Death Penalty News

After Charles Rhines, a gay man, was convicted of murder, jurors weighing a death sentence argued that sending him to prison for life would have been “sending him where he wants to go” because of all the men there. Advocates around the country are fighting jury discrimination after one man’s sexuality was a contributing factor in his 2019 execution. Charles Rhines confessed to murdering 22-year-old Donnivan Schaefer during a 1992 burglary in South Dakota. The defendant went to a Rapid City doughnut shop — from which he’d been fired weeks earlier — forced Schaefer into a storeroom, tied him up and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach, according to CBS News. RELATED |  South Dakota executes Charles Rhines The controversy in Rhines’ case came during the sentencing phase of his 1993 murder trial, when jurors were left to decide between a sentence of life in prison or death by execution.  He received the death penalty — in part because the men and women tasked with deciding his fa...

Manila (AFP) – Philippines presidential hopeful Manny Pacquiao says he was "naive" and ignorant of the law when he took crystal meth in his youth, but argues offenders today know drugs are illegal and should be punished. Pacquiao, a retired world champion boxer, has been a high-profile backer of President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal war on drugs that has killed thousands of people. But in the lead up to the 2022 elections, Pacquiao has sought to distance himself from the outgoing Duterte, who is facing an international probe into his bloody crackdown, and now says offenders should have a "chance to defend themselves". "We have to put in jail those who are using drugs, selling drugs -- that's what the law says," he told AFP, vowing to continue the anti-narcotics campaign "in the right way". "Before, I'm naive, that's why I use drugs... I don't know the law," said Pacquiao, 42, who currently holds a seat in the Senate an...

Three jurors have admitted their anti-LGBTI bias during sentencing Charles Rhines, a gay man from South Dakota, was convicted in the 1992 stabbing death of a donut shop worker. But instead of facing a long prison sentence, the jury gave him the death penalty. Their reason? Since he’s gay, he would ‘enjoy’ prison too much. In June, Rhines attempted to appeal this sentence.  Despite three of the jurors admitting their homophobic biases, the court refused to hear his appeal. Enter Civil Rights groups Now, six civil rights groups, including the ACLU and Lambda Legal, are urging the 8th Court Circuit to accept his appeal. According to the court filing, new evidence ‘suggests that at least some members of the jury accepted the notion that life in prison without parole would be fun for a gay person – so much so that they felt it was necessary to impose the death penalty instead. In other words, significant evidence suggests that the jury may have sentenced M...

“[T]here is no principled distinction between racial bias and the anti-gay bias that infected Mr. Rhines’s sentencing decision.” -- Death Penalty Information Center A South Dakota man sentenced to death in 1993 by a jury that fretted a life sentence would only gratify his homosexuality hopes the Supreme Court will spare him. The jury’s ugly prejudices were clear to the original sentencing court at the time. As they deliberated sentencing, jurors sent a list of questions to the judge that centered on concerns that he might somehow enjoy prison. The questions included “whether he would be allowed to ‘mix with the general inmate population,’ ‘create a group of followers or admirers,’ ‘brag about his crime to other inmates, especially new and[/]or young men…,’ ‘marry or have conjugal visits,’ or ‘have a cellmate,'” his attorneys write in their petition for Supreme Court consideration. They argue that the court’s logic in a 2017 ruling that states must consider eviden...