Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
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Sister Helen Prejean hands Richard Glossip letter to Pope Francis (video)
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Sister Helen Prejean comments on meeting Pope Francis in Rome and giving him a thank-you letter from Oklahoma death-row inmate Richard Glossip.
Still fighting the death penalty, Sister Prejean gets pope’s blessing
Richard Glossip and Sister Helen Prejean
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Two decades after her anti-death penalty work was transformed into an Oscar-winning movie, “Dead Man Walking,” Sister Helen Prejean’s campaign continues with the backing of Pope Francis.
Prejean met with the pope on Thursday (Jan. 21) to deliver a thank-you letter from Richard Glossip, whose execution in the U.S. was halted in September after intervention from the pontiff [and , essentially, an execution drugs mix-up that led Gov. Fallin to stop the executionin extremis and reluctantly declare a temporary stay on all executions scheduled in Oklahoma -- DPN].
“I said, ‘They killed him.’ And he (Francis) lowered his eyes and said, ‘I pray, I pray.’ He really feels for people on death row,” Prejean recalled.
Masterson was convicted for killing Darin Honeycutt in 2001, although the defense team argued that the victim died of a heart attack during consensual sexual relations.
The pope had been following the case closely, Cardinal Christoph Schonborn said on Monday.
Francis voiced his opposition to capital punishment while addressing Congress in September. “Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty,” he said. “Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation,” Francis told lawmakers.
Prejean remains hopeful in the case of Glossip, convicted of hiring a man to kill a motel owner. His execution was indefinitely postponed after it was discovered that the wrong drug had been presented for the lethal injection.
The execution was stayed by Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who received a letter from the Vatican’s top U.S. diplomat, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, urging her to save Glossip’s life on behalf of the pope.
“I sensed his innocence from the beginning. I’m with the seventh person on death row; three of the seven have been innocent — that’s how broken the thing (system) is.”
More than 150 people have been released from death row since 1973, following evidence of their innocence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Executions are disproportionately high in Southern states and people are more likely to be sentenced to death if their victim is white.
Pope Francis adresses the U.S. Congress in Sept. 2015
Campaigning equally for those who are guilty and innocent, Prejean argued that those on death row feel deep remorse and should not be executed for one act. Discussing a particular case, she said a man asked for forgiveness and admitted to being so high on drugs he had no memory of the crime.
The nun’s fight against capital punishment began in the 1980s, when she became a spiritual adviser to Patrick Sonnier, who was put to death in Louisiana. Prejean presented the pope with a Spanish copy of the book based on her experiences, “Dead Man Walking,” which was turned into a film for which Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for her role as Sister Helen.
Prejean said she felt compelled to act after witnessing Sonnier’s execution and realized the U.S. public could not see the reality of the death chamber.
“I came out and I vomited. I’d never watched a human being be killed, that I knew, and I remember thinking it was very clear: People are never going to get close to this.”
Before discussing capital punishment it is important to talk to people about the crime scene itself, she said.
“If you don’t go to that place and let them know you feel the outrage too, they’ll never be able to come over with you finally to the place where they can have compassion for the person (convicted).”
Prejean said Francis’ influence and support are never far away.
“The pope’s like a little lighthouse, and he keeps sending out that beam — this is what it’s about.”
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
The Osaka District Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by death row inmates that claimed same-day notifications of executions violate the Constitution — the first ruling of its kind. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the government in hopes of sparking a wider discussion on the rights of death row prisoners. They also sought ¥22 million in compensation and plan to appeal to a higher court.
Programme on state television discloses new details and punishments from espionage cases as part of a campaign marking National Security Education Day Authorities in Beijing have revealed that a Chinese scientist who was convicted in 2015 of selling state secrets to foreign spy agencies was executed in 2016, one of several “shocking” spy cases.
In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler. A district judge who previously presided over a woman’s capital murder case recommended last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn Melissa Lucio's 2008 conviction after a district attorney’s office admitted that prosecutors withheld evidence from her defense.
THE HINDU BUREAU — Businessman and social activist Bobby Chemmanur, who has pledged to raise deliverance money to save Kozhikode native Abdul Rahim from death, continued his efforts on Thursday with a fund raising Yatra across Kerala. The Yatra reached Kochi on Thursday from Thiruvananthapuram, proceeded to Thrissur and will go on to other districts before April 16 to save the Kozhikode native, who was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
Brian Dorsey is a “rare case where those of us who sit in judgment of a man convicted of capital murder got it wrong,” according to a former judge who upheld his death sentence. Brian Dorsey's appointed trial lawyers were paid a flat fee of $12,000 to represent him. Against the advice of another lawyer, they advised Dorsey to plead guilty without a deal from prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table.
Missouri executed four people in 2023. Amber McLaughlin, Michael Tisius, Johnny Johnson and Leonard Taylor, who maintained that he was innocent, all died by lethal injection. The state is one of five in the country that carried out executions last year. Once public spectacles, state-sponsored executions have become highly secretive affairs. Especially in Missouri. Witnesses on Tuesday night watched Brian Dorsey die from a lethal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre, about an hour south of St. Louis.
The Constitutional Court announced that it is to hear a case on the constitutionality of the death penalty and has scheduled oral arguments on April 23, attracting widespread attention. However, instead of delving into the core debate of whether the death penalty contravenes the Constitution, legislators across party lines and the media have been preoccupied by arguing whether the grand justices should or should not make a ruling.
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 15 2024: Marjan Hajizadeh and Esmail Hassaniani, a couple sentenced to death for drug-related charges in a joint case, were executed in Zanjan Central Prison. Marjan is reported to have been 16 at the time of arrest, which IHRNGO is working to confirm. If verified, she will be the first child offender executed for drug charges since 2014. She was also a child bride forced into marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments centering on an Arizona death row prisoner that could set new precedent to determining ineffective assistance of counsel. A Mohave County Superior Court jury convicted Danny Lee Jones for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver and his daughter Tisha, as well as the attempted murder of Weaver’s grandmother. A judge sentenced Jones to death for the two murders.
