Has Rama X revived Thailand’s death penalty?

When Thailand announced on Monday night that it had carried out its first execution in nine years, the news was met with shock. The country had refrained from imposing the death penalty since the lethal injection of two drug dealers in 2009. It had also repeatedly pledged to look into ditching capital punishment altogether.

That changed on the night of 19 June 2018, when the Corrections Department said it had sent a 26-year-old man convicted of aggravated murder to the lethal injection chamber.

What’s puzzling is the authorities’ refusal to discuss or explain the question of why him—and why now? As any journalist working in Thailand would tell you: once Thai bureaucrats keep mum about certain questions, it’s time to raise the alarm.

Behind this surprising turn of events—which has virtually gone unreported by the media—is King Vajiralongkorn’s apparent refusal to grant the condemned man a royal pardon and stay his execution. This is a significant departure from his late father’s longstanding practice of allowing death-row prisoners to live.

Under Thai law, even after the Supreme Court has handed down a death sentence, it can be overturned by His Majesty the King if a petition is filed to the palace within 60 days. The king can then deliberate on the petition as long as he wishes.

It was under this mechanism that King Bhumibol, who died in October 2016, effectively stopped Thailand from carrying out the death penalty for nearly a decade. Petitions submitted by condemned prisoners were left unanswered by the palace, leading prison officials to treat them as a matter “under royal deliberation”. They refrained from putting the petitioners to death, lest they were seen as intruding on royal authority. More than 500 death-row inmates continue to live indefinitely because of this inaction.

It’s unclear why King Bhumibol left the petitions unanswered during the last decade of his life. Maybe he personally didn’t believe in the death penalty. Maybe he didn’t want to interfere with the justice system. Or maybe he was simply too unwell to give them a thought—his ailing health took a steady downturn after 2009.

His successor seems to be taking a different route. There are strong indications that Teerasak Longji submitted a petition, but unlike those condemned before him, his plea for clemency was rejected by His Majesty the King.

Teerasak’s family has confirmed this, albeit indirectly. In a tearful interview with reporters, Teerasak’s sister told them she was only informed of the execution after he was put to death. According to her, Teerasak wrote to his family as late as 31 May and expressed his hope that he would be allowed to live and reform himself.

“He still didn’t know he would be executed, and he still said he wanted to turn his life around and return to society as a good person,” Chutamas Longji said of her late brother on 19 June.

The Supreme Court had already sentenced Teerasak to death. Why did he hope the penalty would change? It could only be because he had filed for royal clemency.

The fact that Teerasak’s family didn’t know the execution date is itself telling. If Teerasak had declined to submit a petition, he would have known—and his family would have known—that the execution would come once the 60 days after the Supreme Court’s verdict had passed.

In contrast, when royal petitions are rejected, the prisoner must be put to death within 24 hours. Informing relatives would not be a priority for prison officials.

An example of this protocol was the infamous execution of three men accused of assassinating the young Rama VIII in 1946. Their petitions were rejected by Rama IX on 17 February 1955 and they were promptly put in front of the firing squad the next day.

Even without the clue provided by Teerasak’s sister, prison officials would have been extremely reluctant to dare carry out Thailand’s first execution in 9 years without first consulting the legal system’s final authority: the king himself.

King Vajiralongkorn’s seeming refusal to pardon Teerasak, or even tacitly allow him to live, could have far-reaching implications. What will happen to the 517 death-row inmates whose fates currently hinge on the King’s mercy?

Source: New Mandala, Anonymous, June 22, 2018.The author, a Thai journalist, has requested anonymity.

Thailand: Shocking resumption of the death penalty condemned

(Bangkok, Paris) Thailand’s resumption of executions is an affront to human rights and a betrayal of its numerous commitments towards abolition, FIDH and its member organization Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) said today.

According to Thailand’s Department of Corrections under the Ministry of Justice, between 3pm and 6pm today, Theerasak Longji, 26, was executed by lethal injection at an unspecified location. Mr. Theerasak was found guilty of a premeditated murder he had committed in Trang on 17 July 2012.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms Thailand’s resumption of the death penalty. Today’s execution is inexplicable, unjustified, and contradicts the numerous commitments Thailand has made at the national and international level towards the abolition of the death penalty.” -- Debbie Stothard, FIDH Secretary-General

Prior to today, Thailand’s last execution was carried out on 24 August 2009, when two men, Bundit Jaroenwanit, 45, and Jirawat Poompreuk, 52, were put to death by lethal injection with just one-hour’s notice at Bang Khwang Prison, located just north of Bangkok. The two had been convicted of drug trafficking on 29 March 2001. Thailand would have achieved the status of de facto abolitionist, had it not carried out any executions before 24 August 2019.

“Today marks the latest unenviable achievement for Thailand under the rule of the military junta. The hurried resumption of executions after almost nine years shows that complete abolition is never achieved while capital punishment remains on the books.” -- Danthong Breen, UCL Senior Advisor

The Department of Correction’s announcement of Mr. Theerasak’s execution justified the resumption of the death penalty by grouping Thailand with the United States and China (the world’s top executioner) as countries that focus on “protecting society and the general public from crimes more than focusing on the rights and freedoms of wrongdoers.”

As of April 2018, there were 517 prisoners (415 men and 102 women) under death sentence in Thailand. Forty-eight percent of the men and 93% percent of the women were sentenced to death for drug-related offenses.

FIDH and UCL urge Thailand to immediately halt all executions, announce an official moratorium on capital punishment, sign and ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and vote in favor of a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in December 2018.

FIDH, a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), and UCL reiterate their strong opposition to the death penalty for all crimes and in all circumstances.

Source: FIDH, June 18, 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

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

Florida is scheduled to execute James Robertson at noon on Tuesday, October 13, at Florida State Prison. His execution remains scheduled despite the withdrawal of William Lee Thompson’s death warrant, which had called for a 2nd execution that evening. If completed, this will be Florida’s 17th execution of 2026. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) and partners will be holding a series of vigils and demonstrations across the state.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

Tennessee | Republicans legislature to investigate other execution methods after failed lethal injections

Republican leaders in Tennessee’s legislature say they will investigate the reliability of lethal injection as an execution method after the state failed to execute two death row inmates in the span of five months. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the May execution of Tony Carruthers after a physician unsuccessfully attempted to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process for over an hour. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two failed rounds of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol on Sept. 30 before the execution was halted. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, is receiving medical care in a Nashville hospital.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

What Tennessee wants to do next to Christa Pike is beyond grim

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive. If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again. As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

The public will be able to watch the execution of a former US Army major by firing squad, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. A Defense Department official told the BBC the execution of Nidal Hasan, who shot dead 13 unarmed US soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, would be livestreamed. It is believed it would be the first public execution in the US in almost a century. The decision to livestream it is "unprecedented in the modern era" and "on uncertain legal terrain", said John Mills, a lawyer who works with inmates sentenced to death.

Florida executes James Robertson

STARKE, Fla. — A Florida prisoner who said he killed his cellmate specifically to get on death row was executed Tuesday, nearly 18 years after the attack. James Robertson, 63, declined to offer any last words before receiving a three-drug injection and was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later. It was a stark contrast to the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee two weeks ago, where she was rushed to the hospital after surviving two lethal doses of pentobarbital.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Opinion | I Know Christa Pike’s Medical History. What Tennessee Did Is Unforgivable.

Dr. Zivot is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. He consulted on Christa Pike’s case before her attempted execution. On Wednesday night, Christa Pike lay strapped to a gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville while the State of Tennessee injected pentobarbital, a sedative that is lethal in high doses, into her veins. When the 1st dose did not kill her, the execution team gave her a 2nd. At one point, she told the room her arm felt as if it were about to burst. She was nearly correct. More than an hour after the procedure began, an ambulance was called. She was severely injured but still alive.

After Christa Pike survives lethal injection, America's shameful botched executions

The US is one of the few Western nations that still permits the death penalty, carried out regularly in 27 states. And in a country where regional political culture strongly favours retributive justice, it is no wonder capital punishment remains an enduring part of the American legal system. But following Christa Pike's botched lethal injection last week, fresh questions are being raised over whether executing convicted murderers and rapists outweighs the risks of an innocent person being put to death, or of an execution going so badly that a prisoner is left to die in agony, or even survives the attempt.

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