Death Penalty News

Brian Darrell Davis A man convicted of raping and stabbing to death his live-in girlfriend's mother was executed on Tuesday, more than a week after the governor rejected a parole board recommendation to reduce his sentence to life in prison. Brian Darrell Davis, 38, was put to death by lethal injection at a state prison. He is the second Oklahoma inmate executed in two weeks and the third in 2013. He was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. Davis was convicted of stabbing Josephine "Jody" Sanford, 52, to death and raping her at the apartment he shared with her daughter, Stacey Sanford, and their child. He admitted killing her during a fight in November 2001, but said he had not intended to do so. Davis gave several versions of the events, but each one included that he returned home from a club early that morning and discovered that his live-in girlfriend Stacey and their 3-year-old daughter were gone. They were staying at a hotel, prosecutors said. Davis had ...

2 people were sentenced to death and 71 others handed down different jail terms in China for illegal drug manufacturing. The Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou City, capital of Guangdong Province, ruled that Feng Guiquan, Li Yuxiong and Luo Songyao were found guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine from November 2010 to May 2011. Police arrested them on May 8, 2011 and confiscated 70.28 kg of methamphetamine. They also confiscated more than 620 kg of 0.24-% pure methamphetamine at Luo's house. According to the court order, Feng was given the death penalty, Li was sentenced to death with a 2-year reprieve and Luo was sentenced to 15 years in jail and 200,000 yuan (USD 32,620) of his personal property was confiscated. The People's Court and 12 other grassroots courts also pronounced judgements in 66 drug-related cases involving more than 740 kg of drugs. 73 people were sentenced for manufacturing, smuggling, selling or transporting drugs, and ...

June 24, 2013: Saudi Arabia beheaded two Pakistani men convicted of armed robbery, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency. The execution in the western city of Jeddah came after the two men admitted to having set up a gang to rob bank customers at gunpoint, the report said. A total of 54 people have been executed in Saudi Arabia since the start of the year, according to an AFP count. Source: Agence France-Presse, June 25, 2013

Marshall L. Gore A temporary stay of execution was granted for a man who had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison on Monday. Marshall Lee Gore, 49, who was convicted of killing 2 women 25 years ago, had been scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. But the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals approved a motion filed by Gore's attorney less than 2 hours before the procedure was expected to begin. A hearing will be held on Thursday. The former owner of a South Florida escort service is on death row for the 1988 killing of Robyn Novick, a 30-year-old exotic dancer whose naked body was found in a rural part of Miami-Dade County. Gore was also sentenced to die for the 1988 slaying of Susan Roark, whose body was found a few months later in Columbia County in northern Florida. The Catholic Church opposes Gore's execution. About 40 people attended a prayer vigil that the Archdiocese of Miami held for Gore, his victims Novick and Roark and th...

Nigerian authorities on Monday hanged 4 prisoners, an official said, in what was believed to be the country's 1st known executions since 2006, drawing outrage from rights activists. The justice commissioner in Edo state in southern Nigeria confirmed the hanging of the 4 prisoners, who had been convicted of either armed robbery or murder, he said. According to the commissioner, all their appeals had been exhausted and their death warrants were signed. "The court gave the judgement this afternoon that the execution could go ahead and the prison authority went ahead," Henry Idahagbon told AFP. He added that the executions were carried out by the prison service, a federal agency, and not the state government. However, he said he was informed by prison authorities of the executions. Edo state Governor Adams Oshiomhole signed two of the death warrants since the crimes occurred in Edo, said Idahagbon, as required by law. Governors from elsewhere signed...

The Walls Unit, Huntsville, Texas With 7 prisons, a cemetery for dead inmates and its infamous execution chamber, the business of detention and death is a way of life in the Texas town of Huntsville. In this neat and tidy city north of Houston, prisoners recognizable by their white uniforms, maintain public green spaces under a blazing sun and the gaze of a guard, sitting on the edge of a car. "These are trustees," says the corrections officer. The inmates in question are low-level criminals convicted of crimes such as car theft or burglary. Out of Huntsville's population of 38,000 people, 14,000 are prisoners while a further 6,000 are guards or employees of the Texas Justice Department. Instead of tourist signs pointing out antique shops, the tomb of famous Texas Governor Sam Houston, or other places of interest, a visitor is guided to the various prisons: the Wynne Unit, the Byrne Unit, Hollyday Unit. "Prison, it's an industry here,...

Being on death row in Kenya is not for the faint hearted. Currently there are approximately 2500 inmates on death row in Kenya, scattered across the 5 maximum security prisons, Kamiti, Naivash, Kingongo, Kibos and Shimo la tewa. Living conditions are horrendous, a cell that can barely accomodate 4 single mattresses holds upto 14 prisoners at Kamiti. The well known notorious G block has 59 cells for inmates but 2 are set aside for the guards who come on night shift to sleep in. This frankly raises the first question, why are the guards given rooms to sleep in when they are actually on duty? What are they paid for? To sleep? If an inmate were to contract a disease that is air borne then the chances of all the inmates in that cell getting it are very high due to the close proximity that everyone sleeps. Lice called 'chawas' are commonplace and do not allow the inmates to sleep peacefully, constantly crawling over their bodies and biting them. There was once a case o...

Huntsville Unit Death Chamber AFP - Hank Skinner escaped execution in 2010 by only 20 minutes after a dramatic 11th-hour reprieve. He now regards this as a miracle. The 51-year-old, who was convicted in 1995 of the brutal triple murder of his girlfriend, Twila Busby, and her two adult sons, has protested his innocence for years, despite DNA evidence against him. Haunted by the possibility of execution, the wait has taken a mental toll, says Skinner, who admits that in one sense, death may come as a relief. "Living under the sentence of death is never off, it's always on your mind. It's always sitting on your chest, it's always on your shoulders and they're killing people about once a week. It's so heavy because there's a pall of death over this place," he told AFP in an interview. He tries to paint a picture for outsiders: "If someone kidnaps you and takes you down to the basement and they have jail cells there, six of them. T...

Holding cells at Huntsville Prison where death-row inmates spend their last hours. The execution chamber is located at the far end of the corridor. Owing to its size and inclinations, Texas registers prodigious statistics, but none so bleak as what comes from the state's pre-Civil War red-brick prison in Huntsville that houses the nation's busiest execution chamber. There, on Wednesday, Texas' 500th execution since national reinstatement is set to be carried out. The life scheduled for termination belongs to Kimberly McCarthy, whose grisly murder of elderly neighbor Dorothy Booth of Lancaster brings the state to this grim milestone. It's one that no other state may ever touch. Virginia, 2nd in terms of executions, is barely a 5th of the way there, and the pace of capital punishment has slowed nationwide, even in Texas. Part of that has to do with a collective shudder at the realities of a fallible criminal-justice system. Part of it has to do with a g...

The Delhi Government has stayed the execution of 1993 Delhi blast case convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar on grounds of mental health and referred his case to the Union Home Ministry after a medical board examining him said he was in severe depression. Bhullar's file has been sent back to Tihar Jail by Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejinder Khanna, said Ranjan Mukherjee, OSD to Khanna. He has also directed constitution of a new medical board to re-examine Bhullar's mental health. The file has been forwarded to Tihar Director-General Vimla Mehra and will be submitted to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs through the Delhi Government. The medical board, set up by the Delhi Government to examine Bhullar's mental health, has in its report submitted to the Delhi Government last month said Bhullar was not mentally sound as he was suffering from severe depression. A Tihar Jail official said as per the jail manual, a death row convict cannot be executed if he is not ...

If you thought marijuana laws were strict where you live, they are a slap on the wrist compared to the drug laws in Malaysia. It was announced yesterday that 3 men have been sentenced to death by hanging after being found guilty of selling marijuana in a hospital parking lot. Abdullah Mahmood, 48, Wan Kamaruddin Wan Ahmad, 53, and Saharun Muhamad, 42, were all arrested in August 2007 for selling 4.8 kilograms (10.58 lbs.) of cannabis in a hospital parking lot in the Kelantan providence in the Malaysian Upper Peninsula. These men had previously avoided the death penalty in the initial trial in 2010. The High Court acquitted 2 of the offenders and sentenced the 3rd to 12 years in prison. Unsatisfied with the decision, the prosecution appealed the ruling and a re-trial was granted; the final ruling was announced yesterday and Judge Datuk Azman Abdullah sentenced the 3 men to die. Drug crimes in Malaysia are among the most strictly punished on the planet. Best-case scenario, if ...

He spent 16 years on death row in a US jail, narrowly escaping two dates set for execution. Now Anthony Graves is one of about 140 people who walked free after being cleared of any crime. His case is a beacon for activists seeking to ban capital punishment, which was reinstated in the United States in 1976. Since then more than 1,300 people have been executed, but 142 have been exonerated by the courts. Graves was number 138. "How do you compensate a man you took so much from and that you can never replace," says Graves. He was wrongly accused of murder and spent more than two years in prison as his case was tried, before then languishing for another 16 on death row. "They took 18 years of my life, that they can never give me back. They still owe me my opportunity to raise my children, they stole my opportunity to make free choices," he said. Since he walked out of the prison gates in October 2010, this father of three boys says he has lea...

(Reuters) - Hamas leaders said they had hanged two Palestinians found guilty of spying for Israel over a decade, making them the first to be executed since the end of a month-long amnesty for informants in April. Sixteen Palestinians have been executed in Gaza for spying since Hamas seized the territory in 2007. Hamas, which rejects any recognition of Israel as a legitimate state, says the executions are aimed at discouraging Palestinians from impoverished Gaza selling Israel information such as the whereabouts of top militants or weapons depots. Human rights activists say such executions violate Palestinian law which says that any cases of this sort must be reviewed by President Mahmoud Abbas, but Hamas does not recognize the Western-backed Abbas as having authority in Gaza. Source: Reuters, June 22, 2013

MINSK, 21 June (BelTA) – Belarus will not tolerate pressure regarding possible abolition of the capital punishment, Chairman of the Permanent Commission for International Affairs of the House of Representatives of Belarus Nikolai Samoseiko has said on 21 June. He leads a parliamentary task force that studies the death penalty as a means of punishment. The matter was discussed at the round table “Religion and Death Penalty”, BelTA has learnt. “One needs to know the mentality of Belarusians to understand that Belarusian people will not tolerate any pressure from outside. We are ready for cooperation in any matter, in particular, in death penalty, but not in the form of sanctions and ultimatums,” the MP said. He noted that after the 2010 presidential election a number of European countries embraced double standards towards Belarus and it was a major setback for several cooperation programs. “Today’s round table was supposed to be held in February 2011. However, it was postponed...

Dhaka, June 20: Ten militants of a banned Bangladeshi outfit were sentenced to death today by a fast-track court here after they were found guilty of involvement in a deadly suicide bombing in 2005 that claimed eight lives. The court handed down death penalty to 10 operatives of the banned outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed eight people, including lawyers, at suburban Gazipur. "The convicts will be hanged to death," Judge Muhammad Motahar Hossain of Dhaka's Speedy Trial Tribunal said while announcing the verdict in a crowded courtroom. The verdict was announced in the presence of the militants who appeared in court under heavy security. Source: Press Trust of India, June 20, 2013

Kimberly McCarthy Lawyers in Texas are fighting to save the life of a female prisoner scheduled to become the 500th person to be executed by the state since the death penalty was reinstated in America in 1976. Barring a last-minute stay, Kimberly McCarthy, 52, will face lethal injection next Wednesday for the 1997 murder of her neighbour. Should the execution be carried out, she would be the 500th person put to death by Texas, a state that has shown more enthusiasm in modern times for capital punishment than any other. The next seven days will be the culmination of an emotional and legal rollercoaster for McCarthy. This is her third appointment with the death chamber in the space of five months. "She is a very spiritual person. She believes what's meant to be is meant to be, and it's all in God's hands," said Maurie Levin, McCarthy's legal counsel since January. Now Levin has filed a new motion to stay execution with the Texas court of cri...

James Holmes Vengeance and retribution are both human responses to tragedy, especially violence on a large scale. We’re not interested in justice when unspeakable acts take place. We want blood – now. Because our society is one of laws, angry mobs don’t usually hand down guilty verdicts and exact punishment. We have to wait for the guilty to go through the motions – arrest, “fair” trial, and sentencing – to get what we paid for: that sweet execution. Decades may pass from the time a judge hands down a death sentence to the day it’s carried out. The somber, private occasion that is our modern version of capital punishment brooks no cheers, no joyful singing that the guilty is soon to die. It is not the vehicle of satisfaction the public envisions it to be. There’s no catharsis for the victims, and no deterrence for those who might commit similar crimes in the future. In fact, employing it as a mechanism of the justice system has no place in our modern society – not even for the wor...

Iran Human Rights, June 21: After two weeks of break on the occasion of the Presidential elections, the executions have resumed in Iran. Four prisoners, among them one woman, were hanged in Shahr-e-Kord (western Iran) on Thursday June 20. According to the Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan the prisoners were identified as Mohammad Ebdali, Vahid Fayouj, Golafrooz Fayouj (woman) and Ghobad Fayouj. The four prisoners were convicted of buying, possession and trafficking of 4534 grams of heroin, said the report. The first three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Shahr-e-Kord while the last one (Ghobad Fayouj) was hanged publicly in the "Mahdiyeh" area of Shahr-e-Kord. The prisoner was pulled up by a crane and hanged. It takes normally several minutes when the execution is carried out in this way. The public execution was carried out under heavy security measures. Iran Human Rights (IHR) strongly condemns these executions by the Iranian authorities. Mahmo...

Gary Haugen in court Death row inmate Gary Haugen cannot legally force Gov. John Kitzhaber to carry out his execution, the Oregon Supreme Court decided Thursday. Rather, the governor has the legal authority to delay the twice-convicted killer's execution, the court said, despite the inmate's insistence that he be put to death. "The Oregon Constitution does not provide the recipient of a Governor's act of clemency with a corresponding individual right to reject that clemency," the unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice Thomas Balmer states. "In fact, in describing the Governor's power to grant pardons, commutations, and reprieves, the constitutional text does not refer to the recipient of the grant of clemency at all." The court's decision reverses a trial court judge's ruling last August that sided with arguments from Haugen and his attorney Harrison Latto that Haugen must accept the governor's reprieve for it to be ...

June 19, 2013: As many as 117 death-row inmates will be given lethal injections made in Vietnam beginning June 27 when a new regulation takes effect. The amended decree on lethal injection stipulates that each prisoner will be given a shot containing three kinds of drugs: one that induces the loss of consciousness. a muscle relaxant, and one designed to stop the heart. Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang said the 117 prisoners had been awaiting execution indefinitely due to a lack of lethal injection drugs, which Vietnam previously had imported from Europe. However, the European Union banned the exportation of lethal injection drugs because it regards capital punishment (which is also banned) to be a violation of human rights. The ban had left Vietnam unable to execute a prisoner since November 2011, just as the country had implemented a switch from the firing squad – which had been used previously – to lethal injection as its method of execution. Lethal injec...