EU condemns U.S. for resuming federal executions

The European Union on Friday condemned the Trump administration for reimposing the federal death penalty and urged the Justice Department to reverse corse, saying such moves marched in the face of global efforts to end capital punishment.

“The European Union strongly opposes the decision of the United States Department of Justice to resume the federal death penalty after a 17-year hiatus,” the EU spokesperson said in a statement.

“This decision runs counter to the overall trend in the United States and worldwide to abolish the death penalty, either by law or in practice.”

The statement said the EU views the death penalty as “cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” and called for the implementation of effective and nonlethal punishment measures.

The spokesperson said the EU stands behind victims of crimes and their families, but says sentencing a person to death is “incompatible with the inalienable right to life, fails to provide effective deterrence to criminal behavior, and is irreversible.”

The U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., is expected to carry out three executions next week following a months-long legal battle and marking the first federal executions carried out since 2003.

States have continued to use the death penalty, though a number of state governments have issued moratoriums on the practice.

A total of seven people have been executed in the United States this year, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Group.

The Associated Press was the first to report on the planned executions.

Attorney General William Barr last month issued the directive to schedule death by lethal injections for four federal-death row inmates at a U.S. penitentiary in Indiana. Barr's move comes one year after the Justice Department announced it would resume executions.

“The American people, acting through Congress and presidents of both political parties, have long instructed that defendants convicted of the most heinous crimes should be subject to a sentence of death,” Barr said in a statement last month.

Critics argue that the Trump administration is playing politics, elevating the death penalty as an issue even as the nation faces more important challenges posed by COVID-19, where has killed more than 133,000 people and crushed the economy.

Source: thehill.com, Laura Kelly, July 10, 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

Afghanistan | Two Sons Of Executed Man Also Face Death Penalty, Says Taliban

The Taliban governor’s spokesperson in Khost said on Tuesday that two sons of a man executed earlier that day have also been sentenced to death. Their executions, he said, have been postponed because the heir of the victims is not currently in Afghanistan. Mostaghfer Gurbaz, spokesperson for the Taliban governor in Khost, also released details of the charges against the man executed on Tuesday, identified as Mangal. He said Mangal was accused of killing members of a family.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers carry out public execution in sports stadium

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Burkina Faso to bring back death penalty

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Singapore executes three drug mules over two days

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Florida | After nearly 50 years on death row, Tommy Zeigler seeks final chance at freedom

The Winter Garden Police chief was at a party on Christmas Eve 1975 when he received a phone call from his friend Tommy Zeigler, the owner of a furniture store on Dillard Street. “I’ve been shot, please hurry,” Zeigler told the chief as he struggled for breath. When police arrived at the store, Zeigler, 30, managed to unlock the door and then collapsed “with a gaping bullet hole through his lower abdomen,” court records show. In the store, detectives found a gruesome, bloody crime scene and several guns. Four other people — Zeigler’s wife, his in-laws and a laborer — lay dead.

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Louisiana death row inmate freed after nearly 30 years as overturned conviction upends case

A Louisiana man who spent nearly 30 years on death row walked out of prison Wednesday after a judge overturned his conviction and granted him bail. Jimmie Duncan, now in his 60s, was sentenced to death in 1998 for the alleged rape and drowning of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux — a case long clouded by disputed forensic testimony. His release comes months after a state judge ruled that the evidence prosecutors used to secure the conviction was unreliable and rooted in discredited bite-mark analysis.

Iran carries out public hanging of "double-rapist"

Iran on Tuesday publicly executed a man after convicting him of raping two women in the northern province of Semnan. The execution was carried out in the town of Bastam after the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, the judiciary's official outlet Mizan Online reported. Mizan cited the head of the provincial judiciary, Mohammad Akbari, as saying the ruling had been 'confirmed and enforced after precise review by the Supreme Court'. The provincial authority said the man had 'deceived two women and committed rape by force and coercion', adding that he used 'intimidation and threats' to instil fear of reputational harm in the victims.

Vietnam | Woman sentenced to death for poisoning 4 family members with cyanide

A woman in Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam was sentenced to death on Thursday for killing family members including two young children in a series of cyanide poisonings that shocked her community. The Dong Nai People's Court found 39-year-old Nguyen Thi Hong Bich guilty of murder and of illegally possessing and using toxic chemicals. Judges described her actions as "cold-blooded, inhumane and calculated," saying Bich exploited the trust of her victims and "destroyed every ethical bond within her family."

Utah | Ralph Menzies dies on death row less than 3 months after his execution was called off

Judge was set to consider arguments in December about Menzies’ mental fitness Ralph Menzies, who spent more than 3 decades on Utah’s death row for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, has died. Menzies, 67, died of “presumed natural causes at a local hospital” Wednesday afternoon, according to the Utah Department of Corrections. Matt Hunsaker, Maurine Hunsaker’s son, said Menzies’ death “was a complete surprise.” “First off, I’d say that I’m numb. And second off, I would say, grateful,” Hunsaker told Utah News Dispatch. “I’m grateful that my family does not have to endure this for the holidays.”

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