Two beheaded in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia beheaded 2 Saudis convicted of murder in the western city of Taif on Tuesday, the interior ministry said.

Khalid al-Harthy was found guilty of shooting a man dead following an angry dispute, the ministry said in a statement on the official SPA news agency. Fayez al-Subaie was convicted of shooting a man dead in a separate incident in the city, the ministry said.

The executions were carried out after the sentences were upheld by the Court of Cassation and a panel of the Supreme Judicial Council, it added.

The beheadings brought to 62 the number of executions carried out in the kingdom so far this year, according to an AFP count.

Under the strict version of Islamic sharia law enforced in Saudi Arabia, the death penalty can be imposed for rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking.

Last year, Saudi Arabia put 102 people to death.

Source: Agence France-Presse, Nov. 10, 2009

Russia ponders whether to resume executions

Russia's Constitutional Court began deliberating on whether to restore the death penalty after a 13-year moratorium on executions expires in less than 2 months.

Whatever the court decides is likely to provoke heated debate in Russian society, which is split between those who back complete abolition and those who believe the death penalty deters serious crime.

Russia retains capital punishment in its criminal code but has observed the moratorium since 1996.

After 2 hours of hearings that included speeches by representatives of the president and parliament, the court's 19 judges began closed-door discussions. A spokeswoman for the court said it could take a month to reach a decision.

President Dmitry Medvedev's representative to the Constitutional Court said that "scrapping the death penalty is one of the goals of the judicial reforms being carried out in the country", hinting, however, that it could still take time.

"The position remains unchanged," Mikhail Krotov said during the court's session. "The position of the state and the head of state is a stage-by-stage abolition of capital punishment."

Medvedev (pictured), who has made establishing the rule of law his top priority, faces a surge in serious crime and increased violence in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus.

The President must also take account of public opinion. Surveys show that between 65 and 74% of Russians favour resuming executions, carried out before the moratorium by a pistol shot to the back of the head.

On January 1, 2010, the volatile Caucasus region of Chechnya will become Russia's last region where juries will replace traditional panels of judges in courts, clearing the final formal obstacle to the death penalty's return.

A set of 1990s laws stipulated that the death penalty cannot be applied until the introduction of jurors in all regions.

Russia committed itself to scrapping the death penalty in 1997, when it signed a protocol to the European convention on human rights. But it has never ratified the document, citing strong public opposition at home to the move.

"Despite the fact that Protocol Six (to the European convention) has not yet been ratified, the Russian Federation is obliged to abstain from applying the death penalty until its full abolition," Alexander Kharitonov, who represents the Duma lower house of parliament in the Constitutional Court, told the court.

Russia's close political and military ally Belarus is the only country in Europe and the former Soviet Union to execute prisoners. Human rights group Amnesty International estimates that about 400 people have been executed since Belarus gained independence in 1991, including 4 last year.

Source: TVNZ, Nov. 10, 2009

Iran: Ehsan Fattahian hanged early this morning

According to reliable sources in Iran, the Kurdish political prisoner Ehsan Fattahian was hanged in Sanandaj today [Nov. 11, 2009].

The numerous campaigns by the local and international human rights groups to stop his execution did not give any result. He was executed in the prison of Sanandaj this morning.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights said "Our thoughts go to Ehsan’s family and friends and all those who are struggling for abolition of death penalty worldwide. We condemn strongly Ehsan’s execution. Iranian leaders must know that hanging and torture will not solve their regime’s massive problems, and they will eventually be held responsible for their acts".

Source: Iran Human Rights, Nov. 11, 2009

Virginia: Sniper John Allen Muhammad executed

Jarratt, Virginia (CNN) -- Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad was executed Tuesday by lethal injection, a Virginia prisons spokesman said.

The mastermind behind the Washington-area sniper attacks of 2002 that terrorized the nation's capital was declared dead at 9:11 p.m. ET, said Larry Traylor, director of communications for the Virginia Department of Corrections.

"There were no complications; Mr. Mohammad was asked if he wished to make a last statement," Traylor told reporters outside the the Greenville Correctional Center. "He did not acknowledge this or make a last statement whatsoever."

In fact, Mohammad, 48, said nothing from the time he entered the death chamber accompanied by guards at 8:58 p.m., Traylor said.

"After he was placed on the gurney and strapped down, he was very emotionless," Traylor said.

A curtain was drawn and a volunteer team of executioners inserted two catheters -- one in each arm -- through which the drugs that caused his death were to flow, Traylor said.

At 9:06 p.m., when the curtain was drawn back, "They asked him right after that, 'Mr. Muhammad, do you have any last words?' " recalled Jon Burkett, a reporter for WTVR who witnessed the execution from the second row of the gallery.

"He didn't say anything. At 9:07 you could see him twitch a lot. You could see him blinking a lot. You could see his breathing increase." After about seven deep breaths, at 9:08 p.m., he lay motionless, Burkett said.

Three minutes later, a physician working for the Department of Corrections pronounced him dead.

In a statement read on behalf of the lawyers for and family of Muhammad, defense lawyer Jon Sheldon said, "We deeply sympathize with the families and loved ones who have to relive the pain and loss of those terrible days; our sympathies also extend to the children of John Muhammad who, with humility and self-consciousness, today lost a father and a member of their family.

"To all those families and the countless citizens across the country who bore witness and continue to do so to those tragic events, we renew our condolences and we offer our prayers for a better future."

Among the witnesses were about a dozen members of the prosecution task force.

"He died very peacefully, much more than most of his victims," said Paul Ebert, the Virginia prosecutor who won the death penalty conviction. "I felt a sense of closure, and I hope that they did, too."

Bob Meyers, whose 53-year-old brother Dean was shot dead while pumping gas in Virginia, called Tuesday's spectacle "surreal."

"Watching the life be sapped out of somebody intentionally was very different and an experience I'd never had," he told CNN's "Larry King Live."

"I'd watched my mother die of natural causes, but that was very different."

He said he may have attained some closure, "but I would say that pretty much was overcome just by the sadness that the whole situation generates in my heart. That he would get to the place where he did what he did, and that it had to come to this."

Meyers said he has forgiven Muhammad for two reasons: "One is that God calls for me to do that in the Bible, and the second thing is related to that. If I don't, it rots me from the inside out. It doesn't really hurt John Muhammad or anybody that I have bitterness against."

The execution came hours after Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine denied a last-minute clemency request Tuesday for Muhammad.

Kaine's announcement came a day after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case.

During three weeks in October 2002, Muhammad and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, then 17, killed 10 people and wounded three, while taunting police with written messages and phoned-in threats and demands.

During two trials and in years of appeals, Muhammad had professed his innocence. One of his trials included testimony from Malvo, whose youth excluded him from consideration for the death penalty

Muhammad's attorney had argued his client was not given sufficient time to file his final appeal, but said Tuesday -- after the high court and the governor declined his request for a stay -- that he would make no further efforts to delay the matter.

In a written statement issued earlier Tuesday, lawyer Sheldon accused Virginia of racing to "execute a severely mentally ill man who also suffered from Gulf War Syndrome the day before Veterans Day."

Muhammad met Tuesday with J. Wyndal Gordon, his former stand-by attorney in his Maryland trial, in which he represented himself.

"His attitude was strong, it was sturdy," Gordon told reporters. "Mr. Mohammad maintains his innocence in this case, and he always has. He is not remorseful, although he does extend his condolences to the families. What these families went through is tragic in every level. Given the injustices in this case, what Mr. Mohammad went through is equally as tragic."

Gordon said he does not consider Mohammad to be insane. "However," he added, "I am not a psychiatrist or a psychologist."

The lawyer said Muhammad's last meal was "chicken and red sauce, and he had some cakes."

Muhammad, who opted not to select a spiritual adviser, met during the afternoon with his immediate family and lawyers, said Traylor.

Muhammad leaves four children and two ex-wives, both of whom appeared Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live."

Muhammad's first wife, Carol Williams, showed a letter in which he asked her to visit him on his execution day. "Carol, I miss my family for the past eight years," he wrote, referring to the time he has been incarcerated. "I don't want to be missed the day that these devils murder my innocent black ass."

Asked about his father, Lindbergh Williams said his feelings about the death penalty had not softened with the approach of the execution. "If you commit a crime, you can pay the time," he said.

Asked whether he believes his father regrets what he did, the younger Williams said, "Yes, I really do."

Mildred Muhammad, the sniper's second ex-wife and the mother of three of his children, told CNN on Monday that she last saw him in 2001 at a custody hearing and had not sought to visit him in prison.

"I had emotionally detached from John when I asked him for a divorce," she told CNN. "And my emotions were severed when he said that you have become my enemy and as my enemy, I will kill you."

She has asserted that she was her ex-husband's target, and she blamed the first Gulf War for changing his personality.

"He went from someone who was always happy, that knew what direction he was going in, and was focused, to a person that was totally confused, depressed all the time, and didn't know how to do or get to where he wanted to be."

She said he never received counseling after his return to the United States.

But lawyer Gordon disputed her account, saying that Muhammad "was absolutely not affected by his time in the Gulf War. We did discuss that."

Source: CNN.com, Nov. 10, 2009

Texas: Yosvanis "El Cubano" Valle executed

HUNTSVILLE, Texas—A Cuban-born man identified as a leader of a Hispanic prison gang has been executed for the robbery-slaying of a Houston drug dealer more than 10 years ago.

Yosvanis "El Cubano" Valle (VY'-yae) denied fatally shooting 28-year-old Jose Martin Junco at a Houston home in June 1999 but said there was little he could do to avoid lethal injection. On Tuesday evening, 34-year-old Valle became the 21st inmate executed in Texas this year.

Court documents showed the June 1999 holdup was a test devised by Valle to see if a gang member had the courage to shoot Junco.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles last week rejected a request from Valle's lawyers that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison.

Source: AP, Nov. 10, 2009

Virginia set to execute 'Beltway sniper'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- John Allen Muhammad (pictured), the mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks that terrorized the suburbs of the nation's capital, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening at a state prison near Jarratt, Virginia.

Muhammad continued to profess his innocence during two lengthy trials -- including one featuring testimony from young accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo -- and in several years of legal appeals.

He repeated his assertion that he was an innocent victim of racial bias in a letter to the federal court released last week by his attorneys. Muhammad charged that police and prosecutors "lied to the American people" about his case and withheld evidence that could clear him.

The Supreme Court denied Muhammad's appeal on Monday, meaning he is likely to be executed at Greensville Correctional Center at 9 p.m..

If Muhammad enters the death chamber without acknowledging his crimes, he will be known as the leader of one of the most enigmatic mass murder teams in history: Muhammad -- a Gulf War veteran who was described as a "gentle man" by acquaintances; and Malvo, a young Jamaican and "A" student on a desperate search for a father figured.

Prosecutors say Muhammad, fueled by grudges against the Army and his ex-wife, plotted the cross-country shooting rampage, culminating in a killing spree in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C..

During three weeks in October 2002, Muhammad and Malvo killed 10 people and wounded three, while taunting police with written messages and phoned-in threats and demands.

It could have been much worse. During Muhammad's second trial in Maryland, Malvo testified that Muhammad originally planned to kill up to six people each day for 30 days.

Indeed, after killing five people during the first 24 hours, the sniper team began the second day scouting for locations for another barrage of shootings. But, concerned about possible witnesses and the lack of escape routes, they slowed their deadly pace.

Prosecutors say Muhammad intended the killings to provide a smokescreen to cover up his real goal; he hoped to kill his wife Mildred and gain custody of his three children.

Defense attorneys and some supporters say Muhammad is mentally ill, and suffered post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during his service in the first Gulf War.

Defense attorneys released a scan of Muhammad's brain which they say shows signs of brain damage to both the front and rear of his brain, consistent with schizophrenia and other brain dysfunction.

Though Muhammad worked with explosives in the Army, his weapon of choice for the killing spree was a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle and .223 ammunition, usually fired from close range from the trunk of an old Chevy Caprice. Muhammad cut a hole in the back of the car, and removed a wall between the trunk and the back seat, turning the car into a sniper's nest.

But several of the shots were fired outside the vehicle, including the shot that wounded 13-year-old student Iran Brown, the youngest of the victims, and bus driver Conrad Johnson, 35, the last victim.

The investigation was marked by a high-level of involvement from local, state and federal law enforcement. But it was also marked by missed opportunities.

An early focus on white box trucks -- one was seen speeding near the scene of one shooting -- meant reports of a Chevy Caprice were ignored or discounted.

Another missed opportunity came when investigators found a note in a baggie tacked to the tree of a shooting site. The note instructed police to answer a nearby phone at a certain time. But by the time police processed the baggie for fingerprints and DNA, the appointed time had passed.

In notes left at shooting scenes, the snipers demanded $10 million to stop the shootings.

The big break in the investigation came when an Army friend of Muhammad's called authorities to voice his suspicions.

Muhammad and Malvo were captured at a Maryland rest stop, but were transferred to Virginia because of the state's aggressive use of the death penalty.

Ultimately, Muhammad was convicted of capital murder and terrorism charges for killing Dean Harold Meyers, a Vietnam veteran cut down by a single bullet that hit him in the head October 9, 2002, as he filled his tank at a Manassas, Virginia, service station.

Muhammad also stood trial in Maryland, and was convicted of six murders there.

Malvo was tried in Virginia for the October 14, 2002 murder of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, 47, outside a Home Depot in Fairfax County, Virginia. A jury sentenced Malvo to life in prison after defense attorneys said Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the murders, was brainwashed by Muhammad.

Malvo testified against Muhammad at Muhammad's Maryland trial, calling him a "coward."

"You took me in your house and you made me a monster," Malvo testified. Malvo, now 24, is serving time in a Virginia prison.

Malvo said the Washington killings were "phase one" of a three-phase plan. In subsequent phases, Malvo said, Muhammad planned to use $10 million to create a utopian community for homeless people in Canada, at which young people would be trained to go launch additional attacks in the United States.

But whether that was Muhammad's real intent is still a matter of conjecture.

Some acquaintances believe that after Muhammad recovered his children, he planned on killing the one witness who could provide the most threatening testimony against him -- Lee Boyd Malvo.

Source: CNN.com, Nov. 10, 2009

Somalia: man stoned to death for adultery; pregnant lover spared until she gives birth

November 6, 2009: Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth.

Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of Merka.

An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby.

Islamist groups run much of southern Somalia, while the UN-backed government only control parts of the capital.

This is the third time Islamists have stoned a person to death for adultery in the past year.

Al-Shabab official Sheikh Suldan Aala Mohamed said Mr Abdirahman had confessed to adultery before an Islamic court.

"He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving," an eyewitness told the BBC.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that if the woman is also killed, her baby would be given to relatives to look after.

Source: BBC, 06/11/2009

"Todd Willingham was a good friend of mine here who died a horrible death for a crime he did not commit."

Below is an excerpt from Hank Skinner's "Hell Hole News #17" (October 15, 2009).

Mr. Skinner (pictured left) discusses at length his relationship with Cameron Todd Willingham, a fellow inmate then sitting on Texas death row for the murder of his three infant daughters.

Todd Willingham was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, on February 17, 2004.

For additional information on Todd Willingham's case please refer to David Grann's piece "Trial by Fire. Did Texas execute an innocent man? " published in the September 7 edition of The New Yorker.

"In this issue I want to talk a bit about Todd Willingham (pictured below with daughter). He was a good friend of mine here who died a horrible death on 02-17-04 for a crime he did not commit. I’m sure you all have read or heard the news of the Craig Beyler report or David Grann’s New Yorker story about Todd’s innocence? Well, I’d known it since I first met Todd in late 1996. I came out on the rec yard and there’s this guy sittin’ in the lil’ corner spot I usually occupy cuz it’s got a good wind draft, away from the pryin’ pig snouts of the swine, so I can smoke a leftie and chill.

He’s sittin’ there lookin’ like a dam about to burst, tears welling up in his eyes, tryin’ to get a breath, but he just ain’t makin’ it. The tears spill. I see this man is in a profound state of distress. When the dam bursts, great heaving, wracking sobs come out of him, moans like I’ve never heard a human make, except those grieving over a just lost loved one, maybe.

I’m “Hey dude. What’s up? You o.k.?” Todd: “Yeah. I can’t talk about it. I just need to be alone, o.k.?” This swine sticks his head up to the screen of the open cellblock window and says, “Hey, Willingham! You ain’t gotta worry about your kids burning no more! They’re in pieces, takin’ a swim in the toilet! We put ‘em out cuz you couldn’t, you piece of shit! Ha/ha ha/ha ha-ha-ha!” They were in there “searching” his cell, tore up photos of his kids and flushed ‘em.

This day marked the moment I got introduced to the reasons I have come to call Texas Death Row a “hell hole”. We were at the Ellis Unit, then. There was a cabal of really sick swine there on 2nd shift, all out of Corsicana and Waxahachie, who terrorized Todd all his days at Ellis – especially on the anniversary of the deaths of his children and their birthdays. This happened because Todd’s ex-wife was sleeping with one of those officers and she manipulated him to get the others to join in. She denies it, but it’s true.

I’ve read “Judge” John Jackson’s “Guest Commentary” out of the Corsicana Daily Sun August 29th, 2009. This is the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. Not a single thing Judge Jackson says is any proof that Todd committed any crime at all.

Judge Jackson says Todd, at the funeral looking down into the casket of his oldest daughter, said, “You’re not the one who was supposed to die” and implies it was because Todd intended to kill the twins. That simply is not true.

Todd and I spent a lot of time together at Ellis. We visited together with our pen-pals, my pastor and his wife, and Todd’s parents. When they killed Todd I was on death watch with him.

Todd and I had a lot in common. He’s born the same year as my lil’ sister and we grew up in almost identical, parallel lives. He in Oklahoma, me in Virginia.

I think/feel Todd always believed his wife killed his kids and meant to kill him, too. He just wouldn’t openly voice that belief, for whatever reasons he had. I believe he thought it would amount to snitching. But as I told him, whenever someone attacks and accuses you, you have the right and a duty to defend yourself. Todd tho’, was an absolutist in many of his beliefs and, I think he still held residual love in his heart for his ex-wife; although I know he equally hated her for what she did to him, too. From what Todd told me, he believed his ex-wife intentionally left the baby’s blanket against the space heater on her way out the door to run errands, with the intent to kill both him and the children.

Todd and I talked a lot about this issue. When my first daughter was born she somehow bonded to me instead of her mama. When we brought her home from the hospital she wouldn’t sleep anywhere but on my chest with her face against my neck, in the crook, and her arms wrapped around my neck. Even my mama noticed that she’d really light up when I came in the room and her eyes followed my every movement. She’d start cooing, gurgling, kicking and giggling until I’d go pick her up. I taught her to crawl, to walk, to talk. Her first words were “da-da” and “patty cake” because I always played that with her.

My wife felt left out and got resentful, said I didn’t love her anymore and started acting out, did all kinds of stuff to hurt me, to get back at me because she felt I’d abandoned her. I got put in jail for fines and while there she secretly divorced me and got my parental rights terminated by declining child support. Then she left my daughter in her grandmother’s care so I couldn’t get to her and she went out partying with all my male friends, sleeping with them and throwing it up in my face, flaunting it in front of me every chance she got. I had to get away from her so I moved first to Savannah, Georgia – then to Missouri and on to Texas.

Todd had a similar situation with his wife. He became so wrapped with his kids that she felt neglected and like he didn’t want her any more. He said she accused him of that, often. He took refuge in the kids. I read a book that says this sort of dynamic develops often in people who marry young and have kids. A baby is a huge responsibility. With me, I’d helped my mama raise my little sisters, so I was well versed in Baby 101 and I became smitten with my daughter and took over. I see my mistakes very clearly now, but I was blind to them, then. I should’ve spent time with my wife and involved her more, too. But I was only 19 and just overwhelmed with being a dad for the first time. A baby’s love is total and, totally consuming, too.

Judge Jackson says Todd stomped his wife’s stomach, trying to cause a miscarriage. That was a tale his wife told, I think, but I do not believe, there was any validity to it. It’s been too long for me to remember all the specifics, but I think Todd caught her messing around on him and when she came up pregnant there was a question of paternity that led to fights.

They’re two young, wild, partying, rock-n-roll hillbilly kids. Hormones are strong at that age and it takes two to tango. Sure they fussed and fought.

Todd felt guilty over his kids deaths because he’d been drinking, he didn’t wake up soon enough; when he did, he was still groggy, half-drunk, hung over and not on top of the situation. When he tried to stand up and his hair caught fire, it scared him badly. Survival instinct took over and he ran for the door. He said when he opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, air really rushed into the house, he heard a big “whommmpp!!”and felt compression. It blew him out into the front yard. He felt he should’ve kept trying to get the kids out before he opened the door but the smoke was so thick and choking and he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He was starting to see stars.

Incidentally, that’s why there was no smoke inhalation noted on his blood gases test – he told me the smoke was so thick, oily and black he knew if he tried to take a breath he’d die then and there.

There was no question Todd loved his kids. When his wife’s lover’s harassments got bad, from him and his friends, Todd had his mom make multiple duplicates of his photos of his kids and family, so that when they destroyed them, he’d just ask his mom to send new ones. If any of you out there had seen what I have and knew how Todd suffered all the years he was on death row, you’d know Todd Willingham did not kill his kids. No way. That man cried for those kids until the day he died and I know because I was on death watch with him!

More telling is his final statement: “The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit and for the last 12 years I have been persecuted for something I did not do”. That’s paraphrased from memory but I believe it’s complete and correct. Then he said something like, “From the dust of the earth I came and to dust I shall return, so the earth will become my throne. Hang in there, Road Dawg”. That last sentence was directed to Troy Kunkle, “TKO”, Todd’s #1 best friend forever here.

I’d begged Todd to tell what he knew, to save his life, up until the night before his execution. But he told me that with them claiming accelerants were used and it being his wife, their mama, a woman potentially involved, nobody would believe him. I see now, that is true. He also said it’s possible she accidentally left blankets or something too close to the heater but he believed it was knowing. After his statement and prefacing it with “The only” then cussing his wife until he died, I think it’s pretty clear what he believed.

10-21-09

Well….. I’d quit writing on this for a moment to deal with some other matters. Meanwhile the mail came and, lo and behold, here’s Todd’s wife in an affidavit just after his death, saying he confessed guilt. First of all, let me tell you how I know what she says in this affidavit and story 10-15-09 by Janet Jacobs in the Corsicana Daily Sun “Affidavits Dispute Claims of Innocence” is an outright fabrication and lie by the Kuykendalls.

I was out there with Todd during his visit with her. We’d discussed at length trying to get her to make an admission we could use. So I was keen on it and watching her. I listened to what he told her; as Allan Turner wrote in his story about Roy Pippin (which was a lie) I was “eavesdropping on their conversation”. Todd was intentionally talking loud enough for others to hear.

Here’s her story based on what I overheard: “She stated that after visiting him for about an hour and 45 minutes he told her he set the fire because he knew she was going to leave him in January ’92 like she said and that she was going to divorce him and he figured if he did this she would stay with him and she could get her tubes untied and they could start another family and that he wanted her to write the [parole] board a letter because he did not want to die”.

Todd (pictured left on Texas death row) was far from retarded. He had plenty enough sense to know, if he made the above sort of statement it’d seal his fate. Besides that, it doesn’t even make any sense. Why would Todd think killing his own kids would bring their mother back to him”? You know, most women look up to their men as their partner and protector. Probably, especially with this girl’s co-dependent mentality, even if she didn’t know the first thing about how it really happened she’d be resentful toward him for failing to save their children.

After reading this story and knowing what I do, I am more convinced than ever that Stacy Kuykendall is a liar, that she killed those kids and meant to kill Todd, that she was cheating on him, that she was going to leave him and that she kept close to those officers who terrorized him all those years because she had to be vigilant in case Todd ever began making waves and telling it on her. Todd did ask her to make a confession and write a letter to the parole board alright, but about her own guilt, not his. He told her she could say it was unintentional . He just wanted her to tell the truth. That’s why she came to see him, to see whether he was of a mind to tell it on her. That’s why she told that story and wrote an affidavit; she was trying to head Todd off at the pass, in case he actually made a statement on the gurney which implicated her. That’s why she wanted it in the record.

I have to admit, at the time I somewhat doubted Todd was telling me the truth. It’s just hard to believe a mother would kill her own kids. However, because of the dynamic extant in that house, she viewed them as “Todd’s kids” and was as resentful toward them as she was toward him, because she felt left out, abandoned by them.

Two other things;

One, Todd told me he moved the car off the carport for very practical reasons. It had a half tank of gas in it and would’ve blown up soon as the fire got to it. It was just common sense. Being a mechanic myself, I can easily see him thinking that way. When you’re in the shop and about to weld something or use a cutting torch, you get all flammable solvents and liquids out of the area, other combustibles, etc. When you’re welding underneath a car, on the frame, etc., you’re very conscious of the gas lines, brake lines and such. Todd was a mechanic.

Two: the refrigerator by the back door – the back door of that house was flimsy and one of the locks busted, Todd told me. He said they’d put the upright freezer against the door to keep people out, not to trap people inside as the state alleged. That was rather stupid of them to allege, anyway. Todd was the only adult in the house at the time of the fire so, he wanted to block himself in?

When Todd told me things over all those years and we discussed it for hours on end, I never imagined it would end up like this. Unbelievable."

Hank

999143 Polunsky Unit
H. W. Hank Skinner
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351-8580, USA
e-mail: hwskinner@yahoo.com

Source: NEW HELL HOLE NEWS #17 - OCTOBER 15, 2009

Texas resists family's effort to clear executed man's name

Ardmore, Oklahoma (CNN) -- Cameron Todd Willingham's family here in Oklahoma never believed he set the fire that killed his three daughters.

"We could not even imagine it," his cousin, Patricia Cox, recounted recently. "That was completely ludicrous to us."

But 16 days after the fire, Willingham was arrested. And within a year, he was on death row. On February 17, 2004, he was strapped to a gurney in a Texas prison and given a lethal injection, proclaiming his innocence to the end.

The story of how Willingham -- Todd, to his family -- went from a home on a shady street in Ardmore to the death chamber is a tale of science and skull tattoos, of last-minute hopes raised and dashed. It is a story wrapped up in allegations that the governor who let the execution go forward is now trying to derail an investigation into whether Texas put an innocent man to death.

And in Ardmore, where Willingham's baby shoes still sit on a desk in the house where he grew up, the family that fought to save his life is still trying to clear his name.

The fire started about 10 a.m. on December 23, 1991. Willingham, then 23, was asleep in the wood-frame home (pictured) in Corsiana, Texas, that he shared with his wife and children. Stacy had gone out to buy presents for 2-year-old Amber Kuykendall and the 1-year-old twins, Karmon and Kameron Willingham.

Money was tight

Times were tough for the couple. Todd, who'd worked as a mechanic, at an auto-parts store and for a glass company, was unemployed and the couple was behind on bills.

Willingham told investigators that Amber woke him up when the fire broke out, and he told her to get out of the house. He said he then crawled on the floor into the children's room to find the twins, but failed.

Christmas was spent making funeral arrangements. Stacy's family blamed Todd for the children's deaths "because he couldn't get them out," said his stepmother, Eugenia Willingham. "There was so much friction in the air."

People in Corsicana took up a collection to help the family. Donations helped pay for gravestones and a plot in an old cemetery downtown. But to police, the grieving father was starting to look like a murderer.

He told different stories about how he escaped the fire. He said he thought Amber was in the children's room, which had a baby gate at the door, but her body was found on his and Stacy's bed. His injuries didn't match what he told investigators about his efforts to rescue the girls. Witnesses at the scene said Willingham wouldn't go back into the house once he escaped, but took care to move his car away from the burning home.

"The actions he took were not the actions of someone with a kid burning up and him right outside," said Sgt. Jimmie Hensley, the lead investigator for Corsicana police.

Despite Willingham's complaints about a faulty microwave and squirrels in the attic, firefighters found no sign of electrical issues that might have caused the fire. A space heater in the children's bedroom was off, and the gas line that fed it had no signs of a leak. But they did find burn patterns on the walls and floor that were considered signs some sort of flammable liquid was used to start the blaze, as well as patterns of cracked glass that were considered a sign of arson.

Meanwhile, detectives began to hear about Todd's fights with Stacy, including claims he once beat her in order to cause a miscarriage. Police said he told his mother-in-law that he believed he would be blamed for the deaths because of "unusual marks" on Amber's neck.

Willingham was arrested January 8, 1992, the day before his 24th birthday. He told his stepmother, "I don't have a chance down here."

'He didn't go quietly'

Todd was an outsider in Corsicana, a town about 60 miles south of Dallas. Stacy's family had deep roots there, and he'd moved there to be with her after a stretch in an Oklahoma boot camp for a probation violation.

As a teenager, Todd had started huffing paint and dropped out of school. He'd been on probation for burglary, theft and driving under the influence and did a few days in a county jail for carrying a concealed weapon.

"He was certainly defiant and rebellious, as teenagers sometimes are in high school," Cox said. But his probation officer "took a special interest in him. I think she saw in him, too, that he was a child of inopportunity."

Todd's father, Gene, ran an auto salvage yard in Ardmore, an oil patch town with a sharp line between rich and poor. He took custody of the 13-month-old boy after his ex-wife abandoned him as an infant, and he and Eugenia raised him.

Eugenia Willingham acknowledges that Todd and Stacy had a "stormy" relationship, and that Todd told differing stories in the days after the fire. But she added, "I don't think he really knew what he did. I'm sure he was in shock." And before his execution, he admitted he hadn't gone back inside after his first attempt to find the children.

"He just didn't want people to think he didn't try," she said. "Of course, they thought that anyway."

Willingham's August 1992 trial lasted three days. Prosecutors had offered him a chance to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but he refused.

The Willingham family raised money for his attorneys and for a new suit for the trial, only to hear prosecutors mock Todd as "a baby-killer dressed up like a lawyer," Eugenia said. Witnesses called him a "sociopath" incapable of rehabilitation and suggested the tattoo of a skull on his left shoulder, combined with his fondness for heavy-metal bands like Iron Maiden, indicated a bent toward Satanism -- a claim that still rubs the family raw.

Quick verdict

The jury took less than an hour to find him guilty of capital murder. Eleven and a half years later, his appeals exhausted and pleas for clemency denied, he was headed for the death chamber. His relatives last saw him less than an hour before the execution.

"He told us he had 55 minutes until he'd be a free man," Cavnar said. But when a prison doctor came to check on him, Todd told him, "I'm not going to die on you. You're going to have to kill me."

After the execution, a prison chaplain told the family, "Todd went, but he didn't go quietly."

Stacy was the only one of his relatives to view his death. Though she stood by him during the trial, forcing prosecutors to question her as a hostile witness, she filed for divorce soon after he went to death row. Eventually, Willingham's family said, she came to believe he was guilty -- and as his execution drew near, she refused to allow him to be buried alongside the children.

Witnesses said Todd died cursing her, saying he hoped she would "rot in hell."

"I am an innocent man," he declared, "convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do."

His body was cremated. Despite Stacy's wishes, his family snuck into Corsicana to scatter some of his ashes on the girls' graves.

"We weren't in the cemetery 10 minutes before everyone knew it," Eugenia Willingham said.

Efforts to reach Willingham's ex-wife for this story were unsuccessful. But in a statement issued to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in October, she said Willingham confessed to killing the girls during a visit about two weeks before his execution.

"He said if I didn't have my girls I couldn't leave him and that I could never have Amber or the twins with anyone else but him," her statement reads. "He told me he was sorry and that he hoped that I could forgive him one day."

She had never reported that confession before, and told the Corsicana Daily Sun in 2004 that her ex-husband was sticking to his account of the fire. And Willingham's family disputes the account, his stepmother said.

Cox said the Willinghams have tried to be sensitive to Stacy's family -- but "there's a loss up here not of three lives, but four."

Governor's shakeup draws new scrutiny

In the years between Willingham's trial and execution, Cox tried to get television crime shows interested in her cousin's case. One show, in 2002, featured Gerald Hurst, a chemist and explosives expert in Austin, Texas.

"All I had was a town," she said. "So I got on the Internet and I sent six letters out to attorneys who handled arson cases."

One of those lawyers responded with a phone number for Hurst, but Cox said no one answered when she called -- "Not even voice mail." But Todd still had appeals, and it "wasn't critical," she added. After several more unsuccessful efforts, she moved on.

By late 2003, it was critical. The U.S. Supreme Court refused the last of his appeals. His execution date was set for February 2004. Cox had started lobbying the governor's office for a reprieve, and she decided to make one "last desperate attempt" to reach Hurst in early January 2004.

"I just simply picked up the phone again, and he actually answered. I couldn't believe it. I think I was speechless."

With just weeks remaining before the execution, Hurst agreed to look into the case. He concluded that the indicators investigators pointed to as evidence of arson had been rendered obsolete since 1991, and "would be considered invalid in light of current knowledge."

The family was elated by the report. But, Cox said, "It got better before it got worse."

Hurst's report went to the state Court of Criminal Appeals. In a two-page order the day of Willingham's execution, it ruled the report "does not meet the requirements for consideration" as new evidence of innocence.

It also went to the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, which denied a request for clemency, and to Gov. Rick Perry, who could grant only a 30-day stay of execution without the parole board's authorization. None moved to stop Todd's execution.

"We just ran out of time," Cox said. "Todd ran out of time. We all ran out of time."

Innocence Project weighs in

But since 2004, two more reports have backed up Hurst's findings. The first was delivered in 2006 by the Innocence Project, which seeks to clear prison inmates it believes were wrongly convicted. That led the Texas Forensic Science Commission to mount its own investigation.

The commission hired Craig Beyler, chairman of the International Association for Fire Safety Science, to review the evidence against Willingham. And Beyler's report, filed in August, determined that the finding of arson in the Willingham fire "could not be sustained." The investigators who testified the fire was deliberately set "had poor understandings of fire science and failed to acknowledge or apply the contemporaneous understanding of the limitations of fire indicators," it states.

In a 21-page rebuttal, the Corsicana Fire Department says it stands by its original conclusions. Hensley dismissed the reviews as "Monday-morning quarterbacking" by experts unfamiliar with all the evidence.

"I'm firmly a believer that justice was served," Hensley said.

But opponents of capital punishment say the Beyler report has brought Texas eyeball-to-eyeball with the uncomfortable prospect of admitting it had put an innocent man to death. And they say Perry -- a Republican facing a tough primary challenge in March -- blinked.

Shakeup stalls probe

Two days before the Forensic Science Commission was to question Beyler in a public forum, the governor replaced its chairman and two other members whose terms were up. That forced the commission to delay the hearing so new members could read up on the case, and no new date has been set. Perry has since replaced a third member of the commission.

The governor defended the replacements as routine, and says he remains confident of Willingham's guilt. He told reporters in October that Willingham was a "monster" whose conviction was upheld repeatedly by the courts.

But the shakeup has become an issue in his re-election campaign, and a state Senate committee has a hearing scheduled Tuesday to question the Forensic Science Commission's new chairman about his plans for the case.

"I want a status report," state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "He's been there a month."

Back in Ardmore, the Willingham family has learned some hard lessons. One is that there's a legal system in America -- "not necessarily a justice system," Cavnar said.

Now that the Texas investigation is in limbo, Cox said she's choosing her words carefully. The investigation "meant everything to us," she said. "We're a little fearful that it's not going to happen."

But she said they're still determined to press the issue -- not just for Todd, but for others on death row who might be in the same circumstance.

Said Cox: "If you don't think it can happen to you, you're wrong."

By Matt Smith, CNN, November 9, 2009

Supreme Court Declines to Block Execution of Washington Sniper

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to block the execution of John A. Muhammad, the sniper who terrorized the region around Washington, D.C., 7 years ago. The step cleared the way for Mr. Muhammad to be put to death on Tuesday unless Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia intervenes.

The courts majority did not comment in refusing to hear Mr. Muhammad's appeal, but three justices objected to the relative haste accompanying the execution.

Justice John Paul Stevens complained that "under our normal practice," Mr. Muhammad's petition for the high court to take his case would have been discussed at the justices' conference scheduled for Nov. 24. But because Virginia scheduled the execution for Nov. 10, the judicial process has been rushed, Justice Stevens said in a statement joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Stevens wrote that, having reviewed the claims offered on Mr. Muhammad's behalf, he did not disagree with the majority's decision to decline review of the case. Nevertheless, he said, because the court declined to stay the execution, "we have allowed Virginia to truncate our deliberative process on a matter involving a death row inmate that demands the most careful attention."

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, upheld the death sentence 3 months ago. In rejecting Mr. Muhammad's appeal, that federal panel said it was "unable to find reversible error in the conclusions of the state and district courts."

Unless Governor Kaine stops the execution, Mr. Muhammad, 48, will be given a lethal injection on Tuesday night for the killing of Dean H. Meyers, an engineer who was shot in the head at a gas station in Manassas, Va.

Mr. Meyers was 1 of 10 people killed in the 3-week shooting shooting spree in Washington, Maryland and Virginia in October 2002. Mr. Muhammad's accomplice, Lee B. Malvo, who was 17 at the time, has already been sentenced to life in prison without parole. The two are also suspected of fatal shootings in Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.

Governor Kaine has promised to review Mr. Muhammad's request, but has signaled that he is not inclined to intervene. "I know of nothing in this case now that would suggest that there is any credible claim of innocence or that there was anything procedurally wrong with the prosecution," Mr. Kaine said several weeks ago during his monthly call-in radio show.

The governor has said that he is personally opposed to the death penalty, but he has allowed a number of executions to take place since he took office in 2006. Virginia has the nation's 2nd-busiest death chamber behind Texas.

Mr. Muhammad's lawyer, Jonathan Sheldon, has maintained that his client was affected by his experiences in the Persian Gulf War. "Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man, who also suffered from Gulf War syndrome, the day before Veterans Day," the lawyer said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Although the three justices' complaints about the haste of the proceedings in Virginia might seem puzzling, given that the killings took place 7 years ago, it is common for many years to go by before a death-row inmate has exhausted all appeals in the state and federal courts. In fact, after the Fourth Circuit ruled against his client in August, Mr. Sheldon said Virginia has the shortest average time from conviction to execution of any state: about 6 years, compared to 12 years in Texas and 18 years in California.

Although 6 of the 10 sniper killings of October 2002 took place in Montgomery County, Md., the attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, decided that Mr. Muhammad and Mr. Malvo would be prosecuted in Virginia because that state imposes the death penalty far more often than does Maryland. The trial was conducted to Virginia Beach, Va., far from the area of the shootings.

The jurors who convicted Mr. Muhammad in November 2003, after a 6-week trial, cited the defendants apparent lack of remorse in deciding to impose the death penalty.

Source: New York Times, Nov. 9, 2009

China executes nine over Xinjiang unrest

China has executed 9 people over deadly ethnic unrest in its far-western Xinjiang region, regional authorities said Monday, the 1st executions since the violence in July.

"The first group of 9 people who were sentenced to death recently have already been executed in succession, with the approval of the Supreme Court," Hou Hanmin, spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government, told AFP.

It was not clear when the executions took place.

According to previous statements by the Xinjiang government, this 1st group consisted of 8 members of the mainly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority and one majority Han Chinese.

China tried and convicted 21 defendants in October -- nine were sentenced to death, 3 were given the death penalty with a 2-year reprieve, a sentence usually commuted to life in jail, and the rest were given various prison terms.

The violence erupted on July 5, pitting Uighurs against members of China's dominant Han group, leaving 197 dead and more than 1,600 injured, according to an official toll.

Han vigilantes then went on a rampage against Uighurs 2 days later, but the exact number of casualties from that day has never been divulged.

The 21 defendants were convicted of crimes such as murder, intentional damage to property, arson, and robbery.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uighur Congress, condemned the executions, saying the Uighurs who were put to death had not been able to meet with their families.

"We regret that the United States and Europe have not adopted effective measures towards China regarding the death penalty issue," he told AFP by telephone from Sweden.

"If they don't continue to put pressure on China, there will definitely be even more Uighurs executed."

Source: Agence France-Presse, Nov. 9, 2009

Nine people executed after China riots

(CNN) -- Nine people have been executed in connection with ethnic riots last July that killed about 200 people in western China's Xinjiang region, the state-run China News Service reported Monday.

The executions occurred "recently," said the service, which added no more information about the executions.

Long-simmering resentment between Uyghurs and Han Chinese flared after a June melee at a toy factory in Guangdong province, leading to the July 5 riots, according to Xinhua.

A massive brawl broke out between the ethnic groups at the factory, resulting in the deaths of two Uyghurs, Xinhua said.

In a rare public display of dissatisfaction, thousands of Uyghurs -- many of whom feel they are treated as second-class citizens by the majority Han Chinese -- took to the streets in Xinjiang province, chanting and screaming.

The Uyghurs are mostly Muslims in Xinjiang province. Some Islamists refer to the region as East Turkistan.

Source: CNN.com, Nov. 9, 2009

Saudi executions raise questions about legal help for convicted overseas

The execution of two Sri Lankans in Saudi Arabia this week has once again raised concerns that Sri Lankans working overseas do not have adequate legal representation when they get into trouble and are convicted for offences.

The two Sri Lankan nationals were beheaded on Wednesday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after being convicted for theft and murder in 2007. The crime is said to have taken place in November 2005. It is alleged that a group of 12 armed persons, including 7 Sri Lankans, had robbed and murdered a Saudi woman. Judgement was passed in June 2007, and 2 Sri Lankans, K. M. S. Bandaranaike and Haleema Nissa Cader, were sentenced to death. Muhammed Naushad Barmil, an Indian national and the husband of Haleema Nissa Cader, was also sentenced to death.

Five other Sri Lankans convicted in connection with the robbery and murder were handed five-year sentences along with 500 lashes. Meanwhile, it has emerged that the defendants had no legal representation during the trial and that the court case was conducted in Arabic, with the accused understanding little or nothing of the court proceedings.

Foreign Employment Bureau deputy director P. G. Yapa told the Sunday Times that the two executed Sri Lankans were registered with the bureau and that they had been given legal assistance by way of document translations.

"We made several appeals to the Saudi authorities, but all our appeals were rejected, with no reasons given," Mr. Yapa said. "We did all we could for the families concerned." Mr. Yapa said the bureau had also facilitated in flying a family member to Saudi to meet the accused, as well as
covering the cost of bringing back to Sri Lanka the child of one of the victims.

The Saudi authorities had made no attempt to inform the Sri Lanka government, the families of the accused, or the media about the date of the execution. Mr. Yapa said this was the usual practice in Saudi Arabia. Once a person is sentenced, there is a period for appeal, and after that the Saudi authorities will execute the accused without informing any of the relevant authorities or family, he said.

The deputy director of the Consular Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the ministry was not obliged to make appeals on behalf of Sri Lankans convicted overseas, but had done so in this instance through the Attorney-General. He confirmed that the ministry's appeals were rejected by the Saudi authorities, and that no further action would be taken on the matter.

"Apart from this case, there are many other Sri Lankan nationals convicted in Saudi Arabia, while hundreds have been charged for brewing illicit liquor. There's very little we can do, especially in a case where the defendants have already made a confession," he said.

According to Amnesty International (AI), which condemns executions, the confessions of the accused in the Saudi case were probably obtained under duress during police interrogations. AI said the accused persons had had no legal representation throughout their imprisonment and trial.

According to AI, 321 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since 2007, 134 of them foreign nationals. At least 106 foreign nationals are awaiting the death penalty out of a total of 137 convicted persons.

Source: The Sunday Times, Nov. 8, 2009

Weighing Life in Prison for Youths Who Didn’t Kill

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — There are just over 100 people in the world serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles in which no one was killed. All are in the United States. And 77 of them are here in Florida.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear appeals from two such juvenile offenders: Joe Sullivan, who raped a woman when he was 13, and Terrance Graham, who committed armed burglary at 16. They claim that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment forbids sentencing them to die in prison for crimes other than homicide.

Outside the context of the death penalty, the Supreme Court has generally allowed states to decide for themselves what punishments fit what crimes. But the court barred the execution of juvenile offenders in 2005 by a vote of 5 to 4, saying that people under 18 are immature, irresponsible, susceptible to peer pressure and often capable of change.

A ruling extending that reasoning beyond capital cases “could be the Brown v. Board of Education of juvenile law,” said Paolo G. Annino, the director of the Children’s Advocacy Clinic at Florida State University’s law school. Judges, legislators and prosecutors in Florida agree that the state takes an exceptionally tough line on juvenile crime.

But they are deeply divided about when sentences of life without the possibility of release are warranted.

“Sometimes a 15-year-old has a tremendous appreciation for right and wrong,” said State Representative William D. Snyder, a Republican who is chairman of the House’s Criminal and Civil Justice Policy Council. “I think it would be wrong for the Supreme Court to say that it was patently illegal or improper to send a youthful offender to life without parole. At a certain point, juveniles cross the line, and they have to be treated as adults and punished as adults.”

A retired Florida appeals court judge, John R. Blue, did not see it that way. “To lock them up forever seems a little barbaric to me,” Judge Blue said. “You ought to leave them some hope.”

Several factors in combination — some legal, some historical, some cultural — help account for the disproportionate number of juvenile lifers in Florida.

The state’s attorney general, Bill McCollum, explained the roots of the state’s approach in the first paragraph of his brief in Mr. Graham’s case.

“By the 1990s, violent juvenile crime rates had reached unprecedented high levels throughout the nation,” Mr. McCollum wrote. “Florida’s problem was particularly dire, compromising the safety of residents, visitors and international tourists, and threatening the state’s bedrock tourism industry.” Nine foreign tourists were killed over 11 months in 1992 and 1993, one by a 14-year-old.

Mr. Snyder, the state legislator, put it this way: “Instead of the Sunshine State, it was the Gun-shine State.”

In response, the state moved more juveniles into adult courts, increased sentences and eliminated parole for capital crimes.

Thomas K. Petersen, a semi-retired judge in Miami who spent a decade hearing cases in juvenile court, said that the state’s reaction was out of proportion and that it has lately failed to take account of changed circumstances.

“Back in the 1990s, there were dire predictions about teenage super-predators, particularly in Florida,” Judge Petersen said. “Florida, probably more than other places because of that rash of crimes, overreacted. It was a hysterical reaction.”

“People still go around saying things have never been worse,” he added. “But violent juvenile crime has gone down even as the juvenile population has grown.”

The state’s brief in Mr. Graham’s case said juvenile crime fell 30 percent in the decade ended in 2004. It attributed the drop to its tough approach.

Shay Bilchik, who served as a state prosecutor in Miami from 1977 to 1993 and is now the director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown, said the state took a wrong turn. “We were pretty aggressive in those years in transferring kids into criminal court,” he said.

He said later research convinced him that his office’s approach was much too aggressive and had not served to deter crime. “My biggest regret,” he said, “is that during the time I was in the prosecutor’s office, we were under the false impression that we were insuring greater public safety when we were not.”

Mr. Sullivan, 34, had committed a string of crimes by the time he was charged with raping a 72-year-old woman after a burglary in 1989 in Pensacola. Mr. Graham, 22, was sentenced to a year in jail and three years’ probation for a 2003 robbery of a Jacksonville restaurant, during which an accomplice beat the manager with a steel bar. Mr. Graham was sentenced to life in 2005 for violating probation by committing a home invasion robbery when he was 17.

Concern about tourism continues to drive crime policy in the state, said Kathleen M. Heide, a professor of criminology at the University of South Florida. “We’re at the more extreme level,” she said, “because our economy is so tied up with people coming here on vacation and feeling safe. And older people want to live out their retirements here and be safe.”

Florida is one of eight states with juvenile offenders serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for nonhomicide crimes, according to a report prepared by Professor Annino and two colleagues at Florida State. Louisiana has 17 such prisoners; California, Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi, Nebraska and South Carolina have the rest.

The number of such sentences in Florida was greater in the decade that ended in 2008 than in the decade before. The state sentenced nine juvenile offenders for nonhomicide crimes to life without parole in 2005 alone. “We’re just so far out from everyone else,” Professor Annino said.

Mr. Snyder said finding the right balance in addressing juvenile crime was difficult but should be left to the states. “People do things at 16 and 17 that they wouldn’t do at 37, but they spend a lifetime paying for it,” he said. “But we have to create an environment where our children are safe and our elderly are safe.”

Source: The New York Times, Nov. 8, 2009

Fort Hood shooting: Barack Obama would have to approve death penalty

US President Barack Obama would have to personally approve the death sentence if Major Nidal Malik Hasan is convicted and sentenced to execution for the Fort Hood massacre.

As a serving officer Hasan, 39, is likely to be tried in a military court in a system ultimately headed by Mr Obama in his role as commander-in-chief.

No member of the US military has been put to death since the 1961 hanging of Army Private John Bennett for rape.

Mr Obama has followed a nuanced line on the death penalty in the past, saying it is not an effective deterrent but should be an option in extreme cases.

In his memoirs he said capital punishment "does little to deter crime" but he supports it in cases "so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment".

Mr Obama and his wife Michelle are due to attend a memorial service in Fort Hood on Tuesday.

The president will be constrained in what he can say. Any comment which prejudges guilt or sentence could later be cited by defence lawyers as "unlawful command influence". That would extend an already lengthy military appeals process.

Hasan, who is still in hospital after being shot 4 times, is expected to be charged with 13 counts of murder.

Under the military legal system the case would be heard by a panel of 12 officers, all of whom have to outrank Hasan.

Navy lawyer Philip Cave, a military crimes defence attorney, estimated that any future appeals process could take up to 15 years.

Military criminal investigators say Hasan is the only suspect in the shootings but he has not yet been charged as they are waiting to speak to him in hospital.

Army Criminal Investigative Command spokesman Chris Grey said Hasan had acted alone. He said: "We have not established a motive for the shootings."

Officials said no evidence of links to terrorist groups, or anyone who might have helped him, had been found on Hasan's computer.

Source: The Telegraph, October 8, 2009