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In the crosshairs of conscience: John Kitzhaber's death penalty reckoning

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To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Indonesia: Cleric calls on govt not to carry out executions... during Ramadhan

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A local leader of Indonesia's biggest Islamic organization has called on the Attorney General's Office (AGO) not to carry out the anticipated execution of several drug convicts during the fasting month of Ramadhan, which begins on July 6.

KH. Maslahuddin, the chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Cilacap, Central Java, said it was hoped the government would respect the holiness of Ramadhan and give the death row inmates a chance to repent before God in the special month for Muslim people.

"After that, please carry out the execution as quickly as possible. Do not postpone it further," Maslahuddin told journalists last week. 

He said if necessary the executions could even be conducted before Ramadhan. "So that prosecutors, firing squad personnel, the Muslim death row inmates and other parties involved in the execution can be devoted to carrying out their Ramadhan religious services," Maslahuddin said. [Hypocrisy and bigotry rule the world - DPN]

He said it was important that the AGO not repeatedly postpone the execution of the convicts, especially in the case of those whose court ruling was already final and could not be legally challenged, so the punishment would create a deterrent effect on other drug crime perpetrators.

"It should be conducted as soon as possible -- the sooner the better. The execution and threat of the death penalty must be continuously communicated to the public so that potential perpetrators think twice before committing such crimes," said Maslahuddin.

Repeatedly postponing the execution of the sentences would only open room for perpetrators to file appeals or use other legal measures in an effort to escape the death penalty.

Citing an example, Maslahuddin said the second appeal and a repent and forswear request letter filed by drug convict Freddy Budiman at the Cilacap District Court were merely aimed at postponing the execution of his death sentence.

As reported earlier, the AGO confirmed it would soon carry out a 3rd round of executions conducted under President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo. However, the AGO has not yet provided details on the date of the execution and the number of inmates to be executed.

The government reportedly delayed the execution due to ongoing legal measures by lawyers of several convicts. The AGO executed 14 people convicted for drug crimes in 2 rounds last year.

Source: Jakarta Post, May 30, 2016

- Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Location: Cilacap, Cilacap Regency, Central Java, Indonesia

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Convicted killer from infamous “Texas 7” prison escape gets execution date

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On December 13, 2000, seven desperate inmates pulled off the biggest prison break-out in Texas history.
They busted into the prison armory, stole weapons and stormed out of the Connally Unit in a prison truck. After orchestrating two robberies in Houston, they headed up to the Dallas area.
There, on Christmas Eve, the men held up a store in Irving and made off with $70,000 and 44 guns. But on the way out, they ran into a cop.
The escapees surrounded the Officer Aubrey Hawkins' patrol vehicle and shot him 11 times before running over his body with an SUV on the way out, according to court records.
They were finally captured in Colorado a month later.
One of the escapees killed himself before police could get him. But the rest were sent to death row, where three have since been executed.
And now, a fourth, Joseph Garcia, has a date with death.
The Bexar County killer - originally sent to prison for stabbing a man more than a dozen times - is scheduled to die by lethal injection on …
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Malaysian court sentences Australian grandmother to death by hanging

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(CNN) - An Australian woman has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Malaysian court overturned an earlier acquittal of drug smuggling charges.
According to CNN affiliate Sky News, a three-judge panel unanimously threw out the previous ruling in 54-year-old Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto's case.
The grandmother and mother of four was arrested in December 2014 while transiting through the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Shanghai to Melbourne, according to another CNN affiliate, SBS News.
She was found in possession of 1.1 kilos (2.4 lb) of crystal methamphetamine and faced a mandatory death penalty under Malaysia's draconian drugs laws.
Exposto claimed she had no knowledge of the drugs in her bag and had been scammed by a boyfriend she met online.
According to SBS, Exposto's lawyers said she had gone to Shanghai to file documents in relation to her boyfriend's retirement from service in the US army. When she left China, Exposto claimed she was handed …
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Post Mortem – the execution of Edward Earl Johnson

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31 years ago, on May 20, 1987, just before midnight, I was sitting in the witness area of the Mississippi Gas Chamber watching someone die in front of me. His name was Edward Earl Johnson.
I am both sad and glad that Edward’s final two weeks, right up to his agonising death, were recorded in Paul Hamann’s extraordinary BBC documentary Fourteen Days in May. Sad, because from time to time I find myself forced to relive that horror, when I watch the film at some public event; glad, because at least Edward’s senseless death has had positive repercussions – the film inspiring many to take up the battle for people in his precarious predicament.
Yet it irks me beyond measure that people who should know better use their position of power to prognosticate that the justice system never executes the innocent. For example, in a case called Kansas v. March, in 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia loudly proclaimed that there is not “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a…
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Ohio: Lawyers seek review of death sentence for 23-year-old Clayton man

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The lawyers fighting the death penalty ordered for a former Northmont High School student want the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its affirmation of the sentence and scheduling of the execution.
Austin Myers' lawyers said in a motion filed this morning that they want the state's highest court to overturn the conviction and call a new trial "or in the alternative that his sentence be modified to life without parole."
Myers, 23, is still apparently the 2nd youngest on Ohio's death row 3 1/2 years after being sentenced for the murder of childhood friend Justin Back, 18, of Wayne Twp., Warren County.
Last Thursday, the court affirmed the death penalty for Myers, for the stabbing death of Back at his home outside Waynesville in January 2014.
The execution was scheduled for July 20, 2022 in the decision.
Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell was pleased with the 7-0 ruling by the state's highest court.
"The 7-0 decision is always something you like to se…
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Texas man on death row for decapitating 3 kids loses appeal

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal Wednesday from a 37-year-old Rio Grande Valley man on death row for stabbing and beheading his common-law wife's 3 children 15 years ago.
John Allen Rubio's appeals lawyer argued unsuccessfully that Rubio's attorneys at his 2010 trial in Cameron County were deficient, that the trial court failed to sufficiently pay for his appellate investigation of the case and that the Texas death penalty sentencing procedure was unconstitutional.
The state's highest criminal court also refused a second supplemental appeal from Rubio as legally improper and declined to consider the merits of the arguments in that appeal.
"I have to say overall I am not surprised by the court's actions." Rubio's attorney, David Schulman, said. "I'm very, very disappointed."
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Amnesty International Once Again Highlights Shocking Justice System in Iran

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The Iran that exists today is vastly different to the Iran that the history books tell us about. A country with such a colourful and spectacular history is currently being destroyed by the corrupt leadership that is torturing and executing its people for arbitrary reasons.
Amnesty International has published a report detailing some of the horrifying statistics that make Iran one of the most horrific in terms of its brutal leadership.
During the course of 2016, there were more than 500 registered executions. The emphasis is on "registered" because there were without a doubt many that were not officially recorded. More than 1/2 of the executions that take place in the world are in Iran.
Amnesty international gives statistics for 4 prisons in Iran: Rajaie Shahr (Gohardasht Karaj) Prison; Qezel Hessar Prison; Urmia Prison; and Zahedan Prison.
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Maria Exposto: Can she avoid execution?

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News that a Sydney grandmother was sentenced to death for smuggling drugs into Malaysia sparked shock, alarm and condemnation across the globe.
However anti-death penalty advocates hope a final appeal and a relaxation of the country's strict anti-drug laws will save Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto from the execution chamber.
Ms Exposto, 54, yesterday suffered a cruel blow after a prosecution appeal saw her December acquittal overturned in a Malaysian court.
The Cabramatta grandmother now has the right to appeal the sentencing, with her lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah revealing he expects her to win and walk away.
Malaysia has a mandatory death penalty for anyone found guilty of carrying more than 50 grams (1.75 ounces) of an illegal drug.
The country's politicians last year voted to abolish mandatory death sentences for drug offences but those changes have not yet come into affect, AFP reported.
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Nebraska seeks July 10 date for state's 1st execution since 1997

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Attorney General Doug Peterson wants the Nebraska Supreme Court to speed up its consideration of an execution warrant for condemned prisoner Carey Dean Moore, and to set the execution date for July 10.
Peterson filed a motion with the court Friday to speed up the warrant, saying that if July 10 doesn't work, he wants the court to consider setting it for sometime in mid-July.
He cites several reasons. One of the execution drugs to be used is set to expire by the end of August. The date of execution, according to state law, must be set no later than 60 days following the court's issuance of a warrant, he said.
Expiration dates of the 4 lethal injection drugs are: potassium chloride, Aug. 31; cisatracurium besylate, Oct. 31; fentanyl citrate, Aug. 31, 2019; diazepam, Sept. 1, 2019.
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On May 9, Correct…
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Ohio man with execution set for July 18 blames killing on ‘homosexual panic’

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A condemned killer is asking the Ohio Parole Board for mercy, saying he experienced a “homosexual panic” of self-revulsion before killing a man he picked up at a bar more than 30 years ago.
Death row inmate Robert Van Hook was sentenced to die for fatally strangling and stabbing David Self in Cincinnati in 1985. 
Van Hook fled to Florida afterward, where he was arrested and confessed.
At the time of the killing, Van Hook was suffering from long-term effects of untreated mental, physical and sexual abuse as a child and was depressed that his life seemed to be falling apart, his attorneys argue.
He also was “troubled by increasing questions about his own sexual identity,” his federal public defenders said in a May 17 filing with the parole board.
They also said he was improperly questioned by a Cincinnati police detective after he was arrested in Florida, and should have been provided an attorney.
The parole board planned to hear arguments on Thursday for and agai…
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In the crosshairs of conscience: John Kitzhaber's death penalty reckoning

Published
Image
To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…
Read more