Death Penalty News

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 26: Divorce rates in Kuwait are rising, with recent statistics indicating that addiction—particularly among wives—has become a significant contributing factor. In response, authorities are preparing to introduce surprise premarital drug testing as part of a broader set of reforms under Kuwait’s new drug law. The countdown has officially begun for the enforcement of this new legislation, which was drafted by a judicial committee formed by the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef. The committee is headed by Counselor Mohammed Rashid Al-Duaij.

As California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris successfully defended the death penalty in court, despite her past crusade against it.  As a new senator, she proposed to abolish cash bail — a reversal from when she chided San Francisco judges for making it “cheaper” to commit crimes by setting bail amounts too low.  And now, as vice president and the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris’ campaign insists that she does not want to ban fracking, an oil and gas extraction process, even though that was precisely her position just a few years ago when she first pursued the White House.

The following story was published on April 25, 2023, prior to the execution of Tangaraju Suppiah, a 46-year-old Singaporean convicted of conspiracy to traffick marijuana. The Singaporean government is very secretive about how it carries out the death penalty, so little is known about what death penalty inmates experience in the last few days before their executions.  As the state prepares to execute Tangaraju Suppiah , a 46-year-old Singaporean convicted of conspiracy to traffick marijuana, tomorrow at dawn, the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), a local activist group working to abolish the death penalty, recently posted some slides detailing how Tangaraju’s last few days have been spent based on information collected from his relatives. 

The Medan Court in North Sumatra on Tuesday sentenced Mawardi, a 24-year-old man from Gayo Lues, Aceh, to death after being found guilty of carrying 1.3 tonnes of marijuana, fulfilling the demand of the prosecutors.  In the trial, which was held online, presiding judge Yusafrihardi Girsang said in his verdict that the defendant violated several articles of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics.  Yusafrihardi said the severe sentence was because the defendant had violated the government’s attempts to fight against drugs.  The judge said he found no mitigating factors for the verdict.  Defendant Mawardi, who was present via teleconference, decided to appeal the verdict. 

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —  Singapore on Wednesday hanged another citizen for trafficking marijuana, the second in three weeks, as it clung firmly to the death penalty despite growing calls for the city-state to halt drug-related executions. The 37-year-old man was executed after his last-ditch bid to reopen his case was dismissed by the court Tuesday without a hearing, said activist Kokila Annamalai of the Transformative Justice Collective, which advocates for abolishing the death penalty in Singapore. The man had been imprisoned for seven years and was convicted in 2019 for trafficking about 3.3 pounds of cannabis, she said. His bid to reopen his case was based on DNA evidence and fingerprints that tied him to a much smaller amount, which he admitted to possessing, but the court rejected it, she added.

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...

TEXAS -- This week marked the 1st 100 days of a new district attorney for El Paso. Yvonne Rosales was sworn into office on Jan. 1, 2021. She's the 1st woman to hold the position, taking over for longtime district attorney Jaime Esparza, who oversaw the prosecution of thousands of criminals in his nearly 30-year career. Rosales is coming into office during a pandemic which has shut down the El Paso County Courthouse and put a pause on criminal jury trials, and she's also inheriting the prosecution of the person accused of the Aug. 3, 2019 shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart. In a 1-on-1 interview with ABC-7 to mark her 100 day milestone, Rosales said her first goal was to review pending cases that were not resolved before she took office. "Some of the concerns that my attorneys have brought forth to my attention are disagreements they're having with the prior offers and deciding whether they should honor the offers or we need to pull those recommendations and ask for a ...

Jason Williams Is Elected Next Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ outsider campaign to reform the top prosecutor’s office in New Orleans was validated by voters Saturday as the defense attorney and at-large council member defeated establishment candidate Keva Landrum — despite a federal tax fraud indictment hanging over Williams’ candidacy. Williams’ victory represents a major shift from the old-school, “tough-on-crime” approach to criminal justice that has defined the top prosecutor’s office in New Orleans under outgoing district attorney Leon Cannizzaro and his predecessors. Cannizzaro, who had served 3 straight terms in office, announced this year he wouldn’t seek re-election as the DA’s office became engulfed in a scandal for issuing fake subpoenas. Williams, who is set to become the second Black DA in the city’s history, said at an election night party Saturday that his campaign was “community driven” and powered by a diverse coalition of supporters. “That same diver...

Just 20% of Houstonians — a record low — now support the death penalty over life-sentencing alternatives, a new Rice University survey has found.  The 2020 Houston Area Survey by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, released on May 4, 2020, found that death-penalty support has declined by more than 1/2 since the turn of the 21st century in the city of 2.3 million residents. The survey results are noteworthy because Houston comprises 50% of the population Harris County, Texas, a county that has accounted for more than twice as many executions in the past half century as any other county in the United States. The 2020 survey was conducted during February and early March of 2020, “before there were clear signs of an impending [coronavirus] crisis,” the Institute said.  The researchers asked Houston residents to choose which among three sentencing alternatives they believed was most appropriate for persons convicted of 1st-degree murder: ”the death penalty, ...

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) -- A Japanese man sentenced to death for the 2016 murder of 19 mentally impaired people at a care home near Tokyo withdrew his appeal on Monday, a district court said. Satoshi Uematsu, 30, a former caretaker at the Tsukui Yamayuri En facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, also injured 26 people in the rampage, in what the Yokohama District Court called incomparable to other incidents. His defense counsel had filed an appeal on Friday, but Uematsu had told Kyodo News two days after the March 16 verdict that he would drop the appeal since it would be "wrong" to continue the trial at higher courts. Uematsu also said he expected to receive the death penalty but was "not convinced" that he deserved it. RELATED  | Man sentenced to death over 2016 Japan care home mass murder He said during his trial that disabled people who are unable to communicate "create unhappiness in society." At the heart of the trial was wh...

A Japanese man who was sentenced to death over the 2016 murder of 19 mentally impaired people at a care home near Tokyo said Wednesday he will not appeal the ruling. Satoshi Uematsu, a 30-year-old who formerly worked at the Tsukui Yamayuri En care facility in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, told Kyodo News even if his defense counsel files an appeal by the March 30 deadline, he will request it be dropped. "I kind of expected (the death penalty) but I'm not convinced (I deserve it)," Uematsu said. The Yokohama District Court ruled Monday that Uematsu is competent to be held criminally liable for his actions, in which 26 people were injured in addition to the 19 killed. "I think it is wrong to continue my trial at higher courts. I have found my own answer," Uematsu said, adding he feels "heavy-hearted" when he thinks of how difficult it will be for him to receive visitors once his death sentence has been finalized. Uematsu expres...

A Japanese man has been sentenced to death for a stabbing rampage in 2016 which resulted in the death of 19 disabled people at a care home. Satoshi Uematsu said people with disabilities who were unable to communicate well had no human rights, said broadcaster Kyodo. The 30-year old had once worked in the care facility, located near Tokyo. The case is one of Japan's worst mass killings and has shocked people in a country where violent crime is rare. In an earlier interview with Japan's Mainichi Shimbun newspaper, Uematsu had said there was "no point in living" for people with mental disabilities and that he "had to do it for the sake of society". The Yokohama District Court on Monday ordered him to death by hanging. Uematsu previously said he did not plan to appeal against any verdict or sentence. 'He abused marijuana' During the trial earlier this year, the former employee of the Sagamihara care home did not dispute...

HOUSTON, Texas — Beto O’Rourke lost Texas in 2018. But his unsuccessful Senate bid led to a big change in the state’s largest city: a major overhaul of the criminal-justice system. The candidacy of O’Rourke, a young and charismatic congressman, energized Democratic voters in this red state and added momentum to a slowly-building blue wave in Harris County. The victorious Houston-area Democrats—including 59 judges and the county’s top executive—have tackled the hot-button issue of bail reform and are debating how to improve the system for making sure poor people are represented by lawyers in criminal court. Some new judges have changed longstanding courtroom culture, ending the shackling of juveniles and fining prosecutors for withholding evidence. Conservatives, law enforcement officials and the bail bonds industry have attacked those changes, but have not been able to reverse them. The shift in Harris County is part of a broader rethinking of criminal justice across...

YOKOHAMA – A man on trial for murdering 19 residents and injuring 26 other people in 2016 , at a knife rampage at a care home for the mentally disabled, said Wednesday he would not launch an appeal regardless of the ruling. During the trial at the Yokohama District Court in Kanagawa Prefecture, the defense team for Satoshi Uematsu, a 30-year-old former employee of the facility, argued in a closing statement that he should not be held responsible for his actions due to mental incompetence. The defense cast doubt on the results of a psychiatric assessment, pointing out that the doctor who performed it had not taken into account a marijuana-induced psychotic disorder. Uematsu was diagnosed with “personality disorder” in the assessment, leading prosecutors to determine that he could be held criminally responsible. But the defense team said that due to the use of marijuana, Uematsu’s “personality changed drastically from 2015” and he began to think disabled people were wo...