Death Penalty News

"They raise money for funerals. We are focused on stopping executions.” OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has cut ties with a national organization and its partner, saying they are driving a wedge between death-row inmates and their attorneys. In July, death-row inmate Anthony C. Sanchez, in a highly unusual move, said he would forego a clemency hearing because the process is unfair. Sanchez faces a Sept. 21 execution for the 1996 murder of University of Oklahoma dance student and ballerina Juli Busken, 21. Sanchez asked a judge to fire his attorneys and let him proceed by himself. The request was denied.

The UIA-IROL is outraged by the repressive measures recently taken against prominent Singapore attorney M. Ravi Madasamy (M Ravi) in a decision handed down by the Singapore Supreme Court, in an appeal filed by the Law Society of Singapore seemingly because of this representation of clients accused of capital crimes, including death sentences handed down for narcotics crimes.  The decision follows M. Ravi’s public criticism of the prosecution and the Law Society of Singapore, in the context of the representation of a client facing a death sentence for drug-related offenses. M Ravi has been an international human rights lawyer in Singapore for over 20 years, and has spent years representing landmark human rights and constitutional law cases, including death penalty cases. In its decision dated March 21, 2023, the Court of Three Judges of the Court of Appeal of Singapore imposed a five years’ suspension to M. Ravi, the maximum possible sanction for lawyers, and ordered him to bear the...

Under proposed amendments to the law, if a prisoner or their lawyer has abused court processes, they will not be allowed to file a post-appeal application unless there is new evidence. A new Bill introduced in Parliament on Monday (Nov 7) will clarify the court processes for capital cases that have exhausted the appeals and clemency avenues, designating the Court of Appeal as the only court to hear related applications. In some cases, a single judge may be able to hear the application. This is a break from current practices, where such cases can be heard in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Additionally, if either the prisoner or their lawyer had previously abused court processes, permission to file the application will not be granted unless there is new relevant evidence in the case. This comes after several judgments in which the Court of Appeal chastised the abuse of court processes and the dragging out of post-appeal capital cases. In a joint press release on Monday (Nov...

Prosecutors in the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz will begin their rebuttal case Tuesday, challenging his attorneys' contention that he murdered 17 people because his birth mother abused alcohol during pregnancy, a condition they say went untreated. Prosecutor Mike Satz's team is expected to call experts who will testify Cruz has antisocial personality disorder — in lay terms, he's a sociopath — and fully responsible for his Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), people with antisocial personality disorder commit "exploitive, delinquent and criminal behavior with no remorse." They usually have no regard for others, don't follow the law, can't sustain consistent relationships or employment and use manipulation for personal gain, the NIH says. Prosecutors will want to reemphasize Cruz "understood exactly" what he was doing during the m...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The sudden end of the defense case in the Parkland mass shooting trial last week drew criticism of and from the presiding judge, temporarily overshadowing the biggest question at issue — was enough evidence presented to convince a jury to spare the defendant’s life? It’s impossible to say for sure — juries are notoriously unpredictable. But at least one expert, and some trial observers, say they wouldn’t be surprised if the jury in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting case were to show mercy toward confessed gunman Nikolas Cruz. “I would much rather be the defense than the prosecution at this point,” said Nova Southeastern University law professor Bob Jarvis. The state has to convince 12 jurors that Cruz should be sentenced to death, he explained. The defense needs only one to say no. With one vote in his favor, Cruz would be sentenced to life in prison. Jarvis predicted the defense would actually prevail. The overwhelming evidence of guilt and premeditati...

We all know it is not easy to be a civil society activist in Singapore. It is even harder if you campaign against the death penalty with relentless determination and an overarching commitment to justice, together with the hope that things might one day change. This is the case of Kokila Annamalai, an abolitionist campaigner who helped me better understand possible avenues to changing the status quo in Singapore.  The execution of Malaysian national Nagaenthran Dharmalingam in April was a turning point not only for activists like Kokila but for a multitude of citizens that for the first time had the courage to protest against the system. Unfortunately, nothing has changed since the execution. Earlier this month, two other death row inmates, Nazeri Bin Lajim and Abdul Rahim Bin Shapiee, were hanged.  People outside of Singapore know about the draconian law, but many do not understand the complexities of a legal system that the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) rightly says...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The prosecution spent three weeks telling jurors how Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 students and three staff members at a Florida high school four years ago. Now his attorneys will get their chance to present why they believe he did it, hoping to get him sentenced to life without parole instead of death. Melisa McNeill, Cruz's lead public defender, is expected to give her opening statement Monday, having deferred its presentation from the start of the trial a month ago. She and her team will then begin laying out their 23-year-old client's life history: his birth mother's abuse of alcohol and cocaine during her pregnancy, leading to possible fetal alcohol syndrome; his severe mental and emotional problems; his alleged sexual abuse by a “trusted peer;” the bullying he endured; and his adoptive father's death when he was 5 and his adoptive mother's four months before his Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoo...

3 judge Bench asks if trial judges ought to pause and give every possible opportunity to a convict to avoid the gallows The Supreme Court on August 16 raised doubts about whether a person should be sentenced to death on the same day he or she is convicted of a crime. Noting that the death penalty is “irreversible”, a 3-judge Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit asked if trial judges ought to pause and give every possible opportunity to a convict to avoid the gallows before allowing the state to take his or her life. The Supreme Court reserved its judgment on the question of “same-day sentencing” after a 2-hour long hearing. The cardinal issue is whether a convict, sentenced to death merely hours after conviction has enough time to present mitigating circumstances which led him to commit the crime. Attorney General K.K. Venugopal had opposed same-day sentencing, even suggesting that the entire proceedings should be adjourned after the stage of conviction in cases in which a person can be put...

The state of Texas has issued a death warrant seeking to execute Melissa Lucio, a battered woman who was sentenced to death for what may have been an accidental fall that killed her two-year-old daughter. She is scheduled to be executed April 27, 2022. In an interview with the Texas Observer, Tivon Schardl, a lawyer on Lucio’s appellate defense team, called her case “as clear a case of injustice as you’ll ever see.” “Melissa Lucio faces imminent execution for a capital murder that never happened,” Schardl said. “Melissa, an innocent woman, faces execution in less than 100 days because a corrupt prosecutor relied on a statement coerced by an overzealous Texas Ranger who badgered a traumatized woman into making a false confession.” Prosecutors at Lucio’s 2008 trial alleged that she beat her daughter Mariah to death, but Lucio’s lawyers contested the cause of death and presented expert testimony from a neurosurgeon that Mariah may instead have died from head trauma caused by falling down ...

All defendants were denied legal representation in military tribunals or sentenced in absentia. Myanmar’s junta has condemned more than 100 people to death in the Yangon region alone since it seized power a year ago. None of the people sentenced were given the right to defend themselves. Of the 101 people documented by RFA’s Myanmar Service, 50 were convicted in secretive military tribunals where they were denied access to legal representation, while the rest were sentenced in absentia. Those convicted hailed mostly from the Yangon townships of North Okkalapa, South Dagon, North Dagon, Hlaingtharyar, Dagon Port and Shwepyithar, where martial law has been in place amid resistance to military rule. Two of the more well-known prisoners facing the death penalty are Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a lawmaker with the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD) party, and activist Ko Jimmy, a leader of the 88 Generation Student group. Both were sentenced for violating the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, acco...

Rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) has called on the Singapore government to ensure a fair hearing for Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam , a Malaysian who is appealing against his death sentence for drug trafficking. LFL adviser N Surendran said this included stopping the alleged intimidation and harassment of Singapore lawyer M Ravi, who is representing Nagaenthran. In a statement today, Surendran claimed Ravi had been subjected to “concerted intimidation, oppression and undue pressure” by the Singapore authorities. “This includes tens of thousands of dollars in personal cost orders made by the court against Ravi at the behest of the attorney-general arising from capital punishment cases argued vigorously by Ravi. “Ravi has also been threatened with professional disciplinary complaints and baseless police investigations,” he said. He believed the intimidation tactics were used to discourage Ravi from further representing Nagaenthran. Surendran said the Singapore government must act accor...