Death Penalty News

Texas executes Rodrigo Hernandez

2012-01-27T01:40:00.002+01:00

Rodrigo Hernandez

A man who had been paroled for an assault in Michigan when his DNA linked him to a years-old murder in San Antonio was executed in Texas on Thursday.

The high court rejected a last-day appeal about two hours before Hernandez was set for lethal injection.

Rodrigo Hernandez faced lethal injection for sexually assaulting and strangling Susan Verstegen, 38, before leaving her body in a San Antonio trash can. Verstegen, a Frito-Lay worker, was stocking snacks at a grocery store when she was attacked in 1994, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office.

Hernandez's DNA wasn't matched to the crime until 2002, when Michigan officials took a sample from him as he was paroled and put it into a national database.

He died by lethal injection at a prison in Huntsville at 6:19 p.m. local (7:19 p.m. EST).

Hernandez said little in the moments before he died.

“I want to tell everybody that I love everybody,” he said. “We are all family, people of God almighty. We're all good. I'm ready.”

As the lethal injection took its course, he said, “This stuff stings man, Almighty.” His relatives there to witness the execution sobbed.

Hernandez is the second person executed in the United States this year following Gary Welch in Oklahoma in January, according to the National Death Penalty Information Center.

Hernandez is the first person executed this year in Texas, which executed 13 people in 2011 and has put to death more than four times as many people as any other state since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the center.

Hernandez told the San Antonio Express-News in an interview published this month he didn't kill Verstegen and will "take that to the grave."

But Verstegen's mother, Anna Verstegen of San Antonio, said this week she hopes Hernandez will, before he dies, feel sorry for what he did to her daughter, who left behind a 15-year-old son.

"It's never too late," she told Reuters. "We're just praying for him. The kind of God I believe in can forgive."

In 2010, Michigan investigators said DNA evidence linked Hernandez to the 1991 murder of Muriel Stoepker, 77, of Grand Rapids, but that he would not be tried since he was on death row in Texas.

Nationwide, the number of executions fell for the second year in a row in 2011, with 43 inmates put to death compared with 46 in 2010 and 52 in 2009, Death Penalty Information Center figures show. In 1999, a record 98 prisoners were executed.

Hernandez becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 478th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1987. He becomes the 239th inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry governor of Texas in 2011; Perry has now been governor for exactly 1/2 of all executions in Texas in the modern era, since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976.

Hernandez becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1279th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

Sources: Reuters, AP, Rick Halperin, DPN Staff, January 26, 2012

Chinese court spares Filipino from execution

2012-01-26T19:47:00.000+01:00

KIDAPAWAN CITY—A Chinese court has commuted the death sentence of a Filipino convicted of drug smuggling in 2008, North Cotabato Representative Nancy Catamco said here Thursday.

Richard Bianan, of Tulunan, North Cotabato, will instead be serving life imprisonment with a two-year reprieve after the Fujian Provincial Higher People’s Court downgraded his sentence for his good behavior and performance.

The commutation was confirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila in a text message by its spokesperson, Raul Hernandez.

Bianan has been imprisoned in Fujian since 2008 following his sentencing by the provincial court there for bringing in one kilo of heroin to China. Chinese authorities had forcibly extracted 91 capsules filled with heroin from his stomach in July that year.

In its verdict, the Fujian court had said it had no reason to doubt that Bianan should be put to death for his offense. But it downgraded the penalty based on the recommendation of the Fujian Provincial Jail Administration Bureau, Catamco said.

She said the Philippine Consulate General in Xiamen, China, also reported receiving a note verbale from the Fujian court that confirmed the commutation of Bianan’s sentence.

Catamco did not say when the decision was made but added that she was informed by Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos Jr. that it was in accordance with Article 50 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China.

“The law mandates that anyone who is sentenced to death with suspension of execution and does not commit intentional crime during the period of suspension, shall receive a commutation of sentence,” she said.

The lawmaker said the foreign office would continue to monitor Bianan’s condition while in prison.

Source: Global Nation Inquirer.net, January 27, 2012 (local time)

Ethiopia: Death penalty for blogger, prison for journalists

2012-01-26T19:37:00.000+01:00

New York, January 26, 2012--A U.S.-based journalist convicted on politicized terrorism charges in Ethiopia was sentenced to death in absentia today, while two other Ethiopian journalists received heavy prison sentences in connection with their coverage of banned opposition groups, according to news reports.

Elias Kifle, exiled Ethiopian editor of the Washington-based opposition website Ethiopian Review, was handed a death sentence in absentia today, which followed a 2007 life sentence given to him also in absentia on charges of treason for his coverage of the government's brutal repression of 2005 post-election protests, CPJ research shows. A court in the capital, Addis Ababa, sentenced Reeyot Alemu, a columnist with the independent weekly Feteh, and Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of the now-defunct weekly Awramba Times, to 14 years in prison and 33,000 birrs (US$1,500), news reports said.

"The death penalty for Elias Kifle and the prison sentences for Reeyot Alemu and Woubshet Taye are based on their writings about political dissent. This verdict has little to do with justice," said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita. "We condemn this politicized prosecution designed to cow critical voices into silence and call on the Supreme Court to reverse all the convictions."

Click here to read the full article

Source: CPJ.org, January 26, 2012

Texas to execute man whose DNA tied him to cold case

2012-01-26T19:07:00.000+01:00

Death Chamber
at Huntsville Unit, Huntsville, TX

A man who had been paroled for an assault in Michigan when his DNA linked him to a years-old murder in San Antonio is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Thursday.

Rodrigo Hernandez faces lethal injection for sexually assaulting and strangling Susan Verstegen, 38, before leaving her body in a San Antonio trash can. Verstegen, a Frito-Lay worker, was stocking snacks at a grocery store when she was attacked in 1994, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office.

Hernandez's DNA wasn't matched to the crime until 2002, when Michigan officials took a sample from him as he was paroled and put it into a national database.

He is due to die by lethal injection at a prison in Huntsville some time after 6 p.m. local (7 p.m. EST).

If Hernandez's execution is carried out, he would be the second person executed in the United States this year following Gary Welch in Oklahoma in January, according to the National Death Penalty Information Center.

Hernandez would be the first person executed this year in Texas, which executed 13 people in 2011 and has put to death more than four times as many people as any other state since the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the center.

Hernandez, 38, told the San Antonio Express-News in an interview published this month he didn't kill Verstegen and will "take that to the grave."

But Verstegen's mother, Anna Verstegen of San Antonio, said this week she hopes Hernandez will, before he dies, feel sorry for what he did to her daughter, who left behind a 15-year-old son.

"It's never too late," she told Reuters. "We're just praying for him. The kind of God I believe in can forgive."

In 2010, Michigan investigators said DNA evidence linked Hernandez to the 1991 murder of Muriel Stoepker, 77, of Grand Rapids, but that he would not be tried since he was on death row in Texas.

Source: Reuters, January 26, 2012

Rick Perry Death Watch -- Perry becomes killingest governor tonight

Texas is slated to carry out its 478th execution since reinstatement of the death penalty.

For Gov. Rick Perry, the scheduled execution of Rodrigo Hernandez this evening will mark a milestone: the 239th execution he's presided over, meaning Perry will have overseen half of all Texas executions, securing his spot as the killingest governor in the U.S.

Hernandez was convicted and sentenced to death for the abduction, rape, and murder of 38-year-old Susan Verstegen, a Frito-Lay saleswoman who disappeared in February 1994 while working a late-night shift. Her body was later found stuffed into a 55-gallon trash can behind a San Antonio church.

Her murder went unsolved for 8 years until DNA found at the scene was matched to Hernandez, who reportedly supplied the DNA sample to jailers in Michigan, where he was incarcerated on an unrelated charge, as a condition of his release.

Source: Austin Chronicle, January 26, 2012

'Texas 7' Fugitive Gets Execution Reprieve

One of the infamous "Texas 7" fugitive gang has won a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court 1 week before his scheduled execution.

Donald Newbury was to die Feb. 1 for his part in the fatal shooting of a Dallas-area police officer. Justice Antonin Scalia granted the reprieve Wednesday.

Attorneys argued that he should be spared while justices consider an Arizona case that questions whether death row inmates are entitled to better legal help during initial appeals. The court already has heard arguments on that case.

Newbury and 6 other inmates fled a South Texas prison 11 years ago in the state’s biggest prison break. He would have been the 2nd of the gang executed for the Christmas Eve 2000 killing of Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins during a robbery.

Source: Associated Press, January 26, 2012

Former Ohio death row inmate Joe D'Ambrosio, finally free, speaks out

2012-01-26T18:47:00.000+01:00

Joe D'Ambrosio
Source: Gamso - For the Defense

Attempted murder. That's what Joe D'Ambrosio wants the prosecutors to be charged with. He says the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office tried to kill him by withholding 10 pieces of evidence at his trial, evidence that could have led to a not-guilty verdict.

Instead, D'Ambrosio sat on Ohio's death row for more than 20 years.

He is finally free.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the state's appeal against him. The ruling wipes D'Ambrosio's legal slate clean.

They can erase the charges but they can't give him back his life.

D'Ambrosio was 26 when the police arrested him on Sept. 26, 1988 for the murder of Tony Klann. He's now 50 with nothing to show for his life except a '97 Ford Ranger with no radio, no air-conditioning and crank windows.

D'Ambrosio is angry at the prosecutors who withheld information, who called him a liar on the stand.

"They had the truth in their files," he said. "They're all guilty of attempted murder . . . . They tried to do to me what they said I did."

Take a life.

What would he like to tell the prosecutors who withheld the evidence?

"I'll see you in court," D'Ambrosio said. "I'm going to use their law to get justice for me."

D'Ambrosio plans on filing a civil lawsuit.

He has always proclaimed his innocence. He maintains that he was in his apartment the night Klann was killed. At the time, Sgt. Joseph D'Ambrosio had been honorably discharged from the Army after four years. He had no criminal record.

D'Ambrosio took the stand at his trial in front of a 3-panel judge. He'd grown up watching Perry Mason. He expected his attorney to prove his case. He expected to walk out free.

One word changed his life forever:

Guilty.

"I was floating over my body looking down over the defense table and judge," D'Ambrosio said. "It was like a dream – no, a nightmare."

In prison, he clung to his faith. God sent him a Catholic priest, who happened to be a registered nurse and an attorney.

Father Neil Kookoothe, pastor at St. Clarence Catholic Church in North Olmsted, was visiting an inmate on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution. The inmate told him to see the guy in the next cell who was probably innocent.

D'Ambrosio asked Father Neil to read his court transcript. The priest read it in one night.

Father Neil looked D'Ambrosio straight in the eye and said, "Tell me you didn't do this. If you ever, ever lie to me, I will drop you like a hot potato."

Joe looked him dead in the eye and said, "I did not kill Tony Klann and had nothing to do with it."

With the help of the priest and endless attorneys, the guilty verdict unraveled. It took over 20 years.

What was D'Ambrosio's worst day on death row?

Pick a day, any day. The day they came to tell him his mom had died. The day he found out the Ohio Supreme Court denied his retrial. Every day locked in a cell with one tiny window and solid wall with a slot big enough for the food tray to pass through. Every day he wasn't allowed to touch another human without a glass wall or fence or phone between them.

What kept him sane?

"My belief in God and my innocence," he said.

When Joe was released from prison 2 years ago, every time he came to a door he waited. That's how it worked in prison. The guards opened the doors, not the inmates.

Freedom still amazes him. To be able to vote, to see the sky. He hadn't seen stars in 20 years.

He got his best night sleep on Monday, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision. He watched it on a computer with Father Neil, then he went home and slept for 12 hours.

Joe D'Ambrosio will never get the apology he deserves from the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office. They still insist he is guilty and believe they could have proved it at another trial.

Rick Bell, criminal investigations chief for the prosecutor's office, insists that D'Ambrosio was not exonerated.

"To use the word exonerated is a misrepresentation," he said Tuesday. "He has not been found innocent."

But in this country's legal system, we are each presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. That court tossed out the guilty verdict, so D'Ambrosio is innocent.

Bell couldn't tell me why prosecutors withheld those 10 pieces of evidence.

He did share changes that have been made in the prosecutor's office but insisted that those changes were made since Joe's case, but not because of it.

The office created a case management system where each prosecutor is ethically responsible for his or her own case files from beginning to end instead of having many prosecutors touch each case file.

The office switched to an electronic case management system so every scrap of paper is date-stamped and placed electronically in the file and retained forever. This allows the prosecutors to see what was provided to defense attorneys.

Joe D'Ambrosio is the 6th person on Ohio's death row to be set free and the 140th inmate on death rows across America to be exonerated.

His future is a mystery. He moved back to North Royalton where he grew up.

He's got no pension, no retirement. He'll get $35 a month in Social Security.

"I didn't pay into it. I have zero," he said. "I have my truck and my apartment. They took everything from me."

He works as a subcontractor doing odd jobs. He hopes a civil lawsuit will compensate him for the missed years of work.

If he could peer into the future, what would he like to be?

He paused for a long moment before answering:

"Happy, I hope."

Source: The Plain Dealer, January 26, 2012

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Condemned Ohio man claims innocence in arson death

2012-01-25T14:58:00.000+01:00

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A death row inmate convicted of starting a fire that killed his 3-year-old son says new arson science backs up his claim of innocence.

Michael Webb is trying to stop his execution, scheduled for next month. He's seeking mercy from the Ohio governor, saying a leading arson expert can prove the 1990 fire could have been set anywhere in the house, and not just near a closet or bathroom.

Webb's attorneys made their plea Tuesday morning to the Ohio Parole Board, which will make its recommendation to Gov. John Kasich, who has the final say, next week.

At the heart of the state's evidence against Webb was testimony from the Goshen Township Fire Chief Virgil Murphy that evidence from the fire on Nov. 21, 1990, showed it could only have been set near a bathroom or closet, based on where the majority of the fire damage was. Webb told investigators he was standing outside the bathroom.

Webb's attorneys submitted an analysis by Austin, Texas-based arson expert Gerald Hurst that said the fire chief relied on methods that 20 years of arson science have deemed unreliable.

Hurst said it's impossible to say in a fire where gasoline is spread through a house where the blaze began.

"Thus, we now know, to a scientific certainty, that it is impossible to determine in this case where the gasoline vapors ignited," Webb's attorneys said in their filings to the parole board.

The state says that all Hurst's analysis proves is the fire could have been set anywhere in the house, not that it eliminates the site near the bathroom as the origin.

Webb's attorneys concede this point, saying the report does not exonerate their client.

Webb's attorneys say police failed to follow up properly on reports that a boyfriend of one of the daughters might be responsible, and that he later boasted about responsibility for the fire and had a jacket that smelled of gasoline.

Prosecutors say the police investigation disproved the claim of a boast, and couldn't verify a witness' claim that the boyfriend's jacket smelled of gasoline. Webb's attorneys point out police never located the jacket.

Hurst's conclusions about the unreliability of previous arson investigations are backed up by a major shift in fire analysis that began in the early 1990s.

Click here to read the full article

Source: DeseretNews, January 24, 2012

Mother asks Europe to save son from Belarus execution

2012-01-24T16:55:00.000+01:00

Dmitry Konovalov
and Vladislav Kovalyov

(Reuters) - Lyubov Kovalyova, a Belarussian receptionist, was listening to the radio at work in April when she heard that her son had confessed to helping plan a terrorist attack - a bomb in a metro station in the capital Minsk which killed 15 people.

Eight months later, after a two-month trial, her son - who says he is innocent - and a childhood friend were condemned to death, a sentence delivered in Belarus by a pistol shot at an unannounced time.

In a race to gain a reprieve, Kovalyova is taking her case to European institutions, and is also campaigning to abolish the death penalty in her country, the only one in Europe still to practise it.

She met the EU sub-committee on human rights last week. On Monday she spoke in Strasbourg to the Council of Europe, an international organisation promoting human rights and the rule of law. On Tuesday she was scheduled to appear at the European Parliament in Brussels.

"The focus now is to secure the life of my son," Kovalyova said at the weekend. "The ultimate goal is to get a moratorium on the death penalty."

Click here to read the full article

Source: Reuters, January 24, 2012

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Egypt parties refuse to abolish death penalty, protect women's rights, end discrimination

2012-01-24T16:40:00.001+01:00

CAIRO — Many Egyptian political parties, especially dominant Islamist groups, have refused to commit to protecting women’s rights and to abolishing the death penalty, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

“Most of the biggest Egyptian political parties have committed to delivering ambitious human rights reform in the country’s transition, but have either given mixed signals or flatly refused to sign up to ending discrimination, protecting women’s rights and to abolishing the death penalty,” Amnesty said.

The London-based rights watchdog had contacted 54 parties running in Egypt’s first post-revolution parliamentary elections to sign a “human rights manifesto” containing 10 key pledges.

“It is disturbing that a number of parties refused to commit to equal rights for women,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s interim director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“With a handful of women taking up seats in the new parliament, there remain huge obstacles to women playing a full role in Egyptian political life,” said Luther.

The Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, which won most seats in parliament, did not respond to meeting requests nor give feedback on the manifesto, Amnesty said.

The ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nur party, which came second, “agreed orally to all pledges with the exception of the abolition of the death penalty and protection of women’s rights,” it said.

The Free Egyptians party, founded by telecom magnate Naguib Sawiris, did not respond to meeting requests nor comment on the manifesto.

Only two small parties, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party and the Popular Socialist Alliance Party, signed up to all the pledges which also include ending the state of emergency, combatting torture, ensuring fair trials and upholding freedom of association and expression.

Ten parties agreed to the majority of the pledges, but stopped short of committing to women’s rights and/or discrimination, Amnesty said.

The first parliament since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak convened on Monday, with only 10 women deputies.

“We challenge the new parliament to use the opportunity of drafting the new constitution to guarantee all of these rights for all people in Egypt. The cornerstone must be non-discrimination and gender equality, Luther said.

Elections for parliament’s upper house, the Shura Council, are to begin later this month and end in February. Then the two chambers will choose a 100-member panel to draft a new constitution.

Sources: AFP, Khaleej Times Online, January 24, 2012

Iraq’s execution of 34 people in one day ‘shocking’ – UN human rights chief

2012-01-24T16:31:00.001+01:00

24 January 2012 – The United Nations human rights chief said today she was shocked at reports that 34 people were executed in Iraq in a single day last week and called on the country to institute an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

“Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay stated in a news release.

“Given the lack of transparency in court proceedings, major concerns about due process and fairness of trials, and the very wide range of offences for which the death penalty can be imposed in Iraq, it is a truly shocking figure,” she added.

The 34 individuals, including two women, were executed on 19 January following their conviction for various crimes, according to the UN human rights office (OHCHR).

The total number of individuals sentenced to death in Iraq since 2004 is believed to stand at more than 1,200. The total number actually executed since then is not known, although at least 63 individuals are thought to have been executed in the past two months alone.

The death penalty can be imposed in Iraq for around 48 crimes, including a number of non-fatal crimes such as – under certain circumstances – damage to public property.

“Most disturbingly,” said Ms. Pillay, “we do not have a single report of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact there are well documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress.”

She called on the Government to implement an immediate moratorium on the institution of death penalty, noting that around 150 countries have now either abolished the death penalty in law or in practice, or introduced a moratorium.

The High Commissioner also urged the Government “to halt all executions and, as a matter of urgency, review the cases of those individuals currently on death row.”

Source: UN News Centre, January 24, 2012

U.N. rights chief shocked at numerous Iraq executions, says number is ‘terrifying’

The top United Nations human rights official criticized Iraq on Tuesday for carrying out a large number of executions, including 34 on a single day last week, and voiced concern about due process and the fairness of trials.

“Even if the most scrupulous fair trial standards were observed, this would be a terrifying number of executions to take place in a single day,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, in a statement referring to executions carried out on Jan. 19.

At least 63 people are believed to have been executed since mid-November in Iraq, where the death penalty can be imposed for some 48 crimes including a number related to non-fatal crimes such as damage to public property, Pillay said.

“Most disturbingly, we do not have a single report of anyone on death row being pardoned, despite the fact there are well documented cases of confessions being extracted under duress,” she said.

Iraq executed 12 people on Nov. 24 for their involvement in the 2006 killing of 70 people at a wedding in central Iraq, the justice ministry said.

“Carrying out this execution against such bold criminals is deemed a deterrent that could prevent the repetition of such crimes in the future,” Major General Hamid al-Moussawi, a senior justice ministry official, said at the time.

Pillay, a former U.N. war crimes judge, called on the Iraqi government to impose an immediate moratorium on the death penalty, saying some 150 countries had either abolished it or introduced a moratorium.

Iraq should “halt all executions and, and a matter of urgency, review the cases of those individuals currently on death row,” she said.

Source: alarabiya.net, January 24, 2012

Trinidad and Tobago: Government working to implement death penalty

2012-01-24T15:16:00.000+01:00

January 22, 2012: Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says Government will work to implement the death penalty in Trinidad as part of a serious crime reduction tool.

Persad-Bissessar was delivering an address yesterday at the Ministry of National Security Planning Workshop organised by the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) yesterday at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel, Port of Spain.

With 30 murders in the first 21 days of the year, she said Government is aware of the upsurge in the homicide rate although it has been reduced significantly from 2009 to 2011.

“Despite the fact the statistics for 2011 reveal a decrease in homicide and serious crime, Government is appalled at the brutal nature of the crime. The cautious optimism with which we viewed last year’s statistics…should not be misinterpreted as complacency,” she said.

She said because of this the People’s Partnership government is prepared to use all the resources including the death penalty to vigorously pursue and contain criminal activity.

“To this end my government is committed to implementation of the death penalty which remains part of the laws of Trinidad and Tobago… We shall continue in our effort to facilitate the re-implementation of the death penalty so it might both punish the guilty and deter the would-be offenders,” she stated.

She said regrettably the Constitution Capital Offences Bill 2011 which required a special majority in Parliament did not receive the support of some members.

She said her Government that had introduced 11 other pieces of legislation to aid in combating, including the Abolishing of the Preliminary Enquiry Act, the DNA Bill among others.

Persad-Bissessar said since her Government took office back in May 2010, it had been attempting to address “the tsunami of crime that has hit Trinidad and Tobago”.

“We have pledged to the people of this country that we are going to rid the country the scourge of criminal elements which have been allowed for too long to thrive and prosper on the decent, innocent and hard-working people,” she said.

She added that the Government was compelled to admit that criminal violence occurred too regularly.

Earlier in her address, Persad-Bissessar crime and violence threatened the welfare of citizens and economic growth.

Minister of National Security John Sandy said the workshop was aimed at developing a policy where the Caribbean Basin becomes a safer and more secure place to work, live and do business.

Attending the workshop were United States Ambassador Beatrice Welters, Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs and various Government MPs.

Source: Trinidad Express, January 22, 2012

U.S. Supreme Court sends much-needed message to Alabama about how it treats poor defendants charged with capital crimes

2012-01-24T00:14:00.001+01:00

The U.S. Supreme Court sent the state of Alabama at least two messages last week when justices ruled against the state in the case of Death Row inmate Cory Maples, who missed a deadline to appeal after his lawyers dropped his case without telling him.

First, the high court made clear the state and courts were wrong in denying Maples his day in court. Maples missed a 42-day window to file an appeal after a state court judge ruled against his claims of ineffectiveness of counsel and other problems at trial. But the missed filing was through no fault of his own. Two pro bono lawyers had abandoned Maples' case without notifying him or the state. Copies of the trial court's order sent to them at their old law firm were returned unopened to the court clerk, who did nothing.

"Abandoned by counsel, Maples was left unrepresented at a critical time for his state postconviction petition, and he lacked a clue of any need to protect himself pro se," the court said in its 7-2 ruling. "In these circumstances, no just system would lay the default at Maples' death-cell door."

But Alabama's system did blame Maples. Which brings us to the court's second, and more important message: Our state's system of capital punishment is not a just system.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who delivered the opinion, made that clear in her criticism of how the state provides -- and in some cases doesn't provide -- lawyers for poor defendants charged with capital crimes.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Editorial, Birmingham News Editorial Board, January 23, 2012

Uganda: Anti-Gay Bill Doesn't Make Sense, Mbeki Says

2012-01-23T23:44:00.001+01:00

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki has hit out at Ndorwa West MP David Bahati's anti-gay Bill, telling a public audience in Kampala that what two consenting adults do in private "is really not the matter of law."

The visiting former head of state's comments will come as a boost to the crusaders of gay rights in Uganda. Mr Mbeki, a guest of the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR), issued the comments during a three-hour public question and answer session on Thursday evening debating post-cold war Africa and why the continent is reliant on external interventions in dealing with local issues.

Mr Bahati's Anti-Homosexuality Bill, first tabled in the 8th Parliament, is currently collecting dust on the shelves of the 9th Parliament following wide international uproar in large part for a clause that seeks to hand down the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, including the spreading of HIV/Aids.

Mr Mbeki said apartheid South Africa prohibited sexual relations "across the colour line" aided by The Immorality Act which handed the police legal ground to raid "people's bedrooms" before dragging them to court for prosecution.

Click here to read the full article

Source: allAfrica.com, January 22, 2012

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Court: Man freed from Ohio death row after 2 decades can't be retried

2012-01-23T22:39:00.002+01:00

Joe D'Ambrosio
Source: Gamso - For the Defense

A man held for more than 21 years on Ohio’s death row – whose conviction was thrown out by a federal judge after ruling that prosecutors withheld potentially exculpatory evidence -- cannot be tried again in the case, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

The state had wanted the court to review a ruling last August by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of former inmate Joe D'Ambrosio, according to The Associated Press.

D’Ambrosio was convicted of murder in the death of Tony Klann, 19, whose body was found in a Cleveland creek in 1988. A federal judge ruled in 2006 that prosecutors had not turned over evidence that could have led a panel to find him not guilty and threw out his conviction. D’Ambrosio was freed in 2009, the same federal judge barred his re-prosecution in 2010 and a county judge dismissed the charges against him in 2011, according to The Plain Dealer.

"Today was 23 years in the making,” D’Ambrosio said in a statement. “Justice has finally prevailed."

D'Ambrosio is the 140th former death row inmate to be exonerated since 1973 and the sixth from Ohio, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

“What this case clearly shows is that the death penalty system in Ohio with all of its safeguards still makes mistakes and I think we’re just relieved that Joe D’Ambrosio had some extraordinary attorneys who worked tirelessly for … 20, 30 years to prove that he was not guilty,” Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Execution, told msnbc.com.

“This is a moment that really should give Ohio officials pause because right now they’re fighting over the lethal injection process and how those rules are or are not followed at the same time that the state Supreme Court has commissioned a task force to assess how fair and accurate is the death penalty system, and I think Joe D’Ambrosio’s case is a pretty clear indication that the death penalty system is not working,” he added.

Joe D’Ambrosio has just become the 140th death row exoneree, and the sixth man exonerated from Ohio’s death row. Joe was wrongfully convicted of murdering 19-year old Anthony Klann in Cuyahoga County in 1989. Following a 2006 ruling that overturned his conviction, Joe was eventually freed in March 2010 and all charges were dismissed.

Since March 2010, prosecutors and the attorney general’s office have been appealing the dismissal but appeals courts have upheld the ruling. The exoneration is made official because today (January 23, 2012) the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal by prosecutors.

Ohioans to Stop Executions and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty welcome Joe to freedom, and congratulate everyone on the legal team and everyone else who has stood by Joe and advocated for him all of these years.

Now it is time to Take Action!

Joe D’Ambrosio’s conviction was overturned because Cuyahoga County prosecutors withheld ten pieces of evidence that would have exonerated D’Ambrosio at his 1989 trial and implicated another man in the crime. Instead Joe spent twenty-one years on Ohio’s death row for a crime prosecutors knew he did not commit.

It's crystal clear that executions must stop in Ohio. No one should be executed under a system of justice while that very system is being closely examined to assess its fairness and accuracy.

This exoneration comes at a time when Ohio is already examining the many aspects of Ohio's capital punishment system. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor recently established a Joint Task Force for this purpose which has just begun its work. The Joint Task Force should be allowed to operate without the undue pressure of ongoing executions. Currently, Ohio has at least six executions scheduled over the next year.

Today, Ohioans to Stop Executions again calls on Governor John Kasich to issue an immediate moratorium on all executions until the Ohio Supreme Court’s Joint Task Force completes its thorough review of Ohio’s death penalty system.

Please join us in sending a strong message to Governor Kasich that he should issue a moratorium on executions. Click here to send a message to Governor Kasich, and then follow up your action by picking up the phone and calling him at 614-466-3555 to say, “It’s time to stop executions in Ohio!”

Sources: Msnbc.com, The Associated Press, National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, January 23, 2012

Tunisia: Human Rights Activist President to Abolish Death Penalty?

2012-01-23T22:17:00.000+01:00

January 20, 2012: General amnesty was recently granted to thousands of detainees in Tunisian prisons in honor of the first anniversary of the Tunisian Revolution. 122 of those granted amnesty were prisoners sentenced to death, who had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

Though the Tunisian human rights activists and associations perceive this decision as a positive step toward the abolition of the death penalty in Tunisia, many have asserted that this action is not enough.

Lutfi Azouz, director of Amnesty International in Tunisia, expressed his belief that this an important step, but that anything short of full abolition is inadequate.

“The death penalty in Tunisia should be abolished. The government maintains the law to use it when they need it. When we met with Moncef Marzouki, he promised that he will not sign any execution order while serving in office, and that he will work toward abolishing the act. We all know that he is a human rights activist,” stated Azouz.

Azouz also explained that since the revolution, Tunisia has been proactive in implementing policies that respect the human rights of its citizens. However, Azouz stressed that no genuine democracy has the death penalty. “We believe that the government’s role is to reform, not to kill in the name of law,” said Azouz.

Anouar Kousri, member of the Human Rights League (LTDH), stated that league has been calling for the elimination of the death penalty since Ben Ali’s regime. “Marzouki was a former president of our association, and what he did was a positive step. We expected this from him. The Constituent Assembly has the power to abolish the death penalty,” Kousri stated.

“We believe that the death penalty is about punishment not reform. Tunisia is a civil, democratic society that believes in the right of life and reform, not punishment,” he added.

Source: tunisia-live.net, Hands Off Cain, January 21, 2012

Algeria demands death sentence for top Qaeda boss

2012-01-22T21:25:00.000+01:00

Algerian prosecutors on Sunday requested the death sentence for Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top leader in Al-Qaeda's north African branch, and another person in a trial on the deaths of 2 Algerian soldiers.

Belmokhtar and nine co-defendants, of whom 4 are also on the run, are accused of perpetrating several "terrorist acts" including a May 2010 attack on soldiers in the southern Djelfa region that left 2 dead.

Belmokhtar, a native of central Algeria, is a founding member of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which later became known as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

He heads one of AQIM's 2 main katibas (battalions), controlling the group's southern area.

Prosecutors also sought capital punishment for Abdelkader Benchneb, the chief accused present in court. They urged 15-year jail terms for the others, defence lawyer Hassiba Boumerdessi said.

Algeria has observed a moratorium on capital punishment since 1993.

A ruling was due later Sunday.

Nicknamed "the uncatchable," Belmokhtar rules over a large swathe of desert that straddles Algeria, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania and where his men are believed to hold several Europeans hostage.

Belmokhtar has already been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in 2004 and 2008, and to 20 years in prison in 2007, over similar charges and the killing of 13 customs officers.

In November Belmokhtar told a Mauritanian news website that AQIM had acquired Libyan weapons during fighting that ended in the overthrow and killing of strongman Moamer Kadhafi.

He said AQIM was still demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the release of its French hostages.

On January 2, an Algiers court sentenced Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, the leader of the other key AQIM katiba who is also on the run, to life in prison for creating "an international terror group".

Source: Africasia.com, January 22, 2012

'I AM TROY DAVIS'

2012-01-22T19:22:00.000+01:00

In September 2008, I checked in at the media table outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia to cover the scheduled execution of death row prisoner Troy Davis. As an activist guised as an independent photojournalist, I was seeking access to the prison grounds with my camera, which is normally not allowed except for news media. As the prison guard copied down information from my driver's license and press badge, he muttered something that I could not understand. Or maybe it was that I was just nervous and distracted. I said, "Sorry, what did you say?" And he repeated very quietly, almost under his breath, without looking up from the paperwork, "I just hope the truth comes out."

Fortunately, Troy's 2008 execution did not happen. The Supreme Court of the United States intervened a mere 90 minutes before the lethal drugs started flowing to say they wanted a lower court to hear the purported "truth."

3 years later, the truth was by all means "out." Troy Davis, who was convicted of the 1989 murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia, has consistently maintained his innocence from the beginning. The truth we now know is that there was absolutely no physical evidence against him. And since his trial and conviction, all but 2 of the state's non-police witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony, citing pressure or coercion by police into testifying or signing false statements against Troy.

The fight to save Troy Davis went mainstream. Even supporters of the death penalty knew this one was wrong - that Troy Davis's case contained too much doubt. This country was at risk of carrying out an irreversible sentence against a possibly innocent man - something very few people were willing to accept.

Under a massive campaign led by Amnesty International, the world listened, and the world overwhelmingly responded. One-million people worldwide signed petitions calling on the State of Georgia to grant clemency to Troy Davis on the basis of his innocence. One-million people. Thousands organized, marched in the streets, rallied and protested. During global days of action, protests were held in front of U.S. embassies in France, Mali, Hong Kong, Peru, Germany and the UK. In Atlanta alone, over 4,000 marched one Friday in September. Prominent politicians and leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter, Rev. Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing.

The truth was out: the world would not remain silent as Georgia prepared to kill a possibly innocent man. But there was resistance from a few. Georgia's courts and its Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to hear the truth. Unfortunately these were the people who needed to hear it more than anyone else. They had the very real power to save Troy's life. But ultimately the courts discounted the new evidence of innocence, and the Georgia Board denied clemency. Despite international consensus, Troy Davis was back in line for execution.

On September 21, 2011, almost 3-years to the day of that near-execution in 2008, I found myself back at the media check-in table. Troy Davis's fourth execution date in 4 years had been scheduled.

Unlike other states, in Georgia the press are kept in a separate area from the protesters. Reasons probably vary, but the most obvious reason for the division is to give privacy to the prisoner's family. In this case, Troy's immediate family was in the crowd, having decided to not witness the execution themselves in the death chamber, but to stand with their supporters on the prison grounds, separated from the media by a single strand of yellow "police line" tape. Also, while news media are allowed cameras on the grounds, the protesters are not, so there is a clear segregation of the 2 groups.

I have attended many execution vigils before (I have spent 3/4 of my life in the execution-heavy south), always in different capacities: curious observer, solemn vigiler, angry protester, photographer, arrestee in civil disobedience actions, support network for the prisoner's family, media spokesperson, organizer, and other various roles.

If this execution was to go forward, I knew I wanted to be as close to Troy's family as possible. Their story and their relentless effort to save a family member's life moved the world into action. They put Troy on the map. It was one of Troy's sisters, Martina Correia, who once took a plain t-shirt and wrote on it with marker, "I AM TROY DAVIS" and starting wearing the shirt around her home town of Savannah. The statement was a testament to her solidarity with her own brother - a position very much in line with the philosophy that "no one is free with others are oppressed." Those 4 words on Martina's shirt became the rallying cry for a world movement to save a U.S. prisoner from execution. Little did Martina know that shirts, banners, posters and even billboards declaring "I AM TROY DAVIS" would be displayed across the world - in Asia, Europe, and here in Jackson, Georgia.

While I wanted to be close to Martina to offer my support and solidarity, I also wanted to capture this historic event in photographs. According to the prison rules, I could not do both. It was a difficult decision, but this time I decided to be the journalist, not the protestor. Not the friend to family of the condemned, but part of the press core. I felt it was important to the abolition movement to capture with my camera the final hours before Troy Davis's execution - to bring the images back for the world to see.

The execution was scheduled for 7:00 pm on that Wednesday. Crowds began descending on Jackson by mid-afternoon. The prison, despite vast open spaces on the rural property, limited the number of protesters allowed in the protest zone to around 60 people. Of course far more than 60 came to the prison that night. In fact, over 700 were there by nightfall. Once the maximum of 60 was reached, the rest were confined to lining the highway across the street from the prison, blocked from the prison grounds by an unbelievable show of force: riot squads, State Troopers, Corrections Officers, local police, the Sheriff's Department, and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams.

The mood on the ground in the hours leading up to 7:00 pm were tense, yet still hopeful. But as the minute of death approached closer and closer, a somber silence began to permeate the crowds. People began hugging each other and weeping as the time arrived. A prayer circle formed around Troy's family. Prayers were being uttered. People were dropping to their knees.

And then, almost as if a fierce storm had touched down across the street, a tremendous roar of human voices erupted, and it quickly rippled its way into my immediate surroundings. People in the protest area began shrieking "there's a stay!" in utter disbelief and ecstatic joy. People were hugging, crying, jumping, laying face down in the grass, and shouting "praise Jesus!". I have never before witnessed such an intense transformation of pure sadness to pure joy. The emotion was nerve tingling, and, for probably the umpteenth time since I arrived in Georgia this week to photograph the events leading up to this moment, I could not take a photo because my eyes were filled with tears. Troy Davis was alive.

We believed that at last the truth was out. We believed that sanity had prevailed and the shift toward justice had begun. We believed that the one-million voices calling around the world had finally been heard.

At least this is what we believed had happened - what we hoped had happened. It turns out the Supreme Court of the United States had received a last minute appeal from Troy's attorneys, and had issued a temporary delay in the execution. But within 3 hours, had issued a 1 sentence rejection of the appeal and permitted the execution to go forward.

Before we knew the ultimate decision by the Supreme Court, those hours of waiting were surreal. The ecstatic joy dwindled rather rapidly once the reality that this interruption was not indeed a stay, but a delay, was understood. Cautious optimism took over the happiness.

But still, there was optimism. Troy's family visited with friends and supporters amidst the bright prison-yard lights and the television camera lighting. Children played. People prayed. The legal limbo caused time to stand still.

When the shock of joy erupted at 7:00 pm with the good news, I followed the lead of a few brave news photographers and shimmied under the yellow tape into the protest area to get powerful, emotional photos up close. But, as the news photographers quietly snuck back into the media pen after a few minutes, I made the decision to stay with the protestors. This is where I wanted to be, and now here I was, with my camera in hand.

Since I was not allowed to be in this area with a camera, I was nervous, but amazingly, the guards did not notice (or they chose to ignore), the infiltration. I kept my camera hidden against my shoulder as best I could, and began discretely documenting the scene from the inside. I knew this was a critical and unique perspective that no other photographer would have.

Troy's sister Martina and I are friends through our common work in this anti-death penalty movement. She has welcomed me to photograph her and the family's struggle before. Tonight I knew I could freely take photos of them, without a sense of violating the privacy of the family. I was honored and humbled by Martina's trust and emboldened by the responsibility.

The hours of waiting were long, and uncomfortable, as we were in emotional limbo without knowledge of when there would a definite announcement. Were we going home soon? Were we staying? Would we be back next tomorrow? Next week? I wondered what those on the inside of the prison were feeling. The guards. The warden. The MacPhail family. The attorneys. The executioners. Troy Davis himself. It was, I imagine, torturous, for everybody involved.

Shortly after 10:00 pm, it was announced that the Supreme Court had rejected the appeal, and the delay was lifted. The execution was to go forward. The news was met by a strengthening of the spirit of those gathered. It was solemnly quiet, but not with hopeless despair. You could almost feel a force holding everyone together. Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. Maybe it was the preacher's song. Maybe it was Troy's family, standing strong. Whoever or whatever it was, it was unquestionably there.

Just after 11:00 pm, I was with Laura Moye, the Death Penalty Abolition Campaign Director for Amnesty International USA. Martina brought a young woman over to us and introduced her to Laura. Martina told Laura that this college student, Monica had driven, by herself, from California, to protest the execution. Martina told Monica to give her contact information to Laura to get involved in the work to end the death penalty. Laura handed Monica a notepad and pen, and Monica provided her information. It was an extraordinary scene, which I took a photo of. Martina, who could have been overwhelmed by the tragedy of the moment, knowing her brother could be executed at any time now, chose to still keep organizing, connecting activists for the cause.

All along we have said that this is not just about Troy Davis, it is about justice, about fairness, and about an end to state killing. Martina embodied that in this moment. With her brother at the end of his life, she was still unselfishly committed to making sure there were no more Troy Davises.

Immediately following this exchange, Benjamin Todd Jealous, the President of NAACP, called the crowd together to announce that word had come out of the prison that the execution was happening. All eyes quietly focused on the ground, or into the sky. Martina and the rest of Troy's family were in the center of the circle, surrounded at this moment by love and community. We stayed there, like that, until a chant of "I AM TROY DAVIS" grew from the inside, and resonated into the still of the night.

When it was all over, we walked out of the yellow-tape enclosed pen, past the media trucks, through the swaths of armed riot squads, and to a church parking lot across the street where our cars were parked. A prayer circle closed what was a nightmare that no one thought would actually happen.

2 days later, I finally brought myself to look at the photos I had taken that night. My emotions were still raw, and I didn't want to relive Troy's execution yet. But I felt a responsibility to get the photos out into the world, given my unprecedented access to the scene.

As I went through the images, I stopped on the photo of Martina bringing the college student over to the Amnesty International director to trade contact information. I looked at the time that the photo was taken. 11:08 pm. The exact minute that we now know that Troy Davis died on the gurney.

I broke down in tears. These were not tear of sadness, but tears of admiration and hope. In the photo Martina isn't looking at anyone around her, but is looking off toward the prison. Somehow deep inside, she must had known what had just happened. You can see it in her face. But even in the darkest moment of tragedy, the tireless work of Martina, all Troy's family, Amnesty International, NAACP and the countless worldwide supporters of human rights carried on. There was no giving up, even in that moment. The work to end the death penalty continued, right then and there.

The day before his execution, Troy told a supporter, "The struggle for justice doesn't end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me. I'm in good spirits and I'm prayerful and at peace."

With Troy's plight and execution, we have seen an awakening and eyes have been opened. The effort to save the life of Troy Davis ended that night, but the campaign to end the death penalty begins anew. One media outlet referred to September 21st at "the beginning of the end of the death penalty in America."

After struggling for hours through my photos, I finally checked my email, and there, waiting for me, all sent within hours of the execution, were dozens of notes from people all around New York State, wanting to know how they could get involved.

"Tonight I have realized that I don't ever want to see another innocent man be executed," read one letter. "I realized that I am not doing enough."

Another wrote, "...the murdering of Troy Davis has re-sparked my motivation to end it. I have never really taken any action regarding this subject... but today, it is time to do something."

Many people never before concerned with the death penalty have been shocked, and are ready to take action. We now face a challenge to capture the sadness, the anger and the energy and direct it into the ongoing efforts of the abolition movement - a movement that is actually winning, despite nights like this one.

While we did not succeed in stopping the execution of Troy, a new movement for abolition was galvanized. New activists were motivated to join in the work. Seasoned activists were reenergized to take up the struggle again. Brown, black and white - this nation and this world came together for the cause of human rights. Because of the work of Troy's family, Amnesty International, the NAACP, and countless other groups, the world knows the name of Troy Davis, and the world will not forget.

Source: Scott Langley is a former community member of Catholic Worker houses in Raleigh and Boston, and currently serves at Amnesty International's Death Penalty Abolition Coordinator for New York State. He lives in Ghent, New York. His death penalty photos can be viewed at www.deathpenaltyphoto.org.-- The Catholic Worker)

Montana: Double-murderer Ronald Smith asks to be spared death penalty

2012-01-22T18:42:00.000+01:00

After almost 30 years in an isolation cell at Montana State Prison, Alberta-born double-murderer Ronald Smith — the only Canadian on death row in the United States — has formally filed his request for executive clemency to the state's parole board, submitting a 19-page appeal in which his lawyers describe the 54-year-old convict as a man who has made "great strides in his rehabilitation" and exhibits "heartfelt remorse," "a changed heart and mind" and "a potential for good."

Smith, a native of Red Deer, Alta., was convicted in Montana of killing 2 Blackfeet Indian men — Harvey Mad Man, 24, and Thomas Running Rabbit, 20 — during a drug- and alcohol-fuelled road trip to the U.S. in August 1982. Smith marched the men into the woods and shot them dead after they had picked up Smith and two of his hitchhiking friends from Canada.

Smith, 24 at the time of the killings, confessed to the crime and initially requested the death penalty — and was promptly granted his wish by a Montana judge. But Smith later launched sentencing appeals to avoid execution, a legal fight that went on for some 25 years until his appeal options recently ran out.

But citing Smith's record as a model prisoner and his "unusual potential as a human being," the clemency application points to psychological tests conducted in 1995 that concluded Smith "is not anti-social and is not cold and callous; has a valid interest in intellectual pursuits; has made a positive adaptation to incarceration; and is not grandiose, narcissistic, aggressive, sadistic, bizarre, or psychotic."

The application also emphasizes Smith's high IQ — described as being in the "top 13th percentile of the population" — and the fact that "Ron has an above average capacity and a very good potential for educational pursuits, including a college degree. This has been borne out by his in-prison completion of numerous college credits."

And there is a detailed account of the abuses Smith suffered as a child at the hands of his violent, hard-drinking father.

"In the home and towns that Ronald Smith grew up in, there is a deeply entrenched culture of alcoholism and abuse," the document states, suggesting these circumstances had a powerful influence on Smith at the time of the 1982 killings.

Greg Jackson, Smith's lawyer in Helena, Montana, told Postmedia News on Thursday that if the state parole board decides, as expected, to hold a hearing on the clemency application, board officials will "conduct an investigation into Ron's background and the circumstances of the offence."

A hearing should occur within four months, Jackson said, adding that the board would then make a recommendation about clemency that Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer would be guided by, but not bound by, in determining Smith's fate.

Accompanying the request for Smith's death penalty to be replaced by a sentence of life imprisonment are letters from several supporters, including a prison teacher, a priest and — perhaps most significantly — Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

He states that while the Canadian government "does not sympathize with violent crime," it is seeking clemency for Smith "on humanitarian grounds."

Baird's letter also notes that the government's backing of the clemency bid "should not be construed as reflecting a judgment on Mr. Smith's conduct." And he points out that the Canadian government was "ordered" by Federal Court of Canada in 2009 "to support Mr. Smith's case for clemency."

Still, the Conservative government's official expression of support for Smith's bid to avoid execution completes an about-face in a case that, in 2007, re-ignited a nationwide debate about capital punishment.

At that time — in the wake of a Postmedia News report about attempts by Canadian diplomats to win clemency for Smith and have him transferred to a Canadian prison — the Conservative government swiftly withdrew its support for the initiative and declared that Canada would no longer seek clemency for Canadians facing execution in "democratic countries, like the United States, where there has been a fair trial."

As opposition critics assailed the move and controversy over the case flared in the House of Commons in November 2007, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his government's decision to abandon Smith was driven by concerns that lobbying for the killer's life would "send the wrong signal" to Canadians about violent crime.

"We have no desire to open the debate on capital punishment here in Canada — and likewise, we have no desire to participate in the debate on capital punishment in the United States," Harper insisted at the time. "The reality of this particular case is that were we to intervene, it would very quickly become a question of whether we are prepared to repatriate a double-murderer to Canada. In light of this government's strong initiatives on tackling violent crime, I think that would sent the wrong signal to the Canadian population."

But the government's handling of the Smith case was ruled "unlawful" in 2009 by the Federal Court of Canada, forcing a Conservative retreat on the issue and leading diplomats to re-launch the clemency bid.

Over the past two years, as Smith's lawyers exhausted all avenues for appealing the death sentence in U.S. courts, it became clear that the Canadian's fate probably would come down to a decision by Schweitzer about whether to grant clemency.

He has remained noncommital on the question in his public comments about Smith's case, acknowledging both the difficulty of deciding to send someone a death chamber and the legitimacy of demands by some relatives of Smith's victims that he be put to death for his crimes.

However, the document submitted this week to the parole board — members of which will offer their recommendation to Schweitzer in the coming months on whether Smith's death sentence should be commuted — highlights one U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that, according to Smith's lawyers, "took the extraordinary action of virtually recommending that the governor grant Mr. Smith clemency."

While denying a Smith appeal, the court had noted in its judgment that "by all accounts, Smith has reformed his life. He has developed strong relationships with various members of his family and has taken advantage of the educational opportunities offered by the prison that houses him. He has expressed deep regret for his deplorable actions. However, consideration of these issues are beyond our jurisdiction in this case. Clemency claims are committed to the wisdom of the executive branch."

Source: Montreal Gazette, January 21, 2012

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New Mexico Lawmaker Wants Voters to Decide on Death Penalty

2012-01-22T18:33:00.000+01:00

A state legislator proposes reinstating the death penalty in New Mexico, but allowing voters to decide whether that should happen.

Republican Rep. Dennis Kintigh of Roswell has introduced a constitutional amendment to restore the death penalty in certain circumstances, including the murder of a police officer.

New Mexico abolished the death penalty in 2009, replacing it with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Constitutional amendments need voter approval to be implemented. If Kintigh’s proposal clears the Legislature, it will be left to New Mexico voters to decide whether to reinstate the death penalty.

Kintigh is a retired FBI agent.

2 men are on death row. Their sentences were not affected by the 2009 law repealing the death penalty.

Source: Associated Press, January 21, 2012

Questions raised over Arizona’s execution team

2012-01-22T18:29:00.000+01:00

Arizona Death Chamber

An attorney for a death-row inmate in Arizona is raising questions about who will carry out the state’s executions after the physician who conducted the last 5 said he won’t do them anymore and the other execution team member’s arrest record came to light.

In a letter to the Arizona Department of Corrections sent late Wednesday, attorney Dale Baich asked whether a new execution team was in place for the state’s upcoming executions, and if so, whether the department has conducted proper background checks and verified the medical licenses of the team.

Baich also pointed out that with the former medical team leader bowing out, the department was left with the team’s only other member — a Yuma-based corrections officer who lacks a medical license and has an arrest record for drunken driving and public intoxication.

The officer assisted the medical-team leader on the state’s last 5 executions by inserting intravenous lines.

The identities of both medical team members have been withheld for their protection.

Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Lamoreaux could not immediately say Thursday whether a new execution team has been chosen.

The qualifications of the medical team and other aspects of the way Arizona conducts its execution were the subject of a recent lawsuit filed by Baich arguing the state’s execution practices violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Among the suit’s claims was that the state deviated from a court-approved execution protocol by using improperly vetted personnel to administer lethal injections under a sheet, away from witnesses’ view.

But Baich lost his arguments Dec. 21 when Judge Neil Wake dismissed his lawsuit, saying the state did not violate inmates’ constitutional rights by deviating from written execution protocol. Baich is appealing the decision to the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Baich said Thursday the correction officer’s arrest record “is a concern” and that his background administering IVs in the military doesn’t qualify him to help carry out executions, especially since his service ended in 1996 and he is not a licensed medical professional.

“It’s clear that the state did not follow the protocol in the last 5 executions in terms of selecting the medical team,” Baich said.

Meanwhile, the execution-team leader who was in charge of the last 5 executions, most recently on July 19, said during an hours-long deposition in October that he would no longer participate in executions and didn’t know anyone who could take over for him.

The team leader cited the “very unpleasant” deposition that had attorneys questioning his background, medical qualifications and the intricate details of how executions were carried out. “It’s not really anything that I care to go through again,” he said, according to court records.

In his letter, Baich also raises questions over what drug will be used in the scheduled March 8 execution of his client, Robert Charles Towery, who was convicted of killing a man while robbing his home in 1991.

Another inmate, Robert Henry Moormann, is set to be executed eight days before that, on Feb. 29, for killing and dismembering his adoptive mother in Florence while on a “compassionate” furlough from prison. His lawyers did not return calls for comment Thursday about whether they share Baich’s concerns.

Corrections Director Charles Ryan announced in May that the state would be changing its execution protocol and switching from using 3 drugs to just 1.

The announcement came after defense attorneys claimed the state broke federal law when it imported sodium thiopental — one of its execution drugs — from Great Britain. The drug was listed in forms as being intended for “animals (food processing),” rather than humans, and the attorneys argued the drug could lead to severe pain during an execution.

Assistant Attorney General Kent Cattani has denied that Arizona broke the law, and said the paperwork mistake came from a clerical error by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

He has said the state is switching to 1 drug because of a U.S. shortage of sodium thiopental, not because of any alleged ineffectiveness.

Source: Associated Press, January 21, 2012

URGENT APPEAL for 11 men at imminent risk of execution in Iraq

2012-01-22T18:17:00.000+01:00

The Iraqi presidency has ratified the sentences of 11 men sentenced to death in 2010 for their alleged involvement in causing bomb explosions in August 2009. They are at risk of imminent execution.

The 11 men were sentenced to death on 14 January 2010 by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, for their alleged involvement in bomb blasts at the Finance and Foreign Affairs Ministries, in Baghdad on 19 August 2009, which killed at least 95 and wounded over 1,000 people. The 11 include Salem ‘Abd Jassim, Wissam ‘Ali Kadhem Ibrahim, Ishaq Mohammad ‘Abbas, his brother Mostafa Mohammad ‘Abbas, Firas ‘Abdallah Fathi and ‘Assem Mazen Hussain) and five others whose identities are unknown.

Very little information is available about the trial of the 11. According to media reports, their trial was not open to the public or the media, and was completed in a very short time. Trials heard before the CCCI consistently fall short of international fair trial standards.

Amnesty International fears the execution could be imminent. In a previous case reported in 2011, 15 men were executed 24 days after their death sentences had been ratified by the Iraqi presidency. On 19 January 2012, the Iraqi state-owned Al-Iraqiya TV channel, quoting a statement by the Ministry of Justice, announced the execution, earlier the same day, of 34 people for terrorism-related offences.

Please write immediately in English or Arabic:

* Calling on the Iraqi authorities not to proceed with the executions of Salem ‘Abd Jassim, Wissam ‘Ali Kadhem Ibrahim, Ishaq Mohammad ‘Abbas, Mostafa Mohammad ‘Abbas, Firas ‘Abdallah Fathi, ‘Assem Mazen Hussain and five others;

* Expressing concern that the 11 people may not have received a fair trial according to international standards for fair trial;

* Urging the authorities to declare an imminent moratorium on executions and to commute all death sentences of people on death row;

* Insisting that, while recognizing that governments have an obligation to bring to justice those responsible for serious crimes, the death penalty violates the right to life and is the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and should not be applied even for crimes of the greatest magnitude.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 2 MARCH 2012 TO THE IRAQI REPRESENTATION IN YOUR COUNTRY AND ADDRESSED TO:

Prime Minister

Nuri Kamil al-Maliki Convention Center (Qasr al-Ma’aridh)

Baghdad,

Iraq

Salutation: Your Excellency

President

Jalal Talabani

Convention Center (Qasr al-Ma’aridh) Baghdad,

Iraq

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

Minister of Human Rights

Mohammad Shayaa al-Sudani

Convention Centre (Qasr al-Ma’aridh) Baghdad,

Iraq

Salutation: Your Excellency

Also send copies to:

Ambassador Samir Shakir Mahmood Sumaida'ie, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq, 3421 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington DC 20007

Tel: 202 742 1600 EXT 136 Fax: 1 202 333 1129

Email: amboffice@iraqiembassy.org, info@iraqiembassy.us

Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The death penalty has been used very extensively in Iraq. Hundreds of people have been sentenced to death since the death penalty was reinstated by the Iraqi government in 2004, following a one-year suspension by the then head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Paul Bremer. The government gives very little information, such as statistics, about executions. Hundreds of people are said to be under sentence of death. Amnesty International is opposed to the death penalty in all cases because it is a violation of two fundamental human rights, as laid down in Articles 3 and 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to life and the right not to be tortured or subjected to any cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. The organization considers the death penalty to be the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned human rights abuses by armed groups in Iraq, some of which are war crimes and crimes against humanity, including kidnapping, torture and killing of civilians, and continues to call for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Name: Salem ‘Abd Jassim, Wissam ‘Ali Kadhem Ibrahim, Ishaq Mohammad ‘Abbas, his brother Mostafa Mohammad ‘Abbas, Firas ‘Abdallah Fathi and ‘Assem Mazen Hussain plus five others.

Issue(s): Risk of Imminent Execution

---------------------------------

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This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal.

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Amnesty International USA

600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl

Washington DC 20003

Email: uan@aiusa.org

http://www.amnestyusa.org/uan

Phone: 202.509.8193

Fax: 202.675.8566

EU, Rights Group Denounce Gaza Death Sentences

2012-01-20T17:45:00.002+01:00

JERUSALEM/GAZA, January 19, 2012 (WAFA) – The European Union missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza (PCHR) condemned in two separate statements death sentences recently passed in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement issued from Jerusalem on Thursday, the EU missions condemned a death sentence a Gaza military court had passed on January 11 against a Palestinian accused of collaboration with Israel.

It said that the EU opposes use of capital punishment, adding that it “considers that abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights.”

The statement called on the “de facto authorities in Gaza,” meaning Hamas, to “refrain from carrying out any executions of prisoners and comply with the de facto moratorium on executions put in place by the Palestinian Authority, pending abolition of the death penalty in line with the global trend.”

PHCR also condemned another death sentence passed in absentia by a Gaza civil court on Monday against a 27-year-old resident of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, after if found him guilty of murdering his brother in 2005.

It said it was “gravely concerned over the continued application of the death penalty” in the Palestinian Territory and called for “an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty as a form of punishment.”

With the two death sentences issued so far this year, the total number of death sentences passed by the Palestinian Authority since 1994 has reached 123, of which 25 have been issued in the West Bank and 98 in the Gaza Strip, said PCHR.

Among those issued in the Gaza Strip, 37 sentences have been issued since 2007 when Hamas controlled the coastal enclave.

The Palestinian president has to ratify death sentences before they are executed, but since the 2007 division between the West Bank and Gaza, the Hamas authorities in the Strip carried out death sentences without President Mahmoud Abbas’ ratification.

Source: WAFA, January 19, 2012

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Death Penalty News: Gaza: Divided We Execute

Aug 16, 2011

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Muslims guilty over "Death Penalty?" gay leaflets

2012-01-20T17:36:00.002+01:00

Kabir Ahmed

Three Muslim men have been found guilty of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation after distributing a leaflet that said Islam called for anyone caught committing homosexuality to be executed.

Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed handed out the pamphlet, called The Death Penalty?, which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.

They were convicted by a jury at Derby Crown Court of distributing threatening written material intending to stir up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010.

Mehboob Hussain and Umar Javed, who were also charged with the same offence, were found not guilty by the jury. Judge John Burgess, Honorary Recorder of Derby, adjourned sentencing until February 10 for pre-sentence reports.

During their trial the jury of seven men and five women heard the men, who are all from Derby, admitted distributing the leaflet, but said they were simply quoting and following what their religion teaches about homosexuality and did not intend to threaten anyone.

The pamphlet, called The Death Penalty?, showed

an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose

and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment

was the only way to rid society of homosexuality

The leaflet was handed out outside and near the Jamia Mosque in Derby's Rosehill Street and in streets around the local neighbourhood in July 2010. It was made and used as part of a campaign to publicise a protest in response to the Gay Pride parade due to be held in Derby on July 10 that year.

Taxi driver Ali, of Fairfax Road, who the prosecution said was believed to be the main organiser and supplier of the leaflets, was found guilty of four counts of distribution on July 2 and July 4.

Ahmed, who is married with a nine-month-old daughter and lives in Madeley Street, and Razwan Javed, of Wilfred Street, were convicted of distribution in the area of the mosque on July 2.

But married taxi driver Mehboob Hussain, of Rosehill Street, and Razwan's brother Umar Javed, a married takeaway worker who lives in Whittaker Street, were both cleared of distribution relating to posting the leaflets through the letterboxes of homes on July 4.

The court heard that two other leaflets were also distributed and were relevant in the case to show intent even though charges had not been brought in relation to them. The leaflets were called Gay - an acronym for God Abhors You - and Turn Or Burn, and prosecutor Bobbie Cheema said they contained excerpts from scriptures in the Koran concerning homosexuality.

Source: The Press Association, January 20, 2012

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Jan 10, 2012

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China: Death penalty in fraud crimes divides public

2012-01-20T17:24:00.001+01:00

Wu Ying, the businesswoman sentenced
to death for cheating investors

The death sentence verdict of a female billionaire, who cheated investors out of several hundred million yuan through illicit means of financing, has sparked heated public debate, with observers calling for a relaxation of limits on informal lending by authorities.

The Zhejiang Provincial Higher People's Court Wednesday upheld the death penalty for Wu Ying, the 31-year-old former owner of the Bense Holding Group.

Wu, born to a farmer's family, was the sixth-richest woman in the Chinese mainland in 2006, with total assets of 3.6 billion yuan ($569.99 million), according to the Hurun Report. She was arrested in 2007 for illegal fundraising and fraud.

In December 2009, she was sentenced to death by the Jinhua Intermediate People's Court for cheating investors.

Wu raised 770 million yuan by promising high returns to investors between May 2005 and February 2007, the intermediate court found. She still had 380 million yuan as well as a large amount of unpaid debt with creditors when the case was uncovered.

According to the media, in order to get a lenient sentence, Wu had accused 17 officials and bank executives during her detention, many of whom have been convicted.

In a ruling, the Zhejiang Higher People's Court said Wednesday that it rejected Wu's appeal as Wu "brought huge losses to the nation and people with her severe crimes, and should therefore be severely punished."

The wrongdoing of officials unmasked by Wu came about as results of her bribery, which cannot be viewed as a contribution to the discovery of these crimes, the court said, rejecting Wu's plea for leniency.

The death sentence is still subject to review by the country's Supreme People's Court. So far, relevant authorities have not released the complete list of officials exposed by Wu.

According to the Oriental Morning Post, Wu Hong, a law professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law, explained that China has a relatively tight control over finance, and the fraud case has brought society a lot of harm.

"Such fraud always involves a lot of people, and it is usually impossible to recover these losses," Wu Hong said.

Chen Tao, a lawyer with the Criminal Law Committee under the Beijing Lawyers Association, told the Global Times that there is a trend of local courts handing out harsh punishments to illegal fundraising offenders as a warning to others.

On Saturday, the Anyang Intermediate People's Court in Henan Province handed down a life sentence to 41-year-old Liu Hongfei, who raised more than 85 million yuan by promising high returns to lenders between 2005 and 2011.

However, many people called for leniency to be shown to Wu Ying.

Some microbloggers showed sympathy for her, saying that the crime she committed was not severe enough for a life sentence.

Chen shared a similar sentiment, citing that Wu Ying had turned in several other offenders, and the Supreme People's Court had issued a notice asking local courts to be cautious in deciding on the death penalty.

He also said that the capital sentence should be abolished for economic offences that pose no threat to personal safety.

"The law should protect people's basic rights which definitely include the right to life, and that right cannot be measured by any economic losses as long as the offence has not caused any casualties," Chen said, adding that it was also time to abolish the crime of illegal fundraising in the Criminal Law.

A commentary on sohu.com said many people had hoped that a pardon to Wu Ying's death sentence would signal the recognition of informal lending by authorities.

According to a survey by the China Oriental Culture Broadcast Institute (COCBI), which was carried out among 1,206 businesses during last autumn, 42.7 percent admitted that they had used informal lending, with 55.6 percent of those involved hailing from Zhejiang.

Bai Chengyu, secretary-general of the China Association of Microfinance, said that illegal fundraising became a prominent issue last year due to the government's tight control on credit to curb inflation.

"What's more, the China Business News commented that the flourishing of 'underground finance' came as a result of banks' preference to give loans to State-owned enterprises, thereby setting higher thresholds for private enterprises."

Bai said there is still insufficient government supervision over private financing despite its long existence.

In the coastal city of Wenzhou, nearly 100 local tycoons reportedly fled abroad to avoid repaying their debts, which had accumulated to more than 10 billion yuan in bank loans or shadow loans last year.

In Anyang, about 30,000 people gathered at the local train station on New Year's Day to protest against an insufficient crackdown on illegal fundraising, after an investment guarantee company reportedly disappeared with about 40 billion yuan collected from locals.

According to the COCBI survey, 73.6 percent of respondents viewed informal lending positively, and 40.3 percent believed it should be monitored by authorities.

Source: People's Daily Online, January 20, 2012

Iran: Man hanged in public in the southeastern city of Kerman

2012-01-19T21:49:00.000+01:00

Source: Iran Human Rights

Iran Human Rights, January 19: One was hanged publicly in the southeastern Iranian city of Kerman this morning.

According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars, the man was convicted of rape. He was 31 year old and father of two children, said the report.

According to the website Khabaronline, the man was identified as Majid Samimi.

The execution was carried out in Kerman’s Khaju Square early this morning.

Since 2011 there has been a dramatic increase in the number of public executions in Iran. Of the total 55 reported executions in 2012 in Iran, 10 of them have been carried out in the public.

Source: Iran Human Rights, January 19, 2012

Two Emiratis Get Death for Killing Housemaid

2012-01-19T15:53:00.000+01:00

January 18, 2012: A court in Fujairah sentenced two Emirati men to death for murdering an elderly Asian housemaid after she resisted their attempt to rape her.

The two had been invited by a teenaged friend to his house in Fujairah in mid-2010 to have sex with his young Asian maid with her consent.

They then went into the room where another maid in her 50s was asleep. They jolted her out of bed and tried to rape her.

“They strangled her to death after she resisted them…they then fled the house,” the semi-official daily 'Al Ittihad' said.

It said the court acquitted the teenaged boy of murder charges but sentenced him to six months at the juvenile delinquency centre for committing adultery. The young maid was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered deported.

Source: www.emirates247.com, January 18, 2011

Iraq approves death penalty for Baghdad bombings convicts

2012-01-19T15:39:00.003+01:00

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq's presidency approved the death penalty on Thursday for 11 men, including Al-Qaeda militants, convicted of being behind devastating attacks against two ministries in 2009.

The August 19, 2009 attacks - just minutes apart outside the ministries of finance and foreign affairs in Baghdad - were an embarrassing security breach and caused massive destruction, leaving 106 people dead and around 600 wounded.

'The presidency approved the decision to carry out the death penalty for the 11 responsible for the attacks,' an official in the Iraqi presidency office told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The official said the final approval to execute the men took two years because of a lengthy appeals process.

Those convicted included Salim Abed Jassim, who confessed that he received funding for the attacks from a senior army officer during the rule of Saddam Hussein who had apparently fled to Syria.

Also sentenced to death were Ishaq Mohammed Abbas, an Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, and his brother Mustapha.

Both men had once been detained but were later released from Camp Bucca, a now closed US-run prison in the southern city of Basra.

The August 19 truck attacks on what was dubbed "Black Wednesday" marked Iraq's worst day of violence in 18 months and prompted public outrage.

The government, which blamed the bombings on Al-Qaeda and Saddam loyalists from the executed dictator's outlawed Baath party, admitted at the time that negligence at checkpoints allowed the attackers to enter the capital.

Dozens of members of the security forces were later arrested for alleged dereliction of duty.

Despite the furore over the August 19 atrocities, bombers managed to commit similar carnage in October and December 2009, when they again struck government buildings in attacks that killed at least 280 people and wounded 1,000 more.

Source: AFP, January 19, 2012

Japan: New Justice Minister Says Execution Should Resume

2012-01-19T15:12:00.001+01:00

Command Room and Execution Chamber
at Tokyo Detention Center

OGAWA Toshio, who was appointed Minister of Justice on 13 January, has said that he intends to resume executions. Last year Japan did not carry out any executions, for the first time in 19 years. The estimated 130 death row inmates are now at greater risk of execution.

The newly appointed Minister of Justice stated publicly on 15 January that he planned to resume executions, which he viewed as a responsibility of his job. His predecessor, HIRAOKA Hideo, came under heavy pressure to carry out executions in 2011, but did not do so, saying that the application of the death penalty needed to be considered more carefully before further executions were carried out.

Although all death row inmates are at imminent risk of execution, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, including its leader, MATSUMOTO Chizuo (aka Shoko Asahara), who have been sentenced to death are less likely to be executed at this time. This is because a member of the cult, HIRATA Makoto, handed himself in to police on 31 December 2011, and it will take some time for his case to go through the courts. Under Article 475 of the Criminal Procedure Code, executions should not take place until all co-defendants have had their cases finalized.

Please write immediately in Japanese, English or your own language:

- Urge the Minister of Justice not to sign any executions warrants, and to support the work of the study group on the death penalty which was established in the Ministry of Justice in 2010 by former Justice Minister Keiko Chiba;

- Urge him to introduce a moratorium on executions in Japan and to encourage more national debate on the death penalty with a view to full abolition.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 29 FEBRUARY 2012 TO:

Minister of Justice

OGAWA Toshio

1-1-1 Kasumigaseki

Chiyoda-ku

Tokyo

100-8977

JAPAN

Fax: 011 81 3 3592 7008

Salutation: Dear Minister

And copies to:

Prime Minister

NODA Yoshihiko

1-6-1 Nagata-cho

Chiyoda-ku

Tokyo

100-8968

JAPAN

Fax: 011 81 3 3581 3883

Email: (via website) https://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/forms/comment_ssl.html

Salutation: Dear Prime Minister

Also send copies to:

Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki, Embassy of Japan

2520 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008

Tel: 202 238 6700

Fax: 1 202 328 2187

Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Executions in Japan are by hanging, and are usually carried out in secret. Prisoners are typically given a few hours' notice, but some may be given no warning at all. This means that prisoners who have exhausted their appeal options must spend their entire time on death row knowing they could be executed at any time. Their families are typically notified after the execution has taken place.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the individual on whom it is imposed and the method of execution used by the state, as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The last execution carried out in Japan took place on 28 July 2010 when two people were hanged.

In October 2011, the previous Justice Minister, HIRAOKA Hideo said he would look at each death row case individually after Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura reportedly encouraged him to press ahead with executions. Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) called on the Minister of Justice to refrain from carrying out executions.

Urgent Action Network

Amnesty International USA

600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl

Washington DC 20003

Email: uan@aiusa.org

http://www.amnestyusa.org/uan

Phone: 202.509.8193

Fax: 202.675.8566

Source: Amnesty International, January 18, 2012

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Death Penalty News: Japan: many death-row inmates on meds

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Yong Vui Kong: Young Malaysian at Risk of Execution in Singapore

2012-01-19T15:03:00.003+01:00

Yong Vui Kong

Yong Vui Kong, a young Malaysian man on death row in Singapore, was fortunately not executed as expected in 2011. On 15 January, friends and activists risked arrest by publicly gathering to mark his upcoming birthday. The election of Singapore's new President provides a fresh opportunity to call for Yong Vui Kong's life to be saved.

On 15 January 2012, friends and supporters of Yong Vui Kong gathered at the Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park in Singapore to celebrate in advance his 24th birthday. Public gatherings of activists and human rights defenders are rare in Singapore, where freedom of peaceful assembly is restricted and freedom of expression limited. Despite this, around 70 people gathered that Sunday to mark Yong Vui Kong's birthday and to continue to appeal for his life to be spared.

Yong Vui Kong has only one wish for his 24th birthday: a second chance in life after spending more than half of his adult life in death row. In July 2011, a few months after Singapore's Court of Appeal rejected another appeal against Yong's sentence, he wrote:

"For me, if tomorrow is my last night, I do not have a choice either. I just have to face the fact. After all, I was the one who made a mistake and I have repented. You ask me if I would feel frightened, I think I may not be, because I am starting to become familiar with how it feels to face death, don't forgot that in this short four years, I have brushed past death many times. I have "died" many times…."

"I am also grateful that members of society are willing to forgive me, being able to live until today is my greatest fortune."

Yong's lawyer appealed against his death sentence by challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking and seeking judicial review of the clemency process. The appeals were rejected in April 2011, clearing the way for Yong's execution. His last hope is clemency from the President of Singapore, who can grant this only on the advice from the Cabinet. Clemency for a death sentence in Singapore has reportedly been granted only six times since independence in 1965.

Please write immediately in English, Mandarin or your own language:

- Stop the execution of Yong Vui Kong;

- Suspend all executions and the imposition of new death sentences as a step towards total abolition of the death penalty;

- Revoke legislation establishing mandatory death sentences.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 27 February 2012 TO:

President of Singapore

His Excellency Dr. Tony Tan Keng Yam

Office of the President

Orchard Road

SINGAPORE

238823

Email: istana_general_office@istana.gov.sg

Or fill-in the comment form at the President's office via: http://www.istana.gov.sg/content/istana/feedback.html

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

The Online Citizen

A Community of Singaporeans

(an alternative news source for Singapore)

Email: theonlinecitizen@gmail.com

Ambassador Chan Heng Chee, Embassy of the Republic of Singapore

3501 International Place NW, Washington DC 20008

Tel: 202 537 3100 ¦ Fax: 1 202 537 0876 ¦Email: singemb_was@sgmfa.gov.sg

Please check with the AIUSA Urgent Action Office if sending appeals after the above date.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Under Singapore's drug laws, a defendant is automatically presumed guilty of drug trafficking in cases where possession of heroin exceeds two grams. This provision violates the defendant's right to be presumed innocent of a crime until proven guilty.

Singaporean law also makes the death penalty mandatory for trafficking more than 30 grams of heroin. In 2007, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston said, "Singapore's decision to make the death penalty mandatory keeps judges from considering all of the factors relevant to determining whether a death sentence would be permissible in a capital case."Urgent Action Network

Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: uan@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/uan
Phone: 202.509.8193
Fax: 202.675.8566

Source: Amnesty International, January 18, 2012

An online petition urging Singapore's president to commute Yong's death sentence can be signed here.

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Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong: The boy behind the glass panel

Jan 11, 2012

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Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong: The Tenth Letter - Drugs and ...

Jun 28, 2011

Yong Vui Kong has exhausted all his appeals. His last hope rests on presidential clemency. Please click on the photo to sign a petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's death sentence to a prison sentence.

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Iran confirms death sentence for 'porn site' web programmer Saeed Malekpour

2012-01-18T18:35:00.004+01:00

Saeed Malekpour

Iran's supreme court has upheld the death sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites.

Saeed Malekpour was picked up by plainclothes officers in October 2008 and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge.

A year after his arrest, the 35-year-old appeared in a state television programme confessing to a series of crimes in connection with a porn website. On the basis of his TV confessions, he was convicted of designing and moderating adult materials online by a court in Tehran, which handed down death penalty.

Malekpour later retracted his confessions in a letter sent from prison, in which he said they had been made under duress.

According to Malekpour's family, he is a permanent resident of Canada and is a programmer who wrote photo-uploading software that was used by a porn website without his knowledge.

His sister, Maryam Malekpour, said the supreme court had confirmed the death sentence despite many discrepancies in the case. "Saeed's lawyers were told that his death sentence will be issued this week," she said in an interview with the Iranian website Roozonline.

After an international campaign and new expert evidence, the supreme court suspended Malekpour's death sentence in June 2011 and ordered a judicial review.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Guardian, January 18, 2012

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Justices rule for death row inmate after legal mistakes

2012-01-18T18:24:00.000+01:00

Washington (CNN) -- The Supreme Court gave an Alabama death row prisoner another chance Wednesday to appeal his conviction after a mailroom mistake and other circumstances initially left him unable to pursue further claims in court.

At issue was whether a missed deadline to file a key appeal provided justification to grant Cory Maples a second chance, when the error was not the inmate's fault and the result would mean a punishment as serious as lethal injection.

The justices' 7-2 ruling was a setback for the state, and the inmate's case now goes back to lower courts.

"The uncommon combination of mishaps in Maples' case, we hold, provide just cause to excuse the procedural lapse in state court," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority.

The compounding series of errors and negligence involved both state officials and the private attorneys once representing him.

The prisoner's new legal team, supported by some civil rights groups, argued the criminal justice system was being turned on its head by potentially allowing prisoners to suffer the consequences of their lawyers' mistakes or incompetence.

Click here to read the full article

Source: CNN, January 18, 2012

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Oct 05, 2011

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Texas: Chelsea Richardson's sentence officially reduced

2012-01-18T18:06:00.000+01:00

FORT WORTH -- If Chelsea Richardson felt relief when her death sentence officially became a life sentence, she did not show it.

Richardson was back in a Tarrant County courtroom Tuesday, this time to hear visiting Judge Steve Herod accept a sentencing agreement reached by prosecutors and her attorneys for the 2003 murders of Rick and Suzanna Wamsley of Mansfield.

Wearing a baggy yellow jail jumpsuit and dark-rimmed glasses, Richardson, 27, spoke only to acknowledge that she waived her right to appeal.

The hearing was mostly a formality. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Richardson's death sentence in November.

The judges ruled that the punishment phase of Richardson's trial in 2005 was affected by misconduct by then-prosecutor Mike Parrish, who withheld evidence from the defense. Parrish retired in 2008.

Richardson and her boyfriend, Andrew Wamsley, were convicted of capital murder in separate trials for the deaths of his parents. Authorities said Andrew Wamsley, Richardson and a friend, Susana Toledano, killed the couple so that Andrew Wamsley could inherit his parents' $1.56 million estate.

Richardson was the only one to receive the death penalty.

Under the new sentence, she must serve 40 years before she is eligible for parole. She will get credit for time served.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Star Telegram, January 18, 2012

Delaware governor spares life of killer facing Friday execution for 1990 murder

2012-01-17T18:29:00.004+01:00

Robert Gattis

DOVER, Del. — Delaware Gov. Jack Markell has decided to spare the life of a man who was facing execution this week for the 1990 murder of his former girlfriend.

Robert Gattis was scheduled to die by lethal injection Friday for killing Shirley Slay, 27.

But Markell said Tuesday that he has decided to accept a recommendation from the state Board of Pardons that he commute Gattis' 1992 death sentence to life in prison without parole.

Markell said the decision to grant clemency to Gattis is among the most difficult he has made as a public official, and that he realizes it may cause pain to Slay's family.

But the governor also said he gives great weight to the decision by the pardons board, which reviewed Gattis' case thoroughly and voted 4 to 1 for commutation after considering disturbing accounts of physical and sexual abuse that Gattis claims to have suffered as a child and which his attorneys argued have never been properly considered by the courts.

"I undertake this commutation after thorough review of the record presented and substantial contemplation," Markell said in a statement drafted for release Tuesday. "I have read Mr. Gattis's application for clemency, the state's response, and Mr. Gattis's reply. I have reviewed the many affidavits submitted. I have spent substantial time considering the harm endured by Ms. Slay and her family, Mr. Gattis's history, and the merits of the clemency application. I have prayed."

"At the end of the day, although I am not free from doubt, I believe moving forward with the execution of Mr. Gattis is not appropriate under the totality of the circumstances," concluded Markell, who met with members of Slay's family before announcing his decision.

Markell agreed with the pardons board that in return for having his sentence commuted, Gattis must agree to forgo any further legal challenge to his conviction and sentence and to waive the right to any further request for pardon or commutation.

Prosecutors have said Gattis shot Slay "execution style" in a jealous rage, but his defense attorneys argued at trial that Slay's death was an accident.

Gattis has exhausted state and federal court appeals, but his lawyers told the pardons board that commutation was appropriate because the courts never considered the sexual abuse Gattis now says he suffered as a child, and that the courts did not have a full appreciation of the physical abuse he suffered.

Gattis admitted at last week's Board of Pardons hearing that Slay's death was not an accident, but he pleaded with board members to spare his life.

"I am not the Robert Gattis who killed Shirley Slay, that's not who I am," said Gattis, 49, insisting he's a changed man.

Board members acknowledged that prosecutors were correct to harbor suspicions about some of the testimony regarding Gattis's background and to question why he did not come forward with the full extent of his sexual abuse until 2009. They also noted that Gattis had maintained for years that Slay's death was an accident, and that he did not take responsibility for intentionally killing her until earlier this month.

But after reviewing all the evidence and testimony it was presented, the board concluded that the Gattis was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by family members as a child, and that he had complained to medical professionals of mental illness and involuntary violent impulses more than a year before Slay's murder.

"Although Mr. Gattis knew right from wrong and was guilty of first-degree murder, we, in the exercise of conscience required of us as members of this board, believe that these are sufficiently mitigating facts to warrant consideration for clemency," the board said Sunday in announcing its decision.

Source: AP, January 17, 2011

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U.S. Supreme Court: 14 People Arrested At Death Penalty Demonstration

2012-01-17T18:25:00.004+01:00

14 Activists Arrested Today at U.S. Supreme Court to Commemorate 35th Anniversary of First Execution

Participants from Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, New Mexico, DC, Utah, Vermont, Kansas and New York were there to peacefully and visibly call for an immediate cessation of all executions in the United States through civil disobedience and the risk of arrest. The group included several murder victim family members, family of the incarcerated, and national leaders in the death penalty abolition movement.

One of the participants who was arrested was Randy Gardner, whose brother, like Gilmore, was executed in Utah by firing squad. "My Brother Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed June 18th 2010 by the same state, by the same method as Gilmore. I believed then, and I still believe now, that the death penalty is morally wrong. I'm here to help abolish the death penalty by protesting in any shape or form.” And, using Gilmore’s last words, he says, “Let’s do it."

35 years ago, on January 17, 1977, the State of Utah shot to death Gary Gilmore, who "volunteered" to be killed in revenge for his murder of Ben Bushnell and Max Jenson. This state-assisted suicide was the first execution under the Supreme Court’s upholding of the death penalty in 1976. Since then, there have been 1277 more executions, with others consecutively scheduled on January 18, 19 and 20 in Ohio, Kentucky and Delaware, respectively. Texas alone has 7 executions scheduled this winter.

Source: Abolition Action Committee, January 17, 2012

Supreme Court Protest: 14 People Arrested At Death Penalty Demonstration

14 people have been arrested at the Supreme Court for protesting the resumption of the use of the death penalty in the United States.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg announced the arrests soon after the high court began hearing oral arguments on Tuesday. Those who were arrested will likely be charged with illegally demonstrating at the Supreme Court. Such activities are banned on the court's plaza looking out toward the U.S. Capitol.

The protests are timed to mark the year of the 35th anniversary of the execution of Gary Gilmore, who protesters said was the first person executed under the Supreme Court's upholding of the death penalty in 1976.

Protesters say there have been 1,277 more executions since then, with at least 3 more scheduled for this month.

Source: Huffington Post, January 17, 2011

14 Arrested In Death Penalty Protest at Supreme Court

Inside, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments in a dusty federal tax case. Outside, police were arresting 14 death penalty protesters who unfurled a 30-foot wide banner with the message "STOP EXECUTIONS!" on the Court's marble plaza. One by one this morning, the demonstrators were escorted or dragged away for violating the federal law (40 U.S.C. 6135) that forbids "processions or assemblages" on Supreme Court grounds.

The protest marked the 35th anniversary of the Utah execution by firing squad of Gary Gilmore, the first execution since the high court's reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. It was a repeat of a similar demonstration five years ago, and in between, numerous others -- from Princeton philosopher Cornel West to demonstrators dressed like Guantanamo detainees -- have been arrested in the same location.

The demonstrators assembled beforehand at the nearby United Methodist Building where they discussed what to expect when arrested, and held hands in prayer. Bethesda, Maryland solo practitioner Mark Goldstone, longtime lawyer for Court protesters, briefed the group on the legalities, and told them, as he put it later, "It's too bad you aren't corporations, because then you would have more First Amendment protections."

Shortly after 10 a.m., the protesters ambled over to the Court to begin a process that they knew would end in arrest. In a 1983 decision United States v. Grace, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a no-protest zone on Court property. It allowed demonstrations on the public sidewalk in front of the Court, so the protesters today probably knew they were breaking the law as soon as they walked onto the Court's marble plaza.

Court police were out in force in anticipation of the protest, but they allowed the demonstrators to enter the plaza and begin climbing the majestic steps, even though the steps are no longer used as an entrance. Suddenly, one of the group took the rolled-up banner out from under his coat and the demonstrators, now facing the street, unfurled the banner for all to see. Encouraged nearly 100 demonstrators on the sidewalk, they chanted "Abolition now!" and "They say death row, we say hell no!"

Court police watched intently, but did nothing to stop the protest or to confiscate the banner. After a few minutes, Court police chief Ross Swope came out from the Court building with a bullhorn to warn those holding the banner that they were in violation of the law and "will be arrested." After 10 more minutes of chants, the police started to move in with plastic handcuffs. The arrests came one at a time at one end of the banner. As each protester was taken away, those remaining spread out to keep the banner aloft. When only 2 protesters were left, they dropped it. As they were taken away, Court police folded up the banner neatly. After processing inside the Court building, the arrestees were expected to be detained overnight by D.C. police and arraigned on Wednesday.

Goldstone, a veteran observer of these demonstrations, said he was generally pleased with the conduct of the Court police. "They seemed very relaxed, and didn't prevent the demonstration from happening," Goldstone said, adding that he was impressed by their respectful handling of the banner. "They didn't just grab it away or treat it like an incendiary device."

Source: legaltimes, January 17, 2012

China: Death Penalty Cases Rife With Evidence Flaws

2012-01-17T16:46:00.001+01:00

The deputy chief of China’s highest court has criticised inconsistent adherence to evidence standards in the country’s death penalty cases, whose annual number is a state secret. From the South China Morning Post:

Supreme People’s Court Vice-President Zhang Jun, speaking at a conference organised by the China Law Society, said the court had found the quality of capital punishment cases to be worse than expected since authorities ordered all such cases to be reviewed in 2007, according to report by Caixin online [zh].

The biggest problem was with evidence, Zhang said. Law enforcement authorities lacked awareness about the importance of collecting evidence and rules regarding evidence were not applied uniformly.

“For example, [evidence in] murder cases must be subjected to DNA tests,” Zhang said. “But this is not always carried out.”

Investigators also tended to rely too much on verbal testimony as opposed to physical evidence, he said.

Source: China Digital Times, January 12, 2012

Oregon's unused death penalty drugs test pharmaceutical company leaders

2012-01-17T15:22:00.002+01:00

Oregon's unused lethal injection drugs have set the stage for a test of the sincerity of pharmaceutical executives who say they don't want their products used to execute prisoners.

Since Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber cancelled the planned Dec. 6 execution of convicted murderer Gary Haugen, the state has returned the lethal injection drugs to an undisclosed wholesaler. Oregon had obtained 20 50-milliliter vials of pentobarbital; 50 10-milliliter vials of pancuronium and 50 20-milliliter vials of potassium chloride. The supply cost nearly $18,000 and Oregon expects to get much of the money back.

Two companies, Hospira Inc. and the Danish firm Lundbeck, are on the spot because they supplied the drugs in the first place, argues Ford Vox, a Boston physician and medical journalist, in an editorial in The Guardian:

Click here to read the full article

Source: OregonLive.com, January 17, 2012

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Three Decades of Capital Punishment in Texas

2012-01-17T15:02:00.002+01:00

Huntsville, Texas
The world capital of capital punishment

(...) The first post-moratorium execution in Texas was in 1982. Charles Brooks Jr. was executed for the 1976 shooting death of a mechanic. Since 1982, Texas has executed 477 men and women, more than any other state. And there are more than 300 men and women in Texas awaiting execution now.

Executions in Texas — and nationwide — eventually peaked and then evened out in the 1990s. In 1994, there were 328 death sentences issued nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Starting in 1999, though, use of the death penalty began to drop off dramatically, and by 2009 there were 109 death sentences.

Last year, Texas executed 13 prisoners, the lowest number in more than a decade. And juries assigned eight new death sentences in 2010 as well as in 2011, compared with 48 in 1999, according to the Texas Defender Service.

There are 10 inmates who have been on Texas' death row for 30 years or longer. Of those men, six are black, including the longest-serving death row inmate, Raymond Riles, who was convicted in 1976 of robbing and murdering a used-car salesman. In 1985, Riles tried to commit suicide by setting fire to his death row cell, according to TDCJ records.

Like many death row inmates, Riles is from Harris County. That county has sent more Texans to death row and to the execution chamber than any other county in the state. Of the 477 people executed since 1982, 24 percent — 116 inmates — were sentenced in Harris County. More than one-third of the 307 men and women on death row are from that county, a total of 104.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Texas Tribune, January 17, 2012

Dr. King's Stance Against the Death Penalty

2012-01-16T22:40:00.001+01:00

As the U.S. observes the 83rd birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this is a perfect time to reflect on the slain civil rights leader, Nobel laureate and death penalty opponent.

Much is known of the Montgomery bus boycott that he led in the 1950s. He fought for economic justice and the plight of the poor, and supported Memphis sanitation workers before he was assassinated. And he opposed the war in Vietnam. But rarely do we hear about his position against capital punishment.

"I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included," King said. "Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God."

King's words are just as relevant now in the twenty-first century, over four decades after his death.

America has reached a turning point in its application of capital punishment. Last year, Illinois abolished the death penalty over concerns of wrongful convictions and executing the innocent. This came following historic decisions to end the practice in New Mexico and New Jersey. Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber recently placed a moratorium on all executions, stating that the death penalty fails "basic standards of justice."

In addition, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate voted to review the death penalty, in light of questions of racial, ethnic and gender bias, high costs, and a lack of a deterrent effect. And a ballot initiative in California this year will allow voters to give an up or down vote to state-sponsored killing.

Across the nation, the death penalty is an emerging civil rights issue. The execution of Troy Davis last September--an African-American man who was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a white police officer in Savannah, Georgia-- has awoken many to the inherent injustices of capital punishment. That the state could execute a man despite strong evidence of his innocence, including seven of the nine trial witnesses recanting or changing their testimony, was an indication that the death penalty has little to do with guilt or innocence.

Rather, executions in the U.S. are part of a racially-coded system of retribution. Poor people and members of racial minorities are more likely to receive a death sentence, as are those who are charged with murdering a white victim.

In North Carolina, where defendants in cases with white victims are 3.5 times more likely to receive a death sentence, the state legislature voted to repeal the state's Racial Justice Act, which Gov. Bev Perdue signed into law in 2009. The Act allows people facing a death sentence to present statistics and other evidence of racial bias in court. Gov. Bev Perdue vetoed the repeal legislation supported by prosecutors and Republican lawmakers. Civil rights groups such as the NAACP and People of Faith Against the Death Penalty fought the repeal.

State-sponsored executions are part of an American culture of violence. Perhaps it is no accident that the former Confederate states, with their history of dehumanization through slavery and segregation, and the meting out of mob justice through lynching, are among the more enthusiastic practitioners of death.

And the late Coretta Scott King--whose husband and mother-in-law both were assassinated--spoke out against the practice. "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation," Dr. King's widow proclaimed. "Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder".

Further, the death penalty is an international human rights issue as well. The European Union, which forbids the practice among its member nations, has imposed new restrictions on the importation of anesthetics used to execute people in the U.S.

Sadly, some would dilute Dr. King's human rights message, including his "radical revolution of values," in which he urged America to begin the necessary shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. Meanwhile, the "drum major for justice, peace and righteousness" as the inscription reads on his memorial--stands on the National Mall as a reminder of his dedication to human rights, including opposition to the death penalty.

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy," King said. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

If America truly wants to follow the teachings of Martin Luther King, we should end all executions now.

Source: David A. Love is the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty, Huffington Post, Black Voices, January 16, 2012

"Death Penalty?" Leaflets: Derby Muslim denies gay hate crime charge

2012-01-16T19:32:00.000+01:00

Kabir Ahmed (left) denies threatening gay people with 'Death Penalty?' leaflets in first UK prosecution of its kind

A 28-year-old man has told a court he felt he was doing his duty as a Muslim by handing out leaflets alleged to have been threatening to gay people.

Kabir Ahmed said he handed a leaflet called "Death Penalty?" to a passing policeman and put them through letterboxes around the Madeley Street area of Derby in July 2010 because he was spreading the word of God as taught through Islam.

He said: "My intention was to do my duty as a Muslim, to inform people of God's word and to give the message on what God says about homosexuality."

At the opening of the trial last week the jury of seven men and five women were shown the Death Penalty? leaflet, which shows an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and saying homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty under Islam.

The leaflet states: "The death sentence is the only way this immoral crime can be erased from corrupting society and act as a deterrent for any other ill person who is remotely inclined in this bent way."

It continues: "The only dispute amongst the classical authorities was the method employed in carrying out the penal code," and then goes on to offer burning, being flung from a high point such as a mountain or building, or being stoned to death as suitable methods.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Guardian, January 16, 2012

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Japan: New minister won't shirk from hangings

2012-01-15T22:46:00.001+01:00

Execution chamber
at Tokyo's Detention Center

New Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa indicated he may issue execution orders as the number of death-row inmates has grown to a postwar high of around 130, but suggested that condemned Aum Shinrikyo members may not face the gallows anytime soon.

"It's a very hard duty, but I have to take responsibility (for authorizing executions)," Ogawa said Friday in his first news conference since assuming the post. "It isn't in line with the spirit of the law for the number of death-row inmates to continue increasing without executions."

No hangings were carried out in 2011, the 1st full year in which there were no executions in a 19-year span.

Ogawa suggested that with the Jan. 1 arrest of Aum kidnap-slaying fugitive Makoto Hirata after almost 17 years on the run, cult figures on death row may have to testify in his trial and thus none would probably face the gallows in the near future.

"It's likely that testimony will be heard from the death-row inmates. We need to take this point into consideration," Ogawa said. Hirata, 46, faces trial in connection with the 1995 abduction-murder of Tokyo notary Kiyoshi Kariya.

A total of 13 Aum members, including cult founder Shoko Asahara, are on death row for a series of crimes, including the 1995 sarin strike on the Tokyo subway system and another attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994.

Regardless of party lines, giving the final go-ahead to executions has always been a critical test for justice ministers.

Sugiura, 77, was a rarity among LDP lawmakers for not signing any death warrants when he served as justice minister for nearly a year until September 2006, citing his religious beliefs.

Sugiura, who joined the panel as an adviser, recently said, "I'll work as a liaison between the panel and politicians and bureaucrats, as I have had connections with both as justice minister and as a parliamentarian.

Source: Japan Times, January 14, 2011

New justice minister vague on whether he'll issue orders to resume executions

Tokyo Death Chamber

TOKYO — New Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa has indicated that he may be planning to resume issuing orders for executions, but added that he is unlikely to sign any such orders soon.

Ogawa’s remarks, made at his first news conference on Friday night, come at a time when Japan’s total number of death row inmates has risen to 129.

Last year, there were no executions in Japan. The last execution in Japan was in July 2010 when then justice minister Keiko Chiba, a former lawyer, approved the hanging of two inmates, despite her long-time opposition to the death penalty.

In an unusual move, Chiba attended the executions and later allowed the media to visit the execution chamber at the Tokyo Detention House in a bid to increase public debate over the death penalty.

Ogawa said ordering executions is a tough thing to do, but it is part of his duty nonetheless, NHK reported. He said that just increasing the number of inmates on death row with no executions would be contrary to the spirit of the law.

However, Ogawa said that he would most likely not issue execution orders in the near future for any of the 13 members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult on death row. Following the arrest of former Aum fugitive Makoto Hirata and his accomplice Akemi Saito who turned themselves in, Ogawa said that investigators may need to hear testimony from Aum inmates in their case, NHK reported.

Apart from the United States, Japan is the only major industrialized democracy to carry out capital punishment, a practice that has earned Tokyo repeat protests from European governments and human rights groups.

Source: Japan Today, January 16, 2012

Delaware pardons board recommends commutation for killer facing Jan. 20 execution

2012-01-15T22:32:00.001+01:00

Robert Gattis

The state Board of Pardons is recommending that Gov. Jack Markell grant clemency to a man facing execution later this week for the 1990 murder of his former girlfriend.

The state is scheduled to execute Robert Gattis, 49, by lethal injection on Jan. 20.

He asked the pardons board at a hearing last week to recommend that the Democratic governor commute the death sentence he received in 1992 to life in prison without parole.

Markell has declined to say whether he would grant commutation if the board recommended it.

John Deckers, an attorney for Gattis, said he was delighted by the board's decision.

"We're very happy, very pleased with the resolution," Deckers said.

Gattis told the board that he was sorry for killing Slay and that it was not an accident, but that he hoped officials would spare his life.

Under state law, a favorable recommendation from a majority of board members is required for Markell to commute Gattis' death sentence. The board is chaired by the lieutenant governor.

The other members are the state treasurer, state auditor, secretary of state and the head judge of the Court of Chancery.

Gattis has exhausted state and federal court appeals.

His lawyers told the board that commutation was appropriate because the courts have never considered sexual abuse Gattis says he suffered as a child.

Prosecutors questioned the veracity of the sexual abuse claims at the hearing. They also pointed out that Gattis maintained until recently that the killing of Shirley Slay, 27, was an accident.

"I am not the Robert Gattis who killed Shirley Slay. That's not who I am," said Gattis, insisting he's a changed man.

Members of Slay's family said they cannot forgive Gattis for her death, or for the years of physical abuse she suffered at Gattis' hands before he shot her between the eyes at close range.

Full statement from Board of Pardons on Gattis clemency decision

Source: The Republic, January 15, 2012

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Death Penalty News: Dausch: Florida's 1st execution for white-on ...

Dec 26, 2011

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Iran: 12 executed in Shiraz, 5 hanged in public

2012-01-15T17:16:00.002+01:00

Source: Iran Human Rights

Iranian authorities carried out another 12 executions today, Sunday, in Shiraz. Five of the prisoners were hanged in public.

The Mehr News Agency reported that the executed people had been convicted of crimes that include “kidnapping, rape, armed robbery and drug smuggling.”

The seven prisoners convicted of drug charges were hanged at Shiraz Prison and the other five were hanged in public.

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, the head of Iran’s judiciary, rejected criticism of the practice of public hangings. He insisted that the practice is based on Islamic law and is beyond reproach.

Human rights activists in Iran have been protesting capital punishment laws for years; however, Ayatollah Larijani, who took the helm of the judiciary in 2009, has shown less flexibility toward these protests. Iran has one of the world’s highest execution rates.

Source: radiozamaneh, January 15, 2012

12 executions in Shiraz (southern Iran); 5 executed in public

Iran Human Rights, January 15: According to the reports from Iran 12 prisoners were executed in the city of Shiraz (southern Iran) today January 15th.

Iran Human Rights (IHR) had earlier this week warned about the scheduled execution of nine prisoners in Shiraz.

According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars, five prisoners were hanged publicly in three different parts of Shiraz, while seven prisoners were were hanged in the Adelabad prison of Shiraz.

The five prisoners who were hanged in public were identified as:

1. Rahmat Heydari, convicted of kidnapping, murder and armed robbery. He was arrested four weeks ago and his judicial process lasted less than a month.

2. Esmaeil Hamidi Mahmood Abadi, convicted of armed robbery

3. Ali Hadavinia, convicted of armed robbery

4. Mohammad Nabi Tavakoli, convicted of kidnapping and rape

5. Ramin Darakhshan, convicted of rape and kidnapping

Age of none of the prisoners was mentioned in the report.

According to this report seven other prisoners were hanged in the Adelabad prison of Shiraz this morning. All these prisoners were convicted of drug-related offences and none of them were identified by name.

Along with todays’s executions at least 54 people have been executed in Iran in the first two weeks of January 2012.

Source: Iran Human Rights, January 16, 2012

Tunisia amnesties thousands on Ben Ali ouster anniversary

2012-01-14T14:25:00.001+01:00

TUNIS, Jan 14, 2012 (AFP) - Tunisia Saturday granted an amnesty or conditional release from prison to 9,000 detainees to mark the first anniversary of the fall of despot Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, officials said.

"On the occasion of the first anniverary of the Tunisian revolution the justice ministry has announced that 9,000 detainees will be pardoned or benefit from a conditional release," the ministry said in a statement.

The amnesty on what is now a public holiday in Tunisia had been expected and will include Tunisian and foreign prisoners.

Capital punishment of another 122 detainees will be converted to life imprisonment.

The death penalty remains on the books in the north African country but is no longer applied.

Source: Agence France-Presse, January 14, 2012

Former Oregon warden seeks end to death penalty

2012-01-14T14:06:00.000+01:00

Frank Thompson

A former state penitentiary warden who oversaw the last two inmate executions in this state has joined an advocacy group determined to repeal Oregon's death penalty.

In an interview Friday with the Statesman Journal, Frank Thompson described the death penalty as "a failed public policy."

"In my opinion, capital punishment fails terribly in meeting any evidence-based outcomes," he said.

This week, Thompson joined Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, becoming one of three new members on its advisory council.

OADP is a nonprofit advocacy group with a stated goal of repealing Oregon's death penalty through a potential ballot measure.

Thompson said Oregon can't afford the death penalty, particularly not at a time when the state's economy remains weak, threatening layoffs and cuts to public services.

By conservative estimates, he said, it costs anywhere from $9 million to $20 million per year "to keep capital punishment alive" in this state.

The figures Thompson cited were prepared by anti-death penalty activists and include costs for legal appeals for death row inmates, as well as other expenses.

The ex-warden said he favors life in prison as the suitable alternative punishment for convicted murderers sentenced to death.

"I do believe that life without the possibility of parole is an effective sanction in lieu of the death penalty," he said.

Click here to read the full article

Source: StatesmanJournal.com, January 13, 2012

Iran: 2 hanged in Tehran, 9 scheduled to be executed in Shiraz in the coming days

2012-01-14T02:15:00.000+01:00

Tehran's Evin prison

Iran Human Rights, January 13: Two prisoners were executed in Tehran’s Evin prison and 9 others are scheduled to be hanged in the coming days in Shiraz, reported the Iranian state media.

According to Shargh newspaper, two prisoners were executed in the Evin prison of Tehran, Wednesday morning January 11. According to the report the prisoners were identified as "Fazlollah" and "Jalal" who were both convicted of rape. Fazlollah was also sentenced to 173 lashes for immoral relationship.

The report also mentioned that three Afghan citizens were also sentenced to death by a Tehran court and the execution order was confirmed by the head of the Iranian judiciary.

The state run Iranian news agency Aftab reported that 9 prisoners will be executed in Shiraz (southern Iran) in the coming days.

According to this report two of the prisoners were convicted of rape, one prisoner convicted of murder and two prisoners were convicted of armed robbery. These prisoners will be hanged publicly, while four other prisoners who were convicted of drug-related offences will be hanged in the Adelabad prison of Shiraz.

Source: Iran Human Rights, January 13, 2012

Ohio: Changes in execution process constitutional

2012-01-13T22:33:00.000+01:00

The deviations from official death penalty procedures made during an execution last year were minor changes that wouldn't cause pain to an inmate or violate his rights, the state said in a filing Friday seeking to overturn a judge's ruling that postponed next week's execution of a man who stabbed an elderly couple to death 25 years ago.

Attorneys for Charles Lorraine argued that the deviations were important enough to cause concern that Ohio was still not following its own rules for putting inmates to death.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost agreed, and on Wednesday stopped Lorraine's execution while acknowledging he didn't want to be micromanaging Ohio's death penalty processes.

Frost said the state failed to document the drugs used in its last execution in November and failed to review the medical chart of the inmate put to death.

Attorneys for the state had argued previously that the changes were negligible, and they said Friday the execution should proceed.

"Lorraine failed to make any showing that there is a sure or very likely risk that he will suffer severe pain," Principal Assistant Attorney General Charles Wille said in a filing with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"How does a `sure or very likely risk' of pain and suffering arise from the decision to allow a Team Member other than the Drug Administrator to announce the start and finish times of each injection?" Wille said. "Or from the decision to allow a trained pharmacist, rather than the Team Leader, to document the name, expiration date, and lot number of the execution drugs used?"

The state chose not to appeal a much stronger ruling by Frost in July that ripped the Department of Corrections for what he called haphazard and embarrassing deviations to its own rules. Instead, Ohio rewrote its policies and said it would follow them in the future. With those changes in place, Frost refused to stop the execution of Reginald Brooks in November.

It's likely the issue will go to the U.S. Supreme Court in last-minute legal wrangling before the Jan. 18 execution.

The way Ohio puts inmates to death has been under scrutiny since 2009 when executioners tried unsuccessfully for nearly two hours to insert a needle into the veins of Romell Broom, sentenced to die for raping and killing a 14-year-old Cleveland girl. Then Gov. Ted Strickland eventually called the execution off and Broom remains on death row, arguing in court filings that Ohio shouldn't be allowed a second try at executing him.

Source: Associated Press, January 13, 2012

Moroccan court sentences drug kingpin to death

2012-01-13T22:23:00.000+01:00

A Moroccan court has sentenced the head of a major drug gang to death after he was found guilty of manslaughter and narcotics trafficking in a high profile case that also saw security officials convicted of their involvement.

The official MAP news agency said Casablanca's appeal court handed down the death sentence to Najib Zaimi late on Thursday.

The death penalty has not been carried out since 1992 in Morocco, which ranks as the biggest supplier of cannabis to Europe. In October, a court near Rabat sentenced to death the chief plotter of an April Marrakesh bomb attack that killed 17.

Authorities said in 2010 they had dismantled an international drug trafficking ring and discovered 7.5 tonnes of cannabis hidden at a farm near Nador owned by Zaimi, who has denied any wrongdoing.

They said the network had a string of officials on its payroll who helped it bypass police and customs checks, allowing it to transport drugs from Nador to Spain and the Netherlands.

Nador is located in the Rif region of northern Morocco where several thousand people still earn a living from cannabis cultivation despite efforts by authorities to curb the activity.

The prosecution had sought the death sentence for the ring leader and other suspects for their involvement in torturing to death a relative of Zaimi suspected of stealing money from him.

Zaimi has the right to appeal his sentence but it was not clear whether his lawyers had moved to do this.

His right-hand man, Hicham Chouhou, was sentenced to life imprisonment while Mohamed Jalmad, the former head of police in Nador, was sentenced to 3 years in jail.

MAP said Zaimi's father was given 20 years in jail, while 2 other relatives were also sentenced to prison.

It did not detail any sentences given to 30 other suspects also charged in the case. These included 13 members of the paramilitary police and auxiliary forces, a member of military intelligence, an interior ministry official as well as the head of a banking branch and a local reporter.

Source: Reuters, January 13, 2012

South Korean marine gets death for shooting spree

2012-01-13T14:35:00.000+01:00

A SOUTH Korean Marine who killed four colleagues in a shooting spree after complaining of bullying has been sentenced to death after a court martial.

The 20-year-old corporal opened fire at a Marine Corps barracks on Ganghwa island near the North Korean border in July last year before trying to commit suicide with a grenade.

A Marine private found guilty of helping the corporal was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.

The corporal, identified only as Kim, and the private, surnamed Jung, told military investigators they had hatched their plan after being constantly bullied and beaten by superiors. Jung denied involvement in the actual shooting.

Military psychological tests conducted about a year before the shooting spree found Kim was mentally unstable and struggling to cope with service life. He had also been drinking before the rampage.

Kim can appeal the sentence. South Korea has not carried out executions since 1997, although the penalty remains on the statute books.

The elite Marine Corps is charged with guarding frontline islands in the Yellow Sea near the disputed border with the North.

The incident raised questions about standards of discipline and morale in the largely conscript 650,000-strong military.

In 2005 eight soldiers were killed and two seriously wounded when a soldier threw a grenade and sprayed bullets over sleeping colleagues at a frontline guard post north of Seoul.

The soldier in the 2005 incident alleged senior colleagues had bullied him.

In 2008 an army private struggling to adapt to military life threw a grenade at sleeping colleagues, wounding five.

And in June 2010, two Marines on another frontline island opened fire at a civilian passenger plane after mistaking the Airbus for a North Korean intruder. The aircraft was not hit.

Able-bodied South Korean men must undergo at least two years' military service, and some complain of abuse and harassment of junior soldiers by their seniors.

North and South Korea have remained technically at war since their 1950-1953 conflict ended only with an armistice instead of a full peace treaty.

Source: Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2012

Nebraska: Court sets March 6 execution date for Michael Ryan

2012-01-13T14:14:00.000+01:00

The Nebraska Supreme Court on Wednesday set a March 6 execution date for Michael Ryan, who was sentenced to death for killing James Thimm during ritualistic torture at a farm near Rulo in 1985.

The order came two days after Attorney General Jon Bruning's office filed documents with the high court saying a challenge by Ryan's lawyer of the state's purchase of a lethal-injection drug is "frivolous, dilatory and irrelevant."

Ryan's attorney, Jerry Soucie of the Nebraska Commission for Public Advocacy, said he was "certainly disappointed in the court not first giving us the opportunity to respond to the AG's filing."

"We had some additional information that we thought was necessary for the court to hear,'' Soucie said, adding that more court action on Ryan's behalf is likely. "My expectation would be that some sort of further action will be filed in a lower court --- probably Richardson County (where the crimes were committed) to address the issues. And then we'll go from there."

In a statement, Bruning said, "In light of today's Nebraska Supreme Court ruling setting the execution date for Mr. Ryan, the state will make all necessary preparations to carry out the sentence."

Soucie has said the sodium thiopental Nebraska bought recently was meant to be used for test-and-evaluation purposes in Zambia and was not supposed to be sold.

Nebraska Department of Correctional Services officials said Nov. 3 they paid $5,411 for a supply of sodium thiopental made by Naari, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Switzerland. The news release did not mention that the drug, while made by Naari, was purchased by a middleman named Chris Harris, who then sold it to the state.

"Although Ryan has failed to present a legally valid theory as to why his death sentence should not be enforced," Bruning's Monday filing said, "Ryan persists in his attempts to delay enforcement by filing pleadings with sensational, false and conclusory allegations concerning the irrelevant issue of the process by which DCS came into the custody of sodium thiopental."

Soucie filed documents with the high court saying Harris and his company, Harris Pharma LLP, were not authorized to sell the drug.

The pharmaceutical company has asked the state to return the drug, saying it was obtained by deception.

Soucie contends that Harris misappropriated the thiopental from Naari, and Nebraska prison officials are in possession of stolen property.

But Bruning said Naari's CEO has reason to lie because intense public opposition to the death penalty overseas could cost the company business if its drugs are used in executions.

He also said the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that how a state obtains a lethal-injection drug is irrelevant.

The high court in 2010 vacated the stay of execution for Arizona death-row inmate Jeffrey Landrigan, who had been given a stay when his lawyers argued the sodium thiopental to be used was made by a company outside the United States that was not an FDA-approved manufacturer of the drug. The high court said there was no evidence that showed the drug was unsafe and that "there was no showing that the drug was unlawfully obtained, nor was there an offer of proof to that effect."

Nebraska is among 10 states that have purchased the drug from foreign sources. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has seized supplies from several of them because they were imported illegally or because of questions over how they were manufactured.

Source: Lincoln Journal Star, January 12, 2012

Somalia: Kenyan stoned to death for alleged espionage

2012-01-12T23:47:00.000+01:00

January 10, 2012: Kenyan fighting for the Al-Shabaab was filmed as he was being executed by the Somali militant group for alleged espionage.

The Kenya Defense Forces spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir confirmed that the non-Somali Kenyan was stoned to death by the militants in Kismayu after he was convicted of aiding Kenyan troops identify their targets in Somalia.

"It is a fact that a Kenyan was executed in Kismayu, two more are likely to be executed on January 13 afternoon," Chirchir said.

The photos showed a Kenyan man from Nairobi who had been "recruited" by Al-Shabaab and then was stoned to death because he had a different "opinion" from them.

Chirchir said the stoning took place in the southern Somali city of Kismayo, a key target of the Kenyan offensive. The militants are said to have rounded up hundreds of Kismayu residents to come and witness the execution, a tactic they normally use to instill fear in the civilian population.

Source: Xinhua, January 12, 2012

Gaza: "Israel collaborator" sentenced to death

2012-01-12T23:33:00.000+01:00

January 11, 2012: A Hamas official in Gaza says the militant group sentenced a local Palestinian to death for collaborating with Israel.

The official said the man was sentenced to death by firing squad at a military court in Gaza.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak with reporters.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights' says Hamas has issued 36 death sentences since it seized Gaza from the rival Fatah party in 2007. At least 15 executions have actually been carried out.

The Palestinian rights group says it is "gravely concerned" over the continued death sentences imposed by both Hamas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Sources: AP, Arutz Sheva, January 11, 2012

NAACP: U.S. Death Penalty a Cost Issue

2012-01-12T23:17:00.000+01:00

The NAACP is urging the Maryland legislature to abolish the death penalty.

The organization’s action comes on the heels of efforts to stop the execution of Troy Davis last year. But, the tone of that move represents a marked shift in which death penalty critics are increasingly framing the issue within the context of cost rather than as a moral imperative or as a way to highlight racial disparities. The hope is that states like Maryland, pressed for money during hard economic times, will take a second look at the practice and do away with it.

At a recent news conference, NAACP President Ben Jealous said that Maryland’s death penalty is causing the state to spend needless dollars on capital executions, while that money could be directed toward solving homicides, improving victim services, and “getting killers off the streets.”

“The state of Maryland continues to waste money on the death penalty, continues to put citizens’ lives at risk by not investing enough in homicide victims services, so that a few politicians can feel tough on crime,” said Jealous.

While the NAACP has taken up the charge to abrogate capital punishment for years, social media appears to be transforming how the organization is spreading the word.

Jealous said that last year’s Twitter campaign to free Davis, which drew in hundreds of thousands of participants around the globe, evidenced the growing interest and support in advancing the cause.

“… literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of young people made the Troy Davis Case the most tweeted about issue in the world after Beyoncé’s pregnancy … second only to Beyonce’s pregnancy this was the issue that young people most tweeted about in the world last year,” said Jealous.

Click here to read the full article

Source: politic365.com, Kenneth Mallory, January 12, 2012

Judge Halts Ohio Execution, Scolds State

2012-01-11T18:34:00.000+01:00

A federal judge has postponed the execution of an Ohio man who stabbed to death an elderly couple because he says the state has once again failed to follow its own execution policies.

Charles Lorraine was scheduled to die by injection next week and had already lost his plea for mercy to Gov. John Kasich, who denied clemency.

U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost said Wednesday that the Ohio Department of Corrections failed to follow some of its own guidelines in the state's newest version of its execution rules.

Frost says the state failed to document the drugs used in its last execution in November and failed to review the medical chart of the inmate who was put to death.

The Ohio attorney general's office is reviewing the decision.

Source: AP, January 11, 2012

Iran’s gift to the American presidential candidates: first death penalty against a U.S. citizen in 33 years

2012-01-11T18:12:00.000+01:00

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati

At present, if Iran decides to go through with Amir Hekmati's execution, the American election candidates will be faced with significant difficulties. Amnesty International issued a statement on Monday saying Iran must not execute a US National sentenced to death, after an unfair trial.

"Like many other detainees in Iran, Amir Hekmati did not receive a fair trial and we question the timing and political circumstances of this decision," said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International's interim Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati was detained in August last year. The ex-Marine was accused of spying for the CIA and sentenced to death for "collaboration with a hostile government". His appeal against this conviction and sentence must be lodged within 20 days.

Iran charged Amir Mirzaei Hekmati with receiving special training and serving at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before traveling to Iran on an intelligence mission.

The United States denied the accusations. The State Department called them a "complete fabrication" and White House spokesman Tommy Vietor added that "allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for or was sent to Iran by the CIA are false."

Meanwhile, the Iranian government claims that it has undeniable pieces of evidence for the charge of espionage against Amir Mirzaei Hekmati. Several times, the Iranian government arrested different people, including American citizens and Iranian-Americans, on the charges of spying for the USA, but this is the 1st death penalty since Iran's revolution 33 years ago. For example, the 3 American hikers who were arrested at the Iranian border with Iraqi, in August 2009, on the charge of spying, were simply released 2 years later.

"We know from past experience that the Iranian authorities sometimes rush forward with executions of political prisoners - including dual nationals - at politically sensitive times and we fear that this execution could happen within days or weeks." said Ann Harrison.

It is obvious that Iran has always been tougher to deal with those who have dual citizenship in the case of spying but when it comes to Iranian-Americans, Iran is cautious in issuing severe sentences against these citizens.

However, the current state of affairs shows that Iran changed its policy against the United States. Some experts believe this is a response to increasing pressures from the U.S. against the Iranian government.

Ahmadinejad has already said several times that if the U.S. decides for more sanctions against Iran, he will think of more serious comebacks. But most U.S. presidential candidates retorted to public talks about a possible US or Israeli attack against Iran in the present election campaign. This certainly angered the Iranian authorities.

Khamenei's military advisor stated that if Israel attacks Iran, Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah will attack Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel, with missiles. Thus, the Iranian president expects the U.S. to understand and count on this death penalty as an example of such response.

It seems that American presidential candidates' involvement in Iran's nuclear program is just a way of getting more votes. But for Iran this is more serious. At present, if Iran decides to go through with Amir Hekmati's execution, the American presidential candidates will be faced with significant difficulties.

Meanwhile, Iran knows that this sentence will turn the world's view to other issues, even if for a while, and at the same time it can turn tables in Iran's favor. This tactic has been used repeatedly by the Iranian government over the years. The obvious example was Sakineh Mohammadi's stoning which deflected world's attention from the Iranian nuclear issue.

The card that Iran has put on the table today for the American candidates will probably lead to a win-win situation for Iran. If U.S. officials are not able to save Amir Hekmati, this will put a strain on future elections for both the Republicans and Democrats. However, if they succeed in saving him, based on experience, surely the Iranian government will demand in exchange a considerable amount of money or the release a prominent prisoner in America.

Source: allvoices.com, January 11, 2012

Death Penalty News: Iran sentences American to die for spying

Jan 09, 2012

"Amir Mirza Hekmati was sentenced to death ... for cooperating with the hostile country America and spying for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)," ISNA news agency quoted judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Iran urged to halt execution of US national in ...

23 hours ago

Amir Hekmati, an Arizona-born Iranian-American who had served as an Arabic translator in the US Marine Corps, was accused of spying for the CIA and sentenced to death for “collaboration with a hostile government”. ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Death Penalty News: Iran seeks death for American accused of spying

Dec 27, 2011

In a closed court hearing, the prosecution applied for capital punishment, the report said, because the suspect, identified as Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, “admitted that he received training in the United States and planned to imply...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

Yong Vui Kong: The boy behind the glass panel

2012-01-11T16:20:00.003+01:00

Yong Vui Kong

The following entry was first published on 3rd Dec 2009 on the writer’s Facebook note. It was the day he came face to face with Yong Vui Kong for the first time. Yong is a Malaysian citizen who has been sentenced to death by hanging in Singapore for carrying heroin. He is currently awaiting clemency from the President.

(...) Yong Vui Kong just sits there in the dock looking down. Two policemen sit to either side of him. Two and a half years ago, Yong was found guilty of trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, and given the mandatory death sentence. Last week, the appeal to get a presidential pardon was rejected with a simple statement-

“I am directed to refer to the petition for clemency of Yong Vui Kong and to inform you that the President, after due consideration of the petition and on advice of the Cabinet, has decided that the sentence of death should stand.”

Yong is a man on death row. But he nearly didn’t qualify for that term ‘man’. He was only 19 – barely out of boyhood – when he was found guilty and sentenced.

There are about 16 of us in the ‘public and media’ gallery of the courtroom. I recognize some online journalists and a few independent documentarians. Three others look like Yong’s relatives. I don’t spot anyone from the mainstream media. Their absence means this is a non-event. A run-of-the-mill story about someone foolish enough to run afoul of Singapore’s drug laws. The amount he was found with – 47 grams – was hardly newsworthy. There was hardly any international outcry, not even from Yong’s country-of-birth. He’s from Malaysia, a country that also sentences drug traffickers to death.

I often wonder how it is that ordinary people can make decisions that literally determines if someone lives or someone dies. The Parliament that votes to legislate the mandatory death penalty. The judge who passes the sentence. The hangman who pulls the lever. The drug baron who tips off the customs to arrest one drug mule so that other drug mules can make it through (this is known to happen). Yong, who, if he knew what he was carrying, must’ve known the package had the potential to destroy lives. Yong who bought his mother a present with the initial $2000 downpayment for the job that would most likely cost his life.

Click here to read the full article

Source: The Online Citizen, Joshua Chiang, December 27, 2011

Click here to sign an oline petition urging Singapore's President to commute Yong's death sentence to a prison sentence. Thank you!

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Death Penalty News: Yong Vui Kong's verdict scheduled

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Texas: State Fire Marshal Resigns as Arson Inquiry Begins

2012-01-11T15:51:00.001+01:00

Willingham's house
after the blaze

The Texas state fire marshal who defended the agency’s work in the Cameron Todd Willingham arson investigation quietly and hurriedly resigned in December after seven years on the job.

Paul Maldonado’s one-sentence, hand-written letter of resignation, dated Dec. 12, comes just as the fire marshal’s office, in conjunction with the Innocence Project of Texas, embarks on an unprecedented review of arson cases in the wake of the Texas Forensic Science Commission’s protracted examination of the Willingham case.

Asked why Maldonado resigned, spokesman Jerry Hagins said the agency does not discuss personnel issues. “The personnel change won't affect the work of the State Fire Marshal's office,” Hagins wrote in an email.

In October, after discussions with the Texas Forensic Science Commission and the Innocence Project, Maldonado had agreed to cooperate with a review of old arson cases to determine whether faulty science might have led to wrongful convictions.

The agreement came after more than two years of heated controversy at the science commission over the Willingham case. Willingham was executed in 2004. He was convicted of arson in the 1991 fire that killed his three daughters. Several scientists who reviewed the evidence shortly before and after Willingham’s execution had concluded the deadly blaze was not intentionally set. And the New York-based Innocence Project asked the Forensic Science Commission to review the scientific methods used by the State Fire Marshal’s Office that led to Willingham’s conviction.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Texas Tribune, January 9, 2012

Court approves executions for 2 Arizona inmates

2012-01-11T15:35:00.001+01:00

Robert Henry Moormann (L)
and Robert Charles Towery (R)

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday approved the executions of two inmates, including one who has been on death row for 26 years for brutally killing and dismembering his adoptive mother.

The court approved warrants for Robert Henry Moormann and Robert Charles Towery and set their executions eight days apart from one another. Moormann’s execution was scheduled for Feb. 29 and Towery’s was scheduled for March 8.

If Moormann’s execution is carried out, it will be the first death penalty carried out in the state since July 19, when the state executed Thomas Paul West for the beating death of another man in a 1987 robbery.

The court was set to consider approving the death warrants for Moormann and Towery back in November, but delayed the decision at the last minute without explanation.

At the time, a federal judge was considering a lawsuit filed by defense attorneys arguing that Arizona’s execution practices violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The lawsuit claimed that the state had deviated from a court-approved execution protocol by using unvetted personnel to administer lethal injections under a sheet, away from witnesses’ view.

Judge Neil Wake ended up dismissing the lawsuit on Dec. 21. The defense attorneys are appealing his decision to the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Source: AP, January 11, 2012