Death Penalty News

Within days of my arrival, Indonesia's president, Joko Widodo, rejected the clemency pleas of Bali Nine heroin smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, despite their remarkable rehabilitation. From this moment their death by firing squad seemed inevitable. Reporting on the lead-up to the executions was like watching a film, heart in mouth, that you already know ends tragically. I barely slept for weeks. Relations between the two countries soured, exacerbated by Tony's Abbott's disastrous reminder of the billion dollars in aid Australia had donated after the 2004 tsunami. "Australia and Indonesia are like divorced parents who have to stay together for the sake of the children," one Indonesian official told me. The anger some Australians felt towards Indonesia at the time was visceral. I deplore the death penalty – now more than ever – but felt a responsibility not to fan the flames of hate. Many Indonesians see drug smuggling through a...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (KTRK) -- The federal government will not seek the death penalty against a 60-year-old driver at the center of a human smuggling case that killed 10 people in San Antonio, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced. James Bradley Jr. will not be sentenced to death, according to U.S. Attorney General Richard Durban, Jr., but will face additional charges in the case after a grand jury returned a superseding indictment Wednesday. The indictment also charged 47-year-old Pedro Silva Seguara, an undocumented alien, in connection to transporting and harboring undocumented aliens for financial gain resulting in serious bodily injury. Segura faces life imprisonment or the death penalty. In July, authorities were called to the Walmart store near Interstate 35 in San Antonio. According to the criminal complaint, Bradley told police the trailer he was hauling had been sold and he was "unaware" of its contents. He said he stopped at the Walmart and exited t...

A judge in San Antonio dismissed the cases against the 22 material witnesses in the human smuggling operation which resulted in the deaths of ten undocumented aliens back in July. United States Magistrate Judge Elizabeth S. Chestney signed the order dismissing the criminal complaints the material witness in the case of U.S. v. James Matthew Bradley, and their depositions scheduled for this week have been cancelled. The witnesses are being turned over to immigration authorities for processing. Bradley, who remains in federal custody, is charged by federal grand jury indictment for his alleged role in the operation. No trial date has been scheduled. He's facing 5 counts, including a count of illegally transporting immigrants for financial gain, resulting in death, and a separate count of conspiracy to transport immigrants illegally, resulting in death. Those charges carry the possibility of the death penalty. Bradley was also indicted on 2 counts related to illegally t...

"39 people were discovered in and around Bradley’s tractor-trailer." The truck driver involved in the fatal human smuggling scheme that left 10 people dead may now be facing the death penalty himself. On Monday, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., was charged under federal law with one count of “transporting illegal aliens.” If convicted, the crime is punishable by life imprisonment or death if the crime results in a death. But investigators aren’t stopping there. On Tuesday, a US immigration official told the Associated Press that they believe Bradley is just one part of a large human smuggling organization, and their goal is to identify and dismantle the ring. "We're certainly not stopping at looking at the driver. We're trying to investigate and identify the different cogs, the stash houses, the other members, where the money came from," said Shane Folden of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Inves...