Death Penalty News

South Korea is strengthening punishment for child abuse amid a growing number of cases, with the recent revision of a child abuse law now making the death penalty a possibility. On Friday lawmakers passed a bill at the plenary session of the National Assembly to revise a law dealing with penalties for child abuse, making it possible for child abusers to be convicted of murder even if they did not intend to cause death. The amendment, called the Jeong-in Act, is named after a 16-month-old girl who died after allegedly being abused by her adoptive parents. Under the revised law, those who abuse children and unintentionally cause death can face the death penalty or imprisonment for seven years to life. As it stands now, if a child is killed during abuse, the perpetrator can be sentenced to five years to life. The bill passed amid growing calls for tougher punishment after a number of high-profile cases where children died of abuse. The number of child abuse reports is increasing every yea...

The Indiana Supreme Court has evenly split in a long-running dispute over disclosure of records concerning the state’s lethal injection drugs, clearing the way for disclosure of the records and the payment by the state of more than a half-million dollars in legal fees. Justices divided 2-2 in a case brought by a Washington, D.C., attorney against the Indiana Department of Correction over Indiana’s “secrecy statute” that prohibits disclosure of the state’s lethal injection drugs and who supplies them. With Justice Geoffrey Slaughter not participating, the remaining justices split in an order issued Thursday. By rule, the lack of a majority affirms the rulings of Marion Circuit Judge Sheryl Lynch, ordering DOC to disclose the records, awarding $538,000 in attorney fees to Washington attorney Katherine Toomey and granting other relief. Chief Justice Loretta Rush and Justice Christopher Goff voted to affirm the trial court while justices Steven David and Mark Massa voted to reverse. “The t...

Alabama is changing its lethal injection protocol and will now allow an inmate to have a spiritual advisor in the execution chamber when he or she dies. The state filed pleadings Thursday in the case of death-row inmate Willie B. Smith III. As Alabama explained: At the time of the complaint, this was Defendant’s position, based upon security concerns. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision in this matter, however, Defendant is in the process of amending the ADOC’s lethal injection protocol to permit a condemned inmate to have his spiritual advisor in the execution chamber. The change comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a shadow docket ruling in Smith’s favor; the Court’s order canceled Smith’s execution on the grounds that Alabama’s refusal to allow a spiritual advisor in the execution chamber was a violation of Smith’s religious rights. When the ruling was issued, Justice Elena Kagan penned a short concurrence saying, “Alabama has not carried its burden of show...

Iran Human Rights (IHR); February 27, 2021: Of three prisoners transferred to the gallows in Adel Abad Prison, one has been executed and two returned to their cells after obtaining last minute extensions in their case.  They were all sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. According to Iran Human Rights, a male prisoner was executed at Adelabad Prison in Shiraz on February 23.  The prisoner, identified as Shiraz native Jafar Mansour-Beigi, was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. An informed told IHR: “Jafar had been behind bars for four years and in that time had not been able to obtain his victim’s family’s consent, he was executed on Tuesday morning at Adelabad Prison in Shiraz.” Jafar Mansour-Beigi was transferred to the gallows with two other prisoners identified as Ali Sayati and Habib Sayati, who are related and sentenced to qisas as part of the same case.  They were returned to their cells after obtaining a 60-day extension from their ...

In the office early one morning in 1999 and groggy from working late the night before, I was checking my voicemail when I was jarred by a familiar voice. The message was from Andre L. Graham, a man I had watched die a few hours earlier. I had reached him on the telephone in recent days at the death house in the Greensville Correctional Center. He had not returned from the dead; the message was a day old. Still, suddenly, I was wide awake. Reporting on executions has its interesting moments. I imagine lawyers defending or prosecuting capital cases or litigating death penalty appeals have similar experiences, no matter how professionally matters are handled. Like most other media witnesses, I found executions, even electrocutions, to be less dramatic events than might be expected. Noting and recording what happens keeps you busy. It is only afterwards that you give it some thought. Lethal injection went a long way toward making executions as clinical as possible for the sake of public se...

President Biden hasn’t pushed for real justice, but at least he’s not as obsequious as his predecessor. The Biden administration formally acknowledged on Friday what President Donald Trump would not, that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia approved the plan to kill the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But Mr. Biden seems to have concluded that the potential cost of taking action against the 35-year-old de facto ruler of a key American ally was simply too high. In making the intelligence conclusions public with only minimal redactions, the administration did what should have been done a long time ago. The report was demanded by Congress more than a year ago, and its conclusions amounted to a summary of what has been widely reported: Mr. Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince living in exile and writing for The Washington Post, was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and there he was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi assassins. That this co...

Victim's murder occurred on the Fort Campbell, Kentucky military installation PADUCAH, Ky. – The United States filed Notice of Intent to Seek the Death Penalty for Victor Everette Silvers, in connection with the death of Brittney Niecol Silvers, announced Acting United States Attorney Michael A. Bennett.   Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen authorized and directed the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky to seek the death penalty.  According to the superseding indictment, returned on Tuesday, February 23, 2021, Victor Everette Silvers murdered Brittney Niecol Silvers on October 14, 2018, by shooting her with a firearm at the Fort Campbell, Kentucky military installation.   Brittney Niecol Silvers was, at the time of her death, assigned to the 96th Aviation Support Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.   The penalty for First-Degree Murder (Premeditated) is Death or Life Imprisonment.  Victor Everette Si...

Feb. 25 (UPI) -- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has stayed the execution of a man who says he's intellectually disabled and thus can't constitutionally be put to death. The court handed down the ruling Wednesday, ordering a lower court to review the merits of Ramiro Ibarra's arguments. Ibarra, 66, was sentenced to death in 1997 for the sexual assault and murder of 16-year-old Maria Zuniga a decade earlier in McLennan County.  He was scheduled to be executed March 4. Ibarra has challenged his death sentence a number of times on intellectual disability grounds, saying it violates the Eighth Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment. The court declined the stay on seven other claims presented by Ibarra's lawyers, including that the state relied on "outdated and unreliable DNA tests" to secure his conviction, that the state presented false and misleading evidence, that the death sentence was based on false testimony, and that his execution would viol...

An electrician ‘lost his cool,’ then beat his fiancee’s two year-old son to death, police say.  Aaron Williams, 31, from Garden City, Idaho, appeared in court on Tuesday accused of fatally beating the toddler after losing his temper with the victim.  The boy died after sustaining fractured ribs, a severed liver, bruises, and possible head trauma. The toddler became unresponsive based on what doctors referred to as ‘traumatic injury’, prosecutors have said.  Williams, a father-of-one, is an expectant dad as his fianceé – the mother of the boy he’s accused of killing – is pregnant with their baby.  His charge of first-degree murder comes after Garden City Police Department officers and deputies at Boise Police Departments were dispatched to a local health clinic for reports of significant injuries to a two-year-old on Monday reports the Idaho State Journal .  The medical staff at the clinic tried to save the child but he succumbed to his injuries, officials have s...

After hearing submissions, the bench observed, “Unless all the links could have held themselves together so as to complete the chain of circumstantial evidence, the accused could not have been held guilty of having committed the crime." The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has set aside the death sentence and acquitted from all charges and gave ‘benefit of doubt’ to a man, who was convicted and sentenced for the rape and murder of a five-year-old. The court cited discrepancies in the probe and said that the prosecution had failed to establish the involvement of the convict in the crime. The court also expressed displeasure over the conduct of the presiding officer for failing to bring forth vital pieces of evidence and said that such cases involving minors should be dealt with “utmost sensitivity”. A Division Bench of Justices Ravindra V Ghuge and Bhalchandra U Debadwar passed the judgment on February 11 on a plea by the state government seeking confirmation of the death ...