FEATURED POST

Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

Published
Image
On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 

In impassioned plea, Bali Nine member Myuran Sukumaran calls for second chance, asking simply “Please show us mercy”

Published
Myuran Sukumaran
DEATH row inmate Myuran Sukumaran has vowed that his spirit will not be broken by the decision to send him to the firing squad.

In an impassioned plea through a friend, the 33-year-old Bali Nine drug runner called for a second chance, asking simply “Please show us mercy”.

He told a News Corp Australia crew inside Indonesia’s Kerobokan jail for a religious ceremony that he was doing all right despite hearing only a day earlier that his last chance at beating death row, Presidential clemency, had been rejected.

The Sydney man attended the ceremony for a short time and exclusive News Corp photos show Sukumaran spending time in the art workshop, where he has set up and runs art classes and other rehabilitation programs for fellow prisoners.

In a decision signed on December 30 and delivered to Sukumaran on Wednesday, Indonesia’s President, Joko Widodo, rejected his clemency plea.

Sukumaran’s Australian lawyer, Julian McMahon, said the case was not about jeopardising a relationship but about highlighting Sukumaran’s rehabilitation.

“This is not a discussion about jeopardising relationships. What is needed is for our Government, presumably behind closed doors, to fully explain the rehabilitation of Sukumaran. This is such a meritorious argument that it enables our Government to ask humbly, for some clemency,” Mr McMahon said.

“I have full confidence the Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister will do their utmost to win this argument.”

Speaking through friends, Sukumaran told of the misery that his close knit family is suffering and pleaded with Indonesian authorities to look beyond his crime to the good rehabilitative work he is doing behind bars.

“We have been living under the shadow of death for so long and it’s killing my family. It’s eating slowly, it’s a miserable way to live. I feel completely lost about this decision and really don’t know.

“But I won’t let them break my spirit. I will keep doing what is right and at the end of the day when I stand before judgment I will be judged on who I am and what I’ve done,” Sukumaran said.


Source: news.com.au, January 8, 2015

Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com
Location: Indonesia
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

Published
Image
On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 
Read more

Utah requests execution of death row inmate

Published
Image
SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah requested on Tuesday that a man who’s been on death row for almost 25 years be executed. Taberon Honie was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother in 1999. In the death warrant application, the state’s lawyers said Honie used up his appeals and there is no longer any legal reason to stop Honie’s execution.
Read more

Alabama SC approves second nitrogen gas execution

Published
Image
The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the execution of a second inmate by nitrogen gas, months after the state became the first state to put a person to death with the previously untested method. Justices granted Attorney General Steve Marshall’s request for an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, who survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt.
Read more

Cuba Maintains Capital Punishment to "Deter and Intimidate"

Published
Image
Aware that only the use of terror and force keeps it in power, the Cuban regime makes it clear that if necessary, it will not hesitate to kill. HAVANA TIMES – Inflation, misery, the lack of medicine, and power outages, which were the triggers for previous demonstrations, are worsening daily in Cuba. Given the possibility that these protests may occur again, the regime has threatened the death penalty for those who participate in demonstrations considered “illegal.”
Read more

North Texas jury sentences killer to death penalty for shooting Burleson woman, cop

Published
Image
A jury of 12 Johnson County residents voted Thursday to send 31-year-old Jerry Elders to death row for the murder of Robin Waddell, agreeing with prosecutors who requested the death penalty. The defense argued for life in prison without parole, saying Thursday morning that Elders’ actions came after a lifetime of drug addiction and going in and out of jails and prisons, being kicked out of his family home as a teenager and not receiving support from family members.
Read more