Death Penalty News

Assange took refuge in London embassy in 2012 (CNN) - British and Ecuadorian authorities have held discussions over the future of Julian Assange, the Ecuadorian president said on Friday, fueling speculation that the WikiLeaks founder may soon be stripped of the country's diplomatic protection in London. Speaking in Madrid, President Lenín Moreno suggested Ecuador was seeking guarantees that whatever Assange's eventual fate, he would not face the death penalty. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2012 when he was facing allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. The case was eventually dropped but Assange has always feared being extradited to the US, and in the past his lawyers have claimed he could face execution there. Moreno said the previous Ecuadorian government granted Assange asylum because it agreed his life was in danger. "The death penalty does not exist in Ecuador, and we knew that possibility existed... The only thing we w...

WASHINGTON — A former militia leader from Libya was convicted on Tuesday of terrorism charges arising from the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a United States ambassador and three other Americans. But he was acquitted of multiple counts of the most serious offense, murder. The defendant, Ahmed Abu Khattala, 46, was the first person charged and prosecuted in the attacks, which took on broader significance as Republicans and conservative news outlets sought to use them to damage the presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton, who was then the secretary of state. Yet the seven-week trial in federal court in Washington received relatively little attention from such quarters. Mr. Khattala was convicted on four counts — including providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to do so, destroying property and placing lives in jeopardy at the mission, and carrying a semiautomatic firearm during a crime of violence — but acquitted on 14 others. He faces life in pr...

Sr. Helen Prejean This has been an out-of-the-ball-park, stunning presidential election. Forty-two million Americans voted for Donald Trump, a man who during the campaign engaged in the most abusive, divisive, violent, and untruthful rhetoric that I have ever witnessed in American politics. He approves of waterboarding. He says we need to give police more freedom to “stop and frisk” in our cities. He wants to build a wall on the border of Mexico. He’s all for Law and Order and a staunch believer in privatizing prisons. He even threatened to prosecute and lock up his political opponent. Here’s my question: how deeply must our citizens be hurting, and how desperately must they distrust the current political system to have chosen such an outlier candidate? And I can’t help but ask: with Trump’s appointee as Attorney General and his nominee for the Supreme Court what will happen to our quest to abolish the death penalty – especially now that we’re closer to ending it than we’v...

A push to reinstate New Mexico's death penalty for certain violent crimes could end up stuck in neutral in the coming 60-day legislative session, after Democrats reclaimed the state House in last week's election and expanded their majority in the Senate. Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored the 2009 legislation that abolished New Mexico's death penalty and replaced it with life in prison without the possibility of parole, said she believes the effort to bring it back will get a cool reception from Democrats, after some Republicans used the issue as campaign fodder during the election. "We wouldn't really have an appetite for it," Chasey said this week, adding it's unlikely the legislation would be passed out of its first assigned committee. "To me, it makes no sense from a policy standpoint." However, Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, who co-sponsored a death penalty reimposition bill during last month's special ...

After years of declining use of the death penalty across the United States and declining public support for capital punishment, last week's election gave hope to death penalty proponents. The results of balloting in California, Oklahoma and Nebraska as well as the election of Donald Trump seem to foretell a comeback of capital punishment. Yet the foundations of the case against capital punishment remain strong and the likelihood of continuing progress toward abolishing the death penalty remains great. For supporters of capital punishment the most consequential development was the election of Donald Trump. Trump is such a vocal and enthusiastic supporter of capital punishment that, in December of 2015, he promised members of the New England Police Benevolent Association that he would issue an executive order as president containing the "strong, strong statement" that he wants the death penalty for those found guilty of killing a police officer. "Anybod...

Holding cell next to San Quentin prison's brand new death chamber. Even as California displayed its progressive streak across much of the ballot on Tuesday, one issue notably bucked the trend. Asked whether the death penalty should be abolished, voters said no by a solid margin. “To be honest with you, it was a surprise,” said Terry McCaffrey of California People of Faith , a group that lobbied for abolition. A Field Poll in late October gave supporters of the repeal, known as Proposition 62, cautious optimism as just 45 percent of likely voters said they were opposed. That prediction, it turned out, was nowhere near the percentage of “no” votes on Tuesday: 54. California has only carried out 13 executions since the 1970s, but it has nearly 750 prisoners on death row, more than any other state. The debate over the repeal campaign often centered on the billions of dollars that the state has spent on capital punishment in recent decades. Michael Hestri...

"Oklahoma now hopes to be able to use nitrogen asphyxiation." Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's upset presidential election win has dominated global headlines, but for those against capital punishment, Election Day offered other surprise: three states voted to reinstate or otherwise support the death penalty. The measures voted through in Oklahoma, Nebraska and California via referendum are not expected to spark a sharp rise in the number of executions, but activists say they are a step in the wrong direction. "Those states have chosen a failed, broken policy when they had the chance to move towards a new dawn," said Shari Silberstein, director of the advocacy group Equal Justice USA. "The death penalty's demise is inevitable. We have a long list of evidence why that's true," she added. In 2016, the United States is on course for its lowest number of executions since 1991. This comes as post-conviction appeals in capita...

Dr William Petit William Petit is elected to Connecticut state House 9 years after his wife and daughters were killed in a vicious home invasion The doctor whose wife and 2 daughters were murdered in a horrific home invasion in 2007 has been elected to the Connecticut [22nd State House District]. Dr William Petit, the sole survivor of the attack that claimed the lives of his family, defeated Betty Boukus in the 22nd District, which covers Plainville and New Britain. His wife Joanna Hawke-Petit, 48, and their daughters Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17, died in their family home at the hands of Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes. Mrs Hawke-Petit was raped and strangled and the 2 daughters were both sexually assaulted before being tied to their beds and burned alive. Dr. Petit was beaten with a baseball bat, tied up and taken to the basement, but he managed to escape and crawl to a neighbor's house for help. The trial in 2011 heard how his wife was forced ...

'Of course,' he said, 'you know what it is, Rieux, don't you?' 'I'm waiting for the results of the tests.' 'Well, I know. I don't need tests. I spent part of my life working in China, and I saw a few cases in Paris, twenty years ago - although no one dared put a name to it at that time. Public opinion is sacred: no panic, above all no panic. Then a colleague told me: "It's impossible, everyone knows it has vanished from the West." Yes, everyone knew that, except the dead. Come on, Rieux, you know as well as I do what it is...' 'Yes, Castel,' he said. 'It's almost impossible to believe. But it appears that it must be the plague.' -- Albert Camus, The Plague , 1947 - Naturellement, vous savez ce que c'est, Rieux ? - J'attends le résultat des analyses. - Moi, je le sais. Et je n'ai pas besoin d'analyses. J'ai fait une partie de ma carrière en Chine, et j'ai vu q...

Gathering signatures against Nebraska's death penalty repeal Voters in California and Nebraska on Tuesday rejected efforts to abolish the death penalty in their states. The two states—one deep red and the other deep blue—were seen as significant bellwethers for longtime opponents of capital punishment who had hoped for a different result. In California, the ballot proposition to repeal the death penalty fell short with about 46 percent of the vote as of Wednesday morning. At the same time, voters narrowly passed a second proposition to speed up the process of executing death row inmates. In Nebraska, voters overwhelmingly chose to keep the death penalty by a margin of 66 percent to 34 percent . Heading into Tuesday, polls in California showed voters closely divided on the issue; Nebraska's scant polling showed the pro-death penalty side leading. But overall in the country, support for capital punishment and executions have both waned. In September, a Pew poll fou...

California's death chamber Voters in California elected to keep the state’s death penalty, meaning the nation’s largest death row is here to stay. More than that, though, the state voted to speed up its death penalty. There were two death penalty propositions on the ballot in the state. One would have repealed the death penalty and replaced it with life without the possibility of parole. That proposal lost by nearly eight points. This wasn’t California’s first attempt at abolishing the death penalty. Just four years ago, voters rejected a repeal by a very narrow margin. This year, the repeal effort lost by a much larger margin. The United States had roughly 2,900 inmates on death row, and a quarter of them are in California. Although California prosecutors send inmates to death row at a high pace, the state hasn’t carried out any executions in a decade. The state has executed only 13 people since it brought back the death penalty in the ’70s. But California...

Death chamber, San Quentin State Prison, California LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A bid to abolish the death penalty in California appeared to be heading for defeat tonight, while a competing measure designed to speed up executions was being narrowly approved. Proposition 62 would have repealed the death penalty and replace it with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The initiative would have applied retroactively to people already sentenced to death, and would have required prisoners serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for murder to work while in prison. Passage of the initiative would have resulted in a net reduction in state and local government costs of potentially around $150 million annually within a few years, according to an analysis conducted by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and Department of Finance. “Because of all the problems with the death penalty, not a single person has been executed here in the last 10 years. Nonetheless, Cal...