Will Taiwan Abolish the Death Penalty?

A court ruling in Taiwan could lead to abolishing capital punishment on the island. Given strong public support for the death penalty, how will the court reconcile constitutional human rights with Taiwanese society?

Taiwan's Constitutional Court on Tuesday debated the island's death penalty and discussed whether it violates the rights guaranteed under the Taiwanese constitution.

The democratic island is known for its strong human rights record and progressive stance on marriage equality and LGBT rights. In 2019, Taiwan became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.

Taiwan's debate over capital punishment

Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan to be Chinese territory, and President Xi Jinping has made "reuniting" the democratic island with mainland China a long-running centerpiece of his strategic policy.

Taiwan's long-awaited debate on the death penalty is considered a historic step that human rights groups believe will decide the future of capital punishment in the democratic island and perhaps further distinguish it from China, which is considered "the world's leading executioner," according to a 2022 report by Amnesty International.

While the final ruling on the constitutionality of the death penalty is not expected to be made before the end of September, the debate surrounding capital punishment has become heated.

"It's been a debate that's rumbled on for too long [in Taiwan]," Saul Lehrfreund, co-executive director of the Death Penalty Project, an organization that provides free legal representation to those facing the death penalty, told DW. "I'm happy that the court have an opportunity now to consider whether or not the death penalty is constitutional."

The debate came after Taiwan's 37 death row inmates, with help from the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, a coalition of NGOs and research institutes, petitioned for a constitutional review of capital punishment.

"If we can understand the process of a criminal's downfall, why do we focus on killing the fallen angel while overlooking the Satan who led them astray?" one of the attorneys told the court.

The defendants, represented by officials from Taiwan's Ministry of Justice (MOJ), claimed that capital punishment is considered only "as a last resort" which does not violate the protection of the right to life.

Basic rights guaranteed in Taiwan's constitution "can be restricted within the framework of legal preservation and the principle of proportionality," MOJ officials added.

What are Taiwanese people saying?

Polls cited by the Taipei Times suggest that a majority of Taiwanese oppose the abolition of the death penalty.

A 17-year-old student, who spoke to DW on condition of anonymity, said that she is in favor of keeping the sentence. "I believe that murder should be punished with the death penalty," she told DW, adding that it should be given regardless of the factors behind the crime.

Another student, in his 20s, holds a similar point of view. He told DW that since murderers have taken away someone's life, it should be "a form of equality" for the legal system to do the same.

But for those supporting the abolition of capital punishment, the execution of perpetrators could only offer temporary solace to victims' loved ones, rather than long-term comfort.

"I think there should be well-established measures for explanations and compensation to the families," said Mr Hong, a 40-year-old office worker. "It may feel like you have taken revenge at the moment, but in reality, it doesn't seem to have any lasting impact on the family."

To what extent should public opinion be considered?

According to a 2022 report by Amnesty International, close to three-quarters of governments around the world have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, almost none of which ended the death penalty due to the public demand or support for it, Lehrfreund pointed out.

Rather, he told DW, the public "followed the political lead or the judicial lead" and have eventually accepted abolition.

Human rights groups believe constitutional interpretation could pave the way for formal abolition of death sentences since Taiwan only legalized same-sex marriage after the Constitutional Court ruled the ban on it unconstitutional.

But the MOJ argues that the same-sex marriage and death penalty cases are not comparable because the application of the death penalty relates to criminal policy.

Although Taiwan has taken steps towards abolishing capital punishment, for example it removed mandatory executions for certain crimes, the island may still impose the death sentence for over 50 different crimes, including murder, robbery and drug trafficking.

"Taiwan has said for many years that they're on a road to abolition," Lehrfreund told DW. "But my question is, is that road too long politically and that not enough progress has been made politically to move away from the death penalty?"

Hong, who supports the abolition of capital punishment, also believes the issue is often being used as "some kind of political maneuvering."

"I don't think it's going to be easy to reach a consensus," he said, "because after all, the Constitutional Court has to take into account the majority of the people in [Taiwan]."

The most recent death-row inmate to be executed in Taiwan was Weng Jen-hsien, who had been convicted of murdering six people, including his parents and their caregivers, and was executed in Taipei in 2020.

It was Taiwan's second execution since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016.

Taiwan's Constitutional Court is expected to issue its ruling on capital punishment between July and September.

Source: dw.com, Yuchen Li, April 25, 2024

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Facebook | Telegram | Contact Us

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

South Carolina executes Mikal Mahdi

Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers A man facing the death penalty for committing two murders was executed by firing squad on Friday, the second such execution in the US state of South Carolina this year. Mikal Mahdi, 42, was executed for the 2004 murder of 56-year-old James Myers, an off-duty police officer, and the murder of a convenience store employee three days earlier. According to a statement from the prison, "the execution was performed by a three-person firing squad at 6:01 pm (2201 GMT)," with Mahdi pronounced dead four minutes later.

Afghanistan | Four men publicly executed by Taliban with relatives of victims shooting them 'six or seven times' at sport stadium

Four men have been publicly executed by the Taliban, with relatives of their victims shooting them several times in front of spectators at a sport stadium. Two men were shot around six to seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the centre of Afghanistan's Badghis province, witnesses told an AFP journalist in the city. The men had been 'sentenced to retaliatory punishment' for shooting other men, after their cases were 'examined very precisely and repeatedly', the statement said. 'The families of the victims were offered amnesty and peace but they refused.'

USA | Why the firing squad may be making a comeback

South Carolina plans to execute Mikal Mahdi on Friday for the murder of a police officer, draping a hood over his head and firing three bullets into his heart. The choice to die by firing squad – rather than lethal injection or the electric chair – was Mahdi’s own, his attorney said last month: “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils.” If it proceeds, Mahdi’s execution would be the latest in a recent string of events that have put the spotlight on the firing squad as a handful of US death penalty states explore alternatives to lethal injection, by far the nation’s dominant execution method.

I spent 16 years in solitary in South Carolina. This is what it did to me. | Opinion

South Carolinian Randy Poindexter writes about the effects 16 years of solitary confinement had on him ahead of South Carolina’s planned execution of Mikal Mahdi , who spent months in solitary as a young man. For 16 years, I lived in a concrete cell. Twenty-three hours a day, every day, for more than 3,000 days, South Carolina kept me in solitary confinement. I was a young man before I was sent to solitary — angry, untreated and unwell. I made mistakes. But I wasn’t sentenced to madness. That’s what solitary did to me. My mental health worsened with each passing day. At first, paranoia and depression set in. Then, hallucinations and self-mutilation. I talked to people who weren’t there. I cut myself to feel something besides despair. I could do nothing as four of my friends and fellow prisoners took their own lives rather than endure another day of torturous isolation.

Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

Singapore executes man for 2017 murder of pregnant wife and daughter

Teo Ghim Heng, who strangled his pregnant wife and four-year-old daughter in 2017 before burning their bodies, was executed on 16 April 2025 after exhausting all legal avenues. His clemency pleas were rejected and his conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal in 2022. Teo Ghim Heng, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and their four-year-old daughter in 2017, was executed on 16 April 2025. The Singapore Prison Service confirmed that Teo’s death sentence was carried out at Changi Prison Complex. In a news release on the same day, the police stated: “He was accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel both at the trial and at the appeal. His petitions to the President for clemency were unsuccessful.”

Louisiana | Lawyers of Jessie Hoffman speak about their final moments before execution

As Louisiana prepared its first execution in 15 years, a team of lawyers from Loyola Law were working to save Jessie Hoffman’s life. “I was a young lawyer three years out of law school, and Jessie was almost finished with his appeals at that time, and my boss told me we needed to file something for Jessie because he’s in danger of being executed,” Kappel said. Kappel and her boss came up with a civil lawsuit to file that said since they wouldn’t give him a protocol for his execution, he was being deprived of due process, and the lawsuit was in the legal process for the next 10 years.

South Carolina | Man who ambushed off-duty cop to face firing squad in second execution of its kind

Mikal Mahdi, 48, who was found guilty of killing an off-duty police officer and a convenience store worker, is the second inmate scheduled to executed by South Carolina's new firing squad A murderer who ambushed and shot an off duty police officer eight times before burning his body in a killing spree is set to become the second person to die by firing squad. South Carolina's highest court has rejected the last major appeal from Mikal Mahdi, 41, who is to be put to death with three bullets to the heart at 6pm on April 11 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Mahdi's lawyers said his original lawyers put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that didn't call on relatives, teachers or people who knew him and ignored the impact of weeks spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

The Sordid, Unscientific Story Behind Lethal Injection

A new book by a national expert explores the failures of the United States’ favored execution method. Texas was the first U.S. state to execute someone by lethal injection, but the idea for the novel method came from Oklahoma. Our northern neighbor was the first to adopt the plan to replace the spectacle of the electric chair with something more palatable for witnesses and the public. Texas was just the first to test it out on a person. Since 1982, when state officials injected Charlie Brooks—convicted of murder in Fort Worth—with a lethal cocktail of drugs dreamt up by Oklahoma’s medical examiner but untested in any research setting, Texas has led the country in lethal injections. Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (NYU Press, April 2025)—a new book by law professor, former prosecutor, and death penalty expert Corinna Barrett Lain—brings readers into the death chamber to bear disturbing witness to the reality of lethal injection.

Indiana Supreme Court sets May 20 execution date for death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie

The condemned man has exhausted his appeals but is likely to seek a clemency plea. Indiana Supreme Court justices on Tuesday set a May 20 execution date for death row inmate Benjamin Ritchie, who was convicted in 2002 for killing a law enforcement officer from Beech Grove. The high court’s decision followed a series of exhausted appeals previously filed by Ritchie and his legal team. The inmate’s request for post-conviction relief was denied in Tuesday’s 13-page order, penned by Chief Justice Loretta Rush, although she disagreed with the decision in her opinion.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog