Death Penalty News

It's been six years since I retired after more than three decades at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. I held various positions including warden, regional director, assistant director and then director. Included in my responsibilities was the participation in the execution of 33 men from 2001 to 2010. With each execution I asked myself: Did the extensive process of appeals ensure we got it right? I often wondered if we made a mistake. My curiosity arose because I had walked people out of prison after years of incarceration who turned out to be innocent. Our judicial and corrections system is among the finest in the world and the envy of nations. We provide the best attorneys, judges, and corrections personnel anywhere. I know, and have worked closely with many of them. Yet we continue to be one of the few industrialized nations to carry out the death penalty even when we know mistakes happen. Innocent People on Death Row Every year, more innoc...

Julian McMahon As Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen was in a Singapore cell facing the end of his life, one of his lawyers, Julian McMahon, offered him some solace in words written by Sir Thomas More as he awaited his own execution almost 500 years earlier. Mr McMahon, a Melbourne barrister who was a national finalist in the 2016 Australian of the Year awards for his human rights work, is due to speak on Wednesday night at the Saint Thomas More Forum in Canberra. While representing Van Nguyen, who was hanged in Singapore in 2005, Mr McMahon referred back to the case of Sir Thomas, the Lord Chancellor of England, beheaded in 1535 after standing firm in his Catholic faith and refusing to swear that the Crown had supremacy over the Church. "In the last year of Van Nguyen's life, he had become much more interested in his Catholic faith so I had actually given him copies of a few pages written by Thomas More while More was in his cell awaiting his executi...

Screenshot from "Rectify" (2013), a TV series created by R. McKinnon, with Aden Young, Abigail Spencer, J. Smith-Cameron. ( Read more ) By his 70th birthday in 2013, Russell Maroon Shoatz had spent nearly 30 years in extreme solitary confinement. A prisoner in Pennsylvania’s Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), Shoatz spent 23 hours each day confined to a 7-by-12-foot cell. He ate all his meals alone inside that cell. He slept under lights that were never turned off. He was not allowed any educational, vocational, or group programming. Five days a week, he was permitted to spend one hour in a fenced-in exercise cage. Each time he left his cell, he was strip-searched and placed in shackles. When his family came to visit, he was placed in a booth and made to communicate with them from behind plexiglass. He could not hug his children or hold his grandchildren. Shoatz remained in handcuffs and leg irons during visits. In 2013, Shoatz filed suit against the Pennsylvania Depart...

Jason Brian Dalton KALAMAZOO, Mich. — The Uber driver authorities say fatally shot six people  during a series of seemingly random attacks over the weekend was charged with murder Monday as questions swirled around the bloody rampage. Jason Brian Dalton made “incriminating statements” after his arrest, but did not directly confess to the shootings, Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley said Monday. Investigators continue to look for a motive in the shooting, but so far detectives have not found any explanation, Hadley said. “That is honestly the most baffling part of it,” Hadley said. “Aside from some anecdotal things, there is nothing we can put our finger on and say that’s why.” Residents here have reeled since this city of about 75,000 people joined the ever-growing list of American communities riven by a shooting rampage, a group that since last year has grown to include San Bernardino, Calif. ; Roseburg, Ore. ; and Charleston, S.C . “It’s happened ...

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska death penalty opponents are launching a statewide campaign with a new name. The group Retain a Just Nebraska will announce the next phase of its campaign Wednesday at the Capitol.  The organization previously operated under the name Nebraskans for Public Safety . Retain a Just Nebraska will ask voters to reject a proposal that would keep the death penalty legal in Nebraska.  Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in May, but death penalty supporters responded with a petition drive that suspended the new law until voters decide the issue in the November general election. Nebraska currently has 10 men on death row.  Gov. Pete Ricketts has said the state will not pursue any executions until voters decide whether to keep the death penalty. Source: The Washington Times, Associated Press, Feb. 23, 2016 - Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa Zimbabwe is making significant strides towards the elimination of the death penalty from its statutes as demonstrated by the removal of all women and persons aged below 21 from facing the death sentence, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said. Addressing delegates attending the 9th International Meeting of the Ministers of Justice here yesterday, VP Mnangagwa said he was positive that Zimbabwe will soon abolish capital punishment. He said he survived death penalty during the Rhodesian regime and knows "the tribulations faced by those on death row". "The legislative history of Zimbabwe in so far as the death penalty is concerned demonstrates that the country is making significant strides towards the elimination of capital punishment," said VP Mnangagwa. "The exclusion of all women and the increase of the minimum age of execution from 18 to 21 years under the current Constitution of Zimbabwe is a positive...

Guantanamo Military Prison President Obama on Tuesday urged lawmakers to lift obstacles to closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as he presented to Congress a long-awaited roadmap for shuttering a facility he said symbolized the excesses that following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “This is about closing a chapter in our history ,” said Obama, flanked by Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, in remarks at the White House. “It reflects the lessons that we’ve learned since 9/11, lessons that need to guide our nation going forward.” But Obama’s blueprint, which provided some detail to earlier White House plans to move up to 60 prisoners to the mainland United States for trial or detention,was met with immediate condemnation from Capitol Hill. Previewing the plan earlier in the morning, officials said the document submitted to Congress outlined costs associated with housing prisoners in facilities within the United States. Officials...

February 23, 2016: Two death row convicts were sent to the gallows in the Central Jail Sahiwal on early morning while execution of another death row prisoner was postponed, Dunya News reported. The dead bodies of the prisoners were handed over to their heirs. According to details, death row prisoner Faiz was executed for killing a man named Barkat in 1992. Death row prisoner Ramzan was hanged for murdering three women in 2004. Meanwhile, the execution of death row prisoner Ghulam Murtaza was postponed after the two rival parties reached a settlement. Source: Dunya News, Feb. 23, 2016 - Report an error, an omission: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com - Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Executions are on hold in Ohio until 2017 as prison officials search for the necessary lethal injection drugs. Death penalty opponents are hopeful the pope's calls to stop the use of capital punishment worldwide will resonate in Ohio, where executions have been highly criticized. After a 2007 assessment found Ohio fell short in 93 % of standards for a fair and accurate state death penalty system, an Ohio Supreme Court task force put forth recommendations for improvement. Abraham Bonowitz, spokesperson for Ohioans to Stop Executions, explains that since then, more Ohioans support the alternative of life in prison without parole. And because Pope Francis is a moral leader for the world, says Bonowitz, his calls should be heard. "We've got many, many Catholics here and many Catholics in leadership, in the legislature for example," he says. "And what we have to realize is that all of the mainstream Christian faiths and other religions as well call for...

Heyman Uraminezhad The Iranian judiciary has finalized the death sentence that had been handed down to a young Kurdish man who was under the age of 18 at the time of his alleged crime. The country’s Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued for a young man by the name of Heyman Uraminezhad. This young man is currently held in Sanandaj Central Prison waiting for his sentence to be carried out. Heyman is currently 21 years old and was convicted of premeditated murder by the Sanandaj Prime Court. Iran under the rule of the clerical regime is one of the leading executioners of juvenile offenders, Amnesty International said Monday. In a new report, Amnesty International said last month that it had documented the execution of at least 73 juveniles in Iran from 2005 to 2015 and that 160 juvenile offenders are languishing on the country’s death row. According to the Amnesty International, the report was based on information received from death-penalty opponent...

Alfred Brown was released from the Harris County Jail, Texas, Texas on June 8, 2015 (Photo: Houston Chronicle) Former death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown filed a request Monday for almost $2 million dollars in state compensation saying he spent more than 12 years behind bars because he was wrongfully convicted. State senator Rodney Ellis and lawyers for Brown said the 33-year-old is eligible for a lump sum of $973,589 plus an annuity in that amount to be paid annually for the rest of his life. Brown was freed from prison last year , and his case has been dismissed but no official has said he is "actually innocent." However under the Tim Cole Act, a state law providing compensation for the wrongfully convicted, Brown fits the definition of "exonerated," according to his lawyers. "No 'magic words' are required anymore," said Neal Manne, one of Brown's attorneys. "The magic is in the fact that you're released....

Medan. The National Narcotics Agency, or BNN, seized 25 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and arrested four men in the year's biggest drug bust in Medan, North Sumatra on Monday (22/02). Brig. Gen. Arman Depari, BNN deputy head for narcotics eradication, said the four suspects were captured at a bus terminal on Jalan Sisimangaraja, adding that one of them was injured after being shot by anti-narcotic officers. “The arrested suspects are being questioned,” Arman told reporters without revealing their identities. The suspects allegedly have ties to an international narcotics syndicate in Malaysia and other countries, Arman said, adding that Aceh and Riau are believed to be the base of this syndicate. The bust marks this year's first large raid after the BNN seized 161 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in Karawang, West Java, last December. The drugs confiscated in December were found packed in boxes in the back of a truck that was transporting them fr...

Wyoming's disused gas chamber A shortage of lethal injection drugs drives some states to think the unthinkable As Arizona death row inmate Joseph Wood gasped and gulped for air, prison officials kept pumping more drugs into his system. It took 15 injections and almost 2 hours for him to die. The botched execution followed other court-ordered deaths in Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that were supposed to be pain-free and humane but ended up horribly bungled. States are having problems because it's increasingly difficult to get effective, reliable, government-approved drugs for executions. As a result, lethal injections have become messy testing grounds for experimental drug cocktails. And now states are scrambling to find other options - including gas chambers and even firing squads, recently reinstated (though not yet utilized) in Utah. Ohio's recent decision to postpone executions until at least 2017 highlights the dilemma that states face. "There are ...

Sister Helen Prejean (Photo: Franck Dennis) Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, ministers to prisoners on death row. She is the author of "Dead Man Walking." The views expressed are her own. I'm praying for Justice Antonin Scalia, that his passage into eternity was peaceful. I respect his sincerity, even though on the subject of the death penalty, he was my nemesis. As I was writing "The Death of Innocents," I happened to run into him in an airport, and I said teasingly that I was "taking him on" in my book. And he, personable as he was, jabbed his finger in the air and said, "And I'll be right back at ya!" In "Innocents," I wrote about 2 men I believe were innocent: Joseph O'Dell and Dobie Gillis Williams, whose executions Scalia summarily authorized without an apparent qualm, acknowledging that his role on the Supreme Court made him part of the "machinery of death." Scalia's exp...

California's Death Row Californians face a watershed year as they prepare to decide whether to resume executions that stopped a decade ago or end them entirely. While advocates jockey to put both choices before voters this fall, officials overseeing the 746 condemned inmates on the nation's largest death row are pushing ahead with plans to use a single lethal drug to meet legal requirements amid a nationwide shortage of execution drugs. Supporters said at a public hearing on Friday that crime victims have waited too long for justice as the state dragged its heels in adopting a new method of execution. "The family members of the victims are dying before the murderers," said Michele Hanisee, vice president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles County. "Meanwhile, ironically, the state of California moves ahead with an assisted suicide law that would allow doctors to prescribe the same drugs for suicide that death penalty op...