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Unveiling Singapore’s Death Penalty Discourse: A Critical Analysis of Public Opinion and Deterrent Claims

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While Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) maintains a firm stance on the effectiveness of the death penalty in managing drug trafficking in Singapore, the article presents evidence suggesting that the methodologies and interpretations of these studies might not be as substantial as portrayed.

Texas | Capital murder trial set for San Antonio man accused of fatally shooting police officer while he sat in patrol SUV

A trial date has been set for a man accused of killing a San Antonio police detective as the officer sat in his patrol vehicle in front of Public Safety Headquarters in 2016.

State District Judge Ron Rangel signed a scheduling order setting April 27 for the capital murder trial of Otis Tyrone McKane, 34.

Detective Benjamin Marconi, 50, was working an overtime shift when he pulled over a motorist in front of the police station around 11:45 a.m. on Nov. 20, 2016. As Marconi was sitting in his SUV, a man approached the officer from behind and shot him twice in the head.

Security camera video taken from the police station captured the shooting. The next day, McKane was spotted on video entering the Bexar County Courthouse to get married.

McKane, 34, was apprehended by authorities about 28 hours after the killing. He confessed to investigators that he was upset about a child custody battle and lashed out by killing Marconi, a 20-year SAPD veteran.

In the Jan. 8 scheduling order, Rangel set deadlines for pre-trial motions to filed. Pre-trial matters are scheduled to be heard by Feb. 7. The deadline for a plea agreement and proposed juror questionnaires is Feb. 24.

General voir dire, along with questionnaires for prospective jurors will be distributed by March 6, with individual jury selection to begin March 16.

Normally, jury selections for most cases take about a day. When seeking the death penalty, it can take a few weeks to choose a panel of 12 jurors and two alternates who are willing to send someone to death row, said Judge Sid Harle, who oversees the 4th Administrative Judicial Region, which covers 22 counties.

“Statutorily, you have to talk to each juror apart from others so they are candid about the death penalty,” he said.

He said once in the Central Jury Room, the judge would give an introduction about the case, and the prospective jurors would receive questionnaires and be released so they could have time to fill them out.

Afterward, both prosecutors and defense attorneys receive copies of the questionnaires, and between five to six jurors would be asked to come in again for a day of questioning by both sides, based on answers in the questionnaires.

“They will know whether it is someone they want to keep, or get rid of,” Harle said.

Killing a peace officer is a capital offense in Texas. If convicted, the punishment is either death or life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the Texas Penal Code.

The last time Bexar County jurors heard a death penalty case involving the slaying of a police officer was in 2016 when Mark Anthony Gonzalez was convicted of killing Bexar County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kenneth Vann, 48. Vann was at a traffic light at Rigsby Avenue and Loop 410 on the East Side around 2 a.m. on May 28, 2011, when he was shot more than 25 times by an AR-15 rifle. The barrage nearly decapitated Vann and he died at the scene.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the McKane case because it is pending.

The trial will be heard in the 379th state District Court with Rangel presiding.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales announced last year that he would seek the death penalty against McKane, stating that the facts in the case met the standard because of the “cold and calculated nature of the defendant’s conduct.”

Source: expressnews.com, Elizabeth Zavala, January 27, 2020


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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

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