-serving death row inmates.
He had 3 trials, the last one in 1994. State appellate courts twice had sent
the case back to Mobile County, once for a violation based on race-based jury
selection and once based on improper testimony for an expert witness for the
prosecution.
Over the years since, he has filed numerous state and federal appeals that have
been denied, including denials by the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S.
Supreme Court to review the case.
The Alabama Supreme Court in January issued an order setting May 12 as the date
for execution. Madison was one of three death row inmates for which the Alabama
Attorney General's Office had requested the court in February to set execution
dates.
The inmates are being held on death row at Holman Correctional Facility at
Atmore where the executions take place.
(source: al.com)
******************
Death sentence in Pelham police officer murder could be overturned----Jury
votes 10-2 in favor of death penalty
The death sentence against a man convicted of gunning down a Pelham police
officer is in jeopardy.
A jury found Bart Johnson guilty in 2011 of shooting Officer Philip Davis
during a traffic stop on Interstate 65 in 2009.
The jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty, and the judge followed that
recommendation and sentenced Johnson to die.
The U.S. Supreme Court has vacated that sentence, following its ruling in a
Florida case in which it found the state's death penalty sentencing process
unconstitutional.
Like Florida, Alabama does not require a unanimous jury decision to recommend
death, and a judge can overturn a jury's recommendation of life without parole
and sentence a defendant to die.
The Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals must now revisit Johnson's case, and he
may no longer be facing death by lethal injection.
Pelham police released a statement on the development: "The men and women of
the Pelham Police Department are disappointed in this ruling but we understand
the legal system."
Defense attorney Richard Jaffe worked in the attorney general's office when it
wrote the law setting up the current capital murder sentencing system.
He said the law was likely designed to give judges the power to overturn a
jury's recommendation of the death penalty, but since then it is the judge who
often goes against the jury's decision for life in prison and sends a defendant
to death row.
"That's going to go first. And ultimately the death penalty will be struck down
in Alabama and across the country. It's just a matter of time," Jaffe said.
He believes that the Supreme Court's directive could force many people sitting
on Alabama's death row to be resentenced.
"It could affect any time a judge has overridden a jury's decision from life to
death," Jaffe said.
(source: WVTM news)
*************
Sylacauga man charged with capital murder in infant's death
A Sylacauga man has been charged with capital murder in the death of an infant.
Andre Lashown Stone, 29, was indicted by a Talladega grand jury and was charged
with capital murder on April 29.
Stone was already in the Talladega County Jail on unrelated charges. He is
being held without bond.
Sylacauga police responded to a call on February 26, 2015 on Miranda Lane,
involving a 4-month old. A news release did not state the nature of the call,
but the child later died at Children's of Alabama in Birmingham.
If convicted, Stone faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call the Sylacauga Police
Department Investigations Division at (256) 401-2464 or you may report
anonymously to the Sylacauga Police Department Tip Line at (256) 249-4716.
(source: WBRC news)
OHIO:
Ohio failing murder victims' families
[Melinda Dawson chairs the board of directors of Ohioans to Stop Executions.
She lives in Louisville, Ohio.]
On a Sunday morning in 1998, I woke up to a horrific nightmare. Police in
tactical gear raided our home. My mother, Judith Johnson, had been raped and
brutally murdered. My 6-year-old niece had also been attacked and left for
dead. By God's grace she survived the attack, and somehow suggested the
attacker was her Uncle Clarence, my husband.
In the days that followed, I was denied any information about what was
happening. My mother had been murdered, and my husband was a suspect even
though I knew it could not have been him. I was in a fog. I needed someone to
explain what was happening and to help me negotiate the system. Instead, I
received nothing. My sons and I were left to fend for ourselves. Our home was
considered a crime scene and we were not permitted to enter, even to get our
shoes.
In Ohio, most crime victim assistance is provided by people employed by the
county prosecutor. After learning that I was advocating Clarence's innocence, I
was cut off.
During the 3-week trial, no one sat with me outside the courtroom. I had no
money for food, parking or travel expenses. These are real needs that murder
victim families have. Because we did not agree with the approach of the
prosecutor, we became "bad victims," unworthy of assistance.
Clarence served 7 1/2 years of a life sentence before he was released in 2005,
fully exonerated after I conducted the investigation the authorities refused to
do. DNA had exposed the true killer, who was sentenced to life in prison in
2008. I'm satisfied because we got the real killer, but after witnessing how
willing some prosecutors are to risk executing the wrong person, I refuse to
support the death sentence for him or anyone. He is being held accountable, and
society is protected from him for the rest of his life.
I'm sharing my story now because Ohio has an opportunity to evaluate the needs
of homicide survivors and the services available to them. Unfortunately, the
Joint Committee on Victim Services established for this task is not conducting
a thorough analysis of the agencies that provide services to crime victims, nor
is it effectively seeking the input of Ohio victim survivors.
Researchers at Ohio State University offered assistance in conducting a
thorough analysis when it became clear that there were no plans to effectively
do so. This offer was initially met with great enthusiasm by Sen. Bill Coley,
who chairs the committee, but the committee was unable to cover expenses
estimated at less than $30,000. When I testified before the committee April 13,
I expressed deep concern that the opportunity to understand better how to
improve crime victim services is being missed.
I wonder if the greater interest of committee members is in their 2nd
responsibility - to sort out how Ohio will resume executions. It seems some
think that executions are what murder victim families need in order to heal.
This is a myth. If the death penalty is a "service" for victims' families in
order to help them heal, then the state is denying that service to the vast
majority of us. There have been thousands of murders in Ohio since we have had
a death penalty, but only 53 executions. About 15 % of Ohio homicides are
possible death cases, and fewer than 3 % of killers who could be executed
actually get executed.
Think about the harm being done to Ohio murder victim family members who are
told they will feel better after we execute the killer. Their healing process
is put on hold. Without a death sentence, healing begins when the trial is
over. With a death sentence, it's a long and painful waiting game that
sometimes never ends.
The Joint Committee on Victims Services meets again at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the
South Hearing Room of the Ohio Senate. I urge Ohio homicide survivors to be
there to demand a thorough analysis of the real needs of murder victims'
families, and the actual services available. Only then can legislators do
better for the families.
(source: cincinnati.com)
******************
Closing arguments expected in Cleveland slayings trial
Closing arguments are expected Wednesday in the trial of a Cleveland man
accused of killing 3 women and hiding their bodies in garbage bags.
38-year-old Michael Madison could face the death penalty if he's convicted on
murder charges.
Madison was arrested in July 2013, shortly after the bodies were found near the
East Cleveland apartment building where he lived.
During the trial that began last month, prosecutors played a recording of
statements that Madison made after his arrest.
He told police during an interrogation that he strangled 2 of the women during
fits of rage.
His defense attorney hasn't disputed that Madison killed the women. But he says
Madison didn't plan the killings and that they happened during spontaneous
bursts of violence.
(source: Associated Press)
KENTUCKY:
Former Kentucky pastor charged in triple murder due in court
A former Kentucky pastor accused of killing 3 people is due in court Tuesday
afternoon.
Kenneth Keith is charged with the murders of Michael and Angela Hockensmith,
and Daniel Smith.
They were killed in 2013 inside the Hockensmith's pawn shop in Danville.
A judge is now deciding if a conversation Keith had with a pastor after the
murders will be allowed as evidence.
Keith admitted he was upset about his business relationship with the
Hockensmiths, but he maintained his innocence.
He could face the death penalty if convicted.
(source: WLKY news)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Forrest remorseless in face of impending execution
Earl Mitchell Forrest II is due for execution by lethal injection May 11 for
the meth-fueled 2002 murder spree which claimed the lives of Michael Wells,
Harriett "Tottie" Smith and Dent County Deputy Sheriff JoAnn Barnes.
The incident is 1 of the darkest chapters of Dent County's history, and Forrest
in every way embodies the unleashed demons which still haunt our community.
In a 2013 interview with A&E's The Killer Speaks, Forrest spoke brazenly of the
incident. He declared he was a fallen kingpin, and Smith was ultimately to
blame for the triple homicide. Forrest claimed Smith didn't hold up her end of
a drug deal in which he would connect her with a meth supplier in exchange for
a riding lawnmower. Smith never delivered on the promise. That betrayal,
Forrest says, is what led him to get drunk the morning of Dec. 9, 2002, drive
to her home and gun her down in cold blood.
Wells was also killed at Smith's residence, for no other reason than being in
the wrong place at the wrong time. Forrest then left with the meth and injected
it back at his place on Dent County Road 2313. After shooting up, Forrest
killed Barnes when she arrived on scene with Sheriff Bob Wofford to investigate
the 2 murders. Wofford was shot but not fatally injured in the ensuing gunfire.
Forrest was apprehended after being shot twice during the ensuing standoff with
authorities and has been incarcerated ever since.
Many people believe Forrest doesn't deserve any more attention than he's
already gotten. He was selfish in his substance abuse and greedy in his
dealing. At the height of the meth epidemic he conspired to import pounds of
the drug. Worst of all he was reckless with violence, and willing to kill if it
meant protecting his macho image.
Every story has an end, and the burden of ending this dark tale has fallen on
those sharing this moment in time. The Salem News went to speak with Forrest in
April to find out whether his years on death row had blunted the brazenness of
his tone, and if the looming specter of death had changed his soul.
----
Earl Forrest, 66, was interviewed deep within the Potosi Correctional Center,
past three separate security check points. Forrest remained shackled throughout
the conversation. He walked into the visitors room hobbled with a cane. His
eyes were sunken. His arms pockmarked and purple with lentigo. He was already
dying with heart disease.
"Hey, look, it's done, you know, I'm just being honest, it's done, and I never
saw the point in beating myself up over it," Forrest said when asked if he now
had any remorse for the killings.
He went on to say he still blames Smith for the murders.
"She knew what the deal was," he said. "I was really mad about having to go
over and do that. I'm still mad about it. She knew better."
The killing was about more than not getting his end of a deal, Forrest said.
"It wasn't even about a lawnmower, it was about that fact that I felt she was
disrespecting me in the worst way, you know, to get something from me and
think, ehh, he ain't going to do nothing," Forrest said. "I got fed up with
being pissed. It's like I turned 50 years old, and she decided I was a punk."
As to the motive for killing Wells, Forrest said it was "because he was there."
Barnes was shot because she "wore a badge and was paid to carry a gun."
Forrest spoke at length about his life and gave insight into how it came to its
impending demise. He began dealing drugs in high school when he wanted to be
the popular renegade. By his early 20s, he'd graduated to selling speed and
meth up and down the West Coast.
"I sold drugs for a lot of years, the money is really good and you're your own
boss," Forrest said. "It fit me. It put me around the kind of people I liked to
be around."
The violence of the drug war never fazed him.
"It always seemed to work," Forrest said. "The people who do this kind of
business, they know what time it is."
The black market's violence came to define Forrest's life and identity. His
allegiance to the felon's code, and vain loyalty to a macho image, mixed with
the gall and gore of substance abuse to unleash the rash of death which erupted
13 years ago.
"I just got too hung up with being in the fast lane, the girls, the money. It
just seemed like that's where I belonged," Forrest said. "Those who know me,
they understand, people from the old times, they get it, why this happened. She
owed me, and she didn't do what she was supposed to do. Selling marijuana and
LSD, that fuels a completely different person than meth. You're supposed to do
what you say."
When asked if killing Smith to uphold this outlaw code was worth sacrificing
his own life, Forrest said, "I guess so, I don't know."
He also said he thought execution was an appropriate punishment for his crime.
"For the time and place, yeah, I guess so. I'm not going to say the death
penalty is wrong because I'm not in a position to judge."
Forrest said he's accepted that he'll soon no longer be living.
"It gets closer and closer every day. I think I'm good with it," Forrest said.
"That date (May 11) pops up all the time in my head. I've accepted it. As a
matter of fact from the day I woke up in the hospital, I knew I screwed up, and
what was going to happen, and I pretty much accepted it then."
Forrest said he doesn't know what his last words will be and doesn't care what
people will think of him after he's gone.
"They've already come to the conclusions they want, and probably most of them
are right," Forrest said.
When asked if he felt there was anything that could be learned from his
execution, Forrest said, "don't let your kids do drugs."
----
For more than 13 years Forrest has awaited execution behind concrete walls. On
May 11, he will be transferred for the last time to the Eastern Reception,
Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre. The end will come in its
execution chamber when a needle, not unlike the many others he???s used in his
life, will be inserted into the same veins from which he once mainlined meth.
Forrest lived his life wanting to be called a kingpin and getting respect for
his tough attitude to the world. His goal was for others to label him "a
badass," and he was willing to kill to uphold that persona. If there is any
hope to be found with this story's end it's in not fulfilling this desire of
his. Forrest must be recognized for what he truly was, a punk, too simple and
too stupid to know right from wrong. As long as our society embraces the
spectacle of violence, and spotlights its purveyors as worthy of awe, Forrest
and people like him will continue to haunt fringes of our community, taking the
lives of people guilty of nothing more than desperation, being at the wrong
place or trying to protect their neighbors.
(source: thesalemnewsonline.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 4 11:10:58 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 11:10:58 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., UTAH, CALIF., ORE., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041110510.7536@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
COLORADO:
Father Of Man Accused Of Killing Stepmom Wants Death Penalty For Son
The stepson of a well-known veterinarian on Colorado's Eastern Plains, and
another man, are accused in her murder and appeared in court on Tuesday.
The crime has left the families and the small town of Burlington stunned.
Police arrested Dylan Eason, 19, and Isaiah Churchwell, 24, after finding Dr.
Cynthia Campbell Eason beaten to death inside her own home. Both appeared in
court in Kit Carson County to be advised of the charges that include 1st-degree
murder, aggravated robbery, burglary, and theft.
Dylan Eason and Churchwell sat in court showing little emotion as 13th Judicial
District Court Judge Kevin Hoyer told them the nature and penalties of the
crimes they're held in custody for.
Cynthia Eason, a beloved veterinarian, was found dead inside her home due to
blunt force trauma. Police say after allegedly killing her the defendants fled
with belongings they had stolen from her home.
Cynthia Eason's husband, Jon Eason, who's also the father of accused killer
Dylan Eason, attended Tuesday's hearing. He and other family members didn't
want to talk outside court.
On Facebook, however, Jon Eason wrote that he wants the death penalty for the 2
whom he says killed his wife over simple greed.
"I'm so engulfed in hate, that I want my kid and his friend to pay with their
lives," Jon Eason posted on Facebook.
Attorneys for the defendants asked the judge to set a bond but that request was
denied. Their next court appearance is a status conference set for June 14.
Churchwell is the brother of a teenager who was found dead 5 years ago. Josh
Churchwell's body was found in a suitcase near Ruby Hill Park in Denver. He
also lived in Burlington at the time of his death. The murder has never been
solved.
(source: CBS news)
UTAH:
A Utah inmate could face the death penalty after pleading guilty to killing his
cellmate
Court records say 35-year-old Steven Crutcher pleaded guilty to murder Monday
in the death of 62-year-old Roland Cardona-Gueton. A jury will decide in
January whether Crutcher should be sentenced to death or remain in prison
without the possibility of parole.
Cardona-Gueton's April 2013 death was originally investigated as a suicide.
Prosecutors say in court papers that Crutcher confessed to strangling
Cardona-Gueton at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in a letter sent to
Sanpete County Attorney Brody Keisel last July.
Crutcher's attorneys wanted the letters kept out of the trial and are appealing
a judge's decision to allow them.
Keisel says Crutcher will be allowed to withdraw his plea if the Utah Supreme
Court decides in his favor.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Derek Connell, 29, eligible for death penalty if convicted
A northwest Bakersfield man charged with killing his mother and stepfather is
eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.
Tuesday in court, Judge Michael Bush announced 29-year-old Derek Connell is
eligible for the death penalty.
That statement made, despite Connell's attorney, Paul Cadman, asking for bail.
The defense attorney also asked to block media from shooting video inside the
courtroom and said because of the media Connell is already being tried by the
public.
Judge Bush also denied that request at which point the attorney attempted to
block 17's camera view and gave Connell a notepad to cover his face.
Connell faces 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of his mother and
stepfather.
Early Saturday morning police responded to a suspicious circumstances call on
the 5000 block of Lily Pad Court.
Police found Connell as they arrived on scene and inside the home found his
mother, Kim Higginbotham, and his stepfather, Christopher Higginbotham, dead
with apparent gun shot wounds.
Connell is scheduled to appear in court again on May 11 for arraignment.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place within ten days of that
arraignment.
(source: Kern Golden Empire)
*************
Closing arguments begin in Berkeley-Oakland death penalty case: 'Alaysha saw
her killer' and he saw her
After 4 weeks in trial, with 13 days of testimony and 36 witnesses, prosecutor
John Brouhard began his closing arguments Monday in the double homicide case
that could result in the death penalty for Darnell Williams Jr. if the jury
finds him guilty.
Williams, 25, has been charged with 8 felonies and several special
circumstances in connection with the fatal shootings in 2013 of 8-year-old
Alaysha Carradine in Oakland and 22-year-old Anthony "Tone" Medearis III in
Berkeley less than 2 months later.
"This defendant is committed to what he calls street justice," Brouhard told
the jury. He described how, bent on "retribution and revenge" after the killing
of his friend Jermaine "Third" Davis in Berkeley, Williams set out to get back
at the person he believed was responsible.
"He's not grieving the death of his friend, he is preparing for war," Brouhard
told the jury. "He lured 3 children to a door and then he unleashed a barrage
of gunfire when they least expected it."
It was an emotional day for relatives of Alaysha and Medearis, as Brouhard
described in detail the killings, played video from an officer's body cam and
flashed autopsy photographs on screens as part of his elaborate presentation.
At one point, he set up a timer in front of jurors to illustrate just how long
3 minutes and 15 seconds could be: the time, he said, between when Williams'
phone had pinged off a tower near the apartment where Alaysha had been a guest
at a sleepover, and the time the first 911 call about her shooting came in.
Prosecutor: Corroboration, corroboration, corroboration
The prosecution relies heavily on statements by 2 key witnesses - Britney
Rogers and Laquana Nuno - who say Williams told them what he did on Wilson
Avenue at the home of the estranged family of Antiown "Twanny" York, who has
been identified by authorities as Davis' killer.
The stories of both women are similar, Brouhard said, and some of the details
they shared could only have been known by Alaysha's killer. Take the couch.
Grandmother Clara Fields testified she was resting on the couch after a long
day of work when the shooting took place. Rogers told police Williams had
described to her, hours after the shooting, having seen a woman on the couch at
the Wilson Avenue home, and continuing to fire his gun.
"The defendant is providing details that show you that he was there. He knows
facts about that murder that only ... the killer would know," Brouhard told the
jury.
Police did an exhaustive search to find out whether the detail of the couch, in
2013, had ever appeared in the media. Brouhard said it had not, adding that, if
it had, "you can bet your boots" the defense attorneys would have brought it in
as evidence. "It's not out there," he added.
Brouhard said Rogers, Nuno and Williams' own cell phone records tell the same
story of the night of Alaysha's shooting, July 17, 2013. Williams started at a
gathering in West Oakland with Rogers, went to East Oakland for "a meeting"
after Davis was killed, then ended up at the Wilson Avenue apartment where the
shooting took place before returning to Rogers' West Oakland home. The cell
phone records are not exact but Brouhard said they put Williams in the area of
all the locations described by both women.
Both women said Williams confided that someone told him where York's "baby
mama" lived, took him there and pointed out the house to him. Brouhard said, at
11:10 p.m., an incoming call to Williams pinged off a tower near the Wilson
Avenue apartment, but went to voicemail. The phone was then powered down. At
11:14 p.m., the first 911 calls about the shooting began to come in.
Brouhard showed on a map how the cell tower data put Williams "in the range" -
within blocks - of the murder scene in the minutes before the shooting. He said
he didn't have Williams' exact location, but that what he had was enough: "What
we know from these records is that he's close."
Both women said Williams walked up to the door alone.
The kids had been playing upstairs when the bell rang. They came downstairs and
stopped to pick up some toys before going to the front door. Brouhard described
how Amara York, then 7, opened the door after asking "Who is it?" and expected
to find her mother on the other side of the metal security screen.
The shooter heard a child's voice. He had taken time, Brouhard said, to point
his weapon at an angle toward the ground, between 38 and 48 inches high. He
waited for the knob to turn, then opened fire.
Prosecutor: "Alaysha saw her killer"
"He waited to be sure that his targets, the reason he's there, are really where
he needs them to be," Brouhard said. Alaysha was mortally wounded, struck in
the base of the neck. Amara was hit in the shoulder, and her little brother, 4
at the time, was grazed across the belly. At the end of the hallway, on the
couch, Fields was struck by a bullet in the femur. It remains there today.
Brouhard showed the jury a photograph of pink and yellow dowels piercing
through the wooden interior door on Wilson Avenue to illustrate the downward
trajectory of all 13 bullets fired that night: "This photograph is disturbing
because this photograph unmistakably shows you where the defendant was aiming
his gun."
The rods also showed that the door was opening throughout the shooting. Amara
ran back and slammed it when the gunfire stopped, her grandmother testified.
Brouhard said Alaysha herself, in the ambulance en route to the hospital,
before screaming that she was dying, said she had seen "a man" when a paramedic
asked her about the identity of her shooter. Amara, too, said she saw a man,
who was wearing a black hoodie, holding a gun. (Rogers said she also saw
Williams in a black hoodie that night.) Brouhard described both girls'
statements as important evidence in the case.
"During this horrific murder, Alaysha saw her killer. Amara saw him as well,"
Brouhard told the jury. "That's so important because it shows you: Not only
could they see him, but he could see them."
Prosecutor: "This phone is the DNA"
Brouhard described Williams' cell phone - recovered by police hours after the
Sept. 8, 2013, shooting in Berkeley that killed Medearis, the night Williams
himself was arrested - as an "invaluable" piece of evidence.
Authorities found on that phone more corroboration of Rogers' statements in the
form of 2 photographs: 1 of a green camouflage bulletproof vest she saw
Williams wearing the night of Alaysha's shooting, and another featuring a gun,
chrome with a black handle, she said looked the same as the one she saw him
come home with that night.
Brouhard said phone records show Williams had that gun before and after the
shooting. A photograph of the gun, a SIG Sauer P228, was taken by the camera on
Williams' phone July 9, about a week before Alaysha's shooting. And a
time-stamped text message including that photo put the gun in his possession
less than 2 days after it, Brouhard said. In the text, Williams identified the
gun as his own and said he was looking to buy more.
Williams told police in September: I've had the same phone for 5 months
Brouhard described that photograph, which was only discovered in April after
Williams insisted on having access to his phone records, as "devastating
evidence." The guns were never recovered from either shooting, but a firearms
expert testified that he knew of no other firearm in the world, other than the
SIG Sauer P228, that could have fired the bullets that killed Alaysha. (Bullets
and casings were recovered at the scene, and he used those, along with a test
weapon, to make his analysis.)
The prosecution had previously pointed to numerous photographs of Glock pistols
on Williams' phone as indicators he had access to the type of weapon that later
killed Medearis.
Describing the selfies of Williams from the phone that were shown in court
throughout the trial, recordings of him on the phone that were part of a
wiretap investigation tied to the case, and Williams' own reports to police -
in September 2013 - that he'd had the same phone for 5 months, Brouhard said
Williams' phone "is always connected with the defendant."
Brouhard said, despite their best efforts, authorities had been unable to find
DNA associated with the defendant at the scene. But he asked the jury to focus
on the corroborating statements of Rogers and Nuno, along with the data and
location information linked to the phone, as they considered the case.
"I don't have any DNA for you," he told the jury. "This phone is the DNA in
this case."
Brouhard took the entire day Monday to outline elements of his case and the law
to the jury, most of which related to Alaysha's killing. He began to discuss
the Medearis homicide late Monday afternoon. He is scheduled to continue that
effort Tuesday morning, and be followed by arguments from the defense team.
Brouhard will then have a chance to offer a rebuttal before the jury is excused
for deliberation, which could occur Wednesday.
(source: berkeleyside.com)
****************
Death sentence questions over OC Sheriff records
A convicted killer's death sentence may be in question as a court hearing
Thursday will review defense assertions that the Orange County Sheriff's
Department failed to turn over all records to the defense during trial.
An Orange County Superior Court judge granted an evidentiary hearing following
the death penalty conviction of a Costa Mesa killer of 2 victims to determine
if his due process rights were violated.
Daniel Patrick Wozniak's attorney has argued in court papers that authorities
withheld notes from sheriff's deputies in the Orange County jail that might
have shed a better light on his client while in custody, something that could
have been used to argue against the death penalty.
Judge John Conley ordered the evidentiary hearing following disclosure that
some writings of the sheriff's deputies were not turned over to the defense
before the trial.
The hearing will continue Thursday with sheriff's Cmdr. Adam Powell continuing
to testify.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas issued a statement late today
that essentially put the blame on jailers.
Rackauckas said he "expects police officers to tell the truth and pursue
justice."
Rackauckas said his "team made repeated, specific, pointed requests of the
Orange County Sheriff's Department for all records kept by OCSD jail deputy
sheriffs concerning inmates such as Fernando Perez."
Rackauckas also said his office "visited offices located at the OCSD jail to
personally inspect all categories of their records."
Rackauckas said that "additional notes were produced in court ... that were not
previously produced to OCDA despite the requests made and the visit to the
OCSD. The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes would be withheld from the
OCDA, the court and the public until this hearing."
Rackauckas said Sheriff Sanda Hutchens "assured" him that "she will take
appropriate internal action to address this issue."
Wozniak was scheduled to be sentenced this month, 6 years after the killings of
26-year-old Samuel Eliezer Herr and 23-year-old Julie Kibuishi.
Wozniak was deep in debt in May 2010, facing eviction and without money for his
pending wedding, when he concocted a plan to kill his neighbor, Herr, and throw
police off the trail by making it look like Herr murdered and raped his female
friend, Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy argued at trial.
Wozniak, who grew up in Long Beach, further tried to confound investigators by
dismembering his 1st victim and dumping the body parts in the El Dorado Nature
Center in Long Beach, Murphy said.
Wozniak's attorney, Scott Sanders, persuaded an Orange County Superior Court
judge to boot Rackauckas' office off the death penalty phase trial for Scott
Dekraai, the worst mass killer in the county's history. That ruling is under
appeal.
In Dekraai's case, Sanders also argued evidence was withheld and that an
informant violated Dekraai's constitutional rights by questioning him while he
was represented by an attorney.
Perez, who was one of the informants who came in contact with Dekraai, also
spoke with Wozniak in the jail. Perez said he could supply information to
prosecutors on Wozniak, but Murphy said no thanks because Wozniak had confessed
and there was little value to Perez's statements.
(source: mynewsla.com)
OREGON:
Doctors testify for defense in Nelson murder trial
Lawyers representing a man on trial in Lane County for the 2012 murder of
22-year-old Eugene resident Celestino Gutierrez Jr. on Tuesday called 3
witnesses to support their contention that their client's crimes are linked to
his military service.
A psychiatrist, a psychologist and a biomechanist who has studied traumatic
brain injuries all testified in A.J. Scott Nelson's capital murder trial.
Defense attorneys are trying to convince the jury that Nelson, 26, suffered an
untreated head injury in 2009 when an armored vehicle carrying him and other
Army soldiers was destroyed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Nelson's combat
experience, his lawyers contend, led him to later be diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nelson faces a potential death penalty if found guilty of aggravated murder. 2
other people have already been convicted in Gutierrez's slaying.
The defense's hope is that the jury will find that Nelson's mental state
interfered with his ability to form the intent to commit the alleged crimes.
(source: The Register-Guard)
USA:
Are Long Death Penalty Delays Unconstitutional?
On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Richard Boyer's petition for review of a
federal appeals court ruling that, in turn, rejected his argument that
California's long (and continuing) delay in carrying out his death sentence
amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Dissenting from that denial in Boyer
v. Davis, Justice Stephen Breyer strongly suggested that he would find a
constitutional violation in the 32 years that Boyer has been on death row.
To Court watchers, the Breyer dissent was hardly surprising. Last year, in a
dissent from a decision upholding Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol, Justice
Breyer called on his colleagues to reconsider the constitutionality of the
death penalty. Justice Breyer offered long delay as 1 of the chief reasons for
concluding that the death penalty is unconstitutional. He cited statistics
showing an average delay of 18 years between sentence and execution. He
calculated that at current rates, "the average person on death row would spend
an additional 37.5 years there before being executed." Thus, Boyer's case is
hardly an outlier.
But why is delay problematic? Don't death row prisoners benefit from execution
delays? Would a death row prisoner be better off being swiftly executed?
According to Justice Breyer, long delays are problematic for 2 reasons. First,
life on death row is miserable. Quoting an earlier dissenting opinion by
Justice John Paul Stevens, Breyer wrote that delay "subjects death row inmates
to decades of especially severe, dehumanizing conditions of confinement,"
aggravated by the anxiety caused by uncertainty about whether and when
execution will occur. Second, Breyer argued that long delay undermines the
retributive interest served by, and any deterrent value of, the death penalty.
Unsurprisingly, Justice Breyer's call for re-examination of the validity of the
death penalty did not go unanswered. In particular, the late Justice Antonin
Scalia wrote a characteristically spirited response. At one point he even said
that Justice Breyer's dissent was full of "gobbledy-gook."
Without attempting a point-by-point rebuttal of Scalia's concurrence in the
Oklahoma case, I want to respond to what may strike readers as his best
argument: execution delays are chiefly the result of the extensive procedures
that the Court's liberals have required for carrying out an execution; those
same liberals should not be permitted to bootstrap those delays to invalidate
the death penalty.
What Causes Delay?
The premise of the anti-bootstrapping objection may be wrong. It is not obvious
that all or even most of the delay between a death sentence and the execution
of the condemned results from legal requirements imposed by the Supreme Court.
For example, Justice Breyer notes in his Boyer dissent that Boyer's 1st jury
could not reach a verdict, that a 2nd trial resulted in a conviction that was
ultimately reversed by the California Supreme Court based on police misconduct,
and that the time between the commencement of Boyer's 3rd trial and the final
state court disposition of his appeal was 14 years. Justice Breyer quotes a
California commission that found that the state's own system for administering
the death penalty was "dysfunctional." Most of that dysfunction is not
attributable to requirements imposed by federal judges or justices.
Indeed, in recent decades, Congress and the Supreme Court have reduced the
procedural obstacles to imposing and carrying out the death penalty, chiefly by
cutting back on the scope of federal habeas corpus. The most important cutbacks
were contained in the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
(AEDPA). Among other things, AEDPA places a 1-year statute of limitations on
the filing of habeas petitions - which can be shortened to 6 months if a state
complies with certain optional procedures. The same provision that requires
petitions to be filed within a year of the conclusion of state court
proceedings also disallows a 2nd or successive petition, absent extraordinary
circumstances.
To be sure, Supreme Court case law may also lead to delays in state court
proceedings. For example, a state cannot impose a mandatory death sentence.
Thus, the so-called penalty phase of a capital trial will typically take longer
than the post-conviction sentencing that occurs in most non-capital cases. And
although states frequently devote woefully inadequate resources to
state-appointed counsel to conduct factual investigations, where resources are
adequate, such investigation can take time. In order to be able to make the
best available argument for her client, a capital defender will want to
interview family members and other people who can help establish that the
mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating ones. Ensuring that these
added steps were carried out adequately can add time to the back end of a
capital case by complicating the ensuing state court appellate proceedings.
Necessary Delay
Would it be possible to streamline capital proceedings? Sure. China and Iran
carry out executions swiftly, with the entire period from arrest to execution
taking much less time than the amount of time a typical American prisoner
spends on death row. But these countries also hold trials in secret without
what we would regard as even minimal due process.
If one thinks that particular procedural requirements for the death penalty are
unnecessary or not properly connected to the Constitution, then one can make
that argument. But it should not count as an objection to a procedure necessary
to ensure fairness in the application of the death penalty that the procedure
causes delay.
By the same token, however, didn't Justice Scalia have a fair point when he
said that his liberal colleagues should not then turn around and invoke the
very delay that they think is necessary for procedural fairness as a ground for
invalidating the death penalty? That objection has a superficial appeal, but it
is ultimately mistaken.
Consider an analogy. Suppose that I invent a jetpack that allows users to fly.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission conducts extensive testing and concludes
that it should not be sold except with safety equipment that, when deployed,
would add so much weight to the jetpack as to make it useless. Does that mean
that I should be able to sell the jetpack without the safety equipment?
Of course not. If the only way to make the jetpack reasonably safe is to make
it inoperable, then the jetpack should effectively be banned.
Likewise with respect to the death penalty. If the only way to make the death
penalty minimally fair is to impose substantive and procedural safeguards that
add delay - and if that added delay would itself violate constitutional norms -
then the death penalty must be banned.
To be clear, I have not argued here that Justice Breyer is right in his
suggestion that undue delay renders the death penalty unconstitutional. But if
he is wrong, it is not because fairness requires special death penalty rules
and standards that lead to delay. Proponents of the death penalty will need to
look elsewhere for persuasive arguments that the punishment is permissible even
for people who spend decades on death row.
(source: Miochael Dorf, verdictjustia.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 4 11:11:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 11:11:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041111280.7536@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
JAMAICA:
An eye for an eye?
The majority of nations that execute citizens do so based upon the premise that
death is the most powerful deterrent, deserved retribution, and that no mercy
should be shown to the merciless. It is against this background that advocates
of capital punishment argue that murder is the most callous of all crimes and
only the strongest punishment available will serve as a deterrent.
They further assert that if murderers are put to death, potential murderers
will contemplate their predisposition to engage in violence and criminality
based on the trepidation of likewise losing their life. Therefore, with our
nation's growing reputation as one of the most barbarous places on the planet,
it is understandable that Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora will always
muse about the resumption of hanging and the effect it may have on the
heartless among us.
So last week when the Hon Robert Montague, minister of national security,
signalled his intention to explore the possibility of reopening the gallows for
business, it was music to the ears of many. However, both the minister and the
public must be made aware that it is not the severity of the punishment that
deters crime; it is the certainty of being apprehended. Yes, the fear of being
caught is an immensely more powerful deterrent than the punishment itself. It
is therefore imperative that the police and the criminal justice system in
general buttress the perception that criminals will be caught quickly and by
any means necessary.
The most important aim of punishment is considered to be deterrence and this is
based on the theoretical premise that less crime within the society makes it a
better place to live for all its citizens. Interestingly, after many decades of
empirical research across the world, the validity of the death penalty as a
deterrent cannot be unequivocally substantiated.
The 1st of the studies that examined the deterrent effect of the death penalty
was Thorsten Sellin's (1959) pioneering research which concluded that the death
penalty had no distinguishable effect on America's homicide rates. Sellin's
research reviewed data on the murder in each state and found that the states
without the death penalty had lower homicide rates. In fact, for many years an
abundance of research proved that the occurrence of homicides is generally
higher in states and countries with the death penalty. To further review the
validity of Sellin's findings one needs to look at the state of Texas, the
mecca of executions in America.
Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report (2013)
showed that Texas had the highest number of executions since 1976 when the
death penalty was reinstituted in the USA, and as of July 24, 2014, the Death
Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports that Texas performed 515 executions
during the period. This was 404 more executions than Oklahoma, which has the
second highest execution rate.
Yet, Texas recorded a higher homicide rate than 27 other states in the year
2012. Texas's murder rate was higher than 12 of the 18 states which do not have
the death penalty. Additionally, the FBI (2013) data show that the state with
the highest overall murder rate in 2012 was Louisiana, which has the death
penalty. Even some unrepentant proponents of the death penalty conceded that in
87 % of states, capital punishment had no effect on the homicide rate or
actually caused murders to increase. The vast majority of criminologists
worldwide consistently cull the credibility of the death penalty's deterrent
effect and found that it was no more significant a preventive sanction than
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Most Jamaican citizens will argue that we should not, under any circumstances,
use taxpayers' money to 'feed' the murderous monsters. However, a little known
fact is that it costs the taxpayers significantly more from conviction to
execution within a 15-year period than to feed a prisoner for 30 years. The
reality is that adjudicating death penalty cases takes more time and resources
compared to murder cases where the death penalty sentence is not pursued as an
option. These cases are more costly because there are procedural safeguards in
place to ensure the sentence is just and free from error.
One measure of death-penalty costs was reflected in the time spent on costly
appeals. Then, when all is said and done, much of the bill for the various
appeals is paid by taxpayers. What we need is comprehensive reform of the
criminal justice system and not archaic rhetoric, because it is clear that
beyond its retributive value, resuming the death penalty will not be beneficial
to Jamaica and will in no way, shape or form quench our bloodthirstiness.
(source: Column, Richie Lindo, Jamaica Observer)
CHIINA:
New Legal Guidelines Set Clearer Criteria for Punishments in Graft Cases----The
rules issued by the country's top court and prosecutor's office have expanded
the definition of bribery and pushed up the requirements for the death penalty
A new set of legal guidelines for judges and prosecutors handling graft trials
have revised the minimum threshold for cases that qualify for criminal
prosecution and clarified where capital punishment can be used, a move legal
experts say will reduce confusion in courts.
The document released by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's
Procuratorate, the prosecutor's office, on April 18 said that defendants found
guilty of embezzling funds or accepting bribes worth more than 3 million yuan,
or about US$ 460,000, will receive the death penalty. Previously, officials
convicted of taking bribes worth 100,000 yuan or more could be sentenced to
death.
The guidelines apply to graft trials involving government workers, including
bureaucrats and employees of state-owned enterprises.
The benchmark for a case that qualifies for criminal prosecution has also been
raised. A criminal case can be brought if bribe is 30,000 yuan or more, up from
5,000 yuan, the document shows.
The guidelines supplement revisions made to the Criminal Law in November, and
replace sentencing criteria set out in 1997, which have long been criticized
for being out of date.
Under the new rules, embezzling funds or receiving bribes worth 10,000 yuan to
1.5 million yuan is defined as a "relatively serious offence" and carries a
prison sentence of 3 to 10 years. Those suspected of taking 1.5 million yuan to
3 million yuan in bribes are labeled "serious offenders" and will face a
minimum jail term of 10 years and this can go up to life imprisonment.
If defendants are convicted of "especially serious" offences with an "extremely
vile impact," such as stealing funds earmarked for disaster relief efforts,
they may face the death penalty, the document show.
This is the 1st time in 2 decades that the sentencing criteria for graft cases
have been revised. Several legal experts said the guidelines were more lenient
than what they expected.
Most graft cases involve amounts between 100,000 yuan and several million yuan,
said Sun Guoxiang, a law professor at Nanjing University, in the eastern city
of Nanjing, and under the new rules, most defendants may get less than 10 years
in prison, much shorter than some of the previous jail terms meted out.
Widening the Net
The guidelines, however, have broadened the definition of what qualifies as
graft, said Sun, and includes a clearer definition of violations, closing a few
legal loopholes.
For example, accepting expensive gifts from a subordinate will be regarded as
bribery under the new benchmark, even if no specific request was made by the
giver at the time of presenting the gift. Earlier, such practices fell outside
the definition of graft because it was difficult to establish a link between
accepting gifts and officials' decisions and professional conduct, Sun said.
The definition of a bribe was expanded to include writing off an individual's
or company's debt, having a house renovated for free, paid trips, club
memberships and other benefits.
"(The guidelines) eliminate confusion," said Zhang Qingsong, a lawyer at
Beijing Shangquan Law Office.
Previous rules emphasized on heavy penalties, but the revision stresses
broadening the definition of corruption and setting clearer criteria for
punishments, said Huang Jingping, a law professor at Renmin University in
Beijing.
"The function of the Criminal Law is to define timely and definitive
punishments for all forms of corrupt practices," said Huang.
An immediate death penalty sentence has rarely been imposed on senior officials
convicted of corruption in recent years. Officials charged with committing
grave violations were given a suspended death sentence that came into effect
after 2 years. These sentences could be commuted to life imprisonment or
reduced even further.
In 2013, former railroad minister Liu Zhijun was given a suspended death
sentence for taking 60 million yuan in bribes. The sentence was commuted to
life imprisonment in 2015.
In June 2015, Zhou Yongkang, the former domestic security tsar, was jailed for
life after being convicted of accepting 130 million yuan worth of bribes along
with his family and leaking state secrets.
Criminal charges have been brought against 22 ministerial-level officials
accused of corruption since the Communist Party's anti-graft campaign started
in late 2012, Caixin calculated based on media reports. They were convicted for
taking bribes totaling over 500 million yuan. 3 were sentenced to life in
prison.
"If lighter punishments don't lead to a rise in corruption cases, it will show
that the new rules have deterred unlawful behavior," said Zhang.
Zhu Yongming, a lawyer appearing in criminal cases, said the country needs
"comprehensive institutional arrangements, such as a system for officials to
disclose their assets to the public and an effective supervision mechanism."
Corrupt officials can be punished by organs other than the courts. The Central
Commission for Discipline Inspection, the party's anti-graft agency, first
carries out an investigation into suspect officials and detains them in some
cases. Officials who are found guilty of "violating party discipline," a
euphemism for graft, can be demoted, or removed from their position and
expelled from the party. The anti-graft agency only hands over cases that
qualify for criminal prosecution to the state prosecutor's office.
"How do you effectively connect the party's disciplinary organs and law
enforcement units is an issue that needs to be addressed," said Sun. "The main
problem is how administrative and party penalties are used to punish officials
whose offences do not qualify for criminal prosecution," said Sun.
(source: Caixin Online)
PAKISTAN----execution
Death penalty : A convict executed, another gets a lifeline
A murder convict was hanged at the district jail on Tuesday morning. The
execution of another convict was put off on Tuesday after his family reached a
settlement with the petitioners.
Jail authorities said Asghar Ali, a resident of Khushab, had murdered his
brother, his brother's wife, and their 4 children over property in Noshera,
Khushab, in 2007. They said a trial court had sentenced him to death. Later,
Sargodha Sessions Judge Abdul Nasir had issued black warrants for Ali. The jail
authorities handed over the body to Ali's family.
Separately, the execution of a murder convict was put off after the petitioner
settled with the defendant. A Prisons spokesperson said a trial court had
sentenced Haq Nawaz, son of Bakhsh, to death for murdering his mother-in-law
Ejaz Bibi in a Kotwali City police precinct, Jhang, in March 2001.
Black warrants had been issued for Haq Nawaz's execution to be carried out on
May 3 at Jhang District Jail. It was put off after the petitioner said they had
settled with the defendant
(source: The Express Tribune)
****************
No Justice for Juveniles
On 10th June 2015, Aftab Bahadur was executed after spending 22 years on death
row in Lahore's Kot Lakhpat Jail. Bahadur, a Christian man, entered the
formidable walls of his death row cell at the age of 15 and left only when he
walked to the gallows at the age of 39. He was working as an assistant to a
plumber when he was arrested and tortured by the police into giving a
confession for murdering a woman and her 2 sons. Aftab relayed that the police
had asked him for a bribe of PKR 50,000 in exchange for his freedom which he
was unable to afford. Thereafter he was convicted and sentenced to death under
a law that provided for expedited trials for 'terrorists'. The only eye-witness
to the crime recanted his statement claiming that he had been tortured by the
police into implicating Aftab for the murder and that he had never even been
present at the time the crime took place. Writing from his cell a few days
before his execution he stated," For many years - since I was just 15 years old
- I have been stranded between life and death. It has been a complete limbo,
total uncertainty about the future."
As we approach the 1 year anniversary of Aftab Bahadur's execution, the
Government of Pakistan has executed over 387 prisoners since the lifting of the
moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014. At least 5 of those executed
- including Aftab Bahadur - were juveniles at the time of committing their
alleged offences. In a study conducted by the Justice Project Pakistan titled
"Juveniles on Death Row" it was discovered that at least 10% of Pakistan's 8000
death row prisoners were juvenile offenders. This puts the number of juveniles
facing execution at a startling figure of 800. Executions of persons who were
juveniles at the time of committing the alleged crimes is strictly prohibited
under international law through the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), that Pakistan became a party to in 2010.
Domestically, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), a law enacted to
provide protections for juvenile offenders in 2000, also bars executions for
juvenile and provides for separate courts, jails and trials for juveniles. A
2001 Presidential Commutation Order extended the benefit of the law to juvenile
offender convicted prior to the enactment of the law on the condition of an
inquiry into their juvenility.
Despite these protections in place, how is it that juveniles continue to be
executed? Pakistan has one of the lowest birth registrations rates in world.
Only 27 % of births in the country are registered with figures going much lower
in rural areas. Upon arrest these children are left with no proof of age to
prove their juvenility. Exacerbating the problem, police in Pakistan often
record a person's age at the time of their arrest based upon a visual
assessment of their physical appearance without any verification. Often times,
police record the age of juvenile offenders as above 18 in order to avoid
application of protective safeguards provided under the JJSO. During the course
of the trial and appeals, Courts inevitably rely upon the arbitrary assessment
provided by the police, despite, production of government-issued documents,
including NADRA ID cards by the accused party. Ansar Iqbal was executed on 29th
September 2015 despite the existence of a NADRA issued ID card that showed him
to be 15 at the time of committing the offence. The Trial Court chose to rely
upon the police assessment of his age of "22/23" years - a decision that was
upheld by the High Court and the Supreme Court. The Courts' failure to rely
upon NADRA issued ID cards impairs the integrity of the very national
registration system that has been the subject of monumental reform projects and
foreign funding in recent years.
A purview of case-law on the determination of juvenility in court proceedings
shows that there is virtually no consistent pattern that Courts in Pakistan
follow. The courts are free to rely upon birth certificates or school leaving
records over medical assessments in one case or medical assessment over any
documentary evidence in another. At the end of the day the Court's decision
comes down to the discretion of the individual judge presiding and often times
such discretion is inclined towards deeming the accused to be an adult. Not
only is such arbitrary practice harmful to the integrity of the criminal
justice system, it also violates the fundamental principle of benefit of doubt
being granted to the person claiming juvenility.
Additionally, juvenile offenders often fail to raise the plea of juvenility at
the stage of investigation and trial as a result of inadequate legal
representation - which is usually the case. When such plea is raised at the
stage of the appeal there are instances of superior courts failing to consider
the supporting evidence by deeming it as not being raised at the 'correct
time'. Such a lack of consistent practice and jurisprudence, leads to severe
human rights violations in the investigation and prosecution of juvenile
defendants and eventually to executions that are in blatant violation of
domestic and international law.
In the state reports submitted under the United Nations International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC) the government of Pakistan has unequivocally stated that no
juvenile offenders have been executed in Pakistan. However, what these reports
fail to mention is that the criminal justice is severely lacking in reliable
mechanisms to identify juveniles and thereby bring them within the protections
that are due to them under law. There is a dire need to develop consistent
age-determination protocols in order to ensure that determination of juvenility
by the police and by the courts is conducted in a manner that is fair, just and
transparent. The National Commission on Human Rights, established under the
National Commission on Human Rights Act, 2012, is the body with the requisite
powers to formulate and implement such protocols. It is essential that the
Government of Pakistan provides the necessary cooperation and assistance to the
NCHR to undertake such an essential endeavour.
It has been a year since the world lost Aftab Bahadur, and over 23 since he
lost his freedom at the age of 15 - an innocent victim of a defunct juvenile
justice system. How many more children will meet the same fate?
(source: The Nation)
BELARUS:
see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/belarus-commute-gennadii-yakovitskii-s-death-sentence-ua-1816
(source Amnesty International)
BANGLADESH:
Man to die for killing wife in Tangail
A Tangail court yesterday sentenced a man to death for killing his wife for
dowry in Madhupur upazila of the district in 2012.
The death penalty awardee is Mohammad Nasir Uddin, son of Meser Ali of Kaitkait
village in the upazila.
According to the prosecution, Nasir married Noorjahan Begum, daughter of Ziaul
Haque of Poddarbari village in the upazila in March 2012. After the marriage,
he demanded Tk 20,000 as dowry from his father-in-law.
On the night of September 2, 2012, Nasir picked up a quarrel with Noorjahan
over the issue. At one stage, he strangled her.
On the following day, victim's father Ziaul Haque filed a murder case with
Madhupur Police Station, accusing Nasir.
Police arrested Nasir and produced him before the court where he gave a
confessional statement under Section 164.
After examining case record, Judge Mohammad Shorfuddin Ahmed of Women and
Children Repression Prevention Tribunal in Tangail handed down the verdict.
(source: The Daily Star)
***************
Nilphamari court sentences man to death for counterfeit currency
A man in Nilphamari has been given the death penalty in a case involving
counterfeit currency notes.
47-year-old Badshah Dhali was arrested on Jul 7, 2014 at a house at Syedpur
town while making fake currencies.
The case details say counterfeit currency notes as well as equipment to make
those were found with Dhali.
Police booked him under the 1974 Special Powers Act.
The court of Nilphamari's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict on
Wednesday in the presence of the convict.
Additional Public Prosecutor Azizul Islam Pramanik said the case was filed
under the Act's Sections 25 (a) and (b) of, which keeps the provision of death
sentence as the maximum penalty.
(source: bdnews24.com)
NIGERIA:
Kaduna govt seeks death penalty for 256 shiites
The Kaduna State Government on Tuesday arraigned another batch of 91 members of
the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) before a Kaduna High Court, seeking death
sentence for the accused.
The government had on April 21 arraigned 50 members of the sect on similar
charges.
They were among the 266 sect members arrested during the Shiite/Army clash
between Dec. 12 and Dec 14, 2015 in Zaria.
256 of the arrested persons are facing charges including death sentence, while
10 others are facing other charges in different courts in the state.
They were arraigned on a 5-count charge for criminal conspiracy, culpable
homicide, unlawful assembly, disturbance of public peace and wrongful restrain.
Mr Dari Bayero, who led the prosecution, told Justice Hajara Gwadah that the
accused persons were being charged "pursuant to Sections 97, 102, 106, 221 and
256 of the Penal Code Law of Kaduna State.
"My Lord the charge before you is for mention. We humbly apply that the names
of the accused persons be called out for identification. My Lord the 1st, 13th,
34th, 39th, 57th , 66th and 70th accused persons are not in court and are
absent.
"They were released on bail and are aware of this date particularly the accused
person No. 57 who we have proof of service on.
"My Lord the 1st accused person was released on bail to one Ibrahim Haruna who
is Resident at Zaria. My Lord we hereby apply for a bench warrant against the
57th accused person.
"My Lord same is also applied against all the accused persons that are absent.
I also apply for a short date for further arraignment."
On his part, Mr Festus Okoye, who led the defence team, said the prosecution
had not served any of the accused persons with the charge since the case was
filed on March 22, 2016.
"My Lord our 1st application is that the prosecution should serve the charges
on all the accused persons.
"My Lord, the application for bench warrant against the accused persons that
are not before the court is not proper. My Lord the 1st accused and his surety
were not served with a copy of this charge and hearing notice and thus, are not
aware that the matter comes up today.
"The 13th accused person was released because he was critically ill. There is
also no evidence that he was served with the charge or hearing notice. The 39th
and 70th accused persons were released on bail because they are minors and were
not served against today. I don't have information on the 57th accused person."
The defence counsel requested the court to order the prosecution to serve the
accused persons that were not in court and their sureties.
After listening to the submissions, the Judge issued a bench warrant against
the 57th accused person.
"Bench warrant against 57th accused person is hereby granted. Accused persons
are to be served personally.
"Case adjourned to June 1, 2016 for arraignment," Gwadah declared.
(source: The News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 4 11:12:40 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 11:12:40 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041112300.7536@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
INDONESIA:
Indonesia is preparing to execute prisoners, police official confirms ----
Spokesman says firing squad has been in training, risking backlash from foreign
governments with citizens on death row
Indonesia is preparing to execute several prisoners, a police official has
said, confirming reports that a year-long pause in the death penalty could be
nearing an end.
Authorities have not said how many prisoners will face the firing squad or if
foreigners will be among them. 2 Britons, Lindsay Sandiford and Gareth
Cashmore, are on death row in the south-east Asian nation, which has a
notoriously hardline attitude towards drug offences.
"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," said the Central
Java provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.
"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location, like painting and repairs,
because there will probably be more people who will be executed," he said,
adding that the firing squad had been training and receiving counselling.
He declined to say how many prisoners would be executed, or when, or if there
would be foreigners among them.
After 14 prisoners were executed in January and April 2015, drawing widespread
international condemnation, scheduled executions were postponed, with officials
saying the government preferred to focus on reviving the economy.
But President Joko Widodo's administration has pledged to resume executions by
firing squad at an island prison on Nusa Kambangan, claiming they are a
necessary response to the country's "drug emergency".
The most recent round of executions, in which eight men, including seven
foreigners, were shot dead in April last year, sparked condemnation from
Australia and Brazil, which had pleaded for their nationals to be spared. 2
Australian men, the Bali 9 pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were
executed, prompting the temporary withdrawal from Jakarta of Canberra's
ambassador.
Authorities have not given a breakdown of the numbers of people sentenced to
death, but according to Amnesty International, there were at least 165 people
on death row at the end of 2015, and more than 40% of those were sentenced for
drug-related crimes.
Many of them are foreigners, and citizens of France, Britain and the
Philippines are known to be among them.
Sandiford, from the UK, was sentenced to death after being convicted in 2013 of
trying to smuggle almost 4kg of cocaine into Bali.
Cashmore was sentenced to life imprisonment - later raised to death by firing
squad - after he was caught with 6.5kg of crystal meth in his luggage at
Jakarta airport in 2011.
A Philippine maid, Mary Jane Veloso, got a last-minute reprieve in April last
year in response to a request from Manila after a woman whom Veloso had accused
of planting drugs in her luggage gave herself up to police in the Philippines.
Her lawyer said he hoped she would not be in the next batch of prisoners to be
executed. "The execution of Mary Jane should be delayed because we are waiting
for the legal process in the Philippines," said the lawyer, Agus Salim.
A lawyer for Serge Atlaoui, a French national, said authorities had not
contacted the French embassy on whether his client would be executed in the
next batch. Atlaoui, who denies being the "chemist" for an ecstasy factory
outside Jakarta, exhausted all legal appeals in mid-2015.
The government typically informs the embassies of foreign convicts only days
before their executions.
Indonesia imposed a moratorium on executions for 5 years before resuming them
in 2013. It has executed 14 people, most of them foreigners, under Widodo.
Indonesia's representative at a UN narcotics conference was jeered last month
when he defended the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a penalty
that is contrary to international law.
(source: The Guardian)
******************
Death penalty calls for schoolgirl's rapists
The mother of an Indonesian schoolgirl killed following an alleged gang rape
has called for the death penalty for the youths accused of the attack.
Prosecutors have called for sentences of 10 years for the 7 youths, but the
girl's parents and activists say tougher penalties need to apply and parliament
must address violence against women.
Yuyun, 14, left school at around lunchtime on April 2 when she was allegedly
set upon by a group of 14 males in her village in Bengkulu, Sumatra.
The gang had drunk palm liquor or 'tuak' before snatching her, raping her and
strangling her, Bengkulu Provincial Police spokesman Sudarno told AAP on
Wednesday.
The schoolgirl's bound body was found 2 days later, dumped near the crime
scene. Some of the alleged perpetrators are believed to have taken part in the
search.
Sudarno said prosecutors have called for the 7 youth - aged 16 and 17 - who are
currently facing trial, to be jailed for 10 years for the offences of 'forced'
sex and violence causing death.
But the teenager's mother Yani said she wanted to see her daughter's attackers
receive the death penalty or life.
'All of you other mothers, please take care of your daughters. Let Yuyun be the
only victim ... There shall be no more other than Yuyun.'
5 men, aged up to 23, have been arrested with a search underway for the
remaining 2 alleged perpetrators.
The case was pushed into the national spotlight this week after activists waged
a social media campaign.
1 such Jakarta-based activist, Kate Walton, said she first heard of Yuyun's
case last week and had been 'shocked' to discover it had garnered so little
attention.
Utilising local media reports, Ms Walton has been gathering data on cases like
Yuyun, and by her count 44 women and girls have been killed by men in Indonesia
since the start of the year.
'We are trying to demonstrate that cases like Yuyun are not isolated,' she told
AAP.
Adriana Venny, from the women's group Komnas Perempuan, said they had placed a
draft bill before parliament more than 2 years ago to tackle sexual violence,
but it had been languishing in the 'temporary list'.
The bill seeks to increase penalties, widen Indonesia's limited definition of
rape and include further sex offences, she said.
Venny hopes parliament will finally listen.
'It's time to push and to pass this bill immediately because we can wait no
longer,' she told AAP.
On Wednesday, Indonesian President Joko Widodo tweeted: 'We're all in grief for
the tragic departure of YY. Catch and punish the perpetrators ... Women and
children must be protected from violence.
(source: skynews.com.au)
**********
3rd round of death penalty a matter of choosing a day: Attorney General
It is now only a matter of choosing the day on which the 3rd round of
executions of drug convicts will be carried out, Attorney General Muhammad
Prasetyo said on Tuesday.
The Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) has begun preparations for the
executions, set to take place on the notorious prison island of Nusakambangan
in Cilacap, Central Java.
"There is only the choosing of the specific date. That's what I haven't been
able to decide," Prasetyo said on Tuesday as quoted by newsportal Kompas.com.
He refused to disclose any details about what was delaying his decision. He
also refrained from answering questions from reporters regarding the number of
convicts who are to be executed.
The Attorney General has confirmed that Filipino Mary Jane Veloso and
Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy Budiman are not on the list.
Veloso exclusion is due to an ongoing legal process in a separate but related
case in her country.
Meanwhile, Freddy, who was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills
from China to Indonesia in 2012, has filed for a case review, Prasetyo said.
The prosecutors will execute convicts whose verdicts are final, he added.
Prasteyo said he hoped the third round of executions would be carried out
without any public uproar, such as that which has previously arisen after the
executions of death row convicts.
"We do not want any racket. I have said many times, this is not something that
is fun, but we have to do it nonetheless. Because no matter what, it concerns
the well-being of the nation," he said.
Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen Condro Kirono said he had prepared the
firing squad, doctors as well as clerics and priests for the executions. He
said a firing squad of 14 personnel was deployed to execute 1 convict.
However, he did not know the exact date either, as coordination between the AGO
and police had been made prior to the execution.
There were 65 drug convicts on death row as of 2015, according to AGO data.
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has executed 2 groups of
death-row convicts, both of which were carried out last year and comprise a
total of 14 people.
The 1st round was conducted on January 18 with 6 drug convicts executed.
The 2nd round shortly after, on April 29, especially dominated media headlines,
since several of the 8 people who were executed were foreigners whose deaths
caused tensions between Indonesian and the respective home countries of the
convicts.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
**************
Gang Rape, Murder of Indonesian Girl Sparks Call for Reform
The rape and murder of a teenage girl by 14 men has reignited calls in
Indonesia for a sexual violence law that is languishing in Parliament to be
enacted.
The attack on the girl in Bengkulu province in western Indonesia occurred April
2 and went largely unnoticed at a national level until social media users began
highlighting its brutality.
Activists from the Alliance for Community Care of Victims of Sexual Violence
called on the government on Tuesday to urgently pass the Elimination of Sexual
Violence Act.
Half of the suspects are less than 18 years old and the maximum sentence they
can receive because of Indonesia's child protection law is 10 years.
A local police chief in Bengkulu, Eka Chandra, said trials have begun for the 7
minors and prosecutors are seeking 10-year sentences.
Local media reported the girl was dragged into a forest by 1 of the
perpetrators on her way home from school. She was found 3 days later.
Arist Merdeka Sirait, chairman of the National Commission for Child Protection,
said the adult suspects could receive the death penalty if there is evidence
the girl's murder was premeditated.
2 of the men are still at large.
(source: Associated Press)
TAIWAN:
Cheng Hsing-tse freed from death row----5,231 Days in Jail: Cheng was happy to
be reunited with his mother in time for Mother's Day after 14 years in prison.
He is to be retried after new evidence surfaced
The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that death-row
inmate Cheng Hsing-tse should be released on bail pending a retrial on the
charges that have seen him imprisoned for 14 years, including 10 on death row.
The 49-year-old Cheng, who has always maintained his innocence, walked out of
the Taichung Prison in the afternoon and was met by family members and
supporters, including representatives of the Taiwan Association for Innocence
and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
After 5,231 days of incarceration, Cheng said: "This taste of freedom is a
really great feeling."
"I have been imprisoned for the past 14 years, but now I am so happy that I can
spend this Mother's Day with my family," he said as he embraced his mother.
Some supporters came with sunflowers and handed one to Cheng, as they hailed
his release as a victory for human rights and shouted: "Cheng is innocent of
the crime" and "We don't want to have any more wrongful convictions."
Cheng's attorney Law Bing-cheng said the day has been late in coming because
his client is innocent and has been jailed for too long.
"Today he is set free, and for this we have to thank the prosecutors and the
judges. This case has also set milestones in Taiwan's judiciary, because it is
the 1st time that a man whose death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court is
going to receive a retrial. I am certain Cheng has the courage to face the
retrial so that he can clear his name," Law said.
Yesterday's decision barred Cheng from leaving the country or going out to sea.
Cheng's case has gone through 7 trials and 7 retrials, including the Supreme
Court upholding his death sentence in 2006.
A retrial was ordered after Cheng's defense team presented new evidence raising
doubts about his conviction for the death of police officer Su Hsien-pi during
an exchange of gunfire at a KTV parlor in Taichung in 2002 and prosecutors
concurred.
The prosecutors' application in March for a retrial was the 1st time in the
nation's history that a retrial has been sought in a case where the Supreme
Court's final ruling upheld the original death sentence.
Cheng is the 5th death row inmate to be released from prison for a retrial,
including the Hsichih Trio case of Su Chien-ho, Liu Bin-lang and Chuang
Lin-hsun, who were found not guilty in 2012.
Human rights groups have long highlighted what they said were defects in the
original investigation and questionable evidence used by prosecutors, including
a confession that Cheng had been tortured and coerced into making.
After re-examining the forensic evidence and findings from a new investigative
report, Taichung prosecutor Wu Tsui-fang decided a retrial was needed because
the evidence indicated that another suspect had fired the fatal gunshot that
killed Su, not Cheng.
(source: Taipei Times)
SINGAPORE:
See:https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-republic-of-singapore-cabinet-of-the-republic-of-singapore-savejabing-grant-clemency-to-sarawakian-kho-jabing
(source: change.org)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs another 5 prisoners
The mullahs' regime in Iran on Tuesday hanged 5 prisoners, including a man in
public.
4 death-row prisoners were hanged in Qezelhesar Prison in Karaj, west of
Tehran.
They were identified as Ahmad al-Tafi, Abdolhamid Baqeri, Majid Imani, and Reza
Hosseini.
Another prisoner, identified only by his first name Avaz, was hanged in a
public square in the port city of Nour, northern Iran, on Tuesday.
The hangings bring to at least 62 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Commenting last week on the recent spike in the rate of executions in Iran,
Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "In the month of April, during and
after visits to Iran by the Prime Minister of Italy and the EU foreign policy
chief dozens of people have been executed in Iran."
"The increasing trend of executions indicates that the visits of senior
European officials to Iran not only have failed to improve the human rights
situation; rather, they have given a message of silence and inaction to the
mullahs. This has emboldened the clerical regime in stepping up executions and
suppressing the Iranian people. This is the regime that has been the record
holder of executions per capita globally in 2015. This bitter reality is not an
issue of pride for any of the guests of the religious fascism," he added.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
Ms. Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for
Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was in Tehran on April 16 along with 7 EU
commissioners for discussions with the regime???s officials on trade and other
areas of cooperation.
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 2,300 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)
****************
3 Prisoners Hanged in Iran
On Sunday May 1, 1 prisoner was reportedly hanged at Nahavand Prison (in the
western province of Hamadan) and 2 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Mashhad
Central Prison (in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan).
According to a report by the Judiciary in Hamadan, the prisoner hanged at
Nahavand was executed on murder charges. The report identifies the prisoner
only by the initials, M.R.
The state-run news site, Rokna, reported on the executions of the 2 unrelated
prisoners in Mashhad, but did not publish their names or initials. According to
the report, 1 of the prisoners was hanged on murder charges while the other was
a 25-year-old hanged on rape charges.
***************
2 Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges
2 unrelated prisoners with drug related charges were reportedly hanged at
Ardebil Central Prison on the morning of Tuesday May 3. According to the press
department of the Judiciary in Ardebil, 1 of the prisoners was charged with
possession of 70 grams of heroin and crytal meth while the other was charged
with trafficking 1 kilogram and 700 grams of heroin.
**************
4 Prisoners in Danger of Execution on Drug Charges in Ghezel Hesar Prison
4 prisoners on death row on drug related charges have been reportedly
transferred to solitary confinement cells in Ghezel Hesar Prison in preparation
for their executions. The prison is located in the city of Karaj (northern
Iranian province Alborz).
According to close sources, 3 of the prisoners were transferred from Unit 2 of
Ghezel Hesar Prison and 1 of the prisoners was transferred from Tehran Central
Prison (also known as Fashafouye). These prisoners have been identified as:
Majid Imani, Abdolhamid Bameri, Ahmad Altafi, and Reza Hosseini (from Tehran
Central Prison).
According to IHR's annual death penalty report, Iranian authorities executed at
least 638 people in 2015 on drug related charges. After China, Iran is home to
the most executions in the world. IHR reported at least 969 executions carried
out in 2015 alone.
(source for all: Iran Human Rights)
INDIA:
Soumya's mother hits out at delay in execution of rapist
Sumathi, mother of 23-year-old Soumya who was pushed out of a train and raped
and murdered on the tracks in 2011, said delay in execution of the man
convicted in the case contributed to the recurrence of the similar rape and
murder of the law student at Perumbavoor.
Govindachami, the convict, was awarded death penalty by a fast track court in
November 2011 and the sentence was subsequently upheld by the high court in
December, 2013. "But he is still alive as his appeal is pending in the Supreme
Court. The government has not yet appointed a special prosecutor in the case.
Legal experts say an advocate closely familiar with the case should be arguing
the case in the Supreme Court as the conviction was largely based on
circumstantial evidences and not on the basis of the testimonies of
eye-witnesses,'' Sumathi said.
"We must ensure that no more mothers have to wet the earth with their tears for
their daughters. The accused in such cases must be handed out quick and extreme
punishments, which will have a deterrent value. In fact, the public must be
allowed to handle such cases,'' Sumathi said. She, however, pointed out that
the investigations in the Perumbavoor case had several lapses. The brutality
came to light only after 2 or 3 days of the incident and the accused is still
absconding, she said.
In the Soumya case, the investigating team led by DSP Radhakrishnan Nair and CI
Sasidharan as well as the Special prosecutor A Suresan had meticulously
followed up the case and this led to the awarding of death sentence to
Govindachami, She said.
(source: The Times of India)
*************
Listening to the Unheard: The Experience of Interviewing Death Row
Prisoners----Student researchers who interviewed death row prisoners in India
and their families spoke to The Wire about their experiences.
In May 2013, a group of people based out of the National Law University in
Delhi decided to try and fill a big data gap in India - information on the
death penalty and death row prisoners. Their aim was to conduct a research
project that would look at the socio-economic background of death row
prisoners, their experiences in the criminal justice system, what their
families went through and so on. A comprehensive empirical base for talking
about the death penalty in India.
Led by Anup Surendranath, a teacher at NLUD, the project tied up with the
National Legal Services Authority, making it easier for them to gain access to
the death row prisoners. In spite of that, there was 1 state that gave them no
access at all and another that did not let them meet a section of prisoners.
Though the project hired a few lawyers and legal researchers, a majority of
those doing the fieldwork and data entry were student volunteers from NLUD. In
the 2 1/2 years that a project lasted, close to 90 student researchers worked
on it at different points in time. Some of them stayed for close to the entire
period.
For most of these students, these experiences were different from ones they'd
ever had before. Not only did they go to various prisons, speaking with
prisoners who had been sentenced to death and faced perhaps the harshest side
of the criminal justice system, they had also travelled to extremely remote
locations across the country looking for the families of the prisoners,
speaking to them about their experiences. About a week before the release of
the report that contains all their work, they sat down with The Wire to talk
about their experiences, what made them keep working with project and what they
had learnt about India's criminal justice system.
"(The students) have given up on a lot of their internships for this project.
Sticking with the same thing for so long is very rare among competitive law
school students, because it's still only 1 line on your CV - whether you worked
for 24 months or two," Surendranath said, smiling at the student researchers
present in the room.
Research experiences and stories from the fieldwork
"I joined the project almost as soon as I joined college," said Gale Andrews, a
3rd year student who worked with the project for 2 1/2 years. "Since we were
just starting out, it seemed like a really exciting thing to do, and I think
Anup sold it very well."
"There is this one family I keep taking about. It was a completely remote area,
a tiny mud house with a thatched roof. I had met the prisoner about a week
before that and he was 2 years older than me. He seemed like a sweet, friendly
guy. I remember that I was taking notes during his interview, translating from
Hindi to English simultaneously. When we asked him how much he had studied, he
said proudly that he could write his name. When we asked if he could write it
in English, he said 'No, I'm not that good yet, I can only write it in Hindi'.
The idea that he was 2 years older than me and he's so proud of just writing
his name - whereas it didn't even occur to me that it's so natural for me to be
so literate," Andrews said. "When I went and met the family, the thing that
struck me was when we asked them for the lawyer's contact details. This was a
question we always asked. They pointed to the wall - they'd written lawyers
number in chalk because they don't keep paper or a pen at home. They also don't
have a telephone; they just use the village phone. Just seeing how disconnected
they were - they didn't know anything about the case, they don't have the money
to visit the prisoner. They didn't even know what the case was about, they only
learnt things from rumours in the neighbourhood. It was impossible to get
information from them for the project because they're so alienated from
everything, they had no access to information. It just hits you then how unfair
things are when they play out."
"For me, that's why I stayed on with the project," she added, explaining her 2
1/2-year stint with this project instead of going for other internships. "Every
time it kills you that you're staying up till 2 am filling up a sheet, you
think okay, you're filling up this sheet because eventually it will come out -
and that's what they wanted, they wanted their stories to come out. So what
kept me going was knowing that we were the only ones willing to listen to them,
and for them that was so valuable."
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them, and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."
Some of the students had trouble explaining to their parents why they wanted to
travel across the country, meeting not only death row prisoners in jails but
also their families, spread across states. "We're in the same batch, but I
didn't join the project the same time as Gale did," said Jagata Krishna
Swaminathan. "I joined it later because my parents were wary of sending me off
into different parts of the country. I'm from Bangalore and at one point the
project was look for Kannada speakers to do the interviews in Karnataka. That's
when my parents agreed, because they said 'Okay, Karnataka we know'."
"I don't think I've ever worked this much for anything else in my life, and if
you ask me I don't think I could give you a clear answer," Swaminathan added.
"I guess during the process you realise that it's important to them and no one
else is listening. How do you just ignore that? It's a huge sense of
responsibility."
"I think it's fair to say that even though we remember the entire experience,
everyone has that one story that you carry with you. For me it was to do with a
female death row prisoner," she said, remembering the case of a prisoner she
met just after the landmark Shatrugan Chauhan judgment. Before this judgment,
death row prisoners were kept in separate barracks. "For a female prisoner,
what being kept in a separate barrack translates into is basically 1 or 2 women
being completely isolated from everyone else, unlike the men's death row
barracks in the state, which had about 30-35 prisoners. The isolation that the
prisoner we met felt was then far greater. I also met her husband on death row
and he was talking about how he was only allowed to meet her once in every 15
days. She didn't really have much contact with people, so every time he met her
he felt that she was deteriorating, that he could just see her giving up
slowly. When I went in to meet her, she was eating breakfast so I was waiting
for her to finish. While waiting I was talking to other people there - some of
the prisoners and the prison guard. The guard pointed to this dark room at the
very end of a hall, saying that's where she had to stay before, though now
she's is allowed to stay with the others."
"The 1st prisoner interview I did was someone in solitary confinement," said
Chinmay Konjia, relating the experience that shocked him most. "It was quite
shocking. Our proximity to the prisoner was such that the person was inside the
cell and we were standing outside. It was horrific. People had told us about
certain other states and the prison authorities being extremely cooperative -
letting the prisoners out so that they could sit down and talk face to face. I
was absolutely not prepared for something like this. This was also the 1st
female prisoner that Anup interviewed. For solitary confinement, you're taken
in through doors after doors. She was allowed to leave their rooms for about 15
minutes a day, and looking at the size of their room that was just unimaginable
for me. Everything from eating to going to the toilet happened within that
room. Even when you go out for those 15 minutes, there is nobody except the
prison guards. Such things really got to me."
"Of course the interviews went well despite us not being prepared for
everything that we saw, because people want to share their stories. Later we
met the husband of this prisoner, who was in the male solitary confinement. He
explained to us how we wouldn't be able to comprehend their lifestyle - from
small things like mosquitoes in the jail to things like they can't be given
thick blankets, because it's too hot, but they can't be given given thin
blankets, because then there's a danger of them hanging themselves. It was all
so surreal. Every time the people in solitary confinement would hear even a
small thing like a lock being turned, they think today's the day that
everything is going to come down. These things were extremely tough, at least
for me," he added.
"Also, for some of the prisoners we met, the number of years that they had
spent inside the jail was unthinkable. People often use the 5% number to argue
for the death penalty, saying it's really the rarest of rare cases," he
continued, referring to the fact that less than 5% of people sentenced to death
by trial courts are finally sentenced to death by the Supreme Court. "What you
are forgetting in this whole debate is the 15-20 years that a person has spent
on death row. You could see the impact of those years once you meet these
prisoners. It's not the same thing those in life imprisonment go through. The
minute you are accused the rules in prison change for you. There'll be solitary
confinement, shorter meeting period, etc. Everything changes because you're on
death row. You're not even allowed to work, meaning that the little bit of
money you could send to your family is also gone. Families told us about how
they've had to keep living off debt, since one of their only earning members
had been locked up. But even then, these families somehow get you a bottle of
Thums Up to drink."
The sensitivities of family interviews
Given what they wanted to talk about, interviews with prisoners' families also
had to be dealt with extremely carefully. The researchers did not use a set
survey-like questionnaire. Though they had guidelines, they were encouraged to
allow the conversation to progress naturally. "When we went out to talk to
people, we were very aware that the fact that someone from their family has
been sentenced to death will probably be constantly playing on their minds. So
the 1st effort was always to try and make them comfortable with us, talking to
them a little, trying to get to know them, introducing ourselves. If you just
go question by question, like a survey, not only are they less comfortable, I
think you also give up on a lot of valuable information," said Lakshya Gupta.
"In a way I think we were well-placed to conduct these interviews - we're just
law students, so harmless I guess, and people are more comfortable talking."
Surendranath agreed that allowing families and prisoners to speak naturally was
very important. "They often wanted to talk about things that weren't relevant
to our project, like how they didn't do it, for example. This was never a
question, but since it was the 1st time they were getting to talk about it,
prisoners wanted to express themselves. We understood that we should let them
talk, not say things like 'we don't want to listen to this, it's not why we're
here'. We learnt to slowly guide them into conversations you do want to have. I
think emotionally it was a huge challenge to explain the utility of any of
this, or why they should give you their time. I guess a lot of that went into
making this permanent - just confronting that repeatedly," he said, referring
to the full-time Centre on the Death Penalty that emerged out of the project,
working on litigation as well as research.
Students also talked about the dual risk while preparing for family interviews
- if you did all the background research, there was the chance you could form a
bias on the case and perhaps against the family, whether you wanted to or not.
But go in blind, and you can come across as completely ignorant, as if you
haven't done your homework.
Difficult to be prepared for everything
"I think in some ways we were really unprepared," Surendranath added. "I don't
think any of us could envisage the intensity of some of the reactions from
families who didn't want to talk to us. The sensitivities around them having
moved because of the case - we predicted it to some extent, that families might
have moved, there might be stigma. You can't just go around asking neighbours,
'Jinke bete ko phaansi ki saza mili hai woh kahaan milenge? (Where is the
family whose son has been sentenced to death)'. There are a lot of sensitive
things to care of."
Shreya Rastogi, a legal researcher with the project and now a litigator with
the centre, echoed Surendranath's sentiments on some things being impossible to
prepare for. "Sometimes it was something as simple as the fact that you would
expect, at least for family interviews, that you're going to into someone's
house, to sit down and have a conversation. But then you realise the situation
in which some of these families are placed. Like for instance, this one family
interview I was a part of, the family had been thrown out of their house
because of the kind of the media pressure that was built around that case. They
were basically living on the street outside the jail. There's a culpability
that's attached to the family as well - they weren't even allowed to gather
their things. Let alone if the prisoner is guilty, the family is facing the
punishment too. This is in Bombay and we did the interview in July, so if you
know Bombay at all you know that it's always pouring. So we couldn't even find
a dry place where we could sit down and talk to them. Those are the kinds of
situations where you find yourself doing these interviews and then you're
supposed to cover their socio-economic circumstances, which is staring at you
in the face while you do the interview. The part of that interview that will
really stick with me was that even though they had absolutely nothing on them,
at the end of the interview they offered if they could take me to the nearest
chaiwallah and buy me some tea. How can you have nothing and still have
something to offer?"
Each case and each state was also extremely different, making it harder for the
team to know what to expect.
Thinking about the criminal justice system
Going through this process, students felt they had a new perspective on the
criminal justice system, the people in it and cases they read.
"I want to talk about the jail and police authorities. There are usually 2 ways
we speak about them, 2 narratives, both of which are very black and white. One
is about how they're great, how they're authorities so they must be respected,
all of that. Not criticising them at all. The other is to see them as
adversaries, imposing an oppressive system. While there's merit to both, 1
thing that struck me is that they're just cogs in a much larger oppressive
system" said Pawani Mathur. "I think we forget that they're also human beings
who are also affected by this process, though they may not show it. There were
jailors that we met who were extremely sympathetic. One of the cases in
Chhattisgarh, for instance, the jailer would call me up voluntarily and ask,
'What's happening in the case? Tell me because I want to tell him.' That was
very important for me, to appreciate the grey in all these situations. They
also say things like, 'He's not that bad, there's no need to hang him. But we
have to do what we have to do'."
Mathur also talked about an encounter with the legal system that left her
surprised. "We discovered some new facts on a case during out research process,
which weren't on record during the trial. It was about the age of the accused.
So then Anup sent us back looking for proof, we did some more research. We
collected all their school certificates, got it all verified by the sarpanch.
We did so much groundwork, as a student I didn't even know all of that was
necessary before you could file a case. We didn't have any litigators at that
time so we gave the case to somebody outside. One thing that really struck me
was that when the case went before a court, some of us were standing at the
back when the judgment was to be announced. We couldn't properly hear what was
going on. Then suddenly there was a commotion and everyone walked out. We had
no idea what happened, so we went outside and asked the lawyers. He told us
'Dismiss ho gaya (It got dismissed)'. And we didn't even hear it. Before all
the commotion happened, one of the judges at the bench made a reference to a
Sanskrit shlok (he only gave the meaning, not the shlok itself). And the
meaning was something like if a king doesn't ensure adequate punishment, then
the sin of the offender is passed onto him. And I thought okay, it's
problematic, but okay. But this was before I knew he'd dismissed the case and
was then saying it. In my head it was just that all of that work, that journey,
all of that came down to one Sanskrit shlok. It really showed how the judge
views himself, and how he viewed the justice system and his position in it."
"I think working on the project has had an impact on how I read cases," added
another student researcher, Devina Malaviya. "Because earlier I used to read
cases as very matter of fact documents. But after going through this entire
process and doing this analysis, you start viewing cases very differently. You
realise its not just about that 1 case, there's probably a back story to it
that hasn't been mentioned here. Its about the family of the accused as well,
and of course the victim. It's not just 'X vs. State of Maharashtra', that X
has a life, a backstory."
"So many of the prisoners have told us they had no idea what happened in
courts. And nobody explains anything to them."
Seeing the accused and how their case is handled is something others took away
from the project as well. "For me, the impact it's had is what can we do
different as lawyers or law students," said Swaminathan. "You're seeing how no
one is paying attention to the accused, one of the parties present with the
biggest ramifications. But the focus is always on other things. The prisoner
always looks so lost about everything. They don't know what's happening, what
they're supposed to do. They're supposed to plead with the judge, saying my
lawyer isn't here, I don't have their number. So many of the prisoners have
told us they had no idea what happened in courts. And nobody explains anything
to them."
"So when I did my internship elsewhere, with a lawyer, in my head I would keep
going through the lawyer's questionnaire for the project that asked did you do
X, Y and Z, and the answer was almost always no," added Andrews. "It plays in
my mind, how much is the lawyer actually doing for the accused, how much are
they talking to them? That one rare lawyer, who may not be very senior, but you
can see is not ignoring the accused, actually interacting, is the one you know
you want to work with. I just can't get over the image of the prisoner saying I
don't know anything that's happening in my case."
The intricacies of how cases are handled was also brought into question.
"Another thing you start to really question is the quality of evidence," said
Rastogi. "The evidence used to sentence people to death is largely
circumstantial, to use that to sentence people to death is so bizarre. They
have a witness who isn???t very sure, who just identified a figure. Or when you
meet the prisoner they tell you they were made to sign blank sheets of paper
and then stories written on them on the basis of which the weapon is apparently
discovered. You have that evidence along with the medical evidence, and the
decal evidence in some cases is also just post mortems with signs of rape,
maybe some clothes with blood recovered that could be the accused's. And that's
about it. So one of the most baffling things is that there is so much
side-stepping in the system. Even if you might have the right person, the
investigation is so flawed. And that procedure goes through our courts,
unchallenged."
"I think 1 assumption people seem to have is that the accused is equally placed
with the state, without taking into account instances of torture, etc. You
can't expect prisoners to say 'I won't sign this document because it doesn't
exactly match what I said'. There's also almost blind reliance on 'expert
evidence'. Sometimes with blood stains all they do is match the blood group -
which could belong to 1/4 of the population - and call that expert evidence,"
added student researchers, in agreement with Rastogi.
"The more you look at this system and hear the prisoners' stories, it just
seems like a weird, absurd, dark comedy," said Maitreyi Misra, head of the
research unit at the Centre on the Death Penalty. "With DNA evidence, judges
are just so taken in because its some new-fangled science, that must be true
because its science. You're explaining things to prisoners in a language they
don't know. Nobody is understanding each other, but somehow they all think
they're in it together."
The Death Penalty India Report will be released on May 6.
(source: The Wire)
SRI LANKA:
5 Charged with Death Penalty
5 suspects who were found guilty over a murder in Lunawa, Moratuwa were given
capital punishment today.
The order was given by Panadura High Court judge Vikum Kaluarachchi.
The 2nd defendant of the case was released from all accusations while the other
5 were charged leveled against 13 indictable offenses.
The death penalty receivers are residents of Lunawa, Panadura and have
committed the murder of Pradeep Kumara who resided in the same area on 7th
January 2002.
(source: hirunews.lk)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 4 17:11:40 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 17:11:40 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041711330.6884@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
CALIFORNIA:
THE EXECUTIONER'S TALE: Former San Quentin warden reveals how he killed
prisoners in the jail's 'coughing box' without any training . . . or remorse
----Dan Vasquez performed 2 executions while warden at San Quentin
Without any experience or medical training, Dan Vasquez was employed by the
government to kill other human beings.
As warden of San Quentin, one of the most notorious prisons in the world, put
inmates to death in the gas chamber - known by his staff and those on death row
as the 'coughing box'.
The day before an execution he would bring in a psychologist to help his team
prepare to watch a condemned criminal die, in a bid to avoid post-traumatic
stress.
Then, just hours later, he would ask the prisoner for his last words as he was
strapped into a chair inside a tiny metal green room.
Then he would start the chemical reaction that has been deemed the most
dangerous and expensive way to kill an inmate.
Vasquez insists he was never fazed by putting an inmate to death, as it was his
job.
In his 1st interview since stepping down as California's state executioner,
Vasquez has told Daily Mail Online his role as California's state executioner
has never haunted him.
For more than 30 years he has been involved in the death penalty, either
carrying it out or testifying as consultant at capital murder trials.
The grandfather-of-2 also believes in an 'eye-for-an-eye' when it comes to the
death penalty - that condemned inmates should be killed in the same manner they
killed their victims.
A controversial policy like that, he believes, would send a strong message to
would-be criminals and act as a deterrent,
'In my opinion, if you want to stop human beings killing other human beings,
when you execute the 1st person in the manner that they killed their victim.
'I think it would get rid of the need for the death penalty.
'For example, if I rape a woman and strangle her, then they would rape and
strangle me.'
'If that happened, maybe other people would get the message of murder under
special circumstances.
'I shoot you to death, then maybe I should be executed by being shot.
'It should be an eye-for-an-eye. If it's done that way, I guarantee you that
you are going to go a long way to stopping the criminal offense of killing
another person.
'If I stab you to death and cut you into pieces, maybe I should be stabbed and
cut into pieces.'
Vasquez is a father-of-2 who has been married for 51 years to wife Juanita.
As warden at San Quentin, Vasquez was the state executioner between 1983 and
1993.
For the first 9 years, he didn't put any inmates to death, as the 1976 US
Supreme Court decision of Gregg v. Georgia had put a moratorium on the death
penalty.
But when it was lifted, he carried out the 1st execution in San Quentin for
almost 25 years.
'I knew it was part of the job.
'I prepared for it by preparing the procedure and putting it all together.
'I made sure the gas chamber was working, made sure maintenance was done on it.
I prepared in that manner.
'I also practiced in running the lethal gas. We had a chemical engineer from
Indiana who would come in and measure the toxicity of the lethal gas inside the
chamber.'
The 1st person he put to death was Robert Alton Harris, who killed 2 teenage
boys in San Diego in 1978. He was originally scheduled at 12.01am on April 21,
1992, but stays meant his death was delayed for 6 hours
'I didn't receive any training, but I prepared myself. I didn't need the
department to help me with anything.'
He killed 2 inmates by lethal gas - Robert Alton Harris and David Edwin Mason.
The gas chamber was never as popular as the electric chair in the United States
but was used widely in Arizona, Wyoming, Missouri, Mississippi and California.
Still, it was considered the most expensive and most dangerous way to kill an
inmate.
The prisoner, strapped into a metal chair inside a tiny chamber, waits as
potassium cyanide pellets are dropped into a bath of sulfuric acid below. The
chemical reaction would generate fumes of lethal hydrogen cyanide.
As a result, the inmate would then suffer terribly before dying of hypoxia, a
form of oxygen starvation
Harris, who killed 2 teenage boys in San Diego in 1978, was originally
scheduled at 12.01am on April 21, 1992.
He finished his last meal - a 21-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, 2
large Domino's pizzas, a bag of jelly beans, a 6-pack of Pepsi, and a pack of
Camel cigarettes - before he was led into the death chamber.
But a series of 4 stays of execution issued by 9th circuit appeal court delayed
the execution until just after 6am.
At one point he was strapped into his seat in the gas chamber when the phone
rang. According to witnesses, he urged the prison guards to get over and done
with, but they couldn't.
Moments later, the guards opened the doors and Alton Harris became the 1st
prisoner to leave the gas chamber at San Quentin alive - even if it was for
just a short time.
Aside from the delays execution was however remembered for his bizarre choice
of last words:
He said: 'You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the
grim reaper,'[12] a misquotation of a line from the 1991 film Bill & Ted's
Bogus Journey.
Vasquez said he was frustrated by the constant delays, but when it came to it,
the prisoner was killed without an issue.
David Edwin Mason, who murdered four elderly people in 1980 and his cellmate in
1982, would be the last person in California to be put to death by lethal gas.
His execution was far smoother, as he kept his vow not to go through any final
appeals.
Instead of having a traditional last meal, he instead opted to dine with his
family on sandwiches provided by the prison.
When Mason was in the chamber, Vasquez asked if he wanted to proceed, knowing
that his attorney could stop the execution at any time.
But Mason refused.
He died on August 24, 1993, 12 months before a federal judge said the execution
method constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
It would be the last execution Vasquez carried out, but a year later he was
invited to watch the lethal injection procedure in Texas.
As a witness, he returned and offered his advice to the then California
Attorney General Dan Lungren, on the new method that has been used to kill
inmates ever since.
Despite his involvement in the controversial system, Vasquez insists capital
punishment hasn't had a damaging impact on his life.
'They don't haunt me. I didn't put the inmates on the row, they put themselves
on their with their actions.
'I have never received any complaints from my execution team nor from the
department of corrections in California.
'I have never received any kind of disability initiation for participating in
the executions.
'It hasn't affected my life at all.'
Capital punishment in the United States is still frequently part of political
debates. Recently, Virginia's legislature said they were bringing back the
electric chair as a back-up way to kill inmates.
Vasquez says it will never happen because of the courts, but insists he is
still for capital punishment.
'I'm for the executions. I would be a hypocrite if I wasn't'.
But he does believe that a sentence of life without parole is more punishment
than an execution.
'In California there hasn't been an execution in 10 years. It is held up in the
courts right now.
'The policy of the state of California is the death penalty.
'The citizens of the state of California have been asked on 3 different
occasions on a ballot if they wanted to do away with capital punishment in
California.
'3 times they have voted for the death penalty. I don't have any problems with
the death penalty. But I don't have any problems with life without the
possibility of parole either.'
There hasn't been an execution in California since 2006, when Clarence Ray
Allen was put to death by lethal injection.
Legal cases and problems with the lethal injection procedure led to a
moratorium being signed in California. As capital punishment was brought to a
halt, the death row population swelled.
A quarter of condemned inmates in the United States currently sit on death row
in California.
Now, it has been lifted, and some of the 764 rapists, murderers and kidnappers
on death row are facing their sentence.
7 have been there since the 1970s.
It could be at least a year until California puts another inmate to death, but
Vasquez thinks the questions surrounding the death penalty will prevail, and
will never be answered.
'Attorneys are always raising issues. It's like the question a philosopher once
posed: 'How many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
'It is a question that can never be answered, but is a question that will
always exist.
'Does it hurt when they execute you? How many angels dance on the head of a
pin?'
Now, Vasquez is a consultant, and still has a role in the whole execution
process.
He said: 'When your watch is over at San Quentin then you don't do anymore
executions.
'Now the closest I get to any issue of executions is when I testify in the
penalty phase of capital trial in California.
'What that requires is for me to educate the jury that is going to make the
decision on an inmate who has been charged with a capital crime.
'Whether to sentence them to death or sentence them to life without the
possibility of parole.'
He explains to the jury what prisons in the California state system are like,
and how life without parole will impact a prisoner.
'The defense usually hire me,' he added. 'It does not involve pros or cons. It
only involves educating the jury on all the policies involved in incarcerating
a prisoner'.
Vasquez also does a variety of consulting on prisons. He has testified on death
in custody, either by suicide or at the hands of the prison guards.
He has also been involved in informing prisons on how to avoid escapes.
In January, 4 inmates managed to flee the Orange County Central Jail through
the roof.
They went on the run for almost a week before they were spotted and captured.
Vasquez slammed the prison, claiming their regime, the decision to lock the
criminals together and the fact they left so long between headcounts, was the
cause of their escape.
(source: Daily Mail)
USA:
Batson and The Legacy of Lynchings
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the
root..."
Swaying in the wind on an October day in 1934, Claude Neal's body hung from a
tree on display in front of the Jackson County courthouse. Days prior, he was
taken from his jail cell in Marianna, Florida by an angry white mob. Having
been accused of raping and killing a white woman, Lola Cannidy, Claude Neal was
tortured and hung by his neck until he was strangled to death. People gathered
to watch the lynching, in the name of "justice" for Lola.
Claude Neal's tragic death, which is detailed in James McGovern's Anatomy of a
Lynching, is significant to me because he was my grandfather's cousin and
because I am a capital defense attorney. Because of my work, I am often
confronted by the many historical connections between the death penalty and
lynchings. One of the most clear and lasting legacies of the torrid, bloody
lynchings that occurred throughout the South in the late 1800s and early 1900s
is the fact that today, hundreds of individuals - who are disproportionately
Black - face the prospect of a death sentence without a fair trial. While Black
men are no longer lynched before all-white crowds gathered on the courthouse
lawn, Black men are all-too-often condemned to death by all-white juries that
are produced by prosecutors' deliberate exclusion of people of color,
particularly Black people, from jury service.
This past Saturday marked the 30th anniversary of the United State Supreme
Court's decision in Batson v. Kentucky, which prohibits the intentional
exclusion of prospective jurors from service on an individual case based on
race. The importance of this landmark decision cannot be overstated because, as
the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once commented, "Illegal and
unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the
whole judicial process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of
individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as well." Peters v.
Kiff, 407 U.S. 493, 502 (1972). And contemporary studies bear out the truth of
Justice Marshall's analysis: compared to diverse juries, all-white juries spend
less time deliberating, make more errors, rely on implicit biases and consider
fewer alternative perspectives. Interestingly, studies have shown the effects
of diversity were not wholly attributable to the specific performance of Black
participants. In fact, the mere presence of individuals from other racial or
ethnic groups improves the likelihood of a more well-rounded discussion among
jurors.
Despite the weighty legal and practical reasons not to have all-white juries,
prosecutors throughout the country continue to pursue them. The Glenn Ford case
in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, offers a powerful example of the tragic
consequences of this misguided practice. Mr. Ford, a Black man, was charged
with the murder of a white man in a community with a long and deep history of
racial discrimination and violence. Indeed, the Confederate flag flew outside
the courthouse at the time of his trial. Mr. Ford was sentenced to death by an
all-white jury even though nearly 40 % of the community was Black. Nearly 30
years after he was condemned to die, Mr. Ford was found to be innocent and
exonerated. Tragically, he died of lung cancer after having only one year of
freedom after his release. Considering the well-documented inadequacies of
homogenous juries, there is a very real chance that Mr. Ford's fate would have
been drastically different, had he been tried by a fairly selected, and
appropriately diverse jury.
Unfortunately, the selection of an all-white jury in Mr. Ford's case was hardly
anomalous. Thirty years after Batson, the practice is rampant. Thus, every day
across this nation, Black jurors are struck from juries based solely on the
color of their skin. For example, 1 study that examined 300 Caddo Parish trials
that were conducted between 2003 and 2012 and found that the Caddo Parish
District Attorney's office struck Black prospective jurors at 3 times the rate
of non-Blacks in felony jury trials. Similarly, a Michigan State Law School
study of trials for defendants on death row in North Carolina as of July 1,
2010, found that in those 173 capital cases, prosecutors excluded 52.8% of
potential Black jurors, as compared to 25.7% of non-Black prospective jurors.
The same study found that when the defendant was Black, prosecutors excluded
more Black prospective jurors (60%), and accepted more non-Black jurors (they
excluded only 23.1%). A prosecutors' training manual in Dallas, Texas, provided
detailed instructions on the systematic exclusion of Blacks from jury service
in criminal cases: "Do not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of
any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated....[T]hey
will not do on juries." And, an Equal Justice Initiative report found that
between 2005 and 2009, Houston County, Alabama, state prosecutors used
peremptory strikes to remove 80% of potential Black jurors, resulting in 1/2 of
the death penalty juries being all white and the remainder with only one Black
juror.
Prosecutors not only frequently exclude Black jurors, but when faced with
Batson challenges, they also make up spurious reasons to cover up their
unlawful discrimination. Any day now, the United States Supreme Court will rule
on Foster v. Humphrey, a case of discrimination in jury selection that shows
the lengths to which prosecutors will go to cover up their discrimination.
During Mr. Foster trial, Georgia prosecutors excluded all of the prospective
Black jurors. When challenged, the prosecutors offered "race-neutral" reasons
for the jurors' exclusions. Years later, however, it became clear that the
Black jurors had been specifically targeted because of their race. Indeed, the
trial prosecutors highlighted each Black prospective juror's name in green on
four different copies of the jury list.
Prosecutors often offer pre-textual "race-neutral" justifications for their
exclusion of prospective jurors of color. Indeed, some prosecutors are
explicitly taught to do so. Philadelphia prosecutors were caught training young
attorneys to question potential Black jurors in such a way that they would
later be able to provide race-neutral reasons for their peremptory strikes. In
1995, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys distributed a
one-page handout titled "Batson Justifications: Articulating Juror Negatives"
that provided a list of 10 types of "justifications" a prosecutor might offer
in response to a Batson challenge, including age, attitude, body language, and
juror response.
These tactics demonstrate the significant challenges faced by courts seeking to
root out racial discrimination in jury selection in criminal cases. Foster
provides the Supreme Court with an opportunity to strengthen the reach of
Batson through greater scrutiny of "race-neutral" justifications. But
prosecutors must also be held accountable whenever they exclude jurors on the
basis of race by suffering serious penalties for engaging in such
unconstitutional conduct. In order to ensure the legitimacy of the judicial
process, prosecutors should not evade their responsibility to selection
impartial and inclusive juries - especially in cases where a defendant's life
is literally on the line. Otherwise, the phenomenon of all-white juries
imposing death sentences on Black defendants will continue, harkening back to
the sordid lynchings of our past.
(source: Angel S. Harris Assistant Counsel at The NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, Inc. ---- Huffington Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 4 17:12:24 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 17:12:24 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605041712140.6884@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 4
INDIA:
Rajya Sabha passes Anti-Hijacking Bill
Rajya Sabha today passed the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014, which provides for
death penalty even if ground handling staff and airport personnel are killed
during such acts.
In the earlier Bill, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the
event of death of hostages, such as flight crew, passengers and security
personnel.
The amendments in the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014 were cleared by the Cabinet In
July 2015.
Besides broadening the definition of hijacking, it also provides for an
enhanced punishment to the perpetrators as well as the area of jurisdiction.
Following the amendments, the perpetrators of hijacking would now be punishable
with death penalty where such an act result in the death of any person.
The Anti-Hijacking Bill 2014, introduced in Rajya Sabha in December 2014, was
referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and
Culture.
The panel submitted its report in March 2015, suggesting various changes
including making hoax calls a punishable offence and providing adequate
compensation for victims of hijacking.
The panel had asked the government to look at adequately defining the terms
'hostage' and 'security personnel'.
Earlier on discussion on the bill, A U Singh Deo (BJD) said the bill does not
have provisions for improving security and intelligence gathering.
He added that India should make an agency to handle airport security on the
lines of TSA in the US, which was created post 9/11.
V P Singh Badnore (BJP) said that there should be provisions for the safety of
the Parliament building as well as the President's estate, which are close to
the airports.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajpathi Raju said that the issues of security
zone is looked after by Home Ministry.
Deputy Chairman P J kurien asked Raju to convey to the Ministry the concerns
raised by the member over the security of the Parliament building and the
President's estate.
During Special Mention, Vijay Jawaharlal Darda (Cong) raised the issue of
restructuring of the Bureau of Civil Aviation.
Basawaraj Patil (BJP) demanded for a better utilisation of the ESI Hospital in
Gulbarga (Karnataka).
Lal Singh Vadodia (BJP) raised the issue of improving the post office net
banking services.
Vishambhar Prasad Nishad (SP) demanded to make the Prime Minister Crop
Insurance premium free.
Vivek Gupta (TMC) raised the issue of release of MGNREGA funds to states.
(source: siasat.com)
INDONESIA:
Kalla: Death Penalty Is Just a Waiting Game
Vice President Jusuf Kalla handed over a file related to the next round of
executions of death-row inmates to the Attorney General's Office on Wednesday
(04/05).
However, Kalla said the Supreme Court had already issued verdicts in the cases
long ago and that the executions now only constituted a waiting game.
"The Supreme Court has the authority to order executions and the verdicts have
been issued a long time ago, but the time of the execution, that is up to
[Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo]," Kalla said.
The 3rd round of executions was supposed to take place early this year but it
was postponed due to shortages in the AGO's annual budget. Until now, there has
been no confirmation from the AGO of when the executions will take place.
Among those on death row are Frenchman Sergei Areski Atlaoui, Briton Lindsay
Sandiford and Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines. However, the AGO confirmed
on Tuesday that Mary Jane Veloso will not be facing the firing squad in the 3rd
round of executions.
"We only have to set the execution date. That is what we are still unable to
decide at this moment. As for the executions, we have never said that we would
stop them, because the war on drugs will never end," Prasetyo said on Tuesday.
He added that the government made the execution of drug convicts a priority.
The attorney general is still keeping the names of the inmates and dates of the
execution a secret, saying only that his office will need to make sure that all
of the death-row inmates' legal options have been exhausted.
Most of the inmates executed last year were foreigners, prompting a wave of
international condemnation over Indonesia's use of capital punishment, as well
as diplomatic pressure from many countries. After the execution, Australia
temporarily recalled its ambassador to Indonesia.
Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) director Supriyadi W Eddyono urged
the government to cancel all executions, saying that there has been errors in
some inmates' death-row verdicts. He gave the example of Zainal Abidin, whose
dossier had been missing for a few years but then suddenly reappeared with a
verdict ordering the death penalty.
Supriyadi also said that the AGO was unable to explain the method used to
determine the order in which inmates are scheduled to be executed.
The next round of executions is set to take place at the notorious Nusa
Kambangan prison island near Cilacap, Central Java, where 14 convicts,
including Australia's so-called Bali 9 duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan,
were executed last year.
(source: Jakarta Globe)
***************
Indonesia police: We've trained shooters for next round of executions----'We
have also prepared the facility for the bodies,' police said
Indonesia is preparing for a new round of executions, police said Wednesday,
May 4 around a year after Jakarta sparked global outrage by putting 7 foreign
drug convicts to death by firing squad.
Officials recently started getting ready after an order from the
attorney-general's office, which oversees executions, said Central Java police
spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.
"We have been making preparations," Darmanto told AFP. "We are ready whenever
the order comes."
Darmanto said preparations included ensuring locations where the executions
would take place were ready. For last year's executions, the drug convicts were
taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security
prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot.
"We have also prepared the facility for the bodies," he said.
"Each death row convict will face a group of 10 shooters and one group
commander. We have selected and trained the personnel."
There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that executions were set to
resume after a year-long hiatus, but high-ranking officials in Jakarta have so
far said little. There was no immediate comment Wednesday from the
attorney-general's office.
He said no date had been set for the executions, which will take place on the
prison island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, and he did not know who would
face the firing squad.
Firing squad
Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has repeatedly insisted that drug
traffickers must face the firing squad to stem rising narcotics use. There are
scores of drug convicts on death row in the country, including Indonesians and
foreigners.
The execution in April last year of 7 foreigners - 2 Australians, a Brazilian
and 4 Nigerians - and an Indonesian for drug offenses sparked international
fury.
Since then, no one else has been put to death, but officials had continued to
insist publicly that it was the country's right to use capital punishment."
Among the foreigners on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary
Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the last round of executions.
Veloso will not be included in the next round of executions.
A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is on death row in Bali after she was
caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island.
The executions last year of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia
temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.
The April round was the 2nd under Jokowi. Since he took office in 2014, 14 drug
convicts - mostly foreigners - have been executed.
(source: rappler.com)
PAKISTAN:
Pakistani Muslims Charged With Blasphemy After Sikh's Turban Desecrated
5 Muslim employees of a Pakistani transport company were arraigned on blasphemy
charges after a Sikh man complained they desecrated his turban during an
argument about a delayed bus.
Mahindar Paul Singh complained to police after the May 1 brawl on a bus journey
from Faisalabad to Multan.
Singh said one employee threw his turban on the ground during the altercation
-- an act tantamount to desecration under the Sikh religious code.
Singh said that, since he is a Pakistani national, the attackers should be
charged with blasphemy according to the same law that non-Muslims have been
prosecuted under when accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or desecrating
the Koran.
Pakistani authorities agreed, leading to the start of legal proceedings on May
3.
Blasphemy carries the death penalty and is a hugely sensitive issue in
Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Rights activists criticize Pakistan's blasphemy laws, saying they often are
used to carry out personal vendettas against minorities.
(source: Radio Free Europe / Raio Liberty)
TAIWAN:
Death penalty debate needs to be undertaken with care
Nobody is indifferent to the public's opinion on death penalty. According to a
survey from National Chung Cheng University's Crime Research Center conducted
in February, more than eight in 10 Taiwanese people are against the abolition
of the death penalty. That trend is still consolidating and developing to this
day across all layers of society, including among politicians across the
political spectrum. In response to several grisly murders carried out in broad
daylight in recent months, President Ma Ying-jeou stated last month that Taiwan
is not thinking of replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment without
parole for the time being. In publicly choosing one side of the debate on death
penalty, the president threw his weight behind those who are calling for a
"robust justice system" in which death penalty is issued when "necessary." Yes,
but how do you define situations in which a death sentence is "unavoidably
determined"? This question remains unanswered, just like the acute differences
of opinion existing between opponents and supporters of the death penalty.
Still, the relevance of this issue was highlighted earlier this week after the
release of Cheng Hsing-tse, previously convicted for killing a police officer,
after 14 years in jail. The Taichung Branch of the Taiwan High Court granted
Cheng a retrial on Tuesday due to new evidence discovered in March, indicating
that the police officer's injury and Cheng's location at the time did not
match.
This is not the 1st time, however, that our judicial system erred in its
approach to death penalty. In 1996, Jiang Guoqing, a 20-year-old solider then,
was accused of abducting, raping and eventually murdering a 5-year-old girl in
a toilet at the R.O.C.'s Air Force Combatant Command after a piece of toilet
paper was found there had Jiang's semen and the girl's blood on it. Security
forces were accused of torturing Jiang to extract confessions. Soon, he was
executed in response to the public pressure. In 2011, however, someone serving
in the military at that time admitted that it was him who had committed the
horrible crime. The reason why there was Jiang's semen on the toilet paper was
simply because he was masturbating on the same toilet prior to the incident. In
the Su Jianhe case, security forces were also accused of torturing Su and his
two friends to extract confessions for a double killing in 1991. The trio was
forced to admit that he had committed the crimes after a series of tortures.
However, evidence show that the trio was "very likely" not present when the
crime occurred. Yet, it took the judicial system 21 years to find that Su is,
in fact, innocent. That is an important argument on the death penalty debate,
which needs to be undertaken with care in order to leave seek for justice
instead of revenge.
After all, the main argument in Taiwan, Europe and the United States for
opposing the death penalty is the risk of executing the innocent. In the U.S.,
for instance, there have been indications that support for the death penalty is
on the decline. While the majority of Americans still favor the death penalty
for those convicted of murder, support is at its lowest point for the past 40
years. A new survey has revealed that 56 % are in favor of the death penalty
for people convicted of murder, while 38 % are opposed. The percentage of those
who support the death penalty has declined 6 % points since 2011, when in the
1980s and 90s support often surpassed 70 %. Do you remember the case of Lloyd
Schlup, who was convicted of murder while in prison in 1985, though videotape
footage showed him to be in a different location during the time of the murder
and several witnesses swore that he was not at the scene of the crime. Schlup
was finally given the chance to prove his innocence when the United States
Supreme Court corrected a lower court's overly narrow approach to the degree of
proof needed to support a claim of innocence. But shortly after, Congress
passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which
replaced the Supreme Court's standard with one that is virtually impossible to
meet. Schlup was granted the chance for a new hearing after the federal
District Court judge reviewed the evidence of his innocence. However, if the
standards equivalent to those now imposed by Congress had applied to Schlup's
case at the time, he would not have gotten relief and would probably have been
executed. That is another reason for pushing for a careful debate on death
penalty in order for justice to be served, meaning that it invokes proper fear
among the public, hopefully preventing similar cases from being repeated in the
future. If the public are dupes, however, and innocent victims are executed
then we also have to warn that democracy is a dupe. That is equally worrisome.
(source: Editorial, The China Post)
BANGLADESH:
4 to walk gallows for murder in Pirojpur
A court here yesterday sentenced 4 people to death for killing a man in
Zianagar upazila of the district in 2010.
The death penalty awardees are Sheuli Begum, 30, 40, Asad Majhi, Farid Ahmed
and Belal Gazi of Kalaron village in the upazila.
The District and Sessions Judges' Court also fined the four Tk 50,000 each,
court sources said.
According to the prosecution, Sheuli Begum, wife of Manik Majhi had an
extramarital affair with Asad Majhi of the village. At one stage, they planned
to kill Manik.
On the night of May 25, 2010, Asad, Farid and Belal with the help of Sheuli
entered Manik's house and stabbed him indiscriminately, leaving him dead on the
spot.
Deceased's younger brother Mizanur Rahman filed a murder case with Indurkani
Police Station the following day.
Sub-Inspector Mahbubur Rahman of the police station submitted the charge-sheet
against the 4 in 2011.
After examining the case record and 19 witnesses, Judge Mohammad Golam Kibria
handed down the verdict.
(source: The Daily Star)
NIGERIA:
Nigerian senate recommends death penalty for kidnappers----Recommendation comes
day after police rescue ex-Senator Anisulowo, who was kidnapped in southwestern
Ogun State
Nigerian senate has recommended the death penalty for anyone involved in
kidnapping, which is a rising phenomenon in the country's southern region where
victims have included senators and schoolchildren.
The recommendation was made as lawmakers Wednesday unanimously adopted a report
of the Senate Joint Committee on police affairs, national security and
intelligence.
In his remarks, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce said: "Kidnapping is a very serious
problem with grave implications in several areas of the economy."
The committee has the mandate to make recommendations on how to deal with
unabated cases of abductions and hostage-taking, some of which resulted in
deaths.
It recommended that a law prescribing death penalty for abduction be enacted as
a national response for the phenomenon. It was unanimously adopted.
Senators took turns to describe their experiences as they shared how their own
relatives got kidnapped and demands were made for ransom.
Senator Adamu Aliero of the ruling All Progressive Congress recounted the
ordeals of abductees and what their families go through during such experience.
"Anyone convicted of kidnapping should be sentenced to death," Aliero said.
The adoption of the committees' report came a day after police rescued a former
Senator Iyabo Anisulowo, who had been abducted last Wednesday in southwestern
Ogun State. Her abductor had demanded 2 million naira ($10,152) in return for
her freedom.
Incumbent Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu recalled how he was abducted
on September 10, 2000, and kept for two days before he was released.
Nigeria's most prominent abduction was the April 14, 2014, ferrying away of
some 276 schoolchildren by Boko Haram militants. Only 57 of those girls have so
far been accounted for, with 219 still believed to be held in captivity.
(source: aa.com.tr)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 5 09:41:02 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 09:41:02 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MISS., KY., OKLA., NEV.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605050940550.740@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 5
TEXAS:
Vigils object to executions
Re: The Placido Rodriguez column "Bishop says God's gift of life is sacred,
abandon culture of death," A-J, April 30.
It was encouraging to read the column in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that
explained powerful reasons to abolish the death penalty in the state of Texas
as well as nationally.
For those who have serious moral or religious reservations about the use of the
death penalty, we invite you to join a public, ecumenical prayer vigil each
time the state of Texas executes a death row inmate.
We meet during the approximate time of the actual execution (between 5:45 and
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 next execution is
scheduled for June 2.
Lubbock People of Faith Against the Death Penalty sponsor these vigils, and the
public is welcome to join us.
ANNE MCDONALD COCHRAN/Lubbock
(source: Letter to the Editor, Avalanche-Journal)
******************
Bluntson's fate on the line
Jurors are set to continue deliberating the fate of Demond Bluntson at 9 a.m.
Thursday in the 49th District Court.
Jurors deliberated for about 5 hours Wednesday evening before telling the court
that they needed rest, according to the Webb County District Attorney's Office
spokesperson.
During closing arguments Wednesday in the punishment phase of his trial,
prosecutors told jurors Bluntson deserves the death penalty while the defense
attorneys said they should impose the real ultimate punishment, a life sentence
in prison without the possibility of parole.
First assistant district attorney Marisela Jacaman told jurors they have a
serious decision to make, but that it will not be a difficult one because of
the evidence the prosecution has presented.
Jacaman went through a timeline of events that led up to the slaying of Brandy
Cerny in El Campo, for which Bluntson has been indicted in Wharton County, and
the shooting deaths of her 2 children, Jaydin Thompson, 6, and Devian, 1, in
room 1408 of the Holiday Inn in Laredo.
She also listed the lives that were destroyed as a result of Bluntson's
actions, including the Cerny and Thompson families.
Elizabeth Martinez, one of Bluntson's lawyers, told jurors they will have to
live with their decision to kill Bluntson for the rest of their lives.
"He is still another human being, no matter how much you may despise him on the
inside," she said.
(source: Laredo Morning Times)
MISSISSIPPI:
Appeal under way for 24-year-old murder case
A Lowndes County man who has claimed his innocence for 24 years is getting a
chance this week to take a step toward proving it.
Experts and a half-dozen attorneys from the Innocence Project began presenting
evidence today they say should at least get 62-year-old Eddie Lee Howard a new
trial if not an out-right dismissal.
He has twice been given the death penalty -- the last time in 2000 -- after
being convicted of capital murder in the Feb. 2 1992 rape and murder of
84-year-old Georgia Kemp inside her home on Southside Columbus. She was stabbed
and her home set on fire although it only smoldered and never fully caught
fire. The smoke attracted passers-by who notified firefighters who discovered
the body.
Defense attorneys claim the expert bite-mark testimony of Dr. Michael West that
was central to the case has since been disproved and recanted by the doctor.
Since 2000, 24 cases tied to West's testimony have proven to be fraudulent,
including the Noxubee County cases of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. Both
were finally exonerated by DNA evidence after serving a total of more than 30
years. Someone else has since pleaded guilty to the crimes.
West was in the courtroom today, but it is unclear whether prosecutors will
call him.
Howard's attorneys also say DNA testing ordered 3 years ago by the courts
doesn't match fluids found at the scene or on the murder weapon.
Most of today's hearing was spent with a British expert, Dr. Iain Pretty, who
discredits much bite mark evidence. He said the "fundamental underlying
science" in the Howard case was wrong and that "distortion" makes it difficult
to make accurate bite mark comparisons, especially if the body has started to
deteriorate.
In the Howard case, Kemp's body was re-examined by West several days after
burial at the request of former state pathologist Dr. Stephen Hayne whose work
also has been discredited.
Prosecutors tried to show Pretty was not familiar with all the evidence in this
case or the steps used, especially photography. The hearing could last through
Friday.
Lowndes County Circuit Court Judge Lee Howard could dismiss the charges against
Howard completely or order a new trial. If a new trial is ordered, District
Attorney Scott Colom may decide not to try it again because of a lack of
evidence and witnesses.
(source: WTVA news)
KENTUCKY:
Defendant in Versailles boy's death evaluated; report pending
The prosecution and defense are still waiting for a report on a mental
evaluation of the Indianapolis man charged with murder in the death of a
6-year-old boy.
Ronald Exantus, 32, appeared briefly Wednesday before Woodford Circuit Judge
Rob Johnson. Exantus is accused in the death of Logan James Dean Tipton, who
was killed while he slept in his family's Versailles home. The prosecution
intends to seek the death penalty.
During a brief status hearing, attorneys told the judge that they are waiting
for a mental competency report from the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric
Center in La Grange. Judge Johnson scheduled a new status hearing for June 1.
No trial date has been set.
Public defender Bridget Hofler said after the hearing that the defense has more
information to provide the psychiatric center, but she would not say what that
is.
There was no explanation why Exantus, a former nurse in Indianapolis, came to
Versailles. Hofler repeated that Exantus doesn't remember what happened.
"You have to understand: When someone is psychotic, it's as if somebody else
did all this. He has no recollection," Hofler told reporters.
"Every now and again a case occurs where really there is no explanation for
things," Hofler said. "In nearly 30 years of practice, I have never had a
situation like this. Never."
Commonwealth's Attorney Gordie Shaw declined to comment after the hearing.
Tipton's relatives and supporters who attended the hearing also declined to
comment.
Exantus returned to the Woodford County jail Monday after a couple of months at
the psychiatric center. He remains in jail in lieu of a $1 million bond.
(source: kentkucky.com)
OKLAHOMA:
Jurors choose to spare life of man who killed 22-year-old Arkansas woman
A LeFlore County District Court jury had trouble Tuesday deciding on a sentence
for convicted murderer Elvis Aaron Thacker but finally chose to spare him by
recommending a life sentence.
Neither Thacker nor Bethany Ault-Pyle, the mother of murder victim Briana Ault,
showed any emotion as the foreman of the 6-woman, 6-man jury read the verdict
that rejected the death penalty and recommended Thacker be sentenced to life in
prison without parole.
"We offered [life in prison] a year ago but they wouldn't accept it," Ault-Pyle
said after court. "The death penalty is what we wanted, but this is OK."
"We go home and [Thacker] goes to jail," said her husband. C.W. Pyle. "He'll
never go free. That's what we wanted."
The jury convicted Thacker on Friday of 1st-degree murder and forcible oral
sodomy in Ault's Sept. 13, 2010, death. A fisherman found her nude body with
her throat cut floating in a secluded pond just across the Arkansas line in
Pocola, Okla.
Ault, 22, was from Fort Smith. Elvis Thacker, 28, and his brother Johnathen,
27, who also was charged in Ault's slaying, are from Crawford County.
Johnathen Thacker pleaded guilty in April 2014 to first-degree murder in
exchange for testifying against his brother and to avoid the death penalty. He
told jurors during his testimony he agreed to be sentenced to life in prison
without parole.
First Assistant District Attorney Margaret Nicholson said Johnathen Thacker is
scheduled to be sentenced at 8:30 a.m. July 1.
Nicholson said District Judge Jonathan Sullivan will sentence Elvis Thacker on
the murder and sodomy charges after a pre-sentence investigation, which she
said probably will take about 30 days. Jurors recommended Friday that Thacker
be sentenced to the maximum 20 years on the sodomy charge.
Nicholson said Tuesday that she was pleased with the sentence.
Gretchen Mosley, the head of Thacker's defense team, expressed relief in the
jury's decision not to impose the death penalty.
"I'm glad the jury found reason to extend him mercy," she said.
At the close of the punishment phase of the testimony, jurors began
deliberating at 10 a.m. Tuesday. After nearly three hours, jurors returned to
court to inform Sullivan they were deadlocked and could not reach a decision.
Sullivan instructed jurors that if they could not decide, he would discharge
them and sentence Elvis Thacker himself to prison for life without parole or
life with parole. He then sent the jury back to deliberate further. The jury
returned with its verdict about 20 minutes later.
Elvis Thacker's attorneys and one of his sisters, Sandra Whitlock of Van Buren,
made emotional appeals to the jury to spare his life.
Whitlock read a statement, she said, to show jurors how special her brother is.
In the home in which Sandra, Elvis and their other four siblings were sexually,
physically and emotionally abused as children, her brother was someone she
could talk to and receive reassurance that things would be better, Whitlock
said.
After Elvis Thacker was thrown out of the home by his mother, he earned a
welding certificate, found a job, lived on his his own and took care of his
brothers, William and Johnathen, she said. He loved animals, was artistic and
discovered at some point he had a daughter.
"He loves country music, Southern cooking and he has a huge sweet tooth,"
Whitlock said.
As she sobbed, she pleaded for the jury to spare her brother's life so Elvis
Thacker's daughter could have a chance to be part of his life.
In her closing arguments, Mosley continued to impress on jurors the defense's
theory that Johnathen Thacker killed Ault and blamed it on his brother. The
jury rejected that theory in convicting Elvis Thacker.
Overcome with emotion as she spoke to jurors, Mosley said she found Elvis
Thacker to be caring and nurturing, not the murderer the jury convicted him of
being.
The only reason she said Elvis Thacker could have participated in the crime was
out of some duty to his brother.
"It's because he wanted a family so bad," Mosley said. "It's because Johnathen
is so sick, but Elvis loved him and he didn't have anybody and he needed him."
Nicholson told jurors not to lose sight of the fact that all the pain and
suffering jurors heard about over three weeks of testimony was the fault of
Elvis Thacker's killing of Ault for no good reason.
"All the tears that have been shed in this courtroom, how many have been for
her?" Nicholson said.
In delivering its verdict on Elvis Thacker, the jury accepted as proven the 3
aggravating factors the state presented to justify the death penalty -- that
he was previously convicted of attempted capital murder and kidnapping charges
in Arkansas; that he killed Ault to avoid arrest and prosecution; and that the
danger he would commit more violent crimes in the future made him a continuing
threat to society.
(source: arkansasonline.com)
NEVADA:
2 arrested, 1 sought in Vegas liquor store robbery-killing
2 ex-felons were jailed in Las Vegas on charges that could get them the death
penalty in the killing of a liquor store clerk who couldn't open a safe,
authorities said Wednesday. A third suspect was being sought.
Ray Charles Brown and Lee Dominic Sykes were arrested Tuesday and booked at the
Clark County jail pending initial court appearances scheduled Thursday,
according to police and court records.
Brown and Sykes each face murder, kidnapping, robbery and other charges in the
April 18 killing of store clerk Matthew Christensen at a discount liquor store.
Police said he was complying with the robbers, with his hands up, when he was
shot multiple times.
Police said they were still looking for Sykes' older brother, Lee Murry Sykes.
All 3 suspects are in their early 20s.
2 men identified as robbers were seen on security videotape entering the store
in southwest Las Vegas with guns drawn before the fatal shooting.
Police said Christensen, 24, didn't have the ability to open the safe. He was
called a hero for not revealing that a pregnant manager was in the store.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said Wednesday he'll decide in
coming weeks whether to seek the death penalty. He has called Christensen's
death a senseless act of violence and an "execution" murder.
Court records show that Lee Dominic Sykes, with his middle name spelled
Dominique, pleaded guilty in November 2014 in Las Vegas to conspiracy to commit
robbery, a felony. He completed a boot camp program and was sentenced in May
2015 to 3 years' probation.
Brown pleaded guilty in February 2011 to coercion by force. His probation was
revoked in September 2012, and he was sentenced to 1 to 4 years in state
prison.
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 5 09:42:09 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 09:42:09 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605050942010.740@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 5
PAKISTAN:
Convicted kidnapper: Man sentenced to death
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Wednesday handed down death sentence to a man
for kidnapping a jeweller, and taking ransom before releasing him.
Special Judge ATC-II Asif Majeed Awan convicted Amir alias "Teddy" for
kidnapping Saleem Iqbal and obtaining Rs100,000 as ransom for his safe release.
The court also ordered confiscation of moveable and immovable assets of the
convict.
Iqbal said that Amir kidnapped him at gunpoint and asked his brother for
Rs100,000 as ransom.
He said his brother paid the ransom for his release.
The court handed down the death penalty on counts of kidnapping for ransom and
terrorism.
(source: The Express Tribune)
INDONESIA:
Fate of foreign death row inmates unknown as Indonesia prepares for new round
of executions
Despite having drawn heavy condemnation from governments and human rights
groups, Indonesia is gearing up for another round of executions, but the fate
of the foreign death row inmates remains uncertain.
A police official said Indonesian authorities were preparing the location of
the sentencing and the firing squad at Nusakambangan Island. This was taking
place a year after foreign nationals were executed for drug-related offences.
"We have had a warning since last month to prepare the place," Central Java
provincial police spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto told Reuters on Wednesday.
"We carried out some rehabilitation of the location like painting and repairs
because there will probably be more people who will be executed."
Darmanto also said members of the firing squad were currently receiving
training and counselling.
However, it was still uncertain how many would receive the death sentence in
the impending round of executions and whether it involved any foreign
nationals.
On April 29 last year, Indonesia executed 7 foreigners and one Indonesian for
drug crimes amid intense international pressure to stop the executions.
Filipina mother-of-2 Mary Jane Voloso, who was part of the group, was given a
late reprieve.
Among the 8 were Australians Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The other
foreigners were 3 Nigerian men, 1 Ghanian and 1 Brazilian. Last year, 14
executions were carried out, inciting protests from the international
community.
Veloso is also reported to be spared from the coming round of executions
pending her testimony in a Filipino court against against Maria Kristina
Sergio, who is accused of duping her into smuggling 2.6 kilogrammes of heroin
into Indonesia, Coconuts Jakarta reported.
A British grandmother convicted of smuggling $2.5 million worth of cocaine into
the resort island of Bali in 2012 is also among those currently on death row.
57-year-old Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced by a district court to face a
firing squad after she was found guilty of the charges.
During the trial, she said she was forced to carry the drugs by a gang that
threatened to hurt her children. She lost an appeal 3 months later after the
Bali High Court upheld the lower court???s ruling.
Last month, Indonesian president Joko Widodo said his administration was firm
on use of the death penalty for drug-related offenses, calling drug trafficking
a "national emergency".
According to a report published by Amenesty International last month, at least
367 executions were carried out in 12 Asia-Pacific countries. The figure was a
huge increase on the 32 executions in nine countries recorded in 2014, almost
exclusively due to the rise in Pakistan.
Meanwhile in Singapore, the family of a Malaysian man on death-row for killing
a construction worker in a botched robbery attempt has launched a petition
urging for clemency.
The petition comes after the 31-year-old Kho Jabing exhausted all legal avenues
following an appeal by prosecutors to overturn the 2013 sentence to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane last year.
Last month, the appeals court in Singapore threw out his 11th-hour bid to quash
the death sentence.
Kho and his friend reportedly killed Chinese national Cao Ruyin during a
robbery attempt in Geylang Drive in 2010.
(source: asiancorrespondent.com)
****************
Police: Indonesia set to resume executions----Indonesian President Joko Widodo
has repeatedly insisted that drug traffickers must face the firing squad to
stem rising narcotics use.
Indonesia is preparing for a new round of executions, police said Wednesday,
around a year after Jakarta sparked global outrage by putting seven foreign
drug convicts to death by firing squad.
Officials recently started getting ready after an order from the
attorney-general's office, which oversees executions, said Central Java police
spokesman Aloysius Lilik Darmanto.
He said no date had been set for the executions, which will take place on the
prison island of Nusakambangan in Central Java, and he did not know who would
face the firing squad.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has repeatedly insisted that drug traffickers
must face the firing squad to stem rising narcotics use. There are scores of
drug convicts on death row in the country, including Indonesians and
foreigners. "We have been making preparations," Darmanto told AFP. "We are
ready whenever the order comes."
There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that executions were set to
resume after a year-long hiatus, but high-ranking officials in Jakarta have so
far said little. There was no immediate comment Wednesday from the
attorney-general's office.
The execution in April last year of 7 foreigners - 2 Australians, a Brazilian
and 4 Nigerians - and an Indonesian for drug offences sparked international
fury.
Since then, no one else has been put to death, but officials had continued to
insist publicly that it was the country's right to use capital punishment.
Among the foreigners on death row are Frenchman Serge Atlaoui and Filipina Mary
Jane Veloso, who were both pulled from the last round of executions.
A British grandmother, Lindsay Sandiford, is on death row in Bali after she was
caught smuggling a huge stash of cocaine into the resort island.
Darmanto said preparations included ensuring locations where the executions
would take place were ready. For last year's executions, the drug convicts were
taken to a jungle clearing on the island, which houses several high-security
prisons, and tied to stakes before being shot.
"We have also prepared the facility for the bodies," he said.
"Each death row convict will face a group of 10 shooters and one group
commander. We have selected and trained the personnel."
The executions last year of Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran
Sukumaran in particular caused tensions, with Indonesia's neighbour Australia
temporarily recalling its ambassador from Jakarta.
(source: Free Malaysia Today)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh court rejects Islamist leader's final death sentence appeal ----
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami party, could face hanging at
any time
Bangladesh's supreme court has rejected a final appeal by the leader of the top
Islamist party against a death sentence for atrocities committed during the
1971 war of independence, lawyers say, meaning he could be hanged at any time.
The supreme court in January upheld the death penalty for Motiur Rahman Nizami,
head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for genocide, rape and orchestrating the
massacre of top intellectuals during the 1971 war.
Nizami, 73, a former legislator and minister under Khaleda Zia when she was
prime minister, has been in jail since 2010, when he was charged with war
crimes by a tribunal set up by the current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, that
year.
The war crimes tribunal has sparked violence and drawn criticism from
opposition politicians, including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, that it is
victimising Hasina's political opponents.
"All the legal battles are over," Nizami's lawyer, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain,
told reporters on Thursday. "Now it is up to him whether he will seek clemency
from the president or not."
Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to cheer the
verdict, but there has been no report of violence, although Jamaat called a
nationwide strike for Sunday in protest.
Authorities have deployed additional security forces in Dhaka and elsewhere as
similar previous judgments triggered violence that killed around 200, mainly
Jamaat activists and police.
No Peace Without Justice, a non-profit body based in Italy, has called the
tribunal's proceedings "a weapon of politically influenced revenge whose real
aim is to target the political opposition".
The government denies the accusations.
The verdict comes as the Muslim-majority nation suffers a surge in militant
violence in which atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign
aid workers have been killed.
In the last month alone, 5 people, including a university teacher, two gay
activists and a Hindu have been hacked to death by suspected Islamist
militants.
The government has blamed the increase in Islamist violence on Jamaat-e-Islami,
but the group denies any link to the attacks.
4 opposition politicians, including three Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been
convicted by the war crimes tribunal and executed since late 2013.
About 3 million people were killed, official figures show, and thousands of
women were raped, during the 9-month war, in which some factions, including the
Jamaat-e-Islami, opposed the break from what was then called West Pakistan. But
the party denies that its leaders committed any atrocities.
(source: The Guardian)
****************
Noose tightens on Nizami for war crimes as Bangladesh Jamaat chief loses last
legal battle
Bangladesh's highest court of appeals has thrown out top war criminal Motiur
Rahman Nizami's last-ditch appeal to review his death penalty for atrocities
during the 1971 War of Independence.
The Supreme Court's decision clears the final legal hurdle for the government
to hang the Jamaat-e-Islami chief for directing rapes, mass murders, and
massacre of intellectuals to stop Bangladesh emerge out of Pakistan as an
independent nation.
But the former Al-Badr militia chief can beg President Md Abdul Hamid to save
his neck, but he will have to repent of his crimes.
In the event he decides that he will not seek mercy, or if the president turns
down a clemency petition from him, the government will execute the death
sentence.
The 4-strong Appellate Division bench headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar
Sinha pronounced single-word judgment on Thursday.
The top judge took his seat in a tense court room and only uttered,
"Dismissed".
The other members of the bench were justices Nazmun Ara Sultana, Syed AB Mahmud
Husain and Hasan Foez Siddique.
On Mar 16, the death warrant issued by the International Crimes Tribunal was
read out to Nizami after the Supreme Court published the full copy of his
verdict the day before.
He moved the chief justice-led court on Mar 29 to review his death penalty,
well before the 15-day time limit for the last legal recourse. The court heard
arguments for some 2 1/2 hours on Tuesday.
Assisted by SM Shahjahan, Khandker Mahbub Hossain argued for Nizami at the
court hearings on his review appeal filed.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the State and he was aided by
Additional Attorney General Md Momtaz Uddin Fakir and Assistant Attorney
General Bashir Ahmed.
An official of the Supreme Court Registrar's Office said a certified copy of
the full verdict on the review petition will soon be sent via the tribunal to
Dhaka Central jail.
Nizami, a close confidante of Jamaat ideologue and another war criminal Ghulam
Azam, who had died in prison, is now lodged in Kashimpur prison in Gazipur.
His counsels said that Nizami and his family will decide whether to go for
presidential clemency.
"All the legal battles are over," said lawyer SM Shajahan, who assisted chief
defence counsel Khandker Mahbub Hossain at the court hearings on the review
plea.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that the whole nation was
relieved over the verdict.
"It finally secured justice for the killings of intellectuals. Nizami inspired
the Al-Badr and was responsible for the massacre of the intellectuals."
The highest appeals court's decision was greeted with celebrations and
handshakes outside the courtroom and enlivened by full-throated slogans in the
streets.
It elicited jubilation and relief among war veterans and supporters of war
crimes trial who had pushed for maximum penalty, including the Ganajagaran
Mancha.
Mancha activists and supporters brought at a procession at Dhaka's Shahbagh
intersection as soon as the verdict was pronounced.
"The scrapping of review plea concludes all the legal proceedings. This is a
major victory for the people of Bangladesh.
"The nation has waited long for the notorious war criminal's punishment," said
Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarker.
The Jamaat supremo is the fifth war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum
punishment that is at the final stages of execution. He is the second
politician after his deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid to have served as
minister and going to be hanged for war-time atrocities.
On Jan 6 this year, this appellate court rejected a plea to overturn his
conviction and the death sentence given by a special war tribunal's verdict.
In its verdict on Nizami's appeal, the apex court had said nothing short of a
death sentence can be the apt punishment given the gravity of the horrific
crimes he had committed.
The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), in Oct 29, 2014 verdict, found the
former influential minister in BNP chief Khaleda Zia's government guilty of 8
out of the 16 charges.
The 72-year old divisive figure from Pabna was the chief of Islami Chhatra
Sangha, then the student wing of Jamaat. He commanded the Al-Badr militia
created by the Pakistan Army that was notorious for its ruthlessness.
He was also instrumental in the formation and running of the Razakar and Peace
Committee, forces to help the Pakistan generals.
The Al-Badr brigade had gone on a genocidal rampage to cleanse the Bengali
nation-in-the-making. Its loyalists killed some of the best brains who formed
the spine of secular nationalism that undermined Pakistan's race-based founding
principles.
Most of them were killed just a few days before the final victory on Dec 16.
The Jamaat linchpin already carries death penalty handed down in 2014 for his
role in arms trafficking related to Chittagong 10-truck arms haul case.
The 5 appeals verdicts of war crimes cases handed down so far are of Jamaat
assistant secretaries general Quader Molla and Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, secretary
general Mujahid, the party's Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee, and BNP
leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury.
Sayedee's death sentence was commuted to prison term until death.
The 4 others' death sentences were upheld and they have been executed.
Ghulam Azam, who led the party during the war, and former BNP minister Abdul
Alim died while waiting for the hearing of their appeals.
>From killing grounds to the Cabinet
Born on Mar 31, 1943 in Monmothpur village of Pabna's Santhia Upazila, Nizami
succeeded his guru at the helm in 2000.
He was chosen for the top job after he led the party's Dhaka City unit for 4
years until 1982.
A year later, he was made assistant secretary general before being promoted to
secretary general in 1988.
He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka's
Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.
Nizami later graduated from the Dhaka University in 1967.
Inspired by the political preaching of Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi, who founded
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Lahore in 1941, Nizami joined its student wing Chhatra
Sangha.
He swiftly rose through the ranks of the political outfit, operating in the
then West and East Pakistan, and became Chhatra Sangha president in 1966.
Nizami retained the post for the following 5 years and throughout Bangladesh's
struggle for independence from Pakistan.
After the war, Nizami fled with Ghulam Azam to the UK.
In 1978, Bangladesh's 1st military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman repatriated them
and brought Jamaat back into politics.
Nizami was elected to Parliament in 1991 and again in 2001 on a BNP-led
coalition ticket.
He served as the agriculture minister until 2003 and thereafter as industries
minister until 2006.
(source: bdnews24.xom)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 5 14:45:48 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 14:45:48 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605051445390.3148@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 5
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court hears argument in landmark death penalty case
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in a Pensacola murder
case that in January prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Florida's death
penalty statute unconstitutional. An attorney for murderer Timothy Hurst asked
the state's high court to direct a trial judge to resentence the defendant to
life in prison. Assistant State Attorney General Carine Mitz asked it to rule
that despite the high court ruling, Hurst still should be put to death.
During a 40-minute session Thursday, justices on the Florida Supreme Court
peppered attorneys with questions about what to do with Timothy Lee Hurst, a
death row inmate who murdered his boss at a Pensacola Popeye's fried chicken
restaurant in 1998.
It's their job to fix Florida's broken death penalty system.
In January, after studying what happened at Hurst's trial, the U.S. Supreme
Court declared the state's death penalty statute unconstitutional.
It violated an inmate's right to a trial by jury, the high court wrote, because
in Florida a judge - not a jury - imposed sentence.
On Thursday, an attorney for Hurst asked the court to spare his client. David
A. Davis cited a 1972 Florida law that says if the death penalty is found to be
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, every Florida inmate with a death
sentence must have it commuted to life."
"This court - I hate to say it's an easy job, but it's a straightforward one,"
Davis said.
Earlier in the week some of the state's most powerful attorneys, including
three former Florida Supreme Court justices, filed paperwork with the Florida
Supreme Court, asking it to commute the sentences of all 390 inmates on death
row to life in prison.
They cited that same 1972 law.
But Assistant Florida Attorney General Carine Mitz argued that that law does
not apply because only a portion of the state's sentencing statute was found to
be invalid.
She urged the court to leave Hurst's death sentence unchanged. He was not
harmed, she said, by the error pointed out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was not clear Thursday what the court would do.
Florida has halted executions since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its
decision on Jan. 12.
Hurst was convicted of murdering Popeye's assistant manager Cynthia Harrison.
He had stabbed or slashed her 60 times with a box cutter during a robbery.
Mitz argued that had a jury rather than a judge made the final decision at his
trial, Hurst still would have been given the death penalty.
A new law
The Florida Legislature quickly rewrote the death penalty statute, and on March
7 Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law. Now, before the death penalty can be
imposed, at least 10 jurors must vote for it.
In addition all 12 must identify and agree on at least 1 "aggravating factor"
that explains why the inmate deserves to be put to death, for example, that the
killing was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel.
Under the old law jurors voted on whether to recommend a sentence of life or
death, and a majority ruled. A judge then made the final decision.
Death penalty experts agree that the death penalty is supposed to be reserved
for a narrow group of killers, the worst of the worst.
On Thursday Florida Supreme Court Justices Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince
suggested that the new state law is flawed because it may fail to do that. It
allows jurors to recommend death based on a single aggravating factor.
"If only one aggravator is, in this state, all that is needed to put someone to
death, we have a serious Eighth Amendment problem," Pariente said.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
Among the things that qualify as aggravating factors: if the victim is elderly,
if the defendant is on felony probation, if the killing is committed during a
burglary.
Now anyone convicted of killing an elderly person could be put to death,
Pariente said.
"If we want a death penalty in Florida, we need it to be constitutional,"
Pariente said.
It's not clear when the Florida Supreme Court will render its ruling.
(source: Orlando Sentinel)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 5 14:46:33 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 14:46:33 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605051446260.3148@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 5
INDIA:
Why The Use Of The Death Penalty Needs To End
It is strange that we are currently governed by a system that directly relies
on the use of vastly differentiated standards of what makes the "rarest of
rare". The definition of the "rarest" is left to judges governed by personal
viewpoints on what constitutes extreme rarity.
Capital punishment has shown itself to be ineffective in having any deterrence
to criminals. Capital punishment is used by the State to placate its citizens
by sending the message that it is getting rid of the criminal, completely. The
citizenry don't seem to have thought far enough to understand - or perhaps have
ruminated over and accepted - that the responsibility of execution belongs to
them individually.
The taxpayer pays for the execution of criminals governed by a system that did
not have any deterrence on them in the first place.
The taxpayer has failed to consider even the inhumane method of execution:
death by hanging. The focus in jurisdictions that practice capital punishment
has been on finding less painful, or painless, methods of administration of
death. Justice Bhagwati, the lone dissenter in Bachan Singh's case, described
in detail the method of execution of the death penalty which makes for
harrowing reading.
The situation in India as it exists today is reliant upon the judiciary giving
out the death penalty only in the rarest situations. The crime has to be of
such repugnance that it can be classified as being beyond comprehension. The
criminal, having committed such a crime, has lost all value to society and is
beyond redemption.
It has, however, proved itself a highly contentious area of litigation. The
biggest issue by far is the impossibility of standardisation of what
constitutes a crime repugnant enough. It is left to the wisdom of the
adjudicating authority to decide what crimes can be considered the rarest of
the rare. The logical conclusion then is this: death must be awarded by courts
in all cases that exceed the case that is the most probable in the "rarest of
rare" category.
This has led to the discrepancies in the application of capital punishment.
Crimes are looked at through subjective degrees of scrutiny. What may
constitute an offence punishable by death in one case would not apply to the
next.
Therefore, the focus in recent years has been on the lack of uniform
application of the death penalty and the procedural aspects of death penalty
litigation across the higher and lower judiciary. The focus has been augmented
by calls for the development of standards and guidelines to govern the use of
the death penalty.
Further, civil society has called for better treatment of convicts awarded the
death penalty and on death row. This has shown itself in judgments passed by
the Supreme Court in 2015 where it has focused not on the question of the
constitutionality of the death penalty itself, but the question of the
treatment given to such convicts awarded the death penalty in terms of mental
and physical agony. The case of Shabnam v. Union of India focused on the right
of condemned prisoners to die with dignity, and that the execution could not
take could not take place in an arbitrary, hurried and secret manner.
In recent years, 3 executions have taken place. All three executions have been
on convictions on terror and terror-related offences. It certainly appears that
Supreme Court judges are fighting the mandatory imposition of capital
punishment for the "rarest of the rare" cases. In most cases, the conviction
made by the lower courts is upheld but the sentence of death commuted to life
imprisonment. There is, therefore, a tendency among judges of the Supreme Court
to impose a virtual moratorium on the death penalty, except in cases involving
terrorism.
It is interesting to note the case of Anders Breivik. Breivik carried out the
deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since the Second World War. In 2011, Breivik
killed 77 people, most of them children.
Norway did not execute Breivik. Norway and Western Europe do not have capital
punishment. It showed the maturity of the legal system, and of the progress of
development of humanistic thought to a continent which had caused itself great
injury over ferocious wars.
The issue of the use of the death penalty is one that has only one answer: we
have to get rid of it, in its entirety. Beyond the problems in the correct
execution of the doctrine of "rarest of the rare", capital punishment itself
has been the subject of criticism historically as well as contemporaneously on
very basic grounds: that the State does not have the right to take away life.
Modern philosophical thought finds it repugnant to be party to the execution of
individuals, whatever their crime. The viewpoint has been to try and reform the
convict into a contributing member of society. Even if reform has been found to
be impossible, modern philosophers such as Mohandas Gandhi, Fyodor Dostoevsky
and Bertrand Russell have balked at the simple fact that capital punishment is
a euphemism for legalized death.
For thinkers such as these, the focus has been on the influence of social
psychology vis-a-vis the individual perspective. Capital punishment, in their
view, would put the responsibility of execution of convicts on each citizen of
their nation, making it a personal responsibility. Social psychology, on the
other hand, tends to dilute the responsibility of the execution itself on the
basis of the "greater good".
One of the threads connecting thinkers such as the ones noted above are their
dedicated tendencies towards pacifism, non-violence and forgiveness. It is
these principles that India as a nation needs to practice. To the architect of
the constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, capital punishment went against the
principles of non-violence and the spirit of welfare on which the nation was
formed.
In a global society witnessing the emergence of increasingly insular and
repressive governments, India needs to show the path to non-violence and
forgiveness. India has the resources, history and legal and philosophical
thought to be able to move beyond what is an outdated method of punishment. All
that is required today is political will and general consensus.
(source: The Citizen)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 6 10:08:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 10:08:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., DEL., VA., FLA.,
ALA., MISS.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605061008040.4824@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 6
TEXAS:
Execution date set for Bridget Townsend killer
An execution date has been set for a man convicted for a Medina County shooting
death of an 18-year-old woman.
33-year-old Ramiro Gonzales was given the death penalty in 2006 for the murder
of Bridget Townsend.
She was reported missing from her Bandera County home in January of 2001 and
her body was found 2 years later.
Gonzales' lethal injection has been set for August 19th, 2016.
(source: news4sanantonio.com)
*******************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537
? Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
20---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------538
21---------June 21------------------Robert Roberson-------539
22---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------540
23---------August 19----------------Ramiro Gonzales-------541
24---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------542
25---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------543
26---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------544
27---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------545
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
******************* ----new death sentence
Webb County Sees Rare Death Sentence
A Webb County jury on Thursday sentenced someone to death row for the 1st time
in almost 25 years. It was the 2nd death sentence of the year in Texas.
Demond Bluntson, 40, received the death penalty in the 2012 shooting death of
his 21-month-old son and his girlfriend's 6-year-old boy. The jury deliberated
for about 12 hours over 2 days before handing down the sentence.
"We feel very relieved and very grateful to the work done by the jury to bring
justice to the families of these children," said Webb County District Attorney
Isidro Alaniz. "This is a historic case for our community."
On June 19, 2012, police arrived at a Holiday Inn in Laredo for a welfare check
on the boys and their mother, 28-year-old Brandy Cerny, according to the
criminal complaint. El Campo police had called the department in an effort to
locate Cerny, who was reported missing and had registered as a guest at a
hotel.
Bluntson didn't open the door for a hotel employee and police officers, only
telling them "there's kids in here," according to the complaint. As employees
and police began to force their way into the room, Bluntson fired a single shot
through the door.
3 or 4 more shots rang out from inside the room before police were able to
enter, the complaint said. Inside, they found the 2 children with gunshot
wounds to their heads and Bluntson, who was detained.
Demond Bluntson, charged with capital murder in the shooting death of 2 young
boys in a Laredo, Texas.
Bluntson's son, 21-month-old Devian, was pronounced dead at the scene. Devian's
half-brother, Jayden Thompson, 6, was rushed to the hospital and died the next
day.
Before bringing the boys to Laredo, Bluntson allegedly shot and killed Cerny in
El Campo, about 250 miles away, according to a Wharton County indictment.
Bluntson's trial began on April 18, and he was convicted of capital murder
within 4 days, according to court records. During his trial, Bluntson was
removed from the courtroom several times for interrupting court proceedings,
the records said. He watched much of the trial on a television screen from a
holding cell.
During Alaniz's opening statements of the punishment trial, Bluntson called him
a liar, according to the Laredo Morning Times.
"Death row is nothing to me, man," Bluntson said. "I don't care about living.
But I promise, you all won't get away with what you have done."
Alaniz said Laredo's predominantly Hispanic and Catholic population is a factor
when pursuing the death penalty.
"When you're dealing in a community that's predominantly Catholic, you never
know how that is going to affect the decision of the jury," he said. "It was a
serious case, but they had all the evidence to make the decision, and we
believe they made the right decision."
Only 2 other people have been sent to death row from Webb County since the
death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. Neither of the inmates were executed.
(source: Texas Tribune)
CONNECTICUT:
Lawmakers approve reform of wrongful imprisonment settlements
The state of Connecticut paid out $28 million in wrongful imprisonment awards
in 2015 and 2016, significantly more than in previous years. Lawmakers passed a
bill this week creating legislative oversight for those awards and a formula to
determine the amount of compensation for a wrongfully convicted individual.
A significant portion of the settlements included a controversial award of
$16.8 million made to four men released from prison due to a prosecutorial
error. The settlement sparked outrage because the men were largely believed to
be guilty and were not exonerated due to DNA evidence. The settlement resulted
in the resignation of claims commissioner J. Paul Vance Jr.
Under the proposed legislation the claims commission would be able to award up
to twice the median state income per year of incarceration, adjusted for
inflation. It also gives the claims commissioner discretion to award an
additional 25 %, but any payout over $20,000 would be subject to legislative
review.
Based on the new formula, Carlos Ashe, Darcus Henry, Sean Adams and Johnny
Johnson would have received $1.3 million each, rather than the $4.2 million
they were awarded.
However, the bill also expands the eligibility requirements for a wrongful
imprisonment settlement, which would have laid to rest the controversy
surrounding the 4 men.
Under previous guidelines a settlement was awarded on the basis of "evidence
consistent with innocence." Politicians, including Senate Minority Leader, Len
Fasano, felt the 4 men did not meet this standard. However, the new guidelines
would allow settlements for persons - such as Ashe, Henry, Adams and Johnson -
who are convicted based on government negligence or misconduct.
Half the states in the country and the federal government have guidelines for
making wrongful imprisonment settlement. Even with the reforms, Connecticut's
award formula will be generous. For instance, the federal government only
allows for $50,000 per year unless it was a death penalty case in which the
award would be $100,000 per year.
Under the legislation, Connecticut's award will still be higher than both its
neighbors and the federal government. The bill has not yet been signed by
Governor Malloy.
There are still 2 settlements outstanding for this year, including an award of
$6 million to Miguel Roman, who was exonerated based on DNA evidence.
(source: Yankee Institute for Public Policy)
DELAWARE:
Del. Supreme Court considers ex-death row inmates housing----Court hears
arguments over whether a judge erred by ordering Isaiah McCoy moved out of
solitary confinement.
A deputy attorney general argued Wednesday to the Delaware Supreme Court that a
lower court erred when it ordered prison officials to move former death row
inmate Isaiah McCoy out of solitary confinement while he awaits a retrial.
The justices have not yet ruled but seemed to agree that the Department of
Correction - and not the court - should have the authority to make prison
housing decisions, as long as the inmate's access to his attorney is not
restricted.
McCoy was found guilty of the killing of 30-year-old Jeffrey Mumford during a
drug deal gone awry in the rear parking lot of the Rodney Village Bowling Alley
in Dover in May 2010. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned his conviction and
death sentence last year.
His retrial is scheduled for January.
In anticipation, McCoy's attorney Herbert Mondros filed a motion commanding the
Department of Correction to transfer McCoy out of the Secure Housing Unit where
he has been for five years and into the general prison population.
Mondros argued that McCoy's placement in the SHU was hindering McCoy's ability
to prepare for trial by limiting his access to face-to-face meetings with his
attorney and to the law library. This, he said, was a violation of McCoy's
sixth amendment right to assistance of counsel.
Superior Court Judge Robert Young granted the motion last year, and then
refused to reconsider his ruling. The state has appealed to the Delaware
Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Jason Staib told the 5 justices that the
Department of Correction has the difficult job of housing thousands of inmates.
"That job is made even more difficult when potentially dangerous and dangerous
individuals ... are removed from secure housing and placed in general
population," he said. "The department is very concerned with the transfer order
and asks that it be reversed."
While answering questions from the justices, Staib said that since July 2010
McCoy has been found guilty of 26 prison rule violations, including repeated
sexual misconduct aimed at female correctional officers and nursing staff. 6
have occurred since he was moved to general population at the Howard R. Young
Correctional Institution near Wilmington, as per the court's order, he said.
He called McCoy's disciplinary record "abysmal" and asked the Supreme Court to
give the Department of Correction the flexibility to place McCoy as they would
any other inmate at the same risk level.
In court briefs, Mondros argued that 5 years of solitary confinement has been
detrimental to McCoy. He said it caused McCoy's mental state to deteriorate
during his 1st trial and made it difficult for him to meet with his attorney
for his retrial.
He added that since moving him out of solitary he has been a "different man"
and is far more willing to cooperate with his defense.
Staib responded, saying the department is sensitive to access issues and has
worked with attorneys to give them time with their clients. He argued that
inmates have access to the law library via correspondence with a paralegal who
then has materials delivered to the cells.
Staib also noted in court documents that McCoy's reasons for wanting to be
moved out of the SHU have little to do with the sixth amendment, and more to do
with wanting contact visits and the ability to play basketball.
The Supreme Court will issue a written ruling in the future.
(source: delawareonline.com)
VIRGINIA:
4th Circuit rejects Virginia death row inmate's appeal
A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal of a Virginia death row inmate
who killed 2 people during an escape.
William Morva's attorney argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in
March that he was improperly denied a chance to show that he wouldn't do it
again if spared the death penalty.
But a 3-judge panel of the court rejected his claims Thursday and affirmed the
lower court's ruling.
Morva was in jail awaiting trial on attempted robbery charges in 2006 when he
was taken to a Blacksburg hospital. He overpowered a deputy sheriff and used
the deputy's pistol to fatally shoot an unarmed security guard. He fatally shot
another deputy during a manhunt the next day.
Morva's attorney didn't immediately respond to a message Thursday.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court weighs death penalty law
Florida's new death penalty law went on trial Thursday in the Supreme Court as
a death row inmate asked for a life sentence, the state called for his
execution, and a justice who's often part of a five-member court majority
questioned the law's constitutionality.
Hanging in the balance are the lives of all 390 death row inmates - and demands
for justice by victims' families - as the court decides whether a decision by
the U.S. Supreme Court must be applied retroactively, which would commute death
sentences to life.
The nation's highest court ruled Jan. 12 in the case of inmate Timothy Lee
Hurst that Florida's death sentencing system was unconstitutional because it
gave too little power to juries in capital cases.
In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court also told the state's highest court it
must review the sentence of Hurst, 37, sentenced to die for the 1998 murder of
Cynthia Harrison, the manager of a Popeye's fast-food restaurant in Pensacola
where they both worked. Testimony showed that Hurst emptied the store safe and
used the money to buy shoes and rings.
The U.S. Supreme Court did not invalidate the death penalty itself, but Hurst's
attorney, David Davis, argued that because Hurst was sentenced under a
defective law, he should now be sentenced to life.
"You can't separate the punishment from the procedure," Davis said. "You can't
have one without the other."
In response to the Hurst decision, Gov. Rick Scott signed a legislative
overhaul of the death penalty sentencing law (HB 7101) in March.
Assistant Attorney General Carine Mitz countered that Hurst should still be
executed because the Legislature addressed the defects in the old law.
"If the (Hurst) case were to be remanded (back to a trial court), it would have
to be under the new statute," Mitz said. "I still don't think we have a
problem."
But Justice Barbara Pariente, who frequently is part of a 5-member majority on
the court, said she sees a big problem.
Pariente expressed concern that the new law could violate the Eighth Amendment
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment because it requires the
existence of only one of 16 aggravating factors under Florida law that make a
defendant eligible for a death sentence.
Florida's old law was a legal balancing act in which "sufficient aggravating
factors," such as the severity of the crime or whether another crime was also
being committed, are weighed against mitigating factors, such as the
defendant's background or level of intelligence.
"If only one aggravator is needed in this state to put someone to death, we
have a serious Eighth Amendment problem," Pariente said. "If we want a death
penalty in Florida, we need it to be constitutional."
The state disagreed.
"I don't think that the new statute is as detrimental as some might present,"
Mitz said. "I probably should have said it's actually better."
Justice Charles Canady, a death penalty supporter who is frequently opposite
Pariente and in the minority, noted that jurors in Hurst's case found 2
aggravating factors in recommending his execution by a 7-5 vote.
"We know the death sentence was based on 2 aggravators," Canady said.
Long before the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, Pariente had questions about
Hurst's case. The court upheld his death sentence in 2014 in a 4-3 decision in
which Pariente' partial dissent was joined by justices Jorge Labarga, now the
chief justice, and James Perry.
"I dissent from the majority's affirmance of Hurst's death sentence because
there is no unanimous finding by the jury that any of the applicable
aggravators apply," Pariente wrote in 2014. "The absence of juror unanimity in
the fact-finding necessary to impose the death penalty remains, in my view, an
independent violation of Florida's constitutional right to trial by jury."
Because of the Hurst case, capital punishment in Florida is facing its greatest
uncertainty since it was reinstituted in the 1970s.
The last inmate executed was Oscar Ray Bolin, who was put to death Jan. 7, 5
days before the Hurst decision.
Since then, the Florida Supreme Court has indefinitely delayed the executions
of Michael Lambrix and Mark Asay, whose attorneys have also argued that their
sentences should be reduced to life without parole.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has identified 43 death sentences that are eligible
to be reduced to life.
Those 43 so-called "pipeline" cases involve inmates whose initial limited
appeals, known as direct appeals, have not yet been heard by the Florida
Supreme Court.
(source: Tampa Bay Times)
*******************
Florida Reconsiders 400 Death Sentences
The Florida Supreme Court has heard arguments in a case that could see nearly
400 death-row prisoners having their sentences commuted to life terms.
In January, the US Supreme Court struck down Florida's system of imposing death
sentences as unconstitutional, because it let judges rather than juries hand
down the sentences.
The state then changed its death penalty law to comply with the ruling, but the
fate of the 396 death row inmates sentenced under the now-unconstitutional
provision has gone in front of the state's high court.
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard legal argument over the case of
Timothy Hurst, 37, who was convicted of murdering his co-worker in 1998.
According to court records, Cynthia Harrison's body was found bound, gagged and
stabbed more than 60 times at a Popeyes restaurant in Pensacola, where she
worked with Hurst.
Lawyers for Hurst have said that under the now struck down state law, he must
be given a new sentencing hearing and be handed down a life term in prison.
They argue that "persons previously sentenced to death for a capital felony are
entitled to have their now-unconstitutional death sentences replaced by
sentences of life without parole".
That argument has been backed by 3 former chief justices of the Florida Supreme
Court.
Florida has America's 2nd-largest death row, with 396 people as of 1 January,
2016. California has the most, with 743.
The state legislature rewrote the sentencing procedure after the US Supreme
Court overturned Hurst's death sentence. It now requires a unanimous jury
finding of at least 1 aggravating circumstance and at least a 10-2 vote to
impose a death sentence.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told
the Washington Post that if all of Florida's death sentences are overturned, it
would be the biggest reversal since 1972 when the US Supreme Court struck down
the death penalty.
Since the Hurst ruling, Florida has halted several scheduled executions.
The state supreme court is expected to take months to reach a decision.
(soure: 964eagle.co.uk)
*****************
Death penalty possible after Sievers, Rodgers indictments
The 1st-degree murder indictments handed up by a Lee County grand jury this
week would ensure Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers would at least spend their
lives in prison if convicted -- though a conviction could also mean a death
sentence.
To send the men to death row, the state would have to prove the slaying of
Bonita Springs doctor Teresa Sievers was planned in advance and carried out
willfully.
Mark Sievers was indicted on charges of 1st-degree murder and conspiracy to
commit murder while Rodgers faces the same 2 charges along with burglary.
Attorney Scott Moorey said the state attorney's office will turn over all its
information to enable the defense to conduct its own investigation -- which he
said could take quite a while.
"He is innocent until proven guilty and he has a right to the fair and just
trial," Moorey said. "We're talking about months upon months of investigation
and depositions."
Sievers is being held on a $4.4 million bond.
His attorney is headed to an appeals court to try and have that number lowered.
"He certainly has a right to a bond," Moorey said. "He did stay here during the
period of the investigation, so there certainly is a good-faith argument that a
bond should be set and I'm sure his attorneys will do that. Whether a judge
grants it? I doubt it."
A 3rd man charged in the murder, Curtis Wright, made a plea deal in February
that gives him a 25-year sentence in exchange for providing investigators what
they needed to arrest Mark Sievers.
But Moorey doesn't expect any more arrangements.
"With the cooperation of one of the key players," he said, "I don't think any
deals will be made for the remaining 2."
Rodgers and Mark Sievers are scheduled to be in a Lee County courtroom on
Friday for their first official appearances on the new charges. Both are also
scheduled for arraignment hearings on Monday.
(source: ABC news)
******************
Supremes Hear Arguments In Hurst Death Penalty Case
Florida's high court is deliberating the fate of Timothy Hurst - the death row
inmate whose case prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the Florida's
capital sentencing scheme. But some on the bench have doubts about newly passed
sentencing procedures.
The state argues Hurst's death sentence should stand, but failing that, he
should be resentenced under a system passed earlier this year. But Justice
Barbara Pariente worries the new system might not meet constitutional muster
either.
"The worst thing would be - if we don't agree with the defendant - would be to
start down a path of a new statute that has unconstitutional infirmities that
we then are applying to all these pending prosecutions," Pariente says.
She questions the statute's requirement of just 1 aggravating factor and the
use of a 10-2 vote for the recommendation of death. Meanwhile Hurst's lawyer
Dave Davis argues a 1970s era law requiring death be commuted to life if the
death penalty is found unconstitutional should apply in his case. Some court
watchers go further and believe that law should apply to all 390 inmates
convicted under the invalidated system.
But Davis cautions his focus is simply on his client.
"That's one of the points I wanted to make sure the court understood: I
represent Timothy Hurst," Davis says. "As to Timothy Hurst, he should get a
life sentence. I'm going to leave it to the Florida Supreme Court and other
lawyers to sort how much retroactivity it gets."
The state contends the law doesn't apply because the higher court ruling
invalidated a sentencing procedure - not the death penalty.
(source: WGCU news)
**************
State seeking death penalty for Woodberry
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a man indicted last month in
the brutal stabbing of a woman at his west Tallahassee apartment.
On Wednesday, Assistant State Attorney Eddie Evans filed a motion signalling
his intent to seek the death penalty for 30-year-old Leon Woodberry, who is
charged in the death of 24-year-old Shannan Gordon April 16.
The death penalty is being sought because of the heinous nature of the killing,
the fact that Woodberry had previously been convicted of a capital felony and
was a sexual predator, according to court records.
Gordon was found in a wooded area near Woodberry's apartment with severe cuts
to her throat and limbs. Police connected him to the crime by following a trail
of blood to his front door.
Woodberry told investigators he stabbed Gordon, a Tallahassee native, and said
the two had struggled over a knife. He said she'd come to his house after he
contacted her on Backpage.com
Woodberry was released from state prison in September. He had been sentenced to
15 years on sexual battery and burglary charges stemming from a 2001 incident
in Palm Beach County.
(source: Tallahassee Democrat)
ALABAMA:
Grand jury to hear case against Town Creek man accused of killing 2-year-old
A Lawrence County grand jury will hear evidence in the case against a Town
Creek man accused of killing his girlfriend's son in 2014, according to court
records released this week.
Evan Berryman, 28, has been held in Lawrence County Jail without bail since his
March 24 arrest by the State Bureau of Investigations in connection with the
death of 2-year-old Ian Calhoun.
A request to reduce his bond was denied this week by Lawrence County District
Judge Angela Terry, court records show. Berryman's preliminary hearing
Wednesday determined there was enough evidence to hold him pending the outcome
of the grand jury hearing.
Calhoun's mother, Chelsea Nichole Fike, 25, of Moulton, was charged April 3
with 1st-degree hindering prosecution, a Class C felony, in connection with the
case.
Calhoun died at Children's Hospital in Birmingham on Aug. 4, 2014. The cause of
death was blunt force trauma to the head, torso, and lower and upper
extremities, according to an autopsy report completed by the Alabama Department
of Forensics.
The report, which identifies the manner of death as homicide, lists several
injuries the child received, including cuts on his face, scalp, left ear,
chest, abdomen, back and genitals.
After authorities found bruises on Fike's other child that were similar to
those discovered on Ian's body, the mother told authorities she was never given
any information about Berryman harming her children, Special Agent Senior Bill
LaPradd wrote in court records.
However, authorities later learned Fike was notified by her mother about claims
the other child made regarding abuse by Berryman, court records allege.
Senior State Trooper Johnathan Appling, an Alabama Law Enforcement Agency
spokesman, said he can't comment on whether SBI is investigating the abuse
allegations.
"But I can tell you the investigation into the death is definitely still
ongoing," Appling said. "This is a case with a lot of different things going
on. It's very complex."
Fike is accused of hindering the investigation on or about March 17, according
to LaPradd's affidavit.
Authorities haven't said why Berryman's arrest took nearly 2 years.
Appling said the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office was the 1st agency on the
case, and the SBI became involved the week of March 14, before Berryman's
arrest.
Fike was released from Lawrence County Jail the day of her arrest on $30,000
bail. Fike is scheduled for a preliminary hearing June 7 at 1 p.m.
If convicted, Fike faces 1 to 10 years in prison.
Berryman faces life without parole or the death penalty, the only punishments
for capital murder, if convicted.
(source: Decatur Daily)
*****************
Mobile man convicted again after defending himself in capital murder retrial
Carlos Kennedy has been found guilty again of the murder of Zoa White, after he
was granted an opportunity to represent himself in a retrial that began in
March.
A jury returned a guilty verdict after closing statements wrapped up Thursday,
the Mobile County District Attorney's office says.
Kennedy was originally convicted of the crime in 2013 and sentenced to the
death penalty.
An appeals court ruled, however, that former Judge Rusty Johnston acted outside
of his authority by deeming Kennedy unfit to represent himself in the trial.
Police found 69-year old Zoa White in her home in Mobile on June 2010. She was
bludgeoned to death in what appeared to be a claw hammer.
Investigators located a fingerprint, hand print and blood at the scene that
matched Kennedy.
White was a retired real estate agent who had worked as an administrator for
the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs under former Governor
Bob Riley.
The sentencing phase of the trial begins Thursday afternoon.
(source: Associated Press)
MISSISSIPPI:
Bite mark evidence in local death row case under scrutiny, again
A more than 20-year-old murder case took a new step Tuesday as a
post-conviction relief hearing began for Eddie Lee Howard.
Howard, 62, is on death row at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman
after being convicted in May 2000 for capital murder. He was accused in the
1992 murder and rape of 84-year-old Georgia Kemp.
Howard's 2000 conviction was the 2nd time he faced trial for the crime. He was
previously convicted and sentenced to death in May 1994. The Mississippi
Supreme Court in 1997 overturned that conviction, finding that the trial court
erred in allowing Howard to represent himself in a death penalty case. The high
court also found that Howard's waiver of counsel was not voluntary.
Kemp, according to court documents, was killed in her Columbus home on Feb. 2,
1992, after being "savagely beaten, choked, bitten, raped, stabbed and killed."
Howard's conviction relies on the testimony of forensic odontologist Michael
West, of Hattiesburg. During both of Howard's trials, West testified the bite
marks left on Kemp's body matched dental impressions taken from Howard.
The marks were the only piece of physical evidence linking Howard to the crime,
according to court documents.
The bite marks on Kemp's body, according to court documents, were not noted
during the initial autopsy performed on Feb. 3, 1992, by medical examiner
Steven Hayne. West requested additional study on Feb. 6, 1992, and Kemp was
exhumed the next day.
Documents say bite marks were found on Kemp's neck, arm and breast.
Howard is being represented by the Mississippi Innocence Project, which is
housed at the University of Mississippi.
Tucker Carrington, director of the Mississippi Innocence Project, said the
Innocence Project requested for Howard's conviction to be vacated and the case
to be not tried again. Failing that, the Innocence Project is requesting a new
trial. Carrington said it's possible the court could choose not to grant
relief.
"Generally speaking, we've asked for a new trial based on the results of DNA
evidence and the evolution for the science around bite marks over the years,"
Carrington said. "Specifically, we know that bite marks have been responsible
for 25, 26 wrongful convictions, including three here in Mississippi -- all
done by (West)."
Howard's hearing is being held before 16th Circuit Judge Lee Howard.
Howard was present in the courtroom Wednesday.
'Everybody makes mistakes'
Wednesday's hearing consisted solely of testimony from Iain Pretty, a professor
of dentistry from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
The Mississippi Innocence Project called Pretty to testify as an expert on bite
marks as a matter of forensic dentistry.
Pretty said views within the forensic dentistry community have changed
drastically since the 1990s and early 2000s, when bite marks were seen as valid
means of identification.
"What was apparent was we were building on the building blocks of bite marks
and expanding the discipline, yet no one had gone back to see whether or not
there was a fundamental scientific underpinning for what we were doing," Pretty
said from the witness stand. "There simply wasn't."
Pretty also referenced a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences, which
found that bite marks could not be used to reliably identify an individual.
"They said there was nothing in the literature that supports the taking of a
human bite mark in the skin and pairing it and linking it to an individual,"
Pretty said.
Pretty said it can be particularly difficult to rely on bite marks on a corpse
that's been exhumed, as Kemp was, because of possible distortion in the time
since the wound was inflicted.
Pretty said he was familiar with West's work, calling him "one of the great
advocates" for bite marks at the time. He said West was seen as a pioneer in
the field. But, Pretty said, as scientific evidence turned against bite marks
-- and as more and more wrongful convictions emerged from cases built on bite
mark evidence -- West's reputation began to fall.
"I think everybody makes mistakes," Pretty said. "But the challenge of a
forensic scientist is to revisit those decisions and look at them again in the
light of new evidence and determine what that review might change."
In June, the Clarion Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, reported that West, during
a 2012 deposition, said that the practice isn't reliable.
"I no longer believe in bite-mark analysis," West was quoted as saying. "I
don't think it should be used in court. I think you should use DNA. Throw bite
marks out."
Jason Davis, director of criminal appeals for the Mississippi Attorney
General's office, asked Pretty if individual mistakes, such as those in
convictions in more than 2-dozen wrongful conviction cases that have been
overturned, invalidate bite marks.
"What we are talking about today is not one mistake," Pretty said. "I'm not
even sure we're talking about mistakes. We're talking about fundamental
underlying science not supporting what has happened."
West was present during Wednesday's hearing. He is expected to testify this
week, according to Carrington.
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 6 10:09:48 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 10:09:48 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., OHIO, ARK., ARIZ., CALIF.,
ORE, USA, US MIL.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605061009400.4824@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 6
LOUISIANA:
Public defenders' claims sound like Chicken Little
The Louisiana Public Defender Board and its supporters have done an excellent
job of using Louisiana's budget woes to make a case for more money. They say
the right of indigent criminal defendants to receive free legal counsel will
disappear unless they are provided massive increases in their budget.
These "Chicken Little" claims have been accepted as truth by most media. As an
example of just how pervasive the idea of a funding crisis is, Louisiana Public
Broadcasting recently staged a forum titled "Justice on Hold: Louisiana's
Public Defender Shortage." The program began with the premise that insufficient
funding was leading many local public defender offices to stop taking cases.
>From that starting point, participants debated what should be done.
I suggest those concerned about public defender funding step back to a
different starting point and ask whether a funding crisis actually does exists,
and, if it does, how it occurred.
Let me be clear that all district attorneys want efficient, competent, properly
funded public defender offices. We work in an adversarial system in which every
criminal defendant is constitutionally guaranteed the right to have qualified
legal counsel. We would not have it any other way.
The issue for us is how a public defender system that is better funded today
than at any previous time in history can claim to be so underfunded that it has
virtually shut down the criminal courts in some judicial districts.
After all, state funding for indigent defense has increased 300 % in the past
decade.
We believe the problem lies not with local public defender offices, many of
which do an outstanding job of representing their clients, but in the Louisiana
Public Defender Board, which has become a kind of middleman receiving and
parceling out the state's $33 million annual allocation. Before the board came
into existence in 2007, public defender offices may have been underfunded, but
they were not in crisis.
Rather than properly fund the local offices, the board spends millions of
dollars on its staff, who do not try cases, and doles out about $10 million a
year to nonprofit legal organizations that represent death penalty defendants,
which make up less than 1 % of criminal defendants. Only about half the
board???s state allocation filters down to the local offices, where all but the
few capital indigent defendants are actually represented by local public
defenders. The chief public defender recently admitted that if the board would
direct 60 % of the state money to the locals, all of the local cases could
proceed. Why haven't they done so?
The bottom line for the Louisiana District Attorneys Association is that the
Public Defender Board appears to be the source of the problem it seeks to
solve. The board is not accountable to anyone - unlike district attorneys, who
are directly accountable to the voters - and in the past decade, it has used
its authority to weaken the autonomy and financial condition of local public
defender offices.
Before considering giving the board more money, the Legislature should conduct
a thorough review of its spending priorities and impose accountability on the
board. The board exists to serve public defenders across Louisiana, so those
local offices should have a voice in its governance to ensure that allocated
money is spent for its intended purpose, not in pursuit of a narrow political
agenda.
If an objective review of the Public Defender Board finds that more money
should be appropriated for public defense, district attorneys will support it.
Until then, the board should put local defenders back to work representing real
indigent defendants and allowing justice to be done. (source: Guest Column; E.
Pete Adams is executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys
Association----The Advocate)
**********************
Angola inmates become Loyola grads
William Kirkpatrick smiles, blue eyes glimmering over his faded cheekbone
tattoo. It's a sunny, breezy day at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola,
Louisiana, and this former death row inmate has just graduated from the Loyola
Institute for Ministry.
Kirkpatrick was 1 of 6 inmates to graduate from the LIM extension program on
April 29 with a certification in pastoral studies.
The graduates, along with their facilitator, Rick Bebin, also won the Kairos
Award, given to 1 exceptional LIM class each year.
About a dozen men began studying in the Loyola program, but only 6 - John
Balfa, Milburn Bates, William Kirkpatrick, Felton Ledet, Herman Tureaud and
Lester Williams - completed the 10-week class.
"I would never have even imagined myself in ministry," Kirkpatrick said after
the graduation ceremony.
Kirkpatrick dropped out of school in junior high, but since coming to Angola
and having his death penalty sentence reduced, he has focused on education and
caring for other inmates.
He has pursued multiple religious education programs and teaches in the prison.
Kirkpatrick hopes to use his new certification to return to death row as a peer
minister.
Reflecting on the extension program's effect, Kirkpatrick said, "LIMEX has
greatly enhanced our ability to minister and our ability to live out our faith
in every situation, and in an environment that can be trying to say the least."
Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States and houses
6,000 inmates, the state's death row for men, and the execution chamber for men
and women.
Because the men earn less than one dollar per hour for their labor on "The
Farm," 1 of Angola's nicknames, Loyola raised funds to educate the inmates for
free, using donations from the Diocese of Baton Rouge and a grant from Our
Sunday Visitor. Loyola hopes to host another program like this, provided the
funds are available, said Tom Ryan, director of the institute for ministry.
Each student in the program chose a focus area, Ryan said. Graduate Herman
Tureaud, who has been in Angola since he was 15 years old, focused on youth
ministry.
Herman works on the popular confirmation retreats Angola hosts for high school
students from the Diocese of Baton Rouge. His favorite part of the Loyola
Institute for Ministry class was the heated discussions over how to interpret
different readings. He said he liked to see the way the students' cultures
influenced their interpretations.
He recalled that controversial topics like women priests and how to approach
abortion intensified the class' conversation, but, he said, "We're a
brotherhood, so it never got bad."
Instead, Tureaud reflected, "It was a beautiful experience of getting to know
one another."
Louisiana lawmakers are now debating how to apply a January Supreme Court
decision that might open the possibility of parole to juvenile offenders who,
like Tureaud, are serving life sentences without parole.
Tureaud is hopeful that he might be released from prison and said that he would
like to minister to teens who are in the situation he was before his arrest.
When asked if he would return to minister in his former neighborhood in
Algiers, Tureaud said, "It really doesn't matter as long as I'm doing God's
work in the capacity I'm able to do it in. I don't want it to be about me."
(source: The Loyola Maroon)
OHIO:
East Cleveland serial killer Michael Madison convicted on 13 counts: 'He will
never do this again'
After the verdict was read convicting Michael Madison in the serial murders of
three East Cleveland women, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty
walked to the back of the courtroom and hugged the victims' family members.
"He will never do this again," McGinty told Belinda Minor, mother of Shirellda
Terry, who would have turned 21 years old this year.
Terry was 1 of 3 women Madison is now convicted of killing in a series of
attacks that occurred between October 2012 and July 2013. Shetisha Sheeley and
Angela Deskins were his other victims.
Family members thanked McGinty on what marks his 1st successful prosecution in
a death penalty case.
The jury of 12 spent less than 1 day deliberating before returning a guilty
verdict on all 13 counts including aggravated felony murder, kidnapping and
rape.
The verdict ensures that Madison will never walk the Earth as a free man.
Members of the jury will return to court Thursday for the sentencing phase of
the trial which will determine whether they will recommend the death penalty.
Madison told the court he plans to appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell will decide whether to
sentence Madison to death or allow him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
The verdict marked 31 days since the trial began. Prosecutors, led by McGinty,
called 50 witnesses to testify in the case and presented over a thousand
exhibits to jurors.
Madison's defense attorneys, led by David Grant, did not dispute that Madison
killed the 3 women. Instead, his attorneys hoped to convince jurors that
Madison did not commit the murders with the degree of prior thought and
calculation that would qualify him for the death penalty.
Prosecutors spent over 2 hours in closing arguments reexamining dozens of
photographs showing how Madison mutilated the women's bodies before stuffing
them in garbage bags. Their evidence including Madison talking about the
killings and how he met the women.
Attorneys made their closing arguments before a jury Wednesday in the trial of
accused East Cleveland serial killer Michael Madison.
In the sentencing phase, Grant will present testimony from psychological
experts and people who knew Madison in an attempt dissuade the jury from
recommending a death sentence.
Madison will return to court Friday morning to continue a bench trial on
separate charges, including having weapons under disability and a violent
sexual offender specification that was attached to the murder and aggravated
murder charges.
ARKANSAS:
Former death-row inmate from 'West Memphis 3' remembers anniversary of his
scheduled execution
Damian Echols, who was sentenced to death as part of the 'West Memphis 3'
remembered the anniversary of his scheduled execution date on Thursday. A
former death-row inmate released after decades in prison commemorated Thursday
as the anniversary of when he was originally scheduled to be executed.
"If Arkansas had their way, I'd have been dead 22 years today," Damien Echols,
the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis 3, said on Twitter.
Others wished the former inmate, who was released in 2011, a Happy Survivors
Day after going through 18 years in prison for a crime many believe he didn't
commit.
Echols's original execution date came 364 days after the bodies of 3
8-year-olds were discovered in West Memphis, the result of what prosecutors
said was a Satanic killing ritual.
Jessie Misskelley Jr., Jason Baldwin and Echols, a group of teenagers who
didn't fit in with the rest of the Southern Christian town.
"I was the town weirdo. I dressed in all black, had long hair, and listened to
heavy metal music," he wrote for Vice last year.
Though evidence was thin, they were ultimately convicted because of a
confession from Misskelley, who had mental disabilities, that the defense said
was coerced.
Misskelley and Baldwin received life sentences while Echols, as the supposed
ringleader, was sentenced to the death penalty.
He faced time in solitary confinement and the looming threat of execution dates
as interest in his case waned and waxed, at one point surging due to the
documentary series "Paradise Lost."
Echols was in prison for more than 18 years, including stretches in solitary
confinement.
He says that part of the way he survived prison was through meditation and
"magick.
Echols still has an interested in the occult, and says that one of the ways he
survived solitary confinement in prison was meditation.
It was ultimately DNA evidence - or the lack of any pointing to the 3
defendants - that helped free them after material from the crime scene was
tested in 2007. Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin were not fully exonerated, but
were resentenced to time served in 2011 after entering Alford pleas, which
maintain innocence but admit that the prosecution has enough evidence for
conviction.
Since his release from prison Echols has continued to speak and write about his
experiences along with his wife Terri, who he married while in jail in 1999.
He has spoken about the benefits of "magick" meditation and also has begun a
career as an artist while living in Harlem, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Still an occult enthusiast, he exhibited a show called "Salem" in Santa Monica
last month.
(source: New York Daily News)
ARIZONA:
Cop killer to learn whether he'll get death penalty
Danny Martinez, convicted of shooting and killing a Phoenix police officer, has
already been sentenced to life in prison, and Friday he finds out whether he
will get the death penalty.
In June of 2015, Martinez was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for
shooting and killing Officer Travis Murphy.
In November, jurors sentenced Martinez to life in prison on 1 murder charge,
but were not unanimous in their decision on the 2nd charge for premeditated
murder.
Murphy was shot and killed in 2010. He was responding to a suspicious-person
call near 19th Avenue and Indian School Road.
Murphy and his partner were the first to respond to the 1:30 a.m. call.
Neighbors said someone hit a parked car and was trying to hide the car in a
vacant carport. The officers split up in search of a suspect.
Moments later, Murphy was hit by multiple gunshots from an assault rifle. He
had just come back to work after being off for paternity leave. He was a father
of 2 and had served on the force for 4 years.
The jurors determined that Martinez killed Murphy in a cruel manner and that he
should have known Murphy was with the police.
That sentencing will happen at 1:30 p.m. at Maricopa County Superior Court.
(source: KPNX news)
CALIFORNIA:
'Grim Sleeper' killer guilty in 10 murders, could face death penalty
A former Los Angeles trash collector was convicted Thursday of 10 counts of
murder in the "Grim Sleeper" serial killings that targeted poor, young black
women over 2 decades.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. showed no emotion as the verdicts were read and family
members who had wondered if they would ever see justice quietly wept and dabbed
their eyes with tissues in the gallery.
"We got him," exclaimed Porter Alexander Jr., whose daughter Alicia, 18, was
shot and choked. Her body was found under a mattress in an alley in September
1988. "It took a long time. By the grace of God it happened. It's such a
relief."
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty during the 2nd phase of trial scheduled
to start May 12.
Franklin, 63, was also found guilty of 1 count of attempted murder for shooting
a woman in the chest and dumping her body from his orange Ford Pinto 2 months
after Alexander's killing. The survivor, Enietra Washington, provided a link to
7 previous slayings and was a key witness at trial.
The killings from 1985 to 2007 were dubbed the work of the "Grim Sleeper"
because of an apparent 14-year gap after Washington's shooting, though
prosecutors now think he never rested and there were other victims during that
span.
The crimes went unsolved for decades and community members complained that
police ignored the victims because of their race and the fact some were
prostitutes and drug users.
Much of the violence unfolded during the nation's crack cocaine epidemic when
at least 2 other serial killers prowled the area then known as South Central.
The 10 victims, including a 15-year-old girl, were fatally shot or strangled
and dumped in alleys and garbage bins. Most had traces of cocaine in their
systems.
Franklin, a onetime trash collector in the area and a garage attendant for the
Los Angeles Police Department, had been hiding in plain sight, said Deputy
District Attorney Beth Silverman.
He was connected to the crimes after DNA from a son, collected after a felony
arrest, showed similarities to genetic material left on the bodies of many of
the victims.
An officer posing as a busboy retrieved pizza crusts and napkins with
Franklin's DNA while he was celebrating at a birthday party.
It proved a match with material found on the breasts and clothing of many of
the women and on the zip tie of a trash bag that held the curled-up body of the
final victim, Janecia Peters. She was found Jan. 1, 2007, by someone rifling
through a dumpster who noticed her red fingernails through a hole in the bag.
Silverman described the victims as sisters, daughters and mothers who suffered
frailties but had hopes and dreams.
She projected photos of the 10 women from happier days, many smiling from
headshots that captured their youth and hairstyles of the times. The images
were in stark contrast to gory crime scene and autopsy photos also displayed of
half-naked bodies sprawled among garbage - images that made family members
wince, weep and recoil.
Samara Herard, the sister of the youngest victim, Princess Berthomieux, said
there were things she didn't want to see during the trial and had to hold her
head down at times, but was elated with the verdict.
"I wanted to remember the sweet little girl who had her whole life in front of
her," Herard said. "She had a heart of gold and she deserved to live a full
life."
Defense lawyer Seymour Amster challenged what he called "inferior science" of
DNA and ballistics evidence. During his closing argument, he introduced a new
theory: a "mystery man with a mystery gun and mystery DNA" was responsible for
all the killings. He said the man was a "nephew" of Franklin's who was jealous
because his uncle had better luck with women, though he offered no supporting
evidence or any name.
Amster based the theory on the testimony of the sole known survivor,
Washington, who crawled to safety after being shot in Franklin's flashy Pinto.
She testified that her assailant said he had to stop at his "uncle's house" for
money before the attack.
Silverman scoffed at the "mystery nephew" notion, saying it was as rational an
explanation as a space ship dropping from the sky and killing the women. She
said Franklin had lied to Washington and was probably stopping at his house to
get his gun.
Washington later led police to Franklin's street, but not his house.
The attack fit the pattern of other killings and showed how the killer carried
out the crimes, Silverman said. The bullet removed from Washington's chest came
from the same gun used to shoot the 7 previous victims and she provided a
detail that would later prove telling.
Washington described how her attacker took a Polaroid photo of her as she was
losing consciousness. Police searching Franklin's house more than 2 decades
later found a snapshot of the wounded Washington slouched over in a car with a
breast exposed.
The Polaroid was hidden behind a wall in his garage.
(source: Pasadena Star-News)
*******************
Serial wife killer on death row offers info on where he buried body in exchange
for execution date
A serial wife killer will tell where he buried 1 of his wives, if the state
will set a date to put him to death. His case highlights the serious problems
in California's death penalty system,
Tonight at 11 on ABC7 News, we'll discuss what his case says about our broken
death penalty system in an exclusive I-Team report.
Gerald Stanley offers to reveal where he buried 1 of his wives, because he is
tired of decades on death row and of all the mandatory appeals.
This investigation began after Gerald wrote me. I've been going through the
evidence and speaking with attorneys on the case, and with his children.
Jay Stanley was only 5 years old when he watched his father open fire at
Cambridge Elementary in Concord.
"He didn't just destroy mine and my sister's life, he destroyed other kids'
lives," he said. "They don't have no (sic) closure, they don't know where their
mom is, never found her body."
Gerald has been on San Quentin's death row for 32 years.
(source: ABC news)
OREGON:
The Oregon Supreme Court is upholding the death sentences given to a father and
son convicted of a 2008 bank bombing in Woodburn
The Oregon Supreme Court has affirmed convictions and death sentences for a
father and son found guilty of killing 2 police officers in a bank bombing.
Bruce Turnidge and his son, Joshua Turnidge, were convicted of murder in 2010
by a jury who agreed with prosecutors that the pair planted a bomb that
exploded at a bank in Woodburn, a small city between Portland and Salem.
The December 2008 blast killed state police bomb technician William Hakim, who
was trying to dismantle the explosive, and Woodburn Capt. Tom Tennant, who was
helping. The city's police chief, Scott Russell, lost a leg.
Prosecutors said the Turnidges fantasized about starting an anti-government
militia and hatched a bank robbery plan because they needed money to maintain
their struggling biodiesel company.
Oregon law requires the state Supreme Court to review verdicts and sentences in
death-penalty cases for any legal errors in the trial court.
The high court Thursday rejected more than two dozen assertions of trial
errors, on issues ranging from jury questionnaires to closing arguments to the
denial of Joshua Turnidge's motion to be tried separately.
In one instance, Bruce Turnidge took issue with a closing statement in which
the prosecutor told jurors about the defendant's zeal to form a militia and
spread anti-government ideologies.
The state said the prosecutor raised the point because potential future danger
is 1 thing the jury considers as it decides whether to sentence someone to
death. Turnidge said argument violated his free-speech rights, but the court
disagreed.
"Contrary to defendant's assertions, this is not a situation in which the
prosecutor's statements urged the jury to punish defendant because of his
abstract political beliefs or statements," the opinion states. "Rather, the
state had presented evidence of defendant's beliefs that directly bore on his
motivation for the murders at issue in this case."
The Turnidges are among more than 30 people on Oregon's death row. The state
currently has a moratorium on executions.
Public defender Joshua Crowther, who argued on behalf of Joshua Turnidge, said
this was just a first step and the challenges will continue.
"From our point of view, there are still several issues that need to be
resolved," he said from Salem. "Most of the issues raised, if not all, had a
federal component, so a federal court is going to need to look at the issues,
which could be the United States Supreme Court."
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
There's No Separating the Death Penalty and Race----The only way to get rid of
racial bias in death penalty cases is to get rid of the death penalty.
Back in 1987, Timothy Foster was a poor, black, intellectually impaired
teenager facing trial for the murder of an elderly white woman in rural
Georgia.* During jury selection, the prosecution highlighted in green the name
of every black person on the jury list and helpfully added a note explaining
that a green highlight meant the person was black. For good measure, they also
placed a B next to each black person's name and circled the word black where it
appeared on the jury questionnaires as a racial identifier. Then, in case "it
[came] down to having to pick one of the black jurors," the prosecutors also
ranked blacks against one another. After securing an all-white jury,
prosecutors argued for the death penalty for Foster to "deter other people out
there in the projects." The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide soon
whether illegal race discrimination infected that trial, a decision that will
come after Foster has spent nearly 3 decades on Georgia's death row. It seems
likely the court will grant Foster a new trial, but it's hard to imagine even a
favorable Supreme Court ruling in his case fixing the biggest problem with the
death penalty itself: Even in 2016, its use remains inextricably, hopelessly
intertwined with our national legacy of racial bias and exclusion.
The mix of prosecutorial impropriety and the exclusion of black jurors has
always been a potent combination for injecting racial bias into death penalty
cases and racial cynicism into the electorate. It undermines not only the
legitimacy of the death penalty, but also the legitimacy of the government as
an entity capable of rendering impartial justice. It robs people of the right
to participate in their government, and it makes whole swaths of people cynical
about the government itself and their role in it. Yet, even if the Foster case
provides another rebuke of the illegal practice of striking jurors because of
their race, 30 years of experience suggests that the court's case-by-case
reversals will not eradicate racial discrimination in jury selection. It still
happens all over the country and continues to taint our broken death penalty
system.
As older cases like Foster's move toward execution dates, the inextricable ties
between race and the death penalty in America become increasingly salient. This
is because the death penalty generally is in decline at a time when there is
heightened attention to racial unfairness throughout the criminal justice
system. Consider the last couple of months alone:
--On April 12, Georgia executed Kenneth Fults - another poor, intellectually
impaired black man - even though a juror in his case acknowledged deciding to
vote for death before hearing the evidence because "that's what that nigger
deserved."
--"A dumb nigger" is what one member of an all-white South Carolina jury called
Johnny Bennett, a black defendant who received relief from a federal judge in
March because the prosecutor called him a monster, caveman, "beast of burden,"
and "King Kong."
--Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court rescheduled its review of a petition
urging the justices to intervene in a Harris County, Texas, death penalty case
where a psychologist testified that Duane Buck's blackness makes him more
dangerous.
An optimist might hold out hope that although racial bias infects these older
cases, the ties between race and the death penalty have loosened in more recent
cases as the nation continues to make racial progress. Unfortunately, though,
while the death penalty has become increasingly rare in practice, many of the
remaining cases are still intertwined with the nation's long legacy of racism.
And, even in the cases with explicit, unconscionable racial bias - for example,
the execution of Fults last month - current elected prosecutors, governors, and
state and federal courts have failed repeatedly to intervene or object.
Of the more than 3,100 counties in the United States, only 16 or so still
impose death sentences with any regularity. Consider, for example, the
following three jurisdictions, all of which are among the tiny handful of
outlier death sentencing counties:
--Caddo Parish, Louisiana's nickname is "Bloody Caddo" due to its history as
the place with the second-highest number lynchings in the country between 1877
and 1950. Over the past 6 years, 66 percent of Louisiana's death sentences come
from Caddo Parish, a jurisdiction with 5 % of the state's population. Yet, no
white defendant has ever been sentenced to death in Caddo Parish for killing a
black person. As recently as 2011, Lamondre Tucker - an 18-year-old with an IQ
of 74 - was sentenced to death in a courthouse adorned with the Confederate
flag. Last year, a study found that prosecutors struck qualified black
residents from Caddo juries 3 times more often than qualified white residents.
--In Houston County, Alabama, a local police chief started a chapter of the
Sons of the Confederacy, posed in front of a Confederate flag, and named his
son after the 1st grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. A 2010 study found that
prosecutors in Houston County strike 80 % of qualified black jurors from death
penalty cases. Alabama courts have reversed at least 3 death sentences from
Houston County since 2010.
--At the end of March, the Nevada Supreme Court found that Clark County
prosecutors engaged in illegal racial discrimination in jury selection for the
2nd time in the past 2 years. In yet another recent Clark County case involving
questionable jury selection practices, a state supreme court justice said to a
prosecutor during oral arguments: "I just don't understand knocking these 2
black women off [the jury]. I just don't understand why it's so necessary in
these cases. You're so afraid of losing a case that you're knocking off African
Americans consistently." That case is still pending.
Despite all the racial progress over the past decades, how can it be that race
continues to plague the nation's death penalty?
The death penalty has always been rooted in a felt need for retribution -
payback, evening the score, revenge. Indeed, in 1914, the Shreveport Times
editorial board responded to "suggestions from some of the newspapers" that
Louisiana "abolish the death penalty" with an argument that repeal of the death
penalty would result in an "increase in the number of lynchings" due to "the
vengeance of an outraged citizenship." In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, Supreme
Court Justice Potter Stewart made a similar point: "When people begin to
believe that organized society is unwilling or unable to impose upon criminal
offenders the punishment they 'deserve,' then there are sown the seeds of
anarchy - of self-help, vigilante justice, and lynch law."
A black defendant received relief from a federal judge because the prosecutor
called him a monster, caveman, "beast of burden," and "King Kong."
The reality today is that the death penalty no longer contributes meaningfully
to any felt need for retribution. Life without parole or other serious
sanctions satisfy the retributive appetite for most prosecutors and jurors in
most places in America. We know this is true because in this nation of 320
million people, with more than 10,000 annual murders, surely there would be
much more frequent resort to death sentences in far more counties and states if
executions were truly necessary for retributive purposes. And, when we look
closely at some of the outlier counties that still resort to death sentences,
we see this racialized need for retribution continues to drive how prosecutors
seek death sentences and how juries decide them.
These are places like Caddo Parish where prosecutors like Dale Cox make their
racially filtered, outsized-personality - driven need for retribution known
unmistakably: Last year, after calling society "a jungle," Cox told a reporter
that "we need to kill more people" because revenge "brings to us a visceral
satisfaction." Cox's comments epitomize what Justice Anthony Kennedy meant when
he cautioned in 2008's Kennedy v. Louisiana, a case where the court held that
the death penalty is an unconstitutionally excessive punishment for nonhomicide
offenses, that retribution is the motive for punishment that "most often can
contradict the law's own ends." "When the law punishes by death," Kennedy
wrote, "it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the
constitutional commitment to decency and restraint."
Though it is up to prosecutors to guard against retributive excess, when they
do not, jurors are meant to be the second line of defense. Most death penalty
jurors are white. This is a big deal because research shows that white jurors
tend to implicitly associate black faces with the concept of retribution,
implicitly associate white faces with a sense of relative value or worth, show
greater support for the death penalty generally, and may be less able to
consider mitigating circumstances when they relate to black defendants. When
black jurors are placed on juries, they help guard against retributive excess.
Yet, in the few places that continue to use the death penalty consistently
today - in Caddo Parish, Clark County, and Houston County, for example -
prosecutors continue to disproportionately strike qualified black prospective
jurors.
I support getting rid of the death penalty but my support for this is
relatively new, and it's largely based on the credibility and continuation of
life-without-parole sentencing, something that did not exist in the past.
In other words, in these outlier counties, neither prosecutorial discretion nor
the constitutionally built-in jury check on retribution appears to be
functioning as intended. That leaves the judiciary. The court should grant new
trials for Timothy Foster, Duane Buck, and Lamondre Tucker. But it would be
naive to believe that new trials in these cases would put a dent in the broader
race problems that continue to plague American capital punishment. Indeed, it
has become indisputably clear in the 40 years since the Supreme Court held the
modern death penalty constitutional that the only way to eradicate race from
the death penalty is to eradicate the death penalty.
(source: Robert Smith, slate.com)
US MILITARY:
Navy Lt. Cmdr. accused of espionage confesses on tape
Lieutenant Commander Edward C. Lin, the Taiwan born U.S. Navy officer accused
of espionage, confessed to the crime during an NCIS interrogation, according to
military prosecutors.
But his defense attorney argued none of that would be admissible if the case
moves to court-martial.
The information came to light Thursday, as Navy officials played an audio
recording of Lin's Article 32 Hearing which took place in early April. The
recording was played at Fleet Forces Command for members of the media,
including 10 On Your Side, but media were not allowed to record the audio.
During the 80-minute hearing, which is similar to a pre-trial hearing in a
civilian court. Attorneys for both sides submitted evidence to Navy Commander
Bruce Gregor.
Lin is charged with 2 counts of espionage, 3 counts of attempted espionage,
communicating secret information 'with intent or reason to believe it would be
used to the advantage of a foreign nation' and adultery. The charges stem from
actions the Navy says occurred in August and September of 2015.
Navy prosecutor, Cmdr. Jonathan Stevens told Gregor Lin is accused of feeding
secrets to a prostitute, and also came into contact with under cover FBI
agents, as well a FBI informant. The recordings did not make it clear if the
prostitute and the FBI's informant were the same person.
We also learned that NCIS agents searched Lin's workplace and his home. They
found emails dating back to 2012 and a notebook they say contained classified
information.
Stevens also said Lin communicated with a FBI informant in Mandarin Chinese,
which is his native language. Lin's civilian defense attorney, Larry Younger,
questioned the validity of the transcript of the conversation. The transcript
was submitted as evidence saying that whomever the FBI chose to translate the
conversation, could have gotten it wrong. The defense claims that because
Mandarin Chinese has two dialects, the meaning of the conversation could be
misinterpreted.
Lin was arrested at a Honolulu airport on September 11th, 2015. NCIS
investigators then interrogated Lin for eleven hours, all of which was recorded
according to prosecutors. They submitted nine disks of evidence which they say
contain all 11 hours of recordings. Those were also not played during the
hearing.
While it appears Lin confessed to the crimes, his attorney argued none of it
will be admissible if the case goes to court-martial. Younger counted the
government's claims and went so far as to accuse officials of entrapment.
Younger called actions by the FBI agents a 'nefarious scheme to entrap' and
that agents 'preyed on his vulnerabilities' when they allegedly 'coerced' Lin
to communicate with the informant.
Younger also said that if the case moves forward he would file motions to
suppress all eleven hours of audio recordings in which Lin allegedly admits to
the crimes. Younger says his client was never properly read his rights, or
notified of his right to counsel. He believes the audio would not be admissible
in court. Younger also argued that the search of Lin's property may have been
done without proper search warrants, and that any evidence gathered would also
be inadmissible.
Younger also claimed that any information Lin passed on to the informant was
'open-source' information, meaning information that was no longer classified
and could be found on-line.
The decision to move the case forward sits in the hands of Admiral Davidson,
head of Fleet Forces Command. There is no timeline on his decision. If
convicted, Lin could face the death penalty.
Lin has been held in pre-trial confinement at the Brig in Chesapeake since
September.
(source: WAVY news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 6 10:11:05 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 10:11:05 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605061010490.4824@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 6
UGANDA:
Murder Cases Dominate Supreme Court Session
Murder cases have dominated the list of cases listed for criminal session
before the Supreme Court starting May 9.
According to the cause list dated April 28, the court deputy registrar has
listed 12 murder cases involving 17 people whose sentences were upheld by the
Court of Appeal.
Other cases listed include manslaughter, rape and defilement.
The cases
The murder cases include that of a UPDF soldier, Lt William Obote, who is
challenging a conviction and life imprisonment sentence for murdering his wife
Grace Katherine Acan, in 2005. Lt Obote was sentenced by the High Court in
Lira.
A one James Mulindwa is also challenging a life imprisonment sentence for the
murder of a friend in 2009. He was sentenced by the court in Mbarara.
In another appeal, 3 murder convicts Lawrence Okello, Dennis Mujuni and Alyenyo
Marks are challenging a death penalty while Henry Kazarwa is challenging a life
sentence for the murder of a bar owner in Mbarara District in 2009.
Also on the list is Lt Jonas Ainomugisha who is fighting a death sentence over
a 2001 murder of Tibarabihire John at Nyakahita village in Bushenyi District,
Gad Magezi who is challenging a life imprisonment sentence as well as Julius
Mumbere who was convicted in regard to the Kasese attacks in which many
civilians, police officers and Uganda People's Defence Forces soldiers were
killed.
Meanwhile, the court has directed prison authorities to produce the appellants
in court for hearing of their cases.
The Supreme Court is the highest judicial organ in the country and it is mainly
an appellate court.
(source: The Monitor)
JAMAICA:
Human rights groups come out against reviving hanging
2 human rights groups have come out against a proposal by Minister of National
Security, Robert Montague, to revive hanging in Jamaica.
In a joint statement, Stand Up for Jamaica and Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) said
re-instituting the death penalty is not the answer for curbing the country's
crime problem.
Stand Up for Jamaica's Executive Director, Maria Carla Gullotta, has taken
issue with the national security minister's comments arguing that they could
have serious implications.
Gullotta contends that the state should protect and preserve life at all cost.
JFJ Chairman, Horace Levy, argues that there should be a moratorium on carrying
out the death penalty given the state of the justice system.
Levy stresses that the lobby group is strongly committed to the abolition of
the death penalty.
Both groups argue that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to
crime and does not address the root causes of crime.
They say instead of reviving what they say is an inhumane and ineffective
practice, the Government should focus on fast tracking the critical reforms
needed in the justice and law enforcement systems.
(source: Jamaica Gleaner)
IRAN:
The Case of 100 Death Row Prisoners to be "Clarified" within 3 Months;
Authorities
It was announced to at least 100 death row prisoners, in prison of Urmia that
in the next 3 months their "case" will become clear. This rare action has
created a wave of concern among prisoners and their families.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA),
recently, the authorities of Urmia Prison called at least a hundred prisoners
who have been sentenced to death on charges of "murder" and have served more
than 5 years, to the prison's Pray Hall (Hosseinieh) and took the address and
details of the plaintiffs.
An informed source in a conversation with HRANA, by announcing this news, also
said: "The authorities of Urmia prison called these prisoners in Husseinieh and
asked the address and details of their accusers. At least about 100 prisoners
were called."
The source said: "They were told that during the next three months their case
would become clear. The authorities said: 'We will say to plaintiffs to ask for
execution or we will release you on the bail. Because, the prison does not have
enough space.'"
It should be mentioned that, the unusual procedure of calling a large number of
death row prisoners caused a wave of concern among prisoners in Urmia prison
and their families.
(source: HRA News Agency)
PAKISTAN:
Abbottabad jirga members are deserving of death: Mufti Naeem
Prominent religious scholar Mufti Mohammad Naeem has called for death penalty
for all members of a jirga that is allegedly involved in ordering murder of a
woman in Abbottabad area, Samaa reported.
"It's highly deplorable that a lady is burnt alive on behest of a jirga only
because she helped in someone's love marriage ... This (the act of ordering
murder) is totally un-Islamic since our religion allows adult couple to marry.
Therefore, all members part of the jirga are 'wajib-ul-qatl' (deserving of
death), they should be murdered in Qisas (retribution)," he said while speaking
to Samaa.
A 17-year-old girl, Ambreen, was allegedly killed in Makol village of
Abbottabad on April 29 on orders of a local jirga for facilitating her friend
Saima's elope and love marriage.
Police said the jirga was headed by Pervez, a local government councilor who
has also been arrested.
Police said Ambreen was drugged, strangled and then her body set ablaze in a
Suzuki van.
Police have arrested 13 jirga members. The victim's parents was also arrested
because they supported the jirga decision. All the accused were due to appear
in a local anti-terrorism court today.
Saima ran away on April 23, locals said. Saima's father, who had been out of
town at that time, returned to the village on April 24, and started looking for
his daughter. He and some other locals alleged Ambreen's involvement in
facilitating Saima's marriage.
Ambreen was drugged till she fell unconscious and then, was strangulated to
death. She was then tied up to a seat inside a minivan and set ablaze.
Police moved the Ambreen's charred body to Ayub Medical Complex for an autopsy.
The girl was later identified as the daughter of Riasat, a labourer who works
in Balochistan's Gadani area.
An FIR has been registered against the jirga members in the case under Section
302 of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of Anti-Terrorism Act.
1 of the first people to have alerted the authorities about the horrific case
was an Islamabad-based professional Abdullah Khan. On April 29, he had posted a
picture of what appeared to be a charred corpse inside a burnt Suzuki van and
had posted it on his Twitter feed.
He followed this story through that day and kept tagging journalists, which
helped bring the case to the notice of the authorities.
However, today Mr Khan tweeted that the police had also picked up his
brother-in-law and sister.
(source: samaa.tv)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh court rejects Islamist leader's final death sentence appeal ----
Motiur Rahman Nizami, leader of Jamaat-e-Islami party, could face hanging at
any time
Bangladesh's supreme court has rejected a final appeal by the leader of the top
Islamist party against a death sentence for atrocities committed during the
1971 war of independence, lawyers say, meaning he could be hanged at any time.
The supreme court in January upheld the death penalty for Motiur Rahman Nizami,
head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for genocide, rape and orchestrating the
massacre of top intellectuals during the 1971 war.
Nizami, 73, a former legislator and minister under Khaleda Zia when she was
prime minister, has been in jail since 2010, when he was charged with war
crimes by a tribunal set up by the current prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, that
year.
The war crimes tribunal has sparked violence and drawn criticism from
opposition politicians, including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, that it is
victimising Hasina's political opponents.
"All the legal battles are over," Nizami's lawyer, Khandaker Mahbub Hossain,
told reporters on Thursday. "Now it is up to him whether he will seek clemency
from the president or not."
Hundreds of people flooded the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to cheer the
verdict, but there has been no report of violence, although Jamaat called a
nationwide strike for Sunday in protest.
The verdict comes as the Muslim-majority nation suffers a surge in militant
violence in which atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign
aid workers have been killed.
In the last month alone, 5 people, including a university teacher, 2 gay
activists and a Hindu have been hacked to death by suspected Islamist
militants.
The government has blamed the increase in Islamist violence on Jamaat-e-Islami,
but the group denies any link to the attacks.
4 opposition politicians, including 3 Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been
convicted by the war crimes tribunal and executed since late 2013.
About 3 million people were killed, official figures show, and thousands of
women were raped, during the 9-month war, in which some factions, including the
Jamaat-e-Islami, opposed the break from what was then called West Pakistan. But
the party denies that its leaders committed any atrocities.
(source: The Guardian)
******************
Clemency his last resort
After yesterday's verdict, top war criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami has no other
legal option left to save his neck.
The review petition of Nizami - kingpin of notorious al-Badr force that
collaborated with the Pakistani Army in 1971 - filed against his death sentence
was rejected yesterday by the top court after a hearing.
Nizami at this stage can only seek presidential mercy admitting his crimes of
instigating genocide, murder and rape in Dhaka and Pabna. But if he chooses not
to seek clemency or the application is turned down by the president, he can be
hanged any day upon the government decision.
The Appellate Division will now send its short order or the full verdict to the
jail authorities who would ask the convict about his wish.
The incumbent chief of Jamaat-e-Islami and former minister had been sentenced
to death by the International Crimes Tribunal for his involvement in the murder
of over 500 people and rape of 30-40 women during the Liberation War. The
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court also upheld his capital punishment.
As the chief of Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, Nizami used
to instigate his fellows to annihilate the freedom fighters to protect Pakistan
and Islam.
Apart from holding the helm of death squad al-Badr, Nizami was also
instrumental in the formation and running of razakar force and Peace Committee
to collaborate with the Pakistani occupation forces.
While delivering speeches at different parts of the country during the war,
Nizami abused Islam by saying "Pakistan is the house of Allah," "Hindus are
always enemies of Muslims" and "Islam and Pakistan are one and indivisible."
"We hope that the full order will be released by the Supreme Court very
shortly. The jail authorities will receive it [via the war crimes tribunal] and
ask the convict about seeking the presidential mercy," said Attorney General
Mahbubey Alam.
The 1-word order "dismissed" came after the 4-member bench headed by Chief
Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha took their seats in the court around 11:30am
yesterday. The other members of the bench are Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana,
Justice Syed AB Mahmud Husain and Justice Hasan Foez Siddique.
The courtroom was jam-packed with lawyers, freedom fighters and journalists.
Special security measures were taken on and around the Supreme Court premises.
Following the order, Nizami's lawyer SM Shajahan told reporters that all the
legal battles are over. Now the client and his family members would decide
whether to seek mercy or not.
His party Jamaat announced to observe a daylong hartal on Sunday in protest
against the verdict.
Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said that the whole nation was relieved after
the verdict. "The verdict finally secured justice for the killings of
intellectuals. Nizami inspired al-Badr force and was responsible for the
massacre of the intellectuals," he said.
Youth platform Gonojagoron Moncho welcomed the judgement, saying the death
sentence brought to an end the "hopeless" situation created by the 'unnecessary
delay" in bringing the war criminals to justice. "I believe it is a huge
victory for the people who waited for a long time to see him punished,"
spokesperson Imran H Sarker said.
Meanwhile, freedom fighters and the leaders and activists of Pabna unit Awami
League and its affiliate bodies brought out victory processions in the town and
distributed sweetmeats. They demanded that the execution is carried out without
delay.
Superintendent of Police Alamgir Kabir said that the law enforcers were kept on
high alert in the district to thwart any attempt of subversive activities by
the Jamaat-Shibir men.
The Supreme Court released full verdict of the appeals case on March 15. The
tribunal issued the death warrant the following day. On March 29, Nizami moved
a review appeal against the Appellate Division order that upheld the tribunal's
death sentence on January 6.
Nizami is the 5th war criminal to carry a verdict for maximum punishment that
is at the final stage of execution. He is the second politician after his
deputy Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid, another senior commander of al-Badr force,
to have served as a minister and going to be hanged for war-time atrocities.
The tribunal on October 29, 2014 found him guilty of 8 out of 16 charges and
gave him death sentence on four charges. The Supreme Court upheld his capital
punishment on 3 charges and acquitted him on the other.
In its verdict, the apex court said that nothing short of a death sentence
could be the apt punishment given the gravity of the horrific crimes the war
criminal had committed.
(source: Dhaka Tribune)
*************
see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/bangladesh-halt-the-execution-of-motiur-rahman-nizami-ua-6616
(source: Amnesty International
AFGHANISTAN:
Ghani should not sign execution orders of terror convicts: Amnesty
International
The Amnesty International has urged President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani not to sign
the execution orders of prisoners convicted of terror offences.
The appeal by Amnesty International comes as the Taliban group made a plea to
international organizations to intervene and stop the Afghan government to
implement death sentences.
In its latest release titled "Afghanistan: The death penalty is no solution to
terrorism" Amnesty International said 'Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani
should not sign execution orders."
"By hastily seeking retribution for the horrific bombings that killed over 64
people in Kabul last month, the government of Afghanistan's plans to execute
those convicted of terror offences will neither bring the victims the justice
they deserve, nor Afghanistan the security it needs," said Jameen Kaur, Amnesty
International's Deputy Director for South Asia.
"There is no evidence that the death penalty serves as a deterrent, and there
are fears that it will only serve to perpetuate a cycle of violence without
tackling any of the root causes."
"The death penalty is a cruel and irreversible punishment. In a context where
there are very serious questions about the fairness and transparency of the
legal process, the use of torture by security forces to extract confessions,
and the narrow window for appeal, there is a particular risk of mistakes being
made that cannot be corrected."
"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."
This comes as a spokesman for the Presidential Palace said last week that a
list of militants convicted of terror offences has been forwarded to President
Ghani.
(source: Khaama Press)
INDIA:
Bombay HC invokes 'collective conscience of society' to confirm death penalty
to duo who kidnapped and murdered an 8 year old boy
When a person who is educated and aware of the ramifications of such crime
commits such a crime in a broad day light with a meticulous planning and
executes the same, in our view, it could aggravate the circumstance rather than
mitigate the same, the Bench said.
The Bombay High Court has confirmed Death Penalty awarded to duo who were
convicted for kidnapping and murdering an 8 year old boy. Division Bench
comprising of Justices B.R. Gavai and Swapna Joshi observed that the collective
conscience of the Society demands that a message be penetrated that such an
abhorrent act would not be tolerated by the Society and the persons indulging
in the heinous act must be dealt with sternly.
In the instant case, the accused who were employed by father of an eight year
old boy, in order to take revenge against him, kidnapped the boy and killed him
by smothering. Later they concealed his body beneath a bridge wherein normally
nobody goes. They even demanded ransom from father, even after killing the boy.
INVOKES COLLECTIVE CONSCIENCE OF SOCITY
The Court dismissing their appeal against conviction and confirming death
sentence awarded by the Trial Court said "Are these circumstances such where
the Society would expect us to take a lenient view. Would the Society expect of
us to show leniency in favour of the persons who had kidnapped the unsuspecting
innocent child and nibbed his life in the bud before permitting it to flower.
Would the Society expect the holders of judicial power centre to leave the
persons with normal life imprisonment, who tortured the minor child and the
entire family only in order to become rich overnight. It will not be out of
place to mention that, after the incident had occurred, conscience of the
Society in the entire region was shocked. There was an uproar in the entire
region and a sort of fear psychosis in the Society. The mothers were afraid of
sending their children to Schools. They were under an apprehension as to
whether their children having gone to School would return home alive or not.
The entire region witnessed agitations, processions and candle marches shocked
by the gruelling event. Does the collective conscience of the Society expect of
the judicial power centre to ignore all these aspects?"
GOOD ACADEMIC CAREER OF ACCUSED AN AGGRAVATING CIRCUMSTANCE
The court upon being highlighted about good academic career of the accused,
said that it would be an aggravating circumstance rather than being a
mitigating circumstance. The Bench said "We could understand such a crime being
committed by an illiterate person. But, when a person who is educated and aware
of the ramifications of such crime commits such a crime in a broad day light
with a meticulous planning and executes the same, in our view, it could
aggravate the circumstance rather than mitigate the same."
ABHORRENT ACTS WOULD NOT BE TOLERATED
Invoking 'collective conscience of society', the Court said that the instant
case would fall into 'rarest of rare category' and a message needs to be
penetrated that such an abhorrent act would not be tolerated by the Society and
the persons indulging in the such heinous act must be dealt with sternly.
(source: livelaw.in)
**************
Most on death row in India are 1st time offenders
A total of 241 persons out of the 385 death row inmates in India are 1st time
offenders, new findings contained in the "Death Penalty India Report" released
on Friday said. For the study, 373 of all the 385 death row inmates in India
were interviewed from July 2013 to January 2015 by the Center of Death Penalty
at National Law University, Delhi.
The study found that around 60 % of the prisoners did not complete secondary
education and nearly 75 % belong to economically vulnerable sections.
Education levels affect the extent to which the death row prisoners are able to
understand details of the case filed against them; lack of which results in
alienation from the system.
Education level
Further, 3/4 of the prisoners sentenced to death belong to backward classes and
religious minorities. While this finding does not imply direct discrimination,
it reflects structural concerns which disempowers the marginalised, as
explained below.
Prior criminal record
Pendency of legal proceedings greater than 5 years is considered a grave
violation of speedy justice by the Supreme Court. While the median duration of
trial for the death row prisoners was around 4 years, trials went beyond five
years for 127 prisoners. Though lengthy trials happen to be a concern in
general, it has more significance in the case of death penalty. The seriousness
of charge forces the families to hire a private lawyer than rely on poor
quality of free legal aid provided by the government. The report finds that
while the high fee of private lawyers - opted by more than 60 % of the
prisoners during trial and high court - deepens the economic vulnerability of
the already poor families, it doesn't ensure access to competent legal
representation. This makes it difficult for an accused to "navigate through the
various stages of the legal process without sufficient socio-economic and
political resources."
Trial duration varies with nature of the crime. Overall, 'murder simpliciter'
or accidental murder constituted most of the cases, followed by 'rape with
murder'.
The study found that median duration of trials and High Court proceedings in
cases involving sexual offences is the lowest as compared to other cases.
State-wise analysis also shows that trails were fastest in cases of sexual
offence.
According to researchers, in a legal system beset with structural delays, it
must be examined why the courts deliver faster decisions in cases of sexual
offence when so is not the case for other offences. "While there certainly must
be speedy trials, lopsided durations indicate a far deeper malaise", the report
said. Note that for Supreme Court proceedings - later stage of the legal
process - sexual offences cases have the longest median duration.
Social background
Access to legal representation is critical during interrogation and
investigation phases. The report states: "We heard numerous accounts of the
accused being tortured and forced to sign blank sheets of paper, followed by a
staged recovery of facts that go on to become critical to prove the guilt of
the accused during the trial." The study found that 185 of the 191 prisoners
who shared information didn't have a lawyer during interrogation. Most of them
claimed they had experienced custodial violence and were tortured in police
custody. Even at the time of being produced before a magistrate - where legal
representation has been recognised as a fundamental right by the Supreme Court
- 169 of 189 prisoners who shared information didn't have a lawyer.
Alienation experienced by prisoners through lack of awareness of proceedings
increased as cases rise in the appellate system. One of the prisoners, who was
interviewed, said, "Whenever I would enquire, the lawyer would refuse to
answer, telling me to mind my own business." Some were unable to meet or even
get to know their lawyers. "These factors significantly contribute to raising
serious concerns about the fair trial credentials of judicial proceedings in
capital cases," the report said.
Nature of crime
The researchers conclude that the realities of criminal justice system in India
are largely ignored and a misplaced confidence is constructed around it. While
the research doesn???t talk about abolition or retention of the death penalty,
it makes a case for the debate to move beyond nature of the crime and the
purpose of punishment to the structural concerns plaguing the criminal justice
system.
(source: The Hindu)
TAIWAN:
Minister slams Supreme Court----WILD CARD: Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay
asked if convicted killer Tseng Chih-chung's ruling meant people with good
school grades can do anything they want
Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay yesterday criticized a Supreme Court ruling
in which the judges cited the high grades convicted killer Tseng Chih-chung
received at school when commuting his death sentence to life in prison.
In Wednesday's ruling, the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by prosecutors
for Tseng to receive the death penalty and upheld a decision by the Taiwan High
Court's Hualien Branch in February to sentence him to life in prison, the same
sentence his girlfriend, Tsai Ching-ching, received.
The couple was convicted of the 2012 murder of Tsai's mother, Chen Yi, due to a
dispute over money, in which the couple killed Chen, put her body in a plastic
bag and dumped it into the sea off the coast of Hualien County.
In the 1st and 2nd rulings on the case, judges in lower courts handed Tseng the
death sentence on account of his contrived attitude in court and trying to
evade guilt by framing the victim's husband.
Prosecutors found that Tseng and Tsai planned to get married, but they did not
have jobs or any income, so they asked for financial assistance from Tsai's
mother.
The couple plotted the murder after Tsai's mother scolded them for not trying
to earn a living and rejected their request for NT$1 million, according to the
prosecutors who conducted the investigation.
After appeals were lodged by the defense team following the 1st and 2nd
rulings, the case was sent to the High Court for a retrial last year.
Wednesday's ruling concurred with the cited reasons of the High Court decision,
which stated that Tseng had performed well in high school and university with
good academic achievements and good behavior, and also earned merit citations
when serving his compulsory military service, and therefore "there remains the
likelihood of his rehabilitation."
The judges also cited the nation's adoption of the the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights in 2009 as a reason for commuting the death penalty.
When asked about the judgement yesterday, Luo said: "It sounds a bit strange.
Does it mean that from now on people who perform well in school can do anything
they want? It seems to be the logic behind the ruling."
Luo said she was not at liberty to discuss legal cases under judicial
consideration, but added: "Is it justified after this ruling that society makes
its own judgement?"
(source: Taipei Times)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 6 16:19:32 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 16:19:32 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605061619220.4300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 6
FLORIDA:
Florida's Supreme Court May Overturn the Death Sentences of 400 Prisoners
Months after the United States Supreme Court ruled Florida's death-sentencing
process unconstitutional, the state's judges are evaluating what the decision
means for the hundreds of inmates who remain on death row.
According to the Washington Post, Florida's highest court has been hearing
arguments for the case of convicted felon Timothy Lee Hurst, who received the
death penalty for the 1998 murder of his coworker Cynthia Harrison. Hurt's
criminal case was central to SCOTUS' January ruling, when Justice Sonia
Sotomayor said the judge's power to veto the jury's sentencing made it a
violation of the Sixth Amendment.
On these grounds, Hurst's lawyers argued on Thursday for their client's death
sentence to be reduced to life in prison. Should Florida's Supreme Court
justices rule in favor of Hurst, nearly 400 other prisoners could have their
sentences overturned as well.
"We're looking at potentially the largest number of death sentences being
vacated at a single time," the Death Penalty Information Center's executive
director Robert Dunham told the Post.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified that though the protocol for
issuing a death sentence has been deemed unconstitutional, it is not to say the
state's entire death penalty is unconstitutional.
The state doesn't intend to reduce an inmate's sentence, Bondi said, "any time
any aspect of the statute is held to be unconstitutional." And it's still up
for debate whether the ruling would retroactively clear all current death row
inmates.
Former Florida judge O.H. Eaton Jr. said it's difficult to foresee how the
pending ruling on Hurst's case would impact other death row inmates, telling
the Post, "It could be anything from a minor effect all the way to clearing out
death row."
(source: mic.com)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Lawyers for an Alabama death row inmate are asking a federal court to stop his
execution next week, saying he is incompetent because of mental illness,
strokes and dementia
Attorneys for 65-year-old Vernon Madison filed the emergency stay request
Wednesday in federal court in Mobile.
Madison is scheduled to get a lethal injection May 12. He was convicted in the
1985 slaying of Mobile police Officer Julius Schulte.
Madison's attorneys said he does not remember specific facts of the fatal
shooting and "does not have a rational understanding of why the state is
seeking to execute him."
The emergency filing came after a Mobile County judge last month found that
Madison was competent and knew why he was being executed.
The state has until Monday to file a response.
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 6 16:20:17 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2016 16:20:17 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605061620060.4300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 6
PHILIPPINES:
Rodrigo Duterte, the Filipino Donald Trump, favoured to win presidential
race----Former mayor of Davao has garnered broad support with tough talk and
anti-crime agenda
Rodrigo Duterte's straight-talking - if foul-mouthed - manner and
tough-on-crime policies have earned him comparisons with Donald Trump. The
former mayor of Davao is leading in the polls and could win Monday's general
election in the Philippines.
The Philippines may be heading into a new era of strong-man rule if its general
election Monday produces a win for presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte, who
has been dubbed the Filipino Donald Trump and earned an international
reputation for his foul language and outrageous comments.
The 71-year-old is known for his unfiltered speeches, which have included
insults against women and the Pope, whom Duterte called a "son of a whore" for
holding up traffic in Manila on a recent visit.
He is a former state prosecutor, and his tough-on-crime position is so tough
that he has been accused of running death squads in the southern city of Davao,
where he has been mayor for over 20 years.
The squads are thought to be a kind of vigilante group that takes justice into
its own hands and has killed more than 1,000 people, according to Human Rights
Watch.
Instead of the death squads being a problem for Duterte, however, "they are a
political platform," wrote Phelim Kine, the deputy director of HRW's Asia
division, in an article last summer.
Duterte's supporters see him as the people's candidate. Popular news website
Rappler has said he represents a politics of the extreme and 'voices the
helplessness and rage of Filipinos.'
Duterte is from the conflict-ridden southern region of Mindanao, where two
Canadians were taken hostage by the radical Muslim group Abu Sayyaf last
September.
One of them, John Ridsdel, was executed last week. Duterte reacted by saying
that beheadings must stop.
"It's too early to comment. I'm not yet the president of the Philippines. But
this has to stop," he told Inquirer.net, the website of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer newspaper and several other publications.
'Kill them all'
Duterte insists his city is an oasis of law and order in a troubled region.
But his critics say, at what cost?
\ "Am I the death squad? True. That is true," said Duterte last year while
discussing his time as mayor.
"Duterte built a reputation on making Davao City one of the safest cities in
the Philippines," said Marc Singer, a director at Pacific Strategies and
Assessments, a risk consultancy based in Manila.
'Other than his law and order platform, Duterte has had said very little about
his plans for the country.'- Marc Singer, risk consultant, Pacific Strategies
and Assessments
"It is true he has made Davao City a safer place for tourism and investment.
However, according to national police data for 2015, Davao City has the
4th-highest incidence of crime among cities in the Philippines."
Duterte has said he would hunt down criminals with the help of the military and
police and if they resisted, he would "kill them all."
He has pledged to revive the death penalty and execute as many as 100,000
criminals if he becomes president, thus earning him such monikers as Duterte
Harry, Dirty Harry and The Punisher.
"I say let's kill five criminals every week, so they will be eliminated," media
quoted him as saying in December.
Short on policy
Singer says that while Duterte's campaign has attracted a lot of noise, it's
short on substance.
"Other than his law and order platform, Duterte has said very little about his
plans for the country, but he caters to Filipinos' desire for change," he said.
He's a populist who draws huge crowds, and he's certainly not the establishment
candidate. That would be Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, the ruling party's
candidate, who is the grandson of the country's first president and has the
endorsement of the current president, Benigno Aquino.
Philippines Presidential Elections
Duterte was denounced at home and abroad after he made jokes about the rape and
murder of an Australian missionary.
Like Trump, ?one of the areas that has gotten Duterte in the most hot water is
the subject of women. Duterte has publicly praised the powers of Viagra,
admitted to having 2 wives and 2 girlfriends and his comments on women have
been even more off-colour than Trump's.
In early April, he made international headlines with his comments on the rape
and murder of an Australian woman who was doing missionary work in a Davao
prison when she was taken hostage and killed during a prison riot in 1989.MO<
Duterte described seeing her face as her body was being taken out of the prison
and noting that she looked "like an American actress, a beautiful one."
Duterte has been less strident than some on the contentious issue of
territorial claims in the South China Sea. He has said he would rather attempt
to find a resolution with China before tuning to the U.S. for help asserting
Filipino claims in the region.
"I was angry because she was raped, that's one thing," he said, "But she was so
beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste."
When the Australian and American ambassadors to the Philippines complained,
Duterte responded: "Shut your mouth." He said he would cut ties with their
countries if he was elected.
1st in the polls
There is another side to Duterte, though. He is a self-described socialist,
lives in a modest home and has poured city funds into helping kids with cancer.
Although his image was somewhat tarnished by allegations that came out in the
final days of the election campaign claiming that he failed to declare $4.5
million US in income.
One of the big differences between him and Trump is that Duterte is the odds-on
favourite to win on Monday.
Duterte's closest rival is former interior minister Mar Roxas. He is the
establishment candidate and comes from Philippine political royalty. His
grandfather, Manual Roxas, was a prominent politician before and after colonial
rule and served as the first elected president of the Philippines
post-independence.
According to recent polls, Duterte has the support of around 33 % of voters,
more than any other candidate, so he could very well be elected. Around 54
million Filipinos are eligible to vote in this election, including those who
work overseas.
Some see his popularity in terms similar to those used when describing Trump's
surprising rise.
'He voices the helplessness and rage of Filipinos forced to make do in a
country where corruption is casual and crime is ordinary.'- Rappler news site
?Duterte represents "the politics of the extreme," said a recent polemic on the
English-language Filipino news site Rappler, which bills itself as a "social
news network" devoted to community engagement and social change.
"He says screw the bleeding hearts, and to hell with the bureaucracy. He voices
the helplessness and rage of Filipinos forced to make do in a country where
corruption is casual and crime is ordinary.
Duterte has appealed to Filipinos fed up with crime and corruption. He has said
he would crack down on criminals and 'kill them all' if necessary.
"Duterte has their backs, and he says the struggle ends here, today. He goes
beyond anger, even beyond solutions. ... Duterte offers retribution."
But the piece also offered a warning that echoed some of the hand-wringing that
has accompanied the more vocal - and at times violent - manifestations of
Trump's growing support.
"The streets will run red," if Duterte keeps some of the law-and-order promises
he's made on the campaign trail, it warned.
(source: CBC News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 7 09:30:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 7 May 2016 09:30:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., TENN., MO., CALIF.,
WASH.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605070930280.6500@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 7
GEORGIA:
Conversation with Sara Totonchi
Despite a recent spate of executions, Sara Totonchi predicts a day in the very
near future with no death penalty, in Georgia and nationwide. Totonchi is
executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta-based
nonprofit founded 40 years ago to represent people, mostly poor minorities,
facing a death sentence. Today, the center's staff of lawyers, paralegals and
investigators also fights what it perceives as human rights violations in
prisons and jails and advocates on behalf of criminal justice reform. Totonchi
talked about the center's work and why she says "the death penalty is on life
support and its end is imminent."
Q: Why was Southern Center founded?
A: The Southern Center was founded in 1976 by a group of activists, ministers
and lawyers in response to the reinstatement of the death penalty and the
horrendous conditions in prisons and jails in the South.
Q: Anything changed since then?
A: At the time we were founded, the death penalty was rampant. Last year, there
were 28 executions in only 6 states nationwide, the fewest since 1991. Even
though executions unfortunately are being carried out in Georgia, there were
zero new death sentences imposed here in 2015.
Q: What's behind the shift?
A: A palpable shift in the public's perception of the death penalty. There have
been 156 exonerations from death row since 1973 - innocent people who could
have been executed. There is a growing discomfort with the government having
the ultimate power to extinguish human life.
Q: What is Southern Center's basic philosophy?
A: That a person's life is worth more than the worst decision they've ever
made. We are working to fulfill the promise of equal justice under the law.
Q: Do you think the average Georgian cares?
A: It is important to remember how wide reaching the criminal justice system is
here. Nationally, 1 in 31 adults is under some form of correctional
supervision. In Georgia, the statistic is 1 in 12. The realities of how our
legal system works become very clear when you or a loved one interacts with it.
Q: What other issues is the Southern Center involved in?
A: There has been a national awakening about the criminalization of poverty and
acts of police violence against people of color. The Southern Center has been
sounding the alarm on these abuses for decades. We are involved in criminal
justice reform in Georgia. Typically, I wouldn't be on the same political side
as Gov. Nathan Deal but his will benefit our state and citizens for years.
Q: Why are you against the death penalty?
A: My parents instilled in me an obligation to help those less fortunate.
Growing up half-Iraqi during the Persian Gulf War era, I saw a parallel between
Saddam Hussein's random killing of innocent civilians and the way the death
penalty is carried out in the U.S. At the Southern Center, we see cases where
clients have been represented by lawyers who knew nothing about the law, fell
asleep during trials, referred to their clients by racial slurs. Some clients
have struggled with mental health challenges or had childhoods that could be
compared to horror stories. We see time and time again that the death penalty
is not given out for the worst crimes but to people who have the worst lawyers.
It's time to end this practice and embrace equal justice for all.
(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)
FLORIDA:
With Florida's death penalty on trial, what should happen to 390 on death row?
On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in a Pensacola murder
case that in January prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Florida???s
death penalty statute unconstitutional. An attorney for murderer Timothy Hurst
asked the state's high court to direct a trial judge to resentence the
defendant to life in prison. Assistant State Attorney General Carine Mitz asked
it to rule that despite the high court ruling, Hurst still should be put to
death.
If it takes all 12 jurors to convict someone of a capital crime, why isn't the
same unanimous standard required to impose the death penalty in Florida?
This inconsistency is the core problem in Florida's death penalty process, now
in the legal firing line as never before.
The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case that could toss
the death penalty for all 390 inmates on Florida's death row. It's the result
of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that found fault with the way
the state hands down capital punishment.
For decades, Florida has allowed judges - not juries - to make the final call
on death. Jurors make a recommendation to the judge during a separate "penalty
phase" following conviction, but it doesn't have to be unamimous. Even without
a jury majority, a judge can impose death.
Florida is one of only three states where death can be imposed without a
unanimous jury decision. Alabama and Delaware are the others.
"It's not logical," said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, a death
penalty opponent. "We need unanimity to take someone's freedom away, but not
for the state to take someone's life?"
"Florida has more exonerations than any other state, and we've found that 90
percent of them come in cases where juries weren't unanimous," said Robert
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in
Washington, D.C.
Since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling, Florida has executed 92 people. The last to be executed from Broward
(Robert Henry, 2014) and Palm Beach County (William Van Poyck, 2013) each had
non-unanimous jury recommendations.
Timothy Lee Hurst, sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of a co-worker at a
Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola, challenged Florida's system. His jury
recommended death by a 7-to-5 majority.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard his case and in January ruled Florida's system
unconstitutional. In an 8-1 decision (Justice Samuel Alito dissented), the
Supreme Court said Florida improperly allowed judges alone to making findings
of fact in the sentencing phase.
Now it's up to the Florida Supreme Court to sort out what to do with Hurst and
389 other death row inmates.
Should all 390 have their death sentences commuted to life in prison without
parole? Or just the roughly 75 % who were sentenced to death without unanimous
jury recommendations?
A group of prominent attorneys and former Florida Supreme Court justices filed
a brief saying that all death sentences should be voided. They cited an earlier
law that says if the death penalty is found defective, all death sentences
should be tossed.
That would be tough to take for victims' families in the cases where juries
were unanimous in recommending death, such as the brutal 2010 Broward home
invasion slaying of Nova Southeastern University professor Joseph Morrissey by
Randy W. Tundidor.
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Legislature changed the law
this year so that a minimum 10-2 majority is required to impose death.
Why not just make things neat by requiring 12-0 jury decisions, like nearly all
other states with the death penalty?
"The only explanation is politics," Finkelstein said. "The state knows there
would be a lot fewer death sentences if it had to be unanimous."
"It was a legislative compromise," said Dunham who testified before a Florida
Senate committee about the bill. He said the Senate wanted a 12-0 standard, but
the House pushed for 10-2 because "that's what prosecutors wanted."
Dunham said the state is setting itself up for future challenges with the
revision.
Perhaps it's time to ditch the death penalty overall. At the very least, its
time to make 12-0 the jury standard to impose it.
(source: Column, Michael Mayo; Sun-Sentinel)
**************
Supreme Court Weighs Nine Mile Popeyes Death Penalty Case
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a key case that led to
an overhaul of the state's death-penalty sentencing system and could have
sweeping implications for the 390 inmates awaiting execution in Florida.
The case involves Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998
killing of a fast-food worker on Nine Mile Road in Pensacola.
Hurst was the plaintiff in an appeal that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court
ruling in January that Florida's system of allowing judges - and not juries -
to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional
violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
Lawmakers hurriedly overhauled the death-penalty sentencing system this winter
to address the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Since the January ruling, the Florida Supreme Court has been grappling with the
impact of the decision on death row inmates like Hurst. Lawyers for the
prisoners contend that Florida law requires the death sentences be reduced to
life in prison without parole. Prosecutors argue that the court should consider
the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case-by-case basis.
David Davis, a Leon County assistant public defender representing Hurst, argued
Thursday that the new law overhauling the sentencing system should not apply to
Hurst and that his client must be resentenced to life behind bars.
Echoing arguments made by a group of legal luminaries in a brief filed in
Hurst's case this week, Davis relied on a 1972 statute which provides that "in
the event the death penalty in a capital felony is held to be unconstitutional
by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court," the court
having jurisdiction over a person previously sentenced to death "shall sentence
such person to life imprisonment."
That law came in anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as
Furman v. Georgia, which resulted in a nationwide moratorium on the death
penalty and led to the commutation of all death sentences in Florida to life in
prison without parole.
Justice Peggy Quince noted that the decades-old law deals only with decisions
regarding the death penalty itself, not the process involving sentencing.
"The Supreme Court (in the Hurst ruling) did not say that the death penalty was
unconstitutional. It said the Florida procedure was unconstitutional. Isn't
that a difference?" she asked Davis.
But Davis said the law links the procedure and the penalty.
"It's sort of like a symbiotic relationship. You can't have 1 without the
other. It's sort of like having a bag full of bullets without a gun. They don't
do you any good unless you have the gun. In this case, unless you have this
procedure, you don't have the death penalty," he said.
The 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hurst case dealt with the sentencing
phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and it focused
on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be determined before
defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a
case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations of such aggravating
circumstances must be made by juries, not judges. Under Florida's new law,
juries will have to unanimously determine "the existence of at least one
aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible for death sentences. The
law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the death penalty in order
for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a feature of the old law
that had allowed judges to override juries' recommendations of life in prison
instead of death.
Justice Barbara Pariente, who earlier this year called reliance on the 1972 law
a "fallacious" argument, questioned why Hurst should not be resentenced under
the new law.
Davis said that, by applying the new law retroactively, "you've essentially
ignored" the law that requires the sentences to be reduced.
"So you think the Legislature intended to provide a gap and give all the
defendants that had previously been sentenced to death a life sentence? You
think that is even remotely the case?" Pariente said.
Assistant Attorney General Carine Mitz argued that the "plain language" of the
1972 law is clear.
"It doesn't say the death penalty statute. It doesn't say Florida's death
penalty statute. It specifically says the death penalty," Mitz said.
The justices also focused much of Thursday's hearing on the issue of "harmless
error," a legal term meaning that any other jury would come to the same
conclusion.
Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia
Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye's Fried
Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than
60 times. Her body was found in a freezer of the Nine Mile Road restaurant.
The jury in the Hurst case recommended a death sentence to the judge, but its
vote was split s7 to 5.
Davis argued that harmless error does not apply in Hurst's case because "there
was no jury verdict" on his death sentence.
"Harmless error analysis presumes that you have a legal verdict. In this case,
we don't. It was just merely a recommendation. We don't know what factors the
jury found. ... And not only that, we don't know what weight they gave to them.
So the whole harmless error idea just falls apart," Davis told reporters after
the hearing.
But Mitz said that any jury would return the same recommendation when
reconsidering the circumstances of Hurst's case.
Justice Charles Canady stepped in to support Mitz's arguments.
"Based on the facts, isn't there a strong case, that you're trying to make,
that any rational jury necessarily would have found those 2 aggravators on
which the trial court relied in imposing the sentence?" he asked.
Pariente and Quince also expressed concerns about the constitutionality of
Florida's new death penalty law, at least in part because it only requires
juries to decide that 1 aggravating factor exists for the death penalty to be
imposed.
"The worst thing would be ... a new statute that has constitutional infirmities
that we then are applying across all these prosecutions and 10 years from now
we end up with another 100, 200 people on death row, and no one gets to what
the state wants, which is to have the worst of the worst executed," Pariente
said.
But Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who is a former prosecutor,
said in a telephone interview that the state's new law is firm.
"If one looks at the Florida Supreme Court's treatment of death penalty cases,
it's obvious that it is a liberal court that doesn't like the death penalty.
Therefore, it's not surprising that they will look to pick apart and find flaws
in what should be obviously a constitutional statute that conforms to what the
U.S. Supreme Court has done," he said.
(source: northescambia.com)
TENNESSEE:
Death penalty murder trial starts Monday
An Anderson County murder trial where the state is seeking the death penalty
for the 1st time in a year is scheduled to begin Monday in Criminal Court.
Norman Lee Follis, Jr., 52, is accused of strangling his uncle, Sammie J.
Adams, 79, with a heater cord while Follis' girlfriend, Tammy Sue Chapman, 48,
watched.
Authorities said the slaying occurred sometime between Dec. 5, 2011, and Jan.
24, 2012. Adams' decomposing body was found stuffed under a staircase in his
apartment on Patt Lane in the Anderson County portion of the Powell community.
In a confession, Follis said Adams attacked him when he tried to pull Adams off
his girlfriend after he had grabbed her.
Prosecutors spent 3 days this week selecting a jury to hear the case. Jurors
will be sequestered, and the trial is expected to take several days.
The victim's advanced age was a factor in the decision to seek the death
penalty, District Attorney General Dave Clark said in 2014.
Follis and Chapman remain in the Anderson County Jail under $1 million bonds.
Chapman will be tried later.
(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Earl Forrest Scheduled to be Executed Next Week in MO
Who Is Earl Forrest?
On May 11, 2016, Missouri is set to execute Earl Forrest for the murders of
Harriett Smith, Michael Wells, and Deputy Joann Barnes in 2002.
Forrest, who was extremely intoxicated and high on methamphetamine at the time
of the murders, has always accepted responsibility for the crimes and was
willing to accept a life without parole sentence for his actions. Years before
the murders, Forrest suffered a serious head injury that left parts of his
brain significantly damaged. Unfortunately, his trial attorneys failed to
investigate and adequately present the extent of his head injuries. Had the
jury been convinced of Mr. Forrest's head injury, they may not have recommended
a death sentence.
While this would be the 1st execution in Missouri in 2016, Missouri has had a
recent history of executing a number of prisoners, a fact that should be deeply
troubling for all who believe in the dignity of all human beings.
WHAT DOES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACH ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY?
Take Action to Stop This Execution
You can take action today. Send an email to Governor Nixon asking him to show
mercy to Earl Forrest and commute his death sentence to life in jail without
parole. Let the governor know that the death penalty should not be used because
it disregards the sanctity and dignity of human life. It also continues the
cycle of violence.
There is also a prayer vigil being held on the steps of St. Francis Xavier
Church (College Church) at the corner of Lindell and Grand on Saint Louis
University's campus from 3- 4 PM on Wednesday, May 11. It is organized and
sponsored by Missourians Against the Death Penalty. This group typically holds
prayer vigils on the afternoon of scheduled executions.
Finally, pray for a greater respect for all human life. Ask the Holy Spirit to
touch the hearts of all in our country to see the dignity in all human persons,
particularly in those in whom it may be hardest to see it. Pray too for the
victims of crime and their families, those who have been wrongly convicted, and
those waiting execution.
(source: genlifestl365.com)
CALIFORNIA:
DA admits 'distressing' lack of disclosure to defense counsel about jail
informants
As assistant public defender Scott Sanders fought to prevent a client from
being sentenced to death in a California murder case, he asked about records of
interactions between the Orange County Sheriff???s Department and jailhouse
informants.
There were none, he was told. But that wasn't true: Unbeknownst to higher-ups,
deputies kept a log between 2008 and 2013, reports the Daily Pilot.
It came to light only when 1 deputy happened to show it to a sergeant in recent
weeks, she testified in an unusual Tuesday hearing, under questioning by
Sanders.
Sgt. Kirsten Monteleone and a commander said they had sent a department-wide
memo and emailed some 300 current and former deputies earlier this year, after
a cache of notes concerning a different case came to light and they were tasked
with investigating to see if any other unknown material existed. Nothing was
disclosed to them at that time, the newspaper reports.
Pushed by Sanders for an explanation of why the deputy who revealed the log
hadn't done so earlier, Monteleone said he hadn't considered the material to
fall within the category of requested notes. About 80 pages of material from
the log have now been provided to Sanders.
Within hours of the Tuesday hearing, the Orange County district attorney
released a written statement: "The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes
would be withheld from the OCDA, the court and the public until this hearing.
The OCDA has been assured by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens that she will take
appropriate internal actions to address this issue."
Meanwhile, the Sanders client whose case sparked the hearing, convicted
double-murderer Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 31, is still awaiting his sentence, the
Daily Pilot reports. A jury recommended the death penalty in January. Wozniak's
formal sentencing is scheduled later this month.
(source: ABA Journal)
***************
Oakland: Darnell Williams found guilty in 2 murders, faces death penalty
A 25-year-old Oakland man whose gunshot into a house killed an 8-year-old girl
at a sleepover and who weeks later fatally shot a man in the back at a dice
game was found guilty of 1st-degree murder Friday in the 1st case in 4 years
where Alameda County prosecutors have sought the death penalty for a murder
conviction.
Darnell Williams stared straight ahead and showed no reaction when the court
clerk read the verdict after 2 days of deliberations, but family members of
both victims -- Alaysha Carradine killed in Oakland, and Anthony Medearis, 22,
shot in Berkeley -- gasped, then began weeping and embraced.
Later outside the courtroom, Alaysha's cousin, Shaquilla Jackson, said her
family had been waiting for this moment for 3 years: "We're so happy," she
said.
The case now moves to the penalty phase, where the same jury of seven women and
five men will decide whether Williams will be sent to death row.
Jackson was embraced by her family in the 2nd row of the Oakland courtroom
after the court clerk read the 1st count as guilty of 1st-degree murder.
Alaysha's mother, Chiquita Carradine, who lives out of the state, did not
attend the verdict hearing. When reached by phone Friday afternoon, she
declined to comment.
Williams, wearing a black and blue sweater and black slacks, remained
stone-cold without reaction, staring straight ahead as the court clerk read off
a total of 9 guilty verdicts.
Medearis' mother, Dolanda Medearis, also wept during the reading of the
verdict.
Jackie Winters, Anthony Medearis's aunt, said her family and Alaysha's family
became close after the violent deaths of their family members at the hands of
Williams. They exchanged phone numbers, keeping each other in the loop about
the trial proceedings. The 2 families would sit together during testimony
consoling one another.
Last week, when Jackson openly sobbed during emotional closing arguments when a
video was shown of a police officer carrying Alaysha to an ambulance and
talking with her, Winters consoled her. When a photo of Anthony Medearis was
shown to the jury, Jackson in return put her arm around Winters as she cried.
"We appreciate the closure we got," Winters said.
The jury also affirmed the special circumstances of lying in wait, multiple
murders, and murder during the course of a robbery that make Williams eligible
for the death penalty.
There were at least 6 victims, including Alaysha and Medearis, in what
prosecutor John Brouhard called a "rampage of violence" between the July and
September slayings in 2013.
Alaysha was sleeping overnight at a friends house the night she was killed. It
was 11:15 p.m. on July 17, 2013 at the Wilson Avenue apartment in Oakland when
the doorbell rang. Alaysha and her 7-year-old friend and her 4-year-old brother
went to answer it, thinking it was the friend's mother. Instead, they were met
with a "barrage of gunfire," when Williams shot through the metal screen door
into the apartment, hitting the young children, Brouhard said.
Alaysha was shot just below the neck and the 2 other children were injured.
Williams' gunfire also hit a woman who was lying on the couch inside the house,
children's grandmother. She was shot in the upper thigh.
Williams had gone to the house, prosecutors said, seeking revenge for the death
of his friend, Jermaine Davis, who was killed in a shooting earlier that day in
Berkeley. Williams believed that the father of the children who lived in the
house, Antoine York, had killed Davis and he wanted to hurt York, or someone
close to him, a witness said during the trial.
Williams' then-girlfriend Britney Rogers testified that he confessed to her
about the shooting that night. She said that he came back wearing a bulletproof
vest and had 2 guns with him. He told her he believed that York's "baby mama,"
or the mother of his children, lived at the apartment. He told her when the
door opened, he saw a woman lying on the couch and kept shooting.
The detail about a woman lying on the couch was not made public before the
trial, Brouhard argued during the trial, meaning that only the shooter, and
whoever the shooter told, would know about it.
Weeks later, Williams killed Medearis on Sept. 8 during a dice game in
Berkeley. He had told someone before the shooting that he didn't like Medearis
and that he was a known snitch. Minutes before the shooting, he sent a
text-message to a friend saying he was about to rob Medearis.
The 2 men got into an argument at the dice game and when Medearis ran, Williams
shot after him, hitting him in the back. Williams' own 8-year-old nephew, who
was present during the dice game, was also injured in the shooting when a metal
bullet fragment lodged under his eye.
Besides being found guilty of the 1st-degree murders, Williams was also found
guilty of three counts of attempted murder, shooting into a home, possession of
a gun by a felon and assault with a gun.
The same jury will now serve in the penalty phase of the trial, where they will
make a recommendation of the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
The penalty phase begins May 16.
(source: Mercury News)
*******************
ACLU wins access to 12,000 internal prison documents on California's plans for
lethal injection
A court fight delaying approval of a new method for executing inmates in
California ended this week with the release of 12,000 internal prison documents
about the state's plans for lethal injection.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which went to court
in November to obtain the documents, said it would make them public early next
week. The legal standoff ended when the California Supreme Court on Wednesday
rejected a request by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to
intervene in the case.
Prison authorities unveiled the new, single-drug execution protocol in early
November, but the litigation forced the state to extend the public comment
period by about 7 months.
The court fight is likely to be one of many as the state proceeds to try to
restart the death chamber at San Quentin Prison. Litigation has put executions
on hold since 2006.
Kent Scheidegger, a director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal
Foundation, accused the ACLU of using the records' request to delay approval of
the new protocol and to dig up ammunition for another lawsuit to prevent the
state from going forward.
"They have succeeded in getting a Superior Court judge to allow them to use the
Public Records Act as a device to ridiculously extend this public comment
period," Scheidegger said. "I think they want more information to launch a
lawsuit" against the new protocol.
The ACLU said it needed the records to comment on the proposed protocol and to
prevent botched executions.
Ana Zamora, the group's criminal justice policy director, said 2 of 4 possible
barbiturates the state has proposed for executions - amobarbital and
secobarbital - have never been used in executions.
Amobarbital, once thought to be a truth serum, has hypnotic and sedative
properties. Secobarbital has been used in physician-assisted suicide, but
Zamora said it is typically taken orally and there are questions about whether
it can be injected in a potent amount.
The state's plan to use compounding pharmacies also concerns the group because
she said they are not licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An
ineffective drug could result in a prolonged and inhumane execution, opponents
of capital punishment say.
The corrections department "aggressively fought to withhold these documents for
months even after the court determined that these 12,000 pages must be turned
over," Zamora said.
She said the ACLU has not had time yet to analyze or even read all of records,
many of which the group must redact under a court order.
"We have just been dealing with the sheer volume and the redacting," she said,
adding that the documents arrived in 800 PDF attachments not long after the
state high court declined to review the case.
The ACLU asked for the documents in August and September, arguing the
California Public Records Act compelled their production. The group wanted them
ahead of the prison department's announcement of the new execution protocol.
After failing to obtain most of the records, the group sued the state.
A Marin County judge reviewed the requested records and ruled that some must be
made public. Communications between prison authorities and Gov. Jerry Brown
were private, the judge said, but other records were subject to public
disclosure.
Prison officials asked the California Supreme Court to overturn the lower
court. They argued the records were protected by the legal privilege provided
to lawyers and their clients.
In the meantime, opponents of capital punishment have submitted signatures for
a Nov. 8 ballot measure that would end the death penalty and replace it with
life without parole.
Signatures for a counterinitiative that proponents say would help speed up
executions have not yet been submitted. A spokesman for the pro-death penalty
measure said the signatures will be turned in within the next several days, and
he expects the measure to qualify.
Scheidegger, frustrated by continuing delays in the capital punishment process,
said the state must finalize the execution protocol 1 year after public
comment.
"They have to address every single comment that is made," Scheidegger said,
"and they might not make it."
(source: Los Angeles Times)
WASHINGTON:
Deadline extended for Yakima County Prosecutor's death penalty decision
The man accused of shooting and killing 2 women at the Yakima Money Tree was
back in court Friday.
Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic asked the court for more time to decide on
whether or not to pursue the death penalty for Manuel Verduzco.
Brusic now has until July 15th to make a decision.
Dozens of loved ones came to court today in honor of the victims.
Verduzco is suspected of shooting and killing Marta Martinez and Karina
Morales-Rodriguez while they were on their way to work in March.
(source: KIMA TV news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 7 09:31:28 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 7 May 2016 09:31:28 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605070931160.6500@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 7
JAMAICA:
Human rights groups urge Jamaica to shelve idea to resume hanging
Forget the death penalty and instead focus on fast tracking critical reforms in
the justice and law enforcement systems.
That's the advice 2 human rights groups - Stand Up for Jamaica (SUFJ) and
Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) - have given to National Security Minister Robert
Montague following his announcement that government is exploring the
possibility of bringing back the death penalty.
Montague said the state minister in his ministry, Senator Pearnel Charles Jr,
has been instructed to consult with several stakeholders, including the
Ministry of Justice and Attorney General's Office, to determine if there are
any "legal impediments" to be addressed in resuming hangings.
But the groups say there's an abundance of evidence that shows capital
punishment is not an effective deterrent to crime, with several countries who
continue to impose capital punishment still seeing high rates of violent crime.
"Instead of reviving an inhumane and ineffective practice, Government should
focus on fast-tracking the critical reforms needed in the justice and law
enforcement systems," they said in a joint statement. "Capital punishment does
not address the root causes of crime and this is where we feel Minister
Montague should focus his attention."
SUFJ and JFJ also suggested that if Jamaica is to be a part of the global
village then it must accept international norms in order to avoid the
consequences of losing critical support and funding from donors and
international partners who have clearly expressed their opposition to the death
penalty.
They added that while they understood the minister's need to send a strong
message, "he could have been more prudent in making his comments about the
resumption of hanging".
"Minister Montague's comments about a resumption of the death penalty has fed
into the frustrations of many Jamaicans and has served to ignite passions about
what is a very widely debated issue," said SUFJ Executive Director Carla
Gullotta.
"If we are not careful, this frustration could lead to citizens taking matters
into their own hands once they come to appreciate the well-established legal
impediments which make the resumption of hanging highly unlikely in Jamaica,"
Gullotta added.
(source: caribbean360.com)
AUSTRALIA:
Bali 9: Turnbull government considers plan to gag AFP in death penalty cases
Australia's federal police would be forbidden from sharing information about
drug crimes if it could result in the death penalty under major changes being
considered by the Turnbull government.
Just after the 1-year anniversary of the executions in Indonesia of Australian
drug smuggling ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, a parliamentary
review led by retiring Liberal MP Philip Ruddock has called for new guidelines
to prevent such cases ever occurring again.
The bipartisan report recommends the Australian Federal Police obtain
guarantees that prosecutors in partner countries will not seek to apply the
death penalty in drug cases before sharing information. In situations where
such guarantees cannot be obtained, the AFP should withhold the information.
"The need to combat transnational crime cannot override the need to uphold
Australia's human rights obligations and avoid exposing people to the death
penalty," the report says.
The AFP - widely condemned for tipping off Indonesian authorities about Chan
and Sukumaran's Bali 9 heroin plot - would have to take a much more careful
approach under the plan. In "high risk" cases it would defer to the
Attorney-General to make the final decision about how to proceed.
Crucially, the new AFP guidelines would apply to foreign nationals as well as
Australian citizens.
The AFP has defended its role in the Bali 9 case, saying it did not have enough
evidence to arrest the Australians before they left for Indonesia. The AFP has
not responded to requests for comment to the new report.
Official police figures released under Freedom of Information laws last year
showed the AFP puts hundreds of people at risk of the death penalty every year
- 95 % of them for drug offences - with its information sharing.
The report also calls on the government to redouble its efforts to have the
death penalty abolished worldwide, particularly in Australia's region and in
the United States.
Mr Ruddock, who has long been a leading advocate for the abolition of the death
penalty, delivered the report as his final act in parliament before calling
time on his 43-year political career.
"There is no place for the death penalty in the modern world," Mr Ruddock said.
Amnesty International said the report was commendable and urged the government
to adopt all the recommendations.
The Human Rights Law Centre's director of advocacy and research, Emily Howie,
echoed that sentiment.
"Under current laws and guidelines, if the Bali 9 case happened again tomorrow,
nothing would prevent the AFP from acting in the same way. Change is clearly
needed and this important report provides a blueprint for meaningful and human
rights-compliant reform," she said.
The Law Council of Australia said the report should send a clear message to our
regional neighbours like Indonesia that Australia will "relentlessly campaign"
to see the death penalty abolished.
The report also recommends the Attorney-General's department conduct a review
of its extradition and mutual assistance arrangements to ensure they align with
Australia's international obligations.
Chan and Sukumaran were executed by firing squad on the Indonesian prison
island of Nusa Kambangan on April 29 last year.
Australia abolished the death penalty in 1973, the same year Mr Ruddock was
first elected.
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
Papua New Guinea tells UN it accepts court decision on Manus Island illegality
---- Human rights council assessment meeting advised that arrangements are
being made for the 905 men still under detention
Papua New Guinea has told the United Nations it accepts a court decision that
the Australian-run detention centre on Manus Island is illegal, and is working
to make "appropriate arrangements" for the men detained within.
Overnight on Friday, Papua New Guinea appeared before the Universal Periodic
Review, a human rights council assessment where countries publicly critique
other states' human rights records.
Several countries raised the issue of the death penalty in PNG, calling on the
country to impose a moratorium on capital punishment. PNG has not executed
anybody since 1954, but the punishment remains legally active.
Sarufa told the UPR session that PNG would not be swayed by international
pressure to end the practice.
"The death penalty under international law is not illegal. And for Papua New
Guinea, the death penalty is part of our penal code. On the issue of a
moratorium that has been proposed by a number of delegations, this is a
sensitive issue, and ... under the UN charter, each and every country has
sovereign right to make decisions in its own national interest.
"We have a law that prescribes the death penalty as part and parcel of our
judicial system. And until and unless the appropriate authority which is the
national parliament of Papua New Guinea decides, based on the sentiments of
Papua New Guineans, we still have, in our penal code, the death penalty."
(source: The Guardian)
INDIA:
Death row inmates as alive as dead bodies: Report highlights flaws in justice
system
The execution of Yakub Memon, one of the accused in 1993 Bombay bombings, last
year ignited the debate on 'capital punishment' with pro- and anti-death
punishment brigades making ferocious arguments to prove their points. While
arguments against Yakub's hanging addressed specific procedural facts of the
case, it also brought forth the debate on the desirability of the death
sentence as we call it in India.
The massive unrest that was witnessed on the JNU campus over the last 3 months
was an offshoot of long resentment of a group of students over the execution of
Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. At the heart of it, however, was the
objection to the death sentence in principle.
In this backdrop, 'Death Penalty India Report' released on Friday by the Center
of Death Penalty at National Law University, Delhi assumes great significance
as it raises serious questions on the criminal justice system in the country.
Anup Surendranath, Director, Centre on the Death Penalty National Law
University, while presenting the report said that the report tends to reflect
upon "this unique and harshest punishment in the criminal justice system in
India as it is administered today" and in doing so tends to make serious
efforts to find the answer to these questions: What is the state of the
criminal justice system that we use to sentence people to death? How do prisons
treat the death row prisoners? What kind of legal assistance do they get? What
kind of evidence is used in these cases? And what are the sentencing practices
in these cases?
"And in that sense the idea of the report is to introduce the aspects the
administration of the death penalty that are just absent from the
conversation," said Surendranath. "And I think by the virtue of being the most
unique and harshest of punishment available the compliance and fidelity to
constitutional protections and the rule of law must be at its highest. And that
is what we were testing. What we see is the complete breakdown of the criminal
justice system," he added.
In terms of who gets the death penalty, the report states that around 70 % of
death row prisoners are from the economically vulnerable background. 64 % of
them are primary or sole earner in their families at the time of the arrest; 76
% of them either belong to Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) or
Other Backward Castes (OBC) or are religious minorities that include Muslims
and Christians. 23 % of death row prisoners never went to school for a single
day and 62 % of death row prisoners did not complete their secondary education.
Around 30 % are those who belong to religious minorities/OBC/SC/ST class, did
not complete the secondary education and are economically vulnerable.
Experience in police custody
"Rampant narrative of custodial tortures is what we heard while interviewing
these prisoners. Most basic constitutional procedures are not followed by the
police. Eighty percent of prisoners told us that they suffered in police
custody," said Surendranath.
This is what the report states: "The forms of torture described by the
prisoners often left permanent effects on their health and bodily integrity.
Permanent loss of eyesight and hearing, irreparable damage to limbs and other
bodily parts, spinal injuries are some of the lasting effects of custodial
violence that prisoners complained of. Amongst prisoners subject to intense
electric shocks over significant periods in police custody, we often heard
about severe recurring headaches. 1 prisoner claimed that he had developed
epilepsy after being subject to prolonged electric shocks in police custody.
The inability to eat any food due to intense pain and swelling, urinating
blood, fractures in different parts of the body, bleeding from the mouth, ears
or anus were other debilitating consequences that prisoners suffered after
being subjected to custodial violence."
Denied basic constitutional safeguards
According to the report, 64.5 % prisoners said they were not produced before
the magistrate within 24 hours. "Out of the 258 prisoners who spoke about
production before a Magistrate, 166 said that they were not produced before a
Magistrate within 24 hours. Narratives of police custody for periods up to
seven days, which sometimes even extended to several weeks or months, were
documented." 97 % of the interviewed prisoners did not have lawyers when the
police interrogated them. Even while being produced before the magistrate 90
percent of them were not represented by a lawyer.
Commenting on this aspect, Surendranath said, "These are questions that do not
enter death penalty adjudication. Courts do not seem to grapple with the
reality how these cases come to them, how these cases are carried out and what
are the procedural violations. If you have to impose this punishment, I truly
believe that it must have absolute gold standard of compliance. But you are so
far away from basic procedural compliance with constitutional and legislative
safeguards."
Issues of Juveniles
9 persons sentenced to death by trial courts in the past 15 years were found to
be juveniles by the high courts. Determining the age of the convict becomes
very difficult as most have had no documented proof owing to their
socio-economic background and bone density test is not considered very
authentic.
Referring to one such case, the report states, "Chiranjiv, a prisoner sentenced
to death in 2013 for the rape and murder of a minor, claimed that he was a
juvenile at the time of the incident. It must be noted that this aspect was not
considered by the trial court in its judgment and neither is it known if this
was raised by Chiranjiv's lawyer. Chiranjiv had studied till the 10th standard
and thereafter, was working in a brick kiln. After the incident, his family
severed all contact with Chiranjiv, and only after he was sentenced to death,
did they begin to visit him and provide support. During his interview, he said
that he was hopeful that his sentence would be commuted by the High Court, and
otherwise he was ready to go to every forum available to him, including the
Supreme Court, and thereafter the Governor and President. More than anything,
he longed to be with his family. Chiranjiv committed suicide in prison a few
months after we met him. He was only 20 years old".
Talking about a case where 2 brothers were convicted and claimed to be
juvenile, Surendranath said that while the elder one had gone to school for few
months and had documents to prove his age the younger brother had none. In
another case the prisoner who had spent 19 years in jail, 16 years on death
row, was found to be juvenile after Centre on the Death Penalty took initiative
and after much efforts could find the documents to prove his age. But he termed
it as 'pure luck' which is not possible in most of the cases.
Improper legal aid system
The report states that lack of competent legal representation and the
minimalistic (bordering on non-existent) sentencing practices are of particular
concern. "Very often the concern about the quality of legal representation has
been couched in terms of inadequacies of the legal aid system. More than 60 %
of the prisoners sentenced to death had private lawyers in the trial court and
high courts. It must be a cause for extreme concern that prisoners and their
families wanted to avoid the legal aid system at all costs and therefore went
to great lengths to ensure that they had private legal representation," reads
the report.
It adds, "While this deepened their economic vulnerability, it did not ensure
access to competent legal representation. It is evident that the problem of
legal representation in capital cases cannot be meaningfully characterised as
one of legal aid against private representation. The concern with competent
legal representation in capital cases is much broader and cannot be restricted
to just legal aid lawyers. This was perhaps most amplified at the stage of
sentencing where the sentencing hearings seem to be conducted merely to meet
the technical requirements of the law and very little else. Given the paucity
of relevant sentencing information being brought before the courts, it is not
surprising that the sentencing parts in judgments tend to focus almost
exclusively on the nature of the crime".
Victimisation of the families of the convicts
The report also tries to bring out the fact that there are very serious and
real social costs to the experience that prisoners and their families go
through. "The social and economic consequences along with debilitating forms of
ostracisation that families face heighten their vulnerability, driving them
deeper into destitution."
"The faith of the families in the criminal justice system is further eroded as
the case moves into the realm of the appellate courts and the mercy
jurisdiction. The irony of the legal system is such that the closer a prisoner
gets to execution, the administration of justice gets more opaque from the
perspective of families. It is difficult for the families of prisoners to get
any substantial information about the proceedings in the High Court and that
problem only worsens when the case moves to the Supreme Court. There is no real
protection against such multiple axes of vulnerability and the tendency to see
the suffering of prisoner families as morally acceptable collateral costs must
be resisted," reads the report.
Raising serious questions on the legal aid assistance provided to the accused
persons the report states, "Defense lawyers hardly have any information about
the individual they are representing that can be meaningfully used in
sentencing hearings. As mentioned earlier, the very idea of a sentencing
hearing is to consider all circumstances of the individual beyond the crime in
question. A comprehensive understanding of the prisoner's background requires
an extensive interaction by the lawyer. Unfortunately, that is severely lacking
in the manner in which the prisoners in this study were represented. It is a
combination of the inability of the accused to afford quality representation
along with structural issues regarding the nature of criminal defense in
India".
Inadequate trial
Out of the 225 prisoners who spoke about their presence during the trial
proceedings, only 57 (25.3 %) said that they were present during all hearings.
The responses of the remaining prisoners varied from attending the majority of
proceedings to being present for the examination of a few witnesses. Another
practice was taking the prisoners to the court premises and then confining them
in the court lock-up, without actually producing them in the courtroom.
No talks of reformation and rehabilitation
The Supreme Court in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, while upholding the
constitutionality of the death penalty, placed significant emphasis on
reformation. However, according to the report this is not addressed in any
substantive manner.
Accused not even provided with proper documents
According to the report, while section 207 of the CrPC provides that the
Magistrate shall, without delay, furnish the accused with a copy of the
chargesheet and other documents such as the first information report,
statements made by persons which the police may seek to examine as witnesses
and judicial confessions before the Magistrate, it is blatantly violated. "Out
of the 255 prisoners who spoke about receiving the chargesheet, 60 said that
they never received a copy of the chargesheet. Among the 195 prisoners who did
receive a copy, there was a widespread concern that they received it after the
commencement of the trial, or after the pronouncement of the trial court
judgment. Further, it was a challenge to understand the language in which the
chargesheet was written while others could not read it at all as they were
illiterate," it says.
Not even informed about the ground of arrest
According to the report, of the 219 prisoners who spoke about being informed
about the ground of arrest, 136 said that they were not informed about the
same. Common practices included asking individuals to accompany the police
officials for false and often vague reasons such as 'answering a few questions'
or 'signing some documents'.
graphic
There were 385 prisoners under the sentence of death during the course of this
project. 373 of those prisoners across 20 states and one Union Territory
(Andaman & Nicobar Islands) are a part of this study (Graphic 1).1 The
remaining 12 prisoners who do not form part of this study were sentenced to
death in Tamil Nadu. Despite our numerous attempts, the Government of Tamil
Nadu did not grant us permission to conduct prison interviews, citing lack of
security clearance from 'agencies' in Delhi. We were never informed who these
'agencies' were.
Amongst the 373 prisoners, 361 were men and 12 were women. While Uttar Pradesh
had the highest number of prisoners sentenced to death (79) in absolute
numbers, Delhi had the largest proportion in terms of the prisoners sentenced
to death in comparison with the population (1.79 persons per 10 lakh
population), with 30 prisoners sentenced to death. The prisoners interviewed in
the project were incarcerated in 67 prisons, of which 42 were central prisons
and 25 were district prisons. Of these 67 prisons, 30 had gallows.
(source: firstpost.com)
***************
30% Death Row Convicts Eventually Acquitted: Study
Out of every 100 prisoners given the death sentence by trial courts in India,
30 are acquitted, reveals the National Law University or NLU's Death Penalty
India Report released on Friday. The 1st of its kind report also says only 5 %
of death sentences are upheld by higher courts.
The report is based on in-depth interviews with 373 of the 385 death row
inmates in India, their families and jail authorities conducted by the National
Law University between June 2013 and January 2015.
80 % of all death row prisoners interviewed for the study said they were
tortured in police custody. Complaints ranged from waterboarding, cigarette
burns, forced nudity, pulling out fingernails to electric currents.
11 death row cases that came to the Supreme Court were dismissed without a
hearing on technical grounds, the report adds.
"The report shows our criminal justice system not just needs procedural but
systemic reform. The legal aid system is a joke. No one really has any faith in
it," Supreme Court Judge Justice Madan B Lokur said.
The report also shows there is a great distrust in the legal aid system in the
country - even those prisoners who can't afford private lawyers try to hire
them - even if they have to sell their assets, jewellery, land for it.
70 % of those sentenced to death had never discussed their case details with
their lawyers at trial stage. Of those who moved High Court, over 64% haven't
even met their lawyers and 44 % don't even know the names of their lawyers when
the case moved to the Supreme Court, the study reveals.
The study also shows most death row prisoners are from poor families. 74 % are
economically vulnerable - of those 63.2 % were either primary or sole earners
in their family.
Anup Surendranath, director, Death Penalty Centre Of National Law University
told NDTV, "They don't know anything about their cases, nobody is telling them
anything. Every day they live in fear. So many of them told us that when they
hear footsteps at night, they were they will be taken away to be killed. We
need to think about as a society," he said.
********************
Resolution In Rajya Sabha Seeks Abolition Of Capital Punishment
A private member resolution was on Friday moved in the Rajya Sabha seeking
abolition of capital punishment and an imposition of moratorium on all death
sentences till the necessary amendments are made to the existing laws.
"The time has come for India to say emphatic "no" to capital punishment by
making amendments to various laws, which have provision for death penalty so as
to abolish capital punishment in the country. Till that time, impose moratorium
on execution of death sentences," said D Raja of CPI while moving the
resolution.
The resolution should not be linked to any particular case as the issue is
related to confronting the humanity, he said, adding, "I am not making it as an
ideological issue at this point of time. It is more than that."
Asserting that India should take a stand on this issue, Mr Raja said the
majority of the UN members have voted in support of the UN General Assembly
resolution calling for a moratorium on death penalty and India is among the
minority of member countries still voting against the resolution.
About 120 countries have abolished capital punishment and few of them have
stopped the practice of execution, he added.
"The situation now has fast changed. The world is moving towards jurisprudence
based on humanism and correction of individuals committing crimes. But we are
still lagging behind. We are still stick on to the colonial laws. We need to
change our mindset," Mr Raja noted.
Stating that crimes have socio-economic factors, Mr Raja said, "The issue
should not be looked at from just legal and technical point of view. It should
be looked at pyschological, sociological and polical angle."
Quoting a study by students of Delhi-based National Law University, Mr Raja
said the research shows that there are caste and religious biases in the
imposition of death penalty in India, indicating that 94 % of the persons given
death sentences for terror related cases belonged to dalit caste or religious
miniorities.
Even the Supreme Court has admitted to "errors and miscarriage of justice due
to arbitrary application of death penalty" and the Law Commission Chairman
Justice A P Shah has also said that there is "serious need to re-examine" the
issue of death panalty.
Mr Raja said this resolution was earlier submitted to the Upper House in July
2015 but it was not taken up due to various reasons. Even his party colleague
late C K Chandrappan had moved a private member bill on this issue way back in
2004.
(source for both: ndtv.com)
******************
RS members debate abolition of death penalty----His short speech on capital
punishment prompted Congress MP Jairam Ramesh to ask how Swamy could make a
speech without making any allegations.
For the 1st time since he became a member last week, Subramanian Swamy spoke in
the Rajya Sabha uninterrupted, without making any provocative remarks and
without being disturbed by the Opposition.
Swamy stood up to speak on two other occasions in the past week, and both times
he created a flutter by linking Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her family with
the AgustaWestland helicopter scam.
On the 1st occasion, in fact, he could not even complete a sentence, having
brought up Sonia's name at the start of his speech. The 2nd time, on Tuesday,
he could speak for more than 15 minutes but amid strong protests by the
Congress.
On Friday afternoon, in the presence of just 15 members in the Rajya Sabha,
Swamy got up to speak again, but this time it was not about AgustaWestland or
anything to do with the Gandhi family. He participated in a discussion on a
resolution on the abolition of capital punishment that was moved by CPI member
D Raja. His short speech on capital punishment prompted Congress MP Jairam
Ramesh to ask how Swamy could make a speech without making any allegations.
Swamy spoke strongly in favour of retaining capital punishment, arguing that no
country of "any importance" had abolished the death penalty. "It is a futile
debate," he said, while calling the campaign against death penalty a "part of a
fashionable international movement of NGOs".
"The US has it, Russia has it, all the Arab countries have it, Iran has it.
Even the country with which Raja's party has fraternal relations, China, has
death penalty. You (Raja) have not been able to convince China to abolish death
penalty, you want India to abolish it. Only some crazy liberal nations have
done away with capital punishment," Swamy said.
He claimed the Congress was confused on the issue. "They (Congress government)
hanged Afzal Guru but they want the killers of Rajiv Gandhi to be set free.
They do not want to subject them to capital punishment even when the Supreme
Court has said that is the rarest of rare case," he said. "In my opinion, India
is not going to change. We are going to have capital punishment, but the
safeguards are necessary. The Supreme Court has already laid down those
safeguards," he said.
Earlier, D Raja argued that India must say an "emphatic no" to capital
punishment and till such time that a decision in this regard is taken, there
should be a moratorium on execution of all death sentences. "The world is
moving towards a new kind of jurisprudence, one based on humanism, one based on
correction of individuals committing crimes, may be, even heinous crimes. But
we still lag behind ... We still stick to colonial relics, on colonial laws,"
he said.
The CPI member said a study by National Law University had shown caste and
religious biases in award of death penalty and indicated that 94 % of those
given capital punishment in terror-related cases were either Dalits or belonged
to religious minority communities.
"I am not making an insinuation ... I am not casting aspersions on any
individual judge or court. But all said and done, we are all human beings, and
we have been talking about corruption. Corruption does not only mean
involvement of money. It can mean involvement of caste bias or religion bias as
well," he said.
(source: Indian Express)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi executes Jordanian drug smuggler
Saudi Arabia on Thursday put to death a Jordanian convicted of drug
trafficking, in the kingdom's 91st execution this year.
Maher al-Ghurabli had been found guilty of smuggling amphetamine pills into the
kingdom, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Authorities carried out the sentence against him in the northwestern region of
Tabuk, which borders his Jordanian homeland.
Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.
Ghurabli's is the 91st execution of a local or foreigner this year, according
to an AFP tally.
The executions include 47 for "terrorism" on a single day, January 2.
Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions.
Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia had the 3rd highest number of people
put to death last year -- at least 158.
That was far behind Pakistan, which executed 326, and Saudi Arabia's regional
rival Iran, which executed at least 977, said Amnesty, whose figures exclude
secretive China.
(source: ahram.org)
EGYPT:
Egypt court spares ousted president Mohamed Morsi the death penalty
An Egyptian court recommended death sentences on Saturday for 6 codefendants of
Mohamed Morsi but not for the ousted Islamist president in their trial on
espionage charges.
The presiding judge in the trial asked the mufti -- the country's official
interpreter of Islamic law -- to consider death sentences for the 6
codefendants, saying the court would convene again on June 18 after the mufti's
response.
It will then pronounce its verdict and sentence for the remaining 5 defendants,
including Morsi, on charges of having supplied Qatar with classified documents.
Egyptian law requires the mufti to sign off on death sentences. His opinion is
not binding but is usually respected by courts.
Qatar was a main backer of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement while he
was in power between 2012 and July 2013, when the military overthrew and
detained him.
He has since been sentenced to death, life in prison and 20 years in three
separate trials.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
NIGERIA:
Lawmakers Urged To Recommend Death Penalty For Treasury Looters
Following the recommendation of death penalty for kidnappers, the Senate has
been urged to take a step further and recommend same punishment for treasury
looters.
This call was contained in a statement issued by the chairman, Association of
Online Media Practitioners, Wole Arisekola.
He noted that while the recommendation made during the week by the senators
prescribing death penalty for kidnappers was laudable, the lawmakers should go
a step further by also recommending same punishment for public officials who
loot the treasury.
Arisekola, in the statement noted that "the same law should be passed on
corrupt public officials because corruption is worse than kidnapping", noting
that "kidnappers cannot kidnap the whole nation but corruption kills the entire
nation".
He stressed further that "corruption is the bane of our underdevelopment, it is
the reason behind all the social ills including kidnapping. It is the reason
why there are no drugs in hospitals, why our roads are in deplorable
conditions, the educational sector is in comatose and why the whole nation is
still in darkness."
It stated further that "One must however, commend the senators for rising to
the occasion by recommending death penalty for kidnappers who are making the
country unsafe for all, it is also patient that we should tackle the foundation
of crime in our society before we deal with criminals".
He expressed firm optimism that "this proposal, I belief, if considered and
passed by the lawmakers, will act as a deterrent to whoever might be nursing
any idea of defrauding this great nation of ours now or in the future".
(source: leadership.ng)
**************
3 kidnappers sentenced to death
A Delta State High Court sitting in Effurun, has sentenced 3 persons, Augustin
Akpojivi, Dawel James and Collins Enye, to death by hanging for kidnapping.
The Court which also found the 3 accused persons guilty of 3 other counts of
conspiracy to commit a felony to wit: kidnapping, illegal possession of
firearms, demanding property with menace and stealing, sentenced them? to 20
years imprisonment with hard labour.
2 other accused persons were however lucky as they escaped the death sentence,
having been discharged and acquitted by the Court.
The 2 acquitted persons are Samuel Okoloda and Precious Victor Ochuko. They
were acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence linking them to the crime by
prosecution.
Earlier during trial, the Prosecution told the Court that Dawel James, a driver
by occupation, conspired with Augustin Akpojivi (29), also a driver, and
Collins Enye (23), a commercial motorcycle rider; and others now at large, to
kidnap his employer, one Rufus Uzoma Allwell, staff of Warri Refining and
Petrochemical Company (WRPC), while armed with guns and demanded for a ransom
of N2million before releasing their victim.
The Court heard that Dawel James who was the driver to the kidnapped victim
master minded the kidnap of his boss and received part of the N2million ransom
paid by the elder brother of his boss.
Reacting to the Court Judgement, the State Attorney-General and Commissioner
for Justice, Barr Peter Mrakpor hails the Court verdict and expressed optimism
that the judgement of the Court will send a strong signal to criminally minded
persons in the State that it was not business as usual.
He commended the exceptional courage displayed by witnesses in the matter who
came out willingly without pressure to give evidence in Court during trial and
called on others to emulate the patriotic spirit put forward by the Prosecution
Witnesses.
(source: The News)
SOMALIA:
5 Sentenced to Death for Baidoa Attack
Somali military court has on Saturday sentenced 5 people to death for their
role in Baidoa attack on February.
According to the chairman of the court Liban Abdi Yarrow four of the men were
found guilty for their involvement in the attack that resulted death of over 30
people and wounded many more on 28 February.
The 5th person was found guilty for killing a civilian. Armed group Alshabaab
claimed the responsibility of the double explosion attacks that rocked the
South Western Somali city.
Despite over whelming human rights groups condemnations Somali military court
continues with the execution of Alshabaab members found guilty for attacks
against government targets.
(source: allafrica.com)
BANGLADESH:
Pakistan concerned over review application dismissal on death sentence for JI
leader in Bangladesh
Pakistan has expressed deep concern over dismissal of the review application on
the death sentence by the Bangladesh Supreme Court for Jamaat-e-Islami leader
Motiur Rahman Nizami.
In a statement issued today, Foreign Office said Pakistan has been following
the reaction of the international community and human rights organizations to
the controversial trials in Bangladesh related to the events of 1971.
It said there is a need for reconciliation in Bangladesh in accordance with the
spirit of Tripartite Agreement of April 1974, which calls for a forward looking
approach in matters relating to the events of 1971.
Meanwhile, Punjab Assembly, in unanimously passed resolution on Friday,
expressed concern over rejection of the review application of Motiur Rehman
Nizami by the Bangladeshi Supreme Court.
The resolution was moved by the Parliamentary Leader of Jamaat e Islami in
Punjab Assembly Dr. Waseem Akhtar.
The resolution urged the federal government to contact Organization of Islamic
Cooperation and the United Nations for halting implementation of the death
penalty.
Earlier, Bangladesh's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Motiur Rahman
Nizami for war crimes yesterday.
(source: Radio Pakistan)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 8 09:48:01 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 09:48:01 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., TENN., ARIZ.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605080947520.4916@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 8
VIRGINIA:
Court rejects Virginia death row inmate's appeal
A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal of a Virginia death row inmate
who killed 2 people during an escape.
William Morva's attorney argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in
March that he was improperly denied a chance to show that he wouldn't do it
again if spared the death penalty.
But a 3-judge panel of the court rejected his claims Thursday and affirmed the
lower court's ruling.
Morva was in jail awaiting trial on attempted robbery charges in 2006 when he
was taken to a Blacksburg hospital. He overpowered a deputy sheriff and used
the deputy's pistol to fatally shoot an unarmed security guard. He fatally shot
another deputy during a manhunt the next day.
Morva's attorney didn't immediately respond to a message Thursday. A date for
execution has not been set.
(source: Associated Press)
TENNESSEE:
Memphis man sentenced to death for 3rd time in 1997 killing
A jury again sentenced Michael Rimmer to death Saturday in the killing of his
former girlfriend, who disappeared 19 years ago from her job as a night clerk
at a Memphis motel.
Rimmer, 50, was sentenced to death in 1998 and at a resentencing in 2004 in the
killing of 45-year-old Ricci Ellsworth. A new trial was ordered in 2012 after a
judge found Rimmer's defense counsel failed to effectively investigate the
capital case.
Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich announced in 2014 that she
would ask for a special prosecutor to handle the trial. Rachel Sobrero of the
Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, andPam Anderson, of Davidson
County, prosecuted the retrial.
Jurors on Friday convicted Rimmer of killing Ellsworth with premeditation and
in perpetration of a robbery. He was also convicted of aggravated robbery.
Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Chris Craft told Rimmer he will be confined
until all appeals have been exhausted and an execution date is set. He will be
put to death by electrocution, or at his option, lethal injection, Craft said.
"May God have mercy on your soul," Craft said.
Ellsworth, a mother of 2, disappeared Feb. 8, 1997, from the Memphis Inn
nearInterstate 40. Her blood and her ring were found at the scene, but her body
has never been found.
"I wish I could tell you how much I loved her, still love her," her now
deceased mother, Margie Floyd, testified previously. "And the horror that - she
was such a sweet, generous person - that anyone would hate her that much. It
had to be hate."
Rimmer asked his attorneys, Robert Parris and Paul Bruno, not to present any
mitigating evidence on his behalf during the sentencing proceedings Saturday.
Sobrero told the jury about aggravating factors in the case, including that
Rimmer was previously convicted of one or more violent felonies, not including
the present charge.
Rimmer was convicted of raping Ellsworth in 1989. She forgave him and visited
him in prison.
Rimmer had pleaded not guilty to killing Ellsworth, and Parris urged the jury
to consider elements of the case that were missing. There was no body, murder
weapon or identification of Rimmer at the scene by anyone, Parris said.
Prosecutors presented evidence that DNA profiles from blood at the crime scene
matched blood found in a car Rimmer was arrested in for speeding nearly a month
after Ellsworth's disappearance.
Witnesses Roger Lescure and William Conaley testified Rimmer had threatened to
kill Ellsworth.
Rimmer's attorneys emphasized the eyewitness identification of a man who saw 2
people at the motel around the time of Ellsworth's disappearance with what
appeared to be blood on their hands.
James Darnell picked out Billy Wayne Voyles Jr. from a photo spread, according
to a police document. The document was not disclosed for Rimmer's 1998 death
penalty trial or his resentencing in 2004.
Rimmer's 1998 counsel asked for exculpatory evidence from the prosecutor
handling the case at the time, who responded the state was not aware of any.
Voyles was also picked out of a sketch released to the media.
Rimmer will get an automatic appeal to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals.
If that court affirms the conviction and sentence, the Tennessee Supreme Court
automatically reviews it.
Tennessee has executed 6 people since 1976, and the last execution was in 2009.
Five were executed by lethal injection, and in 2007 the state electrocuted
convicted killer Daryl Holton. Holton chose the method.
(source: KTHV news)
****************
View from death row
For more than 9 years I served as a mentor and volunteer on death row at
Tennessee's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution at the request of
then-chaplain Jerry Welborn.
Having a background in the music industry, I agreed to spend time with
prisoners who had musical inclinations, and Michael Rimmer was one of them.
We would spend time either in groups or sometimes just alone talking about
things like politics, cracking jokes and discussing commonplace family things.
Working with Michael, both alone and in a group, I was able to gain insight
into his life and character.
I came to understand that their situations may not always be as they seem. 2
men with whom I became friends were eventually executed. Steve Henley and Cecil
Johnson. I learned that, regardless of the accusations or convictions, these
men are simply flawed humans - as are we all - and that the real truth of these
(generally poor individuals unable to engage adequate representation) men's
stories will rarely be told.
Knowing these men, yet not forgetting victims and their families, eventually
brought me from one who once favored the death penalty to one who has now
determined that it's not up to a flawed jurisprudence system to choose the time
of their deaths.
DNA and the Innocence Project have conclusively proved that not all are guilty,
and not all are appropriately sentenced.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Stephen Schaffer----Comercial Appeal)
ARIZONA:
Rector trial could be postponed: Appointment of required second defense lawyer
delayed
A Superior Court judge on Friday postponed an evidentiary hearing to argue
whether a Bullhead City man should face the death penalty.
Justin James Rector's attorney, Gerald Gavin, of Mesa, asked to postpone the
Chronis hearing in his client's murder case because a co-counsel has not been
assigned to the case. State law requires 2 defense attorneys in death penalty
cases.
Rector, 27, is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child abuse and
abandonment of a dead body in the death of Isabella Grogan-Cannella on Sept. 2,
2014.
Gavin said that a new co-counsel has been appointed but will not be available
until June 25 after completion of the necessary training required to handle a
death penalty case. Former co-counsel Ron Gilleo withdrew in February because
of a conflict of interest with a potential witness.
Gavin also filed a motion to continue the Oct. 17 trial date because there
hasn't been a co-counsel for several months, which is stalling the case. The
trial is expected to take 10 weeks. A pre-trial hearing is set for Aug. 23.
Gavin also filed a motion for funds for a defense investigator. The
investigator from the legal defender's office had to withdraw along with Gilleo
because of the conflict. Gavin also said that he and a mitigation specialist
have made significant progress in the case. He has filed numerous motions to
avoid the case being overturned on appeal, which could double or triple the
cost to the county.
"I want to do this case right the 1st time," Gavin said.
In a Chronis hearing, Deputy Mohave County Attorney Greg McPhillips will have
to prove aggravating factors to seek the death penalty against Rector.
McPhillips only needs to prove one of 14 aggravating factors. One factor is if
the victim is under the age of 15. Grogan-Cannella was 8 years old at the time
of her murder.
McPhillips said interviews will resume when a defense co-counsel is assigned to
the case. The prosecutor also said a mental health exam still needs to be
conducted.
Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen postponed the Chronis hearing to July 15.
Rector is being held in county jail without bond. The motion to continue the
trial and other motions are expected to be argued at the July 15 hearing.
(source: Mohave Daily News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 8 09:49:07 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 09:49:07 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605080948530.4916@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 8
AFGHANISTAN----executions
6 Taliban inmates on death row hanged: Afghan govt
6 Afghan Taliban inmates on death row were hanged on Sunday, government sources
said, in the first set of executions approved by President Ashraf Ghani since
he came to power in 2014.
"In accordance with the Afghan constitution... Ghani approved the execution of
6 terrorists who perpetrated grave crimes against civilians and public
security," the presidential palace said in a statement.
A government source told AFP that all 6 were Taliban inmates, but did not
release further details about their offences.
In 2012, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Afghan government to "end
its sudden surge of executions and institute a moratorium on further
executions" after the Afghan government executed eight people, ending a
four-year virtual moratorium on the use of the death penalty, during which only
2 people were reportedly executed, according to the HRW.
The NGO cited the "weakness of the Afghan legal system and the routine failure
of courts to meet international fair trial standards", which make Afghanistan's
"use of the death penalty especially troubling".
(source: Daily Times)
*************
Taliban Publicly Execute 2 Women in Northern Afghanistan
Taliban insurgents publicly executed 2 women, 1 of them in an apparent honor
killing, in northern Afghanistan recently, according to Afghan officials,
members of the victims' families and a video posted online.
The killings, which were thought to be unrelated, took place in recent months
in northern Jowzjan Province, in predominantly Uzbek areas where Taliban
presence has traditionally been weak except among ethnic Pashtuns.
The killings came to light after a video was circulated of one of them and
officials discovered evidence of the other.
In 1 of the cases, a pregnant 22-year-old woman named Rabia, a mother of 2
young children, was accused by her husband of adultery, tried and convicted by
the Taliban on the spot, and then publicly shot 3 times. Members of her family
said that her husband had concocted the adultery charge because of a land
dispute between their families, and that he had wanted to inherit his wife's
interests in the land.
"They buried her without even allowing her family to participate in her
funeral," said Shakera, her aunt, who like many Afghans has only 1 name.
"I know she was a very innocent woman," Shakera said, speaking by telephone
from her home in the provincial capital, Shibarghan. "She did not have the
heart to be unfaithful."
Another motive for the Taliban to kill her, Shakera said, was that 2 of Rabia's
uncles were militia commanders loyal to the Uzbek leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum,
who is also first vice president of Afghanistan.
According to the deputy police chief of Jowzjan Province, Col. Abdul Hafeez,
the apparent honor killing took place in Memlek village in the district of
Faizabad. The district governor of Faizabad, Saira Shekib, who is one of
Afghanistan's few female governors, said it had been personally carried out by
the Taliban's shadow governor in the district, whom she identified as Qari
Rasool.
The killings were reminiscent of similar executions carried out frequently from
1996 to 2001, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and killed many women
convicted of so-called moral crimes by shooting them in the head at the
National Stadium before large crowds. In rural areas, where the group holds
sway, they have often stoned women to death for suspected moral offenses.
The 2nd Jowzjan execution is believed to have taken place four months ago,
though the video surfaced only in the past couple days. The victim is seen in a
blue burqa, sitting on the ground. A Taliban court convicted her of killing her
husband, whose family crowded around the execution site and loudly voted to
execute her.
The victim's identity was not known, but Colonel Hafeez said that the
authorities believed that the video was genuine and that the execution had
taken place in the Khanaqa district. The executioner's face is covered, but he
was believed to be the district's Taliban commander.
The children of Rabia, the victim in the suspected honor killing, were not
present when the Taliban official summarily executed her in the yard of her
home. But according to Shakera, Rabia's 3-year-old daughter found her mother's
bloodied sandals after the killing and recognized them.
"She ran to her grandma asking where is her mother," Shakera said. "The grandma
did not have an answer for her."
Rabia's 6-month-old son had still been breast-feeding at the time his mother
was killed, Shakera said, and members of the family say they have been unable
to afford enough powdered baby formula for the infant. Both children remained
with the father's family.
(source: New York Times)
*********************
Horrific video shows Taliban publicly killing woman over adultery ---- The
woman is forced to kneel in a dessert before she is shot dead
A horrific video has emerged online which purportedly shows the execution of a
woman by the Taliban militants in northern Jawzjan province.
The woman was reportedly executed in Khanqa village in Aqcha district with the
footage showing the woman is forced to kneel in a dessert before she is shot
dead.
The execution is carried out by a Taliban insurgent who has covered his face
with a scarf and shooting the woman with an Ak-47 rifle from behind.
The local officials have not commented regarding the report so far to confirm
the exact date and location of the incident.
The brutal killing of the woman refreshes the savagery of the group while they
were ruling the country in early 90s.
The group executed a woman in a stadium in capital Kabul in a similar way which
sparked international condemnation.
The group still continues to try convicts in desert courts in areas where they
have influence and publicly execute the convicts after they are awarded death
sentence.
The latest video is followed amid concerns by the rights organizations that the
condition of the women in northern parts of the country is rapidly getting
worse amid deteriorating security situation.
(source: rawa.org)
THAILAND:
21 Malaysian 'drug mules' face death penalty in Thai court
The 21 Malaysians arrested in Thailand recently on suspicion of being 'drug
mules' could face the death penalty under the country's Narcotics Act for
possession and sale of Category 1 Substances.
"The suspects can face the death penalty following the large seizure of
methamphetamine ('ice') and heroin from them. The police, on their part, have
obtained strong evidence against them.
"However, despite the possibility of facing the maximum sentence of death under
the stipulated charge, Thai courts seldom hand down the death penalty and
prefer the long-term jail sentence, instead," he told Bernama on Sunday.
On March 23 and 24, the Malaysians, in 2 groups of 15 and 6 men were arrested
by Thai Railway police at 4 different train stations and in a passenger van.
Seized from them were 226kg of methamphetamine and 8kg of heroin kept in
backpacks.
The train they were travelling in was enroute to Butterworth from Hualamphong,
Bangkok.
Thai police have described the drug haul as one of the largest confiscated in
recent times, which could fetch about RM400mil in Europe.
The Thai police officer also divulged that based on information obtained, there
was a link between the Malaysian suspects and a major drug trafficker whose
nationality he declined to divulge.
In an interview with Bernama previously, Police Col Puttidej Bunkrapue from the
Thai Railway Police said investigations revealed the drug smuggling attempt by
the 21 Malaysian suspects was masterminded by 3 men.
The 21 Malaysians are currently under remand at Bangkok's Central Correctional
Institution for Drug Addicts.
(source: Bernama)
BELARUS:
EU Condemns Belarus After Latest Execution
The European Union has expressed concern after news that Belarus, the only
country in Europe still to apply capital punishment, had executed another
prisoner.
In a statement issued on May 7, the EU said the recent execution of Syarhey
Ivanua was "particularly disturbing" due to the fact his complaint was pending
with the UN Human Rights Committee. The EU also said the death sentence against
Syarhey Khmelevsky, which was upheld by the Belarus Supreme Court on 6 May, has
also been confirmed.
In its statement, the EU said it expected Belarus to join a global moratorium
on the death penalty as a 1st step towards its abolition.
(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)
IRAN:
Prisoners Moved to Solitary Confinement in Preparation for Execution
On Saturday May 7, at least 3 prisoners in Rajai Shahr Prison (located in the
city of Karaj, northern Iran) were reportedly moved to solitary confinement in
preparation for their executions. According to close sources, the prisoners are
each sentenced to death on murder charges and their names are: Mohammad Abdi,
Seyed Jafar Jafaripanah, and Fariborz Jalali. Close sources say these 3
prisoners are scheduled to be executed on the morning of Wednesday.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
NIGERIA:
Lagos lawmaker advocates capital punishment for corrupt politicians
Following the proposed capital punishment prescribed by the Nigerian senate for
kidnappers, the Deputy Whip, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Omotayo
Oduntan, has also prescribed same punishment for corrupt politicians.
Oduntan made the call at a media parley held at the Assembly Complex in Ikeja,
Lagos, while reacting to Senate's prescription of death penalty for kidnappers.
The lawmaker, who decried the rising cases of kidnapping, said such step would
deter many young people from engaging in the crime.
"I am in support of capital punishment for kidnappers. It will serve as
deterrent to many who thought the crime is a way to make cheap money. It will
reduce the rate of criminality, it is not normal at all for young people who
think they can make quick money through kidnapping be engage in such crime,"
she said.
The lawmaker urged the National Assembly to extend same punishment to
politicians who embezzled public funds to serve as deterrent to others.
"As I am in support of capital punishment for kidnappers, politicians who
embezzle public money should be given the same punishment to serve as deterrent
to others who might want to toe that line.
"Criminality and corruption will reduce to the barest minimum with capital
punishment. It is not normal to embezzle money that is meant for generation and
the generations to come," she said.
She, however, urged the Federal Government to provide jobs for citizens,
stressing that the kidnappers saw the menace as a quick means of getting money.
According to the lawmaker, all efforts must be made to ensure that masses
experience change in their socio-economic life.
She said, "I will advise all women in position of authority to be fair to
people, be honest, be a good example to other women. They (women politicians)
should be mirror of courage, good character, honesty and let them be committed
to uplift the common man in the streets."
Reacting to the crisis in the Edo State House of Assembly and emergence of a
female Speaker, Mrs. Elizabeth Ative, Oduntan urged the new speaker to ensure
she makes a good impact and leaves a good legacy behind.
The lawmaker urged the rich in the country to help the poor masses come out of
hardship and suffering. She also urged the citizens to be patient with the
President, expressing optimism that the economic would improve for the
betterment of all.
(source: today.ng)
EGYPT:
Egyptian court recommends death penalty for journalists, Mursi verdict
postponed
An Egyptian court on Saturday recommended the death penalty for 3 journalists
and 3 others charged with endangering national security by leaking state
secrets and documents to Qatar.
Jordanian national Alaa Omar Sablan and Ibrahim Mohammed Helal, who both work
for Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, and Asmaa Al Khateeb, a reporter for
Rassd, a pro-Muslim Brotherhood news network, were sentenced in absentia. They
can appeal.
The sentence is the latest since a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood after an
army takeover stripped former president Mohammed Mursi of power in 2013
following mass protests against his rule. Mursi and other Brotherhood leaders,
as well as leading figures from the 2011 popular uprising that toppled Hosni
Mubarak, many of them secular activists and journalists, are now in jail.
Following Saturday's ruling, a final decision is expected on June 18, after the
sentence has been referred to the top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, for
a non-binding opinion.
Judge Mohammed Shireen Fahmy, who announced the verdict, also said that a
ruling against Mursi and several others charged in the same case, would be
postponed to the same date.
Prosecutors in Saturday's case argued that Mursi's aides were involved in
leaking sensitive documents to Qatari intelligence that exposed the location of
weapons held by the Egyptian armed forces.
Defence lawyers said that documents were moved out of the presidential palace
to protect them during growing protests against Mursi's rule, but this process
was not the responsibility of the president and the documents presented in the
case show no signs of spying.
"The case's documents are devoid of any type of espionage or participation in
it," a defence lawyer told Reuters.
Mursi has been sentenced in 3 other cases, including the death penalty for a
mass jail break during the 2011 uprising and a life sentence for spying on
behalf of Hamas.
Qatar had supported Mursi, who is in jail along with thousands of Brotherhood
members, many of whom have been sentenced to death on separate charges.
Relations between Qatar, a Gulf Arab state, and Egypt have been icy since July
2013 when Egypt's then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew Mursi.
Sisi says the Brotherhood poses a serious threat to security despite the
crackdown, which has weakened what was once Egypt's most organised political
group.
(source: Reuters)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 8 09:50:16 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 8 May 2016 09:50:16 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605080950050.4916@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 8
PAKISTAN:
Capital punishment to 2 postponed for 10 Days
The death penalty awarded to two persons in famous murder cases has been
postponed in Central Jail Mirpur for 10 days on the appeal of the families of
convicts forforgiveness.
According to Jail authorities, the schedule followed byissuance of the death
warrants after rejection of the mercypetitions of both of the culprits by the
President of Azad Jammu &Kashmir, the murderers Muhammad Yaqoob s/o Raja
Muhammad and Ghazenfer son of Ghazen, both residents of Kotli district of AJK,
were to be put on gallows in the Mirpur Central Jail on Friday (May6, 2016)
morning, Syed Yasir Hussain Kazmi, Deputy SuperintendentCentral Jail told APP
on Saturday.
The convict Mohammad Yaqoob had axed Imam of a mosque Muhammad Javed at
Tattapani village to death few years ago. Similarly the other assassin
Ghazenfer had shot dead his relative Raja Illayas, Naib Tehsildar at Gulpur few
years back.
Both the accused were awarded death penalty in the murder charges by a district
criminal court of AJK and the capital punishment kept intact by the Supreme
Court of AJK - as the appeals of both the culprits against the punishment were
turned down by the apex court, the Deputy Jailer said.
The award of capital punishment was postponed reportedly for 10 days after the
families of the murderers moved to the victim's families for clemency for
patch-up between the rival groups, he added.
(source: APP)
INDIA:
Bara massacre: After 15 years on death row, families of accused say they've
lost track of their cases
15 years after they were sentenced to death, families of those convicted for
the Bara massacre here have lost track of their cases. A media visit draws
curious villagers to the house of one accused, seeking to know if there is
something new.
Ajay Das alias Ajay Mochi is not among them. His mother was pregnant with him
when father Krishna Das alias Krishna Mochi was given death along with 6
others, in the February 13, 1992, killings of 35 upper-caste Bhumihars.
Sitting on a cot outside his mud-and-thatch house at Dhiwra village, 2 km from
Bara, Ajay says he has grown tired of media visits. Admitting that he never
goes to Bhagalpur jail to meet Krishna, now 58, Ajay says, "They tell me my
father used to be an excellent clarinet player. I am living with the burden of
not having seen him."
The case of Krishna Mochi is reflective of the points raised in the Death
Penalty Research Project.
Ajay is the youngest of Krishna's 4 children, including a daughter. All the
sons work as daily wagers. Krishna was not allowed to attend the wedding of any
of the 4.
Ironically, adds the family, Krishna used to be the member of a village wedding
band. His father Chaitu Das, who died 5 years ago, was also a known band
master.
The Bara massacre, in which MCC (now CPI-Maoist) members killed 34 Bhumihars,
was part of a string of caste clashes in the area. The 1992 massacre itself was
believed to be the fallout of 6 previous killings in 1990-91 in which 59
Scheduled Caste men and agricultural labourers were killed.
In 1997, the upper castes carried out a revenge attack for the Bara massacre,
leaving 58 Dalits dead in Laxmanpur-Bathe.
For the Bara massacre, the Gaya District and Sessions court gave death to
Nanhelal Mochi, Krishna Mochi, Bir Kuer Paswan and Dharmendra Singh on June 8,
2001. The Supreme Court endorsed this in April 2002. In 2009, the designated
TADA judge of Gaya sentenced Vyas Kahar, Naresh Paswan and Bugal Mochi to
death. Of them, only Dharmendra was an upper caste, having turned against the
dominant Bhumihars.
Later, Naresh was acquitted on grounds of lack of evidence and shoddy
investigation, while the sentence of Vyas and Bugal was commuted to life.
Bhagalpur Central Jail authorities say the mercy pleas of the 4 other death row
convicts, Nanhelal, Krishna, Bir and Dharmendra, were dispatched to the
President on March 3, 2003. Says Vira Maharaj, a jail official, "Once a mercy
petition is despatched, we get to know its status only when it is rejected."
In the Laxmanpur-Bathe case, incidentally, all the 26 upper caste accused
convicted by a lower court were acquitted by the Patna High Court on grounds of
inadequate evidence.
Says Krishna's wife Chandramani Devi, "My husband was framed just because we
were not dependent on upper castes for a living. He earned good money playing
at weddings."
Son Vinay says they go to meet Krishna at Bhagalpur, 225 km away, only when
they can save some money. Jitendra Das, who is married to Krishna's daughter
Basanti, says, "Whenever we meet him, he requests us to plead his case. He has
not lost hope yet."
A few metres away from Krishna's house are razed structures that were once
homes of Nanhelal and Bhugal. Their families shifted to Baddi Bigha village in
Gaya after their Dhiwra houses were set on fire in 1994, allegedly by some
upper caste men.
Nanhelal has 2 sons and Bugal 6. All are daily wagers.
Naresh, who was among those sentenced to death, was acquitted in 2013. The
family of his brother Krishnandan Paswan says Naresh had taken the help of
upper castes to get out.
Naresh now lives in his wife's village in Gaya and works as a daily wager.
The family of another death convict, Bir, 70, lives at Khutwar village, 1.5 km
away from Dhiwra. His younger brother Karu says the Bara massacre accused were
given death because they were SCs. "Earlier, police used to come. Now no one
comes to share any information."
The 80-year-old Rajo Devi, who has spent 24 years now in wait of son Krishna,
says they are helpless. "Vakil kabhi kehta hai Dilli se chitthi aayega, kabhi
kehta hai Patna se aayega (The lawyer sometimes says relief will come from a
Delhi court, sometimes he says Patna)."
(source: Indian Express)
**************
On death row, dying many deaths
The human rights of prisoners in death row are grossly violated, shows Death
Penalty India Report
"I left my sleeping child at home because the police called me to sign
documents. I never got home after that," said Akira. She is among the 136
prisoners on death row who claimed to have not been informed of the reason for
their arrest, a constitutional right.
To prepare the Death Penalty India Report, released on Friday, National Law
University, Delhi, interviewed 373 of the 385 death row prisoners in India. The
report does not talk about the innocence of these prisoners. But their stories
highlight gross violations of human rights and the fallacies in the legal
system. From not getting access to lawyers to being forced to confess to
crimes, prisoners shared experiences of being a death row prisoner.
Month-long torture
Zaid, accused in a terror case, was detained in a mansion used by investigative
agencies. He was tortured for over a month before a formal arrest was recorded.
Mahmud, Zaid's co-accused, was severely beaten and electrocuted in the
genitals. He was blindfolded during the entire duration of police custody
except when he was given food.
Zaid recalled that Mahmud's skin would peel off as he removed his clothes.
Finally, Zaid, Mahmud and other accused were acquitted by the Supreme Court.
The court expressed anguish at the incompetence of the investigating agencies
as these men had already spent 11 years in prison. A majority of the prisoners
shared their experiences of custodial violence with the researchers. All this,
when as per law, the police are supposed to take "reasonable care of the health
and safety of an accused under custody." Rollers were pressed over Amarpreet's
body when she was arrested. As a result, she suffered a miscarriage.
The report says that of the 92 prisoners who said they had confessed in police
custody, 72 admitted to making statements under torture. Roshni said she was
repeatedly tortured to confess. As she was tied to a chair and beaten up, she
suffered a bone injury in her leg.
No hearing
As The Hindu reported on Friday, the structural loopholes in the administration
of the death penalty denied many prisoners a fair trial. Ramrang never got a
chance to speak with his lawyer. And so he was not asked a single question by
the judge and was sentenced to death without getting any opportunity to defend
himself. As he worries about his family, he remarked: "Be it the government,
the police or the judge - no one heard our pleas." The report says harsh prison
conditions and inhuman treatment of prisoners form an integral part of the
punishment.
Hanut, who has served more than 12 years in prison, revealed that until 2010,
there were no toilets in the prison. He was provided with a steel tub to
relieve himself. "Give us punishment, but until then at least treat us like
human beings," he said.
Sharing his experience of the violence, Javed said: "Just kill me. But don't
inflict this repeated torture on me." An opportunity to pursue studies has
great significance for reform. The Supreme Court has noted that a prisoner can
be sentenced to death only if she is beyond reform. Moinuddin, however, was
unable to continue his studies in prison. His repeated requests were rejected,
for he was a prisoner sentenced to death.
(Names of prisoners have been changed by the researchers to maintain anonymity)
(source: The Hindu)
***************
Man gets death penalty for killing minor boy
A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. The court also slapped a fine of Rs
25,000 on Manish.
The judgement was delivered by the court of ADJ-V Jyoti Swaroop Shrivatava
which termed the case as "rarest of rare". The court held Manish guilty of
kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him, plucking his eyes and
concealing the body after murder.
Additional public prosecutor (APP) Shushil Kumar Sinha said Manish had
kidnapped Aditya Rajkamal, son of Raju Mandal, a resident of Jamalpur, in broad
daylight with the help his 2 friends - Amit Jha and Manoj Kumar - who are still
absconding.
"After abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs 50,000 as ransom from the parents
of Aditya for his safe release. They even allowed the boy to talk to his
parents before killing him," said the APP.
The parents, instead of paying ransom to the kidnappers, brought the matter to
the notice of the police. The police arrested Manish and recovered the body of
Aditya Kumar from a drain.
The news of Aditya's murder spread like wildfire in Jamalpur and the entire
town rose against the crime by holding protest rallies and demonstrations.
(source: Times of India)
BANGLADESH:
2-day strike in Bangladesh begins to protest Islamist party chief's death
sentence
A two-day nationwide shutdown called by Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami began on
Sunday morning in protest of an apex court verdict that upheld death penalty
for the Islamist party's chief for 1971 war crimes.
Hours after the Appellate Division bench of Bangladesh Supreme Court (SC) on
Thursday dismissed the final review petition of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami
party's Ameer (president) Motiur Rahman Nizami who is now behind the bar, the
party called the 48-hour non-stop nationwide hartal for May 8 and 9.
Nizami, who is Jamaat chief since November 2000, now only has the option of
seeking the president's mercy to stall his imminent execution.
On account of the strike, the traffic on short routes in and around Dhaka was
almost regular as almost no activities of pro-hartal activists were visible.
Man-paddled cycle rickshaws were dominating the city streets while presence of
private cars was thin due to fear of possible vandalism and arson attack.
In other parts of the country, the shutdown also reportedly have almost no
impact on people's routine life.
Academic activities also hampered to some extent to a number of educational
institutions though attendance in the government and private offices was as
usual. But businesses in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country opened as per
schedule Sunday morning.
No major incidents have so far been reported.
74 year old Nizami served as the agriculture and industries minister in Khaleda
Zia's 2001-2006 cabinet. Nizami's party says he was deprived of justice. But
the government says the trail met proper standards.
Nizami is among the top Jamaat leaders who have been tried in 2 war crimes
tribunals which Prime Minister Sheikh Hasian's Bangladesh Awami League-led
government formed in 2010 to bring the perpetrators of 1971 to book.
Nizami was indicted in 2012 with 16 charges of crimes against humanity,
including looting, mass killings, arson, rape and forcefully converting people
to Muslims during the 1971 war.
The indictment order said Nizami was a key organizer of the Al-Badr, an
auxiliary force of then Pakistani army which planned and executed the killing
of Bengali intellectuals at the end of the war.
(source: Shanghai Daily)
********************
US Congress HR commission asks Bangladesh to halt Nizami's execution
Human rights commission of the United States Congress has urged Bangladesh to
stay the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Matiur Rahman Nizami terming the
legal process through which the death penalty was handed down was 'faulty'.
In a press release issued on Friday, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of
the United States Congress said its co-chairs urged Bangladesh to stay
execution in Bangladesh case for "lack of due process."
On 16 November 2015, said the press release, co-chairs of the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission joined respected international observers in expressing
serious concerns over death penalty convictions handed down by the
International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh ICT,B, due to "irregularities that
raised due process issues and led to doubts about the fairness of the trials."
At that time, it read, the cases in question were those of Salauddin Quader
Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammed Mojaheed. On November 22, 2015 both were
executed.
"Now there is another case, that of Matiur Rahman Nizami, accused by the ICT of
crimes including genocide, and also sentenced to death."
Saying that there can be no doubt that victims and survivors of the atrocities
committed during the 1971 war for independence have a right to justice, the
human rights commission recalled that states are obligated to ensure due
process and guarantee fair trials, even for the worst perpetrators. "The stakes
are highest in death penalty cases because no redress is available after the
fact," it observed.
"We thus reiterate our call-shared by former US ambassador-at-large for war
crimes issues, Stephen Rapp, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and
international human rights observers-to Bangladeshi authorities to proceed in
accordance with international law and standards of due process and fair trials,
as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Bangladesh is a State Party,
and halt any executions that fail these standards," the rights body urged
Bangladesh.
(source: prothom-alo.com)
INDONESIA:
Bali duo legal team discuss death penalty
The Indonesian lawyer for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says it is time for
activists fighting to end the death penalty in the country to engage with the
Islamic community about the cause.
Indonesian lawyer Dr Todung Mulya Lubis and Australian barrister Julian McMahon
led the long legal fight against the executions of the Bali 9 duo, who were
shot by a firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan in April last
year.
Speaking just over a week after the 1-year anniversary of their deaths, Dr
Mulya said it was time to start a dialogue with the Islamic community around
executions.
"It was taken for granted by those death penalty activists that you cannot
converse with them, as they are extremists. But I think it's time for us to do
that," he told the ASEAN Literary Festival on Sunday in Jakarta.
When he began campaigning against the death penalty in Indonesia in 1979 he
said he was accused of being anti-Islamic and anti-Pancasila (the 5 moral
principles said to make up Indonesian life and society).
"Every label was put on me ... But I'm pleased to know there are more and more
people now talking about the death penalty."
Mr McMahon said while it was common for the 21st century to be described as
something belonging to Asia, economic growth and leadership was not enough.
"In that context you have to think of society as a whole, and that includes
crime and punishment.
"There is no evidence that shows that executions have any value in terms of
being a deterrent," he added.
The comments come after Indonesia's Attorney-General HM Prasetyo flagged that
executions in the country were likely to resume this year.
While there has been no announcement as to when this will happen, Security
Minister Luhut Panjaitan has said he did not want to see a repeat of the
"drama" like what occurred in the lead up to the Australians' executions,
during which there was intense foreign media attention and diplomatic pressure
on Indonesia, as well as strident international appeals and pleas from family
members.
He has said that the law stipulated Indonesia only needed to give 3 days'
notice as to when an execution was going to take place.
(source: The Australian)
CARIBBEAN:
Human rights groups urged CARICOM countries to abolish death penalty
The UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group is
calling on 2 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to implement a number of
recommendations that will improve their human rights records in the future.
According to the draft report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic
Review, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname are being urged to
implement measures including acceding to or ratifying the Second Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil a and Political Rights (ICCPR), which
promotes international commitment in abolishing the death penalty.
In addition, the Caribbean countries are being urged to sign and ratify the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as well as sign or ratify the Optional
Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).
The human rights record of several CARICOM countries are being examined by the
UN body.
In the case of St. Vincent and the Grenadines it is also being asked to
implement comprehensive guidelines under the Domestic Violence Act to ensure a
coordinated response for victims of violence by police, courts, health and
social welfare agencies and undertake a public advocacy campaign to combat
gender-based violence, in consultation with all relevant stakeholders.
Kingstown is also being urged to implement targeted training for law
enforcement officials on responding to cases of domestic violence, and ensure
that all allegations are fully investigated and to take steps to ensure the
provision of adequate shelter, including staffing and durable resources, for
victims of domestic violence.
The CARICOM countries are also asked to continue strengthening programmes to
combat domestic violence, including an awareness-raising plan and to continue
the actions taken to reduce domestic violence and violence against women in all
its forms.
The Caribbean countries are urged to reinforce measures to combat violence
against women, including legislative amendments to the Criminal Code and the
Domestic Violence Act and by awareness raising campaigns.
(source: Antigua Observer)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 10:38:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 10:38:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA., LA.,
CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091038280.8160@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
TEXAS:
Bluntson's attorney speaks on death penalty
Death penalties are rare, but they could become a thing of the past believes
one of the attorneys who represented Demond Bluntson.
For nearly 25 years, Webb County had not seen a death penalty case, but that
changed on Thursday when the jury condemned Demond Bluntson to death.
The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a state grassroots advocacy
organization, estimates about 537 people have been executed in the state since
1982.
They report that new death sentence have dropped nearly 80 % since 1999.
Attorney Eduardo Pena who represented Bluntson says he thinks the decline is
part of a trend that would mirror eastern countries.
"Public opinion is changing away from the death penalty. Most of Europe has
already prohibited the death penalty. And, I think eventually that's what we
will do in the United States. I think that is the direction in which we are
headed", said Pena.
Pena says death penalty cases can be costly and lengthy because of the years
they can be delayed in the appeal process.
Demond Bluntson will be appealing his sentence.
(source: KGNS news)
PENNSYLVANIA:
DA finishes 1st week in Allen Wade death penalty trial
Highlights of week 1 include surveillance video of a man who prosecutors say is
Allen Wade withdrawing $600 from Sarah's Wolfe's bank account from an ATM, and
also using Susan Wolfe's debit card to buy cigarettes hours after the 2 were
shot to death.
Pittsburgh homicide detective Wade Sarver testified he spent over 40 hours
reviewing and compiling surveillance videos from businesses near the East
Liberty branch of the Carnegie Library, where police found Sarah Wolfe's green
Ford Fiesta on February 8, 2014, the day after their bodies were discovered by
Sarah's boyfriend.
Wade is charged with the Feb. 6, 2014 beating and shooting-death of Sarah and
Susan Wolfe. In a March 5, 2014 statement Wade said, "I am 100 % innocent," and
added that allegations by police that his DNA was found on a pair of gray
sweatpants "is a bunch of bull."
Most of the footage shows a figure dressed in a red jacket with a blue
long-sleeve shirt underneath, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes that have
a distinctive flap, walking in the area of the Carnegie Library and the
Citizens Bank ATM where the withdrawal attempts were made.
The Citizen Bank's ATM camera shows a male figure with his face obscured,
making repeated withdrawal attempts between 12:44 and 12:53 a.m. on Feb. 7,
2014. A glove covered the man's right hand, but he could be seen putting a
receipt into his left hand.
Justin Hanna an investigator with Citizens Bank told the jury that after
several attempts a $600 withdrawal was completed at 12:46 a.m. from Sarah
Wolfe's bank account, and several unsuccessful attempts at withdrawing $300
from Susan Wolfe's bank account were made during the same time period at the
ATM.
Video from cameras at a nearby apartment complex and a Target department store
show the same figure walking near the library, a Midas Muffler and in front of
the ATM.
A video from an East Liberty Sunoco gas station shows a man wearing a pair of
white tennis shoes with what appears to be the same flap, walk into the store
shortly after 1:00 a.m. and purchase 2 packs of Newport cigarettes.
Prosecutors allege that Wade made the purchase with Susan Wolfe's PNC Bank
debit card.
Pittsburgh police officer Gregory McGee told the jury Wednesday how he decided
to search the area near where Sarah Wolfe's car was found. "I felt it was a
strange area to leave a car and that someone may have fled on foot
leavingevidence," he said.
Walking down South Whitfield Street near the library, Officer McGee noticed a
black knit cap lying on top of some mulch off the sidewalk and about 60 feet
down the street he saw a pair of gray sweatpants. Prosecutors allege that Wade
was wearing a red jacket, gray sweatpants and white tennis shoes when he killed
Sarah and Susan Wolfe.
Officer McGee told the jury that as he picked up the sweatpants a white
business card fell out of a pocket that belonged to Cameron Mager, a social
worker who prosecutors allege had been treating Susan.
Mr. Mager told jurors Thursday the business card was his and testified that he
is "100 % certain" Wade was never his client. He also told the jury that his
office phone number and email, which are listed on his business cards, are not
publicly available.
Police also recovered a pair of socks from a trash can near the sweatpants,
that prosecutors say has both Wade and Sarah Wolfe's DNA on them. Wade's DNA
was also found on the sweatpants prosecutors say.
Pittsburgh homicide detective George Satler told jurors that Sarah Wolfe's
boyfriend was "extremely cooperative" when he was questioned shortly after he
found the bodies of Sarah and Susan Wolfe in the basement of their Pittsburgh
home on February 7, 2014.
Public Defender Lisa Middleman alleged Monday in her opening argument to the
jury, that investigators failed to fully investigate Matthew Buchholz's alibi
as to where he was the evening of Feb. 6, the night Assistant District Attorney
William Petulla said Allen Wade "savagely" beat Susan Wolfe and shot her and
her sister Sarah Wolfe in the head.
Mr. Buchholz who had been dating Sarah for 8 months according to court
testimony, provided very detailed information as to where he was at and who he
was with that evening detective Satler testified. "He seemed he was mourning
the loss of his girlfriend."
"Could he have been acting; could he have been lying - yes," Satler responded
on questioning by Ms. Middleman. However, detective Satler maintained based
upon his experience and having conducted hundreds of interviews in homicide
cases, he believed Mr. Buchholz was being truthful.
Detective Satler admitted that he had not searched Mr. Buchholz's car or asked
him to provide any receipts from the bar and restaurant Mr. Buchholz said he
was at during the time prosecutors say the sisters were killed.
When he was first interviewed by police during a canvass of the neighborhood
Allen Wade was chain smoking Newport cigarettes Pittsburgh police officer
Thomas Leheny testified Friday morning.
Leheny also testified that he saw a pair of white tennis shoes in Wade's home
when he spoke to him, however, he was not able to confirm they are the same
tennis shoes that are shown in the videos.
On Friday jurors also heard testimony from Jean-Paul Martin, chief technology
officer and co-founder of Alarm.com,, who said records indicate that the front
door to the Wolfes' house showed it opened and closed 5 times between 7:26 p.m.
and 9:54 p.m. Feb. 6, 2014.
The last witness to testify Friday was Doreen Oshlag, Director of Early
Childhood Development at the Hilel Academy where Susan Wolfe worked as a
teacher's aide. Ms. Oshlag told the jury "If she would have been five minutes
late she would have texted me. She was always on time."
Ms. Oshlag called the police late in the morning on Feb. 6. 2014 because Susan
had not called or shown up for work that day.
The trial is expected to last at least 2 more weeks and Wade faces the death
penalty if convicted.
(source: digitaljournal.com)
FLORIDA:
New motion filed by Donald Smith----In regards to Cherish Perrywinkle case
Donald Smith filed a new motion Friday to prevent him from getting the death
penalty under the new sentencing statute.
In the motion, he argues the court can not apply a new criminal statute
retroactively. He argues the court must apply the law in effect at the time of
the crime, which was in 2013.
This year, the Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty in effect in 2013
was unconstitutional.
Smith argues the maximum sentence he can received is life in prison with no
chance for parole.
His next court date is May 26th.
(source: news4jax.com)
*******************
Death row worse than execution
I worked Dade County Homicide for 16 of my 30 years as an investigator. I saw
criminal carnage close up, many hundreds of times. I'm no bleeding heart. But
we have to change how we handle capital crimes.
Death row is a fate worse than death. We rarely acknowledge that. We mainly
focus on criminals paying for a crime with their life. We don't care about the
interim torture element.
Timothy McVeigh waived all appeals for his death sentence after the Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995. It still took 6 years to carry out the sentence. In
truth, he considered death far more desirable than rotting in a hot, tiny cell
1,440 minutes a day for decades.
So is it really punishment? Everlasting sleep is far more humane than lifeless
life in a concrete cell. When we relegate suffering pets to die by the
veterinarian needle, we call that "humane." For inmates, it's "punishment."
Brandon Jones, age 72, was executed in Georgia earlier this year after 36 years
awaiting execution day after day confined amid steel and concrete without
social interaction. There are hundreds of similar stories.
Viva Leroy Nash was 83 when he died of natural causes, after 27 years on
Arizona's death row. He was deaf, nearly blind and suffered from dementia. But
who cares?
Our president and millions of liberal-minded folks say that waterboarding
terrorists is considered torture, even for those preparing to kill thousands of
Americans with one bomb. But is it not torture to lock someone 23 to 24 hours a
day in sweltering solitary confinement for 10, 20 or 30 years, driving some to
insanity?
Florida's Supreme Court will soon address death sentences based on the new
requirement for jury majorities that must now vote 10 out of 12 in favor before
the death sentence can be imposed. Many of Florida's 389 death row inmates may
have sentences commuted to life. What then? New sentencing for every death row
inmate? Eligibility for parole? Will other inmates and/or guards be at risk,
knowing the lifers have nothing to lose?
Appeals for capital cases can drag on for several decades. According to most
studies, the legal morass of maintaining the death penalty in America is 2 to 3
times more costly to taxpayers than life sentences.
But the greatest peril of capital punishment is the risk to innocents who may
wrongly suffer from a flawed legal system.
We've seen such prosecutorial incompetence in Brevard County, when William
Dillon agonized 27 years in a prison cell an innocent man, and Wilton Dedge,
the same fate for 22 years. DNA proved their innocence, though their prime of
life can never be recaptured. Other evidentiary signals existed about their
cases which police and prosecutors should have seen as red flags pointing to
possible innocence, but "winning" was more important than justice. Had these
men been executed, they would have been buried as hardened criminals.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 156 death row inmates have
been exonerated since 1973 based on new acquittals or dismissed charges. 20
were found innocent based on DNA evidence. 25 exonerations came from Florida's
death row.
The source lists 13 other executions in which there are strong indications that
the deceased inmate had been innocent. That includes Florida's Leo Jones,
executed in 1998.
2943 inmates now occupy death row cells in 33 states. Florida is ranked 2nd
behind Texas, with 396. Hypothetically, if only 1/2 of 1 % of the inmates
awaiting execution are actually innocent, that means we're preparing to wrongly
execute 15 people. 1 would be too many. There is no argument that can justify
that.
The system is too imperfect to be taking human life.
It's time to end the risks and complications and do what 98 % of the
industrialized world has done; Abolish capital punishment and establish an
offense-based tier system for housing dangerous inmates serving life without
parole. It will reduce costs and likely save innocent lives.
What's more important?
(source: Guest Columnist; Marshall Frank is an author and retired Miami police
detective----Florida Today)
***************
"Dead man Walking" nun still fighting to end executions
In 1981, Sister Helen Prejean moved into the infamous St. Thomas housing
project near the Mississippi River in New Orleans as part of her order's
outreach mission called Hope House. She was in her early 40s.
St. Thomas was a violent, poor, predominantly black neighborhood stretching
along Tchoupitoulas Street that the locals came to call "The Killing Fields."
It was an eye-opening experience for Prejean, who had grown up as the
privileged daughter of a white lawyer in Baton Rouge.
"The 1st day I walked into the projects, I said, 'Whoa. This is it, boy. This
where all the gunshots go,'" Prejean said late last week on the phone from her
home in Louisiana. "But I walked in and people greeted me. They loved the
(Catholic) sisters there. ... But when I got in my bed that night, I made sure
that my bed was below that window sill. Sister Lillian had a bullet come
through her room and went through 4 of her best skirts. She was so p.o.'d by
that. It got her good skirts."
Prejean, 77, let out a loud and hearty laugh, which is not really what one
expects from the nation's leading advocate for abolishing the death penalty.
At the St. Thomas projects, Prejean quickly got a front-row introduction to
abject poverty and its deadly consequences. As she later wrote in an essay
published in Salt of the Earth magazine: "It didn't take long to see that for
poor people, especially poor black people, there was a greased track to prison
and death row."
"I saw the injustice and it struck the fire in my heart," Prejean said.
Her next step took her to Louisiana State Penitentiary where she became a
spiritual adviser for convicted killers Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie,
who were waiting on death row. Prejean wrote about being an eye-witness to
execution in the Pulitzer Prize-nominated memoir "Dead Man Walking" (1993),
which was later made into an Oscar-winning movie with Sean Penn and Susan
Sarandon.
"That little book is still doing good work," said Prejean, who has been
nominated 3 times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Prejean will discuss "Dead Man Walking" and her life's work during the
"Steppin' Out With The Innocence Project of Florida" gala and dinner on
Thursday evening at Mission San Luis, 2100 W. Tennessee St. She said the visit
is part of her mission to keep the flaws, failures and injustices of the death
penalty in the public eye.
"The American people aren't wedded to the death penalty at all. They just don't
think about it because it doesn't touch them," Prejean said. "The whole idea
behind doing the talks, the whole idea behind the film 'Dead Man Walking' is to
wake up the people. Bring them close to something they would never, otherwise,
have the chance to see or experience. Not just buy into the general rhetoric
that, 'Oh, yeah, he was a convict and he deserved to die.'"
When Prejean was asked if the death penalty would ever be justified in certain
egregious cases - like Tallahassee's most infamous serial killer Ted Bundy, for
example - Prejean didn't miss a beat.
"It moves you right to the question, 'Who is going to decide that? Who are the
deciders of the worst of the worst?' The Green River Killer, who murdered 32
people, got a life sentence because he agreed to show where the victims were
buried. He doesn't get the penalty while others do? So, who gets to decide
that? It's a broken system."
Not everyone is keen to see Prejean's abolition movement succeed. One recent
email from a critic, which she shared with CNN reporter Moni Basu, read: "There
has not been one instance on the planet where an executed convict ever
committed another homicide. The U.S. justice system is the fairest in the
world. If you are judged guilty by a jury of your peers based on the evidence
presented that is the way it works. If you do not like it then get out of the
country."
Not one to hide from criticism, Prejean asked her staff to post the email to
her website.
Outside the prison walls, Prejean has taken her anti-death penalty campaign to
the highest office of the Catholic Church. In January, she traveled to Vatican
City in Rome to deliver a thank-you letter to the pope from death row inmate
Richard Glossip, whose execution in Oklahoma was halted following pleas from
Pope Francis.
"He is just everything he seems to be. ... His heart is so in it," Prejean
said. "He so hears the cries of poor people and vulnerable people. His heart is
really with him. He's a bloomin' miracle."
Similar to Pope Francis, Prejean, starting the day she moved to the Thomas
housing project, decided to dedicate her life to the downtrodden, outcasts and
less fortunate people of the world.
"Look at who Jesus hung out with: lepers, prostitutes, thieves - the throwaways
of his day," Prejean wrote in her essay from in Salt of the Earth "If we call
ourselves Jesus' disciples, we too have to keep ministering to the marginated,
the throwaways, the lepers of today. And there are no more marginated,
thrown-away, and leprous people in our society than death-row inmates."
The essay was bluntly titled: "Would Jesus pull the switch?"
If you go ...
What: Talk by Sister Helen Prejean at the "Steppin' Out With The Innocence
Project of Florida" benefit and dinner
When: 7 p.m. Thursday; VIP reception starts at 6 p.m.
Where: Mission San Luis, 2100 W. Tennessee St.
Cost: $125 general public; $100 students and government employees
Contact: 561-6767 or visit www.floridainnocence.org
(source: Tallahassee Democrat)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Death row inmate Vernon Madison set to be executed
Death row inmate Vernon Madison is set to be executed on Thursday, May 12 at
the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
Madison was convicted for the 1985 shooting and killing of Mobile police
officer Julius Shulte.
Madison, 65, is one of Alabama's longest serving inmates on death row. His
execution is set for 6:30 on Thursday.
(source: WPMI news)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana's Color-Coded Death Penalty
The last time a white person in Louisiana was executed for a crime against a
black person was in 1752, when a soldier named Pierre Antoine Dochenet was
hanged after attempting to stab 2 enslaved black women to death with his
bayonet.
This is just one of many grim facts in a new report describing the history of
capital punishment in Louisiana and analyzing the outcome of every death
sentence imposed in that state since 1976, when the Supreme Court reversed its
brief moratorium on executions and allowed them to resume.
Racism has always been at the heart of the American death penalty. But the
report, in the current issue of The Journal of Race, Gender, and Poverty,
drives home the extent to which capital punishment, supposedly reserved for the
"worst of the worst," is governed by skin color.
In Louisiana, a black man is 30 times as likely to be sentenced to death for
killing a white woman as for killing a black man. Regardless of the offender's
race, death sentences are 6 times as likely - and executions 14 times as likely
- when the victim is white rather than black.
The new report shows that Louisiana's death penalty isn't only consistently
racist; it's also profoundly error-prone. Of the 155 death sentences the state
has handed down and resolved since 1976, 28 resulted in executions. The other
127 - or 82 % - were later reversed. Since 2001, 2 people have been executed,
while 53 have had their death sentences reversed.
These reversals are usually the result of major errors at trial that violate
the defendant's constitutional rights, such as prosecutorial misconduct,
improper jury instructions and incompetent lawyering. In most cases, the
discovery of these errors resulted in the defendants' being removed from death
row and receiving lesser sentences. In 9 of the cases, though, the defendant
was fully exonerated of the crime and cleared of all charges.
Louisiana's record is terrifying, but other capital punishment states aren't
much better. Nationwide, the reversal rate for resolved death sentences is 72
%, and while the average exoneration rate for death row inmates in other states
is 1.8 % (less than 1/2 of Louisiana's rate), that still translates to a
national total of 156 innocent people sentenced to death and later exonerated
since 1973.
Even if capital punishment could be imposed with zero risk of racial bias or
error, it would still be brutal, immoral and ineffective at deterring crime -
as most countries have found. But with bias and error endemic to the death
penalty in this country, how can the Supreme Court continue to uphold its
constitutionality?
(source: Editorial, New York Times)
CALIFORNIA:
'Grim Sleeper' Lonnie Franklin never took a murder 'nap' and likely killed at
least 25 say police
The California serial killer convicted of murdering 9 women and a teenage girl
never really took the hiatus from homicide that earned him the tag 'The Grim
Sleeper', according to officials. Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was dubbed the
nickname because of a supposed gap of 14 years between a string of murders in
the 1980s and a 2nd group of homicides that followed from 2002.
"I don't think he stopped killing," Los Angeles Detective Daryn Dupree told the
Los Angeles Times.
Investigators believe Franklin is responsible for at least 25 murders,
including 11 that occurred during the time frame that police initially believed
was a "dormant" period for Franklin Jr.
The additional murders were connected to Franklin after he was charged with the
other homicides, but prosecutors are worrying that adding on to the charges
would only delay his conviction and would not increase the potential penalty
against him. The other victims' families backed the decision not to prosecute
the other cases, the LA Times also reports.
Now that Franklin has been convicted of 10 murders - and an attempted murder-
his trial is now set to move into the penalty phase, in which the jury will
determine whether to sentence him to the death penalty or a custodial sentence
that will mean life in prison.
Authorities will use the penalty phase to present evidence of at least five
additional murders to nudge the jury into a death sentence against California's
most prolific serial killer. Families of the victims will also testify about
their loss.
All of Franklin's victims were poor and black and most were young. They were
all raped, shot in the chest and discarded in alleyways or dumpsters near the
South Los Angeles home of the 1-time garbage truck driver. It wasn't until 2009
that investigators were able to use DNA evidence to finally track down
Franklin, employing lab technology that was not available when the murders were
committed.
Franklin's final death toll will likely never be known. Detectives found more
than 1,000 photos and hundreds of hours of video in Franklin's house featuring
women, many nude and in sexually suggestive poses, with several apparently
appearing to be unconscious. Many of the women have never been identified or
located.
(source: ibtimes.co.uk)
***************
Memo to Justice Breyer on CA Death Penalty
To: Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
From: Joe Mathews
Re: Switch to decaf, dude
Just read your dissent from a U.S. Supreme Court decision turning down a
challenge to the death penalty in California. You alone among the 8 justices
wanted to hear the case. And after reading it, I've gotta give you some advice:
Chill.
I know you don't like the death penalty. I know you don't think it's
unconstitutional. But California is not the place to make your legal stand.
You probably should know this. You were born and raised in San Francisco, a
graduate of Lowell High. But then again, it's been a while since you lived
here. So you're making your judgment based on legal briefs, and a very literal
reading of California's law and constitution. And that's a big mistake - our
law and constitution often has very little to do with what goes on here.
In fact, relying on the law could leave you with the misimpression that we have
the death penalty here.
Don't worry. We don't.
Yes, it's on the books. But California has brilliantly made such a hash of the
death penalty rules that we can't really put anyone to death. It's been more
than a decade since we did so. And it's unlikely that we're going to start
again anytime soon.
It's actually sort of brilliant. The death penalty is legal but no one is put
to death. The best of both worlds! Even the folks on death row seem to like it.
When voters were asked recently to throw out the death penalty, many of the
people on death row publicly opposed eliminating the death penalty. They like
the special treatment they get - especially access to lawyers and the ability
to file appeals and challenge their convictions. Call it a win-win-win.
Your dissent, in a too-literal and academic way, thus completely misses this
point. You think all the costs and delays are some sort of problem, instead of
the lasting accommodation they represent.
"Put simply," you wrote, "California's costly administration of the death
penalty likely embodies three fundamental defects ... serious unreliability,
arbitrariness in application and unconscionably long delays." You also noted
that more death row inmates had died or committed suicide than were executed by
the state.
Your Honor, those are not defects - those are features. Our death penalty
policy is working for us.
Shouldn't you be bothering Texas or Virginia or someplace where they actually
put people to death?
(source: Joe Mathews, foxandhoundsdaily.com)
********************
Stunning 'Dead Man Walking' is a triumph for Fresno Grand Opera
Where to start in my praise of the tour de force performance Saturday night of
Fresno Grand Opera's "Dead Man Walking"?
Perhaps in a way that isn't the most obvious. Let's focus on Suzanna Guzman.
She played the mother of the death row inmate upon which the operatic
adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean's book about capital punishment is focused.
(Jake Heggie wrote the music and Terrence McNally the excellent libretto.)
In the 2nd act, Mrs. De Rocher, whose son, Joseph, is about to die by lethal
injection for the murder of 2 Louisiana teenagers, has to say goodbye. He tells
her he is sorry for making her go through this. She says to hush, that there is
no reason to be apologize because he is innocent of the crime.
Caught in Guzman's grip, the moment danced between sobering and exhilarating.
In the deeply textured and emotionally soaring world of the production in which
we've been steeped for more than 2 hours, however, both of these characters -
and the audience - know he is guilty.
The son wants to tell the mother everything. She can't bear to hear that truth.
The tension is palpable. In her vocals and body language, Guzman came across as
so authentic at that moment - so frightened and stubborn and sad - that it
transcended the artificiality of the theatrical experience.
Everything seemed to melt away for me: the people seated around me, my
awareness of the stage and design of the show, even the sense of being in the
Saroyan Theatre. In that moment, Mrs. De Rocher was real. I felt her pain.
Caught in her grip, the moment danced between sobering and exhilarating.
Guzman is a good example of just how high a quality of an experience the Fresno
company delivered. She has performed two starring roles at the Metropolitan
Opera, including Maddalena in "Rigoletto," and done 39 productions with Los
Angeles Opera. She brought to the Fresno stage a wealth of experience, a
beautiful mezzo-soprano voice and - most important - a passion for the material
that made it unforgettable.
By singling out Guzman, I don't mean to slight the 2 leading roles in "Dead Man
Walking" nor the uniformly excellent supporting cast.
Laura Krumm, who played Sister Helen, offered a soaring and emotionally fierce
performance. Christopher Magiera, as Joseph De Rocher, brought nuance and
wrenching vocals to his role. Stage director Michael Mori brought it all
together in a precise and understated, yet never sterile, way.
The terrific supporting performances are almost too numerous to praise, from
Jeanine De Bique's moving 2nd-act duet as Sister Rose to James Callon's
precisely surly prison chaplain.
Liisa Davila and Zeffin Quinn Hollis, as parents of one of the murdered
teenagers, added a fire (and a balance in terms of the capital punishment
issue) with their heartfelt takes on their roles.
Liliana Duque Pineiro's production design established a minimalist tone,
including a simple but imposing set dominated by a diagonal slash of prison
cell blocks.
Erik Vose's lighting design felt expert, including a stunning moment - directed
exquisitely by Mori - in which the condemned man stands for a family portrait
on his last night of life.
Tara Roe's costumes, from Sister Helen's bland wardrobe to De Rocher's bright
orange jumpsuit, added to the texture of the production.
Heggie's music came to glorious life with the Fresno Grand Opera orchestra,
sometimes heaving like a storm, other times zeroing in on the tenderness of
just one soul, under conductor Ryan Murray.
2 critical notes: The prologue of the production, in which we see the murders,
was too distant and vague for me, starting the show on a tentative note. And a
technical issue meant no supertitles during the first act. You can't always
foresee such difficulties, but I would have made the call to stop the show and
fix the problem before proceeding. Supertitles are that important.
My only big disappointment was in the size of the audience. It was far too
small for such an important and groundbreaking cultural event.
Yes, it was a busy weekend, and, yes, I realize that the subject matter might
have sounded like a downer, especially on Mother's Day weekend. But if you
didn't come out and see this production - and you're one of those who are in
the habit of remarking to me that it's too bad that you have to go to San
Francisco and Los Angeles to experience excellence - then I only have this to
say: You really missed out.
Did the political beliefs of people in this region and their opinions about the
efficacy of capital punishment affect the turnout? Perhaps. But even though
Prejean has made a cause out of opposing the death penalty, her book (and this
opera) are not 1-sided polemics. There are no easy answers.
When Prejean came to Fresno in March to talk about the opera, she called the
death penalty a "secret ritual" far removed from the people in whose name it is
carried out. "Dead Man Walking" on Saturday shined a great and powerful light
on that ritual, and regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, it was
an emotional and artistic wallop. That's what great art is about.
(source: Donald Munro, fresnobee.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 10:44:21 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 10:44:21 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091044080.8160@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
IRAN----execution
1 Prisoner Hanged Publicly In Western Iran
1 prisoner was hanged publicly in the "Azadi" (Liberty) Square of Kermanshah,
western Iran. The public execution was carried out in front of hundreds of
people Sunday morning May 8.
According to the Iranian state-run news agencies Fars and YJC the prisoner who
was identified as "Fardin R." was convicted of Moharebeh (waging war against
God), through participation in an armed robbery. few people had been injured
under the robbery but no one had been killed, said the report.
The Azadi (Liberty) Square of Kermanshah has been the site of several public
executions in the past.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
IRELAND:
On this date in history: 1916: British execute insurgents involved in Dublin
rising - archive; 9 May 1916: The work of rounding up the rebels proceeds
vigorously. In county Wexford already 300 are in custody
23 more death sentences after trials by court-martial were announced in last
night's official report issued from Headquarters in Ireland. Of these 4 have
been carried out - the men who have been shot (says the announcement) were very
prominent in the rising - and 19 commuted to various terms of penal servitude.
Edmund Kent, a member of the "Provisional Government," is 1 of the 4 rebels who
suffered the death penalty. Altogether 12 men have been executed and 66 persons
sentenced to various terms of penal servitude.
The work of "rounding up" the rebels proceeds vigorously. In county Wexford
already 300 rebels are in custody, including 6 women, and in Galway exhausted
and dejected prisoners are being brought in.
In Ulster, as elsewhere, many persons connected with the Sinn Fein movement are
also being arrested; 1/4 of the membership in Belfast are said to be custody.
For the punishment of looters a special court has been set up in Dublin.
Editorial: The Dublin executions
The Dublin military executions are becoming an atrocity - 4 more men were shot
yesterday - and there is no sign that they are about to stop. Mr. REDMOND
raised a protest in the House of Commons yesterday, but apparently quite in
vain. Mr. ASQUITH refused to give any pledge that a term should be placed to
these proceedings, and, so far as appears, they may continue as long as seems
good, to the military authorities in Dublin. What ground is there for these
severities, and what purpose are they expected to serve? A dozen men have now
been executed, and we do not know how many more condemned to long terms of
penal servitude.
We can understand that it may have been desired in the first instance that
swift punishment should be seen to follow the offence and that an example
should thus be set and a stern warning given. But this purpose has long since
been served, and the effect of further severity inflicted by tribunals setting
in secret and without any of the ordinary safeguards of justice can only be to
cause a revulsion of feeling in favour of the criminal and to convert traitors
into heroes.
The thing is not only wrong, it is pre-eminently foolish. It neither is, nor
will it be, mistaken for a proof of strength. It is, on the contrary, a sure
sign of weakness.
Nothing is easier than to shirk responsibility and leave the courts-martial to
follow their own devices. But to do this is merely to show, in the punishment
of the rising, the same shortsightedness and incapacity which are largely
responsible for the failure to anticipate and provide against it. Persistence
in these bloody punishments is, we are certain, condemned by instructed Irish
opinion in all parties.
An Act of Indemnity, if one is necessary in view of the Defence of the Realm
Acts and Regulations, will in due course be passed by Parliament for the
military agents in the Government. The Government itself may find it less easy
to obtain one in the court of public opinion and of history.
(source: The Guardian)
JAMAICA:
Disappearing death row
The 1st dwindling of the death row population began in 1992 when the Offences
Against the Person Act was amended.
The amendment paved the way for 2 categories of murder: capital and
non-capital. Capital murder attracted the mandatory death penalty, while for
non-capital, the sentence was life imprisonment, but the judge must state how
many years the prisoner must serve before he could be eligible for parole. The
amendment applied retroactively and resulted in the commutation of sentences of
life imprisonment for a large number of convicts.
Parliament was compelled to amend the act in 2005 following the outcome of the
Privy Council's landmark ruling in 2004 in the Jamaican case of Lambert Watson,
who had challenged the mandatory death sentence. The Privy Council struck down
the mandatory death sentence and ruled that it was unconstitutional.
Sentencing in murder cases is now left solely to the discretion of judges, but
there are relatively few cases in which the death penalty is imposed. In 1999,
Watson was sentenced to death for the murder of his common-law wife, Eugenie
Samuels, and their nine-month-old daughter, Georgina Watson.
It was reported that they were fatally stabbed as a result of a maintenance
case brought against Watson.
BEFORE THE AMENDMENT
Following Watson's victory, his death sentence was commuted.
Before the amendment, the death penalty was mandatory for more than one murder
conviction, the murders of members of the security forces, correctional
officers, justices of the peace and judicial officers during the execution of
their duties, as well as witnesses and jurors, contract killings, and murder
committed during the furtherance of certain offences.
Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn disclosed that 95 % of the
murder cases now before the court are non-capital, which does not attract the
death penalty.
A 7-member jury now hears such cases and unanimous or majority verdicts are
accepted.
Llewellyn said the other 5 % are classified as capital murders, but she said
that since the formula in the Daniel Dick Trimmingham Case, even when the Crown
asks for the death penalty, it is very rare that judges will accede to it.
"The threshold that one has to reach based on the Trimmingham formula and
adopted by the Court of Appeal, has rendered it unattainable for the
pronouncement of the death penalty," Llewellyn said.
However, she said prosecutors will still ask for the death penalty in
appropriate cases as the law was still on the books.
(source: Jamaica GLeaner)
MALAYSIA----female may face death penalty
Drug Trial Date Set For Fijian Woman Detained In Malaysia
A trial date has been set for a Fijian in a Malaysian prison facing serious
drug charges.
Christin Nirmal, 27, will appear on November 1-4 after being detained on
February 15 last year.
She was caught with about 1.51 kilograms of methamphetamine at the Kuala Lumpur
Airport while she was travelling from Hong Kong.
She is being held under Section 39 (B) of Malaysian Dangerous Drugs Act of
1952.
Carrying more than 50 grams of methamphetamines, also known as ice, can warrant
the death penalty in Malaysia, which like its neighbours Indonesia, has strict
anti-drug trafficking laws.
A Government brief providing an update on Nirmal, a mother of 3, stated that a
trial date has been set for November 1 to 4
Nirmal is currently being represented by Rashid Zulkifli Adocates & Solicitors
and Death Penalty Project Lawyers. The legal charge is pro bono.
Her case was last heard at the Shah Alam High Court on 25 March 2016. Her
lawyers requested to write a Letter of Representation to the Prosecution to
either withdraw or reduce the charge against Nirmal. The next case management
date is set for May 27.
She is currently being held in remand at Kajang Women's Prison in Malaysia.
She was detained on 25 January 2015 for charges of drug trafficking. If
convicted by the High Court of Malaysia, Nirmal could face the possibility of a
death sentence.
Fijian High Commission in Malaysia continues to provide Nirmal with the
necessary support and assistance through regular visits to the prison,
attending court hearings, and arranging dietary meals.
The High Commission has also been following up on issues raised by Nirmal,
providing personal amenities and assisting in obtaining legal representation.
It has opened up a Prison Account for Nirmal which is replenished with RM500
(Fijian$250) during monthly visits. RM stands for Malayasia currency Ringgit.
Out of the RM500, RM450 is paid for her special meal plan as she suffered
digestive problems with the normal prison food.
The Fijian diaspora through their church service also contribute RM100
(Fijian$52) to the Mission's monthly prison visit. This enables Nirmal to
attend to her other basic needs.
According to the brief, Nirmal raised a few issues regarding her treatment at
the prison. These included: deteriorating health condition, discrimination
against foreign prisoners, verbal and physical abuse, language barrier, and
unhygienic food and water supply.
The High Commission communicated the issues raised to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of Malaysia who then referred these to the prison authorities. The
Prison Department provided an explanation and assured their support.
(source: Fiji Sun)
SINGAPORE:
Group appeals for death row inmate to be given 3 more months
A petition urging for clemency for Jabing Kho, a murder convict on Singapore's
death row, could buy the Sarawakian 3 more months.
An initiative called We Believe in Second Chances is putting together a last
bid move, getting as many people as possible to sign a petition, which will be
submitted to the Singapore President Tony Tan.
"Usually from the day the petition is submitted, there is around three months
before the President's decision is announced," said Kirsteen Han, a founding
member of the group, which is also working with the Singapore Anti-Death
Penalty Campaign.
Han, who held a press conference with Jabing's family members last Sunday,
urged for more support from Sarawakian politicians.
Jabing's sister, Jumai Kho, said: "We understand the hanging can be anytime. We
wish to have the Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem's help. Help us appeal to
Singapore. Ask for a lesser penalty. Don't have him hanged."
Their mother Lenduk also spoke with reporters, saying "I'm truly sorry for his
actions. I only have 1 son. I'm asking for help not to have him hanged. It's
(a) heavy (burden). I feel it," she said.
Leonard Shim, president of the Sarawak Advocates' Association, lent his
support. He said no one was questioning Singapore's legal system, however,
"everyone deserves a 2nd chance".
"We believe in 2nd chances. Our agenda here today is also to call for an
abolishment of the death penalty in Malaysia, particularly on drug related
offences," Shim said.
Jabing was convicted in May, 2011, for causing the death of a Chinese citizen,
Cao Ruyin, in 2007.
In 2012, the Singapore Parliament amended the Penal Code to give judges the
discretion to sentence offenders convicted under s 300(c) to life imprisonment
with caning.
This change was applied retrospectively and Kho was afforded an opportunity to
have his death sentence reconsidered.
On November 18, 2013, Justice Tay Yong Kwang re-sentenced Kho to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane.
But on January 14, 2015, the Court of Appeal, by a majority decision (with 2
out of the 5 judges dissenting) overturned Justice Tay's decision and sentenced
Kho to death.
On April 5 this year, the Court of Appeal upheld Kho's death sentence, lifting
the stay of execution that they had issued in November 2015, after Kho's lawyer
filed a criminal motion at the 11th hour.
Jabing has now exhausted all legal avenues, leaving clemency as the only
option. His defence has always insisted that Jabing did not possess the
intention to kill, nor was the murder premeditated.
(source: The Star)
BANGLADESH:
Supreme Court releases full verdict that dismisses Nizami's review plea
The Appellate Division has released its full verdict that dismisses war
criminal Motiur Rahman Nizami's review to overturn his death penalty.
The document will now be sent to Dhaka Central Jail, where the death-row
convict is presently lodged, through the war crimes tribunal.
The jail authorities will then read it out to Nizami and ask him if he will
seek mercy from Bangladesh's president after admitting his guilt.
The verdict was released around 3pm Monday after the judges signed on the
document, said the Appellate Division's Additional Registrar Arunav
Chakraborty.
"We will now send it to the judicial court, the International Crimes Tribunal."
Nizami was sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal on Oct 29,
2014 for atrocities committed as commander of Al-Badr, a vigilante militia that
assisted the Pakistan army during Bangladesh's Liberation War.
An Appellate bench, headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha, on Jan 6 upheld the
maximum penalty for the Jamaat-e-Islami chief, after an appeal hearing.
His death warrant was issued by the war crimes tribunal after the Supreme Court
published the full copy of its verdict on March 16.
The same bench dismissed his review petition on May 5.
Nizami was brought to the Dhaka Central Jail from Gazipur's Kashimpur Jail on
Sunday night.
The resolution of Nizami's review petition ended the legal battle against his
conviction and death penalty. He reserves the right to seek mercy as stated in
Section 49 of the Constitution.
The government will ask the jail authorities to carry out the execution if he
does not use the option or is denied mercy by the president.
The members of Nizami's family visited him in prison after the review petition
was turned down.
They, however, said nothing about the possibility of the 73-year-old seeking
mercy.
Abdul Quader Molla, who came to be known as the 'Butcher of Mirpur' for rapes
and murders during the Liberation War, was the 1st to be executed after being
condemned by the first tribunal, set up in 2010.
The Jamaat assistant secretary general was hanged in the Dhaka Central Jail on
Dec 12, 2013.
Md Kamaruzzaman, another assistant secretary general of the party that has been
dubbed as a 'criminal organisation' by the tribunal, was the 2nd to be hanged,
on Apr 11, 2015, for crimes against humanity.
The review petitions of both men had been heard and dismissed within a day.
The government, before going ahead with their execution, said they had not
sought presidential mercy.
Jamaat Secretary General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and BNP leader Salauddin
Quader Chowdhury were sent to the gallows together on Nov 21, 2015 after being
denied mercy by the president, the government had said.
The Appellate Division is due to hear review petitions filed by both the
prosecution and defence for the case of another top Jamaat leader, Delwar
Hossain Sayedee, whose sentence was reduced from death to imprisonment until
death following an appeal.
**********
5 get death in Habiganj over teenage boy's murder
A Habiganj court has sentenced 5 men to death for the murder of 13-year-old boy
in 1994.
The boy, Ziaul Haque, was killed in Baniachong Upazila over a land dispute his
parents had with the convicts.
The court of Habiganj's Additional District and Sessions Judge Mafroza Parvin
delivered the verdict on Monday.
It awarded the death penalty to Ali Haider, 50, Abdul Ahad, 46, Renu Mia, 45,
Habib Mia, 52 and Ranju Mia, 45. Of them, Ranju is absconding.
Additional Public Prosecutor Abdul Ahad Faruk said that the teenager was
murdered on May 13, 1994. Police recovered the body the next day.
Charges were pressed against 6 people over the killing, but 1 of them died
during the trial.
(source for both: benews24.com)
TAIWAN:
Cannes Festival entry focuses on Taiwan death penalty debate
A prize-winning Taiwanese film exploring the use of the death penalty will
screen at the Cannes Film Festival later this month, adding to recent increased
debate about the island's use of capital punishment.
Leon Lee's 23-minute film titled "The Day To Choose" puts its main character, a
lawyer and strong opponent of the death penalty, in the difficult position of
choosing how to punish the murderers of his wife.
Taiwan retains the death penalty despite calls to abolish it in line with
international practice, but some have argued it is necessary in extreme cases
such as the beheading of a 4-year-old girl on a Taipei street in March.
Lee, a student in the German language department at Soochow University,
developed the film with his producer Cheng Kuang-yu, based on a script that
Cheng had long wanted to realize.
"What I really want to discuss in this short film is not only the issue of
capital punishment, but how much a human will stick to (his or her ideals) when
faced with adversity," Lee told Reuters on the set of the film.
The picture will screen in the short film corner at the prestigious annual
Cannes festival in France on May 11-22 and has already won "Best Drama Short
Film" at the 2016 Universe Multicultural Film Festival in California last
month.
(source: Reuters)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 10:45:56 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 10:45:56 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091045490.8160@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
INDONESIA:
Bali 9 lawyer calls for death penalty discussion a year on from executions
The Indonesian lawyer for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran says it is time for
activists fighting to end the death penalty in the country to engage with the
Islamic community about the cause.
Indonesian lawyer Dr Todung Mulya Lubis and Australian barrister Julian McMahon
led the long legal fight against the executions of the Bali 9 duo, who were
shot by a firing squad on the prison island of Nusakambangan in April last
year.
Speaking just over a week after the 1-year anniversary of their deaths, Dr
Mulya said it was time to start a dialogue with the Islamic community around
executions.
"It was taken for granted by those death penalty activists that you cannot
converse with them, as they are extremists. But I think it's time for us to do
that," he told the ASEAN Literary Festival yesterday in Jakarta.
When he began campaigning against the death penalty in Indonesia in 1979 he
said he was accused of being anti-Islamic and anti-Pancasila (the 5 moral
principles said to make up Indonesian life and society).
"Every label was put on me ... But I'm pleased to know there are more and more
people now talking about the death penalty."
Mr McMahon said while it was common for the 21st century to be described as
something belonging to Asia, economic growth and leadership was not enough.
"In that context you have to think of society as a whole, and that includes
crime and punishment.
"There is no evidence that shows that executions have any value in terms of
being a deterrent," he added.
The comments come after Indonesia's Attorney-General HM Prasetyo flagged that
executions in the country were likely to resume this year.
While there has been no announcement as to when this will happen, Security
Minister Luhut Panjaitan has said he did not want to see a repeat of the
"drama" like what occurred in the lead up to the Australians' executions,
during which there was intense foreign media attention and diplomatic pressure
on Indonesia, as well as strident international appeals and pleas from family
members.
He has said that the law stipulated Indonesia only needed to give three days'
notice as to when an execution was going to take place.
(source: tvnz.co.nz)
***********
Death-row convicts moved to Nusakambangan ahead of executions
Several death-row inmates have reportedly been moved to Nusakambangan prison
island in Cilacap, Central Java, signaling that their executions will be held
in the near future.
3 death-row convicts from Tembesi prison in Batam were quietly transferred to
Nusakambangan prison on Sunday evening. They are inmates whose verdicts were
final and binding.
Using official prison authority vessel KM Pengayoman, the three inmates from
Batam were taken across from the Wijayapura Quay in Cilacap to "execution
island" at around 8 p.m. local time. They are Agus Hadi, 53; Pudjo, 42; and
Suryanto, 53.
"They are death-row inmates from the Batam Class II Penitentiary," Abdul Aris,
warden of Batu prison in Nusakambangan, told journalists on Sunday. They were
convicted for drug-trafficking charges, he went on.
Abdul further explained that the 3 Batam inmates were put together with several
other death-row convicts in Batu prison. There were 59 death-row convicts
waiting for their executions in Nusakambangan, he added.
Last port of call - Police and security officers secure areas around the
Wijayapura Quay in Cilacap, Central Java, ahead of the 2nd round of executions
of drug convicts in April 2015.
Law and Human Rights Ministry Central Java chapter head of correctional
institution division Molyanto confirmed the transfer of the 3 death row inmates
from Batam to Nusakambangan.
However, he could not yet confirm whether they would be executed in the
upcoming round of executions, the third under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's
administration.
"Nusakambangan today received three drug inmates who have received the death
penalty. Concerning whether they are on the list of convicts to be executed, we
still don't know," Molyanto told journalists on Sunday.
Earlier, Attorney General M Prasetyo confirmed the execution of drug-related
death row inmates whose verdicts were final and binding would be carried out
soon, saying that all preparations had been made and it was now just a matter
of time, he said.
Prasetyo further said that the 3rd round of executions would be conducted on
Nusakambangan, the same location as the previous executions of 14 drug convicts
in January and April 2015.
(source: The Jakara Post)
PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
PNG appeal to stave off death penalty
Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court has deferred a ruling until next month in a
case in which a lawyer asked the court to convert a death penalty for his
client to a 30-year jail sentence.
The case follows the killing of a woman in Milne Bay 11 years ago when two men,
Sedoki Lota and Fred Abanko, beheaded her after allegations she practised
sorcery.
The Post Courier reports that both men were convicted of wilful murder in 2007
and Justice Mark Sevua sentenced them to be hanged by the neck.
The judge and Abanko have since died.
Lota's lawyer's grounds of appeal are that Justice Sevua had erred in
exercising the court's discretion by giving a sentence that was too harsh and
out of proportion to the crime.
(source: Radio New Zealand)
INDIA:
Youngest prisoner on death row now cleared of charges
At 33, he has spent half his life now in jails, on trial in various cases. In 5
of those alleged to have been committed by him when still a minor, he was
sentenced to death. He has been acquitted in all since, but remains the
youngest prisoner to have served time on death row as per the Death Penalty
India Report released last week.
Lawyer Hashmath Pasha says the resident of Kurubarahalli village in Kolar
district, who was one of the first members of the notorious Dandupalya gang
arrested by police, was named as accused in 48 cases, including theft, dacoity,
murder and rape.
Apart from the cases where he was given death, he has been acquitted in all
cases but 3. In 2 of those cases, he is serving life imprisonment, while in 1
case of murder, he has been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years. He
is lodged in Hindalaga jail in Belagavi.
The gang, whose members are related to each other, has been linked to criminal
activities since the 1930s. The 33-year-old lost parents when very young, and
his sisters are married to alleged members of the gang.
A police report on the gang accuses it of 74 murders, including of 40 women. At
its height at the time of the 1999 arrests, the gang was said to have more than
30 members, including women and children. They were known to stab, behead
people they robbed, and often to rape them.
"The 33-year-old was arrested in 1999, when aged around 18 according to police.
The cases registered against him were reported from 1996. It shows he was a
minor then," Pasha says.
In 2015, Pasha approached the Civil Court in Bengaluru praying that his client
be considered a minor in criminal cases linked to him. A school headmaster, C M
Naryanaswamy, testified that as per their records, the accused was born on
August 16, 1982. The court is yet to pronounce its verdict on this.
While police insist he never enrolled in school and is illiterate, retired DSP
Chalapathy, who carried out arrests of the Dandupalya gang in 1999 agrees he
was around 18 when held. "We arrested him on December 9, 1999, for a dacoity
and murder," he says.
Police say he admitted to a theft and dacoity at the time, but admit that
perhaps he was not aware his gang had murdered 2 persons during the dacoity.
They also admit that information provided by him had helped them arrest other
members of the gang.
(source: Indian Express)
****************
New report on death-row prisoners poses questions to the political and judicial
establishment
The 1st comprehensive report on death-row prisoners by the National Law
University, which identified 385 prisoners and received access to 373 of them,
reveals certain infirmities that would question the basis upon which death
penalties are awarded. Confirming studies in other countries that the death
penalty is more likely to be imposed on poorer victims, the NLU report says
that 74.1 % of those on death row hail from economically vulnerable groups. The
implications of this are immense: what it tells us is the quality of legal help
that they could afford, the most crucial factor that would have ensured that
these prisoners were spared the gallows. The report also notes that 61 % of the
prisoners had not completed secondary school, which explains socio-economic
status and their inability to study case files and court documents to build a
better defence case for themselves. More damningly, the report notes that of
191 of the prisoners who spoke about legal assistance, 68 % said they had never
met their lawyers at the high court level and 44 % did not even know the names
of the lawyers representing them in the Supreme Court. Interface between the
lawyer and the client is key to a successful defence, and the lawyer gathering
a better understanding of the case.
Even the role of the State's legal aid services has been questioned by the
death-row prisoners who complained that these lawyers extorted money from them.
As many as 185 of these prisoners said there was no lawyer available to them
while in police custody, and 169 prisoners said there were no lawyers to
represent them when first produced before a magistrate. This essentially brings
out the class distinctions between a rich and a poor person and the latter's
disadvantages. Even the role of the lower judiciary becomes suspect in this
scenario as the Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted, that even a terrorist
like Ajmal Kasab, deserves to get legal representation, without which the
entire judicial process becomes vitiated. The report will energise proponents
for abolition of the death penalty and their argument that life imprisonment in
jail for the duration of the convict's natural life is a more humane, but
equally severe punishment. The study also tells us that 25 % of the prisoners
were Dalits or Adivasis, 34 % were OBC's, 20 % belonged to religious minorities
and 24 % belonged to the general category. While this would broadly correlate
with the share of these communities in the larger population, the conjunction
of backward caste and lower class identities cannot be rejected outright. Last
year, the Law Commission had recommended a gradual phase-out of the death
penalty and retaining it only for terror cases. But the NLU report also reveals
that it is in terror cases that the judicial process has been most vitiated.
The disposal of terror cases, on average, takes over 8 years at the trial
stage, and six years at the appeal process. In contrast, death row prisoners in
other cases spent an average of 3 years in jail during the trial stage and 2
years during the appellate stage. But that is where the inhumanity also begins.
The researchers found that 1,810 death penalties were awarded by trial courts
between 2000 and 2015. But just 5 % of all death penalties were confirmed by
higher courts. In the last 12 years, just three executions have taken place
which indicates that the political executive is even less disposed towards
death penalties than the higher judiciary. This raises the question of why
prisoners have to be put through death row where they are kept in solitary
confinement and not allowed to work and even tortured. It is time that the high
court and Supreme Court pull their weight and tell trial court judges to be
more circumspect when awarding punishments. It is time, again, for Parliament
and the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the death penalty.
(suorce: Daily News & Analysis)
****************
Poverty and the death row
Opposition to the death penalty is often rooted in arguments about its
irreversibility, its essential cruelty, the possibility of error and the false
sense of justice in doing unto convicted murderers what they had done to their
victims. In the Indian context, politics surrounding the prisoners' ethnic
origin or linguistic affinity is often the basis for pleas for clemency. Rarely
is a more compelling reason invoked: the possibility of an offender's economic
background, educational level, social status or religious identity working
against his interests in legal proceedings. A report released on Friday by the
National Law University, Delhi, on the working of the death penalty in India
provides validation and proof for something that those familiar with
administration of justice knew all along: that most of those sentenced to death
in the country are poor and uneducated; and many belong to religious
minorities. In addition, a revealing number is that as many as 241 out of 385
death row convicts were 1st-time offenders. Some may have been juveniles when
they committed capital offences, but lacked the documentation to prove their
age. Against the salutary principle that those too young and too old be spared
the death sentence, 54 death row convicts whose age was available were between
18 and 21 at the time of the offence, and 7 had crossed 60 years of age. An
average prisoner awaiting execution is likely to be from a religious minority,
a Dalit caste, a backward class, or from an economically vulnerable family, and
is unlikely to have finished secondary schooling.
The late President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, had once said a study by his office
into the background of convicts seeking mercy showed "a social and economic
bias". He digressed from his prepared text during a public lecture to ask, "Why
are so many poor people on death row?" The link between socio-economic standing
and access to competent legal counsel and effective representation is quite
strong. A question of concern that arises is whether these statistics indicate
systemic bias or institutionalised prejudice. It is not uncommon that legal
grounds unavailable to the vulnerable are invoked in favour of the influential.
A recent instance is that of four prisoners from a political party who were
sentenced to death for burning a bus during a protest and killing 3 women
students. The court, while commuting their sentence, invoked the ???doctrine of
diminished responsibility??? and reasoned that those gripped by mob frenzy were
not fully cognisant of the situation around them. While invoking any ground to
commute a death sentence to life is welcome, the impression is inescapable that
such relief often comes at a very late stage and only to those with the means
to pursue legal remedies till the very end. When a judicial system that is seen
as favouring the influential resorts to capital punishment, it will be
vulnerable to the charge of socio-economic bias. Law and society, therefore,
will be better served if the death penalty itself is abolished. These
statistics must reinforce the larger moral argument against the state taking
the life of a human being - any human being - as punishment.
(source: Editorial, The HIndu)
**********************
Man gets death penalty for killing minor boy
A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. They even allowed the boy to talk
to his parents before killing him," said the APP. The court held Manish guilty
of kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him, plucking his eyes and
concealing the body after murder. The police arrested Manish and recovered the
body of Aditya Kumar from a drain. "After abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs
50,000 as ransom from the parents of Aditya for his safe release.
A local court on Saturday awarded death sentence to one Manish Kumar alias
Nepali Mandal (25) after finding him guilty of kidnapping and subsequently
killing a 10-year-old boy on April 9, 2012. The court also slapped a fine of
25,000 on Manish. Rs The judgement was delivered by the court of ADJ-V Jyoti
Swaroop Shrivatava which termed the case as "rarest of rare". The court held
Manish guilty of kidnapping the boy, committing unnatural sex with him,
plucking his eyes and concealing the body after murder. Additional public
prosecutor (APP) Shushil Kumar Sinha said Manish had kidnapped Aditya Rajkamal,
son of Raju Mandal, a resident of Jamalpur, in broad daylight with the help his
2 friends - Amit Jha and Manoj Kumar - who are still absconding. "After
abduction, the kidnappers demanded Rs 50,000 as ransom from the parents of
Aditya for his safe release.
They even allowed the boy to talk to his parents before killing him," said the
APP. The parents, instead of paying ransom to the kidnappers, brought the
matter to the notice of the police. The police arrested Manish and recovered
the body of Aditya Kumar from a drain. The news of Aditya's murder spread like
wildfire in Jamalpur and the entire town rose against the crime by holding
protest rallies and demonstrations.
(source: nyoooz.com)
**************
Hijackers to get death penalty
India finally has a stringent anti-hijacking law in place that provides for
death penalty for accused even if those killed in such an act are ground
handling staff and airport personnel.
In the previous bill, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the
event of death of hostages.
To make the anti-hijacking law much tougher, it was decided to repeal the
Anti-Hijacking Act 1982 and replace it with a new one that would include death
sentence as a punishment.
The Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982, was last amended in 1994.
After the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814 in December, 1999, it was
felt necessary for providing the award of death penalty to perpetrators of the
act of hijacking. The incident of 9/11, where aircrafts were used as weapons,
also created the need to further amend the existing Act.
The new Bill provides death punishment for the offence of the hijacking, where
such offence results in the death of a hostage or of a security personnel; or
with imprisonment for life and the moveable and immoveable property of such
persons shall also be liable to be confiscated.
The amendments in the Anti-Hijacking Bill, 2014 were cleared by the Cabinet In
July 2015 and passed by Rajya Sabha last week.
The new law provides for death penalty even if ground handling staff and
airport personnel are killed during such acts. In the earlier Bill, hijackers
could be tried for death penalty only in the event of death of hostages, such
as flight crew, passengers and security personnel.
(source: Defence Aviation Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 12:14:10 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 12:14:10 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091214020.7524@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
AFGHANISTAN:
The death penalty will not deliver security in Afghanistan
The death penalty will deliver neither the justice that victims deserve nor the
security that Afghanistan seeks, Amnesty International said today.
6 men were executed on May 8, 2016 after they were convicted for their
involvement in a series of high-profile violent attacks - including the 2011
killing of former President and head of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin
Rabbani, and an attack on a Kabul supermarket in the same year.
The executions mark the 1st time the government of President Ashraf Ghani has
resorted to this cruel, unjust and irreversible punishment this year. Since a
bombing last month in Kabul that killed more than 64 people, the Afghanistan
government has vowed to implement the death penalty more frequently.
"The families who lost loved ones in violent attacks deserve justice for these
appalling crimes," said Champa Patel, Amnesty International's South Asia
Director. "But the death penalty merely serves as vengeance, perpetuates the
cycle of violence, and fails to address any root causes."
"Afghanistan should immediately halt all executions and establish a moratorium
on the implementation of the death penalty as a 1st step towards its full
abolition. At a time when most of the world has turned its back on this cruel
practice, President Ashraf Ghani is moving in the wrong direction."
"There is no evidence that the death penalty acts as a particular deterrent. In
Afghanistan, where there are very serious questions about the fairness and
transparency of the legal process, and the use of torture or other
ill-treatment by security forces to extract 'confessions' from the defendants,
the injustice of the punishment is only compounded."
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. The death penalty violates the right to life and is
the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
BACKGROUND
In a recent speech in Parliament, President Ashraf Ghani said that his
government will "deal severely with those who shed the blood of our innocent
people and soldiers," and "show no mercy when punishing them." The Taliban have
repeatedly threatened reprisal attacks for any executions of its members.
In 2015, Amnesty International recorded 1 execution in Afghanistan, and at
least 12 new death sentences were imposed for murder and rape.
Afghanistan's resort to executions breaks with the global trend towards
abolition of the death penalty. The majority of the world's countries have now
abolished this punishment for all crimes and 140 countries are abolitionist in
law or practice. 4 more countries - Congo (Republic of), Fiji, Madagascar and
Suriname - abolished the death penalty in 2015 and Mongolia adopted a new
Criminal Code which will repeal this punishment from September 2016.
The death penalty has often been applied in Afghanistan following proceedings
that did not meet international fair trial standards.
(source: Amnesty International)
GLOBAL:
It is with great pleasure that ECPM (Together Against the Death Penalty)
invites you to register to the 6th World Congress Against the Death Penalty,
taking place from the 21st till the 23rd of June at the Oslo Opera House under
the sponsorship of Norway, France and Australia.
Every 3 years, this international event gathers, political representatives,
lawyers, and experts from across the world with the aim of developing new
strategies towards universal abolition.
Following the 2015 regional Congress in Kuala Lumpur, this 6th World Congress
will focus on the advances and setbacks of our cause on the Asian continent
during a plenary session. A 2nd plenary session will be devoted to the
importance of national human rights institutions in the fight for abolition.
6 roundtables, 6 workshops, speed-dating amongst participants, various side
events, and an entire cultural programme will be organised on the fringe of
these great debates. For more information on the organisation and the
programming, please visit our website at congress.abolition.fr
Please note that registration for the Congress is free of charge but
compulsory.
(source: ECPM)
*********
Every 3 years, the association ECPM organises the World Congress Against the
Death Penalty, in order to federate abolitionist actors and to create new
strategies towards universal abolition.
After Strasburg in 2001, Montreal in 2004, Paris in 2007, Geneva in 2010, and
Madrid in 2013, ECPM invites you to take part in the 6th World Congress Against
the Death Penalty which will take place at the Opera House of Oslo (Norway)
from June 21 to 23, 2016.
1300 participants from over 80 countries are expected, including around 20
ministers, 200 diplomats, parliamentarians, academics, lawyers and members of
the civil society.
You'll find more information about the debates, the organizers and an online
form to register here: http://congres.abolition.fr/en/
Don't hesitate to share the information with your networks!
(source: SAS)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 15:29:36 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 15:29:36 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., MO.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091529240.2992@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
FLORIDA:
Miami judge declares Florida's death-penalty law is unconstitutional
A Miami-Dade judge has ruled that Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional
because jurors are not required to agree unanimously on execution - a ruling
that will add to the ongoing legal debate over Florida's capital punishment
system.
Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch on Monday issued the ruling in the case of Karon
Gaiter, who is awaiting trial for 1st-degree murder.
Hirsch wrote that Florida's recently enacted "super majority" system - 10 of 12
juror votes are needed to impose execution as punishment for murder - goes
against the long-time sanctity of unanimous verdicts in the U.S. justice
system.
"A decedent cannot be more or less dead. An expectant mother cannot be more or
less pregnant," he wrote. "And a jury cannot be more or less unanimous. Every
verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of
some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one of them."
Hirsch's order comes with Florida's controversial death-penalty law remains
very much in flux.
In January, in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, the U.S. Supreme Court declared
the state's death sentencing system unconstitutional because it gave too little
power to juries. For decades, jurors only issued majority recommendations, with
judges ultimately imposing the death penalty.
The high court, however, did not rule on the unanimity question. Except for
Alabama and Florida, all other states that have the death penalty require a
unanimous jury verdict to impose the death sentence.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Hurst case,
with critics of the law arguing that all 390 death row inmates should get life
sentences because they were sentenced under a flawed system.
After the Hurst case was decided in January, Florida lawmakers were forced to
fix the death-penalty sentencing scheme. Florida's new law requires juries to
unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, that a
defendant might merit a death sentence. Whether to actually impose the death
sentence requires 10 of 12 jurors.
"All of these changes inure to the benefit of the defendant," Assistant State
Attorney Penny Brill wrote in a motion in the Gaiter case earlier this year.
"These requirements render Florida's system constitutional under the United
States Supreme Court's precedents."
Judge Hirsch, in his order, said the fixes don't matter.
"Arithmetically the difference between 12 and 10 is slight," Hirsch wrote. "But
the question before me is not a question of arithmetic. It is a question of
constitutional law. It is a question of justice."
(source: Miami Herald)
ALABAMA----impending execution
The state of Alabama is asking a federal judge to allow an execution to move
forward later this week
The state attorney general's office filed documents Monday opposing a bid by
65-year-old Vernon Madison to postpone his execution, now scheduled for
Thursday.
Madison's lawyers claim strokes and dementia have left the prisoner incompetent
to face lethal injection for killing Mobile police officer Julius Schulte in
1985.
But prosecutors say an expert determined Madison understands the court process
and the reason he's facing the death sentence despite a stroke. They say
there's little chance Madison would win an appeal.
Documents show Madison shot Schulte in the head as he sat in his police car
after responding to a call about a domestic dispute involving Madison.
(source: Associated Press)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Earl Forrest | The Last Interview
see:
http://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/youtube_181eeb60-10bc-11e6-8df6-07ebf77eb23d.html
(source: youtube.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 9 15:30:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 15:30:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605091530090.2992@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 9
BELARUS----execution
Statement by the Spokesperson on the execution of Syarhey Iwanow and of the
confirmation of the death sentence against Sergei Khmelevsky
Despite the many calls made by the European Union, another execution has been
carried out in Belarus. The case of Syarhey Iwanow, who had been sentenced to
death by the Supreme Court of Belarus in March 2015, is particularly disturbing
in light of the fact that his complaint was pending with the UN Human Rights
Committee.
The death sentence against Sergei Khmelevsky, which was upheld by the Belarus
Supreme Court on 6 May, has also been confirmed.
The European Union opposes capital punishment, which fails to act as a
deterrent to crime and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and
integrity. Over the last decades, numerous countries have realised that the
death penalty cannot be justified under any circumstances and have stopped
applying it.
We expect Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying capital
punishment, to join a global moratorium on the death penalty as a first step
towards its abolition.
(source: diplomaticintelligence.eu)
BANGLADESH:
Suspend Death Penalty for War Crimes Convict----Rejection of Review Petition
Paves Way for Execution Despite Fair Trial Concerns
The death sentence against Motiur Rahman Nizami, the head of Bangladesh's
Jamaat-e-Islaami party, should be suspended with immediate effect, Human Rights
Watch said today. The Supreme Court's May 5 rejection of his review petition
means that Nizami could be hanged in the coming days after the deadline to
appeal for presidential clemency expires.
Nizami was convicted for war crimes allegedly committed by forces under his
command during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence by the country's specially
constituted International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in 2014.
Several prominent international observers have expressed serious concerns over
previous death penalty convictions handed down by the ICT due to concerns over
fair trials.
"Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an
irreversible, degrading, and cruel punishment," said Brad Adams, Asia director
at Human Rights Watch. "It is particularly problematic when there are questions
about whether proceedings meet fair trial standards."
Nizami was charged with 16 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war
crimes allegedly committed by forces under his command, known as the Al-Badr,
during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence. Nizami was allegedly the leader
of Al-Badr, a paramilitary organization which supported the then West Pakistan
army against the East Pakistan army and was responsible for some of the worst
crimes which took place during the 1971 war of independence.
In October 2014 Nizami was found guilty of eight of these charges. He was
sentenced to death for being complicit in genocide and crimes against humanity
on 4 charges of rape and killings of intellectuals. Nizami appealed the
convictions in November 2014. In January 2016, the Supreme Court acquitted
Nizami of 3 of the 8 charges, including a death penalty charge, but upheld 5,
including 3 death penalty charges. In March 2016 Nizami filed a petition asking
for a review of his case. That petition, his final chance for a rehearing, was
denied last week.
As in other cases before the ICT, the court put an arbitrary limit on the
number of witnesses Nizami could call to defend himself against charges of war
crimes. Nizami was ultimately allowed to call just 4 witnesses in his defense.
He was not allowed to challenge prosecution witnesses who allegedly had offered
prior inconsistent testimony. Conversations leaked to the Economist as part of
the "Skypegate" scandal also revealed that the Nizami trial was unlawfully
discussed by the presiding judge, the prosecution, and an external consultant,
who were heard debating trial strategies.
Human Rights Watch strongly supports the need for justice and accountability
for war crimes committed during Bangladesh???s 1971 conflict but has pointed
out numerous shortcomings in ICT proceedings leading to flawed judgments and,
in some cases, hangings, despite well-documented fair trial concerns.
Human Rights Watch reiterated its long-standing call for the government of
Bangladesh to restore fundamental rights of protection to those accused of war
crimes. Bangladesh's problematic article 47A(1) of the constitution
specifically strips those accused of war crimes of their fundamental rights,
including the right to an expeditious trial by an independent and impartial
court or tribunal. This pernicious amendment to the constitution allows the ICT
overly broad discretion to deny those charged with war crimes the same rights
and procedures as other defendants.
Human Rights Watch also called on the Bangladeshi government to impose a
moratorium on the death penalty with a plan to abolish it altogether. Over 20
people have been executed since the Awami League government took office in
2009.
"While many in Bangladesh believe Nizami to be guilty and want him punished,
justice is only served through fair trials," said Adams. "Instead of expedited
hangings, authorities in Bangladesh should do everything possible to ensure
that victims receive accurate answers about responsibility for crimes of such
gravity and magnitude."
(source: Human Rights Watch)
************
Halt imminent execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami
Motiur Rahman NizamiMotiur Rahman Nizami
Md. Abdul Hamid
President's Office Bangabhaban,
Dhaka Bangladesh
Fax: +880 2 9585502
Honourable President,
I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human rights defender and Freelance journalist.
I strongly believe that the death sentence against Motiur Rahman Nizami, the
head of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islaami party, should be suspended with immediate
effect.
It is clear after the Supreme Court's May 5 rejection of his review petition
that Nizami could be hanged any time. I am of opinion that Bangladesh must stay
this execution, and end its continued and unlawful use of the death penalties.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty
of crimes committed during the 1971 war for independence in Bangladesh,
including genocide, torture, and the murder of intellectuals, and sentenced to
death by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in October 2014.
I am sure that Several prominent international observers have expressed serious
concerns over previous death penalty convictions handed down by the ICT due to
concerns over fair trials.
I stroingly oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as an irreversible,
degrading, and cruel punishment.
Specifically in the case of Motiur Rahman Nizami the case is particularly
problematic when there are questions about whether proceedings meet fair trial
standards.
I want to remind you that this is another execution on the basis of a flawed
trial that is inconsistent with international human rights standards undermines
justice, and must be stopped.
I also want to remind you that Bangladesh is party to most of the principal
human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, which obliges it to respect the right to a fair trial. Which
in the case of Motiur Rahman Nizami totally failed to provide Mr. Nizami with a
fair trial.
In December 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, for the fifth
time since 2007, emphasizing that that the use of the death penalty undermines
human dignity and calling on those countries that maintain the death penalty to
establish a moratorium on its use with a view to its abolition.
Human rights watch said "As in other cases before the ICT, the court put an
arbitrary limit on the number of witnesses Nizami could call to defend himself
against charges of war crimes. Nizami was ultimately allowed to call just four
witnesses in his defense. He was not allowed to challenge prosecution witnesses
who allegedly had offered prior inconsistent testimony. Conversations leaked to
the Economist as part of the "Skypegate" scandal also revealed that the Nizami
trial was unlawfully discussed by the presiding judge, the prosecution, and an
external consultant, who were heard debating trial strategies".
I join Human Rights Watch and urge the Bangladeshi government to impose a
moratorium on the death penalty with a plan to abolish it altogether.
Finally I request you the halt imminent execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami.
Sincerely
William Nicholas Gomes
Human Rights Defender & Freelance Journalist
www.facebook.com/williamnicholasgomes
(source: newsghana.com)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs 4 in prisons and in public
Iran's fundamentalist regime has executed 4 more prisoners, including a man in
public.
On Monday 2 prisoners, identified as Nasser Saidi (Jafari) and Mehdi Nabashi
(Nabashian), were hanged in a prison in Orumieh (Urmia), north-west Iran.
A man, identified as Mohsen Baha'odini, was hanged on Sunday in a prison in
Minab, southern Iran.
Also on Sunday an unnamed man was hanged in public in a major square in
Kermanshah, western Iran, according to the state-run Mersad news agency.
The hangings bring to at least 66 the number of people executed in Iran since
April 10. 3 of those executed were women and one is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
INDONESIA:
Girl, boyfriend kill father for disapproval of relationship
A teenage girl and her boyfriend could face life imprisonment or the death
sentence if found guilty of killing the girl's father at his home in Kota
Tengah regency, Gorontalo, early on Sunday.
A preliminary police investigation points to premeditated murder.
Gorontalo Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Bagus Santoso said the motive for
the killing had yet to be established, but based on provisional information,
AF, 17, and her boyfriend, OH, 20, were angry at the girl's father, Nasir
Mahmud, 60, because he did not approve of their relationship.
Apparently, the father frequently got angry at AF for coming home very late.
According to the police investigation, the couple, who are both still students,
had planned the killing on Saturday afternoon.
Early on Sunday, at about 2 a.m., OH, from Pulubala subdistrict in Kota Tengah
regency, silently entered AF's house using a key that the girl had previously
placed in the house's ventilation hole.
He then hid behind a sofa, waiting for a sign from his girlfriend, according to
the preliminary police information.
Moments later, both AF and OH entered Nasir's room, covered the head of the
sleeping man with a pillow and, using a kitchen knife, OH stabbed the victim in
his neck, according to the initial investigation.
Nasir tried to free himself and fight back. An in-law of his living at the same
house heard his cries, but the 2 suspects promptly pretended to have been
killed by laying down on their backs beside Nasir, who was already dead and
covered in blood.
"When the police arrived at the crime scene, the victim and the 2 perpetrators,
who pretended to be dead, were still in the room," police spokesperson Bagus
Santoso said.
Police are still processing the crime scene and conducting a thorough
investigation into the case.
Bagus said once convicted, the perpetrators would be charged under Article 340
of the Criminal Code, which carried a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or
the death sentence.
Gorontalo Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Rony Yulianto said the police quickly
arrested OH as the suspect.
"The suspect, who is a student at a vocational school in Gorontalo, was found
lying beside the victim. In fact, he pretended to have died," Rony said.
He added that police had taken the victim's body to the hospital for an
autopsy. The girl, who sustained an injury to her hand, was given medical
treatment before further questioning.
The police confiscated a knife believed to have been used in the killing, as
well as blood-stained clothing belonging to the suspects.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 09:51:35 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 09:51:35 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., TENN., MO.,
CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605100951190.8956@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 10
TEXAS:
Houstonians show a change in support for death penalty
Have changes in attitudes, the law and forensic science combined to change
Houstonians' support for the death penalty?
A recent poll shows fewer Harris County citizens are in favor of the death
penalty, and Harris County courts are handing down fewer death sentences.
Texas has sent more prisoners to the death chamber in the last four decades
than any other state. And of those sentences, more have been handed down in
Harris County (126) than any other Texas county.
But a recent Houston-area survey shows support for the death penalty steadily
declining.
The percentage of residents saying death is the most appropriate punishment for
first-degree murder dropped from 39 % in 2008 to 27 % in 2016 -- the lowest
result ever.
Pat Monks is a lawyer and conservative Republican who contends the death
penalty is too arbitrary, too expensive and too unjust.
"It violates all conservative values to be for the death penalty," Monks said.
Proof of that, he says, are recent exonerations, like that of Anthony Graves,
who was freed from death row after spending 18 years there for a murder he
didn't commit.
"If you're going to kill somebody, that system has to be perfect. It's just
not, that's what's wrong with the death penalty," Monks says.
Last year, Harris County courts only handed down one death sentence. The number
statewide has declined as well. A significant influence has been the
legislature's adoption of life without parole as a sentencing option to death
11 years ago.
But the death penalty in Texas remains the law, as well as a plank in the state
Republican Party's platform.
Jared Woodfill is an attorney and a conservative Republican who is running for
state party chairman.
"The reality is that the system, I don't believe, is broken," Woodfill said.
He believes the death penalty should remain an option in capital cases. He
insists the appeals process and improvements in DNA testing that have led to
exonerations also ensure the system is just.
"So there are multiple levels of protection in place to ensure innocent people
are not executed. And that if mistakes are made, they are caught and reversed,"
Woodfill insists.
Monks doesn't agree. He's urged the state Republican Party to change its
platform support for the death penalty several times without success.
Woodfill says it's not likely when the party convenes later this week in Dallas
for its state convention.
(source: click2houston.com)
FLORIDA:
Former chief justice pushes for death row re-sentencing
The Florida Supreme Court is deciding whether 390 inmates on death row should
be re-sentenced to life after the state's death penalty scheme was ruled
unconstitutional.
Harry Lee Anstead was the Chief Justice of Florida's Supreme Court from 2002 to
2014. 18 months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona's death
penalty in what is know as the Ring case, Anstead argued that Ring applied to
Florida.
Other justices disagreed. More than a decade later, he was proven right when
the high court threw out Florida's sentencing scheme, citing the Ring decision.
"This decision about Florida's statue being unconstitutional should have been
made many years ago," said Anstead.
Since the other justices ignored Anstead's dissent so long ago, he's now going
to other former Florida Supreme Court justices in arguing that all 390 inmates
on death row should now get a life sentence.
"This hopefully is setting things right in a large way, not a small way, in a
large way," he said.
Anstead remains troubled that since his dissent, now proven right, several
dozen inmates have been put to death. Gainesville killer, Danny Rolling, was
among them.
"A number of prisoners on death row have been put to death in Florida, and
arguably, they've been put to death under an unconstitutional death penalty
scheme," Anstead said.
Ironically, Lloyd Duest, who was the inmate in the case in which Anstead first
cited his Ring objections, has died; not by lethal injections, but by other
cases.
Lloyd Duest died in 2011, 8 years after justice Anstead thought his sentence
should have been reduced to life in prison.
While the 3 justices say all death row inmates should be re-sentenced to life,
the attorney general said that everyone on death row should stay there.
(source: WEAR TV news)
************
Florida's Modified Death Sentencing Regime Is Still Unconstitutional, Judge
Says----Juries in the state must unanimously impose the death penalty, a
circuit judge ruled.
A Florida judge ruled on Monday that the state's recently amended system for
sentencing people to death is unconstitutional.
Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch said that the new regime - which allows a
"less-than-unanimous" jury to impose the death penalty - violates Florida's
constitution, which requires unanimity.
"Every verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not
of some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one of them," Hirsch
wrote.
Hirsch was considering the case of Karon Gaiter, a man charged with 1st-degree
murder who is awaiting trial under new legislative changes enacted by Florida
lawmakers in March. The changes were part of an attempt to fix the state's
death penalty regime after the Supreme Court ruled in January that allowing
judges to overrule a jury's recommendation in death penalty cases was
unconstitutional.
"The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary
to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough,"
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the 8-to-1 ruling in Hurst v. Florida.
Under the modified system, Florida jurors must unanimously agree on the factual
reasons that support the imposition of a death sentence, known as "aggravating
factors." The same law requires 10 of the 12 jurors to make the final
recommendation of death, rather than a simple majority.
This latter part of the law, Hirsch said, fell short of the state
constitution's requirement of full unanimity.
Florida is among the U.S.'s most active death penalty states, and its death
sentencing scheme had long been an outlier. Prior to January's Supreme Court
ruling, state law didn't require juries to be unanimous in order to recommend a
death sentence or to unanimously agree on the factors that would merit a death
sentence rather than life in prison. Judges could ultimately override a jury's
recommendation and impose a death sentence based on their own determinations.
The Hurst ruling has since thrown Florida's death penalty system into turmoil.
Legal analysts predict that unanswered questions about the ruling's breadth and
its effect on already-sentenced prisoners could result in "multi-headed,
snake-like litigation."
Just last week, the Florida Supreme Court considered whether the Hurst ruling
should allow all 390 inmates on the state's death row to receive commutations
to life sentences.
Florida has already blocked 2 prisoners' executions and passed at least 1
legislative fix in an attempt to preserve its death sentencing system without
violating the Constitution.
Alabama and Delaware both have death sentencing schemes similar to Florida's -
and, either proactively or through litigation, have adjusted how they impose
the death penalty.
Delaware has halted capital murder cases and death penalty sentencing hearings,
pending litigation. Though the state carries out few executions and hasn't
performed one in nearly 5 years, it imposes more death sentences per capita
than most other states.
The Supreme Court recently instructed Alabama to re-examine 1 prisoner's
sentence - a move that could have wide implications for the state's death row.
Non-unanimous death sentencing decisions were particularly pronounced in
Alabama: A 2015 study from the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and
Justice at Harvard Law School found that 26 out of 34 of the state's death
sentences in the past 5 years were decided by split juries.
Several of the Supreme Court's liberal justices have been vocal in their
skepticism - or outright disdain - for the death penalty in America.
Justice Stephen Breyer has recently noted "3 fundamental defects" with the
death penalty- unreliability, arbitrariness and long delays in carrying it out
- and emphasized "the need to reconsider the validity of capital punishment
under the Eighth Amendment."
(source: Huffington Post)
*******************
Sievers' attorney says death penalty should be "off the table"
An attorney representing Mark Sievers - accused of planning the murder of his
wife Teresa Sievers spoke to Fox 4 about recent 1st-degree murder charges
against his client which could get him the death penalty.
Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers had previously been charged with 2nd degree
murder. Their mutual friend Curtis Wayne Wright took a plea deal in the case.
Last week, a grand jury indicted Sievers and Rodgers on 1st-degree murder
charges, after the state produced evidence that Sievers hired Wright and
Rodgers to kill his Teresa.
A conviction of 1st-degree could result in the death penalty. Attorney Tony
Faga, whose firm represents Sievers, says there are mitigating circumstances
that should take that punishment off the table.
"His 2 kids, no prior criminal record, not a danger to anyone else in society,"
Faga said.
It's been almost a year since Teresa Sievers was found dead in her Bonita
Springs home, bludgeoned with a hammer. Mark Sievers' long-time friend Curtis
Wayne Wright told detectives that Mark told him he would pay him to kill Teresa
with life insurance money.
Faga says calling it a murder for hire is a stretch. Wright took a plea deal to
avoid the death penalty that Sievers and Rodgers could face.
"I think if you look at the whole context of his statements, they're just not
as clear as they would have you believe," Faga said. "There's a lot of
mitigating circumstances to keep the death penalty off the table, I think."
Faga says the constant media scrutiny might compel them to ask to have the
trial in another county.
"Our philosophy may be that it's impossible to get a fair and impartial trial,"
he said. "Then we're gonna have to move it somewhere else."
Faga says that in addition to the question of a venue change for the trial,
another question for Sievers' defense team is whether to move to separate
Mark's trial from that if Rodgers. Both of those questions have yet to be
decided.
(source: Fox news)
*************
Death penalty sought in Florida murder case for man arrested in Frederick
A ruling that Florida's death penalty law is unconstitutional could affect the
case for a man arrested in Frederick and charged with a Miami killing.
On April 20, prosecutors in Florida filed a notice of their intention to seek
the death penalty in the case of Renell Demetrius Jones, according to online
court records.
He was arrested Dec. 13, 2014, in Frederick after Miami-Dade County police say
he helped plan a July 2, 2012, robbery of Michel Lopez Garcia that ended in the
Miami resident's death.
Miami-Dade police found Garcia dead in the 13600 block of Southwest 178th
Street. He had called officers to report a robbery but was stabbed to death
before police arrived.
Prosecutors may no longer be able to seek capital punishment in the case. In an
unrelated 1st-degree murder trial, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled
Monday that Florida's death penalty law was unconstitutional, according to The
Miami Herald.
Several charges in Florida were previously considered capital offenses,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center: 1st-degree murder, felony
murder, capital drug trafficking and capital sexual battery.
Jones' attorney, Ana Davide, said in a phone interview she did not believe the
death penalty should have been considered in the case and agreed with Hirsch
that the law was unconstitutional.
Davide also expressed concern about media coverage of her client's case.
"I think his treatment has been unfair," she said.
Jones' father, Randy Jones, of Frederick, denied the accusations against his
son in a previous interview with The Frederick News-Post. He declined to
comment in a phone interview Monday.
Ed Griffith, of the Miami-Dade State's Attorney's Office, also declined to
comment on the case or the general decision-making process around death penalty
cases.
Jones has a hearing scheduled for Friday, according to Miami-Dade court
records.
In Maryland, the death penalty has been abolished since 2013. Before that, it
was permissible only in 1st-degree murder cases.
(source: Frederick News-Post)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Alabama death row inmate Vernon Madison seeks stay of execution
Attorneys for an Alabama death row inmate are asking a judge to stay his
execution set for Thursday and resentence him to life without parole based on
recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
Vernon Madison, now 65, was charged and convicted in the April 18, 1985,
slaying of police Officer Julius Schulte, who was responding to a domestic
disturbance call.
He had 3 trials because state appellate courts twice sent the case back to
Mobile County, 1st for a violation based on race-based jury selection and later
based on improper testimony from an expert witness for the prosecution.
He was convicted in a 3rd trial in 1994. The jury then recommended a sentence
of life without parole, but Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae overrode
the decision and sentenced him to death.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that Florida's
scheme allowing judges to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in death
penalty cases was unconstitutional. The decision prompted Florida's legislature
to rewrite its capital punishment sentencing law.
Alabama has a similar sentencing scheme, though the attorney general's office
has noted that it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995.
In another ruling issued May 2, the Supreme Court granted review of the case of
Alabama death row inmate Bart Johnson. It was the 1st Alabama case challenging
the state's capital murder sentencing scheme to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme
Court since Hurst was decided.
Attorneys from the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative represent both
Johnson and Madison.
They argue that the Johnson decision is critical to Madison's case because his
death sentence was the result of judicial override. That ruling, handed down
after Madison's execution date was set, has "raised fundamental questions about
the constitutionality of the use of judicial override in Alabama," they argue.
"This ruling implicates all (capital) cases in Alabama," Bryan Stevenson,
founder and executive director of EJI, said last week. "We have argued that
Alabama's statute no longer conforms to current constitutional requirements.
The Court's ruling today supports that view."
The attorney general argues that the Johnson decision "does not strike down or
invalidate Alabama's death penalty sentencing scheme," but instead orders a
state appellate court to reconsider the facts of that specific case in light of
Hurst.
"Alabama's current death-penalty statute, under which Madison was sentenced,
has never been struck down by the United States Supreme Court," state attorneys
argue in court documents.
On May 5, Madison's attorneys asked the Alabama Supreme Court to not only stay
his execution but also reconsider the state's death penalty sentencing scheme
in light of the decisions.
The attorney general opposed the stay and argued that Madison's claim must
first be made in circuit court, under Alabama law.
On May 6, the Alabama Supreme Court denied Madison's request.
His attorneys put forth the same arguments in a petition filed Monday in Mobile
County Circuit Court. They say his death sentence is unconstitutional, in light
of the Hurst and Johnson rulings, and ask Judge Robert H. Smith to resentence
him to life without parole.
"Because Alabama's death penalty sentencing scheme has exactly the same defect
that was declared unconstitutional in Hurst, it is no longer viable," they
wrote in the filing. "More specifically, there is a serious question as to
whether Alabama's judicial override system can sustain when the very precedent
upon which it is based has been overruled by Hurst."
The attorney general countered with several filings arguing that the appeal was
filed outside the one-year window after the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
entered its judgment in July 1998, and that the claim could have been raised on
direct appeal.
Madison, who has been on death row since Nov. 12, 1985, is one of Alabama's
longest-serving death row inmates.
Over the years, he has filed numerous state and federal appeals that have been
denied, including denials by the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme
Court to review the case.
During an April 14 competency hearing, testimony showed that Madison has had
several strokes and suffers from serious dementia. His severe mental decline
rendered him incompetent to be executed, his attorneys argued.
Smith later issued a ruling denying the stay of execution.
Last week, Madison's attorneys filed a request for an emergency stay in U.S.
District Court in the Southern District of Alabama.
Attorneys for the state filed a response asking the federal court to allow the
execution to go forward as scheduled. They say Madison did not exhaust his
state appeals before filing the federal petition and that his attorneys have
not proven he lacks a rational understanding of the state's move to execute
him.
(source: al.com)
TENNESSEE:
Anderson County murder trial defendant claims he didn't plan killing
It's undisputed that Norman Lee Follis Jr. killed his uncle by strangling him
with an extension cord, his attorney said.
"We can't whitewash that," Mart Cizek told a jury Monday during opening
statements in the 1st death-penalty trial in Anderson County in more than 30
years.
Cizek, however, is fighting to keep the 52-year-old Follis off death row by
convincing jurors it wasn't a planned murder worthy of capital punishment but
rather a crime of passion in defense of his longtime girlfriend.
Follis has admitted strangling his uncle and neighbor, 79-year-old Samuel J.
"Sammie" Adams, inside Adams' apartment on Patt Lane off Raccoon Valley Road in
the Claxton area and putting the body in a closet there.
The decomposing corpse was discovered under a mound of clothes and blankets
shortly after Follis' confession on Jan. 24, 2012, and more than a month after
the man was killed.
Adams, described as helpful to neighbors, had a habit of flashing the
considerable amount of cash he carried with him.
And while testimony revealed Follis sold Adams' 1997 Mercury Marquis to a
Knoxville man for $1,000 in early January, money wasn't the motive, according
to Follis' confession.
He said he strangled his uncle after he discovered him sexually attacking his
girlfriend and now co-defendant, Tammy Sue Chapman.
"I just come around there, and he had, he had her down on the couch" with one
hand on her crotch and the other on a breast, Follis said in a rambling,
two-hour long statement to Anderson County Sheriff's Department Investigator
Donald Scuglia.
"I grabbed the extension cord off the (expletive) heater that was there and
just put it around his throat," Follis said.
During the scuffle, Follis told Scuglia that Adams fell off Chapman and onto
him. Follis admitted dragging Adams' body into the closet and putting the couch
in front of the door.
After Adams was reported missing in December 2011, Follis became a suspect when
he seen driving Adams' car.
Initially questioned in January by another detective, Follis said he had taken
his uncle to area hospitals and the last he knew, Adams was either being
evaluated in the Lakeshore Mental Health Institute or was perhaps in a veterans
hospital. A check of medical centers revealed neither Adams nor Follis had been
to them, authorities said.
The mystery finally unraveled when Chapman was nabbed at the nearby home of
Follis' stepmother, Sandra Follis. Chapman - who wasn't welcome there - had
Adams' keys to her home.
Prosecutor Tony Craighead said he has 13 potential witnesses, while Cizek said
Follis will likely testify in his own defense.
Craighead said testimony may wrap up Tuesday afternoon. Should Follis be
convicted of murder, a 2nd phase of the trial would involve the jury
determining whether he should receive the death penalty.
Chapman, 47, also charged with 1st-degree murder, will be tried later. Both
Follis and Chapman are jailed in lieu of $1 million bonds.
(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Ex-drug dealer who killed best friend and policewoman in dispute over LAWNMOWER
to be executed tomorrow
A former drug dealer who gunned down his best friend, her guest and a police
officer in a dispute over a lawnmower will be executed tomorrow. Earl Forrest
went to Harriet Smith's home after a drinking session and demanded she buy him
the gardening equipment and a mobile home after he introduced her to a source
for crystal meth.
A struggle ensued and Forrest, 65, shot a guest of Smith's, Michael Wells, in
the face, killing him.
Forrest, of Platte County, Missouri, USA, also killed Smith by shooting her 6
times - and has since blamed her for the shooting.
He then stole crystal meth worth 17,000 pounds and fled to his home, where he
got into a shootout with police officers.
Forrest shot Chief Deputy Joann Barnes and Sheriff Bob Wofford in the struggle
and also fired at his own girlfriend, Angela Gamblin.
Chief Deputy Sharon Joann Barnes was shot and killed by Earl Forrest
Deputy Barnes died from her injuries.
Forrest was friends with Ms Smith, who he called 'Tottie', for 30 years but has
expressed no remorse over his crimes - and even blames her for the incident.
"I'm still mad at Tottie," Forrest said, during an interview for the A&E TV
series 'A Killer Speaks'.
"She should have kept her word and done what she promised. Then everyone would
be happy and alive."
Forrest also admitted that he is dangerous and uses violence when he feels he
has been wronged.
According to court documents, he was charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree
murder, and the jury found him guilty on all 3 counts.
The jury subsequently recommended a death sentence for each of the 3 murders.
(source: mirror.co.uk)
CALIFORNIA:
Scot faces death penalty after being charged with killing his Glaswegian mum
and American stepdad ---- Derek Connell - who was brought up in Shawlands in
Glasgow - is alleged to have shot his mum Kim Higginbotham and her husband
Christopher in a bloody rampage.
A Scot has been charged with murdering his mother and stepfather by shooting
them at their home in the US.
Derek Connell, 29, is facing the death penalty after being accused of killing
Scots mum Kim Higginbotham and her American husband Christopher in a bloody
rampage.
The couple were found dead at their home in Bakersfield, California, on April
30 by police officers who were called to the scene.
Connell, originally from Glasgow, is also alleged to have taken a video of
their dead bodies on his mobile phone and sent it to a relative.
He has denied the murders and claimed he arrived home to find his mother and
stepfather already dead.
Police records state Mrs Higginbotham, 48, was found lying in a pool of blood
in the hall of the property with a spent bullet near her body.
Mr Higginbotham, 48, was lying face down in a pool of blood and police said it
appeared bleach had been poured on his skin and clothing in an effort to clean
up the crime scene.
2 shotguns, 5 handguns and 7 rifles were seized from the home.
Connell was born in Rutherglen Maternity Hospital and lived with his mother in
Shawlands on Glasgow's south side as a child. No details of his father were
listed on his birth certificate.
Mrs Higginbotham worked as a secretary in Glasgow and met her future husband
while he was stationed with the US navy in Scotland.
She moved with her son to be with Mr Higginbotham when he went back to America
more than 20 years ago and the family settled in southern California.
Connell is being held in custody without bail while he awaits trial on 2 counts
of 1st degree murder.
Court documents state Connell told police he did not know what to do when he
found the bodies and lay next to his mother face-to-face for an undetermined
amount of time.
Connell said he tried to clean up the blood before he left the house and began
driving around in circles.
According to police, Connell said: "I probably didn't handle the situation like
I was supposed to. I had never had to deal with anything like that before."
Connell also told officers that his stepfather had large gambling debts from
betting on horse racing and boxing matches and had used a loan shark.
Connell also claimed to have served in the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Mrs Higginbotham had worked for the last 16 years as a kindergarten teacher at
the nearby Princeton Street Elementary School. A minute's silence was held at
the school following her death.
James Hay, director of student support services at Delano Union School
District, said: "There was some intense grieving on the part of the staff.
Mrs Higginbotham was a fixture at that school and was highly respected. Her
loss is going to be deeply felt."
Her husband worked at a power plant.
Neighbours in the quiet residential area told of their shock at the death of
the couple.
Kim Riddle, whose children grew up with Connell, said the family moved into the
neighbourhood when he was 7 or 8.
She said "They were not real sociable but I guess they knew everybody because
the group mailbox was right here in front of their house.
"When Derek came home from school, he had to do his homework right then and
there and was not allowed to go out until it was all done. I did the same thing
but after a while as my son got older, I was a little lax."
Fellow neighbour Jana Owen said: "It really is a shock. I just feel so sad.
Just to see them going out in body bags made me about want to vomit."
(source: dailyrecord.co.uk)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 09:52:57 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 09:52:57 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605100952480.8956@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 10
IRELAND:
10 amazing Irish men and women who cheated the hangman
Ireland had a bitter history of the death penalty under the British. Famous
rebels like Henry Joy McCracken, Robert Emmet and Padraig Pearse were put to
death as a warning to other Irish people considering rebellion against the
Crown.
Based on this, it's no surprise that when the Irish sat down after independence
to write their own laws they initially planned to abolish capital punishmen.
The Irish Civil War soon changed minds, however, and the ultimate deterrent was
kept on the statute books.
29 ordinary Irish people would be hanged for murder before capital punishment
was abolished in Ireland in 1964, but an even greater number would be sentenced
to death before narrowly escaping the gallows. Here is a list of 10 men and
women who nearly came face-to-face with the executioner.
1. Hannah Flynn
Flynn was from Killorglin, Co Kerry and in 1922 was working as a domestic
servant for the O'Sullivan family who lived nearby. She was sacked after just 2
months, however, for theft and disobedience.
On Easter Sunday the following year Margaret O'Sullivan was found lying on the
kitchen floor by her husband when he returned from Mass. She had been butchered
with a hatchet. Flynn was immediately under suspicion and was swiftly found
guilty of murder and given a date of execution.
She was given a recommendation to mercy on account of her "low intellect" and
received a reprieve after the sentence. She spent 18 years in prison before
being released into a convent.
2. Patrick Aylward
Aylward was involved in an agricultural feud with his neighbors, the Holdens,
in Kilkenny in 1923. He was accused, and found guilty, of taking their
18-month-old son William and pushing him into the fire, causing him an
agonizing death as revenge.
Aylward came within days of execution for the crime, but was reprieved at the
last minute. He served 10 years in jail instead. He went to his death insisting
that he had been framed for the horrific crime.
3. Jane O'Brien
O'Brien lived in Killinick, Co. Wexford, with her nephew John Cousins. In 1932
Cousins was engaged to be married and told his aunt that she would have to move
out to make way for his new bride. The elderly woman instead took a shotgun
from under his bed and shot him as he returned from the pub. She was found
guilty but received a reprieve on account of her age and gender.
4. Mary Agnes Daly
Daly was threatened with eviction in 1948 for being unable to pay her rent. She
then attacked a stranger in a church in Glasnevin, Co. Dublin, using a hammer
she had brought with her (apparently to break open church money boxes.) The
stranger was 83 year-old Mary Gibbons. Daly was quickly found guilty and
scheduled to meet Pierrepoint, the hangman. She was reprieved 2 weeks before
the execution, spending 6 years in jail instead.
5. Shan Mohangi
Mohangi was a South African medical student who came to Dublin to study in the
early 60s. The 23-year-old started seeing a 14-year-old girl named Hazel Mullen
shortly afterwards but proved to be insanely jealous. In August 1963 he
strangled her after accusing her of kissing another boy and dismembered her
body gruesomely.
Mohangi was sentenced to death for the despicable crime, but in a retrial was
found guilty of manslaughter only. He served just 4 years in prison and
returned to South Africa on his release. In 2009 he was running for political
office in South Africa when his murderous past caught up with him. He was
forced to withdraw from the race.
6. Mary Somerville
Mary Somerville's daughter gave birth to a child outside of wedlock in Co.
Monaghan in 1938. Instead of living with the huge social shame that came with
such an occurrence in 1930s Ireland, however, Mary took the baby girl and threw
her into a pond outside her house. The body was discovered some weeks later and
the grandmother was given a death sentence for 2 days before Christmas, 1938.
It was commuted on the 9th of the same month.
7. Daniel Duff
Garda James Byrne is amongst the unfortunate number of Irish policeman shot
dead while on duty. Incredibly, however, it was a fellow Garda who fired the
bullet that killed Byrne. Byrne fought with Garda Daniel Duff in 1945 when they
were both stationed on armed night-duty in Co. Limerick. Duff, convinced that
his colleague was drawing his gun, pulled out his own firearm and shot Byrne
twice through the heart. Duff claimed self-defence but was found guilty and
given the death sentence. He was reprieved and served just over 5 years in
Mountjoy Prison.
8. Hannah O'Leary
O'Leary was jointly charged with murder in 1924 along with her brother Con. The
2 were found guilty of killing their brother Patrick and dismembering his
corpse before scattering it around a field adjoining their farmhouse in
Kilkerran, Co. Cork.
Both denied the charges but were sentenced to death nonetheless. Con was duly
hanged, claiming still to be an innocent man. Hannah spent 17 years in jail,
where she was described as "not quite right" by prison authorities. She was
released into a convent in 1942.
9. Frances Cox
Cox was a Protestant from Co. Laois who wanted to marry a local Catholic. Her
brother Richard did not approve but took ill suddenly in 1949 and died in
excruciating pain. The Gardai treated the otherwise healthy young man's death
as suspicious and examined his organs. They contained large traces of the
deadly household poison strychnine.
Frances was found to have the means and the motive to have administered the
lethal substance and was given a date with the hangman. Her sentence was
commuted and she spent 7 years in prison for the murder.
10. Robert Stevenson
Stevenson was from the Isle of Bute in Scotland and was a sailor. His oil
tanker docked in Dublin shortly before Christmas 1953. Incredibly, after just
12 hours on Irish soil, Stevenson was said to have murdered Mary Nolan, a woman
he met in a pub on the quays in the city. He maintained his innocence but was
found guilty and sentenced to death the following year. He was reprieved,
narrowly saving himself from becoming the last man hanged in the state.
The death penalty was last used in Ireland in 1954, just months before
Stevenson was reprieved. It was abolished for ordinary murder 10 years later.
(source: Colm Wallace has written a book "Sentenced to Death: Saved from the
Gallows" about thirty Irish men and women who had the death penalty imposed on
them between 1922 and 1985. It is being launched on June 17 this year and is
available for pre-order on amazon.com----irishcentral.com)
AFGHANISTAN:
Halt Further Executions----Donors Should Urge Death Penalty Moratorium
Afghanistan's government should immediately halt further executions and impose
a moratorium on the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said today. The
executions by hanging of 6 Taliban prisoners on May 8, 2016, were the 1st
capital sentences carried out by President Ashraf Ghani since he took office in
2014.
The 6 executions appear to be part of Ghani's efforts to respond to critics who
have demanded that the government take a harder line against the Taliban, Human
Rights Watch said. Following the April 19 truck bomb attack in Kabul that
killed at least 64 people, Ghani vowed to "deal severely with those who shed
the blood of our innocent people and soldiers and ... show no mercy when
punishing them ... including where it concerns capital punishment."
"The Afghan government needs to recognize that the death penalty is not only an
unacceptably cruel punishment, but ineffective and possibly counterproductive
in tackling terrorist threats," said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan
researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Delivering justice requires adhering to the
highest standards, not flaunting a hanging for the purpose of revenge."
All 6 men had been on death row for years for their alleged involvement in
crimes that included the 2010 attack on a Finest supermarket in Kabul that
killed 8; the 2011 assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, former president of
Afghanistan and then head of the High Peace Council; the 2009 assassination of
Abdullah Laghmani, deputy head of the National Directorate of Security; a 2011
attack on a military hospital in Kabul that killed 6; the 2012 attack on the
Spozhmai Hotel in Qargha that killed 20; and a 2009 attack in Paktia that
killed 6.
"Deep-seated weaknesses in the Afghan legal system and the routine failure of
courts to meet international fair trial standards make Afghanistan's use of the
death penalty especially problematic," Gossman said.
Announcing the executions, the president's office stated that they were carried
out "after a fair legal process and in accordance with the country's
constitution and Islamic laws." However, no details of the trials have been
released; Afghanistan's judiciary is notoriously corrupt, and due process
violations are rife, including in capital cases.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an
inherently cruel form of punishment. A majority of countries have abolished the
practice. On December 18, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a
resolution by a wide margin calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
"President Ghani should impose an immediate death penalty moratorium and
eventually do away with the practice altogether," Gossman said. "Afghanistan's
foreign donors who have bankrolled judicial reform for the past decade should
make ending the death penalty a top priority."
(source: Human Rights Watch)
*****************
UN Voices 'Serious Concerns' Over Execution Of Taliban Inmates
The United Nations has voiced "serious concerns" over the recent execution of 6
Taliban prisoners on death row in Afghanistan.
"We regret the execution on Sunday, 8 May, of 6 people in Afghanistan, amid
persisting serious concerns about compliance with fair trial standards, and
reports about the widespread use of torture and ill-treatment as a means of
extracting confessions," the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Rupert Colville, said in a statement on May 10.
Colville urged Kabul to "refrain from approving death sentences and to
immediately introduce an official moratorium on the use of the death penalty."
President Ashraf Ghani has toughened his stance against the militants after a
major Taliban assault on Kabul that killed 64 people and wounded another 340
last month.
The president's office defended the executions, saying in a May 8 statement
that they were conducted after a fair legal process and in accordance with the
country's constitution and Islamic laws.
(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh set to execute Jamaat-e-Islami leader----Without presidential
pardon, execution of Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami now appears
imminent
Authorities in Dhaka have formally rejected a request to review the case of
Motiur Rahman Nizami, the leader of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami group who was
convicted earlier of committing wartime atrocities.
Nizami now faces imminent execution unless he is granted a presidential pardon.
On Sunday, the country's Supreme Court released its final verdict, condemning
Nizami, 73, to death for murder, rape, looting and collaborating with the
Pakistani army during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence.
On the same day, he was brought to Dhaka's central prison, where executions
generally take place.
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said Monday that Nizami's execution could
only be halted by a pardon granted by Bangladeshi President Abdul Hamid.
In October of 2014, Bangladesh's International Crimes Tribunal -- a domestic
court -- sentenced Nizami to death for atrocities committed during the 1971
conflict.
During the war, Nizami had been the commander of the Al-Badr militia, which had
supported the Pakistani army.
According to official Bangladeshi statistics, as many as 3 million people were
killed by the Pakistani army and its local allies during the conflict.
In January, following an appeal hearing, the appellate bench of Bangladesh's
Supreme Court upheld the death penalty against Nizami handed down earlier by
the tribunal.
Last Thursday, the same bench rejected a request lodged by Nizami to have his
sentence reviewed.
Following the move, the Jamaat-e-Islami group -- which Nizami has led since
2001 -- organized a 3-day protest, including a nationwide strike on May 8.
Abdul Qader Molla, another Jamaat leader found guilty by the same tribunal, was
executed in December of 2013, and group leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman was hanged
in April of last year.
Jamaat Secretary-General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid -- along with the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party's Salahuddin Qader Chowdhury -- was executed last
November.
The Bangladesh government established the war crimes tribunal in 2009 to
investigate individuals suspected of having committed atrocities during the
1971 conflict.
Tribunal prosecutors have since charged 9 Jamaat-e-Islami leaders -- including
Nizami -- and 2 Bangladesh Nationalist Party leaders with having committed
wartime atrocities.
Opposition parties and international organizations, however, have criticized
the tribunal, with Human Rights Watch expressing concern over whether the
accused received fair trials.
Last Thursday, Jamaat-e-Islami acting chief Maqbul Ahmed and group
Secretary-General Shafiqur Rahman issued a joint statement condemning the
sentence passed against Nizami.
"The government has filed [a] false case against Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami
in line with the so-called allegation of crimes against humanity in a bid to
make Jamaat-e-Islami a leaderless party," they asserted.
"The allegations which have been raised against him are completely baseless,
false, concocted and fictitious," they added.
(source: aa.com.tr)
***************
HRW: Suspend Nizami's death penalty
The death sentence against Jamaat-e-Islami chief Motiur Rahman Nizami should be
suspended with immediate effect, Human Rights Watch has said. The New
York-based rights organisation also reiterated its long-standing call for the
government of Bangladesh to restore fundamental rights of protection to those
accused of war crimes.
"Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an
irreversible, degrading, and cruel punishment," HRW Asia director Brad Adams
said in a statement issued on Monday. He went on to say: "It is particularly
problematic when there are questions about whether proceedings meet fair trial
standards."
Human Rights Watch also called on the Bangladeshi government to impose a
moratorium on the death penalty with a plan to abolish it altogether.
"While many in Bangladesh believe Nizami to be guilty and want him punished,
justice is only served through fair trials," said Adams. "Instead of expedited
hangings, authorities in Bangladesh should do everything possible to ensure
that victims receive accurate answers about responsibility for crimes of such
gravity and magnitude."
The Supreme Court released the full verdict on Monday, 4 days after rejecting a
review petition filed by the Jamaat-e-Islami chief.
A special tribunal had sentenced Nizami to death on October 29, 2014 for
genocide, murder and rape in Pabna and Dhaka during the Liberation War in 1971.
The former Al-Badr militia chief led Jamaat's the then student front Islami
Chhatra Sangha. His only option now is to seek mercy from the president.
Former minister Nizami also carries a death sentence in the 10-truck arms haul
case.
(source: Dhaka Tribune)
GUYANA:
EU envoy renews call for abolishing death penalty, decriminalising same sex
intimacy
Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Guyana Jernej Videtic last
evening called once more for government to abolish the death penalty,
decriminalise same sex intimacy and to strengthen efforts to combat domestic
abuse and trafficking in persons.
"The European Union has a strong commitment to gender equality, the empowerment
of women and girls, and the eradication of gender-based violence," Ambassador
Videtic also said last evening at a reception hosted by EU at the National
Cultural Centre to celebrate "Europe Day."
(source: Stabroek News)
NORTH KOREA:
Ex-N. Korea army head, who Seoul said was executed, is alive
A former North Korean military chief who Seoul had said was executed is
actually alive and in possession of several new senior-level posts, the North's
state media said Tuesday.
The news on Ri Yong Gil marks yet another blunder for South Korean intelligence
officials, who have often gotten information wrong in tracking developments
with their rival. It also points to the difficulties that even professional
spies have in figuring out what's going on in one of the world's most closed
governments.
Ri, who was considered one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's most trusted
aides, missed 2 key national meetings in February. Seoul intelligence officials
later said that Kim had him executed for corruption and other charges.
Kim has reportedly overseen a series of killings, purges and dismissals since
he took power in late 2011, part of what foreign experts call an attempt to
tighten his grip on power.
The South's report on Ri's execution seemed to be bolstered later in February
when Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency confirmed Ri had lost his
job by describing someone else as chief of the North Korean military's general
staff.
He hadn't appeared anywhere in KCNA, the North's main media outlet for foreign
audiences, until the report Tuesday that a person with the same name as Ri was
among those awarded important positions during the just concluded Workers'
Party congress in Pyongyang. The congress, the 1st in 36 years, ended Monday
with announcements of personnel and organizational changes.
According to KCNA dispatches, Ri got 3 posts - member of the party's Central
Committee, alternate member of the committee's powerful Political Bureau, and
member of the party's Central Military Commission.
Seoul's Unification Ministry said Tuesday that it confirmed Ri is back after
analyzing North Korean state media photos and video of the party congress.
South Korean media said that Seoul intelligence authorities were responsible
for the initial reports on Ri's execution. But the National Intelligence
Service - South Korea's main spy agency - tried to distance itself from the
misstep, saying it never disclosed any information on Ri.
Monitoring developments among the North's ruling elite is very hard for
outsiders; the country keeps strict tabs on visitors and its own state-run
press acts as a disseminator of government propaganda. South Korea, which runs
several intelligence organizations mainly tasked with spying on the North, has
a mixed record.
Earlier this year, South Korean intelligence and defense officials faced
criticism for failing to see in advance that North Korea had been preparing for
its 4th nuclear test.
The NIS also failed to learn of the 2011 death of Kim Jong Il, the dictator
father of Kim Jong Un, before Pyongyang's state TV announced it. In 2013, it
saved its face by releasing its finding that Kim's powerful uncle Jang Song
Thaek was purged, days before North Korea announced his execution.
The rival Koreas have shared the world's most heavily fortified border since
the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and they bar ordinary citizens from
exchanging phone calls, letters and emails without special permission.
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 09:53:57 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 09:53:57 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605100953450.8956@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 10
PAKSITAN----execution
Death row convict hanged in Sahiwal
A death row prisoner involved in murder case was executed in the Central Jail
Sahiwal on early Tuesday morning, Dunya News reported.
According to details, prisoner Mansha had killed a man in 2001 during a robbery
attempt. The dead body of the prisoner was handed over to his heirs after the
execution.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a 6-year moratorium on death penalty on
December 17, 2014 for those convicted for terrorism a day after the deadly
attack on Army Public School in Peshawar that left 150 persons including mostly
children dead. There are more than 8,000 prisoners on death row in the country.
(source: Dunya News)
IRAN----executions
2 Prisoners Hanged in Northwestern Iran
2 prisoners with murder charges were reportedly hanged at Darya, Urmia's
central prison (in the province of West Azerbaijan, northwestern Iran), on
Monday May 9.
According to a report by the human rights news agency, HRANA, these 2 prisoners
are among 6 who were transferred to solitary confinement at this prison on
Sunday May 8 in preparation for their executions. HRANA has identified the s
executed prisoners as Nasser Saeedi and Mehdi Naboshi.
s of the other prisoners, reportedly identified as Omid Behrouz and Khaled
Zika, succeeded to postpone their executions for a brief period of time and
were returned to their cells. Behrouz is scheduled to be executed one month
from now and Zika in 5 days. The other 2 prisoners, reportedly identified as
Behnam Hassanzadeh and Hesam Neez, were spared from execution after they
succeeded to receive consent from the plaintiffs on their case files. They were
also returned to their cells.
Iranian official sources, including state-run media and the Judiciary, have
been silent on these executions.
************
Prisoner Hanged in Southern Iran on Drug Charges
A prisoner with drug charges was reportedly hanged at Minab Prison (in the
southern Hormozgan province) on Sunday May 8. The Baloch Activists Campaign has
identified the prisoner as Mohsen Bahaoldini, a man who resided in Giran, a
town located in the southern Sistan & Baluchestan province of Iran. Iranian
official sources, including state run media and the Judiciary, have been silent
about Bahaoldini's execution.
(source for both: Iran Human Rights)
INDONESIA:
Govt Agrees on Death Penalty for Rapists
The government has agreed to give maximum penalties to rapists and sexual
offenders. The agreement is the result of a coordination meeting between
ministries that was held at the office of the Coordinating Ministry for Human
Development and Culture Monday, May 10, 2016.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yasonna H. Laoly said that the prison
sentence for rapists and sexual offenders will be extended from 15 years to 20
years. Some rapists and offenders can also be given life sentences.
"They may also be given the death penalty if the victim dies," Yasonna said.
Meanwhile, Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Puan
Maharani said that the identity of sex offenders will also be revealed to the
public. "So that the public knows that the offenders have committed an inhumane
crime," said Puan.
Yasona said that that only adult rapists and sex offenders will have their
identities revealed to the public. The identities of offenders who are still
minors when they committed the crime will be kept private.
The government will also impose social sanctions to enhance the deterrent
effect and provide shock therapy. "We are still discussing the technicalities
of this social punishment," Puan said.
During their sentences, the criminals will be guided and rehabilitated to
prevent them from repeating their crimes.
The coordination meeting this morning also discussed the possibility of
castrating sexual offenders and rapists. No decisions have been made regarding
this idea.
Puan said the meeting was held in response to the rampant cases of rape and
sexual assaults. The most recent case is one that took the life of a
14-year-old girl in Bengkulu, who was gang-raped and killed by her assaulters.
The police have arrested 12 suspects. 2 others are still at large. 7 suspects
are currently being tried in court.
(source: tempo.co)
*********************
Preparations for Next Round of Death Penalty on Track: A-G Prasetyo
Preparations ahead of the 3rd round of executions are on track with 14 death
row inmates on the list, Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo said on Monday.
"Preparations [of execution] have been conducted and the legal base as well. We
just need to choose the time," Prasetyo told reporters.
The Attorney General's Office, however, is still keeping the dates of
executions and the names of inmates secret, although it is believed the round
will take place this year.
"We never said it would stop. The executions will be continued, but are yet to
name the time," he said.
The 3rd round was expected to take place early this year but was postponed due
to budget issues within the AGO.
Unconfirmed reports have said 14 death-row inmates have been included in the
list, including 10 foreigners.
While the list of inmates in this round of execution is still unclear, the AGO
has collected the list of foreign death convicts.
As reported by Vivanews, they are Ozias Sibanda and Federik Luttar of Zimbabwe;
Okonwo Nonso Kingsley, Humphrey Ejike, Ek Fere Dike Ole Kamala, Michael Titus
Igweh, Eugene Ape, Obina Nwajagu, Stephen Rasheed, Ken Michael and Jhon
Sebastian of Nigeria; Gurdip Singh of India; Zulfikar Ali of Pakistan; Kamjai
Khong and Bunyong Khaosa of Thailand and Emmanuel Iherjika of Sierra Leone.
The list also includes Tham Tuck Yen, Lim Jit Wee, Leong Kim Ping, Tan Cho Hee,
Lee Cee Heen, E Wee Hock and Kweh Teik Choon of Malaysia; Zhang Manquan, Chen
Hongxin, Jian Yuxin, Gan Chunyi and Zhu Xuxiong of China; Nicolaas Garnick and
Siegfried Mets of Holland; Frank Amando of United States; Gareth Done Cashmore
and Lindsay June Sandifor of England; Akbar Chakan of Iran and Seck Osmone of
Senegal.
Last year, most of the executed inmates were foreigners, prompting a wave of
international condemnation of Indonesia's use of capital punishment as well as
diplomatic pressure from many countries.
After the executions, Australia temporarily recalled its ambassador to
Indonesia following the execution of Bali Nine duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew
Chan.
(source: Jakarta Globe)
NIGERIA:
Will death penalty end kidnapping?
In 2 months last year, there were 225 kidnap cases in 23 states. In October
alone, there were 108 kidnappings and sea piracy in 24 states, with 180
victims, including 26 foreigners. Alarmed, the Senate has proposed capital
punishment for kidnappers. Can this stem the tide? ROBERT EGBE writes.
"I slept on the bare floor inside the bush throughout. My abductors covered
their faces and changed locations as they moved about four times daily to avoid
arrest. I had severe backache; I was drenched in the rain and was fed only
bread and soft drink."----Chief Olu Falae (77), narrating his 4-day experience
in a kidnapper's den last September.
Numbers do not lie. Or do they? In its Global Kidnap Review 2016, NYA
International, a crisis prevention and response group, listed Nigeria 10th
among "severe threat countries" for kidnapping.
The top 5 countries on the list are Libya, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of
Congo and Somalia, all are torn or recovering from a war.
NYA said last year, "severe" kidnapping was perpetrated by the Boko Haram sect
in Nigeria; there was also politically-motivated abduction of high-profile
nationals.
The group added: "There has, however, been an increase in wealthy, prominent
victims, indicating a shift towards criminally-motivated kidnappings.
"The line between piracy and kidnapping has become increasingly blurred as
wealthy locals are increasingly being targeted."
A report by Reuters in February said at least 2 persons are kidnapped each
month. It identified the kidnap hubs to include the Niger Delta "with the
threat from both militants and armed gangs."
It continued: "Ransoms for foreign nationals range from $28,000 to $204,000,
with ransom payments for Nigerians generally less than $100,000. Time spent in
captivity is varied, with the longest period some 465 days."
At the 18th African Reinsurance Forum of African Insurance Organisation (AIO)
hosted by the Insurance Institute of Mauritius in 2012, Nigeria was designated
as the global capital for kidnap for ransom. AIO said: "The number of kidnaps
for ransom in Africa continued to increase. In the 1st half of 2011, Africa's
proportion of the global total increased from 23 % in 2010 to 34 %. Nigeria is
now the kidnap for ransom capital of the world, accounting for 1/4 of globally
reported cases."
It said there was an upsurge in the demand for terrorism insurance to provide
financial cover in the event of a kidnap.
On April 15, 2014, perhaps Nigeria's most high profile kidnap incident occurred
with the abduction of 276 female students by Boko Haram; 219 of them are yet to
be found.
Also abducted were Mike Ozekhome (SAN) (August 23, 2013), Mrs. Toyin Nwosu, the
wife of Mr Steven Nwosu, Deputy Managing Director, The Sun Newspaper; Sheikh
Adam Idoko, Deputy Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for
Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), who was kidnapped in Ogrute Enugu-Ezike on September
3.
Last September 21, national leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and
1-time presidential candidate Chief Olu Falae was also abducted, while last
Tuesday, former Minister of State for Education Senator Iyabo Anisulowo
regained her freedom after 7 days with her abductors. A leading Nollywood
actor, Pete Edochie, was also kidnapped, as well as wife of Supreme Court
Justice, Doyin Rhodes-Vivour.
Death penalty for kidnappers?
In response to the surge, 7 states - Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu
and Imo enacted laws making kidnapping punishable by death.
They have since been joined by Cross River, Kogi, Bayelsa, and Edo States.
The 1st capital punishment convictions for kidnapping were recorded last Friday
in Ebonyi State, when an Abakaliki High Court sentenced 2 persons, Onyemachi
Oge and Okechukwu Oma, to death by hanging for kidnapping a medical doctor.
Justice Eze Udu found them guilty of abducting Dr. Chuka Manyike of the
Paediatrics Department, Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, on May 5, 2013,
at his private hospital at 15, Owerri Street, Abakaliki.
They were said to have received N200,000 from the N3 million ransom that was
paid before the doctor was released after 6 days in captivity.
This action by the states is soon to be replicated at federal level with the
resolution by the Senate on May 4, to enact a countrywide legislation
prescribing the death penalty for kidnappers.
The resolution followed the submission and consideration of the report of its
Joint Committee on Police Affairs, National Security and Intelligence on the
"unfortunate recurrence of kidnapping and hostage-taking in Nigeria."
The recommendation for death penalty was recommended by Senator Adamu Aliero
(APC-Kebbi Central) in respect of a motion on the recurrence of kidnapping and
hostage-taking in Nigeria, entitled: "A National Wake-Up Call".
Senators were outraged that kidnapping and hostage-taking, which used to be a
problem in the Southsouth and Southeast, were becoming widespread.
The report observed that between October and November 2015, there were 225
recorded kidnap cases recorded in 23 states across the country with over N85m
ransom demanded and N28m paid by victims.
Earlier in the presentation of the report, Chairman of the Joint Committee,
Senator Abu Ibrahim, relying on another report by the Department of State
Security (DSS) stated that in October 2015, there were a total of 108 kidnap
and sea piracy incidents in 24 states where 180 victims, including 26
foreigners, were involved.
The Senate also asked state governments that had not done so to enact laws that
would prosecute kidnappers in their jurisdiction
However, until the Act is passed, only Houses of Assembly can enact laws on
kidnapping since it is not on the exclusive list of the Nigerian Constitution.
Global practices
Can death penalty deter kidnapping in Nigeria? It is possible, if the Singapore
example is anything to go by.
The United States, Singapore, Taiwan, and St. Kitts & Nevis prescribed death
for the offence of kidnapping, just like China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi
Arabia.
Under the US Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932, if the victim is physically harmed
in any manner during a kidnap, the crime could qualify for capital punishment.
In Singapore, executing kidnapers is legal. The country's Kidnapping Act of
1961 designates abduction, wrongful restraint or wrongful confinement for
ransom as capital offences.
According to a January 12, 2014 publication by online news agency, Asia One,
quoting Singaporean, The New Paper, kidnapping was rare in the city-state
because of the stiff penalty.
In the report titled: "Kidnapping rare because of death penalty", it quoted
criminal lawyers, who explained that people were rarely abducted in the country
because of the tough laws.
They also noted that Singapore's small size could also be another deterrent, as
it makes it difficult to hold someone hostage for a long time.
Singapore's Parliamentary Reports of October 23, 2007 also quoted Senior
Minister of State for Law and Home Affairs Ho Peng Kee as saying that a study
had shown that "95 % of Singaporeans feel that the death penalty should stay."
Govt proposes special court
Last Friday, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption (PACAC)
Chairman Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) said the Federal Government is set to create a
special court to speedily try certain offenses, including kidnapping.
He spoke in Abuja at an Anti-Corruption Summit organised by the Federal
Ministry of Justice in conjunction with a group, Open Society Initiative for
West Africa (OSIWA) and ONE Africa.
Sagay said his committee had completed the draft of a Bill for the
establishment of special court. He said the draft, which is being taken through
the required legal processes, will aid the establishment of the special court
to deal with the special cases speedily.
Alternative view
Head of Department, Jurisprudence and International Law, University of Lagos
(UNILAG) Dr. Adedayo Ayoade feels the Senate's proposal might be a knee jerk
reaction.
He said: "Politicians tend to panic whenever there???s a problem, when they
should think very carefully about the issues and then try to resolve it.
"Making kidnapping a capital offence will not solve the problem because they
are dealing with a society where there are significant social issues that allow
for kidnapping; wide income gap, deep poverty, deteriorating economic
situation, very porous and poor security environment."
Ayoade urged the senators to channel their energies "towards solving the
nation's problems by showing good example, letting us know how much they earn
and by not spending so much money on themselves.":
"Things like these are more likely to have a longer time effect on the nation
this issue of capital offence," he said.
He added: "If you go to those places where the houses of kidnappers are
destroyed, pulling down their homes once they are caught; has it resolved the
problem?
"So, the death penalty for kidnapping won't solve the problem at all. They're
just trying to show that they are busy, but unfortunately they are very busy in
the wrong direction."
On the proposal for kidnapping to be included in the jurisdiction of the
proposed special court, National President, Committee for the Defence of Human
Rights (CDHR) Malachy Ugwummadu expressed reservations.
He warned the government to avoid over-regulating the society.
Ugwummadu said: "On the call for special court, we must try, particularly those
of us in the legal community must help to ensure that our country is not over
regulated, and that we don't proliferate these courts.
"We're talking of special courts for robbery, corruption, kidnapping, special
courts for child abuse etc. With respect, that is not how to run a society. We
must deal with the fundamental causes of these vices, so as to make their
occurrence impossible."
He added that "instead of looking in the direction of special courts, let us
first consider deploying the state's energy in reviving the security apparatus
of the country.
"There will be serious disincentive for some of these crimes if you kidnap and
you are arrested in the next 48 hours. The business will completely disappear.
"But if you kidnap and after one month you are still waxing strong and
collecting money randomly from people, it'll mean that there's a market for
it."
Ugwummadu said only the government could provide the kind of disincentive that
is necessary.
"It comes from the government through the security agents, and the Constitution
of Nigeria under Section 14(2)(c) is that the welfare and security of the
people shall be the primary responsibility of government."
(source: thenationonline.ng)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 09:58:34 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 09:58:34 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] Actions against imminent executions in Indonesia and
Bangladesh
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605100958090.8956@15-11017.smu.edu>
Bangladesh: The Supreme Court has rejected the appeal against its ruling,
upholding the death
sentence against Motiur Rahman Nizami, the leader of the political party
Jamaat-e-Islami. All legal
appeals have now been exhausted and his only remaining option is to seek
clemency from the
President. He has been moved to Dhaka Central Jail and is execution is
imminent:
http://bit.ly/1NlqyYI
Indonesia: Three death row prisoners were moved on 8 May to Indonesia?s
Nusakambangan prison island,
where 13 executions were carried out in 2015. On 10 May, the Attorney General
confirmed to the media
that another round of executions will be carried out soon:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa21/4008/2016/en/
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 14:52:30 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 14:52:30 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., COLO., CALIF., ORE.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605101452190.8740@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 10
FLORIDA:
Defense to file 30 death penalty motions in James Rhodes case----Man accused of
killing 20-year-old cellphone store clerk set for trial in August
Defense attorneys for a man accused of gunning down a Metro PCS clerk in 2013
will present about 30 motions to the court regarding the death penalty before
the trial begins in August.
James Rhodes' public defender has repeatedly tried to get the state to accept a
plea deal with Rhodes that would take the death penalty off the table. Police
said that after several hours of questioning, Rhodes confessed.
Police said Farah was found dead after officers responded to a report of an
armed robbery at the store on Main Street near 21st Street.
Police said Rhodes pointed a gun at the 20-year-old and demanded money. They
said she cooperated and after she handed him the last bit of money, he fired 4
rounds, killing her.
In March, Judge Tatiana Salvador set Aug. 29 as the date for jury selection in
the trial. The final pretrial date will be Aug. 22.
There will be a pretrial hearing at 1:30 pm. July 11 to discuss dozens of
motions by the defense regarding the death penalty.
Rhodes' trial had been set to begin May 2, but it was pushed back because of
new state legislation on the death penalty.
Gov. Rick Scott signed into law in March a measure designed to fix the state's
death penalty sentencing process after it was found unconstitutional by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
The new law, which went into effect immediately, would require at least 10
jurors to recommend death for the penalty to be imposed.
(source: news4jax.com)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Alabama judge denies stay of execution for death row inmate Vernon Madison
In an order issued Monday evening and filed in online court records Tuesday,
Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert H. Smith dismissed Madison's petition
seeking a stay of execution.
The judge noted in the order that the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals is
currently reviewing the state's death penalty statute, in light of the U.S.
Supreme Court's Hurst v. Florida decision.
Attorneys for an Alabama death row inmate are asking a judge to stay his
execution set for Thursday and resentence him to life without parole based on
recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
Vernon Madison, now 65, was charged and convicted in the April 18, 1985,
slaying of police Officer Julius Schulte, who was responding to a domestic
disturbance call.
He had 3 trials because state appellate courts twice sent the case back to
Mobile County, 1st for a violation based on race-based jury selection and later
based on improper testimony from an expert witness for the prosecution.
He was convicted in a 3rd trial in 1994. The jury then recommended a sentence
of life without parole, but Mobile County Circuit Judge Ferrill McRae overrode
the decision and sentenced him to death.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that Florida's
scheme allowing judges to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in death
penalty cases was unconstitutional. The decision prompted Florida's legislature
to rewrite its capital punishment sentencing law.
Alabama has a similar sentencing scheme, though the attorney general's office
has noted that it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995.
In another ruling issued May 2, the Supreme Court granted review of the case of
Alabama death row inmate Bart Johnson. It was the 1st Alabama case challenging
the state's capital murder sentencing scheme to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme
Court since Hurst was decided.
Attorneys from the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative represent both
Johnson and Madison.
They argue that the Johnson decision is critical to Madison's case. That
ruling, handed down after Madison's execution date was set, has "raised
fundamental questions about the constitutionality of the use of judicial
override in Alabama," they argue.
"This ruling implicates all (capital) cases in Alabama," Bryan Stevenson,
founder and executive director of EJI, said last week. "We have argued that
Alabama's statute no longer conforms to current constitutional requirements.
The Court's ruling today supports that view."
The attorney general argues that the Johnson decision "does not strike down or
invalidate Alabama's death penalty sentencing scheme," but instead orders a
state appellate court to reconsider the facts of that specific case in light of
Hurst.
"Alabama's current death-penalty statute, under which Madison was sentenced,
has never been struck down by the United States Supreme Court," state attorneys
argue in court documents.
On May 5, Madison's attorneys asked the Alabama Supreme Court to not only stay
his execution but also reconsider the state's death penalty sentencing scheme
in light of the decisions.
The attorney general opposed the stay and argued that Madison's claim must
first be made in circuit court, under Alabama law.
On May 6, the Alabama Supreme Court denied Madison's request.
His attorneys put forth the same arguments in a petition filed Monday in Mobile
County Circuit Court. They say his death sentence is unconstitutional, in light
of the Hurst and Johnson rulings, and ask Judge Robert H. Smith to resentence
him to life without parole.
"Because Alabama's death penalty sentencing scheme has exactly the same defect
that was declared unconstitutional in Hurst, it is no longer viable," they
wrote in the filing. "More specifically, there is a serious question as to
whether Alabama's judicial override system can sustain when the very precedent
upon which it is based has been overruled by Hurst."
The attorney general countered with several filings arguing that the appeal was
filed outside the 1-year window after the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals
entered its judgment in July 1998, and that the claim could have been raised on
direct appeal.
Madison, who has been on death row since Nov. 12, 1985, is one of Alabama's
longest-serving death row inmates.
Over the years, he has filed numerous state and federal appeals that have been
denied, including denials by the Alabama Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme
Court to review the case.
During an April 14 competency hearing, testimony showed that Madison has had
several strokes and suffers from serious dementia. His severe mental decline
rendered him incompetent to be executed, his attorneys argued.
Smith later issued a ruling denying the stay of execution.
Last week, Madison's attorneys filed a request for an emergency stay in U.S.
District Court in the Southern District of Alabama.
Attorneys for the state filed a response asking the federal court to allow the
execution to go forward as scheduled. They say Madison did not exhaust his
state appeals before filing the federal petition and that his attorneys have
not proven he lacks a rational understanding of the state's move to execute
him.
(source: al.com)
COLORADO:
Competency hearing to resume for accused Colorado clinic gunman
The man who proclaimed himself a "warrior for the babies" after a fatal
shooting spree at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado last year was due
back in court on Tuesday for the continuation of a hearing on his mental state.
During a daylong hearing last month, 2 state psychologists testified that their
evaluation of Robert Lewis Dear, 58, found him delusional and unfit to stand
trial for the Colorado Springs rampage that left 3 dead and 9 wounded.
El Paso County judge Gilbert Martinez ordered the mental evaluation of Dear in
December after the South Carolina native insisted on firing his attorney and
representing himself in a case stemming from the first fatal attack on a U.S.
abortion provider since 2009.
Dear, who has insisted he is competent, declared himself guilty and a "warrior
for the babies" in previous courtroom outbursts.
If Martinez rules Dear unfit - meaning he is incapable of understanding the
proceedings and assisting in his own defense - the case will be suspended and
he will be sent back to a state hospital where doctors will seek to restore him
to competency.
The 1st of 2 psychologists to testify on April 28, Jackie Grimmett, said Dear
appeared to be suffering from a delusional disorder, possessing a factual but
not rational understanding of the criminal proceedings.
Her colleague, B. Thomas Gray, concurred that Dear was delusional, saying the
defendant "intends to plead guilty unless God tells him differently."
A police detective who took the stand recounted Dear telling police after his
arrest that he believed he was being followed by 10 federal agents the day of
the shooting.
As the proceeding wore on, Dear repeatedly interjected, at one point telling
the judge, "If you find me incompetent, I'll know you're with them."
Dear has been held without bond since surrendering at the end of a bloody
5-hour siege on Nov. 27 at the Planned Parenthood center, where police said he
opened fire outside the building then stormed inside.
Among those killed were 2 people who happened to be in the clinic's waiting
area - a U.S. Army veteran and a mother of two - as well as a police officer.
Dear, charged with 1st degree murder, attempted murder and assault, has not
formally entered a plea. Prosecutors have yet to say whether they intend to
seek the death penalty if he were convicted.
(source: Reuters)
CALIFORNIA:
Our Fears Confirmed: Proposed Lethal Injection Regulations Fraught with Deep
and Troubling Flaws
On Nov. 6, 2015, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR) published proposed regulations for its new single-drug lethal injection
protocol. This triggered an important opportunity for the public to comment in
accordance with California's Administrative Procedures Act. In order to give
the public a chance to provide meaningful comment, the ACLU had previously
submitted Public Records Act (PRA) requests to obtain information. The CDCR,
however, refused to produce the records, forcing us to go to court.
After several extensions and months of withholding the records, the court ruled
in March that the CDCR must disclose more than 800 documents (approximately
12,000 pages). The agency still refused and opted to extend the public comment
period in order to continue litigating the case.
Finally, last week, the CDCR exhausted all legal remedies and was forced to
turn documents over. The documents can be viewed in this file.
The documents provide a wealth of information about the CDCR's development of
its proposed lethal injection protocol. An initial review of the documents
confirms the ACLU's concerns about deep, troubling flaws in the proposed
regulations. For example, the CDCR's regulatory notice vastly understates the
true cost of resuming executions. In addition, the regulations fail to explain
how CDCR will acquire the lethal injection drugs, or to set forth any protocols
that will ensure the acquisition does not violate federal and state laws
governing controlled substances. Finally, the regulations contain no safeguards
to prevent gruesome botched executions in California, as have occurred all too
often in other states.
The newly released documents corroborate our concerns about the proposed
regulations and demonstrate, among other things, the following:
1. The CDCR grossly understates the cost of procuring drugs.
In the proposed regulatory package, the CDCR stated that the cost of procuring
drugs will be around $4,193 per execution, based on the need for 60 grams per
execution and the cost of a previous purchase of sodium thiopental. But the new
documents reveal that the CDCR knows it may have to spend much more. 1 email
states that a particular compounding pharmacy will charge the CDCR $500,000 for
an initial 200 gram order - or $2,500 per gram. Another email discusses a
source that proposed to charge $1,109 for 500mg (or half a gram) of
pentobarbital (one of the drugs in the proposed regulations) - or $2,218 per
gram. At these prices, the drugs for each execution (60 grams) would cost CDCR
between $133,080 and $150,000, not $4,193. These documents clearly demonstrate
that the CDCR's fiscal analysis radically understates the true cost of the
proposed regulations.
2. CDCR has been unrepentant about flouting federal law and considered
importing foreign drugs, again.
In 2012, the FDA demanded that CDCR return its supply of imported sodium
thiopental because the FDA determined that the CDCR's supply was illegal. The
CDCR responded to the FDA's demand by refusing to surrender its stash of
illegal drugs, blatantly ignoring this command by a federal agency.
Shockingly, the documents reveal that the CDCR again considered acquiring drugs
from foreign sources, even after the FDA demanded in 2012 that it surrender its
illegal, foreign-manufactured drugs. Included in the documents is an email from
the CDCR's lethal injection consultant to a key CDCR attorney providing
information about an online company in the UK that supplies Nembutal
(Pentobarbitol), one of the drugs authorized for use in the proposed
regulations. In the email, the consultant writes: "We could do it again ..."
CDCR has simply refused to acknowledge that it has run afoul of federal drug
laws in the past, making the lack of safeguards to ensure legal compliance in
the proposed regulations all the more worrying. For example, a key CDCR
attorney in charge of developing the CDCR's regulations wrote in 2014: "CA is
the only state that did everything properly via the FDA and DEA for importation
and acquisition." This is a remarkable statement in light of CDCR's stubborn
flouting of the FDA's 2012 demand to hand over its illegal supply of lethal
injection drugs.
3. CDCR considered very troubling drug sources.
It is critical that CDCR acquire an FDA-approved product through lawful
distribution channels. History demonstrates that states have run afoul of
federal controlled substances laws in acquiring lethal injection drugs. (A
federal court of appeals previously enjoined the importation and release of
unapproved foreign-manfactured lethal injection drugs.) Yet the consultant
retained by CDCR specifically to help develop its lethal injection protocol
proposed a number of troubling sources, including an online pharmacy that
boasts about offering "cheap" pentobarbital without a prescription and a
compounding pharmacy that specializes in prescriptions for animals. The FDA has
been cracking down on online pharmacies that sell controlled substances without
a prescription, because they essentially sell illegal drugs for illicit use.
4. CDCR officials dismissed the seriousness of botched executions in other
states and demonstrated a troubling indifference to their possibility in
California.
When the current proposed regulations and corresponding rulemaking file were
issued in November of 2015, we were concerned that they failed to outline
procedures that could prevent botched executions in California. In addition, it
was clear that the CDCR failed to study botched executions in states like
Arizona, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Georgia.
Documents show that CDCR officials not only failed to study botched executions
elsewhere, they denied that gruesome executions in other states were, in fact,
botched. For example, the CDCR attorney tasked with overseeing the development
of the regulations commented that news coverage of a horrific execution in
Ohio, in which an inmate gasped for air for 25 minutes, was just "a big hoopla"
and "beyond ridiculous." She dismissed media reports, insisting that "[w]hat
they witnessed was snoring." In addition, the consultant forwarded to CDCR a
news article of a botched execution in Florida that included graphic photos of
chemical burns and extensive "skin slippage" on the inmate's body. Commenting
"I do not know where or how they got these pictures!", the consultant
apparently harbored deep concerns that the media was able to secure photos, but
expressed none about what actually happened to the inmate. The CDCR's response
to the news article similarly reflected no concern about what happened in
Florida or how to prevent the same tragedy in California.
California has a sordid history with the death penalty, which CDCR has only
exacerbated by aggressively fighting to keep secret its activities related to
lethal injection. As the ACLU and as members of the public, we must continue to
demand government transparency and accountability. Government abuses of power
when it comes to the death penalty are completely unacceptable.
(source: Linda Lye is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern
California. Ana Zamora is the ACLU of Northern California's Criminal Justice
Policy Director----aclunc.org)
OREGON:
Death Penalty Affirmed for Oregon Bomb-Makers
A father-son duo who killed two police officers in a 2008 bank bombing had
their convictions and death penalties upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.
Joshua Turnidge and his father, Bruce, were each convicted of aggravated murder
for the bombing at a bank in Woodburn.
As quoted in the May 5 decision, a Wells Fargo teller who answered the phone on
Dec. 12, 2008, heard a voice say, "If you value your life and the life of your
employees, you need to [redacted] get out because I'm going to kill you, you
[redacted] are all going to die."
The caller told the teller to evacuate the bank and pick up a cell phone left
outside in a plastic bag for further instructions. The teller called 911 and
the police and bomb squad arrived.
They found the phone and determined it was not an explosive device.
However, the caller had also mentioned a similar attack on a nearby West Coast
Bank branch. A detective found a large metal box in the bushes there.
When the bank and landscaper said they were not familiar with the box, the bomb
squad was called to the scene. Trooper William Hakim of the Oregon State Police
called the box "a very good hoax device."
It was a rainy day, and the bank had closed. Hakim took the device inside the
bank to dismantle it. He used a hammer and crowbar to open the box.
"There, I got it," he said.
1 second later, the box exploded.
Hakim and Capt. Thomas Tennant of the Woodburn Police Department died. 2 other
officers were injured, with 1 losing his right leg.
Investigators learned where the bombers bought the TracPhones and airtime
cards. A Wal-Mart surveillance video led the police to a license-bureau photo
of Joshua Turnidge.
After arresting Joshua, police searched his father Bruce's property. They found
tools in the pole barn that could have been used to build the bomb.
Investigators learned from the Turnidges' friends and associates that Bruce had
spoken in the past about bank robbery scenarios, including the use of
explosives as a diversion.
A friend of the younger Turnidge said that many years earlier, Joshua had told
him that he had called in a bomb threat to a bank that was near the 2 banks
involved in the explosion.
In addition, Joshua's former fianc???e said that he and his father had reacted
in a "jubilant" manner to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Also, at the time of the Oregon bombing, the Turnidges' biodiesel business was
not turning a profit.
During the trial, Joshua testified that his father had planned, constructed and
detonated the bomb. Bruce did not testify in his defense.
The trial court convicted both Turnidges of aggravated murder, conspiracy,
assault and unlawful manufacture and possession of a destructive device.
Both were sentenced to death, and the Oregon Supreme Court upheld the
convictions in opinions written by Senior Justice Pro Tempore Virginia Linder.
Joshua argued that the trial court should have severed his trial from that of
his father, but in her May 5 opinion, Linder stated that a joint trial was not
"clearly inappropriate."
Also, Joshua stated that the destruction of jury questionnaires violated his
due process rights. Linder disagreed.
"Both parties had an opportunity to object to the representation (to the
jurors) that the questionnaires would be destroyed; neither party did," Linder
noted.
She also refuted Joshua's argument that the trial court should not have
admitted testimony about his previously phoned-in bomb threat to another bank.
Linder wrote that the state sought to establish that the threat was a "trial
run" for the bombing that took place 13 years later.
"That theory of logical relevance is bolstered in the context of other evidence
that the state introduced, without objection, about defendant's prior
statements about robbing banks," she stated.
The Turnidges' views were also relevant evidence, according to Linder.
"The fact that defendant held vehement anti-government, anti-establishment, and
anti-law enforcement views supplied evidence of his motive for his
participation in the ultimate explosion that killed and injured law enforcement
officers," she wrote.
In a separate opinion confirming Bruce's conviction, Linder wrote that evidence
of his views, which date back 30 years, were also properly admitted.
"Evidence of defendant's anti-government sentiments and activities, his desires
to form anti-government militias, his celebration of the Oklahoma City bombing,
and his infatuation with the idea of killing police officers at a police
memorial all logically supported the state's theory of why defendant engaged in
the bombing," she wrote.
The Turnidges did not challenge their death sentences, which the Oregon Supreme
Court also affirmed. However, according to the Salem Statesman-Journal, Oregon
has had a moratorium on executions since 2011.
(source: Courthousenews.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 10 14:53:20 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 10 May 2016 14:53:20 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605101453120.8740@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 10
TAIWAN----execution
Taiwan executes subway killer
Taiwan on Tuesday executed a former college student who killed 4 people in a
random stabbing spree on a subway 2 years ago, in an attack which horrified the
generally peaceful island.
Cheng Chieh, 23, was anaesthetised then shot 3 times by a firing squad at a
jail outside Taipei a little before 9pm (9pm Singapore time), deputy justice
minister Chen Ming-tang told reporters.
"Death was the only way to show publically that justice had been served and to
relieve the sorrow and pain of victims' families," he said.
Cheng was sentenced to death last year for killing 4 people and injuring
another 22, in the first fatal attack on the capital's subway system since it
launched in 1996.
His execution surprised many, however, as it came less than 3 weeks after the
supreme court upheld the death sentence despite last-ditch efforts by rights
groups.
Among the victims of the attack in May 2014 was a man named Hsieh Ching-yun.
His mother said she was "glad" Cheng had been executed.
"Losing my son is a pain that will last forever, for the rest of my life," she
told the TVBS cable news network.
Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Cheng, saying psychological
evaluations showed that he was not suffering from any mental disorder when he
committed the crime.
Cheng, who pleaded guilty to the charges, was expelled by his university after
the attack and was described by prosecutors as "anti-society, narcissistic,
immature and pessimistic".
Local media said he had been obsessed with gory online games and had written
horror stories.
Cheng's parents had asked for him to be sentenced to death, calling their son's
actions "unforgivable".
The incident shocked Taiwan, otherwise proud of its low levels of violent
crime, and resulted in several minor injuries as edgy commuters fled trains
over false alarms in the following week.
There are currently 42 prisoners on death row in Taiwan, all of whom will face
a firing squad when they are executed.
Hundreds of Taiwanese rallied in April (2016) to show support for retaining the
death penalty after the beheading of a four-year-old girl on March 28 near a
Taipei metro station.
The attack was carried out by 33-year-old man who had previously been arrested
for drug-related crimes and had sought treatment for mental illness.
Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. But
executions are reserved for the most serious crimes such as aggravated murder
and kidnapping.
Some politicians and rights groups have called for its abolition, but various
opinion surveys show majority support for the death penalty.
In 2012 the murder of a 10-year-old boy in a playground reignited debate over
the death penalty, after the suspect reportedly said he was anticipating free
board and lodging in jail and would get a life sentence at most even if he were
to kill 2 or 3 people.
(source: straitstimes.com)
PHILIPPINES:
New President should break cycle of human rights violations, not compound them
If President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is serious about introducing change in the
Philippines, he must turn his back on the history of human rights violations
and end the prevailing culture of impunity, Amnesty International said today.
Rodrigo Duterte, the former Mayor of Davao city, is set to become the
newly-elected President of the Philippines after leading the voting in the 9
May 2016 election. Duterte's principal rivals have conceded defeat.
"If Rodrigo Duterte is serious about bringing change to the Philippines, he
should address the dire human rights situation in the country and put an end to
extrajudicial executions, unlawful arrests, secret detention as well as torture
and other ill-treatment," said Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International???s
Director for South East Asia and the Pacific.
During the course of the presidential election campaign, Duterte has issued a
series of inflammatory statements that, if enacted, would contravene the
Philippines' international human rights obligations, including his promise to
reduce crime rates by shooting suspected criminals.
"As leader of the Philippines, the President-elect must protect and uphold
human rights, not reject them. This includes the right to life, due process and
fair trial," said Rafendi Djamin.
"The way to bring about true and lasting change for the Philippines is by
putting in place robust, transparent and accountable mechanisms to bring about
an end to longstanding human rights violations. Threatening to introduce a
culture of impunity, as Rodrigo Duterte has done in recent weeks, will only
exacerbate the problems that he campaigned to resolve."
Background: First 100 days
In November 2015, Amnesty International published a human rights agenda for the
Philippines' next President outlining 5 areas which should be top of their
human rights agenda in their first 100 days. These include:
Putting an end to extrajudicial executions, unlawful arrests, secret detention,
enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment.
Issue an executive order that clearly states the administration's commitment to
prioritize putting a stop to the practice of enforced disappearances and
extrajudicial executions in the country.
Ensure immediate and effective implementation of Administrative Order 35
guidelines to address torture and other ill-treatment, extrajudicial executions
and enforced disappearances.
Create and prioritize a viable presidential commission to review all cases of
extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances, including victims of
vigilante groups such as the Davao Death Squad.
Establish control and accountability over the military, police and other
state-sponsored forces, and ensure witness protection.
Revoke Executive Order 546, which directs the Philippine National Police to
support the military in its counterinsurgency work, including through the use
of militias and paramilitary groups.
Ensure that the military exercises full control over all state-sponsored
militias and paramilitary groups, and that the Department of National Defense
clearly define and differentiate their purposes, chain of command and
accountability mechanisms, or otherwise disarm and disband them.
Disarm and disband all private armies.
Implement through an executive order a clear and transparent mechanism that
prevents the appointment or promotion of persons who face allegations or have
records of grave human rights abuses from the Commission on Human Rights to
senior levels of government, law enforcement and the judiciary, as well as for
the provincial, regional and national command posts for the military.
Ensure the safe and voluntary return of the displaced, and embed human rights
protection in the peace process.
Order the relevant Departments to take stock of the current situation of
long-term displaced populations in Mindanao due to conflict and disasters, and
ensure the full compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal
Displacement.
Make human rights a priority integrated across government bodies.
Declare as a presidential priority bill the charter of the Commission on Human
Rights in the Philippines, facilitating its approval in both legislative
branches;
Through an executive order, integrate all human rights principles into
government policies and practices.
Ratify key treaties on human rights and international humanitarian law.
Immediately sign the Optional Protocol of the International Convention on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to facilitate the process of ratification
within the new administration's term;
Immediately sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearances as a step towards ratification; and, Immediately
ratify the international Arms Trade Treaty.
Duterte was the only candidate who did not provide a response to the agenda.
(source: Amnesty International)
***********
Larry Henares on Duterte's popularity and death penalty
Inquirer's editorial "Losing grace" (Opinion, 4/28/16) ended thus: "Well, no.
But every day we lose grace. We have a presidential contender who treats rape
as a joke and won't apologize for it. He remains acceptable - and actually
enjoys wide, even delighted, support for all his misogynist views. It's very
telling of how women and girls are regarded in this proudly Christian nation."
First of all it is not true that the presidential contender who treated rape as
a joke did not apologize for it; he did so after a fashion, but was not
forgiven by most people who were scandalized by it. It was not "his misogynist
views" that got him acceptance and "wide, even delighted support" from the
electorate. It was his carefully cultivated reputation for being hard on
criminals, especially rapists, drug pushers and murderers, that endeared him to
the voters ahead of all the other candidates who are perceived to be
traditional politicians (trapo), spineless and inutile. Apparently the voters
did not mind Duterte's bad jokes and foul mouth, as long as he can keep our
women safe from rapists and our citizens free of criminals operating with
impunity.
Secondly, I believe that Duterte is right in telling the Australian and
American ambassadors to "shut up and stop interfering with our domestic
affairs," knowing that for a long time Australian low-types have been setting
up seedy bars in the Philippines, where Filipino women are offered as door
prizes and for auctions; that many Australians come to the Philippines as sex
tourists and pedophiles; that Australian husbands murder their Filipino wives 6
times more frequently than they kill their Australian wives; that Australian
whites descended from criminals exiled from London, and who subsequently
committed genocide on the dark aborigines and the dodo birds.
Also, Duterte was told that the US ambassador to the Philippines, Philip
Goldberg, is from the intelligence (read: spying) community of the US state
department and who as ambassador to Bolivia, was thrown out of the country for
financing the opposition and interfering in domestic affairs; he is also
rumored to have visited the Iglesia ni Cristo to threaten them with a tax case
in the United States if they supported Duterte's candidacy. Duterte does not
like him.
Thirdly, I have changed a lot from my days as a "bleeding heart" against the
death penalty and concerned about the rehabilitation of criminals. I believe in
justice; love you have to earn; mercy you have to beg for; but justice, you can
demand as a matter of right! Fiat justitia, ruat coelum! Let justice be done,
though the heavens fall! Upon this principle Rome built a civilization that
lasted for a thousand years.
Finally, I believe that victims are more entitled to justice than criminals
are. The former deserve "blood money" for restitution. Prisons do not
rehabilitate, they are schools that teach criminals to be worse criminals. Why
should we waste public money on recidivists?
Restore the death penalty for grave crimes. Restore penalties that fit the
crime: hanging, beheading, electrocution, garroting, firing squad, lethal
injection. Let criminals suffer the pain they inflict on their victims. Bury
the criminals where their remains can enrich the soil for agriculture. Solve
overpopulation.
- HILARION M. HENARES JR., Makati City
(source: Letter to the Editor, Philippine Inquirer)
BANGLADESH----execution
Bangladesh hangs Jamaat-e-Islami chief Nizami for 1971 war crimes to protect
Pakistan
Motiur Rahman Nizami has paid with his life for the carnage he unleashed on
Bengalis as the commander of Al-Badr militia to stop a secular Bangladesh being
carved out of Islamic Pakistan in 1971.
He was hung by the neck at Dhaka Central Jail in the 1st hour of Wednesday,
Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal told bdnews24.com around 12:10am.
The executive order to carry on with his execution was sent to the prison after
the Jamaat-e-Islami chief chose not to beg the president to have mercy on him,
the minister had said earlier.
Police have cordoned off the area outside the prison gate at Old Dhaka's
Nazimuddin Road as journalists and crowds gathered to witness the fate of the
fifth war criminal to be put to death for horrific atrocities in 1971.
Security had been heightened around the prison premises since Tuesday afternoon
with additional police, RAB along with plainclothesmen roaming the area.
The 73-year old Jamaat chief's brutal past caught up with him when he had
exhausted all options to get his death penalty overturned, which was handed
down by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in 2014.
The legal battle that he waged even since his arrest on Jun 29, 2010, has been
long.
He sought a review after the Supreme Court upheld the maximum sentence on Jan 6
this year but the petition was dismissed last week for having 'no merit'.
"Motiur Rahman Nizami not only co-operated with the Pakistani invading force in
committing various crimes against humanity but also masterminded the formation
of Al-Badr Bahini and was a leader of this Al-Badr Bahini," read his appeal
verdict.
He was entitled to beg pardon from the president by admitting his guilt, but
the home minister at 8:10pm on Tuesday said, "Nizami did not seek mercy. The
executive order to carry out the death sentence has been sent to the prison
authorities."
Final hours
* Senior Jail Superintendent Jahangir Kabir carries executive order to hang the
73-year-old in Dhaka Central Jail.
* Hangman Tanvir Hasan Raju arrives at the prison in an ambulance.
* Nizami is visited in the prison by 24 members of his family, including his
wife and 2 sons, for a meeting that lasted for nearly 2 hours.
* Civil Surgeon Abdul Malek Mridha and Dhaka Deputy Commissioner Md Salah Uddin
enter prison where 2 ambulances were waiting.
* Nizami is led to the hanging post from his condemned cell after being
administered 'Tauba' or 'repentance for sins' by a Moulavi.
* Arrangements are completed to bury him in his family graveyard in Monmothpur,
his village from Dhopadaha Union at Pabna's Santhia Upazila.
On Monday, the full copy of the review verdict was released and sent to the
ICT. TV cameras panned on the tribunal officials as they took documents wrapped
in red cloth to Dhaka Central Jail.
As head of Jamaat, Nizami has followed to the gallows partners in crime Ali
Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman and Abdur Quader Molla - all top
leaders of his party.
After Mujahid, he is the 2nd war criminal to be hanged for orchestrating the
abduction and killings of Bengali intellectuals for siding with the freedom
struggle.
Both had headed the Al-Badr which during the war had dubbed itself the 'Angel
of Death' for those fighting to be liberated from a repressive Pakistan.
The other charges describe Nizami assisting Pakistani soldiers in mass killing,
murders, rapes, abduction and torture in Pabna's Santhia.
He was handed life imprisonment for ordering the murders of young freedom
fighters including Shafi Imam Rumi who was being held at Nakhalparha's MP
Hostel on Aug 8, 1971.
Nizami was born on Mar 31, 1943 in Monmothpur of Santhia.
He got his Kamil degree in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) from Dhaka's
Madrasa-e-Alia in 1963.
He later graduated from the University of Dhaka in 1967.
Nizami joined Jamaat's then student wing Islami Chhatra Sangha and swiftly rose
through the ranks to become its president in 1966, a post he retained for the
following 5 years.
(source: bdnews24.com)
************
Death penalty will exist ---- Law minister tells reporters after meeting
Swedish team
Law Minister Anisul Huq yesterday said the existing laws of the country, where
provision of death penalty for serious offences were incorporated, will remain
in force.
The provision may not be included in the new laws, which will be formulated in
the future, he said while talking to reporters after a meeting with a 5-member
Sweden delegation at his secretariat office.
Swedish Minister for Justice and Migration Morgan Johansson led the delegation.
The delegation wanted to know about the progress of the trials of blogger
killings, human rights and freedom of expression, Anisul Huq said.
He said the government had taken all necessary steps to ensure quick trials for
blogger killings.
Separate cases have been filed in connection with the murders and the process
for holding trials of those cases is going on, the law minister said.
Morgan Johansson told reporters that they had requested the law minister to
ensure security for Bangladesh citizens so that they can enjoy the freedom of
expression.
The minister also said freedom of press and freedom of expression are protected
in the country.
(source: The Daily Star)
************
Execution of war criminal as per law: Anisul
Law Minister Anisul Huq on Tuesday said the execution of death penalty for the
chief of Jamaat-e-Islami party in war crimes would be taken place in accordance
with the country???s existing law.
The minister came up with the statement after a Swedish delegation met him in
Dhaka Tuesday when Bangladesh was preparing for execution of the head of
country's largest Islamic party, which opposed creation of Bangladesh during
1971 war.
Nizami is convicted of genocide, rape, forcible conversion of religion and
other crimes against humanity during Bangladesh's 9-month war with Pakistan.
The jail authorities in Dhaka are ready to execute Nizami as he refused to seek
marcy from the President.
The minister said death penalty is still in force in Bangladesh for committing
murder and rape.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has already called for the suspension of the
execution of Jamaat-e-Islami chief Matiur Rahman Nizami.
According to an another source all the necessary preparation for execution of
Nizami has been taken as main hangman Raju was brought to Dhaka from Kashimpur
jail in the afternoon.
The minister said the trial of war crimes in Bangladesh is a continuous
process. "It will continue."
On May 5, the Supreme Court dismissed the review plea of Jamaat chief Nizami
against his death verdict and he had no other choice to seek pardon from the
president.
He decided not seek presidential mercy and the jail authority can execute him
anytime.
(source: newsnextbd.com)
UGANDA:
Makerere Don Remanded Again Over Rape of Student
Law Development Centre Magistrate's Court has for the 3rd time remanded a
senior lecturer at Makerere University on charges of raping a 22-year-old
female student who was living in his garage.
Dr Christopher Bakuneta appeared before the trial magistrate, Mr Moses
Baligeya, who ordered for his further remand to Luzira prison until May 23.
This suspect's remand was prompted by State prosecutor Flavia Birungi's
assertion that investigations into the rape charges are not yet complete.
Dr Bakuneta is expected to be committed to the High Court to stand trial since
the offence he is charged with is capital in nature and a magistrate's court
has no jurisdiction to handle.
Background
Prosecution contends that Dr Bakuneta, a lecturer of zoology at the College of
Natural Science at Makerere University, on March 24 at the same institution had
sexual intercourse with Ms Vasha Ntegeka without her consent.
The student in her police statement stated that she had not locked the door of
her dwelling when Dr Bakuneta entered the garage and raped her.
However, Dr Bakuneta admitted having had sex with the victim at his office at
the Zoology Department, but said it was consensual, adding that the girl
reported the case to police as an afterthought, 2 days later.
Police spokesperson Fred Enanga, told Daily Monitor that medical tests carried
out on the suspect revealed he is HIV positive, which prompted the detectives
to amend the rape charge to aggravated rape, which attracts the death penalty
on conviction.
(source: The Monitor)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 09:43:21 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 09:43:21 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., ALA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605110943090.3700@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
TEXAS:
Texas Fighting Order to Disclose Execution Drug Supplier
More than a year after a judge ordered Texas to divulge the source of its
execution drugs, the information has not been released, legislators passed a
state law protecting the prison agency from doing so, and the lengthy appeal
that has allowed the provider to remain secret will finally be heard.
Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state, will try to persuade
an appeals court Wednesday to keep the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
from being forced to disclose who provided the lethal drugs before last Sept.
1, when the law shielding suppliers took effect.
Prison agency spokesman Jason Clark wouldn't say Tuesday whether the provider
of execution drugs then is still the supplier, reiterating that the drugs come
from a licensed compounding pharmacy that is not publicly identified. Such
pharmacies custom-make drugs for a specific client, although critics contend
they operate with less stringent regulatory scrutiny and testing standards
compared to larger drug companies.
The availability of execution drugs has become an issue in many death penalty
states, and Texas began using a compounding pharmacy as its source when
traditional pharmaceutical makers refused to sell their products to prison
agencies to be used for capital punishment. Similar lawsuits about whether
states must identify their providers have been argued in states including
Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri.
Lawyers for the two inmates originally named as plaintiffs in the Texas suit
failed to block their executions in April 2014 with arguments that the identity
of the supplier of the sedative pentobarbital was essential to verify the
product's potency so it didn't cause unconstitutional pain. Their suit, filed
under the Texas Public Information Act and now before the Austin-based 3rd
Texas Court of Appeals, argues that changes in execution methods and drugs from
"new and unreliable sources" led to botched executions in Oklahoma, Ohio and
Arizona.
Knowing the identity of the supplier also was important to ensure an execution
"comports with the Constitution and the awesome responsibility being carried
out," attorney Philip Durst said in a court brief.
Although Texas had released the name of its lethal injection drug suppliers for
years, then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is now governor, changed course
in May 2014, citing a "threat assessment" signed by Texas Department of Public
Safety director Steven McCraw. Texas law allows exceptions to the Public
Information Act if releasing certain information would cause a substantial
threat of physical harm.
The attorney general's office contended that a Texas pharmacy identified as a
previous lethal injection drug supplier received "a firestorm of hate mail,"
that prison agency officials testified to an escalation of threats related to
executions, and that McCraw warned of possible violence to and the
vulnerability of pharmacies if they're identified.
But state District Judge Darlene Byrne in Austin rejected arguments that
disclosing the provider's would be a safety risk and ruled in December 2014
that it is a matter of public record.
"What the evidence should do - and does - is demonstrate that the release of
requested information entails a substantial threat of physical harm," Richard
Farrer, an assistant Texas Solicitor General, said in a filing with the appeals
court.
"TDCJ's alleged claim of imminent violence is far-fetched," Durst said.
Since it resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982, Texas has put to
death 537 prisoners, far more than any other state. Texas also has avoided many
of the supply difficulties experienced elsewhere. Executions in Ohio are on
hold until at least next year because of the state's inability to obtain drugs.
Texas executions also have been carried out with no unusual occurrences.
The last 55 prisoners put to death in Texas have been executed with
pentobarbital, a switch from a three-drug mixture previously administered. In
the most recent 25 cases, including 6 this year, the pentobarbital has come
from a compounding pharmacy that officials will not name.
Similar legal moves have unfolded elsewhere. Virginia lawmakers have approved
Gov. Terry McAuliffe's proposal to shield the identities of pharmacies that
supply lethal drugs for executions as an attempt to address that state's drug
shortage. Inmates in Georgia have failed to overcome that state's secrecy law.
The Arkansas Supreme Court will review a lower court's ruling partially
striking down a law blocking state officials from revealing where the state
gets its execution drugs. A judge in Missouri, where an execution is scheduled
for Wednesday night, has ruled that the state must disclose the source of its
lethal injection drugs.
The Texas appeals court is not expected to rule immediately, and its decision
could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.
(source: Associated Press)
*************
The Reverend Jeff Hood Brings the Gospel to Texas' Death Row
Bald head freshly shaven, brown beard long and flowing, the 32-year-old former
Southern Baptist minister from Denton wears his signature stained and tattered
white clergy robe and John Lennon glasses as he stands before several guards
who watch him warily.
This Wednesday evening in early April, Hood is joined by 2 nuns from a local
Catholic church, an Episcopalian monk, a former prosecutor from Vasquez's
hometown near the Mexican border and a Sam Houston State criminal justice
professor who's been holding candlelight vigils for death row inmates since he
moved to Huntsville in 1986.
"I know people who work the tie-down squad, some very close relationships, and
none of those people are sadistic," the professor says. "None of them like what
they are doing. They don't relish it."
The last time he protested an execution, Hood was arrested for crossing the
tape, simply raising his hands and walking forward. He spent 7 hours in jail
before paying $500 bail.
Part of him would like to cross the yellow tape tonight, but he can't afford
another criminal charge with 5 kids, all under the age of 5, at home with his
wife Emily, who's studying for a doctoral degree in art at the University of
North Texas.
Hood sits on the board of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a
statewide advocacy organization, but he looks at himself as an activist
preacher willing to use civil disobedience to spread his message. He keeps
photos of his arrests in his cluttered office, along with other memorabilia
like his photo on the cover of the Dallas Voice, leading a protest near Oak
Lawn Avenue last fall.
"But when I got arrested in Dallas [in December 2014], that was like nobody
gave a shit," Hood says. "I spoke at the rally that night. I was the only white
speaker that night. So this was when tensions [about the Ferguson, Missouri,
police shooting] were very high. So they started arresting the front lines, and
I was on the front lines, leading the protest.
"I'll never forget, man," he adds. "The Cathedral of Hope, those chicken shit
assholes - I was working there at the time - didn't even announce that I had
been arrested at church. They didn't say anything about it, because it's
embarrassing to them. And that's when I realized that that was going to be the
beginning of the end with them."
Hood was never officially associated with The Cathedral of Hope, although he
was a member. He worked for Hope for Peace and Justice, a Christian-based
nonprofit organization located in the church but not part of the church. "I
haven't heard anything about [Hood's arrest]," says the Reverend Neil
Cazares-Thomas, senior pastor at Cathedral of Hope. "But we're always
supportive of members." Hood was an independent minister who's no longer
associated with Hope for Peace and Justice because, Cazares-Thomas says, it
closed its doors late last year. "Just because he's not with us, doesn't mean
that we're not doing social justice work," he says.
Hood says he's anointed "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
"Jesus wasn't a Christian" is one of his sayings. He thinks "Jesus has a
vagina" may be another one. "Jesus is queer" is one that spurred hundreds of
rebukes from Christians across Facebook, calling him a "false prophet," a
"charlatan,??? and "nothing more than a left-wing activist." Some of his former
congregation put him in the ranks of scandalous TV evangelists like Jim Bakker.
To some death penalty abolitionists, he's a modern-day saint, willing to put
himself in harm's way, a reformed Southern Baptist preacher with the uncanny
ability to draw media attention and raise awareness of their cause. His
activism earned him the Equality Award for Activism and Service from PFLAG, a
grassroots advocacy organization focused on issues affecting the LGBT
community.
"I don't know anybody else who would carry [a] cross down the road from
Livingston to Huntsville," says Pat Hartwell, a longtime death row
abolitionist. "Jeff epitomizes what he's supposed to be doing as a preacher. We
look to Central America and these radical priests who made these movements.
When people enter the ministry - Catholic, Protestant or whatever - one of
their goals is to serve the people, and Jeff has found his niche in life."
But this "modern day John the Baptist," as a supporter pointed out, doesn't see
himself as doing anything special. He believes he's following in Jesus'
footsteps, calling on Christians in Texas to "love thy neighbor as thyself"
even if the neighbor is someone who murdered a 12-year-old boy and drank his
blood.
Hood's ministry began with a startling revelation from an old mentor. He'd been
attending school at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky in
2007 when he received a phone call from the elderly man who served several
Southern Baptist churches and later was affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship. He was dying and wanted to see Hood.
Hood's mentor, whom he wishes to remain anonymous, had guided him into the
ministry at a young age. Hood came from a family with money and steeped in
Southern tradition. His grandfather developed a lucrative carbonation technique
for Coca Cola and other soft drinks. Hood's mother was a school teacher, and
his father was a fire chief who worked his way up through the ranks. Hood
wanted to be a lawyer, and he enrolled in law school at Faulkner University, a
Christian university located in Montgomery, but the call to the ministry was
too strong for him to ignore.
He'd been raised as a Southern Baptist conservative on the south side of
Atlanta. He'd been led to believe that Adam and Eve were real, gays are sinners
and the fires of hell await all who do not repent before judgment day. He grew
up surrounded by fear in his household, in his Baptist church and in his
community of southern Atlanta which, he says, was rapidly shifting from white
to black.
He also suffers from bipolar disorder, which sometimes means hallucinations and
bouts of paranoia. So much of this fear, he says, was exacerbated by his mental
condition. "The Southern Baptist culture was very skeptical of mental illness,"
he says. "If it does exist, it's because of sin. But you're sick and have all
this anxiety and paranoia. It makes you even crazier." He didn't seek treatment
for his mental illness until his mid-20s.
Hood's mentor, though, was a light in his mental darkness. He was someone who
had a lot of compassion, a white guy who had served as a pastor at black
churches. He helped Hood to explore what it meant to be from the "cradle of the
civil rights movement" and how he connected to it. He also encouraged the Rock
Baptist Church, Hood's family church since the late 1800s, to ordain Hood at
the age of 22 in September 2005. In the family photo taken that day, Hood looks
like a 12-year-old boy with thick brown hair and dimples, smiling alongside his
mother, father and younger brother.
He enrolled at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky shortly
after he was ordained as a Southern Baptist preacher. He wanted to become a
better minister, but he still struggled with his mental illness and his faith.
Christianity was a religion based on love, but all he saw was hate and fear of
anything outside their constructed norm. The university was a majestic place
where some of his classmates, he later learned, hid their sexuality because of
the persecution they felt they were sure to face.
"You can't live in the South and not realize how much the church has been
implicated in slavery and discrimination," Hood says. "There are still Southern
Baptist churches without black members, and LGBT issues are even worse. I
always felt like Jesus ran to save evil folks. He was always going to convert
the pharisees. That's what I wanted to do for a living. Well, there's not much
of a living in it."
He left the seminary in the middle of the night in late 2007, driving through
the backwoods of Tennessee to reach his mentor's home in Atlanta. He walked
into the bedroom where he lay on his deathbed. He remembers his mentor's cold
sweaty hand grabbing his own. It felt like death, smelt like death in the room.
"I'm gay, and I always have been," his mentor, who was 75 at the time, told him
before he took his final breath.
"In that moment, there is nothing else that he could have told me that would
have been more shocking," Hood recalls. "I felt like I had never known a person
who was gay. If I did, they were immediately kicked out of the church. It was
really shocking and really unnerving."
His mentor gave him the charge, Hood recalls, to "never stop fighting for those
who have no voice," and the young Southern Baptist minister soon realized that
"spiritual people" within the Baptist faith had forced his mentor to live in
the shadows, to become one of the voiceless, and he was determined to vanquish
that fear no matter the sacrifice he had to make.
After his mentor's death, Hood finished his master of divinity in pastoral
ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, then enrolled to study
church history at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, which is where
he first came in contact with the black LGBT community. He befriended an openly
gay aspiring minister named Lucas Johnson, who was later ordained as a Baptist
minister with the Alliance of Baptists, a more progressive version of the
Baptist faith. "Jeff will always be a heteronormative white boy from Georgia,"
says Johnson, who now works in Amsterdam as the international coordinator of
the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith nonprofit organization working
to end violence. "What I admire and appreciate is that he's not understood by a
lot of people. It's because he knows who he is."
Hood's realization of his spiritual self fueled his journey in academia. He
completed his master of theology at Emory and continued acquiring more degrees
from different universities, including a couple more master degrees from the
University of Alabama and Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and a
doctoral degree in queer theology from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian
University in Fort Worth. He sought help for his mental illness, and also
delved further into issues affecting the marginalized and the oppressed such as
the LGBT community, studying identity and the problem with identity, working on
his own queer theology and exploring what it would be like for the church as a
whole to go queer.
"Nobody would have ever imagined that I would be like this," says Hood, whose
bald head and long beard seem to shine as he flashes a perfect white smile. "I
would never have imagined that I would be doing anything like this."
Hood's ministry on death row began with a simple letter. Before moving to Texas
from Tupelo, Mississippi, where he worked on another graduate degree, he'd
taken part in the fight to save Troy Davis, an African American man whom the
state of Georgia sentenced to die for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police
officer. Hood's new wife, Emily, joined him. They were part of the public
outcry for clemency, one that included notable figures like Pope Benedict XVI
and former President Jimmy Carter.
Davis was executed in September 2011. His killing traumatized Hood, partly
because he thought a family friend, a "good Christian man" who served on the
board of pardons and parole, would vote to stop Davis' execution. But he
didn't. "Even good people, when they become institutionalized, can be part of
great evil," Hood says. "The death penalty makes killers out of even the best
people."
He moved to Texas with Emily a few months after Davis' death so she could begin
work on a doctor of arts at the University of North Texas. They found each
other on eHarmony, an online dating site, and met in person a few months before
Davis' execution, discovering they shared a love of travel and faith. His
willingness to help the oppressed and the marginalized drew them closer
together. They married shortly after meeting and began a family - so far, 2
sets of twins and another child, all under the age of 5. They both make money
being creative, she as an artist and he as a writer, but they also receive help
from friends and Hood's 88-year-old grandfather, who still doesn't quite
understand his grandson's ministry.
Hood's younger brother Justin points out that "Jeffrey Kyle," as his family
calls him, has made many transformations, from a typical '80s Georgia boy with
a bowl cut, to a star student adolescent who loved rap and country music, to a
popular kid in high school, to a non-drug-using college frat star, to a
troubled seminary student, to the "family man and bearded, hip social reformist
we all know today." His older brother has been challenging the concept of
"normal" ever since they were children, Justin says. "Jeffrey Kyle embraces
controversy. In fact, he enjoys it."
Hood decided to write a letter to a criminal on death row because he'd always
been against the death penalty and wanted to minister to the marginalized and
oppressed, and show the innocents and the murderers on death row that a
different kind of Jesus loved them: a queer one. (Not queer in the sense that
he's a God attracted to the same sex, but queer in the sense that God is
infinite, unidentifiable and often misinterpreted.)
In the 1st letter he sent to a death row inmate, Hood decided to include a
picture of his family (his wife and 2 children at that point). The inmate
responded by writing a letter to Hood's wife, asking for more photos. "I'm
like, OK, that's probably not the guy to write," Hood recalls. The next death
row inmate tried hustling him for money. Then other death row inmates started
sending him letters, which is how he met Will Spear.
Spear, who's 42, claims he was mentally and emotionally damaged by physical and
mental abuse when, at the age of 16, he killed his friend's father. "My
self-esteem and self worth had become so low that I was willing to do anything
to make, or keep, a friend," Spears, a large but jolly-looking killer, wrote on
his blog. "That overwhelming desire led me into putting a false friendship
above the life of another human being." But he didn't receive death for killing
the man. He landed on death row for killing another inmate.
Spear, whom Hood says is Jewish, invited him to come to death row in 2013 to
have a conversation that would eventually lead to a spiritual relationship.
Like many death penalty abolitionists who visit inmates on death row, he says
he didn't see a monster in Spear. He saw someone he could minister to,
discussing stories of Jesus being imprisoned and what it was like for God to be
on death row. "When you go back there and you look around, you're seeing the
failures of our society," he says. "We've got to get to a point where we are no
longer thinking that these guys have failed. We've got to get to the point
where [we see how] we have failed.
Hood's friend and fellow death penalty abolitionist Dave Atwood agrees. "When
you visit these guys on death row, you learn who they really are," he says.
"Some of them are innocent, but most of them have done horrible things. But
when you understand the circumstances of their life, my God, I've always said,
'So here's a little kid who's been abused horribly when he was a child and he
grows up and he becomes fucked up and probably develops a drug and alcohol
problem.'"
The next death row inmate Hood met, Kerry Allen, was a 56-year-old child
murderer with a clown fascination. He loved to color pictures of clowns, but he
didn't look like one. He looked more like a scarecrow, Hood says, a rail thin,
dark-skinned "hollow person."
When he sat down to speak with him, Hood says he thought Allen was going to
talk about something lighthearted because he was smiling. Instead, he discussed
his raping and murdering his girlfriend's 2-year-old child. Hood put down the
phone in the visiting booth, leaned back and prayed, "God, I'm trusting you've
sent me here for a reason." Then he picked up the phone, looked at Allen, who
was still smiling, and discussed the child murderer's favorite topic: clowns.
"I want to make it very clear that I am under no illusion that a lot of these
killers are awful human beings," Hood says. "These cases haunt me. These people
haunt me. I've come face to face with some of our worst, and I refuse to turn
my head and turn back because I don't believe that Jesus would come face to
face with the worst in our society and turn away."
Along with ministering to death row inmates, Hood joined the board of the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, a statewide grassroots advocacy
organization. Atwood founded the organization in the mid-'90s with a handful of
volunteers and grew it to more than 10,000 members and supporters and 23
organizational affiliates across Texas.
Like other death penalty abolitionists, Hood travels to the executions in
Huntsville and stands firm against the yellow caution tape. Like Atwood, he's
willing to cross the "arbitrary line" separating the protestors from the prison
and spend the night in jail to make a statement. He was also willing to carry a
large cross 200 miles to raise awareness. In the summer of 2014, he journeyed
through the backwoods of Livingston toward Huntsville, then Austin, carrying
the cross on his shoulder. Articles about Hood's adventure appeared in
publications from Huntsville to New York. To Atwood, he became a saint for his
ability to capture the news media's attention, something that comes in spurts
over the years, depending on the nature of the killer's crime or mental
condition.
"Thank God for Jeff. He's the best representative in the whole state as far as
I'm concerned," he says. "A lot of these churches have official statements
against the death penalty. The Catholics do. The Methodists do. Presbyterian,
Lutheran. But they never talk about it. It's only on paper."
Hood's friend and fellow minister Father Fred Clarkson, a Houston-based
Episcopalian, says another constraint on preachers' involvement is maintaining
the institutional structure. "There is a fine line that passes as a social club
and what is said to be church," Clarkson says. "It's very difficult to push
that social club to do something mission [related]. I think one of the things
that Jeff does very well is promote thought where culture is so powerful and
has such a powerful pull over people. Jeff will throw a grenade, and there is
nothing you can do about it."
"But it's thought provoking," he adds, "because it tackles different spiritual
and biblical aspects all at once in a way that your culture has kept you from
seeing it."
Sometimes Hood's aim is off, and the grenade explodes at his feet.
Pablo Vasquez bludgeoned 12-year-old David Cardenas before slitting his throat
and drinking his blood.
Parked on a dirt road by an abandoned gas station outside of Livingston in
early April, Hood discusses Pablo Vasquez's final moments.
He doesn't know Vasquez. He only knows the 38-year-old South Texas man is being
put to death later today for the 2001 murder of David Cardenas, a 12-year-old
boy. Vasquez's death, Hood says, will bring some closure to Cardenas' family,
who've been waiting nearly 20 years for justice, but leaves Vasquez's family as
victims of the state.
"I said in an interview [with a local news outlet] during Holy Week, that it is
heretical for us to require blood for sin," Hood says. "You can't believe that
Jesus' blood was shed to atone for sin and then all of a sudden believe that
more blood is required. It creates a blood lust."
He pulls away from the prison's Polunsky Unit and drives the final path Vasquez
will take in a couple of hours to Huntsville. He walked Vasquez's final path
through the backwoods of Livingston a couple of years ago. It's a scenic route
through a thick southeast Texas woodland.
"The farther I walked, the sun was going down," Hood recalls as he drives his
silver Cadillac across the same long bridge he once crossed on foot in the
summer of 2014. "There was a breeze flapping my white robe, and I could feel
almost like hands were on my back as if someone were saying, 'You're going to
make it. It's good. You're going to make it.' It was a real spiritual moment
for me hearing the voice of love, the voice of God, 'Lo, I am among you until
the end of the age.'"
But it must have felt like God had punched him in the gut when he realized some
members of his old congregation from Mable Peabody's Chainsaw Repair Shop, the
only gay bar in Denton, had created a website called "Spiritually Safe Spaces"
to reveal what they called the "real Jeff Hood" - a straight, white, privileged
male assaulting their culture by claiming the word "queer" for his God.
"He does not belong to a sexual minority," 1 former church member posted
online. "He does not differ from the cisgender, heterosexual norm, and has no
claim to that label, much less does he have the right to try to steal the word
from the oppressed community that birthed it and change it to mean what he
wants it to mean."
Hood didn't start the church at a gay bar. He started meeting with a few people
at his home in northeast Denton. The more he spread the message of his queer
God, the more people began to show up. Soon, his house couldn't hold everyone.
He decided to move the church over to Mable's because it's "the center point of
the queer community in Denton" and a "radically inclusive space" for everyone,
a space where he could share his message of an unidentifiable queer God who
loves everyone regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity or
criminal activity.
"When I first saw a flier for the 1st incarnation of this church, I was excited
that there would be a church which was expressly and purposefully about
including the LGBTQ community and addressing issues they face," 1 former
member's testimonial reads on the "real Jeff Hood" website. "Although I'm not
Christian myself, I thought that it might be very healing and empowering for
the large number of Bible-Belt, Christian-raised LGBTQ people who are still
hungry for spirituality and for God but have been thoroughly rejected,
humiliated and demonized by the Christian church at large. Unfortunately, the
beauty of this idea was twisted into something ugly by a narcissistic leader."
Hood's gay bar church lasted less than a year. He made every mistake listed in
the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's blog post of "Top 5 Rookie Pastor
Mistakes." He had high expectations of his church, failed to embrace the
church's unique culture, invoked pastoral authority without earning pastoral
credibility, mistook preference for conviction and showed fear or anger in the
face of opposition. Hood's former congregation captured this failure in their
posts.
"After working within the church for several months as an 'elder,' it became
apparent that a lot of the leader's misogynistic white male privilege kept
showing, regardless of how much he would hide it under a thin veil of faux
hipster economic struggling," 1 former member wrote. "When various issues or
statements regarding upsetting comments that could be perceived as misogynistic
or offensive were brought to the leader's attention, they were usually met with
a defensive, self-pitying martyrdom which was served to give him immunity from
any and all criticism."
Another wrote, "No criticism of the pastor was allowed. If someone challenged
his behavior, he told lies about them to the congregation. If someone brought
up problematic elements of the church, they were immediately silenced. It
wasn't until I spoke with other people who had left that we began to realize
the amount of lies that we had been told about [one another]. I left the church
because I experienced firsthand the pastor's lies, manipulation and lack of
boundaries. I fully support a progressive space for spirituality, but I want it
to be one that is safe."
Not all of his gay bar church members felt he was manipulative or misogynistic.
Instead they thought that some of the other members were "injustice collectors"
whose feelings were hurt because, in part, he didn???t check his white
privilege enough and failed to create healthy boundaries with the congregation
when he invited them into his home and into his personal life.
Hood's applying the word "queer" to God doesn't offend all gay people either.
The Reverend Kim Jackson, chaplain at Absalom Jones Episcopal Center at the
Atlanta University Center, claims Hood's 2015 book The Courage to Be Queer
opened her eyes to her normative ways of thinking based on her culture. "I am
black. I am woman. I am priest. I am lesbian," she wrote in the afterword of
his book. "Ostensibly, I am about as 'queer' as one can be in this current
American context. [...] The Courage to Be Queer is my awakening - my call to
embrace and to remember my made-in-God's image, true queer self."
Hood didn't want to discuss the failure of his church, but he did discover the
"real Jeff Hood" website in the summer of 2014 on his 200-mile trek through
East Texas. "It was horrible," he says. "I'm out here about to fucking
collapse, sweating through the damn hot road, and that's all I've got to keep
me company. The truth be known, I really have some PTSD over it. But I don't
want to talk about it. I don't want to have anything to do with it. What I am
interested in is talking about the difficulties along the journey, the critics
along the journey.
"That's been a big part of my journey, dealing with critics, dealing with
failure, finding the church in the streets in my activism in the streets," he
adds. "That's the story right there."
Mable Peabody's Chainsaw Repair Shop seems like a world away as Hood stands in
front of the yellow caution tape blocking the street in front of the old
red-brick prison. Church bells mark the hour of Vasquez's execution.
Vasquez is strapped to a gurney, apologizing to his victim's family, according
to local news reports. "This is the only way that I can be forgiven," he says.
"You got your justice right here. My trust is in Jesus." He looks over at his
family. "I'll see you on the other side."
Hood isn't alone standing in front of the yellow caution tape. Other members of
the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty join him in advocating for
Vasquez, whom they claim is no longer the same man who committed the horrible
crime that sent him to death row. They hold pink "Abolish the Death Penalty"
signs with a photo of Vasquez, who looks almost angelic in his white prison
uniform. It's a small crowd that only seems to grow, they say, those times when
the local college students find out the news media is coming or the execution
draws the national spotlight.
When he first arrived in Huntsville earlier that afternoon, Hood drove over to
G & O Barbershop to shave his head for the protest later that day. Located
inside what looks like a small trailer house, the barbershop is filled with
memorabilia showcasing the lives of the barbers. A metal cut-out of a cowboy
holding his horse reins in one hand, his cowboy hat in the other, and kneeling
in front of a cross hangs outside the barbershop's front door. One of the local
barbers shaving Hood's head compared living next to the prison where inmates
are executed to living next to railroad tracks. "Once you live near there long
enough, you don't hear the train anymore," she said.
One person who still hears the train is Juan Angel Guerra, the former district
attorney of Willacy County, where Vasquez committed his crime. He's not the DA
who charged Vasquez, but he did bring charges of murder against former Vice
President Dick Cheney for his part in privatizing prisons nationwide. Guerra
claims he could have proved his case if he hadn't lost his re-election bid in
the March 2008 Democratic Primary after the news media crucified him for being
"cuckoo," as he recalls.
Public support for the death penalty has waned slowly over the past 2 decades,
according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Most counties in Texas,
Guerra points out, can't even afford to try death penalty cases, including
Walker County, which houses the old red-brick prison where more than 400
inmates have been killed since 1982.
Vasquez's mother had helped Guerra on the campaign trail for his most recent
district attorney bid, which he lost. He knew Vasquez when he was a child
growing up in the small border town of Donna, but the former DA lost track of
him when Vasquez turned 16 and moved to California, where he fell into drugs
and began hearing what he thought was the devil's voice. Guerra didn't see him
again until about an hour before the execution, when he spoke with Vazquez 1
final time.
"He said, 'Mr. Guerra, if you talk to the media, tell them that kids need to
talk to the parents and parents to talk to the kids,'" Guerra recalls. "I know
we know that. But unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Peer pressure. Once
you put drugs into your system, it's like driving a car with no brakes."
Guerra offered to cover Vasquez's funeral expenses if his family wanted to bury
him in South Texas, but Vasquez wanted to be cremated. His wishes will be
carried out in the morning when officials ship his body to the burner in
Houston.
As Hood and the other protesters move away from the yellow caution tape and
gather on the corner of the street to read a poem in honor of Vasquez, the 6th
person executed in Texas this year, Guerra recalls Vasquez telling him before
he died, "If I had just called my mom in California and told her what was going
through my mind, I don't think [killing David] would have happened."
Hood bows his head and prays. "Giver of life, we pray that Pablo will be the
last person to die for a lie, to die for a lie."
Vasquez won't be the last to die. Charles Flores is scheduled to die on June 2,
followed by Robert Roberson on June 21, Perry Williams on July 14, Ramiro
Gonzales on August 10 and so on.
Inside the Grace Baptist Church on the outskirts of Huntsville, Hood holds
hands with Vasquez's family, all gathered around Vasquez's body near the altar
and praying. Nearly an hour has passed since Vasquez's execution, but no
memorial flowers sit nearby, no photos, only a few family members devastated by
a tragedy of his own making.
Vasquez's short dark hair is pushed back from his forehead, his face pale. He
finally resembles the "vampire" portrayed in the news media. He looks almost
peaceful lying on the gurney, unlike his 12-year-old victim who died in horror.
In his taped confession posted to YouTube a couple of weeks before his
execution, Vasquez described how he killed the seventh grader. He appeared
devoid of emotion, except for moments when he reenacted the killing. Then he
looked at times lustful and at other times as if he were simply having a
conversation about a dead armadillo in the middle of the road.
He beat the boy's head in with a pipe 3 times. But the boy kept pleading for
his life. So Vasquez pulled out a pocket knife and slit the boy's throat. Yet
he still wouldn't die. Instead he gurgled help as Vasquez lifted him in the air
by the chin and shook him like an old rag doll raining blood.
"He was still saying something," Vasquez told Donna police investigators on
April 17, 1998. "I picked him up in the air, and the blood was dripping, and it
got all over my face. I don't know, something just told me to, 'Drink, drink,
drink.'
"I took a drink of it,'" he finished, with his hands held up in the air as if
he were still holding the 12-year-old before him.
"You drank what?" the detectives asked.
"His blood," he said before looking away. "I don't know. My face was covered in
his blood. I flipped out because I felt weird."
Cardenas' nightmare wasn't over. Vasquez's 15-year-old cousin, who was later
sentenced to 35 years in prison, picked up a shovel and bashed the boy in the
face 5 times.
Huntsville prison officials sent Vasquez's body over to the Grace Baptist
Church in a black mini-van. He was already in front of the altar, his family
cradling one another in sorrow, when the Baptist preacher finally allowed Hood
to enter the sanctuary.
When he killed Cardenas, Vasquez left him in a ditch and tucked him in with a
stack of sheet metal. Vasquez's mother wails as she mourns the loss of a son
she really lost nearly 20 years ago when the devil, he says, urged him to kill
Cardenas.
Hood doesn't see a vampire or a demon-possessed satanist as he holds hands with
Vasquez's family members on this evening. Instead he sees the state creating
another class of victims with Vasquez's family.
As the Grace Baptist preacher leads the family in prayer, Hood steals a couple
of glances toward him. He looks like a typical Southern Baptist preacher with a
conservative hair style, wearing a suit and a tie instead of a clergy robe like
Hood, who draws attention to himself.
When he approached the Grace Baptist Church with his robe drawn tight around
his slim body, Hood claims he knew it was going to be one of these "born again
salvation holy rollers" type of places. He's dealt with churches like this one,
he says, many times in the past.
"As soon as the preacher walked up, I knew that he was ready to kick us out,
and then he was ready to get us saved," Hood later recalls. "It's interesting
how a Baptist postulates between getting people out and getting people saved."
The private viewing ends as it began: with tears. One of Vasquez's pen pals, an
elderly gentleman from Germany, takes a photo standing next to the vampire whom
he'd been visiting for more than a decade. Europeans are fascinated by the
death penalty, Hood says, and Josefine Hinder traveled from Switzerland to
support her German friend through his loss.
"When I first came to Texas, I was really shocked that the death penalty would
happen here because we don't know that."
Hinder told the Observer earlier at the Hospitality House, where the killer's
family gathered before his execution, that she met the German, who also leads
the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, in Livingston last year when
she came to visit her pen pal friend on death row. It took her a year, she
says, to start up a pen-pal relationship with 35-year-old Juan Castillo, since
she knew he was sentenced to death for being the trigger man in a robbery gone
wrong. A friend of a friend of a friend had encouraged her to write him.
Like many European pen pals, Hinder thinks her friend is innocent of his crime.
"When I first came to Texas, I was really shocked that the death penalty would
happen here because we don't know that," she says. "It was never in my mind
that a country like the U.S. would do that."
For Hood, it's not complicated at all. The state, which is known for its
Christian values, is wrong much like the church that ignores Jesus' charge "to
love thy neighbor as thyself."
"Did Pablo Vasquez love his neighbor as his self by killing the little boy?
No," he says. "But I think about the Amish where the guy came in and killed 5
little girls, brutally killed them. It was an awful crime, but the Amish
immediately wanted to show that they had forgiven him. Our society cannot
continue in an ethical way, in a healthy way or even in a remotely spiritual
way by emulating killers.
"Loving my neighbor as myself, seeking to be with those who are in prison,
seeking to find the beauty of Jesus among them. I'm not asking anybody to have
sympathy," Hood adds. "I'm just asking them to live out the way that they
believe."
(source: Dallas Observer)
PENNSYLVANIA:
DA weighing death penalty in 2013 killing outside club
The district attorney is mulling whether to pursue the death penalty against a
man who just surrendered on charges he killed another man outside a western
Pennsylvania social club.
44-year-old Eric Washington surrendered Sunday, 2 days after a new witness
statement and video surveillance resulted in him being charged Friday in the
September 2013 shooting death of 45-year-old Jerome Goosby and the wounding of
another man.
District Attorney David Lozier says Washington shot the 2 men from behind a
dollar store after they had left the Brighton Pioneer Elks Lodge across the
street.
Officials say Washington's cellphone was found at the scene and a witness
reported seeing him there at the time of the crime.
Online court records don't list an attorney for Washington, who remains jailed
without bond.
(source: Associated Press)
FLORIDA:
Death penalty debate: should death row inmates be re-sentenced?
As Florida's Supreme Court weighs whether the 390 inmates on death row should
all be re-sentenced to life after the state's death penalty scheme was ruled
unconstitutional, a former Florida Chief Justice, who is arguing on the side of
giving the inmates life, is saying "I told you so."
Harry Lee Anstead was the Chief Justice of Florida's Supreme Court from 2002 to
2004. Eighteen months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona's death
penalty in what is known as the Ring case, Anstead argued that Ring applied to
Florida. Other justices disagreed. More than a decade later, he was proven
right when the high court threw out Florida's sentencing scheme, citing the
Ring decision.
"This decision about Florida's statute being unconstitutional should have been
made many years ago," Anstead pointed out.
Because the other justices ignored Anstead's dissent so long ago, he's now
going to other former Florida Supreme Court justices in arguing that all 390
inmates on death row should now get life sentences.
"This hopefully is setting things right in a large way, not a small way, in a
large way," continued Anstead.
Anstead remains troubled that since his dissent, now proven right, several
dozen inmates have been put to death. Gainesville killer Danny Rolling was
among them.
"A number of prisoners on death row have been put to death in Florida. And
arguably, they've been put to death under an unconstitutional death penalty
scheme," says Anstead.
Ironically Lloyd Duest, who was the inmate in the case in which Anstead first
cited his Ring objections, has died, not by lethal injection, but by other
causes.
Lloyd Duest died in 2011, 8 years after Justice Anstead believed his sentence
should have been reduced to life in prison.
While the 3 justices say all death row inmates should be re-sentenced to life
in prison, the Attorney General said everyone on death row should stay there.
(source: WJHG TV news)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Vigils planned across Alabama before Vernon Madison execution
An Alabama advocacy group has organized for vigils to be held across the state
leading up to the execution of Vernon Madison.
Without the last-minute approval of a request for a stay or resentencing,
Madison is scheduled to be executed Thursday at 6 p.m. at Holman Correctional
Facility in Atmore.
Madison, now 65, was charged and convicted in the April 18, 1985, slaying of
Mobile police Cpl. Julius Schulte, who was responding to a domestic disturbance
call. He would be the 2nd inmate executed in Alabama this year, and the 58th
since executions resumed in 1983 after an unofficial nationwide moratorium
prompted by Supreme Court decisions.
The nonprofit Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty in Alabama was founded
in 1989 to allow death row prisoners, friends and supporters to educate the
public and ultimately abolish the state's death penalty, according to its
website.
They are still hoping for a stay of execution but have planned vigils on
Thursday if it goes forward as scheduled.
Birmingham: A political protest vigil will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
at the corner of Richard Arrington Jr. Boulevard and 8th Avenue N across from
the Jefferson County Court building, on the corner of the east end of the
Birmingham Museum of Art. This vigil will take place regardless of whether the
execution goes forward.
A prayer vigil will be held in Kelly Ingram Park at 5:45 p.m.
Mobile: A prayer vigil will be held in front of the Cathedral of the Immaculate
Conception at Dauphin and Claiborne streets from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Montgomery: A vigil will be held on the steps of the state capitol at 5:30 p.m.
Those incarcerated at Holman prison in Atmore will show their respect and
solidarity by refraining from sports and wearing their dress whites in the
yard, where they will observe moments of silence and prayer on Wednesday and
Thursday.
In France, the Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture and the Death
Penalty will be praying before the execution.
On all execution dates nationwide, the Birmingham Friends Meeting hangs a black
flag from an upstairs window facing the street saying: "Today we mourn the
death of a fellow human being."
(source: al.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 09:44:48 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 09:44:48 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., LA., OHIO, MO., ARK.,
CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605110944400.3700@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
TENNESSEE:
Follis found guilty of 1st-degree murder in death penalty case
An Anderson County man who is facing the death penalty as a possible sentence
was found guilty of 1st-degree murder on Tuesday for killing his uncle in
Claxton more than 4 years ago.
A jury of 8 women and 4 men deliberated for about 1 hour and 40 minutes before
unanimously returning the guilty verdict against Norman Lee Follis Jr., 52, in
Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court in Clinton. Follis was convicted of
killing his uncle, Samuel "Sammie" J. Adams, 79, sometime between December 5,
2011, and January 24, 2012.
It was the 1st death penalty trial in Anderson County since 1991, officials
said.
Adams' body was found hidden underneath an apartment staircase on Patt Lane in
Claxton on January 24, 2012, after he was reported missing in December 2011.
His decomposing body was buried under at least 10 blankets, and a couch had
been shoved up against the door of the closet where Adams was hidden, according
to testimony.
Defense attorneys did not dispute that Follis killed his uncle, a Korean War
veteran.
"We cannot whitewash that out," attorney Mart Cizek said.
But they argued that Follis was defending first his girlfriend and then himself
after he saw Adams on top of his girlfriend, Tammy Sue Chapman, 47, groping
her. Follis tried to get Adams off Chapman, but Adams attacked Follis, the
defense said. The 2 men fell to the floor, the defense said, where Follis
grabbed a extension cord to defend himself and force Adams off of him.
"I put it around his neck until he let go of me," defense attorney Wesley Stone
said, recalling Follis' explanation for the killing.
But prosecutors called it murder, a premeditated killing that profited Follis
and Chapman. They said Follis misled family, neighbors, and law enforcement
officers about where Adams was that last month - before his body was found in
the Patt Lane apartment closet on January 24, 2012 - and they cited testimony
that Follis sold Adams' car for $1,000 cash on January 16, 2012.
They characterized Follis' explanation for the killing - the defense of a third
party followed by self-defense - as a story that he latched onto and then
elaborated upon during an interview with Anderson County Sheriff's Department
Detective Don Scuglia. They said Adams was an ailing 79-year-old who sometimes
used a walker.
2 hours of taped interviews with Scuglia were "full of lies," said Tony
Craighead, deputy district attorney general in the Seventh Judicial District.
"You heard lie after lie after lie," Assistant DA Emily Abbott told jurors.
"He's making this up as he goes along."
The sentencing hearing for Follis begins at 8 a.m. Wednesday. The jury will
participate in that hearing, and they will weigh aggravating factors submitted
by the prosecution against mitigating factors submitted by the defense. If the
aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors, the jury can choose the
death penalty, Craighead said.
Besides 1st-degree murder, Follis was found guilty on Tuesday of one count of
property theft of more than $1,000. Indictments filed in February 2014 alleged
that Follis and Chapman obtained a 1997 Mercury Marquis owned by Adams, as well
as the keys to his home, without his permission.
An autopsy said Adams died of strangulation. He was bruised on the right side
of his neck, and part of his larynx was fractured on the left side.
During closing arguments on Tuesday morning, Stone said Follis hid his uncle's
body in the closet because he was scared and didn't know what else to do.
Abbott called the couch the most damning piece of evidence. There had been
testimony that the couch was either put in front of the closet door to conceal
Adams or prevent him from getting out. The couch showed cool contemplation and
not rage, Abbott said.
Chapman has also been charged with 1st-degree murder. Like Follis, she is
facing the death penalty, and an August trial has been scheduled for her.
(source: Oak Ridge Today)
************
Jury to decide: Death or life in prison for Anderson man guilty of murder
Jurors took 90 minutes Tuesday afternoon to convict an Anderson County man of
strangling his 79-year-old uncle.
Now, jurors must return early Wednesday morning to decide 52-year-old Norman
Lee Follis Jr.'s fate: whether he spends the rest of his life behind bars, with
or without the possibility of parole, or is sent to death row to await
execution.
"We're very pleased with the jury's hard work on this case and the verdict,"
Anderson County Deputy District Attorney General Tony Craighead said.
The death penalty trial was the 1st in Anderson County since 1991.
Follis was convicted following a 2-day trial in the December 2011 death of
Samuel J. "Sammie" Adams. His implanted pacemaker quit working at 9:43 a.m.
Dec. 12, court records show.
Adams' decomposing body wasn't found until Jan. 24, 2012, stuffed in a closet
of his Claxton area apartment home under a mound of blankets. Follis and
co-defendant Tammy Sue Chapman lived nearby on Patt Lane.
A medical examiner concluded Adams died of strangulation. Follis, in a lengthy
interview with an Anderson County investigator, admitted he used an extension
cord as the murder weapon, but insisted it was during a self-defense scuffle
while coming to his girlfriend's rescue.
Court-appointed defense attorneys Mart Cizek and Wesley Stone didn't present
evidence. In a hearing with jurors absent, Follis testified he had earlier
refused the state's plea bargain offer of life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
The defense case rested mainly on Follis' confession, made on Jan. 24, 2012,
shortly after Detective Donald Scuglia took a statement from Chapman, 47,
Follis' longtime girlfriend.
Follis told the detective he was going by Adams' home, peered in the front door
window, and saw his uncle had pinned Chapman down on a couch and was groping
her.
During an ensuing scuffle, Adams fell on top of him, Follis said. Follis said
he grabbed an extension cord off a heater and "just put it around his throat."
Authorities, after searching for weeks for Adams, finally learned during
Follis' admission that the body had been dragged into a closet and buried under
a stack of 10 blankets.
"Lies came out of his (Follis') mouth like honey," prosecutor Emily Faye Abbott
told jurors in closing statements.
Adams was known to carry a large amount of cash and wasn't hesitant to show it
off, witnesses testified.
Follis was seen driving Adams' 1997 Mercury Marquis shortly after Adams
disappeared and then forged Adams' name on the title when he later sold the car
for $1,000 to a Knoxville man.
"It's a profit he (Follis) made off that murder," Abbott said of the motive.
Abbott called the killing "an act of extreme violence that was perpetrated on a
vulnerable victim."
In the sentencing phase of the trial that begins Wednesday morning, defense
attorneys will present mitigating factors in a bid to convince jurors that
Follis doesn't deserve the death penalty.
The state will offer a list of aggravating factors that prosecutors contend
show Follis deserves the death penalty.
Then, the panel returns to the jury room for its life-or-death decision.
Chapman, meanwhile, is also charged with 1st-degree murder and remains in the
Anderson County jail in lieu of $1 million bond. No trial date has been set.
(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
*******************
Social Work Grad's Degree to Strengthen Work with Death Row Inmates, Families
For many people, death row inmates represent the worst of society who deserve
the punishment they are getting.
Dana Harrison knows that their stories are often more complex than the crimes
they commit.
For the past twelve years, Harrison has worked with death row inmates, their
families and attorneys as their cases wind through the federal appeals process.
She is a mitigation investigator for the Federal Public Defender Office in the
Eastern District of Arkansas. Harrison will receive a Doctor of Social Work
from UT on Thursday.
Harrison said her research and studies at UT have made her "think more
critically about how to help inmates and family members with issues that affect
them during incarceration and the execution."
She completed her capstone project about the effects of grief on family members
of executed death row inmates.
As a mitigation investigator, Harrison conducts biopsychosocial histories on
death row inmates and their families to find information the courts should
consider when deciding whether a death sentence should be changed to a sentence
of life without parole.
"My background in mental health, as well as my social work skills, training,
and experience, has prepared me to work on these very complex cases and
recognize mitigating factors in my clients' lives - that do not excuse their
crime, but provide an explanation as to how they got on the path of committing
their crime," she said. "It is very rewarding work, and I especially love
working with the inmates??? family members."
Harrison pursued her Doctor of Social Work "because of the long-standing strong
history of research that UT is known for around the country." She chose to
research families of death row inmates because there is very little information
available in that area.
The online program was convenient as it allowed her to work full time and
travel around the country regularly.
"I am probably the only person who's done homework in more than 1/2 of the 50
states in a 3-year period," she quipped.
A native of Marion, Arkansas, Harrison overcame significant physical challenges
to complete her education. At 6 months old, she was diagnosed with
neuroblastoma, a cancerous tumor on her spinal cord, at St. Jude Children's
Research Hospital. After surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment, she
survived the cancer, but the nerves and muscles in her legs were weakened. She
walks with leg braces and forearm crutches. Throughout her childhood, her
parents fostered Harrison's love of school and drove home the importance of
education and independence regardless of her physical limitations.
"I was not treated any different than my 5 siblings, and I was expected to
excel as they did," she said.
Harrison graduated from West Memphis High School. She earned undergraduate and
master's degrees from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock before pursuing
her doctorate at UT.
"I am the 1st person to graduate in my family with an undergraduate degree, a
master's degree, and now a doctorate," she said.
In 2004, after 5 years of working in inpatient psychiatric treatment at a
Little Rock facility, Harrison moved to the Federal Public Defender Office in
the Eastern District of Arkansas. In 2012, the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish
the Death Penalty gave her the Abolitionist of the Year award for her work with
death row inmates and their families. She is the 1st non-attorney and the only
social worker to receive the award.
Harrison said her studies at UT have given her greater insight about cultural
considerations that must be taken into account, as well as evidence-based
treatment, interventions, and programs that can help inmates' families. She has
learned leadership skills that will be useful as she partners with prisons and
courts to advocate for better programs and policies.
Her UT experience also has given her ideas for ways to help colleagues. For
instance, she introduced mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) meditation
at her agency.
"Working with life and death appeals is very stressful for the entire staff, so
as a measure of self-care, MBSR mediation classes were made available with a
certified trainer," she said. "Staff can practice MBSR meditation now while
there are no executions pending, so if execution dates are set later the
practice of MBSR will be familiar and helpful during stressful times."
Harrison said Rebecca Bolen, her UT capstone project chair, was a great
influence on her work.
"I enjoyed my time with Dr. Bolen so much that we are continuing the research
on families of inmates who have been executed, are on death row, or were
condemned to life in prison," she said.
(source: Tennessee Today)
LOUISIANA:
Convicted murderer, Darrell James Robinson, could have death penalty sentence
vacated
There are new developments in a major murder case from 2 decades ago.
News Channel 5 has learned that Darrell James Robinson, the man convicted of
murdering 3 adults and an infant in Poland, Louisiana in 1996, could possibly
have his death penalty sentence vacated.
3 attorneys for Robinson submitted a "motion to vacate" Robinson's conviction
and sentence. That means that if Judge Koch signs off on that motion,
Robinson's death penalty sentence would be overturned and a new trial could be
granted.
Doris Foster, the woman who discovered her cousins billy lambert and Carol
Hooper brutally shot to death, along with Hooper's daughter Maureen and
Maureen's infant son, Nicholas, says she was blindsided by the news that their
convicted killer, Darrell James Robinson, could potentially become a free man.
"No," said Foster. "I haven't talked to any of them."
Robinson was sentenced to death for the 1996 murders and has been in Angola
ever since.
"What else can you say? He's not sorry," she said.
But, new developments could make Robinson a free man.
On Monday at a hearing before Judge Patricia Koch in Rapides Parish, his
attorneys filed a motion to vacate his conviction and sentence.
It was a move that the district attorney's office never objected to.
"We certainly will oppose any action that releases him," said District Attorney
Phillip Terrell.
Robinson's attorneys claim that a mistake was made back during the trial that
prevented the defense from obtaining the evidence they needed. The case was
prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Mike Shannon at the time.
Current DA Phillip Terrell explains: "That is the allegation, yes."
When asked by News Channel 5 if this was Mike Shannon's fault, Terrell
vehemently denied it.
Now, that motion to vacate will go before Judge Koch and a decision will be
made May 23.
Terrell says he'll fight it.
"I don't know really what's going to happen in the future, but it's the DA's
office position that if a new trial is granted, and there's enough evidence to
prosecute Mr. Robinson, that is what we'll do," he said.
But, when asked why the victims families weren't notified or the public that
Robinson could walk free or have a new trial, he had this to say.
"I can tell Ms. Doris what we're about to call her," he said.
Foster says, if released, Robinson will kill again.
"He loves to kill," she said. "Anybody who shoots watermelons to watch the
juice come out of them, they got a problem."
(source: KALB news)
OHIO:
Patsy Hudson bones identified, suspects charged
Patsy Hudson has been found.
Richland County Prosecutor Bambi Couch Page announced during a press conference
Tuesday Hudson's bones were those authorities found earlier this year scattered
at various sites across the northern part of the county.
The confirmation came after a DNA analysis from the Mansfield Police Department
and a biological profile from Mercyhurst University was completed.
Both analyses were taken from skeletal remains authorities recovered shortly
after arresting suspects Walter Renz and Linda Buckner at a campground in
Hohenwald, Tenn. on Thursday, Feb. 4. The couple was arrested for receiving
stolen property - a credit card - that belonged to Hudson.
Hudson, 62, of Mansfield, was last seen July 4, 2015.
Authorities recovered human remains Feb. 7, shortly after the couple's arrests.
According to Page, Renz and Buckner led authorities to the locations where they
found the skeletal remains.
Police searched 4 locations in northern Richland County for the skeletal
remains and requested that Forensic and Biological Anthropology professor
Dennis Dirkmaat from Mercyhurst University to process the bones.
Page said Renz faces charges for aggravated murder, murder, aggravated robbery,
robbery, aggravated burglary, 2 counts of burglary, abuse of a corpse, 2 counts
of tampering with evidence, receiving stolen property and misuse of a credit
card.
Renz pleaded not guilty on April 28 and has a trial date set for July 21 in the
Richland County Common Pleas Court to be heard by Judge James DeWeese at 9 a.m.
Buckner also faces charges. Her indictment shows charges for aggravated
robbery, robbery, aggravated burglary, 2 counts of burglary, abuse of a corpse,
2 counts of tampering with evidence, receiving stolen property and misuse of a
credit card.
Buckner pleaded not guilty on May 3 and has a pretrial hearing set for May 17.
(source: richlandsource.com)
MISSOURI----impending execution
Missouri man scheduled to die for killing deputy, 2 others
A man convicted of killing 2 people in a drug dispute and a sheriff's deputy in
a subsequent shootout is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday in what could
be Missouri's last execution for some time.
Earl Forrest, 66, is set to die for the December 2002 deaths of Harriett Smith,
Michael Wells and Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Joann Barnes.
Forrest's attorney, Kent Gipson, is seeking a stay of execution from the U.S.
Supreme Court, arguing that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster countered that the Supreme Court has
already resolved that debate. A clemency request also is pending before
Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.
According to court documents, Forrest had been drinking when he went to Smith's
home in the southern Missouri town of Salem and demanded that she fulfil her
promise to buy a lawn mower and mobile home for him in exchange for introducing
her to a source for methamphetamine. Wells was visiting Smith at the time. An
argument ensued, and Forrest shot Wells in the face. He shot Smith 6 times and
took a lockbox full of meth valued at $25,000.
When police converged on Forrest's home, he shot Barnes and Dent County Sheriff
Bob Wofford, according to court documents. Forrest was also shot in the
exchange of gunfire, along with his girlfriend, Angela Gamblin. Wofford and
Gamblin survived.
Missouri has been one of the most prolific states for executions in recent
years, 2nd only to Texas. The state has executed 18 prisoners since November
2013, including 6 last year. Forrest would be the 1st in 2016.
Missouri's death row population is dwindling. Robert Dunham, executive director
of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, said juries today are
less likely to opt for capital punishment, in part because of greater awareness
of how mental illness sometimes factors in violent crime. Just 49 people were
sentenced to death nationally last year, the fewest since U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty as a possible punishment in 1976. No one was
sentenced to death in Missouri in 2014 or 2015, Dunham said.
"As these executions take place, fewer and fewer people are being sentenced to
death, so the death penalty is withering on the other end," Dunham said.
None of the 25 other men on Missouri's death row face imminent execution.
16 have yet to exhaust court appeals and aren't likely to do so anytime soon.
Execution is on hold for 9 others. 2 were declared mentally unfit for
execution. 2 were granted stays because of medical conditions that could cause
painful deaths during lethal injection. 2 had sentences set aside by the courts
due to trial attorney errors. One inmate was granted a stay while his innocence
claim is reviewed. One case was sent back to a lower court to consider an
appeal.
And in one unusual case, inmate William Boliek was granted a stay by Democratic
Gov. Mel Carnahan in 1997. The case wasn't resolved before Carnahan died in a
2000 plane crash, and a court determined that only Carnahan could overturn the
stay. Nixon's office has said Boliek will not be executed.
Executions nationally are on the decline. In 1999, 98 people were executed.
That fell to just 28 in 2015 - a 24-year low - and 13 so far in 2016.
(source: news1130.com)
***********
Attorneys ask U.S. Supreme Court to block Missouri execution of Earl Forrest
It's up to the U.S. Supreme Court whether Missouri will carry out the execution
of a man convicted of 13 years ago killing 3 people, including a Dent County
Sheriff's Deputy.
Earl Forrest is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state prison in
Bonne Terre between 6 p.m. Wednesday and 5:59 p.m. Thursday. His attorneys,
including Lance Sandage, have asked the Court to block the execution based on
their argument that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
Forrest does not deny killing Chief Deputy Sharron Joann Barnes, Harriett Smith
or Michael Wells in December 2002, but Sandage says the jury that sentenced him
to die didn't hear information about a brain injury he suffered years before.
"PET scans that were conducted showed that. That has really been the thrust of
Mr. Forrest's claim through post-conviction, was trial counsel's failure to
properly litigate that in the penalty phase of his trial," Sandage told
Missourinet.
The appeal to the Supreme Court, however, is solely that the death penalty
violates the 8th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. A request for
clemency from Governor Jay Nixon (D) has also been filed. Other appeals for a
stay have already been denied.
Prosecutors said Forrest had gone to home of Smith to demand she keep her end
of a deal in which he introduced her to a source of methamphetamine. He killed
her and Wells at her home and killed Deputy Barnes in a shootout with law
enforcement at his own home. He also shot his then-girlfriend and then-Dent
County Sheriff Bob Wofford, both of whom survived. He was sentenced to death
for each of the 3 murders.
(source: missourinet.com)
ARKANSAS:
Allen to face capital murder charge, other charges may be filed as
investigation continues
Cody Allen, 23, will now face a capital murder charge in connection with the
death of 2-year-old Alithia Boyd, 14th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney
David Ethredge announced Tuesday during a press conference at the Marion County
Courthouse Annex.
Whether Allen will face the death penalty is something Ethredge said will be
determined at a later date. The only other punishment for capital murder is
life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Allen, of Mountain Home, had been in the Marion County jail. He is now being
held by the Arkansas Department of Correction without bond on a parole
violation charge.
The capital murder charge was filed Monday afternoon, Ethredge said.
Initially, Allen had faced the Class Y felony of 1st-degree battery. A Class Y
felony is the most serious charge a person face in Arkansas, short of a capital
murder charge. The charge stood while Alithia was alive. Alithia passed away at
approximately 1:50 a.m. on May 6.
"Subsequent to the filing of these charges, unfortunately the victim in this
matter passed away," Ethredge said during the Tuesday press conference. "As a
result of the continuing efforts and investigation by the officers of the
Marion County Sheriff's Office and the Flippin Police Department, on May 9,
2016, my office amended the charge against Cody Allen to the charge of capital
murder."
Ethredge said Allen's criminal history as an habitual offende,r and the facts
of the case, allowed prosecutors to seek the capital murder charge. The
prosecutor noted Allen has twice been convicted of felonies in the past 10
years, qualifying him for habitual offender status.
The prosecutor discussed the potential as to whether charges may be filed
against anyone else in connection with the case.
"There is a potential for other arrests and other additional charges being
brought in this case," Ethredge said during the press conference.
Allen was arrested May 3 by Flippin police and Marion County Sheriff's Office
personnel in connection with the girl's injuries following an intense, 48-hour
investigation. On May 1, police began the investigation into the girl's
injuries after they received a call about an unresponsive child at Hillside
Apartments in Flippin. Once on scene, they were told the girl fell down a set
of stairs.
However, authorities said the injuries appeared to be too severe for that
explanation. Flippin police were joined by investigators from the Marion County
Sheriff's Office in processing the scene of the incident.
Alithia was taken by Air Evac to Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo. Several
days later, she passed away as a result of her injuries.
(source: The Baxter Bulletin)
CALIFORNIA:
The drugs to execute criminals could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,
California prison agency records show
Internal California prison agency records suggest the state might have to pay
hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy execution drugs for lethal injection,
according to documents released Tuesday by a civil liberties group.
Public records obtained by the ACLU of Northern California show that prison
officials were busy in 2014 trying to find suppliers of execution drugs, which
many manufacturers have refused to sell to authorities for the purpose of
lethal injection.
At the time, court rulings had blocked executions, and the state planned to
propose a new single-drug execution method. The last execution in California
occurred in 2006.
A May 2014 email obtained in the public records by the ACLU said a compounding
pharmacy agreed to provide pentobarbital, one of four proposed execution drugs,
at an initial cost of $500,000 - and only if the company's name was not
released to the public.
Another email said the state had found a different source for buying
pentobarbital. That email noted that 18 inmates had exhausted their appeals and
about 324 grams of the drug would be required to execute them all.
The email said the cost would be $1,109 for 500 milligrams in addition to fees
to cover "service costs" and pay for lawyers.
"This is likely a 1-time window to acquire this drug because of
pharmaceutical/anti-death penalty activity," wrote Kelly L. McClease, whom the
emails identified as an attorney in the legal division of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
There was no indication that the state purchased the drug, which would have
cost about $718,632 for the 18 executions, in addition to the unspecified fees.
The email said the drug had a shelf life of 24 months.
A Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman said she could not
comment on the documents because of "ongoing litigation." The protocol may be
challenged in court if approved by the state.
California unveiled a new single-drug execution method in November. The ACLU
sued the state to obtain internal records about how the new method was chosen.
Public comment on the proposed lethal injection protocol, which was supposed to
end in January, has been extended to July.
Ana Zamora, criminal justice policy director for the ACLU chapter, said the
emails about the drug costs contradicted statements in the department's
proposed lethal injection regulatory package. It estimated the drugs would cost
about $4,193 for each execution, based on what the state spent during past
executions, she said.
She said the documents suggest that drugs for a single execution could cost
between $133,080 and $150,000.
Michael Rushford, president and CEO of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation, said the corrections department could obtain the drugs at
even less than $4,000 for each execution if it used prison compounding
pharmacies to make them.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
USA:
U.S. will not seek death penalty for accused ringleader in Benghazi attacks
The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it will not seek the death
penalty against Ahmed Abu Khattala, 54, a U.S.-designated terrorist whom
prosecutors accuse of leading the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed
four Americans.
The announcement, contained in a notice to the federal trial court in
Washington, clears the way for a major terrorism trial in the nation's capital,
the 1st in the U.S. since 2015, barring a plea agreement by Abu Khattala.
The decision ended a lengthy review after President Obama aired concerns in
October that while he supported capital punishment in theory, he found it
"deeply troubling" in practice.
The move marked somewhat of a shift for the department, one year after federal
prosecutors last May secured a death sentence in a capital terrorism case
against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for the 2013 Boston marathon bombings.
The department approved its 1st new capital prosecution in November under
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch -- who called the death penalty an "effective
punishment" before her Senate confirmation in April 2015 - against Noe
Aranda-Soto, an illegal immigrant accused of human trafficking and murder in
Texas.
However, analysts said the government faced a difficult calculation in the
Benghazi case, pointing to complex legal, political and national security
concerns that have produced a mixed record in capital terrorism cases, and to a
history in which no D.C. jury has ever imposed the death penalty.
"We do these on a case-by-case basis," a Justice Department official said,
declining to elaborate. Legal observers noted challenges facing the U.S.
government in bringing witnesses from Libya to testify in a U.S. courtroom amid
sectarian conflict in the region.
A trial date before U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District
has not been set.
Abu Khattala commanded a brigade absorbed by the extremist, anti-Western group
Ansar Al-Sharia, which committed the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that killed U.S.
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and 3 others, according to U.S.
investigators. The U.S. government in January 2014 designated Abu Khattala a
terrorist and Ansar al-Sharia, an armed militia that seeks to establish Sharia
law in Libya, a terrorist organization.
"The department is committed to ensuring that the defendant is held accountable
for his alleged role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission and
annex in Benghazi that killed 4 Americans and seriously injured 2 others, and
if convicted, he faces a sentence of up to life in prison," Justice Department
spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement Tuesday.
The Obama administration authorized Abu Khattala's capture in June 2014 U.S.
Special Operations raid in Libya after luring him to a villa south of Benghazi.
He pleaded not guilty after being indicted on 18 counts, including
death-eligible charges of murder of an internationally protected person, murder
of an officer or employee of the United States, killing a person in an attack
on a U.S. facility and providing material support to terrorists resulting in
death.
In unsealing a July 2013 complaint with death-penalty eligible charges,
then-attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. said an investigation was ongoing, and
that the arrest "proves that the U.S. government will expend any effort
necessary to pursue terrorists who harm our citizens."
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney for the District Channing D. Phillips referred
questions about the decision by the attorney general's office to the Justice
Department.
Federal Public Defender for the District A.J. Kramer declined to comment.
The decision returned focus at least briefly to the criminal prosecution for an
attack that remains so politically charged that it was raised in Republican
presidential debates and dramatized in a feature film released nationwide last
winter.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, testifying in October
before a House select committee investigating the attacks, repeated her
categorical denials of the long-debunked charge that she impeded rescue
attempts. However, a State Department review concluded that security was
inadequate for Benghazi, and the issue has continued to spur partisan
crossfire.
In the Abu Khattala case, it remains unclear what impact a decision not to seek
the death penalty might have on plea talks, even as national security concerns
surrounding the prosecution persist.
The situation is not unusual. The government's record in capital terrorism
cases has been mixed, with more success in cases brought against "lone-wolves"
acting on their own to kill on U.S. soil than in cases brought against
foreign-based or foreign-trained fighters.
Libya is in the midst of a civil war, complicating the investigation and
raising questions about how much prosecutors will rely on classified evidence
and on how any such disclosures might affect U.S. interests in the region.
Prosecutors have already turned over about 20,000 pages of material to Abu
Khattala's defense at last notice, most of it is classified, and much of the
government's case remains secret.
The Libyan government has previously protested the U.S. seizure of Abu Khattala
as a violation of Libyan sovereignty.
In court papers, U.S. authorities alleged that Abu Khattala told others he
believed the American diplomatic presence in Benghazi was cover for a U.S.
intelligence gathering facility, and vowed to "do something about this
facility."
Abu Khattala drove with attackers to the U.S. Special Mission and participated
in the assault that began about 9:45 p.m. that night, "coordinating the efforts
of his conspirators and turning away emergency responders," prosecutors
alleged. Stevens and State Department communications expert Sean Patrick Smith
died of smoke inhalation after attackers set ablaze a villa containing a "safe
room" at the compound.
Near midnight, Abu Khattala allegedly entered a mission office and oversaw the
looting of data about a nearby CIA annex, which soon came under mortar fire,
killing security contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.
Last year, a lawyer for Abu Khattala, standing next to the defendant, dressed
in a green prison jumpsuit and with a gray beard and swept-back hair, said in
court that "everyone agrees what happened in September 2012 was a tragedy and
Americans suffered a tragic loss." Defense attorney Jeffrey D. Robinson added,
"Mr. Abu Khattala agrees it was a tragic loss but disagrees he is the person
responsible for it."
Death penalty experts said they were not surprised at the government's move
noting that terrorism prosecutions for the deaths of Americans remain extremely
rare and highly case-specific.
Federal prosecutors have sought the death penalty for an accused terrorist at
least 14 times since 1993, but only one was executed - Timothy McVeigh, the
1995 Oklahoma City federal building bomber.
McVeigh is 1 of 3 people executed by the U.S. government since 1964.
Tsarnaev, the most recent addition to federal death row, also is a U.S.
citizen, of Chechen heritage, who purportedly was inspired by Islamic
radicalism but not in contact with any organized group.
Others who faced the death penalty but pleaded guilty and received life
sentences include serial bomber Eric Rudolph, an avowed white supremacist
convicted in 2005 for explosions at Atlanta's Olympic Park in 1996 and at an
Alabama abortion clinic, and Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who was
convicted in 1998 of leading an 18-year-long anti-technology and anarchist
crusade from his remote Montana cabin that killed three and injured 28.
Since 2000, the U.S. government has failed to persuade federal juries to impose
the death penalty in other high-profile cases.
A jury in Alexandria, Virginia, in 2006 rejected the U.S. government's 4-year
long effort to obtain a death sentence against Al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias
Moussaoui, a French citizen who received life in prison for conspiring in the
2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Manhattan jurors in 2001 deadlocked in the al-Qaeda led bombings of 2 U.S.
embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed 214 people, resulting in life
sentences for a Saudi and a Tanzanian man convicted in the attacks.
The Moussaoui prosecution in particular was criticized by some analysts from
both the left and right. Conservative critics said the result highlighted the
drawbacks of trying terrorists in civilian courts. Liberal experts said the
government wasted years and millions of dollars seeking Moussaoui's execution
when a plea deal and life sentence was an option from the outset.
Other observers questioned whether U.S. pursuit of the death penalty helps or
hinders foreign government cooperation with U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
"There are tensions between public trials and national security," said Robert
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, including
what kinds of evidence can be admitted in a capital case and the need not to
compromise anti-terrorism efforts abroad. "This is a highly extraordinary
case."
The prospect of a death penalty trial in Washington poses hurdles for both
sides.
Trying a foreign terrorist accused of the overseas killing of a senior U.S.
diplomat and other federal employees could be expected to draw a sympathetic
jury in Washington, seat of the national government.
However since Congress reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988, only a
handful of eligible cases have gone to federal trial in the District, and none
resulted in a death sentence.
(source: Washington Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 09:45:35 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 09:45:35 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605110945250.3700@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
ANTIGUA & BARBUDA:
UN wants death penalty off the books
Several countries at the United Nations (UN) have recommended that the
government of Antigua & Barbuda establish a formal moratorium on capital
punishment.
The recommendations, which came from among approximately 44 country
representatives at the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council???s
Universal Periodic Review (UPR), continued despite the representatives being
advised that a de facto moratorium has existed since the 1990s.
The 1st representative to raise the matter was from Australia. "Establish a
formal moratorium on the death penalty with a view to ratifying the second
optional protocol to the international covenant on civil and political rights,"
she advised.
Many other countries followed suit. Panama's representative said, "Consider
establishing an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the
death penalty ..." while another Latin American country, Honduras, advised the
same.
The United Kingdom's (UK) representative said, " ... respect national legal
procedures and the standards required by the Privy Council and the UN for the
protection of the rights of prisoners sentenced to death."
In response, Antigua & Barbuda's representative at the review, Parliamentary
Secretary in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, Senator, Maureen Payne-Hyman,
assured the group that in practice a moratorium exists.
"With the issue of the death penalty, that's a very touchy and vexing issue in
the Caribbean. In Antigua, it does not matter what type of crime you've
committed, you're not executed," she said.
Portugal responded by advising that the government abolish capital punishment
"both in practice and in law." Many similar recommendations followed.
The UPR is conducted on the human right records of all UN member states. The
latest review was Antigua & Barbuda's 2nd. The 1st review was conducted in
2011.
Superintendent of Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Albert Wade confirmed that there
are no inmates awaiting the execution of a sentence of death or "on death row"
as any such inmates were ordered to be re-sentenced by the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council.
(source: Antigua Observer)
JAMAICA:
Jamaican Diaspora's mixed feelings of possible return of hanging
The Jamaicans in the U.S. may be united in a call for stronger action to stem
the tide of killings in their birthplace but they are divided when it comes to
resuming hanging.
Reacting to a disclosure by Robert Montague, Jamaica's National Security
Minister that the Andrew Holness Administration was considering bringing back
the death penalty, Jamaicans in the Diaspora, especially in New York, said
aggressive steps were urgently needed to reduce the high homicide rate but they
were far from being unanimous on any return of capital punishment.
"The problem we face is the wanton use of violence in the commission of crime
in Jamaica," said New York Assemblyman Nick Perry, Assistant Speaker pro-tem of
the legislature in Albany. "The killings of innocent people, especially in case
in which the victims have handed over their possessions and are not fighting
back are appalling and cry out for stiffer punishment. People are simply fed up
with what is taking place and many are agitating for a strong response,
including hanging.
"Although I am not a supporter of the death penalty I wouldn't be among those
who are arguing we must save the life of a convicted killer who murdered
someone in such merciless circumstances," insisted Perry. "The country is
desperate for a solution in the wake of some killings.
"Scientific research has shown that capital punishment isn't a deterrent, but
there is increasing support across Jamaica for it because in far too many
cases, there was no rhyme or reason to take people's lives," added Perry,
Chairman of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus in the state
legislature. "I am not a death penalty advocate but in some cases its use may
be justified."
The recent killings of 2 American missionaries, Harold Nichols and Randy
Hentzel, who had spent 14 years building houses and otherwise serving poor
communities in the Albion Mountain region in north-eastern St. Mary have
triggered widespread concern in and out of Jamaica.
"Marks of violence were seen on Nichol's body," said Dwight Powell, Deputy
Superintendent and acting head of St. Mary's police. Hentzel's body was found
face down in bushes with his hands bound behind his back.
"It was a horrible example of violence," said Assemblyman Perry.
Joan Pinnock, President of the Jamaican-American Bar Association, Northeast,
agreed but was quick to reject any return of hanging in the Caricom nation.
"The crime situation is quite bad as children, seniors and the youth are being
victimized," complained Pinnock, representative of the northeastern region of
the U.S. on the Jamaica Diaspora Board. "But we must find other ways to impose
stiffer punishment without resorting to the death penalty. I am opposed to any
return of hanging because it will not solve our problem. I don't believe we
have a right to take people's lives. The deaths of the missionaries were awful
violent act. Denying killers freedom for the rest of their lives is a stiff and
appropriate punishment."
Canon Calvin McIntyre, Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in
the Bronx stopped short of endorsing the return of hanging in Jamaica but
called for "drastic measures" to reduce the homicide rate.
"I am not saying hang them, those who commit murder and are found guilty in
court," explained the priest who is retiring from his position in the Bronx in
December and plans to return to Jamaica. "We must send a strong message to
those who plan and carry out such heinous crimes. We must let them know that
drastic punishment will follow. Clearly, there must be accountability,
particularly for premeditated murder. The murder rate is deterring many
Jamaicans from returning home."
Michael Williams, a Jamaican immigrant in Brooklyn was emphatic that the death
penalty was needed to send a message to those who kill.
"The Bible speaks of an eye for an eye and I believe that," he added.
(source: nycaribnews.com)
INDONESIA:
Amnesty International Slams Indonesia's Plans to Execute Priosners on Death-Row
Amnesty International on Wednesday (11/05) slammed Indonesia's plans to execute
death-row inmates, following recent reports of inmates being moved to
Nusakambangan prison, where prisoners typically await their execution.
The executions are believed to take place this month as Attorney General H.M.
Prasetyo has said that preparations ahead of the third round of executions are
on track with probably 14 death row inmates on the list, including 10
foreigners. The government has not announced the names of the inmates, although
some names have been speculated by the media.
Last Sunday, 3 local prisoners, Suryanto (53), Agus Hadi (53) and Pudjo Lestari
(42), were moved from Tembesi pison in Batam, Riau Islands, to Nusakambangan
prison in what appears to be part of preparations for executions.
Amnesty said the 3 prisoners were sentenced to death in 2007 for being
convicted of attempting to smuggle benzodiazepine pills from Malaysia, a drug
trafficking offense which does not meet the requisite "most-serious crimes"
threshold under international human rights law to warrant the death penalty.
"It is devastating to hear that 3 more people are facing execution. The death
penalty is a cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment that has no place in
today's justice system," Amnesty International crisis campaigns coordinator
Diana Sayed said on Wednesday.
Amnesty, who has campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty for more
than 4 decades in more than 140 countries, called on Indonesian authorities to
immediately halt any executions plans.
"The death penalty is always a violation of human rights and can never be
condoned under any circumstances. State sanctioned killing only serves to
continue the cycle of violence and we know it doesn't work as a deterrent for
further crimes," she added.
Amnesty also urged Indonesia to establish a moratorium on all executions with a
view to abolishing the death penalty, a policy previously upheld during Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono's administration.
Last year, most of the executed inmates were foreigners, prompting a wave of
international condemnation of Indonesia's use of capital punishment as well as
diplomatic pressure from many countries.
After the executions, Australia temporarily recalled its ambassador to
Indonesia following the execution of Bali 9 duo Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew
Chan. The relationship has since been restored.
*******************
Indonesian Drug Smuggler to Evade Execution Due to Ongoing Legal Process
Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly has confirmed that death-row
convict Freddy Budiman will not be included in the third round of executions of
drug convicts that is expected to take place soon.
Freddy, who was found guilty of smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills from China
to Indonesia, has so far evaded execution due to an incomplete legal process.
"He still has an ongoing legal process. Just ask the attorney general," Yasonna
said at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Monday.
Moreover, the minister said he had not yet received detailed information about
the 3rd round of executions.
"I have not been notified. Ask the attorney general," Yasonna said.
The executions were expected to take place in the beginning of this year, as it
is funded from the 2016 budget of the Attorney General's Office.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports state that the names of 14 death-row inmates
have been included in the list, including 10 foreigners.
Several parties have also requested the inclusion of French national Sergei
Areski Atlaoui and Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines, after the latter was
given a temporary reprieve previously due to the ongoing trial of her employer
in her homeland.
Last year, most of the executed inmates were foreigners, prompting a wave of
international condemnation of Indonesia's use of capital punishment as well as
diplomatic pressure from many countries.
(source for both: Jakarta Globe)
*****************
see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/indonesia-halt-executions-ua-11016
(source: Amnesty International USA)
*****************
'I am haunted': Indonesia death row prisoners allege they were tortured to
confess
2 fingers on Lim Jit Wee's right hand are ugly stumps; a legacy, he says, of
the torture that led to him falsely implicating a man he had never met in a
crime punishable by death in Indonesia.
In 2007, Lim, a Malaysian, was working as a driver for another Malaysian man
when Indonesian police found 12,000 ecstasy tablets in his boss's car.
Lim says he was apprehended at gunpoint by police from the National Narcotics
Agency outside his Taman Anggrek apartment in West Jakarta. "They asked me to
say where the (ecstasy) factory and products are, when I am only the driver -
how can I know?"
He says he was dragged behind a speedboat in Ancol in North Jakarta and lost
the tops of his fingers after a steel table leg was slammed onto them - "I
stitch it myself, I never go to the clinic or hospital" - and he was struck in
the collarbone with a metal bar.
"I said: 'I don't know, I'm Malaysian.' They just beat me."
Lim says he was forced to "confess" that a man named Christian was his boss.
In 2008, Christian, who like many Indonesians goes by 1 name, was sentenced to
death for importing a psychotropic substance.
He now faces death by firing squad, with a further round of executions for drug
offenders imminent in Indonesia.
But on Tuesday, Lim told the West Jakarta District Court he did not know
Christian at the time of his arrest.
"I have spent 8 1/2 years in jail and I have difficulty sleeping because I know
I testified wrongly against Christian," says Lim, who was also sentenced to
death.
"I said something because I was forced ... because I was tortured, my fingers
cut off. I feel guilty, I am haunted by the feeling that I made an innocent man
have a difficult life."
Christian, who sold imported flour, was parking his car on a Jakarta street on
November 25, 2007, when police pointed a pistol at his head and detained him
without a warrant.
He was allegedly handcuffed, blindfolded and beaten. Photographs shown in
court, taken the day after he was detained in November 2007, show deep bruises
on his abdomen and arms.
He was not arrested at the crime scene and no urine test was conducted,
something required in drug-related cases.
Christian's lawyer, Azas Tigor Nainggolan, who works for the Catholic Bishops'
Conference of Indonesia, says his client was wrongfully convicted on false
evidence and had an unfair trial.
He has launched action in the West Jakarta District Court to request a judicial
review of Christian's case.
"Our judicial system is still unfair and corrupt, so we should not apply the
death sentence," Mr Tigor says.
>From September 2010 to December 2011 the National Human Rights Commission of
Indonesia (Komnas HAM) monitored prisoners on death row in jails throughout
Indonesia.
Commissioner Roichatul Aswidah said the investigation uncovered many instances
of torture.
"Our monitoring found cases of wrongful arrest, Christian's case in
particular," she told the court.
"He was wrongfully arrested and tortured. Lim was also tortured. Death
sentences cannot be issued in cases in which torture is part of the legal
process."
Meanwhile, the Bishops' Conference of Indonesia has asked the government to
re-examine 300 death penalty convictions it believes were the result of unfair
trials.
But the drums are beating, with the latest round of executions expected this
month. West Java police are now saying 15 drug offenders will be executed in
the latest round. Mr Tigor admits he is "very worried".
Christian says his wife and daughters have never stopped suffering.
"It is a lie that Indonesia is based on justice and law," he says. "There is no
justice in Indonesia."
(source: Sydney Morning Herald)
*************
15 Drug Convicts to be Executed This Month
15 drug convicts on death row, including 10 foreigners, will face firing squads
at an unspecified date in mid May, a spokesman for Central Java police told
BenarNews on Tuesday.
The executions would be the 1st since 8 mostly foreign drug convicts were
executed in April 2015 amid a diplomatic uproar involving Indonesia, Australia
and Brazil.
The executions would also be 3rd round carried out under the administration of
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo since he took office in October 2014.
Officials from Joko's administration could not be reached on Tuesday for
confirmation about the new round of executions.
The 15 convicts include 4 Chinese nationals, 2 Nigerians, 2 Senegalese, 1
Pakistani and a citizen of Zimbabwe, Central Java Police spokesman Aloysius
Liliek Darmanto said.
"5 are Indonesian citizens while 10 are foreigners," Liliek told BenarNews.
"The Indonesians are 4 men and 1 woman," he said, declining to name all 15
convicts.
Central Java Police have 180 personnel prepared to serve as members of firing
squads, he added.
"However, the executioners have not been dispatched to Nusakambangan as they
still wait for instructions from the attorney general," Liliek said, referring
to a penal island off the southern coast of Central Java that is home to
Indonesia's highest security prison.
8 drug convicts, including 2 Australians, a Brazilian and 2 Nigerians, were put
to death there on April 29, 2015. Personnel were sent to the island about 72
hours before the executions.
On Jan. 18, 2015, 6 other drug convicts were executed in Boyolali, Central
Java.
If the Nusakambangan procedure is followed, security will be tightened around
the Wijaya Pier at Cilacap port, the closest port to the island.
Transferred to Nusakambangan
Over the past 2 weeks, 4 drug convicts on death row were transferred to
Nusakambangan, but the prison's coordinator said he did not know if the
transfers were related to possible executions.
"All are under the authority of the attorney general, our duty is only to
accommodate," Abdul Haris told BenarNews.
Indonesian Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo could not be reached for comment.
Previously, he told reporters that the government did not want to release
specific details about the executions to avoid violent protests.
Following the April 2015 executions, the Jokowi administration was criticized
by Australia and Brazil for carrying them out.
Australia recalled its ambassador to Indonesia after 2 of its citizens, Andrew
Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were among the 8 who were shot.
'Not the answer'
The Jakarta Post in January quoted the attorney general as saying that the
death sentences were needed against drug offenders as "shock therapy against
serious crime."
Jokowi used a similar phrase in December 2014 to describe executions in
combating drug offenses.
Human rights groups in Indonesia, however, are protesting the possible
executions.
Al Araf, the director of Imparsial, a Jakarta -based rights group, said Jokowi
had failed in his electoral campaign promise known as Nawa Cita (9 priorities
for a better Indonesia).
"Nawa Cita focuses on the respect of human rights. If the execution is
conducted, it means the government is not consistent," he told BenarNews.
"In my opinion, the death penalty should be removed completely. Why don't we
encourage a more civilized law? The law is supposed to humanize people and
correct mistakes," he added.
Meanwhile, Haris Azhar, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons
and Victims of Violence (KontraS), said Indonesia's policy of capital
punishment needed to be re-examined.
"Drug crimes involve a lot of people. Punishments cannot be imposed on 1 or 2
people who get caught," Haris told BenarNews.
He said the government should reveal large networks behind drug trafficking in
Indonesia, no matter who is exposed.
Haris's colleague, Puri Kencana Putri, said executions had no deterrent effect
or effect in reducing drug-related crimes. Data from the National Narcotics
Agency in 2015 said that the number of drug addicts increased to 5.9 million
people from the previous year.
"That's the proof," she told BenarNews. "The death penalty is not the answer.
It should be abolished."
(source: BenarNews)
BANGLADESH:
3 to die, 8 get life in 3 murder cases
3 people were sentenced to death and 8 others to life imprisonment in three
separate murder cases in Narsingdi, Gazipur and Mymensingh yesterday.
A Narsingdi court sentenced a woman and her lover to death for killing her son
in 2011 following an extramarital relationship.
Narsingdi Additional District and Sessions Judge Shaheen Uddin sentenced
Jahanara Akhter, 28, daughter of Kabir Hossain of Chalna village and Hanif
Sheikh, 30, son of Abdus Sattar of Khalapara village in Palash upazila, to
death and fined them Tk 10,000 each, reports UNB.
According to the prosecution, Jahanara, wife of Babul Hossain, a Dubai
expatriate, developed an extramarital relationship with Hanif Sheikh in absence
of her husband.
As Sanaullah, 6, son of Jahanara informed the matter to his father over phone,
Jahanara along with Hanif strangled him to death in her house on October 5,
2011.
Deeply shocked at the news, Babul returned home the following day and filed a
case against them.
Later, police arrested Jahanara and Hanif.
After examining records and witnesses, Narsingdi Additional District and
Sessions Judge Shaheen Uddin handed down the verdict.
Our Gazipur correspondent reported that a court here yesterday sentenced a
woman to death for killing her mother-in-law in Kaliakoir upazila in January
last year following a family feud.
District and Sessions Judge AKM Enamul Haque passed the order.
The death penalty awardee is Rozina, wife of Parvez of Mouchak Uttarpara in the
upazila. Rozina hacked her mother-in-law Parveen Akhter on the night of January
15 last year while she was asleep.
Parvez was at a relative's house at the time of the incident. Locals caught
Rozina the following day and handed her over to the police
After investigation, police pressed charges against Rozina on May 31. After
examining the case record and 13 witnesses, the judge pronounced the verdict.
In Mymensingh, A court here sentenced eight people to life imprisonment in a
murder case yesterday. The court also fined the convicts Tk 5000 each. In
default, they are to suffer six months more in jail, court sources said.
The convicts are Md Ziauddin, Abdul Awal Member, his son Nasirul Haque, Sumon
Miah, Humayan Kabir, Alamgir Kabir, Abdul Baten and Sirajul Islam, They all
hail from Gandokhola village in Trishal upazila of the district.
According to the prosecution, a gang of robbers entered the house of Ramzan Ali
of Gandokhola village on the night of September 23, 2003.
When the house owner Ramzan Ali tried to resist the gang, they stabbed him.
Critically injured Ramzan was rushed to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital
(MMCH) where he where he succumbed to his injuries the following day.
Arif Robbani, son of Ramzan lodged a case with Trishal Police Station on
September 31.
Later, police pressed charge-sheet against the 8.
After examining the witnesses and evidence, Judge Mohammad Johirul Kabir of the
Second Additional District and Sessions Judge's Court handed down the verdict.
******************
Bangladesh on alert after execution of Jamaat leader
Authorities in Bangladesh heightened security after Motiur Rahman Nizami, chief
of the largest Islamist party, was executed early on Wednesday for his role in
genocide and other serious crimes during independence war against Pakistan in
1971.
Shortly after midnight, home minister Asaduzzaman Khan said Jamaat-e-Islami
leader Nizami was hanged inside Dhaka central jail amid tight security at 12:10
am.
The execution came after the Supreme Court upheld the death penalty given to
Nizami by a special tribunal.
The Jamaat-e-Islami condemned the execution and called a day-long general
strike on Thursday but such protest calls usually do not attract any major
response from people.
After the execution, an ambulance escorted by security officials carried
Nizami's body to his ancestral home in northwestern Pabna district, where he
was buried in the morning, his family said.
The 73-year-old is the 5th man to be hanged for war crimes. 3 senior leaders of
the Jamaat and a senior leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist
Party, led by former premier Khaleda Zia, were sent to the gallows earlier.
Pakistani soldiers aided by local collaborators killed 3 million people, raped
200,000 women and forced some 10 million to flee the country during the nine
months of war in then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Nizami's death sentence was upheld for three charges - the slaying of 480
people in 2 separate incidents in 1971 and orchestrating the killing of
intellectuals just 2 days before Bangladesh gained independence. He was the
leader of Al Badr militia group, which was responsible for kidnapping and
killing of dozens of teachers, journalists and doctors.
He fled to Pakistan when Bangladesh gained independence but returned under
state patronage following the assassination of independence leader Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family in a coup in 1975.
Nizami later became chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami and served as a cabinet
minister when Zia was the premier during 2001-06 .
He was also sentenced to death in a separate case of smuggling 10 trucks of
arms and ammunition during 2001-06. The consignment was brought to the country
through a state-run jetty in Chittagong that was under his ministry. At the
time, Nizami was industries minister and the consignment came to the country
under state backing to be used by the Indian militant group ULFA.
Earlier on Tuesday evening, Nizami's family members met him after he refused to
seek presidential clemency, the last legal remedy available to a condemned man.
(source: Hindustan Times)
***************************
Long delays in Nizami's trial
The investigation into the war crimes of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders Motiur Rahman
Nizami and Abdul Quader Mollah began on the same day in July 2010. Charges were
framed against the duo on the same day in May of 2012.
The cases, however, had different paces from then on.
The entire legal procedures of Quader Mollah's case ended on December 12, 2013
and he was executed that very day.
Nizami's legal proceedings ended yesterday, nearly 2 1/2 years after Quader
Mollah was executed.
Nizami's case took around 36 months, from indictment to the final verdict, due
to alleged delaying tactics of the defence; the Chittagong arms haul case, in
which Nizami was an accused and had been sentenced to death; reconstitution of
the International Crimes Tribunal-1; changes of prosecutors; and the convict's
"illness" on the day of verdict delivery, according to 2 prosecutors and media
reports.
The Supreme Court dismissed his petition seeking review of the apex court's
order that upheld his death penalty for the crimes he committed during the 1971
Liberation War.
Nizami was shown arrested on August 2, 2010, in the war crimes case along with
his party colleagues Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman and
Abdul Quader Mollah.
As the trial began after their indictment, defence counsels brought an array of
time petitions for what the prosecution said was to delay the trial.
Besides, defence counsels remained absent on hartal days citing "security
concerns and personal grounds", prompting the tribunal to defer trial
proceedings.
The tribunal on several occasion fined defence counsels for not showing up
before the court even though it had offered to provide necessary protection for
the counsels on hartal days.
Amid the defence failing to show up, the tribunal on November 13, 2013,
concluded the case proceedings.
The tribunal, however, allowed the defence to place their closing arguments and
the case finally ended on November 20 that year.
The trial suffered another setback when the then chairman of the tribunal
Justice ATM Fazle Kabir went on retirement in January, 2014, without delivering
the verdict.
53 days after his retirement, the tribunal was reconstituted on February 23
with a new chairman, Justice M Enayetur Rahim, and the tribunal decided to hear
the closing arguments once again.
Closing arguments of the prosecution and the defence went on between March 10
and March 24 when the tribunal concluded the case proceedings.
The tribunal on June 23, 2014, fixed the following day for delivering the
verdict but could not do so as the jail authorities did not produce Nizami
before the tribunal citing him being "sick".
The trial of Nizami was also bogged down due to his being an accused in the
sensational 10-truck arms haul case of 2004. The government had to send him to
Chittagong usually twice a month so that he could appear before a court there.
In August, 2013, the tribunal, in an extraordinary move, overcame this barrier
with an order that Nizami was not to be produced in the Chittagong court, if
proceedings of the 2 cases coincided.
On top of this, change of the conducting prosecutor twice, poor preparations of
the prosecution and its failure to produce witnesses caused more delays, this
paper learnt.
The progress of all cases at Tribunal-1, including Nizami's case, had stalled
for a couple of weeks in December, 2012, following the "Skype scandal". The
defence had filed petitions for a retrial but it was rejected on January 3,
2013.
Tribunal-1 finally delivered the verdict on October 29, 2014. Nizami, however,
challenged the verdict before the Supreme Court seeking acquittal from all
charges.
After the apex court on January 6 this year upheld his death penalty and Nizami
sought review of the verdict, and the court on May 5 this year rejected the
petition bringing an end to the long legal battle.
(source for both: The Daily Star)
**************
Nizami execution will not deliver justice
The execution of Motiur Rahman Nizami Tuesday is a deplorable move by the
Bangladeshi authorities which will not deliver justice to the victims of war
crimes, Amnesty International said today.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, the current chief of Bangladeshi political party
Jamaat-e-Islami, was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail today. He was sentenced to
death by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) in Bangladesh in October 2014
after he was convicted of charges relating murder, torture, rape and the mass
killing of intellectuals during Bangladesh's War of Independence in 1971.
"We are dismayed that Bangladeshi authorities have executed Motiur Rahman
Nizami. The victims of the horrific events of the 1971 Liberation War are
entitled to justice, but taking another life is not the answer," said Champa
Patel, Amnesty International's Director of the South Asia Regional Office.
"The death penalty is always a human rights violation, but its use is even more
troubling when the execution follows a flawed process. There are serious
questions about the fairness of Motiur Rahman Nizami's trial - and of
proceedings before the ICT more generally - that have not been addressed.
Victims of past atrocities deserve better than a flawed process.
"The victims of the horrific events of the 1971 Liberation War are entitled to
justice, but taking another life is not the answer"----Champa Patel, Amnesty
International's Director of the South Asia Regional Office
"We urge the Bangladeshi authorities to join most of the world by turning its
back on this cruel and irreversible punishment, and impose a moratorium on the
implementation of the death penalty with a view to its eventual repeal."
The government has a duty to ensure accountability for war crimes, and it is
positive that the Bangladeshi authorities are taking steps in this direction.
But many credible organizations including Amnesty International and the UN have
raised serious and important issues around the fairness of the ICT trials which
have not been addressed.
"Tuesday's decision comes at a politically sensitive time for Bangladesh, and
all sides must ensure calm prevails across the country. Security forces should
ensure that the right to peaceful protest is respected, while political leaders
on all sides should call on their supporters to refrain from human rights
abuses," said Champa Patel.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception
regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or
the method used by the state to kill the prisoner.
Background
At least 197 people were sentenced to death in Bangladesh in 2015, including 4
people sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT).
Bangladesh carried out 4 executions in 2015, three of whom were sentenced by
the ICT.
The ICT is a Bangladeshi court set up by the Government in 2010 to investigate
mass scale human rights violations committed during the Bangladeshi 1971
Independence War. Amnesty International welcomed the Government's move to bring
those responsible to justice, but insisted that the accused should receive fair
trials without recourse to the death penalty. The proceedings of the Tribunal
in previous cases were marked with severe irregularities and violations of the
right to a fair trial.
During Motiur Rahman Nizami's trial the prosecution was allowed to call on 22
witnesses, while the defence was arbitrarily limited to only 4. According to
Nizami's legal team, the defence was also prevented cross-examining a key
prosecution witness. The defence team was also only given 3 weeks to prepare
for trial, while the prosecution were granted 22 months to conduct their
investigation.
(source: Amnesty International)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 09:46:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 09:46:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605110946280.3700@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
INDIA:
Outfit seeks death penalty in Santhal woman's murder case
All India Manji Pangana Mahal (AIMPM), a national Santhal tribe outfit, here
today staged a sit-in protest demanding death penalty for the killer of a B.Ed
student who was shot dead outside her college last week.
31-year-old Sonali Murmu, a married Santhal women, was shot dead outside her
college and her hand severed in front of the institute's campus on May 4.
Addressing the protest gathering at Subhash Chowk here, District Convener of
the tribal outfit AIMPM Babulal Hembrom said the killer of Murmu should be
"arrested and hanged".
Hembrom said the government has been claiming that initiatives were taken for
women empowerment but a poor tribal woman was killed in broad day light outside
her college. The incident projects the true picture of women empowerment
initiatives in the state, he added.
According to police, Murmu was allegedly being harassed by one Suken Mandal of
Dumka for long who had even threatened her after marriage.
Prima facie, the killing appeared to be Mandal's handiwork as he was in love
with her, Superintendent of Police, M Tamilvanan, had said.
A number of Santhal men and women joined the protest today in front of the
statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and demanded immediate arrest of the
culprit and capital punishment.
The protest was supported by various Left parties.
(source: Zee news)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs 4 prisoners in Isfahan
The mullahs' regime has hanged 4 prisoners in a notorious jail in Isfahan,
central Iran, according to local reports.
The 4 prisoners, who were not named, were hanged on Sunday in Dastgerd Prison.
Also on Sunday a man was hanged in public in Kermanshah, western Iran, and
another man was hanged in a prison in Minab, southern Iran. On Monday 2
prisoners were hanged in a prison in Orumieh (Urmia), north-west Iran.
The latest hangings bring to at least 70 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Iran's fundamentalist regime on Monday amputated the fingers of a man in his
thirties in the city of Mashhad, north-east Iran, the latest in a line of
draconian punishments handed down and carried out in recent weeks.
The state-run Khorasan newspaper identified the victim by his initials M. T.,
adding that he was 39 years old. The prisoner was accused of theft and is also
serving a 3-year jail sentence.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
*******************
19-Year-Old Prisoner Hanged in Northeastern Iran
A young prisoner with murder charges was reportedly hanged at Mashhad Central
Prison (in the Razavi Khorasan province, northeastern Iran) on Sunday May 8 at
4:50am.
The state-run news site, Rokna, identifies the prisoner as a 19-year-old by the
name of "Morteza". Although the report does not mention the date of arrest,
there is a possibility that the prisoner was arrested when he was under the age
of 18.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
PAKISTAN----executions
Murderer of 11 among 2 sent to gallows
2 murder convicts were sent to gallows yesterday.
Later, the dead bodies were handed over to the heirs for burial.
The convicts identified as Captain (Retd) Zafar Iqbal and Mirza Shafique Ahmed
were supposed to be hanged in April but their executions were delayed after
they filed applications in courts against their execution.
In the case of Iqbal, he was supposed to be hanged on April 25 but his
execution was delayed on the directions of the district and sessions court
after he filed an application saying that his family had reached a compromise
with the victim family.
Iqbal was convicted for killing 11 persons of a family.
The convict had gunned down 6 of his relatives at Arya Mohalla in Rawalpindi on
January 10, 1994 and later on the same day he went to village Sangori in Gujar
Khan and shot dead 5 more members of the family.
He was convicted for the murders and given death penalty.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2008 dismissed review petition filed by Iqbal
against his death penalty and his mercy petition was also rejected by the
president.
In the second case, Mirza Shafique Ahmed was convicted for a murder committed
in 1993.
Ahmed was scheduled to be hanged on April 27 after his lawyer moved the Lahore
High Court saying his client was juvenile at the time of the murder.
The plea was rejected by the high court and later the Supreme Court also turned
down his plea.
(source: The Nation)
*******************
Death row prisoner hanged in Sahiwal
A death row prisoner involved in murder case was executed in the Sahiwal
CentralJail on early on Tuesday morning.
As per details, prisoner Mansha had killed a man in 2001 during a robbery
attempt. The dead body of the prisoner was handed over to his heirs after the
execution.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a 6-year moratorium on death penalty on
December 17, 2014 for those convicted for terrorism a day after the deadly
attack on Army Public School in Peshawar that left 150 persons including mostly
children dead.
There are more than 8,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistan.
(source: Daily Times)
NIGERIA:
Senate's death penalty for kidnappers
The Senate is poised to enact a law that will prescribe the death penalty for
kidnapping and hostage-taking in the country. This resolve is coming on the
heels of the kidnap and rescue of Senator Iyabo Anisulowo. The 65 year-old
ex-minister and former lawmaker was kidnapped penultimate week on her way to
her farm.
Kidnapping has become a thriving criminal industry of sorts. Prominent and
not-so-prominent citizens have been targeted. One-time presidential candidate,
Chief Olu Falae; foster father of former President Goodluck Jonathan as well as
his nephew and 3 female students of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary School,
Ikorodu, Lagos, were some of the victims whose kidnaps recently claimed
prominent media attention. Constitutional lawyer and activist, Chief Mike
Ozekhome (SAN) and former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Chief Okey
Wali (SAN) were also subjected to the ordeal.
Available statistics show that 225 kidnap cases were recorded between October
and November last year across the 24 states. In all, N85 billion worth of
ransom was demanded while N28 million was paid by victims' families or
governments. Those whose relations are unable to pay are sometimes killed.
Though arrests are being made, yet the tide of this criminality keeps soaring.
Apart from a handful of states that have imposed the capital punishment on the
heinous act, others are still treating it with kid gloves.
The time has come for us to take a serious look at this crime, which is
blighting our image internationally. We believe that what is required to tackle
this problem goes beyond the inchoate enactments among the federal and state
legislatures. There must be a national action plan against kidnapping which
every segment of society must key into. Such a game-plan will examine if the
death penalty will solve the problem.
Once it is nationally agreed, all segments of society will pursue it until it
becomes unattractive to kidnap people in Nigeria.
We believe that the death penalty could act as a deterrent, even though it
could also spike the number of people who lose their lives in the kidnappers'
dens. Kidnapping is a dastardly crime, and we must send the strong message that
those who involve themselves in it deserve no mercy.
However, we must also explore the sociological, underlying factors that drive
people to the crime, which include high unemployment rate, lack of welfare for
the less privileged and the persistent quest for quick money, which permeates
all levels of society.
Besides, the law-enforcement agencies must improve inter-agency synergy and
redouble their efforts at intelligence gathering. They must work with the
civilian populace to share intelligence to ensure that crimes are nipped in the
bud.
We must make it clear that kidnapping, like all crimes, does not pay.
(source: Editorial, The Vanguard)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 14:21:51 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 14:21:51 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., OHIO, MO., KAN.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605111421440.6604@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
ALABAMA----impending execution
Stay of Execution denied for death row cop killer
A Mobile County Circuit Judge denied a stay of execution for Vernon Madison.
He's one of Alabama's longest serving death row inmates.
Madison was convicted of the 1985 killing of Mobile Police Officer Julius
Schulte. He's set to be executed Thursday at Holman Prison, near Atmore.
Madison's attorneys argue several strokes have caused significant damage and
mental decline to the extent he no longer understands why the state intends to
execute him, which they say violates his 8th Amendment right.
It's been 31 years since Madison pulled the trigger, shooting officer Schulte
in his patrol car from behind.
"It's getting down to the point, where now is justice finally going to be
served," said Matt Green, attorney.
Green, a former Baldwin County Assistant District Attorney, has followed the
case and says if the death penalty was ever justified -- this is the case.
"His nickname was 'The Peacemaker.' He was responding to a runaway call and
over the well-being of a child and that's what this is all about. Madison gets
there and thinks somebody called police on him and for no reason... No reason
goes and shoots and kills him," said Green.
Convicted in 3 trials for capital murder and countless appeals later, Green
says it's time justice be served.
However, the group "Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty" is speaking out.
The group's chairman and board members are on death row. The group's executive
director spoke to us by phone and says its members plan to hold candlelight
vigils across the state Thursday in the hours leading up to the execution.
"I have to say I'm sorry for the State of Alabama... More blood, more blood on
its hands," said Esther Brown, Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty. "I
would say what the state does is in cold blood it's pre-meditated murder.
Closure does not come from another injustice ... Because to kill anybody,
whether it is an individual who does or the state, is an injustice."
Now in the 11th hour, Madison has almost exhausted all of his appeals.
"I think it is time justice be served. If the sentence of law that's been
imposed by the court and the federal court system and the state judiciary...
That it be followed. And I think that is what the family wants and maybe that
will happen," said Green.
Madison is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m.
(source: WALA news)
OHIO:
Ohio Supreme Court upholds death sentence of Cincinnati killer Anthony
Kirkland----5 victims included Esme Kenney, Casonya Crawford
The Ohio Supreme Court voted 4-3 to uphold Anthony Kirkland's death sentence
for murdering an SCPA seventh-grader and another Cincinnati teen - the last of
his 5 victims.
The court ruled that a prosecutor's comments implying that without a death
sentence, the killings of 13-year-old Esme Kenney in 2009 and 14-year-old
Casonya Crawford in 2006 would go unpunished, were improper but not enough to
resentence him.
Kirkland was found guilty in 2010 of aggravated murder, attempted rape and
other charges in the Kenney and Crawford deaths. Before his trial, Kirkland
also pleaded guilty to the slayings of 2 other Cincinnati women, 45-year-old
Mary Jo Newton and 25-year-old Kimya Rolison, and received life sentences. He
previously served a 16-year sentence for killing his girlfriend.
Kirkland kidnapped Kenney, a cello player at the School for Creative and
Performing Arts,, as she jogged alone around the Winton Hills reservoir close
to her home on Saturday afternoon, March 7, 2009. Her parents had called police
when she didn't come right home, and police were already out looking for her
when they came upon Kirkland in the woods. He had Kenney's iPod and her watch.
They found her body nearby.
At the sentencing phase, the prosecutor questioned whether the killings of the
Kenney and Crawford were "just freebies for him," because Kirkland was already
going to prison for life, according to Tuesday's ruling.
The prosecutor said the jury should not even consider life in prison for
Kirkland for the girls' deaths. "He's going to jail on those other 2 for the
rest of his life," he said.
The message to the jury was plain, said Justice Judith French, writing for the
majority: "If you do not return a recommendation of death, Kirkland will
receive no punishment for 2 murders." However, French also said the court's
independent review of the sentence could overcome the prosecutor's remarks.
Prosecutors argued in a 2011 filing with the court that the prosecutor's
comment was appropriate because part of the death penalty case against Kirkland
was that the girls' killings was part of a "course of conduct" involving 4
victims.
"The significance is that one of the reasons death was appropriate was the
number of victims," William Breyer, Hamilton County chief assistant prosecuting
attorney, said in the filing.
Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger said Kirkland deserved to be resentenced because
of the prosecutor's remarks.
"Although the crimes Kirkland is alleged to have committed are horrific, due
process requires that a jury be free from prejudice before recommending the
death penalty," she wrote.
Justice Paul Pfeifer agreed that Kirkland should be resentenced because of the
prosecutor's remarks. He also said Kirkland's conviction of attempted rape in
the case of Crawford should be overturned for lack of evidence.
Justice William O'Neill also dissented, saying capital punishment is
unconstitutional.
Kirkland's attorney, Herbert Freeman, said he would appeal the decision in the
federal courts.
(source: WCPO news)
MISSOURI----clemency denied for impending execution
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has denied clemency for condemned killer Earl Forrest,
hours before Forrest's scheduled execution
Forrest is scheduled to die by injection Wednesday at the state prison in Bonne
Terre. He was convicted of the 2002 killings of Harriett Smith and Michael
Wells in a drug dispute and Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Joann Barnes in a
subsequent shootout at Forrest's home.
An appeal is still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the claim that the
death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Missouri has executed 18 men since November 2013, including 6 last year.
Forrest would be the 1st in 2016.
The pace of executions is expected to slow because most of the remaining death
row inmates have pending appeals or have been declared unfit for execution.
(source: Associated Press)
KANSAS:
Capital murder charge filed in death of Kansas City, Kan., detective
Wyandotte County prosecutors on Wednesday charged a Tonganoxie man with capital
murder in the fatal shooting of a police detective.
If convicted, Curtis Rand Ayers potentially faces the death penalty for the
killing of Kansas City, Kan., Police Detective Brad Lancaster.
Lancaster, the 39-year-old father of 2 girls, was shot just after noon Monday
near the Kansas Speedway. He died Monday at a hospital.
Ayers, 28, was arrested later Monday and taken to a hospital after he was shot
by a Kansas City police officer at Bannister Road and Bruce R. Watkins Drive.
He remained hospitalized Wednesday.
Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman said Wednesday that Ayers was
also charged for the string of crimes he allegedly committed after shooting
Lancaster. Those charges are 2 counts each of aggravated robbery, aggravated
burglary and kidnapping, aggravated battery and criminal possession of a
firearm.
Ayers is a convicted felon, who was paroled from a Kansas prison in January.
After Lancaster was shot, Ayers allegedly fled in the detective's unmarked
police car before he got in a wreck with another vehicle near 118th Street and
State Avenue.
There, he allegedly carjacked another vehicle with 2 small children in the back
seat.
That car was later driven into the open garage attached to a home in Basehor.
Ayers allegedly confronted the homeowner inside and stole his car at gunpoint.
He was driving that car about 2:30 p.m. Monday on Bruce R. Watkins Drive when
Kansas City police spotted it and began a pursuit.
After exiting at Bannister Road, Ayers crashed into a bridge pillar.
Basehor resident Shelly Essary said it's unbelievable Curtis Ayers stole a
neighbor's car at gunpoint Monday after he allegedly shot Kansas City, Kan.,
police Detective Brad Lancaster. Lancaster later died. Essary said she and her
son were outside playing
He then ran up an embankment to Watkins Drive where he allegedly shot a woman
while trying to steal her car. The woman suffered non-life threatening injuries
and also remained hospitalized Wednesday, police said.
A shot was fired into another driver's vehicle, but he was not hit. Ayers was
taken into custody after he was shot by a Kansas City officer.
On Tuesday, Jackson County prosecutors charged Ayers with multiple felonies as
a result of the Bannister Road incident.
He is charged in Jackson County with 1st-degree assault, resisting arrest, and
2 counts each of unlawful discharge of a firearm and armed criminal action. His
bond in Jackson County is set at $250,000.
(source: Kansas City Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 11 14:22:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 11 May 2016 14:22:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605111422290.6604@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 11
PAKISTAN:
SC stays execution of 3 convicted by military courts
The Supreme Court stayed on Tuesday execution of 3 convicts handed down death
sentences by military courts and ordered office of the Attorney General to
respond to allegations mentioned in a petition.
The order was issued by a 3-judge bench headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim that
had taken up the appeals moved by convicts Ajab Gul, Fazal Ghaffar and Ms Zarba
Khelow against the April 13 judgement of the Peshawar High Court (PHC).
The apex court also issued notices to the Judge Advocate General Branch, the
legal arm of the armed forces, and postponed further proceedings to a date to
be decided later.
A separate 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Anwar
Zaheer Jamali is seized with 12 different appeals instituted against
convictions by the military courts, including death sentences handed down to
militants for their role in various terrorist attacks.
Rights activist Asma Jahangir told Dawn the apex court had stayed the execution
of her client, Ajab Gul, the brother of Taj Gul who was awarded a death
sentence by a military court.
Taj Gul, a resident of Upper Dir, was handed over to security forces by elders
of the area some 5 years ago.
On April 13, the PHC had upheld the death sentences handed down by the military
courts to 6 militants, including Taj Gul and Fazal Ghaffar.
Ms Jahangir said that although the high court upheld the sentences on the
grounds that due process was followed, she pleaded before the court that her
client was denied the right, also available under the Pakistan Army Act, to be
represented by a suitable legal counsel during the trial.
Moreover, no document was shown to her client to prove that he actually
participated in any assault on a government or public property or the personnel
of law enforcement agencies, she added.
Her petition claimed that even though their family members met the accused
several times at an internment centre at the Pak-Austria Institute of Tourism
and Management in Swat, they came to know about their conviction only through
media reports on March 15.
A public announcement made by the Inter-Services Public Relations on March 15
said the convict was an active member of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and was
involved in attacking law enforcement agencies which resulted in the death of
police constables and personnel of the Levies force.
A large cache of arms and explosives was recovered from the possession of the
convict and he confessed to having committed the offences before a magistrate,
for which he was given the capital punishment.
Fazal Ghaffar, 38, was represented in court by Advocate Ahmed Raza Kasuri.
Ghaffar was also detained and subsequently kept at an internment centre until
his conviction and award of death sentence by the military court.
The family of this convict also came to know about the death sentence through
the media. Ghaffar was charged with attacking personnel of security forces.
Fateh Khan was represented by Advocate Laiq Swati. He was handed over to the
security forces on Dec 27, 2009, in the Charbagh area of Swat district and
believed to be a teacher at a seminary before his arrest by the security
forces.
The counsel too pleaded that his client had been denied fair trial as he was
not allowed to engage a defence lawyer of his choice during his trial.
The military courts, set up after the Dec 16, 2014 carnage at the Army Public
School in Peshawar, have so far convicted 76 militants, of which 72 have been
awarded death sentences and four life terms.
Only 8 of the militants have so far been executed, most of them involved in the
attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.
(source: Dawn)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh's Nizami urged patience before death: Son----Nizami's son Mohammad
Nakibur Rahman says 'there is no doubt' that India is behind the execution
"Stay patient" were the last words of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami leader
Motiur Rahman Nizami before being hanged last night, his son said.
Hours after burying his father, Mohammad Nakibur Rahman told Anadolu Agency on
Wednesday that Nizami "asked all of us to remain patient" and wished for "all
of us to see each other in Jannah," or Heaven.
Motiur Rahman Nizami, the leader of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami party, was
convicted by the nation's International Crimes Tribunal and hanged on
accusations of committing atrocities during Bangladesh's 1971 War of
Independence.
Jahangir Kabir, a prison official, confirmed to Anadolu Agency reporter that
Nizami was hanged at the Dhaka Central Jail at 12:10 a.m. local time Wednesday.
Rahman, an assistant professor of finance at the U.S.' University of North
Carolina, and a human right activist, said Jamaat-e-Islami had supported a
united Pakistan and been "very active in keeping Pakistan united".
But Jamaat had "no relationship with atrocities that took place," as it "was
involved only in political campaigning," he said. "They made statements, they
were engaged in staging rallies, and these were the activities that the Jamaat
held".
He said that the party leaders thought "Bangladesh would not be able to truly
be independent if the country were separated with the help of India".
Rahman said that atrocities were committed by the Pakistani army, "but Jamaat
had nothing to do with them".
Asked if he thinks like other Jamaat leaders that India is behind Nizami's
execution, Rahman replied: "There is no doubt about that".
'Jamaat will be stronger'
Nizami had served as the head of Bangladesh's Jamaat-e-Islami since 2001,
succeeding Gholam Azam.
He served first as agriculture minister and then as industries minister in
2001-2006 under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led coalition government. He
was also member of parliament from his own constituency Pabna-1 in 1991-1996,
and then also in 2001-2006.
Asked if the execution of its leader would deal the party a severe blow, Rahman
said it would not.
He said all these executions are "only a sacrifice ... [and] are making the
Jamaat stronger" because, according to him, people are realizing who the victim
of the India-backed government is.
He said Jamaat "is the true patriotic party" and the only one that has stood
against "aggression" from India.
Rahman said he hoped the party will get "more and more popular" and its
leader's sacrifice will make it stronger, adding, "In the future inshallah the
Jamaat will be more powerful than ever before".
World reaction
Rahman said they got condolences from all over the world - both the Muslim
world and the West - and he had heard many condemnations.
Nizami's execution was strongly opposed by the UN, and the U.S. also voiced
concerns.
Amnesty International issued a statement saying, "The death penalty is always a
human rights violation, but its use is even more troubling when the execution
follows a flawed process".
On the weak reaction from Muslim countries, Rahman said, "Unfortunately, most
Muslim countries are oppressive as well, and there is not much room for free
speech and assembly".
He said there was reaction in the Muslim world "but we do not see it because as
you know these countries are not very free".
Rahman distinguished Turkey as a country where the reaction had been
widespread, with protests in front of Bangladeshi Embassy in Ankara and
elsewhere.
"We are very grateful for what President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is doing,"
Rahman said of Erdogan denouncing the execution. "As always, President Erdogan
is taking the side of the oppressed people around the world".
He said, "Erdogan is probably the only world leader who is speaking for
oppressed people all around the world," including Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and
Rwanda, adding that he is doing whatever he can for the oppressed.
No clashes
Rahman said that despite Bangladesh having "zero tolerance for assembly,"
thousands of people took to the streets to oppose the execution.
"We are advising people to avoid any clashes with security forces," he said, as
that would be "counterproductive".
Rahman said his father was already "buried as soon as he arrived at our
village", but since few people could attend, mass memorial prayers would be
conducted throughout Bangladesh during the day.
"At 7 in the morning (01.00GMT) the funeral took place and thousands of people
showed up despite mass arrests in our area," he said.
(source: aa.com.tr)
EGYPT:
25 defendants receive death penalty in 'Aswan massacre'----In April 2014, more
than 20 were killed in the bloody conflict
2 years after deadly clashes took place between 2 tribes in Aswan, an Egyptian
court sentenced on Wednesday 25 defendants, who are charged with murder, with
the death penalty.
More than 100 defendants were put on trial in the case.
According to state media, a criminal court held in the governorate of Assiut
referred the defendants' files to the Grand Mufti Shawky Allam, who will
provide his opinion regarding their death by hanging.
In April 2014, a minor conflict between 2 young people, 1 from the Arab Bani
Hilal tribe and the other from the Nubian Daboudya, escalated into an armed
violence. At least 26 were killed and many were injured on both sides.
The crisis, known in the media as the 'Aswan massacre', required the
intervention of state officials who sought to create a reconciliation process
between the 2 parties. Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed Al-Tayeb formed the
reconciliation committee after conducting a dialogue session, following weeks
of failed attempts before reaching a truce.
(source: Daily News Egypt)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 12 09:51:48 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 09:51:48 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., LA., OHIO
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605120951400.8012@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 12
TEXAS:
State, Lawyers Debate Identifying Execution Drug Supplier
Revealing Texas' supplier of execution drugs could have a harmful effect on the
provider and as a result leave the state empty-handed, a lawyer for the state
suggested Wednesday during an appeals court hearing.
State Deputy Solicitor General Matthew Frederick told a 3-judge panel on the
Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals that a "substantial risk" comes with naming
the state's supplier. Specifically, he said, people who are against the death
penalty might lash out against the supplier.
"Pharmacies don't have security details," Frederick said. "Their only
protection is anonymity."
But 3 lawyers who have filed suit to release the identity of lethal injection
drug suppliers say that no "substantial threat of physical harm" exists;
therefore, the information legally cannot be withheld, their attorney, Philip
Durst, argued.
The appeals court had challenged attorneys for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice and the group of 3 lawyers - who have represented clients on death row
- to differentiate between risks and threats when explaining what the harm is
in identifying a compounding pharmacy that has provided the state with lethal
injection drugs. The court did not offer a timeline for when it would make a
ruling, but either party could appeal a future ruling to the Texas Supreme
Court.
The 3 lawyers sued the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 2014 after the
agency refused a request to identify the compounding pharmacy that supplies the
state with lethal injection drugs. The attorneys - Maurie Levin, Naomi Terr and
Hilary Sheard - had made the request through the state's Public Information
Act.
A state district court later that year ordered the prison agency to release the
pharmacy's identity because it was public information, but the agency appealed.
Since then, major pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply capital
punishment states with the drugs needed to execute the condemned, forcing Texas
to scramble and find alternative providers. In 2015, Texas made it legal to
conceal the identity of parties that supply lethal injection drugs to the
state.
As a result, the attorneys are challenging the Department of Criminal Justice
to release the identity of lethal injection drug suppliers from before the law
went into effect last September.
The 3 lawyers say that identifying lethal injection drug providers makes it
easier to hold them accountable. But the state argues that releasing that
information could lead to physical harm of its supplier. There may be risk, but
there is no sign of an imminent threat, attorneys for both sides acknowledged
before the appeals court.
Justice Bob Pemberton pushed back Wednesday on the state's "substantial risk"
characterization, saying that there is a difference between a risk and a
threat, and that individuals such as former Gov. Rick Perry have been vocal
about their position on capital punishment, which hasn't led to threats being
realized. A pharmacy supplier is a soft target, though, Frederick responded.
Also, Frederick referenced the 2013 revelation that the Woodlands Compounding
Pharmacy supplied the state with execution drugs led to significant amounts
hate mail and messages. As providers have been identified over the years, they
have stopped making the drugs, according to multiple media reports.
Equating people who oppose the death penalty to anti-abortion activists, Durst
said that such activists generally protest peacefully. There's never been
anything other than "How could you?" and other responses protected by the First
Amendment, he said.
The judges also asked how allowing the supplier's identity to remain secret
because of safety concerns would not gut the state's Public Information Act.
Frederick said that keeping the identity secret falls in line with the physical
safety exemption from complying with a public information request. Durst said
that labeling someone or something a threat should be based on concrete
evidence. Theories from experts alone is not enough, he said.
"It can't be that," Durst told the panel.
Until a few years ago, major pharmaceutical companies provided execution drugs
to death penalty states, Frederick said. As soon as smaller companies are
identified, they might leave the market, he said.
"They don't want to stick around long enough to see what happens," he said.
After the larger companies dropped death penalty states as clients, Texas began
seeking alternative providers to make the lethal drugs, but the federal
government has weighed in on a couple of occasions.
In April, the Food and Drug Administration barred the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice from importing sodium thiopental, a drug used in executions.
Last year, Texas and Arizona reportedly tried to import execution drugs from
India but were unsuccessful.
(source: Texas Tribune)
FLORIDA:
Death penalty challenge rational
Florida's death penalty law is in limbo once again. A Miami-Dade judge ruled
Monday that a jury must vote unanimously in order to invoke the death penalty.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the legality of the penalty phase
of murder trials in Florida, ruling that juries, not judges, had the final say
in doling out a lethal injection.
The state legislature rewrote the law, to reflect the ruling. But the new law
read that a 10 of 12 majority was necessary to do so. The high court did not
rule on the unanimity issue in January.
Back to Monday's ruling, involving a defendant awaiting trial on a 1st-degree
murder charge. It challenged the state's new law, charging that the jury
recommendation must be unanimous. Currently only Florida and Alabama do not
require unanimity in a death penalty.
Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch based the ruling on the Florida Constitution and
common law, not federal requirements.
In it he made thoughtful points. Among them:
-- That the public will support a verdict based on the notion that the jury
has spoken. But not in cases "as to which the most that can be said is that
some jurors have spoken."
-- That a verdict is a jury's pronouncement, not 12 separate announcements.
-- That the process of mandating a unanimous verdict of guilt, but not of the
penalty for it, is non-sequitur.
He wrote: "A decedent cannot be more or less dead. An expectant mother cannot
be more or less pregnant. And a jury cannot be more or less unanimous. Every
verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of
some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one of them."
What this will likely mean is the legislature will go back to square one in
January and require the unanimous death penalty recommendation. That could very
well trigger sentence reduction of death to life in prison for the state's 390
death row inmates.
This will be painful for many families of the victims of these convicted
killers.
What it does not mean is that the death penalty is overturned in Florida.
Juries will simply bear the same burden in executing a defendant as in
convicting one.
Florida has the highest count of death penalty exonerations in the country, at
23.
Hirsch concluded "We will take no Floridian's liberty upon a
less-than-unanimous verdict, although liberty taken today can be restored
tomorrow. We dare take no Floridian's life upon a less than-unanimous verdict.
The life taken today can never be restored."
We can think of few arguments to counter his rationale.
(source: Editorial, St. Augustine Record)
***********************
Forget the fixes, get rid of executions
The Florida Legislature should get the message about the death penalty.
It's not that lawmakers haven't tried to fix our flawed system of execution.
But fearful of appearing soft on crime, they refuse to do what makes sense.
Given the extraordinary costs of capital cases, the state's track record of
getting it wrong and the reality that life without parole is its own cruel
punishment, abolishing the death penalty is the best solution.
Absent that, lawmakers should fix the process to require a unanimous jury
verdict for sentencing someone to death. For defending the indefensible is
costly and misguided.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court said Florida's process for imposing
the death penalty was unconstitutional because judges, rather than juries, made
the final call.
So this spring, lawmakers changed the law to require that juries make the final
decision, not simply a recommendation. And though the justices said nothing
about Florida's refusal to require that the jury be unanimous, lawmakers
decided to tinker with that part of the law, too.
After much debate, they agreed to require that to impose the ultimate sentence,
10 of 12 jurors must agree. Previously, only a 7-5 simple majority was needed.
However, this week Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch became the 1st
Florida judge to declare that failing to require a unanimous jury verdict is
unconstitutional.
Hirsch's ruling is welcome and right. After all, we require a unanimous verdict
to convict someone of murder, robbery and other crimes. Why require less when
sentencing someone to die?
Every other state except for Alabama and Delaware require a unanimous jury
verdict for the death penalty.
But you can be certain taxpayers will fund another lengthy legal battle, given
that prosecutors are expected to appeal. Stephen Harper, co-director of the
Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University's
College of Law, says it's possible Florida's new law will wind up before the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Haven't we had enough of death penalty fixes and court battles and attorney
fees and delays while lawyers fight over execution methods?
Nineteen states have abolished the death penalty. Last year, Nebraska became
the first conservative state in several decades to do so. It's time Florida did
the same.
Florida already has a death penalty reputation that won't be easily shed. More
inmates have been executed on Gov. Rick Scott's watch - 23 - than any previous
governor. Tragically, Florida leads the nation with 26 death row exonerations,
meaning we've gotten it wrong 26 times. And almost 400 inmates currently on
Florida's death row are waiting to see what the high court's last ruling means
to them, so expect more huge legal costs.
As more states rid themselves of the death penalty - 7 in the last decade -
they're also executing fewer people. And research by Harper and others finds
there is no correlation between abolishing the death penalty and any rise in
violent crime.
Life in prison has proven to be less expensive than the years-long legal
process it takes for an execution. And you can make the argument that life in
prison without parole could be easier on families, allowing them to get on with
their lives and sparing them years of hearings and appeals.
Florida has created too many fixes and too many mistakes with the death
penalty. The sooner we get rid of it, the better.
(source: Editorial, Sun-Sentinel)
ALABAMA----impending execution
Alabama prepares to execute man for killing police officer
Alabama is preparing to execute a man convicted in the 1985 killing of a police
officer.
Vernon Madison is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m.
Thursday at the state prison in Atmore.
Madison was convicted of killing Mobile police Officer Julius Schulte. Schulte
had responded to a domestic call involving Madison. Prosecutors said Madison
crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his police car.
A circuit court last month ruled Madison was competent to be executed despite a
decline in his cognitive abilities after a stroke.
Madison would be the 2nd inmate executed in Alabama this year.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Who is Vernon Madison? Alabama cop-killer facing execution has claimed
insanity, incompetence
Vernon Madison, 65, has spent nearly 1/2 of his life on Alabama's death row
after being convicted of killing a Mobile police officer. The state of Alabama
plans to execute him on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Holman Correctional Facility in
Atmore.
Madison is represented by the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based
nonprofit law firm that primarily represents prisoners and the poor.
EJI attorneys argue that Madison should not be executed for several reasons: a
judge overrode the jury's recommendation of life without parole and sentenced
him to death, and several strokes and dementia have left him unable to
rationally understand why the state seeks to execute him.
So far, several judges have rejected arguments that Madison is incompetent to
be executed.
Madison's attorneys have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh
Circuit. They also have requested a stay of execution from the Alabama Supreme
Court based on two recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have "raised
fundamental questions about the constitutionality of the use of judicial
override in Alabama."
Greene, who recovered from her injuries, later testified that there had been
"increased tension" between her and Madison. She said Schulte hadn't pulled a
gun or threatened Madison.
"Vernon had been for several weeks in a very agitated state," she said during a
1985 hearing. "He was not communicating well with me at that point, or with
anyone. He seemed angry about everything. Vernon's sister was murdered Feb. 26.
She was buried a week later. From that point on he remained agitated. He was
not acting rationally anymore."
Madison had three prior convictions in Mississippi: robbery in May 1971,
assault in June 1973 and assault in July 1977, according to news reports.
After 14 years in prison in Mississippi, he had been paroled, partially through
the efforts of John Langham, a former Prichard city councilman and business
owner who knew Madison's mother.
"Something had to push that boy to that," Langham told the Press Register in
1985. "He wanted to stay out of trouble."
At a hearing in July 1985, Madison entered a plea claiming his innocence and
wrote a letter to the court saying his civil rights were being violated.
"I am of poverty, but I'm not without knowledge of the law," he wrote. "I am
denied the use of the law library here and I'm also deprived of privileges in
which all county inmates enjoy while confined in jail."
A psychiatrist who evaluated him said he continually displayed antagonism
toward doctors and nurses, who said he refused to clean his cell and turned
down jail food in favor of candy bars and chips.
Madison later amended his plea to guilty by reason of insanity. Defense
attorneys said that he received psychiatric assistance at least 33 times while
incarcerated in Mississippi. A prison psychiatrist previously had determined
that Madison suffered from "a paranoid illness of profound proportion."
Madison's first trial took place in September 1985 before Mobile County Circuit
Judge Ferrill McRae. Prosecutors presented several witnesses from the night
Schulte was killed. Defense attorneys contended that Madison was emotionally
unstable when the incident occurred, and a psychiatrist testified that he
suffered from mixed personality paranoid disorder and antisocial disorder.
He was convicted, but a state appellate court sent the case back for a
violation involving race-based jury selection.
His second trial took place in 1990. Prosecutors presented a similar case, and
defense attorneys again argued that Madison suffered from a mental illness.
They did not dispute the fact that Madison shot Schulte, but said he did not
know that Schulte - dressed in plain clothes and driving an unmarked police
cruiser - was a police officer.
He was again convicted, and a jury recommended a death sentence by a 10-2 vote.
"The murder of Julius Schulte was a pitiless and totally amoral act committed
by a man whose life history is but 1 sequel after another of violent,
assaultive acts against other human beings and total disregard for our laws and
those who are charged with enforcing them," McRae said when sentencing Madison
to death in November 1990.
At the sentencing hearing, Madison's attorney read a 3-page handwritten
statement from Madison in which he maintained his innocence.
"I've sat meekly listening to the many lies told on me and the ugly things said
about me and none were true," Madison wrote. "I am not a murderer nor a hateful
or vindictive soul. I am not some wild beast nor am I insane. I am just as
intelligent as anyone among you."
An appellate court again sent the case back to Mobile County for a retrial,
this time based on improper testimony from an expert witness for the
prosecution.
Madison's 3rd and final trial took place in April 1994. He was convicted, and
the jury recommended a life sentence after both Madison and his mother, Aldonia
McMillan, asked for mercy.
McMillan broke down as she spoke to jurors, ''If you want to put him away, put
him away. I don't want to see my child die in the electric chair. He's the best
one I got and I'm the mother of 7 boys.''
Judge McRae, as in the previous 2 trials, chose to sentence Madison to death -
this time overriding the jury's recommendation.
In a 2011 interview with the New York Times, McRae addressed Alabama's practice
of judicial override.
"If you didn't have something like that," he told the newspaper. "A jury with
no experience in other cases would be making the ultimate decision, based on
nothing. The judge has seen many, many cases, not just one."
EJI notes that McRae overrode 6 jury recommendations for life without parole to
impose a death sentence, the most of any judge in Alabama. U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Sonia Sotomayor specifically cited McRae in a dissent over the state's
allowance of judicial override in capital cases.
"Alabama's capital sentencing scheme has exactly the same defect that the
Supreme Court declared unconstitutional earlier this year in Hurst v. Florida,"
according to an EJI news release.
Their request for a stay pending before the Alabama Supreme Court is based on a
potential challenge to the state's death penalty sentencing scheme in light of
the Hurst decision.
Incompetent to be executed?
A state circuit court judge on April 29 denied a request for a stay of
execution, based on testimony and arguments offered during a competency hearing
earlier that month. On Tuesday, a federal judge agreed with the state judge's
ruling, paving the way for the execution to go forward.
"It is unconstitutional to execute an individual who is mentally incompetent,"
an EJI news release stated. "Despite evidence that Mr. Madison is incompetent,
a federal judge denied his request for a stay of execution late [Tuesday]."
Madison has suffered several strokes, which, coupled with diabetes,
hypertension and debilitating headaches, have led to significant cognitive
decline. His speech is slurred, he is legally blind and he can no longer walk
independently.
According to court documents, Madison most recently was found unresponsive in
his prison cell in January. Doctors determined he had suffered a stroke that
resulted in retrograde amnesia, leading to an inability to independently
recollect the offense of which he was convicted.
"Mr. Madison could not recall any of the 25 elements in a brief story vignette
[a psychologist] read him, could not remember the alphabet past the letter G,
could not perform serial three additions, could not remember the name of the
previous United States President, named Guy Hunt as the governor of Alabama,
and could not remember the name of the Warden at Holman Correctional Facility,"
EJI attorneys have written in motions seeking to halt the execution.
Over the past few months, his attorneys say he has become less lucid, more
disoriented and increasingly disheveled.
(source: al.com)
LOUISIANA:
Documents reveal allegations of evidence being left out in Darrell James
Robinson death penalty trial
We are learning more about new developments in the case against Darrell James
Robinson. Robinson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1996 quadruple
murder of a family in Poland, Louisiana. Among the dead was an infant.
On Monday, a motion to vacate the conviction and death sentence was submitted
in the Rapides Parish courthouse by Robinson's attorneys to Judge Patricia
Koch. It was a move that district attorney's office never objected to. On
Wednesday, we got an explanation why.
Attorneys for Robinson allege that evidence was withheld from Robinson's
original defense attorney, Mike Small. It's evidence they believe could have
led to an acquittal at the time of the trial.
On Monday, 2 attorneys representing Robinson, as well as, current District
Attorney Phillip Terrell and Assistant District Attorney Greg Wampler agreed to
a "joint stipulation of facts."
Inside the document is an agreement that said Small never had access to key
pieces of evidence including photographs of physical evidence taken at the
crime scene and at the crime lab, as well as scene sketches and ballistics
bench notes.
"Those stipulations were based upon things that were told to us and Mr.
Robinson's lawyers by Mr. Small and Mr. Shannon," said Terrell. "Obviously, Mr.
Shannon is still employed here. I assume because my assistant district attorney
tells me that all of those things are true, so I assume they are."
However, the signature of Mike Shannon, the prosecutor during the trial and
co-counsel now was left off the joint stipulation agreement signed Monday. Yet
Terrell said Shannon helped draft the stipulations.
"In fact, if you notice on the stipulations, absolutely he was," explained
Terrell. "If you notice on there, there is some handwriting on there, those
were done based on assertions that Mr. Shannon made while we were talking about
the stipulations."
However, when asked why Shannon's name was not signed Terrell said "I...just
because he didn't. I don't know. We didn't put it on there."
If Judge Koch approves that agreement, it could pave the way for a motion to
vacate Robinson's conviction and sentence to be granted. Yet Terrell said they
are filing a motion on the matter for an official hearing to take place
mid-July.
"We certainly oppose the motion to vacate and we're going to do everything we
can to make sure that the sentence stands," said Terrell.
We caught up with Sheriff William Earl Hilton to discuss these new
developments.
"The damn guy is guilty," said Sheriff Hilton. "He is as guilty as a human
being can get."
He said, Mike Shannon and those involved with the case followed the law when
prosecuting it.
"I have all of the confidence in the world in Mike Shannon," said Sheriff
Hilton. "I would like to see him prosecute this case again if it gets to that
point. i don't have any doubt about his capability."
Sheriff Hilton said if Robinson were to be released then he would most likely
kill again.
"It's very, very possible," insisted Sheriff Hilton. "I know some things about
him that I'm not privy to reveal. But, he is a weird, weird individual."
(source: KALB news)
OHIO:
Death Penalty Arguments to Begin for Convicted Killer of 3
The troubled background of an Ohio man who killed 3 women, including reports of
childhood beatings and malnourishment, likely will frame arguments that his
life be spared.
Defense attorneys are scheduled to begin making arguments Thursday against a
death sentence for Michael Madison.
Madison, 38, was convicted last week in a Cleveland courtroom of aggravated
murder and kidnapping, charges that include death penalty specifications.
Prosecutors said Madison deserves to die for murdering 38-year-old Angela
Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry, whose
bodies were found in July 2013 wrapped in garbage bags near the East Cleveland
apartment building where Madison lived. A medical examiner ruled that Deskins
and Sheeley were strangled, but couldn't determine how Terry died.
Authorities said Madison confessed to killing 2 of the women after his arrest,
but couldn't recall having killed the third. His attorneys conceded at trial
that he had killed the women.
The same jury that convicted Madison now will decide his fate, with the judge
having the final say. In Ohio, a judge can reject a death sentence, but can't
impose one if a jury doesn't vote for it.
If appeals court documents are any indication, Madison's attorneys will argue
that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from abuse when
he was a young child.
Madison was beaten by his mother and stepfather during the early 1980s when he
was around 3 or 4 years old, according to a summary of an investigative report
prepared by the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services.
An investigation found that Madison's mother beat him with a cord, picked him
up by his hair and gave him a black eye. He also was malnourished. The report
said his stepfather beat him for not picking up his toys, and he was sent to
live with his grandmother.
PTSD is a recognized mental disorder with a long list of criteria for a
qualified diagnosis, some of which are subjective, according to Cleveland-based
forensic psychiatrist Sara West. Jurors must decide the significance of the
disorder if PTSD is one of the facts Madison's attorneys present in favor of
sparing him.
"It's not a psychotic disorder," West said. "It doesn't alter one's perception
of reality."
A doctor in 2010 diagnosed Madison with depression, sleep disturbance and
anxiety. His attorneys have said he has drug and alcohol dependence.
Those convicted of crimes punishable by death often face long odds at
sentencing, said University of Dayton law professor Lori Shaw. Jurors have
already indicated that they're not opposed to the death penalty and, as in the
Madison case, have seen and heard grisly testimony about horrific killings,
Shaw said.
Even if Madison is sentenced to die, an execution would be years off. The state
currently doesn't have execution drugs and the Supreme Court already has
scheduled more than 2 dozen executions into 2019.
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 12 09:54:32 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 09:54:32 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., NEB., COLO., NEV., CALIF.,
USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605120953190.8012@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 12
MISSOURI:
Missouri's 1st Execution of 2016----The state executed Earl Forrest on
Wednesday night by lethal injection for a triple homicide in 2002.
Missouri executed Earl Forrest on Wednesday night by lethal injection, marking
the state's 1st execution in 2016.
A Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman said Forrest was executed at
7:10 p.m. local time at a state prison in Bonne Terre. He was pronounced dead 8
minutes later.
Forrest received a death sentence in 2004 for the 2002 slayings of Harriet
Smith, Michael Wells, and Dent County police officer JoAnn Barnes. St. Louis
Public Radio has more details:
According to court documents, Forrest went to Smith's house to demand she buy a
mobile home and a lawn mower for him, in exchange for his introducing her to
someone who could provide her with methamphetamine. He fatally shot Wells in
the face during the confrontation, then shot Smith 6 times, killing her.
Forrest later killed Deputy Barnes during a shootout at his home with law
enforcement. He also shot his then-girlfriend, Angela Gamblin and Dent County
Sheriff Bob Wofford during the standoff. Wofford and Gamblin survived.
In his final filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, Forrest challenged his death
sentence as a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual
punishments. The petition cited Justice Stephen Breyer's lengthy dissent last
year in Glossip v. Gross urging the court to reconsider the death penalty's
constitutionality.
"The death penalty has outlived any conceivable purpose," the filing stated.
"It is imperfect in application, arbitrary in result, and serves no legitimate
penological purpose."
Missouri officials stood by Forrest's death sentence. "Earl Forrest callously
murdered 3 people, including a deputy sheriff, over a box of methamphetamine,"
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement after the execution.
"Missouri's law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day.
They need to know that we will fight just as hard for justice for them and
their families."
The U.S. Supreme Court denied the last-minute request for a stay of execution
on Wednesday with no recorded dissents. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon also issued
a statement declining to grant clemency to Forrest hours before the scheduled
execution.
Forrest was the 14th person to be executed in the U.S. this year and the
1,436th person executed since the Supreme Court revived capital punishment in
1976.
(source: The Atlantic)
NEBRASKA:
Nikko Jenkins declared competent to face death penalty proceeding
Here comes Round 3.
Lincoln Regional Center doctors have declared spree killer Nikko Jenkins
competent to face a death penalty proceeding.
Now, Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon likely will set the case for
a competency hearing this summer, when he will weigh opinions from the Regional
Center and from a psychiatrist hired by the defense.
It has been 6 months since Bataillon ordered Regional Center psychiatrists to
evaluate Jenkins.
Since then, Jenkins has continually cut himself - once doing so with a badge a
prison guard had left on a chair just outside Jenkins' cell.
He also has filed fruitless appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court - citing
various constitutional rights, federal and state laws.
And he often has been required to wear a mask over his mouth because of his
propensity to spit on prison or Regional Center officials who come near him.
Jenkins' case has been pending since early September 2013, shortly after he
killed 4 Omahans in a spree. Fresh out of prison after serving 10 years for
robberies, Jenkins killed Juan Uribe-Pena and Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz on Aug. 11,
2013; Curtis Bradford on Aug, 19, 2013 and Andrea Kruger on Aug. 21, 2013.
All told, his case has been delayed a year and 3 months by competency
evaluations alone.
Bataillon will have to decide between polar-opposite opinions.
About 1/2 of the 8 or so psychiatrists who have evaluated Jenkins over the
years believe he is feigning mental illness and is concocting grandiose
descriptions of how an Egyptian snake god speaks to him.
The other 1/2 have diagnosed Jenkins with everything from bed-wetting (as a
child) to bipolar disorder to schizophrenia.
The competency hearing is not designed to determine Jenkins' mental state at
the time of the killings.
It is designed to determine only whether Jenkins understands the proceedings
against him and whether he is able to assist Public Defender Tom Riley in his
defense against the death penalty.
Court observers have watched Jenkins in action - representing himself,
questioning witnesses and defiantly declaring his rights.
If or when he's declared competent, Judge Bataillon will set a death penalty
hearing, the fourth time he has done so.
Jenkins then would go before a 3-judge panel that will decide whether his
crimes merit the death penalty.
(source: omaha.com)
COLORADO:
Planned Parenthood shooting suspect found incompetent to stand trial
The man who admitted to killing 3 people at a Planned Parenthood clinic here
was found incompetent to stand trial Wednesday and indefinitely confined to a
state mental hospital.
2 state-appointed doctors said Robert Lewis Dear Jr. suffers from the delusion
that the federal government has persecuted him for more than 20 years for his
anti-government and anti-abortion beliefs. Judge Gilbert Martinez on Wednesday
accepted those findings and ordered Dear to undergo unspecified "restoration
treatment" at the state hospital.
In a court order issued Wednesday, Martinez wrote that experts determined Dear
suffers from "delusional disorder, persecutory type." During psychiatric
evaluations, Martinez wrote, Dear "engaged in a somewhat rambling monologue
that was confusing to follow" and often lapsed into "significantly paranoid
ideas about him being targeted for persecution by federal authorities."
Dear also professed several other delusional beliefs since his arrest,
according to the judge's order. They include that "Obama is the antichrist" and
funds ISIL, the holy spirit has spoken to him, Alex Jones is a double agent,
Princess Diana's death was a professional hit, and that the White House plans
to declare martial law.
During the hearing, Dear mocked Martinez when the judge verbally stumbled while
reading his 8-page order. Dear also told reporters to examine a Bible verse to
find the justification for his actions.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," Dear interrupted.
As Dear was escorted from the courtroom following the hearing, he yelled
"filthy animal" at the judge.
Dear has confessed repeatedly to the Nov. 27, 2015, attack, saying he intended
to save the lives of unborn babies.
Killed in the attack were police officer Garrett Swasey, a father of 2, Army
veteran Ke'Arre Stewart, a father of 2, and Jennifer Markovsky, a mother of 2.
None of the victims worked for Planned Parenthood. The attack injured 9 others.
Police ended the assault when they crashed armored SWAT vehicles into the lobby
of clinic where Dear had holed up.
Prosecutors charged Dear with 179 counts, including 1st-degree murder.
Those charges remain pending until a judge deems Dear competent to stand trial.
The court must find that Dear understands the proceedings against him and can
assist in his defense. The court will review Dear's mental status every 90
days. If eventually found competent and convicted, he could face the death
penalty.
Dear told police he attacked the clinic because he was "upset with them
performing abortions and the selling of baby parts," according to documents
released last month. He also admitted to fatally shooting an arriving police
officer through a tinted window because he knew the officer couldn't see him,
the documents said.
Dear had confessed previously in open court to the shootings, and claimed he
was a "warrior for the babies."
The attack came after months of publicity over what Planned Parenthood says
were deceptively edited video recordings purporting to show clinic staff
elsewhere offering to sell fetal tissue for research purposes.
(source: KGW news)
NEVADA:
Nevada Supreme Court denies petition in 30-year-old death case
The Nevada Supreme Court has rejected a Las Vegas inmate petition for a new
trial in a murder case now more than 30 years old.
The core of Rodney Emil's petition charges that he was not provided with
counsel in his 1992 post-conviction proceedings.
"His claim lacks merit because he had no right to the effective assistance of
post-conviction counsel," says the order signed by all members of the court
except Justice Mark Gibbons.
His previous petitions for a writ of habeas corpus, the justices wrote, were
all filed before enactment of the statute that now mandates appointment of
counsel for habeas petitions in a death penalty case. If he were convicted
today and sentenced to death, he would be entitled to effective appointed
counsel.
The decision also points out that this appeal of his conviction is his 4th
petition and was filed 23 years after the Supreme Court denied his direct
appeal.
He was convicted of the 1984 shooting of his step father on Father's Day.
(source: Nevada Appeal)
CALIFORNIA:
Prosecutor plans to show 'Grim Sleeper' killed 5 more women
If the "Grim Sleeper" took a break from murdering women in Los Angeles, it was
shorter than originally believed, according to prosecutors seeking the death
penalty against the serial killer.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman plans to begin outlining evidence
Thursday of 5 additional slayings she said Lonnie Franklin Jr. committed,
including one during the apparent hiatus that earned him the moniker.
Jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court will decide during a second phase of trial
whether Franklin is sentenced to death or life in prison without parole for the
killings targeting young black females over more than 2 decades.
Franklin, 63, a former trash collector and onetime garage attendant for the Los
Angeles police, was convicted last week of murdering 9 women and 1 15-year-old
girl from 1985-1988 and then between 2002-2007.
Silverman plans to present evidence of similar killings connected to Franklin
that will expand the range of rage from 1984 to 2010 and include a slaying from
2000, during the serial killer's so-called "sleep," which police originally
attributed to him laying low after 1 victim survived in 1988.
Evidence of the additional killings came to light after Franklin was indicted.
Silverman said she chose not to charge Franklin with those killings because it
would have delayed the case that took nearly 6 years to bring to trial.
She also plans to present testimony from a German woman Franklin was convicted
of kidnapping and raping, and another German he attempted to kidnap when he was
stationed there in the U.S. Army in 1974.
The defense failed to persuade a judge Wednesday that the evidence should be
barred from the penalty phase of trial that could last a month.
Defense attorney Seymour Amster said that 2 of the additional women Silverman
accused Franklin of killing have never been found and it's just speculation
that his client had anything to do with their disappearances.
"There's no evidence of a violent crime," Amster said. "It was the crack
epidemic ... anything could have happened."
Judge Kathleen Kennedy said the evidence was admissible during the penalty
phase, but she suggested Silverman consider taking a more "conservative route"
and omitting it because it could present issues during an expected appeal.
Silverman said prosecutors had long debated the issue, but said she was trying
to bring closure to families who had waited a long time to find out what
happened to their loved ones.
The student identification card of one of the women, Ayellah Marshall, 18, who
has been missing since 2006, was found in Franklin's garage after his arrest in
2010, along with the driver's license of Rolenia Morris, 29, who was last seen
in 2005.
2 photos of Morris were found in a garage refrigerator, which prosecutors have
referred to as Franklin's "trophy chest" because it contained photos of scores
of women, including one of the women he was convicted of murdering.
(source: Associated Press)
**************
Death penalty needs to be put down
The U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday to the federal trial court in
Washington that it will not submit Ahmed Abu Khattala to the death penalty.
Prosecutors labeled Khattala as a terrorist who spearheaded the 2012 attacks in
Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the loss of four American lives.
The Justice Department's decision is a great step forward to upstart the trend
to abolish capital punishment. The death penalty is an unjustified and
unconstitutional act that has casted a dark shadow on U.S. history. Killing is
no way of gaining justice for acts committed in the past.
"The department is committed to ensuring the defendant is held accountable for
his alleged role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission and annex
in Benghazi that killed four Americans and seriously injured 2 others. If
convicted, he faces a sentence of up to life in prison," said Emily Pierce,
Justice Department spokeswoman.
Instead of stealing the life of the convict, if convicted, the district court
will instead put Khattala in prison for life. And in prison, the convicted will
work for the rest of his life to repay the debt of his immoral actions. This is
more in tune with the ideologies of justice.
The death penalty should be classified as cruel and unusual punishment since
there is no justice being gained from the execution.
According to a study published by the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology,
"there is overwhelming consensus among America's top criminologists that the
empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the
threat or use of the death penalty."
Also, "91.6 % said that increasing the frequency of executions would not add a
deterrent effect," according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Criminals are not weary of the capital punishments when committing a crime.
When someone is killed, the public seeks revenge. But another factor that the
public is unaware of is the harmful effect that executing someone has on the
person in charge of said execution.
"You can't tell me I can take the life of people and go home and be normal. If
I had known what I'd have to go through as an executioner, I wouldn't have done
it. It took a lot out of me to do it," said former state executioner for the
Virginia Department of Corrections Jerry Givens, in an interview with
ThinkProgress.
There is an emotional toll that weighs on those carrying out these death
penalties for the so-called justice the public calls for.
It goes against all humane behavior to take lives away and not be affected by
it. Asking someone to execute someone is almost impossible.
Killing a criminal is also a very expensive process. Over the past 30 years,
each of the 13 convicts put to death in California cost the state approximately
$300 million each, according to a 2011 study by Arthur Alarcon, a senior judge,
and Paula Mitchell, a professor at Loyola Law School. This exorbitant price
comes from the judicial process' exhaustive length.
Instead of killing the inmates, the funding for the executions should be used
for other resourceful programs. If the process long and expensive, yet only
brings 13 convicts to justice, then maybe the most effective decision would be
to stop altogether.
"The millions of dollars in savings could be spent on: education, roads, police
officers and public safety programs, after-school programs, drug and alcohol
treatment, child abuse prevention programs, mental health services, and
services for crime victims and their families," according to the Death Penalty
Focus Organization, a nonprofit organization.
Thus, it's a good decision that the department decided not to take part of this
wasteful process. Ahmed Abu Khattala will live a life indebted to the families
affected. This will bring about more of a sense of justice, instead of choosing
to place the burden of the criminal's death on someone else's hands while
costing the state millions.
(source: The (Cal. State Univ., Fullerton) Daily Titan)
USA:
Suspected 9/11 mastermind's defense wants prosecution to step down, alleges
destroyed evidence
Suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's defense team is calling for
the entire prosecution at Guantanamo Bay to relieve themselves of their duties
after suspicions arose that they secretly destroyed evidence in the
long-running case.
They also believe the entire case against Mohammed should be dismissed, based
on the alleged actions of the prosecution, which the defense labeled as "at
least the appearance of a collusion."
"Now, and indeed over other matters previously, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's
military commission is fatally flawed," lead defense attorney David Nevin told
the Guardian.
US President Barack Obama's term is nearly up, and if the defense gets its way,
it will be the new administration that has to figure out what to do with the
suspect, who has been in custody for 12 years now for his suspected role in the
September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, DC.
The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Mohammed, who confessed under
interrogation to being the architect of the attacks.
The court wouldn't provide further details of the defense's allegations, which
are contained in an unclassified legal filing made Tuesday. The document has
still not passed the mandatory security check.
Pentagon spokesman Commander Gary Ross added that "it would be inappropriate to
comment on a document not yet released to the public."
Mohammed's other attorney Marine Corps Major Derek Poteet was disheartened at
the prospect of filing the allegations against members of the prosecution.
"I have great respect for Colonel Pohl and Brigadier General Martins, and
accordingly I am disappointed, disturbed and sad that we found it necessary to
file this motion," Poteet said.
Although Nevin and Poteet have only been given permission to discuss the
surface details of the court filing, they said there had been a request by the
government to Pohl to destroy the evidence, which pertains to both Mohammed's
guilt and the handling of his trial. But Pohl ordered to keep the documents,
pending further investigation, and no complaints from the defense team
followed.
It wasn't until December 15 that Nevin says he received, in his words, a "hint
from the prosecution that the evidence was no longer available to us." By early
February the defense received a sealed order from Pohl outlining that the judge
had already sanctioned the destruction of the documents 20 months prior.
"There's at least the appearance of collusion between the prosecution and the
judge. We're not saying more than that, but there is that appearance," Poteet
said, adding that had they known of the order to destroy, they would have
contested it.
The defense added that no matter if the prosecution steps down - or if Mohammed
goes to trial and is found guilty - they will still likely seek to address the
evidence destruction during sentencing.
The government has 14 days to respond to the current motion, with the next
pre-trial hearing set for end of May. Time is of the essence, and Pohl may not
get to the allegations in time, as there are other outstanding matters to be
settled as well before the case goes to trial.
There is disagreement among the defense as to whose fault it is ultimately that
the documents vanished into thin air. But the lawyer for co-defendant Ammar
al-Baluchi says they agree on 1 thing: that "at the very least, the prosecution
team manipulated the system that resulted in the destruction of evidence."
Mohammed's trial has been wrought with uncertainty and legal wrangling by both
teams. The case is considered to be the most important remaining 9/11-related
trial.
The self-described architect of the attacks, Mohammed had been kept in US
custody at Guantanamo since 2003, with 183 documented cases of waterboarding in
a single month. The upcoming trial is the culmination of a very long-winded
process: previous federal and criminal trials couldn't go forward, because of a
law passed by Congress, preventing the Pentagon from transferring Guantanamo
detainees onto US soil. The current tribunal, which is the 2nd, has now gone on
for 4 years without going to trial.
(source: rt.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 12 09:58:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 09:58:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605120958370.8012@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 12
PAKISTAN:
Army Chief awards death penalty to 5 terrorists including Sabeen Mahmud's
killer, IBA student Saad Aziz
Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on Thursday signed the death warrants
of 5 hardcore terrorists, including the killers of Sabeen Mahmud.
An ISPR statement said the men were convicted for "perpetrating the Safoora bus
attack". They were also involved in improvised explosive device (IED) blast
near Saleh Masjid Karachi, the killing of social worker Sabeen Mahmud and
various attacks on law enforcement agencies, according to the statement.
(source: Daily Pakistan)
EGYPT:
Irish juvenile Ibrahim Halawa marks 1000 days facing death penalty in Egypt
An Irish student who was arrested in the wake of protests in Egypt marks 1000
days of detention facing a potential death sentence.
Ibrahim Halawa faces the death penalty despite having been a juvenile - aged
just 17 - at the time of his arrest in August 2013. He is being subjected to an
ongoing mass trial alongside hundreds of adults, which has been delayed on
multiple occasions.
Following his arrest, the Egyptian police beat Ibrahim and denied him medical
treatment. He has since been subjected to periods of solitary confinement in
cells with no light or toilet.
Despite the fact that Ibrahim was a juvenile when he was arrested he has been
held in adult prisons and is being tried by adult courts. International human
rights organisation Reprieve has discovered that hundreds of children -
including some as young as 6 - were arrested in the same breakup of protests as
Ibrahim. Efforts to have Ibrahim's case transferred to a juvenile court have
been rejected.
The 493 defendants in Ibrahim's mass trial are charged with attending an
illegal protest during which protesters allegedly caused deaths and criminal
damage. They are being held jointly responsible for these offences, despite a
lack of specific evidence linking the vast majority of them to these crimes.
Commenting, Harriet McCulloch, Deputy Director of the death penalty team at
Reprieve, which is assisting Ibrahim, said:
"Ibrahim has now suffered 1000 days of appalling mistreatment in violation of
both international and Egyptian law. It is a scandal that the Egyptian
authorities continue to seek the death penalty for Ibrahim despite his having
been a child at the time of his arrest. The Egyptian authorities must
immediately call an end to this mass trial and others like it and release
Ibrahim and the hundreds of others like him who have been illegally detained
for so long."
(source: reprieve.org)
BANGLADESH:
Legal notice served to abolish death penalty
A Supreme Court lawyer today sent a legal notice to the government requesting
it to abolish the provisions of death penalty from all laws of the country
within 24 hours.
Eunus Ali Akond served the notice to cabinet secretary, law secretary and home
secretary for taking the step in this regard.
In the notice, he said there are 140 countries in the world including the
Europeans have abolished the provisions of death penalty from their laws.
He will file a writ petition with the High Court seeking necessary order if the
government does not repeal the provision of death penalty, Akond said.
Death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading, Akond said.
(source: The Daily Star)
*******************
UN raises concerns over hanging of JI leader in Bangladesh
United Nation (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon regrets the hanging of the
Bangladesh Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Motiur Rahman Nizami.
The spokesman of the Secretary-General in a press briefing said that UN chief
stands against the death penalty under any circumstances, reflecting the global
trend away from capital punishment.
He said we have raised our concern to Bangladesh over the handling of this
case.
(source: Pakistan Today)
IRAN----executions
2 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran
2 prisoners with murder charges were reportedly hanged at Karaj's Rajai Shahr
Prison (northern Iran) on Wednesday May 11.
One of the prisoners has been identified as Reza Cheshmenour, the identity of
the other prisoner is not known at this time. According to close sources, these
2 prisoners were among 12 who were transferred to solitary confinement at this
prison on Saturday May 7 in preparation for their executions. The other 10
prisoners were returned to their cells after they received an extension on
their execution order or received consent for a suspension by the plaintiffs on
their case files, say close sources.
Iranian official sources, including state-run media and the Judiciary, have
been silent on these 2 executions.
One of the prisoners has been identified as Reza Cheshmenour, the identity of
the other prisoner is not known at this time. According to close sources, these
2 prisoners were among 12 who were transferred to solitary confinement at this
prison on Saturday May 7 in preparation for their executions. The other 10
prisoners were returned to their cells after they received an extension on
their execution order or received consent for a suspension by the plaintiffs on
their case files, say close sources.
Iranian official sources, including state-run media and the Judiciary, have
been silent on these 2 executions.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
PHILIPPINES:
The Philippines' new president vows to 'butcher' criminals. Here's his plan.
Criminals of the Philippines, you've been warned. The new president-elect wants
to butcher you in public.
No, really. He actually said that.
And for those who fret over the rights of "drug pushers, hold-up men and
do-nothings," the incoming president promises a special viewing ceremony: "I
will butcher [the criminals] in front of them if they want."
Rodrigo Duterte is known by many names. The Punisher. Duterte Harry. And more
recently, the Donald Trump of Asia.
The citizens of Davao, a bustling industrial hub in the southern Philippines,
have long known him as their tough-talking mayor. Soon, the entire nation will
call him president.
Duterte, 71, is the presumptive victor of the May 9 presidential election.
Internationally, he has been reduced to caricature: a Trump-like, swaggering
provocateur who wants to burn down the status quo.
Duterte actually dislikes the Trump comparison. "Donald Trump is a bigot," he
says. "I am not." But the horrifically sexist jokes and references to his own
penis don't help.
Examined more closely, Duterte is harder to pin down. He is a devout Catholic
who supports gay marriage. He???s known to tote a pistol but, since childhood,
has slept with an old blanket received from his mom. Unlike Trump, he appears
fond of Muslims and seeks peace with Islamist rebels in the southern Philippine
jungles.
But Duterte's ascent to the presidency was driven by a constant refrain: Elect
me and I will hunt down and kill criminals en masse. Courts be damned. Screw
human rights.
"I'll dump all of you into Manila Bay," he said, "and fatten all the fish
there."
This is Duterte's promised purge by the numbers: 100,000 unspecified
"criminals" killed. Corruption and crime - 2 of the biggest blights on
Philippine society - somehow eradicated in just 6 months.
He has also suggested installing a nanny state seemingly designed to please the
anxious parents of teenagers. His team has suggested a 10 pm curfew for
unescorted minors. Add to that a nationwide ban on singing karaoke - a
quintessential Filipino pastime - after 9 pm, and a post-1 am ban on public
boozing.
But how could Duterte compel a national police force rife with dysfunction to
cleanly enforce these rules? That's not entirely clear.
"Stopping people from singing karaoke at 1 am won't deal with poverty," said
Cristina Palabay, general secretary of Karapatan, a prominent human rights
alliance. "And it won't really stop criminality."
Here are a few specifics. Duterte's platform calls for hiking low-ranking
police salaries from $315 to $2,000 per month - a measure to curb the desire to
take bribes. He also wants thousands of cameras installed in government offices
to catch bribe-taking officials. And, of course, the death penalty for drug
trafficking and robbery.
"But the Philippine National Police won't reverse course easily. There needs to
be a total overhaul of their mindset," Palabay said. "Remember that these
institutions are born out of the martial law era."
She is referring to the dictatorial US-backed Ferdinand Marcos regime, which
fell in 1986 after 2 decades of obscene graft. During its reign, Filipinos
toiled in poverty and lived in fear.
But today, Filipinos younger than 35 - the majority of the population - have
scant memories of life under dictatorship. Many of those old enough to remember
the regime fear youth may be too easily compelled by promises to fix disorder
with an iron fist - which is exactly what Duterte is offering.
"There might be people seduced into favoring another authoritarian system,'
said Walden Bello, a former member of the House of Representatives of the
Philippines, in a recent interview with GlobalPost. "But we can't just blame
the youth for being ignorant. We have to blame the system for failing to
deliver on so much democratic promise."
According to Palabay, the current administration "has done nothing to alleviate
poverty and gross inequality in Philippine society. That's how the Duterte camp
won the election with these slogans."
Those slogans include promises to make criminals "eat bullets" and impose the
death penalty on officials guilty of "plunder." This is crowd-pleasing rhetoric
in the Philippines, where crime is up and the country ranks poorly on global
corruption surveys.
Meanwhile, the Philippine press is sounding grim warnings about Duterte's
coming rule. According to Rappler, a Manila-based outlet: "If he wins, his
dictatorship will not be thrust upon us. It will be one we will have chosen for
ourselves ... The streets will run red if Rodrigo Duterte keeps his promise."
As for vows to mow down criminals and dump their corpses in the sea, a clear
violation of Philippine law, Duterte hopes to grant himself the impunity he
claims to disdain. His solution? "A pardon given to Rodridgo Duterte for the
crime of multiple murder. Signed, Rodridgo Duterte."
Perhaps Duterte will soften up once he takes power in late June. He has
promised to dismiss with foul "banter" and "really behave" once he becomes
president.
Indeed, shortly after claiming victory in the polls, Duterte let his machismo
rest during a brief moment of reflection. The future president was filmed
sobbing fitfully at his parents' graves and asked their spirits for guidance.
He will certainly need it.
(source: pri.org)
INDONESIA:
Death penalty has no deterrent effect: Activists
The number of drug convicts keeps rising despite the implementation of the
death penalty, showing that capital punishment is not that effective in
fighting drug-related crime, activists have said.
At least 16 NGOs grouped in the Anti-Death Penalty Civil Society Coalition told
a press conference that the death penalty was not the solution to address crime
in Indonesia, especially crime related to drugs.
The coalition's statement comes ahead of the third round of executions of drug
convicts, which many expect to be conducted very soon.
Indonesian Drug Victim Advocacy Brotherhood ( PKNI ) head Totok Yulianto said
there had been a rise in the number of drug convicts despite the executions
carried out in 2015.
Under the administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the government has
conducted 2 rounds of executions.
6 death row inmates were executed on Jan.18 last year, followed by 8 more in
the 2nd round on April 29, 2015.
Totok said there were 65,566 drug convicts recorded in January 2015, adding
that that number had rose to 67,808 people by May 2015.
"Even though the government had carried out executions in January and April.
This shows that the death penalty does not create a deterrent effect. This is
data from the directorate general of corrections," Totok said, as quoted by
Kompas.com on Wednesday.
Impartial director Al Araf said punishment in the modern era no longer followed
the principle of retaliation; rather, it was aimed at correcting the behavior
of someone who has broken the law.
"We do not support criminal acts at all. We reject the death penalty and
instead lean more toward life sentencing, because the death penalty clearly
violates human rights principles," he said.
Given the nation's fragile justice system, procedural violations in the
implementation of the death penalty were still common, Araf added.
Citing the example of Zainal Abidin's case, whose appeal was rejected almost
immediately, Araf suggested this was because the convict, found guilty of
possessing 58.7 kilograms of marijuana in 2000, had already been listed in the
second round of executions.
"Just imagine, the legal process hadn't yet finished, and when he lodged his
appeal it was rejected within 4 days. This is clearly outside of the principles
of justice," he added.
Meanwhile, police have said the 3rd round of executions was ready to be carried
out in May 2016. The firing squad has been prepared for the execution of 15
drug convicts.
The Central Java police, in charge of Nusakambangan prison island where the
convicts will be executed, said it was awaiting instructions from Attorney
General Muhammad Prasetyo.
So far, the Attorney General's Office has not disclosed the execution date or
the identities of the convicts.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
*****************
Joko Widodo supports calls for chemical castration, death penalty for rape
offenders----The young girl from Sumatra was allegedly gang raped as she walked
home from school in April.M
This week 7 teenagers were sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime, but
the government said it wanted the death penalty and chemical castration to be
punishment options in the future.
Sexual violence against women is rampant in Indonesia, with 35 cases reported
every day, according to the national commission.
In April, when the school girl was brutally raped and murdered, there was
barely a word in the Indonesian press.
But now an intensified outcry from a nation belatedly shocked has led the
Indonesian government to revise its laws.
"The jail term should be up to a life sentence," said the Minister for Law and
Human Rights, Yasonna Laoly.
"But if the victim is dead the punishment option will be up to the death
sentence.
"Also if the victim becomes disabled the death sentence should be an option."
Another inclusion in the law could be chemical castration of alleged offenders,
with the full support of the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo.
"I want to give a warning about sexual violence against children," Mr Widodo
said.
"I want this to be considered an extraordinary crime, so the handling of it
would also be in an extraordinary way."
The changes could come into force as early as today, with presidential rather
than parliamentary approval needed.
But human rights groups said the new punishment proposals were a dangerous
step.
Haris Azhar, from the NGO Kontras, said from the human rights point of view he
thought they would be barbaric punishments.
"We need to have a very correct and - sometimes people here, we call it hard or
heavy punishment - but this does not necessarily need to be a barbaric
punishment," he said.
The new proposals come as Indonesia prepares for the next round of executions
of convicted drug traffickers.
It is not clear when the next group will face the firing squad or how many
people it will include.
(source: abc.net.au)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 12 14:04:35 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 14:04:35 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALABAMA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605121404270.2136@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 12
ALABAMA----stay of impending execution
Alabama Delays Execution of Cop Killer Vernon Madison by Lethal Injection
A federal appeals court has delayed the execution of an Alabama inmate, saying
there should be more time to review his claim that he is no longer competent
because of strokes and dementia.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay Thursday morning, about
seven hours ahead of when Vernon Madison was scheduled to die by lethal
injection.
Madison was convicted in the 1985 killing Mobile police Officer Julius Schulte.
Schulte had responded to a domestic call involving Madison. Prosecutors said
Madison crept up and shot Schulte in the back of the head as he sat in his
police car. Madison's attorneys had argued that he no longer had a rational
understanding of his impending execution. The court said it will hold oral
arguments on Madison's competency in June.
A circuit court last month ruled Madison was competent to be executed despite a
decline in his cognitive abilities after a stroke.
"Over the course of the past year, Mr. Madison has suffered from multiple
strokes that have resulted in significant cognitive decline, suffers from a
major vascular neurocognitive disorder, or vascular dementia, and does not
rationally understand why the State of Alabama is attempting to execute him,"
attorneys for Madison previously wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it violates the constitutional ban on
cruel and unusual punishment to execute prisoners who lack a rational
understanding that they are about to be executed and why.
Madison's attorneys argued a lower court erred and did not fully consider the
scope of his dementia when it ruled him competent. A defense expert found that
Madison had an IQ of 72 and his attorneys said he is confused about the status
of his case and has talked of going to live in Florida when he is released from
prison.
The stay request came after an Alabama circuit judge ruled Madison was
competent and a federal judge refused a stay.
Alabama has seen a lull in executions of more than 2 years because of
difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs and litigation over the death
penalty
(source: Associated Press)
***************
Alabama leads nation in death row inmates per capita
Tonight Alabama will put to death 65-year-old Vernon Madison, a man who grew
old awaiting his sentence for the 1985 slaying of police Officer Julius
Schulte.
Madison's execution will leave 184 death row inmates in Alabama, highest number
of inmates per capita in the nation.
19 states do not or no longer employ the death penalty. About half of the
remaining 31 use it seldom and have few inmates awaiting execution.
Alabama leads nation
But even among the state's that regularly sentence violent criminals to death,
Alabama stands apart.
Alabama houses nearly 4 inmates on death row for every 100,000 residents.
That's 4 for every Tuscaloosa stadium's worth of Alabamians.
That's the equivalent of 7 or 8 death row inmates for the population of Mobile
or Birmingham or Huntsville. That's more death row inmates per city than many
places see per state.
Perhaps more surprising, when adjusting for population, an Alabamian is about 4
times as likely as a Texan to end up on death row.
Much larger states like Texas and California have more inmates on death row,
but none employ death row at the same rate as small Alabama.
Alabama puts people on death row at twice the rate of Florida, 3 times the rate
of Oklahoma. Only Nevada comes close. And it's not that close.
See the breakdown by state below: Who is on death row
In Alabama, inmates on death row are nearly all men. That's 85 white males and
92 black males. There are just 5 women on death row in Alabama -- 4 white women
and 1 African-American woman.
Many cases span decades. 10 of the Alabama inmates, like Madison, have been
awaiting execution since before 1990.
It's not that Alabama halted the use of the death sentence. Today's execution
marks 8 under Gov. Robert Bentley. State records show 25 executions under
former Gov. Bob Riley.
There have been 211 executions since 1929. About 72 % of those executed by
Alabama were African-American males. The state has executed only 4 women.
Houston County leads Alabama
However, not every district attorney in Alabama is as likely to seek a death
sentence. Certain counties within Alabama tend to see it far more often than
others.
Adjust for total population shows that no county uses the death penalty more
often than Houston County, home to Dothan in southeast Alabama.
That puts Houston County in rare territory in the United States. That means
Houston imposes the death penalty more often than any other county in a state
that imposes the death penalty more often than any other state in the nation.
(source: al.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 12 14:05:14 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 14:05:14 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605121405060.2136@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 12
IRAN:
Teenager tortured into confessing is days away from execution in Iran
The Iranian authorities must urgently halt the scheduled execution this Sunday
of a teenager who was just 15 years old at the time of his arrest, said Amnesty
International.
Alireza Tajiki, now 19 years old, was sentenced to death in April 2013 after a
criminal court in Fars Province, southern Iran, convicted him of murder and
rape primarily on the basis of "confessions" extracted through torture which he
repeatedly retracted in court. His execution is due to take place on Sunday,
May 15 in Shiraz's Adel Abad Prison in Fars Province.
"Imposing the death penalty on someone who was a child at the time of the crime
flies in the face of international human rights law, which absolutely prohibits
the use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of 18. It is
particularly horrendous that the Iranian authorities are adamant to proceed
with the execution when this case was marked by serious fair trial concerns and
primarily relied on torture-tainted evidence," said James Lynch, deputy
director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International.
"Iran's bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows,
routinely after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile
justice and shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children's
rights.The Iranian authorities must immediately halt this execution and grant
Alireza Tajiki a fair retrial where the death penalty and coerced 'confessions'
play no part."
Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Iranian authorities to
establish a moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death
penalty.
Tajiki was arrested along with several other young men in May 2012 on suspicion
of murdering and raping his friend who was stabbed to death. He was denied
access to lawyer throughout the entire investigation process. He was placed in
solitary confinement for 15 days, without access to his family. During this
period he was subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, he said, including
severe beatings, floggings, and suspension by arms and feet, to make him
"confess" to the crime. He later retracted the "confessions" both before the
prosecution authorities and during his trial, and has since maintained his
innocence consistently. However, despite this, his "confession" was admitted as
evidence during proceedings against him.
In April 2014, a year after Tajiki was first convicted his verdict was quashed
by a branch of the Supreme Court which found the investigation incomplete due
to a lack of forensic evidence linking him to the sexual assault. It ordered
the Provincial Criminal Court in Fars Province to carry out further
investigations and to examine his "mental growth and maturity" at the time of
the crime in light of new juvenile sentencing guidelines in Iran's 2013 Islamic
Penal Code.
The Code allows judges to replace the death penalty with an alternative
sentence if they determine that there are doubts about the juvenile offender's
"mental growth and maturity" at the time of the crime.
In November 2014, the criminal court resentenced him to death, referring to an
official medical opinion that found he had attained "mental maturity." However,
the court's decision made no reference to concerns the Supreme Court had raised
about the lack of forensic evidence, suggesting the investigation that had been
ordered was not carried out. The court also relied once again on Tajiki's
forced "confessions" as proof of his guilt, without conducting any
investigation into his allegations of torture and other ill-treatment.
Despite these flaws, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence in a paragraph-long
February 2015 ruling that relied on the principle of "knowledge of the judge,"
which grants a judge discretionary powers to determine guilt in the absence of
conclusive evidence.
More than 970 people were put to death across Iran last year. In January 2016
Amnesty International published a report which found that despite piecemeal
reforms introduced by the Iranian authorities in 2013 to deflect criticism of
their appalling record on executions of juvenile offenders, they have continued
to condemn dozens of young people to death for crimes committed when they were
below 18, in violation of their international human rights obligations.
(source: Amnesty International USA)
******************
The List of the Names of 56 Death Row Prisoners in Uremia Prison
At least 100 prisoners with charge of murder are kept in wards number 4 and 5
in Uremia prison. HRANA is trying to gain public attention in order to save
them from execution by publicizing their identities. For this reason the
identities of 56 death row prisoners is being published in this report.
After the authorities called more than 100 death row prisoners in this prison
and said that they were trying to "decide their faiths" in next 3 months the
identities of 56 prisoners who are mainly charged with homicide and are kept in
wards 4 and 5 of the prison, are being published by HRANA. Need to be mentioned
that three prisoners on this list has been kept in prison for the past 27
years.
The list of 56 death row prisoners of Uremia prison is as following including
respectively the Name and Family Name, serving time, and city that prisoner is
from:
Saeid Tanha, 13 years, Mahabad
Abdullah Banayi, 8 years, Sardasht
Khalil Agushi, 5 years, Maku
Ramazan Sabzi, 5 years, Maku
Naser Kakazadeh, 3 years, Mahabad
Faisal Abdi, 6 years, Uremia
Taimoor Asoobar,3 years, Uremia
Salim Khazri, 5 years, Mahabad
Kamal Soltani, 2 years, Boukan
Kamal Molla Vaisi, 3 years, Mahabad
Salah Javanmard, 3 years, Mahabad
Abat Javanmard, 3 years, Mahabad
Kamal Khakzad, 5 years, Oshnaviyeh
Hossain Rahimi, 7 years, Boukan
Osman Sahraei, 27 years, Uremia
Saeid Armad, 27 years, Uremia
Jafar Esmaeili, 27 years, Uremia
Rahim Barin, 7 years, Mahabad
Afshin Khorshidi, 7 years, Uremia
Ghader Mohammad Hasan, 3 years, Mahabad
Tayeb Shaikhnejad Mokri, 3 years, Piranshahr
Ibrahim Taghe, 5 years, Naghadeh
Daryush Darvishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Rahman Darvishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Danesh Darishzadeh, 3 years, Uremia
Osman Gholtafi, 8 years, Boukan
Hasan Bahrami, 2 years, Boukan
Naji Omarzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Saji Omarzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Hamdollah Hamd Mohammadzadeh, 4 years, Uremia
Mohammad Taimoori, 5 years, Naghadeh
Mojtaba Kahrizi, 5 years, Uremia
Akbar Choopani, 3 years, Naghadeh
Khalil Salehi, 6 years, Uremia
Idris jabarzadeh, 7 years, Mahabad
Rasoul Kavani, 3 years,, Oshnaviyeh
Himan Bonavand, 2 years, Piranshahr
Mohammadreza Mohammadnejad, 16 years, Uremia
Hamid Parvizi, 3 years, Uremia
Gholamreza Amiri, 7 years, Uremia
Fardin Byrami, 3 years, Miyandoab
Sayad Khanian, 3 years, Miyandoab
Mahdi Hajizadeh, 7 years, Miyandoab
Behnam Hasanzadeh, 7 years, Uremia
Ali Amoozadeh, 4 years, Uremia
Ramazan Shaikhloo, 14 years, Uremia
Ramazan Ahmadipoor,4 years, Sardasht
Aram Rasouli, 3 years, Oshnaviyeh
Daryush Farahzad, 2 Daryush Uremia
Jafar Ardashiri, 14 years, Uremia
Reza Farmanbordar, 5 years, Uremia
Jahandar Shokrollahi, 4 years, Uremia
Ali Abdi, 3 years, Kermanshah
Alireza Alinejad, 14 years, Mahabad
Afshin Shoukati, 4 years, Uremia
(source: HRA News Agency)
BANGLADESH:
Man gets death for murdering wife in Bagerhat
A court in the southern district of Bagerhat has awarded the death penalty to a
man for murdering his wife.
21-year-old Sharifa Akter Putul was killed by her husband Shikder Mahmudul Alam
in 2013 over a conjugal feud.
The court of Bagerhat's District and Sessions Judge delivered the verdict on
Wednesday in absence of the convict.
Prosecutor Sheikh Mohammad Ali said that on the night of May 13, 3 days after a
reception for the couple's marriage, Alam slit his wife's throat following an
argument between them.
The victim's family filed a case against the husband the next day and charges
were pressed against him in November the same year.
Alam has been absconding since the murder.
(source: benews24.com)
INDIA:
Only downtrodden get hanged
The findings of an investigation done on the death row prisoners in the country
by the National Law University, Delhi, reveal how badly they are treated and
how poor their conditions are. The report is based on interviews with 373 of
the 385 prisoners who are in condemned cells waiting for their execution. The
majority of them are from the economically and socially depressed strata of
society and have little education. Most have not completed secondary education.
This may be an indication of the biases that go into criminal investigation and
prosecution, and perhaps into the working of the entire system. It is a damning
thought that the failures and prejudices of the system lead to the ultimate
punishment for many people. No society can claim to be fair and humane if the
weak stand a greater chance of ill treatment and punishment than the strong.
But that is the case in the country.
While state legal aid is mandatory for those who cannot afford it, 169
prisoners who were interviewed for the study did not have a lawyer. Even among
those who had legal aid, most had not spoken to their lawyers at the high court
level and many did not know the lawyer's name. Legal aid is very important in
defence. The inadequacy of the legal aid system shows that many of those on the
death row might not have been awarded the death penalty, or any penalty, if
they had sound legal defence. It is also revealing that the majority of the
people on the death row were first time offenders and many were juveniles when
they committed the offence. The "rarest of rare" norm for death penalty is
vague, and judges understand it differently and use different standards for
rarity. Only 5% of the death sentences pronounced by the lower courts are
confirmed on appeal. That shows that the lower judiciary is given to making too
liberal a use of the death sentence.
The report says that those on the death row are regularly subjected to torture
and ill treatment. This goes against the generally held notion that those
waiting for their death are shown some compassion and consideration. Death
penalty is a crude and vengeful form of punishment. It is no deterrent against
crimes. A person who has been hanged but is later proved innocent cannot be
brought back to life. Most countries have abolished capital punishment and many
have suspended it. The report adds some more to these reasons, which should
push India also towards putting an end to this cruel and inhuman form of
punishment.
(source: Deccan Herald)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 13 08:55:21 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 08:55:21 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., FLA., ALA., TENN., IND.,
MO.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605130855100.9084@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 13
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Dylann Roof's attorney OKs request for mental evaluation, pushes back on
witness lists
Defense attorneys for Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white man accused of killing
9 black parishioners during a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church, say they will
allow state prosecutors to conduct their own mental evaluation of Roof.
In a hearing last month, the solicitor's office asked to conduct its own mental
evaluation of Roof to rebut or confirm the findings from a pair of evaluations
performed by the defense team's experts.
The state trial, originally slated to begin in July, has been pushed back to
January 2017 to allow the defense's experts to complete 6 months of further
exams and reports on Roof's mental state.
On Wednesday, Roof's attorney Ashley Pennington agreed to the request, with
three caveats: the report on Roof's mental state remains sealed from
prosecutors until the sentencing phase of the trial; Roof's attorneys will be
in the room during the evaluation and can object to questions; and anything
Roof says pointing to his guilt in the shooting cannot be included in the
report.
However, Pennington pushed back against requests for lists of expert and
general witnesses.
Pennington said he "has no objection to providing to the court to further the
goal of selecting a fair and unbiased jury." But Pennington says with the trial
some 7 months away and the investigation ongoing, he does not have a complete
list of witnesses outside those the solicitor's office plans to call to
testify.
Further, Pennington says giving a list of experts and general witnesses he
plans to call during Roof's defense would give prosecutors an advantage beyond
normal trial discovery.
Instead, he asked the court to follow the precedent set in the 1995 Susan Smith
trial in which prosecutors and defense attorneys provided witness lists to the
judge who then passed them out to potential jurors to make sure there were no
conflicts of interest.
"Following the same procedure here would help ensure the seating of a fair and
impartial jury without requiring premature disclosure of the defendant's
prospective witnesses to the state," Pennington wrote.
Roof is accused of killing nine black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in
downtown Charleston. He faces a number of murder and attempted murder charges
for the shooting and prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.
Roof also faces nearly 3 dozen federal hate crimes charges, but the Attorney
General's office has not yet announced whether it will seek the death penalty
also. As a result, that decision has caused a delay in scheduling the federal
trial.
Roof's attorneys at the state and federal level have said multiple times that
Roof is willing to plead guilty if prosecutors remove the possibility of death
as a sentence.
(source: WCIV news)
FLORIDA:
Local Non Profit Pays Tribute to Wrongly Convicted Individuals
A non-profit pays tribute to individuals who've been exonerated for crimes they
didn't commit.
William Dillon said he'll never forget the day he gained by his freedom.
"2008, November 18th, 5:55 in the evening," said Dillon.
It came after serving 27 years for a crime he didn't commit.
"1981 I was accused of beating a man to death on the beach," said Dillon.
Thursday Dillon along with 13 other exonorees were honored by the innocence
project.
This non-profit group helped each of these people gain their freedom.
Also in attendance, anti-death penalty advocate and author of the book turned
movie "Dead Man Walking" sister Helen Prejean.
She said right now Florida's justice system doesn't cater to those with low
incomes.
There's prosecutorial misconduct for the most part and often they're poor, they
don't get good defense and they don't have a chance when they go to trial,"
said Sister Helen.
Ii think the courts were kind of blind. I think they pushed it, I think more
than anything I think they pushed the issue for a conviction and I just looked
the part. I was tall, a bigger kid I guess and beating a man to death was easy.
Even though it turned out 4 juveniles actually committed the crime," said
Dillon.
Dillon hopes no one else will have to go through his situation.
That's why he encourages people to become sponsors for organizations like the
innocence project.
"This is element to all justice not just to people wrongfully convicted, but an
element to stopping people being killed in the death penalty, people being
misused in the justice system, just thrown away through time," said Dillon.
In all the 14 exonorees honored Thursday spent a total of 275 years in prison
for crimes they did not commit.
(source: WCTC news)
******************
Florida bungled death penalty
Florida leaders want to preserve capital punishment as an option in the most
heinous murder cases. But they're running out of chances to get it right - if
such a thing is even possible. And no matter what they do, Florida's death rows
could be emptied soon, with the sentences of 390 condemned men and women
commuted to life in prison.
Proponents of capital punishment should be angry. State lawmakers were warned
about the flaws at the heart of Florida's law in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that juries should make the determination, beyond a reasonable
doubt, that a particular crime merited the state's harshest penalty. But given
repeated opportunities, Florida lawmakers have refused to require unanimous
jury support for a death sentence. The most recent failure came in January,
following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Florida killer Timothy Lee
Hurst that was even more forcefully worded in support of juries' as the
ultimate determiners of death sentences.
Florida's law falls short of the reasonable standard set by the court - despite
the fact that the death-penalty apparatus operates much like that of other
states. Juries in capital murder cases first determine guilt or innocence.
Guilty verdicts trigger a 2nd trial phase, where jurors hear evidence and then
decide between life in prison or death.
But Florida's law had 2 important wrinkles. Juries could settle on a death
sentence by a simple majority vote, and those jury opinions were considered
merely "advisory" to the judge in the case, who could override a recommendation
for life and impose a death sentence . Both provisions seemed, to many legal
scholars, to conflict with the high court's landmark 2002 decision in Ring vs.
Arizona, upon which the Hurst ruling was based.
Unlike the Ring opinion - which was largely ignored in Florida - the Hurst case
got the Legislature's attention. It scrambled to draft legislation that shifted
the final determination to juries. But inexplicably, key lawmakers balked on
unanimity - a standard adopted by nearly every other death-penalty state -
deciding, instead, to require a "supermajority" (10 out of 12 jurors) in
support of the death penalty.
Monday, a circuit judge in Miami-Dade County struck down the two-month-old law
as unconstitutional. "Every verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires
the concurrence, not of some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one
of them," Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch wrote. He's right. Jury unanimity is an
essential component of the nation's justice system in criminal trials, and
there's no way to whittle it down without compromising legal protections that
Americans treasure.
The state will appeal, and just like that, Florida will be back to where it was
with the Hurst case - arguing its way through a succession of ever-higher
courts, defending an indefensibly flawed law.
The futility of that exercise can only be underscored by arguments earlier this
month before the Florida Supreme Court. Attorneys for Hurst and other
defendants argued that the Hurst ruling tripped a 1972 state law which commutes
all death sentences in Florida to life in prison without the possibility of
parole if the U.S. or Florida Supreme Court finds the state's death-penalty
laws unconstitutional.
Did that happen? The Hurst opinion, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, doesn't
seem equivocal: "Florida's capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth
Amendment," she wrote.
Had Florida lawmakers amended the law in 2002 to comply with the Ring decision,
it's unlikely Hurst's case would have made to the U.S. Supreme Court. So they
have only themselves and their predecessors to blame if the state's high court
requires all death-row inmates to be resentenced to life in prison.
(source: Editorial, Daytona Beach News-Journal)
*******************
Judge gives Miami killer life to spare victim's family from death penalty
disputes
By a 9-3 vote, a jury last year recommended that Charles Johnson should be sent
to death row for fatally shooting a young Miami mother, execution style.
With many of Florida's death-penalty cases in flux because of a recent U.S.
Supreme Court decision, a judge on Thursday ruled otherwise, sentencing Johnson
instead to life in prison.
"This made no sense at all. They all break your heart, but this one made no
sense," Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Nushin Sayfie told Johnson. "You ruined your
own life and you took a life and ruined the lives of many others. I pray for
you."
Sayfie also told the family of the slain woman, 22-year-old Luvonia Williams,
that she hoped the life sentence would provide finality, instead of more legal
wrangling and court hearings that a death sentence might bring about.
"My goal is to make sure we don't have to go through this again," Sayfie told
them.
Williams' mother, Trudy Carter, nodded her head in agreement. Afterward, Carter
said she was fine with the decision.
"Life in prison. He has to think about what he did for the rest of his life and
will never again see daylight," Carter said.
Johnson's conviction and the jury's death recommendation came at an unusual
time.
A jury in October convicted Johnson of 1st-degree murder for killing Williams,
and soon afterward recommended death. But before Sayfie could decide whether to
follow the recommendation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's
death-penalty sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because it gave too little
power to juries.
It remains unclear whether the high court's decision in Hurst v. Florida
applies to people who had already been convicted, sentenced and had their
appeals exhausted before the opinion was released.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court heard from opponents of the death penalty
who argued that all 390 death row inmates should get life sentences because
they were sentenced under a flawed system.
The Legislature was forced to revamp the statute. Florida's new law requires
juries to unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, that
a defendant might merit a death sentence. Whether to actually impose the death
sentence requires 10 of 12 jurors.
In Johnson's case, prosecutors asked for a new sentencing hearing. His defense
lawyers, Michael Bloom and Bruce Fleisher, disagreed because the law remains in
limbo for Johnson.
"Life is the only constitutional sentence that can be imposed at this time,"
Bloom told the judge.
Prosecutors said the shooting stemmed from Williams' sister breaking up with
David Johnson, Charles' brother.
The contentious domestic dispute culminated in the brothers, both armed with
guns, shooting into a crowd outside the 1900 block of Northwest 92nd Street. In
all, 3 people were shot and wounded. Williams was struck and tried to stagger
away. Prosecutors believe that Charles - on his brother's orders - fired 2
final, fatal shots as she lay on the ground.
At the time of the shooting, Williams' 1-year-old son was inside a nearby house
that was also shot up. The jury found Charles Johnson guilty of 1st-degree
murder and 5 counts of attempted murder.
David Johnson is still awaiting trial.
(source: Miami Herald)
ALABAMA:
What's next for Alabama death row inmate Vernon Madison after execution was
stayed?
More than 2 hours after Vernon Madison was scheduled to be put to death
Thursday by the state of Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling
upholding a lower court's stay of execution.
Madison's attorneys from the Montgomery-based nonprofit Equal Justice
Initiative had been seeking a stay from state and federal courts since the
execution date was set in March.
For weeks, their requests had been denied until a federal appellate court
granted their petition less than eight hours before Madison was to be put to
death.
Madison, one of Alabama's longest-serving death row inmates, was convicted in
the April 1985 slaying of Mobile police Cpl. Julius Schulte.
His was convicted and sentenced to death in both 1985 and 1990, but both times
an appellate court sent the case back, 1st for a violation involving race-based
jury selection and then based on improper testimony from an expert witness for
the prosecution.
In 1994, he was tried for a 3rd and final time and convicted. The jury
recommended a life sentence, but the judge overrode the recommendation and
sentenced him to death.
This week - 31 years after his arrest - officials with the Alabama Department
of Corrections had everything in place for Madison's execution to go forward.
He had been moved into an isolation cell near the execution site 48 hours
before it was set to take place, per ADOC protocol. He was kept abreast of
Thursday's developments throughout the day, and 2 guards remained with him at
all times.
After the stay of execution was upheld, he remained in the isolation cell
overnight before being moved back into his death row cell Friday.
So what happens next, now that Madison has returned to death row yet again?
The appeal that prompted the stay
Madison has claimed that he is mentally incompetent to be executed.
On Wednesday, EJI attorneys filed a petition for a stay and a request for oral
argument before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court granted
that request Thursday morning.
The attorney general's office sought to overturn the decision by filing a
petition before the U.S. Supreme Court. They argued that the appellate court
read into the state court order legal conclusions that do not exist and that
the issue of Madison's competency had been "clearly and plainly foreclosed."
In their response, EJI attorneys asked the Supreme Court to deny the request
and leave the stay in place, saying Madison's competency claim has not been
reviewed on appeal in either state or federal court.
In a 4-4 decision released at 8:22 p.m. Thursday, the Supreme Court denied the
request to vacate the stay of execution. The Attorney General's Office declined
to comment.
"We are relieved that important questions surrounding the propriety and
constitutionality of Mr. Madison's execution will be reviewed," EJI founder and
executive director Bryan Stevenson said Thursday night.
The case will now be taken up before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Madison's attorneys must file briefs by May 27, and the attorney general's
office must respond by June 10. Madison's attorneys then will have until June
17 to file a reply.
Oral argument will take place in Atlanta on June 23, with each side allowed 30
minutes.
An alternative appeal cites judicial override
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that Florida's
scheme allowing judges to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in death
penalty cases was unconstitutional.
Alabama has a similar sentencing scheme, though the attorney general's office
has noted that it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995.
In another ruling issued May 2, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of the
case of Alabama Death Row inmate Bart Johnson. It was the 1st Alabama case
challenging the state's capital murder sentencing scheme to be reviewed by the
U.S. Supreme Court since Hurst was decided.
Madison's attorneys argue that the 2 rulings have "raised fundamental questions
about the constitutionality of the use of judicial override in Alabama."
This week, they asked the Alabama Supreme Court to grant a stay so that Madison
could litigate his challenge to the state's death penalty sentencing scheme and
judicial override system. In an order issued Wednesday, the court unanimously
denied the request.
On Thursday they appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, filing a
motion for a stay of execution based on the constitutionality of judicial
override.
"Vernon Madison was given a life sentence by a Mobile County jury made up of
jurors who believe in the death penalty," Stevenson said. "In most Alabama
courtrooms, Mr. Madison would have never been sentenced to death. Judicial
override in Alabama should be eliminated."
Future executions in Alabama?
Madison's execution was the only one scheduled in Alabama.
In February, the Attorney General's Office requested that the Alabama Supreme
Court set execution dates for Madison and 2 other inmates: Robert Bryant
Melson, convicted in Etowah County, and Ronald Bert Smith, convicted in Madison
County.
All 3 inmates are currently on death row at Holman Correctional Facility near
Atmore.
No other planned execution dates have been released.
John Palombi, Assistant Federal Defender for the Middle District of Alabama,
represents Melson and Smith. He told AL.com in March that he had received the
motions to set execution dates and planned to respond, also citing issues with
the state's death penalty sentencing.
"We believe that these motions are premature in light of the questionable
constitutionality of Alabama's death sentencing scheme," he said.
(source: al.com)
TENNESSEE:
Life without parole, not death, in 1st-degree murder case
An Anderson County man convicted of 1st-degree murder on Tuesday avoided the
death penalty on Thursday, but he did receive a sentence of life without
parole.
A jury of 8 women and 4 men unanimously agreed on that decision after more than
seven hours of deliberations on Wednesday and Thursday. Besides death and life
without parole, they could have also returned a life sentence with the
possibility of parole.
The jury said that prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the
killing of Samuel "Sammie" J. Adams, 79, sometime in mid-December 2011 was
especially, heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and that Adams was 70 or older. Those
were 2 of the 4 aggravating factors the jury could consider during the
deliberations over whether to impose the death penalty against Norman Lee
Follis Jr., 52.
Follis is Adams' nephew, and he was convicted of 1st-degree murder for killing
his uncle in Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Adams' decomposing body was found buried under at least 10 blankets in a closet
underneath a staircase at his apartment on Patt Lane in Claxton on January 24,
2012. A couch was shoved against the closet door. Adams had been reported
missing. He died of strangulation.
In taped interviews with Anderson County Sheriff's Department Detective Don
Scuglia, Follis said he was defending first himself and then his girlfriend,
Tammy Sue Chapman, 47, from Adams. His uncle had been on top of Chapman,
groping her, and when he intervened, Follis said, his uncle grabbed him. During
the struggle, the 2 fell to the floor, according to Follis and his defense
attorneys, and Follis grabbed a white extension cord to defend himself and push
Adams off him.
Follis said the killing occurred in mid-December 2011, and he hid his uncle in
the closet because he was scared and didn't know what else to do.
But during the month before Adams was found, prosecutors said, Follis misled
others about where Adams was, telling them he had taken his uncle to a
hospital, even though he knew Adams was dead in an apartment closet in Claxton.
Prosecutors questioned Follis' credibility throughout the trial. They said
Follis had told "lie after lie after lie" to family, friends, neighbors, and
law enforcement officers, and that his explanation of the killing was a story
that he had latched onto and then elaborated upon during the interviews with
Scuglia.
Prosecutors said Follis and Chapman profited from the death of Adams. Follis
sold his uncle's car to a Knoxville man for $1,000 cash on January 16, 2012,
according to testimony.
Danny Adams, Sammie Adams' son, said he and his sister Melinda Hackett, Sammie
Adams' daughter, were pleased with the conviction and the sentence of life
without parole.
"It's closure for my father," Danny Adams said. "The system worked this time
... My sister and I are pleased with the decision of the jury."
It was the 1st death penalty trial in Anderson County since 1991.
"We are glad that this defendant will not ever walk as a free man again," said
Tony Craighead, deputy district attorney general in the Seventh Judicial
District (Anderson County), who prosecuted the case along with assistant DA
Emily Abbott.
The trial started with jury selection on Wednesday last week, and the
sentencing hearing started Wednesday this week.
Don Elledge was the judge.
Follis was represented by defense attorneys Mart Cizek and Wesley Stone.
Chapman has also been charged with 1st-degree murder, and she is also facing
the death penalty. Her trial is scheduled for August.
(source: Oak Ridge Today)
INDIANA:
Who Pays For Indiana's Death Penalty Cases?
Pursuing a death penalty sentence isn't cheap, but some argue you can't put a
price on justice.
The Owen County Prosecutor is considering the death penalty for the man accused
of raping and killing Shaylyn Ammerman.
When a prosecutor in Indiana decides to pursue the death penalty, taxpayers
often end up paying the bill.
That could happen in Owen County, where the prosecutor is considering capital
punishment for the man accused of raping and killing 1-year-old Shaylyn
Ammerman.
It puts counties in a difficult position where they have to consider emotions
and budgets.
Counties Struggle To Cover Costs Of Pursuing Capital Punishment
"Shaylyn was probably the most perfect little 1-year-old you could have," says
Morgan, Shaylyn???s grandmother.
Shaylyn went missing from her grandmother's house in March. Police later found
her body in a rural area of Gosport.
They arrested family friend Kyle Parker, who police say took Shaylyn out of her
crib before raping and murdering her. Parker pleaded not guilty to the charges
and could go on trial this summer.
"He just took everything away from me," Morgan says.
The case meets state requirements to qualify for the death penalty, but the
Owen County prosecutor hasn't decided if he's going that route.
"At this point we're not going to make an emotional determination regarding the
death penalty or life without parole request," Owen County Prosecutor Don
VanDerMoere said in March.
It's a difficult decision to face - one many counties have grappled with.
More than a decade ago Parke County experienced one of its worst crimes in
decades.
Chad Cottrell was convicted of killing his wife and 2 stepdaughters at their
Rockville home.
The graphic crime shocked the small town.
"I think the emotions were really high and mainly because we're dealing with
children here," says Jim Meece, president of the Parke County commissioners.
"Here's someone that apparently just decided one day he was going to kill these
children and that's what occurred. So all the sudden all the people who thought
they were safe in Parke County and comfortable all the sudden were not safe and
comfortable anymore."
The prosecutor requested the death penalty in that case.
According to a Legislative Services Agency report from 2014, death penalty
cases cost, on average, ten times more than life without parole cases.
The state will reimburse counties for up to 1/2 of the costs - but counties
must come up with the rest of the money.
"There was really no way that Parke County could fund that out of our general
fund," Meece says. "Our entire budget is between 10 and 12 million and we knew
that this case was going to cost well over a million dollars."
The Parke County commissioners got legislative approval to enact an income tax
increase to pay for the case. The tax was in place until the case concluded,
which took several years.
It cost more than $1.5 million - and the judge ended up sentencing Cottrell to
life without parole.
"After he took the plea, we still had to pay the hotel about $10,000 just to
cover the reservations we'd made," Meece says.
Lake County had to dip into its reserves in 2012 to pay for a capital
punishment case. And Grant County transferred money from its road and bridges
fund to help cover costs of a death penalty case.
Parke County Commissioners had to raise local income taxes in order to pay for
a death penalty case several years ago.
High Costs Lead To Decline In Death Penalty Requests
The high price of death penalty cases is partially the result of rules the
Supreme Court adopted regarding defense lawyers who work on the trials.
"There had to be 2 lawyers appointed for a defendant," says Paula Sites,
assistant executive director of the Indiana Public Defenders Council. "They had
to have a certain level of experience and certain specialized education and
they also had to have their caseloads limited in terms of how many other cases
they were trying to handle. And they were paid at an hourly rate."
Sites works with defense lawyers who take on those cases. She says the high
costs are one reason the state's seen a significant drop in death penalty
cases.
On average, there have been fewer than 2 death penalty cases filed per year
over the past 5 years.
"People are looking much more carefully at how you spend our public dollars,
our taxpayer dollars," she says. "So, you wouldn't pay for a program that was
going to be only 20 % effective, only 1 in 5 cases resulting in what you're
actually trying for."
On average, the number of death penalty requests filed over the past few years
has dropped.
There's also another option available for high-level crimes that's cheaper. In
1993, legislators passed a bill allowing prosecutors to seek a life without
parole sentence.
"I think the concern was if this person who committed this terrible crime
doesn't get the death penalty, could they end up committing another crime at
some point in the future if they just had a certain number of years and there
was a possibility they would get parole?" says IUPUI Clinical Professor Of Law
Joel Schum. "With life without parole that's not a possibility, so I think
that's made it easier I think to resolve some of these cases."
Some argue cost shouldn't be a factor in deciding how to prosecute cases like
the one in Owen County, where the family of Shaylyn is struggling to cope.
"On the outside I may look strong, but on the inside I'm not," Morgan says. "I
either go to bed crying or wake up crying or both."
The family doesn't care what punishment the prosecutor pursues - because to
them it will never be enough.
"I mean if they give him death that's going to be easier than what we have to
deal with," Morgan says.
There's no specific deadline for the Owen County prosecutor to file paperwork
requesting the death penalty, but he said he'll make the decision in the coming
months.
Kyle Parker could go to trial as early as August.
(source: indianapublicmedia.org)
MISSOURI:
Forrest execution could be Missouri's 1st and last one of 2016
Earl Forrest received a lethal injection Wednesday night at the state prison in
Bonne Terre. Forrest was convicted of killing Harriet Smith, Michael Wells, and
Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Joann Barnes.
The death penalty debate has been ongoing for decades. Regardless of what side
you're on, the fact is we're seeing fewer executions in Missouri and
nationwide.
Springfield Defense Attorney Adam Woody said, "I think that the justice system
is becoming somewhat more apprehensive to impose the ultimate punishment."
Woody says advancements in technology could be one of the reasons fewer people
are sentenced to the death penalty.
"In dozens of cases, DNA has exonerated death row inmates. And it's alarming.
That's a scary trend," he said.
But that was not the case in tonight's execution. Forrest was put to death for
a crime he committed back in December of 2002. What started as an argument over
methamphetamine ended with three people dead. More than a decade later, he was
given a lethal injection.
The Supreme Court denied a stay of execution that was filed by Forrest's
attorney, and Governor Jay Nixon also denied his clemency petition.
However, Woody says it wouldn't be surprising if there isn't another execution
in Missouri for some time.
"There are certainly pros and cons, for and against the death penalty. But
again, with the advancements of DNA technology, demonstrating and illustrating
that innocent people are being put to death at the hands of the government, I
think that's starting to alarm not just the public the criminal justice system
as well," Woody said.
Forrest's execution was the 19th in Missouri since 20013.
(source: KSPR news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 13 08:56:15 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 08:56:15 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605130856020.9084@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 13
NEVADA:
Las Vegas man indicted on charges that could get him the death penalty
A convicted panderer has been indicted on charges that could get him the death
penalty in a car-to-car shooting that killed 2 women and critically wounded a
man near the Las Vegas Strip.
A judge on Thursday set a May 19 arraignment in state court for Omar Jamal
Talley on murder, attempted murder and multiple felony weapon charges in the
Feb. 19 shooting.
The indictment avoided a Thursday preliminary hearing.
Police and prosecutors say an argument in a parking structure at the Miracle
Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood preceded the shooting that killed Melissa
Mendoza and Jennifer Chicas and wounded Jerraud Jackson. They were from the San
Francisco Bay Area.
The Clark County district attorney will decide in coming weeks whether the
30-year-old Tally will face the death penalty.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
British veteran faces death penalty over double shooting in United States
A British former soldier, who served in Iraq and says that he suffers from
post-traumatic stress disorder, has pleaded not guilty to murdering his mother
and stepfather by shooting them at their home in the US.
Derek Connell, 29, could face the death penalty after being accused of killing
Kim Higginbotham, 48, and Christopher, 48, her US husband, who were found dead
at their home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30.
Mr Connell, originally of Glasgow, is also alleged to have taken a video of
their dead bodies on his mobile phone and sent it to a relative.
(source: thetimes.co.uk)
************
Death times
Yet another try to hurry up executions on California's death row has drawn
$12,500 from the San Diego Police Officers Association's political action
committee. In addition to hastening their demise, the measure would put
death-row inmates to work while they waited.
The initiative was submitted for signature-gathering last year by retired NFL
star Kermit Alexander, who lost 4 family members in a bungled 1984 contract
killing. A measure to repeal the death penalty is being backed by M.A.S.H. star
Mike Farrell.
A previous Farrell attempt to do away with execution in 2012 drew the backing
of a host of La Jolla Democrats, including billionaire Qualcomm founder Irwin
Jacobs and the San Diego chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which
kicked in $100,000.
(source: sandiegoreader.com)
*********************
A Modest Proposal Concerning Means of Execution
Sunday ends the public comment period for California's proposed regulations for
a new safe and sane lethal injection procedure. The regs are in a 29-page
document, to which are attached 18 forms that cover things like the condemned's
written acknowledgment that "it was explained to me that I have an execution
date of [insert date] and that I may choose either lethal gas or lethal
injection as the method of execution."
So I address this (very public) comment to the state's Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Dear CDCR,
I admire the team tasked with the macabre and impossible job of developing what
they call "a humane and dignified execution" process. I can't fathom what it is
like to be tasked with clearly imagining, and designing procedures for:
--choosing who is qualified to kill a person on our behalf, training them, and
organizing them into sub-teams
--giving the condemned a choice of how to be dispatched and appropriate forms
for last meals, witnesses, property distribution, and burial arrangements
--dealing with the chemical supply problems posed by manufacturers who won't
have their medicines used as poisons (letting the warden choose any of 4 drugs
for a particular execution is brilliant!)
--sending the prisoner to health-care professionals for a "vein assessment" on
where best to administer the overdose
--making sure that the prisoner's list of people who are to be informed "in
case of death, serious injury or serious illness" is up to date
--assigning a liaison to the condemned prisoner's family (surely a coveted job)
--assessing whether the person is mentally healthy enough to be killed
--ensuring that suicide doesn't interfere with the state's planned homicide
--deciding exactly how much money to spend on a human being's last meal on this
planet
--postulating what differences in handling are required in putting a woman to
death
--projecting when and to what degree the executioners need to rehearse their
tasks
--designing contingencies if someone on the team won't be able to go through
with the job
--briefing the condemned on what will be done to them
--detailing medical procedures for the killing process to work effectively,
including protocols for horrifying scenarios where the injections, injections
at the backup site, and backups to the backup plan fail to turn the human into
a corpse
--offering post-trauma counseling to the people who do this job for us, and
--designing forms to document it all.
It must be hard to put oneself through imagining how all this might go, so as
to design its institutionalization. I am no expert, just someone with a lot of
caring for the 3 people I know on death row. It looks to me like you have done
a thorough and thoughtful job. I can't blame you for the weird and disturbing
disjunct between aseptic language prescribing standardized procedures and the
reality of plotting how to take another's life. And I won't repeat the reams of
comments you've received about the pitfalls of this experimental 1-drug
protocol.
My complaint is with the overall attempt to civilize an uncivilized act. Every
venture at making state killing more refined has dug us into a deeper hole.
This is true in terms of your stated goal of respecting the Eighth Amendment
ban on cruel punishment. It's also true from the perspective of the spiritual
health of our society and its ability to make informed public-policy choices.
In contrast, the guillotine (used in France until its 1981 abolition of capital
punishment) and the firing squad (Utah's not-so-old method) are gruesome but
truly swift and certain, unlike anything we've come up with since.Gaschamber
Surely they are less cruel than sending the condemned to nice nurses a week
before execution to find the best veins, then, at the time of the blessed
event, inserting a catheter and backup catheter (will they first swab with
alcohol to prevent infection?), dripping saline until it's time for the drug to
be injected, needing a backup to the backup in case the poison doesn't flow
right, and inviting God-knows-what hellish visions to possibly zip through the
mind as the barbiturate finally begins to hit the nervous system of a person
experiencing execution.
Society's interest is even more clear. With shootings and beheadings, we get to
know what we're doing: no whitewashing it as a medical procedure, no pretending
we're different from our ISIS enemies and our Saudi friends. The person offed
someone a few decades ago - now we're offing them. That is, after all, the
logic of the death penalty.
Please abandon the attempt to civilize the barbaric. As long as we feel we need
barbarisim, let's be open about it.
(source: Michael Goldstein; Political writer, author, mediator and death
penalty appeals lawyer ---- Huffington Post)
OREGON:
Nelson guilty in 2012 slaying of Eugene resident
A 26-year-old man faces a potential death sentence after a Lane County jury on
Thursday found him guilty of aggravated murder in the 2012 slaying of Eugene
resident Celestino Gutierrez Jr.
Jurors in A.J. Scott Nelson's case spent nearly 2 days in deliberations before
returning guilty verdicts on 18 felony charges relating to a brief but heinous
crime spree carried out by Nelson and 2 other people on Aug. 3, 2012.
The jury found Nelson guilty of kidnapping, robbing and murdering Gutierrez,
and of abusing the victim's corpse by dismembering it.
Nelson also was convicted on all 12 robbery counts he faced in connection with
an armed, takeover-style robbery of a Siuslaw Bank branch in Mapleton.
The bank heist happened hours after Gutierrez was killed. His car was used as a
getaway vehicle in the robbery.
Nelson, an Army veteran whose trial defense included assertions that he suffers
from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury linked to his
military service, showed no visible reaction while Lane County Circuit Judge
Debra Vogt read aloud from the 22-page verdict form completed by the jury.
Defense attorney Laurie Bender said afterward that she was "disappointed" with
the outcome. She offered no additional comment.
Prosecutor David Schwartz, meanwhile, indicated he would not comment on the
case until after Nelson is sentenced.
The jury in Nelson's case will return to court Tuesday to begin hearing
evidence in the sentencing phase of his trial.
During the sentencing portion, prosecutors and defense attorneys will offer
additional evidence before the jury convenes to consider Nelson's fate.
A judge cannot sentence a murderer to death unless all 12 jurors agree it's the
appropriate punishment. If just 1 juror decides Nelson should not receive the
death penalty, Vogt will either sentence him to life in prison without parole,
or impose a lifetime sentence that allows him to apply for parole after 30
years.
Nelson is the 3rd person convicted in Gutierrez's slaying.
One of Nelson's codefendants, David Ray Taylor, 60, is now on Oregon's death
row. A Lane County jury found him guilty of aggravated murder in 2014 and
subsequently recommended that he be sentenced to death.
Taylor was convicted of all but one of the charges he faced. The jury in his
case found him guilty of 3 aggravated murder charges but acquitted him on a
4th, instead deciding to convict him on a lesser charge of intentional murder.
That count related to an allegation that Gutierrez was killed after or while
being tortured.
Nelson's jury came to an almost identical conclusion, returning guilty verdicts
on 2 of the 3 aggravated murder charges filed in his case.
Nelson, like Taylor before him, was found not guilty of aggravated murder under
the prosecution's murder-by-torture theory, but guilty of a lesser murder
charge.
Taylor was charged with a 4th count of aggravated murder because he had
previously been convicted of murder. He served 27 years in state prison for
killing a Eugene woman in 1977. The state parole board voted in favor of his
release in 2004.
The 3rd person arrested in Gutierrez's slaying, Mercedes Crabtree, is serving
life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She pleaded
guilty in 2013 after reaching an agreement with prosecutors that required her
to testify against Taylor and Nelson.
According to trial evidence, the trio carried out a plan to kidnap and kill a
stranger in order to use the victim's car in the Mapleton bank robbery.
Gutierrez's remains were buried southwest of Eugene after Nelson and Taylor
dismembered his body in the bathroom of Taylor's home off Highway 99 in Eugene.
(source: The Register-Guard)
********************
Guilty verdict in 2012 murder; case moves to death penalty phase
A jury found a man guilty of murder Thursday in a gruesome 2012 slaying.
AJ Scott Nelson could face the death penalty for his role in the killing of
Celestino Gutierrez.
The penalty phase of the trial is expected to begin Tuesday.
The jury found Nelson murder of Aggravated Murder, Robbery in the 1st degree
and more.
2 other defendants in the case have already been sentenced.
David Ray Taylor is on death row after being found guilty of the crime and
sentenced to die.
Mercedes Crabtree is serving 30 years to life.
The trio selected Gutierrez at a bar and tricked him to get his car, which was
used in a bank robbery.
Prosecutors said the killers murdered Gutierrez and disposed of his body to
conceal the crime.
(source: KVAL news)
USA:
Down with the death penalty
"Treat others how you wish to be treated" is a saying we were all taught
growing up, but do the rules still apply in situations such as murder? For many
years, the death penalty has been a very controversial issue. According to
death-penalty-info.org, there are currently 31 states in the United States of
America where the death penalty is legal, and 19 states where it is illegal.
The death penalty is wrong and immoral for countless reasons, one of those
reasons being that not everyone who is on death row is truly guilty. According
to an article written by Pema Levy published in 2014 on Newsweek.com, one in
every 25 people sentenced to death in the United States is actually innocent.
That is a lot of wrongly convicted people who are unfairly accused and punished
for crimes they never even committed.
Capital punishment is hypocritical. It is used to discourage killers yet it
models the very behavior it seeks to prevent, murder. Implementing the death
penalty is surrendering to the idea that murder is okay, but only if it is
handled by the government. We should not use violence to punish others because
it does not change anything or stop other people from using it.
Execution is inhumane. Purposefully ending a human being's life makes you
nearly indistinguishable to the murderers we loathe. By using the death
penalty, we are just as guilty and have just as much blood on our hands than
the person being lethally injected.
The death penalty is also racist and biased. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org,
94.5% of elected prosecutors in death penalty states are white, and 79% of
which are males. The site also states that since 1976, there have been 297
executions involving a black defendant and a white victim, and just 31
executions of white defendants with black victims. People argue that race has
no influence on the death penalty but it undoubtedly does, the numbers don't
lie.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think criminals should get away with their crimes,
I just believe they should be sentenced to life in prison rather than be
killed, after all life in prison is cheaper. Cases without the death penalty
cost $740,000, while cases where the death penalty is sought cost $1.26
million. Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per
year than a prisoner in general population. Why pay extra in taxes to execute
someone when it would cost less to give them life in prison? Capital punishment
is a waste of money, especially considering that not everyone on death row is
truly guilty; can you imagine paying to execute an innocent person who was
wrongfully convicted?
Execution doesn't necessarily help the family and friends of murder victims;
they are still going to be emotionally disturbed. Instead of paying extra for
death penalty cases, that money should go toward things such as therapy and
counseling for the families of the victims.
Not only is life in prison more civilized, but it gives criminals a chance to
turn their lives around and work on better themselves.
Over 117 nations worldwide have made the death penalty illegal - unfortunately
the United States is not one of them. Capital punishment is in no way
beneficial and should be abolished. America needs to get with the program and
stop killing people and kill the death penalty instead.
(source: Jamie Perlee, The (Los Medanos College) Experience)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 13 08:57:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 08:57:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605130857080.9084@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 13
SINGAPORE----impending execution
Kho Jabing to be hanged next Friday----Family of Sarawakian convicted of murder
in Singapore told to make arrangements for his body to be flown back to Miri
after execution.
Sarawakian Kho Jabing is set to be executed by Singapore's prison authorities
next Friday.
According to Malay Mail Online today, the convicted killer's sister, Jumai Kho
said that they received a letter 2 days ago from Singapore, notifying them of
the scheduled execution.
She said the letter, which was addressed to her mother Lenduk Baling, asked the
family to make preparations to take Jabing's body back to Miri after the
execution. Lenduk is in shock and unable to accept the news.
Jumai said the family was working with NGO "We Believe in 2nd Chances", to fly
to Singapore, and are also assessing the options available.
She told the portal that the family had been under the impression that Kho
would be spared the noose, pending a fresh clemency petition they had intended
to push through last month.
Kho's 1st plea for clemency was rejected in October last year.
Kho, 31, from Ulu Baram, Sarawak, was found guilty of killing a Chinese
construction worker with a tree branch in 2008 during a robbery attempt. He was
sentenced to death in 2010.
In 2013, the Singapore government amended the mandatory death penalty that gave
judges the discretion to choose between death and life imprisonment with caning
for murder, as well as certain cases of drug trafficking.
In August 2013, following revisions to the mandatory death penalty laws, the
High Court sentenced him to life and 24 strokes of the cane instead. It was
then again revised to the death penalty after the prosecution challenged the
decision before the Court of Appeal.
Kho was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6, but received a stay the day before
after his lawyer filed a motion raising points of law about the case's
handling.
(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)
*******************
Halt Kho Jabing's Execution
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/singapore-halt-kho-jabing-s-execution-ua-10315
(source: Amnesty International USA)
BANGLADESH:
Turkey, Pakistan Protest Nizami Execution
Diplomatic fallout from Bangladesh's execution of the chief of the country's
largest faith-based party grew Thursday when Turkey summoned home its
ambassador to Dhaka after condemning the hanging.
The "Turkish Foreign Ministry has asked Turkey's ambassador to Bangladesh to
report to Ankara for consultations in the aftermath of hanging of a senior
Jamaat-e-Islami party leader in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka," Turkey's
state-run Anatolia News Agency reported Thursday, citing an unnamed diplomatic
source.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic row between Bangladesh and Pakistan escalated over
Wednesday's hanging of Motiur Rahman Nizami for war crimes allegedly committed
during the Bangladeshi war of independence in 1971, when the country was known
as East Pakistan.
On Thursday Turkish ambassador Devrim Ozturk boarded a homeward flight, a day
after Turkey's foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the execution of
Nizami, the chief of the opposition Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) party,
Bangladeshi officials said.
"The Turkish ambassador left Dhaka at 6:20 a.m. Thursday on a Turkish airlines
flight," Kazi Imtiaz Mashroor, the officer-in-charge of immigration at the
Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, told BenarNews.
However, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam told reporters that
the Turkish government had not officially informed Dhaka about a recall of its
ambassador.
"He [Ozturk] has informed us that he would be out of the country from May 12.
And he also informed us who would be serving as ambassador in his absence,"
Alam said, without naming who would assume that role.
The statement from the Turkish foreign ministry pointed out that Turkey had
abolished capital punishment.
"We strongly condemn the execution, since we do not believe that Nizami
deserved such a punishment and wish God's mercy upon the deceased," the
statement said.
"For the protection of social harmony and peace in Bangladesh, we have in the
last three years repeatedly called upon the leaders of Bangladesh at the
highest level to suspend the execution of death sentences and conveyed our
concerns that the practice of capital punishment may cause new tension in the
society due to its unjust nature," the ministry added.
Elsewhere, Pakistan on Thursday summoned Bangladesh's acting high commissioner
in Islamabad, Nazmul Huda, to deliver a "strong protest" letter. Hours later,
Bangladesh summoned Pakistan's envoy to Dhaka, Shuja Alam, and delivered its
own protest letter.
"The attempts by the government of Bangladesh to malign Pakistan, despite our
keen desire to develop brotherly relations with it, are regrettable,"
Pakistan's foreign ministry said a statement.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani parliament adopted a resolution denouncing Nizami's
execution.
'Very tough'
Former Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury described Ankara's
apparent decision to recall its ambassador as an act of protest over Nizami's
execution as extreme.
"Pakistan has not recalled its ambassador, but Turkey has. So, the events show
that they are very tough on this issue," he told BenarNews.
He said Turkey also reacted angrily when Bangladesh executed its 1st convicted
war criminal in December 2013.
"The current President [then Prime Minister] Recep Tayyip Erdogan telephoned
our prime minister and expressed his frustration about the execution of Abdul
Kader Molla," Chowdhury said.
The United States, where the death penalty is enforced, was among countries and
organizations voicing concern about whether Nizami and other convicted war
criminals like him had received a fair trial by the International Crimes
Tribunal (ICT), the Bangladeshi court that has been trying and sentencing to
death suspected war criminals from 1971.
Hours before Nizami's execution, the U.S. State Department on Tuesday called
for improving the judicial process in Bangladesh while expressing misgivings
about executions there.
"While we have seen limited progress in some cases, we still believe that
further improvements to the ICT process could ensure these proceedings meet
domestic and international obligations. Until these obligations can be
consistently met, we have concerns about proceeding with executions," State
Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.
"Again, we support bringing to justice those who committed crimes during the
war of independence, but we also have remaining concerns about proceeding with
executions under these conditions which we will raise with the Government of
Bangladesh."
War crimes
JeI opposed the war of independence in 1971. The party sided with the Pakistan
army even as civilians, including minority Hindus, were killed.
Bangladesh claims that 3 million people, including 300,000 women, were killed
between March and December 1971, a figure rejected by Pakistan.
JeI formed armed auxiliary units to stop efforts for Bangladeshi independence.
Nizami was the head of 1 such armed group, al-Badr that was held responsible
for the extermination of leading Bengali intellectuals on Dec. 14, 1971 - 2
days before the Pakistani army surrendered in Dhaka.
Nizami was hanged in Dhaka for the killings of intellectuals and "genocide" in
his hometown Pabna. The JeI student front, Islami Chhatra Shibir, on Wednesday
clashed with police in the cities of Chittagong and Rajshahi over holding of a
gayebana janaza (funeral prayer in absentia).
JeI called for a countrywide general strike on Thursday, which passed without
incident, according to authorities.
(source: BenarNews)
PHILIPPINES:
Rodrigo Duterte on crime and punishment
As mayor of the Philippines southern city of Davao, Rodrigo Duterte was known
as "the punisher", whose profanity-packed speeches and death threats to drug
gangs helped propel him to the Philippines presidency in the May 9 election.
Here are some of the things he's had to say about how he would deal with
criminals.
"Forget the laws on human rights. If I make it to the presidential palace, I
will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and
do-nothings, you better go out. Because I'd kill you."
"I'll dump all of you (criminals) into Manila Bay, and fatten all the fish
there."
- Final campaign rally on May 7 in Manila
"You talk about summary killings? I'm sorry, bad guys were killed. But what
about the people who were abused? Who takes care of them?"
- Remarks to Reuters in Davao during the campaign.
"I say let's kill f5 criminals every week, so they will be eliminated."
- Vowing to revive the death penalty.
"Stop or leave. If you can not or will not, you will not survive. You can
either leave vertically or horizontally."
- Telling criminals to avoid coming to Davao when he was mayor.
"If you are accusing me of killing people, then sue me and I will kill you as
well."
- Remarks during the campaign.
(source: Reuters)
INDONESIA:
Death-Row Inmates Without the World Noticing
15 inmates will face the firing squad in Indonesia's next round of executions.
5 are Indonesians. The rest, according to local media, are foreign - 4 Chinese,
1 Pakistani, 2 Nigerians, 2 Senegalese and 1 Zimbabwean. The composition of
execution lineup suggests an attempt to avoid the intense international
attention and outcry that happened when Jakarta executed a total of 14 drug
convicts last year - all but 2 of them foreign citizens. Then, there were
rallies and social-media campaigns for the Australian Bali 9 ringleaders Andrew
Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Filipina migrant worker Mary Jane Veloso and
Frenchman Serge Atlaoui, urging President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to pardon the
condemned.
There is unlikely to be the same kind of uproar when the prison authorities in
the penal island of Nusakambangan conduct the next round of executions,
however.
7 of the 10 foreigners set to be executed came from countries that implement
the death penalty (China, Pakistan and Nigeria). The remaining 3 foreign
citizens came from poor African countries: Zimbabwe, which is moving toward
eliminating capital punishment, and Senegal, which abolished death penalty more
than a decade ago.
The 5 Indonesian inmates have been transferred to the Nusakambangan in the past
month - 3 of them last Sunday - raising speculation that executions are
imminent. The government hasn't announced the execution date and convicts'
identities, however.
"The executions can take place any time, but there will not be a 'soap opera'
about it this time," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told journalists
recently.
Todung Mulya Lubis, human-rights lawyer and anti-death-penalty advocate,
believes there will be some public outcry over the executions. "But it won't be
as much as last year," Todung, who represented Australian drug convicts Chan
and Sukumaran, tells TIME.
Chan and Sukumaran were executed in April 2015, along with the mentally ill
Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte and 5 other men. But, the government suspended
Veloso's and Atlaoui's executions, pending their separate legal cases. The
Filipina and the Frenchman are not among the inmates slated to be executed
soon.
Several countries, including Australia, the Netherlands and Brazil, recalled
their ambassadors in protest of the 2015 executions. German Chancellor Angela
Merkel told Jokowi, who visited Berlin last month, of her opposition to capital
punishment, but the Indonesian leader defended its use. "There are between 30
and 50 people in Indonesia dying per day because of drugs," Jokowi said, once
again quoting figures that are questioned by public-health experts.
Following public condemnation of a rape-murder of a schoolgirl last month, the
government is also weighing the death penalty for rape offenders.
Indonesian Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo said that the present inmates to be
put of death are all drug offenders "so they know we are really at war with
drugs." But many rights activists say capital punishment does little to deter
drug crime, with the number of drug convicts rising despite the executions last
year.
(source: TIME magazine)
MALAYSIA:
2 soldiers, 3 others face death penalty over snooker parlour murder
2 soldiers and 3 others found themselves in the dock over the alleged murder of
their friend at a snooker centre in Kuala Lumpur.
Mohamad Hairul Abdullah, Lawrance Anak Masing, and the 3 - security guard M.
Yogesvaran, shop assistant Zaidi Zainal, and jewelry shop supervisor Chong Kai
Weng - were calm when charged at the Magistrate's Court today.
Hairul, 33, Lawrance, 32, Yogesvaran, 23, Zaidi, 31, and Chong, 31, indicated
they understood the charge read to them involving victim Mohd Yusof Abd Khalib,
26. No plea was recorded.
The5 friends were accused of being part of an illegal gathering that led to
Yusof's murder at the snooker centre at Taman Intan Baiduri here, between
8.30pm and 11pm on May 1.
Police detained them on separate occasions after the incident: Yogesvaran on
May 4; Hairul and Lawrance on May 5; and Zaidi and Chong on May 8.
> The5 men face the death penalty if convicted under Section 149 of the
Penal Code, read with Section 302 of the same law.
Magistrate Siti Radziah Kamarudin did not grant bail and fixed July 22 for
mention.
Deputy public prosecutor Nor Diana Nor Azwa prosecuted while counsel Afifuddin
Ahmad Hafifi acted for Chong. The other four accused were unrepresented.
(source: New Straits Times)
TAIWAN:
Supreme Prosecutors' Office defends swift execution of Taipei metro killer
The judiciary followed proper procedure and defense lawyers filing an
extraordinary appeal cannot be the basis for suspending procedures to carry out
a death sentence, the Supreme Prosecutors' Office said yesterday in response to
controversy surrounding the execution of convicted Taipei MRT killer Cheng
Chieh. Cheng's lawyers, Liang Chia-ying, Huang Chih-hao and Lin Chun-hung,
tried to win a last-minute reprieve for their client by submitting an
extraordinary appeal to the prosecutor-general on Tuesday night, seeking a stay
of execution.
However, the document arrived at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office at 9pm, 13
minutes after Cheng's execution, with the 1st gunshot fired by the executioner
at 8:47pm.
The defense lawyers said in a statement that the judiciary had violated
judicial procedure throughout the case and kept the decision to order Cheng's
execution secret, adding that they were in the process of filing for an
extraordinary appeal, seeking a retrial and wanted a constitutional
interpretation by the Council of Grand Justices.
"The Ministry of Justice carried out the execution swiftly and did not contact
the family of the accused or defense lawyers. This resulted in the accused not
having sufficient time to allow the defense to initiate 'criminal special aid
procedures,' and this is a deprivation of the accused right to life. It has
violated international human rights conventions, and we regret what has taken
place," the lawyers said.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office said the proper judicial procedures for
carrying out capital punishment had been followed and cited a need to maintain
secrecy upon approval of an execution order.
It said that there are no legal requirements to contact the prisoner's family,
or defense lawyers prior to an execution.
"Even if the extraordinary appeal was submitted before carrying out the
execution, according to The Code of Criminal Procedure, it cannot serve as the
basis to suspend the said procedure," it said.
Cheng left a will for his family, written after the Supreme Court's final
verdict on April 22 upholding 4 death sentences.
He also reportedly wrote a short apology to his family.
The EU yesterday issued a statement urging the government to introduce an
immediate moratorium on the death penalty following Cheng's execution. Saying
that it recognizes the serious nature of the crimes and expresses sympathy to
all those who suffered, it added that the "death penalty can never be justified
as it has no deterrent effect ... [the EU] calls for its universal abolition."
(source: Taipei Times)
EGYPT:
Egyptian court rules death sentence for 2 Al-Jazeera journalists; Mohamed
Mursi's verdict postponed
An Egyptian court on Saturday, May 7 ruled a death sentence for 6 individuals
including 2 Al Jazeera journalists on charges of endangering national security
by passing over important documents to Qatar during the administration of
ousted president Mohamed Mursi.
According to Reuters, the 2 Al Jazeera journalists facing death penalty are
Jordanian national news producer, Alaa Omar Sablan, and former director of Al
Jazeera's Arabic channel, Ibrahim Mohammed Helal. The 2 were tried in absentia
and so have the legal rights to appeal the verdict.
Al Jazeera posted on its website that it categorically denies allegations that
it was collaborating with Mursi's elected government. The satellite channel
describes the court's ruling as "an unprecedented assault on freedom of
expression."
The 3rd individual who can also appeal after being tried in absentia and facing
the same ruling is Asmaa Mohamed al-Khatib, a reporter for pro-Muslim
Brotherhood Rassd news outlet.
Judge Mohammed Shireen Famy announced Saturday's ruling and said that a final
decision including that of Mursi's verdict would have to wait until the Grand
Mufti, the country's top religious authority, make their non-binding opinion on
June 18.
Mursi, overthrown in 2013 by then army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was already
sentenced to death and life imprisonment in 3 other cases. He is now in jail
together with thousands of Brotherhood members who are also facing death
sentence in different cases. Sisi believes Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, which
was what used to be the country's most organized political group, still poses a
serious threat to the national security. Relations between Egypt and the Gulf
Arab state of Qatar have turned sour since the ouster.
"I believe that this is a weak point in the Egyptian system, which might bring
catastrophes to the whole country, especially when it comes to freedoms and
human rights," Al Jazeera's Middle East analyst Yahia Ghanem said about the
court ruling.
"The case's documents are devoid of any type of espionage or participation in
it," a defense lawyer told Reuters.
(source: Christian Times)
BAHAMAS:
Woman Could Face Death Penalty If Convicted Of Killing
A woman who maintains she had no involvement in the murder of a web shop
employee could be facing the discretionary death penalty if convicted by the
Supreme Court jury.
Daphne Knowles, of Cartwright's, Long Island, was called on to answer to
charges of murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery moments before jury
selection took place in her trial yesterday concerning the death of Andrea
Carroll in November 2014.
Knowles answered "not guilty" to all 3 allegations before a jury of 10 women
and 2 men who were selected to hear evidence in the matter.
The accused is charged with murder under Section 291 (1) (a) of the Penal Code,
Chapter 84, a charge that attracts the discretionary death penalty of the court
if a conviction is reached.
In 2011, after a ruling from the London-based Privy Council, the Ingraham
administration amended the death penalty law to specify the "worst of the
worst" murders that would warrant execution.
Under the amended law, a person who kills a police or defence force officer,
member of the Departments of Customs or Immigration, judiciary or prison
services would be eligible for a death sentence. A person would also be
eligible for death once convicted of murdering someone during a rape, robbery,
kidnapping or act of terrorism.
The jury was asked to return to court on Tuesday, May 17, for evidence to be
taken.
Knowles is alleged to have killed Carroll between November 28 and 29, 2014.
Carroll was found lifeless with a head injury and her hands and feet bound.
It is further alleged that Knowles conspired with others for some 58 days to
commit robbery and actually robbed Carroll of cash belonging to Bowe's Web
Games Ltd.
The accused remains remanded to the Department of Correctional Services.
Knowles, who was previously unrepresented up until Monday, is now defended by
attorney Sonia Timothy.
Cephia Pinder-Moss and Basil Cumberbatch are prosecuting the case.
Justice Bernard Turner is presiding over the trial.
(source: Bahamas Tribune)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 13 16:17:21 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 16:17:21 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., S.C., GA., ARK., CALIR.,
ORE., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605131617130.7096@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 13
PENNSYLVANIA:
More than 25 years later, Cambria death row inmate still seeking new trial
A Huntingdon County man on death row for the rape and murder of a toddler in
1989 brought his latest attempt for a new trial to the Cambria County
Courthouse Friday.
A Cambria County jury found Stephen Rex Edmiston, 57, guilty of the 1988 rape
and murder of 2-year-old Bobbi Jo Matthew. Following several appeals,
Edmiston's attorneys now allege that DNA analysis of hair follicles presented
to the jury should be revisited in a new trial.
During trial testimony, prosecutors told jurors that the toddler was partially
scalped, showed blunt force injuries to the torso, received a skull fracture
and her genitals obliterated before she was burned. Authorities located
Matthew's body in Reade Township, Cambria County, two days after Edmiston took
her from her Clearfield County home.
On Friday, Centre County Senior Judge David Grine heard arguments from attorney
David Zuckerman, assistant federal defender for the Federal Community Defender
Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's Capital Habeas Unit in
Philadelphia, filed under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act on behalf
of Edmiston.
Zuckerman said a widespread FBI investigation in April 2015 revealed overstated
hair analysis in dozens of trials and also showed that examiners were trained
to give flawed testimony beyond the scope that science allowed.
"The hair was the only scientific evidence that linked Mr. Edmiston to the
crime," Zuckerman said. "And we've been challenging the reliability of that
evidence for years."
Based on that investigation, Zuckerman asked Grine to release the hair
follicles for another round of DNA evidence.
Senior Deputy Attorney General Susan DiGiacomo said the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court and other judges have dismissed nearly identical requests from Edmiston
before.
"It was old news then and it's old news now," she said. "We've been through
this."
In 2009, Senior Judge Eugene Fike of Somerset County dismissed a motion from
Edmiston's attorneys that sought DNA testing on blood found in Edmiston's truck
after the crime, which was ruled inconclusive at the time of trial.
Fike's ruling cited Supreme Court panel opinions that barred Edmiston from
further DNA testing after conviction because of his confession to the crime.
State police testified at the trial that Edmiston drew a map with an "X,"
marking the location of where the body was found, saying "you'll find a dead,
raped little girl."
"He confessed," DiGiacomo said.
In addition to the hair follicles taken from the scene, Matthews' shorts were
found in Edmiston's truck and tire marks beside where her corpse was found
matched those of Edmiston's vehicle, she said.
DiGiacomo turned over motions dismissing Edmiston's previous appeals and a
similar case in Lackawanna County that was recently dismissed to Grine, who
took the matter under advisement.
Former Gov. Tom Corbett signed a death warrant for Edmiston's execution in
2014, but that was delayed by the federal court system the same year until all
of Edmiston's appeals are exhausted.
In February 2015, Gov. Tom Wolf declared a moratorium on the death penalty,
stalling all executions statewide until a report from Pennsylvania Task Force
and Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment is complete. This report, expected
in 2016, is supposed to evaluate the cost, fairness and effectiveness of the
death penalty in light of the numerous appeals filed on behalf of death row
inmates.
(source: Johnstown Tribune Democrat)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Solicitor targeted blacks while defense removed whites from death penalty jury,
opponents argue
In picking the Charleston jurors who would vote to sentence a man to death in a
now decade-old murder, a prosecutor removed black people from the jury pool
while a defense attorney targeted only whites, according to dueling court
testimony this week.
By highlighting how the man's lawyers threw out only white jurors during the
2009 trial, the S.C. Attorney General's Office sought Friday to show that 9th
Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson had reasons other than race when she removed
black people.
A day after Wilson took the witness stand, Columbia lawyer Jeffrey Bloom
testified about how he represented William O. Dickerson Jr., 39, who was
convicted in the brutal murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of a James Island
man in 2006.
Dickerson hopes that a study commissioned by his defense team will prompt a
judge to grant him a new trial. The analysis indicates that Wilson was seven
times more likely to strike black prospective jurors than whites in the nine
trials that were analyzed. Dickerson, like his victim, is black.
Bloom's testimony revealed opposite statistics in his handling of jury
selection in Dickerson's case. The lawyer said he struck 10 potential jurors,
and all of them were white. But their race wasn't a factor in the decisions,
Bloom said.
"You really have to put race, ethnicity and gender aside and really listen to
their answers" during jury selection, he said. "Even though I acknowledge all
10 strikes were used on Caucasians, we determined they were all pro-death
penalty."
The testimony in downtown Charleston came during a hearing on Dickerson's
application for post-conviction relief. The proceeding already has lasted for
days over the past months, and a decision by Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper is
likely weeks away.
In fighting the case, Senior Assistant Attorney General Melody Brown has aimed
to show shortcomings in the study that focuses on statistics related to the
jurors' race.
This week, Wilson testified - voluntarily, she said - and defended her record,
arguing that the statistics do not show she is racist. The issue comes at a
sensitive time for Charleston's top prosecutor: She is leading the cases
against the white police officer who killed Walter Scott and of the white
supremacist who shot nine black people at Emanuel AME Church.
During jury selection of a trial, attorneys can remove, or strike, possible
jurors without giving a reason. Opposing lawyers can issue a challenge if
racial motivation is suspected.
Bloom did that when Wilson struck 3 black people. During the resulting hearing,
she gave 3 separate reasons: 1 potential juror needed to work, 1 had past
arrests, 1 gave inconsistent answers to questions.
Ultimately, Bloom's challenge failed. A judge ruled in Wilson's favor on those
3 jurors.
Some black people made it on the jury, which voted to convict Dickerson and
sentence him to death.
Now at issue, though, is whether Bloom should have put up more of a fight. He
testified that he didn't question Wilson's reasons at the time because they
appeared to be true.
"If Solicitor Wilson stands up in court and says a juror had a prior record, I
took her at her word," he said. "Obviously, she was right."
Of the 31 possible jurors remaining at that stage, 23 were white. Wilson did
not challenge Bloom's removal of 10 of the white ones.
Charles Grose of Greenwood, Dickerson's current attorney, has made various
arguments in the bid to spare his client's life. On top of the study, he has
contended that Bloom should have presented testimony during the penalty phase
that Dickerson suffered lead poisoning as a child.
Bloom testified that he handled 1 other death penalty case with a defendant who
had high levels of lead in his bloodstream. Bloom told Grose that the defendant
was sentenced to life in prison instead of death.
(source: The Post and Courier)
GEORGIA:
Calmer sits in recliner during death penalty hearings in Monroe deputy's
slaying
Hearings in the case against Christopher Keith Calmer, accused of murder in the
2014 shooting death of Monroe County sheriff's deputy Michael Norris, are
continuing today.
The proceedings in Superior Court here are part of the yearlong runup to a June
2017 death penalty trial.
Calmer's courtroom behavior on Thursday, moans and groans about being in pain,
was widely reported and became an unignorable focal point as the day unfolded.
Calmer, who in the past has complained of chronic back and neck pain, was
examined by a doctor Thursday and on Friday, at least as he trudged into the
courtroom, showed no signs of distress.
Even so, officials today had an easy chair, a brown recliner, brought in from a
local furniture store to make Calmer more comfortable for Friday???s
proceedings, which are expected to include testimony from GBI agents.
Before the day's hearing began, soon after Calmer sat down in the recliner
beside his defense lawyers, the courtroom was cleared so the attorneys could
discuss an undisclosed matter with Judge Tommy Wilson.
When court opened shortly after 10 a.m., prosecutors sought to introduce
surveillance video of Calmer in jail before and after court on Thursday. The
video may speak to his behavior in court, incessant moans and groans, and
whether, as District Attorney Richard Milam suggested on Friday, "what we saw
here in the courtroom was a little bit of play acting."
Evidentiary hearings in the Monroe County death penalty trial for Christopher
Keith Calmer were delayed Thursday while Calmer received medical treatment. The
judge ruled that the hearings would go on despite Calmer's lawyers' arguments
that they should be (postponed). Judge Wilson called a recess about 10:15 a.m.
for attorneys on both sides to confer and will likely soon rule whether Calmer
is "competent and cognizant to go forward" with Friday's hearing.
Calmer's defense team objected to the surveillance video or testimony from a
jailer who has observed Calmer and noted his behavior at the undisclosed county
lockup where Calmer is being held.
During hearings Thursday, Calmer complained of pain, and at one point, he was
taken out by an ambulance.
(source: macon.com)
ARKANSAS:
Arkansas running out of time to execute prisoners
Arkansas is running out of time to put 8 prisoners to death before one of its
lethal drugs expires next month, even if the state Supreme Court gives a quick
green light after hearing an inmate challenge next week.
The state finds itself against a deadline because its supply of the paralytic
vecuronium bromide - 1 of the 3 drugs in Arkansas' lethal drug protocol - has a
June 2016 expiration date. Pharmacy experts said that means they'll expire June
30, and the drug supplier has said it won't sell the state more.
The Arkansas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on May 19 in the inmates'
constitutional challenge to the state's execution secrecy law, which allows the
state to keep secret the manufacturer, seller and other information about the
lethal drugs.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson set dates last year for the 1st executions since 2005, but
the court granted stays until the inmates' challenge was heard.
If the justices rule quickly and in favor of the state, Arkansas would have
five weeks or less to conduct the executions because of the looming expiration
date.
In that time, the Arkansas Parole Board would have to arrange clemency hearings
- though it would have to waive a policy that sets a deadline of 40 days before
their execution for inmates to apply for a hearing.
"We generally try to stay within the parameters of the policy as best as we
can," Parole Board Chairman John Felts said. "Certainly it would be a situation
where we would have to do a lot of coordination. It would be something we have
certainly not done before."
The Department of Correction would also have to consider whether it can conduct
8 executions because of a protocol requiring that 2 sets of drugs be prepared
for each inmate - in case something goes wrong with the initial dose.
Arkansas had enough doses for 8 executions, but after sending some of the drugs
for potency and purity tests, inventory records show there are only 15 complete
doses of 2 of the drugs.
Under the protocol, 2 sets of syringes are prepared for each inmate. Once the
drugs are drawn from vials into a syringe, they must either go into the inmate
or be "properly disposed of."
Department of Correction spokesman Solomon Graves would not clarify whether a
backup dose for one inmate can be used for another execution, if two are
scheduled for the same day. He said ongoing litigation prevented the department
from commenting.
The attorney general's office also declined to comment on questions related to
the likelihood executions would occur, citing the lawsuit.
Executions are stalled in many states because of court challenges or drug
shortages caused by pharmaceutical companies objecting to their drugs being
used in death chambers.
Only Texas has executed 8 inmates in 1 calendar month during the last 4 decades
- 8 each in May and June of 1997, according to a database of state executions
kept by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that opposes
executions and tracks the issue. Oklahoma had 7 executions in January 2001.
"Even in the days when you had multiple executions on the same day, I don't
know if anyone was faced with having to sign that many (execution) warrants
potentially in such a short window of a time," said Matt DeCample, a
communications consultant who worked as a spokesman for former Arkansas Gov.
Mike Beebe's administration.
Hutchinson's office wouldn't say whether he'd consider setting execution dates
for just some inmates.
"We're following the action by the court, and we will address those questions
once a decision is made by the court," Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said.
(source: CBS news)
CALIFORNIA:
Reports: Iraq War veteran says he doesn't remember killing mother, stepfather
A Bakersfield man accused of killing his mother and stepfather told a lengthy,
bizarre tale to investigators in which he arrived home to find the couple dead,
chugged a few beers, laid next to his mother's body with his arm draped around
her and then tried cleaning up the blood before aimlessly driving around while
thinking about which funeral home to deliver the bodies to for cremation.
Derek Connell acknowledged he never took the time to call police, according to
recent court filings.
"I probably didn't handle the situation like I was supposed to," he said.
A few days later, Derek Connell admitted he made everything up, the filings
say. He said he's responsible for the killings, but doesn't remember what
happened.
"I mean obviously I think there was, you know, I think it was me, but I don't
know how," the filings say Connell told Bakersfield police detectives.
Connell, 29, has pleaded not guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and is
eligible for the death penalty in the April 30 killings. Prosecutors have not
yet decided whether to seek death.
He's being held without bail.
Connell's attorney, Deputy Public Defender Paul Cadman, has said Connell is a
veteran of the Iraq War suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.
Connell said in the filings that he served in the U.S. Army from 2005 to 2008,
and was less than honorably discharged due to an incident involving alcohol.
The incident is not further explained.
According to the filings, he told detectives his platoon routinely raided Iraqi
pharmacies for steroids and other drugs. He said he used steroids for 13 months
while overseas, and most of the other soldiers did too.
Upon returning to the U.S., he worked in the oilfields in Colorado and Texas,
he said in the filings. He said it's the only work he knows how to do, and he
returned to Bakersfield and moved in with his mother and stepfather after being
laid off a few months ago.
Connell told investigators he has multiple arrests for DUI and public
intoxication, both in Texas and Bakersfield. He said he drinks often, sometimes
to the point of passing out, but he never let his drinking interfere with his
work.
On the day of the killings, he went to an immigration office in Fresno to deal
with what he called "green card" issues, the filings say. Connell was born in
Scotland.
He said he returned home, ate a salad and talked about his immigration status
with his stepfather, Christopher Tare Higginbotham. He said they didn't argue
or become angry.
He then went to his room.
Connell said he doesn't remember what happened after that, but recalls cleaning
up blood, the filings say.
Police responded to the house after a relative of Connell's living in Scotland
called them. She said Connell had shown her bodies of his mother and stepfather
by using FaceTime.
Police found the bodies of Christopher and Kim Higginbotham, both 48, lying in
pools of blood inside the house. A number of guns were seized from the home.
(source: Bakersfield Californian)
**************
Can Californians Afford 18 Scheduled Executions In A Row?
On January 15, the Contra Costa Times reported on a new poll showing that "48
percent of registered voters would support proposals to accelerate" executions
in California. One of many reasons these voters may want to reconsider: Cold
hard cash starting with the "$718,632 for 18 executions in addition to
unspecified fees" the L.A. Times reports (in a May 10, 2016 article) such a
move would cost the already financially-burdened state.
Add to this the fact that on its website, the California Travel and Tourism
Commission notes that California had 16.5 million "international person-trips"
in 2014, and of that number, 686K came from the UK, 445K from France, and 439K
from Germany. And so, in addition to the already well-documented costs of
capital punishment in California - on our morals, our judicial system and on
our taxes - do we as Californians really want to ramp executions up when we
risk offending, even alienating, so many potential new and return European
tourists (even the Pope)?
If we don't care so much about what they think of our refusal to, as the New
York Times Editorial Board wrote, "join the rest of the civilized world and end
the death penalty," don't we at least want their dollars?
We already know how much Europeans hate the death penalty by their refusal to
ship us lethal injection drugs, but what would happen if the 18 people who have
exhausted all their state and federal appeals - out of California's massive
death row population of close to 750 souls - started having their execution
dates set like wildfire? Are Californians prepared to stomach the steady
drumbeat of publicized death that would result, with the possibility, each
time, of a gruesome botch, like the infamous Oklahoma execution of Clayton
Lockett on April 29, 2014. Called "deeply troubling" by President Obama and
generating an avalanche of negative press abroad, reporters witnessing the
execution said Lockett "writhed, groaned, and convulsed" taking 43 minutes to
die. Imagine 18 potential Lockett-like executions lined up like ducks over the
course of a fiscal year . . . . How much negative publicity would California
see as a result?
How much condemnation from foreign countries would we reap - countries whose
tourism dollars our fragile economy depends upon? Just recently, after Saudi
Arabia executed 47 prisoners, it was reported on January 15 by Eve Hartley of
the Huffington Post that "the brutal Saudi justice system [had] strain[ed]
relations between" Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.
Before Californians head out to the polls in November, they ought to look real
hard - not only at the very many good reasons already advanced to end the death
penalty - but also, in our wallets; is there really so much green in there that
accelerating - instead of ending the death penalty - is worth it?
(source: Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an
assistant federal defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015 litigating death
penalty cases in postconviction----berkeleydailyplanet.com)
OREGON:
Man guilty in 2012 Eugene slaying, faces death penalty----A.J. Scott Nelson was
convicted of aggravated murder and more than a dozen other felony charges
Thursday
A 26-year-old man faces the death penalty after being found guilty in the 2012
slaying of a Eugene man.
The Register-Guard reports that A.J. Scott Nelson was convicted of aggravated
murder and more than a dozen other felony charges Thursday. A second trial
phase to decide if Nelson should be sentenced to death will start Tuesday.
Nelson is the 3rd and last defendant to be found guilty in the kidnapping,
robbery and murder of Celestino Gutierrez Jr.
Co-defendant David Ray Taylor is now on Oregon's death row and Mercedes
Crabtree is serving a life sentence.
Nelson's attorney had previously asked a judge to rule out the death penalty
for her client, arguing that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and
a brain injury from his time in the Army.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
Pfizer Blocks the Use of Its Drugs in Executions
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Friday that it has imposed
sweeping controls on the distribution of its products to ensure that none are
used in lethal injections, a step that closes off the last remaining
open-market source of drugs used in executions.
More than 20 American and European drug companies have already adopted such
restrictions, citing either moral or business reasons. Nonetheless, the
decision from one of the world's leading pharmaceutical manufacturers is seen
as a milestone.
"With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential
execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose," said Maya Foa,
who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights advocacy
group. "Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of
medicines for use in lethal injection."
The obstacles to lethal injection have grown in the last 5 years as
manufacturers, seeking to avoid association with executions, have barred the
sale of their products to corrections agencies. Experiments with new drugs, a
series of botched executions and covert efforts to obtain lethal chemicals have
mired many states in court challenges.
The mounting difficulty in obtaining lethal drugs has already caused states to
furtively scramble for supplies.
Some states have used straw buyers or tried to import drugs from abroad that
are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, only to see them seized
by federal agents. Some have covertly bought supplies from compounding
pharmacies while others, including Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio, have delayed
executions for months or longer because of drug shortages or legal issues tied
to injection procedures.
A few states have adopted the electric chair, firing squad or the gas chamber
as an alternative if lethal drugs are not available. Since Utah chooses to have
a death penalty, "we have to have a means of carrying it out," said State
Representative Paul Ray as he argued last year for reauthorization of the
state's death penalty.
Lawyers for condemned inmates have challenged the efforts of corrections
officials to conceal how the drugs are obtained, saying this makes it
impossible to know if they meet quality standards or might cause undue
suffering.
"States are shrouding in secrecy aspects of what should be the most transparent
government activity," said Ty Alper, associate director of the death penalty
clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
Before Missouri put to death a prisoner on Wednesday, for example, it refused
to say in court whether the lethal barbiturate it used, pentobarbital, was
produced by a compounding pharmacy or a licensed manufacturer. Akorn, the only
approved company making that drug, has tried to prevent its use in executions.
Pfizer's decision follows its acquisition last year of Hospira, a company that
has made seven drugs used in executions including barbiturates, sedatives and
agents that cause paralysis or heart failure. Hospira had long tried to prevent
diversion of its products to state prisons but had not succeeded; its products
were used in a prolonged, apparently agonizing execution in Ohio in 2014, and
are stockpiled by Arkansas, according to documents obtained by reporters.
Because these drugs are also distributed for normal medical use, there is no
way to determine what share of the agents used in recent executions were
produced by Hospira, or more recently, Pfizer.
Campaigns against the death penalty, and Europe's strong prohibitions on the
export of execution drugs, have raised the stakes for pharmaceutical companies.
But many, including Pfizer, say medical principles and business concerns have
guided their policies.
"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we
serve," the company said in Friday's statement, and "strongly objects to the
use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment."
Pfizer said it would restrict the sale to selected wholesalers of seven
products that could be used in executions. The distributors must certify that
they will not resell the drugs to corrections departments and will be closely
monitored.
David B. Muhlhausen, an expert on criminal justice at the Heritage Foundation,
accused Pfizer and other drug companies of "caving in to special interest
groups." He said that while the companies have a right to choose how their
products are used, their efforts to curb sales for executions "are not actually
in the public interest" because research shows, he believes, that the death
penalty has a deterrent effect on crime.
Pressure on the drug companies has not only come from human rights groups.
Trustees of the New York State pension fund, which is a major shareholder in
Pfizer and many other producers, have used the threat of shareholder
resolutions to push 2 other companies to impose controls and praised Pfizer for
its new policy.
"A company in the business of healing people is putting its reputation at risk
when it supplies drugs for executions," Thomas P. DiNapoli, the state
comptroller, said in an email. "The company is also risking association with
botched executions, which opens it to legal and financial damage."
Less than a decade ago, lethal injection was generally portrayed as a simple,
humane way to put condemned prisoners to death. Virtually all executions used
the same 3-drug combination: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate, to render the
inmate unconscious, followed by a paralytic and a heart-stopping drug.
In 2009, technical production problems, not the efforts of death-penalty
opponents, forced the only federally approved factory that made sodium
thiopental to close. That, plus more stringent export controls in Europe, set
off a cascade of events that have bedeviled state corrections agencies ever
since.
Many states have experimented with new drug combinations, sometimes with
disastrous results, such as the prolonged execution of Joseph R. Wood III in
Arizona in 2014, using the sedative midazolam. The state's executions are
delayed as court challenges continue.
Under a new glaring spotlight, deficiencies in execution procedures and medical
management have also been exposed. After winning a Supreme Court case last year
for the right to execute Richard E. Glossip and others using midazolam,
Oklahoma had to impose a stay only hours before Mr. Glossip's scheduled
execution in September. Officials discovered they had obtained the wrong drug,
and imposed a moratorium as a grand jury conducts an investigation.
A majority of the 32 states with the death penalty have imposed secrecy around
their drug sources, saying that suppliers would face severe reprisals or even
violence from death penalty opponents. In a court hearing this week, a Texas
official argued that disclosing the identity of its pentobarbital source
"creates a substantial threat of physical harm."
But others, noting the evidence that states are making covert drug purchases,
see a different motive. "The secrecy is not designed to protect the
manufacturers, it is designed to keep the manufacturers in the dark about
misuse of their products," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center, a research group in Washington.
Georgia, Missouri and Texas have obtained pentobarbital from compounding
pharmacies, which operate without normal F.D.A. oversight and are intended to
help patients meet needs for otherwise unavailable medications.
But other states say they have been unable to find such suppliers.
Texas, too, is apparently hedging its bets. Last fall, shipments of sodium
thiopental, ordered by Texas and Arizona from an unapproved source in India,
were seized in airports by federal officials.
For a host of legal and political reasons as well as the scarcity of injection
drugs, the number of executions has declined, to just 28 in 2015, compared with
a recent peak of 98 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
(source: New York Times)
***************
Death penalty divides Supreme Court after Scalia's death
The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has left the Supreme Court divided down the
middle on the death penalty at a time when its constitutionality is coming
under increased scrutiny.
The justices deadlocked 4-4 late Thursday night over the scheduled execution of
an Alabama prisoner who killed a police officer 3 decades ago. Without Scalia's
vote, they could not overrule a state court that had blocked the execution
based on the inmate's mental state.
The issue of intellectual disability may return to the court as early as
Monday, when the justices could decide whether to hear a case next fall
challenging Texas courts' standard for determining mental competency. The state
leads the nation in executions with 537 since 1976, including 6 this year.
The Texas case also raises a more far-reaching issue: whether decades in
solitary confinement awaiting execution violates the Constitution's ban on
cruel and unusual punishment.
Since Scalia's death in February, the court has deadlocked f4 times, with more
almost certainly to come. The most notable tie vote denied an anticipated
victory to opponents of public employee unions who had sought to end mandatory
fees from non-members, now required in about half the states.
Although Thursday night's tie vote spared just 1 man - Vernon Madison,
convicted of the 1985 murder of Mobile, Ala., police officer Julius Schulte -
it highlighted the justices' deep divide over the death penalty.
That divide prompted an angry exchange from the bench on the last day of the
court's term in June, when the justices ruled 5-4 that states could continue to
use a controversial sedative as part of their lethal injection protocols. 4
justices spoke up - 2 in favor, 2 against - and Justice Stephen Breyer said the
court should consider the overall constitutionality of the death penalty.
Breyer raised 4 issues - the potential for mistakes, racial and other
disparities, decades-long delays, and increasing numbers of states and counties
abandoning capital punishment. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg signed on to his
dissent.
"Rather than try to patch up the death penalty's legal wounds one at a time, I
would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty
violates the Constitution," Breyer wrote.
Though it was not his opinion or dissent, Scalia spoke from the bench that day
to complain about the growing trend. "Maybe we should celebrate that 2 justices
are willing to kill the death penalty outright instead of pecking it to death,"
he said sarcastically.
Since then, the court has refused to take on a case testing whether capital
punishment remains constitutional. But viewing Breyer's dissent as an
invitation, lawyers for death-row inmates continue to try.
The Texas case of Bobby James Moore, who shot and killed a grocery store clerk
during a botched robbery in 1980, is the latest such effort. His attorneys say
Moore's mental competency was gauged using a 23-year-old definition of
intellectual disability, rather than current medical standards. They also say
his execution after 35 years on death row, largely alone in his cell, would
violate the Constitution.
"Prolonged confinement for many decades under sentence of death represents a
sword of Damocles perpetually hanging just above the condemned individual's
head," Moore's attorney, Clifford Sloan, argued in court papers.
In response, Texas defended the standard used by its Court of Criminal Appeals
and noted that lengthy periods of confinement have much to do with defendants'
appeals. "Because any such delay is largely of the defendant's own making, no
court - state or federal - has held that a lengthy stay on death row renders
his sentence unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment," the attorney
general's office said.
While Scalia's death gives the court's liberals equal footing on some death
penalty questions, the court has been reluctant with only 8 members to take on
controversial cases. Testing the overall constitutionality of capital
punishment would fit that category.
But Justice Anthony Kennedy has switched sides on major cases involving
intellectual disability. He voted with the majority in a 2002 Virginia case
that ended capital punishment for people with intellectual disabilities, and he
wrote a 2014 opinion that barred states from using only a strict IQ standard to
determine a prisoner's competency.
Kennedy also has been the court's most outspoken justice on the issue of
solitary confinement. Last year, he told a congressional panel that "solitary
confinement literally drives men mad."
(source: USA Today)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 13 16:18:09 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 16:18:09 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----EGY., TAI., INDON.,
BELAR., CHINA, IRAN
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605131617580.7096@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 13
EGYPT:
Free Ibrahim Halawa, facing a death sentence for attending a political protest
1,000 days. That's how long Ibrahim has now been held in an Egyptian prison
after being arrested in the wake of protest. He now faces the death penalty in
a mass trial of 493 people, despite being just 17 years old at the time of
arrest. He is now 20.
Ibrahim has now suffered 1,000 days of appalling mistreatment in violation of
both international and Egyptian law. He was denied medical treatment after
arrest and has been beaten and abused by prison guards. He has since been
subjected to periods of solitary confinement in cells with no light or toilet.
Call on President Sisi to free Ibrahim and end to mass trials.
see: https://reprieve.bsd.net/page/speakout/ibrahim-hlawa-1000-days
(source: reprieve.bsd.net)
TAIWAN:
EU offices in Taiwan denounce death penalty after execution
The European Union's office in Taiwan, as well as those representing individual
EU member states on the East Asian island, issued a joint statement Friday
against the death penalty after a convict was executed there earlier this week.
While acknowledging the seriousness of the crimes of the executed inmate and
expressing sympathy with all who had suffered at his hands, the European Union
in its statement reiterated "that the death penalty can never be justified" and
called for "its universal abolition."
The statement was issued by the Taipei-based European Economic and Trade Office
in agreement with all local offices of EU member states.
"The EU calls on the authorities in Taiwan to introduce an immediate moratorium
on executions as recommended by international experts in March 2013 following
Taiwan's first human rights report, and as observed in Taiwan from 2006 to
April 2010," the statement read.
It was issued after Tuesday's execution of 23-year-old Zheng Jie, who killed 4
people and wounded 22 others aboard a metro train in Taipei in 2014 in a random
knife attack.
A total of 42 people are currently on death row in Taiwan, where capital
punishment is legal and supported by a majority of the population.
(source: Fox News)
******************
EU reiterates opposition to Taiwan's death penalty
The European Economic and Trade Office in Taipei and all European Union member
state offices in Taiwan issued a joint statement on Thursday, opposing the use
of capital punishment following Taiwan's execution of a metro killer on
Tuesday.
"We recognize the serious nature of the crimes committed on May 21, 2014 in
Taipei, and the suffering of the victims and their families. We express our
sincere sympathy to all those who suffered because of the committed crimes,"
according to the statement.
"However, the EU reiterates that the death penalty can never be justified as it
has no deterrent effect, and calls for its universal abolition," the statement
said.
(source: China Post)
INDONESIA:
Executions near as officials visit prison for final check
The execution of death row inmates looks to be near as officials from the Law
and Human Rights Ministry visited the Nusakambangan prison Island in Central
Java's Cilacap regency on Tuesday.
The visit was aimed at checking the location to ensure everything was set for
the executions to go ahead, said Molyanto, the ministry's head for the
penitentiary division in Central Java.
However, no details have been released on the impending executions.
"We also have not yet obtained the list of the names of the convicts who will
be executed. We do not know their number either," Molyanto told
thejakartapost.com on Thursday.
Previously, Central Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. A. Liliek Darmanto said at
least 15 convicts, including 10 foreigners, would face the firing squad in the
3rd round of executions of drug convicts.
The police had received the data, however they could not disclose the names of
the convicts, as the authority to do so rested with the Attorney General's
Office, Liliek said.
Central Java Police have prepared 180 Mobile Brigade (Brimob) personnel to
carry out the executions.
Attorney General M. Prasetyo said the 3rd round of executions was only a matter
of choosing the day, as all the preparations had been completed.
Prior to the execution, authorities have tightened security on Indonesia's
notorious Nusakambangan prison island. Prison authorities have installed CCTV
around the prison complex, including at Wijayapura harbor, the only access port
from Cilacap.
Moreover, authorities had assigned additional police personnel to guard more
intensely each prison located in the Nusakambangan complex, Molyanto said on
Monday.
"So we can carry out the planned execution smoothly," he told
thejakartapost.com.
The installation of CCTV was to support the monitoring of inmates amid a lack
of security personnel.
Around 8 security personnel were guarding each of the 7 prisons on the island,
Molyanto said, adding that the ideal number would be at least 15 guards to
maintain security at each of the prisons that held up to 200 inmates each.
Nusakambangan has 7 prisons standing 3 kilometers apart from each other. Around
1,250 inmates are detained in the complex, including 70 convicts of terrorism
offenses and 62 death row convicts.
**********************
Spiritual leaders prepared ahead of executions
Cilacap Police and Nusakambangan prison authorities have prepared spiritual
leaders to be assigned to accompany death row inmates before and during their
executions.
Cilacap Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ulung Sampurna Jaya said some 15 death row
inmates would be executed on the Nusakambangan prison island in Cilacap,
Central Java, in the near future and that police had appointed religious
leaders to accompany the inmates.
"In principle, we have prepared everything needed for the execution of their
death sentences at Nusakambangan, including the spiritual leaders," Ulung told
thejakartapost.com on Wednesday. He refused to mention the number of spiritual
leaders readied, saying only that it corresponded to the number of inmates to
be executed.
"Up untill now, the Cilacap Police have not yet received any official order on
the implementation of the execution, including information on how many people
will be executed. We are all still waiting for [the official order]," said
Ulung.
Central Java Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Liliek Darmanto said 10 foreigners
were on the list of convicts for the forthcoming round of executions at
Nusakambangan, all convicted of drug crimes. 4 of the inmates were from China,
while the other 6 were from Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
"5 death row inmates are from Indonesia," said Liliek.
Meanwhile, an Islamic teacher from the Cilacap chapter of the Indonesian Ulema
Council ( MUI ), Hasan Makarim, said the MUI had not received any government
notification on the executions.
"Usually, an official religious assistance request comes after the death row
inmates are put in isolation cells. That is the time we will start to prepare
their mental readiness to embrace their execution, along with their faith and
religion," Hasan told thejakartapost.com.
Usually, he added, 1 spiritual leader would be prepared to accompany 1 inmate.
"We are intensely coordinating with the police and prison authorities, so that
once it is needed, we are ready," Hasan said.
The Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) has announced that the 3rd round of
executions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration would be held
in the near future.
The AGO conducted 2 rounds of executions in 2015. 6 people were executed in
January 2015 and another 8 in late April 2015.
(source for both: The Jakarta Post)
*********************
Halting executions will be a show of strength in Indonesia
President Joko Widodo should seize the opportunity to show that his government
has the resolve to stand up for human rights by halting the imminent executions
of up to 15 people, Amnesty International said today.
The death row prisoners believed to at risk have been convicted of alleged drug
offences and some did not receive a fair trial. Their cases are, like many
others that Amnesty International monitored, emblematic of systemic flaws
within the Indonesia justice system.
"President Widodo has the chance to show true resolve by halting these
executions and ordering a full independent review of all death penalty cases,"
said Rafendi Djamin, Director of Amnesty International's South East Asia and
Pacific Regional Office.
"It is unacceptable for a government to execute people, especially when they
did not receive a fair trial and have been convicted of offences that are not
among the 'most serious crimes' in clear violation of international law and
standards."
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. The death penalty violates the right to life and is
the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.
The imminent executions, which it is feared may take place in the coming weeks,
will be the 1st this year. In 2015, Indonesia executed 14 people.
Amnesty International's research has revealed that the death penalty in
Indonesia has been implemented in cases that involve torture or other
ill-treatment, denial of effective legal counsel, manifestly flawed
proceedings, and even the use the death penalty on juvenile offenders or have a
mental or intellectual disability.
"In the cases we examined, the police tortured or otherwise ill-treated some of
the detainees, 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," said
Djamin.
Amnesty International also recorded the cases of 5 death row prisoners who were
executed despite the fact that Indonesia courts agreed to hear their appeals.
In the case of 2 prisoners, there was no adequate investigation to check
whether they were juvenile offenders or had a mental and intellectual
disability. In such circumstances, an execution is unlawful.
Within weeks of coming to power, President Widodo rebuffed calls that death row
prisoners convicted of drug-related offences should receive clemency, and
suggested that the death penalty should serve as a deterrent - a claim for
which there is no evidence. However, when President Widodo came to power in
2014, he had made encouraging promises on human rights.
"At a time when most of the world's countries have rid themselves of this
unconscionable practice, the execution of these people would consign Indonesia
to the status of an outlier," said Djamin.
"President Widodo still has time. If he halts the death penalty, commutes their
sentences, and establishes a moratorium as a 1st step towards abolition,
Indonesia can begin to re-establish its reputation on human rights in the
region."
The Indonesian authorities have repeatedly claimed they apply the death penalty
in line with international law and standards. 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 with
flagrant human rights violations. Some of these cases relate to some of the
prisoners believed to be at risk of imminent executions.
Agus Hadi, Pujo Lestari and another man were arrested for attempting to smuggle
12,490 benzodiazepine pills from Malaysia in 2006. They were detained at the
narcotics directorate of the Riau Islands Police Headquarters on November 22
that year, interrogated there for 20 days and then transferred to the Batam
prosecution detention center. 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 Hadi only received
assistance from a lawyer on December 12, 20 days after his arrest. Lestari had
legal counsel appointed by the Batam District Court on February 8, 78 days
after his arrest and a week after the court had scheduled the 1st trial
hearing.
Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani national, was arrested at his home in West Java
province on November 21, 2004, and charged with possession of 300g of heroin.
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 one month
after his arrest. According to court documents, the Chief of Tangerang District
Court granted the prosecutor an extension of Ali's detention from March 4 to
May 2, 2005. This means 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 first trial hearing started.
While he was being interrogated by the Soekarno-Hatta Airport district police,
Ali was kept in a house for three days and punched, kicked and threatened with
death unless he signed a self-incriminating statement, which he later did.
After 3 days his health deteriorated to the extent that on November 24, 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.
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 only,
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.
(source: Amnesty International USA)
BELARUS:
Execution shows 'callous disdain' for international human rights law - UN
experts
United Nations human rights experts today condemned Belarus' continued use of
the death penalty following reports that a man whose complaint was before the
UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) had been executed, despite a specific request
from the Committee for a stay of execution.
"I am appalled by reports of the recent execution of Sergey Ivanov by the
Belarusian authorities," said Miklos Haraszti, the UN Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in Belarus.
Reports indicate that Mr. Ivanov, who was found guilty of murder and sentenced
to death in 2015, was executed on around 18 April this year.
Mr. Ivanov's brother had petitioned the Committee, arguing that Mr. Ivanov's
trial had been unfair. During the trial, he remained handcuffed and was obliged
to wear special clothes with the label "capital punishment" on them. It was
also alleged that he was not brought promptly before a judge upon arrest and
had limited access to a lawyer.
Mr. Ivanov's execution means Belarus, since 2010, has executed 8 people whose
cases were registered for examination by the Committee under the Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
to which Belarus is a State party.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe and Central Asia that applies the
death penalty, despite repeated calls for its abolition from many in the
international community, including the members of the European Union and the
Council of Europe.
Mr. Haraszti once again urged the Belarusian authorities to adopt a moratorium
on the death penalty, as an interim legal step towards it full abolition.
The human rights expert also voiced grave concern at news that another
defendant, Sergei Khmelevsky, was sentenced to death by a court on 6 May. "The
news testifies to the lack of progress on the human rights situation in
Belarus," he said.
The Human Rights Committee had requested the Belarusian authorities not to
carry out the sentence, pending the examination of Mr. Ivanov's case.
Non-compliance with the Committee's request for interim measures constitutes a
violation, by Belarus, of its obligations under the Optional Protocol to ICCPR.
"The decision to proceed with the execution of the death penalty amounts to
both a callous disdain for and a grave breach of Belarus' international human
rights obligations," said Nigel Rodley, Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures.
Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based
Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a
specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not
UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
(source: UN News Centre)
***********
UN rights experts criticize reported Belarus execution
U.N. human rights experts are criticizing a reported execution of a murder
suspect in Belarus, saying the move violates the country's international
commitments.
The experts cited reports that Sergey Ivanov was executed on around April 18,
despite a specific request by a U.N. panel to allow a review of the case first.
Ivanov was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death last year.
Nigel Rodley, a special rapporteur for the Human Rights Committee, said the
execution "amounts to both a callous disdain for and a grave breach of Belarus'
international human rights obligations."
A U.N. statement Friday said Ivanov's brother had appealed to the committee and
argued that the trial was unfair. It said Belarus is the only country in Europe
and Central Asia that applies the death penalty.
(source: Associated Press)
CHINA:
China Accuses Ex-Presidential Aide of Bribery, Secrets Theft
Chinese prosecutors formally charged a former top aide to retired President Hu
Jintao, setting the stage for a trial of the last member of a Communist Party
faction dubbed the "New Gang of 4."
Ling Jihua, 59, who had served as Hu's chief of staff, was accused of taking
bribes, illegally obtaining state secrets and abusing power, the official
Xinhua News Agency said, citing a statement by state prosecutors. He'll be
prosecuted in Tianjin's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, the same tribunal
that oversaw last year's secret conviction of former security czar Zhou
Yongkang, a retired member of the Politburo's supreme Standing Committee.
The indictment comes almost 10 months after the party expelled Ling and accused
him of corruption and discipline violations, including carrying on extramarital
affairs. He was previously stripped of his post as vice chairman of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference.
The trial represents the closing chapter of a far-reaching corruption probe
under President Xi Jinping that toppled Zhou and 2 of the country's top
generals. Ling was considered a top candidate for the ruling Politburo before
his ascent was cut short by claims that he tried to cover up details of the
March 2012 death of his son in a Ferrari crash, the South China Morning Post
reported in September that year.
"Ling's offense in illegally obtaining state secrets is serious; he also
committed extremely serious offense in abusing his power and causing major
losses to public property and the interests of the country and its people,"
Xinhua said, citing the indictment.
Ling may face a secret trial as similar charges over state secrets were cited
by Xinhua in June as the reason for the closed-door trial for Zhou, who was
sentenced to life in prison.
Ling is among the most high-profile party targets of an ongoing anti-corruption
campaign that has ensnared more than 100,000 officials since Xi came to power.
Party members have tied Ling to Zhou, former top General Xu Caihou and former
Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai as making up a "New Gang of 4," even though
the links between them aren't clear. Xu and Bo were also charged with
corruption.
U.S. Negotiations
In January, Xi warned top graft-busters that some officials were "forming
cabals and cliques to covertly defy" the leadership and that such groups risked
"compromising the political security of the party and the country," according
to a transcript of the remarks 1st published on May 3.
Ling's prosecution could reverberate in the U.S., where his youngest brother,
Ling Wancheng, has been living. In January, Chinese anti-graft authorities
acknowledged for the first they were "investigating the case and negotiating
with the U.S." about the younger Ling.
Li Xiaolin, a Beijing-based lawyer who has defended senior officials and their
families, said the verdict in Ling Jihua's case would depend on the amount of
money involved, as well as the particular secrets taken and who ended up with
them.
"The state secrets Ling could have leaked could be more than any one else could
possibly have, and it's also a serious problem that his brother is in the
U.S.," Li said. "Based on the charges, he's likely to receive serious
punishment and could face the death penalty if convicted."
(source: Bl;oomberg News)
IRAN:
27 Death Row Sunni Prisoners in Imminent Danger of Execution
The warden of ward 4 in Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, has attended Hall 10 of
this ward and has told the death row Sunni prisoners that their sentences had
been referred to the executive office and the risk of their execution is very
high, if they were seeking forgiveness, they should write their letters soon.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA),
the warden of ward four of the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, Mr. Shojaee, has
gone to Hall 10 of this prison, where there are 27 Sunni prisoners, with
confirmed death sentences, and announced that all their verdicts had been
referred to the executive office and the risk of their execution was very high
on Saturday 30th April. He has told them: "If you are seeking forgiveness, you
should write the requests soon. I do not want to feel guilty, later."
The Sunni prisoners have been sentenced to death by the judiciary on charges
including "acting against the national security", "propaganda against the
regime", "membership in a Salafist group", "corruption on earth" and "waging
war" and in term of the details of their activities, it has not been clarified
by the authorities and judicial bodies.
Most of these prisoners have been arrested by the intelligence service agents
in Kurdistan, between 2009 and 2011, and were held in solitary confinements for
several months, without any trial and with no access to lawyers or having
contact with their families. There is a concern that they have been tortured or
were mistreated, during that period of time.
According to the information provided to HRANA, most defendants have denied
involvement in armed conflict, and said that they have been arrested, only
because of their belief and religious activities such as attending religious
meetings and distributing religious literature.
It is worth mentioning that at least one prisoner in the list, Barzan
Nasrallahzadeh, was younger than 18 years old at the time of arrest.
The names of these 27 Sunni prisoners who have been sentenced to death, in
Rajai Shar prison, in Karaj, are as following:
Kaweh Weisi
Behrooz Shahnazari
Taleb Malleki
Shahram Ahmadi
Kaweh Sharifi
Arash Sharifi
Veria Ghaderi Fard
Keivan Momeni Fard
Barzan Nasrullahzadeh
Alem Barmashti
Pouria Mohammadi
Ahmad Nasiri
Edris Nemati
Farzad Honarjoo
Seyed Shahoo Ebrahimi
Mohammad Yavar Rahimi
Bahman Rahimi
Mokhtar Rahimi
Mohammad Gharibi
Farshid Naseri
Mohammad Keivan Karimi
Amjad Salehi
Omid Peivand
Ali Mojahedi
Hekmat Sharifi
Omar Abdullahi
Omid Mahmoudi
(source: HRA News Agency)
******************
Iran urged to call off teenager's execution ---- Alireza Tajiki was 15 at time
of crime and Amnesty says his trial relied heavily on confessions obtained by
torture
A 19-year-old in Iran is due to be executed this weekend following a trial that
human rights groups say relied on forced confessions to a crime he is alleged
to have committed when he was 15.
In a case that highlights Iran's continuing use of capital punishment against
juvenile offenders, Alireza Tajiki, who was found guilty of raping and fatally
stabbing a friend, is scheduled to be hanged on Sunday at Adel Abad prison in
the southern city of Shiraz.
According to Amnesty International, Iran carried out 73 executions of juvenile
offenders between 2005 and 2015, despite having ratified the international
covenant on civil and political rights and the convention on the rights of the
child, which strictly prohibit the imposition of the death penalty for crimes
committed below the age of 18.
Tajiki was arrested in May 2012 alongside a number of teenagers. Following a
trial and conviction, he was sentenced to death by a criminal court in the
province of Fars in April 2013. A higher court quashed the ruling in early
2014, but in November that year a 3rd court reimposed the death penalty after
it ruled Tajiki had attained "mental maturity" at the time of crime.
Concerns have been raised over Tajiki's trial, including the reliance on
confessions that activists say were obtained under duress.
Tajiki was held incommunicado in solitary confinement for 15 days after his
arrest and was allegedly subjected to torture including beatings, floggings and
suspension by the arms and feet, Amnesty said. He later retracted the
confessions given during this period.
James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at
Amnesty International, called on Iran to immediately halt Tajiki's execution.
"Imposing the death penalty on someone who was a child at the time of the crime
flies in the face of international human rights law, which absolutely prohibits
the use of the death penalty for crimes committed under the age of 18," he
said.
"It is particularly horrendous that the Iranian authorities are adamant to
proceed with the execution when this case was marked by serious fair trial
concerns and primarily relied on torture-tainted evidence.
"Iran's bloodstained record of sending juvenile offenders to the gallows,
routinely after grossly unfair trials, makes an absolute mockery of juvenile
justice and shamelessly betrays the commitments Iran has made to children's
rights."
Iran remains a prolific executioner, second only to China. More than 970 people
were put to death in Iran last year, including at least 4 juveniles, according
to Amnesty. Most were executed for drug offences.
Despite improvements in Iran's penal code in 2013, loopholes remain, allowing
judges to continue using the death penalty against juvenile offenders, said
Mohammad Mostafaei, an Iranian lawyer based in Norway.
One loophole is "mental maturity", under which authorities can judge that a
convict was mature enough at the time of crime even though he or she was not
yet 18.
"A new amendment to the Iranian penal code was helpful in the sense that it
leaves the door open for the judges to circumvent the sharia, which usually
considers a lower age of criminal responsibility often between nine to 13
according to various interpretations," Mostafaei said.
"But much rests in the hands of the judges, so you can have a judge who would
misuse his power and hand a death penalty when there is little or no evidence."
(source: The Guardian)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 14 08:41:10 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 14 May 2016 08:41:10 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., LA., TENN., MO., CALIF.,
USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605140841020.9472@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 14
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court should change death sentences to life in prison
The arguments before the Florida Supreme Court this month exposed the state as
an outlier in its use of capital punishment, despite evolving social norms that
have moved other states away from this outdated form of punishment. The court,
seeking to respond to a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion that struck down the
state's death-sentencing process as unconstitutional, should ensure the death
penalty is at least applied fairly. It should commute the sentences of all 390
death row inmates to life in prison, and the state needs to get the message
that capital punishment is inherently flawed.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 opinion, ruled in January that Florida's
death-sentencing statute was unconstitutional because it vested final authority
with judges rather than juries. In response to that ruling, the state Supreme
Court heard arguments over whether inmate Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced
to die for the 1998 murder of a co-worker in Pensacola, should have his death
sentence commuted to life in prison. Hanging in the balance are the lives of
every death row inmate whose death sentences came before Florida lawmakers
changed the law this year in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling.
The legislative fix was the bare minimum, as lawmakers sought protection to
retain the death penalty rather than impose the real checks and balances needed
to reduce the arbitrary nature of capital punishment. The new law requires at
least 10 of 12 jurors in a capital case to agree on a death sentence, up from a
simple majority. In addition, jurors must be unanimous in finding aggravating
factors to warrant a death sentence. While these changes give more authority to
the jury, they still leave open a window for unfair treatment. And they don't
address the cost of death penalty cases, the racial disparities in prosecutions
or the errors in witness testimony and forensic science that have driven other
states away from imposing the ultimate punishment.
The issue for the court is more narrow: Is it fair to uphold a death sentence
when the process used for assigning death was so flawed as to be
unconstitutional? Attorney General Pam Bondi wants the original death sentences
carried out. She argues the sentencing method was struck down - not the death
penalty itself. And she argues that the U.S. Supreme Court's Hurst decision
should not be applied retroactively, because the Legislature changed the law in
response the court's decision.
But the sentencing process is not some arcane part of the law. It is the
foundation of the death penalty statute. And as Hurst's attorney, David Davis,
argued to the court: "You cannot separate the punishment from the procedure."
Without a sentencing process, he noted, there is no death penalty. Three former
justices of the Florida Supreme Court, all appointed by a Democratic governor,
filed a brief in the Hurst case urging the court to commute the 390 death cases
to life without parole. And last week, a Miami-Dade circuit judge ruled the
state's death penalty was still unconstitutional because the recently enacted
changes fall short of requiring unanimity among the jurors, adding to the
uncertainty of the death penalty in Florida.
The state's high court should recognize the Legislature's fix fails to fully
correct the flaws of the past. Carrying out a punishment that was so flawed
that the sentencing procedure was abandoned would be fundamentally unfair. The
court should reduce all death sentences to life in prison and the state should
rethink the usefulness of the death penalty.
(source: Editorial, Tampa Bay Times)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana House rejects additional money for public defenders
The Louisiana House of Representatives rejected a bid to give public defenders
additional money in the state's next budget cycle. The measure failed on a
30-54 vote on Thursday (May 13).
Public defenders offices across the states are struggling with a lack of money.
Fourteen public defender offices in Louisiana are in some type of restrictive
status because they don't have enough funding to provide all their services.
This has caused serious concerns about whether civil liberties are being
violated across the state, as people are being held in jail after being charged
without being provided any legal representation. Lawsuits have been brought
against public defenders for not providing adequate services.
Currently, the state public defenders board is slated to receive about $30
million in the budget cycle that begins July 1. Gov. John Bel Edwards advocated
for keeping the public defenders' funding the same as last year because of
their ongoing financial troubles. Most other state agencies are taking a
reduction, while Louisiana faces a $600 million budget shortfall.
But Rep. Cedric Glover, D-Shreveport, offered an alternative. On the House
floor, he proposed taking $6.3 million from the state Department of Corrections
and giving that money to the public defenders. He said he thought the public
defender funding situation had reached a crisis point.
Glover's amendment failed, in part, because he couldn't explain what type of
cuts the Department of Corrections -- which oversees prisons -- might
experience if the $6.3 million was moved away that agency. The corrections
department is already expected to take a cut next year, and there were concerns
about how the prisons would deal with even more money being taken away.
Some state lawmakers also think the public defender board spends too much money
on death penalty cases, at the expense of the local district offices. About 28
% of the state public defender board's budget this year -- $9.5 million -- was
devoted to providing death penalty defense, according to Jay Dixon, the state's
public defender.
The state public defender board is not supposed to be the primary source of
funding for the local offices. The bulk of public defender money is supposed to
come from court fees assessed on defendants when they plead guilty or lose a
case. In reality, most of these fees come from people admitting to traffic
violations.
One of the major reasons public defenders are having funding problems is that
far fewer traffic tickets are being written in Louisiana than just a few years
ago. It's not entirely clear why at this point. But local public defenders are
having to rely more on the state board for financial support -- and the state
board hasn't been able to keep up.
In New Orleans, the public defender is refusing to take certain types of felony
cases, arguing its office doesn't have the staff and resources to handle them.
That led a New Orleans judge to release seven defendants last month because not
enough money was available to mount an adequate defense for them.
The situation is considered most dire in Acadiana, where 5,200 people are on a
wait list for a lawyer from the local public defender's office. The 15th
Judicial District in the Lafayette area has lost more than half of its staff
and contract lawyers since February because of a lack of money.
(source: New Orleans Times-Picayune)
*******************
Defense asks for DNA, fingerprint analyses in triple murder case
Prosecutors have agreed to allow attorneys for a man charged in the Nov. 4,
2012, stabbings of a Lockport woman and her daughters to have experts conduct
DNA and fingerprint analyses of certain pieces of evidence.
David Brown, 38, of Houma, is set for trial Sept. 12 on 1st-degree murder
charges in the deaths of 29-year-old Jacquelin Nieves and her daughters,
7-year-old Gabriela and 1-year-old Izabela. He is also accused of raping
Jacquelin and Gabriela Nieves and setting the family's apartment on fire.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. State District Judge John LeBlanc is
presiding over the case in Thibodaux.
Kerry Cuccia and his Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana team are
representing Brown. Cuccia filed a motion asking the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's
Office Crime Laboratory, Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office and Lafourche Parish
Coroner's Office to release certain pieces of evidence for DNA analysis by the
defense's expert.
According to a written request, the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's and Coroner's
offices collected the following evidence during their investigation into the
crime:
-- Swabs of blood from the interior of the front door, floor next to the
stairwell and near the entertainment center, and a wall at the top of the
stairs.
-- Fingernail swabs from both of Jacquelin Nieves's hands and fingernail swabs
and scrapings from both of Brown's hands.
-- Swab of a gas can handle.
-- Swab from inside of the shed.
George Schiro of Scales Biological Laboratory in Brandon, Miss., will conduct
the DNA analysis, according to the request. He will use "only nondestructive
testing methods or testing methods that will not prevent such additional
testing as the State may desire to perform."
In another motion, Cuccia asked the Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office to submit
evidence for fingerprint analysis. He says during the investigation, the
Sheriff's Office collected a print of a palm and four fingers from the interior
of the front door to the apartment.
Anna Duggar of the chemistry department at Loyola University New Orleans will
conduct the fingerprint analysis and follow the same protocol as Schiro during
testing, according to the request.
"None of the items in that motion were tested by the state, and we would like
to test them," Cuccia said in a phone interview.
The evidence will be returned to the agencies it came from when the testing is
complete, the request says. The agencies have 5 business days to ship the
items.
Cuccia also wants a member of the Capital Defense Project to be present for
shipping.
Lafourche Parish District Attorney Cam Morvant II said his office has agreed to
Cuccia's requests, and the agencies involved are working on getting the
evidence to Cuccia.
"They listed what they wanted, and we told the judge we're good with it,"
Morvant said. "We're going to arrange to have evidence taken out, and they can
test it. We have no objection."
(source: houmatoday.com)
TENNESSEE:
Mentally ill should be spared from death penalty
The Tennessean recently reported on the resentencing of death row inmate Jerry
Ray Davidson to life in prison without parole (Dickson death row inmate's
sentence now life in prison, April 1). Davidson brutally murdered Virginia
Jackson in 1995. At trial, his attorneys did not present mitigating evidence of
his lifelong history of severe mental illness, which Tennessee Supreme Court
Justice William Koch Jr. described as "voluminous and compelling" and included
2 years of hospitalization at Central State Hospital. Now, after 2 decades of
litigation, Davidson will die in prison.
Tennessee has pursued the death penalty for others like Davidson. Occasionally,
these individuals are executed. Other times, the cases are litigated for
decades, ending in a sentence less than death, but not before putting victims'
families through a process that delays legal finality and costs taxpayers
millions.
Another example: Richard Taylor, who was convicted in 1981 for joyriding and
robbery in Tennessee. While incarcerated, Taylor killed correctional officer
Ronald Moore after officials stopped giving Taylor his antipsychotic
medication. He was sentenced to death.
In 2003, he was granted a new trial but allowed to represent himself, calling
no witnesses and introducing no evidence. The jury sentenced Taylor to death
again. His conviction and death sentence were reversed in 2008, with Taylor
receiving a life sentence - 27 years after his 1st capital trial.
Though most individuals with severe mental illness are not violent - more
likely to become crime victims than perpetrators - a lack of access to
treatment can, in some instances, lead to violence. And in Tennessee today,
there is simply not enough access to treatment.
The result is that law enforcement has become increasingly responsible for
these individuals. In a 2014 op-ed in The Tennessean, Davidson County Mental
Health Court Judge Daniel Eisenstein wrote:
In 2004, the Mental Health Court served approximately 50 people at any given
time ... In January 2014, approximately 180 people were being supervised by the
court, in addition to a separate docket of military veterans with mental health
and substance abuse problems serving approximately 30 men and women. Why has
this happened? Mainly, money and priorities ... Mental health treatment has in
many cases been shifted from state-run mental health facilities and community
programs to courts, jails and prisons.
Still, when an individual who has a severe mental illness commits a heinous
crime, there must be a consequence. But should that consequence be the death
penalty? A coalition of mental health advocates and others called Tennessee
Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE) believes that
individuals with severe mental illness who commit these crimes should be held
accountable, but with sentences like life or life without parole.
And there is precedent. In the U.S., we don't execute minors or those with
intellectual disabilities. Excluding individuals with severe mental illness
from the death penalty on a case-by-case basis (also under consideration in
North Carolina and Ohio) is just smart policy. Exclusion helps spare victims'
families decades of litigation, reduces costs to taxpayers and allows resources
to be redirected to mental health care, victims' compensation and support for
law enforcement, moving Tennessee toward a criminal justice system that works
better for all of us.
(source: Opinion----Hannah Cox is the coordinator for Tennessee Alliance for
the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion (TASMIE). She is a former policy advocate
for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a longtime champion for
those with mental illness; The Tennessean)
MISSOURI----foreign national to face death penalty
Trial set in killing of New Florence man
A Mexican national suspected of killing 5 men in a 2-state crime rampage will
stand trial in Missouri, a judge ruled Thursday.
Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, 40, is accused of killing a Kansas City, Kan.,
neighbor and 3 other men at the neighbor's home on March 7, then going about
170 miles into Missouri and killing Randy Nordman in New Florence, about 80
miles west of St. Louis, the next day.
4 law enforcement officials, a medical examiner and a coroner testified at a
preliminary hearing in Montgomery County, where Serrano-Vitorino is charged
with 1st-degree murder, burglary and armed criminal action in Nordman's death.
Associate Circuit Judge Kelly Broniec ruled after the hearing that there was
enough evidence to move forward with a trial. Arraignment was scheduled for
June 1. Missouri prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Serrano-Vitorino mostly stared straight ahead during 2 hours of testimony. He
used headphones to listen through a Spanish interpreter. Serrano-Vitorino also
is charged with 4 counts of 1st-degree murder in Kansas. It isn't clear whether
Kansas prosecutors will also seek the death penalty.
Authorities have not discussed a motive, though Gorman has said the Kansas
killings did not appear to be drug-related.
A probable cause statement alleges that Serrano-Vitorino confronted Nordman,
49, in Nordman's garage and the 2 struggled over Serrano-Vitorino's rifle. As
Nordman's wife ran for safety inside the house and called 911, she heard a
gunshot and saw a man running away.
Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Brooks McGinnis testified that he spotted
Serrano-Vitorino hiding in the grass near Interstate 70 late on March 8 or
early March 9, with an assault rifle at his side. He said Serrano-Vitorino was
arrested without incident.
(source: Associated Press)
********************
Former Missouri death row inmate granted temporary prison leave
Reginald Clemons was convicted of the murders of Robin and Julie Kerry. The
conviction was overturned and Clemons is awaiting a new trial. He's also
serving time for a charge of assaulting a state prison employee.
A former employee of the Missouri Department of Corrections is outraged over a
recent privilege granted to Clemons. He was allowed to visit a St. Louis area
funeral home to say his final goodbyes to a family member who passed away.
There were restrictions on the visit.
The former employee asked us not to reveal his identity, but told Fox 2 News
the funeral home visit took place Friday. Prosecutors confirm the visit took
place. A judge's order reads, in part, "Defendant is not to have contact with
anyone except law enforcement and funeral home personnel required for the
visit."
The former corrections employee believes the transfer put the public and
corrections officers in potential danger. A source connected to the Missouri
Department of Corrections said Clemons made the visit without incident.
Prosecutors did not oppose the request from Clemons.
A statement from the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office reads, "We did not
oppose the defense's request for Mr. Clemons, given the very narrow scope of
the transport order. We continue with our efforts to seek justice for Robin and
Julie Kerry." Clemons was on death row and could face the death penalty in his
retrial. Fox 2 News contacted the Missouri Department of Correction to ask how
often death row inmates are given the opportunity similar to the one given
Clemons. A spokesperson is checking into our request.
(source: fox2now.com)
CALIFORNIA:
Father shares his unique outlook on death penalty
The death penalty is like many a hot-button issue: Your mind changes when you
know someone. When your neighbor gets married and comes out as gay, for
example, your mindset on same-sex marriage is altered. When you are full of
strong opinions about the childrearing techniques of others, and then you have
your 1st child, you suddenly understand how much you don't know. As you learn
and grow, however, you gradually acquire the authority to speak on issues that
affect you personally.
Or you may be thrust into a wrenching, heartbreaking expertise. That was the
case for Bud Welch, who has been a tireless opponent of the death penalty for 2
decades. Mr. Welch can speak to the issue of the death penalty with intimate,
painful knowledge, because his daughter, Julie, died at the hands of a domestic
terrorist in the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. Julie was 23, fresh
out of college, a Spanish-language interpreter for the Social Security
Administration in the Murrah Federal Building. Timothy McVeigh was subsequently
convicted of killing Julie and 167 other people and injuring hundreds more. He
was sentenced to death.
As a Catholic, Mr. Welch was against the death penalty before Julie was killed,
as was Julie herself. Like any parent, however, he felt murderous toward
McVeigh in his grief. Understandably, he wanted to kill his child???s murderer
with his own bare hands.
In the 21 years since losing Julie, Bud Welch has traveled the globe and told
the story of his journey from a grieving father to an international spokesman
against the death penalty. In advance of his upcoming talk at St. Philip's
Church in Bakersfield, which takes place this Tuesday at 7 p.m., Mr. Welch
graciously agreed to speak with me by telephone.
"When your parents die, you go to the hilltop and you bury them," said Mr.
Welch. "When your children die, you bury them in your heart." He paused. "It's
forever. It never goes away."
Death penalty talk
Who: Bud Welch, father of Julie Welch, who was killed in the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: St. Philip the Apostle Church, 7100 Stockdale Highway
He spoke lovingly of Julie's accomplishments as a linguist who could speak five
languages fluently. She'd been an exchange student in high school and again in
college, graduating from Marquette University with a triple degree in Spanish,
Italian and French. She'd been bright and faithful, a beloved only daughter.
And she'd been passionately opposed to the death penalty, an activist against
its use.
Accordingly, Mr. Welch has honored his daughter's memory by striving to end the
death penalty in the United States and abroad.
"It's helped me tremendously in healing," he said, regarding his life's
mission.
He famously visited the father of the executed Timothy McVeigh, a fellow
Catholic who also lost his child. Mr. Welch's powerful story has been
instrumental in bringing about an end to the death penalty in such diverse
places as Bermuda and Mongolia. He noted that since the U.S. Supreme Court
reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 7 of the 38 states that returned to using
it have since abolished it. Now an initiative to outlaw the death penalty has
qualified for the November ballot in California, and Mr. Welch is coming to
town to share his story with us.
Asked how those opposed to the death penalty might change the hearts and minds
of family, friends, and neighbors who support it, Mr. Welch answered, "Well, we
all know what the 3 most important things in real estate are ... 'Location,
location, location.' The 3 most important things in getting the death penalty
abolished are 'Education education, education'!"
Hence some information: Many studies show that the death penalty is not an
effective deterrent to crime; nor does it address the root causes of crime. A
death sentence is up to 16 times more expensive than life without parole,
chewing up public funds that could be more effectively used for victim
services, law enforcement resources, and offender treatment programs. Those
sentenced to death are disproportionately poor, and people of color.
Tragically, the killing of a prisoner is not reversible in the case of
exoneration. Most importantly, the death penalty, in taking a life legally,
violates the innate dignity of all life, and commits a homicide in the name of
all of us.
For Bud Welch, these bloodless statistics are excruciatingly personal. Bud
Welch's talk at St. Philip the Apostle Church, 7100 Stockdale Highway, is free
and open to the public. His visit is brought to us by the Bakersfield chapter
of California People of Faith Working Against the Death Penalty, with a
generous sponsorship from the Kegley Institute of Ethics, and in partnership
with Faith in Action Kern County and the Catholic Diocese of Fresno.
Come and listen with open ears, an open mind, and an open heart. Then when you
discuss this particular hot-button issue, you'll know someone.
(source: Column, Valerie Schultz; The Californian)
**************
Is it time to scrap California's death penalty?
The Democrats who control the California state government are in an ambitious
mood of late.
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Senate president Kevin de Leon spar over who
will lead efforts to impose far stronger gun control laws. Newsom thinks the
Golden State should allow the legalization of marijuana. Gov. Jerry Brown
pursues fundamental reforms in how California punishes large categories of
criminals. And Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, has started a
national debate about guaranteeing that private sector workers get paid sick
days, as California now requires.
But the time may have come for another important debate: Should California
consider a ballot measure in 2018 that would overturn past measures and scrap
the death penalty?
We hope to hear from state leaders, families of crime victims, law enforcement
officials and the public. What do you think?
A good starting point for this debate is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen
Breyer???s repeated denunciations of California's version of the death penalty.
Breyer and many other critics have noted that in the 40 years since the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional, California has
executed only 13 people, and none since 2006. But the state has 748 people on
death row, with many having been sentenced decades ago. Long legal challenges,
difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections and more have turned
California's death-penalty process into a complete morass.
Just this month, Breyer wrote that in his view this makes the death penalty
erratic and unreliable - limbo justice so capricious as to be unconstitutional.
He said this also destroys one of the most-cited rationales offered for the
penalty: that it deters criminals by reminding them that they will pay the
ultimate price for the most awful crimes.
So we have a California death penalty that essentially never is carried out -
that arguably has no deterrent value - and which has as a main effect the
emptying of the state treasury. The California Commission on the Fair
Administration of Justice has estimated that having a death row for condemned
prisoners costs California more than 10 times as much as having these prisoners
serving life imprisonment. A 2011 study put the total cost to the state since
1976 at $4 billion - more than $300 million per person executed.
In many ways it would be appropriate for the governor, a longtime opponent of
capital punishment, to lead this debate. In 1986, voters removed 3 justices
whom Brown had appointed to the California Supreme Court - Rose Bird, Cruz
Reynoso and Joseph Grodin - for overturning dozens of seemingly legitimate
death penalty sentences. So Brown knows the power of the death penalty as a
political issue. But since 1986, California's process has become more of a
fiasco, not less of one.
Brown is going to get great credit as the governor who stabilized California
after years of often ineffective leadership. If he is looking for a beefier
policy legacy to go with his management legacy, leading the charge for a 2018
ballot initiative that scraps the death penalty might be the way to go.
Yet Californians have repeatedly shown strong support for the death penalty.
Does that persist even now? We intend to find out.
(source: San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board)
USA:
US states are now going to have to go underground to get the drugs for lethal
injection
Pfizer just became the last pharmaceutical company to block the use of its
drugs in lethal injections.
This means that there are no more FDA-approved manufacturers that will supply
the drugs used in lethal injections for the death penalty, The New York Times
reports.
"Executing states must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines
for use in lethal injection," Maya Foa, director of the death-penalty team at
the human-rights group Reprieve, told The Times.
In the last few years, drug companies have started blocking their drugs from
being used as part of the death penalty. But these drugs also have other
medical uses, which can make it tricky to keep them from making it into state
prisons that still carry out the death penalty and to keep them from being used
for that purpose.
Pfizer says that it opposes using the drugs for the death penalty.
"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we
serve, ... [and] strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal
injections for capital punishment," the company said in a statement to The
Times.
Still, many drug companies have succeeded in limiting the use of their drugs,
which is why many states have started turning to compounding pharmacies, which
can make the drug combinations themselves.
Compounding pharmacies are typically used so patients can get alternative
versions of existing medications, and they have less oversight than branded and
generic pharmaceutical companies that need to get their products approved by
the US Food and Drug Administration.
The move could make it tougher for states to acquire the drugs for the purpose
of lethal injections.
(source: Business Insider)
**************
Pfizer Takes A Stand Against Death Penalty By Blocking Its Drugs For Use In
Lethal Injection Cocktails
Pfizer drug company has taken a stand by blocking the use of its drugs for use
in lethal injections. According to NBC News, Pfizer announced on Friday in a
statement that it was taking steps to ensure that its products don't wind up in
the deadly cocktails states use to execute prisoners.
In its statement, Pfizer added that it is "enforcing a distribution restriction
for specific products that have been part of, or considered by some states for
their lethal injection protocols."
Those 7 products mentioned include pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride,
idazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide, vecuronium bromide - and the
powerful anesthetic propofol, which NBC News notes was the drug that resulted
in the death of Michael Jackson.
Pfizer took the additional step to ensure that its drugs do not wind up state's
lethal cocktails by insisting that wholesalers and distributors "not resell
these products to correctional institutions for use in lethal injections."
In addition, local governments "must certify that products they purchase or
otherwise acquire are used only for medically prescribed patient care and not
for any penal purposes."
Pfizer joins more than 20 U.S. and European drugmakers that have taken similar
actions in recent weeks and months.
According to The New York Times, the drug companies took action against the
death penalty, citing either moral or business reasons.
Maya Foa, who tracks drug companies for Reprieve, a London-based human rights
advocacy group, said the move by drug companies is making it more difficult for
states to acquire the drugs necessary to administer during an execution.
"With Pfizer's announcement, all F.D.A.-approved manufacturers of any potential
execution drug have now blocked their sale for this purpose. Executing states
must now go underground if they want to get hold of medicines for use in lethal
injection."
With Pfizer's announcement, the last remaining open market source of drugs used
by states for executions is now closed, resulting in execution delays in
several states.
Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-capital punishment Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation, said states still have options in finding the drugs used in
executions.
He noted that states will still be able to buy chemicals by special order for
executions from compounding pharmacies.
"Using compounding pharmacies is not going underground, they're legitimate
businesses."
2 compounding pharmacies, The American Pharmacists Association and the
International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, have already told their
members to stop making the chemicals used in lethal cocktails.
The New York Times reports that some states have tried to import drugs not
approved by the Food and Drug Administration but were seized by federal agents.
In 2015, Texas and Arizona ordered shipments of sodium thiopental from India,
but those shipments were seized by federal authorities.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the number of executions has
declined to just 28 in 2015, compared with 98 in 1999. Much of the decline can
be attributed to companies like Pfizer that have taken a stand against using
their drugs for lethal injections.
(source: inquisitr.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 14 08:41:53 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 14 May 2016 08:41:53 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605140841430.9472@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 14
SINGAPORE:
JOINT STATEMENT ON IMMINENT EXECUTION OF KHO JABING
We, the undersigned, are troubled by the imminent execution of Jabing Kho in
Singapore, despite strong concerns over the development of his case. We believe
there are strong grounds for President Tony Tan of the Republic of Singapore to
grant clemency in this case.
The family of Sarawakian Jabing Kho, 31, received a letter from the Singapore
Prison Service on 12 May 2016 informing them that his execution had been
scheduled for 20 May 2016. Jabing was convicted of murder in 2011.
The announcement came as a shock to the family and all involved in campaigning
for Jabing. We had been under the impression that the authorities would allow
his lawyer to submit a fresh clemency appeal on his behalf after the criminal
motion filed in late 2015 was dismissed in April this year. His lawyer had sent
President Tony Tan a holding letter informing them of his intention to file a
new clemency petition, and had been in the process of drafting it when the
execution was scheduled.
On 13 May 2016, Jabing's lawyer received a letter from the President saying
that he would be willing to consider a clemency petition if it is filed, but
will not be postponing the scheduled execution. Considering that past practice
shows that the President usually takes 3 months before any decision regarding
clemency is announced, we are concerned that this current state of affairs will
leave the Cabinet and the President with insufficient time to properly consider
a fresh plea from Jabing.
We do not condone Jabing's crime, nor do we seek to erase the hurt he has
caused to the victim's family. Yet the course of Jabing's case has been
tumultuous and traumatic. Due to amendments made to Singapore's mandatory death
penalty regime and appeals lodged by the prosecution, Jabing had, over the
years, been sentenced to death, then life imprisonment (with caning), then
death again. This back-and-forth has taken a horrific toll not just on Jabing
as the inmate, but his family.
Furthermore, 1 High Court judge and 2 Judges of Appeal had not believed that
the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for Jabing Kho, as they felt
that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that he had exhibited a
"blatant disregard for human life". (See Annex A, attached at the end of this
statement, for relevant excerpts of the judges' ruling.)
The death penalty does not simply exact an irreversible punishment, but also
imposes emotional and psychological tolls on both the inmate and the family and
we oppose it unconditionally. Having been re-sentenced twice, from death to
life and back again, Jabing and his family have already been put through a
deeply painful process. The knowledge that 3 respected and honourable judges
hold the belief that the current punishment does not fit the crime simply makes
the situation doubly hard to bear.
We believe that Jabing Kho's case presents very strong and persuasive grounds
for clemency, and that his death sentence should be immediately be set aside
and commuted to life imprisonment as allowed by Singapore's Constitution.
We therefore urge the Cabinet of Singapore to advise President Tony Tan to
grant clemency to Jabing Kho without delay and re-establish a moratorium on
executions as a 1st step towards the abolition of the death penalty.
Signed:
Local Organisations
Community Action Network
Function8
Maruah
Sayoni
Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC)
Think Centre
We Believe in Second Chances
Regional/International Organisations
Advocates Association of Sarawak
Amnesty International
Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN)
Center for Orang Asli Concerns
Civil Rights Committee KLSCAH
Damn the Dams
Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (MADPET)
People's Green Coalition
Reprieve Australia
Sembang-sembang Forum
Suara Rakyat Malaysia
Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence
Victims' Family Organisations
Center for Prisoner's Rights Japan
Journey of Hope
Ocean
Individuals
Abdul Rashid bin Bakar, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
Atiqah bte Zaimi, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
Haminah bte Abu Bakar, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
Idros Ismail, brother of inmate on death row in Singapore
Jolene Tan, writer and activist
Kokila Annamalai, activist and community organiser
Letchumy Arumugam, mother of inmate on death row in Singapore
Marilyn Siew, activist
M Ravi, anti-death penalty activist
Osman bin Bakar, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
Priya Ratha Krishnan, fiancee of inmate on death row in Singapore
Sangeetha Thanapal, activist
Saraswathy Kataiah, sister of inmate on death row in Singapore
Sean Francis Han, activist
Sharmila Rockey, sister of inmate on death row in Singapore
Syida Ismail, sister of inmate on death row in Singapore
Tan Tee Seng, activist
Vanessa Ho, activist
Zaimi Bin Abdul Rahman, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
Zarah bte Abu Bakar, relative of inmate on death row in Singapore
(source: wordpress.com)
************************
Group appeals to President Tony Tan over Malaysian's impending execution
A coalition of NGOs and individuals have urged Singapore president Tony Tan to
grant clemency to Malaysian Kho Jabing who is due to be executed next week for
a murder he committed 8 years ago.
In a statement, the coalition said the announcement of Jabing's execution came
as a shock to the family and all involved in campaigning for him as they were
under the impression that the authorities would allow his lawyer to submit a
fresh clemency appeal on his behalf. This was after a criminal motion filed in
late 2015 was dismissed last month.
The coalition said that Jabing's lawyer had sent President Tony Tan a holding
letter informing the former's intention to file a new clemency petition, and
had been in the process of drafting it when the execution was scheduled.
Jabing's family received a letter from the Singapore Prison Service on Thursday
about the execution that has been scheduled for May 20.
On May 13, Jabing's lawyer received a letter from the President saying that he
would be willing to consider a clemency petition if it is filed, but will not
be postponing the scheduled execution.
"Considering that past practice shows that the President usually takes 3 months
before any decision regarding clemency is announced, we are concerned that this
current state of affairs will leave the Cabinet and the President with
insufficient time to properly consider a fresh plea from Jabing," the coalition
said in a statement on Saturday.
The coalition is made up of groups such as We Believe in Second Chances,
Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign, Amnesty International and others.
It added that Jabing's case presented very strong and persuasive grounds for
clemency, and that his death sentence should be immediately be set aside and
commuted to life imprisonment as allowed by Singapore's Constitution.
"We therefore urge the Cabinet of Singapore to advise President Tony Tan to
grant clemency to Jabing Kho without delay and re-establish a moratorium on
executions as a first step towards the abolition of the death penalty," it
said.
(source: asiaone.com)
INDONESIA:
Zimbabwean to be executed in Indonesia
An unnamed Zimbabwean is among the 15 inmates who will soon face the firing
squad in Indonesia's next round of executions for various crimes, reports said
this week.
According to the Time Magazine, the composition of execution line-up suggests
an attempt to avoid the intense international attention and outcry that
happened when Jakarta executed a total of 14 drug convicts last year - all but
2 of them foreign citizens.
Then, there were rallies and social-media campaigns for the Australian Bali 9
ringleaders Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, Filipina migrant worker Mary Jane
Veloso and Frenchman Serge Atlaoui, urging President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to
pardon the condemned.
This time around there are 5 Indonesians while the rest, according to local
media, are foreign - 4 Chinese, 1 Pakistani, 2 Nigerians, 2 Senegalese and 1
Zimbabwean.
"There is unlikely to be the same kind of uproar when the prison authorities in
the penal island of Nusakambangan conduct the next round of executions,
however," said the report.
7 of the 10 foreigners set to be executed came from countries that implement
the death penalty (China, Pakistan and Nigeria). The remaining 3 foreign
citizens came from poor African countries: Zimbabwe, which is moving toward
eliminating capital punishment, and Senegal, which abolished death penalty more
than a decade ago.
According to the report, the 5 Indonesian inmates have been transferred to the
Nusakambangan in the past month - 3 of them of them last Sunday - raising
speculation that executions are imminent. The government hasn't announced the
execution date and convicts' identities, however.
"The executions can take place any time, but there will not be a 'soap opera'
about it this time," Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan told journalists
recently.
In 2001, it was reported that a Zimbabwean by the name Ozias Sibanda was
executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking. But officials at the Zimbabwean
embassy in Malaysia, at the time, said they thought Sibanda was a national from
any other African country who had either stolen or cloned a Zimbabwean
passport.
(source: New Zimbabwe)
********************************
Police arrest man, seize over one kilo of Syabu
Police foiled an attempt to smuggle drugs into the state by arresting a local
man and seizing over a kilogramme of Syabu worth an estimated RM163,000.
State deputy police commissioner Datuk Abdul Aziz Yusuf revealed that the
arrest was made around 11am on Thursday when personnel from the state Narcotics
Crime Investigation Department (NCID) detained the suspect in a parking lot at
Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce.
"Acting on information received, state NCID officers searched the 27-year-old
suspect's car and discovered drugs believed to be syabu weighing 1.325kg packed
inside food packages and boxes of sugar to avoid detection.
"The suspect was immediately arrested while his car, a Perodua Viva, was seized
along with RM2,100 cash found in his possession," he said during a press
conference at state police headquarters here yesterday.
The suspect's urine tested positive for amphetamine.
Abdul Aziz further disclosed that he had been remanded until May 19 to
facilitate investigation under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952,
that carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
"We thank the public for the tip-off that led to this arrest and urge members
of the community to support our war against drugs by relaying to us any
information on drug-related activities so we can eradicate this menace
together."
Among those present were district police chief ACP Abang Ahmad Abang Julai and
state NCID head Supt Lukas Aket.
\ (source: theborneopost.com)
MALAYSIA:
Nabbed for growing cannabis in house compound
Thinking that no one will make out what they are, a 28-year-old lorry driver
planted 3 cannabis plants in the compound of his rented house in Pasir Putih
here.
Unfortunately for him, the plants did not go unnoticed and they led police
straight to his tiny drug farm.
Police raided the place on Wednesday following a tip-off by the public, said
Perak deputy narcotics chief Supt Abdul Latiff Meha.
The 7.30pm raid also resulted in the discovery of 2.7kg of heroin and 59g of
methamphetamine with a street value of RM171,000.
"This is one of the rare times when we actually find the plant itself.
"In fact, it is the 1st such case in Perak this year," Supt Abdul Latiff told
reporters here yesterday, adding police also seized a Proton Iswara Aeroback
worth RM15,000 and a motorcycle worth RM7,500 on the premises.
Supt Latiff said the drugs were enough to fuel the habits of some 2,400
addicts. The substance is believed to be for distribution in Perak.
???Initial investigations show that the suspect is from Klang and does not have
any previous convictions.
"He is being remanded for 7 days until May 18 to facilitate investigations,"
said Supt Latiff.
The case, he added, was being investigated as drug trafficking under Section
39B of Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which carries the mandatory death penalty.
The suspect is also being investigated under Section 6B of the same Act for
growing the illegal crop, in which he faces life imprisonment and whipping up
to 6 times, if found guilty.
(source: The Star)
INDIA:
Govt plans to give more powers to NIA
Aiming to give more teeth to NIA, the government is contemplating to empower
the anti-terror investigating agency by allowing it to probe in foreign
countries if there is any attack on Indians and Indian assets.
Official sources said the Home Ministry is planning to amend the National
Investigation Agency Act, enacted in 2008 after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack,
to give additional powers to the agency mandated to investigate all terror-
related cases.
As per the proposal, NIA will be given powers to investigate in foreign soil,
with the permission of the host government, since there have been instances of
attacks on Indians and Indian assets like foreign missions in the past.
A note for the Union Cabinet is being prepared and once it is cleared, the
amendments will be tabled before Parliament for its nod before it is included
in NIA Act, sources said.
The conspiracy of Pathankot terror attack was also hatched in Pakistan.
NIA may also be given special power to keep eyes on activities of modules of
Middle-East terror group ISIS and Pakistan-based terror groups to ensure any
attempt to harm India will be detected in advance.
Also, NIA may be authorised, through the amendment of the Act, to commute the
charge of death penalty to life imprisonment in plea bargaining cases.
There are several administrative gaps in NIA Act and through the amendment
these loopholes would be plugged, sources said.
(source: PTI News)
UGANDA:
Ugandan opposition leader charged with treason over protests----A judiciary
spokesman says Uganda's main opposition leader has been charged with treason
and jailed
Uganda's main opposition leader has been charged with treason and jailed in a
remote area in the country's northeast, a judiciary spokesman said Saturday.
Kizza Besigye was handed charges late Friday stemming from his public attacks
on the legitimacy of President Yoweri Museveni, who won a disputed election in
February, said Solomon Muyita.
Besigye, a qualified physician, was Museveni's personal doctor during the
guerrilla war that launched Museveni into power in 1986. He held various
government positions and rose to become a colonel in the army, but then broke
ranks with Museveni in 1999.
Besigye ran for president in 2001, promising a more democratic government, and
has challenged Museveni in elections since then. He claims he won the February
vote and has repeatedly urged his supporters to wage a defiance campaign
against the authorities.
There is a video online purportedly showing Besigye being sworn in as Uganda's
president.
The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the
video, but Besigye's party, the Forum for Democratic Change, reported on
Twitter that Besigye had been sworn in on the eve of Museveni's inauguration
for a 5th term.
Muyita cited the alleged inauguration of Besigye as one of the reasons for the
treason charge, which carries a maximum penalty of death on conviction.
Besigye was charged in the district of Moroto, where he had been flown after
being arrested on Wednesday in the capital Kampala.
His lawyer didn't answer calls seeking a comment Saturday.
(source: The Daily Astorian)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 15 14:13:32 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 14:13:32 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., KAN., UTAH, CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605151413220.8628@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 15
ALABAMA:
With Vernon Madison's execution in limbo, are Christians conflicted over the
death penalty?
How do we, as Christians, reconcile the death penalty with "Thou shalt not
kill"?
I may be living in the very worst part of the country to bring this up - or
maybe, in truth, this is the best place to do it, so what the heck.
Many of us don't even try to reconcile the 2 seemingly diametrically opposing
forces. We simply site the sixth commandment, and that's pretty much that":
Thou shalt not kill. Period.
But then something heinous happens. An innocent child is murdered, or an entire
family. Or a cop. Or any number of crimes that cause us to, well, reveal our
humanness and want to see the perpetrator PUNISHED.
To some of us, even Christians, that means: They don't deserve to live.
But it's typically pretty easy to simply avoid the conversation altogether.
Sure, crime dominates the headlines but as the accused perpetrators wind their
way through the byzantine criminal justice system, the names, faces and
allegations fade from the headlines and our consciousness.
But then something happens. The state - which is us, really - schedules an
execution. Years after the crime. Years after the initial trial, after the
appeals and motions have been exhausted, someone is scheduled to be put to
death.
And then we have to think...Is this right?
Alabama, of course, is 1 of 31 states executing people right now. Right now,
we're trying to execute death row inmate Vernon Madison for the slaying 31
years ago of Mobile police Cpl. Julius Schulte. We (yes, I am saying 'we" for a
reason) wanted to do so by lethal injection on Thursday night at 6 p.m. at the
Holman Correctional Facility near Atmore. But a federal appeals court granted a
stay on Thursday morning, and late Thursday evening the Anthony Scalia-less
United States Supreme Court, in a 4-4 decision, denied the state's attorney
general's request to carry forth the killing.
As the events surrounding the killing unfolded yesterday, it caused me to
re-ponder and ultimately reaffirm my own view on the death penalty: I'm against
it, period.
Oh, I haven't always been against it, unequivocally. I've been human. I've
thought some perpetrators of heinous crimes were wasting precious air on this
Earth. But as I've grown and strived to live more as Christians are asked to
live - emphasis on strived; Lord knows I'm far from there - I come around to
believe the sixth commandment says what it says.
There is no asterisk, allowing for killing in some circumstances.
Now, some open their Bibles and cite the Mosiac Law of the Israelites' justice
system noted in the Old Testament as justification for the death penalty:
But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound,
bruise for bruise. Exodus 21: 23-25
"We should not be about the business of taking lives." Rev. Van Moody, pastor,
The Worship Center
I'm no Biblical scholar, not by any means, so I reached out to a minister
friend for some clarity. She says it is a misuse of that scripture to justify
the death penalty because it was written before Jesus came along and, in the
parable of the Unmerciful Servant, charged Peter (and, by extension, all
Christians) to forgive...and forgive...and forgive....and ...
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my
brother or sister who sins against me? Up to 7 times?" Jesus answered, "I tell
you, not 7 times, but 77 times. Matthew 18: 21-22 (NIV)
"We should not be participating in [the death penalty] because we are supposed
to turning other cheek," the minister says. "Yes, the [perpetrator] should be
jailed, pay their debt back to society or somehow make amends. But we are
supposed to forgive 7 times 77 times a day - 7 means completion, so it means
absolute forgiveness."
Rev. Van Moody, pastor of The Worship Center, says it is frustrating that many
Christians, especially in these divisive times, are selective when it comes to
how their faith shapes their views on society's hot-button issues, such as
abortion and the death penalty.
"What breaks my heart about the Christian position on issues is that we pick
and choose how to apply our faith," he told me. "Gandhi said he likes Christ
but not Christians because so they're so unlike Christ. We're selective on
which scriptures we want to follow and which we want to ignore.
"Regarding the death penalty, the biggest issue some Christians grapple with is
that God loves all people, even those who commit mass atrocities."
He cites 3 pertinent scriptures:
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and
saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the 1st and great commandment. And the 2nd is like
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these 2 commandments hang
all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22: 35-40 (KJV)
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must
love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you love one another. John 13: 34-35 (NIV)
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:12 (NIV)
"We should not be about the business of taking lives," Moody says.
My heart wrenches for the living victims of the murders that seemingly flood
our site every day. We should never stop praying for them, their healing -
especially so after the original crime slips from the headlines and our
consciousness.
Almost a year ago, the families of the victims the horrific murders of 7
members of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston during a prayer meeting and
Bible study, just 2 days after the event, told the gunman, 21-year-old Dylann
Roof, they had forgiven him. "I forgive you. My family forgives you," said 1
family member, a sentiment that was repeated by a representative of each of the
victims' families as Roof watched via video from jail.
I heard many people, some of them Christians, say they would not be able to
forgive Roof, and that they could not fathom how the victims' families could do
so.
I can.
(source: Column, Roy S. Johnson, al.com)
KANSAS:
Kansas GOP rejects death penalty platform plank
Kansas Republicans have rejected a proposal to add a statement expressing
support for capital punishment to the state party's platform.
The GOP State Committee on Saturday voted 90-75 against adding the language
before approving the platform for the next 2 years. The platform continues to
express opposition to abortion and gay marriage and strong support for gun
rights.
The platform as adopted does not mention the death penalty.
Republican activist Jeffrey Locke of Satanta proposed the pro-death penalty
language. He said he supports capital punishment because doing so shows support
for murder victims.
Some GOP activists said leaving the language out allows Republican candidates
to stake out their own positions. But former Kansas College Republicans
President Dalton Glasscock said opposition to capital punishment is consistent
with the party's anti-abortion stance.
The Kansas Republican Party is endorsing the ouster of 4 state Supreme Court
justices in the November election.
The GOP's State Committee approved a resolution Saturday urging voters not to
retain Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles and Marla
Luckert. State Chairman Kelly Arnold said the party "definitely" will promote
the idea.
Many Republicans are upset with the court over rulings on public school funding
and decisions reversing death sentences in capital murder cases. Voters will
decide in November whether to retain five of the seven justices for another six
years.
The only justice not mentioned in the resolution is Caleb Stegall. He was
appointed by conservative Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
The others were appointed by Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius or moderate GOP
Gov. Bill Graves.
(source: heraldonline.com)
UTAH:
Murder defense challenges Utah law's constitutionality
A defendant in a St. George murder case is arguing that Utah's homicide laws
violate the U.S. Constitution's equal protection guarantees as well as the
state Constitution's guarantee of equal treatment in law for defendants who
face accusations so similar that they are deemed parallel situations.
The defense for Brandon Perry Smith, 34, states in a memorandum filed in 5th
District court last month that the constitutionality of the law, sponsored 7
years ago in the Senate by St. George legislator Stephen Urquhart, must be
determined before a trial scheduled in October so that instructions to the jury
can be crafted appropriately.
The prosecution filed a memorandum last week arguing Utah's law is
constitutional and is similar in purpose to a New York law that was upheld by
the U.S. Supreme Court in 1977.
Smith is accused of killing Leeds resident Jerrica Christensen during a grisly
middle-of-the-night incident Dec. 11, 2010, in St. George. Smith's
co-defendant, Paul Clifford Ashton, was convicted 3 years ago of killing St.
George resident Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden and attempting to kill St. George
resident James Fiske during the same incident.
Judge G. Michael Westfall has scheduled a 10-day trial in Smith's case
beginning Oct. 17 and set a July 1 deadline for filing any remaining motions.
Smith's attorney, Gary Pendleton, has argued in prior court proceedings that
the evidence shows Ashton called on Smith, his friend, for help in defending
himself against a perceived threat and then manipulated or coerced Smith into
becoming involved in Ashton's scheme to kill people who were at his 600 South
home.
Pendleton's arguments about the constitutionality of Utah's criminal laws
target how a defendant might approach a jury with a potential excuse or
justification for killing someone that could potentially lessen the sentencing
penalty - something Urquhart described as the "yeah but" defense while
presenting Senate Bill 85 to the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice
Committee.
SB-85 became the foundation of state law that changed the way "extreme
emotional distress" is dealt with as a defense during a trial.
"Prior to 2009, when the evidence could be interpreted to support the accused's
contention that he acted under the influence of extreme emotional distress, the
accused was entitled to a manslaughter (jury) instruction" as a possible
alternative, Pendleton wrote, adding that the prosecution was then required to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act under the
alleged emotional distress.
But after the law changed, the Legislature shifted the responsibility to the
defense to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted under
extreme emotional distress.
"And so that is my burden to say "yeah but - I committed the crime but you
should take some other factors into consideration to drop my sentence,"
Urquhart explained during Senate floor debate about the bill on Feb. 9, 2009,
according to a transcript of the hearing provided to the court.
The Washington County Attorney's Office initially intended to seek the death
penalty if Smith is found guilty at trial, but in February announced an
agreement to stop pursuing the death penalty and instead seek up to life in
prison if Smith is convicted.
That decision was applauded by Christensen's mother, who said she asked for the
change in order to bring a more speedy resolution to the years-long case. But
the defense's latest motion is part of a continuing effort to establish the
degree of "manipulation" Smith experienced and "the whole nightmare that it
presented for him" when the case goes to trial, Pendleton said.
Pendleton argues that prior to 2009, an "extreme emotional distress" defense
and other mitigating circumstances such as those who claim they acted in
self-defense but were found to have done so illegally, were handled similarly
as potential causes for pleading for a more lenient sentence than originally
contemplated.
Pendleton states the new law is unconstitutional because it no longer treats
defendants who are "imilarly situated" in a similar fashion - in other words,
someone claiming they acted in self-defense would put the prosecution in the
position of trying to prove that the self-defense claim is false or mistaken,
while an emotional distress claim requires the defense to prove its own mental
state.
"This change in Utah law has resulted in disparate treatment of those
defendants who assert ... (they were) thrust into circumstances involving
unusual and overwhelming external stressors. The viability of both defenses is
judged based upon an objective assessment of the defendant's reaction to these
external stressors,' Pendleton wrote in his memorandum.
While legislators clearly intended to shift the burden of proof to the
defendant in emotional distress cases, "the sponsors of Senate Bill 85 seem to
have been unaware of the fact that they were creating a disparity," Pendleton
wrote.
Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap argues that the change in the law
didn't create an unconstitutional disparity in how similarly situated suspects
are treated and the court should deny the defense's motion.
Belnap's memorandum cites the same 3 cases Pendleton relies on for his primary
argument and agrees that the mitigating "emotional distress" and "imperfect
self-defense" claims were once regarded similarly under state law.
But Belnap argues defendants making the 2 different types of claims are not
"similarly situated," and that the Legislature recognized the difference,
drawing on the New York Supreme Court case, when it made the change in who
bears the burden of proving the arguments in 2009.
"A person who murders someone after a loss of self-control caused by extreme
emotional distress is not similarly situated to someone who mistakenly believes
they are acting in self-defense. The underlying facts might occasionally
overlap - but the statutes address different scenarios," Belnap wrote.
"Imperfect self-defense and mental illness delusion both require the defendant
to argue that the actions came under a mistaken belief of legal justification,"
he wrote. "In contrast, extreme emotional distress does not depend upon a
defendant's mistaken belief about legal justification; rather, it depends upon
whether 'the average reasonable person under the same circumstances [would]
experience a loss of self-control and be overborne by intense feelings.'"
If the court does find that the law is unconstitutional, the court must find
that the entire statute is faulty rather than trying to selectively correct it
or restore it to its former status, Belnap concludes.
"The judiciary has no mechanism to rewrite the statute to reinstate a defense
which the legislature has repealed," he wrote.
The court has not yet announced a date for a decision on the motion or further
in-court arguments.
(source: The Spectrum)
CALIFORNIA:
Scot facing death row for killing parents opts for 'military trauma' defence
A Scottish-born army veteran accused of killing his parents will try to save
himself from execution in America by arguing that he is severely traumatised
after fighting in Iraq for the United States.
Derek Connell, from Glasgow, has pleaded not guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree
murder after being charged with murdering his mother and stepfather in the US.
Police in Bakersfield, California, found the bodies of Kim and Christopher
Higginbotham shot dead in their home on April 30 and arrested Connell as he was
seen leaving the property.
Connell, is also alleged to have taken a video of their dead bodies on his
mobile phone and sent it to a relative, reportedly his aunt who still lives in
Scotland.
Police say Connell confessed to the killings but has pleaded not guilty to two
counts of first degree murder as he is suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), after being stationed in the Gulf for more than two years with
a US army platoon.
Last night, officials from the Kern County district attorney's office in
California, which is prosecuting the case, told the Sunday Herald that the
allegation of "multiple murders" made Connell eligible for the death penalty.
Deputy district attorney Arthur Norris stated that he "did not rule" out the
possibility of capital punishment being an option if Connell is found guilty.
However, Connell's defence team will mount a defence around PTSD. They say
Connell suffers PTSD brought on by traumatic and harrowing combat experiences
during his military service in the Gulf.
It will be claimed that Connell suffers from blackouts and self medicates with
large amounts of alcohol, after which he does know know what has happened and
often begins to panic.
His lawyer Paul Cadman, is expected to draw heavily on Connell's time as a
combat soldier and his service in a frontline US army platoon in Baghdad and
Fallujah between 2007 and 2009, a period that saw some of the fiercest fighting
in the conflict.
Cadman is understood to be preparing his case around a claim that Connell was
traumatised by the experience that included the period known as "the surge"
when the then US President George W Bush ordered the deployment of more than
20,000 soldiers into Iraq.
The case aimed at saving Connell from being executed will highlight incidences
of him seeing fellow troops killed during bloody battles in Baghdad and
Fallujah, as well as himself killing Iraqi insurgents in combat situations.
Cadman, a high profile criminal lawyer in California, will use a defence
similar to one he employed during a notorious high school shooting at Taft
Union High School in Kern County, that saw 16-year-old Bryan Oliver, who walked
into a classroom and shot at 2 students in January 2013, avoid a life sentence
without parole.
Public defence attorney Cadman used a diminished responsibility defence to
argue that Oliver was pushed to violence because he was tormented by bullies at
school, which saw the teenager instead jailed with the possibility of parole
after 13 years rather than the whole life-term sought by prosecutors.
Cadman is understood to be planning to mount a "traumatic disorder defence" for
Connell, with the principle aim of staving off the death penalty, which remains
a legal option in California.
Cadman will argue that Connell, who won campaign medals for service in Iraq as
well as taking part in a tour of duty of Afghanistan, has struggled to adjust
to civilian life and has been scarred by wartime experiences, particularly
deaths he witnessed in frontline combat.
During an initial hearing, Cadman said the failure of authorities to provide
his client with proper medical treatment was the 'root' of the double murder
case.
"Derek Connell is a highly decorated Iraq war veteran whose experiences in Iraq
caused him all kinds of medical and mental conditions," he said.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs failed to get Connell the help he
needed upon his return, the attorney claimed.
Connell was born in Rutherglen Maternity Hospital and lived with his mother in
Shawlands on Glasgow's south side as a child, although no details of his father
were listed on his birth certificate.
His mother worked as a secretary in Glasgow and met her future husband while he
was stationed with the US Navy in Scotland.
She moved with her son to be Higginbotham when he went back to America more
than 20 years ago and the family settled in California.
Connell, who worked in the oil industry after leaving the US army, has spent
most of his life in America, where he attended high school.
He will face a preliminary court hearing on July 26. However, his trial is
unlikely to start until for at least a year.
Sources close to Connell's legal team have said that he is "in shock" and is on
suicide watch at the Kern County Central Receiving Facility, where inmates are
often held during their initial appearances. He is likely to be moved to Lerdo
County Jail within the next few months.
Deputy district attorney Norris said that the murder charges were aggravated by
the alleged use of a firearm, as he set out what is likely to be a protracted
legal process facing Connell.
Naomi McAuliffe, Amnesty International's Scotland programme director issued
called on prosecutors to rule out the use of the death penalty in light of
Connell's post-traumatic stress disorder.
She said:"If Derek Connell is found to be suffering from mental illness, it is
worth noting that executing people with mental illness is clearly prohibited by
international law but the US has executed dozens of prisoners known to be
suffering from severe mental illness."
Meanwhile,a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman added: "We are in contact
with local authorities following the detention of a British man in connection
with a murder case in Bakersfield, California."
(source: heraldscotland.com)
USA:
Pfizer v. Lethal Injections----The pharmaceutical giant imposes new controls to
prevent its drugs from being used in executions.
Pfizer said Friday it would impose stringent controls on distributors to block
its drugs from use in lethal injections, underscoring the pharmaceutical
industry's consensus against participation in the death penalty amid a
nationwide shortage in execution drugs.
"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we
serve," the pharmaceutical giant's updated policy said. "Consistent with these
values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections
for capital punishment."
The new policy's impact on future executions will be difficult to measure. Many
states with capital punishment have also enacted laws that shield the
identities of execution-drug providers, making those drugs' origins hard to
trace. It is also unclear when or how often Pfizer-manufactured drugs have been
used in U.S. executions.
But Pfizer's move adds new barriers as states struggle to find reliable
suppliers of execution drugs. Maya Foa, executive director of Reprieve, a
U.K.-based human-rights organization, said in a statement that Pfizer's move
means "all FDA-approved manufacturers of all execution drugs have spoken out
against the misuse of medicines in lethal injections and taken steps to prevent
it."
A Pfizer spokesperson said the company opposed the use of its drugs in lethal
injections before today's update. An earlier version of its policy on capital
punishment took a less forceful stance on the issue than Friday's update,
insisting that "efforts to influence policy" were better directed towards
legislators and public officials.
"Our distribution plan, which restricts the sale of these 7 products for
unintended uses, implements our publicly stated position against improper use
of our products and, most importantly, doesn't stand in the way of patient
access to these critical medications," an October 2015 version of the policy
stated.
"However, due to the complex supply chain and the gray market in the United
States, despite our efforts, Pfizer cannot guarantee that a U.S. prison could
not secure restricted products through other channels not under Pfizer's
control," it cautioned.
The updated policy includes neither the redirection towards lawmakers nor the
hedging of its own ability to control the supply chain. Instead, it outlined
the company's efforts to regulate the distribution of key lethal-injection
drugs.
Pfizer's distribution restriction limits the sale of these seven products to a
select group of wholesalers, distributors, and direct purchasers under the
condition that they will not resell these products to correctional institutions
for use in lethal injections. Government purchasing entities must certify that
products they purchase or otherwise acquire are used only for medically
prescribed patient care and not for any penal purposes. Pfizer further requires
that these Government purchasers certify that the product is for "own use" and
will not resell or otherwise provide the restricted products to any other
party.
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. Importantly, this distribution system is also
designed to ensure that these critical medications will remain immediately
available to those patients who rely on them every day.
States rely on a small collection of drugs to perform lethal injections,
typically administered in 1-drug or 3-drug cocktails. Pfizer manufactures 7 of
them: the sedatives propofol, midazolam, and hydromorphone, the muscle relaxant
pancuronium bromide and 2 variants of it, and potassium chloride, which is used
to stop the inmate's heart.
Until recently, the standard method of lethal injection used sodium thiopental,
a sedative, followed by a muscle relaxant and then potassium chloride. In 2007,
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the sodium thiopental cocktail's
constitutionality in Baze v. Rees. In recent years, death-penalty opponents
began pressuring drug manufacturers to stop selling it and other key drugs to
U.S. prisons for executions. The European Union imposed an export ban on drugs
for lethal injections to the U.S. in 2011.
With major pharmaceutical companies off limits and supplies dwindling, states
turned to alternative, "grey market" sources instead. Multiple state
departments of corrections purchased lethal-injection drugs from unlicensed
suppliers in Britain and India, including 1 provider based in a single office
above a driving academy. Both the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Food and Drug
Administration have repeatedly seized unlicensed imports of lethal-injection
drugs from states over the past 3 years.
States have also relied on clandestine domestic outlets to obtain the drugs,
including compounding pharmacies with less stringent regulations. The
Apothecary Shoppe, a compounding pharmacy in Oklahoma, secretly manufactured
drugs for at least 3 executions in Missouri in 2013 and 2014, a BuzzFeed
investigation found. The pharmacy shut down earlier this year after state and
federal investigators found thousands of regulatory violations.
Another compounding pharmacy also provided the Oklahoma Department of
Corrections with the midazolam used in the botched execution of Clayton Lockett
on April 29, 2014. Lockett's death triggered a legal battle by other inmates
that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court last year, where the justices
upheld the use of the controversial sedative midazolam by a 5-4 vote in Glossip
v. Gross.
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, accused
capital-punishment foes of waging a "guerrilla war against the death penalty"
during oral arguments. In a lengthy dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer urged the
Court to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.
(source: The Atlantic)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 15 14:14:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 14:14:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605151414080.8628@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 15
UNITED KINGDOM/TRINIDAD:
UK judges to rule on death penalties for 'intellectually disabled'
Case of 2 Trinidadians on death row may set global precedent that could prevent
the execution of people with extremely low IQs
The fate of 2 Trinidadian prisoners, both of whom have been condemned to death
despite having extremely low IQs, will be decided by British judges this week.
The 2-day hearing at the judicial committee of the privy council (JCPC) in
London may set an international precedent that could prevent the execution of
people on death row who have been diagnosed as "intellectually disabled".
The JCPC, based in Westminster, acts as an ultimate court of appeal for smaller
Commonwealth countries, including many in the Caribbean that retain capital
punishment. Justices from the UK's supreme court hear its cases.
Lester Pitman was convicted of a joint enterprise, triple killing of 3 Britons
carried out in the island's capital, Port of Spain. In December 2001, the
bodies of a former BBC newsreader, Lynette Lithgow, 51, her mother Maggie Lee,
83, and brother-in-law John Cropper, 59, were found in a blood-splattered
bathroom at a 12-room bungalow.
Cropper had moved to Trinidad several years earlier. All 3 were found with
their hands tied behind their backs and their throats slit. The initial motive
appeared to have been robbery.
Pitman, who is now 36, was convicted of the killings in 2004 and sentenced to
hang. The death penalty for murder is mandatory in Trinidad. Because he had
waited for so many years on death row, however, his sentence was commuted in
2013 to 40 years in jail.
At the end of the hearing, Trinidad's court of appeal declared that Pitman had
previously been "properly sentenced to suffer the death penalty".
Pitman's IQ was measured initially at 52 then at 67 - both figures are below
the World Health Organisation guideline that classifies anyone with an IQ of
below 70 as being "intellectually disabled". His mother, Cheryl Pitman, told
the Trinidad Guardian: "People should have mercy for Lester because his IQ is
very low. He thinks like a child."
Neil Hernandez was convicted of killing a woman, Christine Henry, and her
6-year-old son, Philip, in the coastal village of Toco on Trinidad in May 2000.
He was found to have slashed them with the cutlass he used for harvesting
coconuts. Hernandez claimed he had not intended to kill them and had been
tricked into signing a confession. In 2004, he was sentenced to hang.
At a hearing in 2014 , the Trinidad appeal court commuted his death sentence to
25 years on the same principle as Pitman, that he had already spent too long on
death row. Evidence given showed he had an IQ of 57.
Delivering their decision, the appeal court judges in Port of Spain said: "If
the members of this society [in Trinidad] hold the view that it is repugnant to
evolving standards of decency to impose the death sentence on mentally retarded
persons, then those members are entitled to make their views felt and to lobby
members of parliament to introduce legislation which reflects those standards."
An earlier Jamaican JCPC case, known as Pratt and Morgan, established in 1993
that it was "inhuman or degrading punishment" to impose a delay of more than 5
years after sentencing on anyone facing execution.
Pitman and Hernandez are being represented at the JCPC by Saul Lehrfreund, the
co-executive director of the Death Penalty Project, which is based at the
London law firm Simons Muirhead and Burton, and provides free legal assistance
to prisoners facing the death penalty around the world. He said: "These cases
raise a novel constitutional point about the imposition of the death penalty on
people who have intellectual disability.
"It's important for both Commonwealth countries and the wider world where the
death penalty is still in use. This could establish a principle that it's cruel
and unusual punishment to impose a sentence of death on someone if they are
intellectually disabled or suffer from significant mental illness."
In court, the cases will be argued by Edward Fitzgerald QC and Paul Bowen QC.
Pitman's appeal is against both conviction and sentence, Hernandez's only
against sentence.
Lehrfreund added: "Neither Pitman nor Hernandez are going to be executed,
because the court in Trinidad has recognised they have been on death row for
too long. If we are right, however, they should never have been sentenced to
the cruelty of the death penalty in the first place.
"We say there should have been a judicial determination to look into their
intellectual disability before they were sentenced. If we are successful, it
will create a precedent that would be persuasive and resonate in other
countries [including Malaysia and Singapore] which also continue to impose
mandatory death penalties for murder and other offences."
: Pitman's conviction is also being contested on the grounds that it was on the
basis of joint enterprise with others - a legal principle that the UK's supreme
court recently ruled had been wrongly interpreted for more than 30 years.
Arguments over whether an IQ level of below 70 should prevent executions have
also featured in US courts. 2 years ago, the US supreme court reprieved a
Florida man who was deemed to have the mental age of a toddler even though his
IQ was just over 70.
(source: The Guardian)
JAMAICA:
The death penalty and its impediments
There has been much ado about the death penalty in recent days - or at least,
much has been said. Minister Robert Montague wants hanging to be resumed, while
Opposition spokespersons Mark Golding and Peter Bunting have voiced their
reservations.
Various letter writers and cartoonists have also presented their opinions, with
1 letter advocating, in addition to the return of the hangman's noose,
reversion to flogging - "6 to 12 lashes on the buttocks" for various offences.
So, where have we reached with our death penalty debate in Jamaica, and what
does the law have to say on the subject?
MURDER RATE
The main argument for the death penalty in Jamaica turns on the country's high
murder rate. Pro-death penalty sentiment runs strongest when there are
high-profile murder cases and where there is a spike in heinous crimes - as is
currently the case. But, bearing in mind that Jamaica's murder rate is
invariably at a frightening level, many people argue that the society needs an
effective deterrent; they see capital punishment as that deterrent, or hope
that it can be.
There is also a majoritarian argument in support of the death penalty. True,
there is substantial opposition to the sentence among the intelligentsia, and
in some church communities, but most Jamaicans still wonder why the sentence is
not carried out, given the rampant and callous disregard for life that is daily
in evidence. The majoritarian perspective has no doubt influenced some
parliamentarians who voted in 2008 to retain capital punishment. In a
democratic polity which, by definition, attaches some importance to the
majority will, the parliamentary response is not surprising. If
parliamentarians openly defy the popular view on the highly charged matter of
the death penalty, this could have obvious electoral consequences.
POLITICIANS
But this is not to suggest that the politicians are simply looking over their
shoulders at the majority will, though some may well be. In the 2008
parliamentary vote in the House of Representatives, 34 members voted for
retention of capital punishment, while 15 were against it; in the Senate, the
division was 10 to 7, with the majority in favour. In 1979, when an earlier
conscience vote was taken, 24 members opted to retain hanging, as against 19
who opposed it.
This breakdown suggests that, as far as the ultimate sanction is concerned, not
all parliamentarians regard the popular will as decisive. Nor should it be; the
majority will may be a factor in the decision, but it cannot be the only
consideration. Our parliamentarians have a duty to consider all the arguments
before reaching their conclusion.
REVULSION
In this context, there are at least 2 additional arguments that are appealing
to some Jamaicans. One is that the death penalty serves to register the
society's sense of revulsion to murder. Within this perspective, punishment
must reflect not only deterrence and the prospect of rehabilitation, it must
also emphasise that society rejects murder, and is determined to fight it with
decisive measures. This view - sometimes associated with Lord Denning, among
others - is offered partly in response to abolitionists who maintain that the
death penalty is not a deterrent.
THE BIBLE
Secondly, it is fair to suggest that many Jamaicans continue to support the
death penalty by reference to biblical assertions. Specifically, reference is
often made to Mosaic principles relating to "a life for a life"; and in this
context, the lex talionis, as set out in Leviticus 24 (verse 17), is
occasionally called in aid: "Whoever kills any man shall surely be put to
death..."
The approach based on the lex talionis is not convincing. In the first place,
Old Testament strictures relating to a life for a life are themselves linked to
disfigurement as a form of punishment. The relevant passage in Leviticus 24 on
a life for a life also states that: "If a man causes disfigurement of his
neighbour... so shall it be done to him - fracture for fracture, eye for eye,
tooth for tooth."
No humane, liberal justice system could today justify principles of punishment
based on pure brutality in return for brutality. And accordingly, we should not
expect the Old Testament pronouncements on a life for a life to present literal
guidance in sentencing policy for modern Jamaica.
Moreover, if we accept the premise that the laws of Jamaica should follow
biblical precepts, the life for a life approach encounters difficulties with
the New Testament which, to put the matter at its minimum, does not support the
brutal retaliation - turning the other cheek is conceptually different from the
lex talionis.
Generally, therefore, the Biblical argument is not decisive. But, there is
force in the fact that the society wants its leaders to take tough decisions to
fight murder; the death penalty also derives support as the remedy that
reflects the will of the majority, and as an approach that expresses our
revulsion for some of the horrendous murders that confront us on a daily basis.
IRREVERSIBLE ERROR
In light of these realities, opponents of the death penalty face - admittedly -
an uphill struggle in Jamaican society. One argument they present is based on
the possibility of mistake. The justice system, it is sometimes argued, cannot
provide the assurance that it will always present the correct person at the
gallows.
This must be true. Even in the most efficient systems, there are instances of
error. And, when the error is made, then, obviously, it is irreversible and
shocking. In some cases in the United States of America, DNA evidence has been
used to demonstrate the innocence of several persons on death row, and in other
instances, one wonders if the execution of persons is driven more by the desire
for catharsis than by certainty as to the identification of the murderer.
In the case of Jamaica, some politicians - when faced with the argument based
on mistake - take solace in the putative safe harbour of the Privy Council.
They say that the Privy Council is unbiased and, if anything, opposed to the
death penalty; so, if the Privy Council allows the death penalty to proceed in
a particular case, we can be sure that this is a decision devoid of error.
This line of reasoning is open to question. The Privy Council, to be sure, is a
court of the highest impartiality and authority, but it does not follow from
this that the court is beyond error. Also, in deciding murder cases from
Jamaica, the Privy Council will normally accept the jury???s assessment of the
facts of a given case. Thus, if the error is made by the jury, there will be
instances in which the Privy Council???s conclusions will also be incorrect. In
my view, therefore, the death penalty is cogently challenged by the possibility
of error.
MORALITY
Some opponents of the death penalty also condemn the sentence on moral grounds.
The death penalty, they submit, is unquestionably wrong, and it is wrong in all
circumstances. It is barbaric, pointless and must be opposed by all lawful
means.
This view, consistently presented over many years by Amnesty International, has
recently received strong support from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki
Moon. Declaring that the death penalty is "simply wrong", the Secretary General
emphasised that: "I will never stop calling for an end to the death penalty"
(United Nations, November 4, 2015).
Ban Ki Moon's position is also held by the European Union. The European Union
Policy on the Death Penalty asserts that executions are "cruel and inhuman",
and affirms that abolition is a prerequisite for entry into the Union. Building
on its position based on morality, the European Union also calls on states
which still have the death penalty to take steps to remove it progressively,
starting with a moratorium.
OAS VIEWPOINT
Within the Organization of American States, there is also some support for the
view that the death penalty is morally wrong. As Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle
of Oxford University remind us, the death penalty has long been abolished in
certain Latin American States. According to Hood and Hoyle, Venezuela abolished
it in 1863, Ecuador in 1906, and Uruguay in 1907 (Hood and Hoyle, "Abolishing
the Death Penalty Worldwide: The Impact of a 'New Dynamic'" Crime and Justice,
Volume 38, Number 1 (2009), p 1 at p 5).
In this context, too, in January 2014, on the invitation of Mexico, the
Permanent Council of the Organization of American States discussed the question
of the death penalty, with strong support for abolition coming from the Latin
American countries which took part in the debate. Some of the speakers in that
debate relied heavily on various resolutions of the United Nations General
Assembly which have called for a moratorium on the death penalty throughout the
world, and on publications by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
(for summary, see OAS Press Release E-012/14).
In short, the moral case against the death penalty continues to be built at the
international level. Opposition spokesman Mark Golding is on firm ground when
he points out that the reintroduction of the death penalty in Jamaica will have
consequences for the country on the international plane. Many of our
international friends - the United Kingdom, France, the rest of the European
Union, Canada, and some Latin American countries - would regard reintroduction
as a retrograde step.
Non-legal impediments
Minister Montague has publicly asked Minister of State Pearnel Charles Jr for a
report on the impediments which Jamaica would face in seeking to reintroduce
the death penalty. On the basis of the foregoing, I suggest that there will be
one set of impediments based on the moral and practical arguments against the
death penalty. International opinion against the sentence will also need to be
taken into account.
I rather doubt, however, that these are the types of impediments Minister
Montague has in mind. These are, after all, not legal impediments: they stand
in the way of the imposition of the death penalty in a general sense, but they
do not rule out the possibility of a return to capital punishment by Jamaica.
INTERNATIONAL LAW
What, then, are the legal impediments that Minister Charles may uncover? It may
be best to answer this question by reference to International Law and domestic
law, respectively. As to the former, Jamaica has traditionally maintained that
International Law does not prohibit capital punishment. Thus, notwithstanding
the various United Nations Resolutions calling for moratoria in this area,
Jamaica has argued that the relevant international instruments allow each State
to carry out executions in appropriate circumstances.
The Jamaican position was perhaps most clearly articulated in its Statement on
the subject to the Third Committee of the 62nd Session of the General Assembly
on December 12, 2007. In that statement, Jamaica maintained that:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 does not expressly or
implicitly prohibit the death penalty.
Several States which supported the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
accepted that everyone has the right to life, but this has not prevented these
States from retaining the death penalty.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the ICCPR) (1966),
which is binding on Jamaica, does not expressly or implicitly prohibit the
death penalty.
The ICCPR expressly states that countries which have not abolished the death
penalty should adhere to certain preconditions before carrying out executions.
As long as these preconditions are satisfied, the penalty is allowed in
International Law.
There is a treaty which is open to all states that wish to abolish the death
penalty. This is the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. As long as a State
does not ratify this treaty, the State will not be legally required to
terminate executions. Jamaica has not ratified this treaty.
The death penalty is an internal matter for each State. Jamaica, in keeping
with its sovereignty and self-determination, reserves the right to carry out
the death sentence. This is true for several countries in the world.
THE ICCPR
As a matter of International Law, the Jamaican position suggests that the
country has reserved the right to conduct executions. International Law will
not be an impediment to Minister Montague, as long as Jamaica carries out
capital punishment in accordance with the strictures in the ICCPR.
In summary form, the ICCPR indicates that the death penalty may be carried out
only for the most serious crimes, can only be imposed for matters which are
subject to execution at the time of the commission of the crime, and may be
carried out only following the final judgment of a competent court. Persons
under the age of 18 may not be executed, nor may pregnant women. These
provisions are set out in Article 6 of the ICCPR.
Another provision of the ICCPR, Article 7, is also relevant. It provides that
no one shall be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment.
CRITICISMS
Although the Jamaican position may withstand legal scrutiny, it is vulnerable
to at least two criticisms. First, Jamaica's strict reliance on the language of
the ICCPR commits the country to a rigid adherence to the text of the treaty;
this approach ignores the context of the ICCPR and developments that have taken
place since the ICCPR entered into force.
For Jamaica, the original meaning of the ICCPR remains in place even though the
treaty may have evolved as a "living instrument." In this regard, Jamaica's
Statement is reminiscent of the approach to the reading of legal texts most
famously associated with the late Judge Scalia of the United States Supreme
Court.
Secondly, Jamaica's position - to the effect that the death penalty is a matter
of internal law only - is difficult to reconcile with the evolution of human
rights in the post-World War II era. The United Nations Charter, in Article 2,
paragraph 7, indicates that the United Nations should not interfere with
matters within the reserved domain of each State. But, that reserved domain is
not a static concept. With the development of human rights, external agencies
and States have become increasingly concerned with developments within
individual countries.
The establishment of the International Criminal Court, the work of the United
Nations Human Rights Council and the Human Rights Committee, exemplify this
development. As an increasing number of states ban the death penalty, and
maintain that they have done so because of developments in International Law,
Jamaica will be hard-pressed to maintain that the death penalty is a purely
internal affair.
Besides, Jamaica has accepted the ICCPR and the American Convention on Human
Rights, which both address aspects of the death penalty as an international
matter. This implies an opening of the door to international treatment of
Jamaica's internal death penalty debate.
DOMESTIC DELAY
Finally, what are the domestic impediments to the death penalty in Jamaican
law? In the not too distant past, law students would immediately cite the Privy
Council's approach to delay in carrying out death sentences as a significant
impediment.
In Pratt and Morgan v The Attorney General of Jamaica (1993), the Privy Council
held that where the period between sentencing and execution exceeded 5 years,
it was to be presumed that execution would be inhuman or degrading punishment
or treatment.
And in Neville Lewis v The Attorney General (2000), the Privy Council appeared
to have treated this presumption as an automatic rule, so that as soon as 5
years elapsed, the death sentence would have to be commuted to life
imprisonment.
Arguably, then, the treatment of cases of delay was an "impediment." If so,
this impediment was removed when the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
in the Jamaican Constitution entered into force in 2011; for the Charter (in
Section 13(8)(a)) expressly overturned the Pratt and Morgan and Neville Lewis
approaches. The "death row phenomenon" is no longer incompatible with our law -
even if delay in execution is of the order of 14 years, this will be
acceptable.
Section 13(8)(b) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms also removed
another possible "impediment" to execution. This provision specifies that the
circumstances in which a person on death row is detained shall not provide the
basis for commutation of sentence from death to life. In a sense, this
amendment to our constitutional rights was a pre-emptive strike: the Privy
Council had grown increasingly concerned about mistreatment of death row
prisoners. We have concluded that it is possible to mistreat prisoners and then
execute them.
MANDATORY DEATH
In Lambert Watson v R, the Privy Council held that the mandatory death penalty
was unconstitutional; our final court reached this conclusion on the assumption
that the mandatory death sentence was inhuman or degrading punishment or
treatment (see, eg, Vasciannie, "The Decision of the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council in the Lambert Watson Case from Jamaica and the Question of
Fragmentation," New York University Journal of International Law and Politics,
Volume 41, p 836).
Following that decision, Jamaica amended its Offences against the Person Act in
order to specify that, for capital murder cases, the presiding judge must have
an alternative to execution among the sentencing options. Thus, for capital
crimes, the judge may now choose between a death sentence and a life sentence.
CRITERIA FOR EXECUTION
This has prompted the need for the courts to develop criteria for determining
which capital murders are deserving of the ultimate sanction. The Privy
Council, in Daniel Dick Trimmingham v The State (2009), a case from St Vincent
and the Grenadines, has held that the death penalty must be reserved for
murders which in the facts of the murder amount to the "worst of the worst" and
the "rarest of the rare." The Privy Council also held that capital punishment
may take place only when there is no prospect of reform of the murderer.
Although the facts in Trimmingham were quite horrific, the Privy Council found
that they did not amount to the worst of the worst. The standard of depravity
required is therefore extraordinarily high. In Peter Dougal v R (2011), the
Jamaican Privy Council applied the standard, and commuted the death sentence to
life imprisonment for the murder of 2 persons - LG Brown and Sandra Campbell -
while they slept. This was not the worse of the worst, using the Privy
Council's marker.
CAPITAL MURDER
Generally, therefore, I expect that the report on impediments to Minister
Montague will point out that Jamaica still retains the death penalty for some
murders. These murders are categorised as capital murders in the Offences
against the Person Act.
Capital murder includes murder for hire, murder in the course of certain
felonies (burglary, robbery, arson, sexual offences), murder of a member of a
specified class of persons acting in the course of their duties (security
forces, correctional officer, judicial officer, a person carrying out
constabulary functions, witness, juror, or Justice of the Peace), and multiple
murders.
Murders within the capital category may bring about the death sentence, but
they will do so only if they are so gruesome - and the murderer so awful - that
they satisfy the Trimmingham criteria. All other murders are non-capital, and
cannot give rise to the death sentence.
WHAT IS THE POINT?
In effect, then, it is open to Jamaica to carry out the death sentence. And the
only impediments are those which follow from the proper operation of the law -
as set out in the Jamaican Constitution, the Offences against the Person Act
and decisions of the courts. This is as it should be.
It may not be a good thing for us to grab at the death penalty whenever there
is a spike in murders. We should acknowledge that Jamaica has not carried out
the death penalty since 1988, and give serious thought to whether there is any
point in keeping it.
(source: Stephen Vasciannie, CD, is Professor of International Law, University
of the West Indies, Mona, and a former Jamaica Ambassador to the USA and the
Organization of American States----Jamaica Observer)
IRAN----executions
4 more prisoners hanged in Iran
Iran's fundamentalist regime is continuing its heightening execution spree,
hanging at least 4 more prisoners in the past 3 days.
Earlier on Saturday 3 prisoners were hanged in the Central Prison of Rasht,
northern Iran, according to the regime's judiciary in Gilan Province. The
victims were identified only by their initials and ages: A. A., 22; E. Sh., 26;
and H. P., 31.
On Thursday, Behnam Mohammadi, 35, was hanged in Maragheh Prison, north-west
Iran, after serving 5 years behind bars. He was accused of a drugs-related
charge.
The latest hangings bring to at least 76 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Iran's fundamentalist regime on Monday amputated the fingers of a man in his
thirties in the city of Mashhad, north-east Iran, the latest in a line of
draconian punishments handed down and carried out in recent weeks.
The state-run Khorasan newspaper identified the victim by his initials M. T.,
adding that he was 39 years old. The prisoner was accused of theft and is also
serving a 3-year jail sentence.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
PAKISTAN:
The anatomy of extremism
5 'hardcore terrorists' are to be hanged for their involvement in the Safoora
Goth massacre and the murder of human rights activist Sabeen Mehmood in Karachi
last year. The 5 are all said to be active members of al Qaeda. Whilst we
continue to have deep reservations over the death penalty, we also have a
serious concern about the path these individuals took that ends at a death
sentence, and the implications for society as a whole.
The report of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) reveals that at least 1 of the
killers was highly educated, a graduate of the Institute of Business
Administration and not a man, according to his friends and associates, likely
to be the cold-blooded killer that by his own admission he is. All of those
convicted were affiliated however tangentially with al Qaeda and were
sympathisers with and inspired by the Islamic State. This did not happen
overnight nor in isolation. These men had common purpose, they worked and
planned together, reconnoitered their targets and killed casually, without
remorse, believing their crimes not to be crimes at all but the will of a
higher power.
A picture emerges of educated, articulate men being drawn to radicalism and
then extremism, who had no difficulty in getting training, who blended with the
background and hid in plain sight. They selected targets on a sectarian basis
or simply because, in the case of Sabeen Mahmud, did not like what she said and
what she represented as a secular liberal. The truly alarming aspect of the JIT
report is how commonplace, how ordinary, how unexceptional these killers were.
How easily they had access to weapons and how well they were trained. They came
from educated middle class backgrounds and had been to the best schools. They
worked in - indeed were recruited from within - multinational companies that
thousands of aspiring young people would seek to work for. It cannot - must not
- be assumed that these 5 men are unique because they are not; more they are
symptomatic of the profound malaise that afflicts the nation, a malaise for
which no cure is currently being sought.
(source: Editorial, Daily Express)
MALAYSIA:
Filipino charged with murder of another Filipino
A 36-year-old Filipino was charged in the Magistrate's Court on Friday with the
murder of another Filipino at Manggatal early this month.
Ismail Rasad, a Bajau holding an IMM13 document, is accused of committing the
offence on one Mohd Adzmar Alex, 19, also a Bajau with an IMM13 document, at
11.30pm on May 1 at Kampung Rampayan. M
However, no plea was recorded from Ismail who was brought before Magistrate
Jessica Ombou Kakayun.
The offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code carries the death penalty on
conviction.
Prosecuting officer Inspector Azaman Hamat applied for another mention date
while waiting for the chemist's, DNA and post mortem reports.
The court set June 3 for mention and ordered Ismail remanded further as the
charge against him has no provision of bail.
Counsel Timothy Daut informed the court that he was standing in for counsel Ram
Singh who is representing Ismail.
In another case, a 19-year-old jobless Dusun man claimed trial to molesting a
9-year-old girl.
Wayatomajukasari Daim allegedly committed the crime at 7.30pm on May 5 in the
toilet of a community centre in Kg Pulutan, Manggatal.
Jessica fixed June 3 for pre-trial case management and released
Wayatomajukasari on a bail of RM2,500 in 2 sureties with the condition that he
report to the police station every month and to keep a distance of 500 metres
from the alleged victim.
Earlier, Azaman, proposed a bail of RM5,000 and also applied for the accused
not to approach the girl as they were staying in the same village.
However, counsel Timothy Daut, who represented the accused, requested for the
bail to be reduced and told the court both the accused and the alleged victim
were living far away although in the same village and were not related.
Wayatomajukasari was charged under Section 354 of the Penal Code, which carries
a jail term of up to 10 years or fine or whipping or any 2 of such punishments
on conviction.
(source: Daily Express)
INDONESIA:
No pardon for drug traffickers in Indonesia-Ambassador
The Indonesian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Harry Purwanto, on Saturday ruled out
any clemency for anyone caught carrying narcotic drugs in his country.
He said that his home government would not grant pardon to anyone involved in
drug trafficking in Indonesia.
Purwanto disclosed this in Lagos while reacting to a report that 2 Nigerians
were on death row in Indonesia for drug-related offences.
The envoy said that capital punishment would be meted to Nigerians who engaged
in narcotic crimes, as well as to other foreigners and Indonesians engaging in
the criminal acts.
???Let me say that Indonesia, currently, has very strict punishment measures
for anyone engaged or that is planning to engage in drug trafficking.
???Let me also say that between 72 and 75 young Indonesians that were involved
in narcotic crimes are currently in detention.
???My president, President Joko Widodo, is really committed to fighting drug
trafficking, and has continued to maintain a firm stance against anyone
arrested for involving in narcotic crime.
"So, there will be no clemency for anyone, be they Indonesians or other
foreigners, arrested for drug-related offences," he said.
According to him, Indonesia will always resort to capital punishment after it
has thoroughly investigated and exhausted the necessary legal processes.
Harry, however, said that his government would, sometime, only give
consideration to arrested pregnant women, teenagers and mentally-deranged
offenders.
The ambassador appealed to Nigerians to desist from visiting Indonesia for drug
related-offences or allowed themselves to be used for drug trafficking.
Harry said that the existing cordial relationship between Nigeria and Indonesia
would be stronger, if people of both countries obey the laws of their host
countries.
(source: pmnewsnigeria.com)
*****************
Islands focus: Father killed while sleeping
A 60-year-old man was stabbed to death in his sleep on Sunday night in what
police believe to be a crime motivated by his alleged refusal to let his
17-year-old daughter have a boyfriend 3 years older than herself.
Gorontalo Police have named 2 suspects in the case, charging both the girl and
her 20-year-old boyfriend, identified only as OH, for the premeditated murder
of Nasir Mahmud, as according to Article 340 of the Criminal Code (KUHP).
The head of the Gorontalo Police Criminal Investigation Unit, Adj. Comr. Indra
Feri Dalimunthe, said if she is convicted the girl could face 10 years
imprisonment since she was underage, but OH, if he is also found guilty, could
be punished with life imprisonment or get the death penalty.
(source: Jakarta Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 15 14:15:14 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 15 May 2016 14:15:14 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605151415040.8628@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 15
SINGAPORE:
Imminent executions in Singapore and Indonesia must be halted
We the undersigned, human rights organizations, and concerned human rights
defenders condemn the imminent executions of Kho Jabing in Singapore and at
least 15 individuals which apparently includes, 4 Chinese nationals, 2
Nigerians, 2 Zimbabweans, 1 Senegalese, 1 Pakistani and 5 Indonesian nationals
in Indonesia. We call on the authorities of the 2 countries to halt the
impending executions.
On 12 May 2016, the family of Kho Jabing, a Malaysian national on death row in
Singapore, received a letter from the Singapore Prisons informing them that Kho
Jabing would be executed on 20 May 2016. Kho Jabing was convicted of murder in
2011. Of particular concern is the fact that there was a lack of unanimity in
sentencing Kho Jabing to death, which demonstrates that reasonable doubt exists
as to whether Kho Jabing deserved the death penalty.
As regards the imminent executions that will be taking place in Indonesia,
Indonesia would contravene her own international obligations under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Right by executing these
individuals.
The Association of South East Asian Nations Member States (???ASEAN???),
including Singapore and Indonesia, have continuously emphasized the importance
of the rule of law and the protection of rights. The death penalty therefore
stands out as an aberration.
In December 2014, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its latest
resolutions calling on all States to adopt a moratorium on the use of the death
penalty, with a view towards abolition. A record number of 117 Member States
supported the Resolution. Regrettably, Indonesia abstained and Singapore voted
against the Resolution. The ASEAN Member States must use the opportunity
presented by this Resolution to align themselves with the global movement
towards abolition.
Singapore has recently undergone its second Universal Periodic Review in
January 2016. The continued use of the death penalty was one of the key
highlights of the review, with Singapore receiving over 30 recommendations
related to the death penalty, including recommendations to abolish the death
penalty.
In 2015, Indonesia, a United Nations Human Rights Council Member until 2017,
executed 14 individuals convicted of drug-related offences amid strong
international opposition. The imminent executions would further damage
Indonesia's human rights record and erode her standing in the international
community.
The death penalty has no place in the 21st Century. Not only is there a real
possibility of wrongful executions, it deprives inmates of their life and
dignity, and creates new classes of victims. We strongly urge the governments
of Singapore and Indonesia to halt the upcoming executions, immediately impose
a moratorium on the use of the death penalty and take meaningful steps towards
its eventual abolition.
List of Signatories:
Anti-Death Penalty Network Asia (ADPAN)
Center for Prisoner's Rights Japan (CPR)
Community Action Network (CAN, Singapore)
Free Community Church (Singapore)
Function 8 (Singapore)
MADPET (Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture)
Maruah (Singapore)
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
Journey of Hope
Legal Aid Community (LBH Masyarakat, Indonesia)
Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights (MVFHR)
Ocean
Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan Indonesia (The Indonesian Center for Law and
Policy Studies)
Reprieve Australia
Sayoni (Singapore)
Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC)
Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM)
Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP)
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS, Indonesia)
The Indonesian Center for Law and Policy Studies (PSHK, Indonesia)
The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR, Indonesia)
The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy of Indonesia (ELSAM)
The National Human Rights Society, Malaysia (HAKAM)
Think Centre Singapore
We Believe in Second Chances (WBSC, Singapore)
(source: wordpress.com)
*****************
Questionable validity of the Court of Appeal in resentencing of death for Kho
Jabing
MADPET (Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture) in a letter to the press,
states that the questionable validity of the Court of Appeal that re-sentenced
Kho Jabing to death is enough reason for immediate stay of execution of Kho
Jabing that has been scheduled for Friday 20 May 2016
It states that the Justice Andrew Phang should not have sat on the 2 Court of
Appeal as such a judge who had previously heard and determined a case involving
the same accused person reasonably would not satisfy the conditions of an
independent and impartial tribunal.
It also noted that when Kho's case was sent to the High Court for re-sentencing
by the Court of Appeal, the judge that heard and considered the re-sentencing
was not the High Court judge that originally heard and convicted Kho Jabing.
This is considered to be most prejudicial to Kho Jabing as elements in the
trial, including demeanour can never be properly or comprehensively captured in
any Notes of Evidence/Proceedings and/or Judgments.
MADPET states that the only remedy to ensure that justice is really done is a
re-trial or a new trial, not merely a 're-sentencing' exercise. In light of the
amendment, a new trial is needed to ensure relevant evidence and submissions
are before the court.
Below is the full letter by Charles Hector, MADPET about its question on the
validity of the Court of Appeal on Kho Jabing's case and MADPET's call for the
commutation of the death sentence of Kho Jabing and all others currently on
death row in Singapore for murder.
MADPET is worried that Kho Jabing may be executed based on a possibly tainted
or invalid Court of Appeal judgment, which reversed the High Court decision
that commuted the death sentence to imprisonment and caning.
COURT OF APPEAL JUDGMENT TAINTED AND/OR VOID
Having perused the relevant judgments, MADPET discovered that one of the 5
judges, who reportedly sat in the coram of this Court of Appeal (Criminal
Appeal No 6 of 2013) that send Kho Jabing to the gallows again, also did sit as
judge in an earlier court case concerning Kho Jabing, being Criminal Appeal No
18 of 2010. The coram in the 2013 case was Chao Hick Tin JA, Andrew Phang Boon
Leong JA, Woo Bih Li J, Lee Seiu Kin J and Chan Seng Onn J, whilst the coram
for the 2010 case was Chan Sek Keong CJ, Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA and V K
Rajah JA, and as can be seen Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA was in the coram of
both Appeals.
Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, 'Everyone is
entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and
impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of
any criminal charge against him.' This necessarily implies that the judges must
be independent, impartial and unbiased, and as such a judge who had previously
heard and determined a case involving the same accused person reasonably would
not satisfy these important conditions, more so when the earlier Appeal in
which Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA was involved in was also the appeal against
conviction for the very same offence.
As such, Andrew Phang Boon Leong JA should never have been included in the
coram of the Court of Appeal that heard the appeal by the prosecution against
the decision of the High Court that re-sentenced Kho Jabing to imprisonment and
caning. Even, if Andrew Phang was appointed, the said Judge should have
appropriately recused himself on the basis that he was previously involved in a
case involving Kho Jabing. The relevant Court of Appeal judgment, which is
available to the public, never disclosed, that this point was even considered
by that Court. We recall the important principle that "justice should not only
be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done".
The presence of Andrew Phang in the coram of the Court of Appeal, that
overturned the re-sentencing High Court's decision, and re-sentenced Kho Jabing
to death, would possibly make that entire judgment invalid or 'void', and thus
restoring the High Court judgment that commuted the death sentence to
imprisonment.
Alternatively, even if Andrew Phang's vote is not to be taken into
consideration, the result would be a 2-2 decision, and as such again, the
prosecution's Appeal would have failed, and the High Court's decision will not
have been overturned, and Kho Jabing would be facing imprisonment and caning -
not death.
PREJUDICED WHEN RE-SENTENCING HIGH COURT JUDGE WAS DIFFERENT
Another concern with regard the Kho Jabing's case, was that when the case was
sent to the High Court for re-sentencing, the judge that heard and considered
the re-sentencing was not the High Court judge that originally heard and
convicted Kho Jabing.
Singapore Parliament, wisely appreciated the importance that it be the same
judge, possibly because that judge may have recalled elements in the trial,
including demeanour, which at the end of the day can never be properly or
comprehensively captured in any Notes of Evidence/Proceedings and/or Judgments.
In the Kho Jabing???s case, the original trial judge had retired, and hence
another judge heard the re-sentencing case. This fact, in itself, was most
prejudicial to Kho Jabing.
Further, even if the re-sentencing judge had been the same judge, noting the
lapse of time plus the fact the many other cases would have come before the
same judge, the question would be whether it was even reasonably possible for
the original judge in the Court of First Instance to effectively recall from
memory aspects of the said case that was not fully and clearly stated in
his/her written records.
RE-TRIAL NEEDED AFTER AMENDMENT TO ENSURE JUSTICE
Justice demands that, unless there is a re-trial, the death sentence of Kho
Jabing and all others before the amendment came into force should now be
commuted. The risk of miscarriage of justice, especially in cases where the
death sentence is retained, is just too high to be acceptable.
We see from the re-sentencing judgments of both the High Court, and the Court
of Appeal, the struggle the judges concerned had to undergo in order to
establish relevant facts that have now become relevant following the amendment,
that were really not relevant or not as relevant before the coming into force
of the new amendments.
Re-sentencing was needed, after Singapore amended the law concerning murder
vide Penal Code (Amendment) Act 2012 (Act 32 of 2012), which effectively
resulted in the ???repeal and re-enactment of section 302'. The law before the
amendment provided only the mandatory death penalty for murder (section 302).
Now after the amendment came into effect, not only was there now discretion of
the court with regard sentencing - death penalty or imprisonment with caning,
but also a consideration of other matters including mental capacity.
As such, reasonably re-sentencing simply based on the evidence adduced and
submissions made in the original trial is not possible and most dangerous -
there should rightly be a new trial or re-trial.
The presentation of the case, be it by the prosecution and/or the defence,
would reasonably be very different following the amendments. This was a
concern, which was also acknowledged and/or admitted by the Court of Appeal
that heard the re-sentencing Appeal, which amongst others said, 'Admittedly, as
that court [referring to Court of First Instance]was dealing with the
pre-amendment position, there was no reason for it to assess the savagery (or
otherwise) of the Respondent's actions; put simply, it was merely making its
findings of fact based on the evidence and submissions raised by the counsel
concerned'.
As such, the only remedy to ensure that justice is really done is a re-trial or
a new trial, not merely a 're-sentencing' exercise. In light of the amendment,
a new trial is needed to ensure relevant evidence and submissions are before
the court.
As such, in the absence of a re-trial or new trial, MADPET calls for the
commutation of the death sentence of Kho Jabing and all others currently on
death row in Singapore for murder.
The Singapore government, President, Attorney General/Public Prosecutor and/or
the Judiciary can and must take note of these serious concerns, irrespective of
whether there is any application in court by Kho Jabing, and immediately stay
the planned execution of Kho Jabing in the interest of justice.
MADPET, in light of the matters raised above, amongst others, the questionable
validity of Court of Appeal that reversed the High Court decision and
re-sentenced Kho Jabing to death, call for an immediate stay of execution of
Kho Jabing, which is now allegedly scheduled for this coming Friday(20/5/2016).
MADPET also urges Singapore to adhere to the 5 United Nations General Assembly
Resolutions, the first being in 2007 and the fifth being on 2014, whereby the
support has obviously grown over the years, calling for the abolition of the
death penalty, and for a moratorium pending abolition.
(source: theonlinecitizen.com)
*********************
Guilty As Charged: Dance hostess Mimi Wong murdered her Japanese lover's
wife----She was the 1st woman to get the death penalty in Singapore. Her
husband also went to the gallows for the murder
This story was first published in July 2015 in an e-book titled Guilty As
Charged: 25 Crimes That Have Shaken Singapore Since 1965. A collaboration
between The Straits Times and the Singapore Police Force, the e-book appeared
in The Straits Times Star E-books app. (Warning: Some content in these stories
may be disturbing for some individuals.)
The case of Mimi Wong (1970)
It was the night of Christmas 1969. Japanese mechanical engineer Hiroshi
Watanabe decided it was time for his wife Ayako to meet Mimi Wong Weng Siu, the
dance hostess who had been his lover in Singapore for the last 3 years. Mrs
Watanabe, 33, had flown into Singapore with their 3 young children only 2 days
before, to live with her husband here.
That Christmas night, Mr Watanabe drove his family to Wong's house at Everitt
Road.
It took some persuading from the Japanese to convince 31-year-old Wong to meet
his wife. She was angry and abused him. But after he spoke to her alone for 30
minutes, she finally relented.
Along with Wong's servant and her daughter by a Hong Kong businessman, they all
went out for dinner in his car. Wong also gave her lover's children sweets.
6 days later, on New Year's Eve, Wong even went to a party hosted by the
Watanabes at their Jalan Seaview semi-detached house.
But behind the pretence, Wong was writhing in jealousy.
She was convinced that her affair with Mr Watanabe, who had been assigned to
Singapore 3 years earlier to work on a reclamation project in the eastern part
of the island, would fizzle out now that his wife was in town.
Her hatred was fuelled by Mrs Watanabe allegedly calling her a prostitute at
the New Year's Eve party. On the evening of Jan 6, Wong returned to the Jalan
Seaview home, with her estranged husband, 37-year-old Sim Woh Kum, a sweeper in
financial difficulty. And they murdered Mrs Watanabe.
The killing was witnessed by her eldest daughter, 9-year-old schoolgirl Chieko.
She was the prosecution's star witness during the trial 10 months later.
: 'I saw blood on my mother's chest'
That night, Chieko said, her mother had tucked in the 3 siblings in a 1st-floor
bedroom, which was joined to a large bathroom. Her father was working overtime
at the reclamation site at the time.
As she lay awake on bed, Chieko heard voices, then footsteps on the ground
floor.
Then she heard screams coming from the bathroom.
"They were screams of pain from my mother."
She went to the bathroom and found her mother sitting on the floor.
"The man was pulling my mother's left hand and Obasan was pulling her right
hand." Obasan is Japanese for auntie - a name her father had suggested she call
Wong.
"I saw blood on my mother's chest. I cried and Obasan covered my mouth with her
hand. I stopped crying and she released me."
Her mother sustained 2 fatal stab wounds - 1 gashed the neck and the other
penetrated her abdomen.
Chieko went back to the room to wake her 6-year-old brother, but he continued
to sleep.
Then she saw Wong and Sim run down the stairs.
"My mother stood in the bathroom. She staggered a few paces and fell. I thought
she was dead."
Her siblings were soon awake.
"All 3 of us stood outside the bathroom and cried. We were still crying there
when Father got back."
When Mr Watanabe returned to the house, he was greeted by the wails of his
children. He ran up and saw them standing outside the bathroom. Inside, he saw
his wife, who was wearing a red dress, lying in a pool of blood.
Mr Watanabe asked Chieko what happened.
"My father asked me who did it. I replied: 'Obasan and a man whom I did not
know'."
Sim was a stranger to Chieko, but she later picked him out from an
identification parade as the man she saw struggling with her mother.
Sim's confession
Sim said that Wong first spoke to him about the plan to murder Mrs Watanabe on
Jan 2, and offered him money.
On the night of Jan 6, they took a taxi to the victim's home. Wong had given
Sim a tin half-filled with toilet-cleaning liquid. In her bag, she had a pair
of gloves and a knife.
When Mrs Watanabe asked what she wanted, Wong told her that she had brought a
workman to repair a broken toilet basin.
She let them in.
"I threw the liquid into the eyes of the woman," said Sim. "Wong stabbed her
with a knife. The victim shouted - probably in pain - and covered her face with
both palms while on the ground."
To keep Mrs Watanabe quiet, Sim covered her mouth but she bit his finger. That
was also when Chieko saw him.
"After stabbing her (Mrs Watanabe) to death, Wong ran away. I chased her to the
mouth of the road. We got a taxi..."
The next morning, Sim was arrested. Blood was found on a pair of trousers he
had. It was found to be Type A, the same as that of the murdered woman.
During the trial, he also revealed his difficult relationship with Wong, with
whom he had 2 sons. A year after their marriage, he said Wong assaulted his
mother.
"This led my mother to dub her as 'empress daughter-in-law'",he said.
Sim never dared start a quarrel because "Wong would attempt to strike me".
"When I saw her in an aggressive mood, taking up a knife or stick, I would run
for safety."
The 1 occasion when he was hit with a breadknife left a scar.
Their youngest son was less than 2 years old when Wong left him in 1963, before
becoming a bar waitress. He said she would strut with her boyfriends in front
of him.
"I advised her to refrain from such an action. I was hoping she would return to
me."
'He killed her'
Wong put the blame for the death of Mrs Watanabe on her "greedy" husband.
After spending the morning and evening drinking, she said she went to the
victim's home "just to slap her". It was not only because of what Mrs Watanabe
had said about her, but also to give the woman another reason to complain to
her husband. Wong said she wanted Mr Watanabe to end the affair.
She brought Sim along as protection, even though she hated him, because Mr
Watanabe had told her most Japanese knew judo. She was afraid that this was
true of Mrs Watanabe.
At the doorway of the children's bedroom, she slapped Mrs Watanabe. They were
fighting in the bathroom when she claimed Sim threw the liquid at them.
"I asked Sim to run away but he refused."
She decided to leave and tripped down the stairs. It was only when she was
outside that Sim joined her.
"If I had not been drinking that day, this incident would never have arisen,"
she said, insisting there was no way she could have stabbed Mrs Watanabe.
"I am only a woman and have also not the strength to stab her especially when
she was biting my left finger and grabbing and scratching my right hand."
Wong also denied being a member of an all-woman secret society known as the Red
Butterfly Gang - an accusation which had been made by Sim.
Testifying for the defence, psychiatrist Dr Wong Yip Chong said Wong had seemed
prepared to be the "subordinate woman" in Mr Watanabe's life.
He said she tried to be nice to Mrs Watanabe, even sending her presents through
Mr Watanabe.
But the wife "was not only downright ungrateful, but also insulting and
humiliating to Wong", said the doctor.
This affected Wong, whom he said could have been suffering from a viral brain
infection. She could have caught the Japanese encephalitis virus from Mr
Watanabe, he added.
Worried husband
In court, Mr Watanabe described his lover as a "lady with a forceful
temperament" and a "strong drinker who could hold her drinks".
While his wife disapproved of the affair, he said he could not end it suddenly.
"Wong had hinted to me on several occasions in angry tones that if I were to
sever my ties with her, something drastic would befall me or any member of my
family."
He admitted he was thinking of leaving her, and that she suspected this.
On the day of the murder, Mr Watanabe had dinner with Wong at their Everitt
Road place at 7.30pm.
She asked him if he would be staying the night. He spurned her, saying he would
be going home to his family.
He also said that after his wife's death, Wong, who had a flair for hysterics,
saw him at the Criminal Investigation Department.
She knelt on the floor.
"She told me in English: 'I am sorry. Give me see your wife, can or not? That
night I drunk. I love you true. You told me everything finished."
The verdict
After a trial lasting 26 days, Wong and Sim were convicted of murder and
sentenced to death on Dec 7, 1970.
Wong became the 1st woman to receive the capital punishment from a Singapore
court. Both showed no emotion.
After unsuccessful appeals - including one to President Benjamin Sheares - both
went to the gallows at Changi Prison on Jul 27, 1973.
They were buried side by side.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who was Mimi Wong?
Police found that she was the daughter of her father's 2nd wife. She was just
11 months old when he died.
At 14, she was already working as a packer.
She was 17 when she met Sim Woh Kum at a picnic. In 1958, when she was 19, they
married.
A year later she gave birth to a son. In 1962, another son came.
Money was tight, and she had to do odd jobs in restaurants. Her husband lost
his job after he was caught gambling.
She left him and became a dance hostess.
In 1966, she met Mr Hiroshi Watanabe. She claimed she got pregnant and he
refused to give her money for an abortion, saying he had none. After she went
to Penang for an abortion, Mr Watanabe continued the relationship.
During their affair, she met a Hong Kong businessman and fell head over heels
for him. He took her to Hong Kong. Even so, she still continued to send Mr
Watanabe love letters. When she got pregnant, her Hong Kong lover kicked her
out.
She returned to Singapore and gave birth to a daughter. Mr Watanabe continued
to visit her.
She worked as a social escort for a time to make ends meet.
In the middle of 1969, she became Mr Watanabe's mistress. He gave her $200 a
month, and rented a room at Alexandra Road for her. A few months later, they
moved to Everitt Road. She even hired a servant.
(source: straitstimes.com)
TAIWAN:
Execution does not get to the root of the problem
I do not know whether others with this same avocation might agree with me. I
can tell you, however, that without a strong sense of emotion, I cannot offer
words that are worth reading.
That is one of the lessons I've learned as a writer of a weekly column, the
avocation I just mentioned. Only recently did I discover that the word
"avocation" is connected to the notion of "distraction." An avocation is
supposed to distract us as a hobby does, so that we can rest from our work and
afterward throw ourselves into it with more gusto. I hope to return to this
notion below.
I am asking myself how to drum up a few readable words for today. I mentioned
strong emotions. Don't I have any strong emotions about recent local news? I
do.
But this could be a very big order to deliver. Readers may not be receptive to
my views today. I sense I will alienate many of you. I am truly sorry if that
occurs.
I cannot imagine gobs of cheering Bauer fans leaping from behind bushes and
rushing up to me with open arms and saying, "Good for you for expressing flat
out, unvarnished, gut-felt aversion to what our legal system did to Cheng Chieh
this week."
The truth is I've plenty of emotion about the execution of Cheng Chieh.
Revenge is Dehumanization
I am well aware that I am in a tiny minority (perhaps as small as 15 percent of
the general population) opposed to the death penalty in Taiwan. And, yes, I
know that numerous folks who consider themselves broad-minded, caring
individuals, possibly even Biblically minded Christians (and remember we
Catholics are Christians, too) with an espoused appreciation for the value and
dignity of human life will insist that Cheng Chieh was nothing but a
blood-thirsty monster, a psychopath, and a demon, all rolled into one. But Mr.
Cheng still shared a common humanity with all the rest of us.
believe barbaric retribution for barbaric acts does no lasting good, nor brings
any true healing for anyone. Capital punishment is not an expression of a
society's will to punish, but to take bloody revenge. For me, revenge is always
dehumanizing, always harmful in itself.
My cynical side wants to engage in banter. Mr. Cheng killed 4, seriously
wounded 22, and traumatized millions. For heaven's sakes, the Ministry of
Justice offered terrific rationale for shooting the man dead.
Don't you agree?
Now that this miscreant has been squished out of existence, our quality of life
is immensely upgraded. We're riding in first class! We can breathe easily in
public, and enjoy the benefits of a kind, secure, silk-lined society. Our MRT
lines are safer now than the streets of heaven above.
And my, my, aren't you also proud of what we "the people" have done? We gave
that animal exactly what it deserved, and boy, that sure satisfies our most
blessed urges. He got his, all right, and we say, hurray!
Media said they had him lie face down and shot him 3 times through his back,
the bullets smacking him in the old ticker. And not only that! A doctor
attending Cheng supposedly took advantage of a last opportunity to scold him.
Wow, that's my kind of doctor. That particular news item really warmed my
heart.
Satire is so culturally related that I must defend myself here. Several
paragraphs above, from "My cynical side" until "warmed my heart," is an attempt
at satire. I mean no offense. I rely on intelligent editors and readers who are
capable of grasping a literary strategy.
Here is a bit more: Imagine potentially violent criminals in Taiwan this week
when they read the headlines, "MRT murderer executed." Can't you just close
your eyes and see these guys shake in their boots? The threat of violence
against them probably caused upset stomachs and migraine headaches. End of
satire.
The name of the game, my friends, is distraction. Arguments about the death
penalty distract us from devoting our efforts to educate young people on how to
be parents. Our arguing distracts us from our desperate need to develop vastly
more competent professional counselors who can reach out into society and
pro-actively deal with aberrant behavior before it gets out of hand as it did
with Cheng Chieh.
Our quarreling distracts us quite nicely, thank you, from our need to attack
the roots of sickness and violence where they thrive, which is in our families
and the emotionally impoverished pockets of our own neighborhoods.
(source: Father Daniel J. Bauer SVD is a priest and associate professor in the
English Department at Fu Jen Catholic University; The China Post)
PHILIPPINES:
Duterte vows to bring back death penalty
Philippines President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to reintroduce capital
punishment and give security forces permission to shoot to kill.
The controversial policies are the latest in a series from the soon-to-be
leader, including bans on alcohol and smoking and a curfew for children.
He has also promised to turn the presidential palace into a hospital.
Mr Duterte was nicknamed "The Punisher" for his record as the crime-crushing
mayor of the southern town of Davao.
More than 1,000 criminals were killed by security forces in Davao during Mr
Duterte's stewardship.
Speaking at a press conference in the town, Mr Duterte, 71, said: "What I will
do is to urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging."
He said permission to shoot to kill would be given for organised crime figures
and people resisting arrest.
Mr Duterte courted controversy throughout his election campaign, threatening to
kill drug dealers and dump them in Manila Bay.
He vowed to give himself and members of the security forces immunity from
prosecution after leaving office, saying: "Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for
the crime of multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte."
Last month a video emerged showing the candidate joking about a Australian
woman who was raped and murdered in Davao while he was mayor, saying she was so
beautiful "the mayor should have been 1st".
In 2015, Human Rights Watch described Mr Duterte as the "death squad mayor" for
his strong-arm tactics in Davao.
(source: BBC news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 09:21:04 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 09:21:04 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., UTAH
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605160920510.5348@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma trial set in death of 'Cathouse' HBO star, 3 others
It's been almost 7 years since the bodies of a prostitute featured on the HBO
reality series "Cathouse" and 3 other people were discovered inside a burning
1-story brick Oklahoma City home that authorities later said was the center of
a drug distribution and prostitution ring.
Come Monday, jury selection begins in the trial of 2 men who prosecutors say
were involved in the Nov. 9, 2009, deaths of TV celebrity Brooke Phillips,
Milagros Barrera, Jennifer Lynn Ermey and Casey Mark Barrientos.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Denny Edward Phillips and Russell
Lee Hogshooter on 6 counts of 1st-degree murder - Brooke Phillips and Barrera
were both 22 and pregnant - and 1 count of conspiracy. The men have pleaded not
guilty.
Brooke Phillips, who wasn't related to Denny Phillips, was among the employees
featured on the cable network's show about the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal
brothel near Carson City, Nevada.
"There's lasting memory," business owner Dennis Hof said. "We just loved this
girl. This was a girl with no drugs, didn't drink hardly at all. It's totally
mindboggling. This girl who didn't do any drugs got killed because she was in a
drug house."
All of the victims were repeatedly shot and their bodies were set on fire.
Phillips and 25-year-old Ermey were also repeatedly stabbed. Prosecutors allege
that Barrientos, 32, was the target of the attack and that the women were
killed to eliminate witnesses.
2 other men entered guilty pleas and are serving prison time for their roles in
the deaths. Denny Phillips' defense attorney, Bill Smith, said he expects the
trial to last up to 6 weeks but declined further comment. Defense attorneys for
38-year-old Hogshooter did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
Hof and others who worked with Brooke Phillips at the Moonlite BunnyRanch said
the upcoming trial revives memories of her and the shock they felt when they
learned of her violent death.
"It's the saddest day in BunnyRanch history," he said. "That sad day just keeps
going on. It just doesn't go away."
Phillips, known professionally as Hayden Brooks, was "very outgoing," Hof said,
and "loved to have fun."
A co-worker, professionally known as Caressa Kisses, said she trained Phillips
and worked alongside her the entire time she worked at the Moonlite BunnyRanch.
Phillips was at the legal brothel for about 2 years and left about 2 months
before she died.
"She just glowed beauty and radiated love," said Caressa, 29, who became
emotional as she remembered Phillips' life. "She was a very beautiful girl. She
was absolutely passionate about life."
Caressa said she "got sick" when she learned how Phillips had died. "She left a
safe place where she was loved," she added.
Testimony during earlier hearings revealed that Denny Phillips, 37, and one of
the men who pleaded guilty were allegedly involved in illegal drug sales with
Barrientos. Denny Phillips' former girlfriend, Karine Sanders, testified the
men became upset with the amount of money they were receiving for their work
and came up with a scheme to kill him.
Phillips was already serving a 7-year federal prison sentence on charges
related to a 2010 shootout when he was charged in the deaths.
(source: Associated Press)
UTAH:
Utah May be Forced to Use the Firing Squad in Future Executions
Utah is one step closer to returning to the firing squad as its only realistic
form of capital punishment.
The Pfizer drug company has announced that it will no longer make available
several of its drugs for use in state-sanctioned executions. Pfizer was the
only U.S. firm still making, and allowing, drugs used in executions.
18 months ago Utah Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, got his HB11 passed into law. It
specifically says if lethal drugs aren't available at the time a death warrant
is to be imposed, then the form of execution shall be a firing squad.
In the 2016 Legislature retiring Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, had SB189,
which would have done away with the death penalty in Utah from this time
forward.
Those already sentenced to death could still be executed.
SB189 passed in the Senate, but never got a vote by the whole House.
An anti-death penalty group estimates that it costs $1.6 million for Utah to go
through all the of court appeals in a capital case, much more than it would
cost to keep a convicted murderer in prison for life.
Urquhart and others argued that the death penalty is archaic and that modern
DNA and other criminal high-tech detection shows some people are convicted of,
and executed for, crimes they did not commit.
Since 1975, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, Utah has
executed 7 murderers and have 9 currently on death row awaiting execution.
With the international drug firm's decision over the weekend, it now appears
those Utah murderers, if they are finally executed, will be killed by firing
squad.
(source: utahpolicy.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 09:21:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 09:21:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605160921410.5348@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
SINGAPORE
Grant Clemency to Death Row Inmate ---- Sentencing of Kho Jabing Violated Fair
Trial Rights
Singapore President Tony Tan should urgently grant clemency to death row
prisoner Kho Jabing, who is due to be executed on May 20, Human Rights Watch
said today. Jabing was convicted of the murder of Cao Ruyin in 2007.
On April 5, 2016, the Court of Appeal, Singapore's highest court, dismissed Kho
Jabing's appeal. An Appeals Court panel in January 2015 had reversed, by 3 to
2, a High Court ruling overturning Kho Jabing's death sentence. At dispute was
whether his actions during a botched robbery had been done in "blatant
disregard of human life." At the time of Kho Jabing's conviction, Singapore law
imposed a mandatory death penalty for the offense, thus preventing the court
from considering the full circumstances of the crime.
"President Tan should grant clemency to Kho Jabing in recognition of sentencing
reforms under Singapore law," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. "The
death penalty is always cruel, and a man's life should not hinge on a legal
technicality."
Mandatory death sentences are contrary to the rights to a fair trial. As the
United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, stated in 2005, a mandatory death sentence "makes it impossible
[for the court] to take into account mitigating or extenuating circumstances
and eliminates any individual determination of an appropriate sentence in a
particular case .... The adoption of such a black-and-white approach is
entirely inappropriate where the life of the accused is at stake."
In 2012, Singapore's parliament amended the Penal Code to provide courts with
some discretion in sentencing certain categories of murder, including murder
without intent. Since the change of law was considered retroactive, Kho Jabing
sought a review of his death sentence, stating the murder had not been
pre-meditated, and there had been no "blatant disregard for human life." In
August 2013, the High Court agreed, and re-sentenced Kho Jabing to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Kho Jabing's accomplice in the crime,
Galing Anak Kujat, had his conviction for murder overturned, and the court
re-sentenced him for committing robbery with hurt, and sentenced him to 18
1/2years in prison, and 19 strokes of the cane.
Singapore is one of few countries that retains the death penalty, claiming
without evidence that capital punishment deters crime. Human Rights Watch
opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and
irreversibility.
"Singapore's continued use of the death penalty has no place in a modern
state," Robertson said. "President Tan should cut through the complexities and
controversies of this case and grant Kho Jabing clemency so that he is
imprisoned for life."
(source: Human Rights Watch)
******************
Grant Clemency to Death Row Inmate
Singapore President Tony Tan should urgently grant clemency to death row
prisoner Kho Jabing, who is due to be executed on May 20, Human Rights Watch
said today. Jabing was convicted of the murder of Cao Ruyin in 2007.
On April 5, 2016, the Court of Appeal, Singapore's highest court, dismissed Kho
Jabing's appeal. An Appeals Court panel in January 2015 had reversed, by 3 to
2, a High Court ruling overturning Kho Jabing's death sentence. At dispute was
whether his actions during a botched robbery had been done in "blatant
disregard of human life." At the time of Kho Jabing's conviction, Singapore law
imposed a mandatory death penalty for the offense, thus preventing the court
from considering the full circumstances of the crime.
"President Tan should grant clemency to Kho Jabing in recognition of sentencing
reforms under Singapore law," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "The death penalty is always cruel, and a man's life should
not hinge on a legal technicality."
Mandatory death sentences are contrary to the rights to a fair trial, Human
Rights Watch said. As the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions, stated in 2005, a mandatory death sentence
"makes it impossible [for the court]to take into account mitigating or
extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an
appropriate sentence in a particular case.... The adoption of such a
black-and-white approach is entirely inappropriate where the life of the
accused is at stake."
In 2012, Singapore's parliament amended the Penal Code to provide courts with
some discretion in sentencing certain categories of murder, including murder
without intent. Since the change of law was considered retroactive, Kho Jabing
sought a review of his death sentence, stating the murder had not been
pre-meditated, and there had been no "blatant disregard for human life."
In August 2013, the High Court agreed, and re-sentenced Kho Jabing to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Kho Jabing's accomplice in the crime,
Galing Anak Kujat, had his conviction for murder overturned, and the court
re-sentenced him for committing robbery with hurt, and sentenced him to 18 1/2
years in prison, and 19 strokes of the cane.
Singapore is 1 of few countries that retains the death penalty, claiming
without evidence that capital punishment deters crime. Human Rights Watch
opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and
irreversibility.
"Singapore's continued use of the death penalty has no place in a modern
state," Robertson said. "President Tan should cut through the complexities and
controversies of this case and grant Kho Jabing clemency so that he is
imprisoned for life."
(source: theonlinecitizen.com)
*****************
Death sentence is a lazy form of penalty that does not prevent crimes
Death sentence in recent time has been an issue of contention of whether it is
an effective mean to deter crime and whether it is a crime against humanity for
taking a life from another.
Of course, some would argue that its an eye for an eye and the person deserve
the penalty, the victim's family too would desire the person to be put to
death. In cases of drug trafficking, people would then argue that the drug
mules need to be taken to task for causing families to break up due to the drug
addiction, never mind the fact that drug lords are never taken to task.
First, I would like to do a test with the reader on where he or she stands on
the death penalty.
Say a murderer who killed 7 kids in cold blood, is on the loose after a trial
and found guilty of his offence. A passer-by manages to catch the murderer
sleeping on a bench, recognises the person from the media reports and then
proceeds to stab the murderer in his sleep over thirty over times, causing the
murderer to die from his injuries.
Should the passer-by be charged for murder?
The purpose of this test is to ask the reader to judge for themselves, where
they stand on death penalty, due justice or just vengeance.
In my opinion, death sentence does nothing to change what has happened and
relinquish the responsibility of the law enforcement agency and relevant
agencies to reduce the possibility of such an offence to happen again.
Take an actual case for an example, Mr Chia Kee Chen murdered Mr Dexmon Chua in
December 2013 due to an affair that Chua had with Chia's wife. Just 5 months
prior to the murder, the police was notified by the deceased in July, of a dark
purple Hyundai car had been parked below his block, and its driver staring at
his flat. It is said that the car belongs to Chia's nephew but Chia often
borrowed it.
When TOC wrote to the police to ask what actions did the police take in
response to Chua's police report on the stalking, the police declined to
respond, saying that such details are confidential.
While it is not to say that the police could have prevented the murder of Mr
Chua if they had found out that it was Mr Chia who is stalking him and gave him
a warning which would deter him from carrying out his deed of murder. But
regardless, there still should be a review on what could have been done more.
The common idea is to have death penalty as a way of coming to terms for the
victim's family, I beg to differ, I feel it is a way of come to terms for
society at large for their inability and helplessness to prevent such a crime
from happening.
I do feel that some people deserve to die for the atrocities that they commit
on others but if you take out the emotional aspect away from the issue, a death
sentence is just a lazy way to end a criminal case that has no bearing on
future cases that have yet take place. The public will just move on with life
after a criminal has been sentenced to death, but what about measures to
prevent such an incident from happening?
In the horrific killing of a 4-year-old Taiwanese girl, Taiwanese
president-elect Tsai Ing-Wen did not call for the death of the killer but
instead, she penned this statement for the deceased. "Little lightbulb
(nickname for the 4-year-old girl), auntie (referring to herself) will not let
your sacrifice go to waste, this society has a lot of broken holes, I will use
all my effort to patch them up."
Let us not kid ourselves further with the myth that by imposing death penalty,
one will not commit the said crime. It might hold true for offences such as
drug trafficking and possession of firearms.
Jeffrey Fagan, a professor of law at Columbia University in the US is quoted to
have said that he believed that there was no evidence that showed the death
penalty deterred.
He said, "Even when executions are frequent and well-publicised, there are no
observable changes in crime. Executions serve only to satisfy the urge for
vengeance. Any retributive value is short-lived, lasting only until the next
crime."
And according to a 2009 survey of members of the American Criminology Society,
who were asked to limit their answers to their understanding of the empirical
research and to exclude their personal opinions. That study found that over 88
% of the criminologists did not believe the death penalty deterred murderers.
The study concluded by saying, "In short, the consensus among criminologists is
that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that
of long-term imprisonment."
For advocates of death penalty, I have 2 questions to ask.
1 - What if the person is later proven to be innocent?
I was speaking to a police inspector at Jurong Police Division after filing a
police report, he was lamenting on how many cases he has to take up a day, 4 a
day and if he doesn't clear them, the cases will just pile up. So on judging on
this anecdotal point, how much time and effort can one afford to put on a case?
How much of a legal defence can an accused put up against the state prosecutors
who believe that they have a case?
Prominent criminal lawyer, Mr Subhas Anandan in his book, "It's easy to cry",
wrote "We need to get DPPs who are experienced enough, who have seen the world
and who understand the complexity of human nature to come to the right
decisions. Instead, we have a lot of what we. at the Defence Bar, call "scholar
nerds" - These are people who don't understand anything except that it is the
law and this is how it goes. They do not know how to exercise discretion."
If one is sentenced to life imprisonment, there is still a chance to redress
any possible misjudgement but a death sentence is a just sorry too late. There
are just too many real life stories of people wrongly convicted of their crimes
to take chances.
2 - Why limit the use of death penalty on penal codes?
If the death penalty is really such an effective tool in stopping murders and
loss of life. Why not impose death penalty on driving under the influence of
drink or drug that results in loss of life?
In 2013, a driver overdosed on a tranquilising and sedative drug and killed 4
persons.
Under the current law, for those convicted of causing death by reckless or
dangerous driving is liable for imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years.
And for driving under the influence of drink or drugs, 1 is liable on
conviction to a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $5,000 or to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months and, in the case of a 2nd or
subsequent conviction, to a fine of not less than $3,000 and not more than
$10,000 and to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months.
So given that it why not impose death penalty for such drivers? If they knew
the penalty that awaits them, wouldn't they have reconsidered their actions?
How fair is it to the motorists and pedestrians who had to die due to their
wanton action. Would you agree on this? And do the Member of Parliaments who
strongly support the use of death penalty on drug offences, agree on this as
well?
If death penalty is really so efficient and useful, why are countries around
the world dropping this penalty from their penal code? But are their murder
rates rising through the roof? Just google and see if there is any evidence
that shows this. On the contrary, studies have shown that murder rates are
lower in countries that have abolished death penalty.
I quote from Kate Allen's write-up on the death penalty that was published in
the Guardian,
"The argument that capital punishment is a deterrent against people committing
murder is one of the most stubborn myths about the death penalty. Global
research by the United Nations and numerous academics has repeatedly shown this
to be untrue. It's also very hard to square a belief in the "deterrence effect"
with the fact that in the US, for example, death penalty-using states such as
Texas have significantly higher homicide rates than states where the death
penalty has been abolished.
There is no unique deterrent effect in having a hangman's noose in a justice
system, and a large proportion of murders are in any case rush-of-blood
killings with little premeditation. What is unique about capital punishment is
its chilling finality. Once carried out there is no turning back. A wrongly
jailed prisoner can be released, pardoned, and given damages. A wrongly
executed one becomes a judicial tragedy."
Is Singapore going to hold on to a myth that if death penalty is removed,
people will say, "Oh, it is just life imprisonment, no worries, let's go and
kill some people." or "Let's traffic some arms, since its only life
imprisonment"?
Does death penalty advance the society in seeking new solutions to issues of
crime or simply put a full stop on the questions by the death of the
perpetrator?
Just like the story of the fishing village to metropolis, this should be one of
the myths that Singaporeans have to ask themselves if they want to face the
facts upfront and confront the issue as a country or to live happily ever
after, knowing that someone just have to die under the death penalty so to give
an impression of a safe country for their families.
(source: Terry Xu, theonlinecitizen.com)
*********************
Boo Junfeng's Singapore death penalty film stirs emotions in Cannes
Before he made his new film about the death penalty, Boo Junfeng sat down to
tea with some of Singapore's retired hangmen.
He also talked to the priests and imams who helped condemned prisoners make
their last walk to the gallows.
And most difficult of all, the young film-maker spent years trying to reach
through the curtain of shame to families who had lost fathers and sons to the
hangman's rope.
But it was only after Boo, whose film premieres at the Cannes Film Festival on
Monday, met one particularly "humane" executioner that he had an epiphany.
He realised that no movie has ever dealt with the whole horrible business from
the perspective of the man who pulls the lever.
"I had already started to write (the film) but after I met the 1st hangman I
couldn't write for 3 months. What completely threw me was how much I enjoyed
his company," said Boo.
"He was not like I thought. He was likeable, charismatic, grandfatherly jocular
and open about what he did. He took pride in the almost caring way he looked
after the prisoners trying to make it as humane as he could, and I realised how
difficult that was.
"He really shook up my ideas and forced me to rethink everything."
So Boo took his film - which he toiled over for 5 years - 1 step further.
Apprentice has a shocking twist. It is the story of a young man who ended up
learning the executioner's trade from the man who opened the trapdoor on his
own father.
More surprising still is the intensity of the almost father-son relationship
that develops between the young prison guard and the hangman.
"He is in some ways searching for his father," Boo said. "And in doing that he
finds this man. What I was going for was human truth. I didn't want to make it
an activist film."
The death penalty is nevertheless a hot political issue in Singapore and in
neighbouring Indonesia, particularly when foreigners have fallen foul of strict
anti-drug smuggling laws.
The execution of 7 foreigners in Bali last year - including 2 Australians and a
mentally ill Brazilian - sparked an international outcry, and several others,
including a British woman and a Frenchman, are still on death row there.
Boo said he began his research with the book Once A Jolly Hangman, which
features Darshan Singh, Singapore's chief executioner for nearly 50 years who
once executed 18 men in 1 day.
Its British author Alan Shadrake was arrested the morning after the book's
Singapore launch in 2010 and was held for a month in Changi prison for
insulting the country's judiciary.
He had criticised the way he claimed the death penalty was disproportionately
applied to the poor, while well-connected criminals and wealthy foreigners
escaped the noose.
Boo shot the prison scenes in disused prisons in Australia to avoid controversy
in the tiny city state, where an estimated 95 % of the population still support
the death penalty.
"It would have been easy to make a film about the death penalty itself, but
it's much bigger than that. I learned so much about the value of human life"
from making the movie.
Boo, 32, one of a new wave of talented Singapore film-makers, said his friends
who are against the death penalty "may be disappointed by the film", which is
showing in the Certain Regard section at Cannes.
"I took myself out of the comfort zone to address the issue from a different
point of view. I don't have a view myself. Because the humanity behind the
issue is so much more complex," said Boo, whose semi-autobiographical first
feature Sandcastle was a hit at the French festival in 2009.
"Apprentice took so long because I had so much to learn, so many things were
beyond my experience and very few people really knew (about this world)... And
unfortunately almost of them are not around" to tell the tale.
(source: Agence france-Presse)
PHILIPPINES:
Philippine bishops tell Duterte not to play God ---- Lipa archbishop says he
will offer himself to be executed in place of those the government will hang
Several Philippine Catholic church leaders are tamping down the plan of
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to revive the death penalty once he assumes
office on June 30.
"Only God has power over life. God gives life and God takes life. No one should
play God," said Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga.
The prelate, who heads the Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of
Migrants and Itinerant People, said life is sacred and should be "promoted,
respected, and protected."
In his 1st press conference since election day, Duterte said he will ask
Congress to pass a law that will restore the death penalty for certain crimes.
"What I would do is to urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging,"
said Duterte.
He said death by hanging will instill fear among criminals and is "virtually
painless (because) once the spine is ripped off inside it's over, just like
putting off a light."
The former mayor of Davao, who has been dubbed "The Punisher" for his tough
stance on crime, said criminals involved in illegal drugs, gun-for-hire
syndicates, and those who commit "heinous crimes" will have to face the death
sentence.
The Catholic Church has been against reviving capital punishment.
Bishop Santos said instead of reviving the death penalty, Duterte should
instead initiate prison reforms and review the country's justice system.
Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa said he will volunteer himself to be
executed in place of those the government will hang.
"Didn't Christ do that?" Archbishop Arguelles asked, adding that if the new
administration revives capital punishment "Catholic Philippines will be
merciless in the Year of Mercy."
The Philippines placed a moratorium on capital punishment in 2001 and 5 years
later downgraded the sentences of 1,230 death-row inmates to life imprisonment
in what Amnesty International described as the "largest ever commutation of
death sentences."
(source: ucanews.com)
EGYPT:
Egypt sentences 6 inmates for beating jailed Frenchman to death
An Egyptian court on Sunday handed down 7-year prison sentences to 6 men
convicted of beating to death a jailed Frenchman in 2013, while his family and
the defence have blamed the authorities.
49-year-old Eric Lang, who taught French in Cairo, died after a beating in a
cell on September 13, after spending 6 days in a Cairo police station.
Lang had been stopped on the street because he was not carrying identification
and was then detained because his visa was not valid.
Lang had remained in detention although the prosecution had ordered his release
a day after his arrest, family lawyer Raphael Kempf had said.
According to the prosecution's case, 6 inmates in his cell had beaten him to
death. They were convicted on Sunday of "assault leading to death," according
to the verdict read by a court official in Cairo.
Several of the defendants' lawyers had called into question the prosecution's
case, arguing the autopsy showed he had been beaten for more than six hours
with a rod, according to one of the lawyers, suggesting police involvement.
Lang's mother and sister had also cast doubts on the official account, and
filed complaints against two police officials and the interior minister over
the failure to rescue him.
"He was arrested, tortured, killed for nothing, and France did not help in
releasing him when he should have been extradited," Nicole Prost, Lang's
mother, said at an April 13 news conference in Paris.
The French government called for justice at the time.
"France is mobilized, in Paris like in Cairo, for the truth of this tragedy to
be uncovered, and to request that Egyptian authorities ensure us there would
not be impunity and that those responsible face justice," said a foreign
ministry spokesman.
Lang had been detained during a tense time in Cairo, when police and the
military had been out in force to quash protests by Islamist supporters of
deposed president Mohamed Morsi.
International and domestic rights organizations say the police regularly
torture and kill detainees and prisoners while in custody, something the
interior ministry denies.
The verdict on Sunday comes as Egypt fends off accusations of police
involvement in the death of Italian student Giulio Regeni, whose badly
mutilated body as found after he disappeared in Cairo in January.
Egypt has denied police were involved in Regeni's death, and its interior
ministry had suggested a criminal gang was behind his death, a theory ridiculed
in Italy.
Italy recalled its ambassador to Egypt, after accusing Cairo of not providing
all the information it needed to investigate Regeni's death.
(source: al-monitor.com)
NIGERIA:
Death penalty may not deter kidnapping - Yusuf Ali, other SANs
Some members of the National Assembly have recently proposed a bill seeking to
prescribe death penalty for kidnappers in the country just as lawyers argued
that the recipe for kidnapping is beyond the law writes WALE IGBINTADE.
The issue of capital punishment in Nigeria has generated lots of controversies.
This method of punishment which includes hanging, shooting and stoning is
imposed on those found guilty of committing crimes ranging from murder,
terrorism-related offenses, rape, robbery, kidnapping, treason, and mutiny.
Just recently the Senate resolved to add to the list by enacting a bill that
would make provisions for death penalty as the punishment for anyone caught in
the act of kidnapping. The resolution followed the adoption of a report by the
Joint Committee on Police Affairs and National Security and Intelligence
presented by its Chairman, Senator Abu Ibrahim. The Senate had on November 19,
2015, asked the committee to engage the Inspector General of Police (IG),
Solomon Arase, and Director-General of Department of State Services (DSS),
Mamman Daura, on recurrent cases of kidnapping and hostage taking, and
recommend its findings to the chamber. In his contribution, Senate Minority
Leader, Godswill Akpabio, noted that kidnapping became popular after former
Anambra State Governor and incumbent Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr.
Chris Ngige, was kidnapped in 2002. Speaking on the bill, Yusuf Ali SAN said
"the solution to kidnapping is more than just the law. There are socio-
economic issues that must be addressed. From experience, armed robbery has been
attracting death penalty from the 70s, yet we still have armed robbers.
So, we need to address our socio- economic problems, such as unemployment,
inequity, the gap between the rich and the poor these are serious issues we
must address. In his opinion, Chief Yemi Okulaja SAN, said "in America they
still kill and in China they still kill. All our laws are taken from the Holy
Books, you can always trace the origin of all the laws we have from the Bible.
So, if you kill you should be able to pay the penalty. You have deprived a man
of his life, so why should your life be saved? But, over time, we have had
human rights activists and they have been the ones coming out with all these
modifications. In America, it is a State by State basis, if you go to a State
like Texas, once you commit a crime and you are sentenced and on the death
roll, you will eventually be killed. I believe death penalty should be allowed
to stay because this punishment is to serve as a deterrent so that when you
know that you stand the risk of losing your life you will sit-up. Especially in
our country where impunity has been institutionalised, I believe death penalty
should still be part of our law. Justice is not a one- way traffic. If a man
kills and human rights activists are saying he should not be killed. We should
look at justice to the victims too. Mr. Norrison Quakers, SAN said "my take on
this is that we should go beyond just kidnapping and include official
corruption and criminal breach of trust incorporating politically exposed
persons, who loot and plunder our common wealth and inheritance by virtue of
their political off. The irony of our situation is that some of the legislators
are former chief executive officers of states. Can these persons enact a law
that will prejudice their interest?
Ponder on this. In his view the Chairman, League of Human Rights Lawyers
(LHRL), Jiti Ogunye, said "have capital punishment stopped armed robbery? It
has not. It is wrong to assume that severity of punishment including the
ultimate penalty, will act as deterrent to commission of crimes. It has no
historical foundation, it has no jurisprudential foundation, it has no
foundation in real life. So, in our jurisdiction, since the end of the Civil
war and the promulgation of the Robbery and Firearms Decree and the
establishment of the Robbery and Firearm have not stopped armed robbery.
"Tribunal throughout the entire military period before that tribunal were
abolished went civil rule returned to Nigeria and the execution of armed
robbers at bar CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 beach in various places all over the
country, armed robbery has not stopped. The toughening of law against
kidnapping alone will not dissuade prospective kidnappers from kidnapping.
Those who commit crime believe that they can escape. So, curtailing crimes is
not just a crime and punishment issue it is more important the law and order
issue and a socio- economic justice issue. If you want to check kidnapping you
need to check the rate of unemployment, and equip the law enforcement agencies.
In his view, Mr. Wale Adesokan said "my own view is that, it not the severity
of the penalty to an offence that curbs the offence but the mere certainty of
been caught.
So, it is more important for us to look at our criminal justice system, equip
our law enforcement agencies with equipment and right orientation. So that when
someone commits an offence he knows that the possibility of been caught is very
high. When the Criminal Justice procedure is set in motion, it is possible to
quickly conclude criminal matters. He delay in concluding criminal matters is a
major clog in the discouragement of criminal activities. If it is such that
will reform our criminal justice and ensure that criminal matters are concluded
between 9 months and 1 year, things will improve drastically. "So it is a
combination of improving the law enforcement capacity so those criminals are
caught when they commit criminal acts and also when they are taken to court,
the law are reformed such that can be concluded within one year. Those are the
2 things that will curb any criminal activity including kidnapping and not the
severity of the punishment. No matter the severity of the punishment if people
think they can get away with it they will continue".
(source: National Mirror)
PAKISTAN:
Who are we hanging?
Abdul Basit's story is the perfect representation of the worst flaws of the
legal and prison system in the country. The progression of his case and its
inherent injustices read like a script of the criminal justice system's
inability to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, the poor and the
disabled. Abdul Basit is a paraplegic prisoner in Pakistan's 6000 strong death
row. Despite being paralysed from the waist-down, the Government of Pakistan
has come within hours of executing him 3 times. The Government's conveyer belt
of executions since the lifting of the moratorium in December 2014 has claimed
the lives of 374 prisoners - only 1 in every 10 of who were charged with
offences related to terrorism. Last week, the Government informed the Superior
Courts of Pakistan that clemency has not been granted to even a single prisoner
on death row and over 444 mercy petitions for clemency have been rejected since
December 2014. It is, therefore, evident that the Government's execution policy
against its citizens has no room for any mercy, not even for a paralysed man.
Abdul Basit's case, like those of many others on death row, was defined by
collusion between the police and the influential relatives of the man he was
accused of murdering. Abdul Basit maintained his innocence till the very end of
his trial. However, both his appeals were rejected by the Superior Courts, and
he was awarded the death sentence.During his time in Faisalabad Central Jail,
Abdul Basit's health began deteriorating rapidly. Despite repeatedly
complaining of severe headaches and high fever, he was permanently ignored by
the staff at Faisalabad jail. His mother reported that her once able son would
scream in pain and bang his head against the wall. The jail authorities were
well aware that Basit was displaying symptoms of Tuberculosis Meningitis (TB),
having dealt with similar outbreaks in the past. However, they refused to take
any steps despite constant pleas from his family. To avoid his spreading the
disease to other inmates, jail authorities rather than getting him the
necessary treatment confined him to a solitary cell. It was only when Basit
lost consciousness from the severe pain, that he was transferred to the
District Head Quarter Hospital of Faisalabad.
Abdul Basit fell into coma for a duration of 3 weeks. His mother was finally
called by the jail authorities and was informed that her son had contracted
Tuberculosis Meningitis (TB). Sheer negligence by those in charge of regulating
the prisoners had caused him permanent damage. His medical records revealed
that he had become paralyzed from the waist down and would suffer life-long
repercussions of the decline in effectiveness of his spinal cord. It was also
learnt that he will never be able to walk again.Initially, several medical
practitioners classified his chances of recovery as 'minimal'. The Medical
Board that assembled to examine his condition on the 29th of July 2015
unequivocally concluded that he was likely to remain bed-ridden for the
remainder of his life. However, his latest medical report stating the final
opinion of another Medical Board convened at Faisalabad Jail on the 24th of
December, 2015, that chances for future recovery cannot be ruled out.
Abdul Basit's legal team at Justice Project Pakistan has repeatedly made the
legal assertion that his life cannot be taken away if heed is to be paid to the
Pakistan Prison Rules, which has even been acknowledged by the Superior Courts.
It is no secret that Rule 107(iv) of the Prison Rules 1978 grants mercy from
execution in cases of ill-health. Such an execution, if it materializes, would
be nothing but a bungled travesty. Even Basit's mother has painfully asserted
the gloomy notion that her son is now only half human since half of his body is
already paralyzed and non-functional. The Government has thrice attempted to
send him to the gallows in the past year, with the last execution being halted
by no less of an office than the presidency.
Abdul Basit's mother has repeatedly said that the years her son has spent in
jail are no less than death for him and his family. Abdul Basit entered prison
a free and able man. Since then he has lost his independence and his ability to
walk. He spends his days lying on the floor of a prison cell - dependent on
jail staff for basic functions like going to the bathroom. Does Basit really
deserve to be executed? The state that is legally and morally responsible for
the rights of all of its citizens needs to ask itself whether these measures
and their adverse repercussions are truly achieving the publically claimed
objective of fighting terrorism. Article 45 of the Constitution of Pakistan
grants the President of Pakistan the power to grant mercy to prisoners facing
execution. Basit's family, lawyers and the international and local human rights
community has repeatedly written to the President asking him to exercise this
power, but to no avail. The Government of Pakistan by this exercise of mercy
needs to demonstrate to its people that it is the true repository of their
fundamental rights and welfare.
(source: Azam Tarar; The writer is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of
Pakistan)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 09:27:41 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 09:27:41 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605160927290.5828@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
INDIA:
7 given death penalty in 2012 'witch' lynching case
7 persons, including a woman, were today sentenced to death and 6 others to
life imprisonment by a court in Ghatal for the 2012 lynching of 3 women of a
single family on suspicion of their being witches at a village in West
Midnapore district.
1 more person was sent to 9 years in jail by the court of SDJM Deboprosad Nath
in the sensational killing of the 3 women at Dubrajpur village under Daspur
police station area in June, 2012. FIRs were filed against a total 49 persons,
all residents of the same village which the slain women belonged to for
assaulting and torturing the victims to death after suspecting them to be
witches.
(source: Press Trust of India)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 09:42:29 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 09:42:29 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605160942160.8052@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
JAMAICA:
The death penalty is not the answer
National Security Minister Robert Montague recently said that his ministry is
taking steps "to determine if there are any legal impediments to the resumption
of hanging in Jamaica". He further stated that persons who intend to break the
law must know that "punishment will be sure, swift and just".
The minister's concern is understandable. When our country gained Independence
in 1962, our murder rate was 3.9 per 100,000, one of the lowest in the world.
In 2005, we had the dubious distinction of being the most murderous country in
the world, claiming a rate of 58 per 100,000 people. Our rate now hovers around
40 per 100,000.
Hanging is still legal in Jamaica, but was last carried out in 1988 at the St
Catherine District Prison. The death penalty was subjected to a moratorium that
year, but in 2008, Parliament voted to retain it. In Jamaica, the only offence
that warrants the death penalty is aggravated murder, and the punishment is
effected by hanging.
However, the resumption of hanging has been affected by a 1993 Privy Council
ruling stating that it is unconstitutional to have persons waiting for more
than 5 years after sentencing to be executed. Our Charter of Fundamental Rights
and Freedoms (Constitutional Amendment) Act in 2011 overturned that ruling, but
there still have not been any hangings here since.
So we find ourselves again debating the sensitive and controversial topic of
capital punishment. The overwhelming majority of Jamaicans will agree that
something must be done to curb our unacceptable crime rate, especially murders.
But is capital punishment the answer?
Today, only 36 countries actively practise capital punishment, with the United
Nations General Assembly calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a
view to their eventual abolition. However, although capital punishment is not
carried out in most countries, more than 60 % of the world's population live in
countries where executions take place.
Offences meriting the death penalty, termed capital offences, vary from country
to country, and include murder, treason, sodomy, human trafficking, apostasy
and atheism. The methods used also vary, and include hanging, shooting,
electrocution, lethal injection, beheading, and the use of gas chambers.
Objective research and analysis of relevant data, however, indicate that the
death penalty is not effective in deterring crime. A study performed in the
United States of America in 2008 found that 88 % of the nation's leading
criminologists did not believe that the death penalty is an effective
deterrent.
Subsequently, a report released in 2012 by the National Research Council of the
National Academies, based on a review of more than 3 decades of research,
concluded that studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates from the
death penalty are fundamentally flawed.
The report read: "The committee concludes that research to date on the effect
of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital
punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore,
the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations
requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide."
Indeed, in that country, states that have death-penalty laws do not have lower
crime or murder rates than states without such laws, and states that have
abolished capital punishment show no significant changes in either crime or
murder rates.
Apart from the absence of convincing evidence demonstrating deterrence, capital
punishment presents several other issues. The death penalty violates the right
to life. When a person takes the life of another, one may claim that they have
forfeited their right to live, a view held by many.
Unfortunately, the death penalty is also discriminatory, and is often used
against the most vulnerable in society, including the poor, the illiterate and
people with mental disabilities.
Where justice systems are flawed, as in Jamaica, the risk of executing an
innocent person is a distinct possibility. Once a person is executed, the
result is final. An innocent person can be released from prison for a crime
they did not commit, but an execution can never be reversed.
Since 1973, 156 innocent men and women have been exonerated and released from
death row in the United States, including some who came within minutes of
execution. One study found that approximately 4 % of persons sentenced to death
in that country are innocent, and there is strong evidence that at least a
dozen persons executed there over the past 40 years were actually not guilty,
including a man who was executed in Texas because the jury confused him for
another man with the same name and appearance.
In the United Kingdom, the death penalty was abolished partly because a man was
wrongfully executed for the murder of his wife and daughter in 1950.
Substandard legal counsel is also a factor, mainly affecting persons of lower
socio-economic status. A Columbia University study found that 68 % of all
death-penalty cases were reversed on appeal, with inadequate defence being one
of the main reasons requiring reversal.
Death-penalty trials, and the appeals processes that usually follow, are also
likely to be significantly more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of
life in prison without parole, and are longer, which would stress our already
cash-strapped and frustrating justice system, which perpetually experiences a
backlog of cases. Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma, and the
extended process of murder trials prior to executions often prolongs their
agony.
Even if the death penalty were an effective deterrent, with a murder conviction
rate of five per cent in Jamaica, and the levels of corruption in our politics
and police force, it would be ineffective, and punishment would not be "sure,
swift and just", as the minister suggested.
The most effective deterrent to crime is the likelihood of getting caught. We
need to focus instead on methods to reduce crime and actually apprehend
perpetrators, rather than consider executions, which constitute revenge, rather
than justice.
(source: Michael Abrahams is an obstetrician and gynaecologist, comedian and
poet----Jamaica Gleaner)
PHILIPPINES:
Lifting of death penalty is Congress' call, says Palace
Malacanang on Monday said that it was up to Congress to decide on the
restoration of death penalty in the country.
Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. made the remark after presumptive
president Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte indicated his call for the
restoration of the death penalty.
"Lifting of the death penalty requires that the present law be amended. It is
best that this be tackled by the next Congress," Coloma said in a text message.
A report by Unang Balita said that Duterte wanted to revive the death penalty
for heinous crimes including robbery with rape.
Since the start of his term, President Benigno Aquino III has maintained his
opposition to death penalty.
In 2014, presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Aquino "has
reservations" due to flaws in the judicial system.
"Concerned tayo doon sa judicial system, hence, he [Aquino] has reservations on
death penalty. To the best of my knowledge, that position remains the same,"
Lacierda said then.
Although death penalty was abolished in the 1987 Constitution, it was
reinstated through Republic Act 7659, which imposes capital punishment on
certain heinous crimes, and RA 8177 provides for lethal injection as the means
of carrying out the death penalty.
In 2006, then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed Republic Act 9346
abolishing death penalty in the Philippines by repealing RA 7659.
(source: gmanetwork.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 18:48:19 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 18:48:19 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., OHIO, USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605161848090.5312@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
NORTH CAROLINA:
Judge: DA can seek death penalty in 2014 beating, burning of Greensboro man
3 aggravating factors have moved the Guilford County District Attorney's Office
to pursue the death penalty against a Greensboro man for a 2104 slaying.
Garry Joseph Gupton, 27, of 1312 Wiley Lewis Road, is charged with 1st-degree
murder and 1st-degree arson in the death of Stephen Patrick White, 46, of 1722
Aftonshire Drive, who died following a fire in a hotel room.
Prosecutor Robert Enochs said in Guilford County Superior Court on Monday that
he would pursue the death penalty because White's death was especially heinous,
atrocious and cruel; the crime was committed during the secondary crime of
arson; and the crime committed a great risk of death to other people, by
starting a fire in a hotel.
After listening to Enochs, Superior Court Judge David Hall announced there are
at least 2 aggravating factors in the case and that it qualifies for capital
punishment. The case was continued to an unspecified date. Gupton remains
jailed without bail.
Gupton and White met at Chemistry nightclub and gay bar in Greensboro on Nov.
8, 2014, then went to the Battleground Inn at 1517 Westover Terrace, police
said.
In court Monday, Enochs said Gupton beat White while he was still alive and
started a fire in the hotel room with a lighter.
White had burns on more than 1/2 his body, and his right arm below his elbow
and his left arm below the shoulder were amputated in an effort to save him,
Enochs said.
White died from his injuries at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center on Nov. 15,
2014.
Gupton, then an employee with the city of Greensboro, was fired from his job
the next day.
Gupton, now with closed-cropped hair, showed little reaction during his court
hearing, other than to greet Hall when he first came into the courtroom.
3 of White's family members attended the hearing but declined to comment.
(source: News & Record)
OHIO:
Death penalty phase continues for serial killer Michael Madison
The death penalty phase of a trial for a man convicted of killing 3 women and
wrapping their bodies in garbage bags is continuing, with a jury hearing
testimony.
Monday marks the third day of testimony about whether 38-year-old Michael
Madison should die by lethal injection or be sentenced to life in prison with
no parole for killing 38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley
and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry. Their bodies were found in July 2013 near the
East Cleveland apartment building where Madison lived.
The jury that will make its sentencing recommendation to a Cuyahoga County
judge convicted Madison of multiple counts of aggravated murder and kidnapping
earlier this month.
Defense attorneys have argued that Madison shouldn't be sentenced to death
because he suffered an abusive childhood.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
Drug sales to American executioners blocked
The world's 2nd largest pharmaceutical firm has now officially withdrawn from
the lethal injection drug trade, imposing strict distribution controls to
prevent its drugs reaching execution chambers across the US.
In a strong statement released this afternoon, global giant Pfizer confirmed
its opposition to the misuse of its medicines in American executions and its
commitment to block all sales for that purpose.
This is a critical turning point in the history of capital punishment in
America. From today, all FDA-approved manufacturers of all potential execution
drugs - a diverse group of 25 global companies - have blocked their sale for
use in executions.
As the biggest and best-known supplier, Pfizer's announcement cements the
mainstream pharmaceutical industry position on lethal injection executions. It
reflects widespread unease about the procedure, and raises fundamental
questions about the administration of the death penalty in America.
Pfizer's investors played a role in its decision. One major shareholder - the
New York State's pension fund, the 3rd largest in the US - has repeatedly
raised fiscal and legal concerns following 'botched' procedures in states like
Ohio and Oklahoma.
"Pfizer's actions cement the pharmaceutical industry's opposition to the misuse
of medicines. Over 25 global pharmaceutical companies have taken action to
prevent the misuse of their medicines in executions; with Pfizer's
announcement, this will mean that all FDA-approved manufacturers of all
execution drugs have spoken out against the misuse of medicines in lethal
injections and taken steps to prevent it.
"Instead of passing secrecy laws intended to undermine the safeguards put in
place by these companies, executing states should respect the legitimate
commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry and agree to stop misusing
their medicines in lethal injection executions."----Maya Foa, Director of
Reprieve's Death Penalty Team
(source: reprieve.org)
******************
Drug drought----Pfizer's move throws a wrench into America's death-penalty
machinery
"First, do no harm." Executives of pharmaceutical companies are not subject to
this guiding principle of the Hippocratic oath - only doctors are. But
increasingly, drug manufacturers are taking steps to ensure that their
formulations do not wind up in syringes used for lethal injections of condemned
prisoners. Last week, Pfizer, 1 of America's largest drug companies, announced
that it would no longer supply prisons with seven drugs used to impose the
death penalty. "Pfizer's mission is to apply science and our global resources
to improve health and well-being at every stage of life", the statement says.
"Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its
products as lethal injections for capital punishment." The firm will sell the
drugs "only for medically prescribed patient care and not for any penal
purposes", and take pains to ensure that the "select group of wholesalers,
distributors and direct purchasers" who buy these drugs - pancuronium bromide,
potassium chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide and
vecuronium bromide - "will not resell these products to correctional
institutions".
Pfizer's move will rankle a devoted but diminished swath of America. Though 31
states still have death-penalty laws on their books, only a handful actually
follow through. In 2015, a total of 6 states - Florida, Georgia, Missouri,
Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia - hosted executions. And of the 27 men and 1 woman
put to death last year (the lowest number since 1984), all but 4 were in the
execution-leading troika of Georgia, Missouri and Texas. The execution method
in all 28 cases - and in every application of the death penalty but one over
the past 4 years (when Virginia electrocuted Robert Charles Gleason, Jr in
2013) - was lethal injection. Pfizer's decision will exacerbate an already
difficult situation for states seeking drugs that will reliably kill their
worst offenders.
If it were not for the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision a year ago in Glossip v
Gross, the task of sourcing the the deadly cocktails would be even tougher.
Oklahoma and a few other states had turned to 1 of the drugs on Pfizer's list,
midazolam, in 2013 when European drug companies opposed to the death penalty
stopped supplying prisons with sodium thiopental and pentobarbital,
barbiturates which induce a coma-like state. In Glossip, Richard Glossip and 2
other Oklahoma inmates challenged their pending executions because they
believed midazolam carried a risk of torturing them to death. They presented
the nightmare of Clayton Lockett's execution in April 2014, during which he
twisted in pain and regained consciousness to blurt out "this shit is fucking
with my head" before succumbing after 43 minutes of apparent suffering. Along
with several other horrific botched executions in 2014, Mr Glossip's lawyers
pointed to Mr Lockett's experience as evidence that relying on midazolam to
render a prisoner insensate was risky enough to constitute cruel and unusual
punishment.
Mr Glossip lost his appeal and awaits execution on death row. Justice Samuel
Alito found that Oklahoma had not made a "clear error" in choosing to use
midazolam. He also reasoned that as long as the death penalty remains
constitutional, it follows that there must a constitutional method of carrying
it out. The Supreme Court gave Oklahoma and its sister death-penalty states the
go-ahead to use midazolam in execution cocktails. But with Pfizer's
announcement, it becomes unclear where the states will procure midazolam or a
similar drug designed to sedate a prisoner before other drugs stop his
breathing and heart.
The death knell for capital punishment in America has been ringing faintly for
some time. After the death penalty started up again in 1976 following a 4-year
hiatus, executions rose for 2 decades, reaching a peak of 98 in 1999. Since
then, the number has steadily fallen, reflecting increased scepticism about the
ethics of the death penalty, fewer states where the punishment remains valid
and less willingness by state officials to implement it. Supporters are
dwindling even in places where capital punishment is avidly imposed. In 2000,
41% of people living in Houston, Texas - home to hundreds of executions over
the last 30 years - said they prefered the death penalty to life imprisonment
for 1st-degree murder. Today, support has fallen to 27%. With options for
buying death-penalty drugs significantly narrowed, states face a choice between
scrounging for surprisingly expensive medications through back channels,
reverting to older, less sanitised execution methods like the electric chair or
giving up on a punishment that most of America and nearly all of the
industrialised world has already abandoned.
(source: The Economist)
********************
Judge denies killer's request to move sentencing out of Boston
The new judge overseeing the 2nd sentencing of spree killer Gary Lee Sampson
has turned down his attorneys' latest attempt to get the case moved out of
Boston.
Lawyers for Sampson, a former Abington drifter who killed 2 people on the South
Shore and a 3rd in New Hampshire during a 4-day rampage in 2001, have
repeatedly argued that the publicity the case has garnered over the last 15
years would make it impossible to find enough impartial jurors in the Boston
area. Judge Leo Sorokin, who took over for Judge Mark Wolf earlier this year,
said in an order issued last week that he didn't see a need to move the
sentencing but would consider the issue against when attorneys begin choosing
jurors this fall.
Sampson, 56, was sentenced to death by a federal jury in 2003, but Judge Wolf
threw out the sentence eight years later after learning that one of the
sentencing jurors had lied about her background. Sampson is again facing the
death penalty in his 2nd sentencing trial, which Judge Sorokin has said could
begin as early as September.
In a motion unsealed last month, Sampson's lawyers argued that it has become
even more difficult to find impartial jurors in the Boston area because of the
increased media attention that Sampson's case received during the trial of
convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who also faced the death
penalty. Such capital cases are rare in Massachusetts, where the death penalty
is prohibited under state law but can be imposed for federal crimes.
Sampson's attorneys are particularly concerned about media attention because
they do not want jurors in the new sentencing trial to learn that Sampson was
sentenced to death the 1st time around. Judge Wolf had granted a motion barring
prosecutors from informing jurors about the previous verdict.
In his order denying lawyers' 1st request to move the sentencing trial, Wolf
raised concerns about the publicity the case had received but concluded that
Boston offered a large enough pool of potential jurors and that it had been
long enough since the murders that it would be possible to seat an impartial
jury. Sorokin said in last week's order that he didn't believe the situation
had changed since Wolf's earlier ruling despite additional publicity and a
relevant federal appeals court decision.
Sorokin also denied lawyers' request to have the death penalty taken off the
table arguing because of Sampson's health, which his lawyers say is so poor
that he likely won't live long enough to be put to death. Sorokin said the
lawyers can make that argument to the jury once sentencing begins.
(source: The Patriot Ledger)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 16 18:49:41 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 16 May 2016 18:49:41 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605161849280.5312@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 16
AFGHANISTAN:
The Taliban Is Publicly Executing Women Again
When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they would shoot women for so-called "moral
crimes" in front of stadium crowds. Activists fear that the terrorist group is
going back to the bad old days of public executions.
The Taliban has publicly executed 2 women in northern Afghanistan, with graphic
video of 1 of the brutal killings circulating on social media in early May.
According to Afghan officials, the women were both shot in Jowzjan Province in
recent months.
The executions came to light after a video of the 1st killing emerged online,
and officials soon uncovered evidence of the 2nd. "Such executions of women by
the Taliban is unfortunately a the dark reality," says Samira Hamidi, a board
member of the advocacy group coalition Afghan Women's Network.
"It is clear that militant groups like the Taliban have no pity on human
beings, particularly women. The execution shows how powerless the Afghan
government is, whilst significantly increasing the vulnerability of women."
In the past, the Afghan government condemned similar killings that were
captured on mobile phones and then streamed online. But this time, the
executions have been overshadowed by the hanging of 6 Taliban prisoners on May
8. It is the 1st time Afghan president Ashraf Ghani has used the death penalty
since going into office in 2014.
"The execution of these 2 women can't be overlooked because of other events;
there has already been 2 other executions of women by the Taliban earlier this
year," Women for Afghan Women director Manizha Naderi tells Broadly. "Nobody is
asking where and how the group is getting money to continue committing these
acts. Neighboring Pakistan are funding the Taliban; this is a serious issue
that needs to be dealt with."
The New York Times named 1 of the victims as Rabia, a 22-year-old pregnant
woman with 2 young children. Her husband had accused her of adultery; the
Taliban tried and convicted her before shooting her 3 times. Relatives said
that her husband had fabricated the claim because he wanted to inherit her land
interests.
"They buried her without even allowing her family to participate in her
funeral," Shakera, her aunt, told the Times. "I know she was a very innocent
woman. She did not have the heart to be unfaithful."
Rabia's 6-month-old son and his three-year-old sister now live with their
father, but the family cannot even afford to buy powdered baby formula for her
youngest child. "In situations like this, the victim's family are also
vulnerable and can even be at risk for raising their voice," Hamidi says. "The
Afghan government must provide them necessary protection in order to prevent
any form of harm to them."
The video of the 2nd Jowzjan killing showed the execution of an unknown woman
in northern Afghanistan.
In a country where the law bars relatives of the accused from testifying
against them, Naderi of Women for Afghan Women knows too well the fear that
women have of honor killings. "I have never seen a man being stoned. You can't
commit adultery on your own, yet why is it always women who have to pay the
price?" she says in despair. "Every year more and more women are coming to the
32 shelters our organisation runs across the country. It isn't the culture of
honour-killings, but because more women are aware of their own rights and are
coming forward to seek help."
Rabia's aunt says that the Taliban also had a politically motivated reason for
killing Rabia: 2 of her uncles are militia commanders loyal to Abdul Rashid
Dostum, a Uzbek leader who is also 1st vice president of Afghanistan. "The
Taliban do what they do, to show their strength at the expense of other women,"
Naderi says. According to the district governor of Faizabad, a Taliban shadow
governor had personally executed the woman himself.
The video of the 2nd Jowzjan killing surfaced earlier this May. In the footage,
a woman in a pale blue burqa sits on the ground outside as she is convicted by
a Taliban court of killing her husband. The people surrounding her - including
members of her husband's family - shout for her to be executed. A gunman then
steps forward from the crowd and shoots her in the head.
Local authorities say that the execution took place four months ago; the
victim's identity remains unknown. The deputy police chief of Jowzjan Province,
Col. Abdul Hafeez, believes that the executioner, who had his face covered, was
the district's Taliban commander.
The Taliban have not commented on the executions. But the Times notes that the
killings are similar to executions between 1996 and 2001 when the Taliban were
in power. In the past, women were publicly executed at the National Stadium in
Kabul for so-called "moral crimes" like adultery.
"Enough people die from the ongoing violence, but the executions by the Taliban
show their strength at the expense of women."
Although Afghan women have since won basic rights in education, voting and work
- rights that the Taliban deem as un-Islamic for women - executions by the
terrorist group still continue, many of which are never made public.
"Except for major cities in the country, the Afghan military cannot get to
rural areas where the Taliban still have a stronghold," Naderi explains.
"Enough people die from the ongoing violence, but the executions by the Taliban
show their strength at the expense of women. Unless something like this happens
in Kabul, there is no outrage from the locals."
For many Afghan women, the 2015 murder of Fakhunda Malikzada in Kabul by a mob
of men is a stark reminder of the realities they still face. The then
27-year-old was falsely accused of burning the Quran before being lynched. Her
body was set on fire and left on a riverbed. Despite the mass protests and
international condemnation of her death, the attackers initially sentenced to
death had their sentences overturned or shortened, while others were set free.
"This shows the lack of access to justice and failure for women in
Afghanistan," Hamidi says. "When an official justice system is not supportive
enough of women, local communities and other informants become judges. The
international pressure is therefore a requirement and women in Afghanistan will
need it for many years."
Unlike Farkhunda's case, there hasn't been any public condemnation nor protests
in response to women executed by the Taliban. "Farkhunda was killed by a mob,
not by the Taliban. It also happened during daylight, in the capital city,
where many of the women's rights activists live," Naderi points out. "Although
what happened to Farkhunda is terrible, her case lends itself for people to
mobilize. But when the Taliban murder women, there is more risk in speaking
out."
When NATO wrapped up its combat mission in the country at the end of 2014, the
military withdrawal was supposed to mark a new era of peace and stability. But
the issue of women's rights remains sidelined as the Afghan government continue
to pursue peace talks with an unreceptive Taliban.
"While the Afghan government claims to be pro-women, they must be watched,
monitored, and questioned regularly," Hamidi says. "There is always a need for
international support and condemnation on brutal violence against women."
"Of course there is more work to be done on women's rights in the country. But
I have hope in our government,'" Naderi concludes. "The Taliban need to be
destroyed and Pakistan needs to stop funding them. Until then, we can't even
begin to improve and strengthen rights for our women."
(source: vice.com)
PHILIPPINES:
Death penalty
The Philippines abolished capital punishment in June 2006 when then President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Republic Act No. 9346, also known as An Act
Prohibiting the Imposition of the Death Penalty in the Philippines.
Arroyo said the death penalty should be abolished because it had not proven to
be a deterrent to crime and had become a dead-letter law. RA 9346 downgraded
the death penalty to life imprisonment.
The Philippines has had a history of invoking and scrapping capital punishment
since the end of World War II.
Between 1946 and 1965 - the year Ferdinand Marcos became the President - 35
people were executed, mainly convicted of particularly savage crimes marked by
"senseless depravity" or "extreme criminal perversity."
Following the Edsa People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos from power, then
President Corazon Aquino promulgated the 1987 Constitution, which abolished the
death penalty "unless for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, Congress
hereafter provides for it."
In 1993, Congress passed RA 7659, or the Death Penalty Law, which reimposed
capital punishment.
Under RA 7659, crimes punishable by death included murder, rape, big-time drug
trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, treason, piracy, qualified bribery,
parricide, infanticide, plunder, kidnapping and serious illegal detention,
robbery with violence or intimidation, qualified vehicle theft and arson.
In March 1996, through RA 8177, the law was amended prescribing death by lethal
injection for offenders convicted of heinous crimes.
But opposition from human rights groups held up executions until 1999.
Between 1999 and 2000, during the term of deposed President Joseph Estrada, 7
inmates were put to death.
The 1st to be executed was Leo Echegaray, on Feb. 9, 1999, and the last was
Alex Bartolome, on Jan. 4, 2000. Echegaray was convicted of raping his
stepdaughter. Bartolome was convicted also of raping his daughter more than 100
times over 2 years, starting when she was 16.
*************
De Lima vows to fight return of death penalty
Senatorial candidate Leila de Lima on Monday vowed to continue opposing any
move to re-impose death penalty.
A nemesis of presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, De Lima, however,
softened her stance in Duterte's presidency, saying she would "watch him
first."
"I do believe that that is not the solution. The solution is to fix the justice
system. The new executive should start with the strict and faithful enforcement
of laws," De Lima told reporters when asked about the issue of death penalty on
the sideline of the book launch of former Immigration commissioner Siegfred
Mison on Monday.
In his 1st public appearance since the May 9 elections, Duterte announced he
wanted criminals committing heinous crimes including robbery and rape to suffer
morbid death like a public hanging.
De Lima, former chief of the Commission on Human Rights, said the government,
with the help of Congress, should fix the justice system, instead of jumping
into a death penalty legislation.
She said that even if reviving death penalty was a popular move, the issue
would undergo thorough and heated debates in the Congress.
De Lima is at the 12th place in partial and unofficial quick count of votes for
the Senate by the poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting
(PPCRV).
Asked where she will stand under a Duterte presidency, "Let us observe the new
leadership first. Let's see and find out what his domestic and foreign
policies. Let's see. I just hope that he would always at all times uphold the
Constitution, the rule of law and human rights."
De Lima and Duterte prior and during the campaign period traded barbs. Duterte
at one occasion called her bugoksi (stupid) for linking him to extrajudicial
killings in Davao.
The erstwhile Davao mayor, who is known for his off-color language and cussing
repeatedly, implied his links to the vigilante group Davao Death Squad.
De Lima in previous interviews warned the public about a Duterte presidency,
calling him a monster.
"We have to observe and be vigilant. As far as I know, a sitting president has
immunity from suits. But there is no such thing as immunity from
investigation," De Lima said.
(source for both: Philippine Inquirer)
INDIA:
Bizman killer awarded gallows under Arms Act
In a rare instance, a Buxar court on Monday invoked the Arms Act to award
capital punishment to gangster Sheru Singh in the case of killing of a
businessman in Buxar in 2011. The court of district and sessions judge Pradeep
Kumar Malik ordered that Sheru alias Onkar Nath Singh be hanged till death for
murdering Rajendra Keshri at his hardware shop at Namak Gola Chowk in the
district HQ town on August 21, 2011. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh
on him.
According to additional public prosecutor Anand Mohan Upadhyay, the punishment
is rare because it was given under the provisions of Arms Act, and not Section
302 of the IPC under which death penalty is generally awarded.
"Section 27 (3) of the Arms Act provides for capital punishment in a case of
murder if the prosecution establishes that the murder is caused by a prohibited
weapon," Upadhyay told TOI and added the autopsy report confirmed that Keshri
was shot by a 9mm pistol, a weapon which is legally allowed to be used only by
security forces. Police had also recovered blank cartridges of 9mm pistol from
the place of crime.
After the killing, Sheru had fled to Kolkata from where he was arrested on
September 7, 2011.
Sheru's accomplices -- Chandan Mishra, Raushan Pandey and Deenbandhu Singh --
were awarded life imprisonment in the case in March 2013. Sheru had to be put
on trial separately as he escaped from custody on December 17, 2012.
One policeman was injured in the firing resorted to by Sheru while escaping. He
was re-arrested by the Bhojpur police and has been lodged in the Buxar central
jail since then.
(source: The Times of India)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 17 15:14:32 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:14:32 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., MISS.,
LA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605171514240.3768@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 17
TEXAS:
Europeans make journey to Texas death row
Death row is where convicted murderers spend years of purgatory before the
final walk to the death chamber. Many of them are shunned by their own
families.
But there's one group prisoners call their salvation: Europeans who send care
packages, money and travel thousands of miles on a journey to death row.
About an hour north of the big city of Houston lies the small town of
Livingston, an unexpected tourist destination for Europeans like Mona Buras.
"I go to school now," Buras says. "Studying theology. I want to be a prison
minister."
The 45-year-old mother of 2 just spent 26 hours traveling from Norway to visit
a pen pal.
"With Perry, I've been writing with for more than 2 years now," Buras says. "I
get a friend. I really do."
Her friend is a man who this summer, Texas plans to execute.
"Everybody else has just really turned their back on me, mostly," death row
prisoner Perry Williams says.
He's convicted of robbing and murdering a medical student in Houston nearly 16
years ago. He claims the crime was not intentional.
"A lot of stuff is really hazy because I was under the influence of PCP,"
Williams says.
"Who pulled the trigger on that man?" reporter Emily Baucum asks.
"It's up in the air because he swung on us," Williams responds. "The gun went
off during the process."
"I don't approve of it but I think they have 2nd chances," Buras says. "It's
not my job to judge."
A Norwegian mother and a Texas prisoner - it's an unlikely friendship Williams
admits is difficult to comprehend.
"I was skeptical because it was like, why do you want to help somebody that's
supposed to be killing somebody?" Williams says.
The death penalty has been abolished in all but one European country. In
Norway, the maximum sentence for murderers is 21 years. No prisoner there has
been executed in Buras' lifetime.
"That's why I think it's strange for me," she says. "If you're American and you
kill and if you're Norwegian you kill, you're still a killer. So how come we
are so different in our punishment?"
Websites show Europeans how to get in touch with and even visit American
prisoners. In Texas, wardens don't track where visitors are from but motels in
Livingston are often full of Europeans.
In an email, a woman who visits from Switzerland writes. "It wasn't because I
was bored with my life or something like that. It was a sincere interest to
know why people still get executed."
Sometimes the pen-pal friendships turn romantic. We heard from a woman who's
engaged to a prisoner. She writes, "They can't call overseas, so I have never
been able to receive a phone call from him."
Even face to face, Buras and Williams' friendship is through a window. They say
it's purely platonic - nothing sexual, but there is love.
"Yeah I love her," Williams says. "I love her because like I say, she's proved
a lot to me because she's doing something my family won't even do."
"Yes, I do love him," Buras says. "It's hard to have this kind of relationship
without getting to love them."
They exchange letters and poetry. Buras says because her children's university
costs are paid for by the Norwegian government, she's able to send Williams
money.
"I send what I have," Buras says. "If I have $50 I will send him that. If I
have $10 I will send him that."
Williams says he doesn't ask for money but does spend it on hygiene products.
"Do you feel guilty taking money from her?" Baucum asks.
"Yes, that's why I never say nothing," Williams responds.
If you find Buras' behavior naive, she understands - because she too feels a
culture shock.
"The Americans would not believe what we do with our prisoners back home,"
Buras says.
At Norwegian prisons, instead of barbed wire there's a system to help
reintegrate criminals into society.
But for Williams, the countdown is on.
"Until the last minute," he says. "Until 6 o'clock on July 14."
His execution will be the 1st time the 2 friends get to hug each other.
"I just appreciate her giving me a chance to show the world that I'm not a lost
cause," Williams says.
As he lives his final months with remorse, Buras will be there until the end.
"To imagine him in the chamber, getting strapped down to this bed and actually
getting killed - it's really, really difficult," she says.
Buras will make 1 more journey to death row in July when William is executed.
News 4 will be there, too, to document that experience.
(source: news4sanantonio.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Judge: Death penalty can be sought in veteran's burn death
A judge has agreed that prosecutors can seek the death penalty against a man
charged with beating and burning to death an Army veteran he had met at a bar
in 2014.
The News & Record of Greensboro reports (http://bit.ly/1qoqEUj ) that a judge
agreed with aggravating factors cited by prosecutors. Those factors included
the cruelty of the killing, putting other people at risk by setting a fire at a
motel and killing the veteran while committing another crime.
Authorities say 27-year-old Garry Gupton beat 46-year-old Stephen White with a
telephone, a television and other items in a Greensboro motel room in November
2014 before setting the room on fire.
White died nearly a week later from burns so bad that parts of both arms had to
be amputated.
(source: wral.com)
***************
Hewitt avoids death penalty, sentenced to life in prison
After deliberating on all mitigating factors, the jury returned a verdict
sentencing Everette Porshau Hewitt to life in prison Tuesday afternoon in
Catawba County Superior Court.
The jury found Hewitt, 37, of Claremont, guilty on 3 counts of 1st-degree
murder. Hewitt killed Susan Blevins, Connie Miller and Wade Sigmon at Oak Knoll
Mobile Home Park in Conover in 2011.
The jury was deciding on life in prison versus the death penalty. For Hewitt to
receive the death penalty, the jury would have to unanimously agree.
(source: Hickory Record)
FLORIDA:
The Death Penalty in Florida
Florida's death penalty law and the fate of the state's nearly 400 death row
inmates remains in flux. Last week a Miami-Dade judge ruled that Florida's
newly revised death penalty sentencing law is unconstitutional. That ruling
came in the case of Karon Gaiter who awaits trial for 1st-degree murder. Judge
Milton Hirsh ruled that the law goes against the long-time sanctity of
unanimous verdicts in death penalty cases because the system only requires 10
of 12 jurors to vote in favor of imposing execution.
Just days before that ruling, Florida Supreme Court Justices heard oral
arguments in the case of death row inmate Timothy Lee Hurst who murdered his
boss at a Pensacola Popeye's restaurant. In the Hurst case, the U.S. Supreme
Court declared Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional earlier this
year arguing it gave too little power to juries. In response the Florida
legislature passed a revision of the law requiring 10 of 12 jurors to agree on
imposing the death penalty. In the Hurst case, opponents of the law argue that
all 390 of Florida's death row inmates should have their sentences changed to
life in prison because they were convicted under a flawed system. While
executions in Florida are currently suspended amid the legal wrangling, the
state has the second highest number of inmates on death row in the U.S. and is
1 of the most active when it comes to carrying out executions. Florida is among
just 3 states that have carried out executions in each of the past 5 years
along with Texas and Oklahoma. We'll take a closer look at the legal battle as
we explore the future of the death penalty in Florida.
(source: WCGU)
************
Jailed Spaniard could be transferred from US death row in 2 weeks----Florida
Supreme Court dismisses prosecution's appeal against retrial for 1994 triple
murder
The Florida Supreme Court has dismissed a prosecution appeal against the
decision to order a new trial for a Spaniard who has been on death row for 15
years.
Pablo Ibar, who has been behind bars for nearly 22 years at Rainford
penitentiary in Starke, Florida, has always maintained his innocence in
connection with a triple murder that took place in 1994.
In February of this year, the high court ordered a retrial on the basis that
mistakes were made during the 1st trial.
With this new decision, 45-year-old Ibar could be transferred from death row
"in 15 days at the outside," according to the Association against the Death
Penalty.
Andres Krakenberger, the association spokesman, expressed satisfaction at the
decision on Basque public radio station Radio Euskadi.
News of the court's dismissal of the appeal was sent to Ibar's lawyer, Benjamin
Waxman. The appeal was filed by Florida prosecutors in late February.
No trial date has been set yet for Ibar, the only Spaniard who was on death row
since his conviction in 2000.
The key piece of evidence in the prosecution???s case was a grainy, soundless
home security video that showed a group of men attacking nightclub owner
Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, and 2 models, Sharon Anderson and Marie
Rogers, whom he had brought to his home in Miramar, Florida. The three were
shot and killed during the botched robbery attempt.
One of the suspects in the video appears to be Ibar, but his DNA was not found
on a shirt that the killer used to partially cover his face.
(source: elpais.com)
******************
Florida death penalty in chaos
Even now, nearly 20 years later, I can't muster much sympathy for the man I
watched die in Florida's electric chair.
Daniel Remeta and 2 others killed 5 people during a crime spree through f4
states.
His first victim was 60-year-old Mehrle "Chet" Reeder, a convenience store
clerk in Ocala, who he shot in a robbery that yielded just $52.
I was a reporter writing for my college paper and stringing for others around
the state when the guards brought Remeta, head shaven and spread liberally with
conductor gel for the electric volts that would kill him, into the death
chamber that morning in 1998.
He looked scared. Though probably not as scared as the people he callously
murdered. Remeta watched, almost without any expression at all, while the
corrections team carried out its protocol, strapping his arms and legs to the
oak chair, fastening the head gear and, finally, lowering a small black veil
that would cover his face during what was about to happen.
Remeta had nearly 12 years on death row to prepare for the moment. He did not
give a final statement
Just hours earlier he requested snow cones for his last meal, but had to settle
for the closest thing the prison cooks could find - slushies from a gas station
near the prison in Starke.
I remember wondering if this was really justice? A couple of icy drinks and
2,000 volts to the head?
The scene was barbaric. Not because a violent criminal was put to death, but
because of what the act said about us and the way we do justice in Florida.
Today as the death penalty in Florida is under more scrutiny than ever, I have
the same thought: This is much more about us than them - the inmates on death
row.
I would like to think that the state is capable of reserving its harshest
punishment for the most heinous criminals and carrying it out fairly.
But time and time again this has proven not to be true.
In Florida, 24 people have left death row - some proven innocent and others who
prosecutors declined to continue to prosecute after questions were raised about
their cases. A 25th man was exonerated just months after he died of illness.
That's higher than in any other state.
The system is inherently flawed.
The poor and defendants with mental illnesses receive the most death sentences.
And courts in small slices of the state sentence the most people to die.
The U.S. Supreme Court finally put a stop to one of the biggest failings this
year when it struck down the way Florida allowed judges, rather than juries,
decide if a convicted person would be put to death.
Florida is one of just a few states that doesn't require a unanimous jury
decision to impose the death penalty.
Undeterred, our state's lawmakers tried to fix the law the way one might use
duct tape to fasten a broken side view mirror to a car. The problem wasn't
really fixed. And it looked even worse.
The new law said 10 of 12 jurors must recommend a death sentence and jettisoned
language from the statute that said a judge could still impose the death
sentence without the recommendation of the jury.
Then last week a judge in Miami ruled that the new law is unconstitutional
because it doesn't require a unanimous jury verdict.
Amid all of the chaos over the law - for now the state has halted executions -
Florida is still determining what the U.S. Supreme Court decision will mean to
the nearly 400 inmates on death row today.
The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments on that earlier this month with some
lawyers, including former state supreme court justices, advocating for the
sentences to be thrown out.
Attorney General Pam Bondi is defending Florida's clearly troubled death
penalty.
But another curve ball was thrown the state's way last week when drug company
Pfizer said it would no longer allow its products to be used to carry out
capital punishment. More than 20 other companies have already taken similar
action, effectively cutting off the supply of the drugs, according to the New
York Times.
This is what it's come to.
The legalities of Florida's death penalty are under challenge. And now its
method of execution likely will be, too.
I haven't grown more sympathetic to killers on death row. But I am concerned
about the message we send to our children when we carry on a system that is so
fraught with problems.
Capital punishment today is more about politics and pandering than justice. How
else can you explain the enthusiasm from Bondi and other politicians when the
flaws are so obvious?
It's time for Florida's death penalty to be put out of its misery. For our
sake, not just for the condemned.
(source: Column, Beth Kassab; Orlando Sentinel)
ALABAMA:
Drug company's withdrawal limits death penalty options in Alabama
Drug giant Pfizer's decision to ban the use of its products in executions won't
necessarily stop capital punishment in Alabama, one expert says, but it's clear
the state's lethal injection options are running out.
"The sources of drugs on the open market are gone," said Robert Dunham,
director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that studies the
death penalty. "States are going to have to go underground, as it were, to
obtain the drugs for executions."
Pfizer, the New-York based pharmaceutical company, announced Friday that it
"strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital
punishment" statement on the company's website.
One of the world's largest drug producers, Pfizer joins several other major
drug producers in a boycott that has been slowing the pace of executions in
America for years. European-owned companies have backed out due to widespread
opposition to the death penalty in their home countries. In America, major
medical and pharmacists' associations have declared their opposition to
participation in executions, arguing that the medical arts shouldn't be used to
kill.
Death penalty critics hailed Pfizer's decision last week as a major step toward
cutting off all execution drugs. Pfizer spokeswoman Rachel Hooper said Monday
that the company simply clarified an existing policy, 1 the company has held
since it acquired Hospira, 1 of the first major American drug producers to halt
sales of drugs for lethal injection.
"It's not a new policy so much as an update of a Hospira policy," Hooper said.
Hooper declined to answer questions about whether the company had sold drugs to
Alabama's prison system.
Alabama has executed only 2 inmates in the past 4 years, compared to 17 in the
4 years before that.
The drug boycott was a major factor in that lull. Federal regulators seized the
state's execution drugs, acquired through back channels, in 2011. Alabama
switched to a new main execution drug, but its supply of that drug expired in
2014 while lawyers debated the legality of the switch.
In January, the state executed convicted murderer Christopher Brooks with
injections of midazolam, rocuronium and sodium chloride. State officials have
never acknowledged where they bought the drugs. One maker of midazolam, the
Illinois-based company Akorn, joined the boycott after Alabama officials
mentioned the company in court filings in a death penalty case.
Dunham said the Pfizer decision does close off access to mass-produced versions
of the drugs typically used in executions. He said states could still turn to
compounding pharmacies - specialty pharmacies that make small, customized
batches of drugs - though many compounding pharmacists would likely refuse if
state officials can't produce a prescription for the drugs.
Alabama seems to have had trouble with that approach. In court records filed in
December, state officials said they asked every compounding pharmacist in the
state to make pentobarbital - once the state's primary execution drug - and
every pharmacist turned them down.
Attempts to reach Department of Corrections officials Monday for comment on the
Pfizer decision were unsuccessful.
It's not clear just how much midazolam the state has on hand for future
executions, where those drugs come from, or how long they'll last.
Court documents filed earlier this month again included instructions for the
use of midazolam made by Akorn, which has asked that its drugs not be used for
lethal injection. The court filings include photocopies of labels from boxes of
midazolam.
The expiration dates on those labels weren't visible.
(source: Anniston Star)
*************
Alabama inmate convicted in double murder to get new hearing on death sentence
A federal appeals court has ordered a new hearing for an Alabama death row
inmate convicted in an execution-style double shooting that occurred after 1 of
the victims allegedly used a racial slur.
Renard Marcel Daniel, 41, was sentenced to death 2 years after he was charged
in the deaths of 35-year-old John Brodie and his girlfriend, 39-year-old
Loretta McCulloch.
The attorneys representing Daniel on appeal argued that his trial attorneys did
not present mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of his capital trial -
specifically that jurors were not shown enough evidence about the violence and
sexual abuse of Daniel's childhood.
A U.S. District judge denied the petition, which Daniel's attorneys then
appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court on Monday upheld
his conviction but ordered a new evidentiary hearing regarding his sentence,
calling his childhood "nightmarish by any standard."
According to news reports from the 2003 trial, Daniel was charged with killing
his East Lake neighbors after an argument on Sept. 26, 2001. Daniel, Brodie and
McCulloch were playing cards and drinking beers with another neighbor, George
Jackson, when Brodie called Daniel the "n-word."
An argument ensued, and the couple later apologized, Jackson testified.
When Daniel later asked McCulloch to return his cigarettes, she refused. He
then walked to the couple's front door and fired 4 shots into the apartment,
then entered and fired a shot into the back of each victim's head, according to
reports.
During the trial, Daniel's attorneys called into question all testimony from
Jackson, who they said waited nearly 14 hours before telling police about the
shooting. Daniel testified that Jackson shot the couple.
In May 2003, a Jefferson County judge upheld the jury's recommendation that
Daniel be sentenced to death. In April 2011, an appeals court upheld his
sentence.
The federal appeals court agreed with Daniel's argument that further evidence
about his childhood should have been weighed at his sentencing.
According to court filings, his mother killed his biological father with a
shotgun while Daniel, then 3, was in their home. Starting when he was 9, he was
repeatedly sexually assaulted by his stepfather, who also forced him to engage
in sex acts with his siblings.
He was placed in special education classes in school, and his test scores show
that he hovered on the borderline of intellectual disability.
None of that evidence was presented during his trial in 2003. Daniel argued on
appeal that his trial counsel did not conduct a constitutionally adequate
investigation into his background.
"While trial counsel presented some mitigation evidence during the penalty
phase through Mr. Daniel's mother, the description, details, and depth of abuse
in Mr. Daniel's background that he brought to the attention of the state courts
in his habeas proceedings far exceeded anything the sentencing jury and judge
were told," the appellate court's decision reads.
(source: al.com)
MISSISSIPPI:
Tupelo man faces possible death penalty
Mack Williams can't believe his son is dead.
"It's been awful shocking."
55-year-old Charlie Williams was a wrestler back in the day. He would later
work for the city of Tupelo in Public Works and eventually become a cab driver.
His life would end Friday night. Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says
23-year-old Leonta Gates would be his last faire. Gates came with a gun and a
motive-robbery.
"The victim was working not doing anything to provoke anything like this. He
was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing and going about his regular
routine in life and fell victim to something that's very senseless."
"I'm sorry, but I just can't understand why it was him and I don't know why the
boy done it. I would like to ask him the question why he done it," said
Williams.
Sunday afternoon, with an arrest warrant in hand, law enforcement descended
upon the home Gates shares with his grandmother in Haven Acres.
"Mr. Gates had just left probably about 30 seconds or a minute before we got
there which allowed him to get a little bit of a heard start," said Sheriff
Johnson.
A search of the area was the next move. By 10:30 Sunday night, Gates began
negotiations on the phone with investigators.
"He knew that we meant business and he knew that we were coming after him."
Officials say Gates has broken the law before. He was out on parole for armed
robbery. He was just 17 at the time.
The sheriff says this is a failure of the system.
He was convicted of armed robbery at the age of 17.
"It was brought to our attention that he had missed several meetings with
probabtion and still was able to be out here in the free world," added Sheriff
Johnson.
(source: WTVA news)
LOUISIANA:
State Supreme Court rejects serial killer Daniel Blank's bid to overturn death
sentence, get new trial
River Parishes serial killer Daniel Blank would have been sentenced to death
whether or not allegations of an abusive upbringing were presented at his 1999
1st-degree murder trial in the slaying of Gonzales resident Lillian Philippe.
That conclusion came from Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Scott Crichton, who
concurred with a silent court majority Friday, in upholding a state district
judge's rejection in October of Blank's bid to overturn his death penalty
conviction and have a new trial.
Blank, 53, who is from St. James Parish, was convicted of slaying Philippe and
four others during a string of murders and armed robberies of well-off, elderly
residents in St. James, St. John the Baptist and Ascension parishes during the
mid- to late-1990s. Philippe, 72, was beaten to death in her home April 9,
1997, in a botched burglary. Blank was never tried in a sixth slaying tied to
him.
Blank's post-conviction defense attorneys argued at an evidentiary hearing in
July that he had ineffective counsel who did not do enough investigation to
challenge his lengthy confession they claim was false, investigative reports by
prosecutors they say were withheld and didn???t bring up his childhood at the
penalty phase of his case.
Crichton focused on the last aspect of Blank's appeal. He wrote that Blank's
appellate attorneys argued his trial attorneys did not focus on his childhood
of extreme poverty and sexual abuse, instead presenting Blank as part of a
happy family.
Had this version of Blank's past been presented, he may have avoided the death
penalty, the appellate attorneys argued.
Crichton disagreed and called that aspect of the appeal part of "the
unfortunate trend of turning capital post-conviction proceedings into a second
penalty phase." He wrote the trend "represents an extraordinary drain" on funds
for Louisiana's indigents defense.
The Philippe case was the 1st brought against Blank and is the only one
remaining for which he still faces the death penalty.
Assistant District Attorney Chuck Long said Monday that he plans to ask the
23rd Judicial District Judge Jessie LeBlanc in Ascension Parish to sign an
execution warrant once Blank's time to ask the high court to reconsider the
ruling passes in 2 weeks.
Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana,
said he would get the warrant stopped, as happened Feb. 17 when the state
Supreme Court stayed Blank's execution.
"I don't believe Mr. Long will have any more success with this motion to
execute than he did with the other one," Clements said. "You cannot deny people
their right to litigation that they have."
Clements said the state Supreme Court's denial means Blank's case moves to the
federal courts. He has a year to file with the U.S. District Court in Baton
Rouge.
Louisiana death row procedures have been stayed as part of an ongoing federal
civil rights case while the state has also had trouble finding drugs to perform
executions.
The state Supreme Court ruling Friday drew a dissent from Chief Justice
Bernette Johnson over the same part of Blank???s appeal on which Crichton
focused. She wrote LeBlanc should not have dismissed that part of the appeal as
repetitive and added she would have remanded it back to the judge for a
hearing.
"Ever mindful that Daniel Blank has confessed to brutally murdering Ms.
Philippe and similarly attacking seven others, evidence of the extraordinary
abuse and deprivation he is alleged to have endured as a child may nevertheless
have swayed a juror in favor of imposing a life sentence," Johnson wrote.
(source: The Advocate)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 17 15:15:10 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:15:10 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IND., OKLA., S.DAK.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605171515020.3768@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 17
OHIO:
Doing Harm: Medical Professionals and the Death Penalty
It's a brutal photo. Romell Broom holds his arms in front of him, palms out.
Dozens of white adhesive squares mark the locations of all 18 attempts to
insert an IV by members of an Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
execution team in 2009. Broom had been sentenced to die for the 1984 rape and
murder of 14-year-old Tryna Middleton. After two hours, during which
eyewitnesses claim Broom showed signs of pain and distress, the execution was
called off.
It was the 1st time a state had attempted an execution but failed to kill the
condemned person since lethal injection was first used by Texas in 1982. This
past March, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that attempting to execute Broom again
would not constitute cruel and unusual punishment or double jeopardy.
With Pfizer's announcement last Friday that it would impose tighter regulations
on drugs that can be used for executions, the last open-market source for those
drugs has been closed. State-sanctioned killing will continue, but states must
now buy drugs from under-regulated compounding pharmacies.
For years, death penalty states have worked on the margins of medicine. During
Broom's attempted execution, the fact that medical professionals (including
nurses and a phlebotomist) failed to insert IVs properly is a case in point.
When the execution team failed, Ohio corrections officials solicited the last
minute assistance of physician Dr. Carmelita Bautista, who was working in the
prison at the time. Bautista later told The Associated Press that she was asked
to help locate an IV site.
The Ohio Supreme Court's green light to the state to attempt to kill Broom
again should raise another concern regarding state execution protocols: the
ongoing participation of medical professionals in state-sanctioned killing.
In spite of the injunction to "first do no harm," some doctors help maintain
the US death penalty regime.
In 2014, an Oklahoma family physician named Dr. Johnny Zellmer tried to insert
an IV into the femoral vein of Clayton Lockett during an attempted execution.
The drugs entered the tissue under his skin and not his bloodstream, causing
extreme pain. After 43 minutes, Lockett died of a heart attack. His family
filed a lawsuit against Zellmer, though it was ultimately unsuccessful.
On December 9, 2015, a nurse on Georgia's execution team spent longer than an
hour inserting IVs into Brian Keith Terrell's arms and also put one in his
hand. Also in Georgia, on February 3, 2016, the execution team failed to insert
IVs in 72-year-old Brandon Jones' arms. A physician then inserted an IV near
his groin.
Doctors have also been involved in executions indirectly. Dr. Mark Dershwitz, a
professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School,
provided testimony in support of using a controversial drug combination for the
execution of Dennis McGuire in Ohio. Dershwitz has testified in support of
lethal injection protocols for 22 states and the federal government. McGuire's
execution took 26 minutes, and according to witnesses he struggled and gasped
for air. Months after that execution, Dershwitz announced he would be getting
out of the testifying business.
In spite of the injunction to "first do no harm," some doctors help maintain
the contemporary US death penalty regime directly and indirectly, and they have
the support of a few doctors and lawyers who have argued that doctors should be
present at executions in order to avoid needless pain and suffering.
Deborah Denno, professor of law at Fordham University and lethal injection
expert, told Truthout that there should be more attention paid to the role
medical professionals play in executions. "I think generally people are looking
more at secrecy and drug acquisition. The Supreme Court hasn't really looked at
medical professionals. But they've always been involved. They've always been
there and it's ongoing."
Denno noted that doctors who do participate are not always the best of the best
-- in part because the pay is low and many of these doctors have had little
success elsewhere. "And then we often only find out there are doctors present
when there's a problem," she said.
A Moral Slippery Slope
That photo of Romell Broom's mutilated arms, widely available online, was taken
by Dr. Jonathan Groner, a pediatric surgeon at Nationwide Children's Hospital
in Columbus, Ohio. Groner was asked by Broom's attorney to examine him shortly
after the attempted execution.
Groner's visit to examine Broom was also his 1st visit to a prison.
"It's an otherworldly experience to be there. Everything about the institution
discourages conversation," he told Truthout. "Broom was basically in a cage,
and I said to the guards, 'I need to see him; I can't just look at him in this
cage.' He didn't look particularly threatening to me."
The guards let him out but his wrists and ankles were shackled. They led him to
a chair. Broom spoke little but would point things out to Groner -- a bruise
here and there, a wound in a hard-to-reach spot. It had only been a few days
and the "wounds were still fresh." He seemed shellshocked.
Groner noticed large bruises around puncture sites, suggesting the execution
team worked hard to find usable veins. He added, "My assumption was that the
people who did this were not people who do this often -- probably prison guards
who have EMT training."
"When health care professionals use their skills to execute people, it blurs
the lines between healing and killing."
After the execution the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
asserted that he had been an IV drug user, but according to Groner, Broom
lacked the scars of hardcore drug abuse. "His veins looked decent to me. IV
drug abusers have 'railroad tracks' on their arms from repeated injections up
and down their veins. Broom had no scars. I couldn't tell why they'd had a hard
time. He might have been dehydrated. Maybe a little nervous."
Groner emphasized that their inability to access a vein was evidence of their
lack of skill, experience or training, arguing that an experienced medical
professional would have been able to find a vein, even on a person experiencing
tremendous anxiety preceding execution.
Groner wears a tightly trimmed goatee and black-rimmed glasses. His tone is
fast and persistent -- he speaks in a staccato voice and barely moves his head
or body. And yet he's warm and thoughtful. He said it was hard for him to work
in a children's hospital at first, to take care of kids who were sick, while
his own were young.
But he learned to deal with it -- though he stumbles still. Shortly after his
father died, he had one such moment. The gasping sound of a mechanical
ventilator assisting the breathing of a teenager dying after a car crash
reminded him of his father's before he died. The sound association, the sound
of the labored breathing, was too much. Groner broke down and sobbed in front
of his peers. It was a sign of his empathy, the deep regard he has for the
doctor-patient bond.
"People trust doctors because we don't use our powers to do bad things," he
said, and that's the problem. "When health care professionals use their skills
to execute people, it blurs the lines between healing and killing."
Groner opened a folder on his computer with images from various post-execution
autopsies. One was of a central venous catheterization and the other something
called a "cutdown." He explained that these are specialized procedures
requiring skill, training and experience.
"What I remember most about Broom, about the experience, were his hands. They
were smooth and soft," Groner said. And then he spoke of his father again. "You
know, they reminded me of my father's at the end of his life."
"When I have to speak to families about end-of-life decisions, about all that I
can really do is provide comfort. At the end of the day that's the only
medicine I have. That's a doctor's role -- to provide comfort. Most patients
would be willing to suffer to survive. But I don't accept that we're supposed
to provide comfort at an execution. There's supposed to be a trust there and
when our skills are used for the state's benefit, that's a moral slippery
slope."
A Brief History of Doctors and the Death Penalty
Doctors have been involved with the death penalty since at least the 18th
century, when, for example, a French surgeon named Antoine Louis proposed a
device to make executions swift and, supposedly, humane. That device was
ultimately named after a death penalty opponent, Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.
In 1866, an Irish doctor named Samuel Haughton proposed the use of a table of
drops that accounted for a condemned person's height and weight in order to
kill them more quickly.
"We do not see the inmate about to be executed as a 'patient' per se."
In an 1887 essay titled "Scientific Methods of Capital Punishment," a dentist
in New York State named Julius Mount Bleyer proposed "the hypodermic injection
of morphine." Bleyer suggested that any sheriff would be able to execute a
condemned person with ease. He wrote, "The advantages of this method are its
certainty, its painlessness, the freedom from the chance of horrible displays,
the reduction of the dramatic element to a minimum, and its inexpensiveness."
In 1953, Great Britain's Royal Commission on Capital Punishment considered
using lethal injection as an alternative method to hanging, but it concluded
that no medical practitioner should be involved in such a process. As a result,
the commission stuck with hanging.
Over 2 decades later, 2 medical professionals working in concert with two state
legislators in Oklahoma concocted the first lethal injection protocol.
Jay Chapman (Oklahoma's chief medical examiner) and Stanley Deutsch (a faculty
member of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine), like Haughton and
Bleyer before them, sought an effective and potentially painless way to kill
people that could replace the electric chair and the gas chamber.
Their suggestion was to use a lethal cocktail of drugs. For many years, the
most common drugs used were sodium thiopental or sodium pentothal (to induce
sleep), pancuronium bromide (to stop breathing) and potassium chloride (to stop
the heart). In Texas in 1982, Charles Brooks Jr. was the first to be executed
by lethal injection.
Since 1980, the American Medical Association (AMA) has prohibited medical
doctors from participating in executions, though doctors can prescribe
sedatives prior to execution and sign death certificates. The AMA language is
necessarily broad:
Physician participation in execution is defined generally as actions which
would fall into one or more of the following categories: (1) an action which
would directly cause the death of the condemned; (2) an action which would
assist, supervise, or contribute to the ability of another individual to
directly cause the death of the condemned; (3) an action which could
automatically cause an execution to be carried out on a condemned prison.
The AMA was part of a chorus of medical professionals condemning lethal
injection. Susannah Sirkin of Physicians for Human Rights said in an interview
that her organization quickly understood what was happening -- that states were
using physicians to sanitize the process. "We wanted to give the lie to that
notion," she said.
>From its inception in 1986, Physicians for Human Rights has worked to expose
and end situations where health professionals violate human rights -- in
particular, doctor involvement in torture or cruel and unusual punishment. "Of
course," Sirkin said, "the history of this goes back to Nuremberg and the Nazi
doctors and the concept of doing no harm."
In 1994, Sirkin helped pen "Breach of Trust," a report that documented the
roles that medical professionals play in executions. The report concluded,
"State medical boards, which are responsible for licensure and discipline,
should define physician participation as unethical conduct, and take
appropriate action against physicians who violate ethical standards."
Furthermore, the report claimed, "Laws should not be enacted that facilitate
violations of medical ethical standards (such as anonymity clauses)."
And yet, that's exactly what has happened.
"There's a reason that there's anonymity," Sirkin said. "It underscores the
fact that states know this is wrong, almost an admission that it's a violation
of ethics and you can't go after them. And it shows that the only way to
recruit them is to shield them."
One of the issues facing medical professionals, though, is that the
declarations of their professional organizations have no teeth. The best they
can do is censure or revoke membership. This is clear when looking at the
efforts of physicians to put a stop to other physicians participating in
executions.
In a June 18, 2014, opinion piece for the Journal of the American Medical
Association, three doctors from Harvard Medical School argued that protecting
physicians who participate in executions is essentially an attempt by states to
de-professionalize medical professionals.
One of the authors, Dr. Robert D. Truog, professor of medical ethics,
anesthesiology and pediatrics and director of the Center for Bioethics at
Harvard Medical School, wrote in an email exchange with Truthout that
legislative attempts to de-professionalize doctors continue. The best-case
scenario, Truog said, would be for medical boards to revoke the certification
of doctors who participate in executions. The American Board of Anesthesiology
has adopted such a policy. "In this case, the physician would not lose his/her
license, but would be barred from practicing in any hospital that requires its
physicians to be board certified in their specialty in order to have privileges
on the hospital staff (which is most hospitals)."
But courts have asserted that licensing boards can't discipline medical
professionals who participate in lethal injection. When the North Carolina
Medical Board attempted to do so, the State Supreme Court prohibited it. Some
states are trying to pre-empt boards from such actions. Ohio's death penalty
secrecy law, HB 663, says that a licensing authority can't sanction a medical
professional participating in an execution.
Health Care's Darkest Corner
An overwhelming majority of medical professionals and their attendant
associations have made it clear that lethal injection executions are not the
place for physicians and allied health professionals. However, there are
exceptions, and death penalty states are doing their best to encourage and
shield these rogues.
Jen Moreno, an attorney with the Berkeley School of Law Death Penalty Clinic,
told Truthout, "Every state that carries out executions requires the
participation of medical personnel of some type. Some states specifically
require a physician to perform some tasks; others list different categories --
doctors, nurses, phlebotomist, EMT, paramedics, military corpsman -- that
corrections officials can choose from."
There are many tasks that blur the lines between the practice of medicine and
the practice of capital punishment.
Prior to executions, a condemned person typically receives a medical exam to
assess their veins and a psychiatric evaluation to assess whether or not they
are competent to be executed. The execution drugs are mixed by a pharmacist.
And medical professionals set IVs, administer drugs, check consciousness and
declare death.
"The way they described IV insertion -- they had medicalized the process just
like the Nazis."
Thus, many organizations that accredit medical professionals have told their
members not to participate in lethal injection executions. In addition to the
American Medical Association, the National Association of Emergency Medical
Technicians, American Nurses Association, American Board of Anesthesiology and
American Pharmacists Association have all asserted that participating in lethal
injections contradicts medical ethics.
Because they lack any national representative organization, phlebotomists
(medical technicians who draw blood) have not taken a similar stance. This is
significant because state protocols in Florida, Texas and Ohio allow for
phlebotomists to be members of the execution team.
Moreno said that it's likely that states added phlebotomists to the list of
those who can participate after the US Supreme Court's 2008 Baze v. Rees
decision, which upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection. Chief Justice
John Roberts' opinion notes that Kentucky's execution team includes a
"certified phlebotomist" with years of experience. In other words, a
phlebotomist who is trained and has taken an accredited course in phlebotomy.
But not all phlebotomists are certified, nor do they all have significant
experience. In Oklahoma, according to the Tulsa World, phlebotomists are not
trained to insert IVs, and yet one was involved in the attempted execution of
Clayton Lockett. There was also a phlebotomist on the team that attempted to
insert an IV in order to execute Romell Broom.
Florida's execution protocol permits phlebotomists on its execution teams for
"achieving and monitoring peripheral venous access" -- which could mean
inserting an IV. The state says these phlebotomists must be certified by the
American Society for Clinical Pathology, National Certification Agency for
Medical Laboratory Personnel, American Society of Phlebotomy Technicians or
American Medical Technologists.
But it's not clear how phlebotomists actually participate. Alberto C. Moscoso,
press secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections, told Truthout that
"we can't elaborate on team member duties as, due to the security concerns and
sensitivity of assignments surrounding death row, the details of staff
responsibilities during the execution process are restricted from release."
When contacted by Truthout, an employee at the American Society of Phlebotomy
Technicians indicated that the society was not aware that it was on Florida's
list. Nor does the organization have a specific policy on participating in
lethal injection executions. IV insertion, the employee said, is a separate
certification and phlebotomists do not typically conduct IV insertions.
A spokesperson for American Medical Technologists told Truthout via email, "The
detailed exam blueprint for AMT's Registered Phlebotomy Technician exam does
not include any tasks that would appear to encompass inserting an intravenous
catheter for purposes of administering fluids, as opposed to drawing blood."
Dennis Ernst, director of the Center for Phlebotomy Education, a nationally
recognized expert on the profession, said that this is complicated territory.
"There's nothing in any state that restricts phlebotomist from starting an IV.
But as far as I know, no state allows them [to] start meds. And no legitimate
organization would certify for putting in meds."
In 1 scenario, Ernst said he could imagine a phlebotomist inserting an IV, and
someone else could start the medication.
Ernst said that the extent of phlebotomist participation in lethal injection
executions is news to him. "Phlebotomy is not very regulated," he said, adding
that he has been working most of his life to point this out. "Phlebotomists
need to have regulation or oversight. Only four states require certification:
California, Louisiana, Nevada and Washington. Phlebotomists have no scope of
practice, and there is no professional organization representing them.
Phlebotomy is one of health care's darkest corners; its best-kept secret."
This assertion was underscored when Truthout asked American Medical
Technologists if phlebotomists are governed by the principle of "do no harm." A
spokesperson said via email, "There is nothing in AMT's Standards of Practice
that equates to a 'do no harm' mandate, although the Standards do require that
'The AMT professional shall place the health and welfare of the patient above
all else.' We do not, however, read that as prohibiting a member from
participating in a state-sponsored execution. For instance, we do not see the
inmate about to be executed as a 'patient' per se."
Now some states are proposing old methods, like the firing squad or the
electric chair, as backups to lethal injection. And other states are exploring
new means to execute people -- for example, Oklahoma is considering using
nitrogen gas. In other words, states are inventing new ways of killing that may
exclude medical professionals.
But in some ways, they have already moved in that direction.
"Hippocratic Paradox"
Dr. Jonathan Groner said that he was always a death penalty agnostic, until a
series of encounters turned him into an abolitionist. The first came when, at
the end of his residency, he testified in the capital trial of Jerry Lee
Allard. Allard had killed his wife and child and very nearly his other child,
but Groner, as a young trauma surgeon, was able to help save that child's life.
Testifying at the trial made Groner uneasy. He said Allard was sentenced to
death and sent to prison, but "he got cancer and died. Never got the ultimate
punishment, but he did, in a way."
Later Groner read about the 1997 triple execution of Earl Van Denton, Paul Ruiz
and Kirt Wainwright in Arkansas (the state held another triple execution three
years earlier). Groner said that as a Jewish kid who had studied the Holocaust
while growing up, the story about Arkansas resonated.
"The way they described IV insertion -- they had medicalized the process just
like the Nazis," he said. Groner was incensed by this diffusion of
responsibility.
"When I read [Robert Jay] Lifton's The Nazi Doctors, I learned that they used
direct cardiac injections of phenol to kill prisoners in the T-4 euthanasia
program," he said. "Some states are now using central venous catheters for
executions, so they are getting pretty close to the same thing."
Groner was clear that he's not comparing the death penalty to the Holocaust;
he's pointing to doctors who crossed boundaries. For over a decade now, Groner
has been persistent in his public critique of the medicalization of the death
penalty and the troubling links to this history.
"There are certain times throughout history where medicalization has been used
to justify things that are inhumane," he said. "Waterboarding -- they had a
doctor present. First electrocution -- there were several doctors present. But
doctors have an esteemed position in society and because of that we can do
things that others can't. There are times when I perform major surgery --
literally cut an infant open -- to deal with a life-threatening issue such as a
bowel obstruction. Why does a family who has never met me before allow me to do
that to their child? Because people trust us. In exchange for that, we can
never use our powers to cause harm."
(source: truth-out.org)
INDIANA:
Pfizer Ban on Execution Drugs Won't Impede Death Penalty in Indiana----State's
death row inmates still have years of appeals ahead; state has said it has
stockpile of needed chemicals
The world's largest pharmaceutical company is blocking the use of its drugs for
executions. But it's unclear how that will affect Indiana.
Pfizer was the last FDA-approved drugmaker which still sold the chemicals used
for lethal injection. That's the only execution method allowed by Indiana law
-- it would take legislative action to bring back the electric chair or some
other method.
But Indiana said 2 years ago it had a stockpile of execution drugs, and the
state hasn't executed anyone since. The Department of Correction said then it
had even assisted other states who were having difficulty as the market
tightened.
Some states have turned to less-regulated compounding pharmacies, or tried to
import drugs from overseas.
Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Chairman Mike Young (R-Indianapolis) says
at some point, legislators should probably authorize an alternate method. He
says no one anticipated supply-chain problems when the state switched to lethal
injection in 1995. But he says there's no rush. None of the 12 killers on
Indiana's death row is anywhere close to an execution date -- only 2 have
progressed as far as a federal appeals court. And Young says any attempt to
tweak the law would likely trigger a fierce debate over whether Indiana should
abolish the death penalty entirely.
Indiana hasn't executed anyone since 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles of Evansville
was put to death for the murders of his wife and 2 of his in-laws.
(source: WIBC news)
OKLAHOMA:
Jury selection continues for trial of 2 men in deaths of 4
Jury selection continues for the trial of 2 men accused of shooting four people
to death, including a prostitute featured on the HBO reality series "Cathouse."
Prospective jurors were questioned for a 2nd day Tuesday in the trial of Denny
Edward Phillips and Russell Lee Hogshooter. Both are charged with 1st-degree
murder in the Nov. 9, 2009, deaths of TV celebrity Brooke Phillips, Milagros
Barrera, Jennifer Lynn Ermey and Casey Mark Barrientos.
Denny Phillips and Hogshooter are charged with 6 counts of 1st-degree murder
because Brooke Phillips and Barrera were both pregnant. They have pleaded not
guilty. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Brooke Phillips, who wasn't related to Denny Phillips, was featured on the
cable network's show about the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel near Carson
City, Nevada.
(source: charlotteobserver.com)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
Man charged with murder to be returned to S.D.
A 21-year-old man who led authorities on a 5-day multistate manhunt that ended
on the Wyoming-Nebraska border will be headed back to South Dakota soon. Jared
Jerome Stone is accused of killing a man outside of a Sioux Falls casino.
Stone's criminal case in Wyoming has been resolved. He was charged in Laramie
County with driving while impaired, possession of a controlled substance,
eluding and 3 other traffic violations.
He pleaded no contest to the DWI and eluding charges. The remaining charges
were dismissed by prosecutors, according to court documents filed in the case.
Stone waived his right to an extradition hearing.
Stone was sentenced to 15 days in jail but given a credit for time he'd already
spent in jail.
Stone was arrested April 27 after a standoff that shut down part of Interstate
80 near Pine Bluffs, Wyo.
Stone had been on the run since April 22 when police identified him as the man
who shot and killed Baptise White Eyes in a parking lot on 11th Street on the
west side of downtown.
He is charged with 1st-degree murder in Minnehaha County. If convicted, he
could face the death penalty or will be be sentenced to life without parole.
Minnehaha County State's Attorney Aaron McGowan said he doesn't think a court
date for Stone has been set yet, but he would expect Stone to be returned to
South Dakota within a week or so.
Meanwhile, the 3 women accused of helping him evade authorities are proceeding
through the court system in South Dakota.
Lachara Marie Bordeaux, 26, Mercedes Joyce Red Bear, 24, and Desiree Marya
Sully, 31, have been indicted by a Minnehaha County grand jury on 2 counts of
felony accessory. They face a maximum sentence of 5 years in prison and a
$10,000 fine on each count.
(source: Argus Leader)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 17 15:15:46 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:15:46 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605171515390.3768@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 17
NEVADA:
Nevada execution chamber construction moving forward despite drug cutoff
The Nevada Department of Corrections is moving forward with the construction of
a new execution chamber at Ely State Prison despite the announcement that the
drugmaker Pfizer will not allow its drugs to be used for lethal injections.
Pfizer became the last of about 25 Food and Drug Administration-approved
drugmakers globally to officially cut off access, The New York Times reported
last week. The company manufactures seven drugs that can be used in executions.
Brooke Keast, public information officer for the Nevada Department of
Corrections, said the project is proceeding.
"Medication manufacturing can change at any given time," she said in a
statement. "And if we receive a court order to execute, we can't say the reason
for not following orders is DOC infrastructure."
A Nevada prison official told the Review-Journal in July 2015 that the agency
would use the drugs midazolam and hydromorphone to administer a lethal
injection.
Both of these drugs are manufactured by Pfizer.
"Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we
serve," the company said in a statement on Friday. "Consistent with these
values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections
for capital punishment."
The Nevada Legislature in the 2015 session approved spending $858,000 to build
a new execution chamber at Nevada???s maximum-security prison at Ely. The
current chamber is in the now-closed Nevada State Prison in the capital.
Nevada has the death penalty and is required by law to use lethal injection for
executions.
State officials in December approved a nearly $94,000 contract with the
architectural and engineering firm of Kittrell Garlock & Associates of Las
Vegas to design the new execution facility.
The last execution, by lethal injection, occurred at the Nevada State Prison on
April 26, 2006, when Daryl Mack was put to death. Mack was executed for the
rape and murder of a Reno woman, Betty Jane May, in 1988.
(source: Las Veags Review-Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
3 men eligible for death penalty plead not guilty
3 suspects arrested in connection with a deadly shooting appeared in court on
Monday.
Jeffrey Tapia, 20, Ricky Cortex, 19, and Daniel Marquez, 20, all pleaded not
guilty on all charges connected to the murder of 31-year-old Benjamin Mendoza.
They were arrested on suspicion of murder, conspiracy and participation in a
criminal street gang and are all eligible for the death penalty.
Mendoza was killed on May 11 near Madison Street and Del Mar Drive. His family
said they do not believe Mendoza was connected to the suspects in any way. "We
don't know if the victim was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said
the Kern County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ray Pruitt.
The suspects are being held without bail and are expected to be back in court
on May 25.
(source: bakersfieldnow.com)
*************
Death sentenced for man convicted of ordering victim's death----In courtroom
outburst, defendant denies wrongdoing in 2011 shooting by gang members. Judge
rejects his last-minute moves to switch attorneys.
A 41-year-old Moreno Valley man, described in court as a gang shot caller, was
sentenced to death Monday, May 16, for ordering the shooting of a Moreno Valley
man after a home-invasion robbery 5 years ago.
What likely was his last appearance in a Riverside County Superior Court room
repeated some elements that made the case stand out.
Romaine Martin had a closed-door hearing with Judge Candace J. Beason over a
request to get rid of his attorneys, not his 1st such request, and the judge
denied it. He withdrew a motion for a penalty-phase retrial that had been
prepared by his trial defense attorneys. Last month and again Monday, the judge
rejected his requests to hire new attorneys. In both cases, the attorneys had
not communicated with the court in advance about the requests.
In an outburst, Martin said his rights had been violated, denied responsibility
for the crimes and turned to victim Jerry Mitchell Jr.'s family members and
said, "I pray for you."
The judge warned that his conduct may warrant gagging, but after a break and
talk with courtroom deputies, who numbered up to 8 at one point, Martin kept
quiet.
In a brief statement to the court during the sentencing hearing, the victim's
father, Jerry Mitchell Sr., said Martin deserved to die and asked if it was
possible to put Martin "in front of the line on death row." The father was
consistently in the courtroom for proceedings over the 5 years, often
accompanied by relatives and friends.
A jury found Martin guilty in January of charges including murder as an aider
and abettor, robbery, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm and
committing a crime in furtherance of a criminal street gang, according to court
records. The same jury recommended the death penalty after a separate
penalty-phase trial in February.
Gang members believed mistakenly that Mitchell, who had no gang ties, had
$10,000 stashed in his Carnation Lane condominium. Several broke in on May 27,
2011, but the only loot they took was household goods, according to testimony.
The burglars left, but about 10 minutes later 3 returned after Martin learned
that participant Deontray Robinson knew Mitchell, and Martin ordered Robinson
to kill him, according to trial testimony.
Neighbors called 911 and as Mitchell stood in his doorway waiting for help to
arrive, he was shot 5 times and died.
The judge called Mitchell, 27, a law-abiding young man and a caring person. She
contrasted that with Martin whose "criminal history is long and violent,"
beginning as a juvenile. "He has used his gifts, unfortunately, for evil."
The shooter, Robinson, 26, of Palm Desert, was convicted last year and
sentenced to life in prison without parole. Robinson's trial initially included
Martin as a 2nd co-defendant, but when it was discovered that the judge had
been Martin's defense attorney in a 1996 robbery case, the judge recused
himself and the trial proceeded for Robinson only.
1 more defendant faces trial soon and another one pleaded guilty and agreed to
testify against other defendants.
(source: The Press-Enterprise)
****************
Death penalty ordered in MoVal murder
Prosecution of a 5-year-old murder case in Moreno Valley is over for 1
defendant, but another is pursuing an appeal.
A Superior Court judge Monday upheld a jury's recommendation that Romaine
Martin, 41, should suffer the death penalty. Martin's accomplice, Deontry
Robinson, 26, was convicted of murder and robbery, and was given a no-parole
prison term when a jury could not decide if the death penalty was appropriate.
Prosecutors charged the 2 men, members of a street gang, with confronting Jerry
Mitchell, Jr. outside his Moreno Valley apartment in May 2011. Mitchell was
forced inside, shot and killed as the suspects carried out a home invasion
robbery.
Prosecutors said that the robbers mistakenly thought Mitchell had $10,000 in
cash hidden in his apartment.
(source: Inland News Today)
*****************
California considers making its own lethal drugs for the death penalty
Under new rules proposed by the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, prison officials would be allowed to manufacture barbituates to
carry out the death penalty at its own compounding pharmacies, immunizing
prison officials from the growing problem of pharmaceutical companies refusing
to sell lethal drugs for the purpose of killing the condemned.
Last week, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced it would no longer allow
states to buy its drugs to put people to death.
Pfizer's decision won't affect California because it does not manufacture the 4
drugs prison officials propose to use in the new regime now under
consideration.
(source: scpr.org)
*****************
Explain why death row inmates cost so much
I read your editorial "End California's death penalty? Start the debate" (May
15). It started with, "The Democrats who control the California state
government are in an ambitious mood of late."
You, our newspaper, seemed to revel in the efforts of Jerry Brown, Gavin
Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Lorena Gonzalez and the old Democratic stalwarts Rose
Bird, Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin and their ability to turn the state of
California into a cultural cesspool. I do have 1 question.
Who is on the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice and
how did they determine it costs 10 times more to keep someone on death row than
those imprisoned for life?
Do the people on death row live in a Hilton hotel and eat steak and lobster
three meals a day?
Frank Fleming
San Diego
(source: Letter to the Editor, San Diego Union-Tribune)
WASHINGTON:
Yakima County prosecutor on considering death penalty for MoneyTree killings
The Yakima County Prosecutor is currently trying to decide whether to pursue
the death penalty in the Moneytree double homicide case.
Manuel Verduzco is charged with 1st-degree aggravated murder after being
accused of shooting 2 women to death. This is only the 4th time in nearly 30
years where the death penalty has been considered in Yakima County.
Marta Martinez and Karina Morales-Rodriguez were ready to start their work day
at Moneytree one March morning when court records say a former employee,
26-year-old Verduzco, shot and killed them.
He was arrested hours later and could now face the harshest penalty under state
law.
"This is one of the greatest decisions that I'll ever make," said Yakima County
Prosecutor Joe Brusic.
Prosecutor Brusic is deciding whether this crime calls for the death penalty.
Verduzco has been charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree aggravated murder.
Defendants need to have at least one aggravator to be considered for the death
penalty. Verduzco faces 3. They further a crime by making it more violent or
intensified. For instance, Verduzco is accused of murdering multiple people and
accused of doing it while in the act of a burglary.
"Things change dramatically if any prosecutor files a notice seeking the death
penalty," said Brusic.
In the past 30 years, the death penalty's been considered 3 times in Yakima
County.
The closest the county's ever been to the death penalty was after a couple was
brutally stabbed and murdered in 1988 while eating dinner at their home in
Parker. The Nickoloffs were killed by 2 17-year-old's, who took off with 2
televisions.
Both defendants, Herbert Rice Junior and Russell McNeil, got life in prison
without parole.
"Herbert Rice Junior being alive is an insult to our parents and this community
and to the state," said a victim's family member at Rice Junior's sentencing
hearing.
Rice Junior was the closest our county's ever gotten to putting someone on
death row, with an 11 to 1 vote by jurors.
"The homicides were exceptionally serious and rocked Yakima County and still
does," said Brusic.
The death penalty was then considered again after the execution-style killings
of 21-year-old Ricardo Causor and his 3-year-old daughter Mya in 2005 in
Yakima. Commissioners said at the time going for the death penalty could cost
more than $2 million.
The prosecutor, Ron Zirkle, ultimately decided against it. One defendant, Jose
Sanchez, was later sentenced to life in prison and the other, Mario Mendez, was
sentenced to 30 years.
The most recent time the death penalty was considered in Yakima County was in
2011 against Kevin Harper.
"It almost needs to be air tight without any doubt," said former prosecutor Jim
Hagarty.
This was the triple homicide case in West Valley in 2011 where 3 members of the
Goggins family were attacked, killed and robbed. Prosecutor Hagarty decided not
to pursue the death penalty after consideration and no one took blame for the
murders.
"The system as a whole is impacted," said Brusic. "It's an exceptionally
serious decision."
A decision Prosecutor Brusic has requested more time to make. He says death
penalty cases involve a closer look at evidence and the responsibility of
trying to understand the suspect.
"My job is to make sure I know everything I can within reason about who
[Verduzco] is," said Brusic.
Brusic wouldn't speculate on what it could cost. He did note it's more
expensive with the need for a much larger jury pool, an extra public defender
from Seattle and more time on all ends.
Aggravated murder suspects undergo one regular jury trial but then have a
penalty phase if found guilty -- that's where jurors decide if they get death
or life without parole.
Unlike some other states, the county foots the majority of the bill with the
possibility of some reimbursements.
"Right now, money is not a factor in any decision I would make," said Brusic.
Brusic now has until July 15th to make the decision on whether he wants to
pursue the death penalty.
(source: KIMA TV news)
USA:
Another Drug Company Distances Itself From Death Penalty
Drug companies are forbidding states with the death penalty from using their
drugs to perform lethal injections in an effort to preserve their big brands,
but it's coming with some unintended consequences, according to one legal
expert.
Pfizer announced last week it will block its drugs from being used in lethal
injections. More than 20 drug companies have adopted similar restrictions,
leaving states that use the death penalty scrambling to find supplies and
looking into other methods to carry out executions.
"The pharmaceutical companies are big brand names and so they have stakeholders
and they have brand images and bottom lines to protect, so they're taking these
steps as business decisions in the best interest of their brand names," said
Megan McCracken, legal counselor at the University of California at Berkeley's
Death Penalty Clinic.
McCracken said drug companies first began telling states that they don't want
their products involved with capital punishment as early as 2001.
"But it's only more recently, since 2011, that pharmaceutical companies have
taken more effective concrete steps to actually prevent. Department of
Corrections from getting their drugs," said McCracken. "The policy has always
been there, it's just that more recently they have put what they call
restrictive distribution systems in place to actually stop the states from
purchasing the drugs."
As pharmaceutical companies make their drugs unavailable, states are responding
by passing laws to make their death-penalty procedures confidential.
"It makes it very difficult for the public, for the courts and for condemned
prisoners to really know how an execution is going to proceed -- like exactly
what drug will be used, who made it and how the state will use it," McCracken
said.
Additionally, some states have attempted to illegally import unapproved drugs
from overseas. On several occasions in recent years, federal agents have denied
execution drugs into the United States.
Compared to death by electric chair or firing squad, lethal injections were
widely seen as the more humane form of capital punishment. But McCracken said
new research is calling that into question.
She added that the shortage of drug products to perform lethal injection hasn't
led to a kind of de facto end to state-assisted executions. Moreover, the
federal government, which also enforces the death penalty, is expect to release
a new protocol based on recent research and the drug restrictions.
(source: Wisconsin Public Radio)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 17 15:16:25 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:16:25 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605171516170.3768@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 17
JAPAN:
After hanging, ex-citizen judge calls death penalty 'murder'
Toshiyasu Yonezawa says he committed "murder" when he was performing his civic
duty.
The 27-year-old's "victim" was Sumitoshi Tsuda, himself a convicted killer who
fatally stabbed 3 people in Kawasaki, including the landlord of an apartment.
Tsuda, then 63, was the 1st person executed under the citizen judge system that
was introduced in 2009 to allow ordinary citizens to have a say in the legal
process.
Yonezawa was 1 of the lay judges who demanded capital punishment for Tsuda 5
years ago.
"I do not want to accept the fact that he was hanged," said Yonezawa, referring
to Tsuda's execution in late 2015.
After long refusing media requests for comment on Tsuda's death, Yonezawa
agreed to be interviewed by The Asahi Shimbun.
Now an opponent of capital punishment, Tsuda explained how he came to regret
his decision and the traumatic effect of being responsible for ending a
person's life. He urged people to "have 2nd thoughts" on death sentences.
Under Japan's revised judiciary system, citizen judges hear the 1st trial of
serious felony cases, including murder and robbery resulting in death or
injury.
3 professional judges and 6 citizen judges discuss and decide on the verdict in
each case. If the judges cannot unanimously agree on a sentence for the guilty
party, the punishment is determined by a majority vote. At least 5 of the
judges, including at least 1 of the professionals, must agree before the
sentence is adopted.
Lay judges are duty-bound to keep confidential any developments in their
discussions of the trial and the results of majority votes. But they are
allowed to give their own opinions about the trials.
"For me, the death penalty used to be somebody else's problem, but it currently
is not," Yonezawa said. "It is tough for ordinary citizens to be involved in a
legal process that can claim someone's life."
Yonezawa, a resident of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, said he has tried to
forget the murder suspect, but he sometimes has flashbacks of Tsuda's face.
"His expressionless face I saw in the courtroom appears in my mind," Yonezawa
said. "I can't help but think about what he felt in the last moment of his
life."
Yonezawa was a senior at university when he and other judges sentenced Tsuda to
death on June 17, 2011, as prosecutors had demanded.
"We determined the ruling after paying due consideration to the feelings of the
bereaved families and the defendant's early background," Yonezawa said at a
news conference following the ruling. "I hope he will reflect on what he did
and sincerely accept the sentence."
At that time, Yonezawa still believed that capital punishment should continue,
and that certain criminals in the world deserve to be executed.
The following month, Tsuda dropped his appeal, and his death sentence was
finalized.
Yonezawa said he was relieved to hear that because the condemned inmate
"accepted the decision that we made after many discussions."
Shortly after the death sentence was finalized, one of Yonezawa's close friends
said, "So you killed the person."
Yonezawa was appalled. He had believed that the death penalty is the "heaviest
punishment" carried out by somebody else. He had never associated his decision
with the notion that he "killed someone" by indirectly involving himself.
But his friend's words made him think: "Was it a proper decision?" And he had
trouble trying to dispel feelings that his decision may have been wrong.
Although Yonezawa attempted to shut his mind and forget the experience, he
became nervous each time he heard reports about an execution. He did not tell
anybody, but Yonezawa felt relieved when he learned that the inmate put to
death was not Tsuda.
But on Dec. 18, Tsuda was executed at the Tokyo Detention House.
"I could not accept it as reality," Yonezawa said. "I thought if I did not
believe the execution had been carried out, I could continue believing Tsuda
was alive somewhere."
Yonezawa refused the flood of requests for media interviews, saying he had
nothing to say. He was also focused on his work at a company that he joined
after graduation.
Months after Tsuda's death, Yonezawa said he still does "not want to believe
that," although he is well aware that Tsuda is gone.
"The death penalty is no different than murder except that it is legally
authorized," he said.
After thinking about the capital punishment issue as his own problem, he now
opposes the practice.
In 2014, Yonezawa, working with about 20 former citizen judges and others,
called on the justice minister to disclose more details about the death penalty
to stimulate nationwide discussion on the practice. They also urged the
minister to suspend executions for the time being.
"I feel anger toward the fact that the government continues carrying out
hangings, even though we are demanding that it should not," Yonezawa said. "I
fear that the executions of inmates sentenced to death under the citizen judge
system may be carried out successively, with Tsuda's hanging as the start."
In addition to Tsuda's punishment, 9 death sentences under the lay judge system
have been finalized.
Yonezawa said he decided to talk to The Asahi Shimbun under his real name
because he believes he must continue speaking out so that other citizen judges
will not suffer the same feelings that he experienced.
"I would like people to have 2nd thoughts through additional discussions and
other efforts before making a decision," Yonezawa said.
Before the lay judge system was introduced, concerns arose about the
psychological impact on ordinary citizens engaged in a legal process that could
result in death.
Considering the potential emotional burden, the Supreme Court set up an office
to offer counseling and other services to citizen judges.
Yonezawa said the fact that he was involved in a judgment that claimed a life
will never disappear. He said that for the rest of his life, he will have to
come to grips with that reality.
Yonezawa spoke calmly throughout the interview. But he raised his voice when he
sharply said: "I never want to serve as a citizen judge again."
(source: The Asahi Shimbun)
INDIA:
Indo-Pak lawyers join hands for Bhagat Singh case
3 years after filing petition in Lahore high court seeking reopening of
Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh case, Pakistani lawyer Imtiaz Rasheed Qureshi has
joined hands with Indian lawyer Momin Malik to expose how British government
bypassed the laid down judicial procedure in hanging Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and
Sukhdev. Now, a case will be made to seek an apology and compensation for kin
of the freedom fighters.
Momin also took up the case of Geeta who showed up in India from Pakistan.
Malik and Qureshi were in Amritsar on May 15 to celebrate the birth anniversary
of martyr Sukhdev Thapar, who was hanged along with Bhagat Singh and Rajguru in
1931.
Talking to TOI, Momin said Qureshi had given him a copy of the court's decision
awarding death sentence to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
"The sentence was awarded before the Indo-Pak division. However, post
Partition, several amendments were made in the penal code system of Pakistan.
Qureshi wanted an Indian lawyer well acquainted with the IPC, so I will help
him in the case," he said.
Qureshi, who is also the founding chairman of the Bhagat Singh Memorial
Foundation, Pakistan, said he filed a petition in Lahore High Court in 2013,
seeking reopening of the freedom fighter's case so that he could be declared
innocent. He said the judicial system was not followed and the decision to hang
the freedom fighters was taken in haste.
"It was a pre-determined decision taken in a hurry and this is what we want to
expose before the world," he said. He said Singh was first awarded life
imprisonment but the British government changed it into death penalty. He said
even the FIR , a copy of which he claims to have procured, didn't have Bhagat
Singh's name.
With the re-opening of the case, they would urge the British government to seek
an apology and give compensation to the family members of freedom fighters who
were hanged during their regime in India.
(source: The Times of India)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime hangs 13 people today, including 1 man in public
Iran's fundamentalist regime hanged at least 13 people, including 1 man in
public, on Tuesday.
6 men were hanged collectively in the Central Prison of Urmia (Orumieh),
north-west Iran, earlier on Tuesday, May 17. They had been serving a prison
sentence in Ward 15 of the jail on drugs-related charges.
They were identified as Naji Keywan, Nader Mohammadi, Ali Shamugardian, Aziz
Nouri-Azar, Fereydoon Rashidi and Heidar Amini.
The victim, who was not named, was hanged at 7 am in the city's Mofatteh
Square. His sentence had been upheld by the regime's Supreme Court.
Separately, the regime's Prosecutor in Yazd Province told the state-run Rokna
news agency that 6 people were hanged in the central Iranian province on
Tuesday. 3 of the victims were identified by their initials Ch. R., A. S., and
A. B.
Commenting on the hangings, Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Tuesday
said:
"At least 38 executions since the start of May, including three in public, are
of deep concern. That's to say there's been one public execution every 5 days
and 2 people hanged each day in the month of May. Sadly however what adds to
our concern is that there has not been an appropriate response by the
international community or human rights groups to the appalling state of human
rights in Iran."
The latest hangings bring to at least 89 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Iran's fundamentalist regime last week amputated the fingers of a man in his
30s in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments handed down and
carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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."
******************
2 Prisoners with Drug Charges and a Prisoner Charged with Adultery Hanged in
Northern Iran
On the morning of Saturday May 14 3 prisoners were reportedly hanged at Lakan,
Rasht's central prison (in the province of Gilan, northern Iran). A report by
the press department of the Judiciary in Gilan has identified the prisoners as:
"A.A.", 22 years old, charged with possession and trafficking of 2 kilograms
and 450 grams of crystal meth; "A.Sh.", 26 years old, charged with possession
of 458 grams of crystal meth and 637 grams of heroin; and "H.P.", 31 years old,
charged with adultery.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi executes Pakistani drug smuggler
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday put to death a Pakistani man convicted of drug
smuggling, bringing to 93 the number of executions in the kingdom this year.
Mohammed Ishaq Thawab Gul had been found guilty of trafficking heroin into the
kingdom, the interior ministry said.
Most people put to death in the Gulf country are beheaded with a sword.
According to rights group Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia had the
3rd-highest number of executions last year -- at least 158
Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions,
although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" on a single day in
January.
According to rights group Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia had the
3rd-highest number of executions last year -- at least 158.
That was far behind Pakistan which executed 326, and Saudi Arabia's regional
rival Iran, which executed at least 977, said Amnesty whose figures exclude
secretive China.
Rights experts have raised concerns about the fairness of trials in Saudi
Arabia and say the death penalty should not be applied in drugs cases.
The interior ministry, however, said the government "is keen on fighting drugs
of all kinds due to their serious damage to individuals and the society".
(source: Daily Mail)
************************
S. Arabia's Iran Spying Trial 'Mockery of Justice': HRW
Human Rights Watch (HRW) announced that Saudi Arabia's trial of 32 men for
allegedly spying on behalf of Iran is a "mockery of justice" because it "has
violated the basic due process rights of the defendants."
Saudi prosecutors are seeking death penalty against 25 of the 32 people the
kingdom has detained since 2013, Press TV reported.
The men are accused of spying for Iran but the charge sheet, which Human Rights
Watch said it had reviewed, contains numerous allegations that do not resemble
recognizable crimes.
According to the New York-based rights group, the defendants are accused of
"supporting demonstrations," "harming the reputation of the kingdom," and
attempting to spread the Shiite confession."
The kingdom began trying the men in February 2016 at the Specialized Criminal
Court in Riyadh.
According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi authorities have not permitted the
defendants to meet with lawyers or provided all of the court documents
necessary to prepare a defense after more than 3 years of detention and
investigation.
"This trial is shaping up as another stain on Saudi Arabia's grossly unfair
criminal justice system," said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's Middle East director.
"Criminal trials should not be merely legal 'window-dressing' where the verdict
has been decided beforehand," she said.
According to the charge sheet, the defendants include 30 Saudis, 1 Iranian and
1 Afghan citizen.
An individual with direct knowledge of the case has told Human Rights Watch
that all but one of the Saudi defendants are Shiite Muslims.
Local Saudi media outlets reported in March that some of the defense lawyers
refused to participate in court proceedings.
Saudi Arabia's Shiite citizens face systematic discrimination in public
education, government employment, and permission to build houses of worship in
the majority-Sunni country.
Riyadh has long been under fire at the international level for its grim human
rights record.
Human Rights Watch said it had obtained and analyzed 7 Specialized Criminal
Court judgments from 2013 and 2014 against men and children accused of
protest-related crimes following demonstrations by members of the Shiite
minority.
"In all 7 trials, detainees alleged that confessions were extracted through
torture, but judges quickly dismissed these allegations, admitted the
confessions as evidence, and then convicted the detainees."
(source: Tasnim News Agency)
THAILAND:
Burmese men to appeal conviction in Koh Tao murders of British backpackers
The disputed DNA evidence that led to the conviction of 2 Burmese men for the
British backpacker murders on a Thai holiday island will be at the centre of an
appeal against the verdicts.
Lawyers for the 2 men announced on Tuesday that they will file their 200-page
appeal on Monday at the courthouse in Koh Samui, accompanied by the mothers of
the convicted migrant workers.
The next stage in the legal battle will put the spotlight back on the
controversy about the police investigation and prosecutions following the
killings of Hannah Witheridge, 23, and David Miller, 24, on the holiday island
of Koh Tao.
The appeal process by Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, both 22, is expected to drag on for
years, extending the anguish for the families of the 2 victims.
It will also again focus attention on the contentious roles of British
detectives dispatched by David Cameron to observe the investigation by their
Thai counterparts in a death penalty case.
"Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo both repeated their sorrow and sympathy for Hannah and
David's families, but they insist they had nothing to do with their deaths,"
Andy Hall, a Bangkok-based British migrant rights activist, told the Telegraph
after visiting the men at the high-security death row prison in Bangkok.
"They remain hopeful that that justice will be done and their names will be
cleared."
Ms Witheridge was raped and she and Mr Miller were savagely bludgeoned to death
with a wooden hoe as they walked back to their hotel rooms late at night along
a beach in Sept 2014.
The investigation was dogged by mis-steps amid deepening questions about
Thailand's reputation as a safe tourist idyll.
With the Thai junta making the case a priority, the two Burmese bar workers
were arrested in early October.
The pair initially confessed to the killings but quickly retracted their
statements, saying they were tortured.
The 3 judges who handed down the guilty verdicts and death penalties concluded
that the prosecution proved its case with forensic evidence that met
"international standards" linking the 2 men to the murders.
However, Jane Taupin, a renowned Australian forensic scientist who has been
advising the defence on its appeal, told the Telegraph that documents
explaining how Thai investigators matched the 2 men's DNA to the victims were
not submitted and other paperwork had hand-written changes.
Ms Taupin noted that the highly complex standards for DNA matching based on
statistical probability were not provided. And she also pointed out that there
were serious questions about the chain of custody of the DNA samples.
There have also been persistent questions about the accreditation of the
laboratory that handled the forensic evidence.
"The scientific records were lacking and so it is impossible to determine
whether they meet international standards," Ms Taupin said. "I certainly do not
see that the court could conclude that the forensic evidence met those
international standards."
Pornthip Rojanasunand, Thailand's best-known forensic scientist, testified for
the defence that the crime scene was not protected and the collection of
evidence "contradicted the principles of forensic science".
She also told the court that her own laboratory's testing of the hoe that was
the murder weapon recovered DNA samples, but none that matched the accused men.
The prosecution said that DNA taken from the accused men matched samples
recovered from the body of Miss Witheridge.
The convictions apparently split the families of the victims. Mr Miller's
parents and brother issued a powerful statement saying that justice had been
done with the Christmas Day verdicts after sitting through much of the trial.
Ms Witheridge's family have not made a formal comment. But her sister Laura
later issued a blistering attack on the Thai police for its "bungled"
investigation into the killings.
She claimed that she had received death threats, said that her family was
offered money to keep quiet after the murders and accused the Thai authorities
of "covering-up" the killings of other Western tourists on Koh Tao.
(source: telegraph.co.uk)
************
Bangkok bombing suspect: 'I am no animal'---- Uighur suspected in last year's
fatal bombing dragged into military court after trying to plead with media
1 of 2 ethnic Uighur facing trial for a bombing that killed 20 people in
Bangkok last year was dragged into a Thai military court by guards after trying
to plead with media Tuesday.
"I am no animal," said a shackled Adem Karadag, who wore an orange prison
uniform and had his head shaven.
Karadag, 31, and Yusuf Mieraili, 29, have been charged with ten counts of
criminal violation each, including pre-meditated murder -- which carries the
death penalty -- possession of explosives, and legal entry into Thailand.
The Aug. 17 bombing at a Hindu shrine in downtown Bangkok left 20 people dead
and 125 others injured.
Karadag, who has also been identified by Thai police as Bilal Mohammed and
Bilal Turk, and Mieraili were arrested around two weeks after the explosion.
At a February hearing, they denied all charges, with the exception of Karadag
admitting to illegal entry.
Police have said that both suspects have confessed to being paid by a
mastermind to build and plant the bomb, but Karadag's lawyer Choochart Khanphai
has petitioned the Bangkok court on the ground that his client said he had been
tortured by plainclothes men while in military custody.
"My client was intimidated by these men, they were waterboarded, threatened
with large dogs and threatened with deportation to China," he told reporters
after the February hearing.
Thai courts had issued arrest warrants for 17 suspects in connection with the
bombing, but only Karadag and Mieraili were captured.
Both were detained at a prison within a Bangkok military facility where the
deaths of 2 lese-majeste suspects since October has raised questions.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva
called in November 2015 for the closure of the facility.
In the past year, allegations of torturing suspects to gain confessions have
been leveled at both Thai police and military.
Both Karadag and Mieraili have refused to provide their addresses in China's
northwestern Xinjiang region out of "fear of reprisal" from the government, who
the Muslim minority group accuses of curtailing their cultural and religious
rights.
While police have claimed the bombing was masterminded by human traffickers,
angry at Thai authorities for clamping down on their networks, Khanphai has
said that the bomb was connected to the controversial deportation of a Uighur
group held in Thai immigration centers to China.
(source: aa.com.tr)
BELARUS:
Miklos Haraszti is appalled by reports of the recent execution by the
Belarusian authoritie
Miklos Haraszti is appalled by reports of the recent execution by the
Belarusian authorities He condemned Belarus' continued use of death penalty
after reports that a man whose complaint was before the UN HRC had been
executed, despite a specific request from the HRC for a stay of execution.
"I am appalled by reports of the recent execution of Siarhei Ivanou by the
Belarusian authorities," said Miklos Haraszti, the UN Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in Belarus.
Reports indicate that Siarhei Ivanou, who was found guilty of murder and
sentenced to death in 2015, was executed on around 18 April this year.
Ivanou's brother had petitioned the Committee, arguing that Ivanou's trial had
been unfair. During the trial, he remained handcuffed and was obliged to wear
special clothes with the label "capital punishment" on them. It was also
alleged that he was not brought promptly before a judge upon arrest and had
limited access to a lawyer.
Ivanou's execution means Belarus, since 2010, has executed eight people whose
cases were registered for examination by the Committee under the Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),
to which Belarus is a State party.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe and Central Asia that applies the
death penalty, despite repeated calls for its abolition from many in the
international community, including the members of the European Union and the
Council of Europe.
Haraszti once again urged the Belarusian authorities to adopt a moratorium on
the death penalty, as an interim legal step towards it full abolition, UN press
service informs.
The human rights expert also voiced grave concern at news that another
defendant, Siarhei Hmialeuski, was sentenced to death by a court on 6 May. "The
news testifies to the lack of progress on the human rights situation in
Belarus," he said.
The Human Rights Committee had requested the Belarusian authorities not to
carry out the sentence, pending the examination of Ivanou's case.
Non-compliance with the Committee's request for interim measures constitutes a
violation, by Belarus, of its obligations under the Optional Protocol to ICCPR.
"The decision to proceed with the execution of the death penalty amounts to
both a callous disdain for and a grave breach of Belarus' international human
rights obligations," said Nigel Rodley, Special Rapporteur on new
communications and interim measures.
Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based
Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a
specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not
UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
(source: eurobelarus.info)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 17 15:17:16 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 15:17:16 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605171517070.3768@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 17
SINGAPORE:
HRW: Grant clemency to death row inmate in Singapore
Singapore President Tony Tan should urgently grant clemency to death row
prisoner Kho Jabing, who is due to be executed on May 20, Human Rights Watch
has said.
Jabing was convicted of the murder of Cao Ruyin in 2007.
On 5 April 2016, the Court of Appeal, Singapore's highest court, dismissed Kho
Jabing's appeal. An Appeals Court panel in January 2015 had reversed, by 3 to
2, a high court ruling overturning Kho Jabing's death sentence.
At dispute was whether his actions during a botched robbery had been done in
"blatant disregard of human life". At the time of Kho Jabing's conviction,
Singapore law imposed a mandatory death penalty for the offence, thus
preventing the court from considering the full circumstances of the crime.
"President Tan should grant clemency to Kho Jabing in recognition of sentencing
reforms under Singapore law," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. "The death penalty is always cruel, and a man's life should
not hinge on a legal technicality."
Mandatory death sentences are contrary to the rights to a fair trial, Human
Rights Watch said. As the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial,
summary or arbitrary executions stated in 2005, a mandatory death sentence
"makes it impossible [for the court] to take into account mitigating or
extenuating circumstances and eliminates any individual determination of an
appropriate sentence in a particular case .... The adoption of such a
black-and-white approach is entirely inappropriate where the life of the
accused is at stake."
In 2012, Singapore's parliament amended the Penal Code to provide courts with
some discretion in sentencing certain categories of murder, including murder
without intent. Since the change of law was considered retroactive, Kho Jabing
sought a review of his death sentence, stating the murder had not been
pre-meditated, and there had been no "blatant disregard for human life."
In August 2013, the High Court agreed and re-sentenced Kho Jabing to life
imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Kho Jabing's accomplice in the crime,
Galing Anak Kujat, had his conviction for murder overturned, and the court
re-sentenced him for committing robbery with hurt and sentenced him to 18 1/2
years in prison and 19 strokes of the cane.
Singapore is one of few countries that retains the death penalty, claiming
without evidence that capital punishment deters crime. Human Rights Watch
opposes the death penalty in all cases because of its inherent cruelty and
irreversibility.
"Singapore's continued use of the death penalty has no place in a modern
state," Robertson said. "President Tan should cut through the complexities and
controversies of this case and grant Kho Jabing clemency so that he is
imprisoned for life."
(source: aliran.com)
*******************
Sarawakian's execution up to Singapore president
If Singapore President Tony Tan does not reconsider Sarawakian Kho Jabing's new
clemency petition, then the murder convict will be executed predawn on Friday.
As recently as early this month, it was assumed Kho, 31, could have at least 3
more months pending a fresh clemency petition.
"However, it has come to our attention that the president, while acknowledging
Kho's intention to file a new clemency petition, has taken the position that
his decision to reject the previous clemency petition in October 2015 still
stands," said a joint statement released by human rights activists.
"It is unclear if Tan will consider the new clemency petition once it is
filed."
The press release was issued by We Believe in Second Chances and the Singapore
Anti-Death Penalty Campaign.
Co-signees include Amnesty International, the Sarawak Advocates Association,
Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, Reprieve Australia, Anti-Death
Penalty Asia Network and Center for Orang Asli Concerns.
12 relatives of other inmates on death row in Singapore also joined in the
group petition. They include sisters, mothers and fiancees.
The campaigners are urging the president to grant clemency to Kho and commute
his death sentence to life imprisonment.
"The fact that 1 High Court judge and 2 Appeal judges have expressed the
opinion that the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment for Kho Jabing
shows there continues to be doubt a death sentence is justified in this case.
"It is of utmost importance this case not be rushed.
"We call on the president to stay the execution scheduled for May 20, as to
allow a reasonable time for the consideration of Kho's new petition," the
statement added.
Kho received a letter from the Singapore Prison Service on May 12 informing him
that his execution had been scheduled. Kho was convicted of murder in 2011.
The announcement came as a shock to family members who have flown to Singapore.
"We do not condone Kho's crime, nor do we seek to erase the hurt he has caused
to the victim's family," his family, including mother Lenduk and sister Jumai,
said.
During the campaigning period of the recent Sarawak polls, the family staged a
widely reported press conference, urging for help from local politicians.
The campaigners pointed out that the case involving Kho had been traumatic due
to amendments made to Singapore's mandatory death penalty and appeals lodged by
the prosecution.
The campaigners said Kho had, over the years, been sentenced to death, then
life imprisonment (with caning), then death again.
This back-and-forth has taken a horrific toll not just on Kho as the inmate,
but his family too.
(source: The Star)
***********
ICA, CNB seize S$282,000 worth of drugs at Woodlands Checkpoint----About 2.78kg
of heroin and 480g of Ice were found concealed in the compartment behind the
passenger seat of a Malaysian-registered lorry.
Officers from the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) seized drugs
totalling about 2.78kg of heroin and 480g of Ice from the driver and passenger
of a Malaysian-registered lorry early Monday morning (May 16). The drugs are
estimated to be worth more than S$282,000.
In a press release on Tuesday, ICA and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said
the lorry was stopped for checks when it arrived at Woodlands Checkpoint at
about 4.50am on Monday. Officers found the drugs concealed in the compartment
behind the passenger seat.
The lorry was also carrying a consignment of pails, cans and shield anchors.
The lorry driver and the passenger, male Malaysians aged 33 and 27
respectively, were arrested and referred to CNB. Authorities said
investigations are ongoing.
The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of or pure
heroin trafficked exceeds 15g - sufficient to feed the addiction of about 180
abusers for a week, the authorities said.
The Act also provides for the death penalty if the amount of Ice, or
methamphetamine, trafficked exceeds 250g, which is enough to feed the addiction
of about 185 abusers for a week.
"The Home Team agencies will continue to conduct checks on passengers and
vehicles at the checkpoints to prevent attempts to smuggle in undesirable
persons, drugs, weapons, explosives and other contraband," the authorities said
in the statement.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
BANGLADESH:
Executing Designer Of Death - Analysis
On May 11, 2016, Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) amir (chief) Motiur Rahman Nizami (75),
who masterminded the formation of the ruthless militia Al Badr that unleashed
terror against Bengalis erstwhile East Pakistan, killed unarmed civilians,
raped women and destroyed properties during the Liberation War of 1971, was
executed at Dhaka Central Jail. Nizami was sentenced to death on October 29,
2014, by the International Crimes Tribunal-1 (ICT-1) after being found guilty
on eight of the 16 charges brought against him. The 4 charges which brought him
the death penalty included involvement in the killing of intellectuals; the
murder of 450 civilians, and the rape of 30 to 40 women in Bausgari and Demra
villages in Pabna District; the killing of 52 people in Dhulaura village in
Pabna District; and the killing of 10 persons and rape of 3 women in Karamja
village in Pabna District. He was also sentenced to imprisonment for life on
the charges of involvement in the killing of Kasim Uddin and 2 others in Pabna
District; torture and murder of Sohrab Ali of Brishalikha village in Pabna
District; torture and killing at Mohammadpur Physical Training Centre in Dhaka
city; and killing of freedom fighters Rumi, Bodi, Jewel and Azad at Old MP
Hostel in Dhaka city.
Nizami had served as Minister of Agriculture in the then Bangladesh Nationalist
Party (BNP)-led coalition Government between 2001 and 2006. He is the 4th JeI
leader to have been hanged for war crimes, after JeI Assistant Secretary Abdul
Quader Mollah (65), known as 'Mirpurer Koshai (Butcher of Mirpur), who was
hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on December 12, 2013; JeI Senior Assistant
Secretary General Muhammad Kamaruzzaman (63), the 3rd most senior figure in the
JeI, who was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail on April 11, 2015, and JeI Secretary
General Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed (67) who was hanged simultaneously with BNP
Standing Committee member Salauddin Quader Chowdhury (66) at Dhaka Central Jail
on November 22, 2015.
On May 3, 2016, ICT-1 sentenced Gazi Abdul Mannan (88), Nasiruddin Ahmed (62),
Shamsuddin Ahmed (60) and Hafiz Uddin (66) to death; and Azharul Islam (60) to
jail until death. They were all members of JeI. 7 charges were brought against
them and the court found them guilty on all charges. On the 1st charge, the
killing of 8 people in Karimganj on November 12, 1971, Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin
and Mannan were awarded the death penalty, while Hafiz and Azharul were awarded
jail until death. Nasiruddin was the lone accused on the 2nd charge of the
killing of Miah Hossain of Ayla village on November 13, 1971. On the 3rd
charge, Hafiz was given the death sentence, while Shamsuddin, Nasiruddin and
Azharul were awarded jail until death, for the abduction and killing of Abdur
Gafur of Kalatali on September 26, 1971. All the 5 were awarded jail until
death for the abduction, torture and killing of Fazlur Rahman of Atkapara on
August 23, 1971, the fourth charge. Shamsuddin received the death penalty on
the 5th charge, the killing of Paresh Chandra Sarkar of Ramnagar on September
7, 1971. According to the sixth charge, Mannan was involved in the torture and
killing of Abu Bakar Siddique and Rapali Miah on August 25, 1971, and the
tribunal handed down a sentence of imprisonment until death. Mannan was also
given 5 years' rigorous imprisonment on the 7th charge of arson and vandalism
in Atkapara on September 15, 1971.
On February 2, 2016, ICT-1 sentenced to death Obaidul Haque aka Taher (66), an
activist of the Nezam-e-Islam (NeI) and Ataur Rahman aka Noni (62), an activist
of the Muslim League (ML) for killing seven persons on October 19, 1971, and
for killing another 6 after abducting and torturing them on November 15 and 16,
1971. They were also sentenced to imprisonment until death for killing
Liberation War organizer Fazlur Rahman Talukder, and looting and setting on
fire Baushi Bazar on August 17, 1971; and for killing Dabir Hossain on October
4, 1971 after abducting and torturing him. Both were acquitted on 2 other
charges which include grabbing the houses of Moloy Biswas and Shrish Chandra
Sarkar and 'deporting' their family members in mid-May 1971, and for killing 15
persons including teacher Kamini Chakrabarty in early October 1971.
It is useful to recall that, the Sheikh Hasina Wajed led-Government constituted
the ICT-1 on March 25, 2010, with the objective of bringing the perpetrators of
War Crimes to justice, and subsequently, ICT-2 on March 22, 2012, to speed up
the War Crimes Trials. So far, the 2 ICTs have indicted 57 leaders, including
37 from JeI, 7 from the ML, 5 from NeI, 4 from BNP, 2 from Pakistan Democratic
Party (PDP) and 2 from the Jatiya Party (JP). Verdicts against 31 of these
indicted leaders have already been delivered - 23 were awarded the death
sentence while the remaining 8 received life sentences. Five of the 23,
including Nizami, who received the death sentence, have already been executed,
while 18 other cases are currently pending with the Appellate Division of the
Supreme Court.
As in earlier cases, JeI called a countrywide 24-hour hartal (general strike)
on May 11, 2016, protesting the execution of its party chief Motiur Rahman
Nizami. Earlier, JeI, on May 5, 2016, had called for a countrywide 24-hour
hartal, denouncing the Supreme Court's order that upheld Nizami's death
sentence. However, unlike previous hartals called by JeI, protesting against
war crimes' verdicts against party leaders, which had resulted in massive
street violence, these 2 protests were largely ignored across the country and
no major acts of violence were reported. Nevertheless, there were a few minor
incidents, such as the May 11, 2016, protest by cadres of JeI-Islami Chhatra
Shibir ( ICS) who hurled bricks at the Police during a clash at Chawkbazar
Parade Ground in Chittagong city over a gayebana namaz-e-janaza (funeral prayer
in absentia) for Nizami. Some 5,000 JeI-ICS cadres participated in the janaza
led by Chittagong city unit JeI chief Shamshul Islam. Security Forces (SFs)
managed to disperse the JeI-ICS cadres by firing blank shots. No one was
injured in the incident. Further, on May 12, 2016, Police arrested 28 JeI-ICS
cadres in connection with vandalism, arson and sabotage activities, including
16 from Bogra District, 5 from Chittagong District, 4 from Barisal District, 2
from Cox's Bazar and 1 from Gaibandha District.
However, the trend of targeting intellectuals/ activists/ secularists/ or
alleged 'apostates'/ 'blasphemers', which commenced after the Shahbagh Movement
of February 2013 seeking the death penalty for War Criminals of the 1971
genocide, appears to be escalating. 12 persons were killed in 2013; 4 persons
in 2014; and 9 in 2015. Disturbingly, since the beginning of the 2016, 11
intellectuals/ activists/ secularists/ or alleged 'apostates'/ 'blasphemers'
have already been killed across the country by suspected Islamist terrorists.
In the latest of the series of such killings, on May 6, 2016, Mohammad
Shahidullah (65), a pir (revered religious instructor, usually of Sufi
orientation) was hacked to death at Jumarpara village of Tanore upazila
(sub-district) in Rajshahi District. Further, on May 14, 2016, Mawng Shoi Wuu
(70), a Buddhist monk was found dead with his throat-slit with a sharp weapon
at a small monastery at Baishari of Naikhyangchari upazila in Bandarban
District. Earlier, 9 others were killed across the country by suspected
Islamist terrorists. Significantly, out of the 11 murders in 2016, Daesh
(Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham) claimed
responsibility for 6. Meanwhile, Ansar al-Islam (Sword of Islam), the purported
Bangladesh branch of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), claimed
'credit' for another 3. No group has yet claimed the remaining 2 killings.
The Shiekh Hasina Wajed Government has, however, blamed the BNP-JeI nexus for
these incidents, describing them as 'secret killings', after the failure of the
Opposition to topple the Government. Prime Minister Wajed thus declared, on
April 30, 2016, "The BNP-Jamaat clique does not want development of the people.
They cannot give anything except burning people to death and destruction. They
have chosen the path of killing teachers and common people selectively."
Rejecting the Prime Minister's claim, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam
Alamgir stated, on May 13, 2016, "BNP wants trial of those who committed crimes
against humanity during our Liberation War. But the trial will have to be held
in a transparent manner, ensuring international standard."
With the hanging of JeI chief Nizami, the Awami League (AL)-led Government has
once again reaffirmed its determination to honour its 2008 General Election
pledge to bring the War Criminals of the 1971 genocide to justice. The
achievements on this count are already remarkable, but, the frequent attacks on
liberals, secularists and minorities across the country threaten the tenuous
stability that has been achieved in the country. The trials themselves have
deepened the polarization in the country between those intent of defending the
secular identity asserted through the 1971 Independence movement, and those who
seek to introduce a Government purportedly based on 'Islamic' principles. This
rift presents a growing challenge for the Hasina Wajed regime.
(source: * S. Binodkumar Singh Research Associate, Institute for Conflict
Management----eurasiareview.com)
PHILIPPINES:
Reconsider death penalty, Palma appeals
CEBU Archbishop Jose Palma believes the proposed revival of the death penalty
could do more harm than good.
Palma expressed his thoughts on the death penalty following the announcement of
presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte that he plans to revive the death penalty
once he assumes office.
He told Sun.Star Cebu yesterday that while he agrees that criminals must be
punished if found guilty, he fears that the revival of the death penalty could
be prone to injustice, especially for poor prisoners who can't afford to defend
themselves in court.
Palma fears that the revival of the death penalty could cheapen life.
"We must also respect the dignity of the person. He may have committed the
crime, but he is still a person and has right to life. There is also the danger
for many that people will just simplify the way we look at life. It's like
saying that if you commit a crime, you're good as dead," he said.
While some people think that the death penalty is an effective deterrent
against crime, Palma believes the rehabilitative approach is still the better
way of dealing with criminals.
"Unta, that punishment should be medicinal or rehabilitative. We punish the
criminal but it must be to the effect that the one being punished regrets his
crime and becomes a better person," he said.
Palma urged Duterte to reconsider his decision and instead of reviving the
death penalty, the presumptive president must push for a more effective
judiciary and penal system that truly implements justice, whether for the rich
and poor criminals.
He also prays for Duterte to appoint in his Cabinet those people who will steer
him to the right direction.
Last Monday, Duterte said that he plans to impose the death penalty as a way to
deliver his campaign promise to deter criminality around the country.
Aside from the death penalty, Duterte plans to organize a "special group"
within the barangays that will suppress the illegal drug trade at the
grassroots.
(source: Sun Star)
***********
Duterte wants to restore death penalty by hanging
Presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to reintroduce death
penalty "by hanging" in the country as part of his relentless fight against
crime.
Speaking to reporters in Davao City Sunday night, Duterte said he would ask
lawmakers to approve the death penalty for heinous crimes, such as drug-related
offenses and rape.
"What I would do is urge Congress to restore [the] death penalty by hanging,
especially if you use drugs," Duterte said.
The tough-talking Davao City mayor said he would also give the government
security forces "shoot-to kill" orders against those who will resist arrest
violently.
"I said if you resist the arrest, tapos you offer a violent resistance, my
order to the police or the military is to shoot-to-kill," he said.
The 1987 Constitution restored the death penalty for henious crimes under
then-President Fidel V. Ramos, but it carried out 7 times under then-President
Joseph Estrada.
Estrada's successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, repealed the death penalty law in
2006.
Duterte has vowed a "bloody war" against criminals, particularly drug dealers,
as he sought to bring to the entire country the anti-crime drive that, he said,
has made Davao City attractive to investors.
During his campaign for the presidency, Duterte had vowed to "fatten the fish"
in Manila Bay with the dead bodies of criminals.
When asked why he was hell-bent on wiping out criminals off the country's
streets, Duterte explained: "We have a society now where obedience to the law
is really a choice, an option only."
(source: Manila Times)
*****************
'Restore death penalty by hanging'
Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday that he will ask
Congress to restore capital punishment, as he vowed to pursue his pledge to
wage a devastating war on crime.
"What I would do is urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging," he
told reporters.
"Rape, plus death of the victim, must be death penalty. Kidnapping with ransom,
and then death of the victim, must be death penalty," he declared.
"Robbery with homicide with rape, double the hanging. After you hang them,
there will be another ceremony for another time. Until the head is completely
severed from the body. I would like that because I'm angry."
In a news briefing late on Sunday, Mr Duterte said he would also give security
forces "shoot-to-kill" orders against organised criminals or those who resist
arrest violently.
GETTING TOUGH ON CRIME
What I would do is urge Congress to restore the death penalty by hanging. Rape,
plus death of the victim, must be death penalty. Kidnapping with ransom, and
then death of the victim, must be death penalty. Robbery with homicide with
rape, double the hanging.----MR RODRIGO DUTERTE, Philippine President-elect.
"If you resist, show violent resistance, my order to police (will be) to shoot
to kill," he said.
He named 3 former Davao police chiefs - who helped him prosecute a brutal
anti-crime campaign in the southern city - as possible candidates for head of
the 160,000-strong national police force.
The 71-year-old Mr Duterte built his reputation on having transformed Davao -
during his reign as mayor for more than 3 decades - from being a battleground
of vigilante groups and communist partisans to one of the safest cities in the
Philippines.
The body count in his brutal campaign against crime, however, exceeded 1,000,
and Mr Duterte himself admitted having had a hand in some death squad-style
summary executions.
The Philippines' human rights commission and Catholic Church said yesterday
that they would oppose any effort to restore the death penalty.
"Our current position is that the death penalty is contrary to human dignity
and human rights," said human rights commission chief Luis Martin Gascon.
Archbishop Oscar Cruz, head of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the
Philippines, said the church in the Catholic-majority country "would not stand
for it".
"The state did not give life to anyone, so it cannot take life from anyone.
That is clear," he said.
Turning to another cornerstone pledge, Mr Duterte repeated that he would pursue
peace talks with Marxist guerillas and would offer, as an olive branch,
government roles to the Communist Party of the Philippines, including its
exiled founder Jose Maria Sison.
He said he was offering the labour, social welfare, environment and agrarian
reform ministries to the communists as part of the effort to end one of the
longest-running insurgencies in the world.
(source: straitstimes.com)
**************************
Senators ready to start debate on death penalty
Senators yesterday said they are ready to start the debates on the proposal of
presumptive president Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte's to reinstate the death
penalty especially for high profile drug lords and criminals.
Senator Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara said he is willing and ready to listen to
committee level discussions on the proposal, which he expects to be one of the
top agenda of the incoming 17th Congress.
"We are willing to listen to the debate on both sides but what is crucial
really is we improve law enforcement capabilities and improve our justice
system)," Angara said in a text message.
Re-elected Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson said he is fully supportive of the
revival of the death penalty especially for big-time criminals.
Lacson, however, said he rejects public executions for these hardened criminals
since that would be socially unacceptable.
"I'm fully supportive of the revival of the death penalty especially for big
time drug lords and heinous crime offenders, but not in the manner being
suggested such as by hanging," Lacson said in a text message.
"Aside from being inhuman, I don't want out people, much less our children to
witness medieval age-like executions even of the most notorious criminals," he
also said.
(source: tempo.com.ph)
**********************************
Majority of polled INQUIRER.net readers favor death penalty
Most INQUIRER.net readers were in favor of reviving the death penalty in the
Philippines, according to the results of INQUIRER.net???s Facebook and Twitter
polls.
INQUIRER.net on its social media pages asked netizens on Monday evening whether
or not they were in favor of bringing back capital punishment in the country.
In the Facebook poll, 83 % of 1,434 votes were in favor of bringing back the
death penalty while only 17 % opposed it.
On Twitter, 67 % of 3,474 favored the revival of the death penalty while 33 %
expressed opposition.
On Monday, presumptive President Rodrigo Duterte said the death penalty must be
re-imposed during his administration to deliver his promise of cracking down
criminality and illegal drugs in the country.
Duterte said he wanted to restore the death penalty for drug-related crimes,
rape, robbery, car-jacking, carnapping or vehicle robbery, and plunder.
Human rights groups and the Catholic Church have said that they would block any
move to restore the death penalty in the country.
But Duterte was firm in his stand, saying he was ready to stake his life and
honor and even the presidency to fulfill his vow of ending crime within the
first 3 to 6 months of his administration.
(source: inquirer.net)
**********************
Restoration of capital punishment: Time for debate?
Presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte believes Filipinos need an iron-fist
style of leadership and "to rid the country of criminals" he said he is open to
the restoration of death penalty.
It looks like debates on the matter will be revived during the 17th Congress,
according to Duterte's ally Sen. Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III.
"What is important is that we get to know the positions of the lawmakers on the
issue. And all of us should be ready for pressure from outside of Congress,
there are groups in favor and there are groups who are against death penalty,"
said Pimentel in a phone interview with CNN Philippines.
Anti-crime watchdog Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) supports the
idea that imposing death penalty is crucial in deterring crime.
It has been a decade since former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed a
law repealing the death penalty.
VACC chairman Dante Jimenez is hopeful capital punishment will be restored
under the Duterte presidency.
"That will be the ultimate fear of criminals, you know. 'Yan ang
pinaka-kinakatakutan ng mga criminals," Jimenez told CNN Philippines.
[Translation: That will be the ultimate fear of criminals, you know. That is
what criminals are scared of the most.]
However, sociologist Clifford Sorita said Filipinos are still inclined to
oppose death penalty, despite the people's clamor for effective crime
management.
Sorita explained the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic nation and the
belief promotes humane or less non-vindictive punishment.
He claimed studies show there is no direct correlation between having death
penalty and criminality.
"Pag pinag-aralan mo maigi, minsan, ang kriminalidad iba ang ugat na maski sige
takutin mo ng death penalty, mangyayari at mangyayari pa rin iyon," Sorita
said.
[Translation: If you take a closer look, sometimes, criminality has varying
roots that even when you scare them off through death penalty, the inevitable
will still happen.]
For his part, Pimentel is sure the issue will get its day in the Senate, though
he said he cannot predict how the vote will go, since there is no prevailing
opinion on the matter as of yet.
*************************************
Death penalty 'by hanging' divisive -- Belmonte
Speaker Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte Jr. yesterday branded as "divisive" to
presumptive President-elect Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte's call for national unity
his planned re-imposition of death penalty "by hanging" especially on
drug-related crimes.
While he did not categorically say that he is against the restoration of death
penalty, Belmonte sought to strengthen the country's criminal justice system
first.
"A very divisive issue in the House," Belmonte, vice president of the ruling
Liberal Party (LP), said in an interview after Duterte pushed for the revival
of death penalty for heinous crimes including robbery with rape. Earlier,
Belmonte rejected death penalty in response to the proposal of Sen. Vicente
"Tito" Sotto III to revive capital punishment for drug trafficking and rape
with murder.
"It won't fly because it is not the answer to the rising incidence of crimes in
the country," Belmonte, a lawyer, said in a previous interview.
Nevertheless, Belmonte, who vowed to run for the speakership of the incoming
17th Congress, reiterated his cooperation and unity with Duterte to push his
programs and legislative agenda.
"We will be supportive of the Duterte administration," said Belmonte who
earlier vowed to establish strong support to the "super majority" of Duterte
allies in the House of Representatives.
Buhay Hayaang Yumabong (Buhay) party-list Rep. Lito Atienza echoed Belmonte's
statement that the proposal of Duterte will not be good to his call for
national unity.
"Huwag muna siyang (Duterte) magbigay ng priority sa death penalty. This is a
divisive issue. Death penalty will be disuniting issue that will hamper the
beginning of his administration," said Atienza.
"Ang national attention will focus on this issue. Hindi maganda sa pagsisimula
ng kanyang administration," said Atienza.
Atienza also stressed that the absence of death penalty law has no connection
to the rising criminality in the country.
"There's no doubt whatsoever about the breakdown in the country's peace and
order situation, however we don't see the re-imposition of the death penalty as
an effective antidote to this problem," Atienza pointed out.
Republic Act (RA) No. 7659 or the Death Penalty Law was abolished in 1986
during the term of former President Corazon Aquino.
It was revived by former President Fidel V. Ramos in 1993, and was suspended
again in 2006 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
(source: journal.com.ph)
MALAYSIA:
1,041 criminals appealing death sentence
A total of 1,041 criminals are currently in the process of appealing their
death sentences, says Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy Shukri.
According to Nancy, their death sentences have not been carried out because
their cases are in the process of appeal in court or their respective State
Pardons Boards.
This was stated in a written reply to Ramkarpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Gelugor) in
Parliament today after he asked about the number of criminals facing the death
penalty and whether the government intends to carry out a moratorium on their
sentences, considering its announced intention to eliminate the death penalty.
"Malaysian Prison Department statistics, as of May 16, show that 1,041
criminals have been sentenced to death for crimes related to murder, drug
offences, weapons and kidnapping," said Nancy.
To Ramkarpal's question on the moratorium on the death penalty, Nancy said that
a decision had not yet been made because the government was still conducting
studies on the mandatory death penalty via the Attorney-General's Office on the
related legal issues, policies and its effectiveness.
"A policy decision on the matter will be based on the result of the studies,"
said Nancy.
According to Amnesty International's Death Sentences and Executions 2015
Report, at least 1,634 people were executed last year. This represented a 54%
increase in the number of executions compared with 2014.
In Malaysia, the mandatory death penalty is handed down for certain drug
offences, murder, use of firearms and treason.
(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)
****************
Duo's appeal against death sentence July 18
The Court of Appeal will on July 18 hear the appeal by 2 men from Johor against
their death sentence for drug trafficking.
Justices Dato' Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, Dato' Abdul Rahman Sebli and Harmindar
Singh Dhaliwal fixed the date for Eswaran Susop and Jaswant Singh, both 24,
whowere brought to the court Monday for hearing of their cases.
Earlier, Jaswant's counsel Ram Singh applied for another date on the grounds
that they have yet to receive from Putrajaya exhibits and several documents as
they wanted these to be produced in court.
Both appellants were on Oct 23, 2013 found guilty by the High Court here and
sentenced to death.
Eswaran and Jaswant were found to have trafficked 770.8gm and 780.2gm of syabu,
respectively at 1pm on March 18, 2012 at the arrival hall of Terminal 2 in the
Kota Kinabalu International Airport here.
The offence under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 carries the
death penalty on conviction.
Eswaran was represented by counsel Ridweandean Borhan.
Meanwhile, the prosecution's appeal against the conviction and 14 years' jail
sentence of a private school teacher for having 959.5gm of syabu has been
adjourned to Sept 19.
Counsel Dato' Sri Rakhbir Singh, who represented the respondent Suhailah
Abdullah applied for an adjournment as he had not received any instruction from
her regarding the case.
No objection was raised by the prosecution.
The prosecution is appealing against the reduction of Suhailah's charge from
drug trafficking under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act which
carries the death penalty to a lesser charge of possession.
Suhailah, 41, was on March 17, 2015 sentenced to 14 years' jail by the High
Court after she pleaded guilty to the offence committed at 11.15am on May 27,
2013 at the International Arrival Hall, Terminal 2 of the Kota Kinabalu
International Airport here.
The amended charge under Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 is
punishable under Section 39A(2)??? of the same Act, which provides for
imprisonment for life or not less than 5 years and liability of whipping of not
less than 10 strokes.
(source: Daily Express)
INDONESIA:
Foreigners get death penalty for drug trafficking
The High Court here yesterday sentenced a Cambodian man and a Vietnamese woman
to death for trafficking dangerous drugs in 2013.
In his judgment, Judge Lee Heng Cheong said having re-evaluated the
prosecution's case, the court found that both their testimonies did not cast
reasonable doubt.
"In the light of this court's above findings, this court finds that the
prosecution had succeeded in proving the 2 charges against both the accused
beyond reasonable doubt.
"In the premises, this court finds both the accused guilty of the charges
preferred against them respectively. In the light of this court's convictions
of both accused, this court thus sentenced both accused to death, by hanging by
the necks until they are dead in accordance with the only sentence provided by
39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952," he said adding all grounds would be given
later.
Cambodian Kong Rin was convicted of trafficking over 2.22kg of methamphetamine
in front of the exit gate at the arrival hall of Sibu Airport at 11.38am on Nov
27, 2013.
Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Kim Tuyen was convicted of trafficking over 2.15kg of
methamphetamine in front of the exit gate at the arrival hall of Sibu Airport
at 11.40am on the same day.
Both charges were framed under Section 39B (1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act
1952 and punishable under Section 39B(2) of the same Act.
(source: The Borneo Post)
***********************
Death penalty has no deterrent effect, say Indonesian activists
The number of drug convicts keeps rising despite the implementation of the
death penalty in Indonesia, showing that capital punishment is not that
effective in fighting drug-related crime, activists have said.
At least 16 NGOs grouped in the Anti-Death Penalty Civil Society Coalition told
a press conference that the death penalty was not the solution to addressing
crime in Indonesia, especially crime related to drugs.
The coalition's statement comes ahead of the third round of executions of drug
convicts, which many expect to be conducted very soon.
Indonesian Drug Victim Advocacy Brotherhood ( PKNI ) head Totok Yulianto said
there had been a rise in the number of drug convicts despite the executions
carried out in 2015.
Under the administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the government has
conducted 2 rounds of executions.
6 death row inmates were executed on January 18 last year, followed by 8 more
in the 2nd round on April 29, 2015 Totok said there were 65,566 drug convicts
recorded in January 2015, adding that that number had rose to 67,808 people by
May 2015.
"Even though the government had carried out executions in January and April.
This shows that the death penalty does not create a deterrent effect. This is
data from the directorate general of corrections," Totok said, as quoted by
Kompas.com on Wednesday.
Correcting behaviour
Impartial director Al Araf said punishment in the modern era no longer followed
the principle of retaliation; rather, it was aimed at correcting the behavior
of someone who has broken the law.
"We do not support criminal acts at all. We reject the death penalty and
instead lean more toward life sentencing, because the death penalty clearly
violates human rights principles," he said.
Given the nation's fragile justice system, procedural violations in the
implementation of the death penalty were still common, Araf added.
Citing the example of Zainal Abidin's case, whose appeal was rejected almost
immediately, Araf suggested this was because the convict, found guilty of
possessing 58.7 kilograms of marijuana in 2000, had already been listed in the
2nd round of executions.
"Just imagine, the legal process hadn't yet finished, and when he lodged his
appeal it was rejected within 4 days. This is clearly outside of the principles
of justice," he added.
Meanwhile, police have said the 3rd round of executions was ready to be carried
out in May 2016. The firing squad has been prepared for the execution of 15
drug convicts.
The Central Java police, in charge of Nusakambangan prison island where the
convicts will be executed, said it was awaiting instructions from
Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo.
So far, the Attorney-General's Office has not disclosed the execution date or
the identities of the convicts.
(source: asiapacificreport.nz)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 18 14:21:20 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 14:21:20 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., PENN., FLA., ALA., LA.,
OHIO
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605181421130.7300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 18
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Death row inmate's next court filing months away
Attorneys for New Hampshire's only death row inmate said Wednesday it will be
months before they file a petition arguing he is being unlawfully imprisoned.
Michael Addison was sentenced to death for the 2006 killing of Manchester
police officer Michael Briggs. While Addison has exhausted his direct appeals
to the state Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court in January declined to
review a petition to review his case, his defense attorneys plan to file a
state habeas corpus petition later this year.
During a brief hearing Wednesday, attorney Michael Wiseman said he'll file at
least a partial petition by January. While there is no deadline for the state
petition, Jan. 11, 2017, is the deadline to file a habeas corpus petition in
federal court, so filing something at the state level before then would stop
the clock and allow for a federal petition later if the state petition fails.
Wiseman recently was chosen by the New Hampshire Judicial Council to represent
Addison. A former chief of the Capital Habeas Corpus Unit for the federal
defender office in Pennsylvania, he has more than 2 decades of experience in
representing post-conviction capital defendants.
Addison's previous attorneys argued that the trial judge violated his rights by
not allowing jurors to hear evidence that he was remorseful and concerned about
Briggs after he was taken into custody. They also challenged the judge's
conduct in letting jurors hear about privileges a convict sentenced to life in
prison without parole might get behind bars, including television and work
opportunities.
Briggs was 15 minutes from the end of his shift when he and his partner
confronted Addison in a dark alley on Oct. 16, 2006. Jurors found that Addison
shot Briggs in the head at close range to avoid arrest for a string of violent
crimes, including several armed robberies and a drive-by shooting.
Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Peter Fauver scheduled a hearing for late
September to get an update from Addison's attorneys.
New Hampshire is the only state in New England with the death penalty still on
the books. The state's last execution took place in 1939
(source: Associated Press)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Recanter could face death penalty
The Mifflinburg man accused of homicide in a Union County home invasion will
face the death penalty if convicted at trial of 1st-degree murder.
Union County District Attorney D. Peter Johnson filed notice of aggravated
circumstances against Justin Richard, 31, for allegedly killing 51-year-old
Randy Sampsell on June 12, 2012. The victim's body was found 10 days later by
his brother.
"You committed a killing while in the perpetration of a felony. You have a
significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of
violence to another person," Johnson wrote in support of his call for capital
punishment.
The last time Johnson sought the death penalty was against Roderick Sims,
convicted by a jury in the 2007 murder of Charity Spickler in Lewisburg.
Johnson eventually withdrew the request for capital punishment, saying at the
time the facts of the case didn't support the death penalty.
State police say Richard shot Sampsell once in the head with a stolen rifle as
Sampsell attempted to rise from his recliner when robbers kicked in the front
door of his Buffalo Township home, according to court papers.
The robbers sought marijuana and money, but only found prescription pills,
state police say.
Before being pegged as the triggerman, Richard was a prosecution witness,
having pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and agreeing to testify against a
former co-conspirator, Herbert Tiebout. But Richard twice recanted his
statements, the second time on the day of Tiebout's own 2nd-degree murder trial
in September. The case against Tiebout was dismissed, and police and
prosecutors turned their attention to Richard.
The testimony of Amanda Kratzer, Richard's ex-girlfriend, is at the center of
the case. She originally accused Richard and Tiebout in the Sampsell home
invasion and an earlier robbery that night in Millmont that allegedly netted 10
guns, including the murder weapon.
After Tiebout's case was dismissed, she went on record to accuse Richard of
confessing to the killing more than once after they fled Pennsylvania for
Virginia Beach, Va., days after Sampsell's death. She had already helped state
police locate the Remington 30.06 rifle Richard is accused of using, which was
dumped in a wooded area near Williamsburg, Va.
After Kratzer's latest revelation, a 3rd suspect in the home invasions
surfaced. Kratzer says she saw Theron Moore, 43, formerly of Mercersburg, with
Richard and Tiebout on the night of Sampsell's death, according to court
papers.
Police say in arrest papers that Moore confessed to helping Richard steal both
a Dodge pickup and a Kawasaki motorcycle from the Mifflinburg area and commit a
violent home invasion in New Berlin on June 22, 2012, in which 1 occupant was
beaten with a baseball bat. That's the same day Sampsell's body was found.
Moore has since pleaded not guilty.
Richard, too, pleaded not guilty to murder and robbery and related charges
stemming from 3 related incidents.
They'll be prosecuted together on the events of June 22, 2012. Richard is
accused alone in the June 12, 2012, murder.
Pre-trial motions in the murder case are due July 1.
(source: The Daily Item)
FLORIDA:
Defense lawyers question death penalty jury instructions
Defense lawyers are attacking a new law aimed at fixing Florida's death penalty
sentencing structure, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier
this year because it gave too much power to judges instead of juries.
But the angst over the new law, crafted by the Legislature and signed by Gov.
Rick Scott in March, isn't limited to defense lawyers - the Florida Supreme
Court is questioning whether the law violates the state's constitutional
guarantee to trial by jury.
Also, a Miami judge ruled last week that the law, which requires a 10-2 jury
recommendation for the death penalty to be imposed, is unconstitutional.
Defense lawyers, meanwhile, are now objecting to proposed jury instructions
related to the new law.
The proposed jury instructions, crafted by the Florida Supreme Court Committee
on Standard Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, lay out what judges must tell
juries in capital death cases. The committee will consider changes at its next
meeting in June, before sending the proposed rule to the Supreme Court, which
could adopt the proposal or revise it.
Lawmakers hurriedly crafted the new death-penalty sentencing law in response to
a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that Florida's system of allowing judges
- and not juries - to decide whether defendants should face death is an
unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
The 8-1 decision, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, dealt with the
sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and
it focused on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be
determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations
of such aggravating circumstances must be made by juries, not judges.
Under Florida's new law, juries will have to unanimously determine "the
existence of at least 1 aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible
for death sentences. The law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the
death penalty in order for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a
feature of the old law that had allowed judges to override juries'
recommendations of life in prison instead of death.
Creating jury instructions for the new law "is especially difficult in this
instance because there remains great uncertainty as to the constitutionality of
the statutory law underlying the proposed instructions," Capital Collateral
Regional Counsel-South Neal Dupree, whose office represents defendants who have
been sentenced to death, wrote in comments submitted to the committee Monday.
Under the proposal, juries would be told that "different factors or
circumstances may be given different weight or values by different jurors."
That instruction would not comply with a U.S. Supreme Court decision, in a case
known as Caldwell v. Mississippi, making it unconstitutional to instruct a jury
in a way that will cause the jury to "minimize the importance of its role,"
Dupree wrote.
"We wanted the jury to be clear that there is a distinction between mitigating
circumstances, which do not require unanimity and do not require a finding
beyond a reasonable doubt, and the aggravating factors, which are required to
be found unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt," Pete Mills, an assistant
public defender in the 10th Judicial Circuit who is chairman of the
association's death penalty steering committee, said in a telephone interview
Tuesday.
The Supreme Court, which put on hold indefinitely 2 executions after the Hurst
decision, is also grappling with whether judges should use the new law to
resentence death row inmates, whose lawyers argue that the sentences should be
reduced to life in prison without parole because the prisoners were condemned
under an unconstitutional system.
Also, the court recently raised questions about the new law's lack of unanimity
in jury recommendations.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
*****************
Florida's death penalty facing new questions as last lethal-injection drug
supplier bans use
With the Sunshine State's death penalty already under scrutiny and siege, the
last remaining federally approved sources for all three drugs used in Florida's
lethal-injection cocktail have been banned for use in executions.
Wishing to align itself with saving lives rather than ending them,
pharmaceutical mega-manufacturer, Pfizer, announced late last week that seven
drugs it makes will be off limits from now on for use in capital punishment.
More than 20 American and European drug companies have imposed similar bans.
"All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States stand together
on this issue," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Washington
D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center. "They do not want their medicines
misused executing prisoners."
The impact on Florida and its 390 death row inmates is impossible to gauge
because the Department of Corrections, citing state laws, will not divulge its
drug suppliers, how much of a supply it has on hand or when its current supply
will expire.
"When Florida's current supply runs out then Florida has a choice to make,"
Dunham said. "It could attempt to obtain these drugs elsewhere but for the most
part that involves violating the law."
Pfizer's move will "make it even more difficult for states to obtain these
drugs or replace the drugs when their current supply expires," Dunham said, but
it doesn't necessarily mean the end of lethal injections.
That's because the nation's 32 death penalty states could turn to another buyer
to get the required drugs from manufacturers without revealing the actual
purpose they would be used for, or they could buy from distributors willing to
violate resale agreements with manufacturers, or they could turn to small,
loosely regulated pharmacies to make the drugs.
Alternatively, Florida could switch from a 3-drug lethal injection to a
single-drug protocol - or it could even return to the electric chair.
"All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the United States stand together
on this issue. They do not want their medicines misused executing prisoners" -
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center Other
states have grappled with execution-drug issues in different ways. Ohio since
last year has put executions on hold because it can't obtain the required
drugs. Other states like Texas and Missouri have gotten lethal injection drugs
from the small, loosely regulated pharmacies known as compounders. And Utah,
looking for a back-up execution method, reinstated the firing squad.
"We don't even know if Florida has been using drugs from Pfizer, they won't
tell us," said Marty McClain, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents death row
defendants seeking appeals. "It's certainly not in line with the Sunshine Laws
in terms of the public finding out what's going on and what's being used."
The majority of the 32 states with the death penalty have similar secrecy
provisions that prevent them from revealing their lethal drug sources.
Pfizer's action is just the latest, but not necessarily the most pressing
challenge facing capital punishment in Florida.
"Florida's death penalty system is in tatters at the moment and not just
because of the drugs," Dunham said. "There are questions as to whether Florida
has a constitutional death penalty at all."
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death penalty is
unconstitutional because it gave jurors too little, and judges too much, say in
the decision. As a result, the state supreme court must decide if Florida's 390
death row inmates were sentenced under a flawed system and should have their
penalties converted to life sentences.
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court, state lawmakers earlier this year
revamped the death-penalty sentencing law to require not just a majority, but a
"super majority" or 10 of 12 jurors, to vote to impose the death penalty
against convicted murderers. Florida, Alabama and Delaware are the only three
death penalty states that do not require unanimous jury verdicts in death
cases.
A week ago, a Miami-Dade trial judge struck another blow when he ruled that
despite the Legislature's attempted fix, the state's death penalty remains
unconstitutional because it still does not require a unanimous jury decision.
In 2013, Florida swapped pentobarbital sodium for midazolam as the
unconsciousness-inducing first injection in its 3-drug intravenous process. It
did so because its Danish manufacturer of pentobarbital sodium balked at its
use in executions and prohibited its sale for that purpose. Midazolam has been
blamed for botched executions in Oklahoma, Ohio and Arizona.
Florida's lethal injection cocktail is administered in 3 stages. After the
midazolam knocks the condemned person into unconsciousness, vecuronium bromide
induces paralysis and finally, potassium chloride triggers cardiac arrest.
Importing lethal-injection drugs from Europe would violate European export
regulations. Importing them from anywhere else would violate federal law that
prohibits medicines to come into the country without an approved medical use.
Switching to a single drug protocol would create issues over which drug to use
and where to get it, Dunham said.
Turning to the so-called compounding pharmacies poses its own set of dangers.
They are regulated by state laws rather than the Federal Drug Administration.
Products from compounding pharmacies could be impure, lack necessary potency or
may not be properly sterilized or refrigerated, experts say.
Such pharmacies are typically used to create, or compound, small batches of
medications tailored to an individual patient's needs such as strength, dosage,
or allergies.
Products from compounding pharmacies "increase the likelihood that there will
be bad batches of drugs used in executions and that also increases the risk
that executions will be botched," Dunham said.
States have argued that secrecy is necessary to protect the identities of
manufacturers so they won't be harassed, but death penalty opponents see
otherwise.
"What in fact seems to be the case is that states needed to obtain secrecy to
prevent the manufacturer from learning that its medicines were being misused in
executions," Dunham said. "There is no legitimate medical purpose for executing
somebody."
(source: Sun-Sentinel)
*********************
Stop death penalty
Thank you to Beth Kassab for her column, "Death penalty in Florida is facing
chaos," in Tuesday's Sentinel. She is correct that our system in Florida, and
across the nation, is seriously flawed.
As a supporter of the Innocence Project, I see emails and letters regularly
telling me of another prisoner who has been released due to DNA testing that
finds him or her innocent, many times after spending decades in prison.
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at
Cardozo School of Law, "exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing
and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice," its
website says. Due to its important work, 341 DNA exonerations have occurred,
and 147 real perpetrators have been found.
Innocent people can find themselves on death row due to incentivized
informants, false confessions, inadequate defense, flawed forensic science and
eyewitness misidentification.
We have a lot of work to do in getting serious changes made in our penal
system. The way to start is to see the state follow the lead of the majority of
U.S. states in halting the use of the death penalty.
Stephanie Garber
(source: Letter to the Editor, Orlando Sentinel)
ALABAMA:
8-year-old girl awoke to 'nightmare' when she finds bullet riddled bodies,
prosecutor tells jurors
An 8-year-old Ensley girl awoke to a "nightmare" the morning of April 25, 2014
when she found her pregnant mother slumped over in a kitchen chair and the body
of her mother's boyfriend on the floor next to her, a prosecutor told jurors
Tuesday.
Pools of blood were on the floor by the bodies, which had been riddled with
bullets, Deputy District Attorney Kechia Sanders Davis told the jury during
opening statements of the capital murder trial of Jermaine "Lil Jay" Tolbert.
Tolbert, 28, is charged with four counts of capital murder in the shooting
deaths of 27-year-old Sharday Ware, her unborn child, and 36-year-old Dekova
Jemille "Doc" Harris, of Fultondale. If convicted, Tolbert could face the death
penalty.
Another man, Dewayne Barnes, 22, is also charged with capital murder in the
shooting deaths of Ware, her unborn child, and Harris. Barnes' trial is set to
begin July 25.
The shooting happened at Ware's house at 1309 57th Place Ensley.
Cedric Clifton, a retired crime scene investigator with the Birmingham Police
Department, testified Wednesday to finding 15 shell casings from .40 caliber
and 9mm guns inside the home.
Jurors also got to see photos taken from inside the house by Clifton. Among the
photos was one of Ware slumped forward in a chair and Harris on the floor at
her feet. One of Harris' hands was lodged against the handrail of the chair
Ware was sitting on with a cigarette still in between his fingers.
Other photo showed scales, a baggie of marijuana, and other clear plastic
baggies on a table. Clifton said one baggie had a white powdery substance
believed to be cocaine in it.
Davis said that she expects a man, Eric Smitherman, will testify that after
watching a game on TV, the night before the bodies were discovered, Tolbert and
Barnes were there with Harris and Ware and that Tolbert locked a door.
Tommy McFarland, one of the attorneys representing Tolbert, told jurors that
they will need to assess the credibility of some of the witnesses, including a
jailhouse snitch who didn't like Tolbert. He asked that jurors look at the
credibility of some of the witnesses he described as "thugs."
Smitherman never said that he saw Tolbert do anything, McFarland told jurors.
"When he leaves the house those folks were alive," he said.
The confidential informant also told police the 2 men,, Dewayne Barnes and
Jermaine "Lil Jay" Tolbert, now charged with capital murder in the double
homicide told her that if they had found the woman's 7-year-old daughter awake
they would have killed her too, Birmingham Police homicide detective Phillip
Harris said.
Among the first witnesses was Ricky Jones, a neighbor walking to work that
morning who spotted Ware's 8-year-old girl come running out of the house
barefoot. The girl told him her mother, and her mother's boyfriend, were dead,
he said.
"I thought she was kidding," Jones said. But quickly he realized it wasn't the
case and called 911, he said.
Jurors then heard the 911 tape in which Jones calls for help. During the tape,
the girl can be heard crying in the background and Jones has to pause from
talking to the dispatcher to reassure the girl. Jones said he did not go into
the house.
Jones also testified he heard 4 shots close together about 12:30 a.m. the night
before. But he said he didn't call police because it's not unusual to hear
gunfire in the area.
Another neighbor, Brandon Turner, who lived directly behind Ware's house,
testified he was watching the closing commentary after an NBA game on TV when
he heard more than four gunshots. "It (the gunfire) was constant," he said.
Turner said he fell to the floor and waited five minutes. When he didn't see
anything looking out his window, he didn't call police because he hears gunfire
in his neighborhood a lot.
Testimony is to continue today in the trial before Jefferson County Circuit
Judge Virginia Vinson.
Defense attorney Mike Shores also represents Tolbert. Deputy District Attorney
Matt Casey also is prosecuting the case.
A homicide detective at a preliminary hearing in the case in 2014 testified
that a confidential informant told police the shooting deaths were the result
of a murder-for-hire in retaliation for a shooting that happened in September
2013 in Fairfield.
The confidential informant also told police the 2 men now charged with capital
murder in the double homicide told her that if they had found the woman's
daughter awake they would have killed her too, Birmingham Police homicide
detective Phillip Harris said at that preliminary hearing.
The detective also testified that the house where Ware and "Doc" Harris were
shot was known in the neighborhood as a drug house.
(source: al.com)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana Senate to consider reworking indigent defense spending
An effort to reshuffle how Louisiana spends its money on defending the poor
edged closer Tuesday to final legislative passage.
House Bill 1137 by Rep. Sherman Mack, R-Albany, would require at least 65 % of
the state public defender board's financing to flow to local defenders of the
indigent. That could steer money away from appeals of death sentences for poor
defendants.
A Senate judiciary committee voted 4-1 to send Mack's bill to the full Senate.
It already has won House support.
The debate comes as local public defenders in some parts of the state have
stopped taking cases because of money shortages, prompting prisoner releases,
lawsuits and widespread concerns about the state of the justice system.
Louisiana is spending $33 million on the public defender board in the current
budget year. Bill supporters say the local public defenders need the money.
They say too much is spent by the board on large, expensive defense teams for
death penalty cases.
"When the money came to the local boards, we had no problems. We had no issues.
We worked together. The money was spent wisely," said Ricky Babin, district
attorney for Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes.
Opponents say more dollars are needed overall to pay for indigent defense and
meddling with the board's authority over the same level of financing won't
improve the situation.
"This really is not about the board. This is a funding crisis," said the
board's executive officer, James Dixon. "The problem here is diminishing local
funds, and nothing in this bill addresses that."
The proposal also would reshuffle how state public defender board members are
chosen.
Voting to advance the bills were: Sens. Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles; Norby
Chabert, R-Houma; Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte; and Greg Tarver, D-Shreveport.
Voting against HB1137 was: Sen. J.P. Morrell, D-New Orleans.
(source: The Advocate)
OHIO:
Lawyers For Suspect In Danville Cop's Slaying Want Off Case
2 attorneys appointed to represent a man accused of fatally shooting a central
Ohio policeman are asking to withdraw from the potential death penalty case.
Bruce Malek and Brandon Crunkilton told the court that it's not feasible for
them to continue representing Herschel Ray Jones III because of issues that
have arisen. Malek told the Mount Vernon News that he wouldn't discuss
specifics of those issues.
An attorney from the Ohio public defender's office also is representing Jones.
Jones is accused of shooting 34-year-old Danville Officer Thomas Cottrell. He
has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in Knox County.
Cottrell's body was found behind the village's municipal building Jan. 17,
after Jones' ex-girlfriend warned police that Jones was "looking to kill a
cop."
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 18 14:22:05 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 14:22:05 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., MO., KAN., NEB.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605181421560.7300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 18
ARKANSAS:
Allen pleads not guilty to capital murder
Cody Allen, 23, of Mountain Home, appeared in Marion County Circuit Court
Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty charges in connection with the death
of Alithia Boyd, a Marion County toddler who died on May 6.
Allen - who is currently being held in the Arkansas Department of Corrections'
Ouachita Unit on a parole violation - faces life in prison or the death penalty
if convicted of the crime.
Initially, Allen had faced the Class Y felony of first-degree battery. A Class
Y felony is the most serious charge a person face in Arkansas, short of a
capital murder charge.
Last week, Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge said Allen's criminal history as
an habitual offender and the facts of the case, allowed prosecutors to seek the
capital murder charge. The prosecutor noted Allen has twice been convicted of
felonies in the past 10 years, qualifying him for habitual offender status.
According to the Department of Corrections website, Allen was sentenced to 60
months in prison on charges of residential burglary, breaking and entering, and
theft of property in 2014.
The Bulletin will have more on Allen's appearance throughout the day.
(source: Baxter Bulletin)
MISSOURI:
Appeals Court hears arguments on Missouri's lethal injection protocol
An attorney argued before the Missouri Court of Appeals that taxpayers should
have legal standing to challenge the state's procedures for obtaining drugs for
lethal injections.
Justin Gelfand, representing 2 former state lawmakers and 2 other citizens,
argued a lawsuit appeal on Wednesday. The lawsuit alleges the state violates
federal and state laws by using an illegal prescription to obtain pentobarbital
from a compounding pharmacy for the executions. The lawsuit does not challenge
the death penalty, only practices used to obtain the drugs.
A Cole County judge dismissed the lawsuit in July 2015. Part of the judge's
ruling says taxpayers do not have standing to challenge Department of
Corrections operations and the Missouri Supreme Court has jurisdiction in death
penalty-related lawsuits.
Appeals court panels never say how long they will take to issue a ruling.
(source: Associated Press)
************
Our challenge to Missouri executions
About a year ago I signed on as a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the
Missouri Department of Corrections practice of buying execution drugs out of
state at an unlicensed compound pharmacy, but the judge determined that we
plaintiffs, 2 former Missouri legislators, a pastor and me, lacked standing.
Now, on May 18, the Missouri Court of Appeals will hear our case.
As our attorney Justin Geifand said, "The state has successfully fended off
similar challenges brought by people sentenced to death saying they lacked
'standing' to bring the case. If the Court of Appeals finds that we, as
taxpayers, also lack standing to have this case finally decided on the merits,
then it would appear that nobody has the ability to bring these important
issues to court. But in America, we bring important issues to court and that's
precisely what we did here."
Just last week the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer took steps to block use of its
pharmaceuticals in executions, evidence of the growing repugnance to capital
punishment. As plaintiffs in this court case, we have the opportunity to object
to what is, at the very least, the unseemly behavior of the Department of
Corrections director of adult institutions driving out of state with a satchel
of cash to purchase execution drugs compounded and prescribed by a doctor who
conducts no medical examination and is contractually obliged to write the
invalid prescription.
The most recent Missouri execution a week ago of Earl Forrest is, in my
opinion, another example of capricious and reckless implementation of the death
penalty. Forrest killed 3 people, including a sheriff's deputy, but he was
severely mentally impaired. He expressed deep remorse for the murder of the
sheriff but not the other 2 whom he killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Surely
life in prison would have been sufficient punishment. Even better would have
been appropriate care and treatment of his mental condition which might have
saved three lives.
(source: Mary Ann McGivern, National Catholic Reporter)
KANSAS----new death sentence
Kyle Flack, who killed 3 adults and a toddler, sentenced to the death penalty
in Kansas capital murder case----Flack was found guilty for shooting in 2013
Kyle Travor Flack was sentenced to the death penalty Wednesday morning.
Franklin County District Court Judge Eric Godderz on Wednesday morning imposed
the death penalty on Kyle Trevor Flack in the shotgun slaying of a young mother
and her 18-month-old in 2013.
The judge also sentenced Flack to 22 years and 3 months for the 2nd-degree
murder conviction of 1 man, and a life sentence with parole eligibility only
after serving 25 years for a fourth murder conviction.
Finally the judge sentenced Flack to 9 months for a firearms possession
violation.
All sentences are to be served consecutively.
In sentencing Flack, Godderz said it was hard for anyone to figure out how
senseless these killings were.
The victims were unarmed, they were shot at close range, and they were shot in
the back, the judge said.
"An infant was slain. How anyone makes sense of that is beyond me," Godderz
said.
The judge also said Flack knew what he was doing was wrong.
"The one thing though, Mr. Flack, is that no one will forget the harm you have
done," the judge said.
Godderz noted that before the killings, Flack had been convicted of attempted
murder of a shooting of a man and that in both cases, they were done in a
"cowardly fashion" where the victims were shot in the back.
The only good thing on Wednesday is that with this sentence that "I'm imposing,
you'll never get to do it again," the judge said.
The victims' families clapped when the judge made that remark.
The developments from court Wednesday are developing and this story will be
updated.
On March 31, a Franklin County jury recommended Flack, 30, receive the death
sentence after they convicted him of fatally shooting the 3 adults and the
18-month-old toddler on an eastern Kansas farm in 2013.
Flack hid the adult bodies and stuffed the child's remains in a suitcase which
was found floating in the Tequa Creek.
The jury that recommended Flack receive the death penalty was the same panel
that convicted him on March 23 of capital murder in the deaths of Kaylie
Bailey, 21, and her 18-month-old daughter, Lana.
Flack also was convicted in the deaths of Bailey's boyfriend, 31-year-old
Andrew Stout, and his roommate, 31-year-old Steven White, who lived in a rural
farmhouse where Flack sometimes stayed.
The rural farm is about 50 miles southeast of Topeka.
Flack, who has been in custody for 3 years since he was arrested, was sentenced
1 month before his 31st birthday.
Detectives think the shootings occurred on separate days in the spring of 2013.
Investigators think White was killed around April 20, 2013, and his body was
later found under a tarp in an outbuilding near the farmhouse. Stout apparently
was shot on April 29, and his body was found in his bedroom under a pile of
clothes.
Bailey's partially-clothed body was found in a bedroom, with her hands bound
behind her back. Authorities think the mother and daughter were killed on May
1.
Prosecutors presented 2 weeks of testimony during the trial. The defense didn't
call any witnesses.
Flack's lead defense attorney, Timothy Frieden, urged jurors during the
sentencing phase to recommend a life sentence without parole, saying Flack was
not the "monster" they had heard about.
Testimony during the sentencing phase indicated Flack grew up in a chaotic home
with several family members who suffered from mental illness, was sexually
abused as a child, and suffered from depression, social anxiety and schizo
affective disorder.
Frieden told jurors Flack functioned well while imprisoned for a 2005 shooting,
and if sentenced to life in this case, the public would be safe.
"He is salvageable," Frieden said. "Vote life when it comes down to the end."
Deputy Attorney General Victor Braden said during the sentencing phase that
jurors had to decide what justice entails.
"Each of you will have to ask yourself what is appropriate justice?" Braden
said.
Braden said the death penalty was justified by 3 aggravating circumstances: an
attempted 2nd-degree murder conviction in the May 2, 2005, shooting of Steve
Free; the fact Flack killed more than 1 person; and the killings of the mother
and daughter were done in an "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner."
Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994 but has not performed an execution
since the 1965 hangings of George Ronald York and James Douglas Latham, 2 spree
killers.
(source: Topeka Capital Journal)
NEBRASKA:
Death penalty repeal supporters say life means life
A retired district court judge and 2 state senators who supported repeal of the
death penalty pushed the point at a news conference Wednesday that a mandatory
life sentence would mean a person would not be allowed out of prison.
"The Legislature examined life imprisonment extensively for years, and we are
crystal clear that we have a strong life sentence that guarantees those with
that sentence die in prison," said Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, who helped lead
the effort to repeal the death penalty last year.
Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld, a member of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee,
said those who want to bring back the death penalty are attempting to confuse
voters by suggesting those sentenced to life will be able to get out.
"You will hear those who want to keep the death penalty say that if we get rid
of it, people are going to get out. This is simply untrue," Morfeld said. "With
a sentence of life imprisonment, a person cannot be released."
A person can request from the Pardons Board, made up of the governor, secretary
of state and state attorney general, that his or her sentence be commuted, that
is, set for a certain number of years so that parole could be considered.
"The possibility that those three elected officials would commute a life
sentence for 1st-degree murder to a term of years is just as remote as the
possibility it would commute a death sentence to one of life or term of years,"
Morfeld said.
If voters are concerned, they should ask the governor or attorney general which
of the 10 men currently on death row he is going to commute to a sentence less
than life, he said.
"With the death penalty gone, we can be 100 % confident those sentenced to life
imprisonment will die in prison," Morfeld said.
Coash, a member of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, said the bill passed
last year with 16 Republican votes, 13 Democratic votes and one independent
vote.
Coash said that a year ago, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson affirmed
Nebraska law by issuing a legal opinion on the issue, saying: "Under current
Nebraska law, a sentence of life imprisonment is effectively life imprisonment
without parole."
District Court Judge Ronald Reagan, who served on the bench for more than 32
years and sentenced John Joubert to death, said he has no doubt about
Nebraska's life imprisonment law.
"I want to make sure there is no legal confusion that life imprisonment means
life in prison, no chance of parole," Reagan said. "Anything else is political
posturing and has no grounding in the legal realities."
Reagan said he has seen the worst of the worst cases in Nebraska and has
studied the laws carefully.
When someone is sentenced to life, they die in prison, he said.
Reagan said the Nebraska Supreme Court also has affirmed this.
In 2014, in the Castaneda case, the state's highest court said a life sentence
in Nebraska is no different than a sentence of life without parole, he said.
"I am confident if Nebraskans are able to have the same conversation that the
Unicameral has been having over the last several years, they will come to the
same conclusion that we did," Coash said, "that our death penalty is broken and
life imprisonment is a better alternative. It exists, and it works."
Nebraskans will get an opportunity in November to vote on whether to reinstate
the death penalty that was repealed in 2015.
(source: Lincoln Journal Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 18 14:22:46 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 14:22:46 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IDAHO, ARIZ., CALIF., ORE, USA,
US MIL.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605181422390.7300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 18
IDAHO:
A change of heart regarding death penalty
Recently your paper ran an article regarding David Card and his ability to
avoid execution of the death sentence imposed because of his involvement in the
deliberate and premeditated murder of Mr. and Mrs. Morey.
The murder was perhaps as heinous a crime as occurred during my tenure as
Canyon County prosecuting attorney. During that period, 11 death sentences were
handed down. None of the 11 sentences have been carried out.
I do not expect any death sentence to be carried out in Idaho, even though we
have a death statute on the books.
As long as the Idaho Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals remain
as is, no sentence of death in Idaho will be permitted to be carried out.
Because of that reality, my position on the death penalty has changed and I no
longer support imposition of a death sentence in Idaho.
A life sentence without parole is the most we can hope for. You see a number of
those who were sentenced to death during my tenure as prosecutor are no longer
even in the penitentiary.
Judge Lodge with regard to Card, because of allegations that Card was mentally
disturbed, imposed a hold on his execution, but the hold was to be reviewed
every 6 months to determine if there was any change in his mental condition
which would warrant imposition of the sentence.
Card has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. That condition is
treatable with medication, but the policy of IDOC is not to involuntarily
administer medication unless the inmate is gravely disabled, unable to care for
his personal needs.
Card is not gravely disabled. So Card does not have to take the medication,
thereby maintaining the status quo of his mental disability and consequentially
avoiding imposition of the death sentence. Something about that makes no sense
at all, and Terry Morey's quest for justice goes begging.
Judge Lodge used to say to every defendant he placed on probation that he (the
defendant) carried the "keys to the jail in his pocket." If he violated
probation, he would go to jail. Here, Card carries the keys to his execution in
his pocket by not taking the medication that would treat his mental problem and
hence his execution.
(source: Guest Commentary, Richard Harris; Idaho Press-Tribune)
ARIZONA:
Rector trial likely to be moved to 2017
The murder trial for a Bullhead City man facing the death penalty for allegedly
murdering a young girl will likely be postponed until next spring.
Justin James Rector, 27, is charged with 1st-degree murder, kidnapping, child
abuse and abandonment of a dead body for kidnapping and murdering of Isabella
Grogan.
Cannella on Sept. 2, 2014 and leaving her body in a shallow grave near her
Bullhead City home.
Documents filed Tuesday show that Superior Court Judge Lee Jantzen has received
the prosecutor's response to a motion from Gerald Gavin, Rector's attorney, to
disclose 2 state witnesses. The judge previously granted Gavin's motion and
redacted and sealed the motions not to reveal the identity of the witnesses for
their protection.
Deputy Mohave County Attorney Greg McPhillips also filed a motion Tuesday not
opposing Gavin's request to postpone the Oct. 17 trial. The murder trial is
expected to take 10 weeks. A pre-trial hearing currently set for Aug. 23 is
also expected to be delayed. Rector's next hearing is set for July 15.
The reason for the delay is that Rector's case requires 2 death
penalty-qualified attorneys. A co-counsel has been appointed but will not be
available until June 25 after he or she completes the necessary training
required to handle a death penalty case. It will take at least 6 months after a
co-counsel makes his or her 1st appearance for Rector's trial to take place,
Gavin argued.
A Chronis hearing is also expected at the July 15 hearing. A Chronis hearing is
when the prosecutor argues aggravating factors to seek the death penalty
against Rector. Only 1 of 14 aggravated factors needs to be proven to seek the
death penalty. 1 aggravating factor is if the victim is under the age of 15.
Bella was only 8 years old at the time of her murder.
(source: Mohave Valley Daily News)
*****************
Gov. Doug Ducey signs legislation to expand Arizona Supreme Court
Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation Wednesday to expand the state Supreme Court
to 7 justices from 5, saying the additional judges will allow the court to take
on more cases and ensure "swift justice."
Ducey's approval of House Bill 2537 will cost the state an additional $1
million and came despite objections from Chief Justice Scott Bales, who earlier
this month asked the Republican governor to veto the legislation. In that
letter, Bales wrote additional judges are not needed and expansion "is not
warranted when other court-related needs are underfunded."
Ducey will have the final say on the 2 new justices; in January, he appointed
Clint Bolick, a registered independent and Goldwater Institute litigator, to
the bench.
Such appointments are among a governor's most important decisions, given
jurists??? long tenures and impact on issues ranging from the death penalty to
constitutional questions.
In a letter explaining his signing Wednesday morning, Ducey said the additional
justices will put Arizona on par with states that have similar or smaller
populations yet more Supreme Court justices. He cited Nevada, Colorado,
Washington, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.
"Arizonans deserve swift justice from the judicial branch," Ducey's letter
said. "Adding more voices will ensure that the court can increase efficiency,
hear more cases and issue more opinions."
To those who argue the bill is unnecessary and the justices' caseloads are not
burdensome, he wrote, "...I believe you'll hear a different story from the
businesses and individuals facing litigation, who are in need of certainty."
The governor said the legislation, introduced by Rep. J.D. Mesnard, R-Chandler,
does not contradict his goal to streamline government, because it would make
the court more efficient and accessible to the public.
Mesnard said the expansion will result in a "greater opportunity for diversity
on the court, there will be more legal minds looking at critical issues and
hopefully the opportunity to take on more cases and a diversity of opinion."
Democrats called the bill a move by Ducey and Republicans to stack the Supreme
Court. Democratic Sen. Katie Hobbs, of Phoenix, said court caseloads were not a
problem, and "the only reason to do it is so the governor can stack the Supreme
Court with his picks."
Ducey addressed the notion in his letter, writing, "Some, particularly national
activists and media who aren't familiar with our system here, have inaccurately
described this as 'court packing.' That's just wrong."
He pointed out the justices are selected through a merit-based process.
Ultimately, however, it's Ducey who selects from the names that are forwarded
to him.
Bales had supported court expansion, but only if the Legislature and governor
ensured other court priorities were met. He and other court officials argued
the $1 million that would be spent to grow the court could instead be used for
other priorities.
(source: The Arizona Republic)
CALIFORNIA:
Grim Sleeper's Killing Spree Worse than Thought, Prosecutors Claim----In
arguing for the death penalty, prosecutors allege the Grim Sleeper's kill count
is higher than the 9 murders he was convicted of.
A fingerprint comparison expert testified today that a fingerprint from the
magazine of a gun linked to a woman's December 2000 killing matched the
fingerprint of the man convicted of the "Grim Sleeper" killings of 9 other
women and a 15-year-old girl.
Jeff Deacon, who works for the Los Angeles Police Department's latent print
unit, told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury that he compared fingerprints of
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. from a fingerprint database and concluded that a
print found on the magazine of a Titan .25-caliber pistol discovered in July
2010 behind a false wall during a search of Franklin's garage "originated" from
his left thumb.
In her opening statement last week in the penalty phase of Franklin's trial,
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told jurors that the gun was used to
kill 43-year-old Georgia Mae Thomas, who was found dead Dec. 18, 2000, in South
Los Angeles.
Franklin, 63, was convicted May 5 of the 10 "Grim Sleeper" killings, along with
the attempted murder of Enietra Washington, who survived being shot in the
chest and pushed out of a moving vehicle in November 1988. In testimony Feb.
25, she identified the former Los Angeles city garage attendant and sanitation
worker as her assailant.
The 7-woman, 5-man jury is being asked in the latest phase of the trial to
recommend whether Franklin should be sentenced to death or life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
The prosecutor told jurors that they would hear during the penalty phase about
a series of other killings, including Thomas' shooting death, that she said are
linked to the defendant.
Silverman told the panel that a separate gun used to kill Janecia Peters --
the final victim in the charged "Grim Sleeper" killings -- was also used in the
January 1984 shooting death of 21-year-old Sharon Dismuke, a crime for which
Franklin was not charged. The weapon was found in a bedroom during the July
2010 search of Franklin's property, the prosecutor said.
Deacon told jurors that he took a sample of Franklin's fingerprints in court
Monday to compare to the set from the database and found that both matched.
He testified that he did not compare the fingerprints he had collected from
Franklin to the latent print found on the magazine of the gun. He noted that he
could compare the prints he had taken from Franklin with the latent print from
the magazine of the gun, but that it would take time for others within his unit
to verify his findings.
Franklin could not be excluded as the source of a fingerprint found in the area
of the gun's serial number, but the print was "very low quality" and a
conclusive determination could not be made, the fingerprint comparison expert
testified.
"I knew from the very beginning that this print has limited potential," he said
of that print.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Seymour Amster, Deacon acknowledged
that he could not determine the amount of time that a latent print has been on
a surface.
When asked if he was aware of any incorrect identifications through fingerprint
analysis, Deacon said the best known incident involved an investigation into a
Madrid train station bombing in which the FBI eventually acknowledged that it
had made an error in misidentifying a suspect after Spanish national police
advised the agency that the fingerprint had been identified as belonging to
someone else.
Along with the killings of Thomas and Dismuke, Franklin is suspected of killing
28-year-old Inez Warren, who was found Aug. 15, 1988, with a gunshot wound to
the left side of her chest and blunt-force trauma to her head, Silverman said
last week.
A kit used to collect potential DNA evidence from the woman was inadvertently
destroyed in 2000 -- years before Franklin's arrest -- but the killing bore the
"same pattern or signature" as the other slayings, the deputy district attorney
said.
The prosecutor also told jurors that a high school ID card which belonged to
18-year-old Hawthorne High School senior Ayellah Marshall, who vanished in
January 2006 -- and a Nevada ID card belonging to 29-year-old Rolenia Morris,
who disappeared in September 2005 -- were found by police in Franklin's garage
during a July 2010 search. Authorities have not been able to locate either of
the women, Silverman said.
Franklin, while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany in 1974, joined with 2
other men to grab a 17-year-old girl off a street, gang-rape her and take
photos of her, the prosecutor told jurors.
Franklin's attorney declined to present an opening statement at the start of
the penalty phase, in which jurors are hearing emotional testimony from the
murder victims' families, along with evidence about the uncharged killings in
which Franklin is suspected.
In his closing argument in the trial's guilt phase, Amster contended that an
unknown assailant may have been responsible for the 10 killings for which
Franklin was prosecuted.
Silverman countered that there was no evidence to support the defendant's
theory and told jurors that "the only DNA profile that repeats itself again and
again is the defendant's."
Jurors deliberated about 1 1/2 days before finding Franklin guilty of the
killings, which occurred between 1985 and 1988 and 2002 and 2007, with the
assailant dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" because of what was believed to be a 13-
year break in the killings.
Franklin, who has remained jailed without bail since his July 2010 arrest, was
convicted of killing:
-- Debra Jackson, 29, found dead from 3 gunshot wounds to the chest in an
alley on Aug. 10, 1985;
-- Henrietta Wright, a 34-year-old mother of 5 who was shot twice in the chest
and found in an alley with a cloth gag stuffed in her mouth on Aug. 12, 1986;
-- Barbara Ware, 23, shot once in the chest and found under a pile of debris
and garbage in an alley on Jan. 10, 1987;
-- Bernita Sparks, 26, shot once in the chest and found in a trash bin with
her shirt and pants unbuttoned on April 16, 1987;
-- Mary Lowe, 26, shot in the chest and found in an alley with her pants
unzipped behind a large shrub on Nov. 1, 1987;
-- Lachrica Jefferson, 22, found dead from 2 gunshot wounds to the chest --
with a napkin over her face with the handwritten word "AIDS" on it -- in an
alley on Jan. 30, 1988;
-- Alicia Alexander, 18, killed by a gunshot wound to the chest and found
naked under a blue foam mattress in an alley on Sept. 11, 1988;
-- Princess Berthomieux, 15, strangled and discovered naked and hidden in
shrubbery in an alley in Inglewood on March 9, 2002;
-- Valerie McCorvey, 35, strangled and found dead with her clothes pulled down
at the entrance to a locked alley on July 11, 2003; and
-- Janecia Peters, 25, shot in the back and found naked inside a sealed
plastic trash bag in a trash bin in an alley on Jan. 1, 2007.
(source: patch.com)
****************
Oakland 8-year-old's shooting death could yield 1st county death penalty in
years
As a jury this week decides the fate of an Oakland man convicted of killing an
8-year-old girl and a man with whom he argued over a dice game, the case marks
a turning point for Alameda County and its district attorney, Nancy O'Malley.
It's the 1st death penalty trial in the county since O'Malley took office 7
years ago.
She's had 103 other cases where she could have sought the death penalty. And
except for 1 other case, where she initially sought death but reversed the
decision before trial, this is the only one she's pursued.
Because of a gag order, O'Malley, defense attorneys and prosecutors wouldn't
talk about the case against Darnell Williams, 25, of Oakland, who was convicted
last week of killing Alaysha Carradine, 8, as she was spending the night with a
friend in Oakland, and Anthony Medearis, 22, after the two fought over a dice
game in Berkeley.
But Steven Clark, a former Santa Clara County prosecutor and now a criminal
defense attorney who has no connection to the Williams case, said seeking the
death penalty in 2016 is almost a symbolic gesture, given that the courts have
placed executions on hold in the state.
Still, the murder of a young girl who was indiscriminately targeted in the
crossfire of a crime, and the fact that the defendant later committed another
murder, can contribute to reasons to make a death recommendation, Clark said.
"It's someone that clearly isn't following society's rules," he said. "That's
the kind of defendant you look for."
The outcome of this kind of case, he said, could also set the tone for future
death penalty recommendations in Alameda County.
If the jury doesn't sentence Williams to death, "then you re-evaluate if it's a
community that wants the death penalty. It's a feeling out process," Clark
said.
"If it's not this case, then what is it?" he said.
Before O'Malley took office in 2009, the last time the district attorney
prosecuted a death penalty case was for David Mills -- sentenced to death in
2012 for killing 3 people in Oakland in 2005. O'Malley's predecessor, Tom
Orloff, pursued 47 death penalty cases during his 15-year stint as district
attorney, four of which were in his last 4 years in office.
O'Malley 1st recommended the death penalty in the case of a Castro Valley man
who used a screwdriver that he shaved into a shank to fatally stab his longtime
companion in front of a Hayward medical office where she worked in 2009. But
O'Malley reversed that decision, she said later, because the victim's family
wanted a speedy trial resolution.
By comparison, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe's office has
reviewed 26 death penalty-eligible cases since taking office in 2011 but has
never recommended death. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who
also took office in 2011, has reviewed 8 such cases and recommended prosecution
for 2 current death penalty cases -- Antolin Garcia-Torres for the alleged
kidnapping and killing of Sierra LaMar and Alejandro Benitez for the alleged
brutal rape and death of a 16-month-old boy. San Francisco hasn't seen a
district attorney -- including Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is now
running for a senate seat -- seek the death penalty since the 1990s.
Clark said that prosecutors may go for death because of a societal demand for
justice.
"The symbolism of a young child caught in a murder like this, if society is
going to return a death verdict, this is it," Clark said.
Family members of Williams' victims agreed with the decision. "I want justice
for my baby," said Medearis' aunt, Jackie Winters, who was in court every day
during the monthlong trial.
The sentiment is echoed by the family of Alaysha, whom the slain girl's cousin,
Shaquilla Jackson, said they called "Ladybug."
During Williams' trial, prosecutor John Brouhard called his crimes a "rampage
of violence." Alaysha died on July 17, 2013, after Williams went to the
apartment where she was sleeping over to get revenge for the death of his
friend who was gunned down earlier that day. Williams went to the apartment,
prosecutors said, intent on hurting loved ones of the man he believed killed
his friend. When the kids opened the door, Williams fired a barrage of bullets
through the screen door, apparently aiming at a woman on the couch behind them.
Medearis died Sept. 8, 2013, after he and Williams argued over a dice game.
Williams shot Medearis in the back as he ran away.
Frank Zimring, a UC Berkeley law professor and death penalty expert, said
Alaysha's slaying was a case of "extreme victimization" of an innocent girl
caught in an enormous violence. There wasn't a fight between equals; the
gunfire blasted through the door, he said.
Even an office that wouldn't touch the death penalty with a 10-foot pole would
feel an obligation to do so "in an extraordinary case of unprovoked and
meaningless violence," he said.
Still, an actual execution could be 20 years out or more. Most death row
inmates die waiting for execution rather than actually being executed by the
state, a result of a yearslong appeals process and the fact the executions in
the state are on hold because of an ongoing legal battle over the lethal
injection protocol.
1 federal judge once called death penalty sentences in the state "life in
prison with a remote possibility of death." Since California reinstated the
death penalty in 1978, the state has executed 13 inmates, the last of which was
January 2006. There are 743 death row inmates as of Jan. 1, awaiting execution
in California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
There are 42 inmates from Alameda County alone on death row, at least nine of
whom have had their appeals exhausted.
Though the gag order prevented her from talking about the Williams case,
O'Malley talked in general about how she views such cases in a 2012 interview
with this newspaper.
"It's not a lightweight decision to make. We should be pondering this decision
and looking at it from all angles," O'Malley said then. "My own personal
feeling is that if we make that recommendation, it would be rarely done because
we want it to be reserved for the most heinous cases."
(source: eastbaytimes.com)
******************
Prosecutor Seeks Death Penalty For Man Convicted Of 2 2013 Murders
Darnell Williams Jr., who was recently convicted of 2 counts of murder with
special circumstances for killings in 2013, should get the death penalty
because he has a history of committing violent attacks, a prosecutor told
jurors this week.
In his opening statement in the penalty phase of the trial for Williams, a
25-year-old Oakland man, prosecutor John Brouhard said that at the end of
Williams's trial he will ask jurors "to return a verdict of the death penalty
against the defendant."
Williams was convicted on May 6 of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for the
shooting death of 8-year-old Alaysha Carradine at an apartment in the 3400
block of Wilson Avenue in Oakland at about 11:15 p.m. on July 17, 2013, and the
unrelated fatal shooting of 22-year-old Anthony Medearis in Berkeley about 7
weeks later.
He also was convicted of three counts of premeditated attempted murder and the
special circumstance of lying in wait for the Oakland shooting, the special
circumstance of murdering Medearis during the course of an attempted robbery
and the special circumstance of committing multiple murders.
In the penalty phase of his trial, which is expected to conclude next week, the
same jury will choose between recommending the death penalty or life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
In making their decision, jurors can take into account the facts of the crimes,
the suffering of the victims and the impacts of the murders on survivors.
Williams' trial marks the 1st time in 4 years that the Alameda County District
Attorney's Office is seeking the death penalty against a defendant.
Brouhard said in the guilt phase of Williams' trial that Williams fired at
least 13 shots into the apartment on Wilson Avenue in retaliation for the fatal
shooting of his close friend, 26-year-old reputed gang member Jermaine Davis,
in Berkeley about 5 hours earlier.
Brouhard said Williams wanted to harm anyone who was close to Antiown York, the
man he thought had murdered Davis, and went to the apartment because York's
ex-girlfriend, who was the mother of York's 7-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy,
lived there.
The mother wasn't home when Williams arrived at the apartment but the 2
children were there along with their 63-year-old grandmother and Alaysha, who
was a close friend of the 7-year-old girl and was spending the night there.
The 7-year-old girl, the 4-year-old boy and their grandmother were also struck
by gunfire but survived their injuries.
Brouhard said Williams shot Medearis because he thought he was a snitch and
also because he wanted to rob him because he had run out of money to buy guns,
drugs and jewelry.
In his penalty phase opening statement on Monday, Brouhard said Williams was
convicted of assault with a semi-automatic firearm for shooting a childhood
friend on Oregon Street in Berkeley on Oct. 9, 2009, after his father ordered
him to do so.
The friend, who is now in state prison for a crime he committed years later,
testified Tuesday that he's reluctant to testify about the Berkeley shooting
for fear of being labeled a snitch and getting harmed.
Brouhard said that while Williams was at the Folsom State Prison to serve time
for his assault conviction, he and another inmate attacked a 3rd inmate in a
prison yard in 1 incident and he attacked another inmate in the dining area in
a 2nd incident.
Brouhard also said that after Williams was arrested in 2013 for the deaths of
Alaysha and Medearis, he and his cellmate attacked and robbed another inmate of
his commissary snacks and other items. In addition, Brouhard said jail deputies
who conducted a surprise cell search about a week later found an 11-inch-long
metal shank in Williams' cell that could be used to stab a fellow inmate or a
guard.
He described the shank as "something terrifying" and "very concerning."
Brouhard is expected to finish presenting witnesses on Wednesday.
Williams' lawyers, who won't give their opening statements until they begin
presenting their case, have said that their major witness in the penalty phase
will be Gretchen White, an Oakland psychologist who specializes in death
penalty and murder cases.
The penalty phase will be in recess on Thursday and Friday and White is
expected to testify on Monday.
(source: CBS news)
OREGON:
Victim's family members testify in hearing to determine whether murderer A.J.
Nelson deserves death penalty
Helpful and generous.
That's how Tino Gutierrez's family members described him in testimony given
Tuesday during the sentencing phase of a trial in Lane County Circuit Court for
1 of 3 people convicted of murdering the 22-year-old Eugene man in 2012.
Gutierrez's closest relatives said they're still grieving, and still unable to
come to terms with the fact that the kindness he regularly showed others during
his relatively brief life ultimately put him in a position to be killed.
"It's that trait that took him to his death, and that's a really hard pill to
swallow," his brother, Matt Gutierrez, told jurors during A.J. Scott Nelson's
murder trial.
Gutierrez's other brother, Jeff, also testified, as did his parents, Rose and
Celestino Gutierrez.
Through her tears, Rose Gutierrez said from the witness stand that the death of
her youngest son - whom she referred to as "little Tino" - leaves "a hole that
is never going to be filled."
The 6-woman, 6-man jury in Nelson's case last week found the Army veteran
guilty of 18 felony charges, including 2 counts of aggravated murder. The
verdict triggered a 2nd trial phase, in which jurors are presented evidence
that should help them decide if Nelson should be sentenced to death for his
role in Gutierrez's slaying.
If the jury does not unanimously agree to recommend the death penalty, Nelson
will be sentenced to life in prison without parole, or life with a chance to
apply for parole after 30 years.
"This is as serious as it gets in the courtroom," Assistant Lane County
District Attorney David Schwartz told jurors on Tuesday while giving a brief
opening statement.
Schwartz said in court that he expects the jury will conclude that the crimes
committed by Nelson "are so horrible, so cold, so calculated and so
unnecessary" that a death penalty is the proper sentence.
Members of the Gutierrez family did not indicate Tuesday what penalty they
believe is most appropriate for Nelson.
According to trial evidence, Nelson and 2 other people previously convicted in
the case schemed to kidnap and kill a stranger in order to use the victim's car
in a bank robbery in Mapleton.
The plot worked, starting when Gutierrez agreed to give Mercedes Crabtree a
ride in his car after she appeared to have been stranded in the parking lot of
the Brew and Cue tavern on Highway 99 in Eugene. Nelson and Crabtree had staged
an argument outside the bar moments before Crabtree met Gutierrez there.
Crabtree had Gutierrez drive her to the nearby home of David Taylor. There,
Nelson and Taylor inflicted a series of injuries upon Gutierrez before killing
him. The 2 men then dismembered Gutierrez's body in a bathtub.
Hours later, Taylor, Nelson and Crabtree used Gutierrez's car as the getaway
vehicle in an armed, takeover-style robbery of a Siuslaw Bank branch in
Mapleton.
Taylor, 60, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2014. Crabtree,
22, is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
Laurie Bender, an attorney representing Nelson, said Tuesday in her opening
statement to the jury that her client endured a troubled upbringing and that
his longtime psychological problems worsened after he joined the Army and
served a combat tour in Afghanistan.
Bender said the sentencing-phase evidence will show that Nelson does not
deserve a death sentence.
"We are confident you will spare Mr. Nelson his life," Bender told jurors.
(source: Register-Guard)
USA:
Lethal injections in jeopardy after Pfizer bans execution drugs
In May of 2015, Nebraska's Unicameral repealed the death penalty. A referendum
campaign gathered enough signatures so the issue will be decided once and for
all by state residents this November when they head to the polls. There is
another twist to the story that may impact lethal injection executions across
the country.
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced last week they will no longer allow
their drugs to be used for lethal injection. Pfizer was the last remaining
company that supplied these drugs on an open market. Death penalty expert Rick
Halperin says Pfizer is the world's leading producer of drugs used in
executions so this is a major event in the ongoing effort in this country to
end the death penalty.
Halperin says, "It is going to force states that do execute with some degree of
regularity to either use compound pharmacies to get drugs or consider changing
the method of lethal injection to another method."
Halperin says several states have turned to compound pharmacies to get their
supply of execution drugs but the results have not been good. He says, "I don't
think the cost would be prohibitive. Some states have done this with disastrous
results - Ohio and Oklahoma to name just 2. On a cost issue I don't think it is
going to be a prohibitive factor."
(source: nebraskaradionetwork.com)
***************
Private Groups, Not Government, Lead the Charge on Prison Issues
The ethics panel of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) is considering
prohibiting members from designing "execution chambers and spaces intended for
torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment."
Although no final decision has been announced, the proposal has been lauded by
Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), an
architectural ethics and human rights group, as a huge leap forward on human
rights,
A ban would reverse the AIA's position from 2014, when it rejected a similar
proposal, and put it in line with other professional groups' decisions related
to human rights.
The American Pharmacists Association and the International Academy of
Compounding Pharmacists, for instance, voted last year to prohibit members from
"providing medical drugs to be used for executions."
More dramatically, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced Friday that it would
ban the sale of drugs that could be used in executions, and the American
Psychological Association (APA) recently voted to prohibit member psychologists
from participating in national security interrogations. The United Nations has
declared the practice of solitary confinement in the United States a form of
torture.
If the AIA imposes a formal ban on designing new execution chambers and "spaces
intended for torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," this will, by
extension, lead to a cessation of new prison construction, including solitary
confinement units. Indeed, the ADPSR is circulating a petition whereby signers
agree to "not contribute my design to the perpetuation of wrongful institutions
that abuse others," and "pledge not to do any work that furthers the
construction of prisons and jails."
Instead, the AIA and ADPSR are encouraging architects and designers to use
their "professional skills to design positive social institutions, such as
universities or playgrounds, but these institutions lack funding because of
spending on prisons."
They're right. Fully 1/4 of the Justice Department budget goes to the Bureau of
Prisons, which rehabilitates nobody, which trains nobody and which prepares
nobody for life on the outside. Instead, its $7 billion budget is spent on
personnel, prison construction and maintenance.
This begs the question: Where is governmental leadership on this issue? Where
is Congress? Where are the judiciary committees? The deplorable state of prison
conditions in this country is nothing new. Neither are the overuse and misuse
of solitary confinement, the depravity of state executions and prison
overcrowding.
The problem spans political parties. Certainly the Republican Congress hasn't -
and won't - do anything to make the situation better. But neither did the
Democrats when they controlled the process. Furthermore, there has been no
change or reform throughout the Clinton and Obama administrations. And George
W. Bush's position on prison reform is not even worth discussing.
These recent moves by the AIA, ADPSR, APA, Pfizer and others are examples of
leadership on the issues of mass incarceration and the death penalty that are
largely unseen in today's America. Congress is missing in action. The White
House's incremental steps on mass incarceration have been inconsequential.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department did nothing to
rein in overzealous prosecutors. And judges either can't or won't consider
alternatives to draconian sentences, especially in drug cases.
If there is going to be positive change, it will come from private
organizations like the AIA and ADPSR. That's leadership. Congress and the White
House should take heed.
(source: John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism operations officer and
former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee----
truthdig.com)
*************************
Foster v. Chatman
The case: The Supreme Court is reviewing a death penalty case from Georgia that
could change existing rules for how race influences which jurors lawyers can
have removed from a trial. Under existing law, lawyers on both sides can get a
certain number of jurors kicked off the case for essentially no reason.
But in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986, the Supreme Court looked at how race
affected these "peremptory challenges," which prosecutors often used to remove
black jurors from a case when a defendant was black. The Court ended up
establishing a test to make sure the reasons for kicking out a juror were
race-neutral, but prosecutors have largely found ways to get around the test
and have black jurors removed anyway.
The defense in Foster v. Chatman claims that's exactly what happened in their
case, in which an 18-year-old black man, Timothy Tyrone Foster, who was accused
of killing a 79-year-old white woman was sentenced to death by an all-white
jury. Underlying the case is a major racial disparity in the criminal justice
system: Black defendants are more likely to be executed than their white
counterparts, especially by an all-white jury.
Appellate court ruling: The Georgia Supreme Court denied Foster's writ of
habeas corpus, effectively rejecting his challenge.
What's at stake: Depending on how the Supreme Court rules (the trial court and
Georgia Supreme Court rejected the defense's claims), the case could
potentially make it a lot harder for prosecutors to get an all-white jury in
the first place.
(source: Washington Post)
********************
Should Veterans With PTSD Be Exempt From The Death Penalty?
Capital punishment represents the most power in our criminal justice system.
How should vets with PTSD fit in?
In 2009, Marine veteran John Thuesen broke into his ex-girlfriend's home, then
shot and killed her and her brother. Texas convicted him and sentenced him to
death. Thuesen was undeniably involved in combat operations in Iraq. It's
reasonably possible that his post-traumatic stress disorder was not adequately
diagnosed by the Veterans Health Administration.
Should that keep him off death row? Some say it should.
Movies and television sometimes portray insanity or mental illness as a
guaranteed get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's actually rarely employed and
even more rarely successful. In order to get off by reason of insanity, the
defense typically has to prove that the defendant was incapable of knowing
right from wrong. That requires a degree of mental defect that is severe, rare,
and hard to prove. Even if someone does "get off" by pleading insanity, it
often means spending more time in a mental institution than one would have
spent in prison.
But that's not what we're talking about here. Advocates for Thuesen aren't
claiming he wasn't responsible for his actions, just that his PTSD lessened his
culpability to a degree that makes him undeserving of the death penalty. They
argue that combat-related PTSD should play a key role in the sentencing phase.
The result of this argument could affect the fates of an estimated 300 veterans
on death row in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center.
The question of whether the death penalty itself is a just punishment is a much
broader question. Nevertheless, it represents the most severe sentence a court
can give in those states that allow it. The severity and irrevocable nature of
the death penalty means that it needs to be given with utmost care and
deliberation. In those cases where special circumstances exist due to the
nature of the perpetrator, the justice system needs to take notice. But is
military service such a circumstance?
In particular, some PTSD advocates claim that such a punishment is not
warranted for veterans due to the effects of military service in combat. For
example, Anthony Giardino, in the Fordham Law Review, argues that
combat-related PTSD is separate and distinct from any other type of PTSD
because "combat veterans would not have service-related PTSD or TBI but for
government action in the form of training them to kill and sending them to
war." Giardino, among others, calls for a categorical exclusion from the death
penalty for those suffering from combat-related PTSD and TBI, much like those
given to juveniles and people with an intellectual disability.
While PTSD and TBI are likely more common among veterans than the general
population, they are by no means unique to veterans. The fact that a veteran's
PTSD was likely incurred during combat service makes it tragic, but not
necessarily more deserving of accommodation than someone else's. A
psychological trauma or brain injury is what it is, regardless of cause. Is
PTSD resulting from a rape, for example, less relevant than that from a
firefight? Is TBI from a car accident medically different from that due to an
IED? Those sound like decisions that need to be made on a case-by-case basis
with specific medical evidence. That's why there is already a mechanism during
the penalty phase for a defendant to present evidence of such mitigation.
Making a special categorical exclusion for combat PTSD infantilizes veterans. A
special category, be it by judicial precedent or legislation, for combat PTSD
or TBI might benefit a few convicted murderers, but it would further stigmatize
millions of law-abiding veterans. These stereotypes are exactly why veterans
are often discriminated against. The idea that somehow veterans are on a hair
trigger, ready to lash out against anyone who causes them emotional distress is
the foundation of so many of the misconceptions about vets.
Some veterans suffered mental wounds from their military experience. Some of
those wounds may indeed warrant consideration by courts. The extent to which
that affects the degree of culpability varies from case to case. Veterans are
generally some of the most outstanding members of society, but just like any
other large group of people, some commit major crimes, such as murder.
In certain cases, mental health issues should be a mitigating factor when
determining sentencing for a crime, whether it's a capital case or not. In
others, it shouldn't. It's up to the defense to establish that through
testimony and medical evidence.
Military service merits respect, but not a pass for brutal crimes.
(source: Carl Forsling is a senior columnist for Task & Purpose. He is a Marine
MV-22B pilot and former CH-46E pilot who is retired from the military after 20
years of service----Task & Purpose)
*****************
Federal court hearing for Dylann Roof set for next month
The man accused of shooting 9 people at Emanuel AME Church in Downtown
Charleston last June will have a federal court hearing next month.
According to federal court records, there is a hearing scheduled June 8.
Dylann Roof is facing both federal and state charges.
His federal trial date has not been set.
The feds have also not decided whether he will face the death penalty.
Roof is facing death in his state trial set to begin in January.
(source: WCSC news)
**************
Death penalty support is no longer a given in red states
Almost exactly a year ago, we watched Nebraska become the 1st
Republican-controlled state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty.
At the time, we wondered this: Are conservatives starting to eschew the death
penalty?
A year later, we have more of an answer: maybe. At least, there's increasing
evidence to suggest Nebraska's move to drop the death penalty was not an
anomaly in conservative circles but rather the start of a trend.
So far this legislative session, GOP state lawmakers in 10 states -- an
unprecedented number -- sponsored or co-sponsored legislation to repeal the
death penalty, including in perhaps the reddest state in the nation, Utah. None
of them passed, but some got further than even their supporters expected. In
Utah, a repeal bill passed the state Senate and a House committee. For the 1st
time in decades, Missouri's full state Senate debated the issue. A Kentucky
legislative committee held a hearing on repealing the death penalty for the 1st
time since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1976 (even though it
failed 9 to 8).
There's more evidence outside legislative circles. This fall, the National
Association of Evangelicals changed its 40-year position of exclusive support
for the death penalty to make room for evangelical Christians to take an
alternative position on the death penalty. And in Georgia, anti-death-penalty
advocates point out that last year no jury there handed out a death sentence
for crimes that were eligible for it.
Kansas Republicans are the latest group of conservatives to question the death
penalty. 2 years ago, the state GOP party switched its platform from supportive
to neutral on the issue to make room for the growing number of Republicans who
didn't back it. Then, at their state convention over the weekend, they batted
down an attempt to put the death penalty back on their platform. The debate got
so contentious that they cast secret ballots and eventually voted 90 to 75 to
keep their position on the death penalty neutral.
There are just too many Republicans in the state who oppose the death penalty
to have it on their platform, explained Ed O'Brien, a vice chairman of the
Kansas Republican Party -- plus, Republican politicians and voters just aren't
as focused on the death penalty as they used to be.
"If I was advising a candidate running for office, I'd say: If you want to make
that an issue, go ahead. But there's other things that need to be addressed,"
he said.
It's possible that silence is giving conservatives who oppose the death penalty
the opportunity to be heard. And from Kansas to Utah, conservatives are
presenting their colleagues some pretty compelling -- and conservative --
reasons to abolish the death penalty.
Their reasoning generally falls under 1 of 3 arguments: 1) It's not moral and
not consistent with conservatives' antiabortion (that is "pro-life") beliefs.
2) It's not fiscally sound and not consistent with conservatives'
small-government policies. 3) Life in prison without parole is bad enough.
"I'm thinking that it's wrong for government to be in business in killing its
own citizens," Utah state Sen. Steve Urquhart (R), who sponsored the repeal
bill there, told me in February. "That cheapens life."
Former Kansas College Republicans president Dalton Glasscock said it's a
generational issue, too. This summer, the group voted to oppose the death
penalty on its official platform.
"My generation is looking for consistency on issues," he said. "I believe if we
say we're pro-life, we need to be truly pro-life, from conception to death."
Of course, this is far from a settled issue on the right, and the opposition is
still far outnumbered and still fighting to get a foothold. Nebraska's death
penalty repeal is on hold and will be put to voters this November in a ballot
measure that was funded in part by Gov. Pete Ricketts (R), who vetoed the
original repeal last year. (The legislature then overrode it.)
Similarly, in Oklahoma, voters will decide this November whether to enshrine
the death penalty in the state's constitution.
And when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced Friday it would keep its drugs
from being used in lethal injections, some conservative groups criticized the
decision. David Muhlhausen, a criminal justice expert with the Heritage
Foundation, told the New York Times that Pfizer's move to get out of the death
penalty market is not "in the public interest" because he believes research
shows the death penalty can deter crimes.
More broadly speaking, there's evidence to suggest that elected Republicans are
increasingly amenable to having a larger conversation on criminal justice
reform, an issue traditionally owned by Democrats. As I wrote last year:
Alabama's Republican governor is calling for a $541 million tax package in part
to offset overstuffed prisons, for instance. States like South Carolina and
Georgia have also passed their own justice reform packages changing who gets
sent to prison and for how long.
"When states in the Deep South, which have long had some of the country's
harshest penal systems, make significant sentencing and prison reforms, you
know something has changed," the New York Times's editorial board wrote in
2015.
As for why this is happening in isolated instances now, it's unclear. Turning
to public opinion polling doesn't give us much clarity.
The Pew Research Center has found support for the death penalty is on a
downward trend, but it credits that drop to Democrats backing away from it, not
Republicans.
And Gallup has pegged support for the death penalty at a stable 60 %.
The bottom line: It's not like anyone can claim a groundswell of support on the
right for dropping the death penalty. But it's notable that a year after we
wondered whether Nebraska was an anomaly or the start of a trend, there's
plenty of evidence to suggest that conservative opposition to the death penalty
may indeed be a trend -- a small but growing one.
(source: Amber Phillips, Washington Post)
US MILITARY:
Navy officer pleads not guilty to espionage
A Navy officer who spent time at the Pentagon and served in a secretive
squadron pleaded not guilty to espionage charges Tuesday during a hearing at
Norfolk Naval Station.
Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin faces 2 counts of espionage, 3 counts of attempted
espionage and 5 counts of communicating defense information, The
Virginian-Pilot reported. If convicted by a panel of officers of the espionage
charge, Lin could face the death penalty. No trial date has been set.
Lin is accused of spying for a foreign power from 2012 to 2014, during which
time he was primarily a staff aide to Vice Adm. Joseph Mulloy. It is not
publicly known what classified information Lin is alleged to have passed on,
but his attorneys have said he's accused of spying for Taiwan, where he was
born. Lin moved to the U.S. when he was 14 and became a citizen in 1998, a year
before joining the Navy, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
While in the Navy, Lin worked at the Pentagon and also was part of a squadron
in Hawaii, where the military believes some of the information handoffs may
have occurred.
The Navy has designated Lin's prosecution as a "national security case." He was
arrested at the Honolulu airport in September.
Lin's attorney contended during a preliminary hearing that some of the charges
against his client stem from entrapment.
(source: Fox News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 18 14:23:25 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 14:23:25 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605181423160.7300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 18
LEBANON:
106 handed down death penalty in Lebanon over Arsal clashes
A Lebanese military judge has sentenced 106 men to death over the 2014 clashes
between the army and terrorists in the country's northeast near the border with
conflict-ridden Syria.
A judicial source said Judge Najat Abou Chakra convicted 73 Syrians, 32
Lebanese and one Palestinian of belonging to terrorist groups and attacking the
town of Arsal.
They were also indicted for "carrying out terrorist acts, killing and
attempting to kill a number of soldiers from the Lebanese Army, Internal
Security Forces and civilians, kidnapping several servicemen, burning and
looting military posts and vehicles, causing insecurity and sowing sectarian
strife."
According to the judge, the militants planned killing all those aged over 15
who sought to resist them.
Among those convicted, 77 are in custody but the remaining 29 are at large.
The suspects include Jamal Hussain Zainieh, also known as Abu Malek al-Talli,
who is the al-Nusra Front terrorist group's leader in Syria's Qalamoun region.
Lebanon is suffering from the spillover of militancy in neighboring Syria,
where foreign-backed extremists have been fighting government forces since
2011.
Daesh and al-Nusra Front, which is the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, have been
active on the outskirts of Arsal.
The militants briefly overran Arsal in August 2014, taking about 30 Lebanese
army and police forces hostage, some of whom were executed.
After lengthy negotiations, 16 of the captives were released last December as
part of a prisoner swap deal.
Assisting Syrian army forces, fighters with the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance
movement have thwarted several terrorist attacks.
(source: Presstv)
ISRAEL:
Report: Liberman turned down Defense Minister offer----Yisrael Beytenu head
rejects position, promise of death penalty for terrorists; says current gov't
not really right-wing.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently offered Yisrael Beytenu chairman
Avigdor Liberman the Defense Minister position, Channel 10 reports Tuesday, if
his party joined the coalition.
Nertanyahu also offered Liberman a commitment to uphold a "death penalty for
terrorists" policy Liberman has championed for years.
But Liberman evidently turned him down.
A senior Likud source told Arutz Sheva late Tuesday that the move was due to
Netanyahu's beliefs that "a broad government can better cope with political,
security, and economic challenges." Currently, the coalition is teetering with
a treacherous 61 MKs - a majority of just one in the 120-seat Knesset.
But Yisrael Beytenu sources rejected this claim, saying that Netanyahu
continues to deceive voters about his promises of a right-wing government, even
more so since Netanyahu has entered serious talks with jis political nemesis
Yitzhak Herzog (Zionist Union) about a unity government.
"Since the elections, Yisrael Beytenu demands the establishment of a genuine
national government - which overthrows the Hamas regime in Gaza, builds up
Ariel and Ma'aleh Adumim, and void [Joint List MKs] Ayman Odeh and Hanin Zoabi
from running for the Knesset," Yisrael Beytenu sources fired.
Polls Monday showed that a vast majority of Israelis are opposed to a unity
government, with Zionist Union voters in particular outraged over the proposal.
If elections were held today, Liberman's party would gain three additional
seats as Likud would lose several, two separate studies have indicated - most
likely due to voter frustration over a string of stalled promises from
Netanyahu. Jewish Home, the Knesset's other right-wing party, would also stand
to gain several seats, the projections show.
(source: Israel National News)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime steps up executions; 21 hanged in 48 hours
Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions,
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period this week.
2 men were hanged earlier on Wednesday in the Central Prison of Urmia
(Orumieh), north-west Iran. They were identified as Dariyoush Farajzadeh and
Ghafour Qaderzadeh.
Another 2 men were hanged on Wednesday in a prison in Yasuj, central Iran,
according to Mehrdad Karami, the regime's prosecutor in the city. The men,
whose names were not given, were 26 and 34 years old, he said.
A man, only identified by his initials S. R., 31, was hanged on Wednesday in a
prison in Sari, northern Iran, according to the regime's judiciary in
Mazandaran Province.
The state broadcaster IRIB, quoting the regime's judiciary in Yazd Province,
central Iran, announced on its website that 8 prisoners were hanged in the
province on Tuesday. The regime's Prosecutor in Yazd Province had earlier told
the state-run Rokna news agency that 6 people had been hanged in the province
on Tuesday.
A separate report from Isfahan, central Iran, said that a prisoner was hanged
in the city's notorious Dastgerd Prison on Monday, May 16. He has been
identified as Malek Salehi, 35.
6 men were hanged collectively in the Central Prison of Urmia on Tuesday, May
17. They had been serving a prison sentence in Ward 15 of the jail on
drugs-related charges.
They were identified as Naji Keywan, Nader Mohammadi, Ali Shamugardian, Aziz
Nouri-Azar, Fereydoon Rashidi and Heidar Amini.
Also on Tuesday, a man was hanged in public in the north-eastern city of
Mashhad.
The victim, who was not named, was hanged at 7 am in the city's Mofatteh
Square. His sentence had been upheld by the regime's Supreme Court.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Tuesday criticized the lack of response
by the international community and human rights groups to the appalling state
of human rights in Iran.
The latest hangings bring to at least 97 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Iran's fundamentalist regime last week amputated the fingers of a man in his
30s in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments handed down and
carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
**********
Open letter to UN human rights experts to intervene against ongoing juvenile
executions
Paris-Geneva, 17 May 2016
To:
-- The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Mr. Ahmed Shaheed
-- The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,
Mr. Christof Heyns
-- The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, Mr. Juan Mendez
-- Members of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
-- Members of the UN Human Rights Committee
Dear Sirs/Madams,
I am writing to request your urgent intervention in the case of Alireza Tajiki,
who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest in 2012 for alleged rape and
murder. His execution was scheduled for Sunday 15 May 2016 in Adelabad prison
in the city of Shiraz, but his lawyer and a number of other supporters managed
to secure a temporary stay of execution. However, it is not clear for how long
the execution has been postponed, notably because Iran's Islamic Penal Code
empowers parents of the victims of murder to demand the execution of the
alleged perpetrator.
The death sentence imposed on Mr. Tajiki is primarily based on a "confession"
extracted from him under torture during his initial detention in solitary
confinement, even though he retracted this "confession" during his trial,
stating that he had been tortured and proclaiming his innocence. Throughout his
detention and trial, Mr. Tajiki was denied due process, including being denied
access to a lawyer during the investigation period.
After a trial that failed to meet international standards of fairness and
transparency, he was sentenced to death in April 2014. A branch of the Supreme
Court overturned this sentence and sent the case back to the issuing court for
lack of evidence, and ordered further investigation. Nevertheless, the
first-instance court re-imposed the death sentence based on the defendant's
"confessions," without any reference to any other evidence or investigation
into torture allegations. Despite this gross failure to investigate, the
Supreme Court upheld the 2nd death sentence.
Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh, Alireza Tajiki's lawyer, who has applied for his retrial,
stated on her Facebook page: "There are many ambiguous aspects in his file that
create many doubts about the sentence. The worst aspect is that Alireza Tajiki
was not older than 15 [at the time of the commission of the alleged offence]."
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been the biggest executioner of juvenile
offenders worldwide for some years. The usual practice in Iran is to keep the
alleged juvenile offenders in prison until they reach the age of 18 and then
execute them. Nevertheless, several defendants have been executed even before
reaching the age of 18.
International human rights organisations have documented the executions of at
least 73 juveniles since 2005, including 4 in 2015, 13 in 2014, 8 in 2013, 4 in
2012 and 7 in 2011. On 19 October 2015, the UN Secretary General expressed his
deep sadness regarding the execution of 2 juvenile offenders the week before in
Iran. According to the Secretary General's report to the Human Rights Council
in February 2015, at least 160 juvenile offenders were reportedly on death row
as of December 2014. (A/HRC/28/26)
Recalling that Iran is a State party to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, I request you to:
- ask Iran to order a fair retrial of Alireza Tajiki without recourse to the
death penalty, and to fully investigate the allegations that he was subjected
to torture;
- urge Iran to repeal all death sentences against juveniles and order retrials
in all cases of death-row juveniles, in compliance with its obligations under
international human rights law, including the Convention on the Rights of the
Child; and
- call on UN member states, and in particular those States with economic and
political ties with Iran, to use their influence to insist that Iran stop the
practice of juvenile executions.
Sincerely,
Karim Lahidji, FIDH President
CC: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mr. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
(source: fidh.org)
***************
Halt Execution of Alireza Tajiki
Iranian teenager Alireza Tajiki is at continued risk of execution. The
authorities did not carry out his scheduled execution on 15 May after a global
outcry. However, they have not committed to not rescheduling the execution.
Alireza Tajiki had been sentenced to death for a crime he says he did not
commit. He was 15 years old at the time of the crime.
see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/iran-halt-execution-of-alireza-tajiki-ua-11616
(source: Amnesty International USA)
PHILIPPINES:
House leaders slam Duterte's plan to revive public executions
House leaders have rejected the planned public executions by hanging especially
on drug-related crimes by incoming president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, saying that
the re-imposition of death penalty is not the antidote to the rising cases of
crimes in the country.
Speaker Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte Jr., vice president of the Liberal Party,
maintained that the revival of death penalty is not the answer to the brutality
of criminals who prey on the old and the weak.
He described as "divisive" Duterte's plan to restore the death penalty and said
that "it won't fly."
"A very divisive issue in the House," Belmonte, vice president of the ruling
Liberal party (LP), said, adding that the country's criminal justice system
should be strengthened first.
But Belmonte was quick to add that they will be "supportive" of the Duterte
administration's programs and legislative agenda.
On Monday, Duterte vowed to push for the restoration of death penalty for
heinous crimes including robbery with rape.
Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, for his part, insisted "the problem is the
lack of effective and efficient law enforcement."
"It is not and never will be an effective deterrent to the commission of crimes
and will not address this serious problem," he said.
1-BAP Party-list Rep. Silvestre Bello III, who served as Justice Secretary
during the Ramos administration, said the best and most effective deterrent to
criminality is the quick and effective apprehension and prosecution of
criminals.
"The death penalty runs counter to the provision and spirit of our Constitution
against inhuman and cruel punishment," he said.
In an earlier interview, Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo branded the proposal as
"anti-poor", "considering that no rich person has been executed in the last 40
years."
"The presence of the death penalty has no effect on the reduction of
criminality," he said.
Republic Act (RA) No. 7659 or the Death Penalty Law was scrapped during the
leadership of 2 women presidents - the late President Corazon Aquino and former
president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
FRIGHTENING
Father Amado Picardal, who helped bury a teenager from a slum family who was
gunned down by motorcycle-riding assassins in Davao, said a Duterte presidency
is "very frightening."
He added that human rights groups will need to keep a close watch and document
any violations, especially extrajudicial killings, in the next 6 years.
In a report, the Commission on Human Rights said 206 people, mostly suspected
criminals and including 19 minors, were slain in shootings and stabbings
attributed to the death squads from 2005 to 2009 alone, adding that there were
witnesses to at least 94 of the killings.
"Nobody wanted to testify," said Loretta Ann Rosales, who headed the commission
at the time. "There was a measure of fear. We can't prove his criminal
liability because nobody would say that he ordered the killings."
Phelim Kine of the US-based group Human Rights Watch said it found no hard
evidence of any direct role by Duterte in 28 death-squad killings, mostly from
2007 to 2008 that it investigated.
Rosales said the Philippine human rights commission asked the Ombudsman, which
prosecutes officials for wrongdoing, to investigate Duterte in 2012 for
possible administrative liability "for his inaction in the face of evidence of
numerous killings committed in Davao City and his toleration of the commission
of those offenses."
Despite his brash campaign rhetoric, Duterte will find it hard to bring his
Davao crime-fighting style to the rest of the country because of the oversight
of Congress, the judiciary and other agencies that check abuses. The world will
be watching too, said Picardal, who was assigned to Davao for many years until
he moved to Manila in 2011.
"There are checks and balances," he said. "The eyes of the nation and the world
are on him."
(source: Manila Bulletin)
*************
Return of death penalty to be tackled in first 100 days of next Congress
The reimposition of the death penalty will be among the top legislative
priorities when the 17th Congress starts in July, the point person of incoming
President Rodrigo Duterte in the House of Representatives said.
Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez said bills for the reinstatement
of capital punishment will be tackled within the first 100 days of the incoming
Congress.
"Isasalang 'yan," he told reporters Wednesday in a press conference in Pasay
City. Duterte, known for his tough stance against crime, has been vocal about
his desire to bring back capital punishment, particularly for heinous crimes
such as rape.
Earlier this week, the outgoing Davao City mayor said he wants to impose death
penalty by hanging. Alvarez, Duterte's choice for Speaker, is aware the
proposal to revive death penalty could face rough sailing in the Congress but
is determined to push for its passage.
"We respect yung mga iba't ibang opinions on the matter but the President
campaigned on the basis of those platforms and the people voted for him,
meaning meron siyang mandate to effect the necessary changes," he said.
Death penalty was abolished in 2006 when former President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo signed a law repealing Republic Act 7659, which imposes capital
punishment on certain heinous crimes.
Charter Change
Aside from the reviving capital punishment, Alvarez said Charter Change will
also be a priority of the Duterte administration.
However, the mode for amending Constitution has yet to be discussed.
"The [incoming] President is calling for a Con con (Constitutional convention),
but we have to remember that there are three modes of revising the
Constitution: the Constitutional convention, constituent assembly and the
people's initiative," he said.
Alvarez said Duterte wants to have a plebsicite on the proposed changes to the
Constitution conducted in 2019, the same time as the midterm elections.
(source: gmanetwork.com)
********
Mayor Beng to leave death penalty issue to lawmakers
Reelected Mayor Beng Climaco-Salazar did not make clear whether she will
support or not the imposition of the death penalty being pushed by incoming
president Rodrigo Duterte particularly for heinous crimes.
"Although the Catholic church is against death penalty, per se always pro-life,
what kind of justice must be given to our people? Will it be death or life
imprisonment?" Climaco told reporters in her first press conference at City
Hall Monday since the May 9 election.
"So we will leave it up to our justices, to the lawmakers to really see what is
a very good, corrective measure for the violators of the law," she said.
Citing Filipino citizens who commit crimes in other countries, the mayor said
they are meted with death penalty, but those foreigners who violate Philippine
laws are just deported back to their countries.
"That is why, this is not a strong deterrent particularly for foreign violators
of the law to conduct crimes in the Philippines," she added.
Climaco further said that personally, she does not think she would bein a
capacity to judge for herself "as there is always room for the person for
corrective measure."
"In that case, again, without washing my hands as a local chief executive, we
will abide by the product of the law," she said.
Climaco, meantime, said they will strongly support Duterte's proposals on
curfew for minors and liquor ban in public places.
"How it is to be translated in the form of the law that will guide all local
chief executives and the local government? We will just await the issuance of
the law and I believe once it is enacted or once the executive order from
president comes out, it will always be in accordance with the Constitution of
the Republic of the Philippines without violating the rights of the people. We
will just abide," she explained.
The camp of Duterte had earlier said the curfew is principally forminors,
unescorted, past 10:00 p.m. It will not include minorswith their parents or
guardians.
It was also made clear that the liquor ban in Davao City, which prohibits
establishments from selling alcohol after 1 a.m., will only be ineffect in
public places.
Aside from the curfew and liquor ban, Duterte also imposed a karaoke ban and a
no-smoking policy in public areas in Davao City.
(source: Zamboanga Today)
MALAYSIA:
Cook and veggie seller escape the gallows
A cook and a vegetable seller charged with trafficking in more than 2kg of
ketamine at a house in Jalan Tanjung Bungah were sentenced to 5 years' jail
after they pleaded guilty to an alternate charge of drug possession.
Judicial Commissioner Datuk Azmi Ariffin ordered the sentence for Teh Lai Heng,
40, and Tan Kean Lye, 48, to commence from Dec 18, 2013. which was the date of
their arrest.
The offence under Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and punishable
under Section 12(3) of the same act carries a fine of up to RM100,000 and a
jail sentence of not more than 5 years, or both.
Both were previously charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act
1952 which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
According to the facts of the case, the police conducted a raid at the house
and 5 plastic packets suspected to contain ketamine were discovered on Teh. Tan
was found in 1 of the rooms in the house.
At the premises, police also discovered numerous plastic packets containing the
same substance, a digital weighing scale, empty plastic packets and a small
plastic spoon.
In mitigation, Datuk Ranjit Singh Dhillon said Teh was a stroke, diabetes and
renal disease patient with a wife and a 5-year-old son while Tan is also
married with a 13-year-old child.
"Both had pleaded guilty at the 1st instance they were offered the alternate
charge. I hope the court can take into account that they are first-time
offenders and had been in remand since they were arrested in 2013."
DPP Emma Syafawati Abdul Wahab said an appropriate punishment should be meted
out due to the severity of the offence.
In his judgment, Azmi said public interest should not be compromised.
"I hope this can become a lesson for the 2 of you as it is not the right way to
earn a living and what you are doing can ruin the country, yourself, your
family and children," he said.
(source: The Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 18 14:24:17 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 18 May 2016 14:24:17 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605181424080.7300@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 18
INDONESIA:
Human Rights Watchdog Calls for End to Capital Punishment
As preparations for the third round of executions continue on Nusakambangan
Island near Cilacap, Central Java, human rights activists and legal academics
have criticized Indonesia's continued use of capital punishment.
Respublica Political Institute executive director Benny Sabdo said the death
penalty is a violation of human rights, inhumane and ineffective as a form of
punishment.
"The death sentence still applies in the United States, but violent crime rates
are still high there. Meanwhile in Canada, where capital punishment has been
abolished, crime rates have receded," the law professor said on Wednesday
(18/05).
Benny believes capital punishment equals man playing God.
"Punishments for crime should not violate basic human rights, and should not
degrade human dignity in any way," said the professor, who also believes that
the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to crime.
According to Amnesty International, Indonesia is 1 of 37 United Nations member
states that continue to use the death penalty in law and practice, while 102
have completely abolished it for all crimes.
The University of Indonesia constitutional law alumni emphasized that death row
inmates are not objects and therefore still entitled to basic human rights. He
added that Indonesia must be consistent in enforcing human rights for all.
Besides Indonesians, citizens of China, Nigeria and Zimbabwe are expected to be
on the list of inmates facing the firing squad in the third round of
executions.
(source: Jakarta Globe)
******************
Indonesia strives to avoid media frenzy over drug executions
While Indonesia prepares to execute 15 prisoners convicted of drug offences, it
seems the government is keen to avoid the media attention that surrounded
executions last year. 5 Indonesians, 1 Pakistani, 4 Chinese, 2 Senegalese, 2
Nigerians and 1 Zimbabwean are due to face a firing squad this month, according
to local media.
Speaking to Southeast Asia Globe, Indonesian lawyer Ricky Gunawan, who
represented one of the convicts executed last year, said the death sentences
were likely to be carried out soon.
"Lots of government officials have said that they want to avoid the hysteria
and media frenzy and spotlight on Indonesia," Gunawan added.
Indonesia's chief security minister, Luhut Pandjaitan, appeared to confirm this
when he recently told journalists that "the executions can take place any time,
but there will not be a 'soap opera' about it this time".
14 prisoners were executed in 2015, all but 2 of them foreign nationals. They
included Australian citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, members of the
so-called Bali 9, and Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte. Philippine national Mary Jane
Veloso was given a last-minute reprieve but remains on death row. All these
cases were followed closely in their home countries and further afield.
Notably, of this year's batch of 10 foreigners, 7 are from countries that also
employ the death penalty.
Last week, the Anti-Death Penalty Civil Society Coalition, a group of 16
Indonesian NGOs, held a press conference to decry the executions, saying they
were not the solution to address drug crime in their country.
The head of the Indonesian Drug Victim Advocacy Brotherhood (PKNI), Totok
Yulianto, said the number of drug convicts has been rising, despite two rounds
of executions last year. 6 people were executed in January and 8 more in April
2015.
According to PKNI, nearly 62,000 prisoners were incarcerated for drug-related
crimes in October 2014, and by February this year the number stood at 69,662.
This meant that almost 40% of all prisoners were in jail for narcotics
offences.
"Even though the government had carried out executions in January and April.
This shows that the death penalty does not create a deterrent effect. This is
data from the directorate general of corrections," the Jakarta Post reported
Yulianto as saying last week.
In April, the UN's General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the global drug
problem. Indonesia delivered a statement in defence of retaining the death
penalty, on behalf of a coalition comprising China, Singapore and Malaysia,
among others.
A statement released by PKNI on Monday said that the lack of fair trials in
Indonesia is another reason why the use of death penalty should be reviewed.
They pointed to the use of torture to extract confessions and a lack of
adequate legal representation for those without the resources.
(source: Southeast Asia Globe)
***************
A year on, Indonesia gears up for executions again
Only a year after the execution of Australians Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew
Chan, Indonesia is gearing up for another round of executions. Determined to
keep it low profile, Indonesian authorities are remaining tight-lipped about
the condemned.
If Indonesia has learnt anything from the diplomatic fiasco ignited by last
year's execution of 14 death-row inmates, it seems to be this: if you're going
to kill drug offenders, and particularly foreign nationals, keep it low
profile. Or better still, assemble a line-up from countries that are less
likely to remonstrate. Not the lesson, perhaps, that the international
community might have hoped for.
As Indonesia gears up for another round of executions, it's becoming
depressingly clear that after the intense media coverage of 2015 - the
political posturing, the desperate pleas and impassioned headlines - this
year's condemned will go to their deaths in the forests of central Java with
barely a murmur of protest. The final wishes of executed Australians Myuran
Sukumaran and Andrew Chan - for an end to the death penalty - will not be
granted. Or not yet.
Indonesian lawmakers are remaining tight-lipped about the condemned - who they
are, and how many - but there are rumoured to be up to 15 drug offenders,
largely non-Western foreign nationals of retentionist countries, who could be
executed as early as this week. "There is only the choosing of the specific
date. That's what I haven't been able to decide," announced Attorney-General
H.M. Prasetyo, as though pondering when to hold a luncheon rather than when he
will usher the next desperate band of convicts onto the killing fields of
Nusakambangan.
If the public pronouncements from senior figures are distasteful, though -
desultory remarks about sprucing up the execution site, drilling the shooters,
or preparing facilities to accommodate the bodies of the not-yet-dead - that's
not exactly unique to Indonesia. The recent debate in Virginia on the merits of
the lethal injection cocktail versus 1800 volts of electricity reminds us that
there's no nice way to talk about state-sanctioned murder.
Authorities are resolved to avoid any "drama" this time around, as though the
macabre theatre of last year - the armoured Barracuda carriers and brigades of
masked security personnel - was not scripted by Indonesia itself. "There won't
be a soap opera like the last time", according to Minister for Political, Legal
and Security Affairs Luhut Panjaitan "because I think that wasn't pretty". No
indeed.
Of course, the less said about these executions, the harder it is to scrutinise
the mechanics of Indonesia's capital punishment apparatus or the narratives of
those that are caught within it. Like Zulfiqar Ali, for instance, sentenced to
death for possession of 300g heroin: except that Ali wasn't in possession of
the drug at all, and the individual who was - and who fingered Ali as his
supplier - has since retracted his testimony.
This bleak situation may not come as any surprise to legal experts or anyone
else who witnessed, with dismay and disbelief, the events of 2015. Young
Filipina Mary Jane Veloso came within minutes of an encounter with the firing
squad before new evidence - suggesting Veloso wasn't, in fact, a drug
trafficker but a trafficked person - was finally conceded. And in this, too,
Indonesia is not alone.
Research from the United States reveals that, conservatively, about 4 % of
those sentenced to death are innocent. That's around 8000 men and women in the
US that have been placed, falsely, on death row since the 1970s - and only a
fraction of these will ever be exonerated. The rash of forced confessions that
undermines the integrity of capital sentencing in Indonesia appears to be part
of an epidemic that spans the Middle East and even the United States. The death
penalty, it turns out, is not the ultimate way for the community to mete out
justice, but injustice.
In some respects, the tide is turning. In April, an Indonesian delegate at the
United Nations general assembly special session on drugs was booed for
defending the use of the death penalty for drug crime - and there's no doubt
its use in this context is deeply troubling. But it's not clear why such public
demonstrations of scorn are reserved for Indonesia alone, and why the
conversation around capital punishment is perennially hijacked by a focus on
the crime, rather than the punishment. The number of offenders allegedly on
Indonesia's hit list is almost identical to the number put to death in the
United States this year so far; similar to that executed by state of Texas in
2015 alone.
Whether or not the death penalty should be applied to drug crime or only
reserved for more serious crimes like murder is missing the point. Worse, this
type of thinking lures us into a dangerous moral calculus that leaves us at the
mercy of our greatest fears and our deepest prejudice: terrorism but never
murder; murder but never drugs; drugs but never apostasy. Because here's the
thing - the fatal flaws in the death penalty are the same regardless of crime.
The question of who is sentenced to death and who is ultimately executed - and
when - has nothing to do with judicial impartiality and, in some cases,
precious little even to do with the penal code. The lottery of a system that
can arbitrarily hand death to one individual and a 10-year sentence to another
for the same crime is chilling, as is the unnerving correlation between
politics and executions - evident from Iran, to Indonesia, to the cynical
timing of Afghanistan's executions of Taliban prisoners a fortnight ago.
Research on US state elections reveal an even more dismal statistic: executions
are 25 percent more likely in election years than other years, and elections
increase this risk by an even larger amount if the defendant is
African-American. God bless America.
Capital punishment - no matter where or how it's used - targets the
disadvantaged with a savage specificity. The key predictors of a death sentence
in the US are not the severity of the crime but victim race and geography, and
in the same way that capital punishment takes aim at blacks and Hispanics in
the US, in Asia it is largely reserved for 'the poor, and the poorly
connected'. Corruption may be rife in many Asian judicial systems - prompting
some academics to tacitly advocate the bribery of public officials - but in the
US, too, capital sentences are simply not handed to those that can afford good
legal representation, according to Supreme Court justices. Indeed, the litany
of incompetence, including unethical and even criminal conduct, from attorneys
in capital cases is no less stunning in Dallas than it is in Denpasar.
And if that's so, what difference does it make whether a death sentence is
handed to a drug smuggler in Bali or a murderer in Oklahoma? It's time we
realised there's no such thing as a justice system that's infallible, and
dispensed with the collective delusion that a death sentence - in Texas or
Tehran or Tangerang - is reserved for those most deserving of this ultimate
measure of justice. And while we're at it, it's time we abandoned the notion
that capital punishment has anything to do with justice in the first place.
(source: Commentary; Sarah Gill is an Age columnist who has worked as a writer
and a policy analyst. She is undertaking postgraduate legal studies at the
University of Western Australia----Sydney Morning Herald)
*******************
Bekasi Drug Dealers Arrested With Two Kilos of Crystal Meth
2 alleged drug dealers who had been on the run were arrested on the weekend
with 2 kilos of crystal methamphetamine and around 34,000 ecstasy pills worth
around Rp 3 billion ($225,000) in their possession in Bekasi, West Java, police
said on Tuesday (17/05).
Bekasi Police chief Sr. Comr. Herry Sumarji told reporters the alleged drug
dealers - identified only by their initials E.D. (30) and D.S. (45) - were part
of an Indonesian drug syndicate led by one of Indonesia's most wanted drug
fugitives, identified as U.G.
Herry said E.D. was arrested with 14 grams of crystal meth in his possession at
a rented house on Jalan Masjid Hudal Islam in Pondokgede, Bekasi on Friday at
around 10 a.m. The next day, police arrested D.S. in the neighboring
subdistrict of Jakasampurna thanks to E.D.'s tip-offs.
After questioning both suspects, police again searched D.S.'s rented room and
found 2 kilos of crystal methamphetamine and 34,000 ecstasy pills.
Herry said the drugs allegedly belonged to drug fugitive U.G. who lived in the
same rented room with D.S. in Jakasampurna.
U.G. served a sentence for drug dealing at the Karawang Prison last year. He is
believed to have returned to the drug business and now controls the drug market
in Bekasi and surrounding areas.
According to Indonesia's anti-narcotics law, the amount of drugs confiscated in
the raid was more than enough to charge the alleged dealers with the death
penalty.
(source: Jakarta Globe)
SINGAPORE:
UN calls on the Singapore Government to halt the execution of Kho Jabing
The following is a press release by the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights' Regional Office for South-East Asia/
----
We urgently call on the Singapore Government to halt the execution of Malaysian
national Kho Jabing, who is due to be hanged on Friday.
Kho, 31, has endured years of immense suffering on death row as his sentence
has been changed several times.
Kho was sentenced to death in 2010 for murder. At the time, a mandatory death
penalty applied to all cases of murder in Singapore. In 2012, Singapore amended
legislation regarding the mandatory use of the death penalty and his sentence
was changed to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. However, Kho's
death sentence was reinstated in January 2015 by the Court of Appeal. In
November 2015, Kho was granted a temporary stay of execution less than 24 hours
before he was due to be hanged. On 5 April, his death sentence was upheld by
the Court of Appeal.
Despite several appeals by the UN Human Rights Office and civil society groups,
Singapore said Kho would be hanged on 20 May 2016. During Singapore's human
rights review in Geneva in January, several states called on the Government to
abolish the death penalty. Singapore has yet to respond to the recommendations.
We call on the Singapore Government to immediately take steps to establish a
moratorium on the death penalty as part of a process toward the full
abolishment of capital punishment.
More than 160 Members States of the United Nations with a variety of legal
systems, traditions, cultures and religious backgrounds, have either abolished
the death penalty or do not practice it. In South-East Asia, only Cambodia,
Timor-Leste and the Philippines have fully abolished the death penalty.
For more information on the death penalty in South-East Asia, view our
publication entitled "Moving Away from the Death Penalty: Lessons in South-East
Asia".
(source: The Independent)
**************
Lawyers plead for Kho Jabing's life in last-ditch effort
In a last-ditch effort to save the life of the death row inmate Kho Jabing, the
3 bar associations of Malaysia have submitted a letter pleading for clemency to
Singapore President Tony Tan.
In the letter, the Advocates Association of Sarawak, the Sabah Law Association,
and the Malaysian Bar asked for Kho's death sentence to be commuted to life
imprisonment.
They argued that the decision on whether Kho should live or die should not
depend on the collective decision of a majority of judges, and pointed out that
some of the Singaporean judges that have presided over the case have expressed
doubt on whether Kho intended to kill.
"The fact that learned judges of Singapore have expressed doubts that Kho
Jabing exhibited sufficient mens rea or intention to commit the crime of murder
should, in and of itself, give rise to concerns whether Kho Jabing should be
made to pay the ultimate price for his crime and be sentenced to hang.
"If there is any doubt at all about his level of intention, and there genuinely
is, that doubt must be resolved in Kho Jabing's favour," says the letter signed
by the presidents of the three associations, Leonard Shim, Brenndon Soh, and
Steven Thiru.
"The death penalty is an irreversible punishment. Once taken, Kho Jabing's life
cannot be returned to him or his family," the letter cautioned.
The letter was handed to the Singapore High Commissioner to Malaysia Vanu
Gopala Menon today by Bar Council Human Rights Committee co-chairperson Andrew
Khoo, on behalf of the three associations.
Speaking to reporters outside the Singapore High Commission building in Kuala
Lumpur later, Khoo said the high commissioner has agreed to relay the contents
of the letter to the Singaporean government.
Kho, 31, is a Malaysian citizen from Sarawak who is now being held at Changi
Prison, Singapore.
He was convicted of murder in 2010 and was given the mandatory death sentence,
but was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane when the
Singaporean government reviewed its death penalty laws in 2012.
'Wrong in principle'
On Jan 14 last year, however, the Singaporean Court of Appeal reportedly
reimposed the death penalty in a unanimous decision, following an appeal by the
prosecution.
He is slated to hang on Friday, which is also reportedly the birthday of one of
his 2 sisters.
Meanwhile, lawyer Khoo told reporters that the Malaysian Bar is opposed to
mandatory sentencing - be it a jail or a death sentence - and the death
sentence itself.
He said mandatory sentencing takes away the discretion of judges to decide what
should be the appropriate punishment for the cases they presided, and this
appears to be creeping into Malaysia's own statute books.
"It is wrong in principle. After all, we train our judges and we rely on their
experience to mete justice, and justice cannot be served by mandatory
sentencing," he said.
As for death sentencing, Khoo said it is wrong to respond to a killing by also
taking the killer's life, which in essence lowers a society to the offender's
standards.
He said the Malaysian government has already conceded that the mandatory death
penalty does not deter crime, and hopes it would expedite the proposals for its
repeal.
"Mandatory death sentences are on their way out; it is merely a question of
when. They (the government) has made certain public commitments or public
statements about reviewing it, and we urge the government to really expedite
and finalise their proposals so that they can be presented to Parliament as
soon as possible, so that we can end this idea of mandatory death sentences.
"We also hope they will realise that mandatory sentencing in itself is also
wrong in principle," he said.
(source: malaysiakini.com)
****************
With Malaysian to hang in Singapore, Bar says death penalty not answer to crime
Mandatory death sentences are ineffective deterrents to crime, a representative
of the Malaysian Bar argued today ahead of a Sarawakian's capital punishment in
Singapore on Friday.
Commenting on the case of Kho Jabing who will be hanged on Friday, the Bar
Council???s Human Rights Committee chairman Andrew Khoo said death sentences
would put society on the same level as convicted killers.
"Justice cannot be served by mandatory sentencing. Secondly, you don't respond
to someone who killed by also killing that person," Khoo told reporters today
after submitting a clemency appeal for Jabing, to Singapore president Dr Tony
Tan via the Singapore High Commission here.
Khoo was representing the Malaysian Bar as well as the Advocates Association of
Sarawak and the Sabah Law Association, who signed the appeal.
In the appeal, the legal bodies pleaded with Tan to review Jabing's sentence,
pointing out that judges were divided over the death penalty in his case.
"The fact that learned judges of Singapore have expressed doubts that Kho
Jabing exhibited sufficient mens rea or intention to commit the crime of
murder, should, in and of itself, give rise to concerns whether Kho Jabing
should be made to pay the ultimate price for his crime and be sentenced to
hang," the joint appeal letter read.
Jabing was convicted of killing a Chinese construction worker in 2008 and
sentenced to death in the island state.
He was previously scheduled to be executed on November 6 last year but won a
temporary reprieve pending a court appeal.
Singapore authorities have informed the family that the execution date has been
fixed for Friday morning.
(source: themalaymailonline.com)
***************
I discovered the truth about Singapore's 'war on drugs'. Now I campaign against
the death penalty
Yong Vui Kong was my 1st encounter with the death penalty in Singapore. I was
21 years old, and so was he. But we couldn't be further apart when I sat in the
public gallery of the courtroom and he in the dock, behind a glass pane. At
that age I was considered by many older people as young, idealistic, naive,
prone to mistakes and immaturity. Yet the Singaporean criminal justice system
was expecting Yong Vui Kong to die for a mistake he'd made when he was just 19
years old.
Born to a poor family in the east Malaysian state of Sabah, Vui Kong was
arrested in 2007 with 47.27 grams of heroin. Under Singaporean law, 15 grams
and above is enough to attract the mandatory death penalty. Seeing his youth,
the trial judge had asked the prosecution to consider reducing the charge, so
he wouldn't have to face the gallows.
The prosecution refused.
This is the reality of the 'war on drugs' in Singapore. An uncompromising
attitude is sold as being 'tough on crime', and largely bought by the populace
as the secret sauce to keeping Singapore the safe, relatively low-crime city it
is.
An uncompromising attitude is sold as being 'tough on crime'.
"When we talk about death penalty for drug traffickers, what are we talking
about? The person brings across heroin enough to feed 950 people for one week,
that person faces death penalty. People look at the drug traffickers that we
impose a death penalty on. Very little of the literature focuses on the death
penalties that drug traffickers impose on society," said law and home affairs
minister Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam at a question and answer session with
university students in March.
This mentality makes capital punishment look like a logical trade-off; we
sacrifice the lives of a number of nasty people for the good of hundreds or
thousands. It's taught to Singaporean children from a young age, with little
critique or question.
By the time I entered the picture in 2010, Vui Kong's case had been taken over
by human rights lawyer M. Ravi, who had won him a stay of execution and was
mounting a challenge to the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty
(which would later fail). Outside the courtroom, the long-running Singapore
Anti-Death Penalty Campaign (SADPC) was doing its best to work within the
limits of Singapore's restrictions on advocacy, activism and protest to raise
awareness of his case. By the end of that year, 2 18-year-old students and I
would set up We Believe in Second Chances, a campaign for Vui Kong meant to
emphasise his youth through ours.
We had originally intended for Second Chances to just be a campaign for Vui
Kong. But his story led to a deeper examination of capital punishment, criminal
justice and drug policy, and we quickly realised that the issue went far, far
beyond one young Sabahan.
We've since worked, or are working, with multiple families of death row inmates
- we aren't able to get permission from the prison to visit the inmates
themselves. Some of these capital cases are for murder, but the vast majority
were convicted of drug trafficking.
Proponents of the 'war on drugs' would have you imagine that the drug
traffickers who are caught and put to death are murderers in their own right:
evil, greedy criminals who care little for anyone or anything apart from
enriching themselves.
If these cold-blooded hoodlums are getting caught and sent to death row, we're
not seeing them.
If these cold-blooded hoodlums are getting caught and sent to death row, we're
not seeing them. The people we see are scared, bewildered parents, siblings and
partners, representing similarly scared and bewildered inmates desperate for a
chance, any chance, to avoid a date with the long drop. They are often from
ethnic minority groups, or low-income, less-educated households. Many of the
families are broken or dysfunctional in some way: estranged parents and abusive
environments.
Society might prefer to imagine that people offend because they are inherently
malicious, but we more often than not see how different socio-economic
circumstances create communities or individuals more vulnerable to being both
offenders and victims.
There is Muhammad Rizuan, who languishes on death row because the prosecution
chose not to grant him a "certificate of cooperation", a prerequisite before
one can avoid the death penalty. In his case, we see people sent to the gallows
not just for their crime, but for their subsequent lack of usefulness to the
authorities. Yet how useful could a low-level courier really be?
There is Roslan bin Bakar, whose conviction relied more on testimony than hard
evidence, showing that there are far more problems with the death penalty than
its failure to deal with drug offences.
And then there is Yong Vui Kong himself, a boy from a plantation in east
Malaysia whose journey to prison was paved with poverty, neglect, abuse and a
dearth of opportunities beyond gang membership. (Fortunately for Vui Kong,
changes in the law allowed his death sentence to be changed to life
imprisonment with caning.)
It is unlikely that being 'tough on crime' would have saved any of these men
from their current predicaments. There is even less evidence that being tough
on these men, as part of Singapore's 'war on drugs', will prevent any others
from being recruited into drug syndicates, or abusing drugs themselves. As long
as there are poor, under-served and vulnerable communities, drug lords will
enjoy a steady supply of hapless young men and women to use as mules. And as
long as we continue to execute these mules, we are shifting focus and resources
away from the greater task of education, advocacy, rehabilitation and social
justice that is truly important in addressing the problem.
(source: Kirsten Han; opendemocracy.net----This article is published as part of
an editorial partnership between openDemocracy and CELS, an Argentine human
rights organisation with a broad agenda that includes advocating for drug
policies respectful of human rights. The partnership coincides with the United
Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs)
INDIA:
2006 Mumbai Train Blasts Final Verdict: Death penalty to 5, life imprisonment
for 7
The special court in Mumbai on Wednesday pronounced verdict in Mumbai local
train serial blasts awarding death sentence to 5 while life imprisonment to 7
other convicts. It is to be known that the blasts had killed 188 people
travelling through Mumbai local trains.
Special Judge Yatin D Shinde had finalized the hearing in the case last week 9
years after the blasts rattled Mumbai. The prosecutor was demanding death
punishment for 8 of the accused while life imprisonment for four others.
On September 23, the MCOCA court had reserved its verdict on sentencing the 12
accused in the case and had scheduled September 30 to make the final verdict.
Before than on September 11, the MCOCA court had convicted 12 of the 13 accused
for playing an important role in executing the massive blasts in India's
commercial capital. The court also found them guilty of having connections with
banned terror organization SIMI. However, it also acquitted one accused.
The accused were found guilty of charges under IPC, Explosives Act, Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act, Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act and
Indian Railway Act and those under MCOCA.
The court also held all 12 of them guilty under Sections 3 (1) (i) of MCOCA,
which also amount up to capital punishment.
The convicts were identified as Kamal Ahamed Ansari (37), Tanvir Ahmed Ansari
(37), Mohd Faisal Shaikh (36), Ehtesham Siddiqui (30), Mohammad Majid Shafi
(32), Shaikh Alam Shaikh (41), Mohd Sajid Ansari (34),Muzzammil Shaikh (27),
Soheil Mehmood Shaikh (43), Zamir Ahmad Shaikh (36), Naveed Hussain Khan (30)
and Asif Khan (38).
Post 12 accused were convicted, Judge Shinde, later, also allowed the defence
lawyer to cross-examine witnesses to dig out the mitigating circumstances in
the case.
(source: pardaphash.com)
************
Gangland murder: 2 sentenced to death
A district court here on Tuesday sentenced to death 2 of the 7 accused found
guilty of the gangland-feud related murder of Santosh, alias Jet Santosh, here
in December 2004.
Judge K.P. Indira imposed the death penalty on Anil Kumar alias Jackie and Soju
alias Ajith Kumar.
The other accused, Binu Kumar, alias Pravu Binu Kumar, Suresh Kumar, alias
Sura, Shaji, alias Kochu Shaji, Biju Kuttan, alias Biju, and Santosh were
sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life.
The prosecution had described them as a violent criminal gang suspected of
several other serious crimes in the capital.
The gang had suspected Santosh of having an adulterous relationship with the
sister of one of its members. The accused also believed that he had underhand
dealings with an opposing gang, which like them, profited from running
protection rackets.
Brutality of crime
The brazen brutality of the crime which occurred on December 22 evening had
shocked the capital and, temporarily, raised questions about public safety.
(source: The Hindu)
NIGERIA:
Corruption will not die early, we must kill it
Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye is a former Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria,
CBN, a lawyer and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. In
this interview with ROBERT AWOKUSE, he speaks on the activities of President
Muhammadu Buhari's administration in the last one year, urging Nigerians to
give the President more time to fulfil the promised change. Excerpts:
President Muhammadu Buhariled APC government will be 1 year in office in about
2 weeks time . What is your assessment of the Buhari administration in this one
year and why is the change promised becoming what can be best described as
hardship on Nigerians, looking at the strait economic situation and what is the
way forward?
In answering your question, let me start with my old teacher, Dr Tai Solarin's
statement, published in the Daily Times of January 1, 1964 as his New Year
greeting to all Nigerians. The statement has been reproduced in Dare
Babarinsa's recent publication on the 1st Century of Nigeria.
I quote: "May your road be rough. I'm not cursing you; I'm wishing you what I
wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this
year.... Our successes," he continued, "are conditioned by the amount of risks
we are ready to take." Dr. Tai Solarin, the great patriot, pointed to a
significant psychological feature of human life. The Bible had earlier
identified the same philosophy that the seed you sow does not grow until it
first decays. It dies first before it springs out life. The hues and cries of
Change should be expected like when you change the gear of your car; you hear
some noise; or when you snatch the feeding bottle from a baby, the baby cries.
In the same way, corruption has been like a feeding bottle to many Nigerian
public servants, politicians and business men. That is exactly what Nigeria is
passing through right now. The hardship we are experiencing should be expected
by any prudent person. It will be foolish to expect that the Change we expect
will be smooth and noiseless. Let's endure it. What went on during the previous
16 years of PDP government, the current awful exposures which seem more awful
than Maria Monk's exposures are no longer secret.
To fix that or to put things right, certainly there must be some hardship or
suffering by all, including those who did not partake in the abuse of office.
To expect that we will just have a smooth ride of change is illusionary. It
will be foolish for anybody to think that a magician will just come and say
"Nigeria change to better. Corruption I decree you disappear and it will be
so". No, we have to sweat for it. We have to harden our laws. We have to be
more vigilant. Corruption will not die easily. We must kill it. So I'm happy
that the Legislature has now approved death penalty for kidnappers. But it
should not be kidnappers alone. We need it for a few more offenders.
Confiscation and restoration should not be sufficient for those who stole the
nation's resources in the past. Maximum terms of imprisonment allowed in
existing laws should be applied.
Since the Law does not allow retrospective effects on offenders, harsher laws
should now be enacted including death penalty for new/future offenders after
due prosecution. Jungle behavior deserves jungle laws! If you notice the amount
of suffering Nigerians are going through because of the wickedness and lack of
consideration of those who are in position, it is not a thing we should handle
with kid gloves.
(source: National Mirror)
UGANDA:
Besigye has treason charges read to him afresh, is further remanded ----
Besigye is charged under chapter five of the Penal Code Act under which treason
attracts the death penalty.
By 7am, the roads leading to Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court had been blocked
and traffic diverted in anticipation of the arrival of FDC's Kizza Besigye.
Security operatives stood on guard outside and inside the court premises.
The court, presided over by Chief Magistrate, James Eremye Mawanda, was called
to order at 8:30am.
The Chief Magistrate read the fresh treason charges to Besigye but declined to
offer him the chance to defend himself since the court had no jurisdiction to
try a suspect for treason, which is a capital offence.
Besigye is charged under chapter 5 of the Penal Code Act under which
punishments for misdemeanors are listed and treason attracts the death penalty.
The former presidential candidate had no legal representation and when city
Lawyer and opposition politician, Shifrah Lukwago, tried to stand in for him,
Besigye refused saying he had not expected any lawyers.
Besigye's attempt to raise issues about the unfair treatment he had experienced
while in prison was thwarted by the chief magistrate who asked him to take his
concerns to the authorities at Luzira prison.
Besigye has been in police custody since 11th May when he was arrested in
Kampala, charged in Moroto magistrates court on 13th May and detained on
charges of treason, arising from a video clip that showed him swearing in as
president of Uganda.
FDC officials Wasswa Biriggwa, Goeffrey Ekanya and Wafula Oguttu have been
summoned to the Police special investigations unit in Kireka to explain their
involvement in the alleged event.
(source: ntv.co.ug
*************
Ugandan court to pass judgment in terror suspects case
Court Judgment in a case against 13 men suspected to have masterminded the twin
bombing of Kampala in July 2010 is set for Wednesday.The case involves 13 men
of Ugandan, Kenyan and Tanzania origin believed to be behind twin bombing of
merrymaker's who were watching the 2010 FIFA World Cup final between
Netherlands and Spain at Kyaddondo Rugby Club and Ethiopian Village Restaurant
in Kabalagala.
Trial judge Alphonse Owiny Dollo set the date upon conclusion of hearing of the
matter last month.
Court assessors last month advised the High Court to convict 12 of the suspects
on the charge of terrorism, murder and attempted murder for their alleged
participation in the July 2010 attack that left 76 people dead.
The suspects, who have been on remand since 2010, could face a death penalty if
found guilty of terrorism and murder charges.
Prosecution alleges that the 13 men and others still at large, on July 11,
2010, intentionally and unlawfully delivered and discharged an explosion into
Kyadondo Rugby Club and Ethiopian Village Restaurant with intent to cause death
and serious bodily injury or extensive destruction likely to or actually result
into major economic loss.
The suspects also face other charges which include murder, attempted murder,
being an accessory, aiding and abetting terrorism and belonging to a terrorist
group.
(source: starafrica.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 10:00:23 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 10:00:23 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., OHIO, NEB.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191000130.8252@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
FLORIDA:
Lawyers in Sievers, Rodgers cases: Trial long way off, no death penalty
decision
Lawyers involved in the Lee County murder cases of Mark Sievers and Jimmy
Rodgers said Wednesday that they're a long way from trial, with thousands of
pages of records still to be shared between the sides.
At a case management conference for the 2 defendants, prosecutors also said
they haven't made a decision about whether to seek the death penalty in the
case of Rodgers. They didn't speak to whether a decision has been made in
Sievers' case, but no filing has been made.
"I can tell you the state is right now considering all options," Assistant
State Attorney Hamid Hunter said. Prosecutors have until mid-June to make a
decision.
Sievers is accused of coordinating the killing of his 46-year-old wife, Bonita
Springs Dr. Teresa Sievers, with his lifelong friend, Curtis Wayne Wright Jr.
Investigators believe Wright and Rodgers traveled from their home state of
Missouri and bludgeoned Teresa Sievers to death in her home in June 2015 while
Mark Sievers was in Connecticut.
Wright has pleaded guilty to a 2nd-degree murder charge and agreed to cooperate
with prosecutors in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence. Mark Sievers and
Rodgers have pleaded not guilty to 1st-degree murder charges.
Hunter said more than 43,000 pages of evidence have been shared with lawyers
for Rodgers and Sievers, with another large set of cell phone and tower records
expected in the coming weeks.
"It's taking a lot of time," Hunter said.
Chief Assistant Public Defender Kathleen Fitzgeorge, who's representing
Rodgers, said it's been "slow going" as prosecutors gather and share evidence.
The 2 sides are "not even close" to starting depositions, she said.
"There are no forensic reports. There is a very basic, basic crime scene
report. In my opinion, in my experience, there is a lot missing," Fitzgeorge
said.
Rodgers hasn't waived his right to a speedy trial. If Rodgers doesn't waive
that right, prosecutors could be required to take the case to trial by late
August.
Mark Sievers has waived his speedy trial rights.
The next scheduled court dates are June 21 for Rodgers and July 27 for Mark
Sievers.
(source: Naples News)
****************
Death penalty uncertain in another Tampa murder case
Prosecutors said an ice cream truck driver - seeking revenge and armed with a
gun - killed 2 and injured 4 back in 2010. But the death penalty may not be on
the table for defendant Michael Keetley based on the ongoing controversy with
Florida's death penalty sentencing guidelines.
The U.S Supreme Court said Florida's death penalty sentencing procedure was
unconstitutional, because it gave too much power to a judge, and not the jury.
Attorney Anthony Rickman explained why lawmakers still haven't solved the
confusion.
"What the Supreme Court didn't do is address whether the jury's decision should
be unanimous or some sort of super majority," explained Rickman.
Lawmakers scrambling to fix the law, chose a super-majority. Under the new
guidelines, a 10 to 2 vote is all a jury needs to hand down a death sentence
and the jury's decision is final.
In its latest motion, Keetley's attorney said the new law is still
unconstitutional, adding, the vote should be unanimous, as all verdicts are.
Rickman reviewed the motion for FOX 13 News and said, "it's either a unanimous
decision or it's not, and if it's not, they have the opportunity to sentence
that person to life in prison."
Last week, a Miami judge rejected the new death penalty guidelines based on his
analysis of social norms and the constitution, Rickman said.
In his ruling, Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch wrote, "every verdict in every
criminal case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of some, not of most,
but of all jurors - every single one of them."
Rickman added, "in a petty theft case, like taking a Kit Kat from from a Kash
and Karry, you need a unanimous verdict. You need all six jurors, because its a
misdemeanor. Why, then, on a murder case where you are sentencing someone to
death, do you need less than that?"
A Tampa judge is expected to hear arguments on Keetley's motion May 20.
(source: Fox news)
ALABAMA:
Teaser's shooting trial delayed again amid questions about capital punishment
Death row inmates and those awaiting trial on capital murder charges in Alabama
could be impacted by an ongoing Florida court case recently ruled on by the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Houston County Circuit Judge Brad Mendheim this month delayed indefinitely the
trial of Ryan Clark Petersen who is accused of gunning down 3 people in 2012 at
Teasers, a Wicksburg strip club.
In his order, Mendeim cites Hurst vs. Florida, an ongoing case involving death
row inmate Timothy Hurst. Mendeim - and defense attorneys and prosecutors
agreed---inferred the Hurst case could potentially impact death sentences in
Alabama.
In the Hurst case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reaffirmed the Sixth Amendment's
requirement that juries, not judges, must decide the sentence for those
convicted of captial murder.
The sentencing scheme in Alabama and Florida allows a jury to recommend - not
necessarily on a unanimous vote - whether convicted defendants should receive
the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. The
judge is not bound by the recommendation.
Florida now must re-sentence Hurst - convicted of killing and robbing a
restaurant manager before placing her body in a large freezer-- by allowing a
jury to determine whether the facts of his case merit the death penalty.
Another issue to Mendheim is a case involving an Alabama inmate whose appeal is
based upon the Hurst case. The U.S. Supreme Court, on May 2, tossed an Alabama
appeals court judgment against Bart Johnson.
The state Court of Criminal Appeals must now reconsider the case of Johnson who
was sentenced to death in the 2009 killing of a Pelham police officer.
"This ruling implicates all (capital) cases in Alabama," said Bryan Stevenson,
founder and executive director of Equal Justice Initiative. "We have argued
that Alabama's statute no longer conforms to current constitutional
requirements."
The basis for the Hurst case stems from a ruling involving Ring vs. Arizona.
That western state has traditionally sentenced in the same fashion as Alabama
and Florida.
For the death penalty to be an option certain criteria must be met. In
Petersen's case, he was charged with capital murder because 2 or more people
were killed.
His attorney, Ben Freeman, favors the delay because the Hurst case must be
resolved before Petersen is tried. It's unknown at this time when that will
happen.
It's also not known what effect the ruling will have on the 185 inmates---13
sentenced in Houston County - who are on death row.
(source: WTVY news)
OHIO:
Hamilton County prosecutor wants Ohio Supreme Court justice to recuse himself
on death penalty case----Jeffrey Wogenstahl was set for execution in 2017
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he's "extremely troubled" by recent
decisions from the Ohio Supreme Court that could let 2 convicted killers escape
the death penalty.
So troubled, in fact, that he's asking one of Ohio's top judges to recuse
himself from 1 of those cases.
Jeffrey Wogenstahl was convicted in 1993 of murdering Amber Garrett 2 years
earlier. She was 10 when Wogenstahl kidnapped her, killed her and dumped her
body in a field near Bright, Indiana, prosecutors alleged.
Martin Pinales, a legal expert, said the Ohio Supreme Court's new ruling to
grant a new briefing is extremely uncommon. He said the court might be "very
troubled" about some evidence in the case, perhaps hair analysis evidence.
"At that time, a person was able to take a microscope and look at 2 pieces of
hair samples and say, 'Ah, they look alike, so it must have been from the same
person,'" he said. "That is all way past, and hair analysis samples are
absolutely junk science now."
The court also suspended Wogenstahl's execution date, which was set for Sept.
13, 2017.
"The Supreme Court is saying, 'Hey, wait a minute. We are going to allow you to
restart this case,'" Pinales said. "It is rejuvenated. Now you can go back to
the Supreme Court on a direct appeal on facts."
Deters filed a request for Justice William O'Neill to recuse himself from the
Wogenstahl case, "given his repeated comments in the Wogenstahl decision and
numerous other cases that he will not follow Ohio law and will never impose the
death penalty."
Pinales' take: "It's not going to happen."
Deters has also filed a motion asking the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its
decision to grant Anthony Kirkland a resentencing hearing. Kirkland was
sentenced to death in 2010 for murdering an SCPA 7th-grader and another
Cincinnati teen -- the last of his 5 victims. He was found guilty of aggravated
murder, attempted rape and other charges in the girls' deaths.
Before his trial, Kirkland also pleaded guilty to the slayings of 2 other
Cincinnati women and received life sentences. He previously served a 16-year
sentence for killing his girlfriend.
At the sentencing phase, the prosecutor wondered whether the girls' killings
were "just freebies for him," raising questions of whether that may have
prejudiced the jury. Prosecutors argued in a 2011 filing with the court that
the prosecutor's comment was appropriate because part of the death penalty case
against Kirkland was that the girls' killings was part of a "course of conduct"
involving 4 victims.
If the Ohio Supreme Court won't reconsider, Deters has asked the justices to at
least provide a written explanation on why they feel Kirkland should get
another sentencing hearing.
(source: WCPO news)
NEBRASKA:
Capital punishment foes step up efforts to persuade voters to keep death
penalty repeal
Opponents of the death penalty stepped up efforts Wednesday to sway voters to
retain Nebraska's repeal of capital punishment.
2 state senators and a retired judge who once sentenced a killer to die in the
electric chair spoke at a press conference arranged by the group Retain a Just
Nebraska.
They said they wanted to counter an argument by pro-death penalty advocates
that convicted murderers will be released from prison unless voters restore
capital punishment.
If the repeal stands, those convicted of 1st-degree murder would face a
sentence of life in prison. In Nebraska, inmates sentenced to life have no
chance of parole, unless their sentences are later commuted by the Nebraska
Board of Pardons. The board - made up of the governor, attorney general and
secretary of state - has rarely awarded such commutations in Nebraska.
"Life imprisonment means life in prison, no chance of parole," said retired
Sarpy County District Judge Ronald Reagan. "Anything else is political
posturing and has no grounding in the legal realities."
Reagan served on a 3-judge panel that gave a death sentence to child rapist and
killer John Joubert, who was executed in the electric chair in 1996.
Reagan personally opposed the death penalty because, in his view, it is applied
unfairly and doesn't deter crime. But as a judge, he was compelled to apply the
law as written.
Reagan was joined at Wednesday's event by State Sens. Colby Coash and Adam
Morfeld, both of Lincoln. The senators were among those who voted to repeal the
death penalty in 2015.
The Legislature also overrode the veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts. The governor then
joined other death penalty supporters to back a voter petition drive to restore
capital punishment.
Voters will decide Nov. 8 whether to keep the death penalty, which was switched
to lethal injection in 2008.
(source: omaha.com)
***********
Pro-Death penalty campaign says opponents are confusing voters
Republican and Democratic state senators met with death penalty opponents, both
in Lincoln and Omaha Wednesday, claiming a pro-death penalty movement is
confusing voters, leading them to believe murderers could be released without
the death penalty.
Leading the meeting, were senators Colby Coash and Adam Morfeld, along with
retired District Court Judge Ronald Reagan, who sentenced death row inmate,
John Joubert to death for 3 murders back in 1997.
In unison with Retain a Just Nebraska, a campaign urging the retention of LB
268, the Nebraska Legislature's vote to end the death penalty, the senators had
one message for voters: "Life in prison, means life in prison."
"If voters are concerned that without the death penalty those currently on
death row will ever be paroled, they should simply ask the Governor or Attorney
General which of the 10 men on death row he is going to commute to a sentence
less than life," says Morfeld.
The Nebraska Board of Pardons, which consists of the Governor, the Attorney
General, and the Secretary of State, is the only exception and can commute a
life sentence to something lesser.
"I don't think it takes a political scientist or a seasoned politician to know
that that's not likely and that's not going to happen for somebody who
committed that heinous of a crime," says Morfeld.
Robert Evnen, a lawyer and co-founder of the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty
disagrees.
"The Pardons Board is a very powerful body - no court can review its decision.
It can do whatever it wants and three years ago, it decided to commute the
sentence from somebody who had been sentenced to life in prison. It happens,"
says Evnen.
He says opposing advocates are quickly dismissing the reality of murderers
being released on parole.
"Opponents of the death penalty say 'well, take a look at whose on the Pardons
Board, they'd never do such a thing' But who would've suspected that the people
who were on the Pardons Board then would have done it. It's something that
could happen. And they want to deny it. But they're wrong and they're
misleading people about that," says Evnen.
Both organizations said they will be campaigning hard from now until November
and work to clear some of the confusion amongst voters.
(source: KMTV news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 10:01:10 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 10:01:10 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARIZ., NEV., CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191001000.8252@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
ARIZONA:
Judge allows inmate challenge to death penalty to proceed
A court challenge to the way the state of Arizona carries out the death penalty
will proceed, according to a court order filed late Wednesday.
The plaintiffs in the case are death row inmates and the First Amendment
Coalition of Arizona, which advocates for open government on behalf of the
media. Their attorneys had argued that the state is violating the First and
Eighth amendments in its execution process.
At issue, according to the plaintiffs, is a lack of transparency about how the
executions are carried out, including where the state obtains its execution
drugs and the state???s pattern of changing execution procedures at the last
minute.
Federal Judge Neil Wake dismissed the First Amendment claims.
"The press has no such right, (of access to all aspects of the execution
process) not without the court making new law that extends beyond historical
practice and legal authority," he wrote.
Wake allowed the claims questioning the drug combination the state is using and
the failure of the state to follow its execution protocol without significant
last-minute changes to proceed.
Arizona is under a death penalty moratorium until this case, which was filed in
2014 after the execution of convicted murderer Joseph Rudolph Wood took nearly
2 hours, is resolved.
Wood's execution was described by some as "botched."
(source: azfamily.com)
NEVADA:
Lethal Drug Stoppage Shows Death Penalty Divide
The Nevada Department of Corrections is still moving forward with plans for a
new execution facility in Ely in light of pharmaceutical powerhouse, Pfizer,
halting its sell of lethal injection drugs last Friday. Reno Public Radio's
Marcus Lavergne reports:
Department of Correction's spokeswoman Brooke Keast says plans for the nearly
$858,000 facility will continue, but she doesn't know how quickly.
"It's our legislature, the voters and the people of Nevada that will ultimately
make the decision on what happens with this stuff," Keast said.
Pfizer is the most recent company to discontinue the use of its Food and Drug
administration approved-drugs for lethal injection, the only method for
execution used in Nevada.
The move represents a national distancing by drug makers from the death
penalty.
Currently, 82 Nevada death row inmates don't have court-ordered execution
dates, but Keast says Nevada will have the appropriate means to execute if the
order comes through.
(source: KUNR news)
CALIFORNIA:
Showdown Set Over Future of California's Death Penalty
Death penalty supporters are setting the stage on Thursday for a November
showdown over whether to speed up executions in California or do away with them
entirely.
Crime victims, prosecutors and other supporters plan to submit about 585,000
signatures for a ballot measure to streamline what both sides call a broken
system.
No one has been executed in California in a decade because of ongoing legal
challenges. Nearly 750 convicted killers are on the nation's largest death row,
but only 13 have been executed since 1978. Far more condemned inmates have died
of natural causes or suicide.
Supporters plan 10 news conferences statewide to promote an initiative they say
would save taxpayers millions of dollars annually, retain due process
protections and bring justice to murder victims and their families.
The measure would speed what is currently a lengthy appeals process by
expanding the pool of appellate attorneys and appointing lawyers to the death
cases at the time of sentencing.
Currently there is about a 5-year wait just for condemned inmates to be
assigned a lawyer. By contrast, the ballot measure would require that the
entire state appeals process be completed within 5 years except under
extraordinary circumstances.
To meet that timeline, appeals would have to be filed more quickly and there
would be limits on how many appeals could be filed in each case.
Appeals currently can take more than 2 decades, according to the nonpartisan
Legislative Analyst's Office.
"Justice denied is not justice," former NFL star Kermit Alexander said as he
choked up while testifying at a legislative hearing on the measure this week.
"My mother, sister and two little nephews still remain in their graves and my
family is still having to fight for justice."
They were killed in South Central Los Angeles in 1984, and he has since become
the proponent and most prominent public figure for the reform measure.
Additional provisions would allow condemned inmates to be housed at any prison,
not just on San Quentin's death row, and they would have to work and pay victim
restitution while they wait to be executed.
"What is the point of seeking the death penalty in the state of California if
it doesn't work?" Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert,
another proponent, asked at the same hearing.
Opponents say their measure, too, would save money by doing away with the death
penalty and keeping currently condemned inmates imprisoned for life with no
chance of parole.
They submitted about 601,000 signatures on April 28 with much less fanfare,
said deputy campaign manager Quintin Mecke. Each side needs nearly 366,000
valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.
"It's unfortunate that the DAs (district attorneys) want to double down on a
fundamentally broken death penalty system that simply can't be fixed," Mecke
said. "You can't streamline or reform a failed policy."
A similar attempt to abolish the death penalty failed by 4 % points in 2012.
Besides the latest initiative put forward by opponents, that failed effort
spurred this year's counter-move by law enforcement and crime victims.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Ballot measure seeks to speed up executions in California
The measure, which organizers hope will qualify for November ballot, would also
enact other reforms. Supporters plan Thursday news conference in Riverside.
The Inland district attorneys, Mike Hestrin of Riverside County, left, and Mike
Ramos of San Bernardino County, are scheduled to speak on Thursday, May 29, in
support of an initiative that would streamline death row executions.
If you go
The organization Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings has
scheduled a news conference for 2:30 p.m. Thursday, May 19, at the Historic
Courthouse, 4050 Main St., Riverside.
Information: www.deathpenaltyreform.com
T10 years after the most recent execution of a death row inmate in California,
an organization plans to submit signatures Thursday, May 19, to place a measure
on the state's November ballot that, if approved by voters, would speed the
demise of the condemned.
Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings say the initiative - the
Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 - also would provide protections
for inmates as well as justice for survivors and save the state millions of
dollars in prison-housing costs.
The organization plans to submit 585,000 signatures. California requires
365,880 valid signatures to place a measure on the ballot, said Rachel Smith, a
spokeswoman for the group.
News conferences are scheduled around the state Thursday, including one at 2:30
p.m. at the Historic Courthouse in Riverside with scheduled appearances by
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and San Bernardino County
District Attorney Mike Ramos.
Riverside resident and former NFL player Kermit Alexander also is scheduled to
appear, a news release said. Alexander's mother, sister and 2 nephews were
killed in 1984 by a gang member who went to the wrong house while carrying out
a murder for hire; the shooter, Tiequon Cox, remains on death row.
The Death Penalty Reform organization's website links to a statement by Ramos
in support of the initiative that appears on the website of news aggregator
Flashreport.org.
"To protect public safety, bring justice to the worst criminals and closure for
the families whose loved ones were taken from them, California's death penalty
must be reformed so that it can actually be used," Ramos wrote.
The initiative would:
-- require special death penalty counsel to be appointed sooner to stop legal
delays,
-- require death row inmates to work while awaiting appeals and pay
restitution to their victims' families,
-- allow death row inmates to be housed in double cells in any
maximum-security prison instead of a single cell at San Quentin, and
-- replace the current, three-drug lethal injection cocktail with a
single-drug protocol that was approved for physician-assisted suicide in
California.
There are 747 inmates on death row, according to the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation. Those include 124 who were tried in Riverside
or San Bernardino counties.
Inland victims of current death row inmates include Riverside police officers
Ryan Bonaminio, Dennis Doty, Phillip Trust and Doug Jacobs.
(source: The Press-Enterprise)
********************
California considers making its own lethal drugs for the death penalty
Under new rules proposed by the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, prison officials would be allowed to manufacture barbituates to
carry out the death penalty at its own compounding pharmacies, immunizing
prison officials from the growing problem of pharmaceutical companies refusing
to sell lethal drugs for the purpose of killing the condemned.
Last week, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced it would no longer allow
states to buy its drugs to put people to death. Pfizer's decision won't affect
California because it does not manufacture the 4 drugs prison officials propose
to use in the new regime now under consideration.
The plan would allow prison authorities to use 1 of 4 barbiturates for lethal
injection: amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital and thiopental.
Amid court challenges to lethal injection and a shortage of drugs, the state
hasn't executed anyone in more than a decade.
CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton declined to comment on Pfizer's decision - nor
that of other companies now refusing to sell the barbituates California would
need. But she pointed out language in the current proposal that lays out the
department's options, which include sidestepping the big drug companies
altogether.
"California law requires that state resources be utilized when available before
contracting with private sources for good or services is permitted. CDCR has
compounding pharmacies," the proposal states. It goes on to say if the
department cannot compound the chemical, it is "permitted to contract with a
private non-state compound pharmacy."
Unlike regular pharmacies that sell major label drugs, compounding pharmacies
manufacture their own drugs, often in doses designed for individual patients.
The state prison system indeed has its own pharmacies that are licensed to
produce "sterile and injectable drugs," said Megan McCracken, a law professor
at the death penalty clinic at the Berkeley School of Law. That would include
the barbituates California wants to use.
But prison officials have been vague about how that would work and whether they
would also use private compounding pharmacies, said McCracken. While such
pharmacies are less regulated than big drug companies, they must follow certain
guidelines.
They are prohibited from simply copying barbituates and other drugs already on
the market, she said. They also require the pre-existence of a doctor patient
relationship, a patient with a particularized need, and a prescription for the
specific compound from the doctor.
"Do doctors want to write these prescriptions that are putting their patients
to death?" asked McCracken, who does not take a position on the death penalty.
Texas, Georgia and Missouri already use a one drug procedure by injecting
compounded pentobarbital. It's unclear if they make it at prison pharmacies or
use private companies, said McCracken, because states are increasingly
secretive about how they are getting their lethal injection drugs.
Another concern with compounded drugs is their quality.
"There is a higher risk the dose will be wrong," said Anna Zamora of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which opposes the death
penalty. "At the end of the day, my biggest concern is botched executions in
California."
Supporters of the death penalty are equally frustrated with drugs companies
refusing to sell the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections, and support
the state's effort to get the drugs in other ways.
"This is an ongoing debate across America and I don't want to argue with the
companies over whether its proper," said San Bernardino District Attorney Mike
Ramos. "It's their company."
"The biggest frustration for me is the victim. They deserve justice," said
Ramos, who chairs the campaign for a November ballot initiative designed to
speed executions in California.
A 2nd initiative expected to appear on the ballot would eliminate the death
penalty in California.
In the meantime, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation continues to
take public comment on its proposed regulations through July 11. By law, the
department must consider and respond to each comment. Prison officials could
chose to change the proposed regulations based on the comments.
(source: scpr.org)
****************
How Death Penalty Initiatives Seek To Solve A Broken System
California voters will likely decide in November whether to abolish the death
penalty or to streamline the process. Proponents for 2 competing ballot
initiatives met for a hearing at the Capitol Tuesday.
They argued whether the death penalty is moral, necessary, or just, but also if
the state's current broken system can be fixed.
California spends upwards of $150 million a year on the death penalty and has
hundreds of death row inmates, but hasn't executed anyone in more than a
decade.
"We're just spending a lot of money and not getting justice for it," says
defense attorney and Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen.
Uelman testified in favor of a ballot measure to abolish capital punishment.
8 years ago, he helped come up with a different solution. Uelman led a
state-appointed commission of prosecutors, defenders, police, and victim
advocates that made a unanimous recommendation about how to make the death
penalty process work.
"If we really want to fix the system, we need to spend the money to have a
cadre of professional lawyers who are doing nothing but death penalty cases,"
Uelman says.
The commission estimated it would cost the state $100 million a year to hire
enough public defenders and other attorneys.
Uelmen says the other initiative headed to the November ballot does not solve
that problem. The measure seeks to jumpstart the death penalty, largely by
hastening an appeals process that currently can drag on for decades.
Contra Costa County District Attorney Mark Peterson says death penalty
supporters have also found a workaround for adding more attorneys, one that
doesn't increase state spending.
"Death penalty cases aren't as complicated as some might think," Peterson says.
"They're murder of a police officer. Is that particularly complicated? No."
The measure would allow trial courts to appoint attorneys who don't specialize
in capital punishment, but who handle other serious crimes.
Peterson says the initiative was drafted to follow other recommendations in the
2008 report--although increasing spending on attorneys was the only one that
received unanimous agreement.
Proponents plan to submit enough voter signatures to qualify the pro-death
penalty measure for the ballot on Thursday.
The measure to abolish the death penalty has already submitted signatures.
(source: capradio.org)
USA:
Why Protecting the Innocent From a Death Sentence Isn't Enough
I've always been known as a tough-on-crime, pro-law enforcement individual, and
I still am. During my years as a North Carolina State Senator, I vigorously
advocated for the death penalty. As a superior court judge, I presided over
trials where the death penalty seemed like the only suitable punishment for the
heinous crimes that had been committed. Finally, as a Justice, and then as
Chief Justice, on the Supreme Court of North Carolina, I cast my vote at
appropriate times to uphold that harsh and most final sentence.
After decades of experience with the law, I have seen too much, and what I have
seen has impacted my perspective. First, my faith in the criminal justice
system, which had always been so steady, was shaken by the revelation that in
some cases innocent men and women were being convicted of serious crimes. The
increased availability of DNA testing in the early 2000s highlighted this
problem so clearly to me. I spent the next decade working with others to devise
systems and develop task forces dedicated to the prevention of wrongful
convictions in North Carolina. I take, I believe, justifiable pride in the fact
that North Carolina established the 1st state Innocence Inquiry Commission in
the country. Numerous legal experts publicly acknowledge that the safeguards
that have been implemented in North Carolina are wildly successful. However, 1
thing we did not adequately address is that individuals with intellectual
disabilities, mental illness, and other impairments are more likely to be
wrongfully convicted. The case of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown makes that
point vividly clear. McCollum was 19 and Brown was 15 when they confessed to
the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intellectually
disabled, which greatly increased their susceptibility to false confession. As
a result, they spent 31 years in prison, including time on death row, for a
crime they didn't commit.
The death penalty is not and should not be available as a punishment for all
homicides. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Court found that under the Eighth
Amendment, capital punishment "must be limited to those offenders ... whose
extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution." Both the crime
itself, and the offender, must be deemed the so-called "worst of the worst."
The Court has categorically barred persons with intellectual disability and
juveniles from execution because they have diminished culpability, and
defendants are also allowed to introduce mitigating evidence to demonstrate
impairments. However, I've seen how these safeguards can fail to adequately
protect individuals with significant impairments.
Last year in America, over 1/2 of the individuals that were executed had severe
mental impairments. Too much reliance is put on jurors to identify those who
are the "worst of the worst." As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North
Carolina, I was responsible for assessing the personal culpability of
defendants in capital cases to ensure that the punishment would be applied
appropriately, so I understand just how difficult this task can be.
In order for mitigation evidence to be considered it must be collected and
introduced at trial. In states where indigent defense systems are woefully
underfunded, as it is in North Carolina, or where standards of representation
are inadequate, this evidence regularly goes undiscovered.
Additionally, a number of impairments are difficult to measure. For
intellectual disability, we can use an IQ score to approximate impairment, but
no similar numeric scale exists to determine just how mentally ill someone is,
or how brain trauma may have impacted their culpability. Finally, even when
evidence of diminished culpability exists, some jurors have trouble emotionally
separating the characteristic of the offender from the details of the crime.
The categorical exclusions for juveniles under the age of 18 and those with
intellectual disability are simply drawn too narrowly to encompass everyone who
has diminished culpability. These categorical exclusions are particularly
inadequate when multiple impairments exist. Take for instance the case of
Lamondre Tucker, whose case will be conferenced by the Supreme Court this week.
Tucker was convicted of murdering his pregnant girlfriend in Caddo Parish,
Louisiana. He was just 18 years old at the time of the offense, and was
repeating his senior year of high school. He has an IQ score of 74. Taken
together, these factors indicate that he is most likely just as impaired as
those individuals that the Court has determined it is unconstitutional to
execute. Yet, because of a variety of systemic factors, including ineffective
legal representation, Tucker sits on death row. 10 former State Supreme Court
justices signed an Amicus brief last month questioning the constitutionality of
Tucker's death sentence due to his impairments. Today I join my colleague's
call.
After spending years trying to instill confidence in the criminal justice
system, I've come to realize that there are certain adverse economic conditions
that have made the system fundamentally unfair for some defendants. These
systemic problems continue to lead to the conviction of the innocent, as well
as those individuals for whom the death penalty would be constitutionally
inappropriate, regardless of the crime. Our inability to determine who
possesses sufficient culpability to warrant a death sentence draws into
question whether the death penalty can ever be constitutional under the Eighth
Amendment. I have come to believe that it probably cannot.
(source: I. Beverly Lake, Jr. Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
North Carolina----Huffington Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 10:01:57 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 10:01:57 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191001480.8252@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
UNITED NATIONS:
UN's rights chief urges firms to follow Pfizer's lead on death penalty
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein praised Pfizer on
Thursday for banning sales of its chemicals that have been used for lethal
injections in some U.S. states, and urged other companies to follow its lead.
Zeid said Pfizer's stance was "heartening" but said there were other companies,
beyond the pharmaceutical industry, that could be facilitating the death
penalty. He also urged governments not to resort to "questionable sources" for
the drugs used in lethal injections.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
AUSTRALIA:
Let's not rest until the death penalty is a thing of the past around the world
In a sane world, shouldn't the right to life trump political expediency?
Apparently not: given the addiction of some countries to the death penalty, and
the possible re-introduction of capital punishment by some of our neighbours in
the region.
Issues around capital punishment reverberated throughout our community last
year, with the execution of Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, 2 Australians who
spent 10 years on death row in Kerobokan prison. The bipartisan position of the
Australian Parliament, as well as the pleadings of many in the international
community did little to persuade the Indonesian President to show mercy.
I remember all too well the conditions of death row from when I visited members
of the Bali Nine at Denpasar.
Having met with Myuran, Andrew and Scott Rush and some of their families I also
witnessed first-hand, what can only be described as a successful
rehabilitation: Myuran an accomplished Artist and Andrew a prison Counsellor
and religious Pastor.
If anything, this should have been seen as an example of the accomplishments of
Indonesia's correctional system - proof that people can turn their lives around
and make a positive contribution to society, even after going down such a dark
path. Instead, it resulted in two funerals, no social benefit and two deeply
grieving families, innocent of any wrongdoing.
Together with Phillip Ruddock, I have been the convenor of Australian
Parliamentarians Against the Death Penalty and sought to publicly advocate for
the right to life and arguing that capital punishment is not the answer. Most
credible criminal justice research shows that the death penalty does not deter
crime.
Partly due to the diplomatic fall out following the 2015 executions, which
included the execution of a Brazilian man with mental health issues, the
Indonesian Government placed a moratorium on further executions. But it didn't
last long.
"It is clear that we have a long way to go with our efforts to preserve the
right to life. As Parliamentarians and community leaders, I believe we have a
moral and legal obligation to advance the cause of global abolition of this
cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment."
Indonesian Attorney-General H.M Prasetyo has recently confirmed that executions
will resume in the near future. The government has already moved 3 prisoners,
to Nusakambangan Island, better known as 'Death Island,' a facility reserved
for executions by firing squad. According to Amnesty International, around
10-15 people are being considered for the next round of executions which
include both Indonesian and foreign nationals.
Astonishingly, Yusman Telaumbanua, currently on death row in Indonesia for a
crime he committed when he was 16, was sentenced to death as a child, not at
the request of the prosecution but of his own lawyer. This in itself would have
set the alarm bells ringing for any reasonable person let alone members of the
Judiciary.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions
clarified in his 2012 report that the death penalty "may only be imposed for
crimes that involve intentional killing." This effectively limited its
application to premeditated murder and certainly not crimes of passion. Clearly
these views are being ignored in favour of domestic political posturing.
The Philippines, largely a Catholic country, abolished capital punishment in
2006. But for rank popularism, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte indicated he
will re-introduce the death penalty. During his election campaign, Duterte
issued a series of inflammatory statements that contravenes the Philippines???
international human rights obligations, including his promise to reduce crime
rates by shooting suspected criminals.
He also says he would 'execute 100,000 criminals and dump them into Manila
Bay.' It is worrying to see in such an emerging nation that political leaders
are still looking for the future in the rear view mirror. Re-introducing such
barbaric and archaic measures when there is clearly no evidence to prove that
the death penalty reduces crime shows little vision in a civilised world.
Although the trend is clear as 140 nations have now abolished the death
penalty, 5 countries including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the United
States account for the majority of executions. While China keeps its numbers
secret, according to Amnesty International, it suggests the figure is in excess
of 2,000 people. Nevertheless, 2015 saw the highest number of executions
worldwide since 1989.
The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade presented a
report to the Australian Parliament this month entitled 'A world without the
death penalty: Australia's advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty. I
gave evidence to the committee regarding the importance of active participation
in this debate and not being bashful when asserting values held dear by
Australians, particularly when engaging foreign governments. The report makes a
number of important recommendations including that Australia should allocate
additional resources in assisting efforts of the world wide abolition of the
death penalty.
It is clear that we have a long way to go with our efforts to preserve the
right to life. As Parliamentarians and community leaders, I believe we have a
moral and legal obligation to advance the cause of global abolition of this
cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment.
I think the former Chief Judge of the South African Constitution Court, Ismail
Mohammed, expressed it best when he said, "The death penalty sanctions the
deliberate annihilation of life ... it is the last, the most devastating and
the most irreversible recourse of the criminal law, involving," as it
necessarily does, "the planned and calculated termination of life itself; the
destruction of the greatest and most precious gift which is bestowed on all
humankind."
(source: Commentary; Chris Hayes is the Labor MP for Fowler----sbs.com.au)
INDONESIA:
New hope emerges for Indonesia death row inmates----Government official says
probation scheme could see sentence commuted if enough remorse is shown
The death penalty in Indonesia will not be abolished but condemned inmates
could avoid the firing squad if they show enough remorse for their crimes while
awaiting execution, a government official said May 18.
The government is to propose handing death row inmates a 10-year probationary
period, according to Enny Nurbaningsih, an official of the ministry of law and
human rights.
"It is hoped they will show enough remorse so that their sentence can be
reduced to life imprisonment," she told a May 18 seminar in Jakarta titled:
"Death Penalty in a Democratic Nation."
"The emphasis is that the death penalty is only the last resort," she said.
Indonesian pro-life groups in cooperation with the Catholic bishops' conference
and the Catholic University of Atma Jaya organized the seminar in which many
speakers called for the abolition of the death penalty.
According to Asas Tigor Nainggolan, coordinator of the pro-life groups, the
government was preparing to execute 14 death row inmates by firing squad this
year, although the dates of the executions and the names of those to be
executed had yet to be confirmed.
Last year at least 14 people, many of them foreigners, were executed. Most were
condemned to death for drug trafficking in line with a policy laid down by
Indonesian President Joko Widodo to execute all drug traffickers.
2 people who escaped execution last year were French national Sergei Areski
Atlaoui and Mary Jane Veloso of the Philippines. They were reprieved, as they
had to undergo legal processes in their respective countries.
Some at the seminar saw the possible government proposal to lay down a 10-year
probation period as a positive step, but many called for the complete abolition
of the death penalty, calling capital punishment a product of an imperfect and
unjust legal system.
Laws are not perfect and judges can make mistakes, Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo
of Jakarta, told participants.
"Don't be too confident. When you think that laws are perfect, that is the
beginning of injustice," the archbishop said.
"Trials can be misleading," added the president of the Indonesian bishops'
conference.
Jesuit Father Franz Magnis Suseno, a philosophy professor at Jakarta's
Dryarkara School of Philosophy, said the death penalty should be abolished
because it is an instinct for revenge.
The problem is that once it is done it is irrevocable. "We have to realize that
judges can make mistakes, too," the German-born priest said.
According to Father Suseno, death penalty has not proven to have a deterrent
effect.
(source: ucanews.com)
****************
Death row grandmother Lindsay Sandiford sends letter thanking her supporters as
she faces death by firing squad in Indonesia
A British grandmother facing execution in Indonesia has sent a letter thanking
her supporters amid fears she could be killed by firing squad within weeks.
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.
Today, Miss Sandiford released a letter which was posted on Twitter by her
friend Denise Stepo, also known as Dee, where she said she was overwhelmed by
the support she has received.
The letter reads: 'Dear friends and supporter, this week has been a good week.
I am delighted to see my good friend Dee.
'Was lovely to have her here albeit the time has been short.
'I also wanted to thank you for your messages of love and support.
'I am overwhelmed with your kindness. I want to say a massive thank you to all
my Indonesian friends and supporters I am amazed by your caring. This has
really touched me.
'Please feel hugged, much respect, Lindsay.'
Ms Stepo posted an image of the letter on Twitter with the caption: 'Message
from Lindsay to her many supporters... time to abolish #deathpenalty globally.'
The letter comes weeks after it was feared that her death could be imminent as
Indonesia is in the final stages of preparing for a new wave of executions on
its infamous Nusa Kambangan island.
President Joko Widodo had said last year he would not authorise any more
executions pending efforts to revive the economy, which was growing at its
slowest pace in 6 years.
However, last week, Indonesian attorney general suggested a resumption of
executions was possible.
. (source: dailymail.co.uk)
*****************
Executions in Indonesia may be delayed until after Ramadan
Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Prasetyo has flagged the latest round of
executions in the country may be delayed until after the Islamic fasting month
of Ramadan.
The nation has been on tenterhooks over the timing of the executions, with
various officials indicating they could be held within days.
Mr Prasetyo had earlier said the preparations had all been made and it was
merely a matter of choosing the day.
The firing squads had been prepared, spiritual counsellors appointed and
prisoners on death row transferred to Nusakambangan, known as Indonesia's
Alcatraz, where the executions will take place.
But when asked on Wednesday night if he would wait until after the fasting
month was over, Mr Prasetyo said: "Well, maybe. Well, executing (during)
fasting (month) is not good, is it? And on the 25th there is still (someone)
who will lodge a judicial review."
Mr Prasetyo has previously indicated he would like to see drug kingpin Freddy
Budiman, who will appear in court on Wednesday, included in the third wave of
executions.
Freddy was sentenced to death in 2013 for importing ecstasy after police seized
1.4 million pills.
However he infuriated authorities by continuing to run a drug syndicate
spanning 3 countries - Netherlands, Pakistan and Indonesia - behind bars.
The numbers to be executed have fluctuated, with Central Java police spokesman
Alloysius Liliek Darmanto most recently indicating 15 drug offenders would be
killed.
He even suggested the nationalities to local reporters - Indonesians, Chinese,
a Pakistani, Nigerians, Senegalese and a Zimbabwean - although he was later
slapped down by Mr Prasetyo, who said the final decision was his and it hadn't
been made.
On Wednesday night, Mr Prasetyo again said there was no fixed date and the
number of people had not been decided either.
"We'll just wait until the last moment because again we want to better prepare
and be more successful in the implementation," he said.
Amnesty International recently said some of the death row prisoners at risk of
being executed did not receive a fair trial and their cases were emblematic of
systemic flaws within the Indonesian justice system.
"President (Joko) Widodo has the chance to show true resolve by halting these
executions and ordering a full independent review of all death penalty cases,"
said Rafendi Djamin, director of Amnesty International's South-East Asia and
Pacific Regional Office.
14 drug offenders were executed in Indonesia last year, including Australians
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
(source: smh.com.au)
SINGAPORE----impending execution
Convicted murderer Jabing Kho loses appeal against death sentence
Convicted murderer Jabing Kho has had his 2nd 11th-hour appeal against his
death sentence turned down on Thursday (May 19) afternoon. The 31-year-old
Sarawakian had his case dismissed by the Court of Appeal and an application for
a stay of execution has been filed by lawyer Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss.
The dismissal comes a day before he was reportedly due to face the hangman's
noose. It is unclear if he will be executed on Friday.
The appeal which was dismissed on Thursday was filed by Mr Gino Hardial Singh
of Prestige Legal on the basis that Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang had been
involved in 2 stages of Kho's case.
Mr Singh noted that Justice Phang heard Kho's 1st appeal in 2010 and again in
2013, in the prosecution's appeal against the offender being re-sentenced to
life imprisonment with the maximum 24 strokes of the cane.
"The apparent bias arises not from the mere fact that Justice Phang sat twice
but because the judges' perception of the accused's intention or recklessness
arising out of the factual issue of the number of physical blows dealt to the
victim was in issue in the conviction appeal and also in issue in the
re-sentencing appeal, so in effect, Justice Phang was sitting on an appeal
against his own decision on that issue," the lawyer said on Wednesday, when
contacted.
In dismissing the appeal on Thursday, the 5-man court dismissed the argument,
pointing out that the 1st hearing involved a challenge on the conviction while
the second involved a challenge on the new sentence Kho got. Kho was
re-sentenced because of changes to the mandatory death penalty regime, giving
judges the discretion to impose offenders in certain types of murder to life
imprisonment instead of death.
The judges noted that if not for the resentencing triggered by the legislative
changes, the same set of judges would have heard the case. Therefore, there was
no issue of apparent bias, as argued by Mr Singh.
Mr Singh, who is taking the case on a pro bono basis, said he was briefed by
Kho's sister, Jumai, on Tuesday morning and interviewed the offender at Changi
Prison the same afternoon to take his instructions. Various Malaysian media
outlets have reported that Kho's family had been informed that the execution
would be carried out on Friday.
Kho had carried out a fatal robbery with a fellow countryman in 2008 and was
sentenced to the mandatory death penalty. Together with Galing Anak Kujat, he
had attacked construction workers Cao Ruyin and Wu Jun near Geylang Drive while
trying to rob them. Kho struck Cao on the head with a tree branch so hard that
the victim sustained 14 fractures in his skull and died 6 days later.
His roller-coaster court bid began in 2011 when he failed in his appeal against
the sentence, only to be spared the hangman's noose 2 years later when
amendments to the mandatory death penalty regime kicked in. The change gave
judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane
instead in some murder cases. Justice Phang was among the 3 judges in this
appeal.
But the prosecution appealed against Kho's new sentence, arguing that he had
shown "scant regard for human life". In January last year, Kho was sentenced to
death again in a rare 3-2 split decision by the Court of Appeal, with Justice
Phang among those in the majority camp.
Kho's appeal for clemency was turned down in October.
But 24 hours before he was to hang in November 2015, his lawyer then, Mr
Chandra Mohan K Nair, secured a stay of execution by raising questions about
the evidence presented during the trial.
The appeal was dismissed, with Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin ruling that the
defence had produced very little new material, let alone compelling material,
that would justify the "exceptional recourse" of a review of the death sentence
handed down.
(source: todayonline.com)
**************
Singapore to execute Malaysian tomorrow: family
In a news conference late Tuesday, his sister Kho Jumai, 27, said the family
was told in a letter from the Singapore Prisons Service that her brother would
be executed on May 20.
Executions are normally carried out at Changi Prison before dawn on Fridays in
Singapore.
The prison did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for confirmation of
the execution date.
Only the Singapore president, on the advice of the cabinet, can grant clemency.
The president said last week that he will not grant clemency although the
family is pleading for a last minute reprieve."I've done everything I can, I've
sent letters all over the government, to anyone who would listen. Whether the
letters were really received, I don't know because I don't have much
education," said Kho's mother Lenduk Baling, speaking through an interpreter.
Malaysia also has capital punishment, executing murderers and drug traffickers
by hanging, a system like in Singapore that dates back to British colonial
rule.
Amnesty International Malaysia and Human Rights Watch have both released
statements calling on Singapore to halt the execution and review the case.
After Kho was sentenced to death in 2010, Singapore amended its mandatory death
penalty for murder, giving judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment
under certain circumstances.
His case was reviewed and Kho was re-sentenced to a life term in 2013.But after
an appeal by prosecutors, Kho's death sentence was reinstated in January 2015.
An appeal was thrown out by a 5-judge court last month, setting the stage for
Friday's hanging.Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and 3
for drug offences, according to Singapore prison officials.
Rights groups have called on Singapore to abolish capital punishment but the
government has rejected such calls, arguing death sentences are a deterrent to
crime.
(source: asiaone.com)
PAKISTAN:
Pakistan Supreme Court to Consider Case of Juvenile Facing Hanging
Judges will tomorrow consider the case of a prisoner who could be hanged at as
little as 3 days' notice, despite evidence that he was arrested as a child.
Muhammad Anwar was arrested when he was just 17 years old, and subsequently
sentenced to death on murder charges. Although his birth certificate shows that
he was a juvenile when arrested, he continues to be held under sentence of
death, in violation of both Pakistani and international law.
An execution warrant was issued for Anwar on 12 December last year, but the
process was stayed at the last minute by the courts to allow the issue of his
juvenility to be considered. His lawyers will tomorrow ask the Supreme Court to
ensure that Pakistan's Government complies with its legal obligations and
commutes his death sentence.
Anwar was sentenced to death in 1998, 5 years after his arrest, and has now
spent 23 years facing execution. In 2000, Pakistan introduced laws intended to
bring it into line with international law banning the use of the death penalty
against children. The country's President subsequently decreed in 2001 that
anyone facing the death penalty for offences committed when they were a child
should have their sentence commuted to life.
Anwar's family have since made a number of attempts to have his death sentence
commuted, in line with Pakistani law, but no final decision has been taken by
the authorities. They are now appealing to the Supreme Court in the hope that
it will correct this historic mistake and ensure Anwar's death sentence is
commuted.
The nature of Pakistan's death penalty system means that Anwar could face
execution with as little as 3 days' notice of receiving a 'black warrant,'
which could be handed down at any time.
Maya Foa, Director of the death penalty team at international human rights
organization Reprieve said: "Anwar and his family have spent years trying to
get someone to take a proper look at the evidence of his juvenility. The bottom
line is that he simply should not be facing execution under either Pakistani or
international law. However, he has been the victim of bureaucratic incompetence
by the Pakistani Government, and as a result his case has fallen between the
cracks. The Supreme Court now has the chance to correct this historic wrong and
commute his sentence."
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.
(source: commondreams.org)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 10:03:00 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 10:03:00 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191002480.8252@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
IRAN:
13 executions in a single day
Javad Larijani, the regime's head of human rights, acknowledges a "torrent of
executions" and justifies torture and brutal punishments under the pretense of
Qisas describing them as "holy verdicts".
The mullahs' antihuman regime hanged 13 prisoners on May 17 in the cities of
Yazd, Urmia and Mashhad. In Yazd and Urmia 12 prisoners were collectively
hanged. 1 prisoner had been condemned to death just for thievery.
Also in Mashhad, a young prisoner was publicly hanged. A placard posted at the
hanging site described the death penalty as an "element for the survival and
establishment of security in the society."
A day prior to these collective executions, Javad Larijani, the brother of the
head of the judiciary and the regime's theorist of torture and execution who is
the head of the so-called "human rights" institution, confirmed the "torrent of
executions related to narcotics." He expressed concern that the cruel
punishments of the mullahs' Sharia Law are being questioned, stating:
"Regretfully, today, the Qisas verdict which is a holy verdict ... is being
questioned ... the universality of the United Nations documents does not mean
that the Western lifestyle is the best model ... this is exactly where we
should strongly stand up." He then resorted to justifying torture, noting: Some
"believe that any corporal punishment is torture, whereas torture is to use
force to extract something." (State-run Aftab website, May 16)
On this same day, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, Tehran???s criminal prosecutor,
brazenly said: "Officials in Western countries always bring up allegations
relating to human rights ... against Iran that lack any basis in reality."
When the medieval regime acknowledges a "torrent of executions" and describes
atrocious and medieval punishments such as chopping of hands and gouging out of
eyes as "holy verdicts" and justifies torture, this shows that it cannot
sustain its rule for a single day without resorting to execution and
suppression. This is where all factions of the mullahs' regime are one and the
same, and any propaganda about a moderate faction is a despicable deception
that serves to justify trade with this regime. However, without paying any heed
to these absurd propaganda, the Iranian people demand nothing less than the
overthrow of this regime and the establishment of democracy in Iran.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
*****************
Anti-Death Penalty Activist Sentenced To 16 Years In Prison
Narges Mohammadi, human rights and anti-death penalty activist who is the vice
president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran was sentenced to 16
years in prison.
On 18 May 2015, Judge Abolghasem Salavati who heads the 15th division of Tehran
Islamic Revolutionary Court stretched the already long prison sentence of
Narges Mohammadi by sentencing her to 16 years in prison.
This new 16 year sentencing is in addition to all of Mohammadi's pervious
sentencings.
On the most recent of the charges that the Iranian state brought against
Mohammadi, she is now "convicted" of leading a right to life campaign which
aimed to end capital punishment in Iran.
Mohammadi, who is already serving numerous prison sentences on different
charges, inaugurated the "Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty" (Lagam in
Persian). She is also charged with "assembly and spreading propaganda against
the state" as well as "acting against the national security of Iran."
According to Taqi Rahmani - Mohammadi's husband who now lives in exile - of the
16 years, 10 years is on the account of Mohammadi's involvement with "Step by
Step to Stop the Death Penalty", 5 years for "assembly and spreading propaganda
against the state" and 1 year is for "acting against the national security of
Iran."
The trial of the most recent charged brought against Mohammadi started in 20
April 2016 and was rescheduled numerous times since its original date of 3 May
2015.
The "Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty" campaign which seems to be the
main reason Mohammadi is convicted this time, is now completely crumbled with
this sentencing.
Mohammadi's lawyer was present during the trial but the trial was closed to the
public and members of the press.
Her husband, Taqi Rahmani has been living with their children outside of Iran.
Rahmani on a number of occasions has told the media that Evin prison officials
have denied his wife the right to be in contact with her children regularly.
Mohammadi's Children have only had 1 single phone call during her time in
prison and Rahmani has never spoken to her wife since her arrest.
Mohammadi was first arrested in 1998 for her criticisms of the Iranian state
and spent a year in prison. In April 2010, she was summoned to the Islamic
Revolutionary Court for her membership in the Defenders of Human Rights Center
and sent to Evin prison.
Mohammadi's health declined while in custody and she developed epilepsy and
some form of muscular dystrophy. In July 2011, Mohammadi was prosecuted again
and found guilty of "acting against the national security of Iran, membership
of the Defenders of Human Rights Center and propaganda against the state". In
September 2011 she was sentenced to 11 years. In March 2012, the sentence was
upheld by an appeals court, but it was reduced to 6 years. On 26 April 2012,
she was arrested to begin her sentence.
(source: eurasiareview.com)
INDIA:
Death for hijackers; Centre notifies new anti-hijacking law ---- In new law,
definition has been expanded to include death of 'security personnel on board'
or 'ground support staff' as well.
Hijacking of an aircraft will attract capital punishment in the event of death
of "any person", as per the new anti-hijacking law notified by the Centre.
In other cases of hijacking, guilty will be punished with imprisonment for life
and fine, besides confiscation of movable and immovable property held by him or
her.
The new law mandates the Central government to confer powers of investigation,
arrest and prosecution on any officer of the Central government or National
Investigation Agency (NIA).
The Anti-Hijacking Act 2016 has received the assent of President Pranab
Mukherjee on Friday and it has been notified, according to a notification
issued on Monday.
A bill, to repeal 1982's Anti-Hijacking Act, in this regard was introduced in
Rajya Sabha by Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on December 17,
2014.
It was referred to a Parliamentary panel in December that year which gave its
report in March last year. The bill was passed on May 4, this year in the Upper
House, and on May 9 in Lok Sabha.
In the old Act, hijackers could be tried for death penalty only in the event of
death of hostages, such as flight crew, passengers and security personnel.
In the new law, the definition has been expanded to include death of "security
personnel on board" or "ground support staff" as well.
The 2016 Anti-Hijacking Act, which has come into effect after its notification,
includes several acts within the definition of hijacking including making a
threat, attempts or abetment to commit the offence. Those organises or directs
others to commit such offence will also be considered to have committed the
offence of hijacking.
India has witnessed 19 hijacking incidents. The new law has repealed the
Anti-Hijacking Act, 1982 with few conditions.
(source: Deccan Chronicle)
BELARUS:
3rd Belarusian Sentenced To Death Since January
A court in Belarus has sentenced a 3rd man to death since January.
Judges in the regional court in the southeastern city of Homel found
33-year-old Syarhey Vostrykau guilty on May 19 of kidnapping, raping, and
murdering 2 women in 2014 and 2015.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe practicing capital punishment.
3 convicts are currently on death row in Belarus. 2 of them were sentenced in
January and February this year, the 3rd one was sentenced last year.
On May 6, another man sentenced to death last year on murder charges was
reported executed.
The European Union and rights groups have urged Belarus to join a global
moratorium on the death penalty for years.
According to rights organizations, more than 400 people have been sentenced to
death in the ex-Soviet republic since the early 1990s.
(source: Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty)
ISRAEL:
Netanyahu agrees with Liberman on death penalty for terrorists in negotiations
Coalition negotiations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael
Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman were almost completed after Netanyahu agreed to
the condition of setting the death penalty for those who commit terror
activities.
Members from both parties exchanged a final draft of the agreement on Thursday
agreeing on the death penalty, however both have not agreed on the specific
conditions.
In a meeting that lasted less than an hour Wednesday afternoon, Liberman
accepted Netanyahu's offer of the defense and immigration and absorption
portfolios and support for key Yisrael Beytenu-sponsored legislation.
(source: Jerusalem Post)
PHILIPPINES:
Pacquiao on death penalty: It's in the Bible
Newly-proclaimed Senator-elect Emmanuel "Manny" Pacquiao made it to his first
press conference as Upper House legislator and said he is in favor of death
penalty.
Speaking to the media shortly after his proclamation Thursday at the PICC,
Pacquiao said that the capital punishment is actually based on the Bible.
Pacquiao also wanted to push for better education for Filipinos.
The world-renowned boxer first forayed into politics as a representative for
Sarangani. His stint as a legislator was hounded by his absences. In 2014, his
absences hit notorious levels after being only able to show up for work 4
times.
In his 1st term that spanned from 2010 to 2013, he only appeared in 98 times in
the Congress's 168 working days.
Pacquiao's best moment as a legislator came in a speech against human
trafficking. But that was swiftly negated when he was put under the spotlight
during a lengthy discussion of the Reproductive Health Bill.
Earlier this year, Pacquiao's chances in the senatorial race were believed to
dim after his scathing remarks that targeted the members of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) community - which also drew flak on social
media.
But even after the comments, Pacquiao still managed to secure 16,050,546 votes,
propelling him to 7th place in the "Magic 12" candidates who made the cut.
Pacquiao ranked ahead of tested politicians former Sen. Francis Pangilinan,
former Rep. Risa Hontiveros and former Sen. Ralph Recto.
Asked if his absences will continue to plague his career as a politician,
Pacquiao noted that he won't make any promises.
(source: Philippine Star)
MALAWI:
Albino killers must be executed, Malawi MPs say
Albino killers are vicious murderers who must be executed to prevent them from
murdering again, some Malawian lawmakers have proposed.
"It is time for tit-for-tat, an eye for an eye, and a life for a life. Let's
join hands and end the senseless murderers by hanging all albino killers," a
lawmaker told a National Stakeholders Conference held in the Malawi capital,
Lilongwe, on Tuesday.
Civil society organisations convened the conference to brainstorm strategies
aimed at ending the abductions and killings of people with albinism in Malawi.
A lawmaker from the opposition Malawi Congress Party, Madalitso Kazombo, said a
group of concerned legislators would table a proposal in Parliament to
strengthen the Penal Code so that albino killers were sentenced to death
"instead of merely jailing them".
"He who kills should be killed. The correct punishment for albino killers is
death. We should not even debate about this. Anti-death penalty activists
should shut up on this matter," he said.
Another legislator who backed the proposal, Richard Chimwendo, told the
conference that the lenient sentences meted out to albino killers could not
stop the problem, hence the need to impose the ultimate punishment of death.
Magicians and superstitious customers
"We need to appreciate that, both as a deterrent and as a form of permanent
incapacitation, the death penalty successfully prevents future crime. If they
are hanged, would-be murderers will think twice before killing, for fear of
losing their own life," he said.
Chimwendo also said that those already convicted, and who were given light jail
terms, should be re-sentenced.
According to the parliamentarian, the war against albino killings could only be
won by taking the battle to the doorsteps of three key players in their
syndicates: the ruthless thugs, the deceitful magicians, and the superstitious
customers.
"It is a pity that, so far, the thugs who kill albinos and the magicians who
use albino parts are the ones who are being netted and jailed, while the
customers who are the financiers are walking scot free," he observed.
The debate on the death penalty remains thorny in Malawi, as convicted
murderers are never executed. Their sentences are simply commuted to life
imprisonment.
Meanwhile, a man living with albinism, Joe Fernando, has complained that the
police were failing to offer them protection.
"The police are offering us zero protection," he said. "It is painful to hear
the government has deployed troops to be guarding cedar trees in a forest
reserve instead of offering us protection."
Shocked
Fernando recounted a recent incident when four people stormed into his business
premise on the outskirts of Lilongwe and abused him verbally and threatened to
abduct him."
"I telephoned the police for intervention. I was shocked when all the officers
on duty told me was that they had no transport," he said.
Fernando said, following that incident, he took the initiative to bolster his
own security by ensuring that he was accompanied by his close friend whenever
he travelled.
The Association of People with Albinism in Malawi's general secretary, Alex
Machila, told News24 in an interview that, with 17 albinos already killed and
abductions continuing, the country needed to declare a "national crisis".
"So far, 71 cases have been recorded for abductions, trespassing of graveyards,
being found with human bones, suicide, assault of bodily harm, conduct likely
to cause breach of peace, and killings of people with albinism. Is that a
crisis?" quizzed Machila.
Traditional healers and soothsayers
Considering that the atrocities were committed against a minority population of
10 000 in a nation of 17 million, Machila argued that the best the government
could do was to declare the situation as "a state of crisis" for persons living
with albinism.
A United Nations human rights expert recently described people living with
albinism in Malawi as "an endangered group facing a risk of systemic extinction
over time if nothing is done".
"Persons with albinism, and parents of children with albinism, constantly live
in fear of attack," said Ikponwosa Ero, the UN's Independent Expert.
Malawi and its neighbour Tanzania were battling against albino killings.
While 17 albinos had been killed, the number of those murdered in Tanzania was
around 80.
As part of a strategy to contain the problem, police in Tanzania had so far
arrested 225 unlicensed traditional healers and soothsayers.
(source: news24.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 14:20:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 14:20:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, NEB., KAN.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191420370.5440@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
TEXAS----book review
"The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City"
It is not often that I find a book about Brownsville included on a list of
books being talked about as the most anticipated titles being released by the
major New York publishing houses.
So I was surprised and interested when I found, "The Long Shadow of Small
Ghosts' by Laura Tillman listed among those books being talked about at Winter
Institute and included in an anthology of early releases which I receive as a
bookseller.
On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho brutally
murdered their 3 young children. The apartment building where this horrific
crime took place was already run-down, and in the years following the murders,
a consensus developed in the community that the building should be destroyed.
It was a place, some felt, that was haunted and spiritually bereft.
In 2008, Tillman commenced her successful journalism career with a stint at The
Brownsville Herald. New to the valley, moving here from Connecticut, Tillman
started by covering local interest stories and was assigned to cover a debate
over what should happen to this building, a debate which continues to this day.
What started as a special interest feature became a 6-year inquiry into the
toll of this crime on the city of Brownsville as well as the larger
significance of such acts, ones so difficult to explain that their perpetrators
are often written off as monsters.
Tillman over a period of years has researched the case file, interviewed the
friends, neighbors and family surrounding the crime, talked with those involved
in prosecuting and defending Camacho and Rubio.
While ambivalent about the value to her investigation Tillman also contacted
John Allen Rubio himself, and corresponded with him for years and ultimately
met him on death row where he currently resides.
Her correspondence and meetings with Rubio are at once heartbreaking and
disturbing, and Tillman's explanation of her own feelings as she engages with
him deepens the narrative rather than distracts. How does one reconcile the
image of a monster, capable of such inhumane and grotesque actions with the man
who claims to have loved his children beyond all else, and who could be any of
thousands of young men who have been left behind after suffering from neglect
or abuse?
As mass shootings or other horrific acts of violence become more frequently
reported in our daily lives the questions of how those closest to these events
are affected becomes more widespread. Can a building itself be evil?
What affect does it have to be continually reminded of some indescribable
violence by the mere presence of the building where it occurred? Tillman
questions our complicity in cases where mental illness, poverty, drug use, and
despair go unaddressed and ultimately lead to some unbearable or indescribable
act of horror. How does a community where an awful crime has been committed
work toward healing after the cameras have been packed up and the reporters'
notepads put away?
How much compassion does a mentally ill person who has murdered deserve?
"The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts" is a brilliant exploration of some of our
age's most important social issues, from poverty to mental illness to the death
penalty, and a beautiful, profound meditation on the truly human forces that
drive them. It is disturbing, insightful, and mesmerizing in equal measure.
"The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts" by Laura Tillman
Scribner, 256 pages, ISBN 9781501104251
(source: Valley Morning Star)
OHIO:
Jury to Consider If Ohioan Should Be Executed for Killing 3
A jury in Cleveland is expected to hear final arguments Thursday and could
begin deciding whether to recommend that a man be sentenced to death for
killing 3 women and wrapping their bodies in garbage bags.
Prosecutors told jurors on Wednesday that 38-year-old Michael Madison deserves
execution because of the circumstances surrounding the killings.
Defense attorneys argue Madison's life should be spared because of
psychological damage caused by child abuse.
The jury convicted Madison of aggravated murder earlier this month for killing
38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley and 18-year-old
Shirellda Terry. Their bodies were found near Madison's East Cleveland
apartment in 2013.
If the jury recommends the death penalty, a judge will decide if Madison should
die by lethal injection or spend the rest of his life in prison.
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
Former Death Row Inmate Dies in Prison
A man who was adopted by a central Nebraska family and was nearly executed for
murder has died in prison.
Randolph Reeves, 60, died at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
He was serving a life sentence for 2 murders committed in 1980 at a meeting
house of the Quaker religious community.
Reeves, who was Native American, was raised by a Quaker family from Central
City who adopted him.
He was sentenced to death, but courts later overturned his sentence. He was
scheduled to be executed in 1999.
Some of the family members of the 2 murdered victims had argued against the
death penalty. Quakers oppose the death penalty.
When Reeves appeared to be headed to the electric chair, Quaker leaders said in
a press release about "the extraordinary level of forgiveness by the families
of both victims."
While cause of death has not been determined, initial reports indicate natural
causes. As is the case whenever an inmate dies in the custody of the Department
of Correctional Services, a grand jury will conduct an investigation.
(source: nebraska.tv)
KANSAS:
Death penalty fills courtroom with emotion
While victims' families wept, Kyle Trevor Flack smiled and giggled.
The 30-year-old Ottawa man was sentenced to death by a Franklin County district
judge Wednesday morning in Franklin County District Court, 301 S. Main St.,
Ottawa, almost exactly 3 years after the bodies of a mother, her 18-month-old
daughter and 2 men were discovered May 2013 at a farmstead west of Ottawa.
In the eastern courtroom, District Judge Eric Godderz said Flack committed the
crimes without justification in a cowardly, senseless fashion.
"The 1 thing though, Mr. Flack, is that no one will forget what harm you have
done," Godderz said addressing Flack. "You'll never get another chance to do it
again."
The victims' families - filling the seats on the right side of the room -
clapped. Flack, clad in an orange jumpsuit with his wrists handcuffed, smiled
as he swayed back and forth in his chair.
"The court believes he knew the difference between right and wrong," Godderz
said. "He knew what he was doing. He could've done something different, but he
didn't."
The judge's sentencing comes after the jury's recommendation March 31 of the
death penalty for the 2013 capital murder of Kaylie Bailey, 21, and her
18-month-old daughter, Lana, for which Flack was convicted March 23.
Flack also was found guilty of 2nd degree murder for the killing of Andrew
Stout, 30; 1st degree murder for the killing of Steven White, 31; and criminal
possession of a firearm.
Godderz also sentenced Flack to 267 months (about 22 years) on the 2nd degree
murder charge; and to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25
years in the 1st degree count and to 9 months for criminal possession of a
firearm.
Flack's sentences will run consecutively, served at the El Dorado Correctional
Facility. His case will automatically be reviewed by the Kansas Supreme Court.
Victims' family members - all weeping and some trembling - stepped up to the
podium or submitted letters to tell Flack and the judge the thoughts they have
been carrying for the last 3 years.
Jackson Anderson, the older brother of Andrew Stout, submitted a letter for
Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting to read in his absence.
"I can count on one hand how many I can trust and my brother was one of them,"
Jackson said. "Not just my best friend, the one guy I could count on for
anything. Like all siblings we all argue, but the best thing about us was
everything was over at midnight no matter what."
Karon Anderson, Andrew Stout's mother, whose letter also was read, said she has
become more cautious of meeting new people since Flack "abused and tortured"
her son. She said a piece of her heart is gone.
"Yes, he was 30, but he will always by my baby," she said. "I wonder what
really happened but we'll probably never know. That is a torture in itself. I
lay awake a lot of nights and tears just roll down my face and there is an
emptiness in my heart that hurts constantly. My heart feels like it wrenches
and sometimes I can't breathe...I wish I could hear his voice one last time and
to see his smile."
Neil Stout, Andrew Stout's father, said to the judge he couldn't understand how
somebody could kill his son.
"I really don't know what to say other than I lost my best friend," he said. "I
don't understand how something like this happens. I hope nobody ever has to go
through. He tried to help anybody he could. He was a good person."
Randi White, Steven White's wife, said the last 3 years in court have taken a
toll on friends and family. She read letters from her children, Austin and
Ashlynn, who were just 3 and 6 respectively when they lost their father.
"My son could have 3 or 4 nightmares a night, nightmares where he screams out
for his daddy," she said. "His daddy should be able to protect him from these
dreams, but he's gone."
Ashlynn wrote she felt a pain that she had never felt before when she found out
he died. Austin wrote he felt sadness deep in his heart.
"In 3 days, it will be 3 years since we buried my husband and we're just now
being able to heal," she said.
Carla Fisher, Steven White's mother, said there is not a day that goes by that
she doesn't think of her son. She said she has trouble sleeping at night.
"I just lay awake wondering why this could happen," she said. "My son wasn't
perfect, but he didn't deserve to die the way he died."
Shawn Bailey, Lana Bailey's father and Kaylie Bailey's former husband, said he
cannot forgive Flack for killing his loved ones and stealing future memories
with them. He said Flack is a "baby killer."
"You stole from me future memories," he said. "I will never have my little girl
run into my arms, give me a hug and tell me she loves her daddy. I will never
get to play dress up with Lana or see her start school. Never get to scare the
boys trying to date her or see her walk across the graduation stage. And never
hear her laugh again or hold her while she naps. Never will I be able to
apologize to my wife for not being good enough."
James Smith, Kailey Bailey's father, who did not wish to be part of court
proceedings, expressed thoughts in a letter dated October 2013.
"What would I want done? What type of punishment would I see fit?" he said.
"Would rather not see a punishment. I would rather not need to write this
letter. I'd like them to be alive sitting here with me."
Rachel Helms Bailey, Lana Bailey's grandmother, said she has tried to write her
thoughts down, but evilness has destroyed her.
"I laugh no more, I smile no more," she said. "When he took that baby and did
... the things he did, my heart's gone. It's gone."
And finally, Lisa Smith, Kaylie Bailey's mother, spoke about her youngest
daughter and only grandchild.
"They were beautiful, they were precious, they were adored," she said, pausing.
"They were mine. They are dead."
"...Every morning entire families part ways for the day and nobody knows that
it will be the last time they ever see each other. But on May 1, 2013, someone
knew. Someone knew that Kaylie and Lane had left home and left me for the last
time."
After the prosecution's arguments for each sentence, Flack declined to speak
when Godderz gave him the opportunity. At one point, he laughed.
Tammy McCoy, Flack's mother, sat in the row of chairs directly behind her son.
"I'm not going to talk to nobody, honey," McCoy said after the hearing.
Jurors' agreement followed a nearly 3-week jury trial that began March 7 and
delved into the events that led to the discovery of 3 adult bodies at a rural
Ottawa home at 3197 Georgia Road in May 2013. The body of the 4th victim, Lana
Bailey, was found days later tucked in a suitcase in an Osage County creek.
During the penalty phase of the trial, Flack's defense team presented 3 days of
testimony on mitigating factors - such as testimony about his unstable
upbringing and extensive mental health history - in an effort to win a life
sentence rather than the death penalty.
If the prosecution had not sought the death penalty on the capital murder
charge in the killings of the Baileys, life imprisonment would have been the
presumed sentence by law, the defense said previously.
The prosecution's threefold grounds for the death penalty included Flack's 2005
conviction in a previous violent crime, knowingly or purposely killing the
Baileys, and killing Kaylie Bailey in a "wicked, shockingly evil and vile
manner." Jurors agreed 2 of 3 aggravating factors - killing mother and child
and killing heinously - outweighed Flack's broken past.
Godderz denied the defense team's motions for judgment and a new trial. 12
errors cited in their motion could become basis for appeal.
Prosecutors - Hunting and Victor Braden, deputy Kansas attorney general -
delivered a statement at Ottawa's courthouse steps Wednesday.
Hunting thanked his office, the Kansas Attorney General's office, the Major
Case Squad, all law enforcement who assisted, families for patience and
community support. Hunting said the prosecution's side has cost the county
hundreds of thousands of dollars for investigation, court proceedings and
litigation.
"As I've said before, whether we had chosen to do death penalty pursuit or just
life without the possibility of parole pursuit, either one was going to be
enormously expensive due to the nature of the case and the complexity of the
case," Hunting said.
Hunting said the case is the worst in Franklin County history. Braden said the
case is one of the most complex in Kansas.
(source: Ottawa Herald)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 19 14:22:14 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 19 May 2016 14:22:14 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605191422030.5440@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 19
ISRAEL:
Death penalty for terrorists deal infuriates former AG----Former Attorney
General Yehuda Weinstein says capital punishment 'not ethical,' calls on
current AG to threaten to resign in protest.
Former Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has roundly condemned the reported
agreement between the Likud and Yisrael Beytenu parties, to include provisions
for implementing the death penalty for terrorists as part of a coalition deal.
Under the agreement, a new directive will be issued to military courts, by
which only a simply majority of 2 judges will be needed to sentence a terrorist
murderer to death, as opposed to the unanimous requirement currently in place.
Imposing a death penalty for terrorist killers was one of the key conditions
set by Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman for entering the governing
coalition.
While the death penalty technically exists under Israeli law, it has only ever
been implement once - the hanging of Nazi leader and "Final Solution" architect
Adolf Eichmann.
Weinstein reacted furiously to the reported deal, telling the left-wing Haaretz
paper that current Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit should veto the move, or
threaten to resign.
"I said that I would not (agree to be) appointed as Attorney General if there
will be a death penalty here," Weinstein said. "I think that this is without a
doubt the appropriate position (to take), and I think that Mandelblit also
needs to vigorously oppose this ruling."
Explaining his objection to capital punishment, Weinstein noted that Israel
would be bucking a global trend by which capital punishment was gradually being
rejected by some states.
"This has no parallel in the world," he said. "There is no country which adds
the death penalty to its laws - there are only those who removed it."
He also claimed it would serve no purpose, since jihadists who glorify
"martyrdom" wouldn't be deterred by capital punishment.
"It is not practical as a deterrent - since these criminals acts in any case
from an ideological motivation, and do not worry about death - and moreover it
is unethical," Weinstein asserted.
(source: Israel National News)
PHILIPPINES:
Pacquiao says he supports Philippine death penalty plan
Philippine boxing hero turned senator Manny Pacquiao said Thursday he supports
a plan by the newly elected president to impose the death penalty, a proposal
that has been met with strong opposition in the Catholic nation.
Speaking after he was sworn into office, the high school dropout and devout
evangelical Christian said he supported capital punishment because it was
sanctioned by his faith.
"I'm in favour of the death penalty. Actually God allows this in the Bible,"
Pacquiao told reporters after being formally sworn in as one of 12 new
senators.
The remarks follow previous comments by the 8-time world boxing champion
earlier this year describing homosexuals as "worse than animals". Tough-talking
Philippine president-elect Rodrigo Duterte has vowed to restore the death
penalty as part of a campaign pledge to stamp out crime, a plan opposed by the
Church and rights groups.
Pacquiao, who garnered more than 16 million votes in last week's national
election, has vowed to take his political duties seriously after coming under
fire for an undistinguished stint in the House of Representatives.
"I will perform this job well, avoid corruption, and be a God-fearing servant
of the people," he said.
Analysts say the retired boxer has an eye on the presidency and his period in
the senate is a possible stepping stone for the top office.
His performance in parliament was roundly criticised due to his frequent
absences as he trained for boxing matches, hosted television shows and even
dabbled in professional basketball.
(source: tenplay.com.au)
SINGAPORE----stay of impending execution
Singapore reprieves Malaysian murderer hours before execution ---- Kho Jabing,
31, was scheduled to be hanged at dawn on Friday, but wins stay of execution
for 2nd time due to appeal
A Singaporean court has stopped the planned execution of a convicted murderer
for a 2nd time, hours before he was scheduled to be hanged.
Kho Jabing, 31, was expected by his family and rights groups to be executed at
dawn on Friday but was granted a stay of execution following a last-minute
application by his lawyer on Thursday evening exploiting a legal loophole.
Kho, who is Malaysian, was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing a Chinese
construction worker in a robbery gone wrong 2 years earlier, and spent the next
6 years on a legal rollercoaster trying to avoid the gallows.
His family said on Tuesday they had received a letter from prison authorities
setting his execution for Friday.
On Thursday a 5-member appeal court dismissed an 11th-hour application to set
aside the death sentence, but the defence lawyer Jeannette Chong-Aruldoss filed
a separate suit against the attorney general asking to halt the execution.
Permission was denied after a 2-hour hearing that stretched late into the
night, but under Singapore law all court decisions can be appealed against.
That appeal will be heard on Friday morning at the court of appeal, and in the
meantime Kho's execution is on hold.
The Singaporean president has refused to grant clemency to Kho.
There was no immediate statement from Malaysia, which also has capital
punishment.
Amnesty International Malaysia and Human Rights Watch have both released
statements calling on Singapore to halt the execution and review the case.
After Kho was sentenced to death in 2010, Singapore amended its mandatory death
penalty for murder, giving judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment
under certain circumstances.
Kho's case was reviewed and he was re-sentenced to a life term in 2013. But
after an appeal by prosecutors, Kho's death sentence was reinstated in January
2015.
Another appeal, which stayed his execution scheduled for November 2015, was
thrown out last month.
Singapore executed 4 people in 2015, 1 for murder and 3 for drug offences,
according to Singaporean prison statistics.
Rights groups have called on Singapore to abolish capital punishment, but the
government argues that it is a deterrent to crime.
(source: The Guardian)
INDONESIA:
Police on tight deadline to solve 'coffee murder' case
The investigation into the role of Jessica Wongso in a "coffee murder" case is
far from a conclusion as a head prosecutor announced for the 4th time that her
dossier had yet to be completed, leaving the police with only 10 days before
having to release her.
For the last 4 months Jakarta Police have tried to build their case against
Jessica, but so far they have not even come up with a motive, let alone
convincing proof to show whether or not she had a role in the case.
Video footage of the crime scene, witnesses, forensic experts, a toxicologist
and a hypnotherapist have all been brought in a bid to confirm Jessica, the
only suspect in the case, had poured cyanide into the coffee consumed by her
friend Wayan Mirna.
The case's severity means she faces a premeditated murder charge with a maximum
sentence of the death penalty.
Mirna died on Jan. 6 after drinking a cyanide-laced coffee beverage at an
upscale cafe in Central Jakarta. The coffee was reportedly ordered and paid for
by Jessica, who arrived before Mirna and another friend Hani, for a planned
meeting between friends.
According to police, Mirna showed up at the restaurant approximately one hour
after Jessica had arrived, took a sip of the coffee and collapsed shortly after
complaining to the waiter about the beverage's taste. After 3 weeks of
investigations, the police named Jessica a suspect before detaining her a day
later on Jan. 30.
To date, Jessica has maintained her innocence through her lawyer, saying that
despite a lot of evidence obtained, police lack crucial pieces, such as
physical proof or a witness that confirms she was the person who poured the
cyanide into the coffee.
The police announced in March they would complete Jessica's dossier soon after
they received information from the Australian Federal Police ( AFP ) about her
past criminal record in Australia.
Jessica, who lived in Australia from 2007 to 2015, is said to have the
country's permanent resident status as well as a reportedly a long criminal
history.
"The police too hastily named Jessica a suspect. If they can't prove it, with
all due respect they should release my client," Jessica's lawyer Andi Yusuf
Maulana told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
On several occasions Jakarta Police general crimes head Sr. Comr. Krishna
Murti, who led the investigation, said the case was solid against Jessica,
emphasizing that the police had sufficient evidence to bring the 27-year-old to
court.
However, the prosecutor's office did not share that view, declaring Tuesday
that it was not a strong enough case to be presented before the judges.
"After examining the dossier, we believe that it is not comprehensive enough.
Therefore, we returned it [the case dossier] to the police so they can obtain
further evidence," Jakarta High Prosecutors Office head Sudung Situmorang said
on Tuesday night.
The police now only have 10 days left before Jessica can walk free from the
Jakarta Police detention center, despite the case still ongoing.
The Criminal Procedural Law stipulates that a suspect cannot be in detention
for more than 120 days.
Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Awi Setiyono said the police were ready
to release Jessica if the case's investigation had passed the deadline.
"But remember [even if police have to release Jessica], the legal process
continues," he said.
(source: Jakarta Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 20 10:24:38 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 10:24:38 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., ALA., TENN., ARK.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605201024280.8544@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 20
NORTH CAROLINA:
Former Republican North Carolina Chief Justice Comes Out Against the Death
Penalty
In a Huffington Post blog yesterday that was reposted by NC Policy Watch today,
I. Beverly Lake III - a former justice on the N.C. Supreme Court who served as
an associate for from 1994-2000 and then as its chief justice until 2006, and
who unsuccessfully ran for governor against Jim Hunt in 1980 - wrote that
"protecting the innocent from a death sentence isn't enough" and implied that
the death penalty "probably cannot" ever be constitutional under the Eight
Amendment.
Lake sat on the court during 34 of the 43 executions carried out in North
Carolina since 1977; since leaving the court, he's become an advocate for
criminal justice reform through his work in helping to establish the Innocence
Inquiry Commission, but this op-ed is his strongest stance against the death
penalty yet.
After establishing his former bonafides as a "tough on crime, pro-law
enforcement individual," he writes:
After decades of experience with the law, I have seen too much, and what I have
seen has impacted my perspective. First, my faith in the criminal justice
system, which had always been so steady, was shaken by the revelation that in
some cases innocent men and women were being convicted of serious crimes. The
increased availability of DNA testing in the early 2000s highlighted this
problem so clearly to me. I spent the next decade working with others to devise
systems and develop task forces dedicated to the prevention of wrongful
convictions in North Carolina. I take, I believe, justifiable pride in the fact
that North Carolina established the 1st state Innocence Inquiry Commission in
the country. Numerous legal experts publicly acknowledge that the safeguards
that have been implemented in North Carolina are wildly successful. However,
one thing we did not adequately address is that individuals with intellectual
disabilities, mental illness, and other impairments are more likely to be
wrongfully convicted. The case of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown makes that
point vividly clear. McCollum was 19 and Brown was 15 when they confessed to
the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intellectually
disabled, which greatly increased their susceptibility to false confession. As
a result, they spent 31 years in prison, including time on death row, for a
crime they didn't commit.
Lake's op-ed comes as the Supreme Court this week deices whether or not to take
up the case of Lamondre Tucker, a Louisiana man with an IQ of 74 who murdered
his ex-girlfriend when he was 18. Back in September, the Louisiana Supreme
Court upheld his death sentence. Lake mentions Tucker specifically:
Taken together, these factors indicate that he is most likely just as impaired
as those individuals that the Court has determined it is unconstitutional to
execute. Yet, because of a variety of systemic factors, including ineffective
legal representation, Tucker sits on death row. Ten former State Supreme Court
justices signed an Amicus brief last month questioning the constitutionality of
Tucker's death sentence due to his impairments. Today I join my colleague's
call. In conclusion, he writes:
Our inability to determine who possesses sufficient culpability to warrant a
death sentence draws into question whether the death penalty can ever be
constitutional under the Eighth Amendment. I have come to believe that it
probably cannot.
Over the past several years, the abolition movement has picked up steam;
although 31 states have the death penalty, 6 states since 2007 have repealed
it, and 4 states have a governor-imposed moratorium. Last year, the
conservative Nebraska unicameral legislature overrode the governor's veto to
repeal the death penalty; later, a petition drive forced the issue to the
ballot in November.
North Carolina hasn't executed anyone since 2006 due to a decision by the North
Carolina Medical Board to bar its doctors from being present, but last year,
the General Assembly passed the "Restoring Proper Justice Act," designed to
restart executions.
(source: indyweek.com)
ALABAMA:
Hideous flaws in Alabama's death penalty
The case of Vernon Madison, a convicted murderer who sits on Alabama???s death
row, exemplifies much of what is wrong with the state???s capital punishment
process.
As the Montgomery Advertiser's Brian Lyman reported, a federal appeals court
last week stayed the scheduled execution of Madison, who killed Mobile police
officer Julius Schulte in April 1985, to consider the convict's mental state.
Madison's attorneys argue state and federal courts haven't sufficiently
considered if his stroke-related dementia has rendered him incompetent to face
execution. They say his condition must be studied vis-a-vis his rights under
the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment and its guarantee
of equal protection.
The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently rejected a request from the Alabama
Attorney General's office to lift the stay. That office argues lower courts
have already reviewed evidence of Madison's dementia and the federal court
ruling is invalid.
While Madison's guilt is unquestioned and he is rightly incarcerated, the
state's eagerness to dispatch him is unseemly, given the history of his trip
through the justice system.
First convicted of capital murder in September of 1985, Madison was granted a
new trial because prosecutors apparently excluded blacks from the jury pool.
His 2nd conviction, in 1990, was also set aside because prosecutors improperly
used testimony from an expert witness.
He was convicted a third time in 1994, but the jury handed down a life
sentence, after hearing the defendant had a history of mental illness. The
presiding judge, however, used a loophole known as judicial override to give
Madison a death sentence.
Judicial overrides are still legal in Alabama, but only barely. The nation's
high court recently ruled Florida's similar allowance of judge-imposed death
penalties violates Sixth Amendment guarantees of an impartial jury trial.
It's likely only a matter of time before Alabama's judicial override rule is
also struck down, necessitating appeals and resentencing procedures for inmates
like Madison, who arrive on death row only because of a judge's whim, prejudice
or political corruption.
Election-year concerns too often play a role in judges' disregarding life
sentence recommendations - they want to show voters they're tough on crime. And
research has shown judges are more likely to ignore a jury's advice when a
white victim or black defendant is involved.
Madison hit the trifecta in shabby prosecutorial and judicial conduct - racial
bias in court proceedings, tainted testimony at trial and a questionably
motivated judicial override sentencing him to death.
Surely, his attorneys from the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative are
correct that the incompetency question must be thoroughly addressed.
Just as surely, Madison's case illustrates the underlying inequities and
hideous flaws of Alabama's death penalty process and why the state should ban
execution in favor of life sentences without chance of parole.
(source: Editorial, Montgomery Advertiser)
TENNESSEE:
Inmate's Attempt To Prove Innocence Backfires
In an attempt to prove his innocence, a Tennessee prisoner on death row
inadvertently provided more evidence that he committed the crime.
In 2003, Marlon Kiser was sentenced to death row for killing Hamilton County
Deputy Donald Bond, Times Free Press reports.
Yet the man has repeatedly denied the charges, saying his former roommate -
James Michael Chattin - framed him.
Kiser took to his website, FreeMarlonKiser.com, to make his claim:
... James Michael Chattin had discovered that a Hamilton County Sheriff's
Deputy named Donald Kenneth Bond Jr. was seemingly having an affair with Tina
Chattin who was Mike Chattin's wife. On several different occasions, Mike
Chattin has stated to several different individuals that his wife was seeing a
cop and that he was going to kill him, and in the early morning hours of
September 6th, 2001, that is exactly what Mike Chattin did.
And then, to throw suspicion off of Mike Chattin, he ran to police pointing his
finger at me because I had a pending police brutality lawsuit against the
Chattanooga Police Department since 1998 which was scheduled to be heard on
September 17th, 11 days after Deputy Donald Bond's death.
Kiser added that after he found out about Chattin's drug habits, he asked him
to vacate the premise.
That was the straw that broke the camel's back, he said.
"In Mike Chattin's perry old mind, he could not allow me to leave because I
knew entirely too many secrets about him," Kiser wrote, adding that Chattin had
also previously asked him to kill the police officer.
Kiser also started a petition to get him off the death penalty, which has
received over 470 signatures as of May 19. The petition's stated goal is 1,000
signatures.
"Marlon Kiser is on death row, because of police corruption, and police
ineptness," one person who signed the petition wrote in the comments section.
"Marlon knew about Mike Chattin's criminal activities, and therefore Marlon was
a liability to Mike Chattin."
Kiser also petitioned the court for post-conviction relief, Times Free Press
notes. As part of that petition, in March 2015, his attorneys had authorities
test palm and fingerprints on Bond's flashlight and car.
The results revealed the prints were Kiser's. Previous evidence linking Kiser
to the crime reportedly included fibers from Bond's clothes.
(source: opposingviews.com)
ARKANSAS:
Arkansas Supreme Court hears arguments in challenge to death penalty
The Arkansas Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday in the state's appeal
of a Pulaski County circuit judge's ruling that a provision in the state's
lethal-injection law protecting vendors of execution drugs from disclosure
violates the state constitution.
Lee Rudofsky, solicitor general for the state, argued that the state has
sovereign immunity from the suit and that a group of death-row inmates who
challenged the law failed to demonstrate that the secrecy provision is
unconstitutional. He asked that the state be allowed to proceed with eight
planned executions, saying the 3-drug cocktail used by the state has survived
numerous court challenges around the country.
"I think the question here is, 'Has the legislation violated Article 19 with
this provision?'" said Justice Courtney Goodson, referring to the
constitutional requirement that state expenditures be public.
Rudofsky argued that the state constitution requires that state expenditures be
disclosed "from time to time," with no timeline requirement.
"It's not a self-executing article," he said. "You need legislation to enable
that clause."
He also said the inmate's arguments about disclosure are irrelevant in light of
their claim that midazolam, the anesthetic the state wants to use in the
lethal-injection process, often fails to cause complete unconsciousness,
leaving inmates to suffer pain from the drugs used to arrest respiration and
the heart.
"The prisoners argue that midazolam in general doesn't work ... not a specific
kind doesn't work or ... from a specific provider doesn't work," said Rudofsky.
"So I don't know why it would matter who the supplier is."
John Williams, arguing for the inmates, received several questions from Justice
Rhonda Wood regarding the use of the drugs on constitutional grounds.
"Are you saying the 3-drug protocol is cruel and unusual in Arkansas but not
cruel and unusual in 16 other states?" she asked, referring to numerous rulings
across the country and the U.S. Supreme Court affirming the protocol.
"Why do we have to keep re-litigating it?" asked Wood."
Because this constitution is different," said Williams. "The text forbids cruel
punishment. Cruel punishment is punishment that will cause a substantial risk
of harm to a prisoner."
Rudofsky, in closing, said the 3-drug protocol is proven effective in causing
death while shielding inmates from excessive pain and said the lawsuit has 1
purpose.
"They want this information for the same reason anti-death penalty activists
want it. To harass suppliers and inhibit the ADC's access to these drugs," he
said.
It is unknown when justices will rule, but the state may be unable to carry out
the executions even if the ruling is in its favor. The state's supply of
vecuronium bromide, the paralytic agent in the 3-drug protocol, expires on June
30, giving the state 5 weeks to either carry out the 8 executions or begin
searching for a new supply.
The last execution carried out in Arkansas was in 2005.
(source: swtimes.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 20 10:25:26 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 10:25:26 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., OKLA., ARIZ., CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605201025130.8544@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 20
KANSAS:
Death penalty not part of state GOP platform
In another indication of the shifting opinion on the death penalty, delegates
to the GOP state convention in Topeka last weekend voted against adding support
for the death penalty to the party's official platform. The vote follows last
year's resolution by the Kansas Federation of College Republicans opposing the
death penalty. But so far lawmakers in Topeka have shown little interest in
reconsidering Kansas' death penalty law.
(source: kansas.com)
*******************
High cost of the death penalty
More than 9 years after 19-year-old Jodi Sanderholm was killed, and 7 years
after her killer was sentenced to death, he remains alive and behind bars at El
Dorado Correctional Facility.
Sanderholm's murderer, Justin Eugene Thurber, spends 23 hours per day in an
individual cell at El Dorado, where he is working through the appeals process.
Thurber is 1 of 10 men who make up Kansas' 'death row,' and our state doesn't
appear to plan to execute these inmates anytime soon.
In fact, since Kansas reinstated the death penalty 22 years ago, no one has
been executed in our state.
Our investigation reveals the truth of the death penalty process in Kansas, and
why some victims' families fear these inmates may never have their sentences
carried out. Hear from the family of murder victim, Jodi Sanderholm, and the
tough questions we ask Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
KSN Investigates the death penalty in Kansas Monday night at 10:00 only on KSN
News.
(source: KSN news)
OKLAHOMA:
'Google it': Oklahoma execution ordered to go ahead despite wrong drugs being
delivered
The governor of Oklahoma's top lawyer is out of a job after insisting that a
state execution proceed despite prison officials receiving the wrong drug for
carrying it out, while telling a deputy attorney general alerting him to the
problem to "Google it."
A grand jury report found that when a deputy attorney general learned that
potassium acetate would be used in the September 30, 2015 execution of Richard
Glossip instead of potassium chloride, she contacted the governor's general
counsel for further instruction.
The deputy attorney general was then assured that "potassium chloride and
potassium acetate were basically 1 in the same drug, advising deputy attorney
general to 'Google it,'" the grand jury report said, according to the
Associated Press.
Fallin's general counsel, Steve Mullins, also told the deputy attorney general
that she could not request a stay of vacation, because "it would look bad for
the state of Oklahoma because potassium acetate had already been used in
(Charles) Warner's execution."
Following Mullins' suggestion, the deputy attorney general actually did Google
it, and learned that potassium chloride and potassium acetate were, in fact,
not 1 in the same. As a result, Governor Fallin issued a stay of execution, and
Glossip remains on death row for the murder of a motel owner in 1997.
Mullins resigned from his position in February and has not commented on the
grand jury's report.
"It is unacceptable for the governor's general counsel to so flippantly and
recklessly disregard the written protocol and the rights of Richard Glossip,"
the grand jury said.
After appearing before the grand jury, both Anita Trammell, the penitentiary
warden, and Robert Patton, the head of the Department of Corrections, resigned
from their posts, having faced scrutiny for failing to notify anyone when they
received potassium acetate for the 2nd time.
The report did not view them in a favorable light either, saying "It is
inexcusable for a senior administrator with 30 years as a department employee
to testify that 'there are just some things you ask questions about, and
there's some things you don't.'"
Attorney General Scott Pruitt has said that no executions will be scheduled
until 5 months after the release of the grand jury's report and his office
receives official notification that the prison system can resume executions.
(source: rt.com)
***************
New calls to end death penalty after grand jury says Dept. of Corrections
'failed'
A scathing, 106-page report from a multi-county grand jury calls for sweeping
changes to the state's protocol for executing inmates, but some said the report
doesn't go far enough. "When we see this kind of drastic, systematic failure,
we should really take a hard look at what we're doing as a state and why this
is something we should continue to do," said defense attorney Jacqui Ford. "The
point is whether the government and the state of Oklahoma should be permitted
to continue to engage in state-sponsored homicide when they can't follow their
own rules."
Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked for an investigation after discovering
corrections workers used the incorrect, unapproved drugs to execute Charles
Warner in January 2015.
Later that year, the governor stayed Richard Glossip's execution, after it was
discovered the same incorrect drugs were about to be administered.
Corrections officials discovered they had potassium acetate, instead of the
approved potassium chloride.
The grand jury did not indict anyone, but its report details a number of
shortcomings, citing the following people for failing to perform their duties
with precision and attention to detail:
--DOC Director Robert Patton, who orally modified the execution protocol
without authority
--The Pharmacist ordered the wrong execution drugs
--The Department's General Counsel failed to inventory the execution drugs as
mandated by state purchasing requirements
--An agent with the Department's Office of Inspector General failed to inspect
the execution drugs while transporting them into the Oklahoma State
Penitentiary
--Warden Anita Trammel failed to notify anyone in the Department that potassium
acetate had been received
--The H Unit Section Chief failed to observe the Department had received the
wrong execution drugs
--The IV Team failed to observe the Department had received the wrong execution
drugs; the Department's Execution Protocol failed to define important teiins,
and lacked controls to ensure the proper execution drugs were obtained and
administered
--Governor Fallin's General Counsel Steve Mullins advocated the Department
proceed with the Glossip execution using potassium acetate
"I would respect that report and try to learn from it," said former prosecutor
Lou Keel. "These are things the Department of Corrections must get right."
Keel prosecuted the Charles Warner case and said he still stands by the death
penalty, even after Oklahoma's well-documented problems, which have only added
to opposition to capital punishment.
"Some murders are so horrendous, so heinous that the only right and just
punishment is the death penalty," said Keel, who estimates he sent 15 people to
death row. "Certainly, this is a process, as a society, that we have to get
right. When you impose the ultimate sanction on people, it's important this be
done in the most humane way possible."
Keel doesn't dispute the DOC's shortcomings but wonders about how serious the
drug mix-up was.
Warner died in 18 minutes, and the grand jury concluded "There is no evidence
the manner of execution caused Warner any needless pain."
NewsChannel 4's Abby Broyles witnessed the execution and reported hearing him
say his body was on fire.
The grand jury does not appear to be finished with its investigation.
Its report concludes noting its next scheduled meeting is June 13-16, where it
will summon additional witnesses and gather physical evidence.
(source: KFOR news)
*************
Oklahoma voters will be asked to add death penalty to state constitution
Should the death penalty be part of the Oklahoma constitution? Voters will make
that call this November.
Voters will have a say on if the state should allow alternative forms of
executions in case the current method is found unconstitutional.
Right now, executions are on hold in the state and a new grand jury report
detailed issues with the current method in light of the wrong drug being used
in an execution in 2015 and almost used again in another exeuction last
September.
FOX23's Shae Rozzi is taking a closer look at what it means to make this change
and why some say the state is looking at the issue wrong.
(source: Fox News)
ARIZONA:
Judge's execution ruling leaves Arizona at crossroads in death penalty debate
Arizona will not be killing anyone by lethal injection anytime soon.
This comes as a result of 3 things:
1. A recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Neil Wake keeping all executions in
Arizona on hold for an unspecified amount of time.
2. Pfizer, a pharmaceutical giant, recently announcing it would no longer
supply prisons with 7 drugs used to impose the death penalty, including 1 used
by Arizona, midazolam.
3. The fact that Arizona's supply of midazolam is set to expire on May 31.
Arizona's current protocol in executions calls for midazolam. This was used on
July 23, 2014 when Arizona executed Joseph Wood - Arizona's last execution to
date - which did not turn out as expected.
As a result of this "botched execution" (as many have termed it), a federal
lawsuit was filed by 7 death row inmates and the First Amendment Coalition of
Arizona demanding the state stop using the questionable drug cocktail and more
transparency in the execution process.
As part of that lawsuit, Wake issued a moratorium on executions until
investigations into the Wood execution could be completed.
Earlier this year, those investigations were completed and Wake ordered the
lawsuit go forward.
Shortly after that ruling, Arizona requested Wake allow executions to go
forward since its supply of midazolam was approaching its expiration date and
that state has no way to replace that supply since manufacturers don't want
their products used in executions. Not persuaded, Wake ruled Wednesday that the
ban on executions will remain in place.
What is next for Arizona? Will the wild, wild west start using the firing
squad? Not likely.
If Arizona wants to continue executing prisoners, I see a few options:
-- Return to the use of lethal gas (which carries its own difficulties)
-- Create a new protocol with a new drug combination, (which is costly and
time-consuming)
-- Ask the Legislature and/or voters to approve a different technique to carry
out executions (costly, time-consuming and not really practical)
The state could also move to get rid of the death penalty, which would be the
easiest option, but would be costly and time-consuming process.
Regardless of which road Arizona chooses to head down, it will have to dedicate
a fair amount of money and time to resolve this seemingly never-ending battle
between those that believe in the death penalty and those that are opposed to
it.
(source: Monica Lindstrom, KTAR news)
CALIFORNIA:
OC Law Enforcement Makes Push to Revamp Death Penalty----Prosecutors and
sheriff's officials submitted more than 600,000 signatures for a measure that
would speed up executions.
Backers of a proposed ballot initiative aimed at revamping California's death
penalty and expediting executions submitted nearly 600,000 petition signatures
today in hopes of getting the proposal before voters in November.
Representatives with Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings held
news conferences around the state today to discuss the proposal, which would
attempt to speed executions by requiring the immediate appointment of an
appeals attorney for people who are sentenced to death, while also requiring
death row inmates to work while imprisoned and pay restitution to victims'
families.
It would also allow death row inmates to double-bunk instead of being held in
costlier, single cells.
Backers of the measure claim it will "save California taxpayers millions of
dollars every year, assure due process protections for those sentenced to death
and promote justice for murder victims and their families."
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas is among the initiative's
supporters.
"There are a number of measures to speed up the process, to streamline it a
little bit," Rackauckas said. "For example, appointment of counsel to defend
death penalty cases would be done at a much faster pace. Right now it takes
years and years to get defense counsel to start looking at it."
Some critics of the death penalty process point to a dearth of attorneys who
specialize in the field, making it difficult for attorneys assigned to death
row clients to catch up on their case loads, but Rackauckas disputed that.
"There are a lot of attorneys in this state and a lot of attorneys who have
every bit of ability to handle this kind of case," Rackauckas said. "To suggest
only a few people can handle death penalty cases across the state is simply not
accurate."
Opponents, however, claim the initiative would increase the risk of wrongful
executions. Officials with the Innocence Project noted that since 1973, 156
people who were on death row were exonerated and freed, including 3 in
California.
"California's legal process in death penalty cases exists for a reason: to make
sure that innocent people aren't executed," said Alex Simpson, associate
director of the California Innocence Project. "This measure guts these
important protections by applying unrealistic and arbitrary timelines, greatly
increasing the chance that we send an innocent person to the death chamber and
allow a guilty person a free pass to victimize again."
Barry Scheck, director of the Innocence Project in New York, said the state
would be making "a grave and irreversible mistake" by approving the initiative.
"Texas, which this initiative is modeled after, continues to grapple with the
execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was put to death despite powerful
scientific evidence undermining his guilt and mounting evidence of
prosecutorial misconduct," Scheck said.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in Santa Ana ruled in July 2014 that the
state's death penalty system was bogged down with so many procedural delays
that it violated the due process of death row prisoners. The 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals, however, reversed that ruling in November.
Since 1978, 900 convicts have been sentenced to death in the state, but 94 of
them have died of natural causes in prison and 13 have been executed.
The last execution carried out in California was in 2006. Executions have been
put on hold because of a 9th Circuit ruling requiring a medical professional to
administer lethal injection drugs.
Tom Dominguez, president of the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs,
said the issue of reforming the death penalty is a personal one to law
enforcement personnel.
"There are 43 convicted cop killers on death row, so this is deeply personal to
us," Dominguez said.
"We hope this initiative will streamline the appeals process so that at least
within our lifetime justice is done," he said. "The killer has rights, too, but
this initiative does nothing to erode the constitutional rights afforded all of
us."
(source: patch.com)
*************
Bosenko, Lopey back death penalty reform measure
Sheriffs in 2 North State counties on Thursday threw their support behind a
measure coming before California voters in November to provide sweeping changes
to the state's death penalty laws.
"The death penalty system and the court system (are) broken down and this
reform act will help restore the efficiencies to the process and help bring
justice and hold those criminals accountable that have done heinous crimes
throughout California," Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said.
The measure - the Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act - is 1 of 2 that could
appear on the November ballot. Another, currently under signature review at the
California Secretary of State, would abolish capital punishment in California
altogether.
Thursday's news conference with Bosenko and Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey
was one of 10 held statewide in support of the measure as proponents submitted
some 593,000 signatures to the California Secretary of State.
Death row inmates have murdered more than 1,000 victims, including 226 children
and 43 police officers, Lopey said. In addition, 294 victims were raped or
tortured before being killed, he said.
"Again we're talking about the very worst, less than 1 percent of murder
suspects convicted in court," Lopey said. "The serial killers, the child
killers, the cop killers and again we're just looking for justice for the
victims and a better system within which to manage these case."
The measure would speed what is currently a lengthy appeals process by
expanding the pool of appellate attorneys and appointing lawyers to the death
cases at the time of sentencing, according to the Associated Press.
Currently there is about a 5-year wait just for condemned inmates to be
assigned a lawyer. By contrast, the ballot measure would require that the
entire state appeals process be completed within 5 years except under
extraordinary circumstances.
To meet that timeline, appeals would have to be filed more quickly and there
would be limits on how many appeals could be filed in each case.
Appeals currently can take more than 2 decades, according to the nonpartisan
Legislative Analyst's Office.
Additional provisions would allow condemned inmates to be housed at any prison,
not just on San Quentin's death row, and they would have to work and pay victim
restitution while they wait to be executed.
"As a sheriff, and as an advocate for victims, this act is very, very important
and I think it would be a landmark law that will not only be more merciful for
victims and will honor victims and is actually more humane for inmates as well
because then they won't wait 20 or 30 years to receive a disposition on their
case," Lopey said.
California last executed a death row inmate more than a decade ago, in January
2006, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Since then 53 of those condemned have died either by suicide or natural causes.
The CDCR lists 747 inmates currently on death row.
Opponents say their measure - the Justice That Works Act - would also save
money by doing away with the death penalty and keeping currently condemned
inmates imprisoned for life with no chance of parole. They submitted about
601,000 signatures on April 28, organizers said.
California meanwhile is currently in the process of accepting public comment on
proposed changes to its lethal injection rules, which would change the drugs
used from a 3-drug cocktail to a single drug. The rules are the result of a
decade-long legal battle of the state's lethal injection rules.
Other states in the U.S. have encountered issues recently as Pfizer, a drug
company that makes a chemical used in lethal injection, said it will no longer
provide it.
California, however, isn't using any of those drugs, according to the proposed
rule changes.
Go to http://bit.ly/1TqsJt8 to read Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act or
http://bit.ly/1TqszSK to read the Justice That Works Act.
(source: Redding Searchlight)
**********************
Fresno sheriff, DA back death penalty initiative
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims and District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp
Thursday hailed the submission of 593,000 signatures that will likely ensure
that the Death Penalty Reform and Savings initiative appears on the ballot in
November.
The measure, which backers said is supported by law enforcement leaders and
crime victims, promises to eliminate "waste, delays and inefficiencies" in the
state's death penalty process. Among the ways it says it would do so would be
by expanding the number of attorneys available to work death penalty cases,
allow the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to house death row
inmates in less costly housing with fewer special privileges, and require
condemned inmates to work and pay restitution to victims.
Mims said the measure would make sure crime victims "are given justice for the
suffering they've endured." She added that the death penalty is needed to
protect the state's peace officers, who "are on the front lines in keeping
Californians safe," and "helps us in the fight against the worst criminals in
society."
Said Smittcamp: "700 death row inmates have murdered more than 1,000 victims."
The Death Penalty Reform initiative is opposed by the Innocence Project and
Wrongfully Convicted Individuals, who argue that the initiative "will greatly
increase the risk that California executes an innocent person." The group
argues that since 1973, 156 people have been exonerated and freed from the
nation's death rows, and says 3 of them were in California.
(source: Fresno Bee)
USA:
The Death Penalty in America Today
Last week's news told us everything we need to know about the death penalty in
America today.
On Thursday, May 12, in Alabama, the scheduled execution of Vernon Madison was
halted at the last minute because of a split 4-4 vote by the Supreme Court.
This tie meant that the temporary stay of execution approved by the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals remained in-tact. Madison is 65 years old and suffers
from the effects of several strokes, diabetes, hypertension, and, possibly,
dementia. He slurs his words, walks with a cane, is legally blind and exhibits
"significant cognitive decline," according to his lawyers. He can no longer
remember the offense for which he was condemned to die.
Moreover, Madison's 3 trials for the 1985 murder of a police officer were
marked by prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, and the questionable practice
of judicial over-ride. Twice, courts ordered a new trial for him - the 1st time
because African Americans were illegally struck from the jury, and the second
time because of improper expert testimony. While the 3rd trial resulted in a
guilty verdict, the jury voted to sentence him to life in prison. The elected
judge, however, over-rode the jury's decision and imposed a death sentence.
Alabama is 1 of only 2 states that allows for judicial over-ride in death
sentences, a practice that has been severely criticized and makes the state, in
the words of Supreme Court Justice Sotomeyer, a "clear outlier."
Despite all of these factors, the state of Alabama was fully prepared to
proceed with the execution. The fact that Madison is alive today is largely a
fluke. The Supreme Court split its vote because Justice Antonin Scalia died in
his sleep several months ago, and the Senate is steadfastly refusing to review
and vote upon the President's nominee to replace him.
In other words, this entire process has been characterized by dysfunction all
around.
The next day, on Friday, the pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, announced it would
no longer make its products available for lethal injection, writing that to do
so would not be "consistent with its values." Pfizer's decision means that
those states that remain determined to proceed with executions must either
convene a firing squad, bring back the electric chair, or apply a combination
of untested, unregulated drugs that may or may not work, may or may not torture
the individual, and that were obtained in a process shrouded in secrecy.
All are grisly options.
This is what capital punishment in this country looks like. Death sentences are
imposed in a shrinking number of counties with histories of extreme racial
bias, in wholly arbitrary fashions after trials often marked by prosecutorial
over-reach and misconduct, against defendants who are almost always poor, and
suffer from histories of trauma, abuse and mental illness. The executions now
are fraught with secrecy, fear and uncertainty, the threat of agonizing error
always looming, and traumatize all who are associated with it.
The only way to fix this is to end this. Hillary Clinton is wrong when she
suggests that the United States is capable of holding the death penalty
exclusively "in reserve" for terrorists. If the definition of insanity is doing
the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then this
position is insane. We have tried time and again to "fix" capital punishment.
But its mere existence on the books triggers a blood-thirstiness in some
prosecutors, who consider death sentences to be "feathers in their caps," and
testaments to their trial skills. As long as the statute exists, it will be a
magnet for racial bias, human error, and a lust for vengeance. It is the
responsibility of a civilized society to tamp down, not inflame, violent
impulses among its citizens.
When the history of the end of capital punishment is written from a distance of
50 years or so, these last, sputtering efforts to maintain it may appear to be
almost darkly comic, if the results weren't so tragic. The death penalty in
this country is dying, of that there is no doubt. The question that remains is
whether we will be able to put it out of its misery relatively quickly, or
whether it will go out screaming and kicking every step of the way.
(source: Johanna Wald, Director of Strategic Planning for the Charles Hamilton
Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard Law School ---- Huffington
Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 20 10:26:12 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 10:26:12 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605201026010.8544@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 20
SINGAPORE----execution
Singapore Executes Malaysian Convict Hours After Last Appeal
A Malaysian man convicted of murder in Singapore was executed Friday hours
after the city-state's highest court rejected a last-minute appeal, police
said.
The Court of Appeal found no merit in the appeal by a lawyer representing Kho
Jabing that challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty in Singapore.
The decision ended a brief stay of execution, but the court left the timing of
the execution to prison authorities.
Rachel Zheng of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign said it was the first
time an execution in Singapore had proceeded on the same day that an appeal was
dismissed.
"All of us are in deep shock," she said after being informed by Kho's family
that he had been executed.
The Singapore Police Force's statement said the death sentence was carried out
after Kho had been "accorded full due process under the law."
Kho, 31, was accused of using a tree branch to assault and rob a construction
worker in 2008. The worker died from multiple skull fractures and Kho was
convicted and sentenced to death in 2010.
What followed was 6 years of legal twists during which he was sentenced to
death, won appeals, resentenced to life imprisonment and caning, and again
sentenced to death.
The European Union and Amnesty International had called on Singapore to grant
Kho clemency, but applications to the president were rejected.
Executions in Singapore are by hanging, and are usually carried out before dawn
at Changi prison. According to the prison records, Singapore executed 4 people
in 2015, 1 for murder and 3 for drug crimes.
In 2012, Singapore amended its laws on the death penalty, making it no longer
mandatory for those convicted of drug trafficking or murder to receive death
sentences.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Kho Jabing executed in Singapore
After a long battle that saw several last-minute stays of executions,
Sarawakian Kho Jabing was hanged in Singapore on Friday.
He was executed at about 3.30pm at the Changi Prison after meeting his family
for the last time, said Rachel Zeng of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty
Campaign.
The timing of his execution was considered highly irregular as executions
usually take place at dawn on Friday.
His execution came after a 5-panel Court of Appeal dismissed an 11th-hour
attempt to stay the execution.
Jabing, 31, was originally scheduled to be hanged in the morning for the brutal
killing of a construction worker in 2008 but received a temporary stay of
execution late Thursday night.
(source: The Star)
KYRGYZSTAN:
About 11,000 citizens of Kyrgyzstan initiate introduction of death penalty for
pedophiles
More than 10,000 citizens in Kyrgyzstan have initiated the introduction of
death penalty for pedophiles. Handing over of the document took place today at
the session of the parliamentary faction Onuguu-Progress.
Signatures of nearly 11,000 citizens of Kyrgyzstan have been handed over to the
faction leader Bakyt Torobaev by the chairman of the Committee for Protection
of Children "Strong family - strong state" Zhenish Akmatov.
The activist said that there are much more people standing for introduction of
the death penalty for the perpetrators of crimes against sexual inviolability
of minors. "Many of them live in remote inaccessible areas, so the collection
of signatures is still ongoing," he explained.
Presenting the analysis of the crimes against the juveniles, Zhenish Akmatov
noted that this figure is growing from year to year, and sexual offenses
increase most of all. Explaining the need for the introduction of capital
punishment, the activist reminded that, as of today, many developed countries
use the death penalty. It is Belarus, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and more
than 12 US states. And the countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea,
Algeria, Niger, Mali, Guyana and other have the rule, permitting the use of the
death penalty, in the fundamental laws but it is not executed in practice.
(source: eng.24.kg)
EGYPT:
Journalist decries Egypt handing him death sentence----Sentence sought for Al
Jazeera news director on alleged espionage charges to be confirmed next month
A former Al Jazeera news director facing the death penalty following an
Egyptian court's ruling has denounced the decision as politically motivated.
Ibrahim Helal, who was director of news for Al Jazeera's Arabic TV network
between 2011 and 2015, was sentenced in absentia earlier this month along with
2 other journalists on charges of endangering national security.
The journalists are among a group of 6 men accused of endangering Egyptian
national security by spying for Qatar.
But Helal told Anadolu Agency that the accusations of espionage were baseless.
"I have never been anything but a journalist. I have never participated in
political actions at any moment in my life and there is no evidence otherwise,"
he said in written remarks.
He said the main accusation against him in the trial was that he mediated in
the leaking to Qatar of sensitive documents, some of which exposed where the
Egyptian army held its weapons.
Helal is said to have provided money to sources within the Egyptian
presidential palace to leak the top secret documents to Qatari intelligence.
But court documents do not name the alleged Qatari intelligence officer who is
said to have received the documents.
"The alleged part I am accused of is the cornerstone in entire case, as if
there is no link between the defendants and the Qatari authorities, there will
be no espionage," he said.
"Here is the big hole in the case. If the Egyptian prosecutors couldn't
identify the Qatari officer, the entire case should fall apart. There is no
espionage without a 2nd part to spy for!"
He added: "I have never seized any document and there is no evidence that I
have obtained or seized any of the mentioned documents.
"Also there is no evidence of any kind of any connection between me and the
alleged Qatari intelligence officer, who is not identified so far."
Helal is an experienced broadcast journalist, having worked for Egyptian
television and the BBC before joining Al Jazeera at its launch in 1996. He
became the Qatari network's Arabic language channel's director of news for 3
years starting in 2001, joining just months before the Sept. 11 attacks in the
U.S.
He returned to the role in 2011 as a wave of protests and demonstrations were
sweeping Arab countries across the Middle East.
The death penalty sought by the court has been referred to the grand mufti, the
country's top religious authority, for an opinion.
Helal is being tried in absentia and has no right to appeal, but co-defendants
in the trial residing in Egypt do have that option, meaning the case is likely
to be reviewed once again.
Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Morsi is also charged in the same case,
although at a May 7 hearing a verdict on his involvement was postponed to June
18, when the final ruling will be made.
Egypt's 1st democratically elected president Morsi was deposed by the Egyptian
military in the summer of 2013 after a year in power, following mass protests
against his rule.
Since then, Egyptian authorities have cracked down on dissent through
operations that have mainly targeted the ousted president's supporters and
members of his Muslim Brotherhood group.
Last week, 3 UN human rights experts urged the Egyptian government to end
"disproportionate reactions" against worsening rights to assembly and
expression.
"The worsening crackdown on peaceful protest and dissent in Egypt represents a
further setback for an open political environment and a vibrant civil society,"
the UN special rapporteurs - David Kaye, Maina Kiai and Michel Forst - said in
a statement.
They added: "The use of force against civil society and against the expression
of dissenting views on political issues contribute to a deteriorating climate
for the promotion and protection of fundamental rights that form the essential
components of a democratic society."
(source: aa.com.tr)
PHILIPPINES:
'IT WOULD BE A SHAME'----PHL abandoning 'serious' commitment if it revives
death penalty - Amnesty Int'l
Human right group Amnesty International on Friday said the Philippines would be
abandoning international commitments if it pushes through with the plan to
bring back the death penalty as favored by incoming president Rodrigo Duterte.
"It would be a shame on the Philippines," said AI vice chairperson Romeo
Cabarde at a press briefing.
He said the Philippines is one of the countries at the forefront of the
campaign against death penalty, having signed the Second Optional Protocol to
the United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR). The protocol mandates state members to push efforts in abolishing the
death penalty.
"We are appreciated globally because we are the 1st country in Asia to outlaw
death penalty," Cabarde said. "Reviving it means there are serious commitments
that we are abandoning internationally."
The death penalty in the Philippines was abolished under former President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2006 with the signing of Republic Act 9346 or An Act
Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines.
The said law ultimately repealed Republic Act 7659 or the Death Penalty Law.
"What kind of face are we going to show to the rest of the world, having
promised that we will commit to the eradication of death penalty and here comes
a new leader who would impose it just because he wanted to curb criminality?"
Cabarde asked.
"Hindi naman natin bababa ang krimen just because there is a presence of death
penalty. It is not a deterrent factor to the commission of crime," he added.
Not a deterrent to crime
Cabarde also said some studies have already been conducted which disprove the
belief that imposing death penalty would result in lower crime rates. He noted
that when the Philippines still had the Death Penalty Law, the crime rate was
higher.
"There is no logical connection, between imposing death penalty and reducing
crime rates in the country," he said
Cabarde instead proposed that to solve the crime problem, the government must
strengthen law enforcement, and improve its judicial system and the provision
of basic social ecomonic needs.
"Kung ito naa-address natin, then we would not need death penalty," he said.
He added that the more Duterte pushes for the death penalty, "the more there is
an implied admission that law enforcement, the judiciary is not working in the
Philippines."
"Kung 'yun ang root cause kung bakit mayroong criminality, then I think we have
to hit the target at its very root and not propose something that is proven to
be ineffective," he said.
Amnesty International-Philippines board member Veronica Cabe echoed the
sentiment, saying their group expects the incoming president to instead
implement programs on economic, social and cultural rights.
Proposed plan of action
During the press conference, the group outlined their programs of action on
human rights which the group plans to submit as proposal to Duterte.
The document outlines 4 major concerns of the group, all of which boil down to
the protection of human rights.
Cabe said one key point they would want to raise is the strenghtening of the
independence and mandate of constitutional bodies that ensure government
accountability in safeguarding the rights of its constituents.
"In societies stricken with high levels of inequality, a leader who does not
adhere to human rights principles can be a threat to justice and freedom," Cabe
said.
The group also wants human rights be embedded in peace process and prevent the
use of counter-insurgency measures to justify human rights violations.
"Change is coming"
Meanwhile, Amnesty International country chairperson Ritzlee Santos said
Duterte should stand for his slogan "Change is coming" and truly deliver
changes when it comes to human rights.
"We want that change to happen," Santos said.
"The human rights situationin the Philippines is in dire need of uplifting...
We would like to ask the President to make human rights the top of his
administration's [priority]," Santos added.
(source: gmanetwork.com)
************************
If death penalty returns, bishop says he'll volunteer to die
In what may be a precursor to a showdown between church and state in perhaps
the most pervasively Catholic nation on earth, a Filipino bishop has said he'll
take the place of condemned criminals if the country's new president
reintroduces the death penalty.
Earlier this month, the Philippines elected the tough-talking, crime-busting
former mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte, who's said he wants to see the
country bring back capital punishment, which was abolished in 2006.
Duterte has said he hopes to apply it to a variety of "heinous" crimes,
including drug offenses, rape, robbery, car theft and corruption.
Although Duterte was raised as a Catholic and educated by the Benedictines,
that stance puts him on a collision course with the country's bishops, who have
vowed to resist any effort to bring back the death penalty.
Archbishop Ramon Cabrera Arguelles of Lipa, located on the Filipino island of
Luzon, has been especially outspoken in his criticism of the idea, even
suggesting he???d volunteer to be killed in place of the condemned.
"The archbishop of Lipa will volunteer to be executed in the place of all those
the government will hang," Arguelles said, speaking of himself in the 3rd
person.
"Didn't Christ do that?" he asked aloud.
Arguelles promised a full-court press by the Church in opposition to any effort
to restore capital punishment.
"In the Year of Mercy, Catholics in the Philippines will be merciless," he
said.
Notably, Arguelles, 71, is not generally known as among the more progressive
bishops in the Philippines. Earlier this year, he urged local Catholics to
boycott a Madonna concert because of what he described as her "suggestive"
lifestyle and "vulgar" style of dressing.
4 years ago, Arguelles issued a similar protest over a concert by Lady Gaga.
Archbishop Oscar Valero Cruz, now retired from the Archdiocese of
Lingayen-Dagupan, also threw down a gauntlet over the new president's death
penalty push.
"We will certainly oppose his plan, especially the Catholic Bishops Conference
of the Philippines," he said. "The Church will not take it sitting down, but
will stand against the death penalty."
Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga likewise disagreed with Duterte's plan, which
he described as akin to playing God.
"Only God has power over life," Santos said. "God gives life, and God takes
life. No one should play God." Duterte should use his influence and power to
push reforms in the justice system in the country, the bishop argued, to ensure
the guilty are prosecuted and punished and victims get their due.
"Life is sacred. Life is promoted, respected and protected. It is the prisons
they have to reform and the justice system they have to review," Santos said.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, the current president of the
national bishops conference, has said he intends to seek a meeting with Duterte
to try to persuade the president to back down from attempting to reintroduce
capital punishment.
A spokesman for the bishops indicated the opposition to Duterte's plan will be
fairly unanimous from the Church.
"As people of faith, we do not adhere to capital punishment because we do not
have the right to judge who should live and who should die," said Father Lito
Jopson, head of the bishops' communications office.
"It is not based on popularity ... but rather on complete moral principles of
the Catholic faith and faith demands we respect all persons' human dignity,"
Jopson said.
Human rights groups and the government's own Commission on Human Rights have
also announced opposition to the move.
Some Catholic social justice activists believe Duterte's crime-fighting record
in Davao City should be subject to critical examination, charging him with
having at least condoned, and perhaps actively encouraged, vigilante-style
summary executions of suspected criminals.
"I felt sad and depressed," said Father Amado Picardal of Duterte's rise to
power.
A Duterte presidency is "very frightening," he said, adding that human rights
groups will need to keep a close watch and document any violations in the next
6 years.
Almost 90 % of the Philippines' population of 100 million is Catholic, making
it the 3rd largest Catholic nation behind Brazil and Mexico, and levels of
faith and practice are exceptionally high by global standards.
(source: cruxnow.com)
IRAN----executions
8 Prisoners Hanged in Northern Iran
The latest execution reports say Iranian authorities have hanged 5 prisoners at
Tabriz Central Prison (East Azerbaijan province, northwestern Iran), 2
prisoners at Urmia Central Prison (West Azerbaijan province, northwestern
Iran), and 1 prisoner at Sari Prison (Mazandaran province, northern Iran).
The press department of the Judiciary in Mazandaran reports on the execution of
the prisoner at Sari Prison, identified as "S.R.", 31 years old, hanged on
murder charges on the morning of Wednesday May 18.
The human rights news agency HRANA and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network
report on the execution of 2 prisoners, identified as "Dariush Farajzadeh" and
"Ghafour Ghaderzadeh", who were hanged at Urmia Central Prison on Wednesday May
18 on murder charges. Another prisoner, identified as Khaled Zika, was
reportedly taken to the gallows as well, but his life was spared last minute
and he was returned to his cell after receiving consent for a postponement on
his execution. There has been an increase in executions carried out at Urmia
Central Prison. On Tuesday May 17, 6 prisoners were hanged at this prison on
drug charges.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reports on the execution of 5 prisoners at
Tabriz Central Prison. Three prisoners, identified as "Rahim Khodayari", "Ramin
Imani" and "Sohrab Sharbatiyeh", were hanged on murder charges on Tuesday May
17. The next day, 5 prisoners, identified as "Yaghoub Jahed" and "Seyed Jalal
Abedi", were hanged on drug related charges.
It is important to note that Iranian authorities have increased the number of
executions before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, when they typically
do not carry out executions.
************
2 Prisoners Hanged in Southwestern Iran
2 unidentified prisoners were reportedly hanged at Yasouj Central Prison on
rape charges.
According to a state-run news agency, Young Journalists Club, these 2 prisoners
were 26 and 34 years old at the time of their execution on Wednesday May 18.
Yasouj Prison is located in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province,
southwestern Iran.
(source for both: Iran Human Rights)
*********************
Will Iran stop executions for drug offenses?
Nearly a year and a half after announcing that Iran would reconsider its
frequent execution of drug offenders, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of
Iran's Human Rights Council, is still calling for Iran to lower its execution
rate for drug-related crimes.
Speaking to reporters at a May 16 conference titled "Finding the court's role
in protecting the accused," Larijani couched his concerns in diplomatic terms,
saying, 'We need to have a [better] method to fight against drugs. It's
possible that execution is not the only path, or that high execution rates do
not have a desirable result. We recommend that the legislation ... be
reconsidered."
Perhaps more than other officials, Larijani is aware of how Iran's executions
for nonviolent crime reflect on the country. He said enemies of Iran, such as
Western countries and Israel, use this issue to portray a negative image of
Islam and the Islamic Republic and the problem needs to be "unveiled."
While China leads the world in state executions, Iran is the leader in per
capita executions, with approximately 1,000 executions in 2015. According to UN
Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed, 65% were for drug offenses. In previous
statements, Larijani had put the % of drug-related executions at 80%.
Officials from the Hassan Rouhani administration have also publicly addressed
this issue in recent days. Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli said May
18, "The discussion of punishing smugglers and punishment's influence on the
activities of drug smugglers is one of the main issues being discussed by the
Iran Drug Control Headquarters." Rahmani-Fazli, who is also the secretary of
that organization, added that there will be meetings with judiciary officials,
including the head of the judiciary, to form a joint committee headed by the
attorney general to review methods for punishing drug convictions.
The topic also made the May 19 front page of Iran newspaper, which operates
under the administration. In an article headlined "The death penalty for drug
smugglers, yes or no?" a half-dozen sociologists and legal experts were
interviewed about the efficacy of executing drug smugglers. Unsurprisingly, the
interviewees concurred that no studies show that executions have had a positive
impact in decreasing drug use or drug smuggling. Rather, drug use and smuggling
appears to be increasing.
Larijani and Rahmani-Fazli are not the only officials to address concerns about
this issue. In May 2014, Iran's top prosecutor Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, a
hard-line official not known for his consideration for Iran's international
public image, surprised many by calling for a "review" of existing laws to
address the high execution rate for drug offenses. He suggested punishing only
the heads of drug-smuggling networks. In December 2015, 70 parliament members
signed a bill to eliminate the death penalty for nonviolent drug smuggling.
Larijani himself first addressed the problem with Iran's high execution rate in
December 2014.
(source: al-monitor.com)
BANGLADESH:
Bounty announced for 6 militants
The Dhaka Metropolitan Police authorities have released photographs and
identities of 6 members of outlawed militant group Ansarullah Bangla Team
seeking public support to nab them.
Different amounts of prize money have also been announced for the informants,
according to the DMP website. These militants were involved in the recent
organised murders of secularist bloggers, writers and publishers, police say.
According to the DMP, CCTV footage shows that Ansarullah's military and IT
trainer Sharif was present at the crime scene where US citizen Avijit and his
wife were hacked.
Police say that he also masterminded the attacks on publisher Faisal Arefin
Dipan; secular activists Oyasiqur Rahman Babu and Nazimuddin Samad; and LGBT
rights activists Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy.
The DMP also gave several phone numbers to contact with them on the matter:
01713373194, 01713373198, 01713373206. 02-9362640.
The Detective Branch of police learnt about them after conducting raids at 4
dens of Ansarullah in Badda Satarkul, Mohammadpur, Dakkhinkhan and Ashkona
areas of Dhaka. These houses were used as training centre and to store
bomb-making materials.
The DMP earlier announced a bounty of Tk5 lakh for top Ansarullah leader
Redwanul Azad Rana following the murder of Mukto-Mona blog founder Avijit Roy
in February last year. Rana, also a former leader of Islami Chhatra Shibir, was
given death penalty for masterminding the murder of Ahmed Rajeeb Haider in
February 2013. The DB police earlier said that Rana had fled the country.
(source: dhakatribune.com)
UNITED NATIONS:
UN Welcome Pfizer Decision on Lethal Injection
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra''ad Al Hussein, praised today
the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer''s decision to ensure that its products
will not be used to carry out executions by lethal injection.
Businesses, across many industries, can help prevent human rights violations
from occurring.
It is heartening to see companies playing an active role in furthering the
trend towards ending the death penalty, Zeid said in a statement.
Pfizer announced last Friday that it would restrict the sale of seven products
that have been part of lethal injection protocols,a predominant method used in
the 31 US states which apply the death penalty.
According to the media, 1,436 people have been executed in the United States
since 1976, and only 175 of them were killed using a different method.
Zeid called on all businesses to act in accordance with their human rights
responsibilities.
(source: Prensa Latina)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 20 14:15:38 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 14:15:38 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., OHIO, USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605201415300.7788@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 20
TEXAS:
Nueces County prosecutors seek death penalty in store clerk shooting case
Nueces County prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a man accused
of killing a store clerk owner last year.
James Elizalde, 23, faces a capital murder charge in the shooting death of
store clerk Ignacio Rodriguez. Rodriguez, 50, was killed about 3 a.m. Oct. 4 at
a convenience store in the 3600 block of Staples Street.
Capital murder carries 2 punishment options: life in prison without parole or
death by lethal injection.
Elizalde was seen in surveillance footage fleeing the store with 2 other men
after the shooting, according to an arrest affidavit. The other 2 have not been
charged and were listed as witnesses in the affidavit.
A grand jury also indicted Elizalde on an evading arrest charge from a 2014
incident, court officials said.
Lawyers are slated to start picking a jury on Aug. 15 in 214th District Judge
Jose Longoria's court. Elizalde remains in the Nueces County Jail in lieu of
more than $1 million bail.
(source: Corpus Christi Caller Times)
FLORIDA:
Dale Recinella makes a moral case to kill the death penalty
I've been a supporter of the death penalty. When I thought about it at all.
Which is to say, some crimes are so heinous that only one punishment seems
sufficient. But to say this is to make a lot of assumptions. It's to assume,
first off, that the person being put to death is actually guilty, which isn't
always the case. And it's to assume the process by which they are sentenced to
death is fair and unbiased.
And it's pretty clear this isn't always the case, either.
So there's the idea of the death penalty, and then there's the reality. Dale
Recinella, a Macclenny attorney who has served for 20 years a volunteer
chaplain and for 13 years as a lay chaplain for Florida's death row, says the
reality is that in Florida and elsewhere, the death penalty is "a mess in every
way, shape and form."
"Everyone believes this myth that it's the worst of the worst who are
executed," said Recinella, who will speak at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in
Stuart this Saturday night and Sunday morning. "It isn't; it's the people who
couldn't afford lawyers."
The process itself, he said, is inconsistent, arbitrary and racially biased -
with 85 p% of all executions since 1976 taking place in "the old Confederacy
and the slaveholding border states."
"If you have 20 people who are charged with crimes that are almost identical,
who will get the death penalty?" he asked rhetorically. "The poorest, the
person of color and the guy with the worst lawyer."
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees capital punishment in Florida is less than fair.
The court ruled in January our death penalty is unconstitutional because it
gives judges too much say in the process, and doesn't give jurors enough. Now
the Florida Supreme Court is deciding whether the state's 390 death row inmates
should have their sentences commuted to life in prison.
The Legislature tried to come up with a fix, but earlier this month, a Miami
judge struck that down.
Capital punishment in Florida could be on a death watch.
For Recinella, the end can't come too soon.
Recinella was once a Wall Street finance lawyer who in the 1980s nearly died
after eating a raw oyster and getting infected with the Vibrio vulnificus
bacteria. He was literally on his deathbed when he saw the light, when he said
Jesus came to him and challenged him to stop living such a self-centered life.
"People ask, 'Did you get the music and light?' " Recinella said in a phone
interview last week. "No, I got the lecture."
When he awoke the following morning, "shocked that I was not dead," he and his
wife, Susan, discussed where to go from there.
They started volunteering at a Tallahassee food kitchen. That led to a stint
working with street people who had AIDS. That, in turn, resulted in a request
that he begin working with prisoners who had HIV and AIDS.
In 1998, that led to death row.
Recinella had once been pro-capital punishment; what he saw - chronicled in 2
books he's written on the subject - changed his mind.
But what changed his heart was his faith and his belief in human dignity.
"Even people who have committed great wrongs still retain human dignity, and
their life is still valuable," he said.
Dignity is in short supply on death row. Prisoners are confined in 6-by-9 cages
in "these large boxes of steel and concrete sitting in the middle of nowhere
between Gainesville and Jacksonville." There's no air conditioning, virtually
no air movement at all.
"People sometimes call (death row prisoners) 'animals' - but it would be
unconscionable to keep a dog in these conditions.
"Their crimes are horrible," he said. "But the question is, once we have these
people secured in prison, are they animals - or are they human beings?"
Recinella speaks all over the country, and says he's not interested in
preaching to the choir. He wants people who doubt his position to hear what he
has to say. Maybe they'll change their minds. Some do; nationwide support for
the death penalty is at its lowest level in 40 years.
That - coupled with the legal challenges here in Florida and elsewhere - have
led Recinella, 65, to believe something he never thought possible:
"I really do believe that in my lifetime, we will see the end of capital
punishment in the United States."
Hear Dale Recinella speak
Dale Recinella will speak at 5 p.m. Saturday and 7:30, 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday at
St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 623 S.E. Ocean Blvd., Stuart.
(source: Commentary; Gil Smart, TC Palm)
ALABAMA:
Drug company's withdrawal limits death penalty options in Alabama
Pfizer's decision to ban the use of its products in executions will not
necessarily stop capital punishment in Alabama, one expert says, but the
state's lethal injection options are running out.
Pfizer's decision to ban the use of its products in executions will not
necessarily stop capital punishment in Alabama, one expert says, but the
state's lethal injection options are running out. "The sources of drugs on the
open market are gone," said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty
Information Center, a group that studies the death penalty. "States are going
to have to go underground, as it were, to obtain the drugs for executions."
Pfizer announced Friday that it "strongly objects to the use of its products as
lethal injections for capital punishment." Pfizer joins several other major
drug producers in a boycott that has been slowing the pace of executions in
America for years. Alabama has executed only 2 inmates in the past 4 years,
compared with 17 in the 4 years before that. Federal regulators seized the
state's execution drugs, acquired through back channels, in 2011. Alabama
switched to a new main execution drug, but its supply of that drug expired in
2014 while lawyers debated the legality of the switch. In court records filed
in December, state officials said they asked every compounding pharmacist in
the state to make pentobarbital and every pharmacist turned them down.
(source: pharmacist.com)
OHIO----new death sentence
Jury recommends death penalty in Michael Madison sentencing phase
A jury recommends the death penalty for convicted serial killer Michael
Madison. All 12 jurors made the recommendation.
Madison was convicted of killing of 3 women in East Cleveland and wrapping
their bodies in garbage bags.
Prosecutors told jurors Madison,38, deserves execution because of the
circumstances surrounding the killings.
Defense attorneys argued Madison's life should be spared because of
psychological damage caused by child abuse.
The jury convicted Madison of aggravated murder earlier this month for killing
38-year-old Angela Deskins, 28-year-old Shetisha Sheeley and 18-year-old
Shirellda Terry. Their bodies were found near Madison's East Cleveland
apartment in 2013.
The death penalty verdict by the jury is only a recommendation. The judge must
decide to accept the recommendation or choose to sentence Madison to life in
prison. Sentencing will be May 26.
(source: WOIO news)
USA:
U.S. should end the death penalty
I recently read on the internet that Pfizer, a major U.S. drug manufacturer, is
going to ban the sale of any of its products to correctional facilities that
had used them for lethal injection. Pfizer has joined a group of about 20 U.S.
and European drug manufacturers that have taken the same action. Hopefully,
this will signal the beginning of the end of capital punishment in the United
States.
The U.S. should join the other major industrialized countries and ban all death
sentences. Our neighboring countries to the north and south, Canada and Mexico,
do not kill their citizens in a misguided effort to seek justice. Let's leave
vengeance to a higher power, if you believe that a higher power exists.
For people who are already on death row, their sentences should be commuted to
life in prison. This will finally eliminate a component of a broken system of
justice that is biased based on ethnic, financial and religious factors. It
also is significantly more expensive to sentence a person to death than it is
to incarcerate that same person for 50 years.
Moses Mims
Aiken
(source: Letter to the Editor, Aiken Standard)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 20 14:16:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 20 May 2016 14:16:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605201416400.7788@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 20
INDONESIA:
Selangor police seize 600,000 Eramin 5 pills worth RM9 mln
Selangor police seized 600,000 Eramin 5 pills worth RM9 million and arrested a
local man in Teluk Gong, Klang on Wednesday.
Head of the Selangor Narcotics Crime Investigation Department ACP Amran Ramli
said the suspect, in his 30s, was arrested at about 11.10am following a 2-month
intelligence work.
He said the man was detained after his Toyota Vellfire was stopped by the
police.
Upon inspection, police found 600,000 Eramin 5 pills, weighing a total of 169.2
kilogrammes, hidden in 60 small boxes in the car.
The arrest of the suspect led the police to a house in Ampang where they seized
a Toyota Camry and a Nissan X-Trail, as well as cash totaling RM15,000, he told
reporters here yesterday.
Amran said the suspect was believed to have smuggled the dugs into the country
in a container and they were meant for distribution in local markets,
especially in the Klang Valley.
"However, the suspect, who is believed to have been active over the past two
months, does not have any previous criminal record, and we are investigating
into possibility of him having any contacts or a syndicate network involved in
this case," he said.
Amran said the suspect had been remanded until Wednesday and the case was being
investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which carries a
mandatory death penalty.
(source: theborneopost.com)
IRAQ:
Isis executes 25 Iraqi 'spies' by lowering them into nitric acid until their
'organs dissolve'
The Islamic State (Isis) has executed 25 alleged spies by lowering them into a
huge tub of nitric acid, until their 'organs dissolved', Iocal news source
Iraqi News has claimed. The report could not be independently verified.
The alleged spies were captured in the IS (Daesh) stronghold of Mosul, in
northern Iraq, accused of working for the Iraqi government's security forces.
Mosul is the largest city in Iraq still under IS control, but is facing
increasing pressure from the north, south and east by the Iraqi army, Kurdish
Peshmerga forces and US-led Western air strikes. A number of shocking and
brutal killings have taken place at the hands of IS as they try to assert their
domination over the the city, which Barack Obama had predicted would fall be
the end of this year.
According to witnesses of the killings, the 25 alleged 'spies' were tied
together with a huge rope and lowered in a basin containing the highly
corrosive acid. Nitric acid is generally used for manufacturing ammonium
nitrate that can be used to make fertiliser and explosives but it can also be
used for photoengraving, etching steel, and reprocessing spent nuclear fuel.
"ISIS terrorist members executed 25 persons in Mosul on charges of spying and
collaborating with Iraqi security forces,' a source told Iraqi News in a
statement. "ISIS members tied each person with a rope and lowered him in the
tub, which contains nitric acid, till the victims organs dissolve."
On Wednesday (18 May), IBTimes UK reported the burning alive of a Christian
child who asked her mum to forgive the Isis militants who torched her home. The
courageous child, believed to be around 12-years-old, was burned in Mosul after
her family were raided by the jihadists for 'Jaziya' - a religious tax.
Earlier this week, the US Defence Department estimated that Isis fighters lost
control of about 40% of the territory they once had in Iraq and roughly 10% of
the land they held in Syria. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central
Command, told reporters this week: "They are looking for ways to start to
regain their momentum or regain the initiative".
(soruce: ibtimes.co.uk)
MALAYSIA:
'Tuhan Harun', followers to enter defence on murder charge
The High Court here Friday ordered the leader of deviant sect "Tuhan Harun",
Harun Mat Saat, and 5 of his followers to enter their defence on the charge of
murdering a Pahang Islamic Religious Department (JAIP) officer 3 years ago.
Judicial Commissioner Ab Karim Ab Rahman made the decision after scrutinising
the testimonies of 54 prosecution witnesses and found that the prosecution had
established a prima facie case against all the accused.
He also set July 25 to 27, Aug 8 to 12 and 22 to 26 to hear the submission of
defence.
Harun, 50, his 3rd wife, Azida Mohd Zol, 33, his driver Shaizral Eddie Nizam
Shaari, 40, and 3 other followers - Jefferi Safar, 39, Sumustapha Suradi, 41,
and Shamsinar Abdul Halim, 39, - along with another follower still at large,
were charged with committing the crime of conspiracy to murder Ahmad Raffli Abd
Malek.
They were alleged to have committed the offence at No 7, Lorong IM 2/29, Bandar
Indera Mahkota, here at 1.50pm on Nov 10, 2013.
Sumustapha and Shaminar also face the charge of murdering Ahmad Raffli, who was
JAIP Enforcement Division principal assistant director, on the same day and at
the same time and place.
They were charged under Section 302 and 120B (1) of the Penal Code which
carries a mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
Counsel Hermes Putra Media Ibrahim, who represented all the accused, said the
defence would call 16 witnesses, including all the accused to testify.
Ab Karim, however, instructed that the doctors responsible for Harun's medical
treatment, since he is now paralysed after suffering a stroke, be present when
Harun enters his defence as they had always been together and could understand
his body language.
The judicial commissioner also advised Hermes Putra Media to find the best
possible way to help Harun in his defence after the counsel admitted that it
took him months just to get his client to answer 1 question.
(source: Bernama)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 21 09:40:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 09:40:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., LA., IND.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605210940250.4656@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 21
TEXAS----impending execution
Charles Flores, the next person in America scheduled to be executed, has filed
his final appeal
The next person in America scheduled to be executed has filed his final appeal,
arguing that his conviction for murder was based on "flimsy" evidence and was
racially motivated.
Charles Flores, a Texas inmate who is schedule to receive a lethal injection on
June 2, filed a legal brief to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals late
Thursday afternoon. He currently has 13 days to live.
As Fusion reported earlier this month, Flores was convicted for the 1998 murder
of Elizabeth "Betty" Black in a Dallas suburb. He was sentenced to death even
though the prosecution presented no physical evidence linking him to the crime,
and the only witness who saw him at the scene was improperly hypnotized by
police. Meanwhile, Flores' white co-defendant, who was also charged with the
murder, pled guilty, received a 35-year prison sentence, and is now out on
parole.
The brief Flores' lawyers filed Thursday is an application for a writ of habeas
corpus, essentially a petition asking the Texas court for a new trial or at
least to postpone the execution to allow a hearing on the evidence.
"In a case involving drugs, money, greed, and family, Flores was implicated
based solely on conduct preceding the murder and conduct that occurred many
weeks following the crime," his lawyers write. "No gun - no bullet - no money -
no fingerprints - no DNA - no map - nothing, absolutely nothing directly links
Flores to this crime."
What is likely Flores' strongest argument concerns the hypnosis used in the
investigation of the case. Jill Barganier, a neighbor of the victim's, was
hypnotized by police officers to help her recover her memory of the morning of
the murder. Even after the hypnosis, she couldn't pick Flores out of a police
lineup. But 13 months later, when she was on the witness stand, she said she
was "100% sure" she had seen Flores. Barganier was the only eyewitness who said
she saw Flores at the scene of the crime.
Now, Flores' lawyers are arguing that Barganier's testimony should be thrown
out under the state's junk science law. The brief includes an affidavit from
Steven Lynn, a Binghamton University professor who is an expert in hypnosis and
recovered memories. According to Lynn, who reviewed the trial transcript and
the video of the hypnosis, new scientific research on hypnosis since the '90s
suggests that the hypnosis conducted on Barganier could have led to the
creation of false memories.
"Serious consideration should be given to the possibility that a miscarriage of
justice was perpetrated in the ease of Mr. Flores," Lynn writes. Specifically,
he says, the police officer who conducted the hypnosis used a technique known
as the "movie theater technique," in which he encouraged her to imagine she was
in a movie theater watching a movie of her memories. That strategy, Lynn says,
has been discredited, and can cause people to have unwarranted confidence in
false memories. "Clearly, the techniques that were used to refresh Ms.
Bargainer's memory would be eschewed today by anyone at all familiar with the
extant research on hypnosis and memory," Lynn writes.
Without the testimony of Barganier - the only witness who identified him at the
crime scene - Flores would not be convicted, his lawyers argue.
"[Barganier's] flawed testimony is literally the only glue holding together the
States tenuous circumstantial case. Without it, there is no way a Texas jury
would have found Flores guilty of capital murder," the brief states. (Barganier
did not respond to several requests for comment last month.)
The brief also spends considerable time discussing Flores' childhood. He says
he was given drugs by his brothers at an early age, and was huffing gas to get
high when he was only 5. Another psychologist who the defense had evaluate
Flores said that this may have led to abnormal brain development. One of
Flores' earliest memories, the brief notes, is a violent fight between his
parents. Flores also reported that he was sexually assaulted by relatives.
But Flores' trial attorneys didn't investigate any of this or present this
mitigating evidence to the jury. During the sentencing phase of his trial,
Flores' attorneys didn't call a single witness. They didn't try to contact any
of his brothers or childhood friends.
"Had the jury heard about Flores's upbringing, childhood drug use, and brain
impairment, it would have been presented with a vastly different picture than
the State's depiction of a violent, remorseless, inhuman monster. Because
Flores's attorneys did little to challenge the State's narrative, the jury was
left with no real options," the brief states.
Finally, the brief argues that the deep discrepancy in sentencing that Flores
received as compared to his white co-defendant, Richard Childs, means the death
penalty as applied to him is unconstitutional. Childs, who was also charged
with the murder and pled guilty to shooting Black, received 35 years in prison,
served 17, and is now out on parole. (In a later appeal, however, Childs
claimed that it was in fact Flores who shot Black, not him.)
"The only real difference between the 2 men is the color of their skin,"
Flores' brief states.
Since 1973, it notes, almost 2/3 of the defendants sent to death row from
Dallas County have been nonwhite, even though the county has a majority white
population. And Dallas County has never sent a white inmate to death row for
killing a minority victim.
The brief also cites Fusion's interview with the lead prosecutor in the case,
Jason January, who told me that "If you talk to the jury, they didn't much care
whether [Flores] pulled the trigger or not, he was participating fully and
wholeheartedly in the crime."
"The jury might not have cared, but the constitution does," his lawyers respond
in the brief.
The state will likely file a response to the brief within the next day or so,
and a ruling from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is expected next week.
Gregory Gardner, 1 of Flores' attorneys, says he's optimistic about the
application's chances. If the Texas court denies the brief, Flores' lawyers are
likely to appeal to federal courts and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court.
Recent opinions by Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioning
the constitutionality of the death penalty suggest that they might be
interested in the questions of race involved in the different sentences Flores
and Charles received.
"We think there's a potential they might want to revisit that," Gardner told
me. "It's just so unfair and arbitrary who gets put to death and who doesn't
... even if you don't want to look at the race, it's just so massively
disparate that it shocks the conscience."
Flores' lawyers have also filed a petition for clemency to the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles, but clemency for Texas death row inmates is exceedingly
rare.
While Flores watches his final appeal play out, he's been given some very bad
news: His father Catarino, who has been in a nursing home, died yesterday
morning. "For the circumstances he's doing well, but it's been kind of a lot
all at once," Gardner said. "He's hanging in there."
(source: fusion.net)
************************** new death sentence
Brownlow given death penalty
The jury in the capital murder case of Charles E. Brownlow Jr. of Terrell has
given him the death penalty. After Brownlow was found guilty of the murder of
Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo at Ali's Market in Terrell Oct. 28, 2013, they had to
decide whether he received a life prison sentence without parole or the death
penalty.
The sentence was handed down in district court in Kaufman Friday afternoon. The
sentencing phase of the trial has been ongoing since the guilty verdict was
reached April 28.
Brownlow is also accused of 4 other murders, all on the night of Oct. 28, 2013.
(source: The Terrell Tribune)
*************
Death Penalty Sought in Store Clerk Death
Prosecutors announced Friday they will seek the death penalty in connection
with an armed robbery that left a convenience store clerk dead.
23-year old James Elizalde is accused of shooting and killing 50-year old
Ignacio Rodriguez back in October of last year at the Stripes store at South
Staples and Carroll Lane. Elizalde was arrested after police say he robbed the
store then shot and killed Rodriguez.
Elizalde pled not guilty.
(source: KIII news)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Compulsion to rape and kill: Inside killer's mind
For more than 2 decades, people have been trying to get inside the mind of
Joseph D. "Joey" Miller. In a way, the convicted serial killer from Steelton
has become his own Rorschach test for the detectives, defense attorneys,
prosecutors, psychologists and judges who played a role in his protracted,
high-profile case.
Some look at him and see a mentally challenged, parentally abused, perennially
bullied victim whose rage is a product of his environment, upbringing and
post-traumatic stress.
Others take into account the manner in which Miller maintained a domestic home
life, complete with a wife and 3 children, while simultaneously getting away
with the rape and murder of up to 5 women, and brutal assaults of 2 others.
They see a cunning killer leading a duplicitous double life who was always
careful about procuring victims from society's margins, packing a murder kit
complete with beer, and then disposing of the bodies; some of the remains
wouldn't be found for a decade.
Miller's mysterious, murderous mind has been the subject of 2 murder trials
covering 3 of his victims and resulting in 3 convictions and a double death
sentence. Then came a flurry of capital punishment appeals that reached all the
way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Miller confessed to a 4th murder, for which another man had been convicted.
That man was later released, yet Miller was never charged. Then in April - 3
decades after 26-year-old Kelly Ann Ward disappeared - Miller was charged in
Dauphin County with her murder, as well.
If the allegations are true, Joseph Miller stands, at 5 feet, 9 inches, as the
midstate's most prolific killer ever. He ranks as a genuine serial killer,
bearing all the signature traits straight out of a horror movie, according to
the detectives who profiled him and district attorneys who prosecuted him.
"It was more Hollywood than Harrisburg," Dauphin County District Attorney
Edward M. Marsico Jr. remembered of the Miller case, which broke in the early
1990s, just after the hit horror film, "The Silence of the Lambs," turned
Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of serial killer Hannibal Lecter into a pop-culture
sensation.
This was the age of the serial killer as celebrity, and sure enough, Central
Pennsylvania had spawned one of its own.
"Ted Bundy was still fresh in our minds," recalled Marsico. "Son of Sam. All of
that. Now we had in Dauphin and Perry counties someone who was a true serial
killer. He targeted a certain type of victim, and raped and killed them. He
would keep a trinket or memento of the victim and have a little shrine to them.
He would go back to where the bodies were."
Dauphin County Judge Richard Lewis, who as county district attorney won twin
murder convictions and secured the death penalty against Miller, is more
succinct:
"His crimes were monstrous," Lewis said. "It defied description what he did."
Now, with the Ward case, Miller is again capturing headlines, adding to the
hundreds of law enforcement hours already spent on his case and the thousands
of words written about him.
Yet the mystery of Miller's mind endures.
Is it that of a mentally challenged man incapable of fully understanding his
horrible crimes? Or is it the mind of a cold, calculating serial killer driven
by a compulsion to rape and murder his minority victims?
More than two decades later, insight into Joseph Miller's mind remains as
confounding, conflicting and as polarizing as ever.
2 Sides of Joseph Miller
Time has transformed Joseph Miller from the wiry, short-statured, tattooed
murder suspect into a wizened, haunted, hollowed-eyed convict staring out in a
state prison mugshot at age 51.
His thousand-yard prison stare seems to defy the viewer to project upon him any
view they wish. So does his conflicting tattoos, which include ink of both
Jesus and the grim reaper.
And how about Miller's pronounced lisp, caused from a boyhood fall after
leaping from a couch, a la Superman. Does it intone meekness or snake-like
duplicity?
History shows that Miller can be the taciturn type who confesses to several of
his murders with such relish and emotion that it becomes a physical
performance.
Conversely, Miller isn't above laughing in the face of investigators
desperately attempting to tie up loose ends from a 30-year-old homicide in
which the victim, Kelly Ann Ward, wasn't found for a decade, and remained
faceless and nameless for almost 2 more decades.
Joseph Miller remains a conundrum. This, despite the best attempts of
detectives, defense lawyers, prosecutors, psychologists and even judges to
define him by peering into that murky mind of his.
"Who can explain what goes on in the head of a fellow with a 4th-grade
education and a low IQ?" Perry County Public Defender Shaubut Walz once asked
during Miller's murder trial for killing victim Kathi Shenck with his car at a
Duncannon dumping ground after she tried to flee his sexual assaults in 1990.
After examining Miller, Camp Hill psychologist Stanley E. Schneider, now
retired, testified that he found a mix of borderline mental retardation,
emotional difficulties and learning disabilities, raised in a "violent,
abusive, alcoholic home."
Despite this, Miller, a mentally challenged man with a criminally checkered
past, managed to get his life together and achieve a degree of seeming
normalcy.
In the end, Miller's marriage and his role as a father would prove a mirage, if
not an elaborate double life.
For in Uptown Harrisburg, young African-American and minority women began
disappearing, one by one.
The Victims
Shortly after Joseph Miller began his own family, women began vanishing from
their families. Despite some clues and maddening coincidence, it would be years
before the cause and effect could be tied together.
On May 16, 1987, Selina Franklin, 18, of Harrisburg, disappeared, last seen by
friends with a man named "Joey" who gave the girls a ride.
Stephanie McDuffey, 8 months' pregnant, failed to return to her Bellevue
Street, Harrisburg, home on Nov. 6, 1989. The 23-year-old woman's mother
reported her missing, but police turn up nothing.
On Jan. 11, 1990, Jeannette Thomas, 25, disappeared after leaving an Allison
Hill bar with a man fitting Miller's description. She was never seen alive
again.
The body of Kathy Novena Shenck, also known as Phoenix Bell, was found at a
roadside dump in Penn Twp., Perry County, on Feb. 27, 1990. The Harrisburg
woman was run over by a car several times, until dead.
On June 30, 1992, a Harrisburg woman with a history of prostitution staggered
to a secluded home in Perry County, telling a horrific story of rape and forced
oral sex. Her assailant stabbed her more than 25 times in the head with a
screwdriver, then left her for dead. But she lived to tell her tale.
Before all of them, there was Kelly Ann Ward, police say. The 26-year-old
Harrisburg woman disappeared in 1986, but her skeletal remains were not found
until 1997. Even then, those remains would not be positively identified as
Ward's for decades.
Throughout the string of disappearances and the many intervening years during
which those cases went unsolved, Joseph Miller emerged as a common denominator.
Miller was questioned in Selina Franklin's disappearance but told police he
dropped her off following their ride.
In the Jeannette Thomas case, Miller fit the suspect's description, but a
mentally challenged 31-year-old man confessed to her homicide.
In the screwdriver assault in Perry County, Miller was photographed withdrawing
money from an automated teller machine at Harrisburg's Uptown Plaza with the
victim in his car. This prompted state police to place him under surveillance
for the 1st time.
Yet for years, Joseph Miller was able to maintain his double life.
"I think it's a fair description," Judge Lewis agreed.
For Marsico, who fought Miller's death sentence appeals all the way to the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the murderer's duplicitous nature proved to be the
prosecution's main argument that Joseph Miller had adequate mental capacity to
be executed.
"We focused on his adaptive functioning," Marsico recounted. "The fact that he
was married, with kids and a job, and he planned and carried out these crimes
without being caught for years, including the case he was just arrested on 30
years later. That's not what you think of when you think of mentally retarded."
Miller's murderous reign might have gone on longer. But law enforcement was
about to get a major break in the case.
Call it luck. Or call it a serial killer going for 1 victim too many.
The Beginning of the End
The date is Aug. 6, 1992. By this time, Joseph Miller has gotten away with the
murders of 5 women, police say. (He has since been convicted of 3, confessed to
a 4th and been charged with a 5th.)
Miller's compulsion for sex, rape and murder has brought him to the seemingly
quiet, deserted Conrail property in Susquehanna Township. Then fate intervenes.
Headlights approach along a service road. A startled Miller flees on foot,
leaving his car and everything else behind.
A Conrail security guard encounters the scene, but doesn't immediately
recognize the significance. At first, the guard doesn't see the nude victim,
already bound and gagged and lying in the dirt near the burial hole. Then, she
begins squirming for help.
"The woman who lived only lived by a miracle," recounted Lewis, who was
district attorney when Miller was prosecuted. "The hole was already dug. It was
a matter of seconds. It was by the grace of God that headlights came up the
road. Joe panics and runs, and the security guard finds the woman bound and
gagged who couldn't make a sound. She moved around in the dirt to make noise."
Miller's so-called murder kit, left behind at the Conrail scene, contained a
knife, duct tape, a cooler of beer and mats to lay the victim on. But it was
his car that led police to Miller and his Steelton residence. There, Miller
engaged in a rooftop standoff with police, threatening suicide before
ultimately surrendering.
Shortly after his capture, Miller seemed eager to confess.
"You could see the veins on his neck pumping," Brennan told the Patriot-News in
2000, describing how Miller would relive his murders while recounting the
attacks to interrogators.
"It was almost like he was working out in a gym," Brennan said.
On Aug. 12, 1992, Miller led police to the skeletons of McDuffey and Franklin,
admitting to bludgeoning both to death following sex.
By the time he was finished, Miller had admitted to four murders, confirming a
predilection for preying upon young minority women from Harrisburg, some of
whom may have been prostitutes. The pattern proved to be the quintessential
signature of a serial killer.
"He is cold and calculating," Marsico said of Miller. "Look who he selected. He
purposely selected African-American (and minority) females, usually bigger
women. He figured there wouldn't be an outcry or much attention paid to their
disappearance. He went to secluded areas to torture and kill them. There was
some planning and thought that went into this. Cunning is a good word."
But knowing what Miller had done and proving it to a jury beyond a reasonable
doubt were 2 different things.
Miller's double-murder trial in Dauphin County would come down to the testimony
of the surviving victim from the Conrail property. The woman's narrative of her
near-death experience at the hands of Joseph Miller would rivet the jury and
cinch both convictions, as well as his dual death penalty punishment, Lewis
recalled.
As a result, Joseph Miller was now a twice-convicted murderer, condemned to
death. A conviction for Kathy Novena Shenck's murder in Perry County would make
it 3 murder convictions.
But Joseph Miller was about to turn the tables on the justice system, itself.
And none other than the U.S. Supreme Court would lay the legal groundwork that
just might spare his life.
Mind Games
If the disturbing tours of Joseph Miller's mind were peripheral issues during
his murder trials, they became the central focus in his death sentence appeals.
Joseph Miller was cooling his heels on Pennsylvania's Death Row when, in 2002,
a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court changed everything. The land's highest court
ruled that killers suffering from mental retardation could not be executed.
The legal shockwaves of that ruling soon reached Dauphin County, where Judge
Jeannine Turgeon, who presided over Miller's trial and sentencing, acted to
vacate the double death sentence she had handed down. This converted Miller's
punishment to three life prison sentences, two from Dauphin County and one from
Perry County.
The reaction to Turgeon's ruling was both immediate and sharp.
Marsico, now Dauphin County's district attorney, was livid in vowing an all-out
appeal:
"Joey Miller is a poster child for the death penalty," Marsico proclaimed at
the time. "He cold-bloodedly planned his rapes and murders, choosing a
particular type of woman, luring them to a secluded location where he would
rape, torture, and kill them.
For the defense, however, Miller's flawed mind, for once, worked in his favor.
It literally would keep him alive under the law:
"He was diagnosed mentally retarded before he even started elementary school,"
Robert Dunham of the Defenders' Association of Philadelphia countered at the
time. "This is nothing new. This is something that has been well documented for
many, many years."
The legal battle over Joseph Miller's mind would last another 6 years. In the
end, when the appeal reached the Pennsylvania's highest court in 2008,
Turgeon's ruling would stand.
Joseph Miller would live.
It's an outcome with which Judge Lewis, the original DA in the case, has long
since made peace. Even if Miller's death penalty had stood, Lewis said the
state was already moving away from executions, meaning Miller likely would have
remained alive anyway.
As for the conundrum of Miller's mind, Lewis saw both sides.
"There is an element of cunning in his psyche. That was evident," Lewis said.
"But the experts felt strongly that he has this mental retardation. It may be a
combination of both."
In an interview, Turgeon rejected the notion of citing Miller's murders as
evidence of intelligence.
"The reality is that sort of animal-like behavior doesn't indicate
intelligence," she said. "We see animals all the time stalking and killing. He
was sort of raised like an animal. He had a horrible childhood. He had none of
the human social intelligence that we would want for people to function."
By contrast, Marsico remains adamant, insisting that if anyone should be put to
death, it's Joseph Miller.
"Our stance has been consistent that Joey Miller was not mentally retarded to
the degree necessary that would prohibit capital punishment," he said. "I'm
disappointed that Joey Miller will not receive the death penalty."
Yet, if the ultimate punishment had been carried out, Joseph Miller wouldn't be
around to answer for Kelly Ann Ward and her cry for justice from beyond the
grave.
Ever the Conundrum<:P> Kelly Ann Ward has the distinction of being the 1st and
the last.
If Miller is convicted, the 26-year-old from Harrisburg would become his 1st
murder victim, having disappeared in 1986. Yet, because her skeletal remains
were not found in Swatara Township until 1997 and then not positively
identified until recently, Ward would be the last to get justice.
Identification of her remains in spring 2014 heated up a cold case and led
investigators to the state prison at Smithfield, where Joseph Miller is serving
multiple life sentences.
Similarities between Miller's known homicides and the Ward case are more than
eerie: Ward's skeleton was found near a site where Miller had discarded 2 other
bodies. What is more, Ward closely matches the type of victim Miller preferred
to prey upon: Young. African-American. Living on the margins in Harrisburg.
This time, however, a taciturn Miller is being no help by providing a
confession. Instead, Miller, ever the conundrum, laughed in investigators'
faces as they attempted to question him about Ward in May 2015.
In arrest records and notes from the interrogation led by Swatara Township
police Lieutenant Darrell Reider, Miller is described as "very hesitant to
speak." Yet when asked if he had killed Ward, Miller "did not deny doing
anything, but stated, 'I don't remember, I was in a dark place then, doing a
lot of drugs.'"
Just as quickly, Miller dismissed the detectives, saying in effect, "don't call
me, I'll call you."
Detectives may not have been able to get inside Miller's head, but they did
listen to recordings of his phone calls to family members, including a
conversation in which he talked about his other murders in detail. During the
call, Miller "indicates that there was another body that was found, but he
didn't do that one," the arrest affidavit in the Ward case states.
Was this Miller being cunning, knowing cops could be listening?
It was worth another prison visit, this time with retired Dauphin County Chief
Detective Tom Brennan in tow. After all, Brennan helped elicit Miller's
confession in the pair of Dauphin County homicides in 1992. Could he do it
again?
At first Miller puts up a solid front, flatly denying killing Ward: "It's just
a coincidence, a mere (expletive) coincidence. I am not the only serial killer
that was killing girls," he is quoted in court papers as saying.
Then Brennan shows Miller a photo of a metal pipe found near Ward's remains.
The retired detective adds that Ward was killed by a blow to the head, just
like Miller's known victims.
This seems to catch the convicted killer's attention.
"That pipe looks pretty big," Miller is quoted by detectives as responding.
Later, Miller allegedly tells the officers that the pipe he used was smaller,
before once again retreating to his blanket denials regarding Ward.
"There are other serial killers out there," Miller is quoted telling the
detectives. "You just haven't caught them yet. I didn't do this one."
More mind games from a serial killer? Or confusion on the part of an
intellectually disabled man, imprisoned for the past 24 years?
For detectives working the Ward case, the pieces are all there - and they fit.
Court papers also refer to Miller's original 1992 statement. In it, Miller
allegedly told Brennan that he had disposed of another woman's body but said he
didn't know her name. Miller claimed to have picked up the victim at a city
restaurant, before driving her to the same landfill, having sex with her, and
then killing her with a pipe and covering her corpse with tires and shingles.
At the time, Miller told Brennan that her body was "the one by the road."
Now, all these years later, authorities believe Miller was actually describing
the murder of Kelly Ann Ward.
Could she be the first - and now the last victim - who even the convicted
serial killer had forgotten?
Only time, and the wheels of justice, will tell.
As for the mystery of Joseph Miller's mind and the still-unknown source of his
compulsion to rape and kill? Perhaps this quote from a seen-it-all detective
comes closest to providing an answer:
"What our society has to learn is that there are individuals out there who
commit these kind of crimes for no other reason than they like it," Brennan
told the late Patriot-News investigative reporter, Pete Shellem, in April 2000.
"They enjoy seeing the fear that they place in the victim and the control that
they hold over that victim," the detective added. "And finally, they really
enjoy that godlike feeling of taking a life."
Online: http://bit.ly/1XsKxXC
(source: njherald.com)
FLORIDA:
Fix Florida's death penalty - again
Despite being repeatedly chastised by the courts over our death penalty
procedures, the Florida Legislature, this spring, rushed to pass yet another
flawed statute to keep death row moving. And once again, the courts have had to
stop another unconstitutional process.
This time, it was Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch who halted an
execution after observing that the new state capital punishment statute
allowing the death penalty to be imposed without a unanimous jury verdict was
unconstitutional. Critics of the revised law pointed out this problem before
the law was passed in March. It lacks common sense that there must be unanimity
upon conviction, but not in imposing a death penalty.
Yes, our legislative leaders' efforts to create a fair and constitutional
system have reached a pathetic low point. And yes, they still have to fix it -
again.
This latest failure came after the U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, tossed
out the old law, halting executions. The high court observed that Florida's
process for imposing the death penalty allows only juries to recommend a death
sentence, but gives judges the power to decide whether to impose it. The court
majority recognized that Americans have a Sixth Amendment right to trial by
jury.
But the Legislature, instead of passing a law requiring a unanimous jury
verdict, came up with a revision requiring only a 10-2 verdict to impose the
death penalty. As Hirsch pointed out in an 18-page ruling, there are no Florida
cases, no Florida law review articles and no Florida legal history to support
the state???s position allowing less than a unanimous verdict to result in
death.
Even in the absence of the Constitution, basic notions of fairness and common
sense should point to unanimity.
The Post Editorial Board, after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuke earlier this year
- and with more than 390 individuals awaiting death - suggested our legislators
use the time to thoughtfully and carefully design a better capital punishment
system. We noted then that Florida's death penalty record is filled with
troubling questions. For example, there is application of the death penalty to
mentally incompetent inmates, and disproportionately to minorities. Blacks make
up 16 % of Florida's population, but 37 % of death row inmates.
Lest we forget, Florida trumps every other state with its record of 23 death
penalty exonerations. And the unsettling controversy surrounding the lethal
injection process has caused more than 20 U.S. and European pharmaceutical
companies - including Pfizer last week - to take active steps to prevent the
use of their products for executions. This leaves states with few options, and
potentially flawed drug cocktails.
With all of these flaws in the system and the latest court ruling, why would
our legislators insist on making it easier to impose the ultimate sanction on a
human being? Why not require a unanimous verdict? Why risk the wave of lawsuits
sure to follow?
Take a thoughtful, careful look at our death penalty process. And this time,
get it right.
(soruce: Editorial, Palm Beach Post)
********************
Death row inmate asks court to ignore lawyer's request
A death row inmate whose execution is on hold has asked the Florida Supreme
Court to abandon in his case consideration of a U.S. Supreme Court decision
that struck down the state's death-penalty sentencing process.
The Florida Supreme Court earlier this year indefinitely postponed the
execution of Mark James Asay, a convicted double murderer who was scheduled to
be put to death on March 17. The ruling was prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court
decision that found Florida's death penalty sentencing system gave too much
power to judges, and not juries.
The state's high court has focused on the fallout of the decision, which came
in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, in more than a dozen Florida death penalty
cases since the opinion was issued in January.
But the circumstances of Asay's case drew even more attention.
Asay was convicted in 1988 of the murders of Robert Lee Booker and Robert
McDowell in downtown Jacksonville. Asay allegedly shot Booker, who was black,
after calling him a racial epithet. He then killed McDowell, who was dressed as
a woman, after agreeing to pay him for oral sex. According to court documents,
Asay later told a friend that McDowell had previously cheated him out of money
in a drug deal.
After being sentenced to die, Asay went for a decade without legal
representation, and almost all of the paper records involving his case went
missing or were destroyed. His lawyer, Marty McClain, was appointed five days
after Gov. Rick Scott signed Asay's death warrant earlier this year.
Asay's case is one of many caught up in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court
decision, which dealt with the sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after
defendants are found guilty and focused on what are known as aggravating
circumstances that must be determined before defendants can be sentenced to
death.
During the legislative session that ended in March, Florida lawmakers hurriedly
crafted a "fix" to the state law --- which defense lawyers contend is flawed
--- in response to the Jan. 12 ruling,
Under Florida's new law, juries will have to unanimously determine "the
existence of at least one aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible
for death sentences. The law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the
death penalty in order for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a
feature of the old law that allowed judges to override juries' recommendations
of life in prison instead of death.
A jury in Asay's case recommended death on both 1st-degree murder counts with a
vote of 9-3.
Since the Hurst ruling, McClain, on Asay's behalf, has argued that the new law
should apply to Asay and that the prisoner should receive a life sentence,
based on a 1972 Florida law that required death sentences to be reduced to life
imprisonment without parole if the death penalty is overturned.
But this week, Asay asked the court to ignore the filings related to the Hurst
decision and the new law.
"While Mr. McLain (sic) is indeed an honorable and excellent attorney in the
rush and exigency of proceeding under a death warrant counsel has moved this
court to review and to address claims relating to sentencing issues that
petitioner simply is not interested in seeking relief from and now wishes to
waive," Asay wrote in a handwritten, 2-page document filed with the Supreme
Court on Monday.
Documents filed by Asay on Monday and Thursday appear to indicate that he is
interested in pursuing appeals based on new or rejected evidence related to his
case.
The court could ignore Asay's request, ask the state to weigh in, ask McClain
to respond, or send the case back to the trial court, according to legal
experts.
"It's not clear what he wants. If I were the Supreme Court, I would want him to
talk with his lawyer and to resolve whatever, if any, differences exist between
them," Florida International University law professor Stephen Harper, who runs
the school's Death Penalty Clinic, told The News Service of Florida in a
telephone interview Friday.
It is not uncommon for death row inmates like Asay, who has spent nearly three
decades awaiting execution, to abandon hope or to look for ways to expedite
resolution to their cases, experts say.
"When someone's case goes unattended as long as this one did, or they believe
their case has gone unattended as long as this one did, they get depressed.
They get suicidal. They start to lose hope, and Mr. Asay, I believe, wants to
focus on the claims that he believes will give him a new trial and potentially
see the light of day sometime," Pete Mills, 10th Judicial Circuit assistant
public defender who is chairman of Florida Public Defender Association's death
penalty steering committee, said in an interview Friday.
(source: news4jax.com)
LOUISIANA:
Correcting Prosecutorial Misconduct and Judicial Error in Louisiana
It seems incontestable that Louisiana's criminal justice system is in a state
of collapse. The state judiciary appears to be oblivious to violations of the
constitutional rights of criminal defendants; prosecutors continue to violate
the rights of accused with impunity, especially by suppressing exculpatory
evidence; public defenders are so overwhelmed by huge caseloads they have
refused to take new cases; and the state prisons have the highest incarceration
rate in the nation. Although the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have
intervened in numerous cases to correct abuses, they can do so only piecemeal,
and only when the abuse is so flagrant that deference typically given to the
conduct of state officials is inappropriate. For example, the Supreme Court and
lower federal courts have vacated numerous Louisiana convictions - many in
death penalty cases - because of serious prosecutorial misconduct, and often
after the Louisiana courts found no wrongdoing. Moreover, in several of these
cases the defendant was innocent and ultimately exonerated after spending many
years in prison.
The Supreme Court is poised to take up yet another misconduct case from
Louisiana involving prosecutors who suppressed evidence favorable to the
defendant that likely would have changed the jury's decision to execute him.
David Brown, one of the Angola 5 defendants convicted of murdering a prison
guard during an escape attempt and sentenced to death, is asking the Supreme
Court to review his case. Brown claims, and it is not disputed, that
prosecutors obtained a confession from 1 of Brown's co-defendants who admitted
to being the actual killer and who intimated that Brown was not involved in the
killing. The prosecutors never disclosed this confession to Brown's lawyers,
who obviously would have used it to persuade the jury to spare Brown's life.
Despite clear constitutional authority establishing that prosecutors violated
Brown's due process rights, the Louisiana courts found no misconduct, and also
held that the prosecutor's failure to disclose the statement would not have
changed the result.
There is abundant evidence that prosecutors in Louisiana have for years
consistently violated the rights of defendants by failing to disclose to
defendants favorable evidence that could alter the verdict, and that Louisiana
courts in reviewing criminal convictions, especially capital murder conviction,
consistently failed to correct these prosecutorial violations, and in fact
concluded that no violations occurred. Thus, for example, in a Louisiana
capital murder case decided by the Supreme Court in March, Wearry v. Cain, the
prosecution hid critical evidence from the defense that almost certainly would
have altered the verdict. The Louisiana courts agreed that the prosecutor
should have disclosed the evidence but nevertheless affirmed the conviction,
concluding that the withheld evidence would have made no difference to the
result. The Supreme Court overturned this ruling, finding "beyond doubt" that
the undisclosed evidence destroyed confidence in the jury's verdict.
In another Louisiana capital murder case decided by the Supreme Court three
years ago, Smith v. Cain, critical evidence that would have discredited the
prosecution's only witness was hidden from the defense. Every Louisiana judge
who reviewed the conviction found no violation; all 1 state judges believed it
was a slam dunk conviction. The Supreme Court felt otherwise. At oral argument
and in its 8-1 ruling overturning the conviction, the Court was incredulous
that the state prosecutor arguing the case was so oblivious to such clear
misconduct.
The current capital murder case of David Brown is a mirror image of the
landmark ruling of the Supreme Court in Brady v. Maryland, decided 53 years
ago. In that case, as in Brown, there was no doubt that Brady participated with
an accomplice in a murder. But the prosecutor failed to disclose to Brady's
lawyer a statement made by the accomplice in which he identified himself as the
actual killer. Clearly, if the jury knew about the statement, it might have
persuaded them to spare Brady's life. The Supreme Court found that by not
revealing the statement to Brady the prosecutor violated Brady's due process
right to a fair determination of his punishment.
Brown makes the same argument. He claims, and the trial judge agreed, that the
prosecutor deliberately withheld from the defense the co-defendant's
inculpatory statement identifying himself the actual killer and suggesting that
Brown was not involved in the killing. As in Brady, although the statement
would not have absolved Brown of complicity in the killing under the theory of
accomplice liability - Brown did participate in the escape during which the
guard was killed - the trial judge found that the suppressed statement would
have lessened Brown's overall culpability, and might very well have persuaded
the jury not to sentence him to death. At the very least, the prosecutor by
suppressing the statement denied Brown's lawyer the opportunity to make that
argument to the jury. The trial judge vacated the death sentence.
The Louisiana appellate courts once again sided with the prosecutor. They found
that even if the prosecutor suppressed the statement, it would not have changed
the result. The statement, the reviewing courts concluded, was not favorable to
Brown, and certainly not material to his punishment. In making this
determination, the appellate judges viewed the co-defendant's statement as not
exculpatory to Brown, but simply as proof of the guilt of the confessing
co-defendant. As shown in many earlier cases that were overturned by federal
courts, the Louisiana judges were confused about how to analyze exculpatory
evidence under the Brady rule; they appeared to consider such evidence in a
light most favorable to the prosecution rather than to examine how a jury might
use it, and how the failure to give the jury the proof erodes confidence in the
jury verdict. Moreover, and of critical significance, the consistent failure of
these courts to understand and apply correct legal rules sends a terrible
message to prosecutors to follow the erroneous rulings of the state courts and
be indifferent to the result.
As with the many other instances of misconduct by prosecutors and errors by the
Louisiana judiciary, the Supreme Court again is being asked to step in to
correct a clear constitutional violation. It seems like such a disproportionate
investment of Supreme Court resources to have to continue to monitor one
state's dysfunctional criminal justice system. But if Louisiana continues to be
indifferent to and flaunt constitutional norms, Supreme Court intervention
again is mandated.
(source: Bennett L. Gershman Professor of Law, Pace -- Huffington Post)
INDIANA:
Suspected serial killer's trial postponed
The July 25 trial for accused serial killer Darren Vann was postponed Friday at
the request of defense attorneys, who said they needed more time to prepare.
Lake County Criminal Judge Samuel Cappas did not set a new trial date, but
scheduled a status hearing for 10 a.m. Aug. 19.
Lake County Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz did not object to the delay
during Friday's short hearing.
Vann, 44, faces murder charges in the strangling deaths of Afrikka Hardy and
Anith Jones. The Lake County prosecutor's office is seeking the death penalty
against him.
In a separate case, Vann is facing murder charges in the homicides of Teaira
Batey, Kristine Williams, Tracy L. Martin, Sonya Billingsley and Tanya Gatlin.
All 5 women were found dead in vacant buildings in Gary in October 2014. The
state is also seeking death sentences for Vann in that case.
(source: nwitimes.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 21 09:42:10 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 09:42:10 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., MO., OKLA., NEB., UTAH
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605210942020.4656@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 21
KENTUCKY:
Champion murder trial delayed until 2017
Ryan Champion's trial is now scheduled for February 2017. He could face the
death penalty in the October 2014 deaths of his mother, father, and the man
police believe Champion hired to kill them.
He's charged with 4 counts of murder and one count of kidnapping.
Champion's defense team says it felt more time is needed to give him a fair
trial. The lawyers have more than 1,600 pages to go through. Champion's lawyers
are also trying to get his military and adoption records. And, because their
client could be sentenced to death, they say they want to give the case their
full attention.
Friday was our 1st time hearing details of what took place in 2014. Hoping for
justice, the Champion family had to relive the details of how their loved ones
died in the courtroom.
Kentucky State Police Detective Brent Miller says a .45 caliber handgun was
used to kill them. He said he also believes Facebook messages support a
conspiracy to kill the Champion family. Investigators obtained messages with a
warrant and letters of authenticity. The judge will determine if they're usable
in the trial at a later date. Miller also said witness testimony proves
Champion had a hatred for his family and may have offered money for someone to
kill them. 7 spent casings were found around the crime scene.
The evidence was heard Friday to determine whether it could be used in trial.
Public defenders Joanne Lynch and Audrey Woosnam asked for more time to build
their case.
"We believe the judge made the right decision given that, if there is a jury
paneled in this case, they're going to be making a life and death situation,"
Woosnam told Local 6.
Commonwealth Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins said she's frustrated that she can't
go to trial sooner. "We have been spending a substantial amount of time
preparing, getting ready to go to trial, getting subpoenas. We're ready to go
to trial."
The defense asked for the trial to be in July 2017, but the judge determined
that would be 2 years and 11 months after the murders, and that's just too much
time.
(source: WPSD news)
MISSOURI:
Missouri Plans to Seek Death Penalty for Mexican National
Missouri prosecutors on Friday filed their formal plan to pursue the death
penalty against a Mexican national in the shooting death of a man a day after
he allegedly killed 4 people in Kansas.
Prosecutors in Montgomery County submitted court papers saying they will seek
capital punishment for Pablo Serrano-Vitorino if he's convicted of 1st-degree
murder in the March 8 death of Randy Nordman at that man's home in New
Florence, about 70 miles west of St. Louis. Serrano-Vitorino also is charged
with armed criminal action and burglary.
A judge last week ordered Serrano-Vitorino, 40, to stand trial on the Missouri
charges and scheduled a June 1 arraignment. A message left Friday with
Serrano-Vitorino's attorney seeking comment on the case was not immediately
returned.
Serrano-Vitorino, who federal immigration officials have said is in the U.S.
illegally, is accused in Kansas of killing a Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor and
3 other men at the neighbor's home the night before Nordman was slain nearly
200 miles away. Serrano-Vitorino was captured after a manhunt and is jailed in
Missouri without bond.Authorities have not discussed a motive for any of the
killings.
In his court filing Friday, Montgomery County Prosecutor Nathan Carroz cited
"aggravated circumstances" related to Nordman's slaying that make the case
eligible for the death penalty. Among them: The Missouri killing was a
continuation of the Kansas shooting rampage, Nordman's killing involved
burglary and robbery, and that slaying was "outrageously or wantonly vile,
horrible or inhuman" in its randomness and its "callous disregard for the
sanctity of human life."
Carroz also cited Serrano-Vitorino's previous legal issues that have included
California charges involving spousal battery and threats with the intent to
terrorize, as well as Kansas charges since 2012 involving domestic battery and
2 cases of driving under the influence.
(source: Associated Press)
OKLAHOMA:
Oklahoma's Death Penalty Procedure Is In Shambles, According To Grand Jury
Report
Yesterday an Oklahoma grand jury returned a scathing report on the state's
death penalty procedure, saying that in the execution of Charles Warner and
near-execution of Richard Glossip, the state's execution process failed "from
drafting to implementation."
"A number of individuals responsible for carrying out the execution process
were careless, cavalier and in some circumstances dismissive of established
procedures that were intended to guard against the very mistakes that
occurred," Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a statement.
Charles Warner was executed in January 2015 by a 3-drug cocktail: a sedative, a
paralytic, and a drug that stopped his heart. According to approved protocol -
and the state's official post-execution records - the last, lethal drug was
supposed to be potassium chloride. However, Warner was mistakenly executed with
potassium acetate, a mistake that wasn't discovered until the scheduled
execution of Richard Glossip in September 2015.
Both potassium chloride and potassium acetate will kill you. Only potassium
chloride, however, is listed as an acceptable execution drug by the state.
While the jury did not find that using the wrong drug in Warner's execution
caused him "needless pain," they nevertheless found that it infringed upon his
rights, specifically, depriving him of his chance to "challenge the procedure
prior to his death." Legally, the state is required to notify death row inmates
of exactly which drugs will be used in their execution at least 10 days in
advance, giving them time and opportunity to request a stay of execution -
which is usually based at least in part on the planned manner of execution.
An extended tragedy of errors
How do state officials use the wrong drug to kill someone and not notice? The
106-page grand jury report exhaustively documents failure after failure,
ultimately leading to the use of the wrong drug.
The Director of the Department of Corrections changed the execution protocol
verbally and without authority. Trainings lacked "key components," and the IV
team was "largely absent." The pharmacist was told the order over the phone and
never given a written prescription or contract, and he then ordered the wrong
drug - which he blamed on "pharmacy brain," saying that he was paying attention
to the potassium part and ignoring the rest.
Though the pharmacist's negligence was perhaps the most glaring mistake, the
report details how at many points in the following series of events that
mistake could have, and should have, been noticed.
Although the drugs passed through multiple inspection checkpoints - including
the Department's General Counsel, an agent in the Office of the Inspector
General - they were never actually inspected. Multiple people said that
although they agree its important to verify the drug, they "just didn't think
it was [their] role."
I just totally dropped the ball, is all I can say.
When a warden finally did note that they had received potassium acetate, he
dutifully documented the drugs and didn't report it to anyone. The unit chief,
also present, said he "really wasn't looking at the bottles that closely."
The IV chief - who actually administered the drug - also didn't notice the
discrepancy. When asked how he could fail to notice, he responded "that's a
great question." He speculated that he may have been distracted by calculating
the drug concentrations in his head - and concluded "somehow that glaring word,
acetate - I don't know, ma'am. I just totally dropped the ball, is all I can
say."
'Careless, cavalier, and dismissive'
In Glossip's near-execution in September of that year, a similar chain of
inspection failure started. That time, however, officials noticed they had the
wrong drug - but only at the final step. The IV chief noticed the mistake and
told the General Counsel, prompting a flurry of lawyers to weigh in on whether
the execution could go forth as scheduled.
The Governor's General Counsel - Steve Mullins, who has since stepped down and
is currently under investigation - advocated that Glossip's execution go
forward despite knowing that it was a different drug.
"It is unacceptable for the Governor's General Counsel to so flippantly and
recklessly disregard the written Protocol and the rights of Richard Glossip,"
the report read.
It is unacceptable for the Governor's General Counsel to so flippantly and
recklessly disregard the written Protocol
Ironically, Mullins implied that, since to his knowledge at the time, the drug
may have already been - mistakenly - used to execute Warner, it constituted an
"established" practiced. Mullins testified that he planned to get affidavits
saying the 2 were "medically interchangeable," proceed with the execution, then
seek "clarification" before the next execution. Once Glossip's execution was
stayed, he advised that they shouldn't say it was because they had the "wrong
drug" - because then people might find out that they had already used the
"wrong drug" to kill Warner.
The report notably goes beyond ascribing the mistake to just a series of
missteps by individual government employees. It also condemns the state's
execution protocol at large, concluding "the Execution Protocol lacked controls
to ensure that the proper execution drugs were obtained and administered."
The lack of an effective verification procedure is particularly damning because
it was implemented after a badly botched execution to prevent future mistakes.
The protocols that failed were put in place after the 2014 Oklahoma execution
of Clayton Lockett, who writhed and gasped in pain for 43 minutes before dying.
An autopsy report found that the execution team incorrectly applied an IV. Yet
even in the wake of Lockett's case and the increased scrutiny that followed,
Oklahoma's officials still carried out an avoidable litany of errors.
"Based on these failures, justice has been delayed for the victims' families
and the citizens of Oklahoma, and confidence further shaken in the ability of
this State to carry out the death penalty," concluded the report.
(source: thinkprogress.org)
NEBRASKA:
Meeting will focus on bill to end death penalty
State Sen. Colby Coash will discuss the upcoming vote to retain the Nebraska
Legislature's vote to end the death penalty at a news conference Monday in
Kearney.
According to a media release from Retain a Just Nebraska, Coash will be joined
by other senators at 3 p.m. at Best Western Inn at 224 Second Ave.
Retain a Just Nebraska is a public education campaign to urge the retention of
LB268, the Legislature's bill to end the death penalty.
(source: Grand Island Independent)
UTAH:
Death penalty bills expected to return to the Utah legislature
Bills that would speed up the death penalty process or repeal it altogether are
expected to return to the Utah State Legislature.
Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, told FOX 13 he has already opened bill files that
would cut down on the length of appeals that death row inmates have. Some
inmates on death row in Utah have been appealing their sentences for decades.
"If I could get it 10 years or less, I think we're in the ballpark," Rep. Ray
said.
But opponents of capital punishment said they were planning for legislation
that would enact a repeal. Last year, the Utah State Senate passed a bill that
ended the death penalty, but the House would not vote on it.
The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, which supports a repeal of the death
penalty, said it was anticipating lawmakers would bring that legislation back.
"We will see that again and that's good for the debate," said Jean Hill, the
government liaison for the diocese. "Because then we can really talk about what
is the ultimate benefit of (the death penalty), and there is none."
There are 9 death row inmates in Utah. 3 have chosen to die by firing squad.
The primary method of execution in Utah is lethal injection, but the Utah
Department of Corrections has said right now it does not have the drugs to
carry out an execution. That makes firing squad the default method.
Rep. Ray said he believes any bill to repeal the death penalty would not pass
in Utah.
"A lot of the support on that last year was the fact that the death penalty was
too hard to do and took too long, and I think if we can come out with something
that answers that, there's not enough support to get rid of the death penalty,"
he told FOX 13.
The bills are expected to be debated in the 2017 legislative session.
(source: Fox News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 21 09:42:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 09:42:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605210942410.4656@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 21
NEVADA:
Convicted killer to get new trial after 30 years on death row in Nevada
A convicted killer who has been on Nevada's death row for nearly 3 decades will
get a new penalty hearing after the Nevada Supreme Court ruled his public
defender was deficient in representing him.
Richard Canape, now 61, was sentenced to death for the 1988 killing of Manuel
Toledo, a New Jersey man killed after he ran out of gasoline on his way back to
Las Vegas from a hunting trip in Utah.
In a ruling posted Friday, the Supreme Court dismissed Canape's claims that his
trial lawyer at the time, Stephen Dahl with the Clark County public defender's
office, was ineffective during trial. But justices said Canape was not
adequately represented during the penalty phase.
"Counsel's performance during the penalty phase of Canape's trial was
concerning," Chief Justice Ron Parraguirre wrote for the court in the unanimous
decision, which faulted the lawyer for presenting no evidence or mitigating
circumstances on Canape???s behalf.
"Counsel began his argument by apologizing for being absent when the guilty
verdicts were announced, explained that he was not fully prepared to argue,
then reminded jurors that they did not have to execute Canape - but they could
if they wanted to," justices said.
"We conclude that counsel's performance fell below an objective standard of
reasonableness."
The victim had flown to Las Vegas, where he rented a car a drove to Cedar City,
Utah, for an elk hunt in October 1988. On his way back to Las Vegas, he ran out
of gasoline on Interstate 15. A convenience store clerk recalled he had come
into the store with gasoline cans, and told her someone was giving him a ride
back to his car.
Toledo's body was found down an embankment the next day by another motorist who
had broken down along the interstate. Investigators said he died of 2 gunshot
wounds.
About 2 weeks after Toledo's killing, Canape was arrested for an attempted
armed robbery of a liquor store in Las Vegas. A police weapons expert matched a
handgun Canape had on him with the bullets recovered from scene where Toledo
was killed.
Canape was convicted of 1st-degree murder and robbery, both with a deadly
weapon.
Christopher Oram, a Las Vegas attorney who handled the latest appeal, said
Canape suffers from serious mental illness.
"I'm really pleased that the Nevada Supreme Court has given him an opportunity
to present his extensive history of mental illness, as I have no doubt a jury
will not impose a sentence of death on him again," Oram said.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
Antonovich, Sheriff Push for Death Penalty Reform
At a press conference Thursday, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich joined Sheriff
McDonnell and law enforcement leaders to express his support for the
Californians for Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016, a measure which
will appear on November's ballot.
"This initiative will promote justice for murder victims and their families,
save taxpayers millions of dollars per year, and assure due process protections
for those sentenced to death," said Antonovich. "At a time when crime rates are
spiking, it is vital to enact reforms to make the death penalty an effective
deterrent and appropriate punishment for murderers and provide justice for
victims and their families."
Currently, the State of California has 746 inmates on death row and has not
executed an inmate since 2006. Of those 746 inmates: 126 involved torture
before murder, 173 killed children, and 44 murdered police officers.
Proponent of the initiative, Reverend Ferroll Robins, whose brother, Joseph
Paul, was murdered in south Los Angeles, is also a Los Angeles Police
Department Chaplain and head of the nonprofit Loved Ones Victims Services, an
organization that provides grief counseling for people whose family members are
murdered.
(source: scvnews.com)
OREGON:
Lane County jury refuses to put murderer on death row
A Lane County jury on Friday declined to sentence a man to death for the 2012
slaying of 22-year-old Eugene resident Celestino Gutierrez, instead ruling that
life behind bars is an appropriate punishment for the Army veteran.
A.J. Scott Nelson, 26, will return to Lane County Circuit Judge Debra Vogt's
courtroom on June 2 for sentencing. At that time, Vogt will sentence Nelson to
life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Nelson is the last of 3 people arrested in the case to have his case play out
in court. Gutierrez, who did not know Nelson or the others arrested in the
case, was the victim of a plot carried out by the trio to kidnap and kill a
stranger in order to use his car as the getaway vehicle in a bank robbery.
Through a victim services advocate, Gutierrez's parents and 2 brothers declined
comment on the jury's decision.
Defense attorneys Laurie Bender and Chris Clayhold both said Friday that they
are "relieved" the jury did not rule that Nelson should be executed for his
crimes.
The same jury earlier this month found Nelson guilty of 18 felony charges
including two counts of aggravated murder for killing Gutierrez.
The last time a Lane County jury voted against a death penalty in an aggravated
murder case was in 2008, when Tyke Supanchick of Eugene was sentenced to life
in prison for fatally shooting his estranged wife. Supanchick, like Nelson, had
served in the military. Lawyers for both men highlighted their service while
defending the killers in their respective trials.
Since then, juries in Lane County have sent 2 people to death row. They include
Angela McAnulty, who was convicted in 2011 of aggravated murder in the death of
her 15-year-old daughter. She is the only woman facing execution in Oregon.
In 2014, another jury ordered a death sentence for David Ray Taylor, who teamed
with Nelson to kill Gutierrez.
The 3rd person convicted in Gutierrez's death, Mercedes Crabtree, is serving
life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
The last prisoner execution in Oregon happened in 1997.
(source: The Register-Guard)
USA:
Roof hearing set for June 8 in Charleston
A hearing in federal court for Dylann Roof has been set for June 8 in
Charleston before U.S. Judge Richard Gergel.
Since being indicted last summer on federal hate crime charges resulting in
death, Gergel has called hearings almost each month to ask attorneys when the
case might be ready for trial.
Gergel especially wants federal prosecutors to decide whether they will seek
the death penalty against Roof because if they do seek it, Gergel needs time to
draw up plans. Death penalty trials are much longer, more complex and more
expensive than most other kinds of criminal trials.
So far, prosecutors on the case - who await a final decision from top Justice
Department officials - have been unable to tell Gergel if they will seek the
death penalty.
Meanwhile, Roof attorney David Bruck has publicly told Gergel at several
hearings that Roof, 21, is ready to plead guilty and accept a life sentence
without parole if the government does not seek the death penalty.
Roof, a self-avowed white supremacist from Columbia, is charged with the
racially motivated deaths of 9 African-Americans last June at Charleston's
downtown Mother Emanuel AME Church.
Meanwhile, state prosecutors are set begin their own death penalty case against
Roof in state court in Charleston in January.
(source: thestate.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 21 09:43:36 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 21 May 2016 09:43:36 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worlldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605210943250.4656@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 21
ISRAEL:
Israel plans death penalty for Palestinian militants
Israel is poised to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian militants after
Binyamin Netanyahu invited an ultra-nationalist party to join his coalition
government.
The rightwinger Avigdor Lieberman made capital punishment a key demand in
negotiations this week for his party to shore up Mr Netanyahu???' coalition,
with Mr Lieberman handed the defence portfolio. Sources from Mr Lieberman's
Yisrael Beiteinu party and the ruling Likud said that the prime minister had
agreed.
It would be a major policy shift for Israel, which has only ever executed one
person: the Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, who was hanged in 1962 for genocide.
(source: The Times)
MALAYSIA:
Does the death penalty benefit society?
Singapore's decision to go ahead with the execution of Sarawakian Kho Jabing
has been met with mixed reactions on both sides of the Causeway, which is not
surprising, given that the question of whether to abolish the death penalty has
been hotly debated in recent years.
However, the debate tends to flare only when there is a high profile case. It
dies down when another issue starts to dominate the news.
Perhaps one reason for the intense public interest in Kho's case is that it
involves a Malaysian condemned to death by a foreign court. He was found guilty
of killing a Chinese national during a robbery attempt in 2008.
Parliament heard this week that 1,041 people are on death row in Malaysia. It
is unlikely that all 1,041 will get as much media attention as Kho has.
Regardless of how one feels about capital punishment, it is important for us as
a nation to discuss the issue of capital punishment and whether it serves any
good.
Supporters of the death penalty have always cited it as a deterrent for crimes,
but there has been no conclusive proof that it indeed serves as a deterrent.
Another aspect of the question is whether capital punishment truly delivers
justice. If someone on death row happens to be the sole breadwinner for his
family, are we being just to his family if we execute him?
The question also has an economic aspect. Taxpayers have to foot the bill for
the inmate's upkeep until the day he is executed. How does this serve justice?
This aspect of the issue, of course, covers all prison inmates, not just those
on death row.
This is not to say that criminals should not have to pay their debt to society,
but we should talk about different ways of making them pay. There are many
ideas that have been put to practice in several countries.
There are some projects in which prisoners are made to work in farms or prison
bakeries. Their farm produce or breads and cakes are consumed inside prison.
This reduces the food bill that the public has to foot. In some cases, the
output is donated to charity. In still other cases, it is sold to the public
and the income channelled to the prisoners' families.
These ideas are especially worth considering if we're thinking of replacing the
death penalty with life imprisonment. Until we start discussing these ideas,
it's unlikely that the discourse on capital punishment will get anywhere beyond
the short-lived debates occasioned by high-profile cases.
(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)
INDONESIA:
Third round of executions to probably take place after Idul Fitri: AG
Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo always has his own way of explaining the
reasons behind the continual delays of the 3rd round of executions of death row
inmates despite the already well-managed preparations at the execution site on
the Nusakambangan prison island in Central Java.
>From late last year until recent times, the former grandee of the progovernment
Nasdem Party cited a number of reasons, including the slowing economy, the need
to maintain bilateral harmony and ongoing legal processes, for delaying the
executions. On Thursday he argued that it was unethical to conduct the
executions within the next 2 months because of the preparations being made by
the country to observe Ramadhan, which is scheduled to begin on June 6.
Ramadhan will run until July 7, after which Muslims nationwide will celebrate
Idul Fitri on July 8 and 9 to mark the end of the holy month.
Prasetyo assured the public that no executions would be done before or during
Ramadhan, with the most probable firm date of execution to be decided after
Idul Fitri.
"If it is before Lebaran [Idul Fitri] then it means during the fasting month.
Conducting executions during the holy month will not sound right," Prasetyo
told reporters, adding that he did not yet know when after Idul Fitri the
Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) would officially set the execution date.
Although the government has announced that the 3rd round of executions is on
the way, the schedule and list of those to be executed are not yet available,
causing anxiety among inmates, their lawyers and anti-death-penalty
campaigners. The only available information on the executions comes from the
Central Java Police, which has claimed to have readied 150 executioners to
shoot 10 foreigners from China ( 4 ), Nigeria ( 2 ), Pakistan ( 1 ), Senegal (
2 ) and Zimbabwe ( 1 ), in addition to 5 Indonesians, on the isolated Island.
However, Prasetyo did not clarify nor confirm the figure, stating that his
office had yet to officially issue the date of the executions and the names as
well as number of death row inmates who will face the firing squads.
"Well, what I can say is that on [May] 25th there will be another inmate who
will file for a case review," Prasetyo said of another possible barrier that
may cause a delay for the 3rd round of executions.
AGO spokesman Amir Yanto emphasized that Filipino drug convict Mary Jane
Veloso, who at least temporarily escaped execution last year when her alleged
boss was arrested in the Philippines and the local authorities requested the
Indonesia government reopen the case, and Indonesian drug kingpin Freddy
Budiman would not be on the list that would be announced by the AGO.
"Mary [Jane Veloso] is needed by the Philippine authorities to solve a human
trafficking case [involving her], while the case review hearing of [Freddy] is
ongoing," Amir said.
Recently, the Supreme Court rejected case review pleas filed by 4 Chinese
nationals: Chen Hongxin, Jian Yuxin, Gan Chunyi and Zhu Xuxiong. It remains
unclear whether the 4 were the Chinese nationals mentioned by Central Java
Police.
The 4 Chinese men were found guilty of drug trafficking following a 2005 police
raid on what was dubbed at the time Southeast Asia???s largest illicit drug
factory in Banten, along with Frenchman Serge Areski Atlaoui, who also escaped
execution last year because of an 11th-hour attempt by his lawyer to file for a
case review, which was eventually rejected by the Supreme Court.
Veloso's lawyer Agus Salim said his client was scheduled to be questioned by
the Philippine authorities for the human trafficking case in the near future.
"I don't know when the interrogation will take place, but both the Indonesian
and the Philippine governments have arranged the questioning session for my
client," he told The Jakarta Post.
Supreme Court spokesman Suhadi said he did not know how many death row inmates
had appealed for clemency from the President.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
PAKISTAN:
Against military court's order: SC issues notices over militant's conviction
The top court has issued notices to the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) and
the Judge Advocate General (JAG) branch - the legal department of Pakistan Army
- on the handing down of a death sentence by a military court to a young
prisoner, Aksan Mehboob.
Convicted by a military court, Mehboob was one of the nine terrorists whose
death sentence was ratified by army chief General Raheel Sharif on January 2.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Mehboob, son of Asghar
Ali, was an active member of al Qaeda. He was involved in attacks on
law-enforcement personnel and military installations which claimed several
lives.
"He admitted to his offences before the magistrate and the trial court. He was
tried on 4 charges and awarded the death sentence," the ISPR had said.
The Supreme Court's 3-judge bench headed by Justice Amir Hani Muslim on Friday
took up the plea, wherein the death penalty of Mehboob was challenged.
Representing the convict's family, Col (retd) Muhammad Akram argued that
Mehboob's family was unaware of the reasons for which he was handed down the
death sentence.
Justice Amir Hani Muslim observed that those who take the lives of others
should be hanged. He also observed that the application was filed 38 days after
expiry of the 30-day period.
The counsel responded that since the father of the convict lived in a far-flung
area he there was a delay in the filing of the plea. After hearing the
arguments, the bench issued notice to the AGP and the respondents and adjourned
the hearing for 1 week.
(source: Express Tribune)
BELARUS:
Halt Execution of Siarhei Khmialeuski
see:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/belarus-halt-execution-of-siarhei-khmialeuski-ua-12216
(source: Amnesty International USA)
***************
EU chides Belarus over recent increase in death penalties
The European Union is complaining to Belarus about what it calls an upsurge in
death sentences over the past months.
The 28-nation EU also joined the United Nations in criticizing Belarus for
reneging on its international commitments, including a moratorium on the use of
the death penalty. The EU said Belarus courts had already passed 3 death
sentences so far this year.
The statement said the EU nations "expect Belarus, the only country in Europe
still applying capital punishment, to join a global moratorium on the death
penalty as a 1st step toward its abolition."
Belarus is not part of the EU.
(source: Associated Press)
SINGAPORE:
'Disgraceful', Amnesty International says of Kho Jabing's hanging
Amnesty International condemned today the execution of Sarawakian Kho Jabing in
Singapore that was carried out hours after his appeal against the sentence was
rejected.
"It is disgraceful that Kho Jabing was executed, particularly with such
indecent haste, after his final appeal was denied this morning," said Josef
Benedict, deputy director of Amnesty International's South East Asia and
Pacific Regional Office, in a statement.
"Clemency should have been granted, more so given the uncertainty and divided
opinion surrounding Kho Jabing's fate over the past 6 years. Singapore is at a
crossroads.
"It must decide whether it wants to join most of the world by protecting human
rights and ridding itself of the death penalty, or remain among the minority of
countries that insist on the implementation of this cruel and inhumane
punishment," he added.
International newswire AFP reported Singapore police as confirming that
32-year-old Kho was hanged today, 6 years after he was sentenced to death in
2010 for murdering a construction worker.
Kho's case had sparked a renewed debate on the death penalty as he was
re-sentenced to life imprisonment in 2013 after Singapore amended its mandatory
death sentence for murder, but the prosecution appealed and the Malaysian's
death sentence was reinstated in 2015.
Kirsten Han from Singapore anti-death penalty group We Believe in Second
Chances said death row inmates should be seen as people who have made mistakes,
bad decisions, and who might have been cruel but have families and struggles.
"The government says it kills people like Jabing to keep us safe.
"I don't know how Jabing's death has kept me safe; it's simply made me feel
more hurt, more outraged and more fearful of a cold state machinery that knows
no compassion, that would rush a man to his death out of procedural
efficiency," Han wrote on Facebook.
The Star reported Malaysian Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nancy
Shukri as saying in a written parliamentary reply Tuesday that Putrajaya has
yet to decide on whether to amend the mandatory death penalty. Capital
punishment in Malaysia is imposed on offences like murder and drug trafficking.
(source: themalaymailonline.com)
******************
Amnesty International urges S'pore to abolish death penalty----The risk of
executing an innocent person can never be eliminated as long as the death
penalty is kept on the law books.
Amnesty International (AI) has urged the authorities in Singapore, in a
strongly-worded statement, to immediately halt all executions and commute all
death sentences, as 1st steps towards the full abolition of the death penalty.
The execution of Kho Jabing marks a huge step backwards for Singapore which has
reduced the implementation of the death penalty in recent years, added the
statement. "Following the official moratorium on executions established in
Singapore from 2012 to 2013, at least 13 people have had their death sentences
reviewed and eventually commuted."
"New sentencing discretion has resulted in several individuals being spared the
gallows."
AI was "strongly condemning" the sudden execution of Kho Jabing, undertaken
with "shameful haste" on Friday. "The rushed execution, that occurred mere
hours after his final appeal was rejected, marked a cruel and inhuman end to
Kho Jabing's life after a 6 year legal battle in the courts."
In this instance, said AI, it also has strong concerns around the basis on
which the death sentence of Kho Jabing was re-imposed, after a split decision
in the courts. "In modern day Singapore, the answer to crime does not lie
within the hangman's noose."
"Moreover, there's no evidence that the death penalty was more of a deterrent
to crime than life imprisonment."
AI opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the
nature of the crime. "The taking of another's life by execution is the ultimate
cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," said the statement. "The risk of
executing an innocent person can never be eliminated as long as the death
penalty is kept on the law books."
"Such practices violate the right to life, a fundamental right of every human
being."
Furthermore, said AI, under international law and standards the use of the
death penalty must be restricted to the "most serious crimes" which has been
interpreted to mean intentional killing.
Kho Jabing, a Malaysian national, was executed at 3.30pm on 20 May 2016. Kho
Jabing and a co-defendant were convicted of murder on 30 July 2010 and both
were sentenced to the mandatory death penalty.
However, after the 2012 review of the mandatory death penalty laws, on 14
August 2013, the High Court found the murder to be non-intentional and
resentenced Kho Jabing to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane.
On 14 January 2015, the Court of Appeal re-imposed the death penalty on Kho
Jabing in a 3-to-2 split decision.
An appeal admitted on 3 November 2015, 3 days before his scheduled execution,
was dismissed on 5 April 2016.
Another last minute application by his lawyers, granted on 19 May 2016,
resulted in a temporary stay of execution.
On the morning of 20 May 2016, Kho Jabing appeared in Court, hoping for a
chance of reprieve. However, he was executed not long after this appeal was
dismissed.
(source: freemalaysiatoday.com)
INDIA:
Death by injustice----The poor and vulnerable form 74 % of the total number of
death row convicts in India
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself on stage with the eminent Supreme Court
(SC) lawyer, Nitya Ramakrishnan, and one of the sitting SC justices, Madan
Lokur. We were discussing the death penalty - to be more precise, the contents
of a painstaking report brought out by the project on the death penalty at the
National Law University, Delhi (NLUD). India is one of the few countries in the
world that still retains the death penalty, and although there is debate on the
issue - whether it relates to people like Afzal Guru or the assassins of Rajiv
Gandhi - very few of us have actual details on those who end up on death row.
The "celebrity" prisoners though are not a representative sample, even if they
are what we talk about.
It took 3 years to complete the report. The research was conducted by NLUD
students under the guidance of Dr Anup Surendranath, director of the death
penalty project. When I mean research, I mean "search". There is no centralised
database on death penalty prisoners. As they are housed in state prisons, the
Central government doesn't have up-to-date information on who is in which jail,
what condition they are in, the status of their appeals, if any, or even if
they are dead or alive. Considering there are only 385 prisoners on death row -
something the project discovered - this should not be that difficult a number
to track. But we do not do this. Though the death penalty is supposed to be
used in the "rarest of rare" cases, we seem to care little about what happens
to them.
In his presentation at the launch, Surendranath, in no uncertain terms, said
that our criminal justice system - as shown by the findings of the project - is
underperforming, if not broken. Part of the reason behind this is found in the
report itself. As part of the documentation on socio-economic profiles of the
prisoners, it was found that 74 % of the prisoners are economically
disadvantaged. More than 85 % had not finished secondary school. Surendranath
added that the SC confirmed only 4.5 % of the sentences awarded by district
courts. In at least 30 % of the cases the prisoner was acquitted, while the
rest were commuted.
As these statistics make clear, it is the poor and uneducated - unable to
defend themselves - who are sentenced to death. Justice Lokur mentioned how,
quite often, such defendants fail to understand the case being presented
against them, and cannot even give correct answers. It also became clear that
many of the lawyers representing the prisoners did not explain the case to the
client or provide updates on the same. In other words, the government routinely
sentences people to death, and the poorest and most vulnerable among them
disproportionately pay the heaviest price.
Fundamentally, a system that punishes the poor for being poor is an unjust
system. From the details that emerge from the report - including that of
custodial torture on a wide scale, a topic that Ramakrishnan has documented in
her book - it is clear that the criminal justice system of India does not
really dispense justice when it comes to death penalties. That is a fairly
terrible indictment of 1 of the pillars of the state.
I asked Justice Lokur about where we go from here. His response is worth
reflecting upon, not merely because he is a sitting SC judge, but because of
its importance to the idea of a Republic built on logical argument.
"I remain an optimist," he said, and pointed out that such a study is the way
that change happens. Nothing can transform without research, without data or
discussion. Research by universities, NGOs and other institutions have brought
these issues to light. "You have a few more such reports," he said, "and you'll
see how things correct themselves."
Too many of us believe that an institutional democracy - one where an
individual is allowed to vote freely and fairly - is good in itself. It is not.
Democracy is a means to a good, and that good can only be achieved if democracy
is informed by facts, by research, and by options. Our republic gives us the
framework to debate, but we must fill it with the data necessary to move
forward, and much of that data will be of injustices. It is only by uncovering
them, discussing them, and finding solutions to them that a democracy becomes
valuable, otherwise we can reduce the Parliament to an arena for shouting
matches full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
Omair Ahmad is the Asia Editor for The Third Pole; thehindubusinessline.com)
PHILIPPINES:
NPC won't support Duterte's death policy
Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) will not support death penalty just yet
even if the party already signed a coalition deal with presumptive President
Rodrigo Duterte's Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP)-Laban that regards the
restoration of the capital punishment as a priority.
Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga, the spokesman for the NPC, noted that they backing
discussions on the revival of the death penalty, but they are not committed to
a favorable vote for it now.
"For now, our position is that we are willing to give it (death penalty) a
chance to see the light of day in Congress. We are willing to subject it to
debates...for it to be discussed by the members of Congress, because we don't
know to what degree the death penalty will be imposed," Enverga told the Manila
Times.
Duterte won an overwhelming mandate of 16 million votes because of his bold
promise of drastic change by killing criminals, as well as killing those
resisting arrest, to eradicate crime in three to six months. He later
backtracked that he can only suppress it.
NPC, on the other hand, is the second largest political party in the country
headed by food and brewery tycoon Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco, Jr.
"Would it be for drug traffickers; for heinous crimes? We are yet to identify
the magnitude of the crimes that will be punishable by death penalty. If the
proposal takes shape, then we can consult among each other if it would be
helpful for our country in terms of maintaining public order and safety,"
Enverga pointed out.
The Philippines abolished the death penalty for heinous crimes in 2006.
"Before [in 2006], we had no party stand on the matter. It was left to the
choice of the of the NPC members during that Congress. But now, it is different
because there is an overwhelming majority of people in favor of President
Duterte and his policy [on death penalty]. That says so much about the
sentiment of the public so we want to give it a chance to be deliberated,"
Enverga said.
"But as of the moment, everything is vague. Until we see the final version, we
can't decide. For now, we want it deliberated upon so we can also hear the
opposition to it," he added.
Earlier in the day, the NPC committed to support the Duterte administration and
its policies through a coalition agreement signed by the leaders of both
parties.
"This is to support President Rodrigo Duterte and congressman Pantaleon Alvarez
as the next Speaker of the House. It binds as well the entire apparatus of the
party in support of their programs," NPC president and Isabela Rep. Giorgidi
Aggabao said.
PDP-Laban president and Sen. Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel 3rd, underscored that the
NPC-PDP-Laban coalition will manifest beyond the ceremonial signing of
documents.
"The legislative agenda of the President could be captured and determined in
these phrases: support for federalism, all-out search for peace; all-out war
against crime, drugs and corruption; expansion of the middle class; tax reform,
addressing the concerns of the common man and inclusive growth, so that
economic growth will be felt at the lower level. We expect the NPC siding to
this core legislative agenda which are not objectionable," Pimentel said.
"This is not a cosmetic agreement. This is based on substance. As the President
of the NPC mentioned, this is a support not only for the personalities but also
to the agenda of President Duterte. Maybe the NPC can start adjusting their
perspective on federalism, give it a chance to be adopted," he added.
Alvarez of Davao del Norte declared that the restoration of the death penalty
is as good as done.
"We will be going for the reinstatement of death penalty, definitely. I am
confident that it will be passed," he said.
(source: Manila Times)
*****************
Clamor vs death penalty reimposition mounts
Reviving death penalty would be an international embarrassment for the
Philippines, Amnesty International (AI) said on Friday even as it pointed out
that the country is a signatory to various covenants on human rights, including
the protocol to abolish the capital punishment.
AI Philippines vice chair Romeo Cabarde Jr. said there is also no logical
connection between imposing death penalty and reducing crime rate, citing the
increase in the country's crime rate in 1999 when 7 convicts were executed by
the Estrada administration.
"We call on the incoming president to carefully think about the policy
proposals under his administration in order to ensure that none of his proposed
measures will contravene the very commitment we made before the world," Cabarde
said in a media forum in Quezon City.
The group presented a program of action to be submitted to presumptive
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to ensure that human rights is made a priority
and embedded in all government agencies and programs.
"Putting an end to extrajudicial executions, unlawful arrests, secret
detention, enforced disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment is 1 of our
non-negotiables for President Duterte," AI Philippines chair Ritz Lee Santos
III said.
In a news conference after the May 9 elections, Duterte said bringing back the
death penalty would be a central part of his war on crime.
Breaking promise?
Cabarde noted that the Philippines is a state party to the Second Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which aims
for the worldwide total abolition of death penalty.
"What kind of face are we going to show the rest of the world, having promised
at a certain point that we will eradicate death penalty and here comes a new
leader who wants to reimpose death penalty just because he wants to curb
criminality," Cabarde said.
Based on the Commission on Human Rights report cited by Cabarde, the crime rate
in 1999 even increased by 15.3 % or a total of 82,538 compared with the
previous year's 71,527 cases despite the executions of death row convicts.
Meanwhile, European diplomats and civil rights advocates have also raised
concern on the reimposition of death penalty in the Philippines, saying it is
anti-poor and will not deter crimes.
Numbers game in Congress
German Ambassador to the Philippines Thomas Ossowski said the reimposition of
death penalty is contrary to the human rights principles that the Philippines
is known for in the world.
"Germany is very adamant in that (the reimposition of death penalty). We are
against death penalty," said Ossowksi in an interview Thursday night at the
Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) anniversary in Makati.
Former Deputy Speaker Lorenzo "Erin" Tanada III, who espoused the bill to
repeal the death penalty, expressed hopes that lawmakers will vote against the
proposal to reimpose it.
"It's going to be a numbers game in Congress and those who voted for the repeal
of death penalty in 2006 have been reelected and hopefully they will maintain
their position and vote against its reimposition," said Tanada in an interview
at the sidelines of the FNF event.
Jules Maaten, outgoing country director of FNF, said "state killing" through
capital punishment sends a wrong signal "that every person can also commit
killings."
(source: inquirer.net)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 22 19:59:16 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 19:59:16 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., LA., ARK., MO.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605221959080.5320@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 22
TEXAS:
Brownlow sentenced to death
Even up to the last moment before convicted murderer Charles E. Brownlow Jr.
was sentenced to death on Friday he tried to blame his father for the
executions he committed.
Brownlow was convicted of capital murder on April 28 for the Oct. 28, 2013,
slaying of store clerk Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo at Ali's Market.
The 422nd Judicial District Court jury spent the next 3 weeks hearing testimony
about whether Brownlow had an intellectual disability or anti-social
personality disorder.
The jury on Friday began deliberations at 12:25 p.m. after the prosecution and
defense teams gave their closing arguments and returned with its verdicts at
about 3 p.m.
There were 3 special issues upon which the jury had to consider.
The jury determined that based upon the preponderance of evidence Brownlow does
not have an intellectual disability (mentally retarded); that beyond a
reasonable doubt it believed there was a probability Brownlow would commit
criminal acts of violence, thus constituting a continuing threat to society;
and there were no mitigating circumstances warranting a sentence of life
imprisonment without parole instead of the death penalty.
When 422nd Judicial District Court Judge B. Michael Chitty read the jury's
findings, he asked Brownlow if there was a legal reason to not pronounce
sentence.
Brownlow said there was. He said his father shot him in the head when he was 4
years old, which he testified about while taking the stand during the guilt and
sentencing phases of the capital murder trial.
Chitty said that was not a legal reason and sentenced Brownlow to death.
Several family members sobbed when the sentence was handed down, including
Leal-Carillo's fiance, Sylvia Sanchez and Cindy Crecy, Jason Wooden's mother.
Roshondra Walker, Brownlow's cousin, placed her head on Terence Walker's
shoulder, seeking comfort. Terence Walker is Brownlow's brother.
Brownlow was 36 when he murdered his mother, 61-year-old Mary Brownlow at her
Stallings Street home and set her body on fire; his 55-year-old aunt, Belinda
Young Walker, at her home on Tyler Street; Kelleye Lynette Pratt Sluder, 30,
and Jason Michael Wooden, at their home on Eulalia Street; and Leal-Carillo.
After the sentencing, family members were given an opportunity to give victim
impact statements.
Cindy Crecy, Wooden's mother, was the 1st to take the stand.
"You have evil in your head," Crecy said. "You have hurt a lot of people in
your life. I hope to live long enough to see the needle [put] in your arm.
"You shot Kelleye 6 times," she said.
Crecy told Brownlow she wished the state still had the electric chair so he
could feel the fear that Leal-Carillo, her son, Sluder, Mary Brownlow and his
aunt Belinda Walker felt before he shot them.
"Devil, you did not win," Crecy said.
Sylvia Sanchez, next up, hugged Crecy after she left the stand
Sanchez, who was Leal-Carillo's fiance and testified during the trial, also
spoke.
"You did not give [Luis] a chance," Sanchez said. "You are evil. You killed
your mother, the woman who gave you life."
She said every holiday, including Father's Day, she takes her son to the
cemetery to see his father.
Sanchez was then hugged by Carillo's brother, Edgar, was the last to take the
stand.
Twice he asked Brownlow to look at him and told him he did not like the games
Brownlow played while testifying in court.
"I hope you live up to what you did," Carillo said.
(source: Terrell Tribune)
GEORGIA:
Timothy Foster appeal ruling may come soon
With just 8 justices currently sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, several
defendants still await a ruling, including convicted murderer Timothy Foster.
In 1986, Timothy Tyrone Foster murdered a retired fourth-grade Johnson
Elementary School teacher, Queen White, during a burglary. He was arrested a
month after the incident, with the police finding the stolen items in his home.
He later confessed to the crime. Court records show that White's jaw was
broken, and she had a severe gash on the top of her head. Before she was
strangled to death, she had been molested.
An all-white jury convicted the 18-year-old black man of murder and burglary,
and sentenced him to death.
On Nov. 2, 2015, Foster's appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The question
was whether or not then-Floyd County District Attorney Steve Lanier improperly
excluded potential black jurors from the death penalty trial in 1987.
"Mr. Foster's case is still pending in the U.S. Supreme Court," said Foster's
attorney, Stephen Bright with the Southern Center for Human Rights.
The court usually ends its term in June and could hand down a decision any day
now, Bright said.
"The court will issue decisions again on Monday and from time to time after
that until all the cases have been decided," Bright said. "Unfortunately, the
court provides no warning with regard to when it will decide a case, but we can
expect the case to be decided in the next 6 weeks."
In April 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that it is
unconstitutional to remove a potential juror because of race.
Prosecutors' notes discovered 19 years after Foster's trial show the names of
each potential black juror highlighted in green and the word "black" circled
next to the race question on the questionnaires.
The court is obviously split evenly over its general philosophy, according to
Rome attorney Bob Brinson, who has argued before the nation's highest court.
He doesn't think an even number of judges will affect the effort of the court.
Additionally, he doesn't think it will cause a delay or a reversal in previous
rulings on the Foster case.
Foster's isn???t the only case that the 8 justices may have trouble with.
The 8 Supreme Court justices say they'll take care of business until a new
ninth justice joins them. Their actions say otherwise.
Monday's unsigned, unanimous decision returning a high-profile dispute over
access to birth control to lower courts was the latest example of the
ideologically split court's struggle to get its work done with an even number
of justices since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.
The decision averted a 4-4 tie, which would have left different rules in place
in different parts of the country concerning the availability of cost-free
birth control for women who work for faith-affiliated groups.
But the outcome was itself inconclusive and suggested that the justices could
not form a majority to issue a significant ruling that would have settled the
issue the court took the case to resolve.
(source: northwestgeorgianews.com)
LOUISIANA:
Judge to Decide If Death-Row Inmates Need Air Conditioning
As summer approaches in Louisiana, prison officials insist that ice, fans and
cold showers are enough to protect death-row inmates from dangerous heat and
humidity.
If not, a federal judge may order them to install air conditioning for inmates
awaiting execution at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson expressed frustration Friday as he questioned
why prison officials won't spend roughly $1 million to install air conditioning
on death row, since the state has already spent much more to fight the matter
in court. He scheduled a June 15 hearing for testimony about the effectiveness
of the prison's current heat-control measures.
Jackson already has ruled it unconstitutional to keep inmates where the heat
index exceeds 88 degrees. During the summer, the heat index on death row
routinely soars above 100 as temperatures and humidity levels rise.
Jackson said it is "stunning" how much the state has spent defending itself for
three years now against this request from 3 death-row inmates with medical
problems. Louisiana has struggled to close repeated budget shortfalls, and yet
the judge said the state may have spent tens of millions of dollars on outside
attorneys and experts, heat monitoring and other costs of litigation.
"One must wonder: Is this really what the state wants to do?" he asked. "It
just seems so unnecessary."
Assistant Attorney General Colin Clark told the judge he would convey his
frustrations to the office of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards, who succeeded
Republican Bobby Jindal in January.
Jackson ruled in December 2013 that extreme heat on death row violates the
Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The state appealed his
order to develop a plan to keep the heat index at or below 88 degrees.
In July 2015, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs
could get relief without air conditioning, and in response, the state crafted a
new "heat remediation plan" involving cold showers, fans and ice chests for the
inmates.
"We believe we're providing adequate remedies to deal with the heat index,"
Clark said.
But the inmates' attorneys said the plan isn't working: It's not even summer
yet, and yet the heat index on death row already exceeded the 88 degree
threshold on May 12.
The judge told the state's new legal team, from the office of newly elected
Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, that he has sensed "serious
pushback" from them on the 88-degree threshold even though the 5th Circuit
didn't overturn the standard.
"That will not be re-litigated," Jackson warned.
Louisiana's new death row facility was built just 10 years ago. An engineer
hired by the state said it would take nine air-conditioning units to cool all 8
tiers of the building. The judge suggested a $1 million price tag for that, but
the real cost could be much lower - an attorney for the state said at an
earlier hearing that buying each unit would cost only a few thousand dollars.
"My sole concern is to their health and safety," Jackson said. "I cannot sit
back and allow the constitutional rights of those inmates to continue to be
violated."
(source: Associated Press)
ARKANSAS:
Innocent is plea in death of girl, 1
A Flippin man pleaded innocent to capital murder in what police said was the
beating death of 1-year-old girl.
Cody Allen, 23, entered the plea Wednesday in Marion County Circuit Court. He
was being held in the Marion County jail in Yellville without bail. Court
documents about the case are sealed under a judge's order, a Marion County
Circuit Court clerk's deputy said Friday.
Allen was charged initially with f1st-degree battery after police found Alithia
Boyd, 1, seriously injured May 1 at a Flippin apartment complex where the girl,
her mother and Allen lived. Allen told police the girl fell down the stairs,
Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge of Mountain Home said.
Medical personnel transported the girl to an out-of-state hospital, where she
died May 6.
Ethredge amended the charge to capital murder. He has not said whether he will
seek the death penalty.
Pretrial motions are set for Allen in Marion County Circuit Court on Sept. 21.
(source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
MISSOURI:
Missouri plans to seek death penalty for Mexican national
Missouri prosecutors on Friday filed their formal plan to pursue the death
penalty against a Mexican national in the shooting death of a man a day after
he allegedly killed 4 people in Kansas.
Prosecutors in Montgomery County submitted court papers saying they will seek
capital punishment for Pablo Serrano-Vitorino if he's convicted of 1st-degree
murder in the March 8 death of Randy Nordman at that man's home in New
Florence, about 70 miles west of St. Louis. Serrano-Vitorino also is charged
with armed criminal action and burglary.
A judge last week ordered Serrano-Vitorino, 40, to stand trial on the Missouri
charges and scheduled a June 1 arraignment. A message left Friday with
Serrano-Vitorino's attorney seeking comment on the case was not immediately
returned.
Serrano-Vitorino, who federal immigration officials have said is in the U.S.
illegally, is accused in Kansas of killing a Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor and
three other men at the neighbor's home the night before Nordman was slain
nearly 200 miles away. Serrano-Vitorino was captured after a manhunt and is
jailed in Missouri without bond.Authorities have not discussed a motive for any
of the killings.
In his court filing Friday, Montgomery County Prosecutor Nathan Carroz cited
"aggravated circumstances" related to Nordman's slaying that make the case
eligible for the death penalty. Among them: The Missouri killing was a
continuation of the Kansas shooting rampage, Nordman's killing involved
burglary and robbery, and that slaying was "outrageously or wantonly vile,
horrible or inhuman" in its randomness and its "callous disregard for the
sanctity of human life."
Carroz also cited Serrano-Vitorino's previous legal issues that have included
California charges involving spousal battery and threats with the intent to
terrorize, as well as Kansas charges since 2012 involving domestic battery and
2 cases of driving under the influence.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Death sentence sought for KCK man accused of 5 killings
A Missouri prosecutor said Friday he will seek a death sentence for the Kansas
City, Kan., man accused of killing 5 men this year.
Montgomery County Prosecutor Nathan Carroz filed the notice to seek the death
penalty against Pablo Serrano-Vitorino on Friday.
Serrano-Vitorino, 40, is charged in Montgomery County with 1st-degree murder in
the March 8 shooting death of Randy Nordman of New Florence, Mo.
Several hours before Nordman was killed, authorities say, Serrano-Vitorino shot
and killed 4 men in Kansas City, Kan.
He was allegedly fleeing from those killings when his vehicle ran out of
gasoline on Interstate 70 near where Nordman lived. Serrano-Vitorino was
arrested several hours later carrying the rifle allegedly used in the killings.
Wyandotte County prosecutors have charged him in the killings of Michael Capps,
41, Jeremy Waters, 36, and brothers Clint Harter, 27, and Austin Harter, 29.
Serrano-Vitorino, who was in the country illegally, is to be arraigned in
Montgomery County on June 1.
(source: Kansas City Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 22 20:00:27 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 20:00:27 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., OKLA., ARIZ., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605222000160.5320@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 22
KANSAS:
Floyd Bledsoe, wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years, pushes to end death penalty
in Kansas
A man who spent more than 15 years wrongfully imprisoned for a rape and murder
he did not commit shared his story in the basement of a Lawrence church on
Saturday, now on a mission to encourage action against the death penalty in
Kansas.
Floyd Bledsoe, 39, was released from prison in December 2015 after a judge
overturned his 2000 murder conviction. He said prior to addressing the crowd of
about 75 at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1234 Kentucky St., that
the court system is flawed, and asked what if his case had been a death penalty
case?
Floyd Bledsoe sits in prayer with his eyes closed before sharing his story with
audience members on Saturday evening at St. John the Evangelist Catholic
Church, 1234 Kentucky St. Bledsoe was exonerated and released from prison late
last year after serving 15 years of a life sentence where he was wrongfully
convicted of murder.
Floyd Bledsoe sits in prayer with his eyes closed before sharing his story with
audience members on Saturday evening at St. John the Evangelist Catholic
Church, 1234 Kentucky St. Bledsoe was exonerated and released from prison late
last year after serving 15 years of a life sentence where he was wrongfully
convicted of murder.
"Anytime you're dealing with somebody's life, once they're executed, there's no
bringing them back. There's no, 'Hey, we're gonna appeal this,'" Bledsoe said.
"Once they're dead, they're dead."
He said he wants people to understand he doesn't want them to believe in change
- he wants them to be the change, get personally involved and become a voice
for those who can't have one.
"I know what it's like to be stuck and not have a way to communicate with the
outside world," he said, which is a big reason he's taking the opportunity his
situation has presented to speak out.
Bledsoe cited the Million Man March that thrust the civil rights movement of
the 1960s forward.
"What if we get a million Kansans together saying, 'Enough is enough; let's
stop the death penalty, because we're unsure. One life is worth everything to
us,'" he said.
He wants Kansas to be ahead of the curve on the death penalty issue.
"Why don't we, instead of waiting until the end, like Kansas so notoriously
does, why don't we become a forerunner and say, 'You know what? Enough is
enough - let's stop this now," he said.
(source: Lawrence Journal World)
NEBRASKA:
Anti-death penalty advocate to speak in North Platte Tell North Platte what you
think
Nebraska State Sen. Colby Coash will appear in North Platte Tuesday, May 24 to
discuss the upcoming vote to retain the Legislature's vote to end Nebraska's
death penalty.
Coash will speak at 9:30 a.m. at Hobbe's Diner in the Parkade Plaza Restaurant
217 E 6th St. in North Platte.
He represents the group, "Retain a Just Nebraska," urging the retention of LB
268, the Nebraska Legislature's vote to end the death penalty. The coalition
advocates life in prison without parole instead of the death penalty.
Former death row inmate Randy Reeves died Wednesday night of natural causes in
the Nebraska State Penitentiary.
Coash said it is "an example of what Nebraska's tough life imprisonment statute
means - that the offender will only leave prison on a gurney." Reeves was first
sentenced to death, but the sentence as changed in 2000 to 2 counts of life
imprisonment.
Coash, who represents southwest Lincoln in the Legislature, is also conducting
Town Halls in Grand Island, Hastings, Kearney and McCook.
(source: The North Platte Bulletin)
OKLAHOMA:
No room for mistakes in Oklahoma's next execution protocol
One of the most telling findings made by members of a multicounty grand jury
that studied problems with Oklahoma executions is found on the next-to-last
page of the panel's 106-page report.
Most Department of Corrections employees, the grand jury said (with the word
"most" in italics and boldfaced), "profoundly misunderstood the protocol.
Although some ... were able to intelligently testify regarding the protocol,
the majority simply could not."
In other words, when it came to carrying out the state's most solemn duty, not
many people involved knew exactly what was going on. It's a startling
conclusion and a problem that must be remedied in full before Oklahoma
considers putting another inmate to death.
The grand jury's report, issued Thursday, was the product of a lengthy
investigation into how 1 wrong drug was used in the January 2015 execution of
Charles Warner and nearly was used in September 2015 in the planned execution
of Richard Glossip. The Glossip execution was halted when the mix-up was
discovered.
The report makes clear why Anita Trammell is no longer warden at Oklahoma State
Penitentiary, why Steve Mullins is no longer general counsel for the governor's
office, and why Robert Patton is no longer Department of Corrections director.
All three testified before the grand jury and later left their jobs.
As director, Patton was in charge of an agency whose execution protocols were
overhauled in 2014 following a botched execution of Clayton Lockett that was
blamed largely on poor training and an improperly placed injection needle. But
the grand jury said, among other things, that it found training to be
inadequate and that the paper trail to track the acquisition, transportation
and use of execution drugs was worse than before the overhaul.
The panel said Trammell worked on assumptions regarding whether the proper
drugs had been properly vetted and used. The warden "did not do (her) job and,
consequently, failed the Department and the state as a whole." The grand jury
noted that its investigation into the mix-up and litigation stemming from the
mix-up might have been avoided if the warden had paid closer attention to which
drugs were being used in executions.
"It is inexcusable for a senior administrator with 30 years as a department
employee to testify that 'there are just some things you ask questions about,
and there's some things you don't.'"
Mullins was criticized for urging that the Glossip execution go forward after
it was determined potassium acetate had been delivered for use in the 3-drug
mixture, instead of potassium chloride. The former had also been used in the
Warner execution.
The grand jurys said it was unacceptable for Mullins "to so flippantly and
recklessly disregard the written protocol and the rights of Richard Glossip"
and that he should have "resoundingly recommended an immediate stay of
execution." Instead, he argued to the deputy attorney general that the 2 drugs
were essentially the same, adding, "Google it."
Gov. Mary Fallin stayed the Glossip execution. Since then all executions have
been on hold in Oklahoma, and will remain so until at least 150 days after
release of the grand jury's report.
The panel recommended another revision of execution protocol be undertaken, to
ensure everyone's duties are crystal clear. Grand jurors also said DOC should
have an independent ombudsman on site during executions. Each person involved
in an execution "must be comfortable questioning anything they observe that
does not seem right," the grand jury said.
That hasn't been the case to date, which is partly how we got into this mess.
Getting out of it will require a wholesale change in state officials'
application of the death penalty so the public can be assured that yes, the
state really does know what it's doing.
(source: The Oklahoman Editorial Board)
ARIZONA:
Slaying my last 5 excuses to back the death penalty
After years of reading and writing about the horrors of violent crime, I
decided there are monsters among us who deserve to die, period. And the state
should kill them.
But there's a whole criminal justice system that goes along with implementing
the death penalty, and in order to hold onto your belief in capital punishment
you must believe in that system.
And now I don't. I can't.
Just last week U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix put Arizona's executions on
hold until the resolution of a case involving a controversial drug used by our
state to execute the condemned.
It turns out that we stink at killing guys.
We're so bad at it, and there are so many questions and concerns, legal,
medical, financial and moral, that we just need to stop trying.
This was made even more clear by an expansive report on Arizona's death penalty
by The Arizona Republic's Michael Kiefer, in which the last 5 reasons I
believed - or used to believe - in capital punishment were obliterated.
Fallacy number 1: The death penalty is efficient.
Kiefer reported that in Maricopa County Superior Court from 2010 through
November 2015 there were 194 ongoing capital cases. Of those, 28 - or 14 % -
ended in death sentences. That doesn't speak well for the proficiency of
prosecutors. Or perhaps for the reasoning that led them to seek the death
penalty.
Number 2: The death penalty is warranted.
As it turns out, that's not exactly true either. The Federal Public Defender's
Office in Phoenix reported that of the 306 death sentences imposed in Arizona
over the last 40 years, 129 - 42 % - were reversed or remanded on appeal. There
will always be some cases that should be overturned. But nearly 1/2?
Number 3: The death penalty is economical.
In this instance, it's not even close. Taxpayers pay through the nose for both
the prosecution and the defense in capital cases. Among the most well-known was
the defense for Jodi Arias. Her 2 trials cost $3.57 million. And we continue to
pay for these cases through a long appeals process, spending millions while the
condemned spend decades on death row. Some dying there of natural causes.
Number 4: The death penalty is equitable.
There are many instances where there is little distinction between killers who
got the death penalty and killers who got life in prison or less. Take the case
of Daniel Cook, who got the death sentence while his accomplice pleaded to a
lesser charge and received a 20-year sentence in exchange for his testimony
against Cook. In that sense, the death penalty was not a punishment but a
bargaining tool for prosecutors. Is that justice?
Number 5: The death penalty is reliable.
The last inmate to be executed in Arizona, Joseph Wood, was injected 15 times
with an experimental lethal drug cocktail and spent nearly 2 hours heaving and
gasping before he died. And there was Jeffrey Landrigan, who was executed by
drugs the Arizona Department of Corrections obtained unlawfully from Great
Britain. How is acting illegally a justifiable way to execute someone? And
there was Ray Krone, convicted in 1992 of killing a bartender. He spent 10
years on death row before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Inevitably there
will be death penalty mistakes. That's unacceptable.
You may be like me. You may want to support the death penalty.
But there's only 1 reason left for any of us to do so:
Ignorance.
(source: Commentary, EJ Montini, Arizona Republic)
USA:
Lethal injections coming under scrutiny
While we were fortunate to have a pretty mild winter, spring has not been
ideal. And although I've been suffering from some serious hay fever, it's also
been cold and rainy. Usually it's one or the other, but this year has been a
double whammy.
My allergies have been so bad this year that a few mornings I've woken up with
my eyes matted shut. While this has provided Three Stooges-like entertainment
for my family, I am not amused.
Thank goodness for medicine. Every morning I shoot medicine up my nose and take
a small pill. While I still suffer, I don't even want to think about what bad
shape I would be in without my allergy medication. In fact, my whole family
doses up first thing in the morning. Thankfully, we are still under our facial
tissue budget.
This year alone, my family has taken medicines to help with allergies, fevers,
strep throat, the flu and asthma. My wife and son carry epinephrine pens with
them that literally are life-savers. While medicines definitely can save lives,
they can also be used to take them.
31 states still have capital punishment. When carrying out death sentences,
almost all of them utilize lethal injections. And those valuable medicines that
can heal, if mixed properly, also are used in these lethal injections.
But pharmaceutical juggernaut Pfizer recently announced that it was banning the
use of its drugs for lethal injections. A statement issued by the company
explained, "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."
According to Reprieve, a human rights organization based in New York that
opposes the death penalty, Pfizer is the last of approximately 25 FDA-approved
international companies that are able to manufacture drugs used in executions
to now block the use of their drugs in executions. Reprieve Director Maya Foia
said that "Pfizer's actions cement the pharmaceutical industry's opposition to
the misuse of medicines."
The impact of this ban is that many states have delayed executions while
looking for an alternative to lethal injections. For example, Ohio has not
executed an inmate for more than 2 years. However, the state has more than 2
dozen inmates with firm execution dates, but they are being put on hold until
medications for injections have been obtained.
Some states are still using lethal injections but are not disclosing who made
the medicine being used. Consumers have filed lawsuits in Texas, Georgia,
Arkansas and Missouri, asking courts to force states to identify their drug
providers.
Other states, however, are taking matters into their own hands. Tired of
waiting for medicine for lethal injections, Virginia passed a bill this spring
allowing the use of the electric chair. 2 years ago, Tennessee passed a similar
law. If drugs aren't available in Utah, a 2015 law approved the use of firing
squads for executions. Oklahoma became the 1st state to approve nitrogen gas
for executions if drugs aren't available. The Attorney General for Mississippi
wants to be able to use electrocution, firing squads and nitrogen gas.
As more and more states abolish the death penalty (7 since 2007), the problem
may someday resolve itself.
(source: Commentary; Reg Wydeven is a partner with the Appleton-based law firm
of McCarty Law LLP----The Post-Crescent)
***************
Death Penalty States Are Running Out of Ways to Kill People
The new policy means there is no remaining open-market source of lethal
injection drugs in the USA, the New York Times reports.
Pfizer joins over 20 United States and European Union pharma firms that have
stopped making their drugs available.
The option for several states has been to consider using the single drug method
like Texas, or explore alternatives such as bringing back firing squads, gas
chambers and electric chairs.
As we have reported previously, each of these drugs is used in some part of the
lethal injection cocktail, which varies at different states.
The pharmaceutical company Pfizer said Friday it will move to prevent its drugs
from being used in lethal injections. According to Inquisitr, Pfizer was their
last source of lethal injection drugs, so without any other source, they may
turn to underground means to get the drugs or using another method for capital
punishment altogether. In 2013, German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi scolded a US
wholesaler after it accidentally sold its anesthetic propofol to the state of
Missouri, which meant to use it for executions.
"The Florida Department of Corrections does not disclose the identities of our
drug suppliers", Department of Corrections spokesman McKinley Lewis said.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the center, points out that despite the
objection by pharmaceutical firms for years, state correctional facilities
could still buy the drugs from distributors. But he cautions any attempt to
tweak the law would likely trigger a fierce debate over whether IN should
abolish the death penalty.
"Regardless of how the public votes in November, this is another sign Nebraska
will never be able to carry out an execution".
With Pfizer's decision, every one of the roughly 25 companies approved by the
FDA to make these drugs has established a policy to stop their use in
executions, according to Reprieve, an advocacy group opposed to capital
punishment. And this state has not exactly been prolific in its use of capital
punishment. The only solution states such as IN have to this problem is to find
an alternative company to produce lethal injection chemicals or to bring back
other execution methods such as the electric chair. And of the 27 men and 1
woman put to death past year (the lowest number since 1984), all but 4 were in
the execution-leading troika of Georgia, Missouri and Texas.
The US Supreme Court issued in June 2015 a landmark decision declaring death by
lethal injection legal.
With restrictions on 2 of the most used execution drugs, thiopental and
pentobarbital, some states have begun using less tested drugs - like midazolam
- that may take longer than expected to take effect. Texas has at least 8 more
executions scheduled in the coming months, with 2 due in June.
(source: info-europa.com)
***********
Momentum firmly against death penalty in U.S., Dead Man Walking author
says----Sister Helen Prejean discussess her position on the death penalty with
CBC Radio's On the GO
World-renowned activist, author and Catholic nun Sister Helen Prejean does not
mince words about why the death penalty should be abolished.
Prejean is the author of numerous books, including Dead Man Walking, a New York
Times bestseller for 6 months upon its release in 1993. The book was later
adapted into an Academy Award-winning film and an opera, both of the same name.
She spoke to Ted Blades of CBC Radio's On the Go this week.
She had come to St. John's to deliver the Arrupe Lecture at St. Bonaventure's
College.
The death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976, although the journey to
abolish it began in 1950. Canada is one of 103 countries in the world which
have abolished the death penalty. However, 36 countries, including the United
States, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, still practise the death
penalty.
Q: So how would you describe the current state of the death penalty in the
United States, both in practice and in theory?
Well, we put it back in 1976 - the very year Canada's parliament voted not to
bring it back, even though 70 % of the people of Canada in polls said they
wanted it - so for these 30 years we've executed over 1,200 people by shooting,
gassing, electrocuting, lethal injection.
Polls started out that there was 80 % support for the death penalty in the
United States; in the deep south states, it was almost 90 %. And now, for the
1st time, when people are given the question do you prefer the death penalty or
life without parole, they prefer life without parole. We got over 50 % ... so
the death plenty is in diminishment.
In the last 10 years, 7 states have abolished it, and California is poised to
do it next in a referendum. For the 1st time we have a Supreme Court justice,
[Stephen] Breyer, who has listed constitutionally all the problems with the
practice of the death penalty. So the theory of the death penalty is that it is
always been it's reserved for the worst of the worst.
In practice, over 75 % of all the actual executions have happened in the 10
southern states that practised slavery.
Practically, every 8 out of 10 chosen to die, it's because they killed a white
person. When people of colour are killed, it's never practised. And the other
big factor is we now have 156 wrongfully convicted people who've managed to get
off of death row because they were saved by college kids in innocence projects.
So people now see the thing's broken. It's not working.
And the other factor that we have to put in here is the exorbitant cost. It
costs millions of dollars to keep capital punishment in pace.
At first, that sounds counterintuitive, but everything is more costly. One
[district attorney] put it, "It's like the Cadillac of the criminal justice
system." You have a capital case, you have two trials, one is for guilt to
innocence, and the second is "what will the sentence be?", and that can last as
long or longer, then you got to build a special part of your prison.
The costliness of it is stopping people in their tracks because they don't see
a practical difference or effect, that if someone was put in prison for life,
and you know they can't kill again, why are we going through all this expense
of killing a few people ... so funds are doing it, practical sense of "it's not
worth it", and the moral sense has been building in people about it, because I
think going into Iraq, Afghanistan, we now see military solutions to social
problems are not that helpful, and the death penalty is a military solution to
domestic crimes.
My work has been to get those books out there, to get the film out there, to
help change the consciousness of people about it, to help them see that we need
to choose a life road.
Even Conservatives now are coming on board saying, "If you're for a lack of
government intrusion in private life, and if you're for fiscal responsibility,
what are we doing entrusting the government with the right to take life, even
without the huge exorbitant cost?"
Q: Even though you're an opponent of the death penalty, you've witnessed 6
executions. How did that come to be?
A: Well when I took the 1st man on death row -which is the story in Dead Man
Walking - I thought I would only be writing letters. We hadn't had an execution
in Louisiana in 20 years. That led to 2 1/2 years down the road. The letters,
then the visits. He was killed in front of my eyes.
He was electrocuted to death. And it changed my life, because when you see
something close up, as the saying goes, what the eye doesn't see, the heart
can't feel, but I got involved in that whole process, seeing the protocol of
death, and seeing what it meant to kill a human being. Part of the journey too
was then to witness and experience with the victims' families, who were being
told, "Now what we're going to do for you, you've gonna have to wait, hopefully
not too long, not 15 years or whatever, but when it's time we're going to let
you send a representative to actually watch when we kill the person, execute
the person, who killed your loved one."
So I got drawn into that through the 1st person. And then after that, Millard
Farmer, who's a great lawyer who was trying to save people's lives, he came
back to me after 6 months after Pat had been executed, and said, "Sister Helen,
we have two more clients in Louisiana - they don't have anybody."
And I looked at Millard and I knew that he wasn't trying to save himself from
fire of going in with his clients, and he said "You can do it - they need
somebody to be their spiritual advisor."
So I've continued to do it, and I've done it ever since. I'm accompanying a man
on death row in Louisiana. He's the 7th. 3 of the 7 have been innocent. 3 of 7
- that's how broken this thing is.
So I kept doing it because it's a privilege to be with human beings even though
they've done terrible crimes, and it's not to make them heroes, but boy it
brings you up against life and death, or compassion and vengeance, and what are
you for? And then I spend the other part of my time on the road getting out on
the road to wake people up in the United States about how we got to choose
another road.
Q: But how does it make you feel, as a citizen of the United States, as a human
being, to witness death not caused in the heat of the moment, in a moment of
passion for a lack of a better world, but in a cold, methodical,
state-conducted manner?
It could paralyze me, or galvanize me, and it has galvanized me. You got the
words exactly right; cold, calculated. The protocol of death.
When we were doing the movie, Susan [Sarandon, who won an Oscar for playing
Prejean] kept saying to me while we were on the set, "It's so surreal!" I've
been with people that died naturally, like in a hospital ... but to see, to be
with a person who's alive, and drinking coffee, and talking to me, and just
know with my mind and my watch that in another hour he is going to be
absolutely dead, that they're going to kill him over in the other room, how do
you get your mind around that?
So I knew that when I wrote the book, Dead Man Walking, and I tell the stories,
I take people over into both of these abysses.
One is to stand in the presence and feel the outrage when innocent people are
killed.
And the other is to come very close to see what it means to entrust over to our
government to do this killing of a human being. One time when I was in the
death house in Louisiana ... a guard came to me and said "Sister, the man we're
killing tonight is a very different man from that young brash animal that
walked in here 20 years ago, cursing God and everybody, but we gotta kill him
anyway. It's such a futile and despairing act, to freeze frame a person in the
worst act of their life, and then freeze frame ourselves as a society into
having to kill them."
Q: But you're a Roman Catholic nun. You're a Christian. You've got a cross
around your neck. The Bible says, "He that smitest a man so that he dies, shall
surely be put to death"?
The Bible says those that commit adultery should be stoned. The Bible says
those that have sex with animals should get the death penalty, and the poor
animal gets the death penalty as well. The Bible says if you disrespect the
priest or your parents, you should die. And then you come to Jesus. And the
hardest thing has been to see how long it's taken the Christian churches to
take a strong stand against the death penalty because we've gotten so
culturized, we've gotten so domesticated, we've domesticated Jesus ... and
Jesus' words are never quoted.
Pain, and sacrifice, and death, is the way to get to God, and that God is
please with sacrifice. So, there's been a theology in there too that's been
upholding this ... it took a while for there to be principled opposition to the
death penalty from the Catholic church.
Q: But what do you say to the loved ones of the victim of a murderer?
Especially the particularly heinous crimes involving rape and torture before
the final act? You hear many of those people who say, 'That person who killed
our daughter or our son doesn't deserve to see sunshine, doesn't deserve to
live out the rest of their days with a TV in their cells and 3 square meals a
day. What do you say to them?
?A: What do I say to victim's families? I don't say much to victims' families;
I listen to them. And what my experience has been with people, the starting
point for most human beings, and I can't say it wouldn't happen in me as well,
is, "I want to see that person dead who killed my loved one."
But that's not where most of them stop. And it depends on who they have around
to help them. The hero in my book, Dead Man Walking, is one of those fathers
whose son, David, just 17, was killed, and he, as I got to know him, said to
me, "Sister, everybody is saying to me, 'Lloyd, you got to be for the death
penalty, or it'll look like you didn't love your boy. Everybody was saying that
to me??? I wanted to see him suffer pain??? But then I saw what it was doing to
me. I was angry all the time, I was filled with this hate."
It's so hypocritical for the prosecutors to say to a victim's family, "We're
going to give you closure. We're going to give you justice." New Jersey, one of
the states that did away with the death penalty nine years ago, they had 62
victims' families that came to testify legislative hearings saying, 'Don't kill
us. The death penalty revictimizes us, putting us in this holding pattern,
waiting for this justice to come, which sometimes never even happens.
We never want to hear the person's name again, let them disappear into a prison
for life, but don't just keep us in the public while we're waiting for this
death penalty, as if watching you kill the one who killed our loved one, and
watching our violence is going to heal us. We've had more and more victim's
families speaking out, and that's helping us in the United States to end the
death penalty.
Q: Do you think we will we see it? Maybe not in your lifetime or mine but do
you think we are going to see the end of it?
A; Yup. No, we are going to see it in our lifetimes. You can see it beginning
to happen. That's a lot of education, a lot of deaths. In theory, it would only
be reserved for the worst of the worst, and now we look at who it's actually
applied to. They're all poor??? you know what being poor means when you're up
against the power's of the state for your life? Who do you have by your side?
Just like [if] you got a brain tumour, you need a good surgeon, you need a good
physician, you need a crackerjack attorney by your side. But then you get into
the culture of the south, where you have [district attorneys who] run for
office and brag about how many death penalties they get, because it's part of
the culture.
The guidelines of the Supreme Court never held up in the culture, and in
practice it's been broken from the start. You got to give people information,
and then you got to bring them through story, bringing them over to both sides
of the horror, and leaving them with the question leading to deeper reflection.
I had that hunch when I started out: if we could bring the American people
close tot his, they're going to get it. Most people don't think about the death
penalty. It doesn't affect them. But you get people to reflect about it, and
that's why the arts are important ... it brings people into deep reflection.
(source: CBC news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 22 20:01:15 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 20:01:15 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605222001040.5320@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 22
IRAN:
23 executions in 2 days ---- Iranian Resistance calls for saving the lives of
10 young prisoners facing the gallows
At a time when 23 prisoners were executed on May 17 and 18 in the prisons of
Urumieh, Tabriz, Yazd, Yasouj, Sari and Mashhad across Iran, another 10 young
prisoners between the ages of 21 and 25 are currently facing imminent
execution. On Saturday, May 21, these inmates were transferred from various
wards, including the youths' ward, in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj (west of
Tehran) to solitary confinement in the quarantine ward of this facility,
specifically allocated for prisoners before being sent to the gallows. The
Iranian Resistance calls on the international community and especially human
rights organizations to take urgent action aimed at preventing these vicious
executions. The goal of the mullahs' regime in Iran, already engulfed in
crises, in increasing the horrendous use of executions is to cement a climate
of fear in society to rein in increasing social protests.
Yasouj public prosecutor Mehrdad Karimi said that these executions "will teach
a lesson for others in the society, and the judiciary will take action with the
utmost severity and full jurisdiction."
"There is no longer any time for counseling and this is a black month for
hooligans and thugs; a new trend has been launched in the judiciary system ...
in the next few days several hooligans and thugs will be executed," said
Isfahan Province police chief Abdulreza Agha-Khani while launching the
oppressive "Social Security" plan from May 21 and announcing the arrest of 7
individuals described as 'hooligans and thugs.'
In implementing the plan to improve security, the struggle against hooligans
and thugs is priority number one, and actions will be taken against drug
distributors, people harassing women, raucousness regarding vice and hijab
regulations, violating luxurious halls and restaurants, dog runners and
vehicles with +20% tinted windows," he added. (State-run Tasnim news agency -
May 21, 2016).
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
ISRAEL:
A Death Penalty Only for Palestinians ---- There are so many reasons to oppose
capital punishment. But Avigdor Lieberman's attempt to adopt it is particularly
odious.
The question of the death penalty is once again on the public agenda, because
this was one of MK Avigdor Lieberman's demands in his negotiations to bring his
Yisrael Beiteinu party into the coalition. But Lieberman will apparently give
up on a bill sponsored by Sharon Gal, a former Knesset member from his party,
that would have allowed Israel's civilian courts to impose the death penalty
for terrorist murders.
Instead, he is focusing on an attempt to actualize an existing but hitherto
dormant legal provision allowing military courts in the territories to impose
the death penalty. This would be done by scrapping the rule that capital
punishment can be imposed only if it is unanimously approved by the military
judges hearing the case. Lieberman's proposal would allow capital punishment
even if only a majority of the judicial bench supports it.
It should be noted that as long as the military prosecution's policy of not
even seeking the death penalty remains unaltered, the possibility of capital
punishment is unlikely to arise. Nevertheless, it's clear that the new
legislation is also an attempt to sway the military prosecution and instruct it
on how to behave.
Therefore, to all the known arguments against the death penalty - which have
led to its abolition in all Western democracies aside from a few U.S. states -
an additional argument must be added, one that justifies a special and vigorous
opposition to the current effort to enact capital punishment: This is an
attempt to apply the death penalty to only one population group only: the
Palestinians. After all, an Israeli citizen who perpetrates a terrorist murder
(like the murder of a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Duma,
according to the indictment) will be brought to trial in a civilian court, not
a military one.
This selective application of the death penalty (which admittedly already
exists on paper, but which the government is now seeking to implement) is
liable to further erode Israel's international legitimacy as a country aspiring
to belong to the family of democratic states. And on this issue, it won't be
possible to rely on the American precedent, because capital punishment in
America isn't applied selectively to a certain population group.
Aside from the discrimination the government is seeking to promote, the very
fact that this demand to allow capital punishment, whether by military or
civilian courts, is even being discussed in principle ought to worry us.
Morally, this is a shocking punishment: A state is taking a life in the name of
its citizens. And this is happening at a time when even the best researchers
haven't succeeded in proving that capital punishment creates deterrence, and
despite the possibility, which has occurred in practice, that an innocent
person might be convicted.
The claim that the state ought to have the authority to put terrorists to death
by court order also leads to support for executions motivated by revenge. This
is the road to moral degeneration, ending in a violent, undemocratic society
that lacks the rule of law. In this regard, it's possible to see a link between
the circumstances under which Lieberman is replacing Defense Minister Moshe
Ya'alon and Lieberman's insistence on adopting capital punishment.
(source: Editorial, Ha'aretz)
*************
Introducing capital punishment for terrorists was one of Lieberman's
preconditions for joining the coalition
Avigdor Lieberman, who is set to become Israel's minister of defense, has
withdrawn his demand of introducing capital punishment for terrorists as a
precondition for joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, the
Times of Israel website reported Saturday.
The leader of the nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is our home) is
expected to replace Moshe Ya'alon, who resigned on Friday saying extremists had
taken over the country.
Yaalon said he no longer trusted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the
hawkish premier offered his post to Lieberman in a bid to expand the governing
coalition's wafer-thin majority.
Capital punishment is currently not practiced in Israel, and only 2 people were
executed in the state's history: the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and a
soldier accused of treason and exonerated posthumously.
Last year, Lieberman's bill was voted down in the 1st reading by 94-6.
(source: i24news.tv)
ZIMBABWE:
Killing, Murder and the Death Sentence
It is common knowledge that the original scripts of the modern day Bible were
written in either Hebrew, Greek or Latin languages. On translation into
English, it should be an acceptable fact that in some instances improper
English words could have been used to describe certain original meanings.
The sixth of the first 10 commandments of Mount Sinai states (Exodus 20 verse
13); "You shall not kill". This is a simple statement of a verbal command as it
does not give any guidelines on how and when the killing constitutes a sin.
Killing is to deprive of life. The commandment does not distinguish whether the
killing is against humans, animals or any other creatures. This would render
the killing of anything to be unlawful and a sin. It lacks clarity. This,
therefore, creates the problems of interpretation and the subsequent debates on
the death sentence.
For that reason, the proper English word which should have been used in the
commandment is "murder" and not "kill".
Murder confines the killing to only that of other humans. "Killing" is too
ambiguous for the word to give a properly defined meaning to the commandment.
The Lord our God actually defines the prohibited act of ending life, in Exodus
21, verse 14. He spoke directly to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai, saying;
"If a man wilfully attacks another to kill him treacherously, you shall take
him from my altar that he may die". In simpler terms He is talking of murder,
the deliberate ending of the life of another by deceitful means and with an
evil intention. There is no justified purpose to kill in this instance. God
expands on the definition to speak of the acts of killing that do not
constitute a sin. Verse 13 of Exodus 21 quotes Him saying, "But if he did not
lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, then I will appoint
for you a place to which he may flee". He is, therefore, seeking to exonerate
those who kill other humans by accident or for lawful purposes. He gives them
protection from accusation of murder. He, therefore, recognises that there are
circumstances when the killing of another human can be excused. This,
therefore, brings us to the current debates on the validity or justification
for the imposition of the death sentences.
Proponents of human rights would argue that no one has a right to end the life
of any other human, no matter the reason behind it. They have at times fought
successfully against the death sentence, regardless of how gruesome the crime.
In cases where an individual has wilfully and treacherously murdered another,
as God put it, the first question to be asked is whose rights then should be
valued more, the rights of the murderer or the vanquished rights of the victim?
The 2nd question is, if the murderer shows no remorse at all for ending the
life of an innocent soul, or even gives pride to his actions for whatever
reason, should his life be valued over that of the innocent victim?
Surprisingly, people support rights to abortion to end the lives of many unborn
little innocent children.
Therefore, on one side the human rights proponents are fighting for the
abolition of the death penalty and on the other they are calling for allowing
for the right to murder an unborn baby. What kind of confusion is this? While I
support the concept of human rights, it is obvious that sometimes these rights
are being misapplied.
The Lord our God does not want anyone to treacherously take out the life which
He created, since that life belongs to Him. The punishment for such a crime is
death, so says the Lord. In the book of Genesis, chapter 9 verse 6, God spoke
to Noah and his sons, saying; "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his
blood be shed, for God made man in his own image". This is the authority that
the Lord our God vested in mankind to shed the blood of callous and unrepentant
murderers.
Let's go back to the question on whether it is right or wrong to pronounce and
effect a death sentence on anyone. God's answer is simply "Yes", if it is
proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the crime was committed wilfully and
for evil intent. If the murderer shows no remorse at all for the crime, and no
value to human life, he should be taken out of society to die. He is a danger
to society even in the prisons where he might be kept. To protect other
innocent lives, he should lose his life. However, where there are extenuating
circumstances, any mitigating factors, and if the murderer regrets his actions
and pleads for forgiveness, then and only then should there be a "stay of
execution". God forgives those who seek repentance. He is a merciful God.
Some people have argued that at times some people are sentenced to death for
the crimes they did not commit. While this is true, it is the duty of the
courts to ensure that adequate guidelines and measures are put in place to
avoid such occurrences. Even the Lord our God gave mankind the guidelines to
follow to avoid sentencing innocent people to death. In the book of Deuteronomy
17 verse 6, He put a law into place for judges and for the courts, saying; "On
the evidence of 2 witnesses or of 3 witnesses he that is to die shall be put to
death". He reiterated the same thing in the book of Numbers, chapter 35 verse
30, saying; "If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on
the evidence of witnesses; but no person shall be put to death on the testimony
of one witness". He, therefore, seeks to eliminate wrong convictions. This
should be strictly adhered to, to prevent any such mishaps.
Being a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ, I would want to quote the
teachings He gave to mankind (Matthew 5 verse 21-26); "You have heard that it
was said to the man of old, 'You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be
liable to judgement'. But I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother
shall be liable to judgement. Whoever insults his brother shall be liable to
the council, and whoever says, 'you fool' shall be liable to the hell of fire.
So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there you remember that your
brother has something against you, leave your gift there by the altar and go;
first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Make
friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest
your accuser land you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be
put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you pay the
last penny".
(source: Opinion, Prosper Tingini, The Standard)
SINGAPORE:
Human rights lawyer to file complaint in UN for denial of Kho Jabing's right to
counsel
Human rights lawyer M Ravi has said in a Facebook post that Kho Jabing suffered
an egregious breach of his constitutional right to counsel just hours before he
was executed.
Mr Ravi said that he was with lawyer Alfred Dodwell and other activists outside
the Chambers of the judge on Thursday (19 May) evening, and so know that
Jabing's family had instructed both lawyers Alfred Dodwell and Jeannette
Chong-Aruldoss to represent him at the hearing which was fixed before Judicial
Commissioner (JC) Kannan.
In pointing out that there were 3 state counsels present at the hearing, Mr
Ravi said that he was astounded when Mr Dodwell was denied entry into the
Judge's Chambers by the court officer. Only Mrs Chong-Aruldoss was allowed into
the Chambers. Mr Ravi said that this was very unusual and that after three
hours of hearing, Ms Chong-Aruldoss came out of the chambers to inform the
activists and him that that Mr Dodwell was not allowed.
"When the state had 3 counsels, why can't Kho Jabing have 2 counsels to
represent him," asked Mr Ravi.
"This is his constitutional right," said Mr Ravi in pointing out Article 9(3)
of the Constitution which said: "Where a person is arrested, he ... shall be
allowed to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice."
Mr Ravi said that the JC "had clearly breached Article 9(3) of the Constitution
of Kho Jabing's right to counsel and to be defended by a lawyer or any number
of lawyers of his choice."
"I will be shortly filing a complaint against the Singapore State in this
matter with Mr. Christof Heyes, who is the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra
Judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions or Killing," he added.
Meanwhile Mr Dodwell in thanking blogger Andrew Loh for writing a Facebook note
thanking the anti-death penalty activists and lawyers who defend death-row
inmates said that he "could choose to sue Bilahari for his defamatory statement
that it was "politically motivated"."
He added: "I reflected on it and I will take the high road and don't waste my
life on insignificant people whose views really does not matter. It's venomous
and erroneous."
Mr Bilahari Kausikan, Singapore's Ambassador-at-large, had in sharing the news
report of the lawyers' attempts to save the murderer's life suggested that it
was politically motivated.
Mr Kausikan said: "This politically motivated 11th hour attempt to stay
execution is despicable. If there were no new facts or arguments, they must -
unless they were totally incompetent lawyers - have known that the appeal would
fail. So they raised false hope in Mr Kho's family and perhaps in Mr Kho
himself for their own political agenda. That is completely cynical and ought to
be condemned."
(source: The Independent)
VIETNAM:
Australia-bound woman arrested in Vietnam 'with 1 kilogram of methamphetamines'
A Vietnamese woman has been arrested at Ho Chi Minh's international airport
bound for Australia allegedly with 1 kilogram of methamphetamine.
Vietnamese officials said the arrest of the 76-year-old woman, late on Friday,
came as she prepared to board a Vietnam Airlines flight to Sydney.
Vietnamese media said security officers made the arrest after allegedly
uncovering the methamphetamine pills in 2 jars of fish paste - a delicacy in
many Asian dishes.
Officers said investigations were continuing looking into the case.
The arrest follows the detention last December of a 71-year-old
Vietnamese-Australian woman after police allegedly uncovered some three
kilograms of heroin hidden in 36 soap containers in her luggage.
The 71-year-old was also arrested at Tan Son Nhat international airport in Ho
Chi Minh City as she was checking in on a Sydney bound flight. The heroin had
an estimated value of $647,526.
In August 2015, Vietnamese authorities sentenced 39-year-old Australian Nguyen
Ly Toan to 20 years' jail for attempting to send drug precursor chemicals
through the postal service.
Nguyen had been arrested in July 2013 after Vietnamese customs officials
uncovered the chemicals in the packages bound for Australia.
Vietnam is reported to have among the world's toughest drug enforcement laws,
with the death penalty for those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of
heroin or of methamphetamines.
(source: news.com.au)
BANGLADESH:
Gazipur court orders death sentences for 4 in 2006 murder of businessman
4 men have been sentenced to death in Gazipur for killing a businessman to
extort money. On the night of Jan 27, 2006, Moksed Ali Sentu was hacked to
death at Tongi, a place in the district, after he refused to pay the money the
miscreants demanded.
In its verdict, delivered on Sunday, the court of Gazipur's Additional District
and Sessions Judge found four people guilty of the murder and ordered the death
penalty.
The convicts are Md Rubel alias Tiger Rubel, 35, 'Babu', 32, Ashraf Ali, 31,
and 'Soleman', 31.
All of them are absconding, said Additional Public Prosecutor Md Makbul Hossain
Kajal.
He said that each of the convicts have also been slapped a fine of Tk 10, 000
each and given 14 years rigorous imprisonment and another Tk 10,000 fine for a
separate charge.
(source: bdnews24.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 22 20:02:14 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 22 May 2016 20:02:14 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605222002040.5320@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 22
PHILIPPINES:
Lacson wants death penalty for 'habitual' public fund stealers
Senator-elect Panfilo Lacson thinks if the death penalty will be reimposed,
those found guilty of plunder or even the crime of graft, especially if is a
"habit," should be subject to capital punishment.
Lacson said the law should bear down hard on those who "habitually" steal
public funds, even if the amount is less than the P50 million as specified by
the present law.
"Kung puwede, kung mabalik ang death penalty, masentensyahan siya ng death.
Kasi sa hirap ng buhay lalo sa mga kanayunan, ang P50 million, P10 million, P20
million, it doesn't matter. Kung repetitively ginagawa dapat talaga parusahan
nang mabigat," Lacson stressed.
He noted that Republic Act 7080, punishes anyone who accumulated ill-gotten
wealth through a combination or series of overt or criminal acts involving P50
million.
(source: journal.com.ph)
************
Duterte told: Executions antipoor
The Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) on Saturday warned presumptive
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte that his plan to revive the death penalty and
implement a "shoot-to-kill" policy against criminals would be antipoor and
violate international law.
In a statement on Saturday, FLAG chair Jose Manuel Diokno reminded Duterte that
before the death penalty was abolished in 2006, about 70 % of death row inmates
were poor and had been wrongfully convicted.
He also reminded Duterte that the Philippines ratified in 2007 an international
treaty prohibiting executions and providing for the abolition of the death
penalty.
"The death penalty and shoot-to-kill policy are antipoor," Diokno said.
"These actions are illegal and unconstitutional, render our legal system
impotent and meaningless, and blatantly violate international law," he added.
According to FLAG, majority of the 1,121 inmates on death row before the death
penalty was abolished in 2006 were poor.
Diokno said the poor were "vulnerable to the death penalty because they have no
voice, no money, no power and lack the resources to hire good lawyers."
'Disregard for human dignity'
"For exactly the same reasons, they will also be vulnerable to the proposed
shoot-to-kill policy of the (presumptive) president-elect," said Diokno, a son
of the late senator and antimartial law activist Jose Diokno.
He said the death penalty and the shoot-to-kill policy, along with Duterte's
proposal of death by hanging "reflect a callous disregard for human dignity not
befitting a chief executive."
"Advocating state-sanctioned killings is not just antipoor but antilife,"
Diokno added.
"The death penalty and shoot to kill policy will not deter crime. Only the
certainty of being caught and punished can do that. What the country needs is a
better justice system, not a new one based on the barrel of a gun," he said. He
said Duterte was bound to the international treaty called the Second Optional
Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the
Philippines signed on Sept. 20, 2006, and ratified about a year later.
'A great stigma'
That treaty is the only internationally acknowledged treaty to prohibit
executions and provide for the total abolition of the death penalty, he said.
Quoting other death penalty experts, Diokno said it would be "unprecedented and
illegal" for a state that signed that treaty to restore the death penalty.
"If the Philippines reinstates capital punishment, the county would be
condemned for violating international law. It would be a great stigma," he
quoted University of Oxford criminology professor emeritus Sir Roger Hood and
Leiden University law professor William Schabas as saying.
(source: Philippine Inquirer)
*****************
New Negros solon to oppose re-imposition of death penalty
A newly elected lawmaker has joined the House leaders in opposing incoming
president Rodrigo Roa Duterte's plan to breathe life into efforts to re-impose
the death penalty.
Negros Oriental Rep. Manuel Sagabarria, who belongs to the Nationalist
People???s Coalition (NPC), agreed with Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. that the
restoration of death penalty is not the antidote to the rising cases of crimes
in the country.
"I am a Catholic and it says in my religion that 'Thou shall not kill.' So by
conscience, I am not in favor," he said, in rejecting Duterte's planned public
executions by hanging, especially for drug-related crimes.
Duterte vowed to push for the restoration of death penalty for heinous crimes,
including robbery with rape.
(source: ManilaBulletin)
***********
Still no to the death penalty
First, a legal reason. In 2007, after a long period of hesitation, we acceded
to the Second Optional Protocol to the Covenant on Civil Political Rights. This
agreement binds state-parties to abolish the death penalty. The Philippines
therefore has a treaty-obligation to abolish this form of barbarism. We can, of
course, denounce the treaty but that certainly would mark us out as
retrogressive in the very important matter of human rights. The most egregious
crimes are those over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction -
genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war.
Significantly, however, for none of these is the death penalty imposed. Even
before the Treaty of Rome, the statutes of the ad hoc criminal tribunals - the
International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia and the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - defined and punished among the most atrocious
acts recorded in history, but for none of them could the death penalty be
imposed. Definitely, the persuasion among penal theorists and in progressive
legal systems is towards abandoning the death penalty.
The agitation, emanating of course from the presumptive president, to re-start
the killing machine is the wrathful, perhaps panicky, reaction to different
forms of criminality that stubbornly evade law-enforcement and, like some
protuberant malignancy, know no remission! But this is precisely the reason for
distancing ourselves from this dangerous inclination. An essential dimension of
criminal justice is establishing a distance between the atrocity of the
criminal act and the infliction of penalty - because retaliation is the
antithesis of justice! At all times it is the vindication of humanity that is
the issue: the humanity of the victim, as well as that of the offender. The
dehumanization of the offender does not improve the lot of the victim. It is
silly, ludicrous even to think that by worsening the lot of the offender,
murdering him even, we better the position of the victim, unless of course, we
grant that it is ultimately revenge that we are after. In this case, it would
be more candid on our part to set aside all talk of justice. The point is to
disrupt the cycle of violence - not to perpetuate it by stylizing it through
state-sponsored execution! The Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual
punishment" and past jurisprudence that exempted the execution of the death
penalty from the characterization of "cruel" punishment was thoroughly silly
and hypocritical. What is cruel does not become any more benign just because it
is ordained by the law. And there can be nothing more cruel than making a
doomed man await his execution, dreading the passing of each minute - an
experience we all vicariously shared as Mary Jane Veloso awaited the dreaded
moment when a volley of shots was to bring an end to life, visiting the agony
of impending death not only on her but on the members of her family. There is
everything cruel about stigmatizing and branding her children for life as
children of an executed man - even if they may have had no part in the
commission of the offense.
As for the well-worn argument from its supposedly deterrent effect, 2 things
only need be said. No matter that something may be a deterrent, if it is
objectionable and abhorrent, whatever its value may be as a deterrent will not
negate the objections to it. Towing boatloads of migrants back to the high seas
there to face the cruelty of the elements if not certain death is undoubtedly a
deterrent to attempts at illegal migrations, but it is certainly immoral,
reprehensible and even criminal to do so! More importantly, the aggressive
campaign against smoking should easily show the fallacy of the argument from
deterrence. Every possible device has been employed to deter smokers from
indulging in their vice: dire warnings about the health risks, posters with the
most revulsive pictures of diseased lungs, very convincing statistics on the
incidence of deaths among smokers. Smokers are threatened with death most
painful. None of this has really deterred smokers who continue happily puffing
away, and breathing on innocent others their lethal fumes. No, the argument
from deterrence has never really convinced me. The certainty of being dealt
with by the criminal justice system - arrest, prosecution, trial and conviction
- is what gives the criminal pause, not the severity of the penalty. It is
because the moneyed are convinced that they can bribe their way through the
police, prosecutorial and justice systems that impunity is unabated. But when
law-enforcement is thorough, prosecution is relentless and judgments go solely
by the evidence adduced, the efficiency and reliability of the system will be a
disincentive to crime, in just the same way that the thoroughness of a
professor and the mercilessness of graded recitation provide the most effective
disincentive to intellectual sloth!
Finally, there is the imperfection of our judicial system. I do not refer
principally to the susceptibility of some of our prosecutors and judges to
corruption. I am confident that most of them honestly do their jobs. But there
is no fool-proof technique for distinguishing between truth and prevarication,
no infallible test of a truthful witness. And many a judge will admit that most
of the time (if not all the time), a guilty verdict is more a statement about
how the judge appreciates the evidence than any claim about what may or may not
have happened! Once more, this is not because of any ill will on the part of
judges. It has to do more with the crucial epistemological issue of drawing
conclusions about the past from what you have in the present!
We are worn out from rampant criminality. We are a nation beleaguered by
remorseless drug peddlers, war lords, plundered and extortionists. But it will
not serve our goal of national renewal to seek umbrage from the false and
deceptive security of the law of the talion or to think that our national
salvation comes from the macabre shadows of a death chamber!
(source: Opinion, Fr. Rahilio Aquino; The Standard)
GAZA:
Hamas planning public executions in Gaza Strip-----Terror group seeks to kill
13 men, most convicted of murder connected to robberies, 'before a large crowd'
Authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip are planning to carry out a series of
public executions, the attorney general for the Palestinian enclave said on
Sunday.
The terror group has carried out previous executions in Gaza, although rarely
in public and mainly of people accused of collaborating with Israel. Sunday???s
announcement involved those convicted of criminal offenses.
"Capital punishments will be implemented soon in Gaza," attorney general Ismail
Jaber told journalists. "I ask that they take place before a large crowd."
13 men, most convicted of murder connected to robberies, are currently awaiting
execution, Hamas official Khalil al-Haya said on Friday at the mainly weekly
Muslim prayers.
"The victims' families have the right to demand that the punishments be
implemented," he said.
The families obtained rare permission on Sunday to stage a demonstration
outside parliament, with dozens demanding that the executions be carried out.
The last public executions in Gaza were in 2014 during the last war with
Israel, when a firing squad from Hamas's military wing shot dead 6 men before
Gaza City's main mosque following prayers.
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), 9 death sentences
were handed down in the Gaza Strip in 2015 and 2 in the West Bank, run by the
Palestinian Authority.
So far Palestinian law allows the death penalty for collaborators, murderers
and drug traffickers.
Of the more than 170 Palestinians sentenced to death since the creation of the
Palestinian Authority in 1994, around 30 have been executed, mostly in Gaza,
according to the PCHR.
All execution orders must in theory be approved by PA President Mahmoud Abbas
before they can be carried out, but Hamas no longer recognizes his legitimacy.
(source: The Times of Israel)
MONGOLIA:
Mongolia Court Finding 18-Year-Old Killed by Firing Squad in 1996 Innocent of
Crime Further Bolsters Argument vs Death Penalty
There is a lot of debate on capital punishment, whether by lethal injection or
firing squad, in many countries. Those who argue against executing people on
death row cite the rising number of cases when higher courts overturn a
decision and exonerate a person convicted of a heinous crime.
In some cases, such as Scottish man Edward McInnis, who was falsely accused of
rape, robbery and burglary in 1988 at age 26, it robbed him 27 years of his
youth for crimes he did not commit. But still, McInnis is lucky because he
still attained freedom after DNA samples proved he was not the criminal,
reported Faye Observe.
However, in the case of Huugjilt, the decision by the Inner Mongolia Higher
People's Court to exonerate him for rape and murder charges in 1996 when he was
18 is almost 2 decades late. That's because Huugjilt was already executed by a
firing squad that year.
Zhao Jianping, deputy president of the court, said while he gave a 30,000-yuan
compensation to the family of Huugjilt, that it was a heartbreaking lesson. The
wrongly executed man's parents visited his grave after the meeting with Zhao
and burned a copy of the verdict overturning a lower court's death sentence as
their way of telling him his wrongful conviction has been redressed.
A similar case is for review of the Shandong Provincial Higher Court which was
ordered by the Supreme People's Court to go again over the conviction of Nie
Shubin in 1994. Nie was executed for the rape and murder of a woman at age 21.
In February 2016, the 27 officials behind the wrongful execution of Huugjilt
were given warnings and demerits. Feng Zhiming, the deputy district police
officer in charge of the case, would undergo further investigation. He
allegedly ordered investigators to torture Huugjilt to force the youth to admit
the crime. Feng would be charged with dereliction of duties and accepting
bribes, reported Daily Mail.
(source: en.yibada.com)
NIGERIA:
uhari's 1 year: Let Nigerians take capital punishment for corruption and
economic sabotage to a referendum
Given the fact that corruption has become systemic in Nigeria, I think the time
has come for us to take the issue of capital punishment for corruption and
economic crimes to a plebiscite
"There is a complex web that links the Petroleum Ministry, the DPR, the Navy,
the NPA,NIMASA,PPPRA, DMO, CBN and Commercial Banks in the Oil subsidy fraud.
Documents like the sovereign debt statements and the sovereign debt notes flew
about and our money kept disappearing. From about 30 companies in the scheme
under both Obasanjo and Yar'Adua, the number shot up to 300. Monthly, billions
of Naira was paid out to people who have never had any contact with a Jerry can
of fuel in their lives. No verification, no authentication, nothing. Money was
being paid with reckless abandon. It got so bad that some people will arrange
with ship owners..., take a 2 day hire of an empty ship, move it to Lagos Port,
and berth it there. Officials of the PPPRA, Petroleum Ministry, DPR will come
there to inspect an empty vessel and certify that the empty vessel carried
10,000 metric tons of petrol, collect their money and walk away. The vessel
simply sails away and 3 weeks later, close to N6 billion will be paid as
subsidy when not even a single drop of petrol was brought in". Being the online
testimony of a Legal counsel in one of the biggest indigenous players in the
downstream petroleum sector during the Jonathan administration.Given the fact
that corruption has become systemic in Nigeria, leading President Goodluck
Jonathan to bequeath both a collapsed economy and an empty treasury to
President Buhari, I think the time has come for us to take the issue of capital
punishment for corruption and economic crimes to a plebiscite. For me, this
will also be a logical reaction to the weighty criticisms that are daily being
heaped on the APC, but more specifically, on President Buhari. I shall
illustrate these insults with the views of one single commentator who praised
contestant Buhari to high heavens in 2014/15 but today so viscerally derides
him. No, please don't misunderstand me. I have 1001 reasons of my own for which
I am unhappy with the President, among them: his politically amateurish: "I
belong to nobody", his "I can work with anybody", his sentimental retention of
anti-Buhari Jonathanians in government for far too long, leaving his party
members helpless and at the mercy of PDP governors all with deleterious
consequences; the most being the totally uncooperative National Assembly. But
truth be told, President Buhari did not cause our current problems. Rather, we
should look to former President Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria's kill joy. More
about that anon.
In my trilogy of articles: "Periscoping the ideal APC Presidential candidate",
in which I concluded then, and still maintain, that Nigeria needed Buhari more
than the obverse, I quoted a young Nigerian Actuary who wrote as follows on 21
September 2014: "WHO SHOULD FLY THE APC FLAG? "The simple answer to this poser
is that in the eyes of most Nigerians, evidences of previous electoral contests
affirm that the most acceptable of APC's likely candidates, and who can surely
win massively, is General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). The simple truth is that he
is honest and associated with honesty of purpose, and to date, no Nigerian has
come up against him with any shred of a shady financial deal in all the
positions of responsibility he held. Unfortunately, his weak campaigns did not
publicise his personal qualities of honesty, and unalloyed commitment to the
public good." Now, compare the views of that same individual in an April 2016
Whatsapp message: "Buhari uses 10 jets, runs a large government of 36
ministers, pays politicians the old way they were paid under PDP, runs huge
expenses on unnecessary foreign trips, leaves privatised PHCN entities in the
hands of Jonathan and his thieving associates, runs a fake anti-corruption
agenda that has failed woefully to date, has no strategic thinking to halt
unemployment, carries on with huge number of government ministries and agencies
he met on ground. What then is Buhari doing differently to justify why people
elected him? Buhari has no single bill before the National Assembly in his now
1 year leadership. Can any person reasonably justify Buhari's continuous
occupation of the presidency of Nigeria when he is not solving any problem, has
not solved one to date, and has not shown how he would solve any?
I haven't the slightest doubt that he was, of course, unduly hasty, sentimental
and superficial in his critique of the President given the Augean stable
Jonathan left, smack in Buhari???s hands. And this, in my view, is where former
President Obasanjo comes in and why I am suggesting that Nigerians should
seriously consider capital punishment for corruption. What, for instance,
should make anybody steal billions, if not a pulsating sickness in their
medulla oblongata? Capital punishment for corruption and economic crimes looks
like the only thing that can put the fear of the Lord in these crazed
Nigerians. Relying on his past knowledge of Nigerian politicians, Obasanjo was
particularly hard on the traditionally corrupt legislature. Unfortunately, he
goofed when, in an unprecedented act of one-upmanship, he opted to become the
power behind the throne of his successor/s. For that selfish reason he
single-handedly inflicted on Nigeria, 2 pathetically weak successors whose
concern in office was how to sustain their rule and be victorious at the next
election.
Hence, they both governed by abdication.
(sourve: thenatinoonlineng.net)
ANTIGUA:
Duo found guilty of murder
The unanimous guilty verdict delivered yesterday against Omari Phillip and
Timorie Elliott on the charge of murder is sitting well with the family of
Dorothy Prince who was gunned down on the job at Dee's Service Station during a
robbery on February 17, 2012.
While the duo appeared disappointed at the finding of the jury after exactly 4
hours of deliberations, the dead woman's sister Julinda Prince told OBSERVER
media that the decision gives the family "some peace and relief" though it
"doesn't bring back our loving sister".
The woman, who broke down in tears several times during the two-week trial,
said, "I knew that they killed Dorothy. She was a very nice sister. We miss her
very much and I know she will rest in peace now and I know she's happy she got
the verdict."
Julinda said her sister's 2 children miss her dearly and the family will
continue support the daughter who was just 2 years old at the time and her son
who was in Grade 6 preparing for Common Entrance examinations back in 2012.
"She was very nice to everybody and she was very intelligent. I know we all
miss her, her children miss, her brothers and her sisters and I know we are all
very happy," Julinda told OBSERVER media.
The dead woman's family had no comment on what sentence they'd like Justice
Keith Thom to impose come June 24 when he has to make that decision.
The death sentence, by hanging, is the country's maximum penalty for the
capital offence.
However, it has not been ordered in years. Instead, murder convicts have been
given life sentences or a specified number of years to be served in jail as
punishment.
(source: The Daily Observer)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 23 09:39:58 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 23 May 2016 09:39:58 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605230939460.5588@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 23
CARIBBEAN:
Hang 'em or not?
How Did We Get Here: Crime is ubiquitous, regardless of the basic system of
government, pure democracy, absolutism, or oligarchical. Managing criminals
remains a wedge issue, especially in countries that have automatic death
penalty, as studies have shown.
The ongoing struggles in a few dominant Caribbean islands, especially Jamaica,
Trinidad and others with high capital crime rates, have seen a softening
mentality to bring back hanging, hoping that it will cut crime.
Both advocates for and against capital punishment agree that it is a delicate
balance in the region where public opinion can quickly drive policies. They
argue that new rules tend to limit personal freedom, challenge human rights,
and erode confidence, where there is little or no oversight on how the nation
applies punishment.
For decades, homicide rates and other violence have not been reduced
significantly before hanging faced several pushbacks from human rights
organizations, shifting views that it is as barbaric as the crime committed by
an offender. As a result, with mounting pressure some of these islands have
implemented a moratorium.
The alternative is to commute sentences to life in prison even in aggravated
murders.
The UN Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) has always been
calling for a stop to the death sentence. And, according to the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), it has advised to abolish or at least
impose a moratorium on its application.
Revisiting History: Hanging is not new to society. Sadly, despite the
deterrence implication, hanging has not always been for the condemned man.
Several slaves who tried to escape their masters, or by hate groups simply for
one being different have faced the rope.
It has also claimed victims because of sexual orientation, stemming from
homophobia.
In the 1800s, most hanging took place in the public, and the community
celebrated. Today, given the crime waves on these shores, how many would show
up if hanging were to be held in the local parishes?
The scars from colonization have also left few mentally hanged from what is
believed to poor economic rope despite modernization and independence. It is
not an argument that today???s criminals are still linked to policies that are
perhaps no different from hanging because they were simply an economic death.
Unforgiving Cord: It is an organized strangulation. This loss of consciousness
makes death imminent. It is dependent upon the knot positioning and the length
of drop, which has varied through the history of hanging.
According to several journals, hanging can range from head and neck injuries.
When this occurs, compression or rupture of the vertebral and carotid arteries
leads to cerebral ischaemia.
What has emerged recently is not a new structural push. The last hanging based
on reports in Jamaica took place in 1998. Today, most polls show that Jamaicans
welcome hanging as other parts of the Caribbean.
It sends a strong message that the society will not tolerate barbaric
criminals.
Scholars also noted that, even in Jamaica's final appellate court, it has
consistently upheld submissions from defence attorneys for hangings to be
commuted to life imprisonment
As the region struggles with just desserts, and incapacitation, or simply an
eye for an eye justice, few will admit publicly that crime threatens not only
the basic pursuit of happiness on the beautiful shores, and inside the green
communities, but the overall economy that thrives on a global good image to
attract visitors.
The Politics of Hanging: Capital punishment tends to be fought on both
political and moral grounds despite an offender's action.
When then opposition leader Andrew Holness ran his election campaign, he
promised to be tough on crime. He is not alone calling for more drastic
measures to fight crime. This push is not what rope will be used after an
election, but a test to the limits of government, balance to the rule of law,
freedom, human rights, the constitutional challenge and, simply, willingness to
fulfill a political promise.
Despite opposition to this push to reinstate hanging, the ongoing killings need
an answer.
The question remains can hanging solve that issue where there is still
limitation on many fronts. The criminogenic circumstances are rising while
opportunities and treatment for high risk offenders have disappeared.
First, the ability to find an offender and properly gather and maintain
evidence is key to even conduct an impartial trial. Many still see a corrupt
system with limited resources.
It is often plagued with questions about an accused from both sides of the
judicial process than the final outcome of a condemned person.
Furthermore, how does a society change a decade of mentality? Even when
exculpatory evidence is introduced it will take time to reverse an atmosphere
of doubts from the history of distrust in government and its ability to perform
basic functions.
Preventing Wrongful Execution: No one is implying that anyone charged with a
criminal offense does not have the right to a hearing, or the courts themselves
are incapable of conducting a trial or operating under a tree in primitive
conditions. However, there still remains ambiguity in some of the rule
applications.
Amnesty International reports that far too often some defendants do not have
"prompt access" to counsel or representation at all stages of a trial.
Therefore, one can be deprived of proper representation.
Sometimes the victims are against this practice, and what weight would be given
to their rejections. Often they are being re-victimized, and lost in the
debates.
What if this person has mental illnesses?
According to recent studies, nearly 44 million American adults, and millions of
children, experience mental health conditions each year, including depression,
anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress.
What are the numbers in the Caribbean?
US President Barack Obama, in trying to highlight this issue, signed a
proclamation on mental health.
Despite tools to diagnose someone with mental health, disparities and access to
healthcare is a major problem, and individuals both in and out of the criminal
justice system often go unnoticed.
Not all offenders who commit crimes are mentally ill.
Furthermore, changing an attitude about mental illness, where it is much easier
to label a person a mad man/woman based on appearance, and where they sleep at
nights.
This is what I call the appearance conviction
The lack of psychological and other analytical assessments to diagnose to make
sure that an insane individual is even capable of standing trial before one's
ultimate fate seems lacking.
As studies have shown, capital punishment does not reduce crime. The region has
to look at not only creating opportunities for the youths, but also closing the
gaps between the haves vs the have-nots.
The salient jury where few still believe that freedom is more likely for person
with the deepest pocket and well connected.
Where is the local debate and demand from the community to be heard and not a
few tweets while the ability to solve crime still is an elusive concept.
What Next: Although Amnesty International has been proactive on few appeals and
in conjunction with other human rights committees, it constantly finds
violations, and these processes still need fundamental work, and to make sure
one receives the support required to mount a challenge.
As these criminal elements continue, maybe a 3 strikes law will be the next
recommendation, but one has to be able to solve the 1st crime and maintain good
criminal records.
Sure, no one wants to live in fear, but new crime strategy has to balance power
with victims' rights, and a political, moral or social compass, and all
measures have been taken.
Solving these issues is important and, leaders have to become more proactive in
developing fundamental economic plans that will reduce the appetite for
criminals.
This debate remains an uncomfortable feeling.
(source: Commentary, Derrick Miller----Caribbean News Now!)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Killer needs Dh35 million to escape death----Saudi court will free him after
blood money is paid
A Saudi man on the death row for killing another Saudi needs to pay SR35
million (Dh35m) blood money within four months to escape execution.
A court in the Northern Saudi town of Skaka agreed to scrap the death penalty
against Tariq Al Ruwaili if his relatives pay blood money to the victim's
family.
"The judge gave Ruwaili's relatives 4 months to raise the money ... after it is
paid, Ruwaili will be freed," Ajel newspaper said. Under Islamic law, which is
strictly enforced in Saudi Arabia, a convicted killer can escape execution and
walk free if pardoned by the victim's family in return for blood money, which
is officially set in Saudi Arabia at SR300,000 for a Muslim victim. However,
the victim???s relatives are allowed to demand any sum.
(source: emirates247.com)
IRAN:
Iran regime may be planning to mass execute child offenders
Iran's fundamentalist regime has transferred at least 7 young death-row
prisoners to solitary confinement in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in
preparation for their imminent execution, according to reports from the prison.
The young inmates were transferred earlier on Saturday from the prison's Ward
5, known as the adolescents' ward, to solitary confinement in Gohardasht Prison
in Karaj, north-west of Tehran. Reports say the regime plans to execute them at
the latest by next Wednesday.
All 7 inmates are believed to be between the ages of 22 and 25 and some are
suspected to have been minors at the time of their alleged crime.
The names of 6 of the prisoners are believed to be Mohsen Agha-Mohammadi,
Farhad Bakhshayesh, Iman Fatemi-Pour, Javad Khorsandi, Hossein Mohammadi and
Masoud Raghadi. The mullahs' regime on Friday hanged a man in a prison in
Qazvin, north-west of Tehran.
Ismaeil Sadeqi Niaraki, a notorious mullah who is the regime's Prosecutor in
Qazvin, confirmed the execution had taken place in the city's central prison.
He identified the victim only by his first name Sepahdar.
Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions,
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period earlier this week. Ms.
Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
and a human rights activist, on Tuesday criticized the lack of response by the
international community and human rights groups to the appalling state of human
rights in Iran.
The latest hanging brings to at least 98 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 1 is believed to have been a
juvenile offender.
Iran's fundamentalist regime last week amputated the fingers of a man in his
30s in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments handed down and
carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
TAIWAN:
Taiwan seek death penalty after indicting man over public child beheading
Taiwanese prosecutors indicted a man Monday for murder over the public
decapitation of a four year old girl, saying they would seek the death penalty
for the "extremely cold-blooded" attack.
Wang Ching-yu, 33, is accused of overpowering the mother of the child near a
metro station in central Taipei, and beheading the young girl with a kitchen
knife.
The mother and a number of bystanders tried to intervene but were pushed away
and unable to save the child, who police have identified only by the surname
Liu.
Prosecutors at the Shihlin District Court in Taipei said that it was an
"extremely cold-blooded" crime which had deeply shocked the generally peaceful
island.
"It has caused indelible pain to her mother, who witnessed the cruelty,"
prosecutors said in a statement at the close of their investigation, which took
less than 2 months.
"The suspect has never repented... so we suggest the court sentence him to
death," they said, adding that capital punishment in this instance was
important to maintain society's faith in law and justice.
Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions
are reserved for serious crimes such as aggravated murder.
Some politicians and rights groups have called for its abolition, but various
opinion surveys show majority support for the death penalty.
After the March 28 decapitation, hundreds of Taiwanese, many dressed in black
and wearing stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary," called for Wang to
be executed.
Wang was arrested at the scene of the crime and was subsequently taken into
custody.
Prosecutors say that blood test show Wang was not under the influence of drugs
at the time of the crime, nor had he displayed any signs of mental illness
after the attack.
Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related
crimes. He was attacked by an angry mob while in custody.
Taiwan's Apple Daily has reported that he was unemployed and living with his
parents, and had previously been hospitalised with mental health issues.
The killing came less than a year after the throat of an 8-year-old girl was
slit in her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and
fresh debate about capital punishment.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
SINGAPORE:
Kho Jabing's death calls for more clarity on death-penalty implementation
The sudden execution of Kho Jabing filled me with a sense of dread and sorrow.
Having followed his case and its many twists and turns, I have come to see this
young man as a human being. Not as a martyr or a saint but just as a normal
human being who through his one moment of folly brought undue suffering on the
Cao family.
Like anyone else, Kho Jabing had a family who loved him. He was remorseful and
he wanted to live and make amends. More than that, he provided those in
Singapore who believe in second chances a reason to hope. This is perhaps why
the dramatic build up to this case and its swift and unexpected end is so
crushing.
I am by no means justifying Kho Jabing's crimes - far from it. A man lost his
life because of Kho Jabing's acts and for that there has to be punishment. But
should that punishment be death? Further, even if society believes in the death
penalty, is Kho Jabing's role in the crime deserving of the death penalty?
Will Kho Jabing's death bring back Cao Ruyin?
Kho Jabing's valiant fight against the noose ultimately ended up in victory for
the hangman. But was the undue haste of his execution a matter of justice or a
matter of policy expediency? If it is the latter, has justice really been
served?
Kho Jabing was not initially sentenced to death. This would lead me to believe
that although his crimes were severe, they were not deemed sufficiently severe
to merit the death penalty. On appeal, this was overturned although not
unanimously. This begs the question - should there be unanimity in the
imposition of so harsh a sentence?
Personally, I think so.
The taking of a life is irrevocable and irretrievable. Given that Kho Jabing's
case was initially not ruled to be a capital case coupled with the fact that on
appeal, the judges were not in total agreement leads me to believe that it
should not be a clear-cut case of imposing the death penalty. In such
circumstances, isn't it better to err on the side of compassion and life?
Unless it was deemed that the life of a penniless, lowly educated blue-collar
foreigner did not deserve mercy? Such is the unfortunate conclusion I have to
draw in the way this case has panned out.
I am personally against the death penalty but I accept that a large portion of
Singaporean society may not agree me. That said, I am sure that even the most
fervent defenders of capital punishment will agree that the imposition of so
draconian a sentence cannot be one that is casually and wantonly passed. There
has to no doubt at all that the person in question is legally and unequivocally
deserving of this harshest of punishments. Given Kho Jabing's initial
sentencing and the lack of unanimity on appeal, I would think not.
Even if we accept that Kho Jabing was condemned to die, it does seem
unnaturally cruel to execute him with such unseeming haste.
The condemned are usually hanged at 6am on Fridays. One would have thus
reasonably expected that Kho Jabing would have been hung the following Friday.
Yet, a deviation from precedent was created just so that the hangman got his
weekly quota.
Given that our brand of justice had run its course in this case and Kho Jabing
had by then exhausted all avenues of fighting for life, would keeping him alive
for one more week really have affected the service of "justice"? There were no
other options left to be utilised to thwart the noose. Where could he go? What
more can he do? Why the rush to have him killed?
It really made me wonder if his execution forthwith was to prevent further
public outcries or campaigns? Did the powers be want the issue to finally die
literally and figuratively?
Kho Jabing may have died but the issues raised by his case have not. What needs
to be made plainly clear is when and how the death penalty is to be meted out.
Should there be unanimity? In changes of precedent such as in the hanging times
of the condemned, what is the process and procedure? Who decides and on what
basis? If the death sentence has to remain in Singapore, it should at least be
crystal clear.
(source: Opinion, Ghui, the Independent)
***************
Activist and lawyer involved in Kho Jabing's case abused online
An anti-death penalty activist and a lawyer who defended Kho Jabing are bearing
the brunt of some netizens who have taken issue with them for defending a
condemned criminal.
The activist Kirsten Han shared some of the abusive messages she had received
in her Facebook and captioned them: "To add to my series of examples of how
women receive a particular sort of abuse (online in this case, but also off)
when people disagree with
them:https://spuddings.net/putting-me-in-my-place-sexism-misogyn...
Context: this is the article they were reacting to -
http://m.themalaymailonline.com/.../activist-roasted-on-faceb..."
(source: The Independent)
THAILAND:
Pair set to lodge appeal after being found guilty of murdering Essex University
student Hannah Witheridge
2 men convicted of the murder of an Essex University student and another man
are set to lodge an appeal.
Burmese men Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were convicted of murdering student Hannah
Witheridge, 23, and 24-year-old David Miller, from Jersey, in December.
Miss Witheridge, who was from Norfolk but was a student at Essex University at
the time of her death, and Mr Miller were found dead on a beach on the Thai
island of Koh Tao in September 2014.
Lin and Phyo, both 22, were found guilty of their murders after a controversial
trial and were sentenced to death.
The Burmese murderers now have a team of 7 Thai lawyers, as well as
international advisors, working to exonerate them.
The appeals, which are due to be lodged this week, will be against their
conviction and sentence.
Their lawyers plan to show it cannot be proved beyond reasonable doubt Lin and
Phyo were responsible for the Brits' deaths.
As well as the death penalty, the Burmese pair received additional 20-year
prison sentences for the rape of the Essex University student and for robbery.
The bodies of British pair were discovered on Sairee Beach on Koh Tao in the
early morning of September 15, 2014.
Miss Witheridge had been raped and battered to death with a garden hoe.
Mr Miller was left to drown in the sea after being beaten unconscious.
(source: Daily Gazette)
ISRAEL:
Kahlon to oppose death punishment for terrorists----Senior Kulanu official
makes it clear that the party will not support Yisrael Beytenu's flagship
legislation, which is one of its conditions to join the government.
A senior member of Moshe Kahlon's Kulanu told Ynet on Sunday that the party
will not support an amendment to the law that would make it easier for military
courts to sentence terrorists to death, a bill being pushed by Yisrael Beytenu
leader Avigdor Lieberman who is in talks to join the government.
"Israel's defense establishment is in agreement that this is a bad idea that it
will not contribute to the fight against terror or to Israel's security," the
official said. "It's an inappropriate suggestion both on an ethical and
operational level. Any attempt by the government or the Knesset to act in such
an irresponsible manner will come up against a wall comprised of all ten of
Kulanu's MKs."
Yisrael Beytenu has yet to officially sign the agreement to join the government
due to budgetary issues over the party's demand to complete the pension reform
and its demand to amend the law to allow death sentence to terrorists.
Likud Minister Yariv Levin has been working with Lieberman to formulate a draft
bill proposal on death sentence to terrorists that could withstand the High
Court's judgment.
One of the options is to amend the legislation that allows the military court
to hand out capital punishment to terrorists if a unanimous decision is made by
3 judges, and change it so only 2 judges suffice.
If the sides fail to reach a final agreement on the legislation, it is possible
they will commit to working on the legislation during the upcoming Knesset
session.
On Friday, Lieberman and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon held their first meeting
on the pension reform. At first, Lieberman sought to secure pensions only for
immigrants from the former Soviet Union, but it was eventually decided to apply
the planned reform on all immigrants, as well as on other Israelis who did not
work enough years to accumulate sufficient pension funds.
The cost of the reform stands at about NIS 3 billion, a sum that could only be
allocated if it is done gradually over the period of a few years.
Lieberman and Kahlon agreed to meet again at the beginning of the week to
finalize the details.
(source: YNetNews)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 24 10:30:42 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 10:30:42 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., LA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605241030340.1088@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 24
NORTH CAROLINA:
Death penalty doubt
The man charged with the brutal killing of Stephen Patrick White can face the
death penalty, a judge ruled last week. Guilford County prosecutors say the
crime was especially heinous, atrocious and cruel, also involved arson and put
other people at risk - all aggravating factors.
There's little question about that. White, 46, was beaten and set on fire in a
Greensboro hotel room on Nov. 8, 2014. He lived for 8 days, enduring 2
amputations and other surgeries before succumbing to his injuries.
Garry Joseph Gupton, 27, a former Greensboro city employee, is charged. If
there's no plea deal and the case eventually goes to trial, a jury will
consider evidence, attempt to reach a verdict and, if it finds the defendant
guilty, recommend a sentence.
If that sentence is death, there's very little chance an execution ever will be
carried out.
It has been nearly a decade since North Carolina put someone to death, although
there are 148 men and 3 women on death row. Since Samuel Flippin's execution by
lethal injection on Aug. 18, 2006, several death row inmates have died and 29
have been removed by court orders, either released or given lesser sentences.
They include Glenn Chapman and Levon Jones, both set free after their sentences
were vacated and the charges against them dropped, and Henry McCollum, who was
granted a pardon of innocence by Gov. Pat McCrory last year.
North Carolina's execution delay frustrates some people - victims' families but
also many legislators, who want to speed things up. That's unlikely.
Few murderers are sentenced to death in North Carolina anymore. Antwan Anthony,
convicted of killing 3 men during a convenience story robbery in Pitt County,
was placed on death row last month - the 1st addition in 2 years. Prosecutors
and juries generally prefer life without parole.
North Carolina Medical Society policy prohibits physicians from participating
in executions, as previously required by state law. More recently, the
pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced it won???t allow the use of its products
in lethal injections, placing a significant obstacle before states that employ
that method of capital punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court also has limited application of the death penalty. And
just Monday, it overturned a conviction in a Georgia murder case because of
racial bias in jury selection. There are concerns about similar practices in
North Carolina.
Then there's the gradual turning of public opinion, perhaps best exemplified by
the evolving views of former N.C. Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr. "I've
always been known as a tough-on-crime, pro-law enforcement individual, and I
still am," Lake wrote in The Huffington Post (reprinted in the News & Record's
Ideas section Sunday).
Lake, a Republican, favored capital punishment as a state legislator, imposed
death sentences as a Superior Court judge and upheld them on the N.C. Supreme
Court. Yet, he wrote: "After decades of experience with the law, I have seen
too much, and what I have seen has impacted my perspective. First, my faith in
the criminal justice system, which had always been so steady, was shaken by the
revelation that in some cases innocent men and women were being convicted of
serious crimes."
Mistakes, however damaging, can still be rectified while a wrongly convicted
inmate is alive. Not so if he is dead.
There are other reasons to end the death penalty, as Lake now advocates. It is
administered inconsistently; biases influence sentencing; and it's expensive.
North Carolina will never execute the 151 people on death row, let alone Gupton
or anyone else who might be added, no matter how terrible their crimes. It will
save time and money, and prevent fatal mistakes, to abolish the death penalty.
Life in prison is justice enough.
(source: Editorial, Greensboro News & Record)
************
Cagle capital murder trial begins
After 5 years of preparation, the capital murder trial of a Seagrove man began
Monday in Randolph County Superior Court.
Randy Steven Cagle, now 39, is accused of the double murder of Davida Shauntel
Stancil, 28, of Candor and Tyrone Clinton "Yogi" Marshall, 31, of Biscoe. The
bodies of the victims were found on May 8, 2011, in Marshall's 1994 Oldsmobile,
parked on the shoulder of N.C. 705 near Ralph Lawrence Road just outside of
Seagrove.
Both had been stabbed to death, according to autopsy reports.
Cagle was arrested at his residence, located about 2 miles from where the
bodies were found. A grand jury indicted him on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder
on June 11, 2011. A guilty verdict could mean either life in prison or the
death penalty.
According to affidavits by detectives of the Randolph County Sheriff's Office,
blood evidence was found at Cagle's residence at 6644 Mustang Trail, Seagrove.
Officers also seized 2 cell phones belonging to Cagle to confirm conversations
related to a purchase of cocaine from Marshall. Cagle, according to the
affidavits, acknowledged having called Marshall on the evening before the
bodies were found and that Marshall had delivered cocaine to Cagle between 7-8
p.m. that evening.
Detectives reported smelling a strong odor of bleach coming from Cagle'a home
when he was first interviewed. A search warrant was issued for the home and
evidence collected, including blood from a number of sources.
The trial proceedings will begin with selection of jurors as well as
instructions to the jury pool. In the case of a capital trial, more than the
usual number of alternates are selected.
Courthouse security is expected to be beefed up for the trial with as many as 5
more deputies on duty during the proceedings.
Andy Gregson, chief assistant district attorney, is expected to lead the
prosecution while court-appointed defense attorneys are Frank Wells of Asheboro
and Phoebe Dee of Durham, both from the N.C. Public Defenders Office.
(source: The Courier-Tribune)
GEORGIA:
Clarence Thomas' Death Row Dissent Is Complex & Has Everyone Confused
3 decades after Timothy Tyrone Foster was convicted and sentenced to death in
the murder of an elderly white woman, the Supreme Court has thrown out the
ruling on the basis that African American jurors were intentionally kept off
the jury by the prosecution, according to The Washington Post. While seven of
the justices sided with the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone
black justice on the Court, authored a dissenting opinion. Clarence Thomas'
death row dissent is complex and sometimes contradictory, as might be expected
in a 7-1 ruling.
At issue isn't Foster's innocence - he has previously confessed to the crime -
but whether he received a fair trial under the auspices of an all-white jury
and a biased prosecution. Foster, who grew up in the projects, broke into the
home of 79-year-old Queen Madge White, broke her jaw, sexually assaulted her,
and then strangled her before burglarizing the home, according to The Post.
Over the years, Foster's attorneys have argued that Foster's status as a
mentally disabled teen should have precluded a death penalty conviction.
Foster's case shifted focus to the issue of jury selection when Stephen Bright,
Foster's attorney and an expert at death penalty cases, used Georgia's open
records laws to procure the prosecution's notes from the original trial. What
Bright found in the notes was shocking.
According to CBS News, the prosecution had highlighted each potential black
juror with green highlighter, marked them with a "B," and added them to a list
labeled "Definite Nos." With this evidence in hand, Bright argued before the
Supreme Court that this was a clear instance of racial discrimination in jury
selection, which was effectively banned via the precedent of Batson v.
Kentucky, a 1986 Supreme Court decision establishing that striking jurors based
on their race is unconstitutional.
According to Slate, Justice Elena Kagan said aloud during the proceedings,
"Isn't this as clear a Batson violation as a court is ever going to see?" Given
the strength of the evidence, Justice Thomas' dissent needed to somehow make
the evidence seem either illegitimate or irrelevant.
In his dissent, Justice Thomas brought forth 2 central complaints with his
colleagues' decision. First was that the Supreme Court didn't have jurisdiction
over the Foster case in the first place. The high court is supposed to
intervene in state court decisions only when a federal law is in question; The
Georgia Supreme Court, Thomas pointed out in his dissent, never mentioned a
federal issue. "I therefore refuse to presume that the unexplained denial of
relief by the Supreme Court of Georgia presents a federal question," he wrote.
What does he mean by "unexplained denial of relief?" Turns out that when the
Georgia court refused to grant Foster the ability to appeal his case [aka,
denial of relief] based on the racial exclusion argument, the judges said that
his case had no "arguable merit." From there, they didn't elaborate. Thomas
used the inadequacy and brevity of the Georgia Supreme Court's handling of the
case to argue that no federal law was at stake.
Which is rather confusing. The total absence of an explanation doesn't mean
that The Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction. According to the International
Business Times, the other Supreme Court justices all felt that the Batson
precedent, which is a federal precedent, was at stake in this case.
Clarence also argued that the evidence itself - the prosecution's notes - isn't
compelling enough to reverse a lower court's decision. "The new evidence is no
excuse for the Court's reversal of the state court's credibility
determinations," he wrote. Clarence further tries to minimize the evidence,
writing that "we do not know who wrote most of the notes that Foster now relies
upon as proof of the prosecutors' race-based motivations." (According to the
Associated Press, individual members of the prosecution have denied being the
author of the notes.)
What's interesting, though, is that despite deeming the evidence insubstantial,
Clarence seems rather threatened by it. "The Court today invites state
prisoners to go searching for new 'evidence' by demanding the files of the
prosecutors who long ago convicted them," he wrote in the dissent.
What Clarence really objects to, then, isn't the strength of the evidence, but
that the court was allowed to see it. And unfortunately for Justice Clarence,
who is a native of Georgia, placing "evidence" in quotation marks isn't enough
to make it go away.
(source: romper.com)
************
African-American Death Row Inmate Suffered Race Bias: Top US Court
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favour of an African American death row
inmate who argued there was bias in the choosing of an all-white jury that
convicted him of the 1986 murder of an elderly white woman.
By a 7-1 vote, the justices struck down a Georgia Supreme Court ruling denying
Timothy Foster appellate review of his death sentence. Conservative Justice
Clarence Thomas, the court's only African American member, dissented.
"This means that Timothy Foster is entitled to a new trial at which jurors are
not excluded based on race," his lawyers said in a statement.
The decision, coming nearly 30 years after Foster's death penalty conviction,
highlighted the continuing effect of racism on jury selection in the United
States.
Foster's lawyers showed that prosecutors had maneuvered to keep blacks off the
jury, presenting as evidence prosecutor's notes at a November 2015 Supreme
Court hearing.
The notes, which were obtained after Foster's 1987 conviction, included a list
of prospective jurors that had the handwritten letter "B" next to the names of
African Americans on the list.
Those designated with a "B" were rejected for the jury under a selection
process that allows prosecutors to block, or "strike," a certain number of
potential jurors.
Foster's lawyer told the court that the prosecutors drew up a list of 6
prospective jurors to be stricken from the panel: f were black, and 1 was
opposed to the death penalty.
'Arresting' References To Race
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the prosecution's
file "plainly belie the state's claim that it exercised its strikes in a
'colour-blind' manner."
"The sheer number of references to race in that file is arresting," he wrote.
The state of Georgia had vehemently defended the prosecutors, arguing that they
had documented their actions in order to show they were being thoughtful and
not discriminatory in considering prospective black jurors.
But the court's majority said that the state's argument "reeks of
afterthought," noting it had never been raised before in the case's 30-year
history.
"In addition, the focus on race in the prosecution's file plainly demonstrates
a concerted effort to keep black prospective jurors off the jury," Roberts
wrote.
"The state's new argument today does not dissuade us from the conclusion that
its prosecutors were motivated in substantial part by race when they struck
Garrett and Hood from the jury 30 years ago," the opinion said, referring to 2
black potential jurors, Marilyn Garret and Eddie Hood.
The court's decision reverses a Georgia state Supreme Court order denying
Foster appellate review of his death sentence, and remands the case "for
further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion."
Thomas dissent
Foster had confessed to murdering Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired
school teacher who was sexually assaulted and killed in her home in Rome,
Georgia in August 1986.
Thomas, in his dissent, said the Supreme Court should have sought clarification
from the state supreme court, rather than overrule it.
In doing so, he wrote, "the court affords a death-row inmate another
opportunity to relitigate his long-final conviction."
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion that, while agreeing with the
majority's conclusion, cautioned that it was important not to "lightly brush
aside" the state's legitimate interest in a process that "militates against
repetitive litigation and endless delay."
In a statement, Foster's lawyer Stephen Bright said the court had no choice but
to find that prosecutors intentionally discriminated in striking black
prospective jurors and that they "lied about it by giving false reasons for
their strikes when the real reason was race."
"Jury strikes motivated by race cannot be tolerated. The exclusion of black
citizens from jury service results in juries that do not represent their
communities and undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the criminal
justice system."
(source: ndtv.com)
FLORIDA:
Donald Smith's lawyers file motion to remove death penalty from case----Man
accused in girl's June 2013 kidnapping, rape, murder still awaits trial
Attorneys for Donald Smith have filed another motion in an effort to block
prosecutors from seeking the death penalty if he's convicted in the murder of
8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle.
The new motion asks the trial judge to declare the state's death penalty law
unconstitutional, claiming it violates the 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th amendments of
the U.S. Constitution.
Smith's lawyers contend the Constitution requires a unanimous verdict from the
jury.
The motion also insists that all aggravating factors in the crime be proven
beyond a reasonable doubt, also unanimously.
The U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's capital punishment law
unconstitutional late last year because it gave too much authority to the judge
on when a convict should be sentenced to death. The new law requires a jury to
vote at least 10-2 for someone to receive a death sentence.
Florida is 1 of only 3 states that does not require a unanimous jury vote for a
death penalty sentence. The others are Alabama and Delaware.
In March, a judge denied a defense motion to block the state from seeking the
death penalty against Smith.
Police said Smith befriended Cherish's mother at a Northside store, took them
to a Walmart, then walked out with the girl after saying he was going to buy
hamburgers at a McDonald's.
The girl's body was found behind a church the next morning.
The case has dragged on for nearly 3 years, and is now one of many death
penalty cases on hold.
"His attorneys have filed a motion asking the court to take the death penalty
off the table. The prosecutor says they're going to ask the jury to impose the
death penalty when he goes to trial. But his attorneys have filed this new
motion now that says the death penalty statute, which existed at the time of
the crime, has been found to be unconstitutional. And so they want the courts
to say he can't be sentenced to death if he is convicted," said Ed Birk, an
attorney not affiliated with the case.
Birk said because the statute has been found unconstitutional, hundreds of
other cases in Florida could have similar outcomes. Birk told News4Jax a lot of
how this will work hinges on one case and that will reveal a better look at the
potential outcome for Smith.
"There was the U.S. Supreme Court case in the Hurst case. He had already been
sentenced to death. The court said that Florida's sentencing statute was
unconstitutional. And so the Legislature very quickly amended the statute to
become law. Now the question is whether that statute will apply to Donald
Smith. The Hurst case is still going through the courts. Florida Supreme Court
heard argument this week about whether Hurst will be resentenced and whether
he'll be sentenced to life in prison or to death. And all of that will have an
impact on what happens to Smith," Birk said.
Smith's next court date is May 26.
(source: news4jax.com)
******************
Demise of the death penalty?
As must occur when a life hangs in the balance, we accommodate precautions
built into death cases that make them exorbitantly expensive and
time-consuming. That means, for instance, allowing death row convicts to file
seemingly endless appeals, often a frustrating, soul-draining process for a
victim's loved ones.
We also know that sometimes the judicial system mucks it up. According to the
Death Penalty Information Center, 26 Florida inmates sentenced to die have been
exonerated, most among the states that collectively have freed 156 innocent
people from death row since 1973.
Despite those valid reasons, opponents of capital punishment have made little
headway in persuading lawmakers to stop this practice, nor do they seem willing
to try to convince voters that we should ban the death penalty through a state
constitutional amendment.
Yet, based on recent news reports, they nonetheless seem to be winning.
Earlier this year the Legislature had to "fix" the death penalty after the U.S.
Supreme Court had ruled 8-1 that Florida's process was unconstitutional. The
high court found the method was flawed because the trial judge, and not the
jury, determined the reasons why a convicted murderer qualified for the
ultimate punishment.
State lawmakers thought they addressed that issue by amending the law during
the 2016 session. The new statute mandated that the jury must unanimously agree
on at least one factor presented by prosecutors in arguing for a death
sentence. Then, if jurors reach that point, at least 10 of them must vote for
execution.
In early May, though, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch became the 1st
state judge to rule that was not good enough.
The judge balked at the idea of a super-majority vote for death. "A decedent
cannot be more or less dead. An expectant mother cannot be more or less
pregnant. And a jury cannot be more or less unanimous," the judge wrote in his
ruling supporting 1st-degree murder defendant Karon Gaiter's claim that the new
sentencing scheme was still unconstitutional. "Every verdict in every criminal
case in Florida requires the concurrence, not of some, not of most, but of all
jurors - every single one of them."
Then last week, we heard from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which announced it
would not sell to states its drugs that could become ingredients for carrying
out executions. Pfizer thus aligned itself with roughly 20 U.S. and European
drug manufacturers that were driven by some high-profile botched lethal
injections to prohibit sales of their wares to death penalty states.
We thus may be witnessing the demise of Florida's death penalty, yet let's
consider who is leading us there.
Except for Justice Samuel Alito, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the fact that
Florida judges had acted on a jury's recommendation. Judge Hirsch dismissed the
fact that the jury must unanimously convict a murderer before determining a
death sentence - the only criminal cases, by the way, in which a jury, and not
a judge like Hirsch, hands down the punishment. Pfizer dismissed the fact in
2011 it was sued for $2 billion by the Nigerian government - and settled for
$75 million - because it tested, without authorization, an anti-meningitis drug
that killed 11 children.
Yes, lawmakers can probably fix the death penalty again next year to require a
jury's unanimous vote to suit defense-minded judges like Hirsch. And Florida,
like other states, could look to compounding pharmacies or the black market for
the lethal drugs, or revert to a less "humane" execution method, such as
reviving the electric chair.
But each incremental adjustment will undoubtedly make it more complicated to
sentence a convicted killer to death row.
Many among us may cheer that development as progress toward justice, but it
will be hollow.
That's because those who oppose capital punishment will gain ground without
widespread, broad-based consensus of the people or their elected
representatives, and without regard for, or acknowledgement of, the families
and friends of victims whose lives were taken from them in the most brutal
circumstances.
(source: Editorial, The Ledger)
**********
Death penalty opponents to rally in honor of the late Shelby Farah
Death penalty opponents in Jacksonville are rallying Thursday night at an event
honoring the late Shelby Farah.
Titled "Not In My Name," the evening is billed as "bringing awareness about the
death penalty and the trauma inflicted on victims and family members within the
criminal justice system."
Farah was just 20 when she was murdered during a robbery at the phone store
where she worked. Her mother, Darlene Farah, has repeatedly and vocally spoken
out against Shelby's killer, 24-year-old James Xavier Rhodes, being sentenced
to death. Farah wants Rhodes to receive a life sentence so that her family does
not have to endure years of appeals.
State Attorney Angela Corey's office maintains the brutality of the crime
justifies the death penalty for Rhodes.
The Thursday event, held at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, is also slated to feature
death row exonerees.
That church is affiliated with Pastor Reginald Gundy, who has worked on behalf
of Corey challenger Wes White.
(source: Florida Politics)
ALABAMA:
Once on death row, 6 juvenile killers could get chance at parole
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday told the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to
reconsider the cases of 6 men serving life without the possibility of parole
sentences to see if the men should be re-sentenced to allow for a chance of
future parole.
The defendants in whose cases the U.S. Supreme Court remanded to the Alabama
Court of Appeals are: William Knotts, James Bonds, Nathan Slaton, Clayton
Flowers, Michael S. Barnes (he had 2 cases), and Renaldo Chante Adams.
"The petitioners in these cases were sentenced to death for crimes they
committed before they turned 18," according to the U.S. Supreme Court opinion.
"In most of these cases, petitioners' sentences were automatically converted to
life without the possibility of parole following our decisions outlawing the
death penalty for juveniles (in 2005)."
Then in the case of Miller v. Alabama in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
unconstitutional laws in states, including Alabama, where life without the
possibility of parole was the only sentence judges had available for sentencing
juveniles convicted in capital murder cases.
Then in January of this year, in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme
Court held that their earlier decision in the Miller case is to be applied
retroactively to those who were convicted prior to 2012. Alabama courts had
held that it wasn't retroactive.
"Today's action by the Supreme Court included clarification by justices
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito as to the scope of Montgomery," according to a
statement from the Alabama Attorney General's Office. "In a concurrence, the
Justices explained that the Court was not addressing the merits of these cases
or taking a position on whether life without parole is an appropriate sentence
in each. Because these defendants previously received a death sentence, each
also received a hearing providing him an opportunity to present his age and any
other mitigating circumstances to the sentencer."
Justices explained that state judges are free to consider on remand whether
these previous hearings satisfy the individual sentencing requirement of
Miller, according to the Attorney General's Office.
Judges and district attorneys around Alabama have been getting requests from
inmates serving life without parole sentences for crimes to have their
sentences reduced to "life" and a chance at parole.
In Jefferson County alone, more than 10 such cases have had preliminary
hearings and at least 2 inmates have already had their sentences reduced.
In today's statement, Attorney General Strange, again objected to the U.S.
Supreme Court's ruling in Montgomery, which he says potentially allows about 70
convicted murderers in Alabama to receive new sentences because they were
juveniles at the time they committed their crimes.
"It would be reprehensible to put victims' families through the ordeal of
seeing the person responsible for the deaths of their loved ones allowed to
potentially receive a new sentence," Strange stated. "This could have a
devastating effect on families who thought they had received closure in cases
often going back decades."
"Thankfully, members of the Court today recognized that these cases - in which
the death penalty had first been imposed - have already undergone extensive
reviews that would have considered the defendants' ages and any mitigating
circumstances.," Strange stated.
"The courts should take those proceedings into consideration before requiring
victims' families to endure new sentencing hearings or new sentences for these
murderers."
(source: al.com)
LOUISIANA:
Louisiana Supreme Court rejects bid to overturn death penalty of River Parishes
serial killer Daniel Blank
The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the death penalty and
grant a new trial to convicted river parishes serial killer Daniel Blank last
week.
Blank, 53, was scheduled to be executed March 14 after a state district judge
rejected a post-conviction appeal last year but the Supreme Court granted a
stay of execution in February. He has been convicted in 5 slayings of older
residents in the mid-1990s and was sentenced to death in the 1999 1st-degree
murder conviction of Lillian Philippe, 72, of Gonzales.
The high court concluded that Blank would have been sentenced to death no
matter if his upbringing that included poverty and sexual abuse was introduced
in that trial or not, something his appeal attorneys argued.
23rd Judicial District Court Judge Jessie LeBlanc had upheld the 1st-degree
conviction and death penalty sentence of Blank in the 1997 murder of Philippe
in late September rejecting his claims of an ineffective defense counsel
calling it unconvincing and insufficient.
LeBlanc presided over a 5-day evidentiary hearing held last July at the
Terrebonne Parish Courthouse in Houma where Blank's attorney's claimed his
conviction and sentence were unconstitutional because prosecutors withheld
investigative reports that challenged the reliability of his confession to the
murder as well as others.
Defense attorneys have also said the order is premature due to more appeals at
the federal level, especially after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia, a death penalty supporter, and also argued that the Department
Public Safety and Corrections does not currently have it its possession the
drugs necessary to carry out the execution.
(source: The Creole)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 24 10:31:19 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 10:31:19 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., UTAH, CALIF., ORE.,
USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605241031120.1088@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 24
KANSAS:
Freed man says Kansas should end the death penalty
A man who spent nearly 16 years in prison for a rape and killing to which his
brother confessed wants Kansas to pull the plug on the death penalty.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that 39-year-old Floyd Bledsoe shared his
story over the weekend in the basement of a Lawrence church.
Bledsoe never faced the death penalty himself. But he was sentenced to life in
prison after he was convicted of raping and killing 14-year-old Camille
Arfmann. He was released in December after a DNA test and suicide notes
indicated his brother, Tom Bledsoe, killed Arfmann.
Bledsoe says the court system is flamed and questioned what would have happened
if he had been sentenced to death.
Kansas hasn't executed anyone since it reinstated capital punishment in 1994.
(source: Associated Press)
**************
The Death Penalty in Kansas
More than 9 years after the murder of their daughter, the parents of Jodi
Sanderholm are speaking out to KSN News, as the execution of the man convicted
in her murder, remains very much in doubt.
Jodi Sanderholm was 19 years old when she was murdered in Ark City, Kansas.Jodi
Sanderholm was 19 years old when she was murdered in Ark City, Kansas.
"I'm sure she, Jodi, pleaded for her life and he didn't give it to her," said
Cindy Sanderholm, Jodi's mother. "She didn't get a 2nd choice. She didn't get a
2nd chance," she added.
Arkansas City-native, Justin Eugene Thurber was 25-years-old when he was
sentenced to death in the murder of Sanderholm. Prosecutors said Thurber had a
habit of stalking young women. They said Thurber followed the Cowley County
College dancer home, abducted her, beat and raped her, then strangled her to
death.
For Cindy and Brian Sanderholm, life since their daughter's murder has never
been the same.
"She was just a very smart, talented little girl," said Cindy.
Brian and Cindy Sanderholm sat down with KSN's Brittany Glas to discuss the
death penalty process in Kansas.
Jodi's parents say they feel as though they were robbed of a life with their
young daughter, who they said, had a promising future.
"To me, she's always 19, and so, when I see her friends and they're getting
older, it's like, 'Gosh, what would she be doing?' 'What would she be like?'
Lots of ifs," added Cindy.
"We suffered through it this long," said Brian Sanderholm, the father of murder
victim, Jodi Sanderholm. "It's time for you [Thurber] to suffer."
Inmates Serving Death in Kansas
Thurber is now 1 of 10 inmates in the state of Kansas serving death sentences.
They are all on Kansas' version of "death row" at El Dorado Correctional
Facility, where they are housed on 'Administrative Segregation' status.
--Justin Eugene Thurber ----Convicted for 2007 murder of Jodi Sanderholm near
Arkansas City.
--Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. (aka Frazier Cross) ----Convicted for 2014 killing of
William Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno in Kansas City.
--Gary Wayne Kleypas ----Convicted of 1996 raping and killing 20-year-old
Carrie Williams in Pittsburg.
--James Kraig Kahler ----Convicted for 2009 murder of Karen Kahler; daughters
Lauren and Emily Kahler and Karen Kahler's grandmother, Dorothy Wight in
Burlingame.
--John Edward Robinson, Sr. ----Capital conviction for 1999 killing of Izabela
Lewicka and the 2000 death of Suzette Trouten. He is accused of killing 7
women.
--Scott Dever Cheever ----Convicted for 2005 shooting of Greenwood County
Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid.
--Sidney John Gleason ----Convicted for 2004 murder of Miki Martinez and Darren
Wornkey in Great Bend.
--Johnathan Daniel Carr ----The Carr brothers were convicted for the 2000
murders of Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander and Jason Befort in
Wichita.
--Reginald Dexter Carr, Jr. ----The Carr brothers were convicted for the 2000
murders of Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander and Jason Befort in
Wichita.
--Kyle Trevor Flack ----Convicted for 2013 murders of Kaylie Bailey, Lana
Bailey, Andrew Stout and Steven White near Ottawa.
A KSN Investigation concludes it is very likely that Jodi Sanderholm's killer,
along with the nine other inmates on our state's 'death row,' may never be
executed in the state of Kansas. This, due to the fact that Kansas' processes
are either non-existent, or designed to not carry out the sentence.
In fact, it has been so long since Kansas has executed an inmate with a death
sentence that it has become clear that the people responsible for carrying out
the sentence don't seem to know exactly what to do, or how to do it.
Since Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, 22 years ago, no one has
been executed. The last time someone was executed in our state was 1965, by
hanging.
KSN went straight to the Kansas Department of Corrections to find out why.
"We haven't executed anyone in that time frame, and there's no time table to
have any other future executions," said Adam Pfannenstiel, the Communications
Spokesperson for KDOC.
That's right ... The state of Kansas doesn't have a plan on how to execute any
of the 10 inmates on 'death row.'
Hearing this infuriates the family of Jodi Sanderholm.
"I really figured they had a plan," said Cindy Sanderholm.
"I think it's a little shocking that Kansas reinstated the death penalty over
20 years ago, and there's not a plan yet," said Jennifer Aldridge, Jodi's older
sister. "I thought this would have been something that would have been
discussed 20 years ago when it was reinstated."
So then, what accounts for the delay?
Average number of years between sentencing and execution.Average number of
years between sentencing and execution.
The Appeals Process
First, the appeals process takes time ... in Kansas and across the United
States.
In the past 30 years, the average time between sentence to execution grew in
the U.S. from just over 6 years per inmate to 15.5 years.
However, Kansas is approaching 22 years without an execution ever.
Regional analysis, time from sentence to executionRegional analysis, time from
sentence to execution
Kansas' neighboring states, in the meantime, average nearly 1/2 that time: 12
years.
Our KSN Investigation learned that even when an appeals process is exhausted,
the state is not prepared for what comes next - whether that be the actual
order of execution and/or the act of carrying out the execution sentence.
KSN sat down with Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
"Unlike some of our neighboring states, like Oklahoma, Missouri, that have had
a death penalty law on the books longer, that have cases that have moved
through the system further, that have actually reached the point of carrying
out executions, Kansas isn't there yet," said Derek Schmidt.
"Nobody knows, with certainty, what step would follow, but I am certain we
would be closely involved in the legalities if that were to come. That's not
imminent in any of the cases," continued the Attorney General.
Because no executions are imminent, the Department of Corrections in Kansas,
the entity which would carry out the order, has no process, no time-table, and
no injection drugs in stock to fulfill any execution orders.
"There's no plans, no intentions to execute anyone," said Adam Pfannenstiel,
with the KDOC. "We'll be prepared when someone tells us that it's time, but, I
couldn't even predict when that would be."
Concerning injection drugs, Pfannenstiel said, "There's no reason for us to
have a supply or a supplier, at this time because there's no need for it."
The Sanderholms are frustrated with a lack of preparation on the part of our
state and what it means concerning the seriousness of Kansas statute.
"It's wrong that we, as a state, have a law on the books that says, 'If you
commit this crime, this is the punishment that you're going to get,' and then,
we turn around and don't issue the punishment," explained Jodi's father, Brian.
"Well ... we need to change the law. Don't have it on the books."
While the family members of victims like Jodi Sanderholm say the process is too
long, the Attorney General tells KSN News regardless, it is the process.
"There's no way to move a death penalty case at lightning speed," said Schmidt.
"We can do better than we're doing, but, it's not going to be a rapid process."
The Financial Factors
While the Sanderholm Family is impacted in a painful and very personal way
after losing their daughter, the state of Kansas and taxpayers in our state are
all impacted by the process, or lack thereof. In fact, for an inmate serving
time at El Dorado, the average annual cost of incarceration is $24,951, as
documented for Fiscal Year 2015. That number, divided by 365 days of the year,
equates to $68.36 per day.
However, it costs even more to house inmates serving death sentences and/or
sentences in Administrative Segregation.
According to a Kansas Legislative Post Audit Committee reported published in
2014, each of the inmate serving time in Administrative Segregation at El
Dorado, comes with an annual cost of nearly $49,000.
In fact, the Report of the Judicial Council's Death Penalty Advisory Committee
states:
"According to the DOC, the average annual cost to house an inmate in
administrative segregation is $49,380, or double the cost to house an inmate in
the general population. Administrative segregation is more expensive primarily
because of the need for more officers per inmate." --p. 13/27 Report of the
Judicial Council, February 13, 2014
"It hurts me so bad every week when I see my paycheck, and I know I'm paying
tax money to feed him," said Brian Sanderholm. Court Costs Death Penalty Case
Further, it is not only the cost to house an inmate sentenced to death.
Taxpayers also pay nearly 4 times the price to prosecute a case where the death
penalty if pursued by the prosecution - $395,000 per case - compared to only
$100,000 per case when the death penalty is not sought.
For the Sanderholms, taxes are added insult to an unbearable injury ... and a
grueling wait for justice in the case of their daughter, Jodi.
"[Death is] what he deserves, and that's what the law stated," said Cindy
Sanderholm. "So, we need to get the law fixed so we can use it."
"If it was your daughter, your son, it was our daughter, what would you want to
have happen?" asked Brian Sanderholm.
(source: KSN news)
NEBRASKA:
"Life means Life" is Argument to End Death Penalty
Opponents of the death penalty say it's a broken system, and replacing it with
a life sentence will guarantee the worst of the worst will remain locked up for
the rest of their days. Those who want to keep capital punishment, however,
make the case it remains a just penalty.
If voters retain the law ending the death penalty in Nebraska, it will be
replaced by a life sentence.
For an example of what that would look like, the case of Randy Reeves may
apply.
He was sentenced to death, after killing 2 women in Lincoln 35 years ago. In
1999, he was scheduled to go to the electric chair.
Kurt Mesner remembers, "It came down to within 48 hours of him being executed."
Mesner grew up in Central City with the Reeves, the man who killed his sister
Janet, and says his Quaker faith is why he has consistently argued against the
death penalty throughout his family's ordeal.
He said, "We need to turn the other cheek and that's the attitude that I have
always taken."
Mesner says Reeves' death shows life without parole works.
He said, "I never heard once from anybody bringing up he should be let out of
prison because they knew he did a horrible crime and was going to die one way
or the other."
Sen. Colby Coash says if voters end capital punishment, killers on death row
will never leave prison.
He said, "Hey, life means life. When a judge says you're sentenced to life,
case law is clear. Parole board has nothing to do with a life sentence."
But the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state can change a
sentence, as the 3 members of the Board of Pardons, something death penalty
supporters point out.
Bob Evnen, a Lincoln attorney said, "This happened in our state 3 years ago
where an inmate who'd been sentenced to life had his sentence commuted and was
paroled and committed another violent crime."
In the legislature, Coash made the conservative case against what he sees as a
failed government program.
Death penalty supporters agree there are problems, but say the focus should be
on being able to carry out an execution. Coash argues after 20 years without an
execution, and legal obstacles to obtaining lethal injection drugs, that there
is no reasonable expectation the state can go through with one.
"Do we have to go 30 years before we don't do this, before we say it's broken.
How many years do we have to go," he said.
Kurt Mesner says public opinion is changing, but thinks his view remains in the
minority.
"Right now I don't think it has changed enough to retain what the legislature
passed," he said.
Meanwhile, death penalty supporters say the legislature made a mistake.
Bob Evnen feels most Nebraskans think the legislature is wrong.
He said, "My hope is that the voters of the state will overwhelmingly repeal
the repeal and that this will send a message to the Unicameral that they need
to get to work on fixing the system. The big argument to throw out the death
penalty is the system is broken."
Evnen says the death penalty is needed to protect police officers and punish
those who are clearly guilty. He is leading the campaign known as Nebraskans
for the Death Penalty.
(source: nebraska.tv)
*******************
BROKEN BEYOND REPAIR----State senators call Nebraska's death penalty system
broken beyond repair
Several arguments were advanced on Monday morning by state Sen. Colby Coash of
Lincoln and state Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island in urging Nebraska voters to
uphold the action of the Legislature in doing away with the death penalty.
Voters will be asked in November to retain or reject the Legislature's decision
to abolish the death penalty.
Speaking at a press conference at Nathan Detroit's in Grand Island, both Coash
and Gloor argued that the system for enforcing the death penalty in Nebraska is
broken beyond repair.
"Going on next year, it will be 20 years since we've actually used it," Coash
said of the death penalty. He noted that, when he was elected to the
Legislature, he promised voters that, if he found government that wasn't
working, he would do all he could to get rid of it.
"I think the death penalty certainly fit that bill as we debated it," said
Coash, who served 8 years on the Judiciary Committee. "We looked at this issue
from all sides ... and our conclusion was this is a system we couldn't fix and
we were better off without it."
Coash said one question that was raised repeatedly during the Legislature's
debate last year was what would happen to people serving life in prison if
Nebraska got rid of the death penalty. "Does that mean that people who have a
life sentence would now be getting out?"
Coash said he asked the Nebraska attorney general for an opinion on that issue.
"His answer was, 'Life means life,' and a person sentenced to life is not going
to get out of prison," Coash said.
"Nothing about what the Legislature did changes anything with the parole
process, and a person sentenced to life is not going to be eligible for
parole," Coash said. "The only way that a person sentenced to life can ever get
out of prison is if the attorney general, the governor and the secretary of
state decide to commute that person's sentence."
Coash said he wants to make sure that all Nebraska voters understand that fact
before they vote in the November general election.
He said that system of 2 of the top 3 highest elected officials in Nebraska
needing to cast votes to commute a life sentence could have happened 5 years
ago when the death penalty was the law in Nebraska, it could happen today when
there is no death penalty statute, or it could happen a year from now, no
matter what voters decide in November.
Gloor noted that, for a long time, he supported having the death penalty in
Nebraska.
"I don't have an ethical problem with the death penalty," Gloor said, which is
evident from some of his previous votes. "I don't have any religious
persuasions that influence me."
However, Gloor said he does have a record as a person who can make difficult
decisions. He supported the death penalty through two rounds of debate last
year before he changed his mind.
"Why did I change my mind? It became clear to me, for reasons that Sen. Coash
just pointed out, we???re not going to be able to implement the death penalty,"
he said. "There are a host of reasons behind that. I think we're all familiar
with the lack of the ability to get the drugs necessary for injection."
However, legal wrangling and the appeals process also make it impossible to
carry out the death penalty in Nebraska. Gloor said that made him look at the
"cost associated with what is basically spinning our wheels and saying, this
makes no sense for the state of Nebraska."
Gloor said he has listened to the surviving family members of murder victims
who have politely told him that he is not the expert on the death penalty. He
said those people are the ones who get pulled back into hearings as the state
attempts to carry out the death penalty.
Gloor said they tell him their decades of experience make them believe Nebraska
is incapable of carrying out the death penalty.
Some people running for re-election are deliberately stirring up anger and
vitriol about the death penalty issue without researching how the system
actually works, he said.
Gloor said he understands the emotional pull of pro-death-penalty arguments,
because he was once influenced by them. But if state senators were faced with
any other state system as broken as the death penalty, he said, they would be
expected to fix it.
Gloor said he hopes people can look at his example and pull away from all the
emotional arguments surrounding the death penalty and see that it is simply not
working, which is why it should be abolished.
Regardless of the vote's outcome in November, the death penalty will not be
carried out, Gloor said. People should learn about the real expenses involved
in trying to carry out the death penalty. They should hold elected officials
accountable when they favor the death penalty but are unable to carry it out.
If the death penalty is reinstated, Gloor said, voters must hold
pro-death-penalty politicians accountable if they fail to carry out the law.
Conversely, Coash wondered if it will take 25 years or 30 years without an
execution before Nebraska voters believe the system is broken. Citizens were
told 8 years ago that the "last hurdle" to carrying out the death penalty was
changing the method to lethal injection, yet no execution has happened since
then.
Coash said the death penalty's emotional pull is because death row inmates have
committed horrific crimes and they deserve the death penalty.
"I don't think you have 2 senators up here who disagree with that," he said.
Coash said he has talked to surviving family members who favor the death
penalty and surviving family members who oppose it. He said families on each
side are being denied justice by a system in which 2 decades go by and the
state remains unable to carry out an execution.
(source: Grand Island Independent)
UTAH:
Restaurateur, LGBT pioneer dead; estranged husband arrested
The estranged husband of a well-known Salt Lake City restaurateur and LGBT
advocate who died in a house fire over the weekend has been arrested on
suspicion of murder and arson, authorities said.
Craig Crawford, 47, was booked after the blaze on Sunday killed 72-year-old
John Williams, the owner of the popular Market Street Grill and other
restaurants.
The fire occurred less than 3 weeks after Williams filed for divorce from
Crawford and sought a temporary restraining order that was rejected, court
records show.
No details were available in public documents to reveal what happened with the
couple or how long they were married.
Detectives say Crawford was in the house near the Utah State Capitol when the
fire started. He was later seen walking back to the house, but he never called
authorities to report the blaze, charging documents show.
When firefighters arrived, they heard somebody inside crying for help. They
found Williams and tried to revive him, but he died at the scene.
It was not clear if Crawford has an attorney yet.
An aggravated murder charge carries the possibility of the death penalty in
Utah.
Williams' friends and colleagues - many influential city and state leaders -
expressed shock and dismay about the death of the man they called a great
businessman and LGBT pioneer who was an instrumental figure in Salt Lake City.
Williams, whose parents were educators in Idaho, came to Utah to go to college
50 years ago and "changed the fabric" of the community, Utah state Sen. Jim
Dabakis said in a statement. The buildings he restored in Salt Lake City and
the restaurants he ran raised standards in the city, Dabakis said.
"The quiet bridges John built between the emerging LGBT community and the Utah
business world made this a better place for all of us to live," said Dabakis, a
gay Democrat.
Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, the city's 1st openly gay mayor, said in
a statement that she's devastated by the loss of her dear friend and local
hero.
"There are patrons of the arts, sciences and education, but John Williams was a
patron of our city and helped it become the wonderful place it is today,"
Biskupski said.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Oakland: Defendant asks judge to dismiss jury in death penalty phase of trial
A convicted murderer asked a judge Monday if he could forgo the jury during the
penalty phase of his trial, in which jurors could recommend a death penalty
sentence.
In the midst of the penalty phase, which began last week, Darnell Williams
asked Judge Jeffrey Horner through his attorney Deborah Levy if he could give
up his right to the jury trial, against the advice of his attorneys. But Horner
said he would not allow such a waiver.
Williams, 25, was found guilty on May 6 of killing Alaysha Carradine on July
17, 2013 in Oakland by shooting at her and 2 other children and their
grandmother through an apartment door. He is said to have wanted to avenge the
death of his friend, who died earlier that same day. Williams thought the
killer's ex-girlfriend and children were inside the apartment, prosecutors
said.
He was also found guilty of killing Anthony Medearis, 22, in Berkeley on Sept.
8, 2013.
Before the jury arrived in the courtroom Monday morning, members of the
audience said Williams appeared as if he were crying -- his eyes were red, his
head was in his hands.
Williams made the request twice. The 1st time asking Horner through his
attorney if doing so would affect his appeal rights. Horner refused to answer,
saying it was "highly inappropriate" to give the defendant legal advice.
Horner took about 15 minutes Monday afternoon before returning to the courtroom
to announce his decision that the jury trial of the penalty phase would
continue.
If he had decided to dismiss the jury, both the prosecution and defense would
present evidence to the judge, who would make a sentencing recommendation.
This isn't the 1st time Williams went against his attorney's advice. During the
criminal trial, he insisted his cellphone be reexamined. When police did, they
found new photo evidence that linked Williams to the murder weapon used to kill
Alaysha.
The jury will decide whether to recommend a death penalty sentence, or life in
prison without the possibility of parole. The penalty trial resumes Tuesday.
(source: eastbaytimes.com)
OREGON:
Gary Haugen Has A New Execution Date, But Oregon's Death Penalty Moratorium
Remains
It's been almost 20 years since anyone was put to death in Oregon - 54 if you
don't count death row inmates who gave up their appeals and essentially
volunteered to be executed.
In fact, when announcing a moratorium on Oregon's death penalty in 2011,
then-Gov. John Kitzhaber said only those who say they're ready end up being
executed in Oregon.
"My hope and indeed my intention in taking this action today is to bring about
a long due reevaluation of our current policy and our current system of capital
punishment," Kitzhaber said 5 years ago.
Since then, 3 former Oregon chief justices have called for an end to the death
penalty. But Kitzhaber's hoped-for "reevaluation" has not happened.
After she came to office last year, Gov. Kate Brown said she would assemble a
panel to look into the death penalty in Oregon. But her press secretary, Brian
Hockaday, says she's now waiting for recommendations from her staff.
"She has asked general counsel to look into the matter on a national level and
then report back to her," he said. "And then that report will inform the policy
direction moving forward."
It's unclear when that report will be finished. Brown has said she'll let
voters know what she plans to do about capital punishment as governor before
the election - though she didn't specify which election.
Meanwhile, 34 inmates remain on death row. They're in their cells for 23 hours
a day and live in a sort of legal limbo.
Take Gary Haugen. He was originally sent to prison at 19 for murdering his
girlfriend's mother, though he received his death sentence for killing another
inmate.
Back in 2011, when Kitzhaber declared a moratorium on executions, Haugen said
he wanted to be put to death.
"Hey, it's hell," he said of prison. "To be away from your family, be away from
your loved ones, watch all your people die while you sit in this little 9-by-8
cage."
That was then. Today, Haugen says he doesn't want to die. His lawyer, Jeff
Ellis, says Haugen and other death-row inmates are being mistreated by the
state. "The Oregon law says that you can't simply let an execution date go by
and do nothing," Ellis said. "You have to take some action in court."
In a recent hearing, Judge Vance Day gave Haugen an execution date - Jan. 23,
2017. But it's not clear whether that will stick.
For one thing, Day relayed the new date orally, not in writing.
For another, it's not clear whether Brown will follow Kitzhaber's lead in
refusing to let the state carry out death sentences.
"I'm going to fight for my life," Haugen said in a recent telephone interview.
"I mean not only have I been on the longest reprieve in the history of our
country, my death warrant expired. And under statute, them doing nothing about
it means that my sentence expired. And if my sentence expired, why am I still
sitting on death row?"
As distasteful as people might find Haugen and his crimes, he may have a legal
point.
In a dissenting opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer recently
questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty. He said it suffers from
"unconscionably long delays."
Carrie Leonetti, a University of Oregon School of Law associate professor,
agrees.
"Coming to terms with your death once would be hard. But coming to terms with
your death once every 10 years for 30 or 40 years, I can't actually imagine the
psychological torture," she said.
Still, Aliza Kaplan, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, doesn't think
Oregon needs to rush to come up with a new execution plan.
"Cases are moving forward, just like they were before the moratorium," she
said. "There's no likelihood that any of them are going to be executed anytime
soon."
In a way, the experts say, this legal uncertainty - we have the death penalty,
but it's unclear whether the governor will continue Kitzhaber's refusal to use
it - fits Oregon well.
Prosecutors can continue to use the death penalty as a tool, say to convince a
defendant accused of killing someone to consider a plea deal. At least until
Brown makes her decision, politicians can continue to embrace a general
reluctance to put anyone to death.
(source: opb.org)
USA:
The Data That Shows American Juries Are Racially Biased
It's been 30 years since Timothy Foster, a black man, was sentenced to death by
an all-white jury. Unfortunately, the problem of race in American jury
selection is still relevant today.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Timothy Foster, a black man sentenced to
death row in 1987 by an all-white jury, deserves a re-trial. Justices say
prosecutors in the trial abused their so-called peremptory challenges, the
limited number of potential jurors who lawyers may dismiss from jury duty
without stating a reason. According to a landmark ruling from 1986, the state
may not use peremptory strikes to exclude potential jurors based on race. Yet
prosecutors selecting the jury for Foster? - who confessed to and was convicted
of killing an elderly white woman? - dismissed all of the black prospective
jurors. In 2006, 1 of Foster's attorneys obtained the prosecution's notes,
which showed they highlighted the black prospective jurors' names, marked them
with a "B," and ranked them in case "it comes down to having to pick 1 of the
black jurors."
Foster's case may have been heard nearly 3 decades ago, but it brings up a
debate that's still hot today. Lawyers continue to discriminate based on race
in their peremptory challenges, according to critics. That's based on studies
of several American states and counties:
--Among death-row cases in North Carolina, prosecutors were 2.5 times more
likely to dismiss black jurors than white jurors, one 2012 study found. The
pattern didn't lessen with time, the study's authors wrote in the Iowa Law
Review, and it showed up independent of jurors' views on relevant issues such
as the death penalty and crime.
--In Caddo Parish, Louisiana, prosecutors were 3 times more likely to dismiss
black jurors than jurors of other races, according to an analysis by Reprieve
Australia, a group that advocates for an end to capital punishment. Between
2003 and 2012, none of the Caddo Parish juries comprising 2 or fewer black
jurors acquitted the defendant. A 12-person jury that reflected the racial
balance of the parish would include 5 black members? - and 19 % of such juries
acquitted.
--An analysis of 8 Southern states found white-biased jury selection in several
jurisdictions, including Houston County, Alabama, where 26 % of residents are
black. Between 2005 and 2009, 1/2 of Houston County juries were all-white, and
the other 1/2 included only 1 black member. The analysis?-?conducted by a
non-profit called Equal Justice Initiative, which offers legal representation
to those "whose trials are marked by racial bias or prosecutorial
misconduct"?-?also pointed to evidence that some district attorney's offices
trained lawyers to stealthily exclude racial minorities from jury service.
--Although most studies of juror dismissals examine the racial biases of
prosecutors, it works the other way too. In one North Carolina county, defense
attorneys disproportionately chose to dismiss whites, while state prosecutors
disproportionately chose to dismiss blacks, according to a 1999 study published
in the journal Law and Human Behavior.
Among the Equal Justice Initiative's recommendations for combating this
problem: training in anti-discrimination law for judges and lawyers, especially
those involved in capital cases; penalties for attorneys who break the law; and
the retroactive application of the 1986 Supreme Court ruling, Batson v.
Kentucky, which would mean older cases could be re-tried if lawyers are found
to have used their peremptory strikes in a racially biased way
(source: psmag.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 24 10:32:05 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 10:32:05 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605241031550.1088@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 24
GAZA:
Hamas announces public executions that will 'take Gaza past Saudi Arabia'
The Palestinian militant group Hamas is to carry out a string of public
executions in the Gaza strip, the patch of territory it controls.
The executions were announced by Hamas's attorney general in Gaza, Ismail
Jaber. "Capital punishments will be implemented soon in Gaza," he said. "I ask
that they take place before a large crowd."
13 men, most convicted of murder connected to robberies, are currently awaiting
execution, another Hamas official, Khalil al-Haya, said on Friday at the main
prayers.
If all those go ahead, Gaza's execution rate relative to the size of its
population will overtake that of Saudi Arabia's in one go.
Last year, Saudi Arabia, with a population of 31.5 million, executed 153
people. Though one of the most densely populated territories in the world, Gaza
has a population of just 1.8 million.
Palestinian law allows the death penalty for collaborators, murderers and drug
traffickers.
On Sunday, the families of the victims of those on death row protested in
favour of the executions outside Gaza's parliament, after the authorities gave
a rare permission to stage a public demonstration.
The last time Hamas carried out public executions was during the summer 2014
war with Israel, when a Hamas firing squad shot dead 7 people outside Gaza's
main mosque following Friday prayers . Bodies were then dragged through the
streets.
According to a May 2015 report by Amnesty International, Hamas forces also
carried out at least 23 extrajudicial killings of Palestinians in Gaza in 2014,
with at least 17 people killed on 1 day alone.
So far in 2016, approximately 10 people have been sentenced to death in Gaza.
Since the creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, more than 170
Palestinians have been sentenced to death and around 30 have been executed,
mostly in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR).
All execution orders must in theory be approved by the Palestinian Authority
president, Mahmoud Abbas, but his legitimacy is not recognised by Hamas in the
Gaza strip.
In February this year, it was announced that Mahmoud Ishtiwi, a commander from
Hamas's military wing, was executed in Gaza by a firing squad.
(source: telegraph.co.uk)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi man executed for murder
Saudi Arabia put to death a citizen convicted of murder on Tuesday, bringing to
94 the number of executions in the kingdom in 2016.
Imad al-Assimi was found guilty of shooting dead a compatriot in a dispute, the
interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.
Most people put to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword.
Murder and drug trafficking cases account for the majority of Saudi executions,
although 47 people were put to death for "terrorism" on a single day in
January, 2016.
According to human rights group Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia had the
3rd-highest number of executions last year - at least 158.
That was far behind Pakistan which executed 326, and Saudi Arabia's regional
rival Iran, which executed at least 977, said Amnesty, whose figures exclude
secretive China.
Rights activists have raised concerns about the fairness of trials in Saudi
Arabia and have been particularly critical of the use of the death penalty for
non-violent offences like drug trafficking.
The interior ministry has said it is "determined to fight drugs of all kinds
due to the serious damage they do to individuals and society".
Saudi Arabia has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug
trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
IRAN----execution
Man Hanged In Northwestern Iran
1 prisoner was hanged in Qazvin Prison (northwestern Iran) on the morning of
Thursday May 19, reports the official website of the Iranian Judiciary in the
province of Qazvin.
The man, who was identified as "Sepahdar", was reportedly convicted of
murdering another man who allegedely had an affair with his sister.
*********
At Least 8 Prisoners Transferred to Solitary Confinement For Execution
At least 6 prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement in Karaj's Rajai
Shahr Prison (west of Tehran) on Saturday May 20, report close sources to Iran
Human Rights (IHR).
These prisoners, who are all convicted of murder, are scheduled to be executed
on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. According to reports gathered by IHR, at
least 40 prisoners were executed in Iran during the first 3 weeks of May.
*********
5 Other Prisoners Scheduled to Be Executed in Coming Days
5 prisoners are scheduled to be hanged in the coming days, according to sources
of Iran Human Rights.
6 prisoners from Karaj Central Prison were transferred to solitary confinement
in preparation for their executions, which were scheduled for Sunday May 22. 1
of the prisoners was eventually returned to his cell while the other 5
prisoners are scheduled to be executed in the coming days. All the prisoners
were sentenced to death for drug related charges.
8 other prisoners are scheduled to be executed in the coming days in Karaj's
Rajai Shahr prison (west of Tehran).
(source for all: Iran Human Rights)
************
Iranians in Canada protest against executions in Iran
Iranians in Canada have held protests over the weekend denouncing human rights
violations in Iran and urging the Canadian government to base any improvement
in its ties to the Iranian regime on a halt to executions in Iran.
Protests were held on Saturday in Ottawa and Toronto and on Sunday in Montreal
by supporters of the main Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of
Iran (PMOI or MEK).
Protesters condemned the recent wave of executions in Iran.
They held up banners in English and Persian reading: "Political prisoners must
be freed," "No to torture and execution," and "Stop torture and executions in
Iran."
Other banners read "Down with Khamenei," referring to Ali Khamenei, Supreme
Leader of the mullahs' regime.
The protesters in Ottawa also held a banner which highlighted the role of the
Iranian regime's President Hassan Rouhani in the torture and executions taking
place in Iran.
It read: "Rouhani is complicit in more than three decades of killing, torture
and execution in the Iranian clerical regime. His record: More than 2300
executions during his presidency."
The protesters in Montreal in particular called for international solidarity
with Iran's imprisoned teachers and trade union activists.
The PMOI (MEK) supporters in both rallies also commemorated the 41st
anniversary of the martyrdom of the PMOI's original founders by the Shah's
regime which will take place on Tuesday.
(source: NCR-Iran)
ISRAEL:
"Execute Terrorists": New Israeli Death Penalty Would Apply to Non-Jews Only
Israel has never fully abolished the death penalty, but it has remained unused
since the 1960s.
A new law to execute "terrorists" in Israel will effectively apply only to
non-Jews, according to a source in the Likud party.
Incoming Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman has made the restoration of the
death penalty for terror attacks a sticking point for his far-right Yisrael
Beiteinu party to join the government.
However, according to a Likud source quoted by Haaretz, the new law would apply
only to people tried in military courts.
As Palestinians are prosecuted in military courts while Jews accused of similar
crimes are prosecuted in civil courts, the death penalty would in practice
apply only to Palestinians.
The move to restore the death penalty, which has never been officially
abolished but has not been used since 1962, has proved highly controversial in
Israel.
Former attorney general Yehuda Weinstein on Thursday called on his successor,
Avichai Mendelblit, to oppose the proposals.
"There's nothing like it in the world," he told Haaretz. "There are no
countries that added the death penalty to the book of law, only ones that took
it off.
"It's not practical in terms of deterrence, since these are criminals who
anyhow act out of an ideological motive and aren't afraid of death. It's also
not moral."
However, other right-wing politicians in Israel have backed calls for the death
penalty to be used again.
Ayelet Shaked, Israeli justice minister and member of the far-right Jewish Home
party, said last July that she "found out that there's a death penalty for
terrorists and that it was last handed out in 1994. Since then the military
prosecution has not requested a death penalty, but it can be requested, and the
military court can give it according to the law.
"Unfortunately, the sentence of the terrorist prosecuted in 1994 was commuted
to a life sentence, and he was released in the Shalit deal, but the penalty
exists and can be carried out," she added, according to Haaretz. Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit was part of a prisoner-exchange deal In 2011 after being
held captive by Hamas for 5 years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lieberman may sign the coalition
agreement on Sunday evening.
Netanyahu had also been in talks with the leader of the Labor Party, Isaac
Herzog, but those negotiations broke down when news leaked that Netanyahu was
thinking of bringing Lieberman back into the fold in a move that Israeli media
agrees would create the "most right-wing government" Israel has known.
Lieberman has served in previous coalitions with Netanyahu but declined to join
his coalition last year.
Yaalon had been at loggerheads with Netanyahu over his insistence made in a
speech last week that senior officers be encouraged to "speak their mind".
On Thursday, he made public comments that he was "surprised" by a growing "loss
of moral compass on basic questions" in Israeli society.
"We need to steer the country in accordance with one's conscience and not
whichever way the wind is blowing," Yaalon said.
According to reports in the Israeli press, Netanyahu called Yaalon on Thursday
to tell him to ignore media speculation about Lieberman, insisting that nothing
was set in stone, although it appears Yaalon decided to jump ship before he was
pushed.
Earlier reports claimed that Netanyahu was considering offering the retired
lieutenant general the foreign ministry as a consolation, but that the offer
was never made.
Yaalon's resignation paves the way for right-wing activist Yehuda Glick to
enter the Knesset as he is the next candidate on the Likud list that decides
who becomes an MP.
Glick is a leading figure in the Temple Mount movement that seeks to have
Jewish prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque compound, with Palestinians scared the aim
is to completely level Muslim holy sites to make way for a Jewish Third Temple
that many believe was prophesied by scripture.
The compound is under Jordanian control, and non-Muslim prayers are strictly
forbidden there, although growing numbers of Israelis have been skirting the
rules in a move deemed by by Palestinians to be highly inflammatory.
Glick survived an assassination attempt by a Palestinian assailant who was
angered by his views on Temple Mount in 2014.
(source: Global Research)
PHILIPPINES:
Duterte and the coming bloodbath
On Nov. 16, 1999, President Joseph Estrada appointed his then-favorite
policeman, Director Panfilo Lacson, as the new chief of the Philippine National
Police. The next day, the special operations group that Lacson led before his
appointment, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, killed eight men
in Fairview, Quezon City, in what some witnesses called a "rubout." 7 of the
dead were later identified as suspected robbers; the 8th, a civilian bystander,
was later reported to be the alleged mastermind of the robbery gang.
It was an arresting start to a controversial (and, as it turned out,
abbreviated) term. For many, the spectacular violence was seen as precisely a
violent spectacle, staged to strike fear among criminals.
3 renowned lawyers immediately raised the alarm. (I quote from an Inquirer
editorial written some 10 years after the event.)
"Sen. Raul Roco told a news conference: 'Lacson must be made to explain: Why,
on your 2nd day, did 7 people die? How many will die on the 3rd day? What are
your projected plans on the 14th day?'
"Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. called on the PNP to disclose the true
circumstances of the killings. 'Otherwise, the apprehension will continue that
extrajudicial killing or vigilante justice is now taking place all over the
country.'
"Rep. Joker Arroyo sketched a disturbing profile of Lacson's brand of law
enforcement. There is an emerging 'pattern' in the way Lacson and his unit
conduct their operations, he said: 'All the suspects are killed.' He also noted
that, in the Fairview killings as in the Kuratong Baleleng case of 1995, 'the
victims were relatively small-time'."
When Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial mayor of Davao City famous for his
iron-fist approach to peace and order issues, takes his oath of office as the
next president of the Philippines on June 30, only 1 of these 3 historical
personalities will still be around to serve as a conscience of the people. Will
Nene Pimentel, the founder of the PDP-Laban party which now serves as Duterte's
political vehicle, sound the alarm when the new president inaugurates his term
with the spectacles of violence he promised during the long campaign?
I say "when," not "if," because it is clear to both those who voted for Duterte
and those who did not that he intends to "suppress" crime within "3 to 6
months" after he takes office.
Those who voted for him and those who did not may agree that the only way
Duterte can come close to making good on that ambitious promise is by doing
what he did (or, if one prefers to accept that the Davao Death Squad is not
connected to him, what he failed to stop) in Davao City: to identify the
criminal suspects, and then to see them dead. But because by noon of June 30 he
will be running a national government, he will need to scale up. Hence his
statement, repeated many times, about filling Manila Bay (chosen for its
symbolic national value) with the corpses of a hundred thousand suspected
criminals.
In a television interview a year before the elections, for instance, he teased
out once again his reputation as the man behind the Davao Death Squad, the
vigilante group that is estimated to have killed over a thousand people in his
city.
"If by chance, God will place me there [in the presidential palace], the 1,000
will become 100,000," he said. "Diyan mo makita na tataba ang isda sa Manila
Bay. Diyan ko kayo itatapon (That's where you will see the fish getting fat in
Manila Bay; that's where I will dump you)."
Surely this is hyperbole? And that plural "you" at the end - this must be just
another example of Duterte's gift for stirring controversy and courting media
coverage with outrageous statements, right? Perhaps; at least that is what one
should hope for, if we want true justice, not the false peace of the funeral
parlor.
But the killing of 100,000 Filipinos will be the worst outbreak of violence in
the country since World War II, when about a million people died. The total of
100,000 that Duterte seeks to feed the fish of Manila Bay with is about twice
the number of Filipino soldiers killed by the Japanese, and 5 times the number
of Filipino revolutionaries killed by the Americans during the
Philippine-American War.
If we say, "OK, perhaps he really did not mean 100,000 killings," we will find
ourselves sucked into a dangerous exercise, a dubious moral calculus. Are
10,000 extrajudicial killings "OK" for a country with a population of almost
110 million? That's less than 1 % of 1 %. How about 1,000 killings - but not
spread between 1998 and 2015, as in Davao City, according to documentation by
human rights groups, but between July and December this year? Is that
"acceptable"? How about "only" 100 killings, but all on the afternoon of June
30, after Duterte takes his oath? Would that be "fitting"?
Or perhaps we can accept the figure of 100,000, after all; these are suspected
criminals, not soldiers or revolutionaries.
These damning calculations should chill our blood. Archbishop Antonio Ledesma
of Cagayan de Oro used his preelection pastoral letter to remind us: "The
victims [of the Davao Death Squad] include 132 children (17 years and below)."
Let us take a deep breath and ask ourselves: How many of Duterte's 100,000 will
be innocent or underage?
We may see a spree of extrajudicial killings at the exact same time the
privileged party-hopping animals of Congress debate a death penalty law - a law
that, in practice, will affect only those Filipinos without privilege. Like
others, I am filled with foreboding.
(source: Opinion, John Nery----Philippine Daily Inquirer)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 24 10:33:08 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 24 May 2016 10:33:08 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605241032580.1088@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 24
INDONESIA:
8 drug suspects handed over to prosecutors
The National Narcotics Agency ( BNN ) on Monday handed over 8 drug suspects,
who had allegedly attempted to traffic almost 100 kilograms of crystal
methamphetamine into the country from China, to the Semarang Prosecutor's
Office in Central Java.
The BNN also handed over the drug evidence for the case to be brought to trial
at the Semarang District Court.
"We handed over 8 suspects, including 97 kg of methamphetamine as evidence. The
suspects will be detained at the Kedungpane Prison," said chief BNN spokesman
Slamet Pribadi on Monday.
"Regarding the evidence, of the whole amount confiscated, 2.5 % is for evidence
and 97.5 % will be destroyed. It all depends on the prosecutor's office," he
said.
He added the suspects are accused of violating articles 112 and 114 of the 2009
law on narcotics, which carry either a life sentence or the death penalty.
The 8 suspects were arrested at a furniture warehouse in Pekalongan village,
Batealit district, in Jepara regency, Central Java, on Jan. 27 when they were
allegedly unloading a shipment of crystal meth concealed in Zhouma brand
generators from China.
The BNN disassembled the 194 generators, 94 of which it said contained drugs.
The agency claimed each generator was packed with between 1.5 to 1.9 kg of
methamphetamine.
The suspects consisted of 4 Pakistanis named Faiq, Amran Malik, Riaz and Toriq.
The other 4 are Indonesians named Yulian, Tommy, Kristiadi and Didit.
Of the 8 suspects, Didit was the official tenant of the warehouse owned by a
local man named Yunpelizar.
The warehouse appeared to be a finishing workshop for furniture. However, the
BNN claimed that it was a transit place for drugs before they were distributed
across Indonesia.
During the raid in Jepara, residents in Pekalongan village were unaware of the
fact that the CV Jepara Raya International furniture warehouse was possibly
used as a drug distribution center.
Residents were only aware of the regular presence of a foreign citizen, namely
Faiz, in the warehouse.
The BNN opened the case when it received information about a shipment of drugs
via the sea when it was working together with the local customs and excise
office in 2015.
At that time, the BNN did not know which port would be used to bring in the
drugs from China. It was eventually determined that the drugs would enter
through the Tanjung Emas Port in Semarang.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
SINGAPORE:
2 men charged with murder over Orchard Towers death----Muhammad Daniel Abdul
Jalil and Radin Abdullah Syaafii Radin Badruddin, both 22, had their charges
upgraded to murder after the death of the victim.
2 men were charged with murder on Tuesday (May 24), following the death of the
victim more than a month after being assaulted.
Muhammad Daniel Abdul Jalil and Radin Abdullah Syaafii Radin Badruddin, both
22, were previously charged with causing grievous hurt to 34-year-old Navarro
Dorian Regis in the early hours of Apr 1 at Orchard Towers.
Their charges were upgraded to murder after the victim died of his injuries
last week.
If convicted of murder, the pair could face the death penalty or life
imprisonment with caning. They will next appear in court on May 31.
Daniel faces a 2nd charge of causing grievous hurt for punching another victim,
Mr Goudal Pierre-Eric Jules, on the same day at Orchard Towers. Mr Jules
sustained a nasal bone fracture. For this charge, Daniel faces up to 10 years'
jail and caning.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
*******************
Death penalty sought for man accused of beheading girl, 4
Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted a man for murder over the public
decapitation of a 4-year-old girl, saying they would seek the death penalty for
the "extremely cold-blooded" attack.
Wang Ching-yu, 33, is accused of overpowering the mother of the child near a
metro station in central Taipei, and beheading the young girl with a kitchen
knife.
The mother and a number of bystanders tried to intervene but were pushed away
and unable to save the child, whom police have identified only by the surname
Liu.
Prosecutors at the Shihlin District Court in Taipei said yesterday that it was
an "extremely cold-blooded" crime which had deeply shocked the generally
peaceful island.
"It has caused indelible pain to her mother, who witnessed the cruelty," the
prosecutors said in a statement at the close of their investigation, which took
less than 2 months.
"The suspect has never repented... so we suggest the court sentence him to
death," they said, adding that capital punishment in this instance was
important to maintain society's faith in law and justice.
Taiwan resumed capital punishment in 2010 after a five-year hiatus. Executions
are reserved for serious crimes such as aggravated murder. Some politicians and
rights groups have called for its abolition, but various opinion surveys show
majority support for the death penalty.
After the March 28 decapitation, hundreds of Taiwanese, many dressed in black
and wearing stickers reading "Death penalty is necessary", called for Wang to
be executed.
Wang was arrested at the scene of the crime and was subsequently taken into
custody. Prosecutors say that blood tests show Wang was not under the influence
of drugs at the time of the crime, nor had he displayed any signs of mental
illness after the attack.
Police said the 33-year-old had previously been arrested for drug-related
crimes. He was attacked by an angry mob while in custody. Taiwan's Apple Daily
has reported that he was unemployed and living with his parents, and had
previously been hospitalised with mental health issues.
The killing came less than a year after an 8-year-old girl's throat was slit in
her school restroom in Taipei. It sparked widespread public anger and fresh
debate about capital punishment.
(source: The Straits Times)
PAKISTAN:
5 naval officers given death sentence in Pakistan for attack on dockyard
5 navy officers were given the death sentence by a Navy court in Pakistan for
planning to hijack a warship and attacking 1 of the US Navy's refuel ships in
2014.
Sub-Lieutenant Hammad Ahmed and 4 other officials were convicted of the naval
dockyard attack that took place on 6 September, 2014, Dawn online quoted
retired Major Saeed Ahmed, father of Ahmed, as saying.
They were charged with having links with the Islamic State group, mutiny,
hatching a conspiracy and carrying weapons to the Karachi dockyard, Saeed said.
Saeed claimed that the naval authorities did not provide his son the right to a
fair trial.
"I wrote a letter to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the navy on 15 August,
2015, asking him to provide the opportunity of a defence counsel to my son,"
Saeed said.
"The Navy JAG on 21 September replied that the option of defence counsel would
be available at the time of trial."
Saeed was waiting for the commencement of the trial but was recently informed
that his son was shifted to the Karachi Central Prison.
He came to know about the capital punishment when he met his son and the other
4 officials -- Irfanullah, Muhammad Hammad, Arsalan Nazeer and Hashim Naseer --
in the prison.
There was no official word by the Pakistan Navy, he said.
"My son told me that a naval court had awarded death penalty to them after a
secret trial," Saeed claimed.
He claimed that the 5 were made scapegoats as this was not the 1st time when
such security lapses came to light.
(source: firstpost.com)
**********
Rise in death penalty in India's neighbourhood----Hangings in Pakistan and
Bangladesh are inevitably followed by more violence
It seems to be hanging season on India's western and eastern borders. If
Pakistan is hanging militants and terrorists responsible for the upsurge in
violence in recent years, Bangladesh is going after the war criminals behind
the mass atrocities in the lead-up to the liberation of the country in 1971.
The reasons are clearly different, but in both Pakistan and Bangladesh each
execution is often followed by attacks on civilians. If, in Pakistan,
terrorists often zero in on random targets, in Bangladesh, secular bloggers are
now under the militant radar.
In Bangladesh, the latest to be hanged was former Agriculture Minister Motiur
Rahman Nizami, chief of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami. He was hanged on
May 11 after being convicted by a war crimes tribunal for his role in the mass
killing of civilians in 1971.
With Nizami's execution, 4 top Jamaat leaders have been sent to the gallows by
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina'a government, while the 5th, Salahuddin Quader
Chaudhry, belonged to the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) of Begum
Khaleda Zia.
Given that these 5 were pillars of the political establishment till yesterday
despite their widely known role in the 1971 killings, the hangings have shaken
up Bangladesh's politics like never before.
On May 12, Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif confirmed the death sentence on
Saad Aziz, Tahir Hussain Minhas, Asad ur Rehman, Hafiz Nasir and Muhammad Azhar
Ishrat for the May 2015 bus attack on minority Shias and the April 2015
assassination of human rights' activist Sabeen Mahmud in Karachi.
Of the 5 convicted by a Pakistani military court, there has been considerable
focus on Aziz, who has a BBA degree from the Institute of Business
Administration in Karachi and is known to have personally shot Sabeen Mahmud
dead. He did his O-levels from Beaconhouse in Karachi, 1 of Pakistan's
best-known schools.
A graphic account in the Dawn newspaper reveals that Aziz was "inspired" by the
sectarian conflict in Yemen and got to know a Jamaat-e-Islami activist linked
to al-Qaeda while doing an internship in Unilever.
It's of some interest that Aziz came into contact with the Jamaat-e-Islami in
Pakistan, which has been umbilically linked to the Jamaat in Bangladesh, of
which Nizami was the Amir or chief.
Again, today Dawn reported that 5 officers of the Pakistan Navy linked to
Islamic State (IS) have been sentenced to death by a naval tribunal for their
role in the September 2014 Karachi naval dockyard attack in which 1 sailor and
2 terrorists were killed.
The Jamaat and its youth wings, both in Pakistan and Bangladesh, are known to
try and impose a harsh Islamist order in the public sphere with special focus
on how women should dress and behave.
The hangings of Jamaat leaders by Bangladesh has led to howls of protest from
Islamabad - diplomats have been summoned and then counter-summoned by both
sides - revealing that the Pakistan-Bangladesh relationship remains tenuous.
A press release issued by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Nizami's hanging
said, "Pakistan is deeply saddened over the hanging ... His only sin was
upholding the constitution and laws of Pakistan."
In a direct response to Nizami's role in furthering the cause of Pakistan as
Bangladeshis fought their war of liberation, Dhaka said in a statement, by
'repeatedly taking the side of those Bangladesh nationals who are convicted of
crimes against humanity and genocide, Pakistan has once again acknowledged its
direct involvement and complicity with the mass atrocity crimes committed
during Bangladesh???s Liberation War in 1971."
"It is a matter of great regret that Pakistan continues to comment in the
misguided defence of this convicted criminal. These uncalled reactions amount
to direct interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country, which is
totally unacceptable ..." the statement added.
One can't think of an uglier exchange - Pakistan argues that Nizami was
upholding its "constitution" while Bangladesh reiterates that Pakistan was
complicit in the 1971 war crimes. In point of fact, Pakistan was under martial
law at this point of time and no constitution was in force.
It is evident that the fault-lines in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations have
deepened after the hangings of Jamaat leaders by Dhaka. Given that this is for
the first time the 1971 criminals are being brought to justice, some years
after the mass killings, this acrimony was perhaps inevitable.
Though Islamabad has had good relations when the BNP and the Jamaat have been
in power, it has been unable to address the fundamental issue - that its troops
aided by collaborators - were responsible for the deaths of lakhs of
Bangladeshis.
Even as they differ and bicker very publicly, both countries have resorted to
the drastic and irreversible punishment of the death penalty in an effort to
give justice and bring closure to victims.
In Pakistan, 332 persons have been executed in 2014-15, with the death
sentences being handed down by military courts and being confirmed by the Army
Chief, who has made the battle against some terrorists a very personal battle.
In Bangladesh, as many as 197 persons were sentenced to death in 2015, Amnesty
International reported. The parallel processes of hanging in Bangladesh and
Pakistan have different, contending motivations.
The real question, of course, is this: will it help in healing the wounds or
just open fresh ones?
(source: The Hindu)
INDIA:
The bias of death penalty against the economically vulnerable
The death penalty seems to perpetuate a "systemic marginalization' against
prisoners from vulnerable and marginalized backgrounds.
A prisoner's economic status and level of education directly affects their
ability to effectively participate in the criminal justice system and claim
their fair trial rights.
"1 of the more difficult tasks for me as President was to decide on the issue
of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts," former President APJ Abdul
Kalam once wrote. "I thought I should get all these cases examined, to my
surprise, almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias."
Last week, the Death Penalty Research Project at National Law University, Delhi
released a seminal report on the death penalty. For the 1st time, researchers
tried to interview all prisoners under sentence of death and their families, to
understand who gets the death penalty and how, and what it is like to live
under sentence of death in India.
What they found, in interviews with hundreds of prisoners and their families
over 2 1/2 years, was a system plagued by fundamental flaws.Whose structural
foundations "render the systematic erosion of basic protections inevitable",
and where the death penalty seemed to perpetuate a "systemic marginalization"
against prisoners from vulnerable and marginalized backgrounds.
Media debates in India on the death penalty almost always erupt around an
imminent execution, and focus on whether the punishment is morally justified.
However most prisoners sentenced to death in India are not eventually executed.
(Less than 5 % of those sentenced to death by trial courts during the study
after higher courts ruled on their appeals.) Yet issues of how prisoners on
death row are treated by the criminal justice system are almost never
discussed.
The NLU report emphasizes that its findings do not necessarily suggest that
there is any direct discrimination at work - which means that state authorities
do not intentionally discriminate against poor or less-educated prisoners. But
the disparate impacts that it identifies do raise an important question: is
there a degree of indirect discrimination at work, which worsens the impact of
the denial of fair trial rights for prisoners from disadvantaged backgrounds?
Indirect discrimination occurs when a seemingly neutral practice or rule
impacts particular groups disproportionately, even if it is not intentionally
directed at that group.
Almost 75 % of the prisoners interviewed were "economically vulnerable", a
category the report's authors defined using occupation and landholding. There
is no direct equivalent government statistic, but about 21 % of people in India
live below the international poverty line of $1.90 a day, and 58 % on below
$3.10 a day.
Over 1/2 the prisoners worked in the organized sector, their occupations
reading like a directory of unstable jobs: auto driver, brick kiln labourer,
street vendor, manual scavenger, domestic worker, construction worker.
About 19 % of those on death row had attended only primary school (including
those who started but dropped out). The comparative national figure is about 32
% (2011 census). Many prisoners were disadvantaged on both counts; 9 out of 10
who had never gone to school were also economically vulnerable, for example.
Why is this important? A prisoner's economic status and level of education
directly affects their ability to effectively participate in the criminal
justice system and claim their fair trial rights.
Take something as basic as the right to be present at one's own trial -which is
an integral part of the right to defend oneself. Only 1 in 4 prisoners
interviewed said they had attended all their hearings. Some prisoners said the
police would be taken to the court premises by the police and then confined to
a court lock-up without being produced in the courtroom.
A prisoner named Muhafiz told researchers that he had only been present in
court during the depositions of 2 witnesses, and had been kept in the lock-up
for the rest of his trial. He had never been to school, and said that even his
limited presence in court would have been more meaningful if he had been
educated.
Even when prisoners were present in court, the report says, "the very
architecture of several trial courts often prevents any real chance of the
accused participating in their own trial." Accused persons were usually allowed
at the back of the courtroom while proceedings between the judge and lawyers
took place in front, out of earshot.
Everyone charged with a crime has the right under international human rights
law to an interpreter if they do not understand the language used in court, and
to translated documents. But this requirement is rarely met. Over 1/2 of the
prisoners interviewed said they did not understand the proceedings at all -
either because of the court architecture or the language used (often English).
Abed, a prisoner who only understood simple English words, said he could not
comprehend large parts of his trial, which lasted for over 12 years. He
understood the trial court decision to sentence him to death only after his
fellow inmates explained it to him. Another prisoner who knew English told
researchers he could not understand the proceedings in his trial as they were
conducted in a different state language. The trial court rejected his requests
for a translator, and went on to sentence him to death.
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 accused persons must be
questioned separately about every material circumstance to be used against
them, in a form they can understand.
The study found that these provisions were routinely violated. Over 60 % of the
prisoners interviewed said they were only asked to give yes/no responses to a
string of questions in their trials, with no meaningful opportunity to explain
themselves. A prisoner named Hemrajsaid that the judge only asked him 1
question - whether he had committed the crime. When Hemraj tried to respond to
the evidence put forward by the prosecution, the sessions judge didn't let him
speak, and told him that "the lawyer would handle all that."
The lawyers typically don't. 7 in 10 prisoners said their lawyers did not
discuss case details with them. Nearly 77 % said they never met their trial
court lawyers outside court, and the interaction in court was perfunctory.
(Many of the prisoners chose to hire private lawyers at the trial and High
Court, despite their economic vulnerability, because of their fear that the
underpaid legal aid lawyers would not be competent or interested.)
And on it goes. In higher courts, prisoners had even less information about
their cases, often finding out about developments only through prison
authorities or television and newspaper reports. As the report puts it, "There
is widespread alienation ... among prisoners sentenced to death with an intense
sentiment of systemic injustice."
It isn't just death row prisoners who face these kinds of violations, of
course. (And India isn't the only country with these problems: Amnesty
International has also documented how death row prisoners in countries such as
Indonesia face similar flagrant fair trial rights violations.) But given the
irreversible nature of the death penalty, it is particularly important that
fair trial rights are scrupulously followed in these cases. International human
rights bodies agree that every death sentence imposed at the end of an unfair
trial violates the right to life. The only way to end this injustice, clearly,
is to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty, as a 1st
step towards abolition.
On the issue of indirect discrimination, human rights treaty bodies such as the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have said that it goes
"beyond measures which are explicitly discriminatory, to encompass measures
which are not discriminatory at face value but are discriminatory in fact and
effect."
Indirect discrimination isn't always easy to prove, and can often only be
demonstrated circumstantially. But reliable statistics can go some way in
showing that it exists where policies and practices appear to be neutral. UN
treaty bodies accept statistics as proof of discrimination, as do many European
countries. Combined with the knowledge about the broader societal context
prejudices, statistics can make out at least a prima facie case of
discrimination.
Indian criminal justice authorities follow several practiceswhich hurt poor or
otherwise marginalized prisoners much more than others.What needs investigation
is whether these practices are just the offshoots of social and economic
inequalities, or whether they have become a form of institutionalized indirect
discrimination.
Just last year, the Law Commission concluded in a report on the death penalty,
"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." The NLU study sets out in stark and dismal detail the evidence for
these claims. The death penalty is a lethal lottery in India, and the dice are
loaded against some. (Names of prisoners changed)
(source: Shailesh Rai is Senior Policy Advisor, Amnesty International India.
Views expressed by the author are personal----indianexpress.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 10:41:08 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 10:41:08 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MASS., S.C., MISS., IND.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251041010.6276@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
TEXAS----impending executions
Charles Flores of Texas Receives Execution Date of June 2, 2016
Charles Don Flores is scheduled to executed at 6 pm CDT, on Thursday, June 2,
2016, at Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas.
46-year-old Charles is convicted of the murder of 64-year-old Elizabeth Black
on January 29, 1998, in Farmers Branch, Texas. Charles has spent the last 17
years of his life on Texas' death row.
Charles never graduated from high school, dropping out after the 11th grade.
Charles had a history of drug abuse and sniffing gasoline. Charles also claimed
that he was abused as a child. Charles had previously been convicted for
robbery and possession of cocaine. He worked as a laborer prior to his arrest.
During the morning hours of January 29, 1998, Charles Flores, Richard Childs,
and several others were using methamphetamine and marijuana. Around 3:00 am,
Flores and Childs left in Childs' Volkswagen and met up with Jackie Roberts.
The trio went to buy more methamphetamine from Terry Plunk, and acquaintance of
Jackie.
After purchasing the drug, Flores insisted that they had been shortchanged.
Jackie told Flores that there was cash hidden at the home of Jackie's husband's
parents' home and that she would pay for the missing amount of drugs. Jackie's
husband was Gary Black. Child and Flores took Jackie home, and went to Childs'
grandmother's house to use the recently purchased drug, before leaving again.
On January 29, 1998, the neighbors of the Black family noticed that the garage
door had been left partially open, which was unusual. Neighbor Jill Bargainer
told police that she had seen 2 men exit a Volkswagen, which was corroborated
by other neighbors. The men were also seen rolling under the partially opened
garage door. The following day, Jill was able to identify Childs as the driver
of the vehicle and was able to describe the passenger, whom she later testified
was Flores.
Inside the home, police found Gary's mother, Elizabeth Black shot to death,
along with the family dog. Additionally, a potato was found in the sink and
potato was splattered on the wall, likely an attempt at silencing the gunshot.
The day after the murder, Flores told a friend that he had shot the dog, but
that Child's shot Elizabeth. 2 days after the murder, Flores and Child disposed
of the Volkswagen, by lighting it on fire. They then stole another vehicle.
Childs was arrested shortly thereafter, with ammunition matching what was found
at the crime scene, along with a weapon. Police also discovered a pair of
gloves, which contained starch grains consistent with those from a potato.
Flores was arrested on April 18, 1998, after being stopped by a police officer
in Kyle, Texas. Flores gave police a false name and failed field sobriety
tests. He was arrested, after making several attempts to resist arrest, for
driving while intoxicated. Police did not discover his connection to
Elizabeth's murder until after he had been released on bond.
Flores was again arrested on May 1, 1998, after a high-speed chase through a
residential neighborhood, that ended with a head-on collision. Flores again
resisted arrested, fleeing and fighting law enforcement officials when they
attempted to handcuff him.
On July 10, 1998, Flores attempted to escape police custody at a hospital,
threatening the officer escorting him, attempting to steal his weapon, and
threatening the hospital staff with pepper spray.
Flores was convicted and sentenced to death on April 2, 1999. Flores insisted
that he is innocent of the crime. He also says his family and friends were
threatened with prison time if they testified on his behalf and supported his
alibi.
Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Elizabeth Black. Please
pray for strength for the family of Charles Flores. Please pray that if Charles
is innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be executed for
any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his execution.
Please pray that Charles may come to find peace through a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ, if he has not already.
****************
Texas Gives Robert Roberson Execution Date of June 21, 2016
Robert Leslie Roberson III is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm CDT, on Tuesday,
June 21, 2016, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in
Huntsville, Texas. 49-year-old Robert is convicted of the murder of his
2-year-old daughter Nikki Curtis, on January 31, 2002, in Palestine, Texas.
Robert has spent the last 13 years of his life on Texas' death row.
Robert dropped out of school after the 10th grade. He had previously been
convicted on more than 1 count of burglary. Robert had previously worked as a
cook, construction worker, welder, and laborer.
Nikki Curtis was living in Palestine, Texas with her father, Robert Roberson,
who had won a custody battle. Also living with them was Roberson's girlfriend,
Teddie Cox, and Teddie's daughter Rachel. During the week of January 31, 2002,
Teddie had been admitted overnight to the hospital for a hysterectomy, while
Nikki was babysat by her maternal grandparents.
On January 30, the grandparents called Roberson to pick up Nikki, as one of
them was sick. According to Teddie, Roberson was upset that he had to retrieve
his daughter, but did so.
The following morning, Teddie called, saying she had been discharged and needed
a ride home. Roberson told Teddie that Nikki was not breathing and he would
need to come to the hospital anyway. Teddie implored Roberson to bring Nikki to
the hospital immediately.
When Nikki arrived at the hospital, she was not breathing and her skin was
blue. She was pronounced dead later that day. While hospital staff was
attempting to save Nikki's life, they also discovered the Nikki had been
sexually assaulted. When asked what had happened, Roberson stated that Nikki
had fallen off her bed.
Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death on February 21, 2003.
Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Nikki. Please pray for
strength for the family of Robert Roberson. Please pray that if Robert is
innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be executed for
any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his arrest. Please
pray that Robert will come to find peace through a personal relationship with
Jesus Christ, if he has not already.
(source for both: theforgivenessfoundation.org)
****************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
20---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------538
21---------June 21------------------Robert Roberson-------539
22---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------540
23---------August 19----------------Ramiro Gonzales-------541
24---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------542
25---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------543
26---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------544
27---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------545
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
MASSACHUSETTS:
Baker reiterates death-penalty support in wake of officer's slaying
Following the killing of an Auburn police officer, and a shootout that resulted
in a dead suspect and a wounded state police trooper, Gov. Charlie Baker said a
different approach to criminal justice might be warranted and he believes
police killers should be executed.
Jorge Zambrano, 35, reportedly died in a shootout after allegedly killing
Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino Jr., a 1991 Tewksbury High graduate,
early Sunday morning. He reportedly fired on police who discovered him in a
neighbor's closet Sunday.
News media have reported on Zambrano's extensive criminal record, and questions
have arisen in the courts and with the governor. In an interview on Boston
Herald Radio on Tuesday Baker wondered "why this guy was free in the first
place?"
"We should make adjustments if we need to, especially with respect to how this
guy despite his rap sheet and everything else managed to be sort of slapped on
the wrist and had his last 2 trips to court continued without a finding, which
is just odd, and led to some horrible consequences," Baker said.
The governor also cautioned that as more information comes out, it can be
difficult to separate fact from speculation.
Paula Carey, the chief justice of the Trial Court, expressed "deepest
condolences" to Tarentino's family and said the Trial Court was seeking to
determine whether the justice system should have taken more action on the man
who allegedly killed him.
"Jorge Zambrano had both past and pending cases in the court system including
serving a 7-year state prison sentence," Carey said in a statement. "We are
carefully examining all of the circumstances regarding Jorge Zambrano's
criminal history in order to determine whether additional systemic steps should
have been taken in his case."
Lawmakers, the governor and the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court are
backing a comprehensive study of criminal justice in Massachusetts. This
session lawmakers removed a barrier for drug offenders to go back to driving
after serving their sentences and imposed stricter penalties on those convicted
of trafficking in the opiate fentanyl.
Baker said the Auburn police were "shattered" by the killing of their colleague
and noted that police regularly put themselves in potentially deadly
circumstances.
The death penalty was outlawed by the Supreme Judicial Court 3 decades ago.
Baker said he supports imposing capital punishment on murderers who kill
police.
"I don't know if it would pass but I've always said I would support the death
penalty for people that shoot and kill a police officer," Baker said. "I don't
think that's a close call."
Baker supported imposing the death penalty on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston
Marathon bomber who with his older brother killed MIT Police Officer Sean
Collier, a Wilmington native, in 2013. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death in
federal court last spring. His brother died in an exchange with police in
Watertown.
(source: lowellsun.com)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Convicted killer Stanko to remain on death row
There will be no post conviction relief for a man sentenced to death for a
crime spree that raged through Horry and Georgetown counties leaving two people
dead and a third severely wounded.
Stephen Stanko, 48, who has been living on South Carolina's death row since
August of 2006, asked for relief for his Horry County crimes saying his
attorneys didn't defend him adequately in his pretrial hearings and in his
Horry County trial, and his appeal attorneys were inefficient in their appeal
of his case.
He also argued that South Carolina's death penalty is unconstitutional.
Circuit Judge Benjamin Culbertson ruled against all of Stanko's claims, leaving
his Horry County death penalty sentence intact.
Stanko still has a post-conviction relief request pending in Georgetown County.
Stanko was sentenced to death for the 2005 murders of Laura Ling and Henry
Turner.
A Georgetown County jury found Stanko guilty in 2006 of killing Ling, a former
librarian, and sentenced him to death. An Horry County jury reached the same
verdict and sentence in 2009 for Turner's murder.
In the 2015 post-conviction hearing, Stanko's trial attorney Bill Diggs
testified for 3 hours that he believed his client suffered from a brain defect,
and that defect led him to commit murder.
Under methodical questioning from Stanko's PCR attorney Emily Paavola,
executive director of the Death Penalty Resource & Defense Center, Diggs
testified that Stanko's personality was inconsistent with the murders he was
later found guilty of committing.
"He didn't seem to be the person who would intentionally do those things,"
Diggs testified.
In his PCR application, Stanko's attorneys argued that Diggs shouldn't have
been allowed to represent Stanko in Turner's case because he had already
represented him unsuccessfully in his Georgetown County trial when he was
convicted of murder, 1st-degree criminal sexual conduct, assault and battery
with intent to kill, armed robbery and 2 counts of kidnapping. Stanko's
attorneys claim that Diggs had a conflict of interest because there was already
a request for post-conviction relief on those charges claiming that Diggs had
not defended him adequately.
But in his ruling filed in the Horry County Clerk of Court's Office this past
week, Culbertson pointed out that Stanko was questioned and advised extensively
regarding Diggs' representation with the PCR application pending, and, despite
that, Stanko wanted Diggs to continue as his lawyer and he waived any conflict
of interest that may have existed. The same issue was denied in Stanko's
appeal, according to Culbertson's ruling.
Stanko's PCR application also claimed that his attorney didn't ask to have the
trial changed to a different location before jury selection began in Horry
County where his charges had received huge publicity.
But Culbertson says his criminal trial attorney did raise a motion to change
the venue before jury selection. However, he said, the State objected to
hearing the motion prior to jury selection, so Diggs consented to argue the
motion after striking the jury, but before its members were sworn. Diggs also
hired an expert, Dr. Tony Albiniak, who testified at the motion hearing that
potential jurors are often not forthcoming in their responses during pretrial
questioning.
Diggs argued the motion at the agreed time, but the motion was denied,
Culbertson noted. The same claim was also denied in Stanko's appeal.
Stanko's attorneys also argued that the S.C. death penalty statute is
unconstitutional "because [it] does not genuinely narrow the class of offenders
eligible for a death sentence, ..."
But Culbertson said that issue was also dealt with in Stanko's appeal, and he
wrote that the constitutionality of the death penalty act "is well settled."
Culbertson wrote that for a post-conviction relief application to be
successful, the applicant must prove he is entitled to relief and to establish
ineffective assistance of counsel, he or she must prove that a reasonable
probability exists that, but for the counsel's errors, the result of the trial
would have been different.
Culbertson found that different attorneys would not have secured a benefit more
favorable to Stanko.
The request for PCR also argues that Stanko didn't get a fundamentally fair
trial because the State presented "false and misleading, inaccurate and
unreliable" expert testimony through Dr. Kenneth Spicer who compared Stanko's
brain PET scan to an inappropriate database and testified that the PET scan was
perfectly normal.
Stanko's defense team provided Dr. Joseph L. Chong-Sang Wu as a rebuttal to
Spicer's testimony.
Stanko also believes his attorneys erred in the sentencing phase of his trial
because they told the jury that Stanko's family didn't like him and pointed out
that they didn't attend the trial; provided expert testimony that Stanko was a
psychopath; and didn't investigate well enough his life history, background and
mental health.
However Culbertson said this was a conscious decision by the attorneys who
believed if they could persuade the jury that Stanko's family was so angry and
disappointed with him that they felt justified in not coming to the trial that
it would support his defense that he wasn't able to conform to normal behavior.
"Counsel's argument to the jury that Stanko's family was not in attendance at
the trial was an intentional trial strategy to curry sympathy for his client,"
Culbertson wrote.
And, he wrote that providing an expert witness to confirm that Stanko is a
psychopath was intended to shore up his insanity defense and make him appear
less culpable by showing that he could not control his actions.
Culbertson says Stanko's attorneys did present Stanko's life history,
background and mental health, most of which was gathered in the Georgetown
County case.
The PCR hearing
When doctors diagnosed Stanko as a psychopath with a personality disorder,
Diggs said he decided it was the best way to save Stanko's life, but Russell
Stetler, a mitigation expert, said the psychopathy defense dehumanizes
defendants in the eyes of a jury and is successful in only 9 out of every 1,000
cases because it immediately brings to jurors' minds thoughts of law breaking,
callousness and a lack of empathy.
It doesn't resonate with jurors or make them want to be merciful, he said.
But, Diggs said, he thought Stanko was okay with the defense and was even happy
to finally understand why he did the things he did.
He testified that Stanko was a very good student in his younger days and
provided pictures from his high school prom that proved his popularity. Diggs
also described him as talented, but things began to change for him between the
ages of 15 and his mid 20s, he said.
He said Stanko is likeable when he's in 1-on-1 conversations and his problems
come when he feels threatened.
Dale Davis, who acted as the mitigation expert in Stanko's Georgetown trial,
turned down an offer to stay on the case in Horry County because she disagreed
with Digg's plan to stick with the psychopathy defense.
In her mitigation investigation, she learned that Stanko's father was born in
Cuba and was a strict military parent. She said Stanko graduated 11th in his
class out of more than 200 students and seemed to be headed "for great things."
She didn't think that Stanko was mentally ill, but said she saw some
obsessive-compulsive behavior in him.
Vicki Childs, the fact investigator and mitigation expert in the Horry County
case, said she relied heavily on information collected in the Georgetown trial.
Childs' job was to review police and autopsy reports and to interview possible
witnesses.
She said Diggs was so excited about a PET scan done by one of the doctors on
the case that showed brain problems that he was like "a kid in a candy store."
She also said she felt badly for Stanko because there was no one willing to
come to the trial to support him.
She testified that Stanko told her he was skeptical about the insanity defense,
but agreed that he was happy to find out that there was some indication in his
brain to show why he did what he did
Conway attorney Brana Williams, who assisted Diggs with the Horry County trial,
testified in the 2015 PCR hearing that the defense team did all it could for
Stanko.
Williams said the evidence against Stanko was overwhelming and that avoiding a
death sentence was the primary goal in the trial.
"The facts of this case were terrible and as a defense lawyer you do your best
to look for any type of explanation and, quite frankly, we were very limited.
We just didn't have a lot to work with," she said.
Williams said the defense tried to show that Stanko had organic problems with
his brain, and came from a dysfunctional family in hopes that the jury would
sentence him to life.
"We were trying to show there's a reason he's like that and, in lieu of death,
he should get a life sentence," she said. "He does have an issue and it's so
bad his family won't have anything to do with him."
(source: myhorrynews.com)
MISSISSIPPI:
Attorney argues to toss inmate's death sentence
An attorney is asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to toss out the death
sentence given to a man convicted of killing a family of 4 in 1990.
Attorney Alexander Kassoff argues that Anthony Carr has an intellectual
disability and should not be put to death.
Jason Davis of the Mississippi Attorney General's Office argues that Carr's
death sentence should be upheld because experts disagree about his intellectual
abilities.
In a 2002 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court barred states from executing people
who are mentally disabled. In 2014, the nation's highest court prohibited
states from relying only on intelligence test scores to determine whether an
inmate is eligible for execution.
Mississippi justices heard more than an hour of arguments in the Carr case
Tuesday. They did not say when they will rule.
(source: Associated Press)
INDIANA:
Attorneys for death row inmate seek more time for appeal
Attorneys for a Gary man sentenced to death for killing his wife and 2 teenage
stepchildren have asked a magistrate to give him more time to sign a document
needed for the case to be reviewed.
The attorney asked Lake County Magistrate Natalie Bokota for more time because
50-year-old Kevin Isom has repeatedly refused to sign the document, The
(Munster) Times (http://bit.ly/1TuX78X) reports.
The Indiana Supreme Court last year upheld Isom's conviction and sentence. In
January, Isom's public defense attorneys filed a petition for post-conviction
relief, arguing that Isom's trial attorneys didn't do a number of things
including not presenting his social and mental history during the penalty phase
of the trial.
Bokota took the petition under advisement pending the filing of notarized
documents. According to court records, Isom has refused to sign a document
required for the petition to be reviewed, including twice refusing to sign it
during hearings before Bokota.
Bokota then determined that the time for Isom to file the petition expired in
January. Earlier this month, she asked the Indiana Supreme Court to vacate the
previously scheduled Nov. 28 hearing for the petition.
Defense attorneys Joanne Green, Laura Volk and Anne Kaiser filed three motions
asking Bokota to reconsider Isom's petition, arguing he is not making rational
decisions. His attorneys argue Isom's behavior is consistent with how he has
shut down during stressful situations in the past, including during his trial
when he refused to attend a portion of the proceedings.
The motion argues Isom's mental health issues date back to his time growing up
in Chicago's public housing projects where he was exposed to trauma that causes
people to "emotionally withdraw in order to survive."
Bokota has given the attorneys for the state until June 3 to file a response.
Isom was convicted of murder in the 2007 shooting deaths of his 40-year-old
wife, Cassandra, and 16-year-old Michael Moore and 13-year-old Ci'Andria Cole
in the family's Gary apartment.
(source: Associated Press)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 10:42:21 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 10:42:21 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., NEB., CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251042150.6276@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
OKLAHOMA:
Will Oklahoma Change Execution Methods?
Tucked inside last week's scathing Multicounty Grand Jury report was a
recommendation the state begin moving away from lethal injection. Instead
jurors suggested the state hire experts to take a look at moving to nitrogen
hypoxia; a suggestion that renewed arguments over the feasibility, legality and
moral efficacy of Oklahoma's back-up execution method.
The Grand Jury had been investigating Oklahoma's recent problems in the
execution of convicted murderer Charles Warner and scheduled executions of
convicted murderer Richard Glossip.
The method of using Nitrogen Hypoxia pipes pure nitrogen into a facemask or a
sealed hood around an inmate's head.
According to an unnamed doctor and unnamed professor who testified in front of
the jury, the method would be "easy and inexpensive," "simple to administer"
and "quick and seemingly painless."
The professor also gave anecdotal evidence from high altitude pilots who were
trained to recognize symptoms of nitrogen hypoxia and said they did not feel
"any feelings of suffocation, choking or gagging."
Oklahoma opponents of the method, and the death penalty as a whole, say there's
no good reason to think the state would get executions right with a different
method. The ACLU-Oklahoma linked the method to Nazi concentration camps and
human experimentation.
"As a state, we will stand on the shoulders of such lauded men and Reinhart
Heidrick and Adolf Eichman, pioneers in the Nazi SS, who developed technologies
like hypoxia as ways to kill, not just 1 person, but a whole lot of people,"
ACLU-OK's Legal Director Brady Henderson said in a press conference one day
after the report was released.
Hypoxia was signed into law as a back-up last spring, should lethal injection
be deemed unconstitutional or if the drugs used become too hard to find. The
latter has already begun to play out during a global shortage of key components
to the state's lethal cocktail.
Many major pharmaceutical companies in Europe have said they will not allow
their drugs to be used in lethal injections. Most recently the American
pharma-giant, Pfizer, said it will follow suit, calling the use of its
pharmaceuticals in executions a "misuse of medicines."
Currently, the Department of Corrections does not know how long it would take
for the state to switch methods and they have no plans to use nitrogen hypoxia
as a method, according to a spokesperson for the department.
(source: nenwson6.com)
NEBRASKA:
State Sen. Colby Coash: Reinstating the death penalty won't fix the system
Voting to reinstate the death penalty in November won't solve any of the
problems associated with executions, a Nebraska state senator who supports its
repeal says.
"I want the voters to understand they're not voting to fix a system," State
Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln said. "They're voting to keep a system that hasn't
worked for 20 years and will continue to not work should the Legislature's
decision be reversed."
Coash made stops in Kearney, Hastings and Grand Island on Monday as part of a
tour for Retain A Just Nebraska, a public education campaign to urge the
retention of Legislative Bill 268, which the Nebraska Legislature approved to
end the death penalty. Voters will decide in November's general election if
they want to keep the measure because death penalty supporters gained enough
signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
Coash, a Republican, said he's touring the state to offer voters the same
information he had as a senator so they can make an informed decision at the
polls.
"The No. 1 message we've been sending is that this is a broken system,' he
said. "We can't get the drugs. It's getting more difficult to get drugs, and
now we've gotten ourselves into a situation where we're just not being fair to
victims on this issue."
Last year, the state tried to import 2 lethal injection drugs from India, but
the attempt was unsuccessful and cost $54,500. 1 of the drugs - sodium
thiopental - is no longer made by U.S. manufacturers and many foreign suppliers
having stopped providing it for use in executions.
Nebraska's last execution occurred in 1997, and 10 inmates currently sit on
death row. Repealing capital punishments doesn't mean that those inmates will
be eligible for parole, Coash said.
"Life means life," Coash said. "If they're sentence to that, they'll die in
prison. That's the important thing I want people to understand. I don't want
voters to go out there and think that they need to reverse what the Legislature
did just to keep people from getting out of prison."
Coash said he and the other legislators in support of the death penalty repeal
did not come to their decision lightly, and that Nebraskans across the state
have also voiced their support for the decision for a variety of reasons, from
faith-based to economic and practical concerns.
"It's indisputable that this is a broken system. If we executed somebody 3
years ago, I couldn't stand here and say, 'No, we're not doing it, so it's not
working,'" he said. "We may feel good about having it (the death penalty) on
the books, but that doesn't mean it will be used. That's something both sides
have to weigh."
(source: omaha.com)
***********
'They die in prison.'
Nebraskans who want to keep the death penalty off the books in Nebraska took a
proactive step last week to reassure Nebraskans that when a murderer is
sentenced to life in prison, it means just that.
The anti-death penalty group included some Nebraskans who can speak with
consummate authority.
Here's what retired District Court Judge Ronald Reagan had to say:
"I want to make sure there is no legal confusion," Reagan said. "Life
imprisonment means life in prison, no chance of parole. Anything else is legal
posturing and has no grounding in the legal realities."
Reagan ought to know. He's the judge who sentenced John Joubert to death. John
Joubert, a sadistic serial killer convicted of stabbing 2 boys to death, died
in the electric chair in 1996. He was one of the last people to be executed in
the state.
"I have seen the worst of the worst cases in Nebraska and I have studied the
laws very carefully," Reagan said. "Let me be perfectly clear about what
happens when someone is sentenced to life imprisonment in Nebraska - they die
in prison.
Coincidentally, a few days after Reagan spoke to the news media, inmate Randy
Reeves died at age 60 in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Reeves was serving a
life sentence for killing 2 women in Lincoln in 1980.
Reagan's point was underscored by 2 Nebraska lawmakers - Sens. Colby Coash and
Adam Morfeld -- who serve on the judiciary committee.
The public statements from experts with authoritative credentials were needed
because some advocates in the pro-death penalty crowd have been spreading doubt
about the meaning and efficacy of life imprisonment in Nebraska.
For example, pro-death penalty spokesman Bob Evnen at a panel discussion at
Western Nebraska Community College claimed, according to the Scottsbluff Star
Herald, "There is no such thing as life without parole anyway. There is no such
thing as life without release."
Evnen apparently was basing his claim on the fact that the Nebraska Pardons
Board has the authority to commute life sentences.
The Pardons Board has commuted three life sentences in the past 25 years.
But what Evnen did not say is that the Pardons Board also has the power to
commute death sentences. And Nebraska history shows it has also exercised that
power.
Only the Pardons Board - currently made up of Gov. Pete Ricketts, Attorney
General Doug Peterson and Secretary of State John Gale -- can commute a death
sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment.
Don't be misled by the exaggerations and fear-mongering of death penalty
supporters. Take the word of retired Judge Ronald Reagan, who actually has
imposed sentences in 1st degree murder cases. Nebraskans can be assured that a
life sentence in Nebraska means that the convict will die in prison.
(source: Lincoln Journal Star Editorial Board)
CALIFORNIA:
Attorney: Williams says 'death sentence is fine with him'
A Berkeley man found guilty of 2 murders earlier this month, who could face the
death penalty, asked an Alameda County Superior Court judge Monday to dismiss
the jury and make his own ruling on sentencing.
Both attorneys for 25-year-old Darnell Williams Jr. strongly advised him not to
waive his rights to a jury trial, they said. But Williams had other ideas.
"He would like the proceedings to end," defense attorney Deborah Levy told
Judge Jeffrey Horner on Monday afternoon. He said he would waive his rights and
accept the judge's sentence, said Levy, adding, "The death sentence is fine
with him."
Defense attorney Darryl Billups told the judge he had advised Williams he
"didn't think it was a good idea" to waive the jury trial, which is designed to
lead to a sentencing recommendation for the judge. The jury is slated to decide
between the death penalty and life in prison without parole.
The jury was not present when the attorneys made the request to Horner on their
client's behalf.
Williams also raised a question, through Levy, about how the decision might
affect his appeal prospects. He had asked the judge to provide insights into
the possible ramifications, which Horner said he would not do.
Horner said he felt it was "totally inappropriate" for a judge to offer legal
advice to a defendant in a criminal proceeding.
Levy then said her client withdrew his request for advice, and was simply ready
to be done with the jury.
Prosecutor John Brouhard said he had nothing to say about the request.
After a short recess to "do a little thinking on this and a little research,"
Horner returned to the bench and denied Williams' request.
"I very carefully considered it," Horner said. "I'm not going to allow a
waiver."
Horner described the jury as the "trier of fact" and said it would be up to
jurors to hear the evidence and make their recommendation.
In response to the ruling, Williams dropped his head and let out a loud sigh in
a rare showing of emotion. Levy comforted him by rubbing his shoulder.
Monday, Williams' grandfather and uncle testified about some of the
circumstances he faced growing up in Long Beach and Berkeley. Tuesday, the
uncle is expected to continue testimony, and Williams' mother is slated to take
the stand, along with a forensic psychologist who specializes in death penalty
cases and related issues.
The defense could be done presenting its case by Wednesday.
Williams was found guilty earlier this month of fatally shooting 8-year-old
Alaysha Carradine at a sleepover and, less than 2 months later, fatally
shooting 22-year-old Anthony "Tone" Medearis III, whom he had known since
childhood.
(source: berkeleyside.com)
USA:
Announcing ....
STARVIN' FOR JUSTICE 2016
The 23rd Annual Fast & Vigil to Abolish the Death Penalty
June 29 through July 2
Outside the U.S. Supreme Court - Washington, DC
There are 2 areas we need your help with!
1.--Spread the word in your networks and to your membership. Include a blurb
about the event in your newsletters, online communications and emails. You can
access sample text that you are welcome to edit and customize in the attached
PDF. You can also easily do this by connecting with us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/fastandvigil.
2.--Cosponsor the event. We annually have more than 50 national and state death
penalty abolition groups that support the Fast and Vigil, making this perhaps
one of the most multi-organizational supported events in the abolition
movement. Join Amnesty International USA, the German Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty, Equal Justice USA, MVFR, Pax Christi, the Journey of Hope,
Witness to Innocence and many more in cosponsoring this year. Info at
http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/sponsor.html. Online registration is
open: http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/register.html. Sign up before June
1st and get a free t-shirt.
MORE ABOUT THE FAST AND VIGIL:
We hope you will consider joining the nearly 100 anti-death penalty activists
who come regularly from across the U.S. and Canada - from Florida to Alaska and
everywhere in-between. Participation can be intermittent. Some people come for
all 4 days. Some locals come for a few hours here and there. Some just attend
our evening teach in programs outside the court. Some fast, some do not. We
welcome all levels of participation.
This year there will be a RALLY at Noon on July 2 at the Court to mark the 40th
anniversary of the Gregg v. Georgia decision, which allowed executions to
resume in the United States. Plus all the usual events, including a last meal
together on June 28th, and teach ins each night with death row exonerees,
murder victim family members, death row family members and more.Full schedule
of events is at http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/schedule.html.
For the full schedule of events, including details on lodging, travel and other
logistics, visit http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/. To help with funding,
or to volunteer, please contact the Abolitionist Action Committee at
518-768-1867 or aac at abolition.org.
Background: The Abolitionist Action Committee (AAC) has held a 4 day vigil at
the Supreme Court every summer since 1994, from the dates of June 29 to July 2,
to mark 2 very important court decisions about the death penalty. The AAC is an
ad-hoc group of individuals committed to highly visible and effective public
education for alternatives to the death penalty through non-violent direct
action. Visit them online at www.abolition.org.
(source: Abolitionist Action Committee;
http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil----TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/AbolitionAAC)
***************
Federal authorities to seek death penalty against Dylann Roof
Nearly a year since gunfire interrupted a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church,
federal prosecutors said Tuesday that they will seek the death penalty against
Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old suspect in the attack that killed 9 people.
Roof's substantial planning before the assault, his expressions of hatred
toward black people and his lack of remorse after the slayings helped drive the
decision, a notice in U.S. District Court stated.
The move is a relatively rare one for the federal government since it
reinstated capital punishment nearly 3 decades ago. Of thousands of eligible
cases since then, the U.S. Attorney's Office has authorized prosecutors to seek
execution in about 500.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement that she arrived at the
decision after a "rigourous" of the case's factual and legal issues.
"The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this
decision," she said.
If he's convicted, Roof will face the ultimate penalty in 2 different
courtrooms. In state court, he is set to be tried in January, but his federal
trial has not been scheduled.
Surviving victims of the June 17 attack, considered one of the most heinous
hate crimes in recent memory, and family members of those who died had
differing stances on whether Roof should face execution.
They learned of Lynch's much-awaited decision during a conference call with
federal authorities Tuesday afternoon, less than a month before the 1-year
anniversary of the shooting. The federal trial has been delayed 4 times as
Lynch considered the case.
Steve Schmutz, a Charleston attorney who represents family members of 3 of the
slain victims, said the development was not surprising.
"The families will support this decision," he said. "Really, I think the
families have mixed emotions about the death penalty. But if it's ever going to
be given, this case certainly calls for it."
Roof, an Eastover resident, was indicted in July on 33 federal charges,
including the hate crimes. But accusations that he violated the parishioners'
right to freely practice a religion are the charges that carry the death
penalty.
Officials said he penned an online manifesto about white supremacy before
sitting for an hour through the Bible study at the Calhoun Street church, then
opening fire.
The shooting left the church's pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, and 8 others
dead. 3 adult women and 2 children in the church at the time survived without
physical wounds.
In the federal notice Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson wrote
that Roof's actions met the legal threshold for the death penalty because he
intended to kill the people he shot: Pinckney, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton,
Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza
Sanders Daniel Simmons Sr. and Myra Thompson.
The prosecutor also listed 8 aggravating factors, including: multiple deaths,
extensive premeditation, the targeting of people more than 70 years old, an
intent to incite violence by others, the deaths' impact on the victims' loved
ones, endangering the safety of people besides those who were slain, racial
motivation and a lack of remorse.
Roof also targeted Emanuel AME, the filing stated, "in order to magnify the
societal impact" of the crimes.
(source: The Post and Courier)
***************
Bernie Sanders Opposes Death Penalty For Dylann Roof----The senator sticks with
his principles.
The Justice Department announced on Tuesday it would seek the death penalty in
the case of accused South Carolina mass murderer Dylann Roof.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) opposes the Justice Department's decision to seek
the death penalty in the case of Dylann Roof, the accused killer of nine
parishioners at a church in South Carolina last year.
The Democratic presidential candidate has long been an opponent of capital
punishment, arguing that it doesn't fit with America's moral values or deter
crime. And though the circumstances of the Roof case have prompted cries for
severe punishment, his campaign reiterated his position in an email to The
Huffington Post.
"Sen. Sanders opposes the death penalty," Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs
wrote. "He believes those who are convicted of the most horrible crimes should
be imprisoned for the rest of their lives without the possibility of parole."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Tuesday that the Justice Department
would seek the death penalty in the Roof case, following a "rigorous review
process to thoroughly consider all relevant factual and legal issues." State
authorities had earlier said that they would seek the death penalty for Roof,
who they allege was motivated by racial animus and carefully planned the
massacre at the Emanuel AME Church. Roof is charged both with federal hate
crimes and 9 counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder.
Several prominent Republican South Carolina officials praised Lynch's
announcement, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.)
Less clear, however, was how Democrats would approach the debate, considering
the horrific nature of the incident and the national outrage it sparked.
President Barack Obama has called capital punishment "deeply troubling" but
something he can rationalize.
"There are certain crimes that are so beyond the pale that I understand
society's need to express its outrage," he told the Marshall Project in 2015.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, likewise, has said she
supports the death penalty in "certain egregious cases." Aides to Clinton did
not respond to requests for comment on the Roof case.
(source: Sam Stein, Senior Policy Editor, Huffington Post)
*****************
United States death penalty's inhumanity revisited
To the Editor:
The Supreme Court recently rejected an appeal from an Orange County murderer to
overturn the California death penalty.His plea rested on his contention that
the sentence, first made in 1984 and overturned because of a police error, but
reinstated after a 2nd trial in 1992, has been psychologically inhumane. Out of
743 prisoners on death row in California, only 13 have been executed in 40
years, and none since 2006.
On the same page (Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 3, 2016) is the headline
"Exonerated After 50 Years" the story of a Virginia man, convicted of a New
York City murder, who accepted a guilty plea with a sentence of 30 years to
life, as an alternative to pleading "not guilty" and facing the death penalty
if convicted. 11 years later evidence surfaced of his innocence.
The sentence was commuted and he was released from prison. His exoneration
marks the 20th time in Brooklyn alone that a review board has cleared
defendants who had been found guilty of crimes they did not commit.
Miscarriages of justice have a long, sad history in the United States. Many
"more civilized" countries have long since abandoned the death penalty with no
apparent effect on the rate of murder and violent crimes. On the contrary, in
the U.S., where states (excluding Minnesota, thank God) have retained the death
penalty, murder has remained relatively frequent.
The history of our nation, settled largely by Caucasian Europeans with
concomitant slaughter of Native Americans, enslavement and torture and murder
of blacks, exploitation of Orientals, persecutions of Jews and Muslims and the
suppression of women is long and violent.
For a country which many like to call "Christian" and which proclaims respect
for its Constitution and its laws, we have an ungodly acceptance of violence
and often scorn the peacemakers.
David Harris
Red Wing
(source: Letter to the Editor, Republican-Eagle)
*******
US drug giant will no longer supply lethal injection drugs
Pfizer has moved to stop its drugs being used for executions by imposing strict
distribution controls that will stop them reaching execution chambers across
the US. This means that all US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved
manufacturers of potential execution drugs have blocked their sale and use for
the death penalty in the US.
In a statement, Pfizer says it 'makes its products to enhance and save the
lives of patients' and 'strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal
injections for capital punishment'. It will now introduce a new monitoring
system to ensure that its drugs do not end up being used in executions. Pfizer
will enforce distribution restrictions on pancuronium bromide, potassium
chloride, propofol, midazolam, hydromorphone, rocuronium bromide and vecuronium
bromide, selling them only to 'select' purchasers under the condition that they
will not resell them for use in lethal injections. Government purchasing
entities must certify that products are not for any penal purposes.
The human rights organisation Reprieve hailed the move as a critical turning
point in the history of capital punishment in the US, reflecting widespread
unease about the use of lethal injection, and raising fundamental questions
about the administration of the death penalty. 'Pfizer's actions cement the
pharmaceutical industry's opposition to the misuse of medicine,' comments Maya
Foa, director at Reprieve. 'Over 25 global pharmaceutical companies have now
taken action to prevent the misuse of their medicines in executions.'
"It's very significant that the pharmaceutical industry is speaking with a
unified, singular voice saying we don't want our products used this way and
actually taking steps to ensure that they aren't," says Megan McCracken, a
lawyer at the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley,
School of Law in the US.
It has been getting increasingly difficult for states to obtain lethal
injection drugs. This has driven US states to seek alternative, and in some
cases illegal, sources for these drugs, and has caused legal challenges in
numerous states. Meanwhile, countries around the world have blocked the use of
drugs in lethal injection. Some states have resorted to using unapproved
manufacturers from countries such as India or obtained them from 'compounding
pharmacies', which mix or alter drugs but whose products are not FDA-regulated.
Many states have put laws in place that prevent or prohibit the disclosure of
information about the source of drugs and how they're obtained. According to
the Death Penalty Information Center, lawsuits have been brought in Texas,
Georgia, Arkansas and Missouri to try to force states to identify drug
suppliers.
Now, says Foa, instead of passing secrecy laws intended to undermine the
safeguards put in place by drug companies, it is up to the states 'to respect
the legitimate commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry and agree to
stop misusing their medicines in lethal injection executions'.
(source: rsc.org)
************
Will Pharmaceutical Companies Kill the Death Penalty?----Pfizer's move to
prohibit their drugs from being used in executions has made it even more
difficult for states to administer lethal injections.
Last week, Pfizer became the latest and largest pharmaceutical company to ban
the use of its products in lethal injections.
The ban marks another in a series of setbacks to the implementation of the
death penalty. According to a Gallup poll last fall, the death penalty is still
favored by 6 out of 10 Americans.
Lethal injection is the preferred means of execution on the federal level and
in the 31 states where capital punishment is legal. Typically, the condemned
person is first given an anesthetic to make them unconscious. Then they're
given drugs that stop breathing and induce cardiac arrest.
Because the person is asleep at the time of death, lethal injection is
generally considered the most humane means of execution.
Since lethal injection was introduced in the 1970s, sleep has been induced by
an anesthetic called sodium thiopental. But the last U.S. manufacturer of
sodium thiopental, Hospira, closed its North Carolina plant in 2009.
Since then, American prisons have experimented with other anesthetics,
including several still produced by Hospira. Pfizer acquired Hospira last year,
assuming control of those products.
Now, they will only be available to buyers who certify that the drugs won't be
resold to prisons, Pfizer officials say.
Ethical Objections
In a statement, the company described its policy as ethically necessary.
"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," the statement reads.
Similar ethical considerations are cited by professional medical organizations,
such as the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association.
Both groups discourage their members from participating in executions.
However, Dudley Sharp, an outspoken death penalty advocate, says the notion
that medical professionals are ethically required to steer clear of execution
is false.
"Neither the Hippocratic Oath nor 'do no harm' have anything to do with
executions," he wrote in a 2015 blog post.
According to medical historian Dr. Howard Markel, Hippocrates wrote, "As to
disease, make a habit of 2 things - to help, or at least, to do no harm."
Sharp points out that Hippocrates was speaking about treating disease
specifically. The issue is about criminal justice, not medical ethics, he says.
Seeking Other Methods
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are currently almost
3,000 prisoners on death row in the United States.
To carry out the death penalty, corrections officials are turning to
compounding pharmacies, which are more loosely regulated than large
pharmaceutical suppliers.
Some states are falling back on older execution methods. Utah, for example,
reauthorized use of the firing squad last April.
Sharp says it's up to the Supreme Court to say which methods of execution are
acceptable and which are unacceptable.
"The best method appears to be nitrogen gas - well known as painless, even
causing euphoria, acts very quickly, easily accessible, impossible to restrict,
easy to administer, using only an oxygen mask and a tank of nitrogen gas, no
gas chamber needed, extremely inexpensive," he told Healthline in an email.
Having 2nd Thoughts
Recent, highly publicized "botched" lethal injections - in which the condemned
person writhed, moaned, or took longer to die than expected - have contributed
to the death penalty's decreasing popularity, David Weiss, a lawyer for the
Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham, North Carolina, told Healthline.
"Even for the folks that agree it should be done they would also say it should
be done with care and with dignity and respect for human life. But when you
pull back the curtain it's very cavalier," he said. "They're writing these
protocols and not following the protocols."
But it's not just the process of execution that is turning people off, Weiss
said. The public is also rethinking the fairness and sureness of the judicial
system.
"I think jurors are starting to understand that you can never be 100 % sure
whether a person is guilty no matter what the evidence looks like at trial," he
said. "And for that reason it doesn???t make sense to impose a final,
irrevocable punishment."
Those who oppose the death penalty say it's imposed disproportionately on
minorities and the mentally ill.
Sharp argues against the notion that executions have been "botched." He thinks
that the availability of pentobarbital, another anesthetic, will allow for
death by lethal injection to continue.
Weiss, however, sees the practice, however it's performed, as an aging form of
justice.
"I think the big thing we can say is either it's over or it's heading in that
direction. There are just so many things that point to problems with it," he
said. "It's not a fixable institution."
(source: healthline.com)
**********************
Is Hillary Clinton The Last Democratic Presidential Candidate To Support The
Death Penalty?
In 1977, 2 years after he was convicted of robbing a shoe store and stabbing a
clerk to death, 22-year-old Henry Giles sat on death row at Arkansas' Cummins
Prison Farm, awaiting his execution by electric chair.
Psychologists had termed Giles "grossly retarded." With an IQ of just 59, it
was unclear at the time of trial if the young, black defendant fully understood
the severity of the charges against him.
"I really didn't know what the death penalty was," Giles wrote in a letter this
year.
15 years later, another black inmate, with a similarly low IQ of just 63, sat
on the same death row at Cummins. Rickey Ray Rector had been convicted of
murdering 2 men - 1 a police officer - and in 1992, the 42-year-old was
awaiting his execution by lethal injection.
But Rector had no knowledge or memory of the crimes he had committed. After
killing the officer who had come to arrest him for the 1st murder, Rector shot
a bullet through his own brain, essentially giving himself a frontal lobotomy.
During his trial, experts testified that he was "severely impaired" and lacked
the ability to grasp the concepts of past or future. He was only able to
respond to immediate sensations.
"When you'd ask him a question, you could tell he was trying to answer but it
was kind of like a skipping record," said John Jewell, 1 of Rector's appellate
lawyers. "He'd just keep coming back to the same questions. He couldn't
communicate clearly, articulately. I had no confidence that anything he was
telling me he actually knew."
Rector's attorneys filed numerous appeals, but the timing was not on their
side. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was also running for president, and he was
desperate to send the message that he was tough on crime - an issue that had
plagued him in previous campaigns. So he decided to take a break from the
campaign trail in New Hampshire to fly home to Arkansas, where he would oversee
Rector's execution.
>From the governor's mansion, where he repeatedly denied pleas for a stay of
Rector's execution, Clinton was joined by the same person who, less than 2
decades earlier, was largely credited with saving Giles' life: Hillary Clinton.
The stories of Henry Giles and Rickey Ray Rector - both black, and both
severely mentally disabled - have dramatically different endings. Their fates
can be attributed partly to the political climate at the time of their
scheduled deaths and perhaps partly to when they crossed paths with the
Clintons.
But much of their experiences can be chalked up to the completely arbitrary
nature in which capital punishment is applied in the United States - an
argument that Clinton herself made in the 1970s. That one mentally disabled
black man is living, while another was put to death, tells the story of the
criminal justice system in a country in which an inmate's race, zip code, jury
composition, and attorney competence are all more likely to determine whether
he lives or dies than his crime.
Since launching her campaign for the White House last year, Hillary Clinton has
become a vocal supporter of comprehensive criminal justice reform. She has had
to apologize for aspects of her husband's '3 strikes' crime bill and has
backtracked on some of the 'tough-on-crime' language she used during the 1990s.
But there remains one area in which she is reluctant to embrace progressive
reform.
On multiple occasions this year, Clinton has expressed her support for the
death penalty. She usually qualifies her support, saying she believes capital
punishment should be used for certain federal crimes, like terrorist attacks
and mass shootings. And she says she doesn't think states should be able to
carry out capital punishment because of the arbitrary nature in which it's
applied and the possibility for human error. Nonetheless, she still believes
that the federal government should maintain a "very limited" use of capital
punishment.
"Maybe it's a distinction that is hard to support, but at this point, given the
challenges we face from terrorist activities in this country that end up under
federal jurisdiction for very limited purposes, I think it can still be held in
reserve for those," Clinton said of the death penalty during a March town hall
event.
Her support for the practice distinguishes her from the Democratic challengers
she's faced throughout the race. It also distinguishes her from the Democratic
electorate.
Just 56 % of Americans say they support capital punishment - a 40-year low,
down from 78 % just t2 decades ago. And just 40 % of Democrats favor the death
penalty, while 56 % are opposed. Being opposed to capital punishment is no
longer a handicap for Democratic presidential candidates; in fact, taking a
strong stance against the death penalty may even be beneficial in both a
primary and general election. And experts say we can expect to see a time in
the near future when support for the practice could actually be a liability.
But Clinton has not always supported allowing the government to end lives. In
fact, she launched her legal career by representing a death row inmate and
arguing the very opposite.
She has never mentioned it on the campaign trail and her campaign declined to
comment on her involvement, but as a young public interest lawyer with the
University of Arkansas' legal aid project in the 1970s, Clinton - then Hillary
Rodham - served as the lead attorney on the Cummins Prison Project, which
worked to defend prisoners at the notorious maximum security detention center.
The group frequently sent attorneys and students to Cummins to meet prisoners
in need of legal help.
One of those inmates was Henry Giles.
There is no evidence that Giles, who was 17 years old at the time of his crime,
planned his attack. According to court documents, he was walking down the
street in Forrest City, Arkansas when he noticed through the window of a Shoe
Outlet that Evelyn Drummond, a clerk, was alone. He then entered the store,
wrapped a wire around her neck, dragged her to the rear of the building, and
stabbed her twice with a knife. With the store empty, he rifled through the
cash register and pocketed the money. Immediately after, he found his brother,
Everett, and told him he had done something wrong.
In a signed confession, Giles told law enforcement he killed Drummond because
"something came over me to make me do something wrong." But his attorney said
Giles had no idea he was signing a confession.
"Those police wrote down what they wanted and I thought they were writing down
what I was saying," Giles wrote in a letter. "And I sign it. They didn't give
me no lawyer or said anything about one."
He was convicted of murder 4 months before his 18th birthday, and in May 1975,
an all-white jury sentenced him to die.
"I never understood any of it anyway," Giles wrote about his trial. "It was
something like me against the world ... The hole [sic] court room was white, so
you can see how that turn out."
>From the start of his trial, questions were raised about his mental competence.
Giles had a verbal IQ of just 51, and Dr. Arthur Rogers, a clinical
psychologist employed by the Veteran's Administration in North Little Rock,
testified that his mental capacity was "quite, quite low, to put it mildly."
"Rogers was of the opinion, from his testing, that Giles had the intelligence
of an average seven or 8 year old person," court documents stated. "He said
that Giles' knowledge of arithmetic was essentially nonexistent. He thought
Giles could count up to 7 and could subtract 1 from 3, but could not figure out
change, even from 10 cents for a 6-cent purchase."
The doctor also testified that "Giles was on the borderline between a moron and
an imbecile," that he "tends to react immediately without thinking ahead," and
that it was very possible he did not understand his right to an attorney or the
charges he was facing.
In their motion to appeal, his attorneys wrote that "Henry Giles does not know
the degree of the charges against him ... [he] does not know he has been on
trial." They also argued that the jury left his age and mental deficiencies off
of the verdict forms - both factors that should have lessened his sentence.
Giles' memory of the trial has faded, and in a letter this year he wrote that
he never fully grasped what was happening in the courtroom anyway.
"I really didn't understand what the judge said," he said of first learning of
his death sentence. "I thought he said that you are sentence to 16 year in
prison. That what he sound like to me. I didn't know until the other lawyer
told me what he said."
After his sentencing in 1975, the Cummins Prison Project decided to take up
Giles' case. As its lead attorney, Clinton orchestrated the effort to have
Giles' sentence commuted to life in prison without parole. The project
submitted an amicus brief in Giles' appeal before the state supreme court,
arguing that because of his mental retardation, killing him would prove the
unconstitutional and arbitrary application of the death penalty.
According to the Arkansas Supreme Court's opinion from April 1977, Clinton and
her 2 co-counsel claimed in their brief that the state's capital punishment
statute "permits arbitrary selectivity in determining whether a defendant
charged with a capital felony murder shall live or die."
"Because the imposition of the death penalty is discretionary with the jury...
[and] because of the allegedly uncontrolled selective discretion of prosecuting
attorneys, trial judges, juries and the governor in choosing which defendants
will live and which will die in cases in which the death penalty might be
imposed," Giles should not be put to death, they argued.
The Arkansas Supreme Court sided with Clinton's prison project, and commuted
Giles' sentence to life without parole. Bill Clinton signed that commutation in
April 1977, as Arkansas' attorney general. The current Democratic presidential
front-runner's legal work was largely responsible for sparing Giles from
execution.
"The brief was credited with saving the life of Henry Giles, a retarded man
convicted of murder," wrote David Brock in his 1996 book, The Seduction of
Hillary Rodham.
Timing was another factor that spared Giles from the death chamber. At the time
Giles narrowly avoided the death penalty, the practice was not politically
popular. The U.S. Supreme Court effectively reinstated it just 2 months after
Clinton submitted her brief (4 years earlier, in 1972, it ruled that the death
penalty qualified as cruel and unusual punishment because states employed
execution in "arbitrary and capricious ways" and had imposed a temporary ban).
At the time, states were still reluctant to go through with the ultimate
punishment.
"We're in no hurry to bring the electric chair out of storage," Arkansas prison
spokesperson Tim Baltz told the AP in 1975. "No one is anxious to take a life."
But this was all about to change. After a crime wave in the 1970s stoked
people's panic about violence in their communities, Democrats began to fear
being labeled as soft-on-crime. In 1986, both parties helped pass legislation
creating mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses - the effects of which
are still being felt today.
Clinton herself seemed to be aware of the forthcoming shift in public opinion.
Though she led the effort to save Giles from execution, she left her name off
the brief that was filed with the Arkansas Supreme Court. She has never
explained the decision, but Jeff Rosensweig, a friend of Bill's and a longtime
Arkansas criminal defense attorney, pointed out that Bill was running for
attorney general at the time and "it would be a problem" for the attorney
general's wife to be on the opposite side of a case against the state.
After securing a victory in Giles' case and leaving the Cummins Prison Project,
Clinton went on to work at a private law firm. She has since served as First
Lady of Arkansas and of the United States, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State,
and is now the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to the
presidency.
Meanwhile, Giles, who is nearly deaf and stutters when he speaks, has now spent
more than 40 years incarcerated for his crime. "I been in prison longer than I
been home, or whatever that is," he wrote this year. Most of the time - except
for a few short stays in "the hole," or solitary confinement - he sleeps on one
of 50 beds in the north barrack of the East Arkansas Regional Unit, known to
the inmates as Brickeys.
"Life in prison is no life," he wrote in one five-page letter of looping
script. "You live in fear most of the time. There are time you never know what
the next person sitting by you may do. He may flip out anytime. I done seen it
happen so many time, it have you on edge, wondering if you next."
Giles said he no longer speaks with any family members and has not received
letters or visitors in years. Because of his hearing impairment, he is unable
to speak on the phone - the prison has an accessibility machine to help deaf
people use the phone, but Giles can't use it because he doesn't know how to
type. "In here you have nothing. Know [sic] family, friend, nobody really care
about you," he wrote. "But after so long, you know it only you and God."
Though he said he remains grateful that he escaped the electric chair, Giles
refers to life in prison without parole as "a death sentence, just a slow death
sentence." He writes a lot about what life might be like on the outside. "The
world would be a strange place," he said. "Everything is different now." But he
emphasizes that any situation on the outside would be better than being locked
up.
"If I have to live under bridges, cardboard boxes, that what I do. Or beg for
small change. It beat the hell out of coming back to prison."
"I don't feel I would make the same mistakes again," he continued in another
letter. "I was still a kid when I came here, never have a life, and I would
like to spend the rest of my life a free man. I don't know how much longer I
have left but I would like to be free."
As the decades passed and harsh sentencing legislation made its way through
Congress, people's perception of the death penalty also changed. By the late
1980s, Americans were obsessed with crime and were willing to go to any length
to lock away potential predators.
The Willie Horton ad from the 1988 presidential campaign is perhaps the most
memorable moment from that alarmist period. That year, Massachusetts Gov.
Michael Dukakis (D) was locked in a close race against George H.W. Bush (R). A
few months before Election Day, Bush's campaign released an ad called "Weekend
Passes" which attacked Dukakis using the case of Horton, a convicted felon who
raped a woman during a weekend furlough program that Dukakis supported.
"Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed 1st-degree murderers to
have weekend passes from prison," a man's voice booms in the 30-second ad,
featuring grainy shots of Horton and Dukakis above bolded words like
"kidnapping," "stabbing," and "raping."
During that same election, Dukakis suffered another major blow: When he was
asked during a debate what he would do if his wife was raped and murdered, he
gave an unemotional response explaining his opposition to capital punishment.
It didn't sit well with the public.
Just how important was the death penalty to voters at the time? More
respondents to a poll said they would consider a candidate's support for
capital punishment when deciding who to vote for than they would his party.
Bush ended up defeating Dukakis by a landslide.
Going into the 1992 election, Bill Clinton was well aware of how Dukakis'
stance on criminal justice issues had hurt him with the electorate and that
dynamic had only become clearer: Polls at the time showed that nearly 80 % of
Americans approved of the death penalty. 1 commentator declared, "There is no
way the Democrats can nominate somebody against the death penalty and be
viable."
As 1 of Rector's earlier attorneys put it: "Poor ole Rickey Rector's timing
just happened to be real bad."
In 1981, 29-year-old Rector was at a dance hall in Conway, Arkansas. After
getting into a dispute about the entrance fee, he pulled a gun from his
waistband and shot 3 men, killing 1. He then ran from law enforcement for
several days before deciding to turn himself in to authorities. But when
Patrolman Robert W. Martin arrived at Rector's mother's house, where he was
waiting, Rector shot him in the jaw and neck, killing him almost immediately.
Rector then walked out of the house, held the gun to his own head, and shot
himself straight through his brain. Doctors at Little Rock's University
Hospital removed the bullet from behind his ear, and with it, about 3 inches of
his frontal brain tissue.
After the surgery, Rector suffered from "gross memory loss" and became "totally
incompetent" to assist any attorney who took his case, according to his
doctors. Psychologists testified in the ensuing trial that he "seemed unable to
grasp either the concept of past or future."
John Jewell represented Rector in his habeas corpus appeal - he was one of many
attorneys who took on the case and got to know Rector throughout the appeals
process. Jewell said he felt pity and sorrow for his client, but never a deeper
personal connection "because there wasn't anyone there to connect to."
Jewell never doubted Rector's guilt. Instead, he had serious doubts about a
system in which an all-white jury could condemn a mentally incompetent black
inmate to die. His focus was on commuting Rector's sentence to life in prison.
"That's all that we ever asked for - that he not be executed," he said. "Our
argument was that he wasn't competent to stand trial to begin with because of
the brain damage from when he tried to kill himself."
But multiple judges denied his appeals and Rector's execution was set for
January 1992. For Bill Clinton, who had privately wavered on his support for
the death penalty, the event was the perfect opportunity for him to look like
the tough-on-crime lawmaker he knew the country wanted. With the execution
falling right before the New Hampshire primary and Clinton looking to distract
voters from allegations about his personal life, Bill and Hillary flew home
from the campaign trail in order to be in Arkansas to oversee the execution.
It wasn't the 1st time Clinton scheduled a killing around his own campaigns -
his 2 previous executions were both held in an election year, and his next
execution would come a few months later - but it was the 1st time a
presidential candidate had made a spectacle over an execution.
"Never - or at least not in the recent history of presidential campaigns - has
a contender for the nation's highest elective office stepped off the campaign
trail to ensure the killing of a prisoner," the Houston Chronicle remarked at
the time.
>From the governor's mansion, Clinton received multiple calls and pleas from
Rector's attorneys for stays of execution and pardons. But he denied all of
them.
"There were, I don't remember how many judges that had ruled the same way as
Clinton, saying no, I'm not going to pardon him," Jewell said. "It wasn't like
he did anything to change the direction of things. He just didn't do anything
to stop the execution."
The next year, Jeff Rosensweig, another of Rector's attorneys, would tell the
New Yorker that Clinton's decision was likely entirely political. "I think in
his heart of hearts Clinton would not have wanted to go through with Rickey's
execution," but "he figured he had to," Rosensweig said.
Hours before his death, Rector watched a news report about Clinton on the
prison TV. "I'm gonna vote for him. Gonna vote for Clinton," he said to those
present. That same execution night, Rector put the pecan pie from his final
meal to the side, saying he would save it for later.
Around 9:30 p.m., Carolyn Staley, a close friend of Bill Clinton's, found out
that Rector had not yet been killed - medics were having trouble locating a
vein and the execution had been delayed. Staley, who strongly opposed the death
penalty, decided to call the governor, according to her interview with the New
Yorker that year. When Clinton called her back that night, he spoke in a low
whisper, saying, "I'm not able to breathe, I'm destroyed."
"It's just awful. Just terrible, terrible," he continued.
At 10:09 p.m. on January 24, 1992, after he yelled out 8 times while medics
searched for a vein, Rector was pronounced dead.
There's no way of measuring the impact of the execution on the election, but
there were many who questioned why Clinton made the decision he did, when he
did.
A New York Times headline the day of the execution read: "Arkansas Execution
Raises Questions on Governor's Politics." "The case of Mr. Rector - the 3rd
execution to go forward during Mr. Clinton's tenure - raises knotty issues that
go beyond general support or disapproval of the death penalty," the article
noted, adding that Clinton was playing with the "undeniable politics of death."
The Washington Post also questioned Clinton's motives. "It seemed at odds with
his progressive, compassionate image, and it appeared to contradict his own
acknowledgment that capital punishment was not a deterrent," Richard Cohen
wrote in 1993.
Most news coverage of the execution honed in on Rector's mental capacity. In
1986, the Supreme Court had ruled that defendants subject to execution must
understand that they are being sentenced to death and why, but at the time of
Rector's death, the court had not yet ruled against the killing of the mentally
disabled.
"It wasn't the law yet but I think it was probably a case in which people saw
there needed to be some changes in the law," Jewell said.
In 2002, a decade after Rector was killed, the U.S. Supreme Court would rule
that executing people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth
Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. And 12 years later, the court
would narrow the state's discretion to determine who has an intellectual
disability. Had Rector, a defendant with an IQ of just 63, been sentenced after
2002, it's likely he would still be alive today.
Other legal battles in recent decades have also pointed to the random and
arbitrary application of the death penalty. In response, courts have narrowed
the cases in which the punishment can be used. In 2005, the Supreme Court
banned the execution of juveniles; in 2006 it ruled that DNA evidence can be
considered in death penalty appeals; and in 2008 it said that states cannot
impose the death penalty for any crimes less than murder. In 2015, just 49
people were sentenced to death, a 50-year low.
While fewer people are being put to death because of the changes in the law,
those still facing the punishment are not the worst, guiltiest, or the most
threatening. Most executions are concentrated in a few jurisdictions where the
penalty is still disproportionately applied. And the non-partisan U.S. General
Accounting Office has identified "a pattern of evidence indicating racial
disparities in the charging, sentencing, and imposition of the death penalty."
More than 75 % of executions are for crimes against white victims, and African
American defendants receive the death penalty at three times the rate of white
defendants in cases where the victims are white.
As more information about the disparities surface and as its use has become
more infrequent, public support for the death penalty has also waned. A recent
study found that a majority of Americans prefer life without parole to the
death penalty and opposition to the practice has reached its highest level in
43 years.
It's also becoming more mainstream for world leaders and politicians to
champion its abolition. Last year, Pope Francis called for an end to capital
punishment worldwide, declaring its use "inadmissible, no matter how serious
the crime committed." And in June of last year, U.S. Supreme Court Justices
Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent in a capital case saying
the death penalty may be unconstitutional and calling for a "full briefing" on
"whether the death penalty violates the Constitution."
"If trends on the ground continue in the direction that they are going, and new
justices to the court either replicate or are further to the left of the
current court - which is not a tremendously left-wing court - we think that
it's likely there will be a constitutional invalidation of capital punishment,"
said Carol Steiker, a Harvard Law School professor and expert on capital
punishment.
Clinton herself has said recently that she would "breathe a sigh of relief if
either the Supreme Court or the states themselves began to eliminate the death
penalty." That vision may not be far off - 19 states have already eliminated
it, and the Supreme Court may not be too far behind.
The Democratic front-runner's indication that she'd be relieved if the high
court resolved the issue likely means that her support for the death penalty is
more political than personal, Steiker said. But even her political support
seems unnecessary given the current climate on criminal justice issues.
Both of the men who mounted serious challenges to Clinton during the nominating
process - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former Maryland governor Martin
O'Malley - came out strongly against the death penalty. "The state, in a
democratic, civilized society, should not itself be involved in the murder of
other Americans," Sanders said last October.
Though the issue didn't come up much during the 2008 presidential election,
bipartisan support for criminal justice reform in recent years have once again
raised the political profile of capital punishment. President Barack Obama has
expressed his conflicted feelings about the death penalty and has called it
"deeply troubling" in practice, but he hasn't yet disavowed it entirely.
Which leaves Clinton, who may be the last Democratic presidential candidate to
support capital punishment.
Even some conservative leaders are beginning to come out against capital
punishment, also citing its arbitrary application. Marc Hyden, the national
advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty,
called the practice "a worthless and albeit expensive and dangerous government
program" and "quintessential big, broken government."
Hyden, who used to work for the National Rifle Association, noted that the
practice is not pro-life, does not promote fiscal responsibility, and does not
represent limited government. "I don't think there's anything limited about
giving an error-prone state the power to kill its citizens," he said.
Ben Jealous, the former president of the NAACP who has endorsed and is
campaigning for Sanders, suggested that Clinton could quickly fall behind the
status quo. He has called the death penalty "the spawn of lynching in our
country."
"If Hillary Clinton wants us to trust that she will strong on criminal justice
reform, she needs to break with the death penalty and she needs to get back
into the progressive mainstream on criminal justice reform," Jealous said in
March. "We will see the death penalty abolished in this country in your
lifetime."
If Clinton were to win the White House this November, she could very well
oversee that historic moment. After appointing another liberal justice to the
Supreme Court, it's even more likely that the 9 justices will take up and
decide on a case invalidating the practice during Clinton's term.
While Clinton has not been a leader on the issue, experts say they expect she
would get there eventually.
"Fewer and fewer Americans are confident that the government can be counted on.
And where public opinion goes, political leaders eventually catch up," wrote
Frank Baumgartner, a UNC-Chapel Hill researcher who has created a statistical
index of public support for capital punishment. His analysis shows public
opinion is currently at an all-time low.
"One of the things successful politicians are good at is figuring out in what
direction public opinion is going," said Robert Durham, executive director of
the Death Penalty Information Center. "And they can either lead public opinion
to try to change it, or they can ride public opinion for their own gain."
Henry Giles, for one, is grateful that Clinton took a stand against the death
penalty early in her career. Giles recently celebrated his 62nd birthday from
Brickeys maximum security prison, the 44th birthday he has celebrated behind
bars. Though he called his life sentence a slower death penalty, he remains
grateful that he escaped the electric chair.
"Sometime I think back to the old days, and how life been for me," he wrote in
a letter. "Yes it hurt real bad. It really make you cry inside. Know [sic]
family to call you [since] my mom + dad pass while I was here. The rest of
them, god only know where. But you know I give thank to almighty god for every
day. That I am able to get up and enjoy life. That really a blessing. Smile."
(source: thinkprogress.org)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 10:43:05 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 10:43:05 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251042550.6276@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
GLOBAL:
Why Pointing a Finger at Countries With the Death Penalty for Drugs Is Not
Enough
The death penalty for drug offences has received much attention recently. Mass
executions last year in Indonesia, and the announcements of further killings,
have garnered world headlines. Iran continues to execute drug offenders at an
astonishing rate, earning condemnation from human rights groups. At last
month's United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the world drug
problem (UNGASS), the death penalty prompted vocal debates between retentionist
and abolitionist States, and more than sixty countries voiced their opposition
to the practice.
When Harm Reduction International (HRI) launched our death penalty for drugs
project in 2007, this issue was largely invisible in both the human rights and
the drug policy discourse. It was certainly not an issue of debate during UN
meetings on drug control at the time, which passed every year with no mention
of capital punishment. Given that our research has found as many as 1,000
people are executed annually for drug offences, the increased attention over
the last decade is welcome.
I am often asked what the international community can do to challenge the
practice of death penalty States. There are options. One is for abolitionist
governments and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime to end financing of drug
enforcement operations in death penalty States, which HRI and others have shown
to directly contribute to death sentences and executions. Another is to fund
human rights advocates working in death penalty countries to influence public
opinion and government policy, and to defend death row prisoners.
After watching dozens of countries speak against capital punishment during the
UNGASS, I think there is a third and perhaps even more important action that
States can take if they are truly committed to ending the death penalty for
drugs around the world.
The death penalty for drugs is the most extreme example of what I call
'punitive suppression'--the logic that the harsher we punish people, the more
effectively we will suppress drugs and drug markets. While this logic is
commonly used by death penalty supporters to justify the practice, it also
underpins the legal and policy frameworks of drug control in almost every
country, regardless of whether they have capital punishment.
Punitive suppression is at the heart of the core UN treaties on drug control,
particularly 1988 drug convention that established obligations to enact harsh
penal provisions at domestic level. A 2001 UN report recorded a 50% increase in
the number of countries prescribing the death penalty for drugs into domestic
law between 1985 and 2000, the exact period during which the treaty was
drafted, adopted and implemented at national level.
Punitive suppression takes different forms in different places. While capital
and corporal punishment for drug crimes are obvious abuses that draw attention,
other practices such as criminal penalties and incarceration for drugs,
mandatory minimum sentences, felony disenfranchisement, stop and search,
mandatory drug testing of people receiving benefits or prisoners and bans on
accessing food assistance for drug offenders are equally driven by this same
logic.
While abolitionist States argue (correctly) that the death penalty does nothing
to deter drug crimes, this argument is undermined when punishment continues to
be the premise of drug laws and policies in their own countries. This
disconnect allows death penalty States and their defender to argue that capital
punishment is rooted in national culture or tradition, and is simply their
particular approach of pursuing drug suppression objectives shared by all
countries.
While capital punishment for drugs is only practiced by a small handful of
governments, it has much wider significance in the drug reform debate. It is a
window onto the failure - in both human rights and efficacy terms - of the
global experiment in punitive drug suppression over the past half century. For
this reason, the crucial work of abolishing the death penalty must go further
than simply pointing our fingers at that tiny number of extremist fringe States
that continue to execute people. We must acknowledge the flawed logic at the
heart of the regime itself, and undo its corrosive effects on the drug laws and
policies everywhere.
We are commonly told by political leaders that punitive drug laws are needed to
'send a message'. Perhaps, then, the most powerful way that non-death penalty
States can truly challenge capital punishment for drugs is to reject the
supremacy of punitive suppression within their own domestic drug laws, and
'send a message' of a different kind. Only then can we start to create a future
in which the use of criminalisation, punishment and prisons as core tools of
drug control is as much an extreme fringe position as is executing people for
drug offences today, and draws the same kind of global condemnation.
(source: Dr Rick Lines is Executive Director of Harm Reduction International in
London----huffingtonpost.co.uk)
JAMAICA:
An intellectually stimulating article on the death penalty
Let me congratulate Professor Stephen Vasciannie for what I regard as an
excellent, objectively written, and intellectually stimulating article on the
death penalty, appearing in your newspaper of Sunday, May 15, 2016. It has
provided some very useful information for those who need proper understandings
of feelings about and thinking with respect to the subject both locally and
internationally.
What makes the article so good, from my perspective, is that it provides a
platform for informed discourse on the subject, and not the kind of emotive
responses by pro-abolitionists every time the retention or implementation of
the law relating to the death penalty is raised. It would be good to get the
pro-abolitionists' response to the professor's article.
What should be of particular interest to those of us who support the retention
and execution of capital punishment is that every time the subject is raised in
our nation's Parliament, those against its abolition and in favour of its
execution outvote - even if marginally - those who want to see it removed from
the statute books. This correlates with a poll conducted by the late Professor
Carl Stone many years ago, which showed that 83 % of the population is in
favour of the retention and infliction of the sentence of death on those who
deserve it.
Another piece of information that those in favour of the imposition of
sanctions on those who are found guilty of murder is the fact that there is
nothing in international law that denies a country its sovereign right to do
so. What seems to be preventing the country from executing the sentence is more
the fact that we are a part of a global village where the abolitionist virus
has affected many of us, including the political directorate. But, probably the
greatest factor of all is our mendicant status, which makes it difficult, if
not impossible, for us the carry out the will of the majority without dire
consequences for our fledgling economy.
While I agree with Professor Vasciannie that delay in carrying out the sentence
of death, locally, is an impediment, a greater stumbling block, and probably
part of the reason for delay, is the overt or covert threat of economic
sanctions by powerful donor agencies. The rock star Bob Geldof once expressed
the view that one of the downsides of financial assistance from cash-rich
countries and financial institutions of the world is that the hand of the
receiver is under the hand of the giver - which could compromise the
sovereignty of the receiver country.
The other deterrent is the fear - real or imagined - of the possible
miscarriage of justice, best expressed in the words of one of the dying thieves
on the cross: "We are punished justly...But this man has done nothing wrong" -
let alone the fallibility of judges, jurors, and lawyers, which could be a
contributing factor. I would also like to take issue with Professor
Vasciannie's biblical reference, especially in relation to the lex talionis and
Jesus's teaching in the New Testament about non-retaliation. The lex talionis,
according to biblical scholar the late John R W Stott, was designed to have the
double effect of "...defining justice and restraining revenge". It also
discouraged an individual taking the law into his or her hand by assigning the
distribution of justice to the state authorities. So, the professor's use of
the word "brutality" in reference to this provision is out of line with the
best scholarly work.
One of the greatest obstacles to Old Testament scholars who support abolition
is the provision of Cities of Refuge as an asylum for man slayers (Exodus 21:
13; Numbers 35: 19). Pro-abolitionist Sir Norman Anderson, a 1-time lecturer in
Islamic Law at the University of London, ran aground in his discussion of the
Old Testament teaching on capital punishment when he stumbled upon the
establishment of Cities of Refuge for a man who killed without malice
aforethought, but no such provisions for the murderer.
Also, Jesus's reference to turning the other cheek in the Sermon on the Mount
cannot be appealed to with respect to the adjudication of justice by the civil
authority, because it relates to personal revenge. So, it is never wise to use
it in discussing the distribution of justice by the State. Further, if the
non-retaliation injunction given by Jesus in Matthew 5: 38-39 were to be
applied by civil magistrates, it would be difficult for them to enforce any law
which sought to protect the lives and property of law-abiding citizens.
Listen, also, to Paul in his defence before Festus: "If then I am a wrongdoer
and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape
death..." (Acts 25: 11), suggesting that there were crimes that warranted the
hangman's noose. And, as I have pointed out earlier, the dying thief on the
cross remarked to his fellow malefactor: "We are punished justly, for we are
getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong." He was
not only pointing to the miscarriage of justice in Jesus's execution, but
pointing to something equally critical, which is often overlooked in our
pre-occupation with deterrence - the issue of whether what the murderer is
getting is justly deserved for the crime he has committed.
The late C S Lewis answers this question ably and well in an excellent article
written many years ago. This is what he writes on the humanitarian theory of
punishment: "The humanitarian theory removes from punishment the concept of
desert. But the concept of desert is the only connecting link between
punishment and justice. It is only as deserved or undeserved that a sentence
can be just or unjust. I do not here contend that the question 'Is it
deserved?' is the only one we can reasonably ask about a punishment. We may
very properly ask whether it is likely to deter others and to reform the
criminal. But neither of these 2 last questions is a question about justice.
There is no sense in talking about a 'just deterrent' or a 'just cure'. We
demand of a deterrent not whether it is just but whether it will deter. We
demand of a cure not whether it is just but whether it succeeds. Thus, when we
cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure
him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice
altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere
object, a patient, a 'case'."
The points of disagreement aside, though, I found the professor's article most
informative and intellectually stimulating.
(source: Opinion; Dennis McKoy is an adjunct lecturer at Mico University
College----Jamaica Observer)
NIGERIA:
The death penalty is not the solution to kidnapping in Nigeria
Earlier this month the Senate approved a proposal to introduce a bill that will
make kidnapping punishable by death. Many commentators have welcomed the
decision arguing that the death penalty will deter the increasing number of
kidnappings in the country. They are wrong.
Kidnapping has reached epidemic levels in Nigeria and whilst the need for the
federal government to fight this crime effectively has never been more urgent,
the death penalty is not the solution. The reason for this is that there is no
credible evidence that the death penalty deters kidnapping - or any other crime
for that matter.
Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that
the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments. A
series of authoritative studies conducted for the United Nations in regions
around the world have repeatedly found that the death penalty does not have a
greater deterrent effect on crime than a term of imprisonment.
In 1970 the military government of General Gowon introduced the death penalty
for armed robbery in response to the alarming increase of the crime in Nigeria.
This did not solve the problem, in fact armed robbery is as common today as it
was then.
Equally, the enactment of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2011 and the
Terrorism (Prevention) (Amendment) Act, 2013 - introducing the death sentence
for terrorism-related offences has not curbed the problem in Nigeria. According
to a Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute for Economics and Peace,
in 2014 Nigeria witnessed the largest increase in terrorist-related deaths ever
recorded by any country, increasing by over 300 per cent to 7,512 fatalities.
Over the last 3 years a number of states - including Bayelsa, Delta and Edo -
have made laws prescribing the death penalty for kidnapping; however this has
not stopped the practice. This year alone has seen high profile kidnappings of
former President Goodluck Jonathan's uncle in Bayelsa state, His Royal Majesty
Josiah Umukoro in Delta state and Hassana Garuba, a magistrate in Edo state.
Whilst the senate has the constitutional mandate to enact laws, making
kidnapping a capital crime will breach Nigeria's obligations under
international human rights law.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Nigeria became
a party in 1993, permits countries that have not abolished the death penalty to
use the punishment only for the "Most Serious Crimes". Under international
human rights standards "Most Serious Crimes" are crimes that involve
intentional killing. Kidnapping does not meet this threshold.
The death penalty is a violation of the right to life as declared in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and
degrading punishment. Everyone has the right to life regardless of the nature
or circumstances of the crime they have committed. This does not mean that
criminals should not face justice, and punishment, for their crimes. They
should, the federal and state governments have a range of options they can
legally use, including prison terms.
The federal government should immediately take steps to address the root causes
of kidnapping and other crimes by dealing with the high unemployment in the
country and ensuring that the Nigeria Police Force and other crime fighting
agencies are well funded, trained and equipped to deal with crime. Good
investigation into alleged crimes, timely arrests of suspects and effective
prosecution will go a long way in reducing kidnapping and other crimes.
The world is moving away from the use of the death penalty. In 1977 only 16
countries had abolished the punishment for all crimes. As of today the number
stands at 102 countries, a majority of the countries in the world. In 2015, 4
countries, including Madagascar and the Republic of Congo both in Africa,
joined the ranks of countries that have consigned this cruel punishment to
history. Expanding the scope of the death penalty goes against this positive
global trend and will further entrench Nigeria amongst a minority of countries
that hold on to the death penalty.
Executing kidnappers is not the solution to ending the scourge of kidnapping in
Nigeria. Rather it is a knee-jerk reaction by a government that wants to appear
tough on crime. Instead of being a form of toughness, recourse to the death
penalty is in reality a symptom of failure in governance. Rather than expanding
the death penalty, the Senate should abolish it altogether.
(source: Oluwatosin Popoola is Amnesty International's Advocate/Adviser on the
death penalty----The Vanguard)
**************
Looming War'----Zimbabwean women on death row in China caused by Nigerian men'
- Member of Parliament
A Minister in Zimbabwe has revealed that over 200 of their women on death row
in Asia for drug trafficking are caused by Nigerian men.
The Chairperson of the Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in Zimbabwe, Beatrice Nyamupinga, has accused
the plight of more than 200 of their women who are on death row for drug
trafficking in China and other Asian countries on Nigerian men who trick and
use them as mules to carry the deadly cargoes for them.
The Chronicle, one of the country's biggest newspaper, report that Nyamupinga,
a ZANU-PF MP for Goromonzi, moved a motion on human trafficking in the National
Assembly, where she made the revelations, adding that findings have shown that
most of the women on death row were duped by their Nigerian boyfriends that
they were going for shopping in preparation for their weddings, while dangerous
drugs would be placed in their luggage without their knowledge.
She said the Nigerians would have paid lobola (a sort of bride price in
property in cash or kind, which a prospective husband or head of his family
undertakes to give to the head of a prospective wife???s family in
consideration of a customary marriage), for the women who the West Africans
then use as drug mules.
"We've about 200 Zimbabweans and the majority of the 200 are women, who are on
the death row in China because they've been used by the so-called Nigerians who
are coming here, marrying them through an Act that we enacted in this House.
They marry them and then ask them to go to China to buy their wedding gowns. As
they go to China to buy their wedding gowns, they're given a bag, which has a
false bottom and in that false bottom, drugs are secretly packed.
They're told; 'when you get to China, my friend is going to receive you and
will show you the shops where you can buy your gown.' She gets to China and the
immigration and customs of China know that and these girls are intercepted and
convicted.
It's with a heavy heart that I rise to move a motion on human trafficking
following the repatriation of around 53 out of 1,000 women believed to have
been trafficked to Kuwait.
Not only Kuwait but to other countries like China, other Arab countries and
including South Africa of all countries.
On this one, let me also add that these girls or the women who are being
trafficked, we've almost 2,000 or over 1,000 that are roaming around China as
we speak right now. They were trafficked to China and some of them are now
desperate and stranded in China.
The government departments should swiftly address the issue of foreigners
marrying locals as they are the ones contributing to the challenges of human
trafficking.
Once that's done, the Nigerian will go and marry the next one. I don't know the
game of changing names and whatever happens. I think also the Minister of Home
Affairs, through the Registrar General, should also look at this.
So, these women now, you know in China, they'll tell you that once you bring
drugs, it's death penalty; almost 200 are on death row and of the 200, the
majority are women."
This is not the first other countries will blame Nigerians for their woes.
Early this year, a controversial Kenyan blogger, Cyprian Nyakundi, set the tone
for an online war between his country and Nigeria, after he took to his blog to
say that Nigerian men use their women as drug mules.
(source: pulse.ng)
INDONESIA:
Greater jakarta: Three Taiwanese drug dealers arrested
Police have apprehended 3 suspected drug dealers from Taiwan at Sun Plaza
Serpong shopping mall in Tangerang, Banten, and confiscated 60 kilograms of
crystal methamphetamine.
Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Moechgiyarto said on Monday his officers had
arrested the suspects, identified only as CHJ, LDC and CMT, at the shopping
mall and seized 6 kg of meth from the men.
Moechgiyarto said the officers found a further 54 kg of meth at the suspects'
rented house at Cluster Alicante in Paramount Serpong housing complex, also in
Tangerang.
Besides the 3 Taiwanese, he said the police had also arrested 7 other suspects
from among 4 groups from Aceh and Jakarta.
All the suspects were arrested on Sunday and Monday in Greater Jakarta.
"We seized 646 grams of meth from the Aceh group, 4 kg from the 1st Jakarta
group, 323.14 g from the 2nd Jakarta group and 50 g from the 3rd Jakarta
group," Moechgiyarto said
He said the suspects would be charged under the Narcotics Law, which carries
the death penalty.
(source: The Jakakrta Post)
PHILIPPINES:
'In countries where you can't trust the courts 100 %'---Branson says no to
death penalty, urges new admin to think twice
British billionaire and philanthropist Richard Branson is a known rebel in his
field, having grown his Virgin Group business empire in oftentimes
unconventional ways.
But even Branson, who was back in Manila Wednesday after 2 decades to speak
with the country's entrepreneurs and business elite, draws the line when human
rights are involved, especially when it comes to the death penalty.
"The death penalty is not a deterrent," Branson told the crowd of about 800 who
attended the ABS-CBN News Channel's 1st "Asian Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Forum" held at the Sofitel Manila.
Most of the crowd paid anywhere between P20,000 to P35,000 each to hear the
flamboyant visionary share his thoughts on business and success. His latest
project involves making space travel affordable to all.
Branson said implementing the death penalty in jurisdictions where convictions
are less than certain cannot be tolerated. He said even the United States,
which has a "relatively good judicial system", got it wrong years ago when
DNA-based evidence was not yet allowed.
"In countries where you can't 100 % trust the courts, the last thing you should
have is the death penalty, and it's not a deterrent anyway," Branson said.
"I don't think society can risk executing innocent people and I hope this new
government will think twice about that," he added, referring to the incoming
administration of presumptive president elect Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte, who won by a landslide in the May 9, 2016 polls on a platform coming
out tough against crime and corruption, said he would restore the death penalty
for heinous crimes.
These crimes include rape as well as kidnapping resulting in the death of the
victim, reports showed. He further threatened that those convicted can be
executed by hanging. Duterte's pronouncements drew opposition from the Catholic
Church, the Commission on Human Rights and even some lawmakers.
Instead of executing criminals, Branson said they should be locked up "for life
without any chance of coming out on the street again."
The topic on the death penalty came up during the business forum as Branson
noted the global war on drugs has "been a complete failure".
He said jurisdictions would have less of a chance resolving the drug problem if
approached in a "repressive" way rather than an approach seeking to reform
addicts.
Branson's Virgin Group had come out strong against the death penalty in the
past. It condemned Indonesia's execution of 8 individuals of drug-related
crimes last year. Only Filipino Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso was granted a
last-minute reprieve.
Despite calls against it, executions have been on the rise globally, Amnesty
International said in its latest report.
In 2015, the non-government human-rights organization said those executed -
mainly by hanging, shooting, lethal injection and beheading - hit 1,634 people,
the highest it recorded since 1989
(source: inquirer.net)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime mass executes 11 prisoners, including juvenile offender
Iran's fundamentalist regime mass executed on Wednesday 11 prisoners in their
twenties, including at least one who is believed to have been a minor at the
time of his alleged offence. Another three prisoners were executed on Tuesday.
The 11 victims, all aged between 22 and 25, were hanged en masse at dawn on May
25 in the notorious Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in Karaj, north-west of
Tehran.
Among them was Mehdi Rajai who is believed to have been 16 years old at the
time of his alleged crime.
The names of 8 of the other prisoners are believed to be Mohsen Agha-Mohammadi,
Asghar Azizi, Farhad Bakhshayesh, Iman Fatemi-Pour, Javad Khorsandi, Hossein
Mohammadi, Masoud Raghadi, and Khosrow Robat-Dasti.
On Tuesday, May 24, 3 other prisoners in Karaj's Qezelhesar Prison were hanged.
1 of them was identified as Ruhollah Roshangar, a married father of 2. All 3
had been behind bars for the past 4 years.
Also on Wednesday, the mullahs' regime informed 7 Sunni prisoners in Gohardasht
that their execution sentences have been handed down by Branch 28 of the
regime's 'Revolutionary Court.'
The 7 prisoners were identified as Davoud Abdollahi, Qasem Abesteh, Khosrow
Besharat, Ayoub Karimi, Anvar Khezri, Farhad Salimi, and Kamran Shikheh. All 7
have been behind bars since December 7, 2009.
Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions,
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period last week.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Wednesday called for an urgent response
by the United Nations and foreign governments to the appalling state of human
rights in Iran.
"The rising number of mass executions in Iran in recent weeks clearly shows
that the regime has in no way decided to change its disgraceful human rights
record. Any claim of moderation under Hassan Rouhani is simply a myth. It is
high time for the United Nations and human rights organizations to speak out
against the brutal executions by the mullahs' regime and send Iran's human
rights dossier before the UN Security Council," she said.
The latest hangings bring to at least 112 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 2 are believed to have been
juvenile offenders.
Iran's fundamentalist regime earlier this month amputated the fingers of a man
in his thirties in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments
handed down and carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
IRAQ:
Iraq justice ministry announces execution of 22 convicts----Amnesty
International has said that recent trials resulting in death sentences have
been 'grossly unfair'
Iraq has executed 22 people over the past month who were convicted of terrorism
and other crimes, the justice minister announced on Monday.
The ministry "carried out death sentences against 22 convicts condemned for
crimes and terrorist acts," Justice Minister Haidar al-Zamili said in a
statement.
It also quoted Zamili as saying that with the start of the Iraqi operation to
retake the city of Fallujah from the Islamic State (IS) group, "we confirm ...
that the ministry is continuing to carry out just punishment against
terrorists."
Rights group Amnesty International said that Baghdad executed at least 26
people in 2015.
Iraq sentenced nearly 100 people to death within the first 2 months of 2016,
the group said in a February report.
"The vast majority of the trials have been grossly unfair, with many of the
defendants claiming to have been tortured into 'confessing' the crimes," James
Lynch, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa deputy director said.
Amnesty called on the Iraqi leadership to stop ratifying executions and begin a
process to abolish the death penalty.
Iraq has faced widespread criticism from diplomats, analysts and human rights
groups who say that due to a flawed justice system, those being executed are
not necessarily guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced to die.
But the country has repeatedly defied such criticism and continues carrying out
executions.
(source: Middle East Eye)
GAZA:
Gaza calls for death penalty
Over the last 3 years, murders in cases of theft, robbery and physical attack
in the Gaza Strip have become common. Money changer Ameen Sharab from Khan
Yunis was stabbed to death in a robbery attack on May 30, 2013. Mohammed Mahdi
and his nephew Anas Tammous from Deir al-Balah refugee camp were killed against
the backdrop of a family dispute on June 24, 2013. Aliyan al-Talbani from Deir
al-Balah city was killed in an armed robbery on July 31, 2013. Money changer
Fadel al-Astal from Khan Yunis was killed in a fight over bank checks in May
2014. Hammad Dughmosh from Gaza City was killed against the backdrop of a
dispute with Abed Rabbo Abu Madin on April 25, 2016; and most recently, on May
13, Thouraya al-Badri from Gaza City was killed in an armed robbery.
There has been a significant increase in the crime rate in Gaza over the past
few years. According to statistics of the public prosecutor's office,
approximately 40 people were murdered in 2013, 168 in 2014 and 28 in 2015. Most
murders were committed for purely criminal reasons or due to disputes resulting
from bad economic conditions and the spread of poverty and unemployment.
Following search and investigation operations carried out by the investigations
unit of the police in Gaza, in general criminals were caught just a few hours
after the crime. The perpetrators of these crimes have been given the death
penalty, and they are awaiting execution, pending a decision from President
Mahmoud Abbas.
The president of the Supreme Judicial Council in Gaza, Counsellor Abdel Raouf
al-Halabi, told Al-Monitor, "The death penalty in Palestine was stipulated by
law and is only issued against those who deserve it. It is linked to
aggravating factors of willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. The courts
issued death penalties in 13 cases that met the relevant legal conditions and
are awaiting implementation by the public prosecutor."
In a press conference at the Ministry of Information in Gaza City on May 22,
attended by Al-Monitor, Gaza public prosecutor Ismail Jaber said, "The public
prosecutor communicates with the [Palestinian] Legislative Council [PLC] to
decide on the implementation of death penalties in the Gaza Strip aimed to
reduce and deter crime."
He said, "We sent a letter to Salim al-Sakka, the former justice minister in
the unity government, to ask President Mahmoud Abbas to endorse the death
penalty decisions in accordance with Article 109 of the Palestinian Basic Law
and Article 409 of the Code of Criminal Procedure No. 3 of 2001. But we have
not received a response in this regard despite the prior agreement on the
endorsement of death penalties in Gaza."
Jaber said that the public prosecution is currently examining the death
penalties to be carried out within the coming days, even if they are not
endorsed by the president, although this violates the Palestinian Basic Law.
On May 16, village officials and dignitaries of families in Gaza submitted to
Ismail Haniyeh, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, a petition urging
him to rule with an iron fist by punishing the criminals who violate the law
and kill people, and to implement death penalties.
Bassam al-Badri, whose mother Thouraya was murdered on May 13, told Al-Monitor,
"The only punishment that would satisfy me is to see the killer of my mother
hanged publicly in the presence of his parents, so that this deters anyone who
dares to think about killing people and offending the sanctity of private
homes."
Muhammad al-Talbani from Gaza, the father of Aliyan, called for accelerating
the implementation of death penalties against the killers of his son, so as to
prevent the recurrence of such crimes and prevent people from taking the law
into their own hands.
Article 415 of the 2001 Palestinian Code of Criminal Procedure stipulates that
executions of civilians must be done by hanging and of soldiers by shooting to
death.
The head of the legal committee at the PLC, Muhammad Faraj al-Ghoul, told
Al-Monitor, "The PLC will seek to accelerate the implementation of the death
penalties against murderers in Gaza and will not allow them to go unpunished."
He added, "The implementation of the death penalties is stipulated in the
Palestinian Basic Law, and the fact that these judgments are not endorsed by
the president is a conspiracy aimed to bring chaos to the Gaza Strip."
It seems that Abbas is refusing to approve execution sentences issued in Gaza
because he considers them illegal and issued by courts that are not affiliated
with the Palestinian Judicial Council in Ramallah.
Al-Monitor attended the sit-in staged by the families of the victims, citizens,
human rights organizations, clerics, reform committees and tribesmen in front
of Rashad Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City on May 22. Head of the reform
committees Maher al-Halabi spoke on their organizations' behalf, demanding to
pressure Hamas to promptly implement the death penalties against the murderers
so as to prevent the aggrieved citizens from taking the law into their own
hands.
Journalist Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Al-Ray media agency in Gaza, wrote
on his Facebook page, "Do you support the death sentence for those convicted of
murder, drug trafficking and other crimes?" Currently, 143 Facebook users say
they do.
For his part, Bahjat al-Helo, awareness and training coordinator at the
Independent Commission for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor, "Human rights
organizations reject the execution of the death penalties. Palestine is a party
to the charters on human rights, mainly the Universal Declaration on Human
Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which call
for the abolition of the death penalty."
Helo indicated that safeguards must be strictly abided by when implementing the
death penalty - which is stipulated in the Palestinian law - in accordance with
the provisions of the law. He said, "According to the law, the death penalty is
final and irreversible and gives the accused the right to defend himself or
appoint a defense lawyer and to appeal in court; and therefore the most
important safeguard is that the execution of these penalties must be endorsed
by the Palestinian president, which is not the case in the death penalties
issued in Gaza due to the separation between the government and the judiciary."
The official spokesman for the Palestinian government in Ramallah, Bassem
Youssef Mahmoud, told Al-Monitor that the execution of the death penalties
requires a judicial review of the judgment, which is automatically appealed
without the need for any appeal to be lodged by the defendants so that it
becomes final and cannot be appealed as per Article 408 of the Criminal
Procedures, and the president???s endorsement.
He said, "It is impossible to meet the legal conditions and safeguards for the
issuance and execution of the death penalty judgments in the Gaza Strip for
reasons related to the ongoing internal division. The courts in Gaza are not
subordinated to the Palestinian Supreme Judicial Council, the general
prosecutor's office in Gaza is not subordinated to the Palestinian public
prosecution and police stations, and the correctional facilities in Gaza are
not subordinated to the official police. This is because of the division and
because Hamas formed a new judicial council and public prosecution that the
Ramallah government does not recognize."
(source: al-monitor.com)
ISRAEL:
Hamas seeks to re-introduce death penalty for murder----Will 'street justice'
become the norm in the Gaza Strip?
Amid a surge in violent crime, leaders from the Hamas movement, which controls
the Gaza Strip, have begun advocating implementation of the death penalty for
convicted murderers, even though carrying out capital punishment without the
authorization of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would be
illegal.
At a sermon during prayers at the al-Mughrabi mosque in Gaza City last Friday,
Khalil al-Haya, a member of the movement's political bureau, said Hamas would
take action in response to murder and, in remarks quoted by the Ma???an News
Agency, called for the implementation of 13 death sentences that were handed
down by courts in recent years.
In separate remarks, Hamas legislator Mushir al-Masri described the stipulation
in the Basic Law of the Palestinian Authority that the president must endorse
any death sentence before it is carried out as a ''formality.'' He urged a
return to capital punishment, something Abbas has repeatedly shunned in recent
years. Abbas heads the Fatah movement, Hamas's rival from whom the Islamic
movement seized power in the Strip in 2007.
The calls come against the backdrop of 2 deadly crimes that have shaken the
crowded coastal enclave in recent weeks and what analysts say is an overall
rise in crime in the Strip that they attribute to worsening poverty as an
Israeli blockade continues with no end in sight.
2 weeks ago, a 74 year old woman, Soraya al-Badri, was murdered in her
apartment in Gaza City by a thief who broke in. Gaza police spokesman Ayman
Batniji told The Media Line ''The killer is in the hands of the police and has
admitted to his crime.'' The murder, widely publicized in the media, touched
off a strong reaction in the Strip because of the victim's age and the fact
that she was the mother of Bassam al-Badri, a well-known figure in the Strip
who is the physician in charge of arranging treatment of Gaza medical patients
at hospitals in Israel and the West Bank.
Another deadly crime, this time in the central part of the Gaza Strip, which
took place last month, is perhaps even more serious from Hamas's point of view
because it threatens to touch off warfare between two large Gaza clans, the Abu
Midein family and the Doghmush family, according to analysts.
According to Batniji, the police spokesman, the alleged killer, whom he
identified as Silman Abu Midein ''opened fire with a Kalashnikov'' on victim
Hamed Doghmush, killing him. Batniji said the motive was a land dispute.
Seeking a kind of blood vengeance, the Doghmush family is demanding that Hamas
authorities execute Silman Abu Midein, a stance the authorities have reason to
take seriously, according to Mkhaimar Abusada, who teaches political science at
al-Azhar University in Gaza City.
''Palestinian society in general and Gaza in particular is very tribal and if
someone commits a crime against someone from another family it becomes a tribal
issue, a tribal war so that if Hamas doesn't implement the death penalty on
those who commit murder, Gaza might erupt into tribal violence.'' Abusada said.
''The victim's family feels its honor has been injured and that to restore the
honor the criminal must be executed. If not, victims' families will try to take
the law into their own hands, something that happened during the Second
Intifada [from 2000 to 2005]. Hamas is afraid of this.''
In an apparent allusion to the prospect of clan violence, al-Haya said during
his mosque sermon that Hamas would not allow murder to distort the fabric of
society in Gaza. Doing so, he said, would amount to playing into the hands of
Israel which, he charged, wants to see the Strip in turmoil. ''The occupation
is always busy in breaking the harmony of our social system,'' he said. Al-Haya
called on decision-makers ''not to remain silent for a long time about
implementing sentences that Abbas doesn't approve because he fears the reaction
of the European Union.''
According to Ma'an, al-Masri, the Hamas legislator, said that carrying out the
sentences would be the safest choice to safeguard the security of Gazan
society.
Hamas has not implemented any death sentences for murder in Gaza since 2014,
when it reached agreement on a national consensus government with Fatah and it
stopped having a separate cabinet and prime minister for the coastal enclave.
During the 50-day Gaza war that year, Hamas summarily executed 23 people,
describing many of the killings as retribution for alleged collaboration with
Israel. According to Amnesty International, the vast majority of those killed
were either still on trial, were in the middle of serving prison sentences, or
were awaiting trials or appeals. Al-Haya said that in the thirteen cases of
death sentences waiting to be implemented, all the legal procedures had been
completed.
But the Independent Commission for Human Rights, the Ramallah-based human
rights monitoring organization for the Palestinian Authority, is voicing deep
concern over Hamas talk of a return to capital punishment. ''According to
Palestinian Basic Law, no death sentences can be implemented without the
approval of the president so if they go ahead with this, then it is
extrajudicial killing from our point of view,'' Ammar Dweik, ICHR's
director-general told The Media Line. Dweik said that some of those who
received death sentences were tried before military courts despite being
civilians. ''These military courts do not provide the minimum standards for
fair trial,'' he said.
Samir Zakout, assistant director of al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza
City, said his organization was in contact with leaders in the Strip urging
them not to implement the death sentences. He noted that despite the
expressions of support by politicians such as al-Haya, no official decision has
been taken. ''We are against it. There's no logic in violating the right to
life and when you implement the death penalty it doesn't stop the crime,'' he
said. ''The street wants the death penalty, people who had relatives killed
want it. But we are against this kind of street justice.''
(source: The Jewish Journal)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 13:15:51 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 13:15:51 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251315440.4780@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
TEXAS----new execution date
Convicted killer in 1996 Kerrville slaying set to die
A convicted killer on death row for a January 1996 fatal robbery in the Texas
Hill Country is set to die later this summer.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said Monday the
agency has received court documents setting 42-year-old Jeffrey Wood for lethal
injection Aug. 24.
Wood's 2008 execution was stopped by a federal judge for testing to determine
if Wood was mentally competent for capital punishment. Testing showed he was
competent and other courts now have upheld those findings.
Wood was convicted under the Texas law of parties, which makes the participant
in a capital murder equally culpable of the crime. Evidence showed his
roommate, Daniel Reneau, fatally shot 31-year-old Kerrville store clerk Kriss
Keeran. Both men then robbed the store.
Reneau was executed in 2002.
(source: click2houston.com)
********************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
20---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------538
21---------June 21------------------Robert Roberson-------539
22---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------540
23---------August 10----------------Ramiro Gonzales-------541
24---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------542
25---------August 24----------------Jeffrey Wood----------543
26---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------544
27---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------545
28---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------546
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 14:26:58 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 14:26:58 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., OHIO, NEB.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251426500.7196@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
PENNSYLVANIA:
Jury To Mull Death Penalty Arguments In Sisters' Slayings
A jury must determine whether a Pittsburgh man deserves the death penalty or
life in prison for killing his next-door neighbors, 2 sisters of an Iowa state
lawmaker, while stealing a bank card from them in February 2014.
The same jury convicted 45-year-old Allen Wade of 1st-degree murder and other
charges in the deaths of Sarah and Susan Wolfe. The jury will hear closing
arguments in the penalty phase of Wades murder trial Wednesday. The jury must
then unanimously vote for the death penalty, otherwise Wade gets life in
prison.
The women were sisters of Democratic Iowa state Rep. Mary Wolfe when Wade shot
them, separately, as they returned from work that night. Allegheny County
prosecutors say he used the card to withdraw $600 he needed for rent.
(source: cbsnews.com)
OHIO:
Mom rejects plea deal, still faces death penalty in death of daughter----Andrea
Bradley, Glen Bates accused of killing toddler
A mother charged with the murder of her 2-year-old daughter will take her
chances with a jury, she told the court during a Wednesday hearing.
The parents of a 2-year-old girl are facing murder charges in her death and
could face the death penalty if convicted.
Andrea Bradley, 29, of Cincinnati, declined a plea deal which would have taken
the death penalty off the table.
The accusations against Bradley and her boyfriend Glen Bates, 33, of
Cincinnati, are disturbing - that's why the prosecutor is asking for the death
penalty.
Bradley and Bates are charged with the death of 2-year-old Glenara Bates.
The girl was taken to Children's Hospital in March 2015, where she died a short
time later.
Prosecutors described disturbing injuries - including bite marks, belt marks
and broken teeth.
She weighed just 13 pounds when she died. The coroner said starvation and blunt
force trauma were the cause of death.
As Bradley came into court before Judge Robert Ruehlman Wednesday morning, it
was still unclear if the deal would go through.
Her defense attorneys explained that they had a potential agreement in place
that would have taken the death penalty off the table, but Bradley turned it
down. Her attorney Will Welsh went on the record today to make it clear she
knows the stakes of going to trial.
"By continuing on this path she is exposed to the possibility of receiving a
death sentence and she fully acknowledges that, understands, and wishes to
proceed," Welsh said.
Rather than admit to killing her daughter, she will head to trial.
Another member of her defense team, Scott Rubenstein, described the plea offer
as "the holy grail" in a death penalty case - avoiding death row.
"That was on the table and we'd be in a position to argue for a possibility
that she would be paroled at some point, but she's not comfortable with that
and we have to respect what our client wants to do," Rubenstein said.
Her attorneys could not discuss why she turned down the deal.
Bradley's father was at the courthouse on Wednesday. He didn't want to talk on
camera, but he said his daughter has mental health problems and he was happy
she did not accept the plea.
But talk of a deal may not be done yet.
"Obviously, if there is a way to resolve it short of that and avoid the death
penalty that's something that we'll certainly consider and I hope our client
will too," Rubenstein said.
Bradley will be back in court on this case next month. This could go to trial
later this year.
Bates is scheduled for trial in September, where he could also face the death
penalty.
(source: WLWT news)
NEBRASKA:
Attorneys battle over whether death penalty should end up on November ballot
A legal battle over whether the death penalty question will be put to Nebraska
voters in November reached the state's highest court Wednesday.
Death penalty opponents Christy and Richard Hargesheimer of Lincoln contend the
petition drive that gathered some 169,000 signatures should be deemed invalid
because it failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor to those signing.
But the state and a pro-death penalty group both contend that even though
Ricketts and his father contributed one-third of the $913,000 raised by
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the governor was not a sponsor.
Last year, the Hargesheimers sought an injunction to keep Secretary of State
John Gale from placing the question on the ballot. Lancaster County District
Judge Lori Maret dismissed it in February, and the couple appealed to the
Nebraska Supreme Court.
In oral arguments Wednesday, an attorney for the couple got 15 minutes then
attorneys for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and the state got a shared 15
minutes to state their position and answer questions from the Supreme Court
justices.
Nebraska law requires a sworn list of sponsors of a referendum be provided but
does not define how one qualifies as a sponsor, and many of the justices'
questions went to that issue.
Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the Hargesheimers, said a
reasonable approach would be to define sponsor as the primary initiating force.
Further, he said, it seems like "the public has to be informed who is behind
the initiative."
But Assistant Attorney General Ryan Post said that proposed standard is
"unworkable and would chill the democratic process."
He and Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents the pro-death penalty group,
contended that sponsors are those who assume statutory responsibility for a
referendum once a petition process begins.
Grasz said the other side was "grasping at straws" in raising one additional
issue: Alleging it was an error for Judge Maret to consider a sworn statement
of petition sponsors in her decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
He said Peterson hadn't raised the question until a reply brief to the Supreme
Court, so couldn't raise it now.
"It was a question of law and it was decided on the face of the complaint,"
Grasz argued.
At most, Grasz said, it was harmless error, and therefore not worth a reversal.
On the other side, Peterson said he raised the issue in his reply brief in
response to a misstatement of facts. He argued a statement regarding sponsors
was not sworn because those who signed it were not under oath and that the
judge was wrong to rely on it in reaching her decision.
"There is a difference and it is critical," he said.
The Supreme Court took the case under advisement.
(source: Lincoln Journal Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed May 25 14:27:56 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Wed, 25 May 2016 14:27:56 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605251427470.7196@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 25
INDONESIA:
Child Rapists Face Death Sentence Now As President Approves New Law
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has approved a law prescribing the death
penalty as the maximum sentence for child rapists, after several brutal gang
rapes sparked public outrage in the country.
Sexual violence is prevalent in Southeast Asia's most populous country, but
gang rape is unusual.
Social media erupted in calls for harsher punishment following a case early
this month, in which a group of men was charged with raping and killing a
schoolgirl in Bengkulu in the western island of Sumatra. The case prompted
rights groups to accuse the government of not doing enough to protect women and
children, and provoked a tweet by Widodo himself seeking punishment of the
perpetrators, although his call came more than a month after the event.
Today however, Widodo said those responsible for sexual abuse of children, as
well as repeat sex offenders, could also face chemical castration and be tagged
with an electronic chip to track their movements, citing the law he signed.
"Sexual violence against children is an extraordinary crime," Widodo told a
news conference at the presidential palace. This regulation is meant to
overcome (such) incidents, in which we have seen a significant rise."
(source: wetinhappen.com.ng)
*****************
Indonesian president introduces death penalty for child rapists
President Joko Widodo on Wednesday (May 25) signed a government regulation in
lieu of the law approving the death penalty as a maximum sentence for sexual
crimes against children.
According to the regulation, offenders could face chemical castration and be
monitored with an electronic chip tracking their movements. Other forms of
punishment included in the bill extend to life imprisonment, as well as a
minimum of 10 to 20 years in jail.
"Sexual violence against children is an extraordinary crime," the President
said at a news conference at the presidential palace, adding that he hoped the
regulation would keep perpetrators in check and discourage sexual crimes.
The harsher stance for child rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence
against children comes after activists and masses called for reform, in the
wake of the brutal gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old-school girl in
Bengkulu on the western island of Sumatra in April.
The incident erupted on social media after activists spoke out, sparking public
outrage and prompting protests in the capital.
The National Commission on Violence against Women reportedly gets 35 cases of
sexual violence towards women every day. Indonesia meanwhile sentences rapists
to a maximum of 14 years in prison.
(source: channelnewsasia.com)
IRAN----executions
17 Prisoners Executed in Alborz Province
According to Iran Human Rights (IHR) sources 17 prisoners have been executed in
2 different prisons of Karaj (west of Tehran) on 24 and 25 May.
IHR had previously reported about the scheduled execution of 2 groups of
prisoners in Karaj. 6 prisoners were transferred on Sunday (May 22) from the
Karaj Central Prison and at leats 8 were transferred from Rajaishahr on Tuesday
(May 24) in preparation of execution.
According to close sources the 6 prisoners from the Central Prison were hanged
in Gehzelhesar prison of Karaj yesterday morning May 24. All the prisoners were
charged with drug offences.
Sources have also reported about the execution of 11 prisoners in the
Rajaishahr prison of Karaj early this morning. 10 of the prisoners were charged
with murder and 1 was sentenced to death charged with rape. 1 of the prisoners
identified as "Mehdi Rajaei" was reportedly under 18 years of age at the time
of alleged offence.
IHR is currently investigating to find more details regarding whether Mehdi
Rajai was a minor offender.
IHR strongly condemns the new wave of executions in the Iranian prisons. Near
60 people have been executed in different Iranian prisons since the beginning
of May. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of IHR said: "Despite the
alarming rate of executions the international community has not shown any
reaction yet. We urge the UN, EU and all countries with diplomatic relations
with Iran to condemn these executions and call for an immediate moratorium for
the death penalty in Iran".
(source: Iran Human Rights)
OMAN:
State Council deliberates on draft law of new Omani Penal Code
Oman's penal code, covering rulings for the most serious crimes, could see
changes since it was first adopted in 1974.
The State Council has been holding marathon sessions to make amendments to the
law. Of the code's 398 articles, Council members discussed 172 on Tuesday at a
meeting that lasted from mid-morning to early evening.
The discussions will continue on Wednesday to prepare the code before it is
sent to His Majesty the Sultan.
Among the major proposals is setting a limit on the number of years in life
sentences. During its earlier review of the code, the Majlis A'Shura,
recommended setting it at 25 years. At Tuesday's meeting however, State Council
members disagreed with the proposal and argued to keep life sentences
indefinite. They did agree, however, that a convict could be released early
subject to good behaviour.
Another key change could be to allow pardons in crimes like murder that warrant
the death penalty. If the family of the victim agrees to a pardon, the death
sentence could be commuted to life term, a State Council member told the media.
Members also discussed electronic publishing, child protection and the method
of classifying government companies as government property, among others.
Amendments to the penal code originated with the Council of Ministers before
heading to the Majlis A'Shura for recommendations and to the State Council.
Several other measures too are up for debate.
These include changing the method of execution from hanging to firing squad and
adding a new section on combating piracy and assault on shipping vessels.
The new law also addresses the situation of crimes committed by expatriates.
According to one clause, expatriates who commit a crime abroad may be held
accountable for that in the sultanate.
(source: muscatdaily.com)
SUDAN:
Sudanese pastor may face death penalty after five month illegal detention
Fears were raised a Sudanese pastor could face the death penalty after the
government reportedly planned to charge him with crimes against the state.
Sudanese officials have engaged in a crackdown on Christians, according to ICC.
Pastor Taour was arrested on December 21 and has not been allowed to speak to
his family or lawyers until this week. His attorney insisted there was no case
against him but may face charges that carry the death penalty.
"We believe there is no case," Attorney Mohaned Mustafa told International
Christian Concern (ICC). "I think the case will be sent to the court this
month."
It was announced on May 10 that the Sudanese Attorney General would take over
Taour's custody, a sign that he would soon be charged. Although Sudanese law
dictates charges must be bought within 45 days of arrest, Taour had been held
for more than five months before he was charged.
It is believed the pastor now suffers a stomach ulcer due to his treatment and
was only recently allowed to see his family for the first time.
ICC's regional manager for Africa, Troy Augustine, said the Sudanese
government's treatment of Taour followed an "unsurprising pattern that has
continued for decades". He said the north African state had shown itself to be
an "enemy of religious freedom and one of the prime persecutor's of the church
in Africa".
Augustine said: "As Sudan continues to harass and unfairly detain church
leaders, the state proves itselfto stand for human rights and religious freedom
under the law, but hypocritical and contradictory in practice."
However Augustine said there was still hope for Taour as "Sudan often responds
to international pressure.
"ICC calls on everyone concerned to voice your protest with the Sudanese
Embassy."
(source: christiantoday.com)
PHILIPPINES:
DOH's Garin favors reimposition of death penalty 'for some cases'
Health Secretary Janette Garin on Wednesday said she is in favor of the
reimposition of the death penalty, but only "for some cases."
"I am very much supportive na ibalik yung death penalty for some cases because
when I was in Congress, we were not comfortable with taking that away," Garin,
a former Iloilo representative, said at a forum. In 2012, during her term as
lawmaker, Garin threw her support behind House Bill Nos. 4084 and 3993, which
sought the reimposition of the death penalty on capital crimes.
However, she said bringing back capital punishment, which was abolished in
2006, should be accompanied with cleansing of the justice system so that only
the truly guilty would be executed. Pushers Among the criminals Garin wants to
be given the death penalty are drug pushers who use minors in their illegal
trade. She said she heard reports of this during the ill-fated music concert in
Pasay City over the weekend where 5 people died. "It's actually double
jeopardy, we thought we were trying to protect our children. Eto, situation is
very clear, the children are being used and abused," Garin said.
"Effects Police said 2 of the 5 fatalities in Sunday's concert died due to
massive heart attack, which Garin said was a possible outcome of consuming the
drugs distributed at the concert grounds.
"Masyado siyang upper, bibilis yung tibok ng iyong puso made-dehydrate ka, yung
iba, yung BP niya magsho-shoot up. Yung iba nagha-hallucinate, they perspire,
they become extremely dehydrated, mag re-renal failure 'yan, iba maghe-heart
attack," she explained. Garin said the suppliers had no rights to take away
"the future of our country" by supplying the dangerous drugs to teenagers and
young professionals who merely wanted to have a good time.
(source: gmanetwork.com)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 26 08:43:16 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 08:43:16 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., VA., GA., FLA.,
NEB., CALIF., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605260843090.8788@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 26
TEXAS:
Stop the execution of Jeff Wood in TX!
Please sign and share this petition for Jeff Wood. TX has set his execution for
August 24th - despite the fact that he killed no one. Jeff's sister sits on the
CEDP's board and is a fierce advocate against the death penalty.
https://www.change.org/p/governor-abbott-and-the-texas-board-of-pardons-and-parole-demand-justice-for-jeff-wood-5807b015-014a-4a21-8c6ee34be865c27c
Jeff was sentenced under the Law of Parties - which allows the death penalty
for those who aid in felony murder. Even if a person did not harm anyone, they
can still get the death penalty if they were involved in a crime where someone
else killed a person, because they should have "anticipated that a human life
would be taken."
For more information:http://savejeffwood.com
https://www.facebook.com/LawofParties/?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/AustinCEDP/?fref=ts
(source: CEDP)
CONNECTICUT:
State Supreme Court Ruling On Abolishment Of Death Penalty Expected Thursday
The Connecticut Supreme Court is expected to release its ruling Thursday on
whether to uphold or overturn its decision last year to abolish the state's
death penalty, including for inmates on death row.
The justices ruled 4-3 last August that the death penalty was unconstitutional
for all - including 11 convicts on Connecticut's death row - following the
legislature's abolition 3 years ago of capital punishment in Connecticut.
Lawmakers made the law prospective, meaning it applied only to new cases and
kept in place the death sentences already imposed on those facing execution
before the bill was passed.
Attorneys for those on death row challenged the law, saying it violated the
condemned inmates' constitutional rights. The ruling last August came in the
case of Eduardo Santiago, who had faced the death penalty for the December 2000
killing of Joseph Niwinski in West Hartford. Santiago has been resentenced to
life in prison without the possibility of release.
In the August ruling, the justices in the majority wrote that executing an
inmate "would violate the state constitutional prohibition against cruel and
unusual punishment" and that the death penalty "no longer comports with
contemporary standards of decency."
In October, the high court denied a request by the chief state's attorney to
postpone the Santiago decision, a ruling that followed its denial of a request
by prosecutors to re-argue Santiago.
Prosecutors then filed briefs arguing for the Santiago decision to be overruled
in the pending appeal of Russell Peeler, who was sentenced to death for
ordering the 1999 killings in Bridgeport of 8-year-old Leroy "B.J." Brown Jr.
and his mother, Karen Clarke. The justices heard arguments on those briefs in
January.
Prosecutors said in deciding the Santiago case, the court "did not confine its
analysis" to the actual claim raised -- whether enacting the 2012 law
invalidated the death sentences of those sentenced before the law went into
effect. The court made its ruling, prosecutors said, "for reasons having little
or nothing to do with" enactment of the 2012 law and "erred in its ruling on
lines of analysis and authorities the parties had not discussed."
Prosecutors also argued that the justices relied on "flawed historical
analysis" to justify their "departure from well-established principles of law"
and incorrectly determined that state residents prior to the 1818 constitution
gave the high court the authority to act independently to invalidate a penalty.
Prosecutors said the justices' "new insights" into Connecticut history came
from Lawrence B. Goodheart's book "The Solemn Sentence of Death: Capital
Punishment in Connecticut," which actually says, according to prosecutors, that
the legislature, not the court, "has been the historical source for both
limiting capital punishment and providing relief to those sentenced to death."
Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who joined with Justice Carmen E. Espinosa and
Justice Peter T. Zarella in the August dissents, wrote then that "every step"
of the majority's opinion was "fundamentally flawed." During the arguments last
January, both the majority and minority raised concerns about the idea of a
reversal following the retirement of Justice Flemming Norcott Jr., who had
joined with justices Richard N. Palmer, Dennis G. Eveleigh and Andrew J.
McDonald to ban capital punishment. Norcott was replaced by Justice Richard A.
Robinson.
"Why shouldn't the court be concerned that every time there's a hotly contested
4-3 decision ... that this isn't just going to become a numbers game, that the
parties will then wait until somebody retires or leaves the court and raise the
issue again?" Rogers said. "It just seems like a very slippery slope."
"At a minimum," Palmer said, "it looks awfully odd to have a case of this
magnitude decided differently within months simply because the panel changes.
That's really what would be happening here."
But Senior Assistant State's Attorney Harry Weller countered that citizens'
confidence in the judicial system is harmed if a wrong decision stays in place
and that it is the court's job to fix it.
"This court's ultimate responsibility is to uphold the Constitution and to get
the law right," he said.
Public defenders for Peeler made several arguments against overruling the
Santiago decision in court briefs, pointing foremost to the legal doctrine of
"stare decisis" -- letting decided issues stand. Senior Assistant Public
Defender Mark Rademacher told the justices that the state faced an "uphill
battle" in getting the ruling reversed.
"What the state is asking this court to do ... is simply breathtaking,"
Rademacher said at the January hearing. "It is asking this court to overrule a
long line of cases that have affirmed the court's authority as a constitutional
matter to protect the citizens of this state against cruel and unusual
punishment."
(source: Hartford Courant)
VIRGINIA:
Death penalty weighed in Easter double homicide in Henrico
A Henrico man could face the death penalty in the double slaying of his parents
on Easter Sunday.
William Roy Brissette, 22, is charged with 2 counts each of capital murder and
use of a firearm in the deaths of his parents, Henry J. Brissette III, 59, and
Martha B. Brissette, 56. He appeared in Henrico Circuit Court on Wednesday for
a hearing.
His face was emotionless when he entered the courtroom. After he was released
from handcuffs, William Brissette hugged himself as if he were cold and broke
into visible tremors throughout the hearing.
His fiery red hair, which he inherited from both parents, was buzzed close to
his scalp, and he wore a thin beard. The back of his neck was covered in red
blemishes.
When Judge James Stephen Yoffy asked Brissette if he understood he faced the
possibility of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted on the capital
murder charges, he spoke so softly it was difficult to hear.
Several family members attended the hearing, including Martha Brissette's
brother and Henry Brissette's sister; the couple's daughter was not in court.
They sat on the far side of the courtroom gallery opposite from William
Brissette, who kept his eyes forward.
Capital murder is a 1st-degree murder under a specific set of circumstances -
in this case, the killing of more than 1 person and the killing of more than 1
person within 3 years. It is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
Whether Brissette faces the death penalty is left up to Henrico Commonwealth's
Attorney Shannon Taylor. After the hearing, Taylor said the death penalty
hasn't been "taken off the table."
Taylor said there are multiple psychological and mental health issues, which
may prove to be "an aggravating factor or a mitigating factor."
Police responded to mental health calls at the Brissette home in the 3800 block
of Forge Road, where Brissette lived with his parents, on 2 occasions within 5
months of the deaths of Martha and Henry Brissette. William Brissette was
arrested at the home on March 27 shortly after a 911 call was made.
The court appointed Doug Ramseur, a capital defender, to help in Brissette's
defense, which is led by veteran attorney Jeffrey Everhart. Ramseur said nearly
all capital cases involve a mental health component, and that Brissette would
be evaluated before a trial.
Ramseur told the judge it could take up to 2 years to prepare the case for
trial.
Another hearing was set for June 2 to set a trial date.
(source: Richmond Times-Dispaptch)
GEORGIA:
Suspected priest killer to face death penalty trial
The man accused of killing a Florida priest in Burke County has been indicted
and District Attorney Ashley Wright filed notice this week that she intends to
seek the death penalty.
The Burke County grand jury on May 19 indicted Steven James Murray, 28, on
charges of murder and weapon violations in the April 18 fatal shooting of the
Rev. Rene Robert of St. Augustine, Fla.
Investigators believe Murray tricked Robert, who was trying to counsel the
former Aiken resident, into going to Aiken to visit Murray's children on April
10. When Murray was denied access to the children, Murray forced Robert into
the trunk of Robert's Toyota and proceeded to commit a number of burglaries and
an arson in Aiken, according to earlier reports.
Murray told investigators that he pulled off the side of the road at one point,
took Robert from the trunk and shot him there. The following week, Murray
agreed to show law enforcement where he killed Robert, which was off River Road
in Burke County.
According to the notice of the intention to seek the death penalty, Wright
listed 4 statutory aggravating circumstances: the slaying was committed while
Murray was committing kidnapping with bodily injury, Murray killed the priest
while engaged in aggravated battery, that Murray killed Robert for money or
something of value, and Robert's slaying was outrageously or wantonly vile,
horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, or
aggravated battery on the victim.
Murray has been previously represented by the public defender office for the
Augusta Judicial Circuit. Since his case is now a death penalty case, it will
be assigned to the Atlanta-based Capital Defender office.
(source: Augusta Chronicle)
**************
District Attorney to seek death penalty against man accused of kidnapping,
killing St. Aug priest
Steven James Murray is accused in the death of Father Rene Robert of St.
Augustine back in April could face the death penalty.
Murray was indicted by a Grand Jury in Burke County, Ga. last Thursday and on
Wednesday of this week, the District Attorney filed a letter of intent to seek
the death penalty against Murray.
Murray faces 1 count of murder in Father Rene's death, 1 count of aggravated
battery, 1 count of felony false imrpisonment 1 count of possession of a
firearm while committing a crime and one count of possession of a firearm by a
convicted felon, according to court documents
(source: firstcoastnews.com)
FLORIDA:
State appeals in case overturning death penalty law
The state has filed an appeal in a Miami-Dade County case in which a circuit
judge struck down a law that allows death sentences to be imposed without
unanimous jury decisions.
The appeal, which had been expected, was filed last week in the 3rd District
Court of Appeal, according to an online docket.
Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch ruled May 9 that unanimous jury decisions are
required in imposing death sentences, rather than recommendations from
majorities or super-majorities of juries.
The issue deals with the sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after
defendants are found guilty.
Hirsch's ruling came after a series of events that started in January when the
U.S. Supreme Court found that Florida's death-penalty sentencing system was
unconstitutional because it gave too much power to judges, instead of juries.
State lawmakers then passed a measure to revamp the sentencing process to try
to address the Supreme Court's ruling.
As part of that new law, judges cannot impose the death penalty without
receiving a recommendation from at least 10 jurors.
In the past, a majority of jurors could make such a recommendation.
Hirsch wrote that unanimity is required, as he ruled in a 1st-degree murder
case involving defendant Karon Gaiter.
*****************************
Local mother voicing her concerns
The fight over Florida's death penalty procedures will stretch into the summer.
The state supreme court is expected to hear arguments on one of the biggest
issues in the debate. One local mother will continue her push to see the death
penalty thrown out in the murder trial of her daughter's accused killer.
On Thursday night, Darlene Farah will talk about the death penalty and the
trauma inflicted on victims of crime. The event is called "Not in My Name". Her
daughter Shelby would have turned 23-years-old today.
Police say she was shot and killed by James Rhodes during a robbery at the
Brentwood cell phone store where Farah was working at in 2013.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Farah's mother wants Rhodes to spend
the rest of his life behind bars. It's all part of the debate causing a lot of
confusion in Florida courtrooms.
On what would have been Shelby Farah's 23rd birthday, her mother Darlene,
prepares for another chance to be her voice.
Farah is speaking about something very personal, something she believes to be
right- a chance to make a difference.
"It's going to be non-stop. It's to bring awareness to the death penalty," said
Farah.
Awareness and compassion- for Farah, every time she sees the man charged in
Shelby's murder, she feels victimized all over again. She says the trauma of
not being able to move forward is real. She's not alone. "The victim's families
are reaching out to me to let their story be heard. They've been pushed away,"
said Farah.
With Florida's death penalty now in the legal forefront, the process is drawn
out more.
Back in January, the United States Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty
sentencing process unconstitutional. Florida lawmakers rushed to make changes
after that, the current law says 10 of 12 jurors must recommend death.
Since then, a circuit judge in Miami-Dade struck that down, saying the
recommendations need to be unanimous. Lawmakers are expected to discuss that in
June.
The process is still ongoing. But for Farah, this is about something much
bigger than legalities. She also wants to see changes in the system. That
starts with juveniles who've been in trouble.
"12-year-olds, 15-year-olds, that are being tried as adults and they get 25, 30
years and we all know what's going to happen. I mean they're going to end right
back in the system," said Farah. "It's basically, to break the silence. They
are their loved one's voice and they need to be heard."
"Not in my Name" starts at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Mount Sinai Baptist Church and
will last about 2 hours. A lot of people are speaking- including 2 men who were
on death row but have since been exonerated. We'll also hear from someone
specializing in behavioral health to talk about trauma this puts on families.
(source for both: news4jax.com)
NEBRASKA:
Death penalty battle reaches high court
A legal battle over whether the death penalty question will be put to Nebraska
voters in November reached the state's highest court Wednesday.
Death penalty opponents Christy and Richard Hargesheimer of Lincoln contend the
petition drive that gathered some 169,000 signatures should be deemed invalid
because those behind it had failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor.
But the state and a pro-death penalty group both contend that even though
Ricketts and his father contributed one-third of the $913,000 raised by
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and his close allies took roles to promote it,
it didn't make the governor a sponsor.
Last year, the Hargesheimers sought an injunction to keep Secretary of State
John Gale from placing the question on the ballot. In February, Lancaster
County District Judge Lori Maret dismissed it, and the couple appealed to the
Nebraska Supreme Court.
In oral arguments Wednesday, an attorney for the couple got 15 minutes to make
his case for why Maret's decision should be reversed and to answer questions
from the Supreme Court justices before attorneys for Nebraskans for the Death
Penalty and the state got a shared 15 minutes to argue why the decision should
stand.
Nebraska law requires proponents to file a sworn list of every sponsoring
person, company or association of a referendum prior to gathering signatures
but it does not define how one qualifies as a sponsor, and many of the
justices' questions went to that issue.
Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the Hargesheimers, made 2
arguments. One, that Ricketts was a sponsor; and two, that the statement wasn't
sworn.
Asked how he would define sponsor, Peterson said a reasonable approach would be
to define it as the primary initiating force.
He said to meet the requirements set out in the 2003 decision in Loontjer v.
Robinson, "it seemed to us ... the public has to be informed who is behind the
initiative or referendum."
"Who is the initiator, the instigator?"
But Assistant Attorney General Ryan Post argued that Peterson's proposed
standard is "unworkable and would chill involvement in the democratic process."
He and Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents the pro-death penalty group,
said sponsors are those who assume statutory responsibility for a referendum
once a petition process begins.
"It's a question of law. It's not a moving target," Grasz said.
He said the other side was "grasping at straws" in raising one additional
issue: Alleging it was an error for Judge Maret to consider a sworn statement
of petition sponsors in her decision to dismiss the lawsuit.
He said Peterson hadn't raised the issue of whether the document was sworn
until a reply brief to the Supreme Court, so he couldn't raise it now.
"It's very clear that the decision in this case really had nothing to do with
whether she took judicial notice of the document or not. It's a question of law
and it was decided on the face of the complaint," Grasz said.
At most, he argued, it was harmless error, and therefore not worth a reversal.
Peterson said he raised the issue in response to a misstatement of facts. He
argued the statement listing sponsors was not sworn because those who signed it
were not under oath and that the judge was wrong to rely on it in reaching her
decision.
"There is a difference," Peterson said, "and it is critical."
The Supreme Court took the case under advisement.
Last week, Maret heard arguments in a 2nd suit involving the same petition. In
that case, Beatrice attorney Lyle Koenig is challenging the title and
explanatory statement, drafted by Attorney General Doug Peterson, that would
appear on the ballot if it does go before voters.
She hasn't yet ruled on that case.
(source: Lincoln Journal Star)
CALIFORNIA:
In shock move, convicted Berkeley murderer says he'll take the stand
Darnell Williams Jr. has been found guilty of 2 murders and faces either the
death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Today, as it
was winding up, his trial took a new, surprising turn. Williams who has
extensive and longstanding impulse-control problems suddenly said he wanted to
testify - against the advice of his attorneys.
His attorneys said it wasn't the 1st time they had discussed the subject, but
were not expecting the announcement Wednesday, just as they were about to rest
their case in the "penalty phase" of the trial.
At the end of testimony, the Alameda County jury that found Williams guilty
earlier this month of 2 murders will make a sentencing recommendation to Judge
Jeffrey Horner: either the death penalty or life in prison without the
possibility of parole.
The 2-person defense team had just completed questioning the woman they said
would be their final witness - forensic psychologist Gretchen White - when the
attorneys and judge said they needed to have a brief discussion out of the
presence of the jury.
(source: berkeleyside.com)
USA:
Why We Must Stand Against The Death Penalty, Even In The Case Of Racist
Murderer Dylann Roof
Note: the following is adapted from a 2013 essay the author co-wrote with
former ThinkProgress reporter Zack Beauchamp, "The Case Against The Death
Penalty For Dzhokhar Tsarnaev."
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Tuesday that federal prosecutors
will seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof. And, indeed, if anyone
deserves such a consequence for his actions, it is this particular individual.
Roof allegedly joined a Bible study group at an historic black church in
Charleston, South Carolina, waited for the parishioners to close their eyes in
prayer, and then opened fire upon them. 9 people died, including the church's
senior pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney. Roof later confessed to the
killings. He told friends that he wanted to start a "race war."
So Dylann Roof presents one of the strongest possible cases for the death
penalty. He stands accused of a racist act of terror, and there is little doubt
about his guilt. And yet, even in this case, the argument for pursuing a death
sentence against Roof does not hold up.
We are a nation of laws, and our most fundamental law says we cannot create a
brutal, rarely applied punishment targeting just a handful of crimes.
The best argument for the death penalty is that it deters people from
committing homicides in the first place, an argument that suggests we should
execute far more people than just Dylann Roof. If you think the death penalty
is about deterrence, then more executions means less crime. By killing the
guilty, we can potentially save innocent lives.
The deterrence argument, however, is doubtful at best. According to Dartmouth
University statistician John Lamperti, "an overwhelming majority among
America's leading criminologists [have concluded that] that capital punishment
does not contribute to lower rates of homicide." While some studies do claim a
deterrent effect, these studies are based on tiny data samples that yield
doubtful results. As Yale Law Professor John Donohue explains, death sentences
are "applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have
caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year
changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors." Murder rates in states
without the death penalty are consistently lower than those in states that do
sentence people to die.
Meanwhile, few institutions expose the hazards inherent in government-mandated
punishment more nakedly than the death penalty. Capital cases are difficult and
incredibly expensive for prosecutors. As a consequence, the wealthy and
privileged, who have the resources to hire outstanding legal counsel, are very
rarely executed. The people that are convicted, by contrast, tend to be poor
and disproportionately non-white. Nor is such arbitrariness limited to the way
we distinguish among defendants, as the way we dole out death sentences also
gives the lie to any claim that America values all human life equally.
According to one study, defendants who kill high-status white people with
college degrees are 6 times more likely to be sentenced to die than defendants
who kill black victims closer to the margins of society.
Indeed, there is simply no escaping the role that race plays in determining
death sentences. To take 1 demonstrative statistic from an ocean of them, 6 %
of murders in Alabama involved black defendants and white victims, but 10 times
that percentage of black death row inmates were convicted of murdering whites.
The death penalty also kills innocent people. Roughly 139 death row inmates
have been exonerated since 1973, 61 % of whom were people of color. At least 10
innocent people that we know of have been executed - and these are only the
ones that we know of.
These 3 realities - the impact of wealth, the disparate treatment based on
race, and the risk of killing innocents - are themselves reasons why the death
penalty should not exist. But are they arguments against applying it, so long
as it does exist, in the most heinous of cases?
Roof isn't just a white man, he is a white man who admits to committing a
brutal hate crime. Unlike many capital defendants, Roof has outstanding counsel
- 1 of his attorneys defended Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as well
as 80 other individuals accused of homicide. And there is very little doubt
that Mr. Roof is guilty.
The Charleston massacre is as horrible a crime as one can imagine, so Roof???s
case raises the difficult question of whether America can limit executions to
only the most heinous crimes - at least under circumstances where the
defendant's guilt isn't in question and there's no evidence that his trial will
be conducted unfairly in any fashion. Can we limit death sentences only to
people as evil as Roof appears to be?
The simplest answer to this question is that we are a nation of laws, and our
most fundamental law says we cannot create a brutal, rarely applied punishment
targeting just a handful of crimes. The Constitution forbids "cruel and unusual
punishments. So as a punishment becomes more "unusual" - or, in the Supreme
Court's words, as it no longer can be squared with "evolving standards of
decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" - it stands on
increasingly weaker constitutional ground.
Indeed, it is likely that the death penalty is already unconstitutional under
this rule. The number of death sentences has been on the decline in the United
States, but not principally because of legal reforms limiting the death penalty
to a small number of cases: it's a combination of full legal abolition in some
jurisdictions and the spread of anti-death penalty norms among citizens and
prosecutors in others. 60 % of U.S. counties have stopped seeking the death
penalty entirely as a punishment for any crime.
One study of death sentences and executions from 2004-2009 discovered that just
10 % of counties returned a single death sentence, and only 1 % of counties
produced more than 1 death sentence. Just 4 states made up 65 % of national new
death penalty convictions. In 2011, there were an estimated 14,612 murders in
the United States, but only 43 executions. In 2015, only 6 states performed
executions, killing a total of 28 individuals. That's down over 70 % from 1999,
when annual executions peaked at 98.
These data strongly suggests that executions no longer comport with our
"evolving standards of decency." We are increasingly uncomfortable with death
sentences, and unwilling to execute people.
But beyond the cold language of the law, there is a deeply personal reason why
we should not preserve the death penalty simply for the most heinous criminals
like Roof. If you think the death penalty is a just response to murder or
important to provide victims' families with closure, then trying to limit it to
a small number of multiple murders makes no sense. Why does taking one life not
merit death, while taking 2, 3, or any other arbitrary number does? Why is the
pain of one victim's family any less important to address than the pain of
families whose loved one was part of a multiple murder?
There are many families that deserve the satisfaction of knowing their loved
one's murderer received society's stiffest sanction for their crime, and it's
far from clear that the death penalty fills that need better than life without
parole - indeed, it may even prolong a families' grief. Yet the moment we say 1
victim, or set of victims, must be avenged by death, we lose the ability to
consistently limit the death penalty's application to rare cases - and the
uncertainty and arbitrariness that plagues capital sentencing generally comes
flooding back. When life without parole is the harshest penalty our courts dole
out, such a sentence will stamp everyone who receives it as among the very
worst criminals without opening the door to an unjust and unconstitutional
policy.
So the death penalty is arbitrary. It discriminates on the basis of race and
income. It kills the innocent. It is unconstitutional. And it may even deepen
the wounds of families already grieving from the most terrible tragedy
imaginable. Even in the worst of cases, it cannot be justified.
(source: Ian Millhiser, thinkprogress.org)
***************
Church slaying families accept pursuit of death penalty
Several family members of the 9 people gunned down at a historic black church
in Charleston say they support decisions by state and federal prosecutors to
seek the death penalty for the man charged in the slayings.
Steve Hurd, whose wife, Cynthia, was among those killed June 17 during Bible
study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, said he won't be at peace until
Dylann Roof is put to death.
"What would give me full closure would be if I were the one who pushed the
plunger on the lethal injection, or if I were the one to pull the switch on the
electric chair or if I was the one to open the valve on the gas chamber," he
told The Associated Press on Wednesday. When "Roof's body is cold, sleeping in
the ground - that's closure."
Roof, 22, faces 9 counts of murder in state court and hate crimes and other
charges in federal court. The killings reignited discussions about race
relations and led to the removal of a Confederate battle flag from the South
Carolina Statehouse. Roof, who is white, had previously posed for photos with a
rebel flag.
This week, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that federal
prosecutors would seek the death penalty. South Carolina Solicitor Scarlett
Wilson announced her decision in September. Roof's state trial is scheduled for
next year. No date has been set for his federal trial.
When Roof faced a judge last summer, family members of the victims told him
they forgave him for his alleged crimes. Their expressions of grace and
sympathy, in the face of their own monumental pain, moved many.
"As we said in Bible Study, we enjoyed you," said Felicia Sanders, whose son
Tywanza was killed. "But may God have mercy on your soul."
In a statement released through Roof's lawyer at the time, his family said they
had been "touched by the moving words ... offering God's forgiveness and love
in the face of such horrible suffering."
Both state and federal prosecutors have spent time consulting with relatives of
the shooting victims over the pursuit of the death penalty, and Roof's federal
attorneys have said their client would be willing to plead guilty if the
maximum punishment weren't on the table.
Due in part to problems in obtaining lethal injection drugs, no one has been
executed in South Carolina since 2011. The federal government hasn't put anyone
to death since 2003.
"There is no room in our society for hatred and racism," Hurd's brother Malcolm
Graham said. "I support the attorney general's decision to seek the death
penalty. I believe he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
On Wednesday, a portrait was set to unveiled in the South Carolina Senate to
remember Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor at Emanuel who was killed in the
attack. Pinckney had been a state senator since 2001.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Prosecutors Still Using Race to Choose Juries in Death Penalty Cases, Despite
Century of Supreme Court Rulings
Tuesday's 7-1 Supreme Court decision in Foster v. Chatman was a huge victory
for Timothy Foster, a 49-year-old Black man who has been on Georgia's death row
for 29 years. The ruling also reflects a systemic problem with the death
penalty: prosecutors' repeated, deliberate use of race to choose jurors. This
practice alone makes capital punishment so fundamentally unfair that we must
end it.
In 1987, Foster had been convicted of murdering a white woman and was sentenced
to death by an all-white jury. During jury selection, the prosecutors in his
case deliberately eliminated potential Black jurors based on their race. Those
prosecutors violated the Constitution when they excluded those jurors, and
yesterday the Supreme Court held them to account. The justices struck down
Foster's conviction and death sentence and ordered a new trial because it's
unconstitutional to choose jurors according to race.
While this ruling may save Foster's life, it doesn't represent a big advance in
the law. The court applied a legal doctrine that was already a settled
principle: prosecutors may not use race as a basis to select - or exclude -
jurors. In fact, the Supreme Court has been condemning racial bias in jury
selection in capital cases since 1880 when it outlawed the practice in Strauder
v. West Virginia. But more than 100 years after the court's 1st decision on
this problem, and 40 years into our modern experiment with the death penalty,
widespread racial bias continues in jury selection for capital cases. We
continue to send people to die from trials tainted by racial bias.
In criminal cases, prosecutors and defense counsel are each granted "peremptory
strikes," whereby each side is permitted to dismiss a set number of potential
jurors. A handful of studies have undertaken systemic investigations of
prosecutors' use of peremptory strikes in capital cases. Each one has uncovered
damning patterns of discrimination, showing disproportionate strikes of Black
jurors by prosecutors.
Most recently, a 2015 study of prosecutor strikes in Caddo Parish, Louisiana,
found that prosecutors struck Black jurors at 2 to 3 times the rates of other
jurors. An extensive study of strikes in capital cases in Philadelphia found
prosecutors struck Black jurors at twice the rates as other jurors. Here in
North Carolina, researchers conducted the only state-wide study and found the
same All across the state, city and country alike, discrimination against
qualified Black jurors remains depressingly constant.
During jury selection, if the defense can point to some signs that prosecutors
are using their strikes in a discriminatory manner, the prosecutors will be
required to give explanations for their strike decisions. In Foster, the
Supreme Court criticized the prosecutors' "concerted effort" to keep Black
people off the jury in the Georgia case, as well as their "shifting
explanations" and "misrepresentations" to the courts intended to camouflage
those efforts. Foster involved the rare indisputable proof of discrimination:
Prosecution notes showed a planned strategy to avoid selecting any Black
jurors.
.In North Carolina, we litigated extensively jury discrimination practices in
four capital cases. (All four were recently sent back from the North Carolina
court for new hearings on their claims alleging discrimination.) As in Foster,
we found handwritten notes showing racially influenced jury selection in
individual cases. Even worse, we uncovered evidence that several prosecutors
were trained in how to provide canned explanations for why they removed Black
jurors. A statewide prosecutor training handed out a cheat sheet with a list of
the top 10 explanations for use in responding to allegations of racial bias.
Prosecutors were instructed to complain of the juror's "age," or body language
- 2 of the very same explanations offered by the prosecutors in Foster to hide
their discrimination.
With so much evidence of racial bias in jury selection for capital cases, we
know the damage is too pervasive for our courts to rectify. After more than 100
years of racially biased jury selection, the inescapable truth is that capital
punishment can't be squared with the Constitution or any other commitment to
equality. It's time to shut it down.
(source: Cassandra Stubbs, Director, ACLU Capital Punishment
Project----aclu.org)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 26 08:44:45 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 08:44:45 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605260844360.8788@15-11017.smu.edu>
may 26
IRAN----executions
2 Prisoners Hanged in Southern Iran
2 prisoners were reportedly hanged in Shiraz (Fars province, southern Iran) on
Tuesday May 24.
According to the human rights news agency, HRANA, one of the prisoners,
identified as "Hadi Shekasteh", was hanged at Adel Abad Prisoner on drug
charges. According to the Baloch Activists Campaign, the other prisoner's name
is "Moslem Mahmoud Zehi Khash". It is not known at this time what charge Mr.
Zehi Khash was sentenced to death for and whether he was executed in a prison
or in public. Iranian official sources, including Iranian state run media and
the Judiciary, have been silent on these 2 executions.
Iranian authorities have ramped up the number of executions in the lead up to
Ramadan.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
PAKISTAN:
Verdict: PHC stays execution of militant
A division bench of the Peshawar High Court suspended the execution of a
militant who was awarded death sentence by a military court and sought record
of his trial. The bench, comprising PHC Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel
and Justice Ikramullah Khan, heard a writ petition on Wednesday. The petition
was filed by Alam Khan through his counsel Barrister Amirullah Chamkani.
Chamkani said the petitioner's brother Muhammad Umar, a resident of Battagram,
was arrested by intelligence agencies on August 10, 2014 from Mansehra. The
counsel said little was known about his whereabouts since then. However, his
family came to know on May 3, 2016 that he was awarded the death penalty by a
military court and his execution was approved by chief of army staff. He said
the convict was sentenced to death on charges of having affiliation with
militant organisations, carrying out attacks on security forces and keeping
explosives.
(source: The Express Tribune)
VIETNAM:
Australian woman caught with 3 kilos of heroin at Vietnam airport
Police and customs officers at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Thursday arrested an
Australian national for attempting to smuggle around three kilograms of heroin
to Australia.
The 76-year-old woman hid the drug in 5 jars of fermented fish paste among
other items in her luggage.
She said she owed gambling money to some people in Australia and they forced
her to smuggle the drug over to clear the debt. The heroin is estimated to have
a street value of around US$720,000.
Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death.
Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or
more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.
(source: Thanh Nien News)
SINGAPORE:
MHA: Sole purpose of the applications by Kho's counsels was to try and delay
his execution
Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a media statement on 26 May 2016 stating
that there had been several inaccurate points made in relation to the legal
process in the case of Kho Jabing, a Malaysian national who has been executed
on 20 May 2016. It went on to state that sole purpose of the applications by
Kho's counsels was to try and delay his execution.
MHA noted that Kho had been represented by counsel throughout the whole process
and was given every opportunity to file appeals and apply for re-sentencing and
petition the President for clemency.
After amendments were made in 2012 on the laws on the death penalty in
Singapore, Kho was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane
after an appeal to the High Court.
The prosecution, however, appealed the re-sentencing and the case was brought
to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal then proceeded to overturn the
previous ruling and reversed the sentence back to death sentence in 2013.
In 2015, the court rejected his application for clemency.
On 23 November 2015, Kho was granted a temporary reprieve pending the outcome
of a petition filed by his lawyers, which raised questions of fact and law.
MHA said that the above process by Kho's counsels was a pattern which was to be
repeated more than once subsequently.
On 6 April this year, the Court of Appeal lifted the temporary reprieve after
dismissing the appeal and upheld its decision to impose the death penalty on
Kho Jabing, saying that it observed that there were in reality no new
arguments.
On 19 May, Lawyer, Gino Hardial Singh filed a criminal motion citing grounds of
apparent bias on the part of Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang, who had sat on both
Jabing's appeals. He argued Justice Andrew Phang's involvement in the 2013
appeal essentially involved the judge deliberating over an appeal against his
own decision - the one made in 2010.
However, this criminal motion was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
On that same day, an originating summons was filed by lawyer, Ms Jeannette
Chong-Aruldoss. She challenged the constitutionality of certain aspects of the
amendments to the mandatory death penalty in Singapore.
Mrs Chong-Aruldoss had sought a stay of execution pending the scheduling of a
hearing date for her application to be heard and was given 9am, the next day
for the application to be heard.
MHA's view is that while lawyers' reasons were ostensibly that they were going
to make new arguments. But in fact, there were no new arguments and said that
it appeared that the sole purpose of the applications was to try and delay the
execution which had been set for 20 May 2016.
The 5 judges in the Court of Appeal which JA Phang again sat in, dismissed all
the applications on 20 May.
Tthe Court of Appeal said that Kho's multiple court applications after the
conclusion of his appeal were an abuse of court process. MHA noted that it had
said in its judgment in April this year that the case was to come to an end.
The government decided to hang Kho in the afternoon of Friday after the
temporary stay of execution was lifted in the morning. Hangings in Singapore
always take place at dawn on Friday until Kho's execution on 20 May 2016.
The full media statement of MHA as follow below.
Several inaccurate points have been made in relation to the legal process in
the case of Malaysian national Jabing Kho ("Jabing").
Jabing brutally killed a person in 2008. Jabing continued to strike the victim
multiple times even though the victim stopped retaliating after the 1st blow.
The victim suffered 14 fractures to the skull with severe haemorrhage in 3
areas. Jabing was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 2010.
Jabing was represented by counsel throughout. He was given every opportunity to
file appeals, apply for re-sentencing consequent to amendments to the mandatory
death penalty regime under the Penal Code, and petition the President for
clemency.
Following the conclusion of the legal and clemency process in 2015, Jabing was
initially scheduled to have his sentence carried out in November 2015. However,
he instructed his lawyers at the last minute, after the date for the execution
was set, to rush to Court to try and get a stay, based on 'new' arguments which
he wanted to raise. This was a pattern which was to be repeated more than once
subsequently. The Court of Appeal ordered a stay of execution, and agreed to
hear the arguments. The Court of Appeal, after hearing the arguments, dismissed
them, in April this year. It also observed that there were in reality no new
arguments.
The date for execution was then set for 20 May 2016, and Jabing and his family
were informed. New lawyers were then instructed to file a last-minute criminal
motion to the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, 18 May 2016. Their applications
were dismissed by the Court of Appeal. Then another 2 sets of new lawyers were
instructed, to file yet another set of 2 applications at the last minute. The
lawyers' reasons were ostensibly that they were going to make new arguments. In
fact there were no new arguments. It appeared that the sole purpose of the
applications was to try and delay the execution which had been set for 20 May
2016.
The Court of Appeal dismissed all the applications. The Court of Appeal said
that Jabing's multiple court applications after the conclusion of his appeal
were an abuse of court process. The Court of Appeal also noted that it had said
in its judgment in April this year that the case was to come to an end.
After the Court of Appeal dismissed the applications, the sentence was carried
out, on the date which had been fixed, 20 May 2016.
(source: theonlinecitizen.com)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Malmesbury woman fights to save pen-pal prisoner from Nevada death row
A mother from Malmesbury who is campaigning to get a man released from death
row in Nevada after 13 years of imprisonment says poor publicity in national
newspapers is a small price to pay in her fight for justice.
Katie Menham, 25, of Newnton Grove, began writing to prisoner Julius Bradford 6
months ago and believes he does not deserve to die.
Unknown to Mr Bradford, the Blue Cross volunteer has started a petition
lobbying Governor Brian Sandoval, the Governor of Nevada, to release him from
death row.
Miss Menham said: "I am one of those goons that wants to try and change the
world. I saw this website advertising writing to prisoners, and I was intrigued
so I had a look. I didn't want to write to someone who was a murderer or
anything like that and then I found Julius.
"If you read his letters, he is so eloquent and not what you would expect."
The 25-year-old, who is also doing a degree in advanced counselling and
advanced psychology, said those around her have been quite supportive after
reading his letters, but she has received criticism too, especially after her
story was published in national papers this week.
Miss Menham said: "I read it and I didn't say most of that. They have made me
sound like a nutter. I am taking it on the chin - at the end of the day it is
raising awareness and if that comes at the expense of my reputation that is
fine. I have my freedom but Julius doesn't.???
The campaigner also hit back at the suggestions that she would introduce her
four-year-old son Alfie to the prisoner if he was released.
"I am not suddenly going to introduce him to a stranger that I have never met
that is in prison, let alone any stranger," she said indignantly. "Alfie
doesn't know I write the letters, I write when he is in bed or in school - he's
four and he doesn't even know about my university course."
"In our letters, we talk about our lives and not once have we ever talked about
his conviction but I have to do something.
"He deserves to serve his sentence, but he doesn't deserve to die for something
he didn't do. There is probably not a great deal I can do from Malmesbury to be
honest but I want to raise awareness of his case.
"For people who are not sure about this, read up on the case and you will see
it is quite a shocking miscarriage of justice. Everyone makes mistakes and
although this is a big mistake, he should serve his punishment but he doesn't
deserve to die."
Mr Bradford and 2 others were charged in March 2004 with murder with use of a
deadly weapon and armed robbery with use of a deadly weapon, which resulted in
the death of Benito Zambrano-Lopez on June 8, 2003. One of the group,
16-year-old Tyrone Williams was identified as pulling the trigger but all three
men were charged with murder.
This month, pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced new controls that would
prevent its drugs being used to make lethal injections, preventing executions
in a number of states including Nevada.
Miss Menham added: "I don't agree with the death penalty anyway and if this
helps Julius' case, I'm not going to complain."
For more information about the campaign, visit
https://www.change.org/p/brian-sandoval-get-julius-bradford-off-of-death-row-before-it-s-too-late.
(source: gazetteandherald.co.uk)
UNITED NATIONS:
UN rights office 'deeply concerned' about possible imminent executions in Gaza
Expressing concern about possible imminent executions in Gaza, the United
Nations human rights office today urged the authorities in Gaza to uphold their
obligations to respect the rights to life and to a fair trial and not carry out
death penalty.
"We also urge the Palestinian President to establish a moratorium on executions
in line with the strong international trend towards ending the use of the death
penalty," said spokesperson Rupert Colville of the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
He said that the office is "deeply concerned about recent statements made by
the authorities in Gaza, including the Attorney General, of their intention to
implement a number of death sentences, and fear that the first executions may
be imminent."
The Gaza authorities' statements follow the demands of several families for the
death penalty to be carried out against individuals accused of killing their
relatives.
Death sentences may only be carried out in extremely limited circumstances, and
pursuant to a trial and appeals that scrupulously follow fair trial standards,
he said, adding that the office has serious doubts as to whether capital trials
in Gaza meet these standards, and is concerned about reports indicating that
these executions will be implemented without the approval of the Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas, which is required under Palestinian law.
Media reports indicating that the sentences could be carried out in public also
raise alarm, as this is a practice prohibited under international human rights
law, the spokesperson said.
(source: UN News Centre)
UGANDA:
Shabaab bombing suspects to know fate
A Ugandan court is due on Thursday to give its verdict on 13 men tried for
masterminding a 2010 bombing by the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab that killed 76
people.
The July 2010 suicide bombings claimed by Somalia's Shabaab targeted football
fans watching the World Cup final between the Netherlands and Spain at a
restaurant and a rugby club in Kampala, and were the region's worst attacks in
more than a decade.
"There are 13 suspects and the judgement is expected to be delivered today,"
judiciary spokesman Solomon Muyita told AFP Thursday.
All have pleaded not guilty.
Judge Alfonse Owiny-Dollo is expected to deliver his verdict at the High Court
in Kampala, and could apply the death sentence if the men are found guilty.
"It has been a long trial, but all will come to end today when the judgement
will be delivered," Muyita said.
The suspects have been tried on a range of charges including terrorism, murder
and membership of a terrorist organisation.
2 men were already found in guilty in 2011 for their role in the attacks.
Edris Nsubuga, who admitted terrorism charges, was spared the death penalty
because he expressed contrition over the carnage and was jailed for 25 years.
Co-accused Muhamoud Mugisha received 5 years for conspiracy to commit
terrorism.
The Kampala trial was delayed after the lead prosecutor was murdered in March
2015. Joan Kagezi, acting assistant director of public prosecution, was shot
dead by men on a motorbike as she drove home with 3 of her children.
Al-Shabaab continues to target countries in the region, carrying out the 2013
assault on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi that killed at least 67 people, and the
attack on Kenya's Garissa university in April 2015, killing at least 148
people.
Thousands of Ugandan troops form the backbone of the African Union Mission in
Somalia (AMISOM), the UN-backed force established to fight the Shabaab
Islamists and protect the internationally recognised government.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
INDONESIA:
Indonesia introduces death penalty and chemical castration for
paedophiles----President Joko Widodo introduces new measures after the brutal
gang-rape and murder of a schoolgirl
"This regulation is intended to overcome the crisis caused by sexual violence
against children," President Joko Widodo said late Wednesday at the
presidential palace in Jakarta.
"Sexual crimes against children are extraordinary crimes, because they threaten
the lives of children."
The presidential decree brings the new punishments into immediate effect,
although parliament could later overturn it.
Widodo was spurred into action after the murder and gang-rape in April of a
14-year-old girl, who was set upon by a gang of drunken men and boys as she
walked home from school on the western island of Sumatra.
Her battered body was found 3 days later in woods, tied up and naked. 7
teenagers, aged 16 and 17, were jailed earlier this month over the assault.
The attack sparked a national debate on sexual violence, led to calls for
harsher punishments for child sex offenders and prompted protests in the
capital Jakarta.
The case has drawn comparisons with the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus
in Delhi in 2012, which sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of India's
rape laws.
Indonesia is likely to draw fire for expanding its use of the death penalty.
Jakarta has faced criticism for use its use of capital punishment against drug
traffickers, and sparked international outrage last year when it put 7 foreign
drug convicts to death by firing squad.
Under previous laws, the maximum sentence for rape - including of a minor - was
14 years in jail.
By introducing chemical castration, Indonesia joins a small group who use the
punishment worldwide, including Poland and some states in the US. In 2011,
South Korea became the 1st Asian country to legalise the punishment.
Widodo did not give further details about tagging suspects with monitoring
devices. Local media previously reported that a microchip could be implanted in
child sex offenders' legs on their release from jail.
(source: The Guardian)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 26 16:35:56 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 16:35:56 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., N.C., FLA., LA.,
CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605261635480.512@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 26
CONNECTICUT:
Connecticut Supreme Court upholds decision banning death penalty for remaining
death-row inmates
The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday again said that it would be
unconstitutional to execute inmates on the state's death row, upholding a
decision from the same court last year effectively banning the death penalty in
the state.
In a decision in August, the state's justices ruled that Connecticut could not
execute death-row inmates for crimes committed before the state largely
abolished capital punishment. Under a law signed in 2012, Connecticut agreed to
abandon the death penalty going forward, while also retaining it as an option
for crimes committed before that bill became law.
After an inmate named Eduardo Santiago - convicted of murdering someone in 2000
- challenged his death sentence, a divided Connecticut Supreme Court said last
year that he could not be executed because the 2012 law "creates an
impermissible and arbitrary distinction" between crimes committed before and
after that measure went into effect. (Santiago was re-sentenced to life in
prison without parole in December.)
The state's high court upheld its earlier ruling in a 5-to-2 decision handed
down Thursday in a case focusing on Russell Peeler, a man sentenced to death
for his role in the 1999 killings of a woman and her 8-year-old son.
The justices ruled that Peeler must instead be sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole, because his earlier sentence "must be
vacated as unconstitutional in light of" last year's decision. 3 justices wrote
concurring opinions, while 2 authored dissents, 1 of which said the ruling last
year "inflicted [damage] on the rule of law" that "must be repaired."
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy (D), who signed the 2012 law abolishing the death
penalty, reiterated his opposition to capital punishment on Thursday and
focused on how the new ruling will keep the death-row inmates from ever seeking
parole.
"Today's decision reaffirms what the court has already said: those currently
serving on death row will serve the rest of their life in prison with no
possibility of ever obtaining freedom," he said in a statement. He added: "Our
focus today should not be on those currently sitting on death row, but with
their victims and those surviving family members. My thoughts and prayers are
with them on this difficult day."
According to the state Department of Corrections, Connecticut has 11 inmates on
death row. The only state in New England that still has capital punishment on
the books is New Hampshire, where legislators recently came within one vote of
abolishing it.
Since 2007, 7 states have formally abandoned the death penalty. However, they
have not agreed on what to do with the people on death row once this takes
effect. In some cases, such as New Jersey and Illinois, death sentences were
commuted to life sentences without parole. This is what Nebraska's bill
abolishing the death penalty also would do; while lawmakers there voted to get
rid of capital punishment last year, that law remains on hold until voters
decide in November.
In other cases, though, inmates have remained on death row and the effect on
their sentences has been uncertain after their states abandoned the death
penalty. Like Connecticut, Maryland - the last of the states to formally outlaw
the death penalty - abolished the practice while exempting those already on
death row. Before he left office, former governor Martin O'Malley (D) commuted
the sentences of the remaining inmates to life terms.
Connecticut has executed only 1 inmate since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated
the death penalty in 1976. The state considered abolishing the death penalty in
2009, but Malloy's predecessor, M. Jodi Rell, vetoed a bill that year that
would have eliminated the practice.
Her decision came as the state was reeling after a horrifying home invasion
there 2 years earlier. 2 men broke into a family's home before sexually
assaulting a woman, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and her 11-year-old daughter,
Michaela. The 2 men also beat the girl's father, William, before killing
Jennifer, Michaela and the couple's 17-year-old daughter, Hayley. Both men
accused in the case - Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes - were convicted,
found guilty and sentenced to death. This crime was cited as the reason
lawmakers compromised in 2012, getting rid of the death penalty while keeping
it in place for people, like those 2 men, who had committed crimes beforehand.
(source: Washington Post)
***********
Peeler escapes death penalty
The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld its landmark ruling declaring the
state's death penalty unconstitutional and abolishing capital punishment.
The court released its 5-2 decision Thursday in the appeal of Russell Peeler
Jr., who had been on death row for ordering the 1999 killings of a woman and
her 8-year-old son in Bridgeport. The boy, B.J. Brown , was to testify against
Peeler in another murder case.
Peeler now faces life without the possibility of release.
"We welcome today's Connecticut Supreme Court ruling, which takes the prudent
step of ending the state's failed death penalty and the possibility of any
future executions," said Sheila Denion, project director for the Connecticut
Network to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Today's ruling ensures that we can move
beyond this flawed policy to the total abolition of capital punishment in our
state."
Bridgeport State's Attorney John Smriga declined comment on the ruling.
"I appreciate having been granted the opportunity to present the state's
position on all of the issues the present court raised about Connecticut's
death penalty," said Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane. "The court has now
spoken and, as always, we respect its decision. As such, we will move forward
to re-sentence the individuals currently on death row to a sentence of life in
prison without the possibility of release. The Division of Criminal Justice and
I extend our deepest sympathy and condolences to the victims of these crimes
and to their families."
Last year the state's highest court ruled the General Assembly's 2012 repeal of
capital punishment freed all 10 death row inmates from execution not just any
post 2012 people convicted of capital felony as the legislators and Gov. Dannel
Malloy intended.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer, a former prosecutor as is
Malloy, wrote in the court's decision that even though the legislative intent
of the 2012 law was to affect only those convicted of capital murder after
April 25 of that year once the death penalty was repealed for anyone, execution
became "cruel and unusual" punishment and unconstitutional, even for those on
death row.
But in his request for the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision, Assistant
State's Attorney Harry Weller said the court's ruling was flawed and ignored
members of the General Assembly who said during the protracted committee and
floor debates of 2012 that the repeal would not extend to death row.
"Before that bill was signed, the death penalty was fully constitutional,"
Weller told the 7 justices. "The Democratic process in Connecticut worked in
this case. This court's ultimate responsibility is to uphold the Constitution,
to get the law right, to do it in a way that is clear to the public that it
reflects when it has to the standards of our society. The will of the people is
to execute these guys."
Peeler, a Bridgeport drug kingpin, was convicted of ordering the murders in
January 1999 of 8-year-old B.J. Brown and his mother, Karen Clarke, to protect
his drug operation. B.J. was scheduled to testify against Peeler in another
murder case when he and his mother were found shot to death in their Bridgeport
home.
The death of the young boy, who was shot execution-style in the back of the
head, shocked the country and was later responsible for strengthening the
penalties against the murder of witnesses.
"This appeal of the defendant's death sentences is controlled by State v.
Santiago in which a majority of this court concluded that executing offenders
who committed capital crimes prior to the enactment of P.A. 12-5 (the 2012 law)
would offend article first, 8 and 9, of the Connecticut constitution," Supreme
Court Chief Justice Chase Rogers and associate justices Palmer, Dennis
Eveleigh, Andrew McDonald and Richard Robinson wrote in Thursday's decision.
But in dissenting opinion, Justice Peter Zarella called the majority's opinion,
"Completely devoid of any legal basis." And Justice Carmen Espinosa called the
decision, "Distainful."
Both accused the majority of trying to save face in light of its previous bad
death penalty decision.
(source: Connecticut Post)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Death row inmate from Allentown re-sentenced to life
An Allentown man who was sentenced to death for gunning down a 21-year-old man
on a basketball court in 2001 was freed from death row Thursday.
But Raymond Solano will not be leaving the state prison that's been his home
since 2003 any time soon. Lehigh County President Judge Edward Reibman
resentenced Solano, 37, to life in prison with no chance of parole for the
murder of Almondo Rodriguez, following years of legal wrangling over whether
Solano was properly represented at his murder trial.
"Justice is served," Felix Ramos, Rodriguez's cousin, said after the hearing.
"We wanted death, but he got life, and he'll never see the light of day."
The state Supreme Court in December ordered a new sentencing hearing for
Solano, upholding a 2011 decision handed down by Reibman, who concluded that
Solano's public defender, Kate Roberts, was ineffective for not presenting
evidence of Solano's tumultuous childhood.
Instead of seating a jury to decide - again - whether Solano should face the
death penalty or life in prison, prosecutors asked Reibman to sentence Solano
to life.
In a statement, District Attorney James B. Martin said the decision was based,
in part, on the age of the case.
"We did not believe that pursuing a new trial on sentencing would be an
efficient use of the resources of the District Attorney's Office and the
courts," Martin said. "Further, reconstructing the events of 15 years ago would
have been very difficult. The whereabouts of witnesses are, in some cases,
unknown. Proceeding on a sterile record - reading a transcript to a jury -
would not be likely to result in a death sentence."
Solano was found guilty of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death for killing
Rodriguez on June 3, 2001, as he played basketball in Valania Park on Union
Street. Witnesses said Solano pumped 6 shots into the unarmed Rodriguez as
numerous people watched.
During the trial in 2003, jurors were taken to the park so they could see the
scene of the murder, which had no known motive.
Prosecutors successfully argued for the death penalty, saying Solano could
easily have killed bystanders.
Judges who reviewed the case later said Roberts should have consulted experts
to present a more detailed picture of Solano at sentencing, including a
neuropsychologist.
At a hearing after Solano filed a post-conviction appeal, Roberts testified to
her own shortcomings, saying that at the time, she had graduated from law
school only 2 years previously, had never had a homicide case and had no
training in handling death-penalty sentencings, according to the decision
written by former Justice J. Michael Eakin.
While Roberts tried to humanize Solano for the jury by conveying his "horrible
upbringing," she lacked the experience to adequately research and present her
client's story, Eakin said. As a result, Roberts failed to follow up on leads
that would have offered a "more complete picture of Solano's struggles as a
child," he said.
Roberts, "despite her good intentions of garnering the jury's compassion for
Solano, did not employ the means necessary to achieve this end," Eakin wrote in
the opinion.
Terence Houck, the prosecutor who won Solano's conviction, said it is
disappointing that his death sentence was reversed for the reason it was.
"There should be something in place that protects somebody from coming in at a
later date and saying, 'Oh, I was ineffective,'" said Houck, who is now first
deputy district attorney in Northampton County. "There's just too much work put
into this."
Houck said he was not surprised that Lehigh County prosecutors concluded it
would be too difficult to seek another death sentence.
"I would imagine that there was a lot of thought put into this and it would
have been very, very difficult to put on another penalty hearing, given the
passage of time," Houck said.
In court Thursday, Lehigh County Senior Deputy District Attorney Heather
Gallagher told the judge that Rodriguez's family was consulted about the
decision to bypass another sentencing hearing and agreed with the decision.
Numerous members of Rodriguez's family were in the courtroom for the
re-sentencing hearing but all declined to testify. Several people were also on
hand to support Solano, but did not speak.
Solano made a brief statement, after his lawyer, James Moreno of the Defender
Association of Philadelphia, told the judge his client wanted to "acknowledge"
the victims' loss.
"They didn't have to go through all this but they did. That's just how it is. I
feel for them," Solano said.
(source: Morning Call)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutors to seek death penalty in Franklin County triple murder
The man accused of murdering 2 women and an 18-year-old man in Louisburg in
March will face the death penalty if convicted, a judge ruled in a pretrial
hearing Thursay morning.
Darius Robinson has been indicted on three counts of first-degree murder. He is
accused of killing Keisha Wilder Livingston, 36, of Louisburg, Shamare Malik
Harris, 18, of La Grange, and Diana Marie Edgerton, 23, of Louisburg on March
26.
Harris and Edgerton were both visiting Livingston at the time of the shooting,
officials said. A 4th person survived the attack.
Family members were at Thursday's hearing.
"It really hurts. I don't understand it and the way it was done out today, but
I just want justice done for the victims," said Livingston's mother, Joan
Wilder.
"How could he do such a crime, and then he come in the courtroom with a smirky
grin looking at the audience? Like it was his day, like it was his day view. It
was terrible the way he looked out there grinning at folks. I don't have any
use for him because he done destroyed a lot of lives," said Dinah Williams,
Livingston's aunt.
At a court hearing on April 6, family members of both the suspect and victims
were in the court room, and many were in tears during the proceedings.
"I have never believed in capital punishment; we don't give life, so we
shouldn't take it, but then how he took those 3 lives...I want the death
penalty for him," said Williams at the time.
Williams had said she was trying "not to hate" Robinson but said, "We've got to
forgive him, but I just can't right now."
CBS North Carolina learned that Robinson is actually a cousin-in-law to
Edgerton and the family believes robbery was the motive.
"They had a loss, but I got a loss inside of there too, it's sad all the way
around and we've been praying for their family as well as them praying for us,"
said Angela Edgerton, Robinson's mother.
The prosecutor sought the death penalty and the judge agreed to continue the
case as a capital case. The judge deemed the case "exceptional" based on
Robinson's priors.
A 2nd attorney was requested and no bond was issued for Robinson.
(source: WNCN news)
FLORIDA:
Life sentence is cheaper, more humane than Florida's death penalty
It is irrefutable, folks. We kill a lot of innocent people. If that wasn't bad
enough, because of our lengthy appeals process, the death penalty is very
expensive. It is time to bring a little more sanity to our punitive approach.
>From the beginning of time, we have said: "It is wrong to kill, and to
demonstrate how wrong it is to kill, we will kill you if you kill."
Still, throughout history, men and women have murdered each other.
The traditional humanist concludes capital punishment is not a deterrent. Of
course, the traditional humanist is wrong in a very relevant sense. There is no
recidivism among the executed. They never kill again.
However, it is no easy matter to decide who should be executed. There isn't
much uniformity in sentencing practices in the 50 states.
An individual can be executed in one state for a crime that is not a capital
offense in another state. Even among those states that have retained capital
punishment, there are great disparities in sentencing.
It is a deplorable fact that three people found guilty of the same crime can be
given three distinctly different sentences.
While there seems to be little uniformity in sentencing, the greater problem is
that it is so difficult to play God. Hugo Adam Bedau, in his remarkably
comprehensive book, "The Death Penalty in America," documented 74 instances in
which we executed individuals who were later proved to be innocent of the
crimes for which they were executed.
The manner of their post-mortem vindication took the form of everything from
the conventional deathbed confession by the real culprit, to the grimly ironic
discovery of the supposed victim very much alive.
According to The Innocence Project, a well-known group that works with many
inmates to try to clear their names based on DNA evidence, they have documented
341 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. Between 1989 and
2011, Florida exonerated 32 individuals who were incarcerated for crimes they
never committed.
Frank Johnson was the first inmate executed in Florida's electric chair on
October 7, 1924. In 1929 and from May 1964 to May 1979 there were no executions
in Florida. Since then, Florida has executed 85 criminals. The average age of
the criminal at the time the capital offense was committed was 29, while the
average age at which the criminal was executed was 46.
While lethal injections appear to be the humane way to execute people, some
states have had horrible experiences with the drug cocktails because some of
their convicts appeared to suffer greatly during the executions.
The use of a guillotine or a firing squad once was favored by many countries
and may be the most humane way to execute people. They tend to be messy, but
quick and effective.
However, no matter the method of execution, we must deal with the very real
risk of executing innocent people. According to Floridians for Alternatives to
the Death Penalty, since Florida resumed executions in 1976, 24 wrongfully
convicted death row prisoners have been exonerated. Saving innocent lives is
important, but so is saving money on costly appeals.
According to estimates by the Palm Beach Post, because the lengthy appeals
process is so expensive, Florida would save $51 million each year by punishing
all first-degree murderers with life in prison without the possibility of
parole, instead of executing them.
Much of the civilized world has already abolished capital punishment. Isn't it
time Florida joined them? It's not only the humane thing to do, but we would
eliminate the risk of killing innocent people, and save a truckload of money
each year.
(source: Commentary; Donald Gilleland----TCPalm)
******************
Florida Supreme Court opens the door for new hearings for juvenile killers
The Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that juvenile killers serving lengthy
sentences tantamount to life in prison must have their cases reconsidered by a
judge, even if they are eligible for parole.
The opinion could dramatically expand the number of juvenile offenders who must
be resentenced, granting a second chance for release to potentially hundreds of
people who committed murder in their youth. It's unclear how broadly the
decision would be applied to juveniles serving similar sentences
The ruling was 4 to 3 with the majority decision written by Justice Barbara J.
Pariente.
The case centered on Angelo Atwell, who was 16 years old in August of 1990 when
he was charged with armed robbery and murder. At the time, the death penalty
was still permissible for underage defendants - it has since been declared
unconstitutional - but a jury recommended a life sentence for the teenager by a
vote of 7 to 5.
Atwell was given the only sentence available at the time for murder: life in
prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
But that did not mean the state had any intention of releasing him.
(source: Tampa Bay Times)
LOUISIANA:
Defender bill an odd way to reform
There was nothing particularly unusual about the case of David Brown.
Prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that might have helped him, and he
wound up on death row.
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon consider whether to cancel his date with the
executioner. That wouldn't be particularly unusual in an appeal out of
Louisiana, either.
The lead prosecutor in the Brown case was Louisiana's itinerant death penalty
specialist, Hugo Holland. DAs who really want a defendant dead will call in
Holland.
It doesn't make much difference in the long run. As Louisiana Public Defender
Board Chairman Robert Burns noted in a recent letter to the editor, 50 of the
52 death sentences imposed in Louisiana since 2000 have been thrown out by
higher courts. 7 death-row inmates have been entirely exonerated.
It was no great shock, therefore, when Holland, along with several other
prosecutors, appeared at the State Capitol again last week to support a bill
that tilts the odds against defendants in capital cases. The bill, which has
now passed, revamps the state Public Defender Board and diverts state funds
from death cases, which are frequently farmed out to private outfits. The idea
is to free up some of the millions spent on capital cases and bail out local
public defender offices handling less heinous offenses.
With 20 of Louisiana's 42 local offices insolvent, the criminal justice system
is in danger of grinding to a halt. Prosecutors, thus, had a legitimate and
compelling interest in the bill, for they cannot go about the business of
racking up convictions unless counsel is provided for all defendants.
Prosecutors were not just for this bill but proved its most vociferous
advocates at committee hearings. That might raise a suspicion that the welfare
of indigent defendants was not the bill's principal concern.
Holland certainly thinks the state Public Defender Board has spent too much
hiring what he calls "boutique law firms" to provide defense counsel in capital
cases. He was gung ho for the bill, because it changes the make of the board,
which he thinks has been dominated by "anti-death penalty zealots."
Holland is something of a zealot on the other side, devoting his life to
securing the death penalty. He was drafted in for Brown's 2011 trial in St.
Francisville. Brown is not the kind of convict whose plight will tug at the
heartstrings, for he already was doing life for murder when he and 5 other
Angola inmates took 3 guards hostage during an escape attempt. One of the
guards, David Knapps, was beaten to death when he refused to hand over his
keys.
Trial judge Jerome Winsberg threw out Brown's death sentence, though not his
conviction, because Holland and his fellow prosecutor, Tommy Block, had
withheld a statement from another prisoner. According to that statement, Brown
had not administered the fatal beating.
The state Supreme Court reversed Winsberg, when 4 of the 7 justices reached the
bizarre conclusion that the statement would not have helped Brown avoid the
death penalty. So the U.S. Supreme Court, which has cried foul in plenty of
Louisiana capital cases, is being petitioned to do it again.
Prosecutorial misconduct is common enough in Louisiana to suggest that spending
less on indigent defense in capital cases is not the way to serve justice. But
leaving local public defenders without the wherewithal for bread and butter
cases is no way to serve justice, either. There just isn't enough money for the
state board to do everything.
The bill mandates that the board dedicate 65 % of its budget - currently at $33
million - to the local offices, which also derive some income from court fees
and traffic tickets. Legislators, unable or unwilling to come up with more
money, have opted to shift around what they have.
They have also changed the composition of the board, which was set up in 2007
with 15 members and is responsible for training and regulating the local
defenders. Now, it will have 11 members. Gone are the law professors Holland
dismissed as zealots, while 5 members will be nominated by the local public
defenders they are supposed to oversee.
The whole idea of robbing capital defense is to improve the quality of local
defense efforts. Imposing a glaring conflict of interest on the state board is
an odd way to achieve that.
(source: Commentary; James Gill, The Advocate)
CALIFORNIA:
Convicted killer changes mind about testifying in death penalty hearing
A man convicted of killing an 8-year-old girl in 2013 who had insisted that he
testify in his trial changed his mind Thursday.
Darnell Williams, 25, was convicted May 6 for the murders of Alaysha Carradine,
8, and Anthony Medearis, 22, in 2013. Now during the penalty phase of his
trial, a jury will decide if he deserves the death penalty or life in prison
without parole.
On Wednesday afternoon, just minutes after a psychologist testified that
Williams exhibited signs of a psychopath and impulsive behavior, Williams
announced through his attorneys that he would like to testify.
Both of his attorneys, Deborah Levy and Darryl Billups, said in court that they
had strongly advised him against it, but he insisted.
"What the (expletive) do you mean, it's not helping," Williams whispered to
Levy Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, the jury was ordered back when Levy announced that the
defense rested its case, and no more witnesses would be called.
Judge Jeffrey Horner sighed, as did some jurors.
Members of Medearis' and Alaysha's families shook their heads in the courtroom
and expressed disappointment outside the court.
Court bailiffs ejected Dolanda Medearis, Anthony Medearis' mother and another
family member. They were visibly upset, with Dolanda Medearis saying "That's my
son."
In the past, Williams has gone against the advice of his attorneys. During the
guilt phase of his trial, he insisted that police reexamine his cellphone for
unknown reasons. With the help of new technology, a previously deleted photo of
a gun, a Sig Sauer P228, was found on the phone -- the gun that was likely the
murder weapon in Alaysha's death. On Monday, Williams also insisted that he
would like to go without a jury during the penalty phase and instead present
evidence to the judge during the penalty phase. Judge Horner did not agree.
The trial resumes Tuesday with closing statements.
(source: Mercury News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu May 26 16:36:38 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Thu, 26 May 2016 16:36:38 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605261636280.512@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 26
SUDAN:
Sudan pastor faces death penalty
A Christian human rights group is concerned that a Sudanese pastor could soon
be facing the death penalty.
In December of last year, the African country of Sudan began a crackdown of
church leaders and pastors which included several arrests. While 1 pastor was
recently released, another pastor, Hassan Abduraheem Taour, remains jailed.
Troy Augustine, regional manager for Africa for International Christian
Concern, says the pastor has been transferred to the attorney general's office.
"Which means that charges should be coming soon," Augustine explains. "But the
charges that are likely to come down on Mr. Taour, 3 of which carry the
possibility of the death penalty."
Augustine says they are working on the pastor's behalf.
"We're working on different advocacy efforts to bring this issue to the fore
and say that this pastor's incarceration is unjust, and for him to face charges
that seem to be trumped up is unjust," he says.
Augustine says they do have some hope though because in past similar
situations, Sudan has responded positively to international pressure.
(source: onenewsnow.com)
INDONESIA:
Drug lord Freddy tries to avoid death
Amid the government's preparations for the next round of executions, convicted
drug kingpin Freddy Budiman has filed a case review to overturn his death
sentence.
On Wednesday, he and his team of lawyers attended a hearing for the case review
at the Cilacap District Court in Central Java, amid reports he is one of the
death-row convicts soon to be executed on Nusakambangan Island.
His lawyer Untung Sunaryo told the panel of judges, presided over by Catur
Prasetyo, that his client should not have been sentenced to death because none
of Freddy's accomplices, who were involved in the smuggling of 1.4 million
ecstasy pills from China in 2011, was given the death penalty.
"Why was Freddy Budiman then sentenced to death while the others were not? This
is the substance of the objection we've raised in this case review hearing. We
demand our client not be put to death," said Untung at Cilacap District Court.
Freddy's case review hearing was tightly secured by around 150 police personnel
from the Cilacap Regency Police. Police escorted Freddy from the ferry crossing
from Nusakambangan Island to the Cilacap District Court, a distance of around 4
kilometers. Freddy wore a long white robe with black cap.
"We hope the Supreme Court will hear our case for a review as far as possible
because the judges stated our client's offense was the same as his accomplices
during a previous appeal hearing," said Untung.
The central government has remained silent on the upcoming executions despite
apparent preparations on the island, in a move many see as trying to avoid
animosity among the international community.
Central Java Police revealed that 10 foreign nationals and five Indonesians
were already on the list, but the Attorney General???s Office ( AGO ) has
denied this, with Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo saying that his office had
yet to decide when and who would be included in the next batch of executions.
Freddy has avoided execution at least twice as his lawyer team had kept
postponing a plan to file for a case review.
Prasetyo said he expected Freddy would be included in the next round of
executions, but he was still waiting for the convict to decide on whether to
exercise his legal right to challenge the death sentence.
The hearing at Cilacap court was heard by 3 local judges--Catur and Vilia Sari
and Cokia Ana Pontia, while the prosecutors were from the West Jakarta
Prosecutor's Office.
The case review appeal was read by Freddy's legal advisors. The hearing
commenced at around 10:30 a.m. local time and ended at 12 p.m..
Freddy's case review should have been heard in early May at the West Jakarta
District Court. However, as Freddy had been transferred to Nusakambangan, his
legal team requested the case review hearing be held in Cilacap and this was
granted.
"As he's been transferred to the Pasir Putih prison, Freddy's legal team
proposed the hearing be moved and it was finally approved to be held at the
Cilacap District Court," West Jakarta prosecutor Reda Manthovani told
journalists.
He said that although the hearing was at the Cilacap District Court,
prosecutors convened the session from the West Jakarta Prosecutor's Office.
Freddy was arrested on April 28, 2011, by the Jakarta Police's narcotics
division for smuggling 1.4 million ecstasy pills from China. Freddy was
sentenced to death by the West Jakarta District Court five months after his
arrest.
>From November 2012 until July 2013, he was confined at the Cipinang Narcotics
Prison in East Jakarta. Although he was sentenced to death, Freddy did not give
up drug dealing, as he carried on his activities from within his prison cell,
he was therefore transferred to Batu Prison on Nusakambangan in July 2013.
However, he allegedly still deals drugs in Nusakambangan.
(source: The Jakarta Post)
IRAN----executions
Collective hanging of 11 young men in Gohardasht Prison
The Iranian regime collectively hanged 11 young prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai
Shahr) Prison on May 25. 1 of those executed was only 16 at the time of his
alleged crime. A day earlier, 5 prisoners were executed in Ghezel Hessar Prison
of Karaj and Adelabad Prison of Shiraz. Another prisoner was also hanged in
public in the city of Ramsar after spending 8 years in prison.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN Security Council, the European Union,
the United States, as well as all international human rights organizations,
particularly the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights in Iran, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial
and arbitrary executions, and unions and assemblies that defend the youths to
condemn the antihuman clerical regime for these criminal executions. These
crimes that take place concurrent with Western officials' relations with the
Iranian regime demonstrate that these relations have emboldened the religious
fascism ruling Iran in its brazen, brutal and systematic violation of human
rights. Trade with the murderers of the Iranian people and dubbing them as
'moderates' has no meaning but collaboration in the human rights tragedy in
Iran. This policy must cease and instead the leaders of the Iranian regime
should be brought to justice in international tribunals.
(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)
UGANDA:
7 convicted over al-Shabab's deadly World Cup bombings
7 men have been convicted of carrying out twin bombings which killed 76 people
who were watching the 2010 World Cup final in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
The men, who were also convicted of multiple counts of murder and attempted
murder, could face the death penalty in sentencing on Friday.
Another suspect was convicted of aiding and abetting terrorism, while 5 others
were acquitted.
In convicting the seven men, High Court Judge Alphonse Owiny Dollo said there
was proof that the July 2010 bombings were planned in Somalia and that
explosives used in the attack were ferried through Kenya.
The 13 suspects - including Ugandans, Kenyans and Tanzanians - were charged
under Uganda's anti-terror law. FBI agents testified during the trial in
Kampala.
1 of the convicts, a Ugandan named Issa Luyima, was identified as the
mastermind of the attacks, the judge said in his decision. The suspects
appeared calm throughout the session that lasted more than 5 hours.
The 2010 attacks targeted a rugby club and an Ethiopian-themed restaurant where
customers were watching the World Cup final on giant screens.
A 3rd bomb planted elsewhere in Kampala failed to detonate.
The attacks were claimed by the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which
opposes Ugandan military involvement in Somalia.
The group has since carried out even deadlier attacks in neighboring Kenya,
which in 2011 deployed peacekeepers to Somalia.
Al-Shabab, which has ties with al-Qaida, has been fighting to impose a strict
version of Islam in Somalia, but the group's campaign of violence has been
thwarted by the African peacekeepers deployed in support of Somalia's weak,
Western-backed government.
(source: breakingnews.ie)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 27 10:37:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 10:37:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., MISS., NEB., UTAH,
ARIZ., CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605271037110.6544@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 27
CONNECTICUT:
Supreme Court Right To End Death Penalty
The death penalty has been rightly put behind us. The Connecticut Supreme Court
on Thursday ruled, for the 2nd time, that the statute prohibiting capital
punishment must apply to all, including those already sentenced and on death
row.
In 2012, the General Assembly abolished the death penalty, but only for future
cases. That contortion of the law - banning capital punishment except for those
already on death row - had been a way to ensure that Steven Hayes and Joshua
Komisarjevsky, sentenced to death for the brutal assaults and murders of the
Petit family in Cheshire in 2007, would still face execution.
And in that respect, this decision is difficult to swallow.
The entire state wept for William Petit Jr. after his family's tragedy. For
many, the unimaginable horrors suffered by his wife and daughters made the best
possible case for the death penalty. There was a sense that firm justice - and,
yes, vengeance - was not just expected but required.
Mr. Petit crusaded for the death penalty for his family's killers, and when the
Supreme Court last summer ruled that the exemption for those already convicted
was unconstitutional, he criticized the decision, as did prosecutors, who
challenged it.
But, ultimately, the court was right then and is right in the current decision.
The law banning the death penalty cannot be selectively applied.
The death penalty has cost untold millions in legal appeals, has been unevenly
applied and for many victims' families has provided no real feelings of
closure. It also, as Justice Richard N. Palmer said in last year's decision,
"no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency." It's time to leave
it to history.
The Cheshire killers will not be executed but will rot with the rest of the
murderers on the former death row.
Steven Hayes, who last year claimed he was enduring "hostile living conditions"
on death row, pleaded to have his execution sped up. Now he will have a long
time to endure whatever discomfort his punishment brings him.
That's justice enough.
(source: Editorial, Hartford Courant)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Wade sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing Wolfe sisters
After 20 days of testimony and deliberations, the jurors who convicted Allen
Wade of murdering his East Liberty neighbors, sisters Susan and Sarah Wolfe,
could not agree on whether to sentence him to death.
The jury deliberated for five hours Wednesday and 3 1/2 hours Thursday before
announcing they were deadlocked over whether to sentence Wade, 45, to the death
penalty or to life without parole for the Feb. 6, 2014, slayings.
"I like it that Wade's in prison," said Kevin Wolfe, 1 of Susan and Sarah's
brothers, after the sentencing. "We don't have the death penalty in Iowa, but
he is in prison, and he is marked as a murderer of 2 women."
As the law requires, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward Borkowski
imposed a sentence of life without parole. He gave Wade 2 consecutive life
sentences, 1 for each victim, plus 3 consecutive terms of 10 to 20 years for 2
counts of robbery and 1 count of burglary.
The same jury of 7 women and 5 men had convicted Wade on Monday on all charges,
including 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, for killing the Wolfes in their
Chislett Street home, stealing their bank cards and Sarah Wolfe's car, and
withdrawing $600 from Sarah's bank account.
Defense attorneys Lisa Phillips and Lisa Middleman hugged each other and shook
Wade's hand just after court staff shared the jury's statement about the
impasse.
"We've taken several votes. ... It doesn't look like we are going to be able to
move one way or another," the statement read.
The panel was split 9-3 in favor of the death penalty, but the holdouts could
not be swayed, jurors said afterward.
"I think the jury was very conscientious, and I think we were very thorough,"
said Gwendolyn Kerr, an alternate brought in to replace original Juror No. 4
after he looked up Wade's criminal history and brought it up to other jurors on
the 1st day of deliberations on whether Wade was guilty.
Kerr noted that after the judge instructed the rest of the panel to disregard
the dismissed juror and what he said, the topic never came up. She didn't learn
why she had been called until after the trial was over.
Kerr, a former hospital lab technician, said she found it easier to grasp the
DNA evidence in the case than other jurors did.
"Everyone had differing reasons for their conviction. Different things swayed
different people," Kerr said.
But during the penalty phase, jurors couldn't agree on how much weight to give
the Wade family's testimony about his helpful nature as a child or his love for
his late grandmother, Kerr said. One refused to consider the death penalty at
all, so the majority gave up on convincing the other 2.
Another juror, who declined to give her name, said she was upset over the
deadlock but glad Wade was convicted.
"Justice was not served here," she said.
The other jurors declined to give their names or comment further, though the
foreman said the past 20 days was a heavy burden that finally has been lifted.
Christy Wolfe, 1 of Susan and Sarah's sisters, praised the jury and said she
felt it ruled with thoughtfulness and a sense of duty.
"I could say so much about Suzy and Sarah, but I think the best thing is just
that they were, they were ... so important," she said.
In victim impact statements read Tuesday, she and her sister Katie Wolfe told
jurors how much Sarah, 38, and Susan, 44, meant to them and their children.
Katie's oldest daughter had planned to move in with the sisters after high
school and volunteer at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Oakland,
where Sarah was a psychiatrist.
Though the defense alleged investigators rushed to pin the murders on Wade
under pressure from prosecutors and the media, Kevin Wolfe said he has great
respect and admiration for the prosecutors and homicide detectives. At one
point, investigators flew to meet the family at their Iowa home to review
evidence.
As he was led from the courtroom, Wade told his parents in the gallery, Vivian
"Bunny" Wade and Allen "Sonny" Wade, that he loved them. Afterward, his
great-aunt, Jeanette Howard, apologized to the Wolfe family and said things
were "in God's hands."
Prosecutors Bill Petulla and Rob Schupansky declined to comment, as did defense
attorneys Middleman, Phillips and Aaron Sontz.
Middleman told Borkowski that post-sentencing motions will be filed on Wade's
behalf that will challenge aspects of the conviction, and will seek extra time
because of the need to prepare a transcript of the lengthy trial.
(source: triblive.com)
MISSISSIPPI:
Mississippi Supreme Court rejects Curtis Giovanni Flowers' motion
The Mississippi Supreme Court has rejected Curtis Giovanni Flowers' emergency
appeal to get his hands on discovery documents that might help in the appeal of
his conviction and death sentence in his 6th trial.
In June 2010, Flowers was convicted in Montgomery Circuit Court and sentenced
to death for killing Winona furniture store owner Bertha Tardy and 3 of her
employees in 1996.
The Mississippi Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision released Thursday,
refused Flowers' motion to force District Attorney Doug Evans to turn over law
enforcement and prosecution files in his case as well as Evans' notes, jury
strike sheets, and other documents relating to jury selection in Flowers' 6th
trial.
"This was a ruling on the narrow scope of discovery documents," Flowers'
attorney, David Voisin of Jackson, said Thursday. "It's not a big deal. His
overall post-conviction appeal is still before the court."
The state Supreme Court upheld a ruling earlier this year by Circuit Judge
Joseph Loper Jr., who presided over Flowers' sixth trial, denying Flowers'
motion to force Evans' office to provide the requested documents.
Flowers is seeking the documents as part of his appeal of the latest
conviction.
After Flowers' conviction in 2010, Loper issued a 42-page opinion denying his
motion to throw out the jury verdict, or, as an alternative grant him a new
trial. The state Supreme Court affirmed Flowers' conviction.However, Flowers
has filed a new post-conviction appeal, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
Voisin said normally there is presumption that the prosecution has fully
disclosed all information.
"Ordinarily, we presume that public officials have properly discharged their
duties. However, this is no ordinary case," Voisin said in the motions.
"Instead, the lengthy and tortured history of this case includes an extensive
history of prosecutorial misconduct, to be detailed in petitioner's forthcoming
petition for post-conviction relief."
The state Supreme Court reversed Flowers' conviction 3 previous times.
STATE SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS
Evans said he believes Flowers' last trial was completely fair.
One of the grounds cited by Flowers for a new trial was too few African
Americans were among the final jury pool.
The jury, which was sequestered, was made up of 11 whites and 1 African
American.
But Loper said in his opinion that Flowers had the option of seeking a change
of venue if he was concerned about whether he could receive a fair trial in the
county where the crime was committed.
"On 2 previous occasions, Flowers sought and was granted changes of venue. He
chose not to seek one again," Loper said. "Flowers certainly had the
constitutional right to be tried in the county where the crimes were committed.
However, he should not be heard to complain about the racial makeup of the
jury, since the overwhelming majority of the members of his race stated that
they could not sit in judgment of him because of kinships, friendships and
family ties."
The jury that was drawn represented a fair cross-section of Montgomery County,
Loper said.
"Additionally, given the prominence of the Flowers family in Montgomery County
and given their large extended family, it is far from certain that another
venire would have resulted in more African Americans serving on the jury," he
said.
Flowers was first convicted in 1997 for killing Bertha Tardy and then in 1999
for killing Derrick Stewart. He received the death penalty in both trials, but
the state Supreme Court reversed the convictions on appeal.
In 2004, Flowers was tried when all 4 killings were consolidated into one
trial, and he again received the death penalty. The Supreme Court reversed that
decision as well.
Flowers' next 2 trials ended in mistrials, 1 in 2007 and the other in September
2008.
Benny Rigby, whose wife Carmen was one of the murder victims, said after the
last conviction he was thankful the conviction made it past the 1st hurdle.
"We're just hoping and praying that it sticks this time," he said. "I don't
know of anything you could come back on with this one."
(source: Clarion Ledger)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska Supreme Court hears arguments over whether ballot initiative to
reinstate death penalty is valid
Death penalty supporters convinced nearly 167,000 people to sign a petition to
let voters decide whether to reinstate capital punishment in Nebraska.
On Wednesday, they tried to convince seven judges on the Nebraska Supreme Court
that a legal challenge to their petition was properly tossed out by a lower
court.
A lawyer for death penalty opponents, meanwhile, raised a new issue during oral
arguments Wednesday: He said organizers of the petition drive failed to submit
a legally required sworn statement by the sponsors. Instead, the petition
organizers filed a notarized sheet signed by Omaha City Councilwoman Aimee
Melton, 1 of 3 ballot committee members listed on the document.
"It is not a sworn statement," Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson said. "It is an
acknowledgment of signature, not a sworn statement. There is a difference, and
it is critical."
Attorney Steve Grasz of Omaha, who represents Nebraskans for the Death Penalty,
characterized the scrutiny of the document as a last-ditch argument, one that
wasn't even raised when the case was heard by the lower court. He pointed out
that the document in question was subtitled "Sworn List of Sponsors."
"The appellants are grasping at straws here," Grasz said.
Facing a mid-September deadline to distribute statewide ballots for the Nov. 8
general election, the Supreme Court is expected to decide the appeal relatively
quickly. But if the judges send the case back, another appeal of a second lower
court ruling is almost assured.
The main issue before the Supreme Court involves a requirement that petition
organizers file a sworn statement listing the names and addresses of "every
person" who sponsors the effort. The requirement is intended to let voters know
which individuals, organizations or corporations are behind a petition drive
before signatures are collected.
After state election officials validated 143,000 voter signatures to put the
death penalty question on the ballot, opponents quickly challenged the legality
of the referendum. They alleged that the sponsor list failed to include Gov.
Pete Ricketts, who gave $200,000 to the campaign after the Nebraska Legislature
overrode his veto of the death penalty repeal in 2015.
Death penalty opponent Christy Hargesheimer of Lincoln, the lead plaintiff in
the case, said after Wednesday's arguments that it bothers her that the
governor appears to be trying to settle a score with the Legislature.
"We struggled for many, many years to repeal the death penalty," she said.
Ricketts has said he believes that capital punishment is needed in rare cases
to protect public safety and the lives of corrections officers and other
inmates.
Lawyers for death penalty supporters argued Wednesday that the intent of the
law was not to require every significant financial backer to be listed as a
sponsor. Voters can learn the identity of petition donors through compulsory
filings with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret sided with petition organizers
earlier this year by ruling that the governor's financial and political support
did not make him a sponsor by default.
On Wednesday, Supreme Court Judge Lindsey Miller-Lerman asked the attorney for
the death penalty opponents to define what the law means by "sponsor." Peterson
said it means the "primary initiating force" behind the petition.
Lawyers for death penalty supporters argued that a sponsor is someone willing
to take legal responsibility for the petition drive on the day the paperwork is
filed with the Secretary of State's Office. Requiring petition organizers to
anticipate and list every major financial supporter when they launch their
drive would "chill" the democratic process, said Assistant Attorney General
Ryan Post, who represented Secretary of State John Gale.
"This court cannot adopt obstructions that hinder the people's referendum
rights," he said. "It needs to facilitate that process."
Peterson also told the Supreme Court that the trial judge improperly ruled that
the sponsor's statement was valid. The document is not a sworn statement, as is
required under the law, but a signature by one sponsor that was witnessed by a
notary public.
"It clearly shows it was not an affidavit or a sworn statement," he said.
Chief Justice Mike Heavican asked Peterson whether he was raising an argument
that was not made in the trial court. In its role as an appellate court, the
Supreme Court passes judgment on lower court decisions but does not typically
issue original rulings.
Peterson acknowledged that the argument wasn't raised at trial but said the
lawsuit itself challenged the validity of the petition documents. Because the
document was in dispute, he said, the lower court erred by determining that it
was valid.
Grasz, the lawyer for the death penalty supporters, previously filed a motion
to strike Peterson's argument regarding the sworn statement. He argued that the
Supreme Court should not even consider it because the argument was not raised
earlier.
Grasz went on to cite previous Supreme Court rulings defining what constitutes
an oath and a sworn statement. By those definitions, the petition document was
valid, Grasz said.
"Clearly Councilwoman Melton had a conscious notion that she was signing a
sworn statement because that's what it said on the face of the statement,"
Grasz said.
Nebraskans for the Death Penalty ultimately collected about 143,000 valid
signatures to get the referendum on the ballot. The number also was enough to
put the repeal on hold until the November vote, although authorities have said
they will not pursue an execution until the voters have spoken.
(source: omaha.com)
UTAH:
Utah Considering Death Penalty by Firing Squad
With the drugs most commonly used for lethal injections no longer available,
Utah may revert to carrying out death sentences with a firing squad.
The state of Utah has used lethal injection for most of its executions since
1977, but firing squads have remained an option in some cases.
Ronald Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said
the Utah Legislature passed a bill in 2015 specifying that firing squads would
be used if lethal drugs could not be obtained.
"The reason they went to lethal injection was because they did not like the
image that was portrayed by using a firing squad," he said. "They thought it
was bad for the state."
Utah has used firing squads throughout most of the state's history, and most
recently used one in an execution in 2010. Dunham says there are currently nine
people waiting on Utah's death row, although no execution dates have been set.
He said earlier this year, a bill to end the death penalty passed in the state
Senate but never came to a vote in the House.
Dunham says since the drug company Pfizer banned the use of its drugs for
executions, only three states have announced they would use an alternative
method. In addition to Utah, Oklahoma will use a gas chamber and Tennessee an
electric chair. Dunham said most other states have taken a wait-and-see
attitude.
"For the most part, states have chosen to do nothing, because most states
aren't executing anybody right now and their constituents are not disappointed
by that," he added.
According to Dunham, in recent years, several polls have shown that among
people who back the use of the death penalty, the majority support lethal
injections but do not approve of using other, more violent methods. There are
currently 19 states without a death penalty.
(source: Utah Public Radio)
ARIZONA:
Federal appeals court upholds death sentences in 1977 Maricopa murders
A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the death sentences against Joseph
Clarence Smith for the 1976 murders of two teenage girls while he was on
probation for a previous rape.
A 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected 7 challenges
from Smith, including a claim that autopsy evidence showing his "exceptional
violence" violated his right to confront his accuser.
It marks the 3rd time the 9th Circuit has ruled on Smith's case - but likely
not the last. An attorney with the federal public defender's office in Arizona
said Thursday that the office already plans to ask for a review by the full
appellate court.
Smith was on parole for the 1973 rape of Alice Archibeque in 1976 when he
murdered Sandy Spencer and Neva Lee and raped Dorothy Fortner in 3 separate
incidents, according to court documents.
Fortner was 4 or 5 months pregnant when Smith told her he knew her boyfriend
and convinced her take a ride from him. He drove her into the desert where he
threatened her with a knife and raped her repeatedly before ultimately letting
her go.
Fortner would later testify against Smith during his sentencing in the murders
of Spencer and Lee. He had picked them up in separate incidents and drove into
the desert where each was tied up and stabbed multiple times by Smith, who
killed them by stuffing dirt into their mouths and nostrils and taping them
shut.
Their nude, mutilated bodies were found in the desert outside Phoenix within a
month of each other in early 1976. He was convicted of both murders in 1977 and
sentenced to death for each.
In one of his appeals, Smith raised a diagnosis of "sexual sadism" as a defense
against the imposition of the death penalty - opening the door for prosecutors
to introduce autopsy reports and other evidence of Smith's many previous
crimes.
In his opinion for the appeals court, Judge Richard Paez said there is "little
doubt that the prosecution's powerful rebuttal evidence was prejudicial to
Smith." But he said prosecutors were still well within their rights to present
it.
"Witness after witness testified in detail about the psychological and physical
violence that Smith inflicted on his victims, painting a picture of exceptional
violence," Paez wrote.
"Nonetheless, in light of Smith's reliance, minimal as it may have been, on his
sexual sadism diagnosis ... it was reasonable for the Arizona Supreme Court to
conclude that the evidence fell within the boundaries of due process," the
opinion said.
The court rejected Smith's other claims, including a claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel, noting that the "evidence in both the Spencer and Lee
sentencing hearings was extensive."
The panel also rejected Smith's claim that executing him now, after he has
spent 35 years on Arizona's death row, would be cruel and unusual punishment.
"Joe Smith has been on death row for 40 years, he is one of the longest death
row inmates in the U.S.," said Dale Baich, an assistant public defender with
the Arizona Federal Public Defender's Office. "He's in a single cell for 23
hours a day."
The Arizona Attorney General's office did not return a call Thursday asking for
comment on the ruling.
(source: Cronkite News)
USA:
Ahead Of Resentencing Trial, Defense Works To Spare Gary Lee Sampson's Life
12 years after he was sentenced to death for the carjacking murders of 2
Massachusetts men, Gary Lee Sampson is returning to federal court in Boston for
a new trial this September.
Jurors will decide whether or not to impose a sentence of death and Sampson's
new attorneys are filing some bold motions to help spare his life.
Among the arguments why Sampson should be put to death, the government says he
poses a future danger to inmates and guards if he is sentenced to life in
prison.
That's based on past behavior at the federal prison in Terra Haute, Indiana,
the prosecution asserts. Records show that during 10 years on death row,
Sampson kicked a guard in the head and lunged at another with a sharpened broom
handle. Sampson attempted numerous assaults and also threatened to kill people,
telling one official "I'm a stone-cold killer."
The defense says the government's assertion of future dangerousness is wrong.
And anticipating the need to rebut the argument at trial, defense attorneys are
asking the judge to order the government to find and turn over a wide range of
data for a wide range of federal prisoners - every inmate since 1988 who's been
charged with a crime that is death penalty eligible. The defense hopes a
statistical analysis will show Sampson is less dangerous than the average
inmate.
"It's 27 years of data for thousands of inmates," prosecutor Zack Hafer told
the judge. "It's nuts. That's the best legal term I can think of."
Defense attorney Jennifer Wicht argues that "the burden on the government for
finding and turning over the records is not a valid reason to deny the
discoverable evidence."
But the government argues the jury need only look at Sampson's behavior in
prison to judge whether he is a future danger.
In another eye-catching motion, the defense has presented pages of what they
are called mitigating factors that the jury should consider in determining
whether to impose the death penalty. They include low intelligence, a history
of drug and alcohol dependency, brain damage, mental illness and abuse by
Sampson's father.
In the 1st Sampson trial, the defense presented 19 mitigating factors. In the
trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, lawyers presented 21. Sampson's new attorneys
propose 308 factors.
(source: WBUR news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 27 10:38:15 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 10:38:15 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605271038050.6544@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 27
INDONESIA:
Indonesia cyanide death penalty 'possible'----Despite assuring the Australian
Federal Police the death penalty would not be sought, Jakarta prosecutors are
publicly refusing to rule it out.
Jakarta prosecutors have refused to publicly rule out the death penalty in the
case of a woman accused of murdering her friend with a cyanide-laced coffee.
This is despite the Australian Federal Police (AFP) being given assurances she
would not be executed before they agreed to help Indonesian authorities.
Jessica Kumala Wongso is accused of killing her 27-year-old friend Wayan Mirna
Salihin in January with a poisoned Vietnamese ice coffee at a popular Jakarta
restaurant.
After months in which the case file on the alleged murder was repeatedly sent
back to police due to lack of evidence, prosecutors declared the investigation
complete this week.
Jessica, also 27, said nothing as she was brought to the prosecutor's office in
central Jakarta amid a crush of shouting local media.
Trailing behind her were 2 policemen carrying the brief against her and a box
which contains new information provided by the AFP.
The AFP received approval in February from Justice Minister Michael Keenan to
provide assistance to Indonesian authorities.
The approval came after the Indonesian government assured Australia the death
penalty would not be "sought nor carried out" if Jessica were to be found
guilty of the alleged murder.
But Jakarta Attorney Office spokesman Waluyo refused to publicly rule out the
death penalty as a possible punishment when talking to local media, saying that
even for Jessica "it's possible".
"It depends on facts found in the trial later," he said.
Speaking outside the office, her lawyer Yudi Wibowo told reporters the AFP had
given local authorities information about an alleged quarrel between Jessica
and her then boyfriend - known only as "Patrick" - while they were living in
Australia.
Mr Wibowo claimed "Patrick" had reported her to police, because he was "afraid
of being reported first".
"She (Jessica) told me they had a quarrel ... her boyfriend had debt. She asked
him about the money he owed to her ... that's all," Mr Wibowo told reporters.
He said the AFP had also received reports of Jessica crashing her car into a
nursing home in August last year in Sydney.
But Mr Wibowo said he was doubtful the new information could be used during her
trial.
In a case that has dominated local press, Jessica is accused of killing
27-year-old Wayan Mirna Salihin, with whom she studied in Australia - first at
Billy Blue College in Sydney and later at Swinburne University of Technology in
Melbourne in 2008.
Jessica met up with Mirna and their friend Hani on January 6, during a trip
home to Indonesia in January.
It is alleged she laced Mirna's Vietnamese iced coffee with cyanide.
Moments after sipping it Mirna collapsed and began convulsing.
She was confirmed dead a short time later in hospital.
Prosecutors will now have 110 days to prepare the indictment against Jessica
and hand it to Central Jakarta District Court.
The AFP have been contacted for comment.
(source: sbs.com.au)
PHILIPPINES:
Senate must study death penalty carefully - Gatchalian
While he favors the restoration of the death penalty for big time drug
syndicates and drug lords, Senator-elect Sherwin Gatchalian said the Senate
should study carefully the proposal to reimpose it for other heinous crimes.
"I do agree to reimpose the death penalty for big time drug syndicates and drug
lords. However, we have to study carefully (the) other crimes being proposed by
the administration," Gatchalian said in a text message on Thursday.
"This is one of the items the Senate will thoroughly deliberate and discuss,"
he added.
Presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte himself is pushing for the
reimposition of the death penalty not only for drug crimes but also for other
heinous crimes.
Both Senate President Franklin Drilon and Senator Juan Edgardo "Sonny" Angara
earlier expressed their readiness to listen to all arguments for and against
the reinstatement of the capital punishment in the country.
"I will listen to all sides," Drilon said.
Angara, for his part, said he would "listen carefully to the arguments for and
against."
But Angara added: "We should also prioritize measures to improve law
enforcement and the justice system alongside any death penalty measures."
(source: Philippine Inquirer)
**********
Archbishop Palma: 'Duterte says one thing, then changes it'
CEBU Archbishop Jose Palma said he can not understand the mind of presumptive
President Rodrigo Duterte, especially his stand on various issues.
In a press conference yesterday, Palma said that the presumptive president has
a tendency to change his statements.
Palma made the reaction after Duterte issued statements on his stand on the
revival of the death penalty and his proposal to implement a 3-child policy as
a way to control the population.
"The incoming president seems to be a very difficult (person) to assess, I put
it that way. He says one thing today, (but) he modifies a little bit the next
day," Palma told reporters yesterday.
No statement yet
Palma said that as of now, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines
(CBCP) has agreed to not issue any statement until such time that Duterte will
be able to assume the presidency.
The decision was made during a meeting last May 24 with CBCP president and
Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas.
Palma said that as agreed with Villegas and the other bishops, the CBCP will
have to wait and see until Duterte implements his programs during his
administration.
He hopes that Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, who is a friend of Duterte, could
enlighten the presumptive president on various stands he is making.
Valles is one of many senior bishops who are groomed to succeed Villegas once
his term ends 2 years from now.
Palma also hopes that Duterte, once declared as the new President, will be able
to talk with the bishops.
He also supports the recent statement of the Archdiocese of Davao to "respect
and listen with humility" to the presumptive president's words even if it's
against the Catholic Church.
Hypocrite
Duterte criticized the Catholic Church in the country, even calling it "the
most hypocritical institution" for projecting itself to be righteous even
though its members are allegedly committing wrongdoings.
Meanwhile, Palma supports the implementation of a 10 p.m. curfew for minors
within Cebu Province.
Recently, the Cebu Provincial Board passed a resolution supporting Duterte's
plan to implement a curfew for minors nationwide starting on June 30.
Palma believes a curfew for minors could help avoid crimes committed by and
against minors, especially those that occur in the wee hours.
(source: Sun Star)
ISRAEL:
New defense minister's death penalty demand would put Israelis at risk
One of the terms set by Israel's incoming minister of defense, Avigdor
Liberman, as a precondition for joining Benjamin Netanyahu's government was
that Israel impose the death penalty for people convicted of terrorism.
Liberman's party, Yisrael Beitenu, raised this as a banner issue before the
March 2015 elections and again, even more fervently, following the recent wave
of terrorism. Its argument, which has no basis whatsoever in fact, is that such
a measure is necessary to deter attacks.
Sharon Gal, a former Yisrael Beitenu Knesset member who resigned after serving
only 6 months, actually proposed legislation on this issue. His bill failed to
pass in July 2015 due to Netanyahu's adamant opposition to it. The prime
minister put all his weight into opposing the law. Among the reasons he cited
was the defense establishment's argument that imposing the death penalty could
aggravate the already sensitive relationship with the Palestinian Authority
(PA) and lead to an unwelcome escalation in tensions. Netanyahu has since
withdrawn his opposition. In fact, he retracted it at the start of the recent
coalition negotiations with Liberman.
Meanwhile, Liberman has climbed high up a tree and turned the issue into a
matter of principle. It seems that he wants to prove to his supporters,
electorate and Israeli public opinion that he is interested in more than just a
senior Cabinet portfolio in the Netanyahu government. He also wants to show
that he has a deep concern for public safety and to establish a clear milestone
for a firm Israeli policy against the Palestinians.
The return of the death penalty to the public agenda led former Attorney
General Yehuda Weinstein to speak out for the first time since completing his
tenure in January 2016. "It is impractical as a deterrent, since these are
criminals who act from an ideological motive anyway and are not afraid to die,"
Weinstein said in a May 19 interview with Haaretz. "Furthermore, it's immoral."
It is also interesting to hear the opinion of the deputy military advocate
general, Col. Ilan Katz (Res.), who noted on May 22 that over the years, there
have been steady government directives to avoid seeking the death penalty. He
said that the legal system of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has always
recommended that the death penalty for terrorism not be requested, because it
could lead to an increase in attacks and incidents in which the "enemy executes
our own captives."
Among coalition opponents of the death penalty are members of Kulanu, headed by
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Without their support, there is no chance of the
law being passed in the Knesset.
Actually, according to Israeli military law, the death penalty can already be
imposed on people convicted of terrorism who are older than 18 years of age,
but it requires unanimous agreement by a 3-judge military tribunal as well as
the unanimous consent of judges on the military appellate court. To date,
Israeli policy has been to avoid implementing those parts of the law enabling
use of the death penalty.
In the coalition negotiations, Netanyahu and Liberman agreed to amend the law
so that a majority of just 2 military judges would be needed to approve a death
sentence. The government could even change its traditional and ethical policy
of avoiding any implementation of the death penalty. Under the influence of the
incoming defense minister, it could ask military courts to sentence accused
terrorists to death or it could foster public opinion in support of capital
punishment.
"This is another one of Liberman's crazy ideas, which could ignite everything,"
Gen. Adnan al-Damiri, spokesman for the Palestinian security forces, told
Al-Monitor. As of now, the PA does not believe Israel will decide to aggravate
its already complex and troubled relationship with the Palestinians and the PA.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian leadership continues to regard the issue as a red
line that must not be crossed.
"If Israel dares to execute a single Palestinian, you can say goodbye to
security coordination," a senior Palestinian in the security services told
Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity. If Israel executes a Palestinian and
President Mahmoud Abbas continues to convey the sense that it is all business
as usual, he said, "It will be the end of him, and in fact, of all of us."
Security coordination has proven itself over the past few months, but it is not
the only thing potentially at risk. The new defense minister's demands could
ignite a full-blown intifada.
The most senior ranks of the IDF - Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot, Deputy Chief
of Staff Yair Golan, Coordinator of Activities in the Territories Yoav
Mordechai, and above them, the outgoing defense minister, Moshe Ya'alon - have
all advocated a policy of restraint to keep the majority of the Palestinian
public out of the circle of violence and intifada. This measured and
thought-out policy has proved its effectiveness. Under the leadership of a
reasonable and responsible defense minister, the IDF has shown that it can put
the brakes on the aggressive posturing of right-wing ministers in Netanyahu's
Cabinet, particularly those who are convinced that Israel's security problems
can be resolved by following a "bang and be done with it" policy.
So, for example, during the recent war of Palestinian attacks on Israelis,
instead of undertaking excessive military operations in the territories, the
IDF supported granting additional work permits to Palestinians. Instead of
conducting mass arrests, which would likely cause the situation to further
deteriorate and drag the general Palestinian population into the rebellion, the
IDF tightened security cooperation with the Palestinian security services and
conducted point-specific arrests of people who met the "ticking time bomb"
criterion. Carrying out just 1 execution, as the new defense minister is
demanding, could reignite the whole region and bury the joint efforts of the
Israeli and Palestinian security forces to stop the wave of terror.
Then, of course, there is the issue of the two Israeli civilians being held by
Hamas in Gaza. It should be recalled that on April 16, Liberman threatened the
life of Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior Hamas official in Gaza. Liberman mocked
Haniyeh by suggesting that he start looking for a nearby cemetery if he refused
to return the bodies of fallen soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin within 48
hours of being told to do so, as well as releasing 2 Israeli civilians, Avera
Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayyad.
The death penalty that Liberman wants to promote as a deterrent could put the
lives of these 2 Israelis held by Hamas at risk and cause enormous damage to
Israel's security.
(source: Opinion; Shlomi Eldar is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Israel Pulse.
For the past 2 decades, he has covered the Palestinian Authority and especially
the Gaza Strip for Israel's Channels 1 and 10, reporting on the emergence of
Hamas. In 2007, he was awarded the Sokolov Prize, Israel's most important media
award, for this work----al-monitor.com)
IRAN----execution
Man hanged in public in southern Iran city
Iran's fundamentalist regime on Thursday publicly hanged a man in the southern
city of Shiraz.
The regime's judiciary in Fars Province, southern Iran, in a May 26 statement
identified the victim only as Hamid B.
The regime mass executed on Wednesday 11 prisoners in their twenties, including
at least 1 who is believed to have been only 16 at the time of his alleged
offence. Another 5 prisoners were executed on Tuesday in Ghezel-Hessar Prison
of Karaj and Adelabad Prison of Shiraz.
Another prisoner was hanged in public in Ramsar, northern Iran, after spending
8 years in prison.
Iran's fundamentalist regime has sharply increased its rate of executions,
carrying out at least 21 hangings in a 48-hour period last week.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, on Wednesday called for an urgent response
by the United Nations and foreign governments to the appalling state of human
rights in Iran.
"The rising number of mass executions in Iran in recent weeks clearly shows
that the regime has in no way decided to change its disgraceful human rights
record. Any claim of moderation under Hassan Rouhani is simply a myth. It is
high time for the United Nations and human rights organizations to speak out
against the brutal executions by the mullahs??? regime and send Iran's human
rights dossier before the UN Security Council," she said.
The latest hanging brings to at least 116 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 2 are believed to have been
juvenile offenders.
Iran's fundamentalist regime earlier this month amputated the fingers of a man
in his thirties in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments
handed down and carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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)
PAKISTAN----execution
Convicted murderer hanged
A death row inmate was executed at the District Jail here early Thursday
morning, official sources said.
They said Said Jehan, a resident of Buner, was charged with the murder of his
parents-in-laws. The deceased had been serving time since 2011. The body was
handed over to the relatives after execution.
The government lifted moratorium on the death penalty following militants'
attack on Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014.
(source: The News)
***************
MEPs launch declaration on religious freedom in Pakistan
Italian MEP Antonio Tajani has launched a campaign to highlight the plight of a
woman facing the death sentence in Pakistan.
The initiative, a European Parliament written declaration, seeks to halt the
death penalty of Asia Bibi, a mother of 5 who was sentenced for blasphemy and
has been imprisoned since 2010.
Bibi, a Christian, was sentenced to death for blasphemy after being accused of
insulting the Muslim prophet Mohammed after she shared a drinking vessel with
her Islamic colleagues.
The aim is to collect the signatures of more than half of the European
Parliament's MEPs to a written declaration on promoting religious freedom in
Pakistan and condemning the unjustified detention of Asia Bibi.
If that happens, the declaration will have the same legal value as a petition
and will be sent to the High Representative of the EU and the European
Commission.
Tajani, a former Commissioner, called on the EU to take "all necessary
political and diplomatic action" to secure the release of Bibi and to promote
religious freedom in Pakistan.
The EPP group member said, "Europe cannot be silent in front of the unjustified
detention of Asia Bibi, a symbol of the persecution of Christians in the world.
We have the duty to avoid the execution of a woman for an unacceptable crime."
He added that on 4 November 2014 a crowd of more than 1500 people had burned
alive a couple accused of blasphemy in Pakistan.
"And 2 months ago, during Easter, a group of Islamists demonstrated in front of
the buildings of the Pakistani government asking for the application of Sharia
law in Pakistan and execution by death penalty for Asia Bibi."
"Every man or woman who cares about religion, human rights and is not blinded
by hatred, knows that Asia Bibi has to live and should be released", said
Tajani, who is also the European Parliament's Vice President responsible for
interreligious dialogue.
The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Philip Freier, has also called for
clemency in the Bibi case.
In his letter to the High Commissioner for Pakistan to Australia, he has asked
that Islamabad re-open Asia Bibi's case and acquit her."
(source: parliamentmagazine.eu)
SAUDI ARABIA:
Surge in executions continues as death toll approaches 100
Saudi Arabia will have put to death more than 100 people in the first 6 months
of this year if it continues to carry out executions at its current pace, said
Amnesty International today. At least 94 people have been executed so far this
year, higher than at the same point last year.
At least 158 people were put to death in Saudi Arabia in 2015, the highest
recorded figure in the country since 1995.
"Executions in Saudi Arabia have been surging dramatically for 2 years now and
this appalling trend shows no sign of slowing," said James Lynch, Deputy Middle
East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
"The steep increase in executions is even more appalling given the pervasive
flaws in Saudi Arabia's justice system which mean that it is entirely routine
for people to be sentenced to death after grossly unfair trials. The Saudi
Arabian authorities should end their reliance on this cruel and inhuman form of
punishment and establish an official moratorium on executions immediately."
The case of 21-year-old Ali al-Nimr who was sentenced to death based on
"confessions" he says were extracted through torture, provides a glaring
example of the arbitrary use of the death penalty after proceedings that
blatantly flout international human rights standards.
Today marks 2 years since Ali al-Nimr, who was arrested after taking part in
anti-government protests, was sentenced to death by a special security and
counter-terrorism court for a series of offences such as attacking security
forces and committing armed robbery. He was just 17 when he was arrested.
International human rights law prohibits the use of the death penalty for
crimes committed by persons under the age of 18.
"Ali al-Nimr has already spent 2 years on death row - instead of forcing him to
spend a single day longer awaiting execution the Saudi Arabian authorities
should quash his conviction and order a re-trial immediately in proceedings
that meet international fair trial standards without recourse to the death
penalty," said James Lynch.
2 other young men, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood al-Marhoon were sentenced to
death a few months after Ali al-Nimr, on a list of similar offences, and also
say they were tortured into "confessing".
(source: Amnesty International)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 27 17:17:46 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 17:17:46 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605271717350.5596@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 27
GEORGIA:
Georgia seeks death penalty for suspect in killing of Florida priest
A Georgia prosecutor says she intends to seek the death penalty against a man
charged with murder after leading authorities to the body of a missing Florida
priest.
The Augusta Chronicle reports that District Attorney Ashley Wright filed notice
this week that she will seek the death penalty for 28-year-old Steve James
Murray of Jacksonville, Florida.
A grand jury in Burke County, Georgia, indicted Murray on murder and weapon
violations in the April 18 shooting of the Rev. Rene Robert of St. Augustine,
Florida.
Authorities believe Murray kidnapped the 71-year-old priest, took him to
Georgia in his own car and killed him there. Murray was later arrested in
Aiken, South Carolina, while driving the priest's Toyota Corolla.
(source: Associated Press)
*****************
Bishop calls for Georgia not to seek death penalty for Father Rene Robert's
killer
On May 25, Steven Murray was indicted by a Burke County, Ga., grand jury for
the murder of Father Rene Robert, who was priest of the Diocese of St.
Augustine
It is my understanding that the prosecutors in Georgia will seek the death
penalty for Murray because the murder occurred during other felonies -
kidnapping and aggravated battery.
And if convicted, Murray deserves punishment for the brutal murder of Father
Rene.
But imposing a sentence of death on Murray as a consequence of killing Father
Rene only perpetuates a cycle of violence.
JAIL VIOLENT CRIMINALS FOR LIFE
While the state of Georgia 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.
-- Feeds a sense of vengeance rather than justice.
OPPOSED CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
Society remains safe when violent criminals are imprisoned for life.
Father Rene was vehemently opposed to capital punishment. He left a signed
Declaration of Life document with his personal records that declared that
should he become a victim of homicide, he did not want his murderer executed -
no matter how heinous the crime may have been or how much he may have suffered.
FAMILY AWARE OF WISHES
This document has been shared with Father Rene's family, and they are fully
aware of his wishes.
We sympathize with the pain they are suffering. However, another death will not
provide the true healing and justice that they are seeking.
Father Rene was such a strong advocate for life - so much so that Father Rene
felt it was important enough to document his wishes in writing and to leave
them in my care to ensure that they are shared with the appropriate prosecuting
authorities and also the community.
I hope Father Rene's written wishes will be given great weight by the Burke
County prosecutors - and that Murray's sentencing will be passed in accordance
with his wishes.
GRANT ETERNAL PEACE
In this year of mercy, let us pray that our loving Lord will pour his merciful
love upon the troubled soul who took his life.
And may Jesus Christ grant eternal rest to Father Rene and peace for his family
and our community who suffer his loss yet trust in the Good Shepherd's care for
all.
Most Rev. Felipe J. Estevez,
Bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine,
Jacksonville
(source: Letter to the Editor, Florida Times-Union)
USA:
1 Step Forward, 1 Step Back in the Fight Against the Death Penalty
The Department of Justice announces a rare intent to pursue the death penalty
as Connecticut affirms its ban against capital punishment.
The United States Department of Justice will pursue the death penalty for
Dylann Roof, the man charged with killing 9 people in a racially motivated
attack last year in a South Carolina church. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch
announced this rare federal pursuit of the death penalty Tuesday, just 2 days
before yesterday's ruling from the Connecticut Supreme Court to maintain its
ban of the decreasingly popular policy.
The federal government's last execution came in 2003, when Louis Jones Jr., a
Persian Gulf War veteran convicted of the kidnapping, rape, and murder of
fellow soldier Tracie Joy McBride, was killed by lethal injection. Since 1988,
U.S. attorneys general have authorized the government to seek the death penalty
against 502 defendants, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But
only 37 federal executions have been carried out since 1927.
The Roof case indicates that federal prosecutors share the country's overall
pro-death penalty stance, even as states like Connecticut maintain their bans.
Support for the death penalty has declined steadily across the U.S. since 1995,
especially among Democrats, the Pew Research Center reported last spring. But a
majority of Americans?-?56 %, according to Pew, and 61 %, according to Gallup
polls?-?continue to support the sentence. 19 states and Washington, D.C., have
banned the death penalty.
As Pacific Standard has previously reported, the death penalty is often
sentenced along racial lines. Killers of whites are more likely to receive the
death penalty than killers of African Americans. Jurors are also more likely to
convict black defendants compared to white defendants if the punishment is
death, although they convict both groups equally if the sentence is life
without parole. All nine of Roof's victims were black.
Roof, who also faces federal hate crime charges, will report to his 1st hearing
in Charleston on June 7.
(source: Pacific Standard Magazine)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri May 27 17:18:25 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 17:18:25 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605271718160.5596@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 27
MALAYSIA:
Penang police seize drugs worth RM30,000 in raid---ACP Mior Faridalatrash Wahid
said the police have detained 2 friends aged 18 and 16 suspected of being drug
dealers and seized drugs worth about RM30,000 during a press conference at the
northeast district police, headquarters on May 27, 2016.
The northeast district police detained 2 friends suspected of being drug
dealers and seized drugs worth about RM30,000 at Pepper Estate, Jalan Tanjong
Tokong here early today.
Its chief ACP Mior Faridalatrash Wahid said both suspects aged 18 and 16 were
detained at their rented house at about 12.30pm.
"During the arrests police seized about 701g of heroin and 51g of Syabu from
the suspects.
"Police also seized a gold necklace and a gold ring from them," he told
reporters during a press conference today.
Mior said police have also identified the mastermind of the drug dealing
syndicate but have yet to make an arrest.
He said the seized drugs were for the local market.
Mior said both the suspects would be remanded for 7 days starting tomorrow to
assist in investigations under Section 39B (1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act
1952 which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
(source: The Sun Daily)
GAZA:
Palestinian rights groups try to stop Gaza executions
Palestinian and international human rights defenders are urging Hamas
authorities not to proceed with planned executions in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this month, Ismail Jaber, the attorney general in the coastal
territory, announced that Gaza would soon witness the public executions of 13
persons convicted of murder, with the goal of deterring such crimes.
Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior Hamas leader in Gaza, also announced that the
executions would go ahead. On Wednesday, Gaza-based members of the
Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council
also approved the plan.
Human rights defenders are mobilizing to stop the executions.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warned on Thursday
that the executions would be illegal under the Palestinian Basic Law, which
requires that all death sentences be ratified by the Palestinian Authority
president.
The group said that the executions would amount to extrajudicial killings.
PCHR said it had written to Haniyeh setting out its legal arguments against the
executions. The group stated that leaders who order them could face prosecution
in the International Criminal Court in which Palestine is now a member.
"Street justice"
Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, also based in Gaza, said it too was in
contact with Hamas leaders to try to prevent the killings.
"We are against it. There's no logic in violating the right to life and when
you implement the death penalty it doesn't stop the crime," Al-Mezan's
assistant director Samir Zakout said. "The street wants the death penalty,
people who had relatives killed want it. But we are against this kind of street
justice."
Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
said his office was "deeply concerned" about the planned executions.
"We urge the authorities in Gaza to uphold their obligations to respect the
rights to life and to a fair trial - which are guaranteed under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the State of
Palestine is a party - and not carry out these executions," Colville said.
"We also urge the Palestinian president to establish a moratorium on executions
in line with the strong international trend towards ending the use of the death
penalty,: Colville added.
Split authority
The West Bank-based PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has not ratified any death
sentences in a decade.
Hamas has however continued the use of the death penalty in Gaza.
The surprise victor in legislative elections in 2006, Hamas took control of the
internal governance of Gaza in 2007 after fierce battles with Abbas' rival
Fatah party, which refused to hand over power.
This has meant in practice that most areas of governance, including the
judicial system, have been split.
As of January, according to PCHR, a total of 172 death sentences had been
issued since the PA was established in 1994, of which 30 were in the West Bank
and 142 in Gaza.
84 death sentences were issued since Hamas took over in Gaza in 2007.
Up to 2010, according to PCHR, approximately 1/2 the death sentences were for
homicides and approximately 1/2 for collaboration with Israel.
No deterrent
The planned executions come in apparent response to several high-profile
murders in Gaza and an increase in crime that is seen as linked to the dire
economic situation in the territory as a result of the tight siege Israel has
imposed since Hamas assumed power.
PCHR, which has long campaigned against the death penalty, challenged the
claims of Hamas leaders that public killings would do anything to improve
security.
PCHR noted that crime rates in Gaza, where the death penalty has been applied
in recent years, are far higher than in the West Bank, where it has not been
implemented since 2001.
"In addition, the experiences of other countries, which abolished the death
penalty, reveal that no change was noticed regarding the serious crime rate,"
PCHR added. "Even in countries applying thousands of death sentences annually,
serious crime rates have not decreased."
"According to scientific research, the crime rate is mainly based on social,
economic and cultural circumstances and an efficient security system not on
lenient or severe punishments," PCHR stated.
The group urged Hamas leaders to take another factor into account: the
potential gift to Israeli propaganda of public executions.
"Implementing the death sentences in this manner might contribute to displaying
a negative image about the Gaza Strip that Israel attempts to market to justify
their crimes against Palestinian civilians," PCHR said.
While Israel and its supporters have certainly tried to exploit executions by
Palestinians to portray them as barbaric, Israeli leaders are enthusiastic
about executing Palestinians, whether judicially or extrajudicially, just as
long as it is done by Israelis.
(source: electronicintifada.net)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 28 10:19:16 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 10:19:16 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., N.C., ALA.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605281019080.6772@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 28
TEXAS----stay of impending execution
A court just stayed this Texas man's execution because a witness was hypnotized
Charles Flores, a Texas death row inmate who was scheduled to be executed next
week June 2, was granted a stay of execution late Friday afternoon.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Flores' execution date and sent his
case back to the trial court for a hearing based on his claim that improper
hypnosis was used on the main eyewitness in his murder trial.
As Fusion reported earlier this month, Flores was convicted for the 1998 murder
of Elizabeth "Betty" Black in a Dallas suburb. A jury sentenced him to death
the following year even though prosecutors presented no physical evidence
linking him to the crime, and the only witness who saw him at the scene, Jill
Barganier, was hypnotized by police.
As part of Flores' final appeal, which was filed last week, psychology
professor Steven Lynn said in an affidavit that recent research shows the
hypnosis could have made Barganier create false memories. "Clearly, the
techniques that were used to refresh Ms. Bargainer's memory would be eschewed
today by anyone at all familiar with the extant research on hypnosis and
memory," Lynn wrote.
That hypnosis was the crux of the appeals court's ruling. The court approved
his application for a writ of habeas corpus by essentially finding reason to
believe a reasonable juror may not have convicted him if they had heard
evidence like Lynn's testimony.
Now, the trial court in Flores' case will hold a hearing specifically on the
hypnosis issue and the eyewitness identification. If Flores' lawyers can show
by a preponderance of the evidence that a jury would acquit him today after
hearing new scientific evidence, it would lead to a brand new trial for Flores,
more than 17 years after he was convicted.
"We're ecstatic for Charles right now," said Gregory Gardner, 1 of Flores'
attorneys. "This hypnosis was always very troubling from the beginning... and
we're thrilled that now the Texas courts are going to take a closer look at
it."
The warden at the Polunksy Unit, the Texas death row prison where Flores is
housed, is expected to notify him of the ruling later tonight.
While the appeals court focused on the hypnosis issue in its ruling, Flores
also brought up other issues in his appeal - including the fact that his white
co-defendant received a much shorter sentence than he did and is currently out
of prison on parole.
2 of the 9 judges on the appeals court, which is the highest court in Texas
that hears criminal cases, dissented from granting a stay. Only 1 of the judges
who supported Flores' application, David Newell, wrote an opinion explaining
his thinking.
"Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions
across the country," Newell wrote. "We may ultimately grant relief. We may
ultimately deny relief. But either way, given the subject matter, by granting a
stay this Court acknowledges that whatever we do, we owe a clear explanation
for our decision to the citizens of Texas."
(source: fusion.net)
*******************
Issue of Mental Health Assessment a Focus as 3 Fight Death Sentences
Throughout Mental Health Month in May, The Texas Tribune is partnering with
Mental Health Channel and KLRU to focus on some of Texas' biggest challenges in
providing mental health care. See all the stories in this series. Randall Mays
is on death row for killing 2 sheriff's deputies. Scott Panetti was sentenced
to die for killing his estranged wife's parents. And a jury condemned Robert
Roberson for killing his 2-year-old daughter.
Beyond being on Texas' death row, the 3 share another common thread: their
attorneys are challenging whether the criminal justice process addresses the
issue of mental illness fairly and comprehensively when weighing the death
penalty for killers.
In each case, trial prosecutors and attorneys for the state have argued the men
intentionally killed their victims and understand why they were convicted and
sentenced to death, a constitutional benchmark before the condemned can be
executed.
But attorneys for the men argue that although their clients are killers, their
documented mental health histories could negate the intentional killing
argument and therefore raise the question of whether execution is cruel and
unusual punishment. Though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can't
execute the intellectually disabled, an exact legal definition of that
condition remains open to debate. Any of these three cases could ultimately
help clarify that issue for others in similar situations.
Mays' and Panetti's attorneys argue their clients aren't competent to be
executed. Roberson's attorneys say his right to due process was violated at
trial.
Criminal justice experts say that determining mental health can be hard for
anyone, including judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors and jurors. They say
the cases of Mays, Panetti and Roberson are key in furthering the discussion in
how mental health is gauged when applying the death penalty.
"When a defendant has mental or emotional problems, those problems don't just
affect his or her conduct at the time of the crime," said Robert Dunham, the
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "They affect the
way he or she is able to relate to his [or her] lawyers, to the defense
lawyers, and the way they appear to the court and the way they appear to the
jury."
Thoroughly gauging one's illness takes training, which many in the criminal
justice system may not have, he said.
"Mental illness is a complicated phenomenon, which some people who are luridly
psychotic, the disorder may be obvious, but even people who are psychotic are
not psychotic all the time," Dunham said.
Robert Roberson
Roberson, 49, was sentenced to death in 2003 for fatally beating his 2-year-old
daughter, Nikki, in Palestine. He faces a June 21 execution.
During his trial, his attorneys argued that he was trying to quiet his daughter
and lost his temper as a result of a brain injury. Roberson's fight might not
see a happy ending.
But prosecutors said the killing was intentional, calling witnesses who said
that his daughter's injuries were consistent with signs of shaking, bruising
and blunt force trauma. Witnesses testified that Roberson had a bad temper and
would shake and spank Nikki when she wouldn't stop crying.
Roberson's attorneys have said his due process was violated because Roberson
wasn't allowed to have an expert testify at his trial that he thought Roberson
suffers from mental lapses from his brain injury. Saying that a jury probably
wouldn't have found him guilty if it had heard about his mental history, the
attorneys are asking an appeals court to throw out his conviction. He's now
represented by Texas Defender Service attorneys, who declined to comment on his
case.
Doug Lowe, the Anderson County district attorney during the trial, told The
Texas Tribune that if Roberson wanted to raise his mental health as an issue at
trial, he should have pleaded insanity. You either have insanity or you don't,
Lowe said.
"So they're saying we don't want to go [for] insanity, but we do want to slip
this evidence in to say that he didn't intend to commit the crime and therefore
it's not murder," Lowe said. "It wasn't an intentional or knowing act. They
want to have it both ways."
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 2006 case that states aren't required to
admit mental health evidence by the defense if they aren't pleading insanity.
During the appeals process, the state has pointed to that case, Clark v.
Arizona. Roberson did not launch an insanity defense at trial.
When insanity isn't used as a defense, judges often determine that mental
health evidence is irrelevant, said George Dix, a professor in the University
of Texas School of Law. Intent to kill is not a complicated mental state to be
in, he said.
"In many of the cases, if you carefully analyze what the expert is offering to
testify to, he's essentially offering to testify that although the defendant
did intend to kill, or intended to assault in other cases, his decision to do
that was influenced by a pretty distorted perception of reality," Dix said.
Denied relief twice by the U.S. Supreme Court, Roberson has shifted focus to
clemency, with a request before the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Randall Mays
On May 17, 2007, Henderson County sheriff's deputies responded to a domestic
disturbance call at a Payne Springs home. Randall Mays and his wife were
arguing.
When a deputy tried to arrest Mays, Mays got a rifle and began shooting,
drawing return fire from deputies. During the firefight, Mays killed Inspector
Paul Steven Habelt and Deputy Tony Price Ogburn, and wounded Deputy Kevin
Harris. Mays surrendered after being shot himself.
He pleaded not guilty to the killings, claiming his history of mental illness
did not allow him to knowingly and intentionally kill his victims.
At Mays' trial, witnesses testified that he was friendly but had a history of
mental illness. A psychologist for the defense explained that paranoia could
become exaggerated in a moment of crisis, but even someone who is paranoid can
intentionally and knowingly kill someone. The psychologist spoke in general and
never interacted with Mays, so she couldn't speak to the case specifically.
Psychiatrist Theresa Vail diagnosed Mays with depression and a psychotic
disorder, according to court records. Vail, who treated Mays when he was in
jail, said "that he suffered from delusions and hallucinations and that he was
afraid that he was being poisoned and plotted against."
Vail said Mays' mental illness was severe and possibly permanent due to a
history of drug abuse that would have damaged his brain. She did not talk to
Mays about killing the deputies. Gilda Kessner, a psychologist also testified
that Mays had paranoid personality disorder and psychosis but never spoke to
Mays herself. Another psychiatrist, David Self, testified that he did not
examine Mays directly but believed Mays suffered from delusions and paranoia,
court records show.
A prosecutor told jurors that Mays could not be both a "nice guy" and a
"paranoid psychotic."
"He's apparently the friendliest, most trusting guy they've ever met. And yet
on the other hand, the Defense wants you to believe that he's some sort of
paranoid psychotic," the prosecutor argued at Mays' trial. "You can't just
throw all the defenses against the wall and see what sticks. There has to be -
there has to be a theory here."
The jury took an hour to find Mays guilty of capital murder.
Now, Mays' attorneys say he is not competent to be executed, citing his mental
health record. Mays, now 56, has a history of mental illness dating back to the
1980s, when he was committed twice to a state hospital, and was characterized
as "actively psychotic," delusional and combative, according to details from a
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinion.
The court has placed his execution on hold, intervening after his attorneys
argued his competency has not fully been evaluated. A Henderson County court
ruled Mays did not provide a "substantial showing" to prove that he lacks the
competency to be executed. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed and returned
the case to the same county, where Mays' attorneys will get another shot at
arguing that their client is not competent for execution.
Mays is represented by public defenders in the state's Office of Capital and
Forensic Writs attorneys, who declined to comment for this article.
Scott Panetti
Panetti, 58, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, shot and killed his in-laws,
Joe and Amanda Alvarado, in 1992. After 2 hearings to gauge his competency to
stand trial for capital murder, Panetti dropped his legal counsel, against the
judge's advice.
He rejected an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence and,
representing himself, offered an insanity defense without calling mental health
witnesses. Panetti tried to call John F. Kennedy, Pope John Paul II and Jesus
Christ as witnesses. He was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to
death in 1995.
Panetti's case went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007. The question before
the court: can Texas execute someone who understands the crime they committed
but not why they're condemned to death? Justices said no and returned his case
to Texas so his competency could be evaluated. Nearly a decade later, the issue
is still not resolved.
Part of Panetti's story includes tales of religious delusions and hearing
voices. Texas has said, though, Panetti is not mentally ill. Then-Attorney
General Greg Abbott addressed the case during a 2014 interview with Mark Davis,
the host of a Dallas-Fort Worth radio talk show.
"Anyone can do strange things, and if strange things were good enough to get
criminals off of death row, believe me, they'd be doing strange things all the
time, every day," said Abbott, now Texas governor. "Based upon the conclusions
of many judges in this case, this guy is not insane, and at some point in time,
that decision just needs to be put to rest."
Panetti was scheduled to die in 2004 and again in 2014. Both times, the
executions were halted so courts could weigh competency concerns. An appeals
court now is weighing whether to send Panetti's case to another court to
determine whether he can have federally appointed counsel and funds for an
evaluation by a mental health expert. Panetti can't afford legal costs on his
own.
Judges with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals asked last year why Texas
doesn't provide funding for death row convicts to file and support incompetency
claims. It's not required to, an attorney for the state said. Asked about the
Panetti case, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office referred to
the brief filed in the case.
The state insists Panetti can make the claim he shouldn't be executed, but one
of his pro bono attorneys, Kathryn Kase, says he can't afford to do it, nor
does he have the mental capacity to on his own.
Panetti's lawyers say they can't file a case arguing his incompetence for
execution because he hasn't received a mental health evaluation for more than 7
years.
Jack Stoffregen, chief public defender with Texas Regional Public Defenders for
Capital Cases, told The Texas Tribune in September that it's hard for
defendants to make the argument that they shouldn't be executed due to mental
illness if they don???t have access to an expert evaluation.
"If the defendant's incompetent, how is that defendant even going to know to
ask, to make the request for a counselor?" Stoffregen said.
Panetti doesn't take medication because of a previous allergic reaction to
psychotropic drugs, said Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service.
After years of not being medicated and schizophrenia having brain-deteriorating
effects, Panetti is "still very ill," she said. Leaving death row would not
mean freedom for Panetti, the attorney said.
"If Scott Panetti were out in the world, he wouldn't be wandering around
freely," Kase said. "He would be in a mental institution. He's that sick."
(source: Texas Tribune)
****************
Brownlow gets death penalty
Even up to the last moment before convicted murderer Charles E. Brownlow Jr.
was sentenced to death on Friday he tried to blame his father for the
executions he committed.
Brownlow was convicted of capital murder on April 28 for the Oct. 28, 2013,
slaying of store clerk Luis Gerardo Leal-Carillo at Ali's Market.
(source: Kaufman Herald)
**********************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
20---------June 21------------------Robert Roberson-------538
21---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------539
22---------August 19----------------Ramiro Gonzales-------540
23---------August 23----------------Robert Pruett---------541
24---------August 31----------------Rolando Ruiz----------542
25---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------543
26---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------544
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
CONNECTICUT:
William Petit speaks out on death penalty ruling
The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld its landmark ruling declaring the state's
death penalty unconstitutional and abolishing capital punishment on Thursday.
The decision affirms the justices' ruling last August that declared the death
penalty unconstitutional for all, including the 11 inmates currently on death
row.
Thursday's high court decision changes the inmates sentence to life in prison,
with no possibility of parole.
This decision is not sitting well with a man whose family was taken from him by
2 of those inmates.
"It brings back all the memories, brings back all the emotions," Dr. William
Petit said referring to Thursday's decision. "I'm sure most victims, myself
included, don't want to live it over and over and over again."
Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky are responsible for the Cheshire home
invasion in 2007. The 2 men sexually assaulted and murdered Dr. Petit's wife
Jennifer Hawke-Petit and their 2 daughters. Dr. Petit was attacked, but
survived.
He is a supporter of capital punishment, believing that is the appropriate
penalty for the 2 men who tore apart his family.
"I think when people willfully, wantingly, without any remorse take someone
else's life they forfeit their right to be among us," he said.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and lawmakers in 2012 abolished the death penalty, but
only for future murders, which kept the Cheshire killers on death row.
"Those legislatures were doing their job responding to the will of the people,
that time, and the governor similarly," Jim Bergenn with Shipman & Goodwin LLP
said. "On the other hand they both know it's the constitution that trumps and
the supreme court has to interpret the constitution and if the constitution
which protects each of us individually says, sorry legislature you can't do it,
even if they mean well, it doesn't work."
The court released its 5-2 decision Thursday in the appeal of Russell Peeler
Jr., who had been on death row for ordering the 1999 killings of a woman and
her 8-year-old son in Bridgeport. The boy, B.J. Brown, was to testify against
Peeler in another murder case.
In another death row inmate's appeal last year, justices ruled 4-3 that the
2012 abolishment must apply to those who remained on death row because the
death penalty was unconstitutional. Justices reconsidered that decision in
Peeler's appeal.
"Today's decision is another example of the ongoing saga where it appears that
more attention is paid to the perpetrators, the convicted criminals, than to
the victims," Dr. Petit said.
He said one of the hardest parts of Thursday's decision is that it reminds
victims' families of what they went through.
"You never forget obviously, your wife, your children, sisters, brothers,
mother, father, whatever the case may be, but you put aside some of the anguish
of going to court every day or going to jury selection, listening to day after
day after day of sometimes what seems like ridiculous testimony," he said.
"This just brings it all back up again and I'm sure it causes a lot of people a
lot of nausea, agita, hard feelings, depression, tears, I know that's how I
feel every time it gets dug up, so I think it's just difficult for everybody."
(source: Fox News)
PENNSYLVANIA----female faces death penalty
Mom accused of tossing baby from bridge back in court
It's been 1 year after an Allentown woman allegedly threw her baby off a city
bridge, and her criminal case is nowhere close to trial.
Johnesha Perry, 20, of the 200 block of North Hall Street, is charged with
homicide and child endangerment for death of her son, Zymeir Perry. Prosecutors
plan to seek the death penalty if the mother is convicted of 1st-degree murder.
Johnesha Perry was in court Friday afternoon for another status conference, and
attorneys decided they won't meet in court again until September for another
status conference in the case.
Perry's attorneys said they have received 7 binders full of records, and are
still waiting on more from from the Children and Youth division in Chester
County. A forensic psychologist's report on Perry cannot be completed until all
the records are gathered.
Perry's attorneys plan to focus on her mental state at the time of the
incident.
"I'm just glad and happy that my lawyers are working on my case. I just have to
be patient," Perry told the judge.
After Perry was brought into the courtroom in shackles, Judge Kelly Banach said
Perry looked upset. Perry said she was upset about her biological mother being
in the courtroom for the hearing.
"Don't you think she care what happens to you?" the judge asked.
Perry shook her head no.
Banach said she couldn't ask Perry mother's to leave, but "you don't have to
acknowledge her."
City police said Perry was pushing her son in a stroller the afternoon of May
3, 2015, and stopped on the Hamilton Street bridge.
Witnesses told police Perry put the boy on the railing, gave him a kiss and
pushed him over the edge into the Lehigh River before jumping in herself.
The boy was taken out of the river by officers, and both mother and son were
taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township for treatment.
Zymeir Perry died later that week from complications from blunt force trauma
and drowning, according to the Lehigh County coroner.
(source: lehighvalleylive.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
That pesky 'due process' thing is back
Didn't even notice, did you? The highest court in the land said this week that
two is too many of something that North Carolina and other states have done
many times: weight juries against black defendants in capital cases by culling
blacks from the jury pool.
It's not permissible for prosecutors to do that through the use of peremptory
strikes, meaning the kind they don't have to explain. But, under the same 1986
ruling that prohibited what had been until then a common and largely
undisguised practice, the court all but invited prosecutors to continue, but to
camouflage their discrimination by offering other explanations for it.
The ink on that ruling was barely dry when an African American defendant named
Foster was convicted of capital murder in a Georgia court and sentenced to
death by an all-white jury. Prosecutors had not yet taken to coaching each
other and passing around cheat sheets. Maybe that's why the prosecutor in
Foster's case invested little effort in fanny-covering until Foster belatedly
made an issue of it. (Don't jump to the conclusion that defense attorneys are
above such things. That's just not what this appeal was about.)
Anyway, according to 7 of the Supreme Court's eight justices, prosecutors were
unable to provide plausible non-racial excuses for dumping 2 of the black jury
prospects in Foster's case, and that's 2 too many.
What the justices intend for Georgia to do about it is unclear. But other
things are clear enough to inscribe a bright line that leads right back home to
North Carolina and Cumberland County.
We had, briefly, a state Racial Justice Act whose sole mission was to grant
review of appeals by death row inmates alleging racial discrimination at trial.
If a death sentence was found to have been substantially influenced by race,
the case didn't go back for retrial, nor was the verdict overturned. The inmate
was moved from death row to serve a sentence of life, without possibility of
parole.
The first cases landed here, in Superior Court, which was soon awash in
evidence so powerful that little effort was made to rebut any of it and some of
it was openly admitted. That evidence still exists but the RJA, the mechanism
for acting on it, does not. In fact, the same zealots who led the fight for its
repeal have redoubled their efforts to have death row inmates killed off
faster, before all these annoying questions about process and fairness are
brought to light.
I'm not a typical death penalty opponent. I don't believe it's
unconstitutionally cruel, because the Constitution says we can't execute people
without "due process of law" - which hints at what the Framers had in mind for
those who DO get due process. And I believe that there are among us people who
deserve to die; I just haven't met anyone of my species whom I trust to get it
right 100 % of the time.
I think, though, that the morally correct, legally sound and economically smart
way to approach capital punishment is just to say to hell with it and settle
for putting the most dangerous predators in cages for the rest of their lives.
Don't talk to me about deterrence. In general, people do not premeditate murder
with the expectation of getting caught and tried.
When the only people you might get executed are people who, like Dylann Roof
and our erstwhile neighbor Frazier Glenn Miller, not only proclaim a
first-degree motive in public but provide aggravating circumstances; when
lawmakers hasten to redefine "evidence" and rewrite judicial procedure to
ensure that no one beats a rap no matter how many others we kill who deserved
lesser charges, lesser sentences and retrials; when lawyers use parlor tricks
to ensure that prohibited discrimination remains part of the calculus even as
cases move up and down the judicial ladder at taxpayer expense, I think we're
venting our righteous wrath by beating our heads against a rock.
(source: Gene Smith is the Observer's retired senior editorial
writer----Fayetteville Observer)
ALABAMA:
Man confesses in killing of Prattville's Carol Nunnery
Willie Foster confessed to authorities that he caused the death of Carol Parker
Nunnery, Autauga County Courthouse records show.
Nunnery's body was found Tuesday afternoon off of County Road 3 near
Autaugaville, said Sheriff Joe Sedinger. She was 72 and a Prattville resident.
Her death has been ruled a homicide, said Police Chief Mark Thompson. Her car
was found in Prattville off Highway 14, a short time after a passerby
discovered her body, Thompson said.
Both lawmen confirmed Foster's confession during a Thursday afternoon press
conference.
Nunnery lived downtown and was a Prattville native. She was active in The
Autauga Creek Improvement Committee, which touted the creek's recreational
possibilities. She was also involved in other charitable efforts in town.
Her home is near Prattville Kindergarten School and she had a habit of keeping
tabs on things by riding around the area on her golf cart.
"Miss Carol never would have hurt anybody," said JoAnne Harrison, who lives
downtown. "She rode that little cart everywhere. If she saw us outside or
working in the yard, she would always stop. Everybody loved Miss Carol."
Foster, 31, is charged with murder in the case, court records show. On Thursday
morning he made his initial court appearance before Autauga District Judge Joy
Booth.
"I don't know what's going on," Foster told Booth. He stood before the bench
dressed in blaze orange jail garb restrained by handcuffs.
"You're charged with murder," Booth answered.
She then read Foster his arrest warrant, which said he is charged with causing
the death of Nunnery by "... a blunt object and or a vehicle ..." and that he
"confessed" to investigators.
"I still don't know what's going on," Foster said after Booth's recitation was
through.
Booth then ended the proceeding, which lasted less than 5 minutes, and Foster
was escorted back to the jury box to sit with other inmates.
Earlier in the proceeding, Booth raised Foster's bond from $150,000 to
$250,000. Prosecutors requested a higher bond.
"Judge, due to the seriousness of the charge and the fact that Mr. Foster fled
the scene, we consider him to be a flight risk," said Desirae Lewis, an
assistant district attorney. "He had left Autauga County and was arrested in
Elmore County."
Then there was an exchange between Booth and Foster about his address. Autauga
Metro Jail records list his address as being in Prattville. He was arrested at
an uncle's home in Eclectic, where he told Booth he lived.
The investigation points to robbery being a motive in the case, Sedinger said.
Foster allegedly went to Nunnery's home after 6:30 p.m. Monday. Foster had
worked for Nunnery in the past, doing mostly yard work at her residence, the
sheriff said. At some point during the evening Nunnery and Foster left her home
to take Foster home. Foster drove to an area off County Road 3 and tried to get
money from the victim, Sedinger said.
"We think this whole thing is about money, Foster trying to get money," he
said.
Investigators believe Nunnery received her fatal wounds on County Road 3.
Capital murder charges could be pending in the case, said C.J. Robinson, chief
assistant district attorney. The fact that Nunnery was murdered during the
commission of a robbery could meet the requirements for a capital case, he
said.
"Right now the investigators from the sheriff's office and police department
still have a tremendous amount of work to do," he said. "This investigation is
not over just because an arrest was made. We will wait until we get a complete
case file and we will go where the evidence takes us. But yes, capital murder
charges are a possibility, if the evidence supports those charges."
The only punishment for a capital murder conviction is the death penalty or
life in prison without the possibility of parole. The decision on if
prosecutors would seek the death penalty would be made at a later date,
Robinson said.
"It's way too early to make that decision," he said.
Nunnery's death was the 2nd homicide in Prattville in a space of 2 days.
On Sunday at 1 a.m., officers found John Michael Taylor, 56, in the middle of
Cobbs Ford Road suffering from a gunshot wound, Thompson said. Before
succumbing to his wound, he told officers he had been robbed by 3 men.
Police charged a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old, both from Montgomery, with
murder in the case. At large is Santwone Cornelius Jones, 24, also of
Montgomery, Thompson said.
Nunnery's case is a joint investigation being conducted by the police
department and sheriff's office.
Thompson said the level of cooperation between the 2 agencies and the quick
arrest of Foster should help calm rattled nerves in the community.
"What we would hope that the citizens get out of this is how quick these cases
were solved," he said. "The dedication, the resources that were put into these
cases. And arrests have been made in these cases. We hope to send a message to
people that are coming to Prattville, or anyone in Prattville, that wants to
commit a crime, we are going to pursue it until we make an arrest. And we are
going to prosecute to the fullest.
"We still feel like Prattville is a safe community, and we are going to strive
to keep it that way."
(source: Montgomery Advertiser)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 28 10:20:32 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 10:20:32 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IDAHO, USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605281020210.6772@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 28
IDAHO:
Documents: Murder suspect laughed after knocking victim out with 2???4 board
Timothy Blaney was so irate when he found his wife in bed with another man that
he grabbed a 2-by-4 piece of wood and beat the the man unconscious, according
to court documents and incident reports obtained by EastIdahoNews.com.
The 22-year-old victim, Skylar Huffield, was rushed to the Portneuf Medical
Center, where he died.
Blaney, 20, was charged with 1st-degree murder Thursday and could face the
death penalty.
Court documents show Blaney and his wife separated in February but are still
legally married and have a child together.
Blaney recently moved to Oregon, and his wife met Huffield on Facebook. They
began having a relationship in Pocatello earlier this week, according to
documents.
Incident reports show Blaney's wife and Huffield were in bed together at a home
on the 3800 block of Hawthorne Road around 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Blaney's wife told investigators that she was awakened by Blaney turning on the
lights in the bedroom.
Blaney asked, "Is this the guy you're sleeping with?" then left the room and
returned with a piece of wood, according to documents.
"Blaney began striking Huffield in the head with the 2-by-4 as he was lying on
the bed," documents state. "(Blaney's wife) said she climbed over Huffield and
grabbed Blaney around the waist in an effort to prevent him from hitting
Huffield but was unable to stop him."
A man who was sleeping in the front room on a couch heard the commotion and
woke up. He saw Blaney walking back and forth from the bedroom to the kitchen.
"I caught my wife sleeping with another guy, he woke up and I knocked him back
out," Blaney allegedly told the man.
"(The witness) said Blaney laughed as if this was amusing to him," reports
state.
Blaney's wife called police and he left the home in his vehicle. Officers
arrived and Huffield was unresponsive, so paramedics were called.
A short time later, an officer spotted Blaney at a Pocatello gas station. He
was arrested and taken into custody.
Huffield was rushed to Portneuf Medical Center and had massive swelling to his
brain, according to court documents. Doctors told detectives he would not
survive his injures, and he was pronounced dead at 2:22 p.m. Wednesday.
Blaney was arraigned Thursday in Bannock County. Magistrate Judge Rick
Carnaroli ordered that Blaney remain in the Bannock County Detention Center on
a $1 million bond.
Randall D. Schulthies is the public defender representing Blaney, who is due
back in court for a preliminary hearing on June 8.
Blaney faces a potential death penalty or imprisonment of life. Bannock County
prosecutors have 60 days to determine if they will seek the death penalty.
(source: eastidahonews.com)
USA:
To Save Our Justice System, End Racial Bias in Jury Selection
The Supreme Court ruled correctly on Monday when it found that Georgia
prosecutors in Foster v. Chatman had illegally barred African-Americans from
serving as jurors in a death penalty trial. But the decision does not end
racial discrimination in jury selection. The best way to do that is to limit
the number of jurors that lawyers can strike for no reason at all to just 1 or
2 per side.
Both prosecutors and defense lawyers can exclude any number of prospective
jurors for legitimate reasons - if a juror knows the defendant, has formed an
opinion about the case or is unlikely to be impartial. But lawyers can also
dismiss several more potential jurors simply because they do not want them -
without explaining why. In federal felony trials, the prosecutor has six
peremptory challenges and the defense usually has 10. In federal death penalty
cases, each side has 20. State numbers vary.
In the Foster case, which dates from the 1980s, the prosecutors eliminated
people simply because of race. Timothy Foster, a black man, stood accused of
killing an elderly white woman when he was a teenager. The prosecutors worked
conscientiously to exclude the potential black jurors; they marked their names
with a "B" and highlighted each black juror???s name in green on four different
copies of the juror list. Those jurors were ranked against one another in case,
one member of the prosecutorial team said, "it comes down to having to pick one
of the black jurors." The plan worked, and an all-white jury sentenced Mr.
Foster to death.
This was an egregious case, but not a unique one. Far too often in criminal or
death penalty cases that involve a black defendant, prosecutors try to exclude
black jurors because they believe it will increase the chances of a conviction.
In Houston County, Ala., prosecutors struck 80 percent of qualified black
jurors from death penalty cases from 2005 to 2009.
If these strikes are challenged, prosecutors can claim race-neutral reasons. In
Mr. Foster's case, prosecutors said one prospective juror who was excluded
didn't make enough eye contact. Another seemed nervous. Moreover, some of the
reasons prosecutors gave for striking black jurors were inaccurate. Other
excuses applied to white jurors who were selected.
Not only is this practice unconstitutional, but all-white juries risk
undermining the perception of justice in minority communities, even if a
mixed-race jury would have reached the same verdict or imposed the same
sentence.
The Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is part of the
Judicial Conference, the federal court system's principal policy-making body,
should propose sharply reducing the number of jury strikes allowed in federal
trials.
Several Supreme Court justices have suggested as much. Justice Thurgood
Marshall endorsed such a reform in his concurring opinion in the 1986 case
Batson v. Kentucky: "The decision today will not end the racial discrimination
that peremptories inject into the jury-selection process. That goal can be
accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely." In 2005,
Justice Stephen G. Breyer also urged reconsideration of the peremptory
challenge system.
Total abolition of peremptory challenges would most likely face vigorous
opposition from prosecutors and some defense attorneys. And it's unlikely to be
achieved, either for federal or state criminal trials. But reducing the number
will do significant good.
In 1879, the Supreme Court declared that to single out African-Americans for
removal from jury service "is practically a brand upon them affixed by the law,
an assertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that race prejudice which
is an impediment to securing individuals of the race that equal justice which
the law aims to secure all others." All-white juries will continue to be a
blight on the American system of criminal justice until federal and state rule
makers significantly reduce the number of peremptory challenges.
(source: Op-Ed; Jon O. Newman is a senior judge on the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit----New York Times)
*************
Family Members Showed Dylann Roof Mercy. Why Can't Prosecutors?
Support for the death penalty is declining, with executions and death sentences
now at their lowest level in decades.
Polls show a majority of Americans are against the death penalty when presented
with alternatives, like life without parole. It looks like the death penalty is
on its way out, though Texas (responsible for roughly half of all executions)
may beg to differ.
Nevertheless, the question must be asked: Doesn???t the death penalty still
have a place in our contemporary world for the "worst of the worst," for people
like Dylann Roof?
It's hard to find any mercy for this young man who killed nine
African-Americans as they gathered for prayer, worship, and Bible study in the
historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. He spewed racism and hatred on
social media and even at the scene of the crime, where he said to church
members: "You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have
to go."
And now he faces the death penalty - with 33 federal charges including hate
crimes, obstruction of religion, and firearms offenses.
Mercy seems like an unreasonable thing to ask.
But mercy is precisely what flowed from the hearts of the families of the
victims after the killing. And as we consider justice for the victims'
families, it only seems reasonable to listen to what they said:
"I forgive you."
Those were the words of Nadine Collier, as tears rolled down her face for her
70-year-old mother, Ethel Lance. And she didn't stop there:
"You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her
ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have
mercy on your soul. ... You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. But God forgives
you, and I forgive you."
Then there was Anthony Thompson, the husband of Myra Thompson: "I would just
like him to know that ... I forgive him and my family forgives him. But we
would like him to take this opportunity to repent."
Those words were said 2 days after the crime before the bodies of those killed
were even laid to rest. Grace and mercy are hard things to justify or
legitimate. They don't seem instinctive or sensible. But they do sound like
Jesus who said, "Inasmuch as you forgive you will be forgiven" and "Blessed are
the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
It seems that only a profound faith in Jesus could give someone the strength to
say to their transgressors, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what
they do." Especially, when it seems like they know exactly what they're doing.
Felicia Sanders, who survived the massacre by faking dead but lost her
26-year-old son, prayed that God would have mercy on Roof.
Wanda Simmons, granddaughter of Daniel Simmons, declared with defiant hope:
"Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate ...
hate won't win."
Even in the midst of unthinkable evil, love can still win. This truth lies at
the heart of the Christian faith, as Jesus forgave those who were killing him.
President Obama went down to Charleston and applauded the mercy of the
survivors, and ended one of his best speeches by singing "Amazing Grace."
It's noteworthy that the words of that song - "Amazing grace how sweet the
sound, that saved a wretch like me" - were written by a recovering racist. John
Newton was a former white supremacist, a captain who drove slave ships and
later decried the evils of his past and committed his life to Jesus.
So now grace will be put on trial. Mercy will face cross-examination.
Federal prosecutors will pursue the death penalty.
A federal prisoner hasn't been executed in the U.S. in over a decade. Only 3
federal prisoners have been executed in the past half-century. This case will
raise the most urgent question: Can we, as a nation, do better than killing
those who kill in order to show that killing is wrong?
Is there not a better way? After all, we do not rape those who rape, or maim
those who maim. Could it be that we are beginning to see that violence is the
disease, not the cure?
We know that forgiveness does not mean excusing or pardoning an offense, but
forgiveness opens the door to real justice, redemption, and reconciliation. We
can protect society from violent criminals without using violence. We can teach
that killing is wrong without the death penalty. We can insist, as Wanda
Simmons did, that "hate doesn't have to win."
Pope Francis has declared that we must abolish the death penalty. And it was
Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, "Capital punishment is society's final
assertion that it will not forgive."
I cannot think of a better way to honor the victims of the Charleston massacre,
and the Jesus they worship, than by insisting on another form of justice for
Roof.
We can do better. And we must. In the name of the victims in Charleston, and in
the name of the Jesus they worship, let's not kill Dylann Roof.
(source: Shane Claiborne, Sojourners)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat May 28 10:21:25 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 10:21:25 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605281021070.6772@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 28
IRAN----executions
Hangings continue in Iran this week
14prisoners were executed at prisons in the Iranian city of Karaj this week. 11
were executed on Wednesday 25 May in Gohardasht Prison; one of whom is believed
to have been a minor at the time of his alleged offence. A further 3 prisoners
were executed on Tuesday at Qezelhesar Prison.
The victims in Gohardasht were all aged between 22 and 25, and are believed to
be Mohsen Agha-Mohammadi, Asghar Azizi, Farhad Bakhshayesh, Iman Fatemi-Pour,
Javad Khorsandi, Hossein Mohammadi, Masoud Raghadi, and Khosrow Robat-Dasti and
Medhi Rajai- who is thought to have been 16 when he purportedly committed his
capital offence.
Of the 3 prisoners executed at Qezelhesar Prison only Ruhollah Roshangar, a
married father of 2, has been identified. All those executed had been behind
bars for 4 years.
There were also public hangings this week in the Iranian cities of Ramsar and
Shiraz. 2 other prisoners were hanged in a prison in Shiraz.
Last week an estimated 21 hangings took place over 48 hours. Since 10 April at
least 116 people have been executed, according to the opposition National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Amnesty International has released an annual report into the death penalty.
Iran has consistently ranked high in regional and global counts; with 82% of
all executions in the Middle East and North Africa taking place in the country.
"Any claim of moderation under Hassan Rouhani is simply a myth. It is high time
for the United Nations and human rights organizations to speak out against the
brutal executions", says Farideh Karimi of the NCRI.
The NCRI has called the government's domestic policy an attempt to "intensify a
climate of terror" whilst Iran is embroiled in a desperate bid to support
Bashar al-Assad.
(source: Iran Focus)
UNITED KINGDOM:
2,200 Brits Held In Foreign Jails
More than 2,000 British expats and holidaymakers are held in foreign jails -
including 13 awaiting the death sentence, according to new official data.
In response to a freedom of information request, the British Foreign and
Commonwealth Office has issued a country-by-country list of how many Brits are
in prison.
The list includes convicted prisoners as well as those awaiting trial.
The total adds up to 2,205 British prisoners.
The Foreign Office also revealed 13 prisoners are facing execution in the USA,
Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya
and Ghana.
"The British government is against the death penalty and we are doing all we
can to stop the execution of any British national anywhere in the world," said
a spokesman.
Drugs and child sex offenders
The Foreign office declined to discuss individual cases or identify those on
death row.
The spokesman also disclosed that 887 Britons were held in jails around the
world for drug offences - which is 40% of the total number of prisoners held.
The other main categories were child sex offenders (154) and immigration
offences (102).
The top 5 countries holding British prisoners are the USA (540), Spain (247),
Ireland (222), Australia (144) and France (104).
"We would warn any expats or travellers from the UK to make sure that they
understand and obey the laws of any countries they visit, even if they are only
passing through," said the spokesman.
"Behaviour which is acceptable at home may cause serious offence in another
country."
Britons in foreign jails
Country Prisoners
USA 520
Spain 247
Ireland 222
Australia 144
France 104
Germany 83
United Arab Emirates 82
Thailand 81
Japan 43
Canada 42
Pakistan 42
Philippines 37
Peru 34
India 33
Portugal 31
Italy 27
Jamaica 26
New Zealand 25
Norway 20
Taiwan 18
Turkey 17
Netherlands 16
China 15
Indonesia 15
Morocco 13
Switzerland 13
Trinidad and Tobago 13
Cambodia 12
Greece 12
Belgium 11
Malta 11
Bulgaria 10
Hong Kong 9
Brazil 8
Cyprus 7
South Africa 7
Costa Rica 6
Dominican Republic 6
Ethiopia 6
Total 2068
[source: Foreign and Commonwealth Office]
Note: Countries holding 5 or less British prisoners are excluded from the table
(source: parsherald.com)
****************
Littleport's hunger riots: Descendants mark 200th anniversary
It resulted in 5 men being hanged on the scaffold and a mixed legacy of shame
and pride. But what triggered a Cambridgeshire village to go on a 3-day rampage
soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars?
The rioting broke out in Littleport on 22 May 1816, when about 100 people armed
with pitchforks, cleavers and guns smashed windows and broke down doors,
stealing money, food and goods from their wealthier neighbours.
Resident Elizabeth Little described Thomas South brandishing his cleaver and
when she asked if he wanted bread or meat, he replied: "No, we want money". He
demanded 1 pound, but on being told Mrs Little only had 10 shillings, took that
instead.
Littleport's vicar tried to restore order by reading the Riot Act - the 1714
legislation had made it a crime for a crowd of 12 or more to refuse to disperse
when ordered to do so by a magistrate.
Instead, the mob overwhelmed him, ransacked his house and he was forced to flee
for Ely with his family.
The next day the rioters also set off for Ely, armed with a 8ft (2.4m)-long
water-fowling firearm called a punt gun, which they had loaded on to a stolen
wagon.
More than 300 people eventually participated in the riot, which was put down on
24 May by the Cambridgeshire Militia and the 1st (Royal) Regiment of Dragoons.
One rioter was killed, a soldier who had survived the Battle of Waterloo was
maimed for life and 82 prisoners were committed to Ely Gaol.
On 28 June 1816, 5 men were hanged, "having been convicted of divers
Robberies".
Death sentences were actually given to a total of 23 men and 1 woman, although
the majority had their sentences commuted to transportation to Australia or
imprisonment.
The Littleport Riots were not isolated events, but part of "a wave of unrest"
from 1815 onwards, according to Anglia Ruskin University historian Rohan
McWilliam.
"There was economic dislocation after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the
introduction of the Corn Laws in 1815, which increased taxation on wheat," he
said.
"Labour wages weren't keeping up with the cost of living, while poor harvests
exacerbated the situation."
Previously common land, on which labourers could grow crops or keep livestock
to supplement their wages, was being enclosed by landowners.
Their employment conditions had also changed, said University of Hertfordshire
historian Katrina Navickas, to "daily hirings instead of yearly hirings - in
essence, the introduction of a type of zero-hours contract".
This was exacerbated by a breakdown of the Poor Law, which was supposed to help
the most vulnerable based on need with small sums of money and "in kind" goods
such as shoes.
Dr Navikas said: "Inflation is high after the Napoleonic Wars inflation and
just the bare minimum is paid because ratepayers are saying they're paying too
much."
And then to tighten the screw still further, the Game Laws passed in 1816
restricted the hunting of game to landowners, with transportation the penalty
for poaching - or even being found in possession of a net at night.
The disturbance broke out when a group of mostly unemployed men met at the
Globe Inn, for a meeting of the village Benefit Club.
Patricia Collins, whose ancestor William Beamiss was its treasurer and later
hanged, said: "Members made contributions so they could draw out money when
they were in need - but the problem was everyone was in need and the money had
run out."
Feelings boiled over and the men left the pub and began intimidating their
neighbours, fuelled by drink - and fury over the low wages, the high price of
food and spiralling unemployment.
Research done by Cambridgeshire Archives suggests that vicar John Vachell was a
particular target because "he was a local magistrate and well known for his
harsh sentencing".
John Denniss feels proud to be descended from one of the executed men, but many
of his forebears saw the story differently.
They "were ashamed" and even slightly changed the spelling of their surname
from Dennis to Denniss, he said.
He believes his ancestor, the Globe's publican John Dennis, "was prepared to
stand up for people worse off than him".
Miss Collins prefers to see contemporary parallels.
She said: "They were people driven to desperate straits and it's good to bring
this story into the public eye at this time, when there are so many food
banks."
Jeremy Sallis is descended from Little Sallis, a trial witness who told the
court he saw about 100 people, armed with weapons, smashing windows and looting
in Littleport.
He was brought up believing his ancestor was a rioter, and only recently
discovered "his evidence convicted people".
A spokeswoman for Cambridgeshire Archives said: "The government was genuinely
worried by the danger of violent protest getting out of hand - the revolution
in France was still fresh in everyone's mind and any challenge to the
Establishment was seen to contain the seeds of revolution."
Justice was meted out by a government-appointed special commission, which set
aside the Isle of Ely judge Edward Christian, the brother of Mutiny on the
Bounty's Fletcher Christian.
A contemporary account described how on the scaffold, John Dennis, Isaac
Harley, Thomas South, William Beamiss and George Crow "endeavoured to shake
hands with each other, but having their arms pinioned they were prevented from
so doing".
Miss Collins said: "John Denniss and William Beamiss were supposed to know
better, because they were a publican and a shoemaker and were a bit older than
the others - so they are supposed to have led them astray."
In Littleport, there is still a belief their rioters were "martyrs and made an
example of", according to Deb Curtis from the Field Theatre Group, which has
received a Heritage Lottery Fund grant to make a film about the disturbances.
Prof McWilliam does not agree - pointing to the execution of 19 men in the
anti-mechanisation Captain Swing riots of 1830.
"Both the Littleport and Swing riots were protests at the increasing
impoverishment of the rural poor and the government used the force of the
scaffold to clamp down on unrest," he said.
"The rioters felt the full force of the Bloody Code, with 200 offences leading
to execution."
He also points to the violence used to disperse unemployed Lancashire mill
workers when they tried to march on Parliament in 1817 and the force used
during Manchester's Peterloo Massacre of 1819. By 1820, there was even an
attempt to overthrow the government in the Cato Street Conspiracy.
After the executions, an inscription was put on the side of Littleport parish
church, listing the men's names and crimes and ending, "May their awful fate be
a warning to others."
The vicar, Mr Vachell, was one of many who sought compensation for the
destruction of his property - and received 708 poounds, which is about 50,000
pounds in today's values.
Littleport Parish also agreed to pay 5 pounds a year to the Waterloo veteran
whose arm was injured in the riot and later amputated.
Miss Collins said the men had tried to help themselves through periods of
unemployment or sickness by paying into the Benefit Club.
"In today's terms, they weren't shirkers, they were workers who were looking
after each other, but the need was so great the money had run out," she said.
And while former shop steward Mr Beamiss knows there was a time when his family
were ashamed about their connection to a man who joined - and possibly led -
the mob - he believes his ancestor "fought for the underdog".
(source: BBC news)
SRI LANKA:
Nearly 190 death sentences commuted under present govt. moving to abolish death
penalty
President Maithripala Sirisena has commuted 187 death sentences to life
imprisonment on recommendations by an expert committee headed by retired
Supreme Court judge Nimal E. Dissanayake.
The decision has been announced in the wake of protests demanding the
implementation of the death penalty on the person convicted by the Negombo High
Court for rape and murder of a 5-year old girl in the Kotadeniyawa police area
in the Gampaha District.
Justice Ministry spokesperson Harsha B. Abeykoon told The Island that President
Maithripala Sirisena had endorsed Dissanayake committee's recommendations on 3
separate occasions (Dec. 2015, Apr. 2016 and May 2016).
The previous government established the committee in Oct. 2013 to explore ways
and means of overcoming severe difficulties caused by suspension of death
penalty in accordance with an understanding with the European Union. The
committee included Secretary to the Justice Ministry, additional Solicitor
General and Prisons Commissioner.
The Prisons Department has made repeated representations in respect of nearly
1,200 convicts on death row.
Abeykoon said that the committee had inquired into cases of nearly 400 convicts
on death row and recommended the abolition of death sentence.
Foreign Ministry sources told The Island that FM Mangala Samaraweera assured
the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council last September that Sri
Lanka wouldn't implement the death penalty. He also said the government would
abolish death penalty.
Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe told The Island yesterday that it would
be a continuing process. Asked whether those on the death row, who had their
death sentences commuted to life sentence, were eligible for release after
serving 20 years behind bars, Minister Rajapakshe said that was a possibility.
Minister Rajapakshe emphasised that death penalty had been converted to life
sentence before the incumbent government came into being in January 2015.
(source: island.lk)
BELIZE:
The Mentally Ill And The Law
How to deal "legally" with mentally ill persons who break the law? The
situation is not uncommon to Belize and recently we have seen major crimes
perpetrated by mental health patients. The Death Penalty Project, a
London-based NGO, is here in Belize to host a three day workshop in an attempt
to at the very least, create a baseline protocol for dealing with the mentally
ill within existing laws.
We spoke to the event organizer this morning and he told us about the
importance of hosting such an event in Belize.
Parvais Jabbar, Co Exec. Dir., The death Penalty Proj.
"We've been working in Belize now for over 20 years on individual cases
representing prisoners who had been sentenced to death. Over that period of
time, we got to know the country very well, we have very good relationships
with lawyers and other organizations here and one area that we wanted to
explore was the criminal justice system. A couple years ago, together with
other stakeholders in Belize, we launched a report 'Behind the Prison Gates'
which looked at issues that were important not only in relation to death row
prisoners, but other vulnerable prisoners such as juveniles, mentally
disordered, and so on. As a result of this report and some of the findings and
recommendations that were agreed and considered by a number of important
stakeholders in Belize, together with the Chief Justice and with the Belize Bar
Association, we agreed to hold a number of training workshops and seminars
looking at mental health and the law."
Reporter
"Why is it important to look at that particular aspect of legal processes,
especially considering people with mental health issues?"
Parvais Jabbar, Co Exec. Dir., The death Penalty Proj.
"It's one of the most important areas that is being looked at all over the
world. There is serious concern about how mental health is dealt with within
the criminal justice system and how it is applied and used in individual cases.
So as a result of that, what we have found, not only in Belize but in the many
jurisdictions, is that people suffering from mental disorder whether it be some
mental illness or some intellectual disability. These individuals need to be
treated and considered in specific ways when looking at the administration of
justice."
Today's session was a closed workshop for Belizean judges. The seminar is being
organized by the Death Penalty Project in collaboration with the Bar
Association and the office of the Chief Justice.
(source: 7newsbelize.com)
TANZANIA:
Tanzania still doubtful in abolishing death sentence
We are right now in the Parliamentary Budget sessions where different
ministries take stock on what they did in the previous financial year and
promise new progressive undertakings for the incoming year.
Unlike in the past, when senior citizens used to be glued at their television
sets watching the live broadcast from their sitting rooms; this is not the case
now. However a few of us with a special interest have to keep awake, up to the
wee hours of the morning, just to keep abreast on what is going on in the
Parliament. In most cases, senior citizens are cynical on whatever is being
done and are rightly accused of nursing selective nostalgia ideas, that
whatever was done in their time was better!
They should be reminded that we are in an electronic age better known as
digital era where automation is order of the day. So, they should
psychologically get prepared to swim with the current and take things at their
face values.
This is the 1st budget for the Fifth Phase Government of President Magufuli
whose catch slogan is Hapa Kazi Tu, originating from last year's political
campaigns in that General Election's frenzy call on "Mabadiliko."
Therefore the budgetary submissions should be reflective to those reforms and
should have counter measures such as periodical accountability reports.
I do not see the real commitments of indicative appraisal on how ministries can
make good of their promises. Even the opposition's submissions are only
characterized by political rhetoric and not alternative budgets! Is it not
business as usual?
Let me talk on the 2 ministries I know that they complement each other, the
Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and that of Home Affairs.
The burning issues of these ministries are very much known, backlogs of court
pending cases resulting in the overcrowding of remands and convicted prisoners,
inadequate resources to address inherent challenges facing the ministries,
working tools and dilapidated infrastructures culminating to serious breach of
human rights.
Very fortunately the Judiciary during this year's Law Day was graced by the
presence of His Excellency the President who spoke candidly on the way the
Judiciary was managing its affairs and granted some funds to speed up those
pending cases. That was a right step towards such reforms and could have been
supplemented with other issues needing attention.
During his budgetary statement the Minister of Justice and Constitutional
Affairs Dr Harrison Mwakyembe touched in passing the much needed finalization
of the Proposed Constitutional Reforms!
What about the abolishment of the death penalty which was an issue with Mwalimu
Nyerere in 1985. Mwalimu openly admitted that he was not comfortable with it
when addressing members of Police and Prisons at the Prison Training College
Ukonga in a ceremony to bid him farewell.
Last year Tanzania initiated its groundbreaking approach on abolishment of
death penalty through Parliamentary Group for Global Action (PGA) in a
Roundtable Meeting held in the country.
This roundtable was also attended by Chair of the Law Reform Commission of
Tanzania Judge Aloysius Mujulizi who confirmed that the Commission has on 2
occasions recommended the abolition of the death penalty, reminding that the
death penalty in Tanzania has no indigenous origin and thus does not have such
a strong popular support as some may claim.
According to Tanzania's 4th Periodical Report on the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) submitted to the United Nations Human Rights
Committee in 2009 in Geneva, the government stand on capital punishment threw
it to the people's wishes and not on the external pressure.
Capital punishment is simply popular because the general public has little
confidence in the government and state agencies, universally perceived as
corrupted, inefficient and ineffective.
At the level of the masses, the ignorance of the human rights approach to the
death penalty, exacerbated by illiteracy, makes the acceptation of arguments in
favour of the abolition of death penalty even more difficult.
The moment a crime assumes notoriety or begins to overwhelm law enforcement
agents, public's response has been to impose the death penalty for such crimes
that include rape, corruption and so forth. What advocates for the death
penalty fail to understand is that the death penalty does not make the society
safe.
It may pander to the outrage of society but it does not remove the crime; which
should be the interest of government. Are we really ignorant of capital
punishment?
According to position paper of Children Education Society (CHESO) on death
penalty reveals that from 1961 to April 2007, 2562 Prisoners were sentenced to
death and 238 of the prisoners were hanged. Despite the fact that 238 prisoners
on death row were hanged, the numbers of murder incidences have kept increasing
tremendously from 46 in 1961 to 3,929 in 2013.
The best way to solve crime is to prevent it or at best apprehend the offender.
When a criminal justice system is too weak to resolve crimes and apprehend
offenders, the penalties no matter how severe will have no deterrent effect.
It is public knowledge that police lack the capacity to effectively investigate
crime; there are no forensic labs, equipments or facilities to accurately or
scientifically tie crimes to suspects.
Most allegations for crimes that attract the death penalty are based on
confessional statements, most of which are obtained through torture and other
unlawful practices. Inmates on death row syndrome face suicidal attempts and
psychotic delusions.
According to some psychiatrists, the results of being confined to death row for
an extended period of time, including the effects of knowing one will die and
the living conditions, can fuel suicidal tendencies in an individual and can
cause insanity in a form that is dangerous. Condemned prisoners while waiting
for execution undergo painful isolation.
I have an experience on that because at one time I had been in charge of
condemned wing!
(source: Kiangiosekazi Wa Nyoka, Daily News)
ETHIOPIA:
Andy Tsege in Ethiopia Case: Daughter, 9, in Legal Bid to Return Death-Row Dad
It's not every day that a 9-year-old American girl takes the British government
to court.
But for Menabe Andargachew, it's a matter of life and death: her father's.
Andargachew "Andy" Tsege disappeared while catching a connecting flight through
Yemen in June 2014. The political activist was snatched and forcibly taken to
Ethiopia, where he had been sentenced to death for opposition work.
Tsege is British but so far his government hasn't demanded his release. Now
Menabe and her family are trying to force their hand: They filed a legal
challenge alleging that approach is "unlawful."
"My mom said he's been sentenced to death," Menabe says as her chin quivers. "I
just don't know if we can get him back in time."
*****
This week 61-year-old Tsege marked 700 days in detention - without any access
to a lawyer.
His Maryland-born partner, family and lawyers say he was kidnapped - a victim
of rendition carried out by Ethiopia, which has labeled him a terrorist and
enemy of the state. Ethiopia says he was "extradited."
Tsege was never formally notified of charges against him, trials or given an
opportunity to present a defense, according the legal filing. His supporters
allege that Tsege - a prominent member of the Ethiopian opposition - is a
victim of political persecution.
"I have serious questions about the Ethiopian government's use of the
Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to limit free speech and political dissent, and Mr.
Tsege's grave case is one of many that gives cause for concern," Sen. Ben
Cardin, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a
statement to NBC News.
Both the U.N. Human Rights Council and the European Parliament have called for
Tsege's release. The British government has expressed "deep concern" over his
case. But thus far, it hasn't followed suit in demanding Tsege be freed ???
instead focusing on getting him "due process."
Tsege's family and lawyers say that's a ludicrous approach.
"The suggestion that he can go through a court process in Ethiopia to somehow
assert his fights is absolutely farcical," attorney Rosa Curling told NBC News.
For starters? His transfer to Ethiopia was carried out without any formal
arrest or extradition process, according to the new legal filing, which was
obtained exclusively by NBC News.
Ethiopia says Tsege was "extradited" under an "existing" treaty with Yemen -
but the filing says no such agreement has ever been produced.
"You don't really ask due process of your kidnappers," Tsege's longtime partner
Yemi Hailemariam scoffed. "That man should not be languishing in an Ethiopian
prison ... All he wanted and he aspired for is a country similar to here and
the U.S. in Ethiopia."
Hailemariam and her kids share U.S. and U.K. citizenship. They have written to
the queen, the prime minister, American and British lawmakers for help getting
Tsege home over the past 22 months.
She hopes the new legal challenge ??? a request for a judicial review ??? will
force the Foreign Office to "genuinely change" their strategy toward the case
and work harder to protect its citizen.
"Are we saying that a nation can just grab a third nation's citizen from any
airport, from anywhere at will?" Yemi said. "The U.K.'s actions - they're
saying it's OK."
*****
Tsege had a 2-hour layover at Yemen's Sanaa International Airport on June 23,
2014, while en route from Dubai to Eritrea. He never made it onto the
connecting flight because he was "forcibly detained by a number of unknown
individuals" while riding on an internal airport bus - then stripped of his
British passport and held in an office for hours, according to the filing.
"Officials of the Government of Ethiopia then arrived... put tape over his eyes
and a sack over his head, placed him in a Jeep, and forced him aboard a plane,"
the legal filing alleges.
That was 22 months ago. Since then Tsege was held in solitary confinement for
over a year then transferred to the notorious Kality Prison.
"Tsege lives in constant fear that a death sentence imposed on him in absentia
more than five years ago will be carried out," according to the document.
NBC News obtained a copy of the filing from the campaign group Reprieve, which
has been lobbying on behalf of Tsege's family.
*****
Hailemariam and Tsege met in 1998 through a mutual friend after she moved from
the U.S. They started out as good friends, romance only followed later.
Tsege already was "very politically active" at the time.
He was born on Feb. 9, 1955, in Addis Ababa to a prominent family: his father
worked in the Ministry of Development under Emperor Haile Selassie.
After studying mechanical engineering, Tsege fled Ethiopia in early 1978 amid a
campaign of repression by the Derg - the Marxist regime junta that ousted
Selassie.
Tsege was granted full refugee status in the U.K. in 1983 on the basis of
political opinion.
He earned his British citizenship in 2006 and remained an outspoken critic of
Ethiopia's regime, helping co-found an opposition party called "Ginbot 7" in
2008.
The party - which called for democracy, free elections, civil rights and change
of government "by any means" - was branded a "terrorist organization" by
Ethiopia's government in 2011. No other state has deemed it such.
Tsege has been tried and convicted 3 times in absentia by Ethiopia's government
for what appears to be his political activities.
First in 2005 - alongside dozens of other opposition members and journalists.
The conviction was reportedly for "high treason" - though Tsege was never
formally notified of the precise charges against him, the filing says. He
received a life sentence.
In 2009, he was sentenced to death and in 2012 again sentenced to life in
prison.
Tsege's 2012 case was part of a group of convictions criticized by the State
Department as "extremely harsh" and which reinforced "serious questions about
the politicized use of Ethiopia's anti-terrorism law."
"We urge the release of those who have been imprisoned for exercising their
human rights and fundamental freedoms," it said at the time.
None of the developments deterred Tsege from continuing his activity in the
opposition. His trip to Eritrea in June of 2014 was part of that work.
Before he left, Tsege and Hailemariam discussed a vacation they were planning
in Italy with the children. She ended up taking the children alone.
*****
Ethiopia paraded Tsege on state TV shortly after confirming he was in custody -
2 weeks after he disappeared.
A July 8, 2014, broadcast purported to show him being interrogated and another
video later that month purported to show the same - but a scream can be heard
in the background.
A January 2015 broadcast appeared to show Tsege denying he had been mistreated.
Campaigners say the videos appeared highly edited and were made under duress.
The videos showed marked changes in Tsege's appearance and demeanor.
"The physical change was just drastic," Hailemariam said.
Still, she said she tries not to think about the horrors he may be facing.
"He's still alive. And he needs help," she told NBC News. "You have to stay
focused on that."
*****
Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn defended Tsege's detention in a
2014 interview and insisted the in-absentia trials were "fair."
The Ethiopian government reiterated that view in a statement to NBC News on
Friday, saying Tsege had been convicted of "terrorist acts."
"The stated intent of Andargachew Tsege's organization - Ginbot 7 - is to
overthrow the constitutional order through violent means and disrupt the
national peace and stability of Ethiopia," it said. "Tsege was serving as a
Trojan horse, assisting the Eritrean government's repeated and ongoing attempts
to wreak havoc and instability in the sub-region."
The British government has written to its Ethiopian counterpart seeking
assurances that the death penalty won't be carried out. None have been given.
Tsege's only contact with his family in London since he vanished was an
unexpected phone call in December 2014.
When Tsege asked if he could speak to the children, his partner told him it was
a good idea.
Menabe, though, could barely speak. "I didn't really talk to him because I
burst into tears when I got the phone," the spunky 9-year-old sighs.
But she knows what she would say if she spoke to him today.
"I'd say that we love him and that we're going to get him back soon and that
he'll be back home and that I promise he'll ... He'll not be staying there
forever," she said, swallowing hard.
She misses "exploring" and playing Monopoly with him - "something our mom
doesn't do" - and seeing him would mean far more than a phone call.
"I'd say I love him and that I'm sorry that this ever happened," Menabe
sniffled, rubbing her eyes as tears start to flow. "I want him back ... I just
want him to come home."
*****
The campaigners working with Tsege's family say it's unacceptable they've found
themselves in this position.
"The British government needs to do more as part of its duty to one of its
citizens," Reprieve's Maya Foa told NBC News. "If in expressing your political
beliefs it then means you can't travel anywhere because you could be kidnapped
and put in some underground prison... What kind of world are we living in?"
The kids brought a petition to 10 Downing Street, the home of Britain's prime
minister.
Foa questioned whether the cooperative relationship between Britain and
Ethiopia might be having undue influence over the government response. The U.S.
also has ties to Ethiopia; Obama made a highly-publicized visit there in July.
"I think there are potentially other interests that are coming above the
interests of protecting a British citizen and his family," Foa said.
*****
A judicial review asks the court to review whether the decision-making of a
public body was lawful. In this case, the Foreign Office.
Menabe's filing doesn't dispute that Britain has made "overtures" to Ethiopia
about Tsege. However, it challenges the government's focus on securing "due
process" rather than demanding his release.
Any course of action on the premise Tsege "can or will be afforded due process
in Ethiopia is patently implausible and without reasonable basis," the filing
states.
"Any overtures or representations made in pursuit of this objective are doomed
to failure," it added.
It says that "the absurdity of the proposition" has been "underscored" by
"egregious" violations of international law arising from his in-absentia
convictions, detention in Yemen and transfer to Ethiopia.
The "due process" strategy is "unlawful," "irrational," "in defiance of logic,"
and "not only unreasonable but potentially dangerous," according to the filing.
The Foreign Office declined to comment on the judicial review or respond to
questions about the "due process" approach.
"Foreign Secretary [Philip Hammond] has raised Mr. Tsege's case with the
Ethiopian government repeatedly, making it clear the way he has been treated is
unacceptable," it said in a statement to NBC News.
The Foreign Office has since 2014 been requesting regular consular access and
assurances from Ethiopia that no death sentence will be carried out. No such
assurances have been received.
Ethiopia's U.K. embassy declined to comment on but told NBC News on Friday that
"Tsege is well-treated and has received visits from the British ambassador to
Ethiopia."
Those meetings, however, have been intermittent and monitored.
A note from one visit with the ambassador said Tsege had indicated execution
would be preferable to his current situation.
Yemi said that brought her "worst fears to life."
"To think what they must have done ... to make the happy and loving man I love
so shattered," she wrote in her witness statement. "He has been broken."
She told NBC News she believes the U.K. isn't doing what it needs to do to
protect their citizen.
"They have abandoned him," Yemi said.
She finds the British government's refusal to characterize the case as a kidnap
is "insulting." One letter to Tsege's attorney's said the foreign secretary
viewed Tsege's "transfer" to Ethiopia as "questionable" but not "criminal."
"Nothing has changed," Yemi added. "So now we are forced to take them to court
and see if they will do something about it."
*****
Tsege was helping Yemi raise 3 children - Menabe, her twin brother Yilak, and
older sister Helawit.
Helawit, 16, won a human-rights award for her work lobbying for their father's
release. On a recent afternoon she was locked in her room studying for exams as
the twins played with Snapchat.
The gregarious Yilak said he was looking forward to going to the mall in
America this summer, and to Dunkin' Donuts.
But when asked about their father Yilak clams up.
"It makes me sad," he says in a near-whisper. "I try not to talk about it."
He also tries not to think about it. But sometimes the absence is too hard to
ignore.
"When I see other people's dads I just realize that mine's gone," Yilak added.
"It just makes me wish my Dad was here."
Later, he is heard sobbing in the kitchen as his mother tries to soothe him.
"Shh, shh, he's going to come back," his mother coos. "He is."
(source: NBC news)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 29 08:15:53 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 29 May 2016 08:15:53 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., OHIO, COLO.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605290815440.7952@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 29
NORTH CAROLINA:
The truth about juries and racial bias
Fact: It is unconstitutional for people to be kept off a jury simply because of
their skin color.
Fact: It is standard operating procedure in courtrooms across the country for
prosecutors to keep African Americans out of the jury box, especially when the
defendant is black.
And for the most part, courts don't do anything about it. Court rules say
prosecutors just have to state a non-racial reason for weeding out blacks. So
they do. Everything's fine, as long as they don't blurt out what is, in many
instances, the real reason: Prosecutors prune blacks from juries under the
commonly held presumption that they are more skeptical of law enforcement.
Why, it's true, some will say. Prosecutors are just using smart tactics. But,
as the Supreme Court said in a 7-1 ruling last week, they're judging people by
the color of their skin, a constitutional no-no.
The ruling came in the case of Timothy Foster, an African American death row
inmate in Georgia. Foster argued that prosecutors in his 1987 trial aimed to
strike blacks from the jury pool, leaving an all-white jury to decide his
culpability in the killing of an elderly white widow.
Foster appealed, citing racial bias in jury selection. It was hardly an unusual
charge. Inmates across the country make that claim. Georgia courts' response to
Foster's appeal wasn't unusual, either. They said they saw no evidence of
purposeful discrimination.
This despite the fact that Foster's team obtained prosecutors' files showing
that they???d kept notes on their decidedly race-conscious jury tactics. Their
jury pool list showed the names of blacks highlighted in green. They even had a
legend indicating that the highlighting "represents blacks."
Their notes identified prospective black jurors as "B#1" or "B#2." The letter
"N" (for no) also appeared next to their names. On juror questionnaires,
someone had circled black jurors' race. They were even ranked - in case it came
down to having to pick one of them.
Still, despite all of that, Georgia courts found that Foster had failed to show
purposeful discrimination in jury selection. Chief Justice John Roberts called
the flimsy excuses prosecutors offered "nonsense." The nation's highest court,
clearly sick of the charades happening in trials across the country, blasted
Georgia courts' acceptance of those excuses as "clearly erroneous."
The N.C. Supreme Court has heard appeals like Foster's in more than 100 cases,
according to the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation. The court
has never ruled that it found racial bias lurking beneath a prosecutor's
race-neutral explanations for dismissing blacks.
Is that because no N.C. prosecutor has ever been guilty of it? Or because our
state's high court, like Georgia's, is too readily accepting of the excuses
offered for racially suspect jury selection tactics?
The Foster ruling shows just how real the latter possibility is.
(source: Editorial, Charlotte Observer)
OHIO:
Supreme Court to weigh death sentence for Akron killer of 2
The Ohio Supreme Court is weighing the appeal of a man sentenced to die for
killing his estranged girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
Dawud Spaulding was sentenced to die in 2013 for the killings of 28-year-old
Erica Singleton and 31-year-old Ernest Thomas in Akron in December 2011.
Court records show Singleton had a protective order against Spaulding at the
time. The 34-year-old Spaulding received a death sentence for both killings.
The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for July 12 to hear testimony
for and against upholding Spaulding's death sentence.
A decision by the court won't come for several weeks after that, and any
execution would be years off because of lengthy appeals and the state's current
lack of lethal injection drugs.
(source: Associated Press)
COLORADO:
Time to abolish the death penalty
The article in the May 24 Camera , "Supreme Court upends all-white jury
verdict," gives heartening news - but it does not do justice to the background
of this victory. Stephen Bright, the lawyer who won this case, has been working
for the poor and defenseless for over 34 years - for more on him, see
www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/after-u-s-supreme-court-victory-stephen-bright-wont-rest-his-defense-of-the-poor-and-the-powerless/.
It was he who first inspired Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice
Initiative and author of the recent award-winning book "Just Mercy," to join
the fight to give real legal help to those on death row in the South.
As Bright told Stevenson during their first conversation, "Capital punishment
means 'them without the capital gets the punishment.' " Both Bright and
Stevenson believe deeply that justice and humanity demand the abolition of the
death penalty, and if you are not yet convinced of that, read "Just Mercy."
It's a live issue in Colorado, given recent cases of mass shootings.
Silvine Farnell
Lafayette
(source: Boulder Daily Camera)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 29 08:16:37 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 29 May 2016 08:16:37 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605290816270.7952@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 29
SYRIA:
Inmates in Syria's Hama prison capture regime officials----Prison chief among
11 snatched by prisoners in Hama's central prison, after inmates handed death
penalty.
Prisoners inside Syria's Hama central prison have captured several government
officers, including a high ranked police officer, a source inside the jail told
Al Jazeera on Saturday.
The head of the prison, a police officer and nine other government forces were
captured by the prisoners, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said, confirming the incident.
After judge Rida Musa told inmates that 11 of them will be transferred to the
capital, Damascus, for the death penalty, fellow prisoners revolted.
Musa arrived in the prison to discuss about the shortage of food, water and
other basic amenities.
Inmates have previously demanded restoration of electricity and water amid food
shortages and serious medical conditions, the Observatory said.
Hundreds of detainees revolted earlier in Mayafter five inmates were to be
taken to the notorious Sednaya prison near Damascus so that death sentences
passed by an extra-judicial military tribunal could be carried out.
Rights group says Syria uses torture
Government forces surrounded the prison and fired tear gas during that revolt
in an effort to quell the unrest, according to the Observatory.
International and Syrian human rights organisations have decried conditions
inside Syrian prisons before and during the war.
Between March 2011 and the end of 2015, the Syrian Network for Human Rights
documented the arrest and detention of more than 117,000 people.
More than 60,000 people have been killed through torture or died in dire
humanitarian conditions inside regime prisons throughout the country's 5-year
uprising, according to a report by the Observatory.
In a December 2015 report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers had
found "evidence of widespread torture, starvation, beatings, and disease" in
government jails and detention centres.
(source: Al Jazeera)
INDIA:
Robbery case: Dec 16 gangrape convicts move HC against sentence
3 of the 4 death row convicts in the December 16 gangrape and murder case have
moved the Delhi High Court challenging the 10-year jail term awarded to them by
a trial court in a robbery case.
Akshay Kumar Singh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, who were convicted for
dacoity and dishonestly receiving stolen property, have alleged that the trial
court's order was "bad in law" and "against the principle of natural justice".
Besides the trio, the trial court on September 2 last year had also awarded 10
year imprisonment to convict Mukesh, saying they "do not deserve any leniency".
It had also imposed a fine of Rs 1.01 lakh each on the four convicts, who are
currently lodged in Tihar jail. The convicts in their appeal, filed through
advocate A P Singh, have sought setting aside of the trial court's decision
saying the judgement did not pay "heed towards facts produced by the accused
persons during the trial of the case". The plea stated that the prosecution has
failed to prove its case and had not placed any material evidence, which could
point to their guilt.
"Trial court had passed order (conviction and sentence) without applying its
judicial mind and without taking into consideration the facts and documents
placed by the convicts on record and had wrongly relied upon the version of the
complainant," the convicts have said in their appeal.
They have sought bail during pendency of their appeals. 6 persons, including a
juvenile, had beaten up and had robbed carpenter Ram Adhar before raping and
brutally assaulting a 23-year-old girl in a moving bus in south Delhi on the
night of December 16, 2012. Thirteen days after the assault, she was
transferred to a hospital in Singapore for emergency treatment, but succumbed
to her injuries.
As per the charge sheet in the robbery case, the police had alleged that bus
driver Ram Singh, his brother Mukesh, Vinay, Pawan and Akshay, along with the
juvenile, had snatched the 35-year-old carpenter's mobile phone and Rs 1,500
after luring him into the bus.
Mukesh, Vinay, Pawan and Akshay were awarded death penalty on September 10,
2013 by a trial court here in the gangrape and murder case which was later
confirmed by Delhi High Court on March 13, 2014. Their appeals are pending
before the Supreme Court. Out of the 6, accused Ram Singh had allegedly
committed suicide in Tihar Jail on March 11, 2013 and proceedings against him
were abated.
On August 31, 2013 the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Board sentenced the minor accused
to a three-year stay in a special home for gangrape and murder of the girl. The
juvenile, now 20-year-old, was recently released from the reformation home.
(source: Deccan Chronicle)
JAMAICA:
Sovereignty, death penalty and justice
Much debate has arisen, sparked by the suggestion of the minister of national
security to revisit the enforcement of the death penalty as part of the
strategy to combat the ever-worsening murder rate. The minister's intentions
are right and wise, but the implementation in a confused world with weak and
inept leadership creates much complication. There is also a great deal of
ignorance on the spiritual and moral meaning and value of the death penalty. I
share the perspective of God's Word and some observations.
For those who argue for the death penalty, it is clear in God's Word that it is
not primarily about deterrence! For those who argue against the death penalty,
the Bible is not concerned in this instance about the prospect of
rehabilitation or reform of the offender.
In the Bible, the death penalty is recommended in recognition of the high value
of life and the principle of justice to honour the sanctity of life. Life's
value and justice are the central issues that must be made clear to all.
Human life is a reflection of divine life. Respect and honour for life is
respect and honour to God. To seek to destroy life is to desire to challenge
God. Hence God says, "If anyone takes a human life, that person's life will
also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image"
(Genesis 9:6). This principle should be taught and reinforced to all mankind.
The act of the death penalty is part of the reinforcement process.
Justice must be done and just requirements met. Nothing can compensate for life
but life. For example, 10 years or 15 years or more imprisonment cannot equate
to the brutal, vicious murder of a person. When this is done, it suggests that
a life filled with purpose and potential is of no more value than a prison
term. This is the wrong message being sent to a society.
The just requirement and penalty for man's sin was death. Hence Jesus had to
die bearing the just penalty to honour the principle of justice. You cannot
have love without justice. Justice must deal with the rights of all, not one
side. One-sided action is not justice. The aspect of being a deterrent and the
reform of the offender are secondary; the value of life is foremost.
However, when its application is sure and swift, there is no question that it
will be a deterrent. Historical data are there to prove that. Any person to
whom it would not be a deterrent does not deserve to live because they would
have indicated that they have no regard for life.
The argument that the death penalty is not a deterrent is a ridiculous notion
that defies all logic, objective reason, common sense and reality. There is a
direct correlation between the cessation of the death penalty and the reduction
in moral value teaching for the reverence of life, over the last 30 years, and
the consistent rise in murder.
The Pratt and Morgan case ruling in 1993 and the attitude of resistance by
successive governments since the late 1970s and '80s to push the execution of
capital punishment has long since sent a clear message. This message has been
unmistakably heard, understood and often declared by elements prone to violence
and murder that 'there is nothing to fear in killing, as the worst that could
happen is life imprisonment with the option of parole'. This is worsened by the
fact that the likelihood of being caught is remote and, therefore, making a
'duppy' a nuh nutten, as there are few consequences to action.
ILL-CONCEIVED CONCEPT
All of this is the result of an ill-conceived concept of life, being promoted
by many human-rights groups. These adverse notions influence court rulings in
countries with failed moral and social systems and structures. These countries,
with their proven failed moral and social systems, are foisting their failure
on developing nations such as ours. Sadly, many of our leaders lack the
conviction of principles and courage to stand up and say no to what is
injurious to best national development.
We cannot continue to spinelessly sign on to any and every international
convention or treaty simply for economic gain or for fear of economic loss. A
society is more than mere economics. There are principles and values that must
be non-negotiable. A society built on strong values and principles will survive
the odds in the long term and gain economic prosperity. Where is our
sovereignty as a nation in these international forums? We do not have to agree
with everyone for fear of standing alone on principles.
What I have been hearing from Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn
and many other legal minds who have weighed in on the death penalty debate is
that we have surrendered our sovereignty and the will of the people to the
Privy Council and other nations.
UNABLE TO STAND FOR VALUES
The Privy Council is to be the facilitator of a process, not lords over our
national destiny. Is this what our political leaders have done to us? We no
longer have a say in determining our national destiny? Are we back to bowing to
'Bucky Maasa'? What was the struggle of our founding fathers for Independence
for?
We seem unable to stand for principles and values, even while selling off our
land and best assets to foreign interests. Our children will soon own nothing
and become bystanders in their own land. None of the exponents of these
concepts or signatories to these conventions ask about the will of the people.
We must remind our Government and politicians that they represent the people,
not themselves. They ought not to sign any agreement we did not authorise. As a
sovereign nation, the Privy Council, pressure groups or foreign nations ought
not to dictate policy and beliefs that we consider not in our best national
interest. We need leaders with conviction, boldness, courage; and a commitment
to values, justice and truth to defend our sovereignty and best national
development priorities.
(source: Opinion; The Rev Al Miller is pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle----The
Jamaica Gleaner)
VIETNAM:
13 to stand trial for smuggling 280kg heroin
13 people will be tried for smuggling 280 kg of heroin in northern Vietnam
between 2013 and 2014, the highest prosecution authority of Vietnam said on
Friday.
The Supreme People's Procuracy said it has indicted Chu Van Vien, 33, and 12
other people on charges of operating a large ring that traded and trafficked
drugs between Son La Province, which borders Laos, and Lang Son Province on the
border with China.
The ring members, aged between 25 and 40, had trafficked 280 kg of heroin on 22
occasions between 2013 and December 2014, when they were arrested, earning more
than VND10 billion (US$450,000), according to the indictment.
Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. The production or sale of
100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is punishable by
death. Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin
or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine also face the death penalty.
(source: Thanh Nien News)
PHILIPPINES:
Death penalty
(This is a manifesto of Flag Region 7 on President-elect Rodrigo Duterte's plan
to re-impose the death penalty and Mayor-elect Tomas Osmena's
kill-a-criminal-for-a-reward method to end criminality.)
The Free Legal Assistance Group (Flag) Region 7 strongly opposes and condemns
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte's plan to re-impose the death penalty and Cebu
City Mayor-elect Tomas Osme???a's "kill-a-criminal-for-a-reward method" to end
criminality in our society.
Studies conducted by the United Nations showed that these executions have no
deterrent effect than life imprisonment. Capital punishment, whether by hanging
as proposed by Duterte or by any other means, is simply legalized murder. It
runs counter to our international commitment as a signatory to the 2nd Protocol
for the Observance of Civil and Political Rights.
With our inept and sometimes corrupt police investigative work and our
imperfect justice system, capital punishment will only work against the poor
and in favor of the rich who can afford to bribe witnesses and hire the most
expensive lawyers who have connections with the judiciary.
Death penalty is barbaric, unchristian, and uncivilized. It will not solve
criminality which is merely a symptom of a decaying society. It will only
promote a culture of death.
Similarly, Mayor-elect Osmena's "kill-a-criminal-for-a reward method" to end
criminality is clearly a poor version of Duterte's shoot-to-kill orders against
criminals and an implementation of the latter's electoral platform to adopt
summary executions.
Mayor Osmena's method of solving crimes in Cebu City is plain vigilantism and
will only promote more violence in our society. Giving policemen, barangay
officials and plain citizens bounty to "neutralize" a "criminal" is practically
granting these people the license to act as judge, jury and executioner at the
same time.
Shooting down an unarmed snatcher inside a jeepney or a robbery suspect in the
streets may have a dramatic appeal on the citizens grown weary by years of
unsolved crimes. But lawlessness cannot be solved by lawless methods and a
supposed civilized society must observe the rule of law instead of the rule of
the gun.
Flag Region 7, therefore, strongly urges President-elect Duterte to reconsider
his plan of re-imposing the death penalty for being barbaric, unchristian, and
contrary to the provisions of the 2nd Protocol for the Observance of Civil and
Political rights of which the Philippines is a signatory.
Flag also calls on Mayor-elect Tomas Osme???a to immediately stop his
"kill-a-criminal-for-a-reward method" because instead of curbing criminality,
it will only promote more crimes since trigger happy policemen and some
barangay officials with an eye on the monetary reward will have to kill more
people through illegal and unconstitutional means.
(source: Opinion, Sun Star)
******************
CHR braces for rights cases under Duterte
The Commission on Human Rights is ready to address human rights issues that may
emerge during the administration of incoming President Rodrigo Duterte, its
chair, Chito Gascon, said here on Tuesday.
"In every administration, the CHR has been very busy because of the many (human
rights) issues (reported to the office)," said Gascon.
Even before Duterte assumes office on July 1, there are already anticrime
"initiatives happening on the ground," which, Gascon said, the CHR would look
into for possible violation of human rights.
Gascon cited the "walk of shame" for drug suspects in Tanauan town in Batangas
province and the offer of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena to reward policemen for
every criminal they kill in the line of duty.
Gascon said the CHR would also look into the advocacy of Duterte for the
restoration of the death penalty and changing the method of executing death
convicts from lethal injection to hanging.
The CHR expressed opposition to the proposals. "The CHR has already stated its
position why (death penalty) has an impact on human rights," said Gascon.
He said when Congress opens the debate on the restoration of the death penalty,
the CHR would be there to explain why it violates the prohibition on cruel and
degrading human treatment and punishment.
"We will also explain why the death penalty that is implemented in different
countries is biased against the poor and why it is not a deterrent to violent
crimes because in many countries, where there is death penalty, violent crimes
continue," he said.
"So, we are hoping that Congress will consider all these issues when it decides
on whether or not it will reinstate the death penalty," he said.
(source: Philippine Inquirer)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun May 29 08:26:00 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Sun, 29 May 2016 08:26:00 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605290825490.3024@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 29
EGYPT:
Military court upholds death sentences for 8 civilians----12 others sentenced
to life in prison, 6 others to 15 years and 2 were acquitted
The West Cairo Military Court upheld on Sunday death sentences for 8 civilians
and sentenced 12 others to life in prison in the case publicly known as the
"specialised intelligence committee" case.
6 defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison and 2 others were acquitted.
2 of those given the death penalty were sentenced in absentia.
The Sunday verdict came after it had previously been postponed three times
since the court initially referred the files of 8 of the defendants to the
grand mufti, a procedural step prior to approving final death sentences, on 7
February.
For 2 sessions the reason for postponement was that the mufti did not send back
his judgment on the case, which is used for consulting and not binding to the
court.
Some of the defendants in the case were considered by rights groups and
activists as having been "forcibly disappeared" before being shown in a video,
released by the Ministry of Defence in July 2015, confessing to being members
of a terrorist network and claiming responsibility for attacks on state
facilities and personnel.
(source: Daily News Egypt)
GAZA:
UN, rights group concerned over Hamas death penalty
The United Nations and Human Rights Watch are alarmed about the statements made
by Hamas, the ruling Islamic militant group in Gaza, of an imminent public
execution of 13 Palestinians charged of collaboration with Israel for murder.
Spokesperson of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHR),
Rupert Colville, issued an official statement on Wednesday, May 25, the same
day the announcement was made in Gaza.
Colville said that the UN office is "deeply concerned about recent statements
made by the authorities in Gaza, including the Attorney General, of their
intention to implement a number of death sentences, and fear that the first
executions may be imminent."
According to Colville, Hamas' decision to carry out the death sentence was a
response to the demands made by the families of the victims killed. He stressed
that the penalty should only be carried out in "extremely limited
circumstances" and expressed his "serious doubts" that Gaza's capital trials
had met fair trial standards. Colville also mentioned the "disturbing media
reports" that the execution will be done in public. He noted that to do so is
prohibited under international law.
The Human Rights Watch are just as concerned that the sentence was made without
a due process.
Sari Bashi, Spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, told New York Times, "It's
terrible. The court system in Gaza is rife with coercion, torture and
compromised procedures, and so to execute people in Gaza is particularly
egregious."
Hamas legislators have finally decided to reinstate the death penalty after
days of arguing about it and even without needing the approval of Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
"We found it was important to implement the death penalty rule to maintain
civil peace in society and to prevent cases of murder," Yehia Mousa, a Hamas
legislator said.
As reported by New York Times, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights has
recorded at least 67 executions since 2007 when the militant group took over
Gaza. The executions were mostly halted in 2014 when Abbas' national unity
government was in place but the government quickly fell apart after a year,
bringing back power to the militant Hamas.
(source: The Christian Times)
SAUDI ARABIA----execution
Saudi Arabia kills Nigerian man in 95th execution of the year ---- Fahd
Houssawi was put to death for murder of police officer as human rights groups
raise concern over surge in executions
Saudi authorities have executed a Nigerian man after convicting him of
murdering a police officer.
It was the 95th 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 surge in executions has
drawn concern from human rights groups.
Fahd Houssawi was executed on Sunday in the western city of Taif, the interior
ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. He had
been found guilty of strangling a policeman and beating him to death, the
ministry said.
Amnesty International has warned that at the current rate Saudi Arabia could
see more than 100 executions in the 1st half of 2016.
The London-based watchdog said 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 executions this year are higher than at the same point last year, Amnesty
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 severing of
relations.
(source: The Guardian)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 30 08:42:54 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 08:42:54 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605300842450.6940@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 30
CALIFORNIA:
Man on death row claims a Mexican loan shark is to blame for his mother and
stepfathers deaths
A Scot accused of shooting dead his mother and stepfather has blamed the
killings on a Mexican loan shark.
Derek Connell, 29, was arrested after the bodies of Paisley-born Kim
Higgin-botham and husband Christopher were found in a pool of blood at their
home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30.
Connell will face the death penalty if convicted.
According to newly released police transcripts, he initially blamed a Mexican
money lender called "Nacho" for the killings.
He said his stepdad had run up massive debts to Nacho - and that the mysterious
loan shark was responsible for shooting him.
Detective David Brooks, who grilled Connell, said: "I told him he was a coward
and that he should admit what happened to provide closure to the family."
Californian police were tipped off by concerned family members in Scotland who
had received a mobile phone message from Connell which read "mom is dead".
When officers arrived at the house they found Connell - originally from
Shawlands, Glasgow - trying to drive away in a 4x4 smelling of alcohol.
They also noticed he had blood on his trousers and marks consistent with bleach
stains.
He told them, "My parents are shot in the house", and was immediately
handcuffed and taken into custody.
Then over a series of interviews lasting more than 5 hours, unemployed oil
worker Connell gave officers his side of the story.
Senior detective Kenneth Sporer said throughout the grilling he "did not show
any emotion".
Connell claimed that, after discovering the bodies, he "lay down next to mom"
before attempting to clean up the crime scene using "that stuff you put in the
dishwasher".
He said he also planned to take the bodies to a funeral home "to avoid issues
with the police".
Asked what he would say to his mother and stepfather if they were in front of
him, he replied: "I love them."
Connell's next court appearance will be in July.used of shooting dead his
mother and stepfather has blamed the killings on a Mexican loan shark.
Derek Connell, 29, was arrested after the bodies of Paisley-born Kim
Higgin-botham and husband Chris-topher were found in a pool of blood at their
home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30.
Connell will face the death penalty if convicted.
(source: sundaypost.com)
*****************
Death penalty is not effective
After reading about our sheriff's support of a revision to the state's death
penalty law and also seeing his picture in your newspaper, a couple of
questions as well as a personal opinion came to mind. First, I wonder if the
sheriff could touch his toes or run a 50-yard dash in a reasonable time
commensurate with his age, but probably not his weight.
The news conference also brought to mind the fact that we are the only
so-called civilized, most powerful country in the world still executing people
for criminal behavior. The only difference between us and the Saudi Arabians is
they behead and mutilate people in public, but we don't have enough guts to do
the same.
If our law enforcement agencies believe that capital punishment reduces crime,
why do we have so many prisoners on death row in San Quentin? Hey, let's join
proud Texas in its fun and delight assassinating criminals.
Well, I guess it is one way of reducing the problem of crowded jail
populations.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Carl Larkin, Record Searchlight)
SUDAN:
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 30 08:43:51 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 08:43:51 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605300843370.6940@15-11017.smu.edu>
may 30
SUDAN:
Sudan to charge detained Pastor with death penalty
A pastor could face the death penalty after his attorney told International
Christian Concern that the Sudanese government is planning to charge him with
espionage and other crimes against the state.
Last December, Sudanese officials had arrested Church of Christ Pastor Hassan
Taour and has held him incommunicado ever since.
According to Taour's attorney, Mohaned Mustafa, his client is awaiting charges
under several sections of Sudan's Criminal Act of 1991. The charges range from
"waging war against the state" to "disclosure and obtaining information and
official documents."
Mustafa defended Pastors Peter Yein Reith and Yat Michael who faced similar
charges before international pressure compelled Sudan to release them in
August. Mustafa also defended Meriam Ibrahim, who was sentenced to hang in 2014
for both apostasy and adultery by marrying a Christian and practicing his
faith. Sudanese authorities released Ibrahim later that same year.
Sudan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, which protects religious freedom.
"Sudan continues to show itself as the enemy of religious freedom and one of
the prime persecutors of the Church in Africa," said Troy Augustine, ICC's
regional manager for Africa. "The government's actions towards Hassan
Abduraheem Taour are deeply unjust .... However, as we have seen in the past
with the cases of Meriam Ibrahim and Pastors Peter and Yat, Sudan often
responds to international pressure. ICC calls on everyone concerned to voice
your protest with the Sudanese Embassy in Washington and Ambassador Maowia
Osman Khalid to call for Rev. Taour's immediate release...."
Last week Sudanese authorities re-arrested Pastor Kwa Shamaal, who along with
the Rev. Hassan Abdelrahim Tawor could face charges calling for the death
penalty, according to Morning Star News.
As head of missions for the Sudanese Church of Christ, Shamaal was re-arrested
in Khartoum after a National Intelligence and Security Services prosecutor
interrogated him at security offices. Shamaal and Tawor had been arrested from
their respective homes last December; Shamaal was released on Dec. 21, but he
had to report daily to NISS office.
On May 10, Tawor was transferred from prison to a holding cell for those facing
crimes against the state, indicating that his trial could soon come under
fabricated charges of espionage and other serious offenses calling for the
death penalty. An attorney said Shamaal could face the same charges.
(source: Worthy News)
KUWAIT:
Kuwait upholds death sentence for mosque blast ringleader
Kuwait's supreme court today upheld the death sentence handed down to the main
convict in the Islamic State group bombing of a Shiite mosque that killed 26
people.
The court confirmed the sentence of capital punishment passed on Abdulrahman
Sabah Saud, a stateless man who drove the Saudi suicide bomber to the mosque in
June last year. The court also upheld jail terms of between 2 and 15 years for
8 people, including 4 women, and acquitted 15 others including 3 women.
The court did not hear the appeals of 5 others -- 4 Saudis and a stateless man
-- who had been sentenced to death in absentia by a lower court.
Under Kuwaiti law, sentences issued in absentia are not reviewed by higher
courts until those convicted appear in person.
The 4 Saudi men still at large include 2 brothers who smuggled the explosives
belt used in the attack into Kuwait from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. The 5th man
is a stateless Arab.
29 defendants, including 7 women, had been charged with helping the Saudi
suicide bomber attack a Shiite mosque in the capital, which was the bloodiest
in Kuwait's history.
An IS-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province claimed the bombing as well
as suicide attacks on 2 Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia in May last year.
Najd is the central region of Saudi Arabia.
The Sunni extremists of IS consider Shiites to be heretics and have repeatedly
attacked Shiite targets in the region.
In addition to driving the suicide bomber, Saud was also charged with bringing
the explosives belt from a site near the border and aiding the bomber.
At his initial trial, Saud confessed to most charges, but later denied them all
in the appeals and supreme courts.
The death penalty in Kuwait is carried out by hanging, and to be implemented it
requires the approval of the Gulf state's ruler.
Among the supreme court's main verdicts today, the court upheld the commuting
of the death sentence for the alleged IS leader in Kuwait, Fahad Farraj
Muhareb, to 15 years in prison.
It also upheld the acquittal of Jarrah Nimer, owner of the car used to
transport the bomber.
Courts in Kuwait have previously handed down several verdicts against IS
supporters and financiers.
(source: Agence France-Presse)
INDONESIA:
Cleric calls on govt not to carry out executions during Ramadhan
A local leader of Indonesia's biggest Islamic organization has called on the
Attorney General's Office ( AGO ) not to carry out the anticipated execution of
several drug convicts during the fasting month of Ramadhan, which begins on
July 6.
KH. Maslahuddin, the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama ( NU ) in Cilacap, Central
Java, said it was hoped the government would respect the holiness of Ramadhan
and give the death row inmates a chance to repent before God in the special
month for Muslim people.
"After that, please carry out the execution as quickly as possible. Do not
postpone it further," Maslahuddin told journalists last week.
He said if necessary the executions could even be conducted before Ramadhan.
"So that prosecutors, firing squad personnel, the Muslim death row inmates and
other parties involved in the execution can be devoted to carrying out their
Ramadhan religious services," Maslahuddin said.
He said it was important that the AGO not repeatedly postpone the execution of
the convicts, especially in the case of those whose court ruling was already
final and could not be legally challenged, so the punishment would create a
deterrent effect on other drug crime perpetrators.
"It should be conducted as soon as possible -- the sooner the better. The
execution and threat of the death penalty must be continuously communicated to
the public so that potential perpetrators think twice before committing such
crimes," said Maslahuddin.
Repeatedly postponing the execution of the sentences would only open room for
perpetrators to file appeals or use other legal measures in an effort to escape
the death penalty.
Citing an example, Maslahuddin said the second appeal and a repent and forswear
request letter filed by drug convict Freddy Budiman at the Cilacap District
Court were merely aimed at postponing the execution of his death sentence.
As reported earlier, the AGO confirmed it would soon carry out a 3rd round of
executions conducted under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. However, the AGO has
not yet provided details on the date of the execution and the number of inmates
to be executed.
The government reportedly delayed the execution due to ongoing legal measures
by lawyers of several convicts. The AGO executed 14 people convicted for drug
crimes in 2 rounds last year.
******************
Govt to submit appeal for Indonesian on death row in Malaysia
The Foreign Ministry will submit an appeal to the Penang High Court in Malaysia
regarding Indonesian migrant worker Rita Krisdianti, who was sentenced to the
death penalty on Monday for her alleged involvement in drug smuggling.
Taufiq Rodhi, general consul at the Indonesian Consulate General in Penang,
said Indonesian officials had instructed an attorney from law firm Goi & Azzura
to submit an appeal as the ruling was still at the 1st level of the court
system.
"Through the Foreign Ministry, we will keep coordinating with all stakeholders
who can help us to provide evidence that could lessen [the punishment]," Taufiq
said in a statement.
The opportunity remained, therefore, for further defense from the Indonesian
side, he added.
The ministry said it had also cooperated and coordinated with the Indonesian
Consulate General in Hong Kong, the country where Rita worked from January to
April 2013, as well as the local administration of Ponorogo regency, East Java,
where Rita is registered as a resident.
It was also coordinating closely with Rita's family, who attended the hearing
with the Consulate General in Penang, Taufiq said.
Indonesian NGOs such as Migrant Care have been given permission to monitor the
development of the case, which held its 21st hearing on Monday.
Separately, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir asserted that
officials would keep pushing and monitoring the appeal process. He gave his
assurances that the legal process was still ongoing.
Rita has been sentenced to the death penalty under section 39B of Malaysia's
1952 Dangerous Drugs Act, following her arrest on July 10, 2013, when Malaysian
authorities at Penang's Bayan Lepas Airport found over 4 kilograms of crystal
methamphetamine in her bag.
She claimed she did not know about the meth, saying the bag belonged to a
fellow Indonesian who had managed her travel arrangements from Hong Kong to
Penang, via Bangkok and New Delhi.
According to the Foreign Ministry, there are currently 154 Indonesian convicts
on death row in Malaysia, with 102 citizens - 66 % - involved in drug cases.
The ministry has coordinated closely with the National Narcotics Agency ( BNN )
to assist the Indonesians by providing information to those who are allegedly
victims of drug smuggling.
Workers in Indonesia have begun to show their solidarity with Rita by changing
their display pictures on Facebook. The hashtag #SaveRitaKrisdianti has also
been widely used. Demonstrations have taken place outside the Malaysian Embassy
in Jakarta, demanding the release of Rita and safety for other Indonesian
migrant workers facing the death penalty.
(source for both: Jakarta Post)
**********************
No death penalty for Jessica: Australia
Australia insists an Indonesian woman accused of murdering her friend with a
cyanide-laced coffee will not face the death penalty, after Jakarta prosecutors
stated publicly it was still "possible".
Jessica Kumala Wongso is accused of killing her 27-year-old friend Wayan Mirna
Salihin in January with a poisoned Vietnamese ice coffee at a popular Jakarta
restaurant.
On Friday, after months while the case file on the alleged murder was
repeatedly sent back to police due to lack of evidence, prosecutors declared
the investigation complete and she was handed over to them amid a crush of
shouting local media.
The 2 women had studied together in Australia and the Australian Federal Police
agreed to assist with the investigation after they were assured by Indonesia
that the death penalty would not be "sought nor carried out".
It was a position that Jakarta Attorney Office spokesman Waluyo refused to
publicly concede on Friday, saying it was still "possible" she would face the
death penalty.
In a statement from the Australian Attorney-General's Department, a
spokesperson reiterated to AAP that the "Indonesian government has given an
assurance to the Australian government that the death penalty will not be
sought nor carried out in relation to the alleged offending".
"Australian Federal Police continue to assist the Indonesian National Police
with its investigation ... For operational reasons it would not be appropriate
to comment further."
According to Jakarta police, Jessica met Mirna and their friend Hani on January
6, during a trip home to Indonesia and poisoned her.
Moments after, Mirna collapsed and began convulsing.
Jessica, who continues to maintain her innocence, has been taken to the women's
penitentiary, Pondok Bambu Prison in Jakarta to await trial.
(source: The Courier Mail)
TAIWAN:
Death penalty issue not urgent: justice minister
There is no urgency to resolve the question of whether to abolish the death
penalty in Taiwan, Justice Minister Chiu Tai-san said Monday, in response to
questions in the Legislature about his stance on the issue.
Chiu said Taiwan maintains the death penalty, both in law and in practice, and
his ministry will continue to carry out the execution of death row inmates
after grave consideration.
Nonetheless, Taiwan is aware of the views of the international community, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- 2 international human
rights covenants that Taiwan ratified in 2009, he said.
Any move to abolish capital punishment will be a complex process, Chiu said,
noting that it has long been a contentious issue in the society.
"I hope consensus can be forged through dialogue," Chiu said at a legislative
hearing, when asked whether his ministry planned to push for abolition of the
death penalty.
10 days before Chiu took office on May 20, his predecessor Luo Ying-shay gave
the order for the execution of one of the 43 death row inmates in Taiwan. Cheng
Chieh, who killed 4 people in random a knife attack on a Taipei Metro train in
2014, was executed by gunshots to the back on May 11.
(source: focustaiwan.tw)
NORWAY:
World Congress against death penalty in Oslo
Norway will host the World Congress against the death penalty in Oslo in June.
The countries still practising the death penalty and also those who have
abolished this punishment will participate in the 6th World Congress that will
take place between June 21 and 23, Norwayemb.org.in said on its website.
The congress aims to open dialogue across different positions and geographical
regions, recognising that exchange is needed to move together towards more
effective and more humane justice systems.
The topics like national institutions for human rights and progress and
setbacks in Asia will be on the agenda this year.
Other important topics such as death penalty and terrorism, minorities and
psychological health will be discussed by about 1,300 participants from over 80
countries.
The fight against the death penalty is a high political priority for Norway,
and the country plays an active role in the international efforts to abolish
it, a statement on the site said.
(source: Business Standard)
IRELAND:
Kerry barrister selected to work with US Innocence Project
A young Irish legal eagle has been selected to work on a US miscarriage of
justice project which helped highlight the Steven Avery case featured in the
smash Netflix series, Making a Murderer.
Barrister Marie-Louise Donovan, 24, from Moyvane in Co Kerry, jetted out to the
US at the weekend to begin a three-month voluntary placement with the Innocence
Project which has freed over 340 wrongfully convicted prisoners, some of whom
were facing the death penalty.
She is 1 of just 3 Irish lawyers chosen by the Bar Council of Ireland to work
this year on the project founded by lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, who
were both on OJ Simpson's defence team in his famous murder trial in 1995.
Each US state now has its own Innocence Project, which, since its foundation in
1992, has proven the innocence of and secured the freedom of over 340
wrongfully convicted inmates, at least 20 of whom served time on death row. The
inmates served an average of 14 years before being cleared.
The Wisconsin Innocence Project helped highlight Steven Avery's case which was
the focus of the global hit Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. Avery, who
has been in jail for 18 years, remains behind bars despite serious questions
over his conviction.
Ms Donovan will be based in Cincinnati until August, working with the Ohio
Innocence Project which has, since its foundation in 2003, exonerated 23
inmates in a state where the current method of capital punishment is lethal
injection.
"I applied to work on the Innocence Project when I was 21, shortly after
qualifying as a barrister, but I was told I was too young," Ms Donovan said.
???Looking back now, they were probably right. But I'm really looking forward
to it now. It is such a worthwhile cause and I'm looking forward to helping. I
think this is a very worthwhile cause and we are always striving to improve our
own criminal justice system here so I am very much looking forward to moving
over to Ohio and working with the Innocence Project there over the next few
months.
"It should be a very educational and rewarding experience. It will be a
privilege."
Ms Donovan, whose parents are teachers in Listowel, started school aged four,
sat her leaving cert aged 16, graduated from UCC with a law degree aged 19, and
was called to the bar shortly after her 21st birthday, making history by
becoming the youngest person to qualify as a barrister in Ireland.
After 3 years working in Dublin, she is now working on the South Western
Circuit covering Kerry, Limerick and Clare.
She will spend the summer recess working voluntarily in Ohio with other lawyers
from around the world to help exonerate wrongfully convicted inmates who are
serving life sentences or who are on death row.
The Innocence Project teams take on certain cases post conviction and
specialise in using advances in DNA testing, uncovering evidence of police
misconduct, and in driving reforms of the criminal justice system to prevent
future injustice.
They also review cold cases and engage in fieldwork interviews with key
witnesses in the hope that they can prove a person\'s innocence before they are
executed.
Ms Donovan said witnesses often come forward with new evidence or testimony
years after a person has been convicted.
She said some of the cases she will be working on will involve inmates who are
facing execution soon.
"I hope to provide a fresh pair of eyes. Coming from another jurisdiction, we
might see things that may have been overlooked," she said.
An Irish Innocence Project was founded in Dublin in 2009 by David Langwallner,
the Dean of Law at Griffith College.
(source: Irish Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 30 16:05:50 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 16:05:50 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, ORE., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605301605420.8848@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 30
UTAH:
Death penalty appeal: Witnesses had to choose between testifying in favor of
killer or obeying LDS Church
Several witnesses called to testify in Douglas Anderson Lovell's death penalty
trial last year say they faced a hard choice: Either testify on behalf of a
murderer they had come to know as a friend or appease their leaders within The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and stay silent.
Lovell is appealing the outcome of his 2015 trial in which jurors sentenced him
to be executed for the 1985 killing of Joyce Yost. In newly filed appellate
court papers, the death row inmate accuses the Mormon church and its attorneys
of meddling in his trial by telling his former bishops not to testify or to
limit what they said on the stand.
A former mentor even came to Lovell in tears the day before the start of the
trial and asked the inmate to not call him as a character witness, Lovell wrote
in an affidavit filed with the Utah Supreme Court. The man told Lovell that a
"member above him" in the church had told him he could not testify.
"It was obvious to me that [he] was torn between testifying for me and his
loyalty to obey his church leaders," Lovell wrote. "My heart truly ached for
[him] because I knew him well enough to know that he was devastated."
'It got so ridiculous ... ' And he wasn't the only Mormon who was told not to
testify. Lovell's appellate attorney, Samuel Newton, wrote in court papers that
4 other bishops and a woman who was serving an LDS mission at the time of the
trial also reported they were told to either not testify or give only short
answers, so it would not appear they were representing the church while
approving of a murderer. 1 bishop reported that a member of the Quorum of the
70, a senior administrative body in the LDS Church, had contacted him and
instructed him not to testify.
"The church, out of concern for its policies, pressured witnesses not to
testify or cooperate with Mr. Lovell," Newton wrote. "And put witnesses in the
position of having to disobey their church leaders to support Mr. Lovell."
When the 4 church members who did testify took the stand, attorneys on both
sides made a point of letting jurors know they were there under subpoena and
did not represent the views of the Utah-based faith, which has a neutral stance
on the death penalty. 1 juror later wrote in an affidavit that the repeated
references had a negative impact on him and the other jurors.
"It felt to me like [Deputy Weber County Attorney Jeffrey] Thomson was trying
to make sure that, by the bishops 'forgiving and liking' Doug, it didn't mean
the LDS Church would forgive/like Doug because he was a convicted murderer,"
the juror wrote. "It was like the prosecutor was trying so hard to make sure
their testimony was separated from official church business and it got so
ridiculous by the end."
Newton said the church's lawyers, with the law firm Kirton McConkie, have
continued to interfere with Lovell's case by blocking the appellate attorney's
attempts to contact those same bishops and get more information from them as he
prepares Lovell's appeal.
In a written statement, LDS Church spokesman Eric Hawkins said any limitations
to witness testimony were agreed to by the church and Lovell's trial attorneys.
"Church leaders do not generally participate in legal proceedings in which the
church is not directly involved," Hawkins said. "In this case, these leaders
were required by subpoena to appear in court. Their statements represent their
personal experiences and opinions. They do not speak for the church. Our hearts
go out to the victims of this unspeakable crime."
Through his attorney, Lovell declined to comment for this story because he did
not want to cause "unnecessary pain" to Yost's family. Newton said in a
statement to The Salt Lake Tribune that Lovell has great respect for the LDS
Church and a love for the bishops who worked with him throughout the years and
became his friends.
"He was saddened, however, that the church, institutionally, took steps to
limit or prevent these bishops from testifying on his behalf at his trial and
on appeal," Newton said. "He is hopeful that the church will, if the Supreme
Court grants his motion for remand, allow these former leaders to fully testify
about their love for Mr. Lovell, the changes they have observed in him and
their belief that he could succeed in society."
Fired public defender Newton is asking the Utah Supreme Court to remand the
case back to the 2nd District Court so an evidentiary hearing can be held and
witnesses can be questioned as he mounts an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
claim.
In the motion, Newton also asserts that one of Lovell's trial attorneys, Sean
Young, failed to object to the church interference until after the trial. The
appellate attorney alleges that Young did virtually no work on his case and
"wholly abandoned his role as counsel."
After the trial, Lovell received a number of letters from supporters who said
they wanted to testify about how he was a changed man - but added that his
defense team never contacted them. They would have said that Lovell's life had
worth, and that Lovell was remorseful for his crimes and could be
rehabilitated, according to their letters and affidavits.
Lovell's lead trial attorney, Michael Bouwhuis, wrote in an affidavit that
Young, his co-counsel, was assigned to interview and prepare 18 witnesses,
including former church leaders, Lovell's family members, and an inmate who
said Lovell positively affected his life.
Of those 18, only 2 have said that they were contacted by Young before trial -
but the conversations were brief and mostly concerned when they would testify,
not the substance of what they would say.
(source: Salt Lake Tribune)
OREGON:
Head of victim family group to speak in Portland
Those who lose a loved one to murder feel unimaginable sadness, sorrow, rage
and anger. But members of Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation explain
that the death penalty doesn't help. Instead, they say things like: "Don't kill
in my name", or "An execution is only more violence and does not bring
closure."
The Rev. Jack Sullivan Jr., executive director of the nationwide organization,
will be keynote speaker at the June 22 annual meeting and banquet of Oregonians
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Representing more than 4,000 members
from across the country, Rev. Sullivan, a native of Cleveland, speaks with the
authority that comes with enduring the murder of someone you love. In 1997, his
younger sister, Jennifer, was slain in Cleveland at age 21. No one was ever
arrested in the killing.
"Stop the killing and invest in smart-on-crime solutions rather than the
millions of dollars that Oregon taxpayers spend to keep a death penalty on the
books," Rev. Sullivan says.
Aba Gayle of Silverton lost her daughter Catherine to murder. She became a
member of Murder Victim Families for Reconciliation 24 years ago.
"An execution is a state-sanctioned, premeditated murder," says Gayle. "Murder
is wrong whether it occurs in a home, on the street, in a school or in a
prison. It is the ultimate violation of human rights. An execution would
dishonor my daughter's memory".
In addition to the keynote speech by Rev. Sullivan, there will be presentation
of the Sister Helen Prejean Award, an annual recognition of outstanding service
to Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the efforts to repeal
execution policy in the state.
The introduction of the keynote speaker will be handled by Portland resident
Becky O'Neil McBrayer, who lost her mother and step-father to murder 10 years
ago and now speaks of reconciliation and the futility of the death penalty.
The meeting and banquet are set for The Madeleine Parish Hall, 3123 NE 24th
Ave. in Portland. It starts with a 5 p.m. reception. Dinner follows at 6 p.m.
Tickets are available at oadp.org or by calling (503) 551-1349.
(source: Catholic Sentinel)
USA:
What Are the Implications of Sentencing Dylann Roof to Death?
How will executing Dylann Roof help the Black community?
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates pondered the irony of executing Charleston church
shooter Dylann Roof in an interesting piece for The Atlantic.
On the evening of June 17, 2015, the white Nationalist quietly sat in on a
prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church before opening
fire on the unsuspecting worshippers killing 9, including state senator
Clementa Pinckney.
In addition to a count of murder for each of the deceased, Roof faces 3 counts
of attempted murder, possession of a firearm and federal hate crime charges.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Tuesday that she would seek the
death penalty in the case.
In the article, Coates argues that killing Roof flies directly in the face of
the nonviolence trope American "powers that be" impose on victims of racial
hostility and injustice.
"The symbol of this approach is, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. One problem
with using King in this way is that the actual King had an annoying habit of
preaching nonviolence, whether it was convenient or not. Whereas American power
generally regards nonviolence as a means of cynically enforcing order, King
believed protesters should be exemplars of nonviolence, but not its unique
employers."
He allows that adopting King's mantra is no easy task for this country, making
the assertion that the very formation of any nation is inherently violent. It
is the duty of all governments to protect the interests of its citizens at all
costs. Still, he argues, the US should strive to lead by example and sparing
Roof's life is the ideal opportunity.
"If the families of Roof's victims can find the grace of forgiveness within
themselves; if the president can praise them for it; if the public can be awed
by it - then why can't the Department of Justice act in the spirit of that
grace and resist the impulse to kill?"
Finally, Coates concludes that the execution will do nothing but support the
same system that has disproportionately arrested, incarcerated and put to death
millions of innocent African-Americans.
"Moreover, killing Roof does absolutely nothing to ameliorate the conditions
that brought him into being in the first place. The hammer of criminal justice
is the preferred tool of a society that has run out of ideas. In this sense,
Roof is little more than a human sacrifice to The Gods of Doing Nothing. Leave
aside actual substantive policy. In a country where unapologetic slaveholders
and regressive white supremacists still, at this late date, adorn our state
capitals and our highest institutions of learning, it is bizarre to kill a man
who acted in their spirit. And killing Roof, like the business of the capital
punishment itself, ensures that innocent people will be executed. The need to
extract vengeance cannot always be exact. It is all but certain that a
disproportionate number of those who pay for this lack of precision will not
look like Dylann Roof."
Friday, the Atlantic posted a few responses to Coates' piece, including a
rather interesting conclusion by reader Tim Tyson, that an execution may lead
to a spike in mass killings by white supremacists.
"Capital punishment in this case will do nothing to deter similar violence. In
fact, making a white supremacist martyr of Dylann Roof may ultimately cause
more violence, just as the government's lethal violence at Ruby Ridge in 1992
and Waco in 1993 inspired the white supremacist terror bombing of the federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995."
Does Tyson have a point?
There's a wealth of conspiracy theorist websites and youtube videos dedicated
to debunking the incident as fake, a government-endorsed charade meant to
inspire irrational fear and tougher gun control laws.
Hours after the shooting neo-Nazi leader Morris Gulett applauded Roof on his
website, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
"I, for one, am very glad to see young people like Dylan Roof acting like men
instead of the old 60's era hippies stoned on weed and interracial love,"
Gulett wrote.
"We had better see much more of this type of activism if we ever expect to see
our America return to it's [sic] rightful place in the world and our children
grow up in a clean safe healthy enviroment [sic]."
Radar Online reported the Ku Klux Klan updated its recorded greeting for new
recruits to a congratulatory message following the attack.
"The KKK would like to say hail victory to the young warrior in South Carolina,
Dylann S. Roof who decided to do what the Bible told him. If we had 10,000 more
men like this young man, America would not be in the shape that it is in now."
Is it unreasonable to assume that these hate groups would mobilize and finally
make good on decades-long promises of a "race war"? Roof's trial is scheduled
for Jan. 17 2017.
(source: Atlanta Black Star)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon May 30 16:06:31 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Mon, 30 May 2016 16:06:31 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605301606220.8848@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 30
GAZA:
In the Case of Gay Gaza Commander Executed for 'Moral Crimes,' New York Times
Editorialists Are MIA
A brief news article in the New York Times last week reported that Hamas has
called for resuming the death penalty in Gaza. According to the report, capital
punishment there has "mostly stopped" since 2014, though "an exception was the
case of Mahmoud Ishtiwi, a Hamas commander, who was fatally shot in April for
'moral crimes' after he was accused of theft and of having sex with another
man."
Good for the Times for reporting on the issue, and for its earlier enterprising
page one coverage of the Ishtiwi case. But, one wonders: Where is the follow-up
from the Times' editorial page and columnists?
The appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's defense minister generated a
lead Times editorial denouncing him, in part, because, he "has proposed
instituting the death penalty for convicted terrorists." The Times also ran 2
op-ed columns hostile to Mr. Lieberman.
So, in the case of an Israeli official who merely proposes executing
terrorists, the Times mounted a full-fledged editorial campaign. In the case of
the Palestinian Arab regime in Gaza actually carrying out a death sentence on a
suspected homosexual, the Times editorial page fell totally silent. And not
merely silent.
It's as if the paper's editorial writers are contorting themselves to avoid
mentioning the issue. A recent "editorial observer" column about places where
"gay and transgender people are widely stigmatized" singled out Uganda,
Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Russia and Nigeria. Bizarrely, the
column did not mention Gaza at all.
Likewise, as of this writing at least, there has been no Times editorial
denouncing Iran for the 30 college students who, the Times news section
reported, were each given a punishment of 99 lashes "for attending a graduation
party that included men and women." This, despite the flood of Times editorials
advocating the US-Iran nuclear deal and denouncing Prime Minister Netanyahu of
Israel for opposing it.
It's a classically anti-Israel and anti-Jewish double standard. An Israeli
Jewish politician merely suggests executing genuinely criminal terrorists, and
the Times editorial page whips itself into a frenzy of outrage. Meanwhile,
Gazan and Iranian Muslims actually impose the death penalty on someone
suspected of being gay - or order an extensive public violent beating of
college students for the "crime" of attending a co-ed social event - and the
Times editorialists take a pass. It's pathetic.
(source: Ira Stoll, The Algemeiner)
BANGLADESH:
Son of hanged Bangladeshi politician lauds Erdogan, Turkey----'We hope that
some other Muslim countries do the same thing,' says Mohammad Nakibur Rahman,
son of Motiur Rahman, Jamaat-e-Islami leader
Turkey's decision to pull its ambassador from Bangladesh after a party leader
was put to death there should be emulated by other Muslim nations, according to
the leader's son.
"The overwhelming sympathy and reaction of the people is heartwarming,
especially the reaction of President Tayyip Erdogan," Mohammad Nakibur Rahman
said while speaking to Anadolu Agency, calling Erdogan's reaction
"unprecedented".
Turkey asked its ambassador, Devrim Ozturk, to return to Ankara in the
aftermath of the hanging of senior Jamaat-e-Islami party leader, Motiur Rahman
Nizami, in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
"We hope that some other Muslim countries do the same thing," Rahman said.
"And the way the Turkish people reacted -- from the bottom of our hearts, from
the people of Bangladesh, we are definitely, definitely grateful," he added,
referring to protests in Istanbul and Ankara after his father was executed.
"We hope and pray that the rest of the Muslim world will follow suit, and soon
they will be united against all the oppression, not just in Bangladesh, the
oppression that's going on in Egypt, the oppression that's going on in Syria,
Palestine, Myanmar, all over the world," he added.
Nizami was sentenced to death in October 2014 after being found guilty of
committing wartime atrocities including murder, rape, looting and collaborating
with the Pakistani army during Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971.
Opposition parties and international organizations criticized the legal process
that resulted in Nizami's death, with Human Rights Watch expressing concerns
over whether the accused received fair trials.
And the US State Department said that despite improvements to the tribunal
process more work needs to be done to "ensure these proceedings meet domestic
and international obligations.
"Until these obligations can be consistently met, we have concerns about
proceeding with executions," it said shortly after the capital penalty was
carried out.
3 other individuals have been sentenced to death, according to Rahman, who
urged a greater reaction to prevent the sentences from being carried out.
"Hopefully this awareness will give conscience to the government, and they will
not go ahead with the next 3 executions," he said. "Inshallah [Allah willing]
Allah has a better plan."
(source: aa.com.tr)
****************
Rangpur couple get death penalty for killing son
A Rangpur court yesterday handed death penalty to a couple for killing their
5-year-old son.
The convicted are Bipen Chandra, 40, and his wife Aduri Rani, 35, of Chharan
Hindupara village in Mithapukur upazila of Rangpur.
Bipen is now in prison while Aduri is on the run, said police.
Judge Abu Zafar Mohammad Quamruzzaman judge of District and Session Judge's
court delivered the verdict.
According to the court prosecution, Aduri married Bipen, deserting her 1st
husband Bikash Chandra Roy.
After their marriage, her son Bilash Chandra used to live with his mother. But
being a stepfather, Bipen could not accept it. Aduri therefore sent him to his
grandmother.
As the boy opposed to live with the grandmother and returned to his mother, the
angry couple killed him on 11 April, 2011.
Police recovered the body of the boy the following day.
Moslem Uddin, sub-inspector of Mithapukur police, filed a murder case the same
day against Aduri and Bipen, said Public Prosecutor Faruk Mohammad Rezaul
Islam.
(source: The Daily Star)
IRAN----executions
Iran regime carries out 2 public executions
Iran's fundamentalist regime has publicly hanged 2 men in Fars Province,
southern Iran, and Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, in the past 24 hours.
On Monday, May 30, an unnamed 40-year-old prisoner, was hanged in public in the
town of Noor in Mazandaran, according to the state-run Young Journalists Club
(YJC) news agency which quoted the regime's prosecutor in Noor, Qanbar Qanbari.
On Sunday, May 29, a man identified only by his surname Zohrabi, was hanged in
public in the town of Kovar, 40 kilometers south of Shiraz, the provincial
capital in Fars.
The mullahs' regime last Thursday publicly hanged a man, identified only as
Hamid B., in the southern city of Shiraz.
The latest hangings bring to at least 118 the number of people executed in Iran
since April 10. 3 of those executed were women and 2 are believed to have been
juvenile offenders.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, last week called for an urgent response by
the United Nations and foreign governments to the recent spate of executions
and the appalling state of human rights in Iran.
Iran's fundamentalist regime earlier this month amputated the fingers of a man
in his thirties in Mashhad, the latest in a line of draconian punishments
handed down and carried out in recent weeks.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
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 2,300 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 Tue May 31 09:38:18 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 09:38:18 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., LA., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605310938100.3692@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 31
TEXAS:
Testimony begins Tuesday in Risner trial
Testimony begins Tuesday morning in the capital murder trial of a man accused
of fatally shooting the Little River-Academy police chief.
David Gene Risner, 59, could face the death penalty if convicted in the slaying
of Little River-Academy Police Chief Lee Dixon on June 19, 2014.
Judge John Gauntt is presiding over the trial in the 27th District Court.
Testimony is expected to take two weeks, Bell County District Attorney Henry
Garza said Friday.
Jury selection took almost a month after starting in early April with a
prospective juror pool of 209. The numbers were narrowed down through multipage
questionnaires and attorney interviews.
The jury was seated last week, Garza said.
If Risner is convicted of the capital murder of a peace officer, the Bell
County District Attorney's office will ask for the death penalty.
Defending Risner will be Russell Hunt Jr., a Georgetown attorney.
Dixon was killed when he went to Risner's home in the 100 block of South
Allison Drive because of a report of a man with a gun.
At first Dixon said he didn't need assistance, but he soon came back on the
radio asking for help. Immediately after that the Bell County switchboard lit
up with calls reporting a shooting.
Dixon was found dead on the front porch of Risner's home. He was shot twice
with a shotgun, according to an autopsy report. He died of a shotgun wound to
his head.
Risner called 911 and said he shot a police officer at his home, according to
an arrest affidavit.
Bell County Precinct 3 Constable Thomas Prado arrived at the scene and arrested
Risner.
Dixon had been police chief in Little River-Academy from 2004 to 2005 before
going to the Milam County Sheriff's Office as a deputy. He had been back in
Little River-Academy as police chief for just a month.
Risner was in law enforcement for almost 19 years, with more than 17 of those
years spent as a police officer, his personnel records from the Texas
Commission on Law Enforcement showed.
Holds were put on Risner's peace officer and jailer licenses on May 15, 2012,
by the commission, even though he didn't have an active or valid license then.
Risner had a previous history of trouble with the law, including with the
Temple Police Department, Van Zandt County and the Bell County Sheriff's
Department. That history included failure to identify and resisting arrest,
deadly conduct-discharge of a firearm that was changed to deadly conduct and
then pleaded down to disorderly conduct, failure to identify as a fugitive and
2 counts of resisting arrest.
(source: Temple Daily Telegram)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Supreme Court ruling backs racial justice in NC
Those who work for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation are idealistic,
perhaps, and certainly righteous, but they now have focused on a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that could have serious implications in capital cases in North
Carolina. The ruling came in Washington in Foster v. Chatman, wherein the court
ruled 7-1 that prosecutors in a Georgia case violated the U.S. Constitution by
intentionally excluding African-Americans from the jury in a capital case. The
court ruled also that Georgia courts were wrong in refusing to consider
evidence of that discrimination.
The exclusions were blatant: Prosecutors struck all potential black jurors, and
one's notes showed he marked the names of potential black jurors with a "B" and
also ranked the African-Americans in order of preference in case one had to be
chosen.
Said Ken Rose, senior attorney at the center, "Today, the court sent a message
that we must stop making excuses and start enforcing the law against
discrimination in jury selection. The privilege and obligation to serve on a
jury, regardless of race, is fundamental to our democracy. Yet
African-Americans in North Carolina are routinely denied the right to
participate in the most important decision our criminal justice system ever
makes."
The General Assembly, then controlled by a Democratic majority, in 2009 passed
the Racial Justice Act to address racial bias in jury selection, among other
issues. Death row inmates could present evidence in the form of statistical
proof that African-Americans were systematically excluded from juries. If they
proved bias, their sentences could be commuted to life without parole.
The center, in its response to the high court ruling, cited several examples of
North Carolina cases in which prosecutors tried to exclude black juror
candidates. And a study showed black juror candidates were removed from
consideration by prosecutors at twice the rate of white jurors. In addition,
the center reports, some prosecutors attended a training session from the N.C.
Conference of District Attorneys that focused in part on "race neutral" excuses
if they had to explain excluding black juror candidates.
This Georgia case, with the decision written by conservative Chief Justice John
Roberts, should shame North Carolina lawmakers into restoring the Racial
Justice Act.
(source: Editorial Board, The News & Observer)
FLORIDA:
Dubose appeal at standstill due to ethics allegations of defense
attorney----He's charged in death of 8-year-old DreShawn Davis
It has been 31 months since the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in
an appeal of one of the most high-profile murder cases in recent Jacksonville
history.
But a ruling on whether Rasheem Dubose will get off death row for the murder of
8-year-old DreShawna Davis appears unlikely to occur anytime soon.
The appeal has become bogged down over charges of unethical behavior made
against attorney Richard Kuritz, who defended Dubose at trial on appeal. The
judge who sentenced Dubose to death, Lawrence Haddock, has cited Kuritz with
unethical behavior, and The Florida Bar has filed a formal complaint against
the Jacksonville lawyer that could lead to him being punished.
Lawyers for Kuritz have said he did nothing wrong, but Dubose's appeal appears
to be in a holding pattern while the ethics complaint goes through the system.
The complaint focuses on how Kuritz dealt with a juror who later told him she
had been bullied into convicting Dubose. Haddock asked the Bar to investigate
Kuritz in 2014 after the Florida Supreme Court sent the case back to
Jacksonville and instructed him to look into the allegations of juror
misconduct.
Haddock, who declined to comment for this story, found there was no misconduct
and accused Kuritz of hiding that he simultaneously represented Dubose and the
juror, Tomi Chavez, for 2 traffic tickets and in a civil personal injury
lawsuit while he was handling Dubose's appeal. The appeal hinged on Chavez's
account that juror misconduct occurred. Kuritz has said in court filings that
he did his legal work for Chavez after she was a juror in the case.
Chavez said other jurors, in a racist manner, made fun of the way Dubose spoke,
researched the case on their cellphones while they deliberated and debated
whether a teardrop tattoo on his face was a gang symbol or a sign that he'd
killed someone.
In a 2014 email to the Times-Union, Chavez said jurors were already familiar
with the case before the trial began.
"The other jurors had knowledge of this because they watched the news and lived
in Jax," Chavez said, while saying she now lives in Hawaii.
Supreme Court justices expressed incredulity at the allegations when Kuritz
went before them and argued that Dubose's 2010 conviction and death sentence
should be thrown out because of juror misconduct.
Kuritz told justices Chavez contacted Assistant Public Defender Fred Gazaleh
after the jury found Dubose guilty but before returning for a penalty phase.
She then contacted private attorney Mitch Stone with the same concerns and
asked to speak to the judge before the penalty phase began, but was turned away
by a bailiff.
Kuritz said he didn't find out about the juror's concerns until after the jury
had recommended Dubose had been sentenced to death by an 8-4 vote.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Chief Justice Jorge Labarga. "I'm
concerned that it took this much effort on behalf of a juror to bring something
to the attention of the trial judge."
Rather than ruling on the appeal, justices sent the case back to Haddock.
Haddock ruled in the spring of 2014 that Chavez's allegations of misconduct
were not credible and blasted Kuritz for taking them to the Florida Supreme
Court on appeal without ever revealing she was his client in unrelated cases.
Kuritz knew it was a conflict of interest, Haddock said.
The Florida Bar investigated the situation for over a year before filing a
formal complaint against Kuritz in January 2016. That complaint says Kuritz was
wrong to speak to Chavez without first informing Haddock and prosecutors about
what he was doing. It also accuses Kuritz of writing an affadavit for Chavez to
sign and then saying another lawyer wrote it.
Attorney Matthew Kachergus, who is representing Kuritz, has argued in motions
that Kuritz only spoke to Chavez after she contacted him.
Kachergus declined to comment for this story, but in court filings he said the
Bar complaint should be dismissed.
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Blackburn, who is based in DeLand, has been appointed
as the "referee" in the case who will hear the complaint against Kuritz and
rule on whether he committed any ethical violations and recommend a punishment
if she decides Kuritz did something wrong.
Kuritz could face a reprimand, a suspension from practicing law or disbarment,
although disbarments are rare and usually only occur after a lawyer has been
found to have made multiple ethics violations.
The Florida Supreme Court will make the final decision but usually gives ample
consideration to the referee's recommendation. The Supreme Court appears to be
waiting for the Bar complaint to conclude before ruling on Dubose's appeal.
Justices usually rule on death-penalty appeals within a year of oral arguments.
Dubose sent a letter to the Supreme Court in March 2016 asking what was going
on with his case.
"It's been about 2 years on my direct appeal now with no answer from the
Supreme Court yet," Dubose said in his letter. "... I'm just sitting here in
the blind not knowing anything what's going on sir."
The clerk of court wrote Dubose back at the Union Correctional Institution in
Raiford telling him his case was still pending and if he had any other
questions he should contact Kuritz.
DreShawna, who died in 2006 protecting her cousins from a hail of bullets into
her home, became the face of Jacksonville's state-leading homicide rate and
galvanized city leaders to do something about it.
The Jacksonville Journey anti-crime initiative was launched soon after
DreShawna's death and is credited with helping lower the homicide rate.
(source: Florida Times-Union)
LOUISIANA:
High Court Rejects La. Inmate's Death Penalty Challenge
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a Louisiana inmate's appeal that his
death sentence was unconstitutional.
The appeal from death row inmate Lamondre Tucker was the latest to challenge
capital punishment as unconstitutional after Justice Stephen Breyer issued a
dissent last year calling for a re-evaluation of the death penalty.
Breyer had criticized the process as arbitrary, prone to mistakes and
time-consuming. He dissented again Tuesday, noting that Tucker was sentenced to
death in Caddo Parish, which imposes half the death sentences in the state even
though it has only 5 % of the state's population and just 5 % of its homicides.
"One could reasonably believe that if Tucker had committed the same crime but
been tried and sentenced just across the Red River in, say, Bossier Parish, he
would not now be on death row," Breyer said.
He again urged the court to decide whether the death penalty is cruel and
unusual punishment banned by the Constitution. Breyer's dissent was joined by
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld Tucker's conviction for killing his pregnant
girlfriend after she told him she believed he was her baby's father.
Jurors sentenced then 18-year-old Tucker to death after convicting him of
killing Tavia Sills in September 2009.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
How big of a difference does an all-white jury make? A leading expert explains.
The 1st thing you need to know about Patrick Bayer is that he's an economist, a
social scientist and part of a discipline that relies heavily on all sorts of
data about human behavior and financial matters. That's part of the reason
economics is sometimes called the dismal science.
Bayer began his career studying urban economics. So for him, that work also
often included examining residential segregation, school choice and
competition, social interactions and the effects of different neighborhoods on
people's lives. Today, Bayer is also a professor of economics at Duke
University, where his most recent research has gone deep on the effects of
discrimination in mortgage lending and housing markets.
It's serious, academic stuff, not included in publications on your local
newsstand. And it is important stuff. For instance, this year Bayer co-authored
a journal article called, "The Vulnerability of Minority Homeowners in the
Housing Boom and Bust," published in the American Economic Journal. He's also
been published in several other peer-reviewed journals with economic in the
title.
Bayer is a guy who knows his stuff. And back in 2012, he co-wrote a study that
did get a lot of attention in newspapers across the country because it was the
1st of its kind - ever. He decided to take a look at what effect, if any,
all-white juries had on actual trials over a 10-year-period. The study Bayer
and his research partners, Shamena Anwar and Randi Hjalmarsson, published, "The
Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials" arrived at an answer: a lot.
With the Supreme Court's Monday decision to make way for a new trial in a case
involving a black man on death row for killing an elderly white woman, heard by
an all-white Georgia jury which prosecutors intentionally formed, The Fix
thought a deeper look at the phenomenon of all-white juries might be in order.
How does this happen even in diverse areas of modern America? What does this do
to justice and trial decisions? Bayer helped us sort this out. It's really
worth a read. Be sure you take a look at Bayer's final answer, which puts the
"dismal" in dismal science.
What follows is a Q&A conducted via email, edited only for clarity and length.
THE FIX: How would you describe your study's major findings?
BAYER: Let me first provide a little background on the study and the context in
which it was conducted.
Our analysis was designed to examine the impact of the racial composition of
juries on conviction rates for white and black defendants. The study was based
on data from Lake and Sarasota counties in Florida [between 2000 and 2010],
where we were able to acquire information on the characteristics of not only
the seated jury but also the pool of potential jurors. In order to identify
causal effects (rather than just correlation), our analysis examines how trial
outcomes change as the result of random variation in the pool of potential
jurors called for jury duty for each trial.
The population of Lake and Sarasota counties in Florida is approximately 4 to 5
% black [Editor's note: these figures have grown since the period Bayer
studied], non-capital trials are decided by 6-person juries, and the typical
jury pool has 25-30 members. As a result, 36 % of jury pools in our study had
no black members and so, by construction [when a jury has been formed], there
are no black jurors. The other 64 % of jury pools included a small number of
black members, resulting in black jurors being seated in some (but certainly
not all) of these trials.
The results of our study indicated that racial composition of the jury has a
large effect on conviction rates. In cases with no black members of the jury
pool, black defendants were convicted 81 % of the time, while white defendants
were convicted 66 % of the time. When the jury pool included at least 1 black
person, the conviction rates were instead nearly identical: 71 % for black
defendants, 73 % for whites. This large shift in conviction rates occurred even
though jury selection still led to all-white juries in most of the cases in
which there were black members of the jury pool.
Our study was the first to establish a strong causal link between the racial
composition of real-world juries and conviction rates for both white and black
defendants. In addition to what the results say about the effect of juror race,
they also imply that there is a great deal of arbitrariness in trial outcomes -
randomness in who happens to be called for jury duty for a given trial has a
substantial effect on the outcome. The extent of this arbitrariness and the
large role that race plays in decision-making raises serious questions about
the basic fairness of jury trials as they are currently conducted in these
jurisdictions.
THE FIX: It's sometimes valuable to establish the basic facts. What's wrong
with seating an all-white jury? Does that fundamentally hamper equal justice?
And how do prosecutors even accomplish this?
BAYER: In the United States, jury systems are generally designed to be
representative of the eligible local population. There are two broad issues
related to jury selection and composition that affect the fundamental fairness
of jury trials in this kind of system.
The 1st is related to the system of peremptory challenges, which allow
attorneys on each side to strike a number of potential jurors during pretrial
jury selection without cause or justification. [This] results in juries that
are unrepresentative of the local population. While the Supreme Court has
prohibited the use of race as a rationale for using peremptory challenges,
numerous studies have shown that black members of the jury pool are
systematically more likely to be excluded from juries in many contexts. It is
generally not especially difficult for attorneys to provide a non-race related
explanation (if needed) to justify the use of a peremptory challenge, even if
the juror's race is at least part of the basis for the attorney's decision.
A second and broader issue is whether juries that are representative of the
local population can impartially decide cases when the defendant (or victim) is
a minority member of the local population. In our study, for example, the vast
majority of juries have no blacks members not because the attorneys are seating
white jurors disproportionately - in fact, white and black jurors are seated at
roughly the same rate - but because the local population is only 4-5 % black.
In both instances, the lack of inclusion of minority members of a local
population on juries raises concerns about whether such juries can actually
reach unbiased decisions. Concerns are heightened by results like the ones from
our study, which imply that the racial composition of juries does, in fact,
play a large role in trial outcomes.
THE FIX: Among your findings, was there anything that truly surprised you?
BAYER: The direction of the findings was consistent with our hypothesis: That
defendants of each race are less likely to be convicted when the jury has more
members of the same race. The magnitude of the findings, however, was really
striking, implying that even a small degree of inclusion of black jurors makes
a large difference for conviction rates.
Keep in mind that we are using random variation in who is called for jury duty,
so the cases that face an all-white jury pool are statistically identical (i.e.
have the same objective quality of evidence) to the cases that face a jury pool
with a small number of black members.
THE FIX: Could you explain what it is about all-white juries, or what is it
about the dynamics of an all-white jury considering the fate of a black
defendant that contributes to these outcomes? Or can you not jump to those
conclusions?
BAYER: Unfortunately, our study provides little direct insight into the
dynamics of jury decision-making. Our findings demonstrate that (randomly)
changing the composition of the jury has a large impact on conviction rates but
does not tell us exactly why or how this happens.
We also need to be careful about drawing any conclusions about what conviction
rates for white and black defendants should be in these counties, as we have no
direct measures of the quality of the evidence in the cases that are brought to
trial against defendants of each race. If prosecutors bring a similar set of
cases to trial for white and black defendants, impartial conviction rates
should be identical. But if, for example, prosecutors bring weaker cases to
trial against black defendants knowing that they will face all-white juries the
majority of the time, impartial conviction rates should be lower for black
versus white defendants. Unfortunately, our study does not provide a definitive
answer on this.
THE FIX: What's known about the way that all-white juries decide when a white
defendant is accused of killing or somehow harming a black victim (the police
officer's acquittal in Baltimore brings this to mind)? Or, the impact of an
all-black jury considering a case that involves a white victim and black
defendant?
BAYER: Unfortunately, we know very little about the effect of the racial
composition of juries on trial outcomes. Our study was conducted in a setting
in which blacks constitute a small proportion of the local population, which
means that the variation is primarily between all-white juries and those with
the inclusion of a very small number of black jurors. I am not aware of any
study of the impact of all-black juries using real world data.
THE FIX: Your study focused on a decade of non-death penalty cases in Florida
between 2000 and 2010. That's a substantial stretch of time. But, some readers
will wonder, how applicable are your findings to the rest of the country?
BAYER: We certainly need a lot more research on this topic in jurisdictions
throughout the country. A broader set of studies would provide more evidence on
whether our results generally hold in similar circumstances or whether they are
special to these jurisdictions in Florida. Additional research could also
provide evidence on whether certain rules and procedures for jury trials lead
to the greater diversity of seated juries and/or less arbitrary trial outcomes.
The setting that we studied is an important one in the sense that one might be
most concerned about the basic inclusion of minority members of a population on
juries in settings in which the minority group constitutes a small proportion
of the local population and, therefore, can more readily be systematically
excluded from juries. In more racially diverse jurisdictions, on the other
hand, the use of peremptory challenges by attorneys on each side is more likely
to cancel or balance out, resulting in more racially diverse juries. [Editor's
note: Most Americans live in communities that score high on the racial
segregation index - meaning all but a very small share of most Americans'
neighbors are the same race.]
It is also worth pointing out that it is generally very difficult for
researchers to access data on jury composition and trial outcomes. So, a wider
set of studies will really only be possible if courts throughout the country
show a greater interest in transparency and in conducting rigorous studies of
the efficacy of the trials conducted in their jurisdiction.
THE FIX: What could be done in individual courtrooms, or in the process of
building jury pools to assure greater jury diversity?
BAYER: There are a number of potential policy remedies that courts could use to
address issues related to jury diversity.
First, to ensure that juries more accurately reflect the diversity of the local
population, the number of peremptory challenges provided to each side could be
limited and the use of such challenges could be given greater scrutiny to
ensure that they are used in a way that is consistent with Batson v. Kentucky,
the Supreme Court case that prohibits race as a basis for peremptory
challenges.
In addition, while it is very difficult to establish whether race is a
consideration in the use of a peremptory challenge on a case-by-case basis,
statistical analysis of attorney behavior over a large set of cases could be
used to scrutinize, for example, whether prosecutors systematically strike
black potential jurors in cases with black defendants. The privilege of using
peremptory challenges in a jurisdiction could be tied to the continued
demonstration that such challenges are used in a race-neutral way.
Second, in settings in which minority groups constitute a small fraction of the
local population, jurisdictions could design the jury summons process to
increase the likelihood of including members of the minority group on juries.
While I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the country that currently does
this, such a step could be justified as a requirement for basic fairness in
jurisdictions where statistical analysis demonstrates that the racial
composition of juries has a substantial impact on trial outcomes.
The American court system currently has very few protections to assure that
race is not used in the selection of juries. To successfully argue that jury
selection was racially biased, defendants typically need to provide a smoking
gun, such as the prosecutor notes that indicated selection was race-based the
Foster v. Chapman case that was decided by the Supreme Court this week. It is
extremely rare for any court in the United States to do any systematic analysis
of jury selection and trial outcomes to ensure the essential fairness and
efficacy of jury trials.
(source: Janell Ross, Washington Post)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 31 09:40:03 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 09:40:03 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605310939520.3692@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 31
BANGLADESH:
Death penalty for killing Barguna minor Rabiul
A Barguna court on Tuesday awarded death penalty to the lone accused in the
minor Rabiul murder case.
The additional district and sessions judge, Mohammad Abu Taher, handed down the
verdict in presence of Miraz Hossain, who confessed that he killed Rabiul.
Rabiul, 11, was tortured to death for 'stealing fish' in Taltali upazila in
Barguna in August 2015. The murder created hue and cry at home and abroad.
The court also ordered Miraz's family to give Tk 20,10,000 to the family of
Rabiul.
(source: prothom-alo.com)
****************
6 Bangladesh militants get death sentence in bank robbery
6 militants were on Tuesday awarded death sentence by a Dhaka court for
organising a bank robbery last year in which 8 people were killed.
The court found 9 militants, affiliated with the banned outfits Jama'atul
Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team, guilty of murder and
robbery aimed at raising funds for their operations, Xinhua news agency
reported.
The court ordered the death penalty for 6, life in prison for 1 and 3-year jail
terms for 2 others, it said.
At least 10 members of the outfits on April 21 last year robbed a branch of the
state-run Bangladesh Commerce Bank in Ashulia.
They killed the manager of the bank to get the key to the vault before an alarm
was raised over the loudspeaker from a nearby mosque.
The gang detonated a bomb as they fled, chased by customers and onlookers.
An angry mob later beat to death 1 of the robbers while they were fleeing.
On December 1 last year, Ashulia police submitted 2 chargesheets -- 1 for the
killings and robbery, and the other for possessing explosives.
(source: Business Standard)
INDIA:
3 more prisons in state to have hanging area----Move comes as number of
convicts facing death penalty now exceeds 50
With number of convicts facing death penalty in Maharashtra exceeding 50, the
home department has decided to equip 3 more central prisons with the hanging
area and a special ward for the "death penalty convicts". Till date, only 2
Maharashtra prisons -Yerawada and Nagpur - were designated to have convicts
facing death sentence. However, now Taloja, Nashik and Kohlapur prisons will
also have special wards designated for such convicts. Pakistani terrorist Ajmal
Kasab was the only exception who was kept in Arthur Road prison due to security
concerns but was transferred to Yerawada prison a night before the execution.
As per sources, one of the key reasons for increase in the number of such
convicts is the prolonged legal battles that defer hanging. All of these 50 odd
cases are pending with some or the other court for appeal or have procured stay
orders.
Waking up to the need of pushing things forward, jail officials in the last few
months have written to the courts to hasten up decision in matters to reduce
pendency.
"As per the Prison Act anyone facing death penalty has to be kept in isolation.
His security has to be enhanced and has to be taken for medical check ups more
often. All this add up to our expenses and work load but we have little choice
than wait for the date of execution which is given by the courts," said a
senior prison officer.
The last 2 executions in the state were that of Yakoob Memon and Ajmal Kasab.
The classic example of delaying gallows by engaging the state in the legal
hassle is that of the Gavit sisters.
It was in 2001, a Kolhapur sessions court had awarded death penalty to the
Gavit sisters - Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde - for abducting and killing a
dozen odd children aged between 1 to 4 years. In next 14 years, their appeals
were turned down and death penalty was upheld by all subsequent authorities
including the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court. In April 2014 came the
final blow for the sister duo when their mercy petition was rejected by the
President of India.
Despite all of this, the sisters are still hopeful of respite and to stretch
the legal discourse further the duo in August 2014 filed a fresh petition
before the Bombay High Court citing "delay in execution" as the latest ground.
Since then there is a stay on their execution and the case as expected is
moving at a snail's pace.
The sisters are not alone, in last 3 years, President Pranab Mukherjee has
rejected 24 mercy pleas (till July 2015) of which only three convicts - Yakub
Memon, Mohd Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru - have been hanged till date. The
remaining convicts have managed to procure stay on their hanging by moving
fresh petitions before the respective high courts, primarily on the grounds of
prolonged procedural delays in execution.
(source: Daily News & Analysis)
SOUTHEAST ASIA:
ASEAN setback: Forward march on death penalty
Last Wednesday President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo announced a controversial
regulation in lieu of law, citing the many recent reports involving the rape
and murder of children. The controversy stems from the addition of heavier
penalties for the aforementioned crimes which include, among others, a life
sentence, chemical castration and even the death penalty in particular cases.
The death penalty has been outlined for cases where the crime has led to severe
damage or death, or if the perpetrators were family members and or guardians of
the victims.
The regulation is criticized for lacking a comprehensive perspective regarding
sexual violence targeting children and also for strengthening the death penalty
regime.
This is a setback from the government's commitment to human rights protection -
compared to the moratorium on the death penalty in 2009-2013. The high number
of executions carried out under the President Jokowi administration is
inconsistent with a commitment made among ASEAN leaders to protect the right to
life as stated in the ASEAN Charter on Human Rights, adopted in 2012.
Executions and leaders' statements elsewhere also indicate questionable
commitment from ASEAN countries in regard to moving forward with a death
penalty moratorium in the region.
Singapore executed Kho Jabing, a Malaysian citizen, on May 20, hours after the
highest court rejected his appeal for clemency. In April, Malaysia also
executed its citizens, Gunasegar Pitchaymuthu, Ramesh and Sasivarnam Jayakumar
for murder. Indonesia may proceed to the next round of executions with a list
of 14 death row convicts, reportedly after Idul Fitri in early July.
In April this year, Indonesia was criticized again by rights groups for
claiming pro-capital punishment countries as like-minded groups in the UN
General Assembly meeting, responding to outcry from a number of European
countries over the assembly document, which omitted the commitment to promote
the abolition of the death penalty.
The silence of ASEAN governments on this issue, before and following the Kho
Jabing execution - presumably rooted in ASEAN's principle of non-interference -
will continue to be the biggest challenge for the future of death penalty
abolition in Southeast Asia.
Unfortunately Jabing belonged to a country that does not seem to care about
losing a life of its citizen. Let us not forget what happened to Filipino
convict Mary Jane Veloso, whose country's leaders had actively lobbied the
Indonesian government, although the possibility of preventing her from
execution is very unlikely.
At least their attempts have succeeded to delay the execution, providing more
time for possible steps toward clemency. Similarly, regarding Indonesian
migrant workers facing the death penalty in Malaysia, our government has
actively provided legal assistance as well as bilateral diplomacy to prevent
its citizens from executions.
Therefore, it is ironic that our government is planning a third round of
executions. Moreover, the plan of the newly elected president of the
Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, to revive the use of the death penalty, has a
severe impact on the movement to abolish the death penalty in the region, as
the country previously was among the few nations supporting its abolition.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights records that in
Southeast Asia only 3 out of 11 UN members have abolished capital punishment -
Timor Leste, Cambodia and the Philippines. Cambodia's and Timor Leste's
commitment to eliminate capital punishment is part of their post-conflict
reconstruction under the aegis of the UN. Meanwhile, the abolition found its
momentum in the Philippines as part of the commitment to cut off the Ferdinand
Marcos' legacy, also sending a letter, reflecing active diplomatic roles in
defending their migrant workers facing the death penalty abroad.
We still recall the migrant workers Sarah Balabagan and Flor Contemplacion
sentenced to death for murder, cases that demonstrate the totality of the
Philippines to defend its citizens from executions. This attempt has set the
new benchmark and best practice for other ASEAN countries on how a country
should protect its citizens facing the death penalty abroad.
Thus, Duterte's plan to revive the death penalty in the Philippines is
counterproductive, and would affect the government's commitment to save the
lives of its migrant workers abroad.
Meanwhile, Indonesia's representative for the ASEAN Intergovernmental
Commission on Human Rights ( AICHR ), Dinna Wisnu, called for the abolition of
the death penalty in ASEAN.
A similar call has come from the Malaysian AICHR representative Muhammad S.
Abdullah for his active role in defending Wilfrida Soik, an Indonesian migrant
worker, from execution.
However, their efforts promoting the abolition of capital punishment must be
supported by comprehensive measures so as to push ASEAN countries to move away
from their conservatism and look at the opportunity to end the death penalty.
In 2012 the road map toward abolishing capital punishment recorded a brighter
picture when a few ASEAN countries no longer rejected the moratorium of the
death penalty as shown in the table above.
The stance for abstention has given new hope for ASEAN to be a region in which
the right to life would finally be respected as a non-derogable right.
Thus Indonesia's rights defenders continue to mobilize support and
international solidarity to promote the abolition of the death penalty,
including in the current penal code amendment discussed by lawmakers.
Activists in the Philippines will surely continue to fight Duterte's plan to
revive the death penalty. It is precisely in this alarming situation that the
momentum is here to urge leaders of ASEAN countries to walk their talk in
protecting human rights as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter, by developing a road
map for the abolition of death penalty in the region.
(source: Wahyu Susilo is a policy analyst for Migrant CARE, an NGO. Indriaswati
Dyah Saptaningrum is a researcher for the Institute for Policy Research and
Advocacy ( ELSAM ) and a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales Law
School in Sydney----Jakarta Post)
INDONESIA/MALAYSIA:
Govt to help RI convict avoid death penalty
After 21 court hearings, the trial court of Pulau Penang in Malaysia on Monday
sentenced to death Indonesian migrant worker Rita Krisdianti who was caught at
a Malaysian airport carrying 4 kilograms of illicit drugs in 2013.
Rita, a native of Ponorogo, East Java, worked as a housemaid in Hong Kong from
January to April in 2013. She was on her way home in July when she was
apprehended by Malaysian airport authorities after they found 4 kilograms of
methamphetamine in her bag.
Rita claims she was unaware the drugs were in her bag and that the bag belonged
to another Indonesian housemaid who had arranged her journey from Hong Kong to
Penang through Bangkok and New Delhi.
In response to the verdict, the Foreign Ministry, which has assisted Rita
throughout the court hearings, said Rita's case was not over and it had ordered
a team of lawyers to file an appeal.
"Throughout this process we have supplied Rita with legal assistance, including
appointing a team of lawyers for her," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha
Nasir said in Jakarta on Monday.
The ministry has also helped Rita's family, as well as members of several civil
society organizations in Indonesia, attend the court hearings.
"We have coordinated with the Indonesian consulate in Hong Kong and the
Ponorogo administration to obtain more information to lighten her sentence,"
Arrmanatha said.
The Indonesian Consulate General in Penang, meanwhile, has paid for the Goi &
Azzura law firm to assist Rita since her detention began.
Ministry data shows that 154 other Indonesian workers are facing the death
penalty in Malaysia. From that number, 102 of them, or 66 %, are implicated in
drug cases.
In an effort to help its citizens, the ministry has been coordinating with the
National Narcotics Agency ( BNN ) to assist the Indonesian workers in their
court proceedings, especially those who, according to the agency's
intelligence, were victims of a larger network of drug traffickers.
The move may seem ironic to some as Indonesia itself is preparing to execute at
least 15 drug convicts in the near future, most of whom are foreign nationals.
It will be the 3rd round of executions under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo,
coming after 14 drug convicts were sent to their deaths amid international
outcry. Jokowi's policy has been criticized as there are many Indonesians on
death row in foreign countries and no guarantee the government can help them
escape their fate.
When asked recently about whether Indonesia's use of the death penalty would
affect negotiations to help Indonesians sentenced to death abroad, Arrmanatha
said Indonesia did not seek to interfere with the law in other countries and
thus opted to pursue its goals through legal avenues - such as by submitting
appeals - to protects its citizens.
Regarding Rita's case, the Indonesian consul general in Penang, Taufiq Rodhi,
said, "We fully respect the verdict given to Rita. However, we have ordered the
lawyers to file an appeal."
"Because this is still the trial court, there is still a chance for us to
appeal Rita's verdict. Through the Foreign Ministry, we will continue to
coordinate with all relevant parties that can provide us with mitigating
evidence," he added.
(source: Jakarta Post)
***************
3 Taiwanese nabbed in Indonesia for possession of drugs
3 Taiwanese were arrested by Indonesian police for possession of illegal drugs,
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.
As other suspects are still at large, Indonesian police declined to divulge the
names of the suspects, the ministry said.
Media reports said Monday that Indonesian police arrested two Taiwanese at Bali
International Airport, suspecting that they were the masterminds behind the
attempt to smuggle 70 kilograms of methamphetamines into Indonesia that were
seized at Jakarta International Airport.
The ministry said it has checked with the Indonesian government and confirmed
that three Taiwanese had been arrested, but the amount of drugs seized was
different than that stated in the reports.
Taiwan's representative office is keeping in touch with Indonesian police to
stay on top of the case.
The ministry also urged Taiwanese nationals to abide by the law when traveling
to other countries, noting that possession of drugs is subject to the death
penalty in many countries.
3 Taiwanese have previously been sentenced to death by courts in Indonesia, it
said.
(soruce: focustaiwan.tw)
PHILIPPINES:
Global group of jurists asks Duterte to rethink push for death penalty revival
The International Commission of Jurists has written President-elect Rodrigo
Duterte to express concern about his strong support for reinstating the death
penalty. The ICJ said it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, has not been
proven to deter heinous crime, and would run against repeated calls by the UN
General Assembly for all states "to establish a moratorium on executions with a
view to abolishing the death penalty."
The ICJ, a 60-year-old global organization of judges and lawyers fighting for
legal protection of human rights throughout the world, said it "considers the
imposition of the death penalty to be a violation of the right to life and the
absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment."
Reinstating the death penalty, said the letter signed by Sam Zarifi, ICJ's
Regional Director for Asia & the Pacific, "would contravene international
commitments that the Philippines has voluntarily entered into," and "place the
Philippines at odds" with repeated UN calls to freeze all execution orders "and
for those States which have abolished the death penalty, not to reintroduce
it."
ICJ urged the incoming administration to "focus more on effective,
evidence-based approaches to crime prevention," adding that, "policies and
legislation that address the underlying social and economic causes of criminal
activity are also vital to ensuring stability and the rule of law."
Scientific research, said the ICJ, has "failed to establish any significant
impact of the death penalty on the incidence of crime." Instead, studies show
"improving crime detection and investigation, increasing the effectiveness and
efficiency of the justice system, and addressing underlying causes, is far more
likely to reduce serious crime."
Obligations under international law
The ICJ described the Philippines as "an example of global best practice on the
abolition of the death penalty." Besides scuttling the death penalty in 2006,
it is the only ASEAN Member State that has ratified the 2ndOptional Protocol to
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which obliges
the Philippines not to execute any person within its jurisdiction.
"The 2nd Optional Protocol to the ICCPR contains no provision on renunciation,
and States may not unilaterally withdraw from their obligations under the
Protocol," said ICJ, adding that "the resumption of executions in the
Philippines would therefore constitute a violation of international law and
represent an alarming disregard for the international human rights system."
No deterrence vs. crime
The incoming administration's desire to reinstate the death penalty, noted ICJ,
is "largely driven by the desire to reduce the occurrence of crime in the
Philippines," and yet, it added, "empirical evidence does not prove that the
death penalty deters crime."
Research also indicates, said ICJ, "that increasing the chances of actually
being caught and punished can be effective in deterring criminal conduct.
Individuals are less likely to commit crimes when there is a high probability
of actually being subjected to criminal sanctions."
Investing in improved detection and investigation techniques and capacity, and
improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system, is more
likely to achieve real results in reducing crime, added ICJ.
HERE'S FULL TEXT OF THE ICJ LETTER:
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT RODRIGO DUTERTE
Rodrigo R. Duterte
President-Elect of the Republic of the Philippines
31 May 2016
Dear President-elect Duterte,
We are writing to you today to express our concern regarding your recent
statements in support of reinstating the death penalty.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is a global organization of
judges and lawyers. For the past 60 years, it has devoted itself to promoting
the understanding and observance of the rule of law and the legal protection of
human rights throughout the world.
The ICJ considers the imposition of the death penalty to be a violation of the
right to life and the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment. Reinstating the death penalty would
contravene international commitments that the Philippines has voluntarily
entered into. It would also place the Philippines at odds with the repeated
calls by the UN General Assembly for all states "to establish a moratorium on
executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty" and for those States
which have abolished the death penalty, "not to reintroduce it."
Scientific research has failed to establish any significant impact of the death
penalty on the incidence of crime. On the other hand, research indicates that
improving crime detection and investigation, increasing the effectiveness and
efficiency of the justice system, and addressing underlying causes, is far more
likely to reduce serious crime.
Obligations of the Philippines under international law
The Philippines is currently an example of global best practice on the
abolition of the death penalty. It abolished the death penalty in 2006 and is
the only ASEAN Member State that has ratified the 2ndOptional Protocol to the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Under Article 1 of the 2nd Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, the Philippines is
obliged not to execute any person within its jurisdiction.
The 2nd Optional Protocol to the ICCPR contains no provision on renunciation,
and States may not unilaterally withdraw from their obligations under the
Protocol. The resumption of executions in the Philippines would therefore
constitute a violation of international law and represent an alarming disregard
for the international human rights system.
No evidence that death penalty deters crime
Your statements suggest that the intention to reinstate the death penalty is
largely driven by the desire to reduce the occurrence of crime in the
Philippines. We emphasize, however, that empirical evidence does not prove that
the death penalty deters crime.
For instance, there is no proof that the death penalty deters crime at a
greater rate than alternative forms of punishment, and the overwhelming
majority of criminologists believe that the death penalty does not provide an
effective deterrent.
Research also indicates that increasing the chances of actually being caught
and punished can be effective in deterring criminal conduct. Individuals are
less likely to commit crimes when there is a high probability of actually being
subjected to criminal sanctions. Thus, heightened enforcement efforts that are
highly visible send a clearer message to potential criminals. Indeed, multiple
studies demonstrate that an increased likelihood of punishment is directly
associated with a decrease in crime.
Based on the scientific research, then, reinstituting the death penalty in the
Philippines is unproven and unlikely to have any real impact on the incidence
of serious crime in the country. On the other hand, investing in improved
detection and investigation techniques and capacity, and improving the
effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system, is more likely to achieve
real results in reducing crime.
We strongly urge that, in lieu of reinstating the death penalty, the Government
of the Philippines should focus more on effective, evidence-based approaches to
crime prevention. Policies and legislation that address the underlying social
and economic causes of criminal activity are also vital to ensuring stability
and the rule of law.
We note that there have already been initiatives in the past that, if given
strong support and adequate resources, may be effective in deterring crime. For
instance, the Philippine National Police has, in the past, established
constructive law enforcement policies through initiatives such as the
Community-Oriented Policing System, which emphasized comprehensive policing,
data-driven solutions and community engagement.
Reinstating capital punishment in the Philippines would constitute a huge
setback not only for the promotion and protection of human rights in the
country, but also for the Philippines internationally.
As mentioned above, the Philippines has in recent years shown how strong
leadership and political will can be instrumental in abolishing the death
penalty. The Philippines can today rightfully claim and be presented
internationally and regionally as an example of global best practice in the
abolition of the death penalty.
Needlessly reversing course and losing this leading role is unlikely to have
any significant impact on reducing crime in the Philippines, but it will
adversely affect the Philippines' standing in the world.
We therefore hope that, under your presidency, the same strength of leadership
can be applied in maintaining the current prohibition of the death penalty, and
instead preventing crime in a manner that conforms to international human
rights law and standards.
Very truly yours,
Sam Zarifi
Regional Director for Asia & the Pacific
International Commission of Jurists
(source: interakyson.com)
GAZA----executions
Hamas executes 3 as death penalty resumes
3 people convicted of murder have been executed in the Gaza Strip, in a move
condemned by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
The men were shot or hanged on Tuesday after appeals were exhausted, officials
from Gaza's de facto rulers, the Islamist Hamas movement, said.
Hamas did not seek the approval of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as
required under Palestinian law.
It underscores the continuing divisions between the main Palestinian factions.
Hamas and President Abbas' Fatah party signed a unity deal in 2014 designed to
end a seven-year split which saw the West Bank and the Gaza Strip governed by
rival administrations.
However, the agreement has never been properly implemented, leaving Hamas still
effectively in charge of the coastal territory.
'Flagrant violation'
The 3 men, 1 of whom was a reportedly a policeman employed by the West
Bank-based Palestinian Authority, were executed at dawn.
The general prosecutor's office in Gaza said the men had been put to death "to
achieve public deterrence and block crime".
A Gaza security source told the BBC the execution had been attended by the
families of the murder victims, the attorney general and representatives of
Palestinian factions.
Human rights groups and the UN had called on Hamas not to carry out the
sentences.
The step marks a resumption of judicial executions for the 1st time since the
2014 reconciliation pact.
Palestinian Authority attorney general Ahmed Brak told Reuters news agency that
"carrying out the executions represents a flagrant violation of the Palestinian
basic law", according to which the president must ratify death sentences.
Those who were involved in Tuesday's executions were complicit in murder and
would be held accountable, he said.
According to Human Rights Watch, more than 40 people have been put to death in
Gaza since 2007, including 23 suspected collaborators during the 2014 war with
Israel.
Most of those executed were convicted in military courts or executed summarily,
without a judicial ruling, it said.
(source: BBC news)
PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
PNG opposition MP against the death penalty
The deputy leader of the opposition in Papua New Guinea Sam Basil will not
support the death penalty being applied.
Last week Nauru abolished the death penalty, leaving Papua New Guinea as one of
the few Pacific states retaining the legislation.
2 years ago PNG announced it would reactivate the penalty to combat soaring
levels of violent crime, but that move has been condemned internationally and
last year the government indicated it could change its position.
Mr Basil says his personal view is to support the death penalty as a deterrent
but he told Lucy Smith his constituents don't agree, and it is their views he
represents.
SAM BASIL: I believe that from my district 30 % want it and 70 % don't want it
So because I represent that 70 % and more that gave their views to me I will
have to represent their views on the parliament floor.
LUCY SMITH: When you say you're going to represent their views so they're
against death penalty?
SB: Yeah they're against death penalty. Pressure is mounting from outside to
ask members of parliament not to support death penalty. But as I said if I had
my way I would be supporting death penalty. I'm only one I don't know about
other members of parliament.
LS: Do you think PNG will follow Nauru's lead?
SB: I'm not sure about it but if you carry out a survey about how many people
die in PNG every week compared to Nauru people being killed by criminals and
people being intentionally killed by people? have you carried out a survey
comparing on that before you compare Papua New Guineas stats to Nauru?
LS: Do you think the death penalty is a deterrent from crime?
SB: I think it could be for a while but not forever maybe for the next 5 - 10
years. I mean you look at Malaysia, you look at Singapore. I believe they have
death penalty laws there, In Singapore it's the most safest place on earth you
can freely walk around and all this so some people are comparing stats from
those country to be favourable on the death penalty laws that we have here.
LS: Do you think there is pressure on PNG to get rid of the death penalty?
SB: Not if we're getting 5 people murdered everyday/every week we have to find
a way to have police presence in the rural areas because that's where people
are being killed every week. It's a bigger issue than stopping the death
penalty it's more than that. At the back of my mind At the back of my mind if I
can convince them in the future the subject will be a hot issue to still
debate. We have to make sure that whatever government comes into play in the
future we need to make sure we look after law and order issues to make sure we
don't continue to have more than 5 people killed every week.
(source: The deputy leader of the opposition in Papua New Guinea Sam
Basil----radionz.co.nz)
IRAN:
Iran regime planning to hang man for crime committed aged 15
Iran's fundamentalist regime may be planning to execute a man for a crime
allegedly committed when he was only 15 as early as today, May 31.
Mohammad-Reza Haddadi, who was born on March 17, 1988 and is now 28 years old,
has been imprisoned in Iran for the past 13 years. He is currently locked up in
a prison in Shiraz, southern Iran.
The authorities in the office of implementation of court verdicts have informed
his family that they plan to execute him on Tuesday, May 31.
His father told international media organizations that his son had also called
his family to say that the regime plan to move him to the ward for implementing
verdicts tonight.
Mohammad-Reza Haddadi allegedly told a court hearing on October 30, 2003 that
he had killed an individual that he had tried to rob. However, in a letter to
the court on November 7, 2003 he said that he had been offered money by another
suspect to testify to the murder on the basis that he would not receive a harsh
sentence given that he was a minor. He reiterated in his letter that he had
been fooled by the other suspect and that he did not have a role in the murder.
At least 118 people have been executed in Iran since April 10. 3 of those
executed were women and 2 are believed to have been juvenile offenders.
There have been more than 2,300 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."
Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran,
told a news briefing in Geneva on March 10 that Iran's regime is the lead
executioner of children globally. This is "strictly and unequivocally
prohibited under international law," he said.
"The number of juvenile offenders executed between 2014 and 2015 - which is
reportedly 16 - was higher than at any time during the past 4 years," Shaheed
said.
Ms. Farideh Karimi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI) and a human rights activist, last week called for an urgent response by
the United Nations and foreign governments to the recent spate of executions
and the appalling state of human rights in Iran.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement on April
13 that the increasing trend of executions "aimed at intensifying the climate
of terror to rein in expanding protests by various strata of the society,
especially at a time of visits by high-ranking European officials, demonstrates
that the claim of moderation is nothing but an illusion for this medieval
regime."
(source: NCR-Iran)
************************
The Names of 32 Prisoners who Have Been Charged with Muharebeh
More than 70 political prisoners are kept in Rajaei Shahr and Evin prisons who
have been charged with Muharebeh. Considering the recent changes in the penal
code, they need to be re-tried. After a re-trial most of these prisoners are
expected to be released. HRANA published the names of 32 prisoners of these 2
prisons who have been charged with Muharebeh.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA),
considering the fact that article 186 has been superseded, political prisoners
with the charge of Muharebeh need to be re-tried. Therefore the names of 32
prisoners who are imprisoned in Evin and Rajaei Shahr prisons on this charge
are being published by HRANA.
Article 186 of the Islamic penal code had implied, "If someone is following the
goals of a party or armed group, under the condition that the leadership of the
group still exists, and carry out effective actions in that regard (advocative
or membership), he will be recognized as sacrilegious and will receive related
punishments".
The article 288 that superseded article 186 implies, "A group that commits
armed actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran's government is recognized
as rebel and in case of using weapons, their members will be sentenced to
death".
Previously a group of political prisoners published a letter, and discussed the
changes of law and analyzed it from religious and legal perspectives. This
letter was supported by 2 well-known lawyers, Abdulfattah Soltani and Mohammad
Saif Zadeh.
Mohammad Moghimi, lawyer and human rights activist, told HRANA's reporter in
this regard, "The pressure of public opinion and human rights organizations
should provide the foundation of implementation of this new law, that would
result in release of these defendants".
Previously HRANA had published the names of 27 death row Sunni prisoners.
The list includes the name, family name, year of arrest and verdict of each
prisoners respectively:
Rajaei Shahr prison:
Mohammad Nazari, 1993, life time prison
Khaled Freydooni, 1998, life time prison
Omar Faghihpoor, 1998, life time prison
Khaled Hardani, 2000, life time prison
Farhang Poormansour, 2000, life time prison
Shahram Poormansour, 2000, life time prison
Saeid Masoori, 2000, life time prison
Afshin Baymani, 2000, life time prison
Hamzeh Savari, 2005, life time prison
Jafar Eghdami, 2007, 10 years in prison
Pirouz Mansouri, 2007, 18 years in prison
Saleh Kohandel, 2007, 10 years in prison
Hasan Sadeghi, 2015, 15 years in prison
Abulghasem Fooladvand, 2013, 15 years in prison
Hasan Ashtiani, 2013, 15 years in prison
Ramazan Ahmad Kamal, 2008, 10 years in prison
Mohammad Akramipoor, 2013, 15 years in prison
Paiman Arefi, 2009, 15 years in prison
Ahmad Karimi, 2009, 15 years in prison
Zanyar Moradi, 2008, death
Loghman Moradi, 2008, death
Hooshang Rezaei, 2010, death
Evin prison:
Ahmad Daneshpoor Moghadam, 2009, death
Mohsen Daneshpoor Moghadam, 2009, death
Ali Zahed, 2008, life time prison
Hadi Ghaemi, 2009, 15 years in prison
Raihaneh Haj Ibrahim Dabagh, 2009, 15 years in prison
Maryam Akbari Monfared, 2009, 15 years in prison
Fatemeh Mosanna, 2013, 15 years in prison
Sadigheh Moradi, 2013, 10 years in prison
Behnaz Zakeri Ansari, 2012, 10 years in prison
Zahra Zehtabchi, 2013, 12 years in prison
(source: HRA News Agency)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 31 17:31:04 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 17:31:04 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., MISS, OHIO, ARIZ., USA
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605311730530.2012@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 31
FLORIDA:
Dubose appeal at standstill due to ethics allegations of defense
attorney----He's charged in death of 8-year-old DreShawn Davis
It has been 31 months since the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in
an appeal of one of the most high-profile murder cases in recent Jacksonville
history.
But a ruling on whether Rasheem Dubose will get off death row for the murder of
8-year-old DreShawna Davis appears unlikely to occur anytime soon.
The appeal has become bogged down over charges of unethical behavior made
against attorney Richard Kuritz, who defended Dubose at trial on appeal. The
judge who sentenced Dubose to death, Lawrence Haddock, has cited Kuritz with
unethical behavior, and The Florida Bar has filed a formal complaint against
the Jacksonville lawyer that could lead to him being punished.
Lawyers for Kuritz have said he did nothing wrong, but Dubose's appeal appears
to be in a holding pattern while the ethics complaint goes through the system.
The complaint focuses on how Kuritz dealt with a juror who later told him she
had been bullied into convicting Dubose. Haddock asked the Bar to investigate
Kuritz in 2014 after the Florida Supreme Court sent the case back to
Jacksonville and instructed him to look into the allegations of juror
misconduct.
Haddock, who declined to comment for this story, found there was no misconduct
and accused Kuritz of hiding that he simultaneously represented Dubose and the
juror, Tomi Chavez, for 2 traffic tickets and in a civil personal injury
lawsuit while he was handling Dubose's appeal. The appeal hinged on Chavez's
account that juror misconduct occurred. Kuritz has said in court filings that
he did his legal work for Chavez after she was a juror in the case.
Chavez said other jurors, in a racist manner, made fun of the way Dubose spoke,
researched the case on their cellphones while they deliberated and debated
whether a teardrop tattoo on his face was a gang symbol or a sign that he'd
killed someone.
In a 2014 email to the Times-Union, Chavez said jurors were already familiar
with the case before the trial began.
"The other jurors had knowledge of this because they watched the news and lived
in Jax," Chavez said, while saying she now lives in Hawaii.
Supreme Court justices expressed incredulity at the allegations when Kuritz
went before them and argued that Dubose's 2010 conviction and death sentence
should be thrown out because of juror misconduct.
Kuritz told justices Chavez contacted Assistant Public Defender Fred Gazaleh
after the jury found Dubose guilty but before returning for a penalty phase.
She then contacted private attorney Mitch Stone with the same concerns and
asked to speak to the judge before the penalty phase began, but was turned away
by a bailiff.
Kuritz said he didn't find out about the juror's concerns until after the jury
had recommended Dubose had been sentenced to death by an 8-4 vote.
"I've never seen anything like this," said Chief Justice Jorge Labarga. "I'm
concerned that it took this much effort on behalf of a juror to bring something
to the attention of the trial judge."
Rather than ruling on the appeal, justices sent the case back to Haddock.
Haddock ruled in the spring of 2014 that Chavez's allegations of misconduct
were not credible and blasted Kuritz for taking them to the Florida Supreme
Court on appeal without ever revealing she was his client in unrelated cases.
Kuritz knew it was a conflict of interest, Haddock said.
The Florida Bar investigated the situation for over a year before filing a
formal complaint against Kuritz in January 2016. That complaint says Kuritz was
wrong to speak to Chavez without first informing Haddock and prosecutors about
what he was doing. It also accuses Kuritz of writing an affadavit for Chavez to
sign and then saying another lawyer wrote it.
Attorney Matthew Kachergus, who is representing Kuritz, has argued in motions
that Kuritz only spoke to Chavez after she contacted him.
Kachergus declined to comment for this story, but in court filings he said the
Bar complaint should be dismissed.
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Blackburn, who is based in DeLand, has been appointed
as the "referee" in the case who will hear the complaint against Kuritz and
rule on whether he committed any ethical violations and recommend a punishment
if she decides Kuritz did something wrong.
Kuritz could face a reprimand, a suspension from practicing law or disbarment,
although disbarments are rare and usually only occur after a lawyer has been
found to have made multiple ethics violations.
The Florida Supreme Court will make the final decision but usually gives ample
consideration to the referee's recommendation. The Supreme Court appears to be
waiting for the Bar complaint to conclude before ruling on Dubose's appeal.
Justices usually rule on death-penalty appeals within a year of oral arguments.
Dubose sent a letter to the Supreme Court in March 2016 asking what was going
on with his case.
"It's been about 2 years on my direct appeal now with no answer from the
Supreme Court yet," Dubose said in his letter. "... I'm just sitting here in
the blind not knowing anything what's going on sir."
The clerk of court wrote Dubose back at the Union Correctional Institution in
Raiford telling him his case was still pending and if he had any other
questions he should contact Kuritz.
DreShawna, who died in 2006 protecting her cousins from a hail of bullets into
her home, became the face of Jacksonville's state-leading homicide rate and
galvanized city leaders to do something about it.
The Jacksonville Journey anti-crime initiative was launched soon after
DreShawna's death and is credited with helping lower the homicide rate.
(source: Florida Times-Union)
MISSISSIPPI:
I Spent More Than 6 Years as an Innocent Woman on Death Row
I was 18 when I was convicted of murdering my baby and sentenced to death, and
25 when I was finally found innocent.
The new season of Orange is the New Black will be available on Netflix starting
next weekend. I won't be watching it. I lived it.
I was 17 and living in Columbus, Mississippi, in 1989. One night, I went to
check on my beautiful 9-month-old son, Walter. He wasn't breathing. I scooped
him up and frantically rushed to the neighbor next door, who could not help me.
I ran downstairs where another girl took my baby, started CPR, and advised me
what to do. I performed CPR all the way to the hospital. The CPR left bruises
on his chest. At the hospital, the doctors said they had done all they could.
The next morning, I went down to the police station as I had been asked to do.
When I got there, a detective yelled at me, "You know you killed your baby. You
stepped on him with your feet and smashed him on the floor. You killed him."
I was alone with no lawyer or parent with me. I told him I tried to save my
baby. He wrote down what I said and threw it in the garbage. He yelled at me
for 3 hours. No matter what I said, he screamed over and over that I had killed
my baby. I was terrified. I was put in jail and not allowed to attend Walter's
funeral.
When I was 18, I was convicted of murdering my baby and sentenced to death. As
a death row prisoner, I was alone in my cell for 23 hours a day. It was a good
thing: if the other women could have gotten near me, they would have killed me
because they thought I deserved to die. In prison, you have to constantly watch
your back.
Around the time my other son Danny was 5 years old, he asked me on the phone,
"Are they going to kill you with a needle?" It is a question no child should
ever have to ask his mother or father.
My own mother fought to prove my innocence. I was lucky: attorneys Rob McDuff
and Clive Stafford Smith took my case pro bono. They got me a new trial and
called witnesses who said I had been trying to resuscitate Walter with CPR.
That's where the bruises came from. My new attorneys also showed that my son
died from a hereditary kidney condition. There was no murder at all.
I was 25 years old when I was finally found innocent. I am the only woman ever
exonerated and freed from death row in the United States.
I wish I could say that it is rare for innocent people to be convicted and
sentenced to death. But it's not. Since 1973, 144 people have been exonerated
and freed from death row in the U.S. I provide support to many of these men
through my job at Witness to Innocence, a nonprofit organization that helps
people who have been exonerated from death row and their loved ones.
A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that more than 4% -
1 in every 25 - of the death sentences in the U.S. are imposed on people who
are innocent. This should be a cause for outrage. If 1 in 25 bank transactions
were inaccurate, no one would stand for it.
Recently, a group of former governors, judges and other important people got
together and issued 39 recommendations to make the death penalty more fair and
accurate. Even if every reform was adopted, innocent people would still get
convicted and sent to death row. As long as human beings are in charge, they
will make mistakes. If we can't get the death penalty right every time, we
shouldn't do it at all.
You can change the laws, but you can't change some things about human nature.
There will always be people who want to advance their careers by putting people
to death. Some of those people will be innocent, like me, and most of them will
be poor, isolated and African American or Latino.
I was a teenager who, less than 24 hours before, had lost my precious baby boy.
Ambitious men questioned, demoralized and intimidated me. In that state of
mind, I signed the lies they wrote on a piece of paper. I signed my name in
tiny letters in the margin to show some form of resistance to the power they
had over me. People who say they would never sign a false confession have never
been in my shoes.
When I first went to prison, I hated the people who railroaded me onto death
row. Then I realized that I could be bitter and angry, but the only person it
would hurt was me. I made a decision to fill my heart with love, try to be
happy every day, and help other people. You can choose to be positive or you
can choose to be negative. And that's the choice that makes all the difference
in the world.
(source: Sabrina Butler is the Assistant Director of Membership and Training at
Witness to Innocence. She still lives in Columbus, Mississippi, with her
husband of 19 years and 3 children----TIME Magazine)
OHIO:
Court to hear arguments in condemned killer's DNA appeal
The Ohio Supreme Court is hearing arguments in an appeal involving a death row
inmate who sought DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the scene of the
1990 double murder that led to his sentence.
At issue is whether there is a constitutional appeals process for death row
prisoners who have requests for DNA testing denied after a trial is over.
Defendant Tyrone Noling was convicted of killing Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at
their Portage County home in 1990, but he maintains his innocence.
Noling contends technological advances make it possible to identify who smoked
the cigarette and determine whether that person was among other previously
undisclosed suspects.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA:
Convicted killer given chance to get off Arizona's death row
An Arizona man convicted of murder and robbery will get another chance to
escape the death penalty.
It was a mistake for a Maricopa County Superior Court judge not to tell jurors
that if they did not sentence Shawn Lynch to death that he would be sentenced
to life behind bars, with no chance of parole, 6 of the justices of the U.S.
Supreme Court said in an unsigned opinion Tuesday morning.
Had jurors been given that information they might have decided not to impose
the death penalty, the majority said.
Today's ruling drew a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. Joined by Justice
Samuel Alito, Thomas said it was the "sheer depravity" of the crime that caused
jurors to sentence Lynch to death, not the question of whether he might ever
get out of prison.
Lynch and Michael Sehwani met James Panzarella in March 2001 at a Scottsdale
bar. All 3 went to Panzarella's residence early the next morning, according to
court records.
The victim's credit cards were used during the next 2 days.
Panzarella was eventually found in his home tied to a chair with his throat
slit.
Police also found credit card receipt from purchases made that morning at a
supermarket and convenience store.
Lynch and Sehwani were arrested later that day. Sehwani had Panzarella's credit
cards and checks in his wallet. And in the truck and motel room he and Lynch
were using they found the keys to Panzarella's car, a pistol belonging to the
victim and a sweater with Panzarella's blood on it.
Blood on Lynch's shoes matched the victim's DNA.
During sentencing, prosecutors argued that jurors should consider Lynch's
future dangerousness when determining proper punishment. But the trial judge
refused to let defense counsel tell the jury that under Arizona law, the only
alternative sentence was life without parole.
The majority, in today's ruling, conceded that there was a chance Lynch could
be released after 25 years.
But the justices pointed out that could happen only through executive clemency.
And they said that was not enough of a possibility to let jurors think if they
did not sentenced Lynch to death that he might be released.
(soruce: tucson.com)
USA:
Supreme Court's Divide Over Death Penalty on Display in New Orders
The Supreme Court issued 2 opinions in death-penalty cases Tuesday, alternately
upholding and invalidating executions in cases that exposed the justices
searing divide over capital punishment.
In separate, unsigned opinions, the court's majority upheld a death sentence in
Louisiana and voided 1 in Arizona, sparking sharp dissents from pairs of
liberal and conservative justices, respectively.
The Arizona case involved Shawn Patrick Lynch, convicted of a 2001 murder and
robbery that required either a death sentence or life imprisonment. At
sentencing, prosecutors seeking the death penalty suggested Mr. Lynch could be
dangerous if ever set free, but the trial judge prevented the defense from
rebutting that argument by informing the jury that Arizona had abolished
parole.
Arizona insisted there was no error, because after 25 years in prison Mr. Lynch
could apply for executive clemency. Moreover, the state said, theoretically the
Legislature someday could create a parole system.
The justices said these arguments couldn't overcome a line of precedent dating
from 1994, when they ruled the Constitution's due-process clause provides
capital defendants a right to respond to "future dangerousness" claims by
arguing they are ineligible for parole.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito,
recited the cold facts of the crime: Mr. Lynch and an accomplice slit the
throat of a man they met in a bar, James Panzarella, and went on a spending
spree with his money until their arrest 2 days later.
The "sheer depravity" of Mr. Lynch's crime, "rather than any specific fear for
the future" was justification enough for a death sentence, Justice Thomas
wrote, quoting an earlier dissent by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the Louisiana case, however, it was Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in dissent.
The majority rejected the petition from Lamondre Tucker, who was 18 years old
when he shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend in 2008.
Justice Breyer observed that Mr. Tucker was convicted in Caddo Parish, which
"imposes almost half the death sentences in Louisiana, even though it accounts
for only 5% of that State's population and 5% of its homicides."
"One could reasonably believe that if Tucker had committed the same crime but
been tried and sentenced just across the Red River in, say Bossier Parish, he
would not now be on death row," Justice Breyer wrote. The dissenters renewed a
call they made in a 2015 case: to consider whether the death penalty itself
violates the Constitution.
The court ruled in a third murder case Tuesday, reversing without dissent a
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that gave a convicted murderer
sentenced to life-without-parole a new avenue of appeal.
Federal courts generally aren't permitted to hear claims that were defaulted in
state court under what the justices call "an independent and adequate state
procedural rule."
The California Supreme Court established such a rule in a 1953 case, called In
re Dixon, when it held a defendant cannot raise a claim through habeas corpus,
a form of secondary appellate review, if he or she failed to bring it up on the
initial direct appeal.
In 2004, that court cited Dixon in a one-line order denying an appeal from
Donna Kay Lee, who was convicted, along with her boyfriend, of stabbing the
boyfriend's mother and ex-girlfriend to death. She was sentenced to life
without parole.
Last year, the Ninth Circuit reinstated Ms. Lee's appeal, reasoning that while
California's Dixon rule was "independent" of federal law, it was not "adequate"
because the state supreme court had cited it in only 12% of the habeas
petitions it denied over a 2-year period.
"The Ninth Circuit's decision profoundly misapprehends what makes a state
procedural bar 'adequate,'" the Supreme Court said. "The purportedly missing
citations show nothing," the justices said, since the state court may have
dismissed the other petitions for other reasons, the Dixon rule is widely known
and established, and nearly every state and the federal justice system follow
similar procedures.
(source: Wall Street Journal)
**********************
Case involving Charleston church shooter tests the limits of forgiveness
Family members of the victims of the Charleston, South Carolina, church
shooting captivated the country last year when they offered the attacker,
Dylann Roof, forgiveness instead of fury.
"You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I
will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your
soul," Nadine Collier, the daughter of one of the women Roof killed, said
during his court appearance on June 19, 2015, according to The Washington Post.
However, these same men and women must now accept federal and state
prosecutors' plan to seek the death penalty, and some have already done so
wholeheartedly.
"What would give me full closure would be if I were the one who pushed the
plunger on the lethal injection, or if I were the one to pull the switch on the
electric chair or if I was the one to open the valve on the gas chamber," said
Steve Hurd, whose wife, Cynthia, was killed by Roof, to the Associated Press.
Hurd's rage, as well as the tacit support of other family members, surprised
some observers who wondered why the urge for revenge often wins out over the
desire to forgive.
"If the families of Roof's victims can find the grace of forgiveness within
themselves; if the president can praise them for it; if the public can be awed
by it - then why can't the Department of Justice act in the spirit of that
grace and resist the impulse to kill?" wrote author Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a
column for The Atlantic.
Faith leaders have been asking similar questions for centuries, leading many to
view the death penalty as an essentially religious issue.
Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. adults (19 %) say religious beliefs have the biggest
influence on their thinking about the death penalty, according to a 2011 study
from Pew Research Center.
"Religion is woven into this debate in complicated and often unpredictable
ways. There's no single (path) from scripture to a political view," said Eric
Owens, associated director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public
Life at Boston College, to the Deseret News in February.
It's been more than 10 years since the government executed a convicted
criminal, but Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced May 24 that the Justice
Department would seek the death penalty for Roof.
"The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this
decision," she said in a written statement, according to USA Today.
"The 33-count federal indictment charged Roof with nine murders, three
attempted murders and multiple firearms offenses," the article noted.
Roof also faces local charges, and he's been indicted by a South Carolina grand
jury, USA Today reported. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty there, as
well, when the case is heard in January 2017.
(source: Deseret News)
From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue May 31 17:31:59 2016
From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin)
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 17:31:59 -0500
Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Message-ID: <alpine.WNT.2.00.1605311731460.2012@15-11017.smu.edu>
May 31
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES:
Family disowns Obaidah's killer, seeks death penalty for the accused----Man has
criminal record in his home country
The Jordanian national accused of killing 9-year-old Sharjah boy Obaidah has a
criminal record in his home country, reported Emarat Al Youm newspaper.
Identified as N. Issa, the accused lured the child - also a Jordanian - 2 weeks
ago from his father's garage in the industrial area of Sharjah, strangled him
to death after failing to molest him.
Quoting its sources in the Jordanian capital of Amman, the newspaper reported
that the defendant has a criminal record and committed crimes such as indecent
assaults and threats to harm others.
The defendant was reportedly confined to his house and was kept under security
surveillance due to the criminal record. He was instructed to report to a
nearby police station on a daily basis to inform officials about his
activities.
The accused was sentenced in 1 case and was charged in another lawsuit.
Moreover, the information revealed that a circular was also issued in Jordan to
bring the accused to his homeland to face the charges.
The murder of 9-year-old Obaidah sparked angry reactions in the UAE and Jordan.
The accused's father, identified as Issa Abdullah, urged authorities to
expedite the process and award death penalty to his son.
Family of the accused issued a statement, condemning and disowning him and also
asking for his death penalty.
(source: emirates247.com)
INDONESIA:
HRWG Condemns the Death Penalty Verdict to Rita
Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) Indonesia said in its press release Tuesday,
May 31, 2016 that it regrets and condemns the decision of Penang Court,
Malaysia, today, on the case of Indonesian migrant worker Rita Krisdianti who
is sentenced to death because she was charged as a drug smuggler.
Rita is accused as one of the networks of narcotics mafia. She was caught by
Malaysia airport officials who found a 4kg methamphetamine in her bag.
Based on the press release, Rita has some witnesses in Macau that said that
Rita did not realize that her bag was contained with methamphetamine on her way
back from India to Malaysia for a business. After her contract as a maid in
Hong Kong had expired, Rita was offered by a friend a job that has made her
went to New Delhi, India, to take the deposit bag. Rita thought she was only
bringing Saris (Indian traditional clothes); her friend had prohibited her to
open the bag.
The HRWG calls on the Malaysian Government its relevant authorities to
immediately consider the case and to review the decision with a fair legal
process and ensure that Rita has a special attention due to her innocence. The
organization also encourages the Indonesia Government to take strategic
actions, especially to assist Rita to get legal assistances who is expert in
human rights.
Currently, there are 281 Indonesians who have either been sentenced to death or
might be given a death sentence abroad, HRWG said. The largest number of
Indonesian migrant workers facing the death penalty abroad is located in
Malaysia. As many as 212 Indonesians are presently undergoing trial, and 73
have already been sentenced.
The HRWG viewed the death penalty is the ultimate denial of the right to life,
a violation of fundamental human rights.
(source: tempo.com)
BANGLADESH:
Bangladesh Police have proved their ability in combating militancy as the
investigation by the department ensured death penalty of 62 top militants,
Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque said.
"Of the 62 militants, 6 have already been executied and 56 others are awaiting
penalty as their trial procedure is underway in different courts including High
Court and Appellate Division," said the police chief.
IGP was addressing the inauguration of CCTV security in Dhaka Metropolitan
Police's Lalbagh division at the central auditorium of Jagannath University
(JNU) on Tuesday. JnU Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Mizanur Rahman presided over
the ceremony while DMP Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah was the special guest.
/ IGP also said that they had been able to show their success unearthing many
clueless cases, like the double murder of Xulhaz Mannan and Tonoy that took
place at Kalabagan area in the capital recently.
"Around the killing spot, there was no close circuit television camera (CCTV)
installed, however, we have successfully detected the perpetrators. And now
drives are underway to arrest the criminals," the IGP said.
(source: Dhaka Tribune)
SRI LANKA:
Death penalty handed down to Chilaw man over the muder of his wife
Chilaw Magistrate's Court has handed down the death penalty to a man who locked
his wife in a room and set fire to her body.
Magistrate Ravindra Amal Ranaraja thus sentenced a father of 3 from Galawatte
area in Chilaw.
The crime has taken place in 2007, and after the case was taken up on courts he
was released on bail. He has later married again.
(source: Hiru News)
UGANDA:
Kasiwukira murder case stalls over lack of witnesses
The trial of three suspected killers of slain city businessman Eria Ssebunya
Bugembe alias Kasiwukira was on Monday stalled at the High Court in Kampala
following the absence of prosecution witnesses in court. The widow of the slain
businessman Sarah Nabikolo, 62, her cousin sister Sandra Nakungu, 36, and a
police officer Ashraf Jaden, 40, who were charged for allegedly murdering
Kasiwukira were further remanded to Luzira Prsion.
Speaking during the proceedings, which was held in the Judge's chamber,
Principal State Attorney, Samali Wakooli asked court to halt the proceedings,
citing lack of witnesses.
"The case had been fixed today for further hearing, but we are not ready
because the witnesses did not turn up in court," She requested.
Meanwhile, her request was not objected by the defence lawyers who included
MacDusman Kabega, Ladislaus Rwaakafuzi and Leonard Kasibante.
This prompted the presiding Judge, Wilson Masalu Musene, the head of Criminal
division of the High Court to postpone the hearing of the case.
At the moment, over 17 witnesses have testified against the accused persons.
Clad in formal black dress and a pink jacket, Nabikolo looked confident before
the presiding judge as his clerk interpreted the court proceedings in Luganda.
The trio was indicted with the offence of murder contrary to section 188 and
189 of the Penal Code Act (PCA). Any person who is convicted of murder faces a
maximum penalty of death.
Prosecution alleges that Kasiwukira was on October 17, 2014 reportedly murdered
at about 6:00am in Muyenga diplomatic zone.
(source: newvision.co.ug)
IRAN:
Mohammad Reza Haddadi Remains in Danger of Execution----The May 31st execution
order for Mohammad Reza Haddadi was stopped, but he remains in imminent danger
of execution.
Hossein Ahmadiniaz, the lawyer for Mohammad Reza Haddadi, has reportedly
announced that the execution order for his client has been stopped pending a
judicial review. However, prison officials have told Mohammad's father that his
son's execution order has been stopped temporarily and will be carried out 2
days from now.
According to close sources, Mohammad Reza Haddadi's execution was scheduled to
be carried out early morning on Tuesday May 31st. "I went to see the plaintiffs
on my son's case file and begged them to stop his execution. They said they
will delay his execution for 3 days. I was informed by the prison officials
that Mohammad's execution will be carried out 3 days from now," says Mohammad's
father to Iran Human Rights.
Mohammad Reza Haddadi was born in 1987 and has been imprisoned since 2002. He
along with 2 older boys, who were both reportedly over the age of 18, were
arrested by Iranian authorities for allegedly stealing a car and murdering a
man. Mohammad had initially confessed to the murder, but retracted his
confession in court, claiming that he only accepted responsibility for the
murder because his 2 co-defendants had offered to give his family money and
also because they convinced him that he would not be sentenced to death since
he was under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offense.
Due to the conflicting information regarding the fate of Mohammad Reza Haddadi,
Iran Human Rights calls on the international community to continue drawing
attention to his case until there is official confirmation on his situation.
"As long as there is no official announcement made on his case by Iranian
authorities, Mohammad Reza Haddadi remains in imminent danger of execution. We
urge the international community to call on Iranian authorities to quash the
death sentences for more than 160 juvenile offenders in Iranian prisons," says
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson for Iran Human Rights.
(source: Iran Human Rights)
BAHRAIN:
Appeals court upholds death sentence for police killers
The Terror Crime Prosecution Chief Advocate General Ahmed Al Hammadi said the
High Court of Appeals today upheld death and lifetime sentences pronounced by a
lower court against defendants for killing 3 officers.
The defendants were found guilty of placing an explosive device to target
police forces in the Northern Area on March 3, 2014, that killed
first-lieutenant Tariq Mohammed Al Shehi and policemen Mohammed Raslan and
Ammar Abdou Ali Mohammed.
The court ruled the execution of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th suspects and a life in
jail term for the 1st suspect and the 5th to the 10th suspects.
The court also revoked the citizenship of the 1st 8 suspects, and ordered all
suspects to re-pay collectively for the damage incurred from the incident.
The suspects had lured the police forces to the location of the blast through
rioting that necessitated the intervention of the public order servicemen.
The suspects detonated the device as the police force arrived, resulting in the
death of three officers and the injuries of 13 others.
Investigations carried out by the public prosecution indicated that the first
and second suspects had formed a terror group as part of the so-called Saraya
Al Ashtar terrorist organisation.
They succeeded in recruiting the other suspects who had experience in making
and using explosives and in acts of rioting with the purpose of forming groups
that undertake terror attacks against policemen, destruction of vital security
installations to undermine public order and to prevent the authorities from
carrying out their work.
The suspects made several explosive packages and held several meetings during
which they prepared their criminal plot to achieve the goals and purposes of
the group.
As part of their terror plot, they agreed to use a funeral procession and laid
explosives attached to remote detonation devices in different locations where
in they knew the forces would gather to maintain public order. They lured the
forces to the locations of the explosives with the purpose of causing the
biggest number of causalities among them.
The suspects during the previous night placed 3 explosives on the road and
tasked the 4th suspect to detonate the 1st which killed the 3 policemen. They
assigned other members of the group who are still at large to detonate the 2nd
and 3rd under the supervision of the 3rd suspect while the 5th suspect would
photograph the location and the rest of suspects would monitor the situation.
On March 3, 2014, they faked the rioting to lure the police forces to the
location. The 4th suspect followed the police arrival from the top of a
building and as soon as the servicemen arrived he detonated the explosive using
a mobile phone.
The suspects could not detonate the 2 other explosives as the 2nd package was
affected by the 1st blast and since none of the policemen has approached the
location of the 3rd explosive.
The prosecution referred the 8 suspects, 3 in absentia, to the 4th High
Criminal Court.
The case was deliberated during the sessions of the Criminal Court which
listened to their defence arguments. The court enabled them to present all
aspects of their defence arguments.
The court listened to the Public Prosecution's argument in conclusion of which
it demanded the maximum penalty be meted out on the suspects. The court issued
its sentence after it found the suspects guilty.
The court relied in its verdict on the firm evidence presented by the Public
Prosecution that the suspects had committed the crimes ascribed to them,
including reliance on witnesses' testimonies, seized materials and tools used
in making the explosives found in possession of the suspects, including
evidence of communications found in the phone of 1 of the suspects on the day
of the incident.
The court also relied on technical reports including traces of human cells of
one of the suspect on the explosives placed on the location of the crime.
Under Bahrain's law, the case can be taken to the Cassation Court for the
ultimate ruling.
(source: Bahrain News Agency)