Death Penalty News

Harris County district judge recommends compassionate release for Clarence Jordan A 1977 convenience store robbery that resulted in a clerk’s death landed Clarence Jordan on Texas Death Row, where he remained for decades even though he was declared incompetent for execution. On Monday, a judge recommended that the disabled man be released.  Harris County District Court Judge Katherine Thomas resentenced Jordan to life with the possibility of parole and suggested that he be considered for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision program, also known as compassionate release.

Zafar Bhatti, a Christian pastor in Pakistan who spent 13 years in prison on a false blasphemy conviction, died of cardiac arrest just three days after his acquittal. He had returned home after being cleared by a high court, but collapsed before his family could make arrangements for medical care. Bhatti, 62, founder of the Jesus World Mission Church, was arrested in July 2012 in Rawalpindi, Punjab province, after a local cleric accused him of sending text messages that insulted the mother of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was charged under Article 295(C) of Pakistan’s Penal Code, a provision that carries the death penalty for defiling the name of the Muslim prophet.

Human rights groups on Friday urged President Tsai Ing-went to pardon death row inmate Chiou Ho-shun, who they said was tortured and forced to confess to 2 murders in the late 1980s. The groups issued the call ahead of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture yesterday. In an online news conference, the groups asked Tsai to issue Chiou, 61, a presidential pardon, adding that he “represented a well-known miscarriage of justice, of an innocent man falsely convicted of murder.” “It is a major stain on Taiwan’s justice system and a serious violation of human rights,” said the statement signed by representatives of the Judicial Reform Foundation, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, among others, including lawyers seeking to appeal Chiou’s case. “Subsequent findings and testimony have shown that Chiou was tortured during an interrogation by police investigators to extract his confession,” the statement said. Chiou was among 12 p...

Carlos Don Stultz, 78, a twice convicted child murderer from Central Texas who’s been behind bars for more than half a century, died of natural causes Thursday at a prison in Tennessee Colony, Texas. Stultz recently requested medical parole, arguing he was dying and wanted a last taste of freedom, drawing ire from Limestone County residents who said he did not deserve it. He was convicted of murder in the brutal killing of 17-year-old Kathy Jones inside her home in Mexia, and before that, eleven-year-old Karen Kubat in Grand Prairie. “Inmate Stultz lived a long life an apparently died of natural causes, something that his victims did not have the opportunity to do,” said Limestone County Attorney Roy DeFriend. “While his passing brings me no pleasure, I am relieved that this chapter is finally closed for the Jones Family, who has had to endure more than 30 parole hearings.” Stultz was one of the longest serving TDCJ inmates in Texas and had outlived most of the original prosecutors, in...

The 2 former federal prosecutors who handled the death penalty case against former East Hartford resident Wilfredo Perez in a drug-related murder for hire in Hartford in 1996 are now calling for his “compassionate release” from prison because of his vulnerability to COVID-19 and his good record in prison. Perez, who is in his mid-50s, wants to live with his sister, Nelida Perez, in Vernon if he wins release, his lawyer said in court papers. While the former prosecutors, David A. Ring and Shawn J. Chen, presented the death penalty issue to the jury at Perez’s 2004 trial in U.S. District Court in New Haven, they never called for his execution for paying the killer of Theodore Casiano, the leader of a rival drug gang. Instead they left the decision to the jury. The decision to pursue the death penalty was made at higher levels of the Justice Department in the George W. Bush administration. “The evidence presented at trial showed that Wilfredo was not a moving force behind the murder,” Rin...

The controversy over the announced early release of firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, and then subsequent government backtracking on, is likely to continue for some time even after the government essentially confirmed that it wasn’t going to happen yesterday . One remaining source of controversy is the suggestion that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s objection to the release of Bashir — who was once found guilty for his involvement in the deadly 2002 Bali Bombing that killed 88 Australians — was what led President Joko Widodo to cancel plans for the elderly cleric’s early release. The president’s chief of staff, Moeldoko, addressed the claim today and denied that the government’s decision on Bashir’s release had anything to do with pressure from Australia. RELATED |  Survivors Outraged As Cleric Who Inspired 2002 Bali Bombings To Walk Free “This is just made up. We are a sovereign state, how could we be pressured on this? Really, who is Australia?” Moel...

Bashir had previously been considered ineligible for parole because of his refusal to renounce radical beliefs. CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA -- Australia's prime minister said on Tuesday he would be disappointed if radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir were released from prison early and urged Indonesia to show respect for the victims of the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that the firebrand preacher inspired. Indonesia's top security minister, Wiranto, said on Monday that Indonesian President Joko Widodo had asked him to coordinate a review of all aspects of the planned release of the 80-year-old cleric following domestic and international criticism. Australia has been in top-level discussions with the Indonesia since last week when the decision was announced to release Bashir, the spiritual leader of bombers who attacked nightclubs on Bali island and that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would protest if Bashir were re...

Survivors of the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 88 Australians are dismayed an Islamic cleric who inspired the attack is being freed. After serving nine years of a 15-year sentence, cleric Abu Bakar Bashir is set to be released from Indonesia's Mount Sindur prison next week. President Joko Widodo has described it as being for 'humanitarian' reasons -- amid concerns about the 81-year-old's health. Bombing survivor Erik De Haart calls that a "great misuse" of the word 'human'. "He is the bloke who planned the bombing that killed 202 people and he wants to be treated as a human now? "He never thought of all these other people as being human. He never gave them a chance," he told 10 News First. RELATED | Indonesia: Jokowi approves release of firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir As spiritual leader of Islamic militant network Jemaah Islamiah, Bashir is considered the "mastermind" of the 2002 bombings in...

Convicted terrorist Abu Bakar Ba’asyir will be unconditionally released from Gunung Sindur prison in Bogor, West Java, as he has received a pardon from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Abdul Rahim, a son of Ba'asyir, said on Friday that the family had received news of the pardon from the President’s lawyer Yusril Ihza Mahendra. Yusril had visited Ba’asyir to tell him that Jokowi had agreed to set him free despite him having over six years left to serve in prison. He would be released early next week pending an administrative process. “This is purely for humanitarian reasons. He is old, so the president will release him unconditionally,” Abdul said. He said Ba’asyir would return to Surakarta and live with him. Ba’asyir has been in prison for eight years after being sentenced to 15 years by the South Jakarta District Court in 2011. The court found him guilty of funding a military training camp for terrorists in Aceh. Yusril, who is also an adviser to the Jo...

Pakistani Leader Should Raise Case with Visiting President Jokowi This week's visit by Indonesia President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to Pakistan may determine how Zulfiqar Ali spends his final days - on death row in Indonesia, or with his family back home in Pakistan. Ali, a 53-year-old father of 5 from Lahore, was arrested in 2004 in Indonesia, charged with possession of 300 grams of heroin, and sentenced to death. In 2016, Indonesia informed the Pakistani embassy in Jakarta that Ali would be soon executed. Ali's lawyers alleged egregious violations of due process at every stage of the trial and appeal process. They say he has been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer with a life expectancy of 3 months. Indonesia ended a 4-year unofficial moratorium on the death penalty in March 2013. The Indonesian government has termed the execution of convicted drug traffickers as "shock therapy" and President Jokowi has made it a signature policy issue. ...

Mark Allen Pinnell Mark Allen Pinnell, Oregon's oldest death row inmate, died in custody Monday morning, about two months after the governor denied his request to spend his final days outside of prison in hospice care. Pinnell, 67, died of natural causes about 10:55 a.m. in the Two Rivers Correctional Institution's infirmary, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. He'd been suffering from severe chronic pulmonary disease, his lawyer said. In mid-October, Gov. Kate Brown denied Pinnell's request to move off death row and spend his last days in hospice outside of prison. He cited his deteriorating condition. In a letter typed a day later , Brown wrote that an immediate commutation of Pinnell's sentence wasn't warranted. "The power to grant executive clemency is a responsibility that I take very seriously,'' Brown wrote . "I believe that a Governor's clemency power should be exercised sparingly. The separa...

Activists delivered a petition to Texas Governor Rick Perry on Friday with more than 100,000 signatures seeking the release of a death row inmate they say is terminally ill and only has weeks to live. The governor's office was not immediately available to comment on the petition launched by religious groups and activists including the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Max Soffar, convicted in the July 1980 slaying of 3 people at a Houston bowling alley. "This is the time for mercy - let's not let him fall through the cracks of justice; let's not let him die behind bars," the petition said. It is seeking clemency so that he can die at home. Soffar's case has been the focus of anti-death penalty campaigners for years. They have said he is an innocent man largely convicted on the basis of a confession signed after days of "oppressive interrogation" and without clear objective evidence pointing to his guilt. The state has mai...