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Japan | Hakamada case underscores folly of maintaining death penalty

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The Tokyo High Court’s decision on March 13 to grant a retrial for an 87-year-old man who spent decades on death row strongly shows that he was wrongly convicted. The retrial should be held immediately to provide a legal remedy for Iwao Hakamada. In granting the retrial in the high-profile case, the high court said reasonable doubt has arisen on the guilt of Hakamada. He was arrested on suspicion of murder in August 1966, two months after an executive of a miso-producing company and three of his family members were killed in what is now Shizuoka. Hakamada, who had worked at the miso company, spent most of his adult life in detention. His latest request for a retrial was filed 15 years ago.

Inside Texas Death Row

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In most places death has no schedule, but in Huntsville, Texas, an average of 16 people per year are scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. Texas executes more people than any other U.S. state.

National Geographic's "Inside Death Row" interviews three inmates as their dates of execution draw near, and follows the stories of their families and loved ones as they deal with death firsthand.

This story is not one of guilt or innocence; it is about how the State of Texas carries out the death penalty as well as the men and women whom, by choice or circumstance, become players in the act of executing another human being.

Lastly, it explores how the residents of Huntsville feel towards living in a town that is ground zero for capital punishment in the United States.

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Japan | Hakamada case underscores folly of maintaining death penalty

Published
Image
The Tokyo High Court’s decision on March 13 to grant a retrial for an 87-year-old man who spent decades on death row strongly shows that he was wrongly convicted. The retrial should be held immediately to provide a legal remedy for Iwao Hakamada. In granting the retrial in the high-profile case, the high court said reasonable doubt has arisen on the guilt of Hakamada. He was arrested on suspicion of murder in August 1966, two months after an executive of a miso-producing company and three of his family members were killed in what is now Shizuoka. Hakamada, who had worked at the miso company, spent most of his adult life in detention. His latest request for a retrial was filed 15 years ago.
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China | Man who killed wife executed in Hangzhou

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Xu Guoli, who killed his wife in 2020, was executed on Tuesday in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, after the Hangzhou Intermediate People's Court approved his death sentence, which was handed down in July 2021. The court turned down Xu's appeal.  He had confessed in court that he killed his sleeping wife on July 5, 2020, because of "family conflicts". The death penalty verdict was submitted to the Supreme People's Court for re-examination and approval. The verdict said that Xu was "extremely vicious and ruthless" in the premeditated homicide and had fabricated false information to cover up his crime, which was extremely harmful to society.
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Death row minister sues Oklahoma Corrections agency for $10M

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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A death row minister who was inside the execution chamber during Oklahoma’s last lethal injection sued the Department of Corrections for $10 million on Friday, alleging the agency and its spokesman defamed him in a statement to the media. The Rev. Jeff Hood of Arkansas alleges in the federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City that the Jan. 9 statement attributed to Department of Corrections spokesman Josh Ward was false and defamatory. “The words that Defendant Ward of the ODOC released worldwide have injured Plaintiff Hood’s reputation and caused obvious emotional distress,” the lawsuit states.
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Texas set to execute Ivan Cantu, 20 years he maintains innocence

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Texas death row inmate Ivan Cantu is scheduled for execution on April 26, 2023. Cantu was convicted in Collin County for killing his cousin James Mosqueda, and his cousin's fiance, Amy Kitchen, in 2000. Cantu has spent over 20 years on death row, and he has not wavered his story and maintains his innocence. Matt Duff, the host and private investigator on the podcast "Cousins by Blood" has spent years diving into the case and has compiled a strong argument that suggests Cantu could have been framed and has spent the past 20 years rotting in a prison cell at the Polunsky Unit in Texas for a crime he did not commit. Duff interviews the star testimony in Cantu's case that sent him to death row. Also, the podcast shares the early jail tapes to hear first-hand conversations with Cantu and his family during his initial arrest.
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Nicholas Yarris spent 22 years on death row for a murder he didn't commit

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Nicholas Yarris One in a series on issues pertaining to the death penalty in Pennsylvania. On Jan. 16, 2004, Nicholas Yarris walked out of prison a free man after 22 years on Pennsylvania's death row. Yarris, now 54, is one of 15 people in the United States - and the only person in Pennsylvania - to be released from death row after being found not guilty of a capital murder by means of a DNA test. "I'm kind of a walking encyclopedia on the death penalty," Yarris joked during a recent phone interview from his home in California. In 1981, Yarris, 20 at the time, was driving with a friend in what turned out to be a stolen car. A Chester police officer pulled Yarris over and the encounter turned violent, the officer claimed. The incident ended with Yarris being charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. Yarris said the charges against him were trumped up and when the case went to trial, he was acquitted of the attempted murder charge
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Court: Arizona governor not required to carry out execution

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PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that state law doesn’t require Gov. Katie Hobbs to carry out the April 6 execution of a prisoner who was convicted of murder. The decision marks a legal victory for the newly elected Democratic governor whose office said the state isn’t currently prepared to carry out the death penalty. The high court had set the April execution date for Aaron Gunches, who fatally shot Ted Price near Mesa, Arizona, in 2002. The order came after Hobbs said executions will not be carried out until Arizonans can be confident that the state isn’t violating constitutional rights when it enforces the death penalty. The governor vowed two weeks ago that she wouldn’t carry out the court’s order while the state reviews death penalty protocols that she ordered because of Arizona’s history of mismanaging executions.
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India | Supreme Court reopens debate over right to dignified execution

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A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud has reopened a decades-old debate over whether there can be a more humane and dignified way of executing the death penalty. The Supreme Court on Tuesday (March 21) asked the Centre to defend the law that allows hanging by the neck as a mode of execution.  Attorney General for India (AG) A R Venkataramani agreed to seek instructions from the government before the court sets up a committee to examine the issue. A bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud is essentially reopening a decades-old debate over whether there can be a more humane and dignified way of executing the death penalty.
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Why Poor People in Texas End Up on Death Row and Face Execution

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An in-depth piece in the Huffington Post examines Harris County’s (Texas) system for providing representation to those facing the death penalty who cannot afford their own attorney. The process is explored through the story of Obel Cruz-Garcia, a prisoner on Texas’ death row. The author described his case: “Like most people who end up on death row, Cruz-Garcia could not afford to hire a lawyer for the resource-intensive process of a capital trial, and Harris County, Texas, doesn’t offer public defenders in death penalty cases. Instead, he was appointed a private defense lawyer named R.P. ‘Skip’ Cornelius, who made a living billing the county to represent more than 100 indigent clients a year. Cornelius was paid a flat fee to represent Cruz-Garcia, regardless of how much time he spent working on the case.”
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Arizona | Daughter of 2002 murder victim on Hobbs halting executions: It’s ‘traumatizing to my family’

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The daughter of 2002 murder victim Ted Price said Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs’ decision to halt prisoner execution is traumatizing her family as they expected Price’s killer to be executed next month. “What she’s doing is extremely, emotionally traumatizing to my family,” Brittney Price told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Gaydos and Chad Show on Thursday. “We’ve waited this long, we’ve been this patient … we didn’t want to go down without a fight because we shouldn’t have to be fighting for something that he (Aaron Gunches) was sentenced to twice and he wants it. He requested it.” A warrant for the execution of Gunches was issued by the Arizona Supreme Court on March 2, but Hobbs vowed to not carry out the execution pending a review of the death penalty process, which she ordered on Jan. 20 because of the state’s history of executions that were allegedly mishandled.
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Taiwan | High court upholds death penalty for Malaysian student's killer

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Kaohsiung, March 23 (CNA) The Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch Court has upheld the death sentence of a man who raped and murdered a Malaysian student of Chang Jung Christian University in Tainan in October 2020. Speaking with reporters after the court issued its ruling Thursday, Chiu Ming-hung (邱明弘), chief judge of the hearing, said that the court had upheld Liang Yu-chih's (梁育誌) sentence due to his lack of remorse or empathy for his 24-year-old victim, surnamed Chung (鍾), as well as his high risk of recidivism. The ruling can be appealed. On Oct. 28, 2020, Liang abducted Chung while she was walking by herself along a railway overpass near her school around 8 p.m., according to prosecutors.
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