Lindsay Sandiford's Sister Fears She May Not Be Saved From Execution In Bali

Kerobokan Prison

The sister of Lindsay Sandiford, the British grandmother sentenced to death by firing squad in Bali last week, fears that she cannot be saved from execution because of her inability to fund a lawyer.

Hilary Parsons has spent the last pennies of her savings to try and find Sandiford a lawyer to challenge her death sentence for drug smuggling, but cannot afford even the expenses of an Indonesian lawyer who she says has agreed to act for free.

Parsons spoke of her "terror" at the realisation that she alone must try and navigate the Indonesian appeals process, with no funds to pay legal representatives. "I can't imagine what we will do if we miss the opportunity to save Lindsay's life," she said in an interview published by Reprieve, the legal rights charity supporting Sandiford.

"Because Lindsay is unrepresented it is has fallen to me to try to work out what is going on and when documents need to be filed - this is a terrifying position to be in.

"I don't speak Indonesian and have no way to find out how the Indonesian criminal justice system works.

"When I arrived in Bali in early October I managed to find an Indonesian Lawyer, Esra Karokaro who would represent Lindsay at trial for $5000. Other lawyers we approached had asked for upwards of $30,000.

"Although Esra appeared to be an honest lawyer who would do his best for Lindsay, he did not speak much English and had never handled a case carrying the death penalty.

"Esra has done his best throughout the case but it is clear that Lindsay desperately needs the help of an experienced capital defence lawyer. A lawyer has offered to act for free but I have spent all of my savings and do not have the money to pay his costs."

Sandiford, 56, from Teeside, was arrested on 1.7m pounds drugs charges in Bali. Prosecution lawyers asked for her to serve a 15-year sentence, but a panel of judges, headed by Amser Simanjuntak, concluded that Sandiford had damaged the image of Bali as a tourism destination and weakened the government's programme of drug annihilation.

Source: Huffington Post, January 30, 2013

Lindsay Sandiford arrives at a courthouse in Denpasar, Bali

Reprieve recently announced that it had filed an application for a judicial review through solicitors Leigh Day & Co, charging the UK Foreign Office overs its alleged failure to support Sandiford's appeal.

Sandiford has just 2 weeks to file the appeal. She has already filed an intention to appeal with the district court.

Parsons said: "A lawyer has offered to represent Lindsay pro bono if the British Government are able to cover his costs. He is our only choice.

"If we were properly funded we could hire the very best lawyer. I know nothing about this lawyer and can only hope and pray that he is the right person for the very difficult job.

"I am so scared that we will lose the chance to appeal. A lawyer should have started work on the case a week ago and every day that goes by is a day that Lindsay loses for preparing her appeal.

"We have nowhere else to turn. We desperately need the help of the British Foreign Office to ensure that Lindsay has a lawyer."

Separately, the Jakarta Post, Indonesia's largest English-language newspaper, has published an editorial in the wake of the Sandiford case, calling for the abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia.

It said: "This new death sentence should serve as the impetus for the complete abolition of the death penalty in Indonesia.

"More than 2/3 of the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. The year 2013 should be the time for Indonesia to follow suit.

One of the reasons given by the paper for abolition is the fact that the US still retains capital punishment. "We should also abolish the death penalty so that we are no longer compared to other death penalty retainers, like the US, whose criminal justice systems are notoriously problematic and rife with errors," the paper said.

Source: Huffington Post, January 30, 2013

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog