Death Penalty News

Shizuoka – Iwao Hakamada, a former death row inmate who was acquitted in a retrial for the 1966 murder of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture, on Thursday filed a damages lawsuit against the central and prefectural governments. Hakamata, 89, sought some ¥600 million in damages, a record amount against the government in a suit over a retrial case. He pursued the responsibilities of police, public prosecutors and courts. His complaint says that investigative authorities intentionally failed to record pertinent facts and evidence, instead concealing them. Despite knowing that police had fabricated evidence, public prosecutors went ahead and charged Hakamada, it says. It further claims that courts failed to explore the possibility of evidence fabrication.

The 87-year-old defendant was deemed unfit to appear in court due to communication difficulties engendered by his long detention. His trial must not be prolonged. The Shizuoka District Court has begun the retrial of Iwao Hakamata, whose death sentence was previously finalized over the 1966 murder and robbery of a family of four in Shizuoka Prefecture. Retrials are held in cases when sufficient evidence that is likely to prove the defendant’s innocence is newly found.

Leonard “Raheem” Taylor was convicted for the 2004 murders of Angela Rowe and her three children in Jennings, Missouri. Throughout the trial and appeals, he has maintained his innocence . Court documents show that the murders occurred after Leonard left Angela’s home, where he last saw her and her children alive, and headed to the airport to visit his daughter in California.  Then there is the false statement made by his brother, who says police coerced him, threatened him and his mother, beat him and told him to tell them Leonard had confessed to the crime — a statement that he recanted immediately and repeatedly since then. 

Former judges and prosecutors are joining those seeking a new trial for a death row inmate in Alabama MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A number of former judges and prosecutors — including two previous Alabama chief justices and a state attorney general — have joined those seeking a new trial for a death row inmate amid questions about his conviction more than 20 years ago. Former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley, former Chief Justices Sonny Hornsby and Drayton Nabers, and several former judges and prosecutors have submitted briefs supporting a new trial for Toforest Johnson who was convicted of the 1995 murder of a deputy sheriff. Baxley said he read about the case at the urging of his son — even though he said is usually skeptical of such innocence claims — and was astonished at what he found. “My conclusion, beyond all shadow of doubt, is that this evidence should not have gone to a jury. It’s not sufficient to uphold conviction. My further conclusion is that the guy is not guilty. The guy i...

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...

Hamamatsu (CNN) -- Sitting in an armchair next to his sister, in a cozy living room in the Japanese city of Hamamatsu, Iwao Hakamada looks like your average 83-year-old grandpa. But in 2014, he became the world's longest-serving death row inmate, after spending nearly five decades in a tiny, solitary cell waiting for the hangman's call. In 1966, the former professional boxer-turned-factory worker was accused of robbery, arson and the murder of his boss, his boss' wife and their two children. The family was found stabbed to death in their incinerated home in Shizuoka, central Japan. Iwao initially admitted to all charges before changing his plea at trial. He was sentenced to death in a 2-1 decision by judges, despite repeatedly alleging that police had fabricated evidence and forced him to confess by beating and threatening him. The one dissenting judge stepped down from the bar six months later, demoralized by his inability to stop the sentencing. A pair ...

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday began hearing an appeal against a lower court ruling convicting a man of the murder of a 9-year-old Vietnamese girl in 2017, with prosecutors calling for a death sentence and the accused seeking acquittal. Yasumasa Shibuya, the 48-year-old former head of a parents group at an elementary school in the city of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, pleaded not guilty at the first hearing of the appeal trial over the death of Le Thi Nhat Linh, who was a third grader at the school. In July last year, the Chiba District Court sentenced him to life in prison for abducting the girl into his vehicle, sexually assaulting her and strangling her before abandoning her body. “If Linh were still alive, she would have been a sixth-grader. She could have made various plans for her future,” Le Anh Hao, the girl’s 37-year-old father, said before the start of the trial. He has collected signatures from 1.34 million people seeking the death penalty for Shibuya. ...

An Australian father of two facing a possible death penalty in Lebanon for an alleged Islamic State plot to blow up a flight from Sydney has accused Lebanese authorities of bashing him, fabricating evidence and forcing him to sign a false confession. Amer Khayat, 39, gave an emotional and animated testimony for more than an hour overnight in Lebanon's military court in Beirut, where he stands accused of planning to blow up the Etihad flight to Abu Dhabi with 400 people on board in the sky above Australia on July 15 last year. Australian Federal Police have said the Australian-Lebanese dual citizen had "no idea" he was carrying a bomb hidden in a meat grinder inside his hand luggage, but Lebanese authorities accuse him of being a willing suicide bomber. Mr Khayat's brothers, Mahmoud and Khaled, are due to stand trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court next year accused of planting the bomb in his hand luggage as he set off from Sydney for Lebanon via A...

More than a decade ago, Ismail Saleh says, a neighbor wanted to marry one of Saleh's cousins. Following the custom of their clan in northern Iraq, she was meant to wed Saleh, so the family refused. And thus, he says, a feud was born. Saleh now sits on death row in Baghdad, sentenced to hang after being accused of fighting for the Islamic State group, a charge he steadfastly denies. The chief evidence against him: the word of that neighbor. "Sometimes I wake up and for a moment I feel that this death sentence and me being here is just a bad dream," the 29-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview in a Baghdad prison. Death sentences are being issued at a dizzying rate in Iraq's rush to prosecute and punish suspected members of the Islamic State group, with more than 3,000 handed out over just the past few years. About 250 people condemned for alleged IS ties have been hanged since 2014, including 101 only last year. Any allegation of having ...

A man who was accused of murder in 1998 has filed a lawsuit, alleging that a prosecutor and investigator coerced a teen to give false testimony. NEW ORLEANS – A man who was convicted of murder in 1998 has filed a lawsuit alleging that a prosecutor and investigator coerced a teen to give false testimony. Michael Wearry was convicted in 2002 in the murder of 16-year-old Eric Walber. Wearry’s attorneys were preparing for a retrial when they were able to find the witness, Jeffrey Ashton, in May 2017. Jim Craig, representing Wearry with the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, said Ashton talked to the criminal defense attorneys and told them what allegedly happened. “It’s not every day that one accuses a prosecutor, a sitting district attorney, of fabricating witness testimony,” Craig said. “It’s a very serious case and a very disturbing case. I hope it’s unusual. I don’t think anybody wants to think this kind of behavior happens every day.” Wearry’s lawsui...