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Pope Declares Death Penalty Inadmissible in All Cases

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ROME — Pope Francis has declared the death penalty inadmissible in all cases because it is “an attack” on the “dignity of the person,” the Vatican announced on Thursday, in a definitive shift in Roman Catholic teaching that could put enormous pressure on lawmakers and politicians around the world.
Francis, who has spoken out against capital punishment before — including in 2015 in an address to Congress — added the change to the Catechism, the collection of beliefs for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
The revision says the church would work “with determination” for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide.
“I think this will be a big deal for the future of the death penalty in the world,” said John Thavis, a Vatican expert and author. “People who work with prisoners on death row will be thrilled, and I think this will become a banner social justice issue for the church,” he added.
Sergio D’Elia, the secretary of Hands Off Cain, an association that works to abolish capital puni…

Iraq: 19 Russian women handed life sentences for joining ISIS

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Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women identified as IS militants.
Women are among 560 arrested for 'joining and supporting' the armed group that was defeated last December.

A court in Baghdad sentenced 19 Russian women to life in prison for joining Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters in the country.

A Central Criminal Court ruling determined on Sunday the Russian women were guilty of "joining and supporting" ISIL, AFP news agency reported.

The women, many accompanied by their children, addressed the court through a translator - a Russian -language professor at Baghdad University hired by the Russian embassy.

A Russian diplomat at the hearing said the families of the women will be contacted and "informed of the verdict".

Another six women from Azerbaijan and four from Tajikistan were also given life sentences.

Most of the women on trial claimed to have been misled into making the trip to Iraq.

"I did not know we were in Iraq … I went with my husband and my children to Turkey to live there and then I suddenly discovered I was actually in Iraq," one of the accused said on Sunday.

Mass arrests


ISIL fighters surprised Iraqi forces with a lightning-quick offensive in 2014 and captured about one-third of the country, including the second-largest city Mosul, among others.

Since declaring victory over ISIL in late 2017, Iraqi authorities have arrested more than 560 women and 600 children identified as either as members of the group or relatives of fighters.

Earlier this month, an Iraqi court sentenced French national Djamila Boutoutaou to life imprisonment for joining the armed group.


Boutoutaou told authorities at the time she travelled with her husband thinking they would go on a holiday, but soon realised once in Turkey that her "husband was a jihadist".

Her husband was later killed in a military operation near Mosul along with their son. Boutoutaou subsequently surrendered to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq.

Experts estimate Iraq has detained more than 20,000 people over suspected ties to the group and has sentenced more than 300 people to death so far. Twelve ISIL widows were given the death penalty in February. 

Iraq's anti-terrorism laws empower courts to convict people who are believed to have helped ISIL, even if they were not directly involved in fighting.

Source: aljazeera.com, April 29, 2018


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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Iraq

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Tennessee executes Billy Ray Irick

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Death row inmate Billy Ray Irick died at 7:48 p.m. Thursday after Tennessee prison officials administered a lethal dose of toxic chemicals. He was 59. 
His execution, the first in Tennessee since 2009, comes after his 1986 conviction in Knox County for the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer. 
Witnesses to the execution included members of Paula's family, Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones, Tennessee Deputy Attorney General Scott Sutherland, Irick's attorney Gene Shiles and seven members of the media.
Irick is the 133rd person put to death by Tennessee since 1916. Before Irick, all but six executions occurred before 1961.
Before his death, Irick ate his last meal: a burger, onion rings and a Pepsi soft drink. Shiles said earlier Thursday that Irick was in good spirits and understood he would be executed. 
Family of Paula Dyer among witnesses inside prison
Irick lived with Paula's mother and stepfather, Kathy and Kenny Jeffers, in 1985. Although the fami…
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New Study: Death Penalty Costing Nebraska Taxpayers $14.6 Million Each Year

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“These are costs above and beyond the costs of having life without parole.”
LINCOLN, NE – In a first-of-its-kind study on the cost of Nebraska’s death penalty, a respected economist concluded that the State of Nebraska would save $14.6 million annually if voters replace the death penalty with life imprisonment. 
Dr. Ernie Goss (1), professor of economics at Creighton University, and author of studies for a conservative think-tank founded by Governor Pete Ricketts, said today he was surprised when his study revealed how expensive the death penalty is compared to life in prison.
At a news conference today in Lincoln, Dr. Goss presented a study that revealed Nebraska’s maintenance of the death penalty cost the state, in 2015 dollars, approximately $14.6 million annually above what the state’s cost for life without parole would be, and each additional death penalty arraignment costs the state almost $1.5 million, also in 2015 dollars.“Through our study, we show that the State of Nebraska …
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Nebraska executes Carey Dean Moore

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Death row inmate Moore executed by lethal injection
Nebraska carried out its 1st execution since 1997 on Tuesday. Carey Dean Moore was executed Tuesday morning for the 1979 shooting deaths of 2 Omaha cab drivers.
Officials said at around 9:15 a.m. Moore was read an execution order. At 10 a.m. the Nebraska Attorney General's office checked for any last minute legal matters that would've prevented the execution.
Moore was escorted into the room and strapped to the table. IV lines were inserted and a heart monitor was attached.
10 witnesses were then escorted into the viewing room.
Officials said after Valium was administered, the warden checked for consciousness. Witnesses watched as fentanyl citrate was administered. Cisatracurium besylate was then administered to induce paralysis and halt Moore's breathing. Potassium chloride was given to Moore to stop his heart.
The Lancaster County coroner called the time of death. State officials announced the execution was complete at …
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Paralysis, eye gouging, amputation, crucifixion: The Medieval punishments faced by criminals in Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia continues to use barbaric methods of execution claiming they are justified by the Quran and its traditions
Saudi Arabia has some of the most barbaric and bizarre punishments in the world. Public beheadings, amputations, eye for an eye retribution and flogging all form part of the justice system.
As The Sun reported this week, a murderer was crucified after being found guilty of repeatedly stabbing a woman, his body hung on a cross after execution.
Crown Prince Salman wants to make the desert kingdom a tech savvy 21st century nation and has introduced liberal reforms.
Yet for all his ambitions, the country still has the trappings of one caught in a altogether different era, particularly when it comes to its justice system.
Saudi Arabia retains the death penalty for a large number of offences including drug trafficking and "sorcery" as well as murder.
The majority of death sentences are carried out in public by beheading, drawing comparisons with the shocking brut…
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The Brits on death row around the world hoping to escape execution

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The UK’s opposition to the death penalty has come under question over the case of alleged Isis terrorists, but many other Brits have already been told they will be executed, reports Etan Smallman
Nicholas Ingram declined the offer of a final meal of his choice. Earlier, he had eaten a tiny breakfast, a few spoonfuls of eggs, followed by some crackers and crisps bought from a prison vending machine by relatives.
The Cambridge-born 31-year-old, who had dual British and US nationality, was shaved to remove any stubble that might interfere with his electrocution. He spent his final hours sipping a cup of coffee, “quiet and stone-faced”, according to Georgia prison authorities.
Ingram also turned down the chance to make a final statement, saying impatiently: “Let’s get on with it.” The man who had murdered JC Sawyer, 55, after tying him and his wife to a tree 11 years earlier, spat at the prison warden before he was strapped into a wooden chair and 2,000 volts were passed through his body.
…
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USA: State of Nebraska set to carry out first execution in 21 years

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‘The US capital justice system is fundamentally broken’ - Kristina Roth
Amnesty International is urging the authorities in the US state of Nebraska to cancel plans to carry out its first execution in 21 years.
Prison authorities in the state have scheduled the lethal injection execution of Carey Dean Moore for tomorrow.
Mr Moore, who was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of two taxi drivers, is not contesting his execution but it could nevertheless be delayed by a lawsuit from a German pharmaceutical company over claims that the state illegally obtained the company’s drugs to use in tomorrow’s lethal injection.
The execution is set to be the first in the USA to use the drug fentanyl as part of a lethal injection.
The last execution in Nebraska took place in 1997, one of only three executions the state has conducted since 1976 - all three were conducted in the 1990s and carried out by electrocution. 
Since 1997, seven US states have abolished the death penalty and four others have…
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Tennessee executes Cecil C. Johnson Jr.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A man who spent 28 years on death row for killing three people while robbing a Nashville convenience store has been executed.
A Tennessee Corrections Department spokeswoman says 53-year-old Cecil C. Johnson Jr. was pronounced dead at 1:34 a.m. Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The victims included the market owner's son, 12-year-old Bobby Bell Jr., and two men sitting in a cab outside.
Johnson was a 23-year-old kitchen worker at Vanderbilt Hospital at the time.

His father turned him in two days after the July 1980 shootings.
Johnson is the sixth person put to death in Tennessee since 2000. There were no executions between 1961 and 1999.
Johnson declined an interview request from The Associated Press before his execution.
RELATED:Death Row Inmate Cecil Johnson Jr. says 29-year delay is cruel and unusual
Source: The Associated Press, December 2, 2009

Tennessee executes Cecil Johnson In the end Cecil Johnson Jr., convicted in the fat…
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Fentanyl Used to Execute Nebraska Inmate, in a First for U.S.

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LINCOLN, Neb. — Prison officials in Nebraska used fentanyl, the powerful opioid at the center of the nation’s overdose epidemic, to help execute a convicted murderer on Tuesday. The lethal injection at the Nebraska State Penitentiary was the first time fentanyl had been used to carry out the death penalty in the United States.
The execution, Nebraska’s first since 1997, represented a stunning political turnabout in a state where lawmakers voted only three years ago to ban capital punishment.
The condemned man, Carey Dean Moore, 60, had been convicted of killing two Omaha taxi drivers decades ago and did not seek a reprieve in his final months. But two pharmaceutical companies tried to block the execution in federal court, claiming their reputations would suffer if the killing proceeded.
The companies could not prove that their products would be used, however, because prison officials refused to identify the suppliers of the drugs to be administered to Mr. Moore. So the execution was …
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URGENT APPEAL for Anthony Haynes to be executed in Texas on 18 October

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Anthony Haynes is due to be executed in Texas on 18 October for the murder of an off-duty police officer committed when he was 19 years old. Claims of racial discrimination, inadequate legal representation and judicial misconduct have marked the case.
In 1999, Anthony Haynes was convicted of the fatal shooting of off-duty police officer Kent Kincaid in Houston, Texas on 22 May 1998. To obtain a death sentence, the state had to persuade the jury that Anthony Haynes would be a continuing threat to society, even in prison. Although the defendant had no prior criminal record that the state could point to, its case was helped by the defense lawyers' failure to present a range of available mitigation evidence. For example, the jury was not told that only two days before the shooting, Anthony Haynes had taken crystal methamphetamine for the first time, which affected his ability to make decisions. Neither was the jury told that he has a history of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorde…
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Should 'Late Adolescence' Protect Young People from Execution?

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The years between 18 and 21 are a sort of societal limbo period when, in most states, you can't drink, but you can smoke—and get sentenced to die.
When 15-year-old Luis Cruz joined the Latin Kings in 1991, he was a child by almost any measure: he couldn’t legally drive, drop out of school, or buy a beer. But was he still a child a few years later when—just months after he turned 18—he murdered two people on the orders of gang leaders?
Earlier this year, a federal judge in Connecticut said yes. The judge decided that a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that forbade mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles should apply to 18-year-olds like Cruz, and granted his request to be re-sentenced. It’s one of a small but growing number of cases in which courts are grappling with what to do with young adults who commit the most serious crimes.
The years between 18 and 21 are a sort of societal limbo period when, in most states, you can smoke but not drink; make medical decisions for y…
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