Death Penalty News

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has finished dealing with executions for the remainder of his time in office following a modern-era record of death penalty commutations. The Republican governor spared 7 men from execution during his 2 terms in office, including commutations on March 26 and July 20.  Kasich allowed 15 executions to proceed, including the July 18 execution of Robert Van Hook for strangling, stabbing and dismembering a man he met in a Cincinnati bar more than 30 years ago. Not since Democrat Mike DiSalle spared 6 death row inmates in the early 1960s has an Ohio governor spared so many killers during periods when the state had an active death chamber. DiSalle allowed 6 executions to proceed. Democratic Gov. Richard Celeste commuted 8 death sentences just days before leaving office in 1991, but none of those inmates' executions was imminent. Kasich "appreciates the gravity of this authority and therefore carefully considers these cases to make decision...

Flogging has been a long-standing practice in Iran. Iran practices flogging and other internationally banned corporal punishments including amputation, stoning, and blinding. Under Iran's criminal laws, more than 100 offenses are punishable by flogging. They include theft, fraud, and drinking or selling alcohol, as well as moral crimes such as kissing in public, homosexual acts, and sexual relationships between unmarried men and women. Flogging sentences for adultery and blasphemy are seen as lenient. During the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, it is not uncommon for Iranians to be sentenced to lashing for eating in public during fasting hours. Iranian courts have also sentenced some journalists to be flogged over their work. Children are exempt from flogging, but women are not. Iranian human rights activist estimate that Iranian courts issue hundreds of flogging sentences each year, and several dozen are carried out. The popular Facebook page My Ste...

On 26 July 2018, Gaza Court of First Instance issued 2 death sentences by hanging against (G. H.) and (Z. Q.) from Gaza City, after being convicted of participation in murder. This sentence comes after Palestine’s signing the instrument of its accession to the Additional Protocol of the 1989 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in last June. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns issuing death sentences, especially in light of absence of fair trial guarantees in the Gaza Strip. PCHR reiterates is calls upon the Palestinian President to issue a Presidential decree to halt the death penalty until pending the necessary amendments in the local laws. It should be noted that this sentence is the second to be issued against a woman in the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a previous one was issued against a woman in 2016, but it was not executed yet. In 2018, the number of death sentences issued has so far risen to 5 sentences, 4 of them wer...

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: The cabinet spokesman told the media on July 25, 2018, as reported on Hiru News, that the cabinet has unanimously approved the (presidential) decision to implement the death penalty even if the EU withdraws the GSP+ facility in response as warned. Though I personally do not attach much credibility to the particular person's statement, I thought as a patriotic Sri Lankan that it would be in the national interest to sound a warning before it is too late. (Caveat: It is hoped that no one will get upset by this personal opinion of a non-politician which is being described here for what it is worth.) Beware! The forfeiture of the GSP+ concessions is not the real issue. The real issue is the impact of bringing back the death penalty on the amelioration of the law and order situation in the country. Those who are determined to impose a 'final solution' on Sri Lanka have cynically manipulated for a noose to be slung around her neck in the form of ...

The letter begins: TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. With that, Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers challenged a major drug company to use the courts to block use of any of its drugs that may be used in the scheduled execution of condemned Nebraska prisoner Carey Dean Moore. Chambers sent the letter Friday to a Pfizer pharmaceutical company executive in an effort to persuade him to go beyond Pfizer's request to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services for return of any lethal injection drugs manufactured by the company. Another drug company, Alvogen, successfully filed a legal objection in Nevada this month to stop one of its drugs from being used in an execution. A judge blocked the use of its sedative midazolam from being used in the scheduled execution of Scott Raymond Dozier. "Does Pfizer's desire to protect its integrity, good name and public image rise to the level of Alvogen's?" Chambers asked Robert Jones, Pfizer vice president of government affairs...

Mullis has waived all his appeals and fired his attorneys. Travis Mullis, a 31-year-old Texas man who stomped his 3-year-old baby to death, has filed a request to fast-track his path to the death chamber, according to the Houston Chronicle . Mullis made headlines when he was sentenced to death row in 2011 after he stomped his little baby to death by the Galveston seawall in a ghastly culmination of what his attorneys said was a series of "stupid decisions."  His attorneys had previously pointed out that Mullis was an "emotional mental health quadriplegic," detailing his horrific upbringing and the result of his childhood scars on his mental being. According to the documents, Mullis' mother died when he was a toddler, and between the ages of 3 and 6, he was sexually abused repeatedly. He spent years in and out of institutions, and when he was 18, Mullis' adoptive mother kicked him out to live on his own. This is when he moved to Texas and s...

New York (CNN) -- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she hopes to stay on the Supreme Court until the age of 90. "I'm now 85," Ginsburg said on Sunday. "My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years." She has already hired law clerks for at least two more terms. Ginsburg spoke in New York following a production of "The Originalist," a play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia, at the 59E59 Theater. "If I had my choice of dissenters when I was writing for the court, it would be Justice Scalia," Ginsburg said, saying that the back and forth would help her form her arguments. "Sometimes it was like a ping-pong game." As a result, Ginsburg said, her landmark decision opening up the Virginia Military Institute to female cadets was her 18th draft. Asked by "The Originalist" Director Molly Smith what keeps her "hopeful,...

ABU DHABI tourism is rapidly increasing but due to very strict laws and customs UK tourists can easily fall on the wrong side of the law if not careful. These are the illegal activities to avoid in the emirate. Abu Dhabi visitors might be surprised at the number of activities that are completely innocuous in the UK but which could land you in jail in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital.  From smoking electronic cigarettes and swearing to kissing in public and photographing military buildings, a whole array of things could see Britons imprisoned. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have highlighted the many laws and customs that must be abided by in Abu Dhabi. Tourists should be aware that videos, books, and magazines may be subject to scrutiny and may be censored. Bringing in any pornography is illegal, as is importing pork products. The emirate is particularly severe when it comes to drugs and there is zero tolerance for drug-related offences....

European human rights judges would rule Britain’s plan to waive death penalty assurances for two suspected members of the Isil ‘Beatles’ terror cell illegal, experts say, and could order the UK to seek US guarantees and even pay the men damages. The decision by Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, has already been challenged with a judicial review in the High Court.  Even if British justices decide the failure to seek guarantees for Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh is legal, a case could be brought to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France. “The Home Secretary’s decision in this case is in the clearest possible breach of the European Convention on Human Rights,”  Ben Emmerson QC, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, who currently sits as a judge for the UN International Criminal Tribunals, told The Telegraph. The Convention has a protocol that abolishes the death penalty in all circumstances and an...

Arthur Jones is an avowed Nazi. John Fitzgerald says the Holocaust is a myth. Rick Tyler wants to "make America white again."  Their fringe ideas are reminiscent of another age, but the unapologetic men who espouse them are all on US election ballots in 2018. Extremism and bigotry, even outright white supremacy and anti-Semitism, have found new lives in 21st century US politics and the era of President Donald Trump, beyond just the toxic rhetoric of a few little-known cranks. They have received more exposure this year on the national stage than at any time in recent memory. And the mainly conservative proponents of hate running for office are proving to be a major embarrassment for the Republican Party. In Illinois, Jones, who called the Holocaust "the biggest, blackest lie in history" and once ran a newspaper ad with a large swastika in the middle, is the Republican candidate for Congress, after he won the party primary by running unopposed in a ...