News and Updates (as of 12/22/96)

AUGUST 31, 2024:

MISSOURI----impending execution

His Best Chance to Get Off Death Row Was DNA on the Murder Weapon, But Prosecutors “Contaminated” the Evidence----The prosecutor’s actions two decades ago doomed Marcellus Williams’s shot at exoneration. Now the AG won’t let his life be spared.

Long before the 2001 trial started, then-St. Louis County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Keith Larner decided the butcher knife used to kill Felicia Anne Gayle Picus was “worthless” as a piece of evidence.

On Wednesday, Larner testified in court that he had concluded there was no additional forensic testing that needed to be done on the murder weapon used in the 1998 killing. The knife handle had been analyzed for fingerprints, but none had been found; blood on the blade matched Picus.

Larner said he saw no problem with his repeated handling of the weapon without using gloves in the months leading up to the trial of Marcellus Williams, who Larner would prosecute and send to death row for the murder. Now, the retired prosecutor was defending his actions during a 1-day hearing held as part of an effort to overturn Williams’s conviction.

“There was nothing to link anybody to the crime on that knife,” Larner insisted.

Williams, who is scheduled for execution in September, maintains his innocence. Until last week, the knife was central to proving his claim.

Williams sought testing of the weapon before his 2001 trial, but the judge denied his requests. DNA testing done in 2016 excluded Williams from handling the weapon. Instead, the results revealed unknown male DNA.

“This case is about contamination.”

Last week, a new round of analysis confirmed that Williams’s genetic material was not on the knife, but it could not exclude either Larner or his investigator as the source of the unknown DNA. Whatever DNA might have existed connecting the perpetrator to Picus’s murder was irretrievably lost — thanks to the prosecution’s handling of the evidence.

Now, the contamination itself would be at the center of current elected county prosecutor Wesley Bell’s efforts to overturn Williams’s conviction. According to Bell, the state’s willful mishandling of the evidence before trial had violated Williams’s rights, meaning his conviction and death sentence must be overturned.

“This case is about contamination,” Matthew Jacober, a special counsel appointed to represent Bell at the hearing, told Circuit Court Judge Bruce Hilton.

From the witness stand, Larner sparred with one of Williams’s lawyers, insisting that his handling of both the murder weapon and the case had been aboveboard. A five-lawyer contingent from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office — which had intervened to block a deal between Williams and prosecutors, leading to Wednesday’s hearing — was there to back the former prosecutor. Larner hadn’t mishandled the evidence at all, Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane told Hilton. Larner’s handling of the evidence without gloves was routine.

To prove Larner’s actions constituted a constitutional error that would make Williams’s conviction untenable, Bell’s office would have to prove the evidence had been mishandled on purpose. And it wasn’t, Spillane said. Instead, it was Larner’s practice was to “not use evidence-saving techniques.”

“It wasn’t bad faith,” Spillane said of Larner’s actions. “It wasn’t even negligent.”

Now, Hilton is tasked with determining whose version of the truth — and of constitutional error — is correct. His decision on whether Williams’s conviction should be overturned is due by September 13, just two weeks before Williams is slated for execution. Should he adopt the attorney general’s reasoning, that execution will almost certainly go forward.

Dan Picus came home from work on August 11, 1998, to find his wife murdered. Despite a wealth of physical evidence found at the scene, including the knife, the investigation quickly stalled.

It wasn’t until months later, after Picus posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction, that a jailhouse informant came forward claiming his former cellmate, Marcellus Williams, confessed to the crime. Police later secured a second informant, a former girlfriend of Williams’s, who also claimed he’d confessed to the murder, though their stories shifted over time and often conflicted with one another.

Despite the informants’ accounts, none of the physical evidence at the scene tied Williams to the killing. Their testimony, however, was enough to secure a conviction against Williams.

With each of his appeals denied, Williams was twice on the brink of execution, including in 2015 when the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in and ordered DNA testing on the knife. Although the testing revealed the unknown DNA, the court dismissed the appeal. Ultimately, Williams’s execution was reset for September 24.

Meanwhile, Bell’s office had started looking at the case and in January 2024 filed a motion to vacate Williams’s conviction. In addition to the foreign DNA on the knife and the dubious informant testimony, Bell cited issues with the quality of Williams’s legal defense and misconduct by prosecutors whom he argued had struck qualified individuals from the jury pool because they were Black. These factors cast “inexorable doubt” on Williams’s guilt, he argued.

With Jacober, the special counsel, ready to argue the county’s position, the latest DNA analysis — revealing that neither Larner nor his investigator could be excluded from contributing DNA to the knife — had changed the calculation: The weapon, which had been key to proving a wrongful conviction, became useless for identifying the murderer.

Instead, Bell’s office struck a deal with Williams on August 21. The prosecutor would concede constitutional error and take the death penalty off the table if Williams agreed to enter a so-called Alford plea that lets Williams acknowledge a strong case against him while maintaining his innocence; the plea would let him to avoid the death penalty by accepting a life sentence, while retaining the right to challenge the arrangement if new evidence comes to light.

Hilton, the judge, agreed with the outcome, as did Dan Picus, who’d told the court he did not want Williams executed. Hilton was slated to resentence Williams the next day.

The move sparked the attorney general’s intervention. Bailey’s office ran to the Missouri Supreme Court, arguing that Hilton didn’t have the power to agree to such a deal and, essentially, that Williams should face execution. The court sided with Bailey, ordering Hilton to hold a hearing on Bell’s motion to vacate the conviction as originally planned. Hilton set the hearing for August 28.

Sitting at the witness stand on Wednesday afternoon, Larner cut a familiar figure. Lanky with a long face and birdlike nose, he resembled actor Sam Waterston’s district attorney character Jack McCoy from the original “Law & Order” TV show. Under questioning, he was self-assured and insistent that his cause in prosecuting Williams was a righteous pursuit.

Jonathan Potts, a lawyer working with Williams’s attorneys at the Midwest Innocence Project, asked Larner about the motivations and credibility of the snitches he’d used to tie Williams to the murder.

Each had a history of repeated run-ins with the law, and each had collected $5,000 from Dan Picus in exchange for their testimony. Larner had even advocated for one, a man named Henry Cole, to receive the money months before he’d testified against Williams. Cole came forward “predominately for the reward,” Larner said, “and to tell the truth.”

Larner said he asked Picus to pay Cole in advance after it became clear the snitch’s commitment to testifying was wavering.

“We gave you the money,” Larner recalled Wednesday of his “promise” to Cole. “Please come back for trial.”

Larner dismissed any notion that anything questionable had occurred. He said the informants were the “2 strongest witnesses” he had produced in a murder case during his nearly 32-year career as a St. Louis County prosecutor. Larner bristled when Potts pressed him about his reasons for striking Black people from the jury pool. Although Larner eliminated all but one Black person from the panel, he insisted he hadn’t run afoul of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejecting jurors based on race is unconstitutional.

In his motion to vacate Williams’s conviction, Bell pointed to several instances where it appeared Larner did just that. In one case, Larner rejected a Black man he said “looked very similar” to Williams. Pressed on the instance, Larner doubled down. “They looked like brothers, like familial brothers, not like Black people,” Larner said. “They were both young Black men, but that’s not why they were similar.”

Much of Pott’s questioning focused on Larner’s handling of the murder weapon. Larner said the knife was collected from the medical examiner’s office, carefully packaged and processed for forensics, then repackaged and securely stored. The state then summarily concluded no additional testing would be conducted, Larner said.

Still, it would be more than a year before Williams was indicted for the crime and Larner was assigned to the case.

Larner said he readily concluded that the weapon was “irrelevant” because he was sure the killer had worn gloves. Larner testified that an investigator had told him about the gloves, and Cole, the informant, claimed Williams said he wore a pair during the killing.

Although Bailey’s office has parroted this line, there is nothing concrete to back it up. The 2nd informant, Williams’s ex-girlfriend, said Williams told her that, after the murder, he washed blood off his hands.

Nobody bothered to pin any of it down. Instead, Larner admitted on Wednesday that in the months before Williams’s trial, he handled the knife on at least 5 occasions without wearing gloves of his own. Larner’s repeated handling of the weapon before trial came as a surprise to one of Williams’s then-trial attorneys, Christopher McGraugh. Now a circuit judge in the city of St. Louis, McGraugh testified on Wednesday that, back in 2001, it was well known that handling forensic material without precautions could contaminate the evidence. He said that when he handled evidence related to Williams’s case, he’d been required to wear gloves.

Though Larner claimed there was no indication before trial that the defense wanted any additional testing on the knife, court records show otherwise. Williams’s other trial attorney, Joseph Green, who is also now a sitting circuit court judge, testified that when the lawyers learned another piece of physical evidence had been destroyed, they filed a motion to postpone the trial, in part so they could do forensic testing of the knife. The request was rejected.

Larner denied during the hearing that the defense ever sought DNA testing. “Wrong, wrong!” he exclaimed. He said he opposed the defense’s motion to postpone the trial because his case was ready to go.

Judge Hilton had a question of his own for Larner: Could the prosecutor have consented to the defense request? Not without the approval of his boss, Larner said. Besides, there was “no additional evidence” anyone was going to obtain that would prove anything.

Under cross-examination, Spillane, from the attorney general’s office, did his best to prop up Larner’s testimony. In how many of the cases he prosecuted over his nearly 32-year career had Larner handled the evidence after initial forensic testing was done, Spillane asked. Larner replied, “Probably all of them.”

“No one fathomed that the prosecutors would have such disregard.”

Spillane told Hilton that there was no reason to vacate Williams’s conviction. His claims about the racist jury selection and deficient defense lawyering had been previously considered by the Missouri Supreme Court and denied.

The only thing that was new was Bell’s claim that the evidence had been mishandled, he argued, but even that was nonsense — since Bell couldn’t prove the prosecution had contaminated the knife on purpose.

In his closing remarks, Potts recalled how eager Williams was for the knife to be tested. Just as Bell had seen it as a key to exoneration, Williams viewed the knife as an opportunity to definitively prove he hadn’t been at the crime scene.

“No one fathomed that the prosecutors would have such disregard,” Potts said. “For 23 years, the reasonable people in this room thought that was impossible.”

(source: Jordan Smith, theintercept.com)

IDAHO:

Idaho death row inmate claims 2nd execution attempt would be ‘psychological torture’

Fourth Judicial District Judge Jason Scott heard arguments Thursday about whether to allow for an evidentiary hearing in Thomas Creech’s latest post-conviction case.

After surviving an execution attempt earlier this year, Creech’s attorneys now claim that a 2nd attempt by the state to execute him would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

Previously set for execution in February, the medical team failed to establish an IV line in Creech — despite efforts in his hands, arms, legs and feet – and the execution was called off. Days after the failed execution, Creech’s counsel filed a new post-conviction relief appeal in Ada County.

Creech is on death row for the 1981 beating death of fellow inmate David Jensen. Since he’s been on death row, 12 death warrants have been issued for Creech, but only the latest one led to an execution attempt.

His attorneys maintain that to try and execute Creech again, after the failed execution, would amount to “psychological torture,” violating his Eighth Amendment right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment. His attorneys wrote in motions that Creech is entitled to a restraining order to prevent future death warrants from being issued for him, claiming any death warrant or execution attempt would be futile.

State of Idaho argues there’s no evidence 1st execution was malicious, intentionally painful

The state’s attorneys wrote in its response that the Legislature could adopt other execution methods, such as the use of nitrogen hypoxia, or the use of the firing squad. The state said Creech’s attorneys wrongfully assume that lethal injection would be the only way to execute Creech.

Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Dayton Reed told the court that a post-conviction appeal was not the appropriate avenue for Creech to debate a method of execution. He argued that it is not cruel and usual punishment if the state were to attempt a 2nd execution, saying there is no evidence that the 1st execution was malicious or intentionally painful.

Based on case law, the state maintains Creech is not entitled to a painless execution, only one that is free of purposeful cruelty.

Reed argued that Creech was given a sedative, as well as a numbing agent at the sites where the medical team attempted to insert the IV.

Creech’s attorney Garth McCarty asked the court to allow for an evidentiary hearing, because he did not know whether the state’s next attempts to kill Creech will again be by lethal injection.

McCarty dismissed the state’s references to nitrogen hypoxia.

“The state is throwing at you a hypothetical, which is not a lawful form of executing people,” McCarty said. “These are not the facts we’re working with today.”

He stressed that if the state issues another death warrant for Creech, it did not know the method they would use to execute him.

Idaho did legalize the use of the firing squad in 2023, but it does not have a facility to exercise the firing squad, something McCarty brought up in arguments.

Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt told legislators earlier this year that the department was having trouble finding contractor who would agree to building a death chamber.

Reed argued that there is no evidence that Creech was “biologically incapable” of execution by lethal injection. He repeatedly said that post-conviction appeals are only for either challenging a conviction or challenging a sentence.

The use of nitrogen hypoxia is not currently a legal method to execute someone in Idaho, but it is allowed in other states, including Alabama.

Alabama used the method this year, receiving significant criticism around the execution of Kenny Smith, in which Smith was seen by witnesses struggling, convulsing and shaking for minutes before he lost consciousness and eventually dying. Smith’s execution by nitrogen hypoxia came after Alabama was unsuccessful at an attempt to execute him by lethal injection.

The judge will issue a written decision at a later date.

(source: KPVI news)

USA:

The end of the abolition era: Democrats quietly drop their opposition to the death penalty----As goes the Democratic Party so goes the national conversation on criminal justice reform

What a difference 4 years make. In 2020 the Democratic Party took an aggressively anti-death penalty position.

Not so this year.

In 2020 Joe Biden pledged that if he was elected president he would stop federal executions, propose legislation to abolish the death penalty at the federal level, and provide incentives for states to follow suit. “Because we can’t ensure that we get these cases right every time,” candidate Biden tweeted, “we must eliminate the death penalty.”

That year the party also voiced its opposition to the death penalty in its platform.

This year marks a striking contrast. So far Democrats have been silent about capital punishment. To date, Kamala Harris, its 2024 nominee, has said nothing about capital punishment. Moreover, as an article in The Huffington Post points out, “This year’s platform marks the 1st time since 2004 the platform has not mentioned the death penalty.” In fact, the only mention of it in this year’s Democratic National Convention was made by 4 members of the so-called Exonerated 5. They were convicted of a crime they did not commit in 1989, and they reminded the delegates that Donald Trump had called for their execution.

The Democrats’ silence about capital punishment does not represent a principled retreat, but rather an understandable strategic calculation. Nonetheless, it is a missed opportunity to advance the abolitionist cause.

For a long time, Democrats were afraid to talk about the death penalty or embrace that cause. They lived with the traumatic memory of the way that issue was used against Michael Dukakis, their 1988 presidential candidate.

That trauma was still evident 16 years later when the 2004 Democratic platform didn’t mention the death penalty. Instead, it sounded law and order themes and promised, “To keep our streets safe for our families” and to “support tough punishment of violent crime.”

4 years later, the platform changed its tone and criticized the way the death penalty was administered. As part of being “smart on crime,” it pledged to fight “inequalities in our criminal justice system,” including in the use of capital punishment.

“We believe,” it said, “that the death penalty must not be arbitrary.” It went on to argue that DNA testing “should be used in all appropriate circumstances, defendants should have effective assistance of counsel. In all death row cases, thorough post-conviction reviews should be available.”

In 2012, the platform continued that theme. It noted that “in the last 4 years, rates of serious crimes, like murder, rape, and robbery, have reached 50-year lows” and again focused on problems in the death penalty system. Still, it said nothing about whether the punishment itself should be ended.

That changed in 2016, when as the Huffington Post points out, “the Democratic Party became the country’s 1st major political party to formally call for abolishing the death penalty.” The 2016 platform put the death penalty position out front as part of a commitment to reforming the “criminal justice system and ending mass incarceration.” It committed the party to abolishing the death penalty which it said “has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America.” The Democratic platform explained that “The application of the death penalty is arbitrary and unjust. The cost to taxpayers far exceeds those of life imprisonment. It does not deter crime, and exonerations show a dangerous lack of reliability for what is an irreversible punishment.”

2020 again committed the party to a broad criminal justice reform agenda including “root(ing) out structural and systemic racism in our criminal justice system and our society.” That is one of the reasons why the Democrats reiterated that year that the party “continue(ed) to support abolishing the death penalty.” In addition, every Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 openly opposed capital punishment —including Kamala Harris.

“I’ve long been opposed to the death penalty. It is deeply immoral, irreversible, and ineffective. And if we are going to transform our country’s broken criminal justice system, we must be fearless — unafraid to speak hard truths” Harris said at the time. She called the death penalty “deeply immoral, irreversible, and ineffective. And if we are going to transform our country’s broken criminal justice system, we must be fearless — unafraid to speak hard truths.” Then the freshman senator from California, Harriscalled on her party “to speak some hard truths about this immoral practice.” Those truths included the fact that “as many 1 in 10 people prosecuted with a death penalty conviction has been exonerated.”

Harris also pointed out that “the death penalty is far more likely to be carried out against people of color, people with mental illness, and people who could not afford to pay for legal counsel at trial.” She claimed that “abolishing (capital punishment) just makes financial sense.”

She concluded that “This failed system is immoral,” and promised that “as President I would lead the fight to end it. It’s simply the right thing to do.”

Harris went on to join President Biden in leading the 1st administration in American history to openly and publicly oppose the death penalty and advocate its abolition.

As the Democratic Party position evolved, so did the national conversation about capital punishment. From 2004 to 2021, that conversation changed considerably.

Death sentences and executions declined significantly as did public support for the death penalty. The decline in support has been particularly significant among Democrats.

The country has come a long way from what happened when Dukakis came out against the death penalty and when Donald Trump wanted the young men formerly known as the Central Park 5 executed. Of course, it is impossible to say for sure exactly how much the opposition of the Democratic Party and Democratic leaders mattered in bringing about those changes. But both were, no doubt, important in helping to make opposition to capital punishment a respectable, mainstream position in this country. Just as what the Democratic Party said about the death penalty mattered in the past, it matters what it says now and throughout the 2024 campaign. But it will matter even more if Kamala Harris becomes president next year and has the chance to fulfill the promise she made in 2019 and 2020 to “lead the fight to end it.

(source: Commentary; Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College----salon.com)

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America Does Not Need the Death Penalty

[The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.]

Capital punishment is not a front-burner political issue this year. In fact, the Democratic Party dropped the subject from its 2024 platform, eight years after becoming the first major party to formally call for abolishing the death penalty. But in 2020, President Biden’s campaign platform included a pledge to “work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.” Once elected, he became the country’s first sitting president openly opposed to capital punishment.

It would be an appropriate and humane finale to his presidency for Mr. Biden to fulfill that pledge and try to eliminate the death penalty for federal crimes. Such an effort would also remind the nation that this practice is immoral, unconstitutional and useless as a deterrent to crime.

For more than 2 decades now, most barometers of how Americans view capital punishment — the number of new death sentences, the number of executions and the level of public support — have tracked a steady decline. There were 85 executions in 2000 but only 24 last year and 13 so far this year, all carried out in only 7 states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.

While a majority of Americans, about 55 percent over the past several years, remain in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, half no longer believe it is used fairly. The Gallup Crime Survey, which has been testing opinions on this subject of fairness since 2000, found in last October’s sampling that for the 1st time, more Americans believed the death penalty was applied unfairly (50 %) than fairly (47 %).

This editorial board has long argued that the death penalty should be outlawed, as it is in Western Europe and many other parts of the world. Studies have consistently shown, for decades, that the ultimate penalty is applied arbitrarily, and disproportionately to Black people and people with mental problems. A death sentence condemns prisoners to many years of waiting, often in solitary confinement, before they are killed, and executions have often gone awry, arguably violating the Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”

But the death penalty is still on the books at the federal level, as well as in 27 states. Mr. Biden’s Justice Department ordered a moratorium on federal executions in 2021, putting a pause on the practice after the Trump administration carried out 13 federal executions in its last six months. The moratorium is not a ban; it was intended only to study the protocols used for the practice. So even after the moratorium on carrying out federal executions was put in place, federal prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty for the perpetrator of the racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket in 2022.

Some states have imposed moratoriums on executions because the predominant method, lethal injection, has been botched so many times. Others are searching for new modes of killing. The most notorious of the 13 executions so far this year, that of Kenneth Smith on Jan. 25 in Alabama, was a result of the state’s recent experiment with asphyxiation by nitrogen gas.

When Mr. Smith was first scheduled to die, in 2022, the prison’s execution team was unable to insert the IV for a lethal injection, adding to the lengthy list of bungled executions by that method. Problems in administering lethal injections and the difficulty in procuring the necessary chemicals had prompted officials in some states to explore a new method of execution. In Alabama, Mr. Smith was chosen to test it.

Whether Mr. Smith was guilty of committing a terrible crime is not in question; he was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Elizabeth Sennett in 1988. The question is whether death by asphyxiation is what Americans in Alabama and elsewhere should accept as justice and humanity in the 21st century.

Nitrogen hypoxia was promoted by Alabama as a more humane way to put a person to death, and it initially looked as if it would be widely embraced. Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana have authorized the new method, Ohio is preparing to join them, and officials in Nebraska are considering it.

But then, all the other methods used in the United States over the last 3 centuries — gallows, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber and lethal injection, which is currently the most common method — were also promoted as humane. One witness to Mr. Smith’s death reported that he writhed and heaved in apparent agony for several minutes before he died.

Nitrogen hypoxia is also running into the same problem executioners have faced in securing the drugs needed for lethal injections. In March, the 3 biggest manufacturers of nitrogen gas in the United States pledged not to sell their products for use in executions. These companies, like the pharmaceutical companies that refuse to provide the drugs used in lethal injections, are right to take this principled stand, as are the medical practitioners precluded by professional ethics from participating in executions.

States are finding ways around the problem, mainly by passing laws to keep their suppliers of lethal drugs and other products secret. That’s what South Carolina has done, and the state has scheduled what would be its first execution in 13 years for Sept. 20. The condemned man, Freddie Eugene Owens, has been given the choice of how to die — by lethal injection, electrocution or the newly added option of a firing squad.

Americans who believe that these punishments have no place in a modern system of criminal justice can urge lawmakers in the states where execution is still legal to ban it altogether. In the several states where it is still regularly in use, voters can demand stricter limits, such as a requirement that a prisoner cannot be subject to the punishment a 2nd time, after a botched attempt, as Mr. Smith was. Alabama was the last state that allowed judges to impose the death penalty even when a jury had ruled otherwise. That was the case for Mr. Smith, who was sentenced to life in prison by the jury in his second trial, a decision that was overruled by a judge.

There are executive actions Mr. Biden could take in the absence of federal or state legislation to abolish the death penalty, including directing the Justice Department not to pursue the death penalty in pending and future cases and commuting the death sentences of those currently on federal death row. He could also order the demolition of the federal execution chamber in Terre Haute, Ind., as those opposed to the death penalty have urged him to do. And by promoting new federal legislation he could restart an important conversation in American society about ending the death penalty. Even if its chances of passage were unlikely, the discussion around it and in the wider public would have value.

Until this year, the American justice system seemed firmly on course away from the death penalty. Mr. Biden was right to identify capital punishment as a moral affront, and he should help relegate this practice to history.

(source: Opinion; The Editorial Board, New York Times)

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Did sex shaming lead to the death penalty?----Gender stereotypes may influence jury decision-making in capital cases

Did gender-based stereotypes prejudice the jury in a death penalty case?

In April, the New York Court of Appeals overturned movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sexual assault and rape. The court ruled in a 4–3 decision that the trial judge made critical errors in allowing salacious and irrelevant testimony, thus unfairly prejudicing the trial.

Allowing salacious testimony is not unprecedented. But unfortunately for Brenda Andrew, Oklahoma courts found this evidence harmless enough to find her guilty of murder in the first degree of her husband, Rob Andrew, and sentence her to the death penalty. Andrew, who is now 60 years old and the only woman on Oklahoma’s death row, was convicted in 2004 and has been appealing her conviction and sentence ever since. She is now petitioning the Supreme Court on writ of certiorari, or a case review of lower court decisions, claiming that the evidence of her sexual history, her clothing, and her behavior as a wife and a mother unfairly prejudiced the jury in both the guilt and the sentencing phases of her trial.

The petition points to the repetitive and constant prosecutorial reference to Andrew’s behavior not conforming to female and maternal stereotypes—including the testimony of her infidelities and demonstration of Andrew’s red thong and a lacy bra.

Andrew is claiming a violation of her constitutional right to due process, arguing that prejudicial evidence made her trial unfair. She has exhausted all her other state and federal appeals. In her petition, she points out that both the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) and the 10th Circuit found the sexualized evidence irrelevant to her case. The OCCA stated that they “struggl[ed] to find any relevance” for some of the evidence the prosecution brought forth about her character and sexual history. In fact, OCCA observed that the evidence had “no purpose other than to hammer home that Brenda Andrew is a bad wife, bad mother, and a bad woman” (Andrew v. State, 164 P.3d 176, 206 [Okla. Crim. App. 2007]). Furthermore, the 10th Circuit, while upholding the OCCA decision, noted their concern about sexualizing evidence admitted and used by the prosecution at trial. They called for the entire judgment to be voided and remanded for issuance of habeas relief, which protects people against unlawful imprisonment.

Women are rarely sentenced to death and even more rarely executed. As one possible reason, researchers Leanne Macken and Michael O’Connell, PhD, point to the leniency bias, whereby women have generally been found to receive more lenient sentences than do men in the criminal justice system (Cogent Psychology, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2023). Penn State University psychologist Brenda Russell, PhD, has written that women are generally perceived as more credible and less blameworthy, which likely contributes to the more lenient sentencing. However, a 2018 investigation by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide observed that women like Brenda Andrew whose behavior does not conform to gendered stereotypes are more likely to receive the death penalty. The “evil woman” theory, discussed by attorney Andrea Shapiro, JD, suggests that women are most severely sanctioned when they step outside accepted norms of female behavior (Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2000).

More psychological research should explore how testimony about sexual behavior or nonconformance to gender stereotypes differentially prejudices people in the courtroom and how this affects decision-making in capital cases. In the pursuit of gender equality in the criminal justice system, psychological research must continue to advance our understanding of how stereotyped perceptions both benefit and harm women.

(source: American Psychological Association)

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Trump: I'll Unfreeze Death Penalty Moratorium

Former President Donald Trump said he will unfreeze a moratorium on the federal death penalty to help fight crime if he returns to the White House.

Trump told DailyMail.com that reinstituting the death penalty would be a first-day priority.

"Of course, I would. I would have executions on major drug dealers," Trump told he outlet. "I would have, perhaps, the raping of a child, the killing of a police officer. I would have executions on the people that violently kill people."

During the Trump administration, 13 federal death row inmates were executed.

In 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on federal capital punishment to study the protocols used to execute people, a narrower action that has meant no executions under President Joe Biden.

The Justice Department has since pushed for the death penalty against the suspects charged with mass shootings in Pittsburgh and Buffalo.

Trump has vowed to seek executions for drug dealers and cop killers as part of a national crackdown on crime.

Before a campaign event in Michigan last week, it was reported Trump would say he plans to seek the death penalty for those convicted of sexually abusing or trafficking children.

However, the former president held off announcing that. A source with knowledge of the matter told the Independent that Trump decided to wait and make the announcement after the Democrats' convention ended.

During a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border last week, Trump said drug dealers responsible for hundreds of deaths should face capital punishment.

"The average drug dealer kills 500 people during that person's lifetime. I would have no problem with that. If you're going to stop the drug epidemic, you're going to have to have a death penalty," Trump said.

Trump has attacked Democrat presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, former San Francisco and California attorney general, for being soft on crime.

During a 2004 inauguration speech after her election as San Francisco's district attorney, Harris vowed to "never charge the death penalty." She framed her choice as a moral one.

While running in 2010 for California AG, Harris softened her approach and said would "enforce the death penalty as the law dictates."

(source: newsmax.com)

FIJI:

Tikoduadua reveals stance on death penalty

Minister for Home Affairs Pio Tikoduadua says the idea of the death penalty can be a subject of discussion; however, he believes that drug issues need to be addressed collectively, and it should all begin with advocacy in all aspects.

He made these comments following the suggestion by Minister for Women, Children, and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya to bring back the death penalty and apply it for those who export drugs in large volumes.

Currently, the death penalty is unlawful under the 2013 constitution, as Fiji abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1979 and for all crimes in 2015. The last execution occurred in 1964.

Tikoduadua says current resource and fund limitations in dealing with drug crimes are an issue.

“Nobody can stop these guys in the complexity of what they have. We do not have the kind of money to stop it, but if we discourage people from using drugs, then there will be no need for these guys. You know, you can exercise everything else that is the best thing to do.”

Tikoduadua is also calling on communities to play an active role in curbing drug-related crimes in their areas.

(source: fbcnews.com.fj)

SRI LANKA:

Man who stabbed brother-in-law gets death sentence

An accused who was found guilty for stabbing to death his brother-in-law was yesterday sentenced to death by the Colombo High Court.

Following a lengthy trial, Colombo High Court Judge Amal Ranaraja observed that the prosecution was able to prove the allegations against the accused beyond the reasonable doubts.

After considering the facts, the accused was sentenced to death by the Colombo High Court.

The Attorney General had filed indictment in the Colombo High Court under section 296 of the Criminal Procedure Code against Warahanthuduwa Vithanage Don Amila Dhananjaya for stabbing to death his brother-in-law, Hewage Lakmal Chinthaka following a personal dispute on August 25, 2013. State Counsel Shaminda Wickrama appeared on behalf of the Attorney General while Police Constable Madushan Premalal appeared for the Wellampitiya Police.

(source: dailynews.lk)

INDIA:

Nepalese rapist-killer gets death for Faridabad rape-murder, court calls 2022 crime 'diabolical & dastardly'

A Nepali man arrested in 2022 for the brutal rape and murder of a woman sitting alone near a metro station in Faridabad was handed the death sentence on Thursday by a local court, which saw no reason to show leniency for a crime that it described as "diabolical, revolting and dastardly".

Manoj Nepali was arrested after he was spotted on CCTV footage walking with the woman close to the crime scene.

On the night of Nov 7, 2022, she was sitting alone near Bata Chowk metro station after a fight with her mother when Manoj - a daily wager - walked up to her and enquired if all was well. After striking up a conversation, he offered to share her problems and persuaded her to walk with him. Manoj took her to a vacant building in Sector 7, where he overpowered and raped her.

He forced her to walk with him and sexually assaulted her again near a park.

As the woman tried to fight him off, he pulled the 2 ends of her dupatta, strangled her and banged her head against a wall.

"The tormentor would not let go of the dupatta. After some time, she slumped to the ground. Realising she had died, Manoj picked up an iron pipe lying nearby, inserted it into her private parts and fled the spot," said Suresh Chaudhary, the public prosecutor.

Passersby spotted her body the next morning and informed police. A case of rape and murder was registered at Sector 8 police station and a manhunt was launched for Manoj, based on the footage.

The hunt took police all the way to the Nepal border at Sonauli in UP. On Nov 18 - 11 days after the crime - Manoj was trying to sneak into Nepal when he was arrested. Originally from Samdu, he had been working in Faridabad for some years.

On Nov 21, police reached out to the woman's husband with her photograph. He identified her as his wife.

The husband told police his wife had left for her parents' house in Ballabhgarh 3 months before the day she was murdered.

On Nov 7, when his in-laws informed him she had left home after a fight, he said he had started looking for her. Police had said at the time the husband - a construction site worker - did not have a TV set or phone at home, which was why he was not aware of the rape and murder.

During the course of the hearing, the prosecution submitted in court the footage showing Manoj walking with the woman, and other forensic and medical evidence to seek capital punishment for him.

Sudhir Kumar, who represented Manoj in court, argued there was no witness to the crime and police had relied only on circumstantial evidence to arrest his client. This argument was rejected by the court.

On Thursday, additional sessions judge Purushottam Kumar observed that "all incriminating circumstances were duly proved by the prosecution and are consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of accused Manoj Nepali and are inconsistent with his innocence".

"It formed a complete chain and proved that in all human probabilities, the victim/deceased was brutally raped and murdered by the accused Manoj Nepali only and no one else," the court said.

The court, in its order, also took note of the multiple injuries on the woman, bloodstains on the wall where she banged her head and marks of resistance on the ground.

"The offence was committed in an extremely brutal, grotesque, diabolical, revolting, and dastardly manner, so as to arouse intense and extreme indignation of the society," the judge observed.

The court then sentenced Manoj to death and also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

(source: The Times of India)

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Rape Bill: Bengal anti-rape bill proposes death penalty for all rape cases

(see: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/bengal-anti-rape-bill-proposes-death-penalty-for-all-rape-cases/articleshow/112936426.cms)

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West Bengal CM’s call for Death Penalty for Rapists Is Politics of Revenge: PUCL----A step backwards for Human Rights,Ensure fool proof investigation, competent prosecution and prevent acquittals, Ensure safety mechanisms in the workplace for women.

PUCL condemns the proposal by the Mamata Banerjee government to amend the law to provide for death penalty for convicted rapists. The PUCL is of the concerted opinion that is a cynical and politically motivated attempt by Mamata Banerjee to deflect attention from the negligence and criminal culpability of her government in the rape and murder of the 31-year-old trainee medic while she was on duty at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. Instead of taking concrete steps to ensure security of women doctors and ensure that there is a fair investigation into the heinous incident, the Government has instead gone for this headline grabbing move rife with serious implications for human rights. The unserious nature of the proposals of the West Bengal government are also apparent from the absurd proposals surrounding fast track courts (without sustained reform of judicial system), completion of trial in 7 days and even encounter killing of rape accused ! These proposed reforms take away from the constitutional imperative of respecting due process rights and fair investigation, without in any sense helping the cause of justice for the victim.

In 2013, in our country, in the light of the brutal rape and murder of the young woman referred to as Nirbhaya, the Verma Committee went into the question of the death penalty as a punishment for rape. The Committee concluded that, ‘having regard to the current thinking in favour of abolition of the death penalty, and also to avoid the argument of any sentencing arbitrariness, we are not inclined to recommend the death penalty.’ The Committee also forcefully argued that ‘it would be a regressive step to introduce death penalty for rape even where such punishment is restricted to the rarest of rare cases. It is also stated that there is considerable evidence that the deterrent effect of death penalty on serious crimes is actually a myth.’

There is also little empirical justification for the proposition that the death penalty for rape has resulted in deterrence of the crime of rape. The justification of the death penalty is only retributive. The criminal needs to be punished with the ancient logic of ‘an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth’ Retribution is at heart, the baying for blood of the mob which is recognised in the logic of the law. As people concerned about human rights, we need to remember that the retributive logic of punishment is not the logic of justice but revenge. Any decent society needs to shun the politics of revenge.

When the politics of revenge extends to the judicial taking of life, then very little distinguishes the murderer from the state which murders. The death penalty in its finality, leaves no space for reformation and change which should be the very logic of punishment.

As Justice Stewart noted in Furman v. Georgia:

The penalty of death differs from all other forms of criminal punishment, not in degree, but in kind. It is unique in its total irrevocability. It is unique in its rejection of rehabilitation of the convict as a basic purpose of criminal justice. And it is unique, finally, in its absolute renunciation of all that is embodied in our concept of humanity”.

For the Indian scenario, it is important to understand that the issue of the effectiveness of the proposed solution for the problem of rape has been disputed by a range of empirical studies. If death penalty is the only punishment for rape, judges may well be less willing to convict, resulting in more acquittals. It is the question of acquittals which has to be seriously studied and the Government must put its resources behind ensuring fool proof investigation and a competent prosecution rather than go for a measure which will do little to make the workplace more safe for women.

The world is increasingly recognising the serious human rights implications of the death penalty with abolition of the death penalty becoming the policy choice of most countries. In fact, 78% of the worlds countries have abolished it as a form of punishment. Of which 109 countries have completely abolished it. 10 countries, have it under exceptional circumstance, 23 have not had any execution for the last years, as a matter of policy and 53 countries, still have the death penalty, which include, Iran, China and the USA, none of which are models which it come to the practice of human rights.

By proposing the reinstatement of the death penalty, the Mamta Banerjee government is taking a step backward as far as human rights in India is concerned.

We demand that the West Bengal Government address the pressing injustice done to the trainee doctor and take measures to make the life of other trainee doctors more safe, instead of compounding its criminal irresponsibility through introducing the death penalty.

Kavita Srivastava, (President),

Binayak Sen (Vice President

V. Suresh (General Secretary)

Amlan Bhattacharjee (Coordinator West Bengal Unit)

(source: countercurrents.org)

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'Death Penalty is not justice,' PUCL condemns Bengal CM Mamata's push for capital punishment in rape cases----PUCL said that the introduction of severe capital punishment does not provide justice to the victim but could have serious implications for human rights in the country.

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) released a statement on Friday (August 30) condemning the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government for seeking death penalty for convicted rapists.

The civil society organisation said that the move “is a cynical and politically motivated attempt by Mamata Banerjee to deflect attention from the negligence and criminal culpability of her government in the rape and murder of the 31-year-old trainee medic at Kolkata’s state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.”

Banerjee on Wednesday announced that an amendment to existing laws will be passed in the state assembly next week to ensure capital punishment to convicted rapists.

Bengal CM Mamata pledges to amend existing laws to ensure death penalty for rapists

PUCL said that the introduction of severe capital punishment does not provide justice to the victim but could have serious implications for human rights in the country.

The Banerjee government had suggested reforms surrounding fast track courts, completion of trial in seven days and encounter of the accused.

The organisation criticised the impractical proposals made by the Banerjee government in response to the RG Kar case, saying that the "proposed reforms take away from the constitutional imperative of respecting due process rights and fair investigation."

Citing the 2013 Justice Verma Committee report, released after the brutal rape and murder of a young woman in the Nirbhaya case, PUCL said that death penalty does not act as a deterrent for rape.

PUCL argued that judges may be reluctant to convict suspects if death penalty is the only punishment for rape, resulting in more acquittals.

"It is the question of acquittals which has to be seriously studied and the government must put its resources behind ensuring foolproof investigation and a competent prosecution rather than go for a measure which will do little to make the workplace more safe for women,” PUCL said.

The organisation added that "the retributive logic of punishment is not the logic of justice but revenge."

The statement was signed by PUCL president Kavita Srivastava, vice president Binayak Sen, general secretary V. Suresh and the coordinator of its West Bengal unit, Amlan Bhattacharjee.

(source: new indian express.com)

MALAYSIA:

S’porean faces death penalty for alleged drug trafficking in Johor Bahru

A 31-year-old Singaporean man and his Malaysian girlfriend have been charged with various drug-related offences in Malaysia.

Brayden Ong and Wang Wee Ching had their charges read out to them at a Magistrate’s Court in Johor Bahru on Aug 29, according to Malaysian media outlets. They face the death penalty or life imprisonment if they are found guilty.

Both parties were charged with trafficking around 2,667g of methamphetamine and 457.1g of MDMA powder (commonly known as Ecstasy), in a house in Jalan Ekoflora, Johor, at 3.30pm on Aug 17.

If convicted of these charges, they face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

They were also charged with possession of 1.85g of nimetazepam and 2,240ml of MDMA in liquid form in the house, at the same time.

If they are found guilty of these charges, they may be jailed up to 5 years, fined RM100,000 (S$30,000), or both.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, a Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) spokesperson said the department is aware of the Singaporean man’s arrest and his charges.

“CNB is liaising with our counterparts and will render assistance to (them) in their investigations,” said the spokesperson.

“As the case is before court in Malaysia, it is not appropriate to comment further on the case.”

Wang was also charged with 2 additional counts of drug trafficking.

Their cases will be mentioned on Oct 29 and Nov 27.

(source: tnpstraitstimes.com)

IRAN----executions

Iran executes 2 prisoners for murder-related charges

Iran executed 2 prisoners, Meysam Hossein-Khani and Sirvan Aboubakri, convicted of “premeditated murder”, in Khorramabad and Mahabad this week, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.P> On 28 August, Hossein-Khani, from Kuhdasht in Lorestan Province, was executed in Parsiloun Prison in Khorramabad, Lorestan Province.

He was arrested 3 years ago and was subsequently sentenced to death by retribution in kind (qisas) for “premeditated murder”.

Qisas or retribution in kind, gives the victim’s family the right to retaliate under Islamic law.

The following day, on 29 August, Aboubakri, from Sardasht in West Azerbaijan Province, was executed in Mahabad Prison.

Aboubakri was arrested several years ago and sentenced to death on similar charges of “premeditated murder”.

(source: kurdistanhumanrights.org)

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Kurdish Meisam Hosseinkhani Executed in Khorramabad

Meisam Hosseinkhani, a Kurdish man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Khorramabad Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a Kurdish man was executed in Khorramabad (Parsilion) Central Prison on 28 August. His identity has been established as 22-year-old Meisam Hosseinkhani from Kouhdasht.

He was arrested for murder with a cold weapon (knife) during a group fight 3 years ago and sentenced to qisas.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Those charged with the umbrella term of “intentional murder” are sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) regardless of intent or circumstances due to a lack of grading in law. Once a defendant has been convicted, the victim’s family are required to choose between death as retribution, diya (blood money) or forgiveness. Crucially, while an indicative amount is set by the Judiciary every year, there is no legal limit to how much can be demanded by families of the victims. IHRNGO has recorded many cases where defendants are executed because they cannot afford to pay the blood money.

In 2023, at least 282 people including 2 juvenile offenders and 15 women, were executed for murder charges, the 2nd highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 20% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2023, Iran Human Rights also recorded 857 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.

**************

Kurdish Sirwan Abubakri Executed in Mahabad

Sirwan Abubakri, a Kurdish man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Mahabad Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a Kurdish man was executed in Mahabad Prison on 29 August. His identity has been established as 35-year-old Sirwan Abubakri who was on death row for murder.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Sirwan Abubakri was from Sardasht and a father of 1. He was arrested for the murder of a gold-seller on 14 September 2021 but the motives were never established, it wasn’t theft. Sirwan was on the run before being arrested on 20 September 2021.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

(source for all: iranhr.net)

AUGUST 30, 2024:

TEXAS----new execution date

Texas court schedules lethal injection for 'Desert Serial Killer' in March 2025

A Texas man convicted of killing a woman in El Paso in 1992 will face the death penalty in March 2025, roughly 8 years after losing his last appeal.

According to a court order filed Aug. 20, David Leonard Wood, 67, will be executed by lethal injection on March 13, 2025, a little more than 3 decades after he was initially convicted of capital murder and 8 years after losing an appeal.

The execution is set to take place sometime after 6 p.m. at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, the court order reads.

Wood, who was known colloquially as the Desert Serial Killer, was convicted in 1992 of murdering 24-year-old Ivy Susanna Williams 5 years earlier in El Paso and burying her body in a desert area off US 54.

He's maintained his innocence over the past 32 years.

Although Wood was only convicted of William's murder, he was indicted in the murder of 5 other women found in the El Paso desert between June and August 1987, including;

Dawn Smith, 14

Desiree Wheatley, 15

Angelica Frausto, 17

Karen Baker, 20

Rosa Maria Casio, 24

Likewise, detectives believed Wood was involved in the disappearance of 3 others; Marjorie Knox (14), Melissa Alaniz (14) and Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes (19).

The court order's Aug. 20 filing comes 15 years to the day after Wood's 1st execution date, which was scheduled for Aug. 20, 2009.

At the time, he filed an appeal claiming mental disability, which was ultimately granted by The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals one day before he was set to be executed.

That mental disability claim culminated in a 2014 appeal which Wood lost.

According to the El Paso Times, the court order denying the appeal read,"The trial court held a hearing and made findings of fact and conclusions of law recommending that his application be denied because applicant [Wood] has failed to show that he is mentally retarded."

Similarly, the El Paso Times quoted the court justices as saying at the time,"This court has reviewed the record with respect to [Wood's] allegations. Based upon the trial court's findings and conclusions and our own review, we deny relief."

In 2016, Wood's defense team tried a different tack; suggesting that authorities DNA test another suspect in William's death,Salvador Martinez.

However, detectives reportedly collected DNA samples from Martinezand interviewed him before Wood's capital murder trial in 1992.

(source: KFOX tv news)

****************

Baptist pastor says gay preachers 'should get a bullet in their brain'

A Texas preacher is shamelessly and brazenly calling for the murder of 2 gay pastors and the church officials who hosted them.

Dillon Awes, a hate preacher based in Watauga, recently attacked the head of a local megachurch for inviting 2 married gay men to deliver a sermon. Awes said that Pastor Charles Andrew Stanley, who founded the nondenominational evangelical North Point Ministries, and the 2 men should "get the death penalty, not be preaching behind the pulpit.”

“What a nice guy Andy Stanley is. What a nice guy you are for letting children in your congregation be abused by pedophiles," Awes said. "How nice of all the pastors today that are enabling sexual predators in their church to harm people permanently, to scar them for life, to hurt them spiritually, because you just want to be nice. Well, you know what? Go to Hell, Andy Stanley, and every single pastor like you — go to Hell.”

Awes continuously referred to the men as "sodomites," also using a derogatory anti-gay slur against them multiple times. He fallaciously accused the 2 of wanting to "defile children with [their] message," and accused them of being "pedophiles" with no evidence. He also claimed without evidence that any exposure to LGBTQ+ identity is "harmful" to children.

“Now they’re behind the pulpit. Why? Because of nice guys like Andy Stanley that won’t say what needs to be said, which is that these guys should get a bullet in their brain, that they should get the death penalty not be preaching behind the pulpit," Awes continued.

Notably, Awes has not ever spoken on the thousands of documented cases of abuse against children by clergymen who are not LGBTQ+.

This is not the 1st time Awes has called for violence against LGBTQ+ people using his platform — he delivered a sermon in 2022 using many of the same phrases, including saying queer people "should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head."

Awes was a preacher for Stedfast Baptist Church, a group not affiliated with any mainstream Baptist denomination. The church split up after its lead pastor was revealed to have solicited prostitutes and engaged in gambling, and Awes joined the nondenominational New Independent Fundamental Baptist (New IFB) movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the organization as a hate group.

(source: advocate.com)

***************

Man accused in Sheryia Grant murder still faces death penalty

On Thursday afternoon, Allen Lamont Sutton, 36, appeared in Smith County court for a pre-trial hearing in a capital murder case. Judge Debby Gunter denied two motions filed by the defense that questioned the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Her denial of the motions means the state can continue to pursue the death penalty if the case goes to trial.

Sutton is charged with the murder of a pregnant Kilgore woman, Sheryia Grant, who went missing in 2016.

“The State of Texas believes that they can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. We’re going to do what we can to put them to that burden, and then also fight everything we can, with everything we can to try to keep Mr. Sutton off death row,” said Sutton’s defense attorney Gary Smart.

Another pre-trial hearing will be scheduled in February, and the trial could start in February 2025.

“I mean, it looks like it’s going to trial,” said Smart. “It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any resolution of the case.”

(source: KLTV news)

SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution

Advocates call to abolish death penalty as state prepares for 1st execution in 13 years

The Director of South Carolina's Department of Corrections reports that the department has everything in place to resume executions for the 1st time in more than a decade.

South Carolina prison director says electric chair, firing squad, lethal injection ready

That 1st execution is set for next month for a man who’s been sitting on death row for a quarter century.

Meanwhile, activists are trying to intervene before more death sentences are carried out.

"It's just part of the job, I mean it's an important event for a lot of people for a lot of very good reasons, but it's simply one of those things the governor of this state has to do," said Governor Henry McMaster on Thursday.

The Governor seemingly ready to assume his role in what could be the 1st execution in South Carolina in more than 13 years.

This week, State prison director Bryan Stirling submitted to the state Supreme Court that the Corrections Department has all methods of execution ready and available for the execution of convicted killer Freddie Owens, also known as Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah.

McMaster has the authority to call it off, but as of now, he isn’t indicating he will.

"I think all the questions, all the questions concerning these events now have been answered. So now, it's just a matter of looking at the calendar and moving forward according to the law," McMaster told reporters.

That date that is circled on the calendar for Owens is September 20th.

He was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1997 killing of convenience store clerk, Irene Graves in Greenville.

After that conviction, authorities said Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County Jail, claiming he did it because he was wrongly convicted of murder in the Graves case.

Advocates looking to abolish the death penalty argue that it's hypocritical of the Governor to not be outspoken against the death penalty.

Rev. Hillary taylor, exec. Director, south carolinians for alternatives to the death penalty

"There are a lot of people in the state of South Carolina who believe that South Carolina is a pro-life state, and this is something that, Governor McMaster, you have touted, but if South Carolina is indeed a pro-life state, then we have to value all lives, not just the lives of the unborn. We have to value the lives of the people who have committed real harm," saidRev. Hillary Taylor, Executive Director for South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

She believes South Carolina should look to states that don't have the death penalty for other options.

"The states that don't have the death penalty, you see that they put more infrastructure in violence prevention and violence interruption tactics and actual effective public safety measures, you know, things that deter violence, things that deter harm," she explained.

WACH FOX News reached out to the Department of Corrections for an interview about the death penalty to which they said they'll allow their court filings to speak for themselves.

As of now, Owens has until September 6th to decide how he wants to die, but he has signed over power of attorney to his lawyer to make that final decision on his behalf.

(source: WACH news)

****************

Electric chair tested and firing squad prepared, South Carolina prison director says

South Carolina's prisons director said Wednesday the state is ready to carry out an execution next month that would mark its 1st in more than 13 years. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said South Carolina's supply of a common lethal injection drug is pure, its electric chair has been tested and the firing squad has the ammunition and training needed to put condemned inmate Freddie Owens to death in September.

Stirling was ordered by the state Supreme Court to submit a sworn statement to the lawyer for Owens certifying that all 3 methods of putting a prisoner to death are available for his scheduled Sept. 20 execution.

Owens' lawyers have said they will review the statement, and if they don't think it is adequate, they will ask the state Supreme Court or federal judges to consider it.

It's 1 of at least 2 legal issues of contention between the state and Owens ahead of next month's execution date.

Should the state carry out Owens' execution as planned, he would be the 1st condemned inmate in South Carolina to be put to death since 2011. The current controversy over his execution comes amid a wider debate about capital punishment — in South Carolina and across the United States. In South Carolina specifically, lawmakers in 2021 allowed a firing squad to be added to the execution protocol, as part of the same legislation that revived its use of the electric chair after a shortage of lethal injection drugs interrupted death penalty proceedings within the state and elsewhere.

The law made electrocution South Carolina's default execution method, if lethal injection drugs were unavailable, and codified death by firing squad as an alternative option for condemned inmates. South Carolina initially scheduled its 1st execution by firing squad for April 2022 but the state's highest court temporarily blocked it from happening. Then, earlier this year, attorneys representing a group of South Carolina's death row inmates argued before the South Carolina Supreme Court that both electrocution and the firing squad as execution methods should constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Electrocution, one of the oldest execution methods, was first introduced in the U.S. more than a century ago to replace hangings. Critics argue that it causes unnecessary suffering and indignity, and carries a wide margin of error that could mean multiple shocks over a long period of time are required for an inmate to die. Execution by firing squad is a newer concept. Since 1960, 4 death row inmates have been executed this way, all in Utah, which is 1 of 4 states that allow it, including South Carolina, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

Earlier this year, Alabama executed condemned inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith using nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial death penalty method used for the 1st time in the United States.

Owens has until Sept. 6 to decide how he wants to die, and he signed his power of attorney over to his lawyer, Emily Paavola, to make that decision for him. The state Supreme Court has agreed to a request from the prison system to see if that is allowed under South Carolina law.

The state suggested in court papers that the justices question Owens to make sure he understands the execution method choice is final and can't be changed even if he were to revoke the power of attorney.

The power of attorney was signed under the name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. Owens changed his name in prison but goes by his old name in his legal hearings with the state to avoid confusion.

In the sworn statement, Stirling said technicians at the State Law Enforcement Division laboratory tested two vials of the sedative pentobarbital, which the state plans to use for lethal injections.

The technicians told him the drug is stable, pure and under guidelines from other jurisdictions that use a similar method is potent enough to kill, Stirling wrote.

The state previously used a three-drug cocktail but those drugs expired, part of the reason no execution has been carried out in South Carolina since 2011.

Stirling released no other details about the drugs under the guidelines of the state's new shield law, which keeps secret the name of the supplier of the drug and anyone who helps carry out the execution. The law's passage in 2023 also helped restart executions so the state could buy pentobarbital and keep the supplier private.

The state's electric chair, built in 1912, was tested June 25 and found to be working properly, Stirling wrote, without providing additional details.

And the firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the guns, ammunition and training it needs, Stirling wrote. 3 volunteers have been trained to fire at a target placed on the heart from 15 feet away.

Owens, 46, was sentenced to death for killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves in Greenville in 1997. Prosecutors said he and friends robbed several businesses before going to the store.

One of the friends testified that Owens shot Graves in the head because she couldn't get the safe open. A surveillance system didn't clearly show who fired the shot. Prosecutors agreed to reduce the friend's murder charge to voluntary manslaughter and he was sentenced to 28 years in prison, according to court records.

After being convicted of murder in his initial trial in 1999, but before a jury determined his sentence, authorities said Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail.

Investigators said Owens gave them a detailed account of how he killed Christopher Lee, stabbing and burning his eyes, choking him and stomping him while another prisoner was in the cell and stayed quietly in his bunk. He said he did it "because I was wrongly convicted of murder," according to a confession read by a prosecutor in court the next day.

Owens was charged with murder against Lee right after the jail killing. Court records show prosecutors dropped the charge in 2019 with the right to restore it around the time Owens exhausted his appeals for his death sentence in Graves' killing.

Owens has one more avenue to try to save his life: In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison.

However no governor has done that in the state's 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.

Gov. Henry McMaster said he will follow longtime tradition and not announce his decision until prison officials make a call from the death chamber minutes before the execution.

McMaster told reporters Tuesday that he hasn't decided what to do in Owens' case but as a former prosecutor he respects jury verdicts and court decisions.

"When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer," McMaster said.

(source: CBS News)

****************

South Carolina prepares for 1st execution in more than 13 years----After July ruling that state’s death penalty is legal, a man on death row has a week to decide how he will be executed

A man on death row in South Carolina has until 6 September to decide how he would prefer to be executed by the state.

South Carolina’s prisons director has declared the state’s supply of a lethal injection drug acceptable and said its electric chair was tested 2 months ago and its firing squad has the ammunition and training to carry out its first execution next month in more than 13 years, if needed.

Corrections director Bryan Stirling was ordered by the state supreme court to submit a sworn statement to the lawyer for Freddie Owens certifying that all three methods of putting a prisoner to death are available for his scheduled 20 September execution.

Owens’s lawyers have said they will review the statement, and if they do not think it is adequate, they will ask the state supreme court or federal judges to consider it.

Owens, 46, was sentenced in 1999 for shooting and killing Irene Graves, a gas station employee in Greenville during a robbery in 1997.

Owens has until 6 September to decide how he wants to die, and he signed his power of attorney over to his lawyer, Emily Paavola, to make that decision for him. The state supreme court has agreed to a request from the prison system to see if that is allowed under South Carolina law.

The power of attorney was signed under the name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. Owens changed his name in prison but goes by his old name in his legal hearings with the state to avoid confusion.

In the sworn statement, Stirling said technicians at the state Law Enforcement Division laboratory tested 2 vials of the sedative pentobarbital, which the state plans to use for lethal injections.

Stirling released no other details about the drugs under the guidelines of the state’s new shield law, which keeps secret the name of the supplier of the drug and anyone who helps carry out the execution. The law’s passage in 2023 also helped restart executions so the state could buy pentobarbital and keep the supplier private.

The state’s electric chair, built in 1912, was tested 25 June and found to be working properly, Stirling wrote, without providing additional details.

The firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the guns, ammunition and training it needs, Stirling wrote. 3 volunteers have been trained to fire at a target placed on the heart from 15ft away.

In South Carolina, the governor, Henry McMaster, has the ability to grant clemency to an individual on death row. However, no governor has done so in the state’s past 43 executions, the Associated Press reports, adding that McMaster told reporters on Tuesday that he would only announce his decision minutes before the execution when prison officials dial his office from the death chamber.

“When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer,” McMaster said.

In response to McMaster’s comments, Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said: “Just because something is law does not mean that it is justice. Justice would actually be making sure that we interrupt and prevent violence from happening in the first place, not execute somebody who’s been on death row for decades.”

Earlier this week, Taylor’s organization circulated a petition for clemency from McMaster, which has garnered more than 1,300 signatures.

“Khalil Allah … is somebody who experienced profound trauma as a child [and] as an adolescent, both in terms of his family of origin and also the South Carolina judicial system … We do not believe that Khalil should be executed for things that are our fault as a society,” said Taylor.

Calling the death penalty “cheap justice”, Taylor added: “We would literally be better spending money on protecting children and creating more victim services for people who are experiencing violence and harm … The death penalty doesn’t do any of that.”

Taylor also pushed back on the conservative state’s so-called “pro-life” stance on reproductive rights, particularly its six-week abortion ban amid the backdrop of its death penalty law.

“There are government officials in South Carolina who like to brag that South Carolina is an extremely pro-life state, and if indeed all lives matter, then Khalil’s life especially matters because of the ways that he has been let down. He does not deserve to be cut off from this life. He deserves to live,” she said.

The South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also condemned the death penalty, with executive director Jace Woodrum saying: “The state is preparing to kill one of our neighbors under a shroud of secrecy. Politicians and prison officials have not only hidden key details about all three execution methods, but they have refused to allow media interviews with people held on death row as they make their last pleas for clemency. We are joining faith leaders, civil rights leaders, and people of good conscience around our state calling on governor McMaster to stop this execution and all others.”

The Guardian has asked the governor’s office for comment.

(source: The Guardian)

*******************

Is South Carolina Willing to Heed the Clearest Lesson We Have About Executions?

Carrying out an execution is always a complicated business that takes a horrible toll on anyone who is associated with it. When that business is rushed, that toll gets worse, and the possibility of error grows.

Those are the lessons of America’s death-penalty history. They are the lessons that the state of South Carolina should heed as it contemplates getting back into the execution business.

On Monday, the South Carolina Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for the state’s next execution and also agreed to consider a request from four of the state’s death-row inmates that South Carolina wait at least three months between executions. In the meantime, no other death warrants will be issued.

Several of the state’s death-row inmates have already exhausted their appeals and are now facing the prospect of execution. They include Richard Moore, who was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in 1999; Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of beating to death his estranged girlfriend’s parents in 2001; Marion Bowman, who has been on death row since 2001; and Mikal Mahdi, who was sentenced to death for shooting an off-duty police officer in 2004.

South Carolina’s latest round of executions is scheduled for Sept. 20. On that date, Freddie Eugene Owens will be put to death for the 1997 killing of a convenience store clerk.

In setting that date, as the Death Penalty Information Center reports, the court gave the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections “five days to determine that all 3 [of the state’s] methods of execution [electrocution, firing squad, and lethal injection] are available.”

Owens will then have just a week to choose a method of execution. If he does not decide, he will be executed by the electric chair.

Under existing law, the state can perform another execution as soon as one week after it puts Owens to death.

But it has been much longer than that since South Carolina carried out a death sentence. It last did so in May 2011, when it executed Jeffrey Motts using a previously untried lethal injection drug cocktail.

Since then, like many other states, South Carolina has had difficulty obtaining the drugs required for executions. To address this problem, the state added the firing squad and electrocution to its execution menu.

The long hiatus between executions marks a stark departure for the Palmetto State. South Carolina, the Associated Press says, was once one of the busiest states for executions, but for years had had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ concerns that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to officials.

South Carolina has put 43 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of 3 executions a year. Only 9 states have put more inmates to death.

And, according to ABC News, “South Carolina has held executions in rapid succession before. 2 half-brothers were put to death in 1 night in December 1998. Another execution followed on each of the next 2 Fridays that month, with 2 more in January 1999.”

Now South Carolina wants to do it again. In July the state Supreme Court cleared the way for it to rev up its execution apparatus after it found that each of the execution methods allowed under state law passed constitutional muster. The court will now take up the question of how briskly the state can move from one execution to the next.

The death-row inmates seeking to ensure that the state does so in a careful and deliberate manner told the South Carolina Supreme Court that proceeding quickly from one execution to another increases the risk that executions will be botched.

South Carolina can also learn from what happened 7 years ago in Arkansas, when that state tried to accelerate the pace of executions. As the Death Penalty Information Center puts it, “The 4 executions actually conducted during Arkansas’s unprecedented execution schedule were mired in controversy. The spree included the country’s 1st double execution in nearly 17 years, at least 2 of the executions were botched, and 1 of the people executed had serious claims of innocence that were never reviewed by Arkansas courts.”

It can also learn from Oklahoma, which encountered similar problems after it attempted to increase the frequency of executions.

In addition, the risk of error in South Carolina is high because the state will be using either what the death-row inmates rightly deem “antiquated” execution methods or a one-dose lethal-injection protocol that has never been used in the state.

Their motion also noted:

“If a method is used and is botched, or otherwise reveals itself to be ‘more inhumane,’ a compressed execution schedule might subject a prisoner to execution by a method that they would never have chosen” if they’d had more time to make an informed decision. ….

A longer time interval … would also enable the state corrections department staff to learn from their previous experience and make necessary adjustments to the execution process.

The inmates are also asking for a more deliberate pace of executions because of the heavy toll the process takes on prison staff and others who are involved in putting people to death.

That toll has been well documented. In 2022 NPR reported that “corrections personnel who participate in executing prisoners experience emotional trauma so profound that it changes their views about capital punishment.” The South Carolina death-row inmates argued that in the past, “members of the state Corrections’ execution team were reported to have developed substance abuse issues and mental illness such as depression, and one died by suicide.”

Rushing executions would only exacerbate those problems.

Finally, as the Charleston Post and Courier reports, those seeking a slower rate argue that “scheduling executions at a ‘more frenetic pace’ will result in hurried litigation and adjudication of any critical concerns that arise during the process leading up to the execution.” The condemned, the paper notes, are “often represented by the same attorneys,” aggravating these issues.

As the South Carolina Supreme Court considers how fast to carry out executions, it should remember that in the business of state killing, it is better to get it right than to get it done quickly. Everyone, regardless of their feelings on capital punishment, can only hope that in South Carolina and elsewhere, there is no place for execution on an assembly line.

(source: Austin Sarat, slate.com)

FLORIDA----execution

Prisoner With Parkinson’s Is Executed After Supreme Court Paves the Way----The 57-year-old Florida man, convicted in the 1994 killing of a college student, had argued that lethal injection would cause him “needless pain and suffering” because of the disease.

A 57-year-old Florida man who had argued that lethal injection would cause “needless pain and suffering” because he has Parkinson’s disease was executed on Thursday evening after the Supreme Court rejected a last-minute request to halt the proceeding.

The decision was unsigned and did not include the court’s reasoning, which is typical in such emergency cases. There were no public dissents noted.

The case of the man, Loran Cole, has drawn particular attention because of the abuses he said he had suffered at a notorious reform school, which formed the basis for Colson Whitehead’s novel “The Nickel Boys.” Over the years, former students at the institution, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, have come forward to share accounts of brutality. Beatings were common at the school, and reports of rape and forced labor were rampant.

Mr. Cole, who was executed at Florida State Prison, had been convicted in the 1994 killing of a Florida State University student who was camping with his sister in a national forest.

In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, lawyers for Mr. Cole argued that his symptoms would “make it impossible” for his execution to be humanely carried out. “His involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection,” they wrote.

The Florida attorney general, Ashley Moody, in a brief to the justices, contended that Mr. Cole had waited too long to raise the issue of his Parkinson’s symptoms, only voicing concerns in recent weeks.

None of the case examples cited by Mr. Cole included other prisoners suffering from Parkinson’s, Ms. Moody added, noting that Florida uses restraints during lethal injection to limit a prisoner’s movement.

She called his claims that his Parkinson’s symptoms would make it difficult for executioners to inject the drugs “both speculative and legally insufficient.”

Even though it was not a focus of his emergency request, Mr. Cole referred to his time at the Dozier School for Boys in legal filings. His legal team described his “torturous treatment” there as a teenager, saying his punishment should be mitigated because of the abuses he had suffered.

Those conditions had contributed to his behavior, the lawyers added, pointing to a recent law enacted to compensate victims of the school as evidence that the state had taken responsibility for abuses at the school. Jurors might have decided against the death penalty for Mr. Cole had they known of his experiences at Dozier, they said.

(source: New York Times)

*******************

Man convicted of murder and rape executed in Florida

Warning: This story contains details readers may find distressing.

His defence attorneys had argued the he should not be executed, noting that he suffered from Parkinson's Disease and had been diagnosed with mental illness and brain damage.

His lawyers wrote in the last-minute Supreme Court appeal that Cole's Parkinson symptoms would "make it impossible" for the execution to be conducted in a humane manner.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody contended in a legal brief that Cole only brought up the disease after the execution was scheduled, despite knowing "that he suffers from involuntary tremors for at least 7 years".

The Supreme Court rejected his appeal without explanation, which is typical when they weigh in on these types of death penalty cases.

Cole had nothing to say when offered the chance to give a final statement, the Associated Press reported.

He responded "No, sir" when asked for his last words.

The death row inmate's son and another individual visited Cole before the execution, according to the AP.

Local media reported that Cole inhaled deeply and his body trembled until he finally stopped breathing and was declared dead.

His lawyers had previously sought an appeal on the grounds that Cole had lived through "horrific and tragic" abuse at the Arthur G Dozier School for Boys - a notorious Florida reform school where personnel physically, mentally and sexually abused the children sent there for decades.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed Cole's death warrant, signed a bill that set aside $20m (£15.2m) for the school's victims earlier this year.

The school inspired The Nickel Boys, a novel written by Colson Whitehead, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020.

30 years ago, Cole and another man named William Paul befriended Edwards and his sister Pam while they were on a camping trip in Florida's Ocala National Forest, according to court records.

The men lured the college students away from the campsite, jumped them and robbed them, the records say.

The brother, 18, was a student at Florida State University. He was beaten, had his throat slit and his body was abandoned in the forest.

His sister, 21, was a senior at Eckerd College. Cole brought her back to the campsite, tied her to a tree and raped her, according to the court documents. He left her there overnight and raped her again the next day.

She eventually escaped and sought help from someone driving nearby.

Paul and Cole were both convicted of 1st-degree murder and given life sentences.

The sibling's parents, who did not attend the execution, had prison officials read a statement after the execution on Thursday.

“We are void of feelings and empathy for Mr Cole. He placed himself into this arena,” the statement said.

“He does not deserve mercy.”

(source: BBC News)

TENNESSEE:

Gov. Lee says Tennessee is working to resume executions, after sudden halt in 2022----Governor Bill Lee said he was working with the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Corrections to resume executions of death row inmates.

Governor Bill Lee said the states was working to resume executions, after an effective pause on the state's death penalty has continued for more than 2 years.

He visited the L&N STEM Academy in downtown Knoxville on Thursday, where he spoke with students learning about cybersecurity, nuclear energy and technologically-focused skills. While speaking with reporters at the school, he also discussed the state's work to resume executions of inmates on death row.

The state recently sent another person to death row — Sean Finnegan. He was convicted of torturing and killing a woman in Oak Ridge.

"I think it's important that we move as quickly as we can, but take as long as we need to, to make sure we get it right. I've tasked our team with getting a protocol in place. This has to be done, it's the law of our state. We need to be in a position to fulfill that law. But as you know, if you don't have the correct protocols in place, then the outcomes are not what any of us want in this state," Lee said.

In April 2022, Lee paused executions moments before an inmate was scheduled to die. He launched an independent review of the state's lethal injection preparation process after an "oversight" was discovered just before Oscar Smith's execution.

According to The Associated Press, lawsuits and a report showed the state struggled to follow its own lethal injection rules at several steps, including the chemicals' testing and storage. The report said problems have persisted since 2018.

"I suspect that we are closer than further from having a protocol in place and will be allowed then to continue that process," Lee said.

The state recently added child rape convictions to the list of crimes for which people could face the death penalty, and lawmakers said they expected the law to end up in court. The Death Penalty Information Center said 27 states allow for the death penalty, and six of those have paused executions for a variety of reasons.

(source: WBIR news)

OHIO:

Death Row inmate convicted of killing Farmington woman deemed incompetent----Another hearing will take place in two years to review Carter's competence.

A Trumbull County Judge has ruled that a man convicted of murdering his adoptive grandmother in Farmington 27 years ago should not be put to death for his crime.

A mental health hearing was held Thursday before Judge Sean O’Brien to determine if 45-year-old Sean Carter suffers from an intellectual disability.

During that hearing, evidence was submitted by 3 doctors who evaluated Carter with all 3 agreeing that his mental condition has deteriorated while in custody to the point where he is too incompetent to be executed at this time.

Judge O'Brien agreed with this, ruling Carter incompetent. Another hearing will take place in 2 years to review Carter's competence.

If Carter is found competent, the state will contest Carter's Serious Mental Illness (SMI) claim at the time of the offense.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with an intellectual disability are constitutionally barred from receiving the death penalty. The judge will issue a ruling in the coming days.

Carter was sentenced to death for the September 1997 murder of Veader Prince at her Farmington home. Carter was 18 years old at the time of the crime.

Investigators say Carter repeatedly beat Prince with his fists, stabbed her with a knife multiple times, and raped her.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys working the case now are requesting he be taken off of death row because he has been diagnosed as a functioning schizophrenic.

In June, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a reprieve for Carter who is now scheduled to be executed on November 17, 2027.

DeWine issued it because pharmaceutical suppliers are reluctant to provide drugs used in executions to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

(source: WFMJ news)

KANSAS:

Kansas' long, ambivalent relationship with capital punishment

The death chamber – or more accurately, the lethal injection chamber – at the Lansing Correctional Facility is in the same pristine condition as it was the day it was finished in 2000. The Department of Corrections has a protocol for the use of the room, but Kansas may never be able to obtain the chemicals that the protocol’s authors anticipated. 3 decades after the state passed its current death penalty law, its new execution chamber remains unused. So much has changed since 1994, in fact, that the state might soon be forced to choose yet again how justice should be refashioned.

On the day after Valentine’s Day, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach went to the Capitol and made a surprising announcement to the media: Nearly 60 years after the state carried out its last execution – and almost exactly 30 years after its current death penalty law went into effect – Kansas might soon be ready to once again put a convicted murderer to death.

“It’s possible,” he told reporters, “that one of the cases could be ready as early as nine months from now.”

There were several families on hand for Kobach’s news conference, relatives of people murdered by the 9 men who now sit in Kansas prisons awaiting execution. (Two others convicted of capital murder, Kobach said, had died in prison while their appeals were ongoing. They “escaped justice,” he said.) All of the families have been waiting for years. Some of them for decades.

They are ready for the wait to end.

“My issue is this all happened to us 17 years ago to my daughter,” said Brian Sanderholm, whose daughter, Jodi Sanderholm, was killed in 2007. Justin Thurber, the man convicted of capital murder in her death, received his death sentence in 2009.

Brian Sanderholm and Jennifer Aldridge, the father and sister of Jodi Sanderholm, who was murdered in 2007, told reporters at a news conference in February at the Kansas Capitol that solace will never be theirs until Justin Thurber, the killer sentenced to die in 2009, is put to death.

“It’s just cruel and unusual punishment, the way I see what we’re going through, because it’s been 17 years,” Sanderholm said that day. “Every day when I go uptown to dinner, to eat or anything, to see anybody in the public – and I am in the public’s eye quite a bit – somebody’s talking about it. Somebody brings it up. Something happens that Jodi’s name and her issue comes up again.

“We have to live through it every day,” he told the assembled reporters. “There is no closure for us, and we need your help getting us closure. So please help us.”

Whether that closure is coming soon, though, is an open question. After Kobach’s news conference, Mark Manna – who leads the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit – sounded skeptical that a Kansas execution might come within the year.

“I think that’s highly unlikely,” Manna said, ticking off the appellate status of several cases. But, he acknowledged, some of those cases were entering their final stages. “So it’s possible in the next handful of years there could be a client ready for execution.”

It’s not unusual that Kansas has taken so long to conduct an execution under the law passed in 1994. Capital cases nationwide often take at least a decade or more to resolve, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan outlet critical of how the penalty is applied.“More than 1/2 of all prisoners currently sentenced to death in the U.S. have been on death row for more than 18 years,” the center says on its website.

The process can take a toll on participants. Prosecutors say they warn the families of victims that capital cases take a very long time to resolve.

“For a case that starts this year, I don’t know what to tell you family members about how long this process will work,” said Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett at the press conference, “but I’m probably buying your grandchildren the misery of seeing this through.”

The history

As a state, Kansas has always had an ambivalent relationship with capital punishment. It had a death penalty law on the books from 1861 to 1907, but governors mostly refused to sign off on executions during that time. (There were several executions under military and federal law during that era, however.)

“Personally I have always been opposed to capital punishment,” Gov. Edward Hoch wrote in 1906, “and as a student of the subject have long since become convinced that it is not a deterrent of crime, but a promoter of it.”

The death penalty law was repealed the next year, then restored decades later, in 1935. But the law was used infrequently. 15 men were executed between 1944 and 1965. The last two — James Douglas Latham and George Ronald York – were Army deserters who in 1961 killed 7 people in 5 states, including 62-year-old Otto Ziegler of Oakley. (Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, the infamous “In Cold Blood” killers, had been executed 2 months earlier.)

“There is nothing to say but that I am going home to heaven,” York said, moments before he was hanged at Lansing.

7 years elapsed between that execution and the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision declaring the death penalty unconstitutional in all 50 states. The court restored the penalty – under limited circumstances – in 1976. But it took nearly 2 decades after that for Kansas to pass its new death penalty law.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Gov. John Carlin vetoed bills in 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1985. “We must find other means of deterring murderers, punishing them and seeking retribution from them,” he wrote in 1985. “I am confident we can do that.”

There were more failed attempts during Gov. Mike Hayden’s term in the late 1980s, despite his advocacy for a bill. The process that resulted in the enactment of the 1994 law was yet another reflection of political ambivalence: Gov. Joan Finney let it go into effect without her signature.

“I am personally opposed to the death penalty,” she wrote to the Legislature on April 22, 1994, “but believe that a majority of Kansans support it as a matter of public policy.”

And then the wait began.

Why so long?

So why does the death penalty process take so long?

Prosecutors don’t necessarily jump into charging a defendant with capital murder. Kansas law allows the charges in a specific set of cases – “intentional and premeditated” murders generally, murders for hire, killings committed in connection with kidnapping or rape, and the killing of law enforcement officers all count. So do killings involving multiple victims or victims under the age of 14.

That might seem fairly straightforward. It’s not.

The kind of case that gets prosecuted for capital murder “shocks the senses,” says Kansas Deputy Attorney General Vic Braden, one of the state’s most experienced death penalty prosecutors. Those defendants include Jonathan and Reginald Carr, convicted of killing 4 people in Sedgwick County in 2000; and John Edward Robinson, an Olathe man convicted of killing eight women starting in the late 1980s.

Even in the face of such horrors, determining whether to prosecute a homicide as a death penalty case “is not a decision to take lightly,” Braden says. The decision to bring capital murder charges “typically … takes at least a year to get to that point, sometimes a year and a half, 2 years.”

That’s just the beginning. “When I talk to the victim’s family, if we decide to go with the death penalty, I tell them, ‘It’s going to be at least three years from when the crime is charged before we get to a jury trial,’” Braden says.

Part of the reason is that a death penalty trial in Kansas is really 2 trials: There’s the 1st phase – determining whether a defendant is guilty – that happens in all trials. The 2nd phase determines whether the death penalty will be applied.

That 2nd phase looks a lot different from other court proceedings. Prosecutors must make the case that the murder was done in an especially “heinous, atrocious or cruel manner.” For the defense, it’s a chance to appeal to the jurors’ sense of mercy – a focus not just on the crime and the victim, but on reasons why a defendant might deserve life in prison rather than execution.

It requires intense preparation, on both sides.

Manna, who has served in the death penalty defense unit for 25 years and as its chief for the last decade, runs down a list of things that lawyers may want to get before jurors: The defendant’s background. How he or she got to this point. Why the crime occurred. The effect an execution would have within the defendant’s circle of family and friends.

“Is there some reason that a juror may feel that a life sentence is warranted? And that can be any reason – that can be mercy.”

At this stage of the process, though, defense teams are working uphill. To serve on a capital murder case, jurors must be “death qualified” – willing to impose the death penalty if they determine it’s merited. Jurors can’t serve if they’re unwilling or opposed to capital punishment.

“Most people who would tell you that they’re willing to impose a death sentence on an individual tend to be pro-law and order prosecution. Very conservative,” says Manna. “So going into the 1st stage, the guilt stage, you’re going to be dealing with a jury that’s already kind of leaning toward the state, the prosecution. They’re not going to be as open-minded about defenses.”

The Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit is a part of the state’s public defender system and operates out of a drably appointed office in Topeka. Its staff handles all cases in which a defendant is charged with a crime that can result in execution.

Braden is less convinced that prosecutors have an advantage with death-qualified juries.“Jurors have to say that – they may lean one way or the other – but they’re willing to listen to the evidence, listen to instructions and come to a verdict of both the guilt and the penalty phase,” he says, and adds: “The ones that really are willing to do that, they’re not heavily toward the defense, the death or no death. They’re somewhere in the middle. I think it work.”

All this takes a lot more resources, on both sides, than the typical murder trial.

“It is very expensive, it is very time consuming and it takes a long time,” Manna says.

Braden will consult with a wider range of prosecutors than in most cases, and is more likely to bring in expert witnesses. Manna, meanwhile, follows guidelines from the American Bar Association, which mandate that a defense team have at least 2 attorneys, an investigator and a “mitigation specialist” to focus on the information presented in the penalty phase.

“In a regular murder case, there may only be 1 defense attorney, there may be a second chair,” or assistant defender, Manna says, “but in a death penalty case, there’s a whole team.”

Then come the appeals

It can take years simply to get a conviction and death sentence. The appeals usually last much longer. The first step: The Kansas Supreme Court, where all capital murder convictions are automatically reviewed.

The case of Gary Kleypas shows how that process can be a long and winding road.

Kleypas was 40 years old – and on parole for a 1977 murder in Missouri – when he was arrested in 1996 for the rape and murder of Carrie Williams, a Pittsburg State University student. The next year he became the first defendant convicted of capital murder under Kansas’ then-new law.

The state Supreme Court overturned Kleypas’ sentence in 2001, then overturned the state’s death penalty law entirely in 2004. That was in the case of Michael Marsh, who had been convicted in Sedgwick County of the 1st-degree murder of Marry Ane Pusch and capital murder in the death of her 19-month-old daughter, Marry Elizabeth.

The U.S. Supreme Court restored Kansas’ death penalty law in 2006, and Kleypas was resentenced to death in 2008. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld that sentence in 2016. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal in the more recent sentencing. (Marsh was later resentenced as well, to life in prison.)

Kleypas’ defense team does not argue his innocence. “We’re not arguing my client is exempt from criminal responsibility,” one attorney said during a 2015 hearing. “He’s guilty.”

Instead, Kleypas’ original sentence was overturned on grounds that jurors who recommended he be given the death penalty had been given insufficient information on how to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors in the crime. When appealing the second sentencing, his attorneys argued that jurors had been prejudiced when Larry Williams – Carrie’s father – lunged at Kleypas during a hearing.

“I have zero thought that he will be put to death,” Larry Williams told The Wichita Eagle in 2017. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Williams died 2 years later. Kleypas turns 70 next year.

Some appeals hinge on errors that might have been made at trial. Other cases take aim at the validity of the death penalty itself. In 2023, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Kansas challenged the capital murder charges leveled at Kyle Young, accused of a 2020 double murder in Wichita. The ACLU claimed that the death-qualification process produced “white-washed and biased capital juries” that are “uniquely discriminatory” against defendants.

The ACLU “found that (the) race of victim really drives the decisions about when the death penalty is handed down and when it is not,” says Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “The death penalty is far, far more likely if there’s a female white victim in the case.”

Young pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder charges in October, rendering the ACLU’s challenge moot. The hope, Stubbs says, is “that the evidence that we developed will be used in other cases.”

Which means more challenges are likely.

The future

In 2001, state officials led reporters on a tour of the lethal-injection chamber they had built at the Lansing Correctional Facility, which remains unused. All but one of the capital murder defendants are held at the El Dorado Correctional Facility — more than two hours away – to separate the staff who work with inmates on a day-to-day basis from those who might be responsible for implementing the penalty.

“An execution is something that has a certain amount of impact on all of the staff who participate,” then-Kansas Corrections Secretary Chuck Simmons told The Topeka Capital-Journal in 2001.

When Kansas’ 1994 death penalty law was passed, lethal injection – currently the only method of execution allowed under the law – was seen as a humane alternative to firing squads, hanging, the gas chamber or the electric chair. In recent years, though, that method has been challenged by critics as itself cruel and unusual. States that do carry out the death penalty have found it increasingly difficult to obtain the necessary drugs: Many pharmaceutical companies will no longer furnish the chemicals to prison systems.

That’s why Kobach in February asked the Legislature to add another form of execution to the state’s options: hypoxia. Prisoners would be deprived of oxygen until they died.

“In a way, we are lying to the people of Kansas if we say that we have the death penalty, but we actually can’t carry out an execution,” Kobach told reporters. When their 2024 regular session adjourned on May 1, however, legislators had taken no action on his request.

Even if hypoxia did become law, though, more court challenges and delays would be likely. Alabama conducted a hypoxia execution using nitrogen gas in January. Some witnesses said the condemned inmate “shook and convulsed” during the execution, making the method a poor candidate for humane death — and a target for a fresh round of lawsuits.

“I thought that given the bad P.R. that it (hypoxia) got, that it just seemed like, why now?” Manna says of Kobach’s proposal. “Why introduce this literally just weeks after this execution that was so controversial?”

Even if the Legislature were to follow Kobach’s lead, however, Gov. Laura Kelly might not.

“Governor Kelly has long supported repealing the death penalty, both as a state senator and on the campaign trail, because it is impractical, expensive and inhumane,” says spokesperson Grace Hoge. The state, she says, spends an “excessive amount of money” on death-penalty related cases, with little deterrent effect. (There were 170 reported homicides in Kansas in 1994; that number was 168 in 2022.)

In the meantime, the system grinds on. The most recent person sentenced to death in Kansas was Kyle Flack, convicted in 2016 of killing 3 adults and a toddler in Franklin County. (The Kansas Supreme Court rejected his appeal in January.) Those now facing capital murder charges include Michael Cherry, a Topeka man accused of killing 5-year-old Zoey Felix; and Donald Ray Jackson, a Leavenworth man accused of killing his two sons in 2020.

Manna continues his work, but hopes the death penalty will one day be repealed. A life sentence, he says, is always appropriate.

“I think it’s more appropriate than a death sentence. I think life sentences ensure the protection of the community at large, and I think then we avoid all the baggage that comes with, well, What if the person turns out to be innocent?” he says.

Braden, meanwhile, is headed to retirement in the coming months. He says it’s time for Kansas to update its never-used death penalty law, to be ready for the moment – coming sooner than later in his opinion – when one of the nine condemned men runs out of appeals.

“If we don’t want the death penalty, then the Legislature needs to have the courage to abolish it. But it’s on the books,” Braden says. Without the ability to carry out the one form of execution authorized under the law – lethal injection – the state remains “in a no-man’s-land, and we shouldn’t be. We should either get rid of it or fix it.”

Until then, the families of the victims wait. At that February news conference, Jennifer Aldridge – Jodi Sanderholm’s sister – made it clear that she is ready for some finality.

“The day that he was sentenced was not the end for us,” she said. “It was honestly just the beginning. We are still dealing with him, going to court with him, seeing his face, hearing his name.”

It’s not about revenge, Aldridge said, but justice.

“I don’t have hate in my heart anymore toward my sister’s killer,” she said. “I do want to witness his execution.”

(source: This article was produced as part of the Wichita Journalism Collaborative (WJC). The WJC is a partnership of 11 media and community partners, including KMUW----KMUW news)

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The Only Problem with Kansas’ death penalty is that it takes too long

In a recent guest commentary for The Star, Kansas state Sen. Carolyn McGinn and public defender Kelson Bohnet argued that the death penalty in our state is a failed government program.

Kansas has the death penalty, but the last time it executed someone was 1965. There were more murderers on death row, but they died of natural causes because the executions were delayed by so many years.

Parents of the victims are dying before the killers. That is the only problem with the death penalty in Kansas.

There are only 9 people on death row in Kansas now. All committed unthinkable acts.

Their victims include:

Carrie Williams, a 20-year-old Pittsburg State University student, murdered by Gary Kleypas in 1996

Izabela Lewicka, a 21-year-old Polish immigrant, murdered by John E. Robinson in 1999

Suzette Trouten, a 28-year-old, murdered by John E. Robinson in 2000

Jason Befort, a 26-year-old, murdered by Reginald and Jonathan Carr in 2000

Brad Heyka, a 27-year-old, murdered by Reginald and Jonathan Carr in 2000

Heather Muller, a 25-year-old, murdered by Reginald and Jonathan Carr in 2000

Aaron Sander, a 29-year-old, murdered by Reginald and Jonathan Carr in 2000

Mikiala Martinez, a 19-year-old, murdered by Sidney Gleason in 2004

Darren Wornkey, a 24-year-old, murdered by Sidney Gleason in 2004

Matt Samuels, a 42-year-old Greenwood County Sheriff, murdered by Scott Cheever in 2005

Jodi Sanderholm, a 19-year-old, murdered by Justin Thurber in 2007

Karen Kahler, a 44-year-old mother, murdered by James Kraig Kahler in 2009

Dorothy Wight, the 89-year-old mother of Karen Kahler, murdered by James Kraig Kahler in 2009

Emily Kahler, the 18-year-old daughter of Karen Kahler, murdered by James Kraig Kahler in 2009

Lauren Kahler, the 16-year-old daughter of Karen Kahler, murdered by James Kraig Kahler in 2009

Kaylie Bailey, a 21-year-old mother, murdered by Kyle Trevor Flack in 2013

Lana Bailey, the 18-month-old daughter of Kaylie Bailey, murdered by Kyle Trevor Flack in 2013

3 other victims — 14-year-old Reat Underwood, 69-year-old William Corporon and 53-year-old Terri LaManno — were murdered in 2014 by F. Glenn Miller Jr., who died before he could be executed.

These murderers were convicted by well-vetted jurors who determined that the appropriate punishment for the perpetrators was death.

McGinn and Bohnet would deny the aforementioned justice by scrapping the death penalty altogether. They argue that the death penalty should be abolished, because only 15 people in Kansas have received death sentences since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1994.

That’s a feature not a bug. It’s revealing that the authors point to exonerated inmates who committed crimes eligible for the death penalty, but who weren’t sentenced to death as evidence to support abolishing the death penalty.

However, in Kansas, death sentence prosecutions are reserved for a narrow band of horrendous cases. The public isn’t benefiting from the death penalty currently, because justice isn’t meted out.

That must change.

The Kansas judicial system should move to ensure that capital murder appeals move swiftly. And the Kansas Legislature should update its statutes so capital punishment can be carried out using modern, humane methods of execution.

We owe it to the families of the victims who have waited so long for justice to be served.

(source: Opinion; Kris Kobach is attorney general of Kansas----kansascity.com)

USA----impending/scheduled executions

With the execution of Loran Cole in Florida on August 29, the USA has now executed 1,595 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful practice of state-sponsored killings.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1596-----Sept. 20----------Freddie Owens------------South Carolina

1597-----Sept. 24----------Travis Mullis------------Texas

1598-----Sept. 24----------Marcellus Williams-------Missouri

1599-----Sept. 26----------Alan Miller--------------Alabama

1600-----Sept. 26----------Emmanual Littlejohn------Oklahoma

1601-----Oct. 1------------Garcia White-------------Texas

1602-----Oct. 17-----------Robert Roberson----------Texas

1603-----Nov. 21-----------Corey Dale Grayson-------Alabama

1604-----Dec. 4------------Christopher Collings-----Missouri

(source: Rick Halperin)

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What Kamala Harris Must Do to End Abuse in the Criminal Legal System----A graphic featuring Harris and imagery pertaining to the criminal legal system.

As a former prosecutor, Harris should understand that the executive branch has tremendous power to work to end mass incarceration, abolish the death penalty, and stop unlawful racial profiling.

If elected president, Vice President Kamala Harris would bring extensive experience to the role from her work in the criminal legal system as district attorney, attorney general, senator and vice president. In these roles, her commitment to reforming the criminal legal system has been mixed. In some areas she has taken positions that have embraced reform, while in other areas she has taken positions that were contrary to reform — including instances where she missed the opportunity to end practices that helped drive mass incarceration.

The ACLU urges Harris to follow the lead of her running mate, Tim Walz, who has been a pioneer for criminal legal system reform in his home state of Minnesota.

Harris on the Criminal Legal System

The Facts: A Harris administration has the opportunity to make the criminal legal system more just and humane for all by renouncing failed policies that drove mass incarceration and racial disparities.

Importantly, in 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on policing that changed the use of force standard for federal law enforcement, restricted the distribution of military equipment to local law enforcement, restricted the use of deadly chokeholds and carotid restraints, and created a national police misconduct registry. In the absence of congressional action, a potential Harris administration should continue the important work of implementing Biden’s policing executive order.

A Harris administration should also expand efforts to end federal mandatory sentencing minimums, which require federal judges to impose a required sentence — sometimes as much as five years, 10 years, or 20 years, or even a mandatory life in prison sentence — regardless of the case's specific facts or the circumstances of the person sentenced. A Harris administration should appoint an attorney general committed to ending this harsh practice and implementing other critical reforms that would change the system for the better.

The Harris administration can also push for passage legislative proposals such as the Justice Safety Valve Act, which Harris co-sponsored in the past. The legislation would give federal judges the discretion to sentence below the mandatory minimum sentence. The Harris administration could also push for passage of the EQUAL Act, which the ACLU strongly supports. This bipartisan bill would end the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine that has resulted in racially disproportionate arrests, prosecutions, and federal imprisonment of Black and Brown people. Lastly, in 2019, Harris introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2019. The legislation would have decriminalized marijuana at the federal level and made the de-scheduling of marijuana retroactive. The ACLU supports the aims of the MORE Act and allows states to undo the harms of the war on drugs.

Why It Matters: Right now, the U.S. criminal legal systems hold more than 1.9 million people in prisons, detention centers, jails and other carceral systems. Racial discrimination within these systems mean that police encounters disproportionately impact Black and Brown people, and can escalate into violent encounters or death. Currently, the burdens of petty drug-related charges, steep criminal fines or fees and unfair sentencing is also predominantly borne by Black and Brown communities, fueling a vicious cycle of poverty and criminalization.

The ACLU will push the Harris administration to expand progressive reform efforts and challenge draconian approaches to criminal legal policy.

At the ACLU, we believe everyone deserves dignity, fairness, and an opportunity to thrive. That includes people suspected, accused, or convicted of a crime. We seek to limit the harm and reach of the criminal legal system and transform our approach to safety to a system focused on prevention, not punishment. But we can’t do it alone. The executive branch has a vital role to play in realizing this vision.

How We Got Here: Harris brings extensive experience working in the criminal legal system to the White House. As a senator, Harris co-wrote and was one of the lead sponsors of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, the most significant police reform bill to gain traction in the U.S. Senate after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In response to the ACLU’s federal advocacy and other efforts, the most recent introduction of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in the Senate included grants for mental health crisis response programs and unarmed civilian government departments to enforce traffic violations. Harris has continued to be a proponent of police reform and accountability in her current role, recently applauding the development of a national non-public police misconduct registry for hiring federal law enforcement, and calling for the passage of the Justice in Policing Act.

Additionally, in the wake of the Trump administration’s execution spree, which killed 13 people, the Biden-Harris administration ordered, through Attorney General Merrick Garland, a halt to any future federal executions and a review of the federal execution process. Over the course of her career, Harris has fluctuated on the death penalty. If elected, the ACLU will call on Harris to suspend federal executions, approve broad grants of clemency to those on federal death row, and work for the abolition of the federal death penalty.

Our Roadmap: The ACLU will push the Harris administration to expand progressive reform efforts and challenge draconian approaches to criminal legal policy.

The ACLU will demand that Congress enact key legislation to ensure a fair and just criminal legal system, some of which were championed by Harris when she was in the U.S. Senate. This includes an improved George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to ensure accountability for police misconduct; marijuana reform to begin to address the harmful impact of the war on drugs; the Driving for Opportunity Act to reduce police interaction and the commensurate risk of harm; the Mental Health Justice Act to provide non-law- enforcement responses to mental health crises; the EQUAL Act to remove sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine; and the End Solitary Confinement Act to limit solitary confinement in federal facilities.

Additionally, the ACLU will continue our advocacy for legislation to repeal the federal death penalty, end mandatory minimum sentences, abolish the doctrine of qualified immunity, and stop the 1033 transfer of military weapons program. We will push a potential Harris administration to end extreme sentencing practices that fuel mass incarceration and abolish the death penalty once and for all. We will urge the administration to continue and fully implement the Biden administration’s charging policies that equalize sentencing outcomes for crack and cocaine offenses and that minimize the application of mandatory minimums.

The ACLU is hopeful that Harris will create an administration that is responsive to calls for a continued suspension of federal executions, broad grants of clemency to those on federal death row, and abolition of the federal death penalty. The ACLU will also continue our critical litigation that puts the death penalty “on trial” in the states, invalidating the death penalty based on its racist administration, including in the selection of juries.

What Our Experts Say: “I served as a public defender during the same period in our country's history that Vice President Harris worked as a prosecutor, and I know she witnessed, first hand, systemic injustices in our criminal legal system that need to be addressed immediately. We hope that if elected, Harris will use this insight to bring about transformative changes, including protecting people from police abuse, ending extreme and unjust sentencing, addressing the inhumane conditions in jails and prisons, and abolishing the federal death penalty — moving the country toward ending this inhumane practice once and for all.” — Yasmin Cader, deputy legal director and director of the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality

“The ACLU will demand that Harris recommit to the legislative agenda that she championed as a senator. But Harris cannot wait on Congress to act: She must use her executive authority to end extreme sentencing, halt federal executions, and vastly expand the number of people granted clemency. The ACLU will continue to fight for a criminal legal system that is humane and just.” — Cynthia W. Roseberry, ACLU director of policy and government affairs

What You Can Do Today: Unchecked, unaccountable policing harms us all. Yet police continue to experience broad immunity, job security even with a pattern of misconduct, and a steady supply of war equipment directly from the Pentagon. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act addresses these issues by helping to end racial profiling, to create real accountability for police, and to rein in police violence. Urge your representatives to pass this bill now.

See: https://action.aclu.org/send-message/tell-congress-end-police-violence

(source: aclu.org)

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Death Penalty Census Now Complete Through January 1, 2024

The DPIC Death Penalty Census

The Death Penalty Information Center has updated its Death Penalty Census (see: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/database/sentences) database to include new death sentences, exonerations, resentences, removals from death row, and other status changes up to January 1, 2024. DPI’s Census is a unique, comprehensive collection of every death sentence imposed since 1972, with information on the county and state of prosecution; the year and outcome of each sentence; and the name, race, and gender of the defendant. It contains information on 9,857 death sentences imposed on 8,861 defendants over the last 5 decades. This valuable resource is publicly available for researchers, attorneys, students, advocates, and members of the public.

Corrections and updates to the database are always welcome, as the Death Penalty Information Center is committed to ensuring the accuracy and completeness of this database. To correct an error or provide missing information, please notify us by email and send any supporting documentation to DeathPenaltyCensus@deathpenaltyinfo.org.)

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

GLOBAL:

Abolition of the death penalty at the United Nations Human Rights Council 56th sessionInternational standards on 30 August 2024

The United Nations Human Rights Council met for its 56th Regular Session from June 18 to July 12, 2024. If you missed it, here is what happened regarding the abolition of the death penalty!

During the debates

During the Global Update by the High Commissioner on Human Rights, Volker Türk called upon the government of Iran to establish for an “immediate moratorium on the death penalty, given the reported spike in executions since the beginning of the year.” The European Union made multiple statements, noting the alarming rise of executions in Iran, and condemning executions in Saudi Arbia. It denounced the provision for the death penalty within the Anti-Homosexuality Law in Uganda which is contrary to international human rights law and to Uganda’s obligations under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, regretted the lifting of moratorium on death penalty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and strongly invited the Authorities to reintroduce it. Watch it here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k11/k11ockw7tj and here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1wyjxb189

During the Presentation of the Secretary-General’s report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 20, Nada Al- Nashif, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, highlighted that despite a global decline in the sentencing of children to death since 2014, Iran had executed at least two child offenders in 2023. She urged the “Government to introduce an immediate moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition also to prohibit the execution of all offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged crime.” She also noted the use of the death penalty against artists that were targeted for exercising their freedom of opinion and expression during protests, under the “corruption on earth” offense which carries capital punishment. Watch it here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1wnqfk2os

Civil society oral statements on the death penalty

On the occasion of this 56th session, several members of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty presented oral statements on the death penalty.

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of Nigeria, the Advocates for Human Rights, Lawyers without Borders France and the World Coalition delivered a joint oral statement, denouncing that in 2023, Nigerian courts sentenced 246 people to death and as of the end of the year, at least 3413 people were on death row. They expressed their disappointment in Nigeria noting all 35 recommendations received on the death penalty with no explanation, including recommendations calling for a moratorium on executions, even though Nigeria has had a de facto moratorium since 2016. They denounced that Nigeria even noted recommendations calling to reduce the number of offenses punishable by death, as Nigerian law applies the death penalty for crimes that do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes, such as blasphemy, same-sex relations and drug-related offenses. They urged Nigerian authorities to embrace dialogue with civil society on abolition, and to ensure all 61 women on death row are held in conditions that respect the Bangkok rules. They finally urged Nigeria to abolish the mandatory death penalty for murder and consider mitigating circumstances during the sentencing of women. Watch it here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1q/k1q5ugw2uq

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of Nigeria, the Advocates for Human Rights and the World Coalition delivered a joint statement expressing disappointment that Jordan has neither abolished the death penalty, not continued its moratorium on executions, nor respected the threshold of “most serious crimes” for offenses punishable by death. They also denounced calls from Jordan officials to retain the death penalty as a crime deterrent. They denounced the execution of Jordanian man in 2021, despite the State claiming not to have executed anyone since 2017. The highlighted that Jordan has noted all recommendations on death penalty with no explanation and urged Jordan to implement a moratorium on executions. Amnesty International also intervened and stated they were “appalled by Jordan’s rejection of the recommendations to abolish the death penalty.” Watch the statements here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k17/k17b9oe9wt

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of Malaysia, Amnesty International delivered a statement and welcomed the government’s abolition of the mandatory death penalty in 2023. They however regretted that it failed to accept recommendations to take steps towards full abolition and urged the government to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, and to extend the official moratorium. Watch it here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k17/k17b9oe9wt

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of Belize, the Advocates for Human Rights commended the maintaining of a moratorium on executions in Belize since 1985 and the removal of the mandatory death penalty from its criminal code. They regretted that Belize had noted 16 recommendations calling for a formal moratorium and for steps towards the abolition of the death penalty, especially as there is no one currently on death row in Belize. Watch the statement here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k17/k17b9oe9wt

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of China, the International Federation for Human Rights Leagues delivered a statement expressing its disappointment regarding the government’s decision to note all recommendations concerning the death penalty. Watch the statement here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1t/k1tt6njldu

During the adoption of the Universal Periodic Review Outcome of Saudi Arabia, the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights and the Advocates for Human Rights delivered a joined statementhighlighting that there are stark differences between the claims of the delegation and reality. They denounced that Saudi Arabia has executed 86 people since the beginning of 2024, including for drug-related offenses and political opposition despite promises to limit the use of death penalty to the most serious crimes. The noted that the number of people on death row remains unknown due to lack of transparency and civil society allowed in the country. They highlighted that at least 2 women had been executed in 2024 despite no records of women on death row, and that at least 9 minors are currently facing death sentences despite Saudi Arabia’s claim to have removed the death penalty for minors aligned with its international obligations. Amnesty International intervened and noted that individuals continue to be sentenced to decades-long prison terms and even death for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and they documented cases of child offenders who have been sentenced to death, as well as executions for drug related crimes, despite Saudi Arabia’s claim that the death penalty was reserved for the most serious crimes. They urged the authorities to declare an official moratorium on all executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. Watch the statements here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1t/k1tt6njldu

During the Interactive Dialogue on oral progress report of the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, IBAHRI delivered a statement noting that political prisoners in Myanmar face the death penalty, that at least 124 post-coup prisoners remain on death row, and urged the international community to pressure Myanmar to establish an immediate moratorium on executions. Watch it here, at: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k16/k16zmc33my

Resolutions adopted

The Human Rights Council adopted 22 resolutions and 17 decisions.

Side events

One side event was organized by members of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

One side event was co-organized on June 24 by the International Commission against the Death Penalty and the Permanent Mission of Belgium, and co-sponsored by several member states. It was a panel discussion to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. The event aimed at sharing good practices, concrete examples of the potential uses of the Second Optional Protocol, and pathways forward towards the abolition of the death penalty.

The 57th regular session of the Human Rights Council is scheduled to take place in Geneva from September 9 to October 11, 2024.

(source: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty)

GERMANY:

Executioner’s house in Nuremberg delivers medieval justice with a view -- The Henkerhaus Museum, located along the Pegnitz River in Nuremberg, Germany, was once home to the city's municipal executioners and offers a glimpse into medieval crime and punishment.

Meister Franz Schmidt beheaded, hanged, burned or drowned 361 people deemed criminals while he held the role of municipal executioner in Nuremberg between 1577 and 1617. Schmidt used torture to extract confessions and maimed lesser offenders with corporal punishment an additional 345 times.

His position was thought to be fairly prestigious, though still viewed with derision.

Schmidt documented his gory tenure in the book “A Hangman’s Diary,” which provided insight into crime and punishment in the Middle Ages and beyond.

Present-day Nuremberg also has a more immersive legacy of Schmidt and his fellow executioners: a residence built for them on the Pegnitz River in 1320. The Henkerhaus, or hangman’s house, offers visitors glimpses into one of medieval and Renaissance Europe’s darkest professions. It was home to the municipal executioner until 1806.

The information and imagery at the house, including some lifted from official documents and Schmidt’s journal, are spellbinding.

There are no axes or tools on display, which made the visit seem more academic than shocking. The office of executioner developed as the ruling class consolidated power, according to literature at the Henkerhaus.

Ancient Roman law influenced the decision to separate sentencing from punishment.

The imperial city of Nuremberg may have had an executioner as far back as 1378, records indicate.

Cells and a torture chamber underneath City Hall were where executioners would extract confessions, a requirement for conviction at the time.

Sentences of imprisonment were rare.

Punishments ranged from public humiliation to death. Corporal punishment included branding and mutilation.

“The resulting physical handicap meant a lifelong loss of honor and esteem,” the exhibit said.

Murder, rape, robbery, theft and even blasphemy were often punishable by death. Decapitation was considered the most humane capital punishment, while death on the breaking wheel and being burned alive were far worse. Hanging was the 2nd-most-used form of public execution.

Women were usually drowned, until that practice was abandoned in favor of beheading.

After being damaged during World War II, the Henkerhaus was restored in 1954. It has been a museum since 2007.

On the QT Address: Trödelmarkt 58, Nuremberg, Germany Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Cost: Admission is free for children under 14, 3 euros for most adults, and 2 euros for ages 14 to 18, students and the severely disabled.

Information: Online: henkerhaus-nuernberg.de

(source: stripes.com)

AUSTRALIA:

Bolster Global Advocacy Against Death Penalty----Submission to Foreign Affairs Committee Seeks Stronger Bilateral Engagement

The Australian government should strengthen its global advocacy to abolish the death penalty, Human Rights Watch said in a recent submission to Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (JSCFADT).

The Committee is currently reviewing Australia’s international engagement to promote the abolition of the death penalty.

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty. Around 170 countries, including Australia, have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice.

“Australia has consistently spoken out against the death penalty at the United Nations, but time and again the government has missed opportunities to make strong public comments regarding certain countries,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to be more outspoken to put sustained political pressure on governments still using this terrible and globally condemned form of punishment.”

Most notably, the Australian government has missed many opportunities to publicly convey its concerns about executions in Singapore. In 2023, the Singaporean authorities carried out the highest number of executions for drug-related offenses in over a decade, including the 1st woman put to death in nearly 20 years. Singaporean authorities executed two men for drug trafficking on August 2 and August 7, 2024, despite both having pending appeals when the executions were scheduled.

Australia and Singapore have annual leaders’ meetings, yet the death penalty has not been raised publicly during those meetings, even when executions in Singapore have occurred immediately before the leaders’ summit.

The Australian government should also update its 2018 Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty to include government-to-government assistance and police cooperation in a death penalty context. Currently, Australian police cooperate with foreign police forces on, for example, drug trafficking cases. This could have grave consequences if it is cooperating with a country that executes people for drug-related crimes. Although the Australian Federal Police has an internal oversight board for “sensitive” investigations, there is no mandatory external and human rights oversight. Without this oversight, there is a serious risk that Australian police could cooperate with a foreign police force in a way that leads to someone being sentenced to death and executed.

“It’s not good enough to rely on internal oversight for matters as serious as the death penalty,” Gavshon said. “At the very least, any Australian police and government oversight board should include a government human rights specialist; the stakes are much too high to risk getting it wrong.”

(source: Human Rights Watch)

FIJI:

Tikoduadua reveals stance on death penalty

Currently, the death penalty is unlawful under the 2013 constitution, as Fiji abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1979 and for all crimes in 2015. The last execution occurred in 1964.

Tikoduadua says current resource and fund limitations in dealing with drug crimes are an issue.

Tikoduadua is also calling on communities to play an active role in curbing drug-related crimes in their areas.

(source: fbcnews.com)

INDIA:

Amritsar man gets death penalty for daughter’s rape, murder----Convict Partap Singh of Lakhuwal village in Baba Bakala has also been fined ?1.5 lakh by a fast-track court.

A local court on Thursday awarded capital punishment to a 36-year-old man for raping and murdering his 6-year-old daughter 4 years ago. Convict Partap Singh of Lakhuwal village in Baba Bakala subdivision was also fined ?1.5 lakh by the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) fast-track court.

Additional district and sessions judge Triptjot Kaur disagreed with the arguments of defence counsel Amandeep Singh Bajwa while awarding the punishment.

The convict committed the crime on the intervening night of January 4 and 5, 2020. He was booked under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and 6 of the POCSO Act on January 5 on the complaint of his wife.

The victim was the eldest among 3 siblings. Owing to some dispute with him, his wife had been living at her parental house along with her children. The convict routinely used to take the victim along with him and drop her to his wife. On January 4, he again brought her along with him forcibly, but did not take her back in the evening.

That night, he raped and murdered her and then hung the body on a tree on the bank of the canal in the vicinity of Rayya town. Under the influence of drugs, he kept on roaming around. In the morning, he informed his wife about his act and dared her to take action against him.

On the complaint of his wife Ramanjit Kaur, a case was registered on January 5, 2020 at the Khilchian police station. The medical report had made it clear that the victim had been raped.

Advocate Bajwa said, “Under Section 302 of the IPC, the guilty has been awarded death sentence and fined of ?1 lakh while he got life sentence and ?50,000 under Section 6 of the POCSO Act.” Both the punishments will go simultaneously, according to information.

(source: hindustantimes.com)

***************

TMC plans to introduce capital punishment, fast track court trials for rape in new bill----The West Bengal legislative assembly is reportedly preparing to introduce a bill in a special session on next Monday and Tuesday.

After West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said a new law should be enacted against rape and murder, the state legislative assembly started preparing for a special session to do so on next Monday and Tuesday.

While this comes in the wake of protests against the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical Hospital, the details of the proposed bill are not yet clear.

A senior official of the state government said, “We already have one law against rape and murder which also has a provision for capital punishment. We are trying to bring a separate law which will only have provisions for capital punishment. And all rape cases should be trialled in a fast track court. Every culprit of rape, if found guilty, will be hanged.”

However, the official said he was unsure if the state is eligible to propose such a bill and whether the Central government would clear it.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya said, “Any state legislative assembly can’t bring such a bill. They can only urge or request the Central Government. This is not only detrimental to the Indian Constitution, they are also challenging the authority of the President of India.”

On Tuesday, TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee had posted on X: “… The ANSWER is clear: A stringent ANTI RAPE LAW that ensures TRIALS AND CONVICTIONS WITHIN 50 DAYS, followed by immediate and harsh punishment. The SHOCKING TRUTH is that the CONVICTION RATE FOR RAPE cases in India is a dismal 26 %. This translates to ONLY 26 CONVICTIONS OUT OF EVERY 100 REPORTED CASES, WHILE 74 OFFENDERS ESCAPE UNPUNISHED. If we are to deliver justice to the victims of this appalling crime, it is imperative that we demand A TIME BOUND ANTI RAPE LAW from our states and union government. Anything else is futile, merely symbolic and ultimately ineffective!”

(source: indianexpress.com)

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Odisha HC commutes death penalty in triple murder case----The appellant is having a criminal antecedent of a magistrate triable offence in which trial is yet to be over and therefore, he cannot be said to be a hardened criminal, the bench observed.

The Odisha High Court on Wednesday commuted death sentence of one Nabin Dehury to imprisonment for life till his natural death without remission or commutation.

Nabin was convicted in the triple murder case in which Pirobati Behera was killed along with her daughter Sabitri Sahu and son-in-law Giridhari Sahu at village Lapada under Mahulpali police station in Sambalpur district on October 21, 2020.

On August 9, 2023, the court of Additional Sessions Judge, Kuchinda sentenced Nabin to death with a direction that he be hanged by neck till he is dead and to pay a fine of Rs 1 lakh. The trial court held the case warranted capital punishment to meet the ends of justice as it involved an act of extreme brutality and magnitude of the cruelty thrust in committing the crime bringing it to the category of rarest of rare case.

However, the division bench of Justice SK Sahoo and Justice Chittaranjan Dash said, “We are of the view that public opinion or the society’s expectation may be to confirm the death sentence of appellant Nabin Dehury since it is a case of triple murder and 2 deceased were ladies, but it must be remembered that such opinion or expectation is neither an objective circumstance relating to crime, nor the criminal, and therefore, this court must exercise judicial restraint and play a balancing role.”

The appellant comes from a rural and economically poor background and on account of property dispute and after losing the ancestral property in the court battle, he had done away with the lives of 3 deceased. The appellant is having a criminal antecedent of a magistrate triable offence in which trial is yet to be over and therefore, he cannot be said to be a hardened criminal, the bench observed.

“We are of the humble view that death penalty would be disproportionate, unwarranted and life imprisonment would be a more appropriate sentence,” the bench ruled.

The bench also directed for payment of compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the minor son and daughter of deceased Giridhar Sahu and Sabitri Sahu, Rs 5 lakh to daughter of deceased Pirobati Behera and Rs 2.5 lakh each to her grandchildren through Odisha Victim Compensation (Amendment) Scheme, 2018.

(source: newindianexpress.com)

IRAN----executions

Iran Executes 2 More Prisoners Amid Spike in Death Penalty

The Islamic Republic's authorities have carried out the executions of 2 prisoners amid a significant rise in death penalties.

The death sentence of Meysam Hossein-Khani, a 22-year-old resident of Kuhdasht, was carried out in Khorramabad Central Prison (Parsilon Prison) on Wednesday.

He had been sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary on charges of alleged "premeditated murder."

He was arrested 3 years ago and has been awaiting execution since his conviction, according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.

Meanwhile, the death sentence of Sirvan Abubakri, 30, a Kurdish prisoner from Sardasht, was carried out in Mahabad Central Prison on Thursday.

Abubakri had also been sentenced to death by the Iranian judiciary on charges of alleged "premeditated murder."

According to a report by Amnesty International, Iran has reached its highest level of death sentence execution in the last 8 years, with the judiciary of the Islamic Republic executing 853 people in 2023 alone.

The report indicates that 481 executions, more than 1/2 of the total, were related to drug crimes.

This marks an 89 % rise in death penalties for drug-related offenses compared to 2022, when 255 people were executed.

The latest numbers also show a staggering 264 % increase compared to 2021, when 132 individuals faced execution on similar charges.

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Tortured and Tried: Nasim Gholami Faces Death Sentence

Nasim Gholami Simiari, a young woman imprisoned in Tehran's Evin Prison, is one of the protesters of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.

Incarcerated since April 2023, she faces the grave charge of "rebellion," which carries the risk of a death sentence. Despite these circumstances, her friends and relatives describe her as calm and supportive.

"Nasim is the best friend anyone could have. She’s the kind of person who would stay by your side if you were ill until the last drop of serum and is attentive to every detail. When Hamidreza Rouhi was killed and those videos of him singing on his motorcycle were released, it deeply affected Nasim. She would sing that song, her eyes filling with tears," recalls a friend of Nasim.

Nasim now stands trial before the notorious Revolutionary Court judge, Iman Afshari, facing serious charges that could lead to her execution.

Hasti Amiri, a student activist recently released after a year in Evin Prison, shared a photo of Nasim on Instagram, writing: "Nearly 470 days of temporary detention and a life suspended between death and imprisonment. The days of questioning: Imprisonment or execution? They pass by. Your image is not one of arrest and torture."

She added: "Your image is a beautiful one. A picture of a woman exercising after her trial. A woman who cooks delicious food. A woman mindful of her appearance. Your image is that of a fighter who has lived life fully - enjoying fun, travel, and friendship - who now resists in prison. The image of a sister who couldn't bear the killings on the streets."

In her post, Amiri addressed Nasim directly: "You didn’t receive the cheers for illegal temporary detention, nor the amnesty directive. Instead, they wrote a case of torture and forced confessions for you. Your image is of a fighter standing tall in Evin's women's ward."

Amiri refers to reports of physical and psychological torture Nasim endured during 5 months of temporary detention in the IRGC's secret facility in northeast Tehran, known as A1. After two months, she was transferred to Evin Prison’s Ward 2A, which operates under the supervision of the IRGC's intelligence unit.

Nasim, 37, is originally from Alamut in Qazvin Province and was living in Tehran before her arrest. A source close to her, who spoke to IranWire on condition of anonymity for security reasons, revealed that Nasim was a makeup artist before her arrest, and her appearance was very important to her. She was arrested on the street in April 2023.

Nasim's case, along with those of 7 other young individuals, highlights the plight of victims of the crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests within the judicial system of the Islamic Republic.

According to a recent report by the human rights organization HRANA, Nasim Gholami Simiari, Hamidreza Sahlabadi, Ehsan Ravazjian, Amin Sokhanvar, Amir Velayati, Ali Herati Mokhtari, Hossein Mohammad Hosseini, and Hossein Ardestani are 8 citizens being tried together in one case.

Of these 8, 4 - including Amir Velayati, who was injured during the protests - have been released on bail. However, the other 4, including Nasim Gholami Simiari, Hamidreza Sahlabadi, Amin Sokhanvar, and Ehsan Ravazjian, remain in prison more than a year after their arrest.

A previous report from the Iran International TV network indicated that Nasim and Hamidreza are at particular risk of receiving severe sentences, including the death penalty.

On July 27, the 2nd court session for these citizens, accused of "assembly and collusion with the intent to commit a crime against national security, disturbing public order and security, propaganda against the Islamic Republic, destruction of public property, rebellion, and membership in a rebel group," took place in Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court.

Given the recent issuance of death sentences for 2 other women activists, Sharifeh Mohammadi and Pakhshan Azizi, who were accused of rebellion, human rights activists have raised concerns about the increasing likelihood of death sentences, particularly for women facing similar charges.

Currently, 2 women, Nasim Gholami Simiari and Verishhe Moradi, a Kurdish women's activist imprisoned in Evin, are facing charges of rebellion and the potential for a death sentence.

According to information provided to IranWire, Simiari spent a total of four months in solitary confinement, which is considered a form of torture. During her interrogations at the IRGC Intelligence's secret detention center, she was subjected to severe torture to force a confession. Eventually, under immense pressure and psychological torture, she was coerced into making a video confession. The content of this video remains unpublished, and IranWire is not aware of its specifics.

Simiari's former cellmate told IranWire that she possesses a strong personality and refuses to see herself as a "victim of the government's repressive apparatus."

"Nasim was a fighter on the streets," her cellmate explained. "She put her life on the line and fought. She never talks about the torture or detention and how they pressured her."

According to this source, Gholami Simiari has a remarkably calm demeanour, even in the face of uncertainty and the threat of a death sentence. "She is always in control and calm. In the women’s prison, when Azizi was sentenced to death, Nasim sat beside her, offering support. Being in such a dangerous situation and still being able to support others is truly admirable."

An informed source noted that Nasim was out on the street, protesting the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the Morality Police and the deaths of other young people like Nika Shakarami, Hadis Najafi, and Hamidreza Rouhi.

The source described Nasim as a lively person who always had a smile on her face, was athletic, and loved to cook. "She’s an excellent cook and loves football. She also played basketball."

(source for both: iranwire.com)

**********************

Brutal Murder of Mohammad Mirmousavi Under Torture in Lahijan, Iran

Mrs. Rajavi: A regime in which all factions participate in torture and executions must be shunned by the international community, and its leaders must be brought to justice.

The horrific torture and murder of Mohammad Mirmousavi, a young man from Lahijan, by the criminal State Security Force (SSF) once again reveals the vile nature of the bloodthirsty dictatorship ruling Iran.

After arresting Mohammad Mirmousavi, the regime’s henchmen brutally beat him and, despite his critical condition, abandoned him without providing any medical care. Eyewitnesses describe the signs of severe torture and beatings on his body as shocking.

The security forces and oppressive agencies have pressured the Mirmousavi family to prevent them from releasing any details about the circumstances of his death.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, in response to the heartbreaking murder of Mohammad Mirmousavi under torture, stated that the mullahs’ regime cannot survive even a single day without repression, torture, and executions. The execution of 126 prisoners in one month (Iranian month of Mordad) alone, along with public executions in Shahroud following the inauguration of Khamenei’s new president and cabinet appointments, makes it clear that all factions of the regime are directly responsible for the executions, torture, and repression. She called on human rights defenders worldwide to condemn this atrocity and demanded that the regime of executions and terror be shunned by the international community, and its leaders must be brought to justice.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

*******************

Former ICC Special Adviser Prof. Sadat Calls for Accountability for 1988 Iran Massacre

At a recent conference near Paris, Professor Leila Nadya Sadat, Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor from 2012 to 2023, called for greater accountability for the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran. The event, which brought together international dignitaries and human rights advocates, focused on the Iranian regime’s historical and ongoing human rights abuses.

Prof. Sadat, who has extensively studied the 1988 massacre, described it as a crime against humanity involving acts of murder, extermination, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and other atrocities. She emphasized that these crimes were systematic and directed by the state, urging the international community to take action through criminal prosecutions, reparations, and truth-telling initiatives.

Despite the ICC’s limited jurisdiction over Iran, the Director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University Law School highlighted alternative avenues for justice, such as invoking universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators found abroad and establishing a UN mechanism to gather evidence for future prosecutions. She also suggested the possibility of characterizing the 1988 massacre as genocide, a move that could galvanize international support for accountability.

Concluding her speech, Prof. Sadat expressed hope for a future in which the Iranian people could reclaim their country and hold trials to address past injustices. She urged the global community to stand with those fighting for justice and human rights in Iran.

The full text of Prof. Sadat’s speech follows:

Thank you so much for that kind invitation and that kind introduction.

President-elect Mrs. Rajavi, your excellencies, dear friends, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, Madame et Monsieur, since we are in France,

It’s very emotional to be back here, and I’m honored to return to Paris and to this conference for this very important meeting at this time. Last year’s conference was a kind of awakening for me as I learned about the historic crimes of the Iranian regime and particularly the 1988 massacre. It was also inspiring to meet so many talented and determined individuals seeking truth, justice, accountability for themselves and their loved ones, and a better future for Iran.

I honor you and your sacrifices and your losses, and I’m proud to be here as some small contingent of international assistance for you. Thank you so much.

I’ve spent some time since being here last year learning more about Iran. It’s an extraordinary country, famous for its music, art, architecture, textiles, and literature, especially its poetry, an ancient civilization that gifted the world much learning in mathematics, and philosophy. Iran is equally famous for the kindness and the warmth of its people. A civilization that held an empire for centuries. Iran may remain a critically important state today and an important regional power.

But in the past 45 years, Iran has faltered under the burden of a criminal regime whose abuses, especially against opposition groups like the MEK, the PMOI, have not been acknowledged by the international community and support for truth, justice, and accountability simply has not materialized. This has emboldened Iran’s leaders to commit more crimes. In 1981 and 1982, those killings were followed by the 1988 massacre of which you are all too well aware.

More recently, we had the example of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab in accordance with the regime’s dictates. Her death led to protests that in turn were violently suppressed by the state with hundreds killed and jailed across the country, and this repression continues today.

The impunity for and denial of justice of the crimes of 1988 has led the regime to continue oppressing Iranians at home and abroad who seek only to exercise their fundamental and universal human rights, rights granted by customary and conventional international law, and rights that are inalienable, meaning that they cannot be taken away by anyone.

Last year, I was asked to examine the 1988 massacre, and based upon the available evidence concluded, that it was indeed a crime against humanity and that the victims and survivors had been subjected to this crime of crimes, which shocked the conscience of humankind. I did not arrive at this conclusion lightly. Having served for ten years at the ICC, I know how egregious these offenses are and how the victimization that they inflict devastates entire communities.

Moreover, crimes against humanity are always accompanied by financial crimes and represent a form of what we call system criminality and collective violence that is extraordinarily difficult to overcome as you are witnessing. They devastate and injure an entire society just as a cancer can metastasize and kill an individual.

For this reason, we need strong medicine in the form of accountability, including criminal prosecutions, if necessary, as well as a variety of other healing modalities, including reparations, truth, and other mechanisms to address the pain and suffering of a society that has been devastated.

Crimes against humanity, as you have read perhaps in the report of Mr. Rehman, are crimes committed in a widespread or systematic manner. They’re directed against a civilian population carried out pursuant to a state or organizational policy.

The crimes of the 1988 massacre include murder, extermination, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence, and the crime of persecution. The grave desecrations, the reburials, and other elements of the trauma relating to the disposal of the remains are themselves a different crime against humanity. The crime against humanity of inhumane acts and themselves a separate form of persecution.

While the JVMI has worked tirelessly to assemble evidence of these crimes, it’s taken some real time to get the international community to acknowledge them. Although important reports and findings were issued in 2017, 2020, in 2022, and most recently, the famous report of July 2024. And this report in 2024 calls for the establishment of an international accountability mechanism to address these crimes as others, and I know you’ll hear directly from Professor Rehman later today.

He has concluded, like many of his predecessors and myself, that the 1988 extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances and other crimes may amount to crimes against humanity. He has also raised the possibility that they could be characterized as genocidal, the intentional destruction in whole or in part of a racial, national, ethnic, or religious group.

In the remainder of my time then, I’d like to talk about these accountability mechanisms, what could they look like, and I’ll return to the issue of genocide in closing. Having worked at the ICC for a long time and having been at the, Rome Conference where it was negotiated, I’m aware very much of the power of the court but also of the limits of the court.

Iran has not joined the court, obviously, and the 1988 crimes were committed prior to the entry and force of the Rome Statute. So, the court can’t exercise jurisdiction directly. But as we just heard from Judge Eboe-Osuji, that’s not the end of the story.

As Mrs. Rajavi has noted, the regime is continuing its crimes. It’s continuing a practice of extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, persecution, and enforced disappearances.

Crimes committed after July 1, 2002, are within the temporal scope of the court’s jurisdiction, and we can bring them within its territorial scope if at least one element of the crime is committed in an ICC state party.

Thus, while the victims of the 1988 massacre may not have direct recourse to the court, the residents of Ashraf 3 located in Albania, an ICC state party, are within the jurisdiction of the ICC, and if Iran conducts operations against them, could be protected under the protective umbrella of the Rome Statute.

Evidence of the 1988 massacre could be introduced in such a case by way of showing criminal intent with respect to current crimes. There are thousands of Iranians living abroad in ICC state parties. And in the Bangladesh-Myanmar situation, the court clearly found that it can exercise jurisdiction so long as one element of the offense is committed on the territory of an ICC state party.

The 2nd, which the report refers to, is universal jurisdiction. Those are cases that are brought in a jurisdiction different than the jurisdiction where the crimes were committed. There are perpetrators of the 1988 massacre, these death commissioners, who are living abroad, and they may be found in states that have laws permitting their prosecution.

Sweden successfully did so even though the accused was eventually returned to Iran as part of a hostage swap, but that’s not the end of the story. More cases can be brought.

With the possible adoption of a new crimes against humanity treaty as early as 2026 and many states already having jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, this is a very viable option that should be encouraged and continued.

Remarks by Leila Sadat - 24 August 2024 conference marking 36th anniversary of the 1988 massacre

Moreover, many states are eliminating barriers to prosecution, including immunities, including France and Germany, which may make prosecution easier abroad.

The 3rd possibility, building upon the 2nd, is the creation of a mechanism by the United Nations that could serve as a possible vehicle for gathering evidence as was created for Syria. The international impartial and independent mechanism for Syria, which we call the IIIM, it was created by the General Assembly, sits in Geneva, and it collects evidence that can be used for eventual prosecutions.

There’s a similar mechanism for Myanmar. There’s another one for Iraq that was recently closed. Establishing one for Iran is an idea worth pursuing. It would be done presumably through the General Assembly.

Establishing one for Iran, I think, is definitely an idea that could be pursued. And this one could cover the 1988 massacre as well as ongoing crimes and collect and preserve evidence, so much of which you have already, that could one day also be turned over to a special ad-hoc tribunal for Iran, which is an idea that I think should be seriously contemplated as well.

Thus, there are ample opportunities for investigation and mechanisms for accountability. Activating them more fully requires political will. And for some of the options, regime change to really become effective and make justice for Iranian victims a priority.

There are court cases to be won, and they will be, I’m sure, given the skill and tenacity of the lawyers and institutions working on these problems.

But for you, it is not just courts of law that matter, it’s the court of public opinion. And this brings me to my final point, which is the section of Professor Rehman’s report suggesting that the 1988 massacre could be characterized as the crime of genocide.

Winning this argument in a court of law is extraordinarily difficult because courts and tribunals adjudicating cases of genocide have taken a very narrow view of that crime.

However, even if one cannot win a specific case in court, a serious claim that has been advanced that the massacre of 1988 was genocidal in character could galvanize public support for accountability. As the New York Times recently noted, the moral and popular meaning of this term has been completely detached from its legal meaning, and genocide is a powerful word that sways hearts and minds.

Moreover, under the convention, states have a duty to prevent genocide, and a genocidal regime is likely to be a recidivist that is to repeat its crimes. There are some costs to advancing this claim, and it’s hard to know if they will work.

The Nazis were prosecuted at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. There’s nothing lesser about crimes against humanity. These crimes are equally notorious and evil. Both crimes against humanity and genocide are jus cogens crimes. That is their non-dirigible, and all states must, in all circumstances, refrain from their commission.

But there’s not yet a treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity, although one is in the process of elaboration. Thus, advancing charges of genocide for some or all of the killing is a serious idea that is worthy of additional consideration.

In closing, let me say that I’m certain that one day, you will have your country back, and you will be conducting your own trials.

And friends, it will then be up to you as a free people to decide how to proceed with accountability for the past.

I look forward to that bright day when the sun shines upon all of you everywhere in Iran and outside of Iran, and the freedom that you will experience and the suffering that you have endured will also be a light to oppress people and an inspiration to them all over the world.

Until then, I wish you great success and Godspeed, and I’m glad to be here and be part of the journey with you. Thank you so much.

(source: ncr-iran.org)

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4 Men Including Afghan and Iraqi Nationals Executed in Tabriz

Shapour Hosseini, an Iraqi national named Irfan Abdolazizi and 2 Afghan nationals only identified as Mohebollah and Moshref, were executed for drug-related and murder charges in Tabriz Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, 4 men were executed in Tabriz Central Prison on 26 August. 3 of the men who were death row for drug-related charges have been identified as Shapour Hosseini from Tabriz, a 32-year-old Afghan national Mohebollah (surname uknown) and 27-year-old Moshref, whose surname also has not been established at the time of writing.

The 4th prisoner was an Iraqi national named Irfan Abdolazizi from Karkouk who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

An informed source previously told IHRNGO: “Shapour Hosseini was arrested for drug-related charges 2 years ago. Mohebollah and Moshref are from Afghanistan and were arrested for carrying weapons and drugs in the same case. Irfan Abdolaziz was arrested for the murder of a security guard in a cement factory 3 years ago.”

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

Drug-related executions have continuously risen every year since 2021. According to IHRNGO’s 2023 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 471 people were executed for drug-related charges, an 84% increase compared to 2022 (256) and about 18 times the average of drug-related executions in 2018-2020. In the first 6 months of 2024, at least 147 people were executed for the charges.

(source: iranhr.net)

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Prisoner Executed in Parsilon Prison, Khorramabad

On August 28, 2024, a prisoner previously sentenced to death on murder charges was executed in Parsilon Prison, Khorramabad.

HRANA has identified the prisoner as Meysam Hosseinkhani, a resident of Kuhdasht. He was previously arrested on murder charges and sentenced to death by the judiciary.

As of the time of this report, the execution of this prisoner has not been officially announced by prison authorities or relevant institutions.

According to the Department of Statistics and Publication of Human Rights Activists in Iran, in 2023, at least 767 citizens, including 21 women and 2 juvenile offenders, were executed. Of these, the executions of 7 individuals were carried out in public. Additionally, during this period, 172 others were sentenced to death, with 5 of them sentenced to public execution. It is worth noting that during the same period, the initial death sentences of 49 other individuals were also upheld by the Supreme Court.

(source: en-hrana.org)

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Shocking secret execution of young man in relation to “Woman Life Freedom” uprising

Responding to reports that the Iranian authorities this morning arbitrarily executed Reza Rasaei, a 34-year-old member of the oppressed Kurdish and Yaresan ethnic and religious minorities, in connection to the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising of September-December 2022, without providing prior notice to him, his family or his lawyer, Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “While global and domestic media attention have been focused on regional tensions with Israel, the Iranian

“This execution lays bare once again how Iran’s criminal justice system is rotten to the core and highlights the Iranian authorities deadly resolve to use the death penalty as a tool of political repression to instil fear among the population. It also dispels any illusions of human rights progress with a new president assuming power last week.

“The continuing arbitrary execution of protesters in the aftermath of the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ uprising illustrates yet again that without constitutional, legal and policy reforms, human rights violations and impunity will persist. It also underscores the need for states to initiate criminal investigations under the principle of universal jurisdiction against all those suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law, including top Iranian officials.”

Background

Reza (Gholamreza) Rasaei was arbitrarily executed in secret at 5am local time on 6 August 2024 in Dizel Abad prison, Kermanshah province. According to information provided to Amnesty International by an informed source, the authorities did not give prior notice to Reza Rasaei, his family or lawyer.

Within hours of informing his family of his execution, the authorities cruelly forced his family to bury his body in a remote area far from his home and in the presence of security forces.

Reza Rasaei was sentenced to death on 7 October 2023 after a grossly unfair trial that relied on his forced “confessions” obtained under torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, electric shocks, suffocation and sexual violence. Reza Rasaei is the 10th individual to be executed in relation to the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising. In the aftermath of the uprising, the Iranian authorities have intensified their use of the death penalty, with at least 853 executions recorded in 2023.

In 2024, they have continued executing people at alarming rates, carrying out at least 274 executions as of 30 June 2024, according to the Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre for Human Rights in Iran. Several other individuals, including Mojahed (Abbas) Kourkouri, remain at grave risk of execution in connection with the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The organization has long called on the Iranian authorities to establish a moratorium on executions with a view of abolishing the death penalty.

(source: Amnesty Internatonal)

AUGUST 29, 2024:

This year’s Chamberlain Legacy Lecture focuses on race and capital punishment

Pejepscot History Center is hosting the 4th annual Chamberlain Legacy Lecture on the topic of “Selective Justice: The Death Penalty and Race.” The presentation is at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept, 6, at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1 Middle St., Brunswick.

This year’s speakers are Alicia Cepeda Maule, digital director at the Innocence Project, and Bangor Daily News journalist Troy R. Bennett.

“Selective Justice” takes a deep dive into the history of capital punishment in Maine, Joshua Chamberlain’s decision during his time as governor to send a Black man to the gallows and society’s ongoing inequities in the criminal justice system.

“We are privileged to have two high-profile speakers for this year’s program,” PHC Executive Director Larissa Vigue Picard said in a prepared release. “Troy’s 2022 Bangor Daily News series on Maine’s history with the death penalty provides an incredible segue to having Alicia talk about how the world-famous Innocence Project has worked for more than 30 years to exonerate the innocent and bring more equity to the justice system.”

Bennett is a Buxton native and longtime Portland resident whose photojournalism has appeared in media outlets all over the world.

A Brown University graduate, Maule has led the Innocence Project’s digital team since 2015. She is passionate about ending the death penalty and led the digital strategy campaigns that supported the litigation and communications efforts of several death row clients. Previously, she was a social media and community editor at msnbc.com and a digital organizer on President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufield, works to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.

Tickets to the lecture are $15 for the general public, $10 for PHC members, and $5 for students and active military. The program will also be available via livestream at a cost of $5 for all. Tickets are available at pejepscothistorical.org or by calling 729-6606.

(source: pressherald.com)

PENNSYLVANIA----female to face death penalty

A woman allegedly killed her friend’s newborn twin and abused the other. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty

For Ethan Katz and Savannah Roberts, the evening of June 15 was already stressful. They had gone to a Pittsburgh hospital seeking treatment for Ari, of their -week-old twin sons, who had a bloody and mysterious injury to his genitals.

Their longtime friend, Nicole Elizabeth Virzi, was visiting from San Diego. She was watching the other twin, Leon, in their apartment.

Later that night, they received a harrowing call at the hospital from Virzi. She told them Leon had fallen out of his bassinet and struck his head on the floor.

By dawn, Leon was pronounced dead at a Pittsburgh hospital. A young family was shattered. And as more details emerged about his final moments, investigators started questioning Virzi’s story.

Leon’s CT scan showed a severe skull fracture to the left side of the head, along with multiple brain bleeds. An autopsy determined that they were caused by blunt force trauma and were consistent with child abuse.

Within days, Virzi was charged with homicide and 2 counts each of aggravated assault and child endangerment. Prosecutors allege she caused Ari’s injuries. And the injuries to Leon were not “natural or accidental,” the criminal complaint said.

Virzi, 30, has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail, her attorney David Shrager, told CNN.

In a rare decision, prosecutors filed a notice last week saying they intend to pursue the death penalty against her.

“The decision to seek such is made only after careful and serious consideration of whether we believe we have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggravating factors outweigh potential mitigating factors,” Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. said in a statement to CNN.

Since 1900, Pennsylvania has executed only 2 women. Of the 109 convicted felons currently on the state’s death row, only one is a woman, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which collects data on capital punishment nationwide.

The suspect is a doctoral student in clinical psychology

Virzi has been pursuing a doctorate in clinical psychology through a joint program at San Diego State University and UC San Diego. She was scheduled to get her PhD in a few weeks, her attorney said.

In her university bio, she noted health behavior change and clinical health psychology as among her areas of research.

“My research aims to explore the complex interplay between psychological factors — such as depression, stress, negative affect, and trauma — and critical health outcomes and behaviors,” she wrote.

She was visiting the Katz family from San Diego and was staying at an Airbnb in Pittsburgh, according to Shrager, her attorney. She’s known the parents for years and is devastated by what happened to their infant sons, her attorney said.

Virzi told investigators that she’d spent part of the afternoon on June 15 with the family, according to the criminal complaint. She said she noticed injuries on Ari and notified his parents.

There was blood in his diaper and his penis was red and swollen, according to the criminal complaint. “She … photographed the injury and sent it to Ethan Katz,” it said.

Ari also had additional injuries, including scratches to his right cheek and bruises below his belly button, the criminal complaint said. The parents denied causing the injuries and said they first learned about them from Virzi.

“The parents … stated that prior to Virzi’s contact with the children, they (the twins) had no medical emergencies or treatment, other than routine medical care,” the criminal complaint stated.

Virzi’s attorney declined to comment on his client’s assertion that the injuries were caused by someone else. “We’re going to be litigating those elements at the appropriate place and time, which is in the court,” Shrager said.

CNN’s efforts to reach Ethan Katz and Savannah Roberts were unsuccessful.

The infant was under Virzi’s care for hours before his death, investigators say

Leon’s parents left him in Virzi’s care around 6:30 p.m. and took his twin to the hospital to get his injuries checked out, the criminal complaint said.

Virzi told investigators that she fell asleep while the baby was in a bouncer seat and woke up later to get him a bottle. She left him unstrapped in the bouncer seat and heard him screaming while she was in the kitchen, she said, according to the criminal complaint. She said she then found him lying on the floor with a bump on his head. It’s unclear why she stated on the 911 call that the baby was in a bassinet while the complaint refers to a bouncer seat.

Virzi told investigators she notified the parents before calling 911. Ethan Katz got home around the same time as first responders arrived, the criminal complaint said.

Prosecutors allege the injuries to both children are a result of Virzi’s abuse. The District Attorney’s office cited aggravating factors that it believes make the alleged crimes suitable for capital punishment, including means of torture and a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence.

“The statute provides aggravating and mitigating factors to consider when determining whether a case warrants seeking a sentence of death,” said Zappala, the district attorney.

But Virzi’s attorney said his client does not have a criminal record. The prosecutors plan to use her alleged abuse of Ari as her felony history in Leon’s death investigation, he said.

“They’re going to try to say she has a preexisting felony because of the other child being harmed,” Shrager said.

He said he’s notified his client about prosecutors’ plan to seek the death penalty.

“She’s handling it as well as can be expected. She’s remaining positive. But, of course, that’s always difficult news for the defendant and the family,” he said.

Pennsylvania law allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty in various cases, including if the victim is a law enforcement officer, a child under the age of 12 or a prosecution witness to a murder.

But the state hasn’t held an execution since 1999.

Last year, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced he will not issue any execution warrants during his term. He urged state lawmakers to abolish the death penalty.

Virzi is in an Allegheny County jail awaiting a pretrial conference next month. A trial date has not been set.

(source: CNN)

********************

Editorial: Juries, not judges, decide death penalty. That means judges must seat death penalty juries

Judges can’t pick and choose when it comes to death penalty cases.

That’s the ruling of the Pennsylvania Superior Court. The case in question started with the Bellevue killing of Rachel Dowden in January 2022. Prosecutors say the crime was committed by her ex-boyfriend, Deangelo Zieglar, 28.

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office pursued the death penalty in the case for multiple reasons, including the protection-from-abuse order Dowden received two months earlier to protect herself. Zieglar also had previous convictions for violent crimes.

But while those met the state criteria for capital crimes, that wasn’t enough for Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani — since retired — who refused to seat a death penalty jury in the case in 2023.

It wasn’t that Mariani was raising moral objections to the death penalty. His argument was on the futility of the process. It was “patently unjust” to the jurors to subject them to the intense jury selection process — because the execution, if decided, wouldn’t be carried out.

History does say Mariani is right about the sentence. There has been no execution in Pennsylvania since serial killer Gary Heidnik in 1999. Gov. Josh Shapiro and several of his predecessors have been clear about their position on the topic.

In Pennsylvania, death row is not a place to await imminent death. It’s a place to stew in the knowledge that at least 12 people believe you should die for your crimes.

But whether it is efficient or not, it isn’t up to Mariani or any other judge to decide that a district attorney following the letter of the law should be thwarted in pursuing his case. Whether it is fair to the prospective jurors is not the question. A capital case is about what is a just punishment for the crimes committed against the victim.

This is an area where the personal convictions of an officer of the court must be set aside. Former Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar prosecuted multiple death penalty crimes in a courthouse just down the road from the state’s death house at Rockview state prison. He did his job despite his personal opposition to the death penalty — and would step aside if the case reached the second phase, where actually delivering that sentence was argued.

If a judge believes his opinion of the process — morally or bureaucratically — conflicts with the law, he should recuse himself from participation in those cases. He should not stand in the way of the prosecution’s decisions.

If Pennsylvania wants to change that, then Pennsylvania has to change the law.

(source: Editorial, Tribune-Review)

NORTH CAROLINA:

Closing Arguments in Hasson Bacote’s North Carolina Racial Justice Act Hearing Conclude; Results Could Impact More than 100 People on State’s Death Row

On August 21, 2024, attorneys presented closing arguments in the case of North Carolina v. Hasson Bacote, a landmark lawsuit brought under the state’s Racial Justice Act (RJA), the findings of which could impact the sentences of more than 100 individuals on North Carolina’s death row. Hasson Bacote, a Black man sentenced to death in 2009, first filed a lawsuit in 2010, arguing that racial bias influenced the jury selection in his case and all other death penalty cases throughout North Carolina. Attorneys for Mr. Bacote presented evidence during a 2-week hearing that showed a pattern of clear and persistent racial bias in jury selection. They argued that racial bias has historically excluded people of color from serving on capital juries, resulting in a disproportionate number of extreme sentences for Black men in North Carolina, including Mr. Bacote. “This fight for justice has been 15 years in the making,” said Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. Ms. Stubbs added that “the outcome of this case will not just determine if Hasson Bacote’s life is spared, but if North Carolina will continue to condone systemic racial injustice in its courts and criminal legal system. We hope to finally turn the page on that shameful chapter in history and ensure a new era of justice.”

North Carolina’s RJA was passed by the state legislature in 2009, allowing individuals sentenced to death to challenge their sentences based on the role race played in their sentencing and jury selection. Individuals who could prove their sentencing was prejudiced by racial bias would be resentenced to life in prison without the opportunity for parole. In 2013, the RJA was repealed under Governor Pat McCrory, but the state Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that prisoners who had already filed claims before the repeal were entitled to hearings. Mr. Bacote’s case, which began in February 2024 in Johnston County, is the 1st case to be heard after the highest court’s ruling.

Throughout the 2-week hearing, attorneys for Mr. Bacote called historians, statisticians, and other prominent researchers to present expert testimony demonstrating the widespread nature of racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection across the state of North Carolina. The attorneys highlighted the racial discrimination in juries in Johnston County against Black defendants and connected the modern death penalty to North Carolina’s history of racial violence and terror. “The evidence of racism could not be more stark,” said Gretchen M. Engel, the executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “Black citizens have been denied their right to a voice in the jury box and prosecutors have referred to Black defendants as ‘thugs’ and ‘predators of the African plain.’ When the punishment is as severe and final as the death penalty, we cannot tolerate discrimination in the system,” Ms. Engel added.

Serving on a jury is a fundamental constitutional right of United States citizens. For many decades, across the U.S., Black people were denied the right to serve on juries. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Batson v. Kentucky (1986) reaffirmed that racial discrimination in jury selection is illegal. During the hearing, attorneys for Mr. Bacote presented data which show that potential Black jurors were four times more likely to be eliminated from a jury pool in Johnston County and ten times more likely to be eliminated by Assistant District Attorney Gregory Butler, the prosecutor in Mr. Bacote’s case. Black prospective jurors were two and a half times more likely to be struck from the jury pool across North Carolina. “The lives of over one hundred people on death row in North Carolina could be determined by this case,” said Ashley Burrell, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “This is a historic opportunity to address a long, sordid history of systemic racism that has infected the criminal legal system broadly and the death penalty specifically. We are hopeful that the court will rule in the interests of justice.”

Mr. Bacote is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, the ACLU of North Carolina, the Legal Defense Fund, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and attorney Jay Ferguson.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution

South Carolina prison director says electric chair, firing squad and lethal injection ready to go

South Carolina’s prisons director said Wednesday that state’s supply of a lethal injection drug is pure, its electric chair was tested two months ago and its firing squad has the ammunition and training to carry out its 1st execution next month in more than 13 years.

Corrections Director Bryan Stirling was ordered by the state Supreme Court to submit a sworn statement to the lawyer for Freddie Owens certifying that all three methods of putting a prisoner to death are available for his scheduled Sept. 20 execution.

Owens’ lawyers have said they will review the statement, and if they don’t think it is adequate, they will ask the state Supreme Court or federal judges to consider it.

It’s 1 of at least 2 legal issues of contention between the state and Owens ahead of next month’s execution date.

The state suggested in court papers that the justices question Owens to make sure he understands the execution method choice is final and can’t be changed even if he were to revoke the power of attorney.

The power of attorney was signed under the name Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. Owens changed his name in prison but goes by his old name in his legal hearings with the state to avoid confusion.

In the sworn statement, Stirling said technicians at the State Law Enforcement Division laboratory tested two vials of the sedative pentobarbital, which the state plans to use for lethal injections.

The technicians told him the drug is stable, pure and under guidelines from other jurisdictions that use a similar method is potent enough to kill, Stirling wrote.

The state previously used a 3-drug cocktail but those drugs expired, part of the reason no execution has been carried out in South Carolina since 2011.

The state’s electric chair, built in 1912, was tested June 25 and found to be working properly, Stirling wrote, without providing additional details.

And the firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the guns, ammunition and training it needs, Stirling wrote. Three volunteers have been trained to fire at a target placed on the heart from 15 feet (4.6 meters) away.

Owens, 46, was sentenced to death for killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves in Greenville in 1997. Prosecutors said he and friends robbed several businesses before going to the store.

One of the friends testified that Owens shot Graves in the head because she couldn’t get the safe open. A surveillance system didn’t clearly show who fired the shot. Prosecutors agreed to reduce the friend’s murder charge to voluntary manslaughter and he was sentened to 28 years in prison, according to court records.

After being convicted of murder his initial trial in 1999, but before a jury determined his sentence, authorities said Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail.

Investigators said Owens gave them a detailed account of how he killed Christopher Lee, stabbing and burning his eyes, choking him and stomping him while another prisoner was in the cell and stayed quietly in his bunk. He said he did it “because I was wrongly convicted of murder,” according to a confession read by a prosecutor in court the next day.

Owens has 1 more avenue to try to save his life: In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison.

However no governor has done that in the state’s 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.

Gov. Henry McMaster said he will follow longtime tradition and not announce his decision until prison officials make a call from the death chamber minutes before the execution.

McMaster told reporters Tuesday that he hasn’t decided what to do in Owens’ case but as a former prosecutor he respects jury verdicts and court decisions.

“When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer,” McMaster said.

(source: Associated Press)

*************

6 executions in 7 weeks: AG says South Carolina doesn't need mandatory waiting period

How many weeks should the state government wait between carrying out executions? This is a question before the South Carolina Supreme Court as the Department of Corrections prepares to hold the state’s 1st execution in 13 years.

5 death row inmates — who have exhausted their appeals and are expecting to be issued execution notices — are asking the court to set a gap of at least 91 days between executions.

The state attorney general's office disagrees, saying in a court filing that any wait time should be no longer than 28 days. It also said the state's modern-day history shows back-to-back executions have been done successfully.

In a petition to the Supreme Court last week, the inmates said shorter gaps would increase the risk of serious error in the execution process and lead to hurried legal resolutions of any last-minute issues.

They also said tighter intervals would overburden the corrections staff involved in executions. They cited the experience of Oklahoma, which recently extended to 90 days the wait time between executions.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson and a couple of his deputies said the inmates' request for a three-month gap can only bring "unnecessary delay" in delivering justice, given that the Supreme Court has already ruled as constitutional the state’s 3 execution methods. Inmates have a choice of lethal injection, the electric chair or firing squad.

Wilson and his team said prison staff are prepared and trained to conduct the executions, their written court response shows. After consulting with corrections, they said prison staff "stand ready to accomplish their duty as required by our law with professionalism and dignity."

The attorney general's team also pointed to South Carolina's history, providing examples of multiple executions within a day or a few weeks. More than 25 years ago, the state executed six inmates by lethal injection within a 7-week period.

On Dec. 4, 1998, the state executed half-brothers Larry Gilbert and J.D. Gleaton on the same day. They were convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting Ralph Stoudemire during a 1977 robbery at his service station in South Congaree.

2 more were executed before that Christmas. Louis Joe Truesdale was put to death on Dec. 11 for the fatal shooting of Rebecca Ann Eudy after sexually assaulting her in Lancaster County in 1980. Andrew Lavern Smith was next, on Dec. 18, for stabbing to death elderly couple Christy and Corrie Johnson in Anderson County in 1983, after the husband refused to let Smith borrow their car.

After a 2-week break during the holidays, Ronnie Howard was executed on Jan. 8, 1999. He and an accomplice were found guilty of killing Chinh Le in 1985 after they nabbed the woman and her car in Greenville County.

The 6th on the list was Joseph Ernest Atkins, who was executed on Jan. 22, 1999. He was convicted of shooting to death his father, Benjamin Atkins, and a 13-year-old neighbor, Karen Patterson, in 1985 while he was on parole for a previous killing.

State executions are expected to restart on Sept. 20 with inmate Freddie Owens. The state’s last execution took place in May 2011.

It's unclear when the state Supreme Court will issue a decision on the time-interval question.

Meanwhile, the petitioning inmates — Owens, Marion Bowman Jr., Mikal Mahdi, Richard Moore and Brad Sigmon — asked the court to inform them of the order in which the additional death warrants will be issued.

(source: postandcourier.com)

***************

Executions in SC would continue monthly until at least March under AG’s suggested timeline----The high court agreed not to issue any more death warrants until it rules on inmates’ request for 13-week intervals

Calling inmates’ request to schedule executions 13 weeks apart an unnecessary delay, attorneys for South Carolina instead suggest intervals of no more than 28 days.

The state Supreme Court said Friday it will not schedule any more executions until it rules on the motion from inmates’ attorneys to space out their deaths. Freddie Owens is still set to die Sept. 20 in the state’s 1st execution since 2011. 5 other death row inmates face an imminent death warrant. The timing will depend on the high court’s decision.

State law does not set any mandatory time between executions. In fact, over a 7-week span in December 1998 and January 1999, South Carolina executed 6 inmates — 2 of them on the same day, the state attorney general’s office highlighted in its response to the inmates’ attorneys.

If the court agreed to 13-week intervals, only 1 more execution could be scheduled this year. “It would take all next year to complete” executions that have been on hold pending the high court’s ruling last month that upheld the state’s options for carrying out a death sentence, reads the response signed by Attorney General Alan Wilson and 2 deputy attorneys general.

They suggested 4-week spans as a compromise.

“Whether within 1 day, 1 week or 2 weeks, nothing supports the necessity of 3 months between each execution as inmates now request,” they wrote in the response filed Monday.

No state has executed more than 4 people so far this year, the inmates’ attorneys replied Wednesday.

Last year, the only states to execute more than 4 people were Texas, with 8, and Florida, with 6, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The inmates’ attorneys argued that scheduling consecutive executions, such as 5 executions in 5 weeks, would raise multiple problems.

For one, executions in quick succession could increase the possibility of an error, potentially causing one of the condemned men to suffer as he died. Executioners would not have time to learn from mistakes during one execution and adjust protocols if necessary before the next. An inmate might also change his mind after learning that 1 method of execution had unexpected problems, the inmates’ attorneys wrote.

Staff members carrying out executions could also suffer physically and mentally from the toll of having to put multiple people to death in a short period of time, the attorneys continued.

The state called those concerns speculation, pointing out that none of those problems have come up in South Carolina.

“The Department of Corrections staff stand ready to accomplish their duty as required by our law with professionalism and dignity,” Wilson’s office wrote.

South Carolina has not executed anyone since 2011. 2 years later, the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs expired. In 2021, after the high court began halting executions due to the lack of available drugs, legislators made electrocution the default method and added firing squad as a possibility.

Four condemned inmates challenged the law as unconstitutional, but the state Supreme Court disagreed with them in a split opinion issued July 31, allowing executions to resume.

The state is prepared to execute Owens by any of the 3 available methods, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling testified in front of a judge Wednesday, as required by law before an execution. Staff members tested all three methods and determined none had any problems, Stirling testified.

Lethal injection became an option again after a law making everything about the drug purchase secret enabled the prisons agency to restock.

“The state acknowledges that executions are resuming after a long delay, and that several notices may be issued at this time, but that is not so unheard of as would warrant the considerable delay requested,” Wilson’s office wrote, noting that the federal government executed 10 inmates in 2020 following a 17-year hiatus.

Exhausted appeals

Inmates’ attorneys also asked the court Wednesday to clarify the execution lineup. Owens was not the 1st of the condemned men to exhaust his appeals process, the inmates’ attorneys noted, pointing to the attorney general’s list. So, they’re unsure why the high court scheduled Owens first.

“It appears from the scheduling of Mr. Owens for execution that this Court is employing a different rubric than date of exhaustion when issuing execution dates,” the inmates’ attorneys wrote.

In total, 8 men on death row have exhausted their appeals processes, according to Wilson’s office. Beyond Owen, four others have no pending petitions or litigation.

A 6th inmate, Steven Bixby, has 1 pending petition with the Supreme Court. However, it is not part of the normal appeals process, so the court could still issue a death warrant for him, according to Wilson’s office. Bixby was convicted in 2007 of killing 2 police officers during a 12-hour standoff after transportation officials tried to use eminent domain to expand a highway over part of his family’s property.

2 more are waiting for judges to rule whether they are mentally competent for execution.

Richard Moore was the 1st of the 32 men on death row to run out of appeals. Moore was convicted in 2001 of shooting and killing a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg with the clerk’s gun two years before. Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001, ran out of appeals next.

Owens, who was the 3rd to run out of appeals, was convicted in 1999 of killing gas station clerk Irene Graves 2 years prior as part of a crime spree because she didn’t know how to unlock the safe. He and his accomplice took $37.29 from the cash register.

The night after Owens was convicted, he killed another inmate at the Greenville Detention Center, then confessed his crime in court the next day. The Supreme Court affirmed his death sentence in 2008 after twice sending it back to juries for resentencing. Both times, juries again recommended the death penalty.

Another question on the court’s plate is whether Owens should be allowed to let his attorney decide how he will die.

Owens signed his decision-making powers to his attorney Aug. 14, more than a week before the court issued his execution order. Stirling, director of the prisons agency, asked the court Monday to decide whether the attorney’s decision would be valid in that scenario, since state law doesn’t specifically address that question.

Attorneys for Owens and the state have until Friday to submit their responses to Stirling’s question.

(source: South Carolina Daily Gazette)

FLORIDA----impending execution

Florida inmate set for execution says he endured 'horrific abuse' at state-run school----Cole was convicted in the murder of 18-year-old John Edwards during a camping trip in north central Florida. He says that he doesn't deserve the death penalty and that he should get life instead.

A Florida death row inmate set to be executed Thursday in the 1994 killing of a college student says he's innocent and that his life should be spared because of "horrific abuse" he suffered at a notorious, state-run reform school that was shut down.

Loran Kenstley Cole, 57, will become the 1st inmate executed in Florida this year and the 13th in the nation if his lethal injection takes place. Cole was convicted in the murder of John Edwards, 18, and the rape of his sister during a camping trip at Ocala National Forest in north central Florida.

As Cole's execution approaches, USA TODAY talked to the mother of Cole's child and is looking back at the crime, who Cole is, and what led him down a path that ended in Edward's death and his sister's rape.

More about what Loran Cole was convicted of

On. Feb, 18, 1994, the Edwards siblings were setting up camp when they met Cole, then 27, and another man, William Paul, then 20. Cole introduced himself as "Kevin" and Paul as his "brother" and helped them finish setting up their site.

That night, the Edwardses set off to visit a pond to take photos of alligators with the men. They never made it.

Before reaching the pond, court records say, Cole jumped Edwards’ sister and handcuffed her. Her brother tried to intervene but was subdued by both men.

Paul took the woman farther up the path and Cole stayed behind with John Edwards, who died from a slashed throat and multiple skull fractures. Edwards’ sister was raped and tied between two trees the next morning before freeing herself. A driver found her and called 911. Law enforcement found Edwards' body covered with pine needles, sand, and palm fronds.

An area in the Ocala National Forest, where 18-year-old John Edwards was killed and his sister, then 21, was sexually assaulted in 1994. Death row prisoner Loran Cole, 57, is slated to be executed on Aug. 29, 2024 after he was convicted of murdering Edwards.

3 days later, police arrested Cole and Paul.

In 1995, Cole and Paul were convicted of 1st-degree murder, 2 counts of kidnapping and 2 counts of robbery with a deadly weapon. Cole also was convicted of 2 counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to death. Paul, who pleaded guilty to his felony charges, was sentenced to life and remains incarcerated in Florida.

More about who Loran Cole is

Born in Iowa to Don and Ann Cole on Nov. 11, 1966, Cole's parents spilt when he was about 4 years old, Colleen Kucler, who shares an adult son with Cole, told USA TODAY in a recent interview.

Cole eventually moved to Florida with his mother, who remarried, and he was sent to foster care at a young age, Kucler said.

At trial, court record show, 1 of Cole’s 3 sisters testified that her brother had a drug problem starting about age 12. Other testimony from family revealed "physical abuse, (a) transient and unstable lifestyle, and substance abuse by his parents."

At 17, Cole was sent to the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a now-defunct state-run reform school in Marianna, an hour west of Tallahassee.

Cole suppressed his memories of his experiences at Dozier but they resurfaced more than 10 years ago when he saw a documentary about the school, according to court filings. Cole said he was raped by a guard, beaten regularly, and had both of his legs broken by staff after trying to escape during a 6-month stint at the school.

Who did Loran Cole become after childhood?

In the mid 1980s, Kucler said she met Cole at a mutual friend's house in Cincinnati.

"We dated for about 6 years," said Kucler, now married and living in Indiana. "It was on and off. When he wasn't in jail for drugs or petty crimes we were together."

Their son, Ryan Cole, was born in 1988, and Cole left his family just 2 years later. Kucler never heard from him again until authorities alerted her he was being tried for murder.

"I was shocked," Kucler said. "I knew Loran well and he was mostly involved in thievery but it never involved people."

Once Ryan was a bit older, Kucler took him to visit his dad in prison.

"I hadn't seen him for 2 decades when I brought Ryan to see him. I knew at some point he needed closure," she said by phone from Florida, where she said she and Ryan Cole were there "to say goodbye."

It was the 1st time Cole's son saw him on death row.

"Visiting with him ... made me remember all the reasons I was attracted to him. He could charm a wall if he wanted to," Kucler recalled. "He's very intelligent, very fun-loving. He's more spiritual now."

Loran Cole, now 57, and his son Ryan Cole at Sawyer Park in Cincinnati in October 1990.

She said she was planning to say goodbye unless "God intervenes with a miracle."

"I’m praying for a miracle myself," she said.

She said Cole told her that he didn't want to burden her and that: "I just want to know you'll be OK."

What has Lauren Cole argued in his appeals?

Cole has contested his conviction more than a dozen times and has for years maintained that his co-defendant is responsible for Edwards’ killing.

"He maintains that he did not kill Edwards and that the murder weapon was found with Paul’s possessions and with his fingerprints on it," Gerod Hooper, the chief assistant at the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, told USA TODAY.

Cole's attorneys also recently argued - unsuccessfully - that jurors never learned of the reform school abuse he suffered at Dozer, which closed in 2011. Their motion came days after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Cole's death warrant on July 29 - only weeks after signing a bill setting aside $20 million to compensate former Dozier attendees, “subjected to mental, physical or sexual abuse perpetrated by school personnel."

"If Cole’s jury had known about the severe abuse that happened at Dozier, and Florida’s willingness to acknowledge the severe problems at Dozier to the extent that designated victims are entitled to reparations, there is a reasonable probability the newly discovered evidence would yield a less severe sentence," Cole's attorneys wrote in a brief filed Aug. 13 with the Florida Supreme Court.

Loran Kenstley Cole, 57, will become the 1st inmate executed in Florida in 2024 and the 13th in the nation if his lethal injection proceeds as scheduled. Cole was convicted in the murder of John Timothy Edwards, 18, during a camping trip to Ocala National Forest.

Since 2012, researchers have found remains of dozens of students buried at the school. Surviving students have shared with state lawmakers intimate details of horrific abuse, neglect and torture they suffered as teens.

Cole isn’t the only former Dozer student who has been sentenced to death, the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USAT TODAY Network, reported. 6 other men have - one who died, two who were resentenced to life and 3 who remain on death row.

Cole’s attorneys have also asked the high court a for stay of scheduled execution, saying lethal-injection would cause "needless pain and suffering" because of Cole's symptoms from Parkinson’s disease, which he's had since 2017. Cole "experiences shaking in both of his arms from his neck to his fingertips and in his legs.”

Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office urged the high court to reject the defense attorneys' efforts, saying Cole unsuccessfully raised the Dozier issue in previous appeals and the new law doesn't constitute new evidence.

“Cole has long known of his claimed symptoms of Parkinson’s disease,” prosecutors wrote this month. “There is no reason in law or fact for Cole to wait years to raise this claim now under an active death warrant.”

The Florida Supreme Court on Friday unanimously rejected halting the execution.

When will Loran Cole be executed?

Cole is slated to be executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on Thursday, Aug 29.

The method is the most common in the nation. The 1st drug administered in a 3-drug cocktail for Florida’s execution process is the sedative Etomidate. The second drug injected into to the condemned inmate is rocuronium bromide, a paralytic. The last drug administered, potassium acetate, is used to stop the inmate's heart.

Florida State Prison where the state plans to execute Loran Kenstley Cole, 57, by lethal injection on Aug. 29, 2024. Cole is the 1st Florida prisoner to be executed in 2024.

Under Florida execution guidelines, Cole is allowed to request a last meal so long as it doesn't exceed $40.

If all goes as the state plans, it will mark the 7th time Florida executed a man since Aug. 8, 2019. The most recent execution took place in October, when the state executed Michael Zach for a woman's 1996 slaying.

It would also mark Florida's 106th execution since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

(source: usatoday.com)

**************

'Heinous, atrocious and cruel': Man gets death penalty in random killings of Florida woman

A Florida judge on Tuesday sentenced a 30-year-old man to death for the random 2019 killings of 2 Southwest Florida women.

Wade Steven Wilson, reportedly tied to a white supremist gang, was found guilty this summer of charges including 1st-degree murder in the slayings of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, of Cape Coral. A 12-member Lee County jury previously recommended he receive the death penalty for his crimes.

In Florida, juries recommend whether a convict should receive the death sentence, but the decision is ultimately up to a judge.

On Tuesday, 20th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Thompson imposed the capitol sentence - one for each murders.

“The evidence showed both murders were heinous, atrocious and cruel, and that the second murder was cold, calculated and premeditated,” Thompson said during Wilson's sentencing hearing.

The defendant inflicted "serious physical and emotion pain to the victims" while on probation for felony convictions, the judge said.

Here's what to know about the Wilson's case:

Who is convicted felon Wade Wilson?

Wilson, of Fort Myers, was born to underage parents and given up for adoption. He grew up in the Tallahassee area before moving to Lee County.

He has voluminous tattoos on his face, including stitches, a swastika, and one that reads, 'glory' in cursive.

Wilson shares the shares his name with the alter ego of the Marvel character Deadpool.

When was Wade Wilson convicted of murder?

Wilson's weeks-long trial began June 1 with jury selection, and took place at the the Lee County Courthouse in Fort Myers.

The jury convicted him of 6 charges including 2 counts of 1st-degree murder June 12.

In June 25, 10 of the 12 jurors voted Wilson should be executed for killing Ruiz. Jurors voted 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty for Melton's slaying.

Until April 2023, Florida juries were required to unanimously vote for a death sentence recommendation. Last year Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill allowing the jury to recommend death with as few as 8 votes.

Who were Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz?

According to trial testimony, Wilson met Melton, and a friend Oct. 7, 2019, at a Fort Myers bar and later in the evening, the trio visited Melton's Cape Coral home. After Melton's friend left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept, stole her car, and then drove to meet his girlfriend, Melissa Montanez. After his girlfriend refused to get into the car, he assaulted her, but she managed to flee.

Not long after he drove back to Cape Coral, Wilson saw Ruiz walking to work along a street, pretended to ask her for directions, lured her into the car then attempted to strangle her. He then drove to an empty lot and attacked. When she tried to flee, Wilson attacked her, strangled then pushed her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times.

Her body was found in a field 3 days later, as vultures circled overhead, the News-Press, part of the USA TODAY Network reported, and after the murders, Wilson called his father Steven Testasecca several times and said he killed the woman. Testasecca contacted police and Wilson was arrested Oct. 8, 2019.

"He was excited," Testasecca testified in court, adding Wilson said he wanted to make Ruiz "look like spaghetti."

What was Wade Wilson convicted of?

Wilson found guilty of the following charges:

1st-degree murder (2 counts)

Grand theft

Battery

Burglary

Petty theft

The condemned man also faces charges in unrelated crimes, including attempted escape from jail and drug charges.

Death penalty in the US: Which states still execute inmates, who has executed the most?

Wilson's alleged ties to white supremacist gang

According to court documents show, Wilson is connected to a white supremacy prison gang.

The prison gang was founded in the late 80s in the Florida prison system, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and is the largest in the state.

How many people are on death row in Florida?

Wilson now joins 279 people including 2 women on Florida's death row.

The most recent execution in The Sunshine State took place in October when the state executed Michael Zach for a woman's 1996 slaying.

When is Florida's next execution?

Florida's is set to execute 57-year-old Loran Cole by lethal injection on Thursday for the 1994 murder of an 18-year-old college student and rape of the victim's sister during a camping trip at Ocala National Forest in north central Florida.

A Marion County jury convicted Cole of killing John Edwards, a freshman at Florida State University and sexually assaulting Edward's then 21-year-old sister.

If Cole is put to death, it will mark the 7th time Florida executed a man since Aug. 8, 2019. Cole will also become the 1st inmate executed in Florida this year and the 13th in the nation if his lethal injection takes place.

(source: aol.com)

OHIO:

Hearing will determine man convicted killing Farmington woman should be removed from Death Row----The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with an intellectual disability are constitutionally barred from receiving the death penalty.

A Trumbull County Judge will hear arguments Thursday from a lawyer claiming that a man convicted of murdering his adoptive grandmother in Farmington 27 years ago should not be put to death for his crime.

What’s known as an “Atkins Hearing” is scheduled before Judge Sean O’Brian to determine if 45-year-old Sean Carter suffers from an intellectual disability.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that people with an intellectual disability are constitutionally barred from receiving the death penalty.

Carter was sentenced to death for the September 1997 murder of Veader Prince at her Farmington home. Carter was 18 years old at the time of the crime.

Investigators say Carter repeatedly beat Prince with his fists, stabbed her with a knife multiple times, and raped her.

Both prosecutors and defense attorneys working the case now are requesting he be taken off of death row because he has been diagnosed as a functioning schizophrenic.

In June, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a reprieve for Carter who is now scheduled to be executed on November 17, 2027.

(source: WFMJ news)

MISSOURI----impending execution

At Missouri Hearing, Lawyers Spar Over Fate of Prisoner on Death Row----The case of Marcellus Williams, 55, who has maintained his innocence in a 1998 killing, has pitted a local prosecutor against the state’s attorney general.

In a Missouri prosecutor’s unusual quest to save the life of a man his office once tried to put to death, lawyers called several witnesses to testify in a hearing Wednesday to paint a picture of a murder conviction gone gravely wrong.

A lawyer who represented the man in the 2001 trial said he had not had enough time to mount the strongest defense. An expert on investigative interviewing cast doubt on the credibility of the 2 key witnesses who were pivotal in the guilty verdict. And the prosecutor from the original trial described how he had repeatedly handled the murder weapon without gloves, potentially contaminating critical DNA evidence that could have proven the man’s innocence.

It was the 1st time in over a decade that the man, Marcellus Williams, 55, who has long maintained his innocence, had received a hearing in open court. And it could be the last. He is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24.

Mr. Williams was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the 1998 killing of Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch who was found stabbed to death with a kitchen knife lodged in her neck at her home outside St. Louis.

The case has pitted the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Wesley Bell, a Democrat and an opponent of the death penalty, against the state’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, a Republican who has fought to keep exonerated prisoners behind bars and who is staunchly opposed to the effort to vacate Mr. Williams’s conviction. Both men are up for election in November in different races.

At the hearing in Clayton, Mo., which featured clashes on nearly every point and often turned testy, lawyers from Mr. Bailey’s office said that many of the arguments made by Mr. Bell’s team had been raised before and rejected. Both state and federal courts have upheld the conviction through several unsuccessful appeals.

The case is now with Judge Bruce F. Hilton, who has asked the lawyers — from Mr. Bell’s office, Mr. Williams’s legal team and the attorney general’s office — to file additional findings and conclusions within the next week and is expected to issue a ruling after that.

According to the original motion filed in January by Mr. Bell, there is no forensic evidence tying Mr. Williams to the crime. The motion states that Mr. Williams was not identified as the source of the bloody footprints, hairs or fingerprints at the crime scene.

Until last week, Mr. Bell’s office and Mr. Williams’s legal team had planned to argue that DNA testing performed on the murder weapon bolstered his claim of innocence, as it did not show any connection of Mr. Williams to the knife. They had hoped that additional analysis of the DNA would identify a different perpetrator, allowing them to make a stronger argumenent.

Although the report of that analysis, which came in two days before last week’s scheduled hearing, did not show any connection of Mr. Williams to the knife, it suggested that the investigator and the prosecutor in the original trial had mishandled the weapon and had possibly eliminated the perpetrator’s DNA, undermining any claims about the DNA evidence.

In response to the report, Mr. Bell’s team instead proposed an agreement that would have spared Mr. Williams from the death penalty but kept him in prison for life without parole. But the Missouri Supreme Court halted the deal just hours after it had been reached, following an objection from Mr. Bailey.

At Wednesday’s hearing, lawyers for Mr. Bell’s office shifted their approach and argued that the mishandling of evidence had been done in bad faith and had thus violated Mr. Williams’s right to due process in the original trial, grounds for overturning his conviction.

The lawyers for Mr. Bell’s office and Mr. Williams also sought to portray the original trial as one in which much had gone wrong in an effort to raise uncertainty about Mr. Williams’s guilt. In addition to casting doubt on the testimony of two witnesses, the lawyers asserted that the prosecution had improperly excluded qualified Black jurors.

“This wasn’t a fair trial,” said Jonathan Potts, a lawyer for Mr. Williams. “Never was. These DNA test results only represent the final blow.”

But lawyers for the attorney general’s office systematically contested each argument made by the local prosecutor’s office. On the DNA analysis, Michael Spillane, a lawyer for Mr. Bailey’s office, maintained that the prosecutor’s office had followed standard practices of the time in handling forensic evidence.

The prosecutor and the investigator in the original trial “did absolutely nothing wrong, and it’s not a nice thing to say that they did when there is no evidence to support it,” he said.

Mr. Williams’s execution date in September is the third time he has been scheduled to be put to death. His execution was first stayed in 2015 by the Missouri Supreme Court to allow DNA testing to be completed. In 2017, Gov. Eric Greitens put Mr. Williams’s execution on hold again just hours before he was scheduled to be killed and convened a board of inquiry to review his case. That board was later dissolved by Gov. Mike Parson, and the September date was set.

But in the intervening years, another avenue opened up for Mr. Williams. In 2021, a state law was passed that allows prosecutors to request hearings when they find evidence of wrongful convictions, enabling the legal challenge from Mr. Bell’s office. The law has been used five times aside from Mr. Williams’s case, overturning three convictions. But Mr. Bailey has said that the State Supreme Court has “exclusive authority” to review death penalty cases.

The political races in which Mr. Bell and Mr. Bailey are engaged have heightened attention on the case. In Mr. Bell’s campaign for St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, he ran as a reformer who opposed the death penalty. He recently defeated Representative Cori Bush in the Democratic primary for her House seat after pro-Israel groups poured millions into the race to unseat Ms. Bush, a vocal critic of Israel.

Mr. Bailey, seeking election as attorney general after being appointed to the role in 2022, won his primary against Will Scharf, a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump who criticized Mr. Bailey as being soft on crime. Mr. Bailey has opposed at least 3 exoneration efforts, including Mr. Williams’s.

If Judge Hilton does not grant the motion, Mr. Bell’s office is expected to appeal. Another option could be requesting that Mr. Parson consider clemency. When asked about that possibility, the governor’s office said that it would review the case as is standard practice in all capital punishment cases.

(source: New York Times)

*********************

Living under the shadow of an unjust death sentence: The story of Marcellus Williams

Marcellus Williams is living a legal nightmare straight out of a Kafka story. And just last week, his strange and tragic case took another unexpected turn.

The overwhelming weight of the evidence points to the conclusion that Williams is the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, for which he has been sentenced to death. Even the prosecutor’s office, which secured that sentence, now acknowledges this fact.

Still, on Aug. 21, Williams entered a plea in return for the promise that he would serve life without parole instead of being executed.

He only did so because the prosecutors in his case mishandled critical evidence that could have shown that Williams is actually innocent. Their negligence deprived Williams of the chance to show how badly the state of Missouri has messed up his case.

To make matters worse, after the trial court accepted Williams’s plea, Andrew Bailey (R), Missouri’s zealous, pro-death-penalty attorney general, went to the state Supreme Court seeking to overturn that judgment.

The thought of an innocent person being caught up in Williams’s situation is shocking enough. But all that is compounded by the fact that a bloodthirsty attorney general seems determined to see Williams put to death, whether he’s innocent or not.

As long as America clings to the death penalty, law enforcement officials like Bailey will try to secure death sentences in cases like that of Marcellus Williams. And people like Williams will be induced to abandon innocence claims in return for a guarantee that they won’t be executed.

Both are reasons enough to end capital punishment. But that aside, let’s look more closely at the Williams case and what gave rise to this latest turn of events.

Williams was convicted and sentenced on March 31, 2000, for the 1998 murder of former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Felicia Gayle. The crime was particularly gruesome: She was stabbed between 10 times and 43 times with a butcher’s knife taken from her kitchen.

Williams was convicted on the testimony of 2 police informants — both with criminal records. Their testimony was false, and none of the evidence from the crime scene implicated Williams. As journalist Madiba Dennie put it, “The bloody footprints (from the crime scene) did not match his shoes. The fibers didn’t match his clothes. The hairs didn’t match his body.”

At trial, the prosecutor struck 6 prospective Black jurors, so that the final jury selection included only 1 Black person out of 12.

In January, Wesley Bell, the current St. Louis County prosecutor whose office first prosecuted Williams, finally acknowledged the miscarriage of justice in Williams’s case after an analysis of DNA found on the murder weapon determined that it could not have come from Marcel Williams. He asked the Circuit Court of St. Louis County to vacate Williams’s conviction.

That brings us to last week’s events. A Missouri trial court was scheduled to hold an evidentiary hearing that seemed likely to finally free an innocent man. But nothing seems simple in the Williams case.

2 days before the scheduled hearing, the prosecutor’s office revealed, without explanation, that it had conducted further DNA testing on the weapon used to kill Felicia Gale. But “The murder weapon was handled without proper procedures then in place.”

The result was that the DNA evidence was contaminated. The only DNA found on the murder weapon was consistent with that of a prosecutor and an investigator in the case. Tragically, as the New York Times explains, “Bell’s office concluded that the new findings had weakened the claim of innocence, though the prosecutors maintained that the case was still riddled with problems.”

Those problems were so glaring that, even without the DNA evidence, their office “still believed that Williams’s constitutional rights had been violated.” As a way out of the mess, they proposed a settlement.

Williams would enter a so-called Alford plea, in which “the defendant maintains his innocence but concedes that the state has enough evidence to obtain a conviction.” In return, the death penalty would be off the table.

Williams, who has always maintained his innocence, took the deal. He is not alone in doing this. All over the country, in all kinds of cases, innocent people enter guilty pleas. One study reports that, on the federal level, “between 2 and 8 % of convicted defendants plead guilty to crimes for which they are factually innocent.” Other research has shown that there are many reasons why they do so.

The most important involve draconian sentence differentials, like those in the Williams case, which await those who go to trial and are found guilty rather than take a plea.

Pleading guilty or entering an Alford plea also is quite common in death penalty cases. As law professor William Barry explains, “Given the choice between a death sentence and a plea deal, many defendants — innocent or not — choose to plead guilty, even if the cost is life in prison without the option of parole.”

Berry argues that in death cases, “bargained sentences almost certainly reflect the coercion of the prosecutor in an unequal bargaining dynamic rather than a voluntary acceptance of a proportional punishment for one’s crime.”

Whatever Marcellus Williams’s motivation, the judge in his case, Bruce F. Hilton, after reviewing “some 8,000 pages of records in the case” and speaking with the victim’s husband, determined that “the consent judgment is a proper remedy in this case.”

But that was not good enough for Attorney General Bailey, who instead insisted that Judge Hinton did not have the authority to accept the plea without first holding a full evidentiary hearing and permitting the attorney general to participate in that hearing. On Aug. 21, the Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Bailey.

So now Williams is back to square one, still living under the shadow of a death sentence for a crime he didn’t commit and with an attorney general determined to pull out all the stops until that sentence is carried out. He is trapped in a system whose failures put him behind bars in the first place and whose other failures now make it impossible for him to prove what he knows — namely, that he is an innocent man.

Williams’s story is so grotesque and cruel that it should lead people in Missouri and elsewhere to say that they have had enough of the death penalty. So long as we remain wedded to that punishment, we will do great damage, not just to people like Williams but to everyone who cares about the pursuit of justice.

(source: Opinion; Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College----thehill.com)

********************

Experts raise issues with DNA, witnesses in Marcellus Williams’ MO death penalty hearing

Marcellus Williams has been waiting years for the evidence that challenges his conviction and death sentence to be fully presented in a Missouri court. With less than a month until his scheduled execution, a DNA expert on Wednesday reiterated that Williams’ DNA was not found on the murder weapon.

“He cannot be a source,” expert Charlotte Word testified. Williams, 55, sat with his attorneys before St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton during the long-awaited evidentiary hearing Wednesday.

Daniel Picus, who was married to the victim at the time of her death, listened to testimony from the front row of the courtroom.

Williams’ team of attorneys brought experts to the stand who raised concerns about his initial trial, including the way DNA evidence was handled, the veracity of witnesses and alleged infringements on his rights during the trial.

The hearing had first been scheduled for Aug. 21.

Dozens of Williams’ supporters, including some of his family members, gathered in the courtroom that morning.

In an unexpected twist, the judge later announced that the parties had reached a consent judgment, including a plea deal.

When court was called into session that afternoon, an attorney for the St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Office said that DNA evidence on the murder weapon had been compromised.

Williams has never been forensically linked to the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. But attorney Matthew Jacober said a new round of testing showed 2 investigators were likely contributors to DNA on the knife, meaning the evidence had been contaminated. DNA had likely been removed and added as the weapon was handled during the investigation and trial, apparently without gloves.

Jacober announced that Williams had agreed to plead no contest with a new sentence of life without parole, instead of the death penalty.

Williams was to be formally resentenced the next day, Aug. 22.

Gayle’s family supports a life without parole sentence and does not want the execution to be carried out. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office opposed the deal and filed a challenge.

The Missouri Supreme Court halted the proceedings, and Judge Hilton scheduled Wednesday’s evidentiary hearing instead.

EXPERTS TESTIFY WEDNESDAY

Williams was convicted in August 2001 on the word of 2 witnesses, who have since died. Henry Cole and Laura Asaro said Williams had told them he had murdered Gayle.

David Thompson, an expert on forensic interviewing testified Wednesday, saying he had reviewed statements they made. Thompson concluded the 2 had incentives to point to Williams, including a monetary award.

Some of their assertions conflicted with each other or with the evidence.

Other information was already known to the public through news reports at the time.

St. Louis County Associate Circuit Judge Joseph Green was an attorney on Williams’ original trial. He said another high profile death penalty case took a lot of his focus around the time of Williams’ case.

“I don’t believe he got our best,” Green said.

Several documents, he also said, were never turned over to the defense, including forensic evidence, Missouri Department of Correction records and Cole’s medical records, which connected to his credibility, memory and mental health.

The Attorney General’s Office raised several objections throughout the proceedings Wednesday morning.

Word, the DNA expert, said she has testified in more than 300 cases, mostly for prosecutors. She said evidence should be handled with gloves and that evidence that isn’t properly preserved could damage an exoneration case.

3RD EXECUTION DATE

Williams previously faced execution dates in January 2015 and August 2017. Those were halted to conduct DNA testing and further investigation.

After issuing the second stay, former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens appointed a board of inquiry to look into the case.

In June 2023, Gov. Mike Parson lifted the stay and dissolved the board with little explanation. It’s unclear if the board made a recommendation in Williams’ case or not.

A law unique to Missouri allowed St. Louis County prosecutors to intervene on Williams’ behalf. They filed a motion in January to vacate his conviction.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which has been hostile toward claims of wrongful conviction across the state, opposed the motion.

Williams’ conviction is the 1st death penalty case to be tested under the new law.

Hilton said the statute created “unchartered waters.”

Despite the prosecutors’ pending case, the Missouri Supreme Court issued the 3rd execution warrant in June.

Last month, the Missouri Attorney General’s Office filed to stop the Aug. 21 evidentiary hearing, but that was overruled by the Missouri Supreme Court. Last week, when the plea deal was announced, the attorney general’s office argued in favor of holding the evidentiary hearing, saying the judge could not accept the consent judgment including the plea deal without the hearing.

(source: kansascity.com)

USA:

Disgraced Stoughton detective could face death penalty in alleged murder of Sandra Birchmore

After 38-year-old Matthew Farwell faced a federal judge in Boston Wednesday, security and legal experts assure us this is just the beginning of a deep-dive into years of allegations amongst the Stoughton Police Department.

Farwell, a former Stoughton police officer, was arrested in Revere Wednesday and federally charged with the killing of a victim or witness.

He is accused of grooming Sandra Birchmore through a youth program by the department, having a sexual relationship with her for years, and killing her at the age of 23 after announcing she was allegedly carrying his child.

A 2022 internal investigation by Stoughton police found that Matthew Farwell, his twin brother and coworker William Farwell, and Robert C. Devine, a former deputy chief in Stoughton, had all had “inappropriate” relationships with Birchmore.

“In this case it wasn’t a bad apple,” said Dan Linskey, Boston 25 security analyst. “It looked like a bunch of bad apples.”

Linskey, former Boston police chief, called the allegations a blow to police departments across the Commonwealth.

“Everyone has every right to question law enforcement in this incident,” said Linskey. “It erodes the very trust and fabric of the community and policing we have in the area and region.”

Farwell is now facing a charge of killing a victim or witness.

Attorney Philip Tracy explained this charge stems from years of alleged abuse.

“There’s been investigation into the abuse of this girl since she was 15 years old by several members of the Stoughton police department. So, she could be characterized as a witness in that investigation of the abuse part.

Because of the federal charge, Tracy says prosecutors could seek the death penalty.

He finished, “With the idea of using and abusing the child and then killing her while pregnant, I think you could make a case that this is a death penalty case.”

Both Linskey and Tracy said investigators are surely still digging into years of allegations stemming from Farwell and the two Stoughton officers.

“Every officer in New England and every officer in the country is going to have to work harder at reestablishing that trust,” Linskey said.

(source: Yahoo News)

SUDAN----executions

Warring Parties Execute Detainees, Mutilate Bodies----Halt and Investigate Abuses as War Crimes

The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and affiliated fighters have summarily executed, tortured, and ill-treated people in their custody, and mutilated dead bodies, Human Rights Watch said today.

Leaders of both forces should privately and publicly order an immediate halt to these abuses and carry out effective investigations. They should cooperate fully with international investigators, notably from the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, who should include these abuses, which constitute war crimes, within the scope of their investigations.

“Forces from Sudan’s warring parties feel so immune to punishment that they have repeatedly filmed themselves executing, torturing, and dehumanizing detainees, and mutilating bodies,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These crimes should be investigated as war crimes and those responsible, including commanders of these forces, should be held to account.”

Human Rights Watch analyzed 20 videos and 1 photograph of 10 incidents uploaded to social media platforms between August 24, 2023, and July 11, 2024. Eight videos and 1 photograph depict 4 incidents of summary executions, including mass executions, of at least 40 people. 4 videos show torture and ill-treatment of a total of 18 detainees, including some who appear wounded; and 9 show mutilation of at least 8 dead bodies.

Many of the abusers and victims appear to be wearing military uniforms, suggesting they may be fighters, although some victims are wearing civilian clothes. In all the incidents detainees appear to be unarmed, posing no threat to their captors, and in several they are restrained.

Human Rights Watch has recorded another 20 cases appearing to show similar violations by both parties, but has not investigated these cases.

4 cases of executions appear to have been filmed by the perpetrators themselves, 3 by the RSF, including the execution of at least 21 men in El Fula, West Kordofan, in June 2024; the execution of at least 14 men in the aftermath of RSF attacks on Belila Airport, 60 kilometers southeast of El Fula, in West Kordofan in October 2023; and the execution of 2 men 12 kilometers south of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan. The 4th is of the SAF’s execution of three detainees, possibly children under the age 18, in October 2023 in Omdurman, northwest of the capital city, Khartoum.

Human Rights Watch analyzed another 4 instances in which SAF and RSF personnel filmed themselves torturing and ill-treating detainees, including by whipping, beating, and forcing detainees to walk on their knees on gravel roads. Analysis by Human Rights Watch suggests that these incidents occurred in Khartoum, Gezira, and North and West Kordofan states.

3 cases show SAF soldiers committing outrages against the bodies of apparent RSF fighters or civilians, including one in which they brandish 2 heads.

Since the conflict broke out in Khartoum on April 15, 2023, the leadership of both the SAF and RSF have failed to halt or address abuses. In July 2023, SAF-affiliated authorities announced national investigations into RSF abuses, headed by the attorney general, but made no mention of investigating crimes committed by their own forces.

The RSF, in a July 23, 2024 letter responding to a previous report by Human Rights Watch, provided a code of conduct that in vague terms bans mistreatment of detainees, and wrote that it had established a committee to investigate violations or abuses and to prosecute those responsible. But it has not provided any public evidence of its investigations or prosecutions.

On August 19, Human Rights Watch sent a detailed email summary of its findings with specific questions to Lieutenant Colonel Al-Fateh Qurashi, the RSF spokesperson, and to Brigadier-General Nabil Abdallah, the SAF military spokesperson. Neither has responded.

In February, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that hundreds of fighters had been detained by both parties and that the condition and whereabouts of most remain unknown. Human Rights Watch has previously documented widespread torture and execution of unarmed people by RSF forces in El Geneina and its suburb Ardamata, West Darfur, in 2023. Other monitoring groups and nongovernmental groups have also reported on abuse, torture, and execution of detainees by both sides in various parts of the country.

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan, established by the UN Human Rights Council in October 2023, is the only independent investigative body with the mandate to probe conflict-related violations across Sudan. Given the scale of abuses and the dearth of credible investigations by the parties themselves, council members should renew the mission’s mandate at the council’s September session, Human Rights Watch said.

Regional and international bodies, including the European Union and African Union, and individual countries should work together to hold those responsible for these abuses accountable, including by imposing individual targeted sanctions, Human Rights Watch said. Countries leading ceasefire and humanitarian access talks should also address the warring parties’ abuses and ensure that there is provision for robust monitoring of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, in any agreement reached.

“Sudan’s warring parties have shown a shocking disregard for human life and dignity,” Osman said. “The commanders need to be held to account for failing to prevent or punish these crimes.”

Methodology

Human Rights Watch did not find the videos it analyzed online before the suspected incident dates. Researchers analyzed the videos frame by frame to identify the abuses, determine as best as they could the affiliations of perpetrators and victims, and verify the locations of the incidents to determine how they corresponded to areas of territorial control at the time the videos were made. To assist in identifying the perpetrators and victims, Human Rights Watch analyzed comments made by those filming themselves that identified them or the detainees, and information shared alongside the videos on online platforms.

The videos were posted to various social media channels, including Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Telegram. A large majority of the videos were uploaded to pro-SAF or pro-RSF channels. Human Rights Watch has not included links to the online videos due to their graphic nature, but has preserved the visual evidence. In the report, audio or captions from the videos originally in Arabic were translated into English.

Summary Executions

Human Rights Watch investigated 4 cases of executions.

Mass Executions by the RSF

Human Rights Watch analyzed 3 videos capturing the RSF’s execution of at least 21 men–possibly 23–on the outskirts of El Fula, the capital of West Kordofan state. The RSF reportedly took control of the city on June 20, 2024.

A video uploaded to X on June 28, and analyzed by Human Rights Watch, shows 21 detained and unarmed men, many in SAF camouflage and some in civilian clothes, sitting on the ground near a communication tower, 1.5 kilometers west of El Fula. RSF fighters surround the detainees, lift their guns in the air, and intimidate the detainees, pushing one of them over. An RSF fighter comes into view, walks over to the detainees, and shoots at least four, one by one. As more shots ring out, other fighters move in front of the camera, obscuring the scene.

Another video uploaded to Telegram on June 20, captures the same scene shortly afterward as dozens of RSF fighters stand over the bodies. The person filming says, “Look at these rotten ones,” showing the motionless bodies. Then he says, “He is still alive … take him,” and a single shot is heard and one of the men in SAF uniform is hit while a second shot is fired off camera. The person on the ground stops moving. The camera pans and shows two additional people motionless on the ground, some distance from the main group. Blood surrounds one of the men, whose hands are tied.

Human Rights Watch also analyzed three videos and one photograph with RSF fighters executing, or in the immediate aftermath of the execution of detainees, during offensive operations in West Kordofan. On October 30, 2023, the RSF posted a statement on X, stating it had begun an operation to liberate Belila Airport and nearby oil fields, 60 kilometers southeast of El Fula.

One of the videos, uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on October 31, captures the moments after RSF fighters execute 14 unarmed detainees, some in SAF camouflage and others in civilian clothes, in a parking lot by the airport.

The video shows at least 9 people, some in RSF camouflage and most of them armed, surrounding the bodies. As the person recording the video approaches, another person points a rifle toward the bodies, followed by the sound of gunfire and a dust cloud that quickly dissipates. As the person filming approaches the bodies, a pool of blood is seen surrounding most of the victims.

The photograph uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on October 30 shows the same scene, based on the position of the bodies lying on the concrete and the victims’ clothes, and shows some of the wounds. It was uploaded with the caption: “The end of anyone playing with readiness.” Readiness is a motto often used on social media by the RSF and its supporters to refer to the force.

Another recorded execution of 2 detainees by RSF fighters took place 12 kilometers southeast of El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state. A video uploaded to X on May 8, 2024, was initially analyzed by Mustafa, an open source researcher with OSINT Sudan, and later analyzed by Human Rights Watch. It shows a group of armed men in a mix of civilian and military clothing surrounding 2 men in typical SAF camouflage.

The fighters instruct the detainees several times to say “readiness.” The man filming grabs a fighter’s assault rifle and says, “Don’t shoot,” then steps back and turns away. He then pans to show the 2 SAF soldiers, as assailants fire 25 shots, executing the 2 detainees. The man filming points to a 3rd body a few meters away, near an ambulance surrounded by fighters, apparently already dead. A 4th body wrapped in fabric lies inside a nearby abandoned structure.

Executions by the SAF and Affiliated Forces

Human Rights Watch also analyzed a video uploaded to social media on October 5, 2023, showing the execution of three detainees by the SAF in Omdurman, which was reportedly partially under SAF control at the time. 5 armed men, 1 of whom appears to be in full uniform of the Central Reserve Police, a paramilitary force affiliated with the SAF, and another who wears CRP trousers, are moving 3 detainees in civilian clothes in a courtyard between buildings.

The 3 detainees are possibly children under 18 and are blindfolded and shirtless. One has a bandaged foot. The soldiers force them into a pit, and one says, “These are mercenaries ... snipers….” At least 3 soldiers fire 31 times over the next 44 seconds at the people in the pit. The location was initially established by Mustafa and confirmed by Human Rights Watch.

Torture and Ill-Treatment

Human Rights Watch analyzed 4 incidents that show SAF and RSF fighters repeatedly torturing and ill-treating detainees.

Torture and Ill-Treatment by the SAF

A video reviewed but not geolocated by Human Rights Watch, which was uploaded to Telegram on November 7, 2023, shows several armed men – some in SAF uniforms, one in Central Reserve Police camouflage trousers, some carrying assault rifles, and some in civilian clothing – torturing 6 blindfolded detainees with their hands tied behind their backs by whipping and beating them with sticks.

Torture and Ill-Treatment by the RSF

A video uploaded to a pro-RSF Telegram channel on November 5, 2023, captures an incident of torture and humiliation by RSF fighters at Belila Airport in West Kordofan. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine if this event took place around the same time as the execution of the 14 unarmed detainees.

At least 4 armed people, 3 in full or partial RSF camouflage, are seen forcing a man to undress on the airport runway. As the man takes off his pants, leaving him in a white undershirt and blue boxer shorts, an RSF soldier kicks him in the back. As the camera moves, it shows a man in RSF uniform placing his boot on the neck of the same man lying on the tarmac. A second victim, a man in a red T-shirt, is lying still on his side on the tarmac with a pool of blood surrounding his lower back. He opens his eyes as the person filming approaches.

The person filming asks the first detainee, “Who are you affiliated with?” Then another fighter kicks the first detainee in the back. The person filming says: “Don’t hit him!” and orders the detainee to get up and for someone to take him to a vehicle. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine what happened to them after that.

A video uploaded to X on August 24, 2023, depicts a 3rd incident. The video was initially analyzed by Mustafa, who found that it was recorded in Al-Ozozab, Khartoum. It shows 6 armed men, 1 in RSF camouflage, forcing 9 detainees, including at least one older man, to crawl or walk on their knees on a gravel street. All 9 are in civilian attire and have their hands tied behind their backs.

More armed men, at least 1 in uniform with an RSF arm patch, are visible behind the group. A 10th detainee with a possible blood stain on his chest is being pushed along. The RSF fighter filming repeatedly calls the detained men “dogs.” A man in civilian clothes and with an assault rifle hits the detainees on the back with a stick.

A 4th incident, that according to the commentary accompanying the video says took place in Gezira state, was uploaded to Telegram on March 30, 2024, and shared widely by pro-SAF channels and accounts. The video shows 2 men in civilian clothes, 1 with his hands tied behind his back, in the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by 3 men with assault rifles and some fighters in partial or full RSF uniform.

RSF fighters gather around the detainees, force them out of the truck, and repeatedly ask, “Where are your guns?” A person in civilian clothes whips the detainees for about 20 seconds. The RSF fighters then force the detainees into a building. Once inside, the RSF fighters and a man in civilian attire begin hitting and kicking the detainees. Human Rights Watch was unable to determine what happened to them after the video clip ends.

Mutilation of Bodies by the SAF

Human Rights Watch has documented three cases of SAF soldiers mutilating bodies of apparent RSF fighters since January, including one case in which they are mocking severed heads.

4 videos of one incident show the SAF soldiers setting alight bodies after possibly executing them. Human Rights Watch could not independently verify the location.

The 1st video posted to X on June 5, 2024, shows several SAF soldiers in three pickup trucks surrounding a fourth pickup truck in an undetermined location. 7 armed soldiers, some in typical SAF camouflage, approach the fourth vehicle, in which a body hangs out from the driver’s seat. One soldier drags a body dressed in dark pants from the back of the pickup and throws it onto the ground. 3 more bodies are visible on the other side of the truck wearing RSF camouflage. A fighter can be heard saying, “One [of them] is alive!” Another fighter says, “Shoot him,” and shots are fired.

One of the SAF soldiers is later seen firing 4 rounds, apparently into the back of the truck, the gun just out of view of the camera. The video shows what appears to be a cartridge casing ejecting from the gun and landing next to the person filming. A third soldier appears to be searching the front of the car. The person filming makes their way back toward the other side of the truck.

A soldier takes aim towards what looks like the direction of the person with the dark pants and fires 2 shots. There are sounds of cheering. This raises concerns about a potential execution, though it remains unclear whether the person in dark pants was still alive, as the camera pans away when the gunshots are heard.

A 2nd video, uploaded to the same post, appears to show the soldier who fired the 2 bullets igniting something and throwing it beneath the car. The SAF soldiers run away, while shouting in apparent celebration. The camera pans back toward the vehicle, from which large flames and dark plumes of smoke emerge.

2 videos uploaded to a Telegram channel on June 4 and 5 show the same vehicle burned and at least 3 scorched bodies lying next to it. The video uploaded on June 4 shows 18 men standing in a semicircle around the vehicle, with one of the bodies still aflame. Nearly everyone is wearing SAF military fatigues. One officer stands inside the semicircle, pointing to the burned bodies and saying, “This is not a human fire ... this is a god’s fire ... burning these people….”

Human Rights Watch also analyzed 3 videos of SAF fighters holding the severed heads of 2 victims.

2 of the videos of this incident were uploaded to Telegram on February 15, and the 3rd on July 3. In all 3, men in SAF camouflage are seen in the same location, as one soldier is holding a decapitated head referring to the person killed as “habeshi,” a term used in Sudan to refer to people from Ethiopia and Eritrea that can sometimes be used as a racial slur to describe a foreigner. The same person points at the camera while parading the decapitated heads of 2 victims. A senior SAF officer is seen addressing the soldiers, pointing to the 2 decapitated heads while saying: “this is the fate every [RSF] will get.”

OHCHR said it has credible video evidence, also posted online on February 15, to show that several students travelling by road to the capital of North Kordofan, El Obeid, “may have been beheaded by men in SAF uniform in Obeid City,” because the “victims [were seen] as being RSF supporters based on their perceived ethnicity.” The SAF issued a statement on February 18, pledging to investigate the incident, but is yet to share publicly any evidence of an investigation or any findings.

Another case of mutilation by SAF forces took place in Omdurman in March, when 2 videos analyzed by Human Rights Watch were shared widely on pro-SAF Telegram channels on March 21, 2024, and in the following days. The videos were initially identified by Mustafa, as having been filmed on al Arda street in Omdurman, and later confirmed by Human Rights Watch researchers.

In 1 video, a person in SAF camouflage holding an assault rifle is showing 4 apparently dead and unarmed men lying close together in the middle of the street. A pool of blood surrounds 2 of them. The person filming shoots one of them in the head at point blank range, and then they do the same to 2 of the others.

In another video, filmed after the incident based on the dried pools of blood, 6 men in SAF uniform stand over the bodies. One appears to be a commanding officer, based on the epaulettes on his uniform, which includes the emblem of the Corps of Engineers, a SAF division known to be battling in Omdurman.

Relevant Legal Standards

While detainees in a non-international armed conflict, as is the case in Sudan, are not accorded the status of prisoners of war under the laws of war, international humanitarian law prohibits arbitrary deprivation of liberty and guarantees due process rights regardless of whether a detainee is a civilian or a fighter.

Summary executions, as well as ill-treatment and torture of detainees, are illegal under any circumstances under both international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Article 3 common to the 4 Geneva Conventions applies to situations of non-international conflict, and explicitly forbids, among other acts, summary executions, committing outrages upon personal dignity, and torture, mutilation, and inhuman and degrading treatment of all detainees. Serious violations of common article 3 are deemed war crimes for the purposes of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

International humanitarian law applicable to the conflict in Sudan prohibits the “mutilation of dead bodies.” Mutilating bodies in non-international armed conflicts is the war crime of “committing outrages upon personal dignity” under the Rome Statute.

Under international human rights law, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its states parties, has indicated that the disrespectful treatment of human remains may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the family of the dead.

(source: Human Rights Watch)

FIJI:

NGO rejects death penalty call

No one has the right to take away someone else’s life, says the NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR).

This statement was made in response to Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya’s suggestion that the death penalty be applied to those who traffic large quantities of drugs.

In a statement, the NGOCHR supported the statement by the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission on the death penalty not being the solution to Fiji’s rising drug problems.

The coalition believes the growing national conversation led by Ms Tabuya for the death penalty to be considered an option for Fiji’s drug problem was harmful, regressive, and counterproductive to the progressive development of human rights.

“We believe these ideas and statements do not belong in an evolving democracy like Fiji,” coalition chair Shamima Ali said.

“The death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights — the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

“No one has the right to take away someone else’s life.

“We urge the minister to offer a real alternative to austerity, poverty, and alienation which means giving young people opportunities, building economic security, and investing in our communities to create a fairer and safer society for all.”

The coalition called on the minister to address root causes, examine the evidence, and create better policies for people.

“There must be a concerted national approach to deal with this issue — all of Government and civil society.”

(source: fijitimes.com)

THAILAND:

Thailand court sentences son of famous Spanish actors to life in prison for murder

Sancho, a chef and a YouTuber, has avoided the death penalty for a murder he denies committing but could spend his life in prison pending an appeal.

A court in Thailand on Thursday found Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, a member of a famous Spanish acting family, guilty of premeditated murder, sentencing him to life in prison for murder.

Sancho, a 30-year-old chef with a YouTube channel, was convicted of killing Edwin Arrieta Arteaga, a 44-year-old plastic surgeon from Colombia, when both men were vacationing on the Thai holiday island of Koh Pha-ngan in August last year.

The island is famous for its monthly Full Moon beach parties, attracting travellers worldwide for all-night raves.

The case came to light when waste collectors found what the domestic press described as body parts in a sack at a garbage dump.

Shortly after that, Sancho reported to police that Arrieta was missing, and police then gathered evidence linking the two men. He was arrested by Thai police a few days after the murder and subsequently confessed to his involvement.

Sancho, through his father and his lawyers, said that was a distorted version of what he told police and denied having a sexual relationship with Arrieta.

Police obtained surveillance video showing Sancho allegedly purchasing a knife, rubber gloves, garbage bags and cleaning solutions at a convenience store before Arrieta's death, which prosecutors claimed bolstered the charge of premeditated murder.

The trial, which ran in April and May this year, was held behind closed doors, with limited information disclosed to the media.

Because of the seriousness of the crime and the likelihood of a harsh sentence, the case was overseen by a panel of 5 judges in the Provincial Court of Koh Samui in southern Thailand.

During the course of the trial, Sancho's defence focused on ruling out premeditation in the crime. It argued that Arrieta's death was accidental and that the only criminal offences committed were the concealment and dismemberment of his body.

The prosecution, meanwhile, maintained from the beginning of the trial that Sancho murdered Arrieta with premeditation. According to their argument, Sancho arranged his meeting with Arrieta so he could end the life Colombian doctor's life.

Trial proceedings and key testimonies

Among the 25 witnesses who appeared for the defence were police officers, a psychologist, and a saw expert, whose statements sought to support the theory of an accidental death.

Sancho's own testimony, meanwhile, lasted two full days. In his closing statement, Sancho told the court he regretted his actions, the Spanish newspaper El País reported.

“I am sorry that a life has been lost and that parents have lost a son,” Sancho said. “I am sorry that his family was not able to bury him properly. I’m sorry for what I did after the death.”

While the defence had hoped for a custodial sentence of no more than eight years, the court opted for life imprisonment — though it ruled out the death penalty, which Thai law reserves for extremely serious cases.

The court also awarded a payment of €119,000 to Arrieta's family.

During the reading of the verdict, Daniel Sancho Bronchalo was accompanied by his parents, Rodolfo Sancho and Silvia Bronchalo, both actors, present throughout the trial.

The court also awarded a payment of €119,000 to Arrieta's family.

Sancho's legal team have an option to appeal the sentence.

(source: euronews.com)

MALAYSIA:

S’porean man & M’sian girlfriend face death penalty for drug trafficking in Johor Bahru----The couple allegedly used a rented high-end residence to manufacture and distribute drugs across Malaysia and Singapore.

A Singaporean man is facing the death penalty following his arrest on drug trafficking charges in Johor Bahru (JB).

On 29 Aug, Malaysian authorities charged Brayden Ong and his Malaysian girlfriend, Wang Weiqing (name transliterated from Mandarin), with multiple drug-related offences.

According to China Press, the couple is suspected of renting a high-end residence in JB to manufacture and sell drugs.

Ong faces 4 charges related to drug trafficking, while Wang faces 6.

The charges against them include trafficking 2,667g of methamphetamine and 457.10g of MDMA (ecstasy).

If convicted, they could face life imprisonment or the death penalty.

Ong may also be sentenced to 5 lashes of the cane, while Wang may be exempt from caning.

Also face drug possession charges

In addition to the trafficking charges, both defendants face drug possession charges.

They are accused of possessing 1.85g of nimetazepam and 2,240ml of MDMA liquid.

These charges fall under Section 12(2) of Malaysia’s Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which could result in up to 5 years in prison, a fine of RM100,000 (approximately S$33,000), or both.

(source: mustsharenews.com)

Federal Court reinstates death penalty on ex-cop for murdering 2-year-old stepdaughter

The Federal Court has reinstated the death penalty imposed by the High Court on a former police corporal for murdering his 2-year-old stepdaughter, Hanis Amanda Mohd Zafil, 9 years ago.

The decision was made by a 3-judge panel consisting of Justices Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Datuk Nordin Hassan, and Datuk Hanipah Farikullah last Tuesday (August 27) when they allowed the prosecution’s appeal to overturn the Court of Appeal’s decision.

On June 8 last year, the appellate court reduced Muhammad Khairuanuar Baharuddin’s conviction from murder to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

Muhammad Khairuanuar was charged with murdering Hanis Amanda in a condominium unit in Section 5, Wangsa Maju, Kuala Lumpur between 7am and 7.30pm on November 6, 2015.

He was found guilty of the murder and sentenced to death by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in March 2021.

Deputy public prosecutor Iznina Hanim Hashim represented the prosecution, while lawyer Fahri Azzat represented Muhammad Khairuanuar. Both confirmed the Federal Court’s decision when contacted.

According to Iznina, Justice Harmindar held that the High Court was correct in ruling that the prosecution had proven the murder case beyond reasonable doubt.

On the same day (August 27), the Federal Court dismissed a cross-appeal by Muhammad Khairuanuar for an acquittal.

Meanwhile, Fahri, told Bernama that if the Court of Appeal’s decision (10 years imprisonment) was upheld, Muhammad Khairuanuar would be released from prison on September 9 this year, taking into account the one-third remission.

During the trial, the High Court heard that Hanis’ biological father and stepmother discovered bruises on her body sometime in November 2015.

Hanis’ father testified that the child had complained of pain and told him that it was “Papa Bi” who caused the bruises. According to him “Papa Bi” mentioned by his child referred to Khairuanuar.

The child’s parents divorced in 2013. Hanis’ mother subsequently married Muhammad Khairuanuar, while her father remarried another woman.

(source: malaymail.com)

BANGLADESH:

2 get death penalty in drug case in Naogaon

A Naogaon court on Wednesday sentenced 2 people to death in a drug case filed in 2023.

Naogaon district and sessions judge court’s Judge Md Abu Shameem Azad delivered the verdict against Liton Mia, 38, a resident of Goraipara village, and Usuf Ali, 42, a resident of Charbagdanga village in Chapainawabganj, said public prosecutor Md Abdul Khaleque.

He said that the court also fined the convicts Tk 50,000 each.

According to the prosecution, members of the Rapid Action Battalion arrested them at Saraidanga village under Patnitala in Naogaon.

The RAB recovered 700 grams of heroin from the toolbox of the tractor they were riding on August 18 in 2023.

Later, a case was filed against them under the Narcotics Control Act with the Patnitala police station.

PP Abdul Khaleque said that the court witnessed the testimony of 8 witnesses in the case.

‘Apart from establishing justice, a warning message has been sent through this verdict to the drug dealers so that the latter and the youth society refrain from drugs and attempt to establish a drug-free society,’ he added.

(source: newagebd.net)

CHINA:

Chinese Communist Party official sentenced to death in China's largest corruption case

(see: https://www.deccanherald.com/world/chinese-communist-party-official-sentenced-to-death-in-chinas-largest-corruption-case-3167911)

INDIA:

HC commutes death penalty of convict

The Orissa High Court Wednesday commuted the death sentence, awarded by a trial court to a man for killing 3 members of a family in Sambalpur in 2020, to life imprisonment. According to the prosecution, Nabin Dehury, along with his son Hemananda Dehury, axed to death Giridhari Sahu, Pirobati Behera and Sabitri Sahu at Lapada under Mahulpali police limits of Sambalpur at around 2:30 pm October 21, 2020 over a property dispute.

Soon after, Nabin and his son were arrested and were charge-sheeted under Sections 302 and 34 of the IPC. While Nabin was accused of committing the murders, Hemananda was accused of aiding his father in the gruesome act. The trial court awarded death to Nabin and life imprisonment to Hemananda. As per the provision under Section 366 of CrPC, the trial court referred the matter to the HC for confirmation of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, Nabin filed a jail criminal appeal and Hemananda filed a criminal appeal challenging their convictions. It was argued on behalf of Hemananda that he was not involved in the commission of the murder. Also, as per the testimony of the eyewitnesses, he merely restricted Sabitri while she was proceeding to rescue her mother – Pirobati. The HC, however, believed that the act of Hemananda contributed to the culpable act of Nabin.

Consequently, the HC found both the father-son duo guilty of an offence under Sections 302 and 34 of IPC and upheld the life imprisonment imposed upon Hemananda. After upholding the guilt of Nabin, the HC discussed the justifiability of the extreme sentence of death imposed upon him by the trial court. It lamented that the trial court did not consider mitigating circumstances while sentencing Nabin. During the argument, the HC directed the Senior Superintendent of Circle Jail to collect all relevant information regarding the past life, psychological condition and post-conviction conduct of Nabin. In response, the Senior Superintendent of Circle Jail submitted a report which suggested that Nabin had good relations with the co-villagers and that his post-conviction conduct was also satisfactory.

It, however, came to light that due to the longstanding property dispute between the two families, Nabin used to remain ‘upset’ and was also taking medications to combat the trauma. “Given the foregoing discussions and giving our anxious consideration to the facts and circumstances of the case and striking a balance between the aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the case, we are of the humble view that the death penalty would be disproportionate, unwarranted and life imprisonment would be a more appropriate sentence,” it held.

(source: orissapost.com)

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Mamata Banerjee calls for death penalty for rapists: What does India’s law say? Amid scrutiny over the rape and murder of a young doctor in a state-run Kolkata hospital, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee has said she will introduce a bill in the Assembly, ensuring capital punishment for rapists in 7 days. Here’s what India’s rape laws state about the death penalty

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has vowed to bring a bill to the state Assembly to ensure capital punishment for rapists within seven days of the crime. Addressing the foundation day event of the West Bengal Trinamool Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Banerjee said she will call a special session next week to introduce the anti-rape law.

“Next week, we will call an Assembly session and pass the Bill within 10 days. We will send this Bill to the Governor (CV Ananda Bose). If he doesn’t pass, we will sit outside Raj Bhavan. This Bill must be passed and he cannot evade accountability this time,” the Bengal CM was quoted as saying by News18.

Her remarks come in the wake of the brutal rape and murder of a young trainee doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9. Banerjee, whose TMC government is facing flak over its handling of the case, previously said she would demand the death penalty for the culprits involved in the heinous crime. The prime accused, Sanjay Roy, has been arrested and the case is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

How have India’s rape laws evolved over the years? What is the current punishment for the crime? Let’s understand.

How India’s rape laws evolved

Rape was first defined in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 1860. Section 375 of the criminal code penalised sex by a man with a woman if it was done against her will or without her consent.

Sex with a girl under 18 years of age also came under rape. However, marital rape was not considered an offence.

Rape attracted a punishment of seven years of jail term to life imprisonment.

In 1972, the custodial rape of a young Adivasi girl named Mathura in Maharashtra triggered outrage across the country after the Supreme Court dropped the rape charges. The case led to amendments to the existing rape laws in India.

Section 114A was added to the Indian Evidence Act of 1872, which states that cases where “sexual intercourse by the accused is proved and the question is whether it was without the consent of the woman alleged to have been raped and such woman states in her evidence before the court that she did not consent, the court shall presume that she did not consent.” This applied to custodial rape cases.

The 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case in Delhi prompted stricter punishment for the offence. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act passed in 2013 expanded the definition of rape and made punishment more stringent, as per The Hindu.

The Act increased jail sentences in most cases of sexual assault. It also called for capital punishment in rape cases that cause the death of the victim or leaves her in a vegetative state.

Gang rape was now punishable by 20 years to life imprisonment from the previous 10 years to life term.

The 2013 Act made stalking a criminal offence with up to 3 years in jail. The jail term for acid attacks was increased to 10 years.

Acts such as unwelcome physical contact, words or gestures, asking for sexual favours, showing pornography against the will of a woman or making sexual remarks were made punishable offences.

Using criminal force on a woman with intent to disrobe, voyeurism and stalking were also considered offences.

The rape laws were amended again following the abduction, rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl by several men near Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir in 2018.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 introduced capital punishment for the rape of a girl under 12 years, with the minimum sentence in such cases being 20 years in jail. The rape of girls below 16 years of age would lead to imprisonment of 20 years to life term.

The minimum jail term for rape was also increased from seven to 10 years, as per The Hindu report.

What BNS says about rape

Last December, the Lok Sabha passed 3 Criminal Law Amendment Bills to replace the colonial-era IPC, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act.

The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which took the place of the IPC, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Act (BSA) came into effect on July 1.

The BNS defines rape under the section ‘Of offences against woman and children’. The punishment for rape, laid out under Section 64 of the new criminal law, is ten years in jail, which can be extended to life imprisonment.

The punishment for rape of girls under 16 years of age is the same as under the IPC.

Section 65 (2) of the BNS states, “Whoever, commits rape on a woman under 12 years of age shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than 20 years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, which shall mean imprisonment for the remainder of that person’s natural life, and with fine or with death.”

The offence of rape that causes the death of the woman or leaves her in a persistent vegetative state is punishable by a minimum of 20 years in jail term or death penalty.

The punishment for gang rape remains the same. The death penalty has been provided for the gang rape of all minor girls under 18 years of age.

Under BNS, the age of consent for a married woman has been increased from 15 to 18 years. The new law also fails to criminalise marital rape.

One of the biggest criticisms of the BNS is that does not punish the rape of men and transgender persons.

Section 377 of the IPC dealt with the rape of a man, transgender person or an animal but the provision or a similar one is absent in the BNS.

“With the removal of Section 377 from the BNS, and no alternative law in place, men or transgender persons will not have that legal protection against rape,” advocate Karuna Nundy told The Hindu in June.

Section 18 of the Transgender Bill pertains to sexual abuse with the jail term ranging from 6 months to 2 years. This is far less than the punishment for the offence under Section 377 of the IPC which included a jail term of 10 years to life imprisonment.

Section 96 of the BNS uses the word ‘child’ to cover the offence of sexual exploitation of people below 18 years of age, making the law gender-neutral.

Why rape laws don’t curb crimes

Despite robust laws, India has failed to prevent crimes against women. A pervasive rape culture and misogyny plagues the country. The Kolkata case further highlighted how just making anti-rape laws is not enough.

As Vrinda Shukla, an IPS officer serving as SP Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, wrote for Indian Express, “Men’s brutalising of women continues to be rampant because of the laxity in laws surrounding other equally heinous crimes,” such as dowry, domestic violence, stalking and harassment.

The ease of bail in “lesser” offences against women is also problematic. “The lax bail norms pose a serious impediment to correcting and curbing the criminal instincts of the accused before they graduate to committing bigger crimes,” she wrote.

“There is a crying need to develop a criminal justice system equipped to investigate and try cases of crimes against women in a fast-track mode. Where protracted trials remain a stubborn challenge, a long enough incarceration, depending on the severity of the particular crime, is the only available tool to instil a fear of the law,” Shukla wrote in the piece.

(source: firstpost.com)

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Bengal Will Make Death Penalty Mandatory For Rapists: Mamata Banerjee----Mamata Banerjee said she would sit for dharna outside Raj Bhavan if the Governor delays in giving assent to the amended bill or forwards it to the President of India for ratification.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, under massive pressure from the Opposition since the rape-murder of a young doctor in Kolkata -- has declared that she would change the laws in the state to make death penalty mandatory for rape. The amendment will be passed by the state assembly next week. There should only be one punishment for rape -- hanging, hanging, hanging," she said amid whoops of approval at a rally today.

Currently the rape laws have a provision for death penalty, along with jail term. It is the prerogative of the judge to decide on the severity of punishment once an offender is convicted.

Ms Banerjee, whose government has been under attack over multiple issues surrounding the rape-murder, said her party and government had demanded death penalty in an earlier case as well, but that not work. The criminals were given jail term.

"We have wanted death penalty for Kamduni rape case also. But it did not happen. They got released. I have files - it is already 10 years and they should be released now," the Chief Minister said. "Why should they be released? Why should a murderer be released? Why should a rapist be released? Why should an attacker, a torturer, be released?" she said.

She said she had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appealing that all such loopholes be removed. But that did not happen either. "What is the point of creating such a Nyay Samhita?" she questioned.

There was also a warning for the state Governor CV Anand Bose, who has been among the sharpest critics of the state government.

Ms Banerjee said that she would sit for dharna outside Raj Bhavan if the Governor delays in giving assent to the amended bill or forwards it to the President of India for ratification.

Rules though, require that such a law will have to be signed off by the President, since criminal law is a matter which comes under both Centre and the state.

The Chief Minister said her Trinamool Congress will launch a movement from Saturday to create pressure on the Centre to pass similar legislation.

(source: ndtv.com)

IRAN----execution

Baluch Barkatali Sanjarani Executed in Zahedan

Barkatali Sanjarani, a Baluch man on death row for murder, was executed in Zahedan Central Prison.

According to Haal Vsh, a Baluch man was executed in Zahedan Central Prison on 26 August. His identity has been reported as 25-year-old Barkatali Sanjarani from Zahedan. He was arrested for murder during a group fight 4 years ago and sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder by the Criminal Court.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

(source: iranhr.net)

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Rising Number Of Iranian Women Sentenced To Death Amid Surge In Executions

What do an Iranian aid worker, a labor activist, a political campaigner, and a protester have in common?

All 4 are women who have been charged in Iran with armed rebellion against the state -- which carries the death sentence -- in recent months.

2 of them -- aid worker Pakhshan Azizi and labor activist Sharifeh Mohammadi -- have already been sentenced to death. Political activist Varisheh Moradi and protester Nasim Gholami Simiyari are awaiting their sentences.

Besides Simiyari, all the women have been accused of being members of opposition Kurdish groups outside Iran. Azizi and Moradi are both members of Iran's Kurdish minority, which has long been suppressed.

There has been a rise in the number of women sentenced to death and executed since unprecedented antiestablishment protests erupted in 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman.

Fear Of Execution

Mohammadi, the labor activist, was sentenced to death in July. She was accused of membership in an independent labor union and a banned Kurdish separatist group based in neighboring Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

Her family has said she was not affiliated with any political organization inside or outside the country.

Mohammadi's cousin, Vida Mohammadi, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda that she was tortured in prison following her arrest in December and that she had spent several months in solitary confinement.

Moradi, the Kurdish political activist, was arrested in August 2023.

She was accused of being a member of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), the Iranian offshoot of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Azizi, the aid worker, was also arrested in August 2023 and accused of membership in PJAK, which she has denied. She was sentenced to death in July.

She spent time in Iraqi Kurdistan as well as in northeastern Syria, home to the Arab country's Kurdish minority, to help people displaced by the civil war and the fight against the Islamic State extremist group.

In a letter written from prison before her conviction, Azizi said working in refugee camps in Syria "could have been one of the biggest moral contributions to a society that has been oppressed for years."

She also denied membership in opposition groups, adding, "So whoever spends time [in Syria's Kurdish-majority region] is a member of PKK?"

? Simiyari, the protester, was accused of taking part in the antiestablishment protests in 2022. She was arrested in May 2023. She has said she was tortured in prison and held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods.

'Silencing Dissent'

Human rights groups have condemned what they have called trumped-up charges against the 4 women.

Iranian activists say the charge of armed rebellion against the state is often used by the authorities against political prisoners and dissidents.

"Faced with a women's movement in Iran that refuses to back down, Islamic Republic authorities are now trying to threaten these women with the gallows, in a desperate attempt to silence dissent," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

Rights groups have repeatedly accused Iran of using the death penalty to instill fear in society in the wake of the 2022 protests.

Saeid Dehghan, a prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, said the 4 women have been charged with armed rebellion even though "they did not possess any weapons, and no weapons have been seized or recorded in their case."

"The activities of these citizens were civil in nature and had no connection to a rebellion against the 'foundation of the Islamic republic,' let alone being armed to justify the charge of rebellion," he said.

Activists fear the 4 women could be the next victims of Iran's surge in executions.

At least 345 people have been executed so far this year, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.

CHRI said the fact that 2 of the women are Kurds reflected the "Islamic republic's continued disproportionate use of the death penalty against the country's minorities."

Iran's Kurdistan region was the scene of some of the most violent crackdowns during the 2022 protests.

In recent years, Tehran has upped the ante in its efforts to go after exiled opposition Iranian-Kurdish groups that it considers to be terrorist organizations.

(source: rferl.org)

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Growing ‘No to Executions Tuesdays’ Campaign in Iran Gains Nationwide and International Recognition

Political prisoners across Iran marked the 31st consecutive week of their hunger strike as part of the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign. This ongoing protest, which has been joined by inmates in multiple prisons throughout the country, aims to oppose the rampant use of the death penalty by the Iranian regime. In a statement released on this occasion, the striking prisoners condemned the government’s recent surge in executions and the oppressive conditions faced by those in detention.

The prisoners highlighted the alarming increase in executions under Iran’s newly appointed government, stating that at least 126 individuals were hanged in August alone. “Thousands of prisoners across the country, all victims of the systematic incompetence of this regime, are also awaiting execution,” the statement read. It further described the regime’s actions as a methodical and relentless assault on the right to life, aimed at instilling fear and suppressing dissent.

The statement also underscored the harsh conditions and punitive measures imposed on the prisoners participating in the campaign. These measures include the deprivation of basic rights, such as the denial of phone calls and family visits for women inmates in Evin Prison and the transfer of political prisoner Armita Paveer to solitary confinement in Tabriz Prison. “The new cabinet can be named the ‘cabinet of suppression and executions,'” the prisoners remarked, indicating that the recent appointments were a prelude to increased repression throughout Iranian society.

Despite these challenges, the prisoners reaffirmed their commitment to resist and stand firm against the regime’s tactics. “With all the pressures and repressions imposed by the religious dictatorship on this campaign and Iranian society, the prisoners continue to stand up against oppression and executions,” they declared. The statement noted that a group of political prisoners in Greater Tehran Prison had announced their participation in the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign from this week onward.

The campaign, which has gained international attention, has drawn support from various human rights advocates worldwide. Notably, Elisabetta Zamparutti, a former member of the Italian Parliament and an official of the human rights organization ‘Hands Off Cain,’ recently announced her decision to join the hunger strike every Tuesday in support of the campaign, highlighting the dire human rights situation in Iran and the increasing number of executions under the current regime.

As the hunger strike continues, political prisoners in 19 prisons, including Evin Prison, Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj Central Prison, Khorramabad Prison, Shiraz Military Prison, Mashhad Prison, Qaem Shahr Prison, Lakan Rasht Prison, Tabriz Prison, Ardabil Prison, Khoy Prison, Naqadeh Prison, Urmia Prison, Salmas Prison, Saqqez Prison, Baneh Prison, Mariwan Prison, Kamyaran Prison, and Greater Tehran Prison, have called on all people, both inside and outside Iran, to join their cause. They seek support for the campaign’s goal of abolishing the death penalty and stopping the torture of prisoners in Iran.

Alongside the 31st week of the hunger strike, many human rights defenders have voiced their support for the campaign, urging international action to halt the Iranian regime’s criminal executions. On August 27, in a statement made public, 68 human rights groups and organizations, both Iranian and international, expressed solidarity with the “No to Executions Tuesdays” movement in Iran. These organizations have called for global support to end the use of the death penalty in Iran and to protect human rights in the country.

The statement from the prisoners concluded with a plea to all conscious individuals worldwide to support the movement against executions in Iran. “We appeal to all awakened consciences around the world to support this campaign to abolish the death penalty and oppose its use,” they urged, emphasizing the critical need for global solidarity in the fight against this brutal practice.

The “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign continues to gain momentum, driven by the resilience and determination of political prisoners who refuse to be silenced by the regime’s oppressive tactics. Their ongoing hunger strike and steadfast opposition to the death penalty highlight the enduring struggle for human rights and justice in Iran, reminding the world of the urgent need to stand against such inhumane practices.

(source: ncr-iran.org)

AUGUST 28, 2024:

SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution

SC death row inmate wants his attorney to decide how he will die----Future executions put on hold until SC high court decides whether they should be scheduled 13 weeks apart

The South Carolina inmate scheduled for execution next month gave his attorney the power to decide how he will die, according to court filings.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court said it will not schedule any more executions until justices decide how much time should pass between them, according to a Friday order.

Freddie Owens is still scheduled to die Sept. 20, which would mark the 1st execution in the state since 2011. But additional executions are on hold, pending a ruling on a request from condemned inmates’ attorneys to space them at least 13 weeks apart.

Under a state law upheld by the high court last month, Owens has 3 options for how his execution will be carried out: Lethal injection, firing squad or electrocution. Without a decision in writing, the default method is the electric chair, as per a 2021 law.

But Owens signed over decision-making powers to his attorney Aug. 14, more than a week before the court issued his execution order Friday. He signed the documents under his new legal name, Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah. But his court filings remain in his old name to reduce confusion.

Owens’ attorneys informed state prisons officials of Owens’ decision after his warrant was issued, according to legal filings.

Corrections Director Bryan Stirling asked the high court Monday to decide whether an inmate can relinquish that power to his attorney — basically, whether the attorney’s decision would be valid, since state law doesn’t address that specific scenario.

Justices have ordered attorneys for Owens and the state to submit their responses to Stirling’s question by this Friday.

State law sets a decision deadline of 2 weeks after an execution order. In Owens’ case, that would be Sept. 6.

Question about timing

Owens is also among 5 inmates asking the court to wait at least 13 weeks between executions.

The 5 men who have signed onto the motion, including Owens, are those who have exhausted their normal appeals processes and are not waiting on any further decisions from the courts. Owens’ execution was twice scheduled and halted in 2021 due to legal wranglings over the lack of available options.

State law does not set any rules about the frequency of executions. Rather, it refers only to the timeline between the court issuing a death warrant and the execution date, which must be 4 Fridays later.

The Supreme Court’s ruling last month, which enables executions on hold since 2021 to proceed, creates the possibility of f5 consecutive Fridays of executions. There are multiple problems with that, the inmates’ attorneys argued in the motion.

“First, scheduling executions close in time to one another heightens the risk of serious error during the execution, likely resulting in cruel or unusual punishment,” the attorneys wrote.

The “compressed time period” would take a “punishing toll” on the mental and physical health of staff who must carry out the executions, the attorneys wrote.

It would not give executioners the potential time needed to learn from any mistakes and adjust protocols — and for the attorneys to sue to ensure they do. Plus, if problems do arise with a particular method, inmates should be able to choose a different one. They can’t do that if the 14-day deadline has already passed, the inmates’ attorneys continued.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the motion because it is an ongoing legal matter.

Asked Tuesday about the request for 13-week intervals, Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters that decision should be decided by the Legislature.

If legislators want to insert a frequency delay into state law, then they should do that. In the meantime, justices should not create such a rule themselves, he said.

“I think the current law is a good law,” McMaster said. “It was carefully devised, and there have been years of history on these kinds of things all over the country, and if our Legislature made that decision (to keep the law as is), I think that’s a good decision. It’s a sound decision.”

“If they want to change it, then that will be up to them,” he added.

Clemency

McMaster, who served as attorney general for 8 years, declined to say Tuesday whether he would give Owens clemency. He pointed to his repeated support for the death penalty as a form of justice for victims’ families, especially once an inmate has exhausted the legal processes. “My position, after years of involvement, is that there are some things that are not highly praised or that are not comfortable for some but that are necessary for some under our rule of law,” McMaster said. “The death penalty is one that our Legislature and those around the country and other places have determined is necessary.”

By law, the governor will receive a call from the Department of Corrections minutes before an execution is set to proceed. McMaster will be asked then whether he wants to grant clemency. He told reporters he won’t give an answer until he gets that call. But he certainly suggested that the answer will be “no.”

“I think that when the rule of law has been followed, then there’s really only 1 answer, but you make that statement at the time the law says it’s to be made,” McMaster said.

Owens was convicted in 1999 of killing gas station clerk Irene Graves as part of a crime spree two years prior. The night after he was convicted, he killed another inmate at the Greenville Detention Center, then confessed to the crime in court the next day.

The Supreme Court twice sent Owens’ sentence back to the courts over problems in his case, and both times, the jury recommended the death penalty. In 2008, the court agreed.

(source: South Carolina Daily Gazette)

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SC Supreme Court puts execution warrants for death-row inmates on hold

South Carolina is scheduled to carry out its 1st execution in more than a decade next month, but when subsequent executions will take place is unclear.

At this point, more than 30 inmates sit on death row, but years of legal battles over the death penalty, plus the state’s difficulties in obtaining lethal injection drugs, had put their executions on hold.

5 of those men have run out of appeals, and one of them, Freddie Eugene Owens, is scheduled to be executed Sept. 20.

But the state Supreme Court has paused issuing more death warrants for now, so it can figure out if there should be a minimum amount of time between executions and how long that should be.

Death-row inmates are asking the court to space out executions by about 3 months apart, at least.

The state says if there is a minimum imposed, it should be no longer than about a month.

State law does not mandate any set amount of time between executions, just that an execution must be carried out 4 Fridays after the state Supreme Court issues an inmate’s death warrant.

“I think the current law is a good law,” Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters Tuesday. “I mean, it was carefully devised. There have been years of history on these kinds of things all over the country, and our legislature made that decision. I think that’s a good decision.”

McMaster said ultimately, he believes this is a question for the General Assembly to figure out — if it wants to.

“And if that needs to be a part of the law, then it should be put into those statutes. That’s an important question,” he said.

This question will not affect the execution of Owens, the man set to be put to death Sept. 20 after the Supreme Court issued his execution notice last Friday.

Owens was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a robbery in Greenville County in 1997.

Shortly before the execution’s scheduled time, the governor is required to say whether he will invoke clemency and commute Owens’ death sentence to life in prison, without parole.

No South Carolina governor has done that in about the last 5 decades of recent history.

“My position on the necessity of an end to this process for the victims, the loved ones, the families of everyone involved, as well as society at large, is well known,” McMaster said. “… I think that when the rule of law has been followed, then there’s really only one answer. But you make that statement at the time the law says it’s to be made.”

Owens will be asked to decide if he will be put to death via lethal injection, the firing squad, or the electric chair, the latter of which is now the state’s default method if an inmate does not decide.

This will be the first execution for which a firing squad is an option after the legislature added it as a method of execution in 2021, and it could also be the first time a lethal injection is carried out in South Carolina using a newly obtained drug that has been used in other states, pentobarbital.

In response to a question Tuesday about whether he had any concerns about the effectiveness of those methods, given those circumstances, McMaster succinctly responded, “None.”

For now, there is no deadline for the state Supreme Court to make a decision on the timeline of executions or when it will resume sending down death warrants.

(source: WCSC news)

FLORIDA----new death sentence

Wade Wilson sentenced to death: Florida death penalty explained

Wade Wilson, the Florida man convicted of killing 2 Cape Coral women in 2019, is headed to Florida's death row.

Wilson, 30, was found guilty on June 12 of the murders of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43. 13 days later, on June 25, the jury recommended the death penalty.

Lee County Circuit Judge Nicholas Thompson agreed with the jury's recommendation and imposed the death penalty, 1 for each murder, during sentencing on Aug. 27.

Wilson is currently being held in the Lee County Jail, but will be transferred to Florida's death row once unrelated charges, including an escape attempt, are resolved.

Here's what to know about the death penalty in Florida, Wade Wilson's crimes and victims:

Capital felonies eligible for Florida death penalty

Capital felonies, including 1st-degree murder and rape, are punishable by death or life imprisonment in Florida.

Punishment is decided during the penalty phase of a trial where aggravating and mitigating circumstances are considered.

Jury votes don't have to be unanimous for death penalty in Florida

Florida juries were required to vote unanimously for a death sentence recommendation until April 2023 when Gov. Ron DeSantis lowered the threshold by signing into law a bill allowing juries to recommend death with as few as 8 votes.

Wilson's jury voted 9-3 in Melton's murder and 10-2 in Ruiz's murder in favor of the death penalty.

Methods of execution: Florida death row inmates have choice

Persons sentenced to death in Florida can choose between 2 execution methods.

Death sentences are executed by lethal injection by default, but the person sentenced has one opportunity to choose death by electrocution instead.

Once the Florida Supreme Court affirms the sentence, the condemned must deliver a written request for electrocution to the warden within 30 days.

Where is Florida's death row at Union Correctional Institution?

Wilson will be housed with Florida's other male death row inmates on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

Where are Florida executions carried out?

Florida executions – by lethal injection and electric chair – take place at the execution chamber at Florida State Prison in Raiford.

The executioner is a private citizen who is paid $150 per execution. Florida law allows for the executioner to remain anonymous.

Wade Wilson murders

Wilson, then 25, met Kristine Melton, 35, and her friend Stephanie Sailors on Oct. 7, 2019, at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar.

After the bar closed, Wilson and the 2 women went to the home of Jayson Shepard where they stayed for several hours before leaving in the morning.

Wilson, Melton and Sailors then went Melton's Cape Coral home. After Sailors left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept in her bed and stole her car.

A short time later, Wilson saw 43-year-old Diane Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street, asked her for directions to a nearby school and lured her into the car.

When Ruiz tried to exit the car, Wilson attacked her, beating and strangling her before pushing her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times.

After the murders, Wilson called his biological father Steven Testasecca several times confessing to and narrating the gruesome details of his crimes.

After initially dismissing the calls and attributing the admissions to Wilson being a "good storyteller," Testasecca, 46, put his phone on speaker with Wilson's biological mother listening in and relaying information to police.

Testasecca asked Wilson for his location and told him he would send an Uber to him. Instead, his whereabouts were provided to police who arrested Wilson on Oct. 8, 2019.

Kristine Melton grew up in Illinois and moved with a friend to Cape Coral where she worked as a waitress.

She reportedly was godmother to her cousin Samantha Catomer's child, owned a cat and lived in a Cape Coral duplex.

Melton loved to dress up and her favorite holiday was Halloween, Catomer testified during Wilson's trial.

Melton had a quick wit, made everyone around her feel safe and understood and "was precious, not just to me, but to everyone who knew her," Catomer said.

Melton was 35 years old when she met Wilson at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar. After leaving the bar and spending several hours at the home of Jayson Shepard, Melton, Sailors and Wilson went to Melton's duplex.

After Sailors left, Wilson strangled her to death in her sleep.

Diane Ruiz's body was found in a field in Cape Coral on Oct. 10, 2019, four days after she was reported missing.

Diane Ruiz, 43, a mother and engaged to be married, was described as caring and hardworking.

She worked as a bartender at the Moose Lodge in Cape Coral and never missed a shift in 5 years.

Ruiz was walking to work for her 10 a.m. shift when she encountered Wilson.

A short time after killing Melton, Wilson saw Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street and lured her into the car after asking her for directions.

When she tried to leave, Wilson beat and strangled Ruiz, pushed her out of the car and ran her over repeatedly.

Her body was found in a field 3 days later.

(source: news-press.com)

***************

Judge sentences Wade Wilson to death following the murders of 2 Cape Coral women in 2019

After 5 years of waiting, a decision was finally made in the Wade Wilson case.

A Lee County judge affirmed the jury’s recommendation on Tuesday. Wilson will receive the death penalty.

The 30-year-old was convicted of killing Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, on Oct. 7, 2019.

9 of the 12 jurors recommended the death penalty for the murder of Melton, and 10 of them recommended death for the murder of Ruiz on June 25.

In a last-ditch effort to save his life, Wilson’s defense attorneys had a neurologist elaborate on possible brain abnormalities during his Spencer hearing.

Dr. Mark Rubino’s findings were used as a possible rationale for Wilson’s “cognitive and emotional dysfunction.”

Rubino said while completing a series of neurological tests, Wilson was getting frustrated and paranoid.

He said Wilson presented as "normal" up until 11 years old when he told his parents he was "going crazy."

Rubino said Wilson was also a passenger in a car that went off the highway and crashed into an oak tree. Wilson allegedly left the hospital that day against medical advice without being evaluated.

The neurologist also noted that Wilson experienced at least one concussion while playing sports as a child.

The defense argued that all these events may have contributed to Ailson’s actions and decision-making on Oct. 7, 2019.

A letter was also read from Wilson's adoptive parents by the defense.

It explained how Wilson succumbed to his mental illness, and the system failed him, according to his adoptive mother and father. They asked the judge to spare him from the death penalty.

Dr. Thomas Coyne, a neuropathologist and the chief medical examiner in Tallahassee, testified for the state. Looking at the same brain scans used to support the defense's claim, Coyne suggests there is no evidence of trauma.

Coyne claimed Wilson’s brain scans look like that of a “normal person,” and there are no signs of “chronic traumatic brain injury.”

State Attorney Amira Fox was present at the sentencing, as well as Cape Coral Police Department Chief Anthony Sizemore.

(source: NBC News)

********************

Florida AG argues execution should not be stayed for death row inmate with Parkinson's symptoms----The execution for Loran Cole, 57, is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued Tuesday that the execution of an inmate with Parkinson's symptoms should not be delayed because his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the state's lethal injection procedures came too late.

Moody said Loran Cole, 57, waited too long to raise his concerns that the drug cocktail would "very likely cause him needless pain and suffering" due to symptoms caused by his Parkinson's disease.

"Cole knew for at least 7 years that he was suffering symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but delayed bringing any claim challenging lethal injection as applied to him until his death warrant was signed. Nothing prevented him from doing so," Moody's office said in a court filing Tuesday.

Loran K. Cole, 57, was convicted of kidnapping adult siblings camping in a national forest in 1994 before raping the sister and murdering the brother.

The execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Florida State Prison after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Cole's death warrant in July.

He was convicted of kidnapping adult siblings camping in the Ocala National Forest in 1994 before raping the sister and murdering the brother.

Cole has made an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution, claiming that denying him a hearing violates his 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said Loran Cole waited too long to raise his concerns that the drug cocktail would "very likely cause him needless pain and suffering" due to symptoms caused by his Parkinson's disease.

"Cole's Parkinson's symptoms will make it impossible for Florida to safely and humanely carry out his execution because his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection," his attorneys said in court filings.

Many of the death penalty procedures in Florida are exempt from public records. Botched executions in other states, including nearby Alabama, have heightened concerns surrounding the death penalty and the secrecy about its procedures. State officials have also struggled to obtain lethal injection drugs and the staff needed to administer them.

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal from Cole.

Cole has also argued his execution should be blocked because he suffered abuse at a state-run reform school where boys were beaten, raped and killed for decades.

(source: Fox news)

*********************

Countdown to goodbye: Loran Cole's loved ones face lingering questions, imminent execution

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a two-part series on the impact a savage murder and capital punishment has on those left behind. Reporter Elena Barrera spent weeks talking to loved ones and sifting through the Democrat's archives and court records for this special report. Read the other part of the story here.

Colleen Kucler's heart sank when she saw the call.

Her ex-husband's prison pen pal's name flashed across her phone screen, but Kucler didn't need to answer to know what was happening.

The sickness in the pit in her stomach told her the day she never wanted to see had finally come — Loran Cole was scheduled to die.

Headlines everywhere on July 29 told her Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for Cole, 57, who was convicted of the brutal 1994 murder of a Florida State University student. His execution is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 29.

"We all knew at some point this could happen, I think we kind of hoped it wouldn't," Kucler said. "I'm heartbroken."

On Aug. 23, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously denied Cole's Hail Mary appeal to be granted a stay. He now turns to the U.S. Supreme Court for one last shot.

After almost 30 years on death row, Cole was given 30 days to live.

For many of those years, Cole's loved ones have tried to separate the man from the monster portrayed in court records.

Kucler said Cole wasn't an upstanding citizen, but she never knew him to be violent or even want to deal with a confrontation.

But then again Kucler said Cole is a con artist and would lie about the simplest things.

"I will never fully know," she said.

'I was hoping at some point he would reemerge. But not like that.'

For the last 40 years, Kucler has been on a roller coaster she "doesn't even know how to explain."

She first met Cole when she was 16 at a mutual friend's house that he was staying at in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The 2 hit it off and dated on and off for about 5 years, during which they became common law husband and wife.

"Aside from the drugs and petty thievery, I was really drawn to him, his personality," she said. "He was fun, loving and intelligent."

In 1988, their son, Ryan Cole, was born, and two years later Cole left. He frequently would disappear and turn up in jail. When he'd get out, Kucler would be there.

"We always found our way back to each other, but not this time," she said.

Kucler never heard from him again until detectives came knocking on her mother's door years later with the news Cole was being tried for murder in Florida.

"I was hoping at some point he would reemerge," she said. "But not like that."

Cole's death warrant comes decades after conviction of savage murder

2 siblings, John Edwards and his sister, intended to spend a weekend camping together, but the trip had barely begun when the Ocala National Forest became the scene of a brutal attack and murder.

On Friday, Feb. 18, 1994, Cole, then 27, and William Paul, then 20, befriended the Edwardses. John, 18, was a FSU student; his sister was 21.

The siblings were setting up camp when they first met Cole. Late that night, the siblings set out to a nearby pond to take photos of alligators with the 2 men.

Before ever reaching the pond, they were attacked, handcuffed and thrown to the ground.

John was killed that night. His throat was slashed and skull was fractured by 3 blows to the head.

Cole and Paul took the sister back to the campsite. Cole threatened to kill her if she didn't have sexual intercourse with him. The next day, he raped her again and tied her to a tree before the men took off.

By Sunday, she managed to chew her way through the rope and ran off looking for her brother and for help.

A father and friend behind bars

Growing up, Ryan always knew his father was on Death Row, but he never knew why.

He said he always assumed the reason had something to do with murder, but he wasn't told the whole story until he was 15. His mother gave him clippings from old Tallahassee Democrat articles that were published during the trial that she asked her father, who lived in Tallahassee at the time, to save.

For a while, Ryan said he was angry and resented his father. "I kind of felt like I needed him, and he kind of let me down," he said.

But eventually, Ryan decided it was better to try and get to know his father through strained forms of communication than to not know him at all. Ryan and Kucler consistently wrote emails and letters back and forth with Cole over the years and made occasional phone calls up until his last days.

Cole may have been absent most of his life, but Ryan said he tried to be there in limited ways from behind bars.

Beth Evans, Cole's pen pal for the last four years, said his immediate family never wanted anything to do with him after the murder and his imprisonment.

Cole and Evans have discussed pretty much everything from his years at the infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a now-shuttered state-run reform school in Marianna where he says he was beaten and raped, to his life in prison.

"Loran and I became best friends," Evans said.

'He's a person, too'

To this day, Cole's loved ones don't know whether to believe he was capable of something so heinous.

"I'd be crazy if I didn't always wonder if he's really guilty of what he's in there for," Ryan said.

In 1995, Cole and Paul were convicted of 1st-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery with a deadly weapon. Cole was also convicted of sexual battery. Paul was sentenced to life in prison while Cole was sentenced to death.

Cole never wavered from his story he told his family and friends over the years: He admits to being there and being on drugs at the time, but he didn't kill John — Paul did.

Kucler used to agree with the "eye for an eye" argument when it came to executions, but now in her position, the death penalty is far more complicated than that.

At the end of the day, "he's a person too," Kucler said.

In the eyes of the state of Florida and a jury of his peers, Cole is a murderer. But to Kucler, he was her head-over-heels first love. To Ryan, he is the father he wishes he could've grown up with. To Evans, he is a cherished friend.

And they don't know how to say goodbye.

(source: Tallahassee Democrat)

MISSOURI----impending execution

Missouri death row inmate gets another chance at a hearing that could spare his life----An evidentiary hearing is set for a man on Missouri's death row who thought DNA evidence uncovered in his case was enough to save him

Marcellus Williams thought the DNA evidence was enough to remove him from Missouri's death row, perhaps even him from prison. A decades-old mistake by a prosecutor's office has kept his life hanging in the balance.

Williams, 55, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24 for the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle in the St. Louis suburb of University City. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton on Wednesday will preside over an evidentiary hearing challenging Williams' guilt. But the key piece of evidence to support Williams is DNA testing that is no longer viable.

A 2021 Missouri law allows prosecutors to file a motion seeking to vacate a conviction they believe was unjust. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed such a request in January after reviewing DNA testing that wasn't available when Williams was convicted in 2001. Those tests indicated that Williams' DNA was not on the murder weapon. A hearing was scheduled for Aug. 21.

Instead of a hearing, lawyers met behind closed doors for hours before Matthew Jacober, a special prosecutor for Bell's office, announced that the DNA evidence was contaminated, making it impossible to show that someone else may have been the killer.

New testing released last week determined that DNA from Edward Magee, an investigator for the prosecutor’s office when Williams was tried, was on the knife. Testing also couldn’t exclude the original prosecutor who handled the case, Keith Larner.

“Additional investigating and testing demonstrated that the evidence was not handled properly at the time of (Williams’) conviction,” Jacober told the judge. “As a result, DNA was likely removed and added between 1998 and 2001.”

That prompted lawyers for Williams and the prosecutor's office to reach a compromise: Williams would enter a new, no-contest plea to 1st-degree murder in exchange for a new sentence of life in prison without parole. Hilton signed off on the agreement. So did Gayle's family.

Lawyers for the Missouri Attorney General's Office did not.

At Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey's urging, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the agreement and ordered Hilton to proceed with the evidentiary hearing.

The execution, now less than 4 weeks away, is still on. Hilton is expected to rule by mid-September.

Williams has been close to execution before. In August 2017, just hours before his scheduled lethal injection, then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, granted a stay after testing showed that DNA on the knife matched an unknown person.

That evidence prompted Bell to reexamine the case. A rising star in Missouri Democratic politics, Bell defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Cori Bush in a primary this month and is heavily favored in the November general election.

3 other men — Christopher Dunn last month, Lamar Johnson and Kevin Strickland — have been freed after decades in prison after prosecutors successfully challenged their convictions under the 2021 law.

Prosecutors at Williams’ trial said he broke into Gayle’s home on Aug. 11, 1998, heard water running in the shower, and found a large butcher knife. When Gayle came downstairs, she was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen. Gayle was a social worker who previously worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Authorities said Williams stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt. Williams’ girlfriend asked him why he would wear a jacket on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or 2 later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole were both convicted felons out for a $10,000 reward.

(source: Associated Press)

ARIZONA:

Others join Mayes in death penalty case fight

Attorney General Kris Mayes has picked up some allies in her fight with Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell over who gets to seek to execute Aaron Gunches.

In a new legal filing, former Attorney General Terry Goddard joined with two former county attorneys, Republican Rick Romley of Maricopa County and Barbara LaWall of Pima County, to urge the Supreme Court to reject Mitchell's bid to seek a warrant of execution. They said the history of the death penalty of the state and associated legislation makes clear why the Attorney General's Office is in charge.

And attorney Andrew Stone, who filed the friend of the court brief, said his clients believe that Mitchell's position is "bad public policy and unworkable."

Hanging in the balance is the life of Aaron Gunches who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping in the 2002 death of Ted Price, his girlfriend's ex husband.

A warrant for execution had been issued in 2022 at the request of then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich. But that warrant, which had a fixed times limit, expired before the execution was carried out.

Mayes, newly elected in 2023, declined for the moment to seek a new one.

The attorney general said she is waiting on a report by a special Death Penalty Commission named by Gov. Katie Hobbs, also newly elected. She said the process has remained plagued by questions.

"Recent executions have been embroiled in controversy," the governor said. There were reports that prison employees had repeated problems in placing the intravenous line into the veins of the condemned men.

"The death penalty is a controversial issue to begin with," Hobbs continued. "We just want to make sure the practices are sound and that we don't end up with botched executions like we've seen recently."

That report is not expected to be ready before the end of the year.

But Mitchell insists that she has concurrent authority to ask the high court, in the name of "the state," to set a date for Gunches' execution, prompting the brief by Goddard, Romley and LaWall.

Setting such a precedent, the three former elected officials are telling the justices, is a bad idea.

"The Maricopa County Attorney believes that just because her office represents the state in some proceedings, it therefore has the authority to represent the state in any proceeding it chooses," their legal brief argues.

It starts, they say, with state laws which spell out that the attorney general is the "chief legal officer" who shall "prosecute and defend in the supreme court all proceedings in which this state is a party."

By contrast, they say, the state's 15 county attorneys can represent the state and "conduct all prosecutions for public offenses, but only within their respective counties." And the trio contend this has never been understood to extend to seeking execution warrants.

There's a more practical issue.

Consider, they said, what would happen if any prosecutor argued he or she has the authority to speak for "the state" in any prosecution.

"This would require courts to resolve internal disputes among the various prosecutors' offices who claimed to be representing 'the state' before ever turning their attention to the actual issues of the state," Stone wrote for the former prosecutors.

"Arizona courts are sufficiently busy without forcing judges to determine conflicting arguments from the same party, " the prosecutors argued. "The Maricopa County Attorney's request would do little more than sow confusion among an otherwise well-understood and agreed-upon procedure."

And there's something else: Seeking a warrant of execution is more complex than simply filing a piece of paper with the Supreme Court.

"There are dozens of motions that are filed after this court grants the state's request to set a briefing schedule for a warrant of execution," they noted. And they pointed out that the Attorney General's Office has been specially funded by the Legislature to handle post-conviction proceedings.

"To permit a prosecutor's office to seek an execution warrant but not follow through with the ensuing litigation would be no different than allowing one prosecutor's office to indict a dozen defendants in a complex fraud matter, but then force another office to handle all the subsequent work," the brief states.

"The indictment, like a motion seeking an execution warrant is the easy part," it continued. "Securing a conviction and navigating the attendant capital-case appellate issues are much more difficult."

Mitchell declined to be interviewed on the filing. Instead, she filed her own legal brief saying all it does is repeats Mayes' "unsupported and unsupportable legal conclusions" about her authority.

It starts with the stated reason for the delay: that "independent death penalty review." Mitchell said that is irrelevant to the current case, saying there is no dispute that the legal requirements have been met to issue a warrant of execution – just as they were when Brnovich obtained the 1st warrant.

And Mitchell also says the bid to block her from proceeding ignores the constitutional and statutory rights of victims.

These include ensuring "a prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction and sentence." And Mitchell has said that Karen Price, who was Ted's sister and his daughter Brittney Kay, have asserted those rights and have asked for her help in enforcing them, something she said state law requires her to do.

Finally, Mitchell said while the attorney general may have some "supervisory authority" over county attorneys, that does not extend to her "legally supported attempt to exercise absolute control."

The view that Mitchell is exceeding her authority extends to several current sitting county attorneys.

Coconino County Attorney William Ring said he's not familiar with the process as his county hasn't sought a death penalty in years. And the Democrat said he sees no need to pursue concurrent jurisdiction with the attorney general in initiating an execution warrant.

"Concurrent jurisdiction to seek an execution warrant only invites a race to the death chamber," he said. "That would be confusing to the victim representatives and embarrassing to the state."

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, also a Democrat, has a more basic problem with the whole issue and the inconsistencies in Mitchell seeking to "speak for the state" on the issue, especially in contradiction with the attorney general.

"We have a Maricopa death penalty, not an Arizona death penalty, because the rest of the state can't afford or won't tolerate it," she said. "The quickest and most efficient way to avoid the inconsistency is for Arizona to stop tinkering with the machinery of death, statewide."

Several Republican county attorneys contacted by Capitol Media Services declined to comment on the issue of whether Mitchell has authority to seek a warrant of execution.

Mayes has never said she will refuse to ever seek execution warrants even after the report of the death penalty commissioner is released. But, like Conover, she has said there is an issue of whether where someone commits a crime affects a sentence.

"In particular, I'm interested in knowing whether there are disparities between counties in Arizona in terms of which receives the death penalty," she said when the moratorium was first announced.

"It is beginning to look like the death penalty is only being sought in Maricopa County because Maricopa County can afford it," the attorney general explained, what with the huge price tag on prosecutors and defense counsel devoting years – and sometimes decades – of their time to just a handful of cases. "We need to understand that better before we go forward."

The statistics show that about 60% of Arizonans live in the state's largest county, versus close to 73% of death row inmates sentenced from courts there.

(source: White Mountain Independent)

USA:

The Democrats need to be done with death----In a surprise move, the Democrats quietly removed abolishing the death penalty from the party platform.

“We are not going back,” goes the Democrats’ passionate rebuttal to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign — which is about going back to the “golden days” of America, when white men held all the power and Black folks had “Black jobs.” MAGA is in actuality MAWA: “Make America white again.” Unfortunately, on at least 1 issue, the Democrats have gone backward rather than forward, in a move that caught many of us by surprise (thanks to Jessica Schulberg of Huffington Post for breaking this story). As the festivities finished up in Chicago last week, the Democrats quietly removed abolishing the death penalty from the party platform, a move that certainly will not help them distinguish themselves from Trump and win this election. It’s surprising in part because a recent Gallup poll found 65% of Democrats oppose capital punishment. Even beyond the Democratic Party, public support for the death penalty has been steadily declining, with a majority of Americans now wanting alternatives to execution.

Even though most of the world has abolished the death penalty in my lifetime, the United States is one of the few countries that continues to execute. In fact, the U.S. is usually among the top five countries with the most executions annually and is almost always in the top 10. The other countries with the most executions usually include China, Iran, Saudi Arabia — not the best company when it comes to human rights.

There are promising signs that the death penalty is on its way out in the United States. Executions have been dropping nearly every year, and new death sentences are the lowest they’ve been in decades. There are only a handful of states that continue to carry out executions each year, and 1 state, Texas, accounts for nearly 1/2 of our country’s executions.

Nearly every year or 2, a new state abolishes the death penalty, and movements like Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty are now seeing a surge of conservative lawmakers who are done with death. It is noteworthy that the states that continue to execute are former Confederate states, a reminder that the death penalty is part of our shameful history of racial terror, lynching and slavery. The places lynchings were happening most frequently 100 years ago are those where executions happen the most frequently today. The states that held onto slavery the longest are the same ones that continue to hold onto the death penalty. But even here, there is hope. In 2021, Virginia became the 1st formerly Confederate state to abolish the death penalty, the same year that Joe Biden became president. There is a connection here: As Virginia was turning away from the death penalty, so was Biden, who became the 1st U.S. president to publicly oppose the death penalty after once being a death penalty supporter.

Biden has some work to do to repair his past views. In 1994, Biden championed that year’s infamous crime bill, which, among other terrible things, expanded the crimes that were punishable by death at the federal level, resulting in more people on federal death row. In one of his not-so-shining moments, he boasted the bill did “everything but hang people for jaywalking.”

When Donald Trump became president, he ended a 17-year pause in federal executions, reignited the federal death house in Terre Haute, Indiana, and began killing people at a rate the federal government had not done in 100 years. For the 1st time in modern history, federal executions outnumbered state executions.

Trump continued killing people even after he had lost the 2020 election, keeping the executions rolling until January 16, 2021, 4 days before Biden was inaugurated. There is no doubt that if Trump is re-elected he will continue to kill. The Project 2025 plan leaves no room for doubt: On page 554 of the 887-page document is an explicit plan to execute every remaining federal death row prisoner and to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court to expand the types of crimes that can be punishable by death.

Many of us have fought hard for alternatives to the death penalty, and we were encouraged in 2016 when the Democratic Party formally made abolishing the death penalty a priority of the official platform, with a plank reading, “We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It has no place in the United States of America.”

It is disappointing that this key commitment, and a signal difference with the Trump agenda, has been removed from the DNC platform. President Biden and Vice President Harris need to do more than pause executions for the remainder of their administration; we need them to stop executions for good. We need them to “abolish and demolish.” We need them to commute all the sentences of those on federal death row to life. And we need them to demolish the federal execution chamber in Indiana, a building designed for 1 purpose — to kill human beings.

If they are serious about “not going back,” we need them to help lead us into a better future by making the death penalty history.

(source: Opinion; Shane Claiborne is an activist, author and co-director of Red Letter Christians----religionnews.com)

DR CONGO:

Americans implicated in alleged coup attempt in Congo

Prosecutors on Tuesday called for 50 people, including 3 Americans, to face the death penalty for what the Congolese army says was a coup attempt earlier this year.

Military prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Innocent Radjabu urged the judges to sentence to death all those on trial, except for 1 defendant who suffers from “psychological problems.”

The defendants, whose trial opened in June, face a number of charges, many punishable by death, including terrorism, murder and criminal association.

6 people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in May that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot for resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.

Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a U.S. citizen, and 2 other Americans are on trial for their alleged role in the attack. His mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and simply followed his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile.

Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a vacation, with all expenses paid by the elder Malanga. The young men had played high school football together in the Salt Lake City suburbs. Other teammates accused Marcel of offering up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo.

Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo. He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, Thompson’s stepmother said.

Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, is the 3rd American on trial. He is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company that was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by the Africa Intelligence newsletter.

Earlier this year, Congo reinstated the death penalty, lifting a more than 2-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country.

(source: Associated Press)

CHINA:

Death Penalty Upheld for Former Official in China’s Largest Corruption Case

A court in Inner Mongolia has upheld the death penalty for a former official convicted in the largest-ever corruption case in China.

The Higher People’s Court of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Tuesday turned down the appeal by Li Jianping, who was sentenced to death in September 2022 for corruption, bribery, embezzlement and engaging in organized crime.

(source: caixinglobal.com)

SINGAPORE:

Authorities must end executions and stop targeting anti-death penalty activists to curb criticism

This statement is co-signed by: Amnesty International Capital Punishment Justice Project FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights MADPET – Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture Parliamentarians for Global Action Taiwan Alliance Against the Death Penalty World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

We, the undersigned 7 organizations, are gravely concerned by developments in Singapore since the beginning of August 2024, which has seen the authorities carry out 2 executions in violation of international safeguards on the death penalty, as well as limiting the right to freedom of expression of the Transformative Justice Collective, a non-governmental organization who expressed concern about human rights violations and criticized the processes leading up to the executions.

With fears mounting that more people on death row are now at imminent risk, we call on the Government of Singapore to immediately establish a moratorium on all executions and cease the harassment of anti-death penalty activists, as critical first steps.

On 2 and 7 August, the authorities of Singapore executed two men convicted of drug trafficking in violation of international human rights law and standards that restrict the use of the death penalty to the “most serious crimes”, most recently interpreted as referring to “crimes of extreme gravity involving intentional killing”. Several UN bodies, including the International Narcotics Control Board, have repeatedly clarified that drug related offences do not meet this threshold.

In both cases, the death penalty was imposed as the mandatory sentence, which meant that the judge could not consider the particular circumstances of the offence or the background of the convicted person, also in violation of international law and standards. Another troubling aspect in these cases is that the convictions were reached with reliance on legal presumptions of trafficking under the Misuse of Drugs Act. When these legal presumptions are invoked, the burden of proof is shifted onto the defendant to be rebutted to the higher legal standard of “on a balance of probabilities”. Legal presumptions of guilt violate the right to be presumed innocent –a peremptory norm of customary international law – and other fair trial guarantees under international human rights law that mandate that the burden of proving the charge rests on the prosecution. In addition to undermining the right to a fair trial, presumptions of guilt have also had the effect of lowering the threshold of evidence needed to secure a conviction in capital cases.

As denounced by the Transformative Justice Collective, both men had appeals pending when their executions were set: both were parties to pending civil applications and one of them had an additional pending criminal review application. Safeguard No.8 of the UN Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, adopted by two UN bodies in 1984 without a vote, states that “[c]apital punishment shall not be carried out pending any appeal or other recourse procedure or other proceeding relating to pardon or commutation of the sentence”.

Given the lack of transparency in relation to the use of the death penalty in Singapore, it is unclear what procedural steps the authorities took in the lead up to the execution warrants being issued in these two cases, as well as four others earlier in the year. In the narrow circumstances in which the death penalty may be imposed under international law – which does not include drug trafficking – the criminal justice system should allow a robust testing of the individuals’ right of review up and until the gallows.

The circumstances in which the authorities of Singapore set and carried out these executions violate safeguards under international law and standards to protect against the arbitrary deprivation of life. Subsequent statements by the authorities that the executions followed “full due process under the law” fail to recognize that Singapore’s legislation falls short of international human rights standards, including norms of customary international law to which Singapore is bound by. We call on the authorities to refrain from ignoring these standards when issuing statements on the death penalty and to recognize that respect of human rights is a corollary pillar of the rule of law. Pending full abolition of the death penalty, we call on the Government to immediately establish a moratorium on executions and review national legislation to bring it in line with international human rights law.

A change in course is more urgent than ever, as in recent weeks the Supreme Court has considered and rejected applications filed by several men on death row, potentially exposing them to the risk of execution.

We further condemn the chilling climate of fear and repression that the authorities have created around anti-death penalty activism in Singapore. We absolutely reject the issuing of 2 Correction Directions and Targeted Correction Direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) against statements made by the Transformative Justice Collective on 1 and 6 August 2024. The orders request “factual corrections”, which have been disputed by the Transformative Justice Collective. Issued by the Minister for Home Affairs and the POFMA Office, POFMA orders targeting those who criticize the handling of death penalty cases in Singapore have the broader effect of curtailing the right to freedom of expression and human rights activism in the country, and preventing fully informed debates on the ongoing use of the death penalty.

When seeking to protect people in Singapore from harm, the authorities must act in accordance with international human rights law, including that related to the protection of the right to freedom of expression. Restrictions to this right must be clearly and narrowly defined in law and conform to the strict tests of necessity and proportionality to a legitimate aim, rather than, in the case of POFMA, becoming a weapon for censorship.

We call on the government of Singapore to cease the use of POFMA orders to silence criticism and ensure that any legal provisions aimed at protecting national security or that unduly restrict the right to freedom of expression are reviewed so that they conform to international human rights law and standards, in order to guarantee the right to freedom of expression for all.

This statement is co-signed by:

Amnesty International

Capital Punishment Justice Project

FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights

MADPET – Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture

Parliamentarians for Global Action

Taiwan Alliance Against the Death Penalty

World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

(source: worldcoalition.org)

MALAYSIA:

Former Burger Seller’s Death Penalty Commuted To 30 Years In Prison For Murder Of Ah Long

(see: https://www.bernama.com/en/news.php?id=2334337)

INDIA:

Mamata Banerjee says will amend law next week to ensure death penalty for rapists----Taking a dig at the BJP over "Bengal Bandh", the Chief Minister stated that the saffron party "doesn't want justice, they are only trying to defame Bengal."

West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chief Mamata Banerjee today dedicated the party's foundation day of its student wing to the Kolkata rape and murder victim. The Trinamool Chhatra Parisha (TMCP) is the student wing of TMC. Addressing the gathering, she stated that the state government will pass anti-rape laws, enabling capital punishment for the accused.

Taking a dig at the BJP over "Bengal Bandh" called in protest over the Kolkata rape and murder case, the Chief Minister stated that the saffron party "doesn't want justice, they are only trying to defame Bengal."

The Chief Minister called for a dharna on Saturday to demand the death penalty for the accused in the Kolkata rape and murder case.

"On August 31, I urge all blocs to protest demanding capital punishment. And on September 1, I urge women to protest, demanding capital punishment and a change in the law," she said.

The Chief Minister's remark came against the backdrop of the gruesome rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.

Mamata Banerjee stated that the state government would call for an Assembly session and introduce a Bill demanding the death penalty for rapists.

"We will pass a bill on anti-rape laws, that would secure capital punishment for the rapist within seven days of the crime,” the Trinamool chief said.

Citing the 12-hour "Bengal Bandh" call given by the BJP, Mamata Banerjee stated that the saffron party has resorted to vandalism and that its workers were attacking the police. "The police were beaten, they had burnt the vehicles," the Chief Minister stated.

In response to the BJP's demand for her resignation, the Trinamool chief retorted, “Have the chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Manipur resigned over crimes against women in their states?”

While countering the BJP's attack, the Chief Minister questioned the progress in the CBI's probe into the Kolkata rape and murder case, and asked, "where is justice?"

"I asked for 5 days' time, but the case was sent to the CBI. They don't want justice. They want a delay. It has been 16 days. Where is justice?" she asked.

(source: indiatoday.in)

FIJI:

NGO Coalition against death penalty and urges Tabuya to look at better policies

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights is in support of the statement by the Fiji Human Rights and Anti Discrimination Commission on the death penalty not being the solution to Fiji’s rising drug problems.

The organisation believes the growing national conversation led by Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya for the death penalty to be considered an option to Fiji’s drug problem is harmful, regressive and counter productive to the progressive development of human rights.

They believe these ideas and statements do not belong in an evolving democracy like Fiji.

Coalition Chair Shamima Ali says the death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights - the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment.

She says no one has the right to take away someone else’s life.

Ali says they are urging the Minister to offer a real alternative to austerity, poverty and alienation which means giving young people opportunities, building economic security and investing in their communities to create a fairer and safer society for all.

The Coalition is calling on the Minister to address root causes, look at the evidence and create better policies for people.

The Coalition Chair says there must be a concerted national approach to deal with this issue – all of Government and civil society.

Meanwhile, Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Lynda Tabuya is standing by her comments that the death penalty should be considered for those people caught with large quantities of drugs.

Tabuya says the proposal can form part of the public consultations on the review of the 2013 Constitution if Cabinet agrees to include it, and parliament passes it by 75 percent majority, and then a referendum by 75 percent of the registered voters.

She confirms that she is considering to propose it as part of the review process of the 2013 constitution, as it is her opinion that the public interest to protect our children, our youth, our citizens and our borders outweighs the individual’s right to life and cruel and unusual punishment.

(source: fijivillage.com)

**************

Church condemns Lynda’s death penalty call

The Methodist Church of Fiji has condemned the Minister for Women and Children’s call for the death penalty on those who traffic in excessive amounts of drugs.

The church has joined other organisations in their criticism of Lynda Tabuya’s suggestion that traffickers ought to be dealt the death penalty.

The secretary of the church’s evangelism department, Reverend Iliesa Koroi, who also works closely with youths, said he does not support the minister’s call for such an inhumane act.

He said people could be rehabilitated while they are still alive.

“Despite our many sins, Jesus continues to love us,” Mr Koroi said.

“He died so that we can live. I don’t agree with what the minister is stating.”

Mr Koroi said people involved in illegal activities could still be saved to tread the right path, but if the death penalty is applied, they will never get the opportunity to turn their lives around.

He said that would be blood on the minister’s hand.

“The book of Ezekiel, chapter 3 verse 18 says: ‘When I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die’, and you do not warn them or speak out to dissuade them from their evil ways in order to save their life, that wicked person will die for their sins, and I will hold you accountable for their blood.

“The individual can still be saved, giving him a chance to repent so that he or she may learn from his mistake.

“If that death penalty is implemented, once he dies, he dies along with his sin.

“And the minister will be accountable because she asked for it, proposing it to the lawmakers.”

(source: fijitimes.com.fj)

IRAN:

68 Human Rights Organizations Express Support for Iranian Prisoners’ ?"No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Abolition Movement Entering Its 31st Week

Amidst a continued post-election execution surge and increased suppression of peaceful prison protests, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) and 67 human rights organizations across four continents expressed their support for the ongoing “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” weekly hunger strike movement currently spanning 17 Iranian prisons across the country. The August 27, 2024 statement, published a day after the first public hanging of the year, “call[ed] for an immediate halt on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty in Iran and urge[d] the international community to support the growing abolition movement in Iran.”

“Every 6 hours, 1 person was executed in Iranian prisons in the first 20 days of August,” the statement explains. With executions increasing “every year since 2021,” and at least 395 executions as of August 26, 2024, the statement highlights Iran’s use of the death penalty as a “tool of political repression,” emphasizing its unlawful use for drug-related crimes and disproportionate use against “[m]arginalised groups of society and ethnic minorities,” such as the Kurdish and Baluch populations, which was recently criticized by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of IHRNGO, added to the statement’s release: “The resilience of prisoners fighting against the death penalty in Iran has impressed and inspired the abolitionist movement worldwide. Our message to these courageous individuals is that we have heard your voices and will stand with you until this inhumane punishment is abolished.”

The movement, which was originally called “Black Tuesdays,” was initiated by 10 political prisoners in Karaj’s Ghezelhesar Prison on January 30, 2024 following the execution of several political prisoners in January and months of weekly group executions at the prison. “In order to be heard, every Tuesday starting this week, we will go on hunger strike. We chose Tuesday because often it is the last day our cellmates are alive before being transferred to solitary confinement [in preparation] for execution,” Ghezelhesar prisoners explained in an open letter, translated by the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “We ask you to defend all prisoners sentenced to death, regardless of their political or non-political charges, because we have all been unfairly tried.”

Shortly thereafter, Nobel Peace Laureate Narges Mohammadi announced that the female ward at Evin Prison, the nation’s largest facility for detained political prisoners, would join the movement. In addition to the ongoing weekly hunger strike, 60 prisoners at Evin prison staged an overnight sit-in on July 24 to object to the death sentence of fellow prisoner, Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish civil rights activist, as reported by Iran International; 37 prisoners were subsequently denied visitation rights for their participation in the sit-in. On August 6, the female ward staged another sit-in in the yard, chanting in protest of the execution of 34-year-old Kurdish “Woman, Life, Freedom” protester Reza Rasaei occurring that same day, as well as calling for death sentences against political prisoners to be overturned and capital punishment to be abolished. Advocates report that prison guards violently dispersed the peaceful protest, resulting in injuries to several prisoners, according to IHRNGO, DW, and BBC Persian. Ms. Mohammadi was reportedly “struck several times in the chest” and “suffered a respiratory attack and severe chest pain, causing her to collapse in the prison yard,” according to a translation of BBC Persian reporting by Human Rights Watch. On August 20, UN human rights experts “expressed deep concerns about the physical and mental integrity” of Ms. Mohammadi, urging access to medical care for her and 5 other prisoners. “Prisoners have the right to equivalent healthcare available in the community and must be given prompt access to medical attention in urgent cases,” said the UN experts. “Such deprivations may amount to torture and inhuman treatment, which is an absolute right not liable to exceptions and derogations, and a jus cogens norm of international human rights law.”

Ahmadreza Djalali, a Swedish-Iranian expert on disaster medicine detained since 2016, also began a hunger strike on June 26, just 10 days after his exclusion in a Swedish-Iranian prisoner swap, whereby Sweden released convicted war criminal Hamid Nouri in exchange for 2 Swedish nationals. Vida Mehrannia told AFP that her husband “thought the only way anyone can hear his voice in the world is to just start a hunger strike.” She explained that, as a medical doctor, her husband understands the “potentially fatal” risk of a hunger strike, given that he suffers from “heart arrhythmias, bradycardia, hypotension, chronic gastritis, anaemia, and extreme weight loss from his previous hunger strikes,” but “sees no other option.” Amnesty International warned on July 8 that he is “at grave risk of execution” and highlighted that his hunger strike, lasting until July 4, exacerbated existing health conditions.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

IRAN----executions

4 Prisoners Executed in Tabriz Prison

On Monday, August 26th, 4 prisoners, including 2 Afghan nationals and 1 Iraqi national, were executed in Tabriz Prison. They had previously been sentenced to death on charges related to drug offenses and murder.

According to Iran Human Rights Organization, the identities of these prisoners are Shapour Hosseini, a resident of Tabriz; Mohibullah (last name unknown), 32 years old, Afghan national; Moshref (last name unknown), 27 years old, Afghan national; and Erfan Abdulazizi, a resident of Kirkuk, Iraq.

A reliable source stated: “Shapour Hosseini was arrested 2 years ago on drug trafficking charges and sentenced to death. Mohibullah and Moshref were also arrested 2 years ago in a joint case for armed drug trafficking and sentenced to death. Additionally, Erfan Abdulazizi was arrested 3 years ago for the premeditated murder of a cement factory guard and was sentenced to death.”

As of the time of this report, the executions have not been officially announced by prison officials or relevant authorities.

(source: en-hrana.org)

***************

In the 31st week, prisoners in 19 Iranian prisons have declared a hunger strike

The ‘No to Executions on Tuesdays’ campaign has entered its 31st week with a significant escalation as prisoners in 19 Iranian facilities have declared a hunger strike. On August 27, 2024, prisoners in Tehran’s Greater Prison joined the growing movement, which protests the Iranian government’s widespread use of the death penalty.

Initially established as a weekly protest against the Iranian government’s extensive use of the death penalty, the campaign has seen a surge in participation following the execution of at least 100 individuals in August 2024 alone.

In a statement on August 27, 2024, the prisoners condemned the escalating repression by Iranian authorities, highlighting oppressive measures taken against those involved in the campaign. Examples include the denial of basic rights, such as phone calls and visits for female inmates at Evin Prison, and the solitary confinement of political prisoner Armita Pavir in Tabriz Prison.

The statement also criticized the newly appointed government, referring to it as a “cabinet of repression and execution,” and warned of increased crackdowns on civil society. Despite these challenges, the prisoners pledged to continue their resistance and called on others to join the “No to Executions on Tuesdays” campaign.

The movement has also resonated internationally, with notable support from Italian lawmakers who have expressed solidarity with the cause. Global backing is seen as essential in the fight against the death penalty, and the campaign organizers have called on the international community to take a stronger stand.

The prisoners involved in the hunger strike, located in various facilities such as Evin Prison, Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj Central Prison, and others, expressed their gratitude for the support they have received, both within Iran and from the international community. They reiterated their call for all prisoners and global citizens to join in the effort to abolish the death penalty and end torture in Iran.

The final section of the prisoners’ statement reads: “Once again, we urge all prisoners in various jails to join the ‘No to Executions on Tuesdays’ campaign. We also call on all awakened consciences around the world to support this campaign in the fight against the death penalty.”

The “No to Executions on Tuesdays” campaign continues to gain momentum, reflecting a growing movement against capital punishment in Iran with increasing international involvement.

(source: iran-hrm.com)

AUGUST 27, 2024:

PENNSYLVANIA:

Editorial: Baby Leon Katz deserves justice. Pursuing the death penalty will only delay it

There are no more emotionally gutting crimes than those that involve violence against children, especially the very smallest children. These crimes are a violation of primordial innocence, and there are almost never extenuating circumstances that mitigate them, let alone justify them.

And so it is right and just to feel outrage at stories like the gruesome death of 6-week-old Leon Katz in Shadyside in June, and to demand harsh justice. The death penalty, however, is never the justice that is called for.

District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.’s announcement last week that he would seek the death penalty against alleged murderer Nicole Elizabeth Virzi may provide a glimmer of satisfaction to the victim’s family and to the public. But it will only extend the prosecutorial process possibly by decades, while achieving nothing of value except the satisfaction of vengeance. It will protect no one while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. It will not undo the horror visited upon baby Leon, but it will make the people party to another horror altogether.

No punishment is reversible, but capital punishment is uniquely permanent. For this reason, courts have instituted numerous safeguards to protect against executing the innocent. Capital trials require more expert witnesses and investigations and more complex jury selection, and include an automatic right to appeal.

These procedures stretch the conviction process into decades-long ordeal that delays justice while prolonging the trauma experienced by victims and the community. Even after appeals, post-conviction challenges delay most executions by roughly 20 years.

And in Pennsylvania, it’s all but impossible that all this expense and effort will actually result in an execution. Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1978, the Commonwealth has convicted 400 people, exonerated 10, and executed only three. The cost of these efforts?

Over $1 billion.

Since 2015, governors including Josh Shapiro have refused to sign off on death warrants, halting all executions. Over 120 convicted criminals are now awaiting executions, one of the largest backlogs in the nation. Mr. Zappala’s efforts would do nothing except make Nicole Virzi the latest name added to a growing list of death-row inmates that isn’t being whittled down — except by exonerations and deaths in prison.

The details of the case of baby Leon are particularly upsetting and almost unfathomable: massive head trauma, apparently consistent only with a rag- doll-style bludgeoning, while in the care of a family friend. They make us question the goodness of the world itself.

But we don’t make the world better through vengeance. The evidence in this case doesn’t negate the proven ineffectiveness, and harm, of pursuing the death penalty. Further, no evidence has shown capital punishment is an effective deterrent to violent crime.

Baby Leon deserves justice. His family deserves justice. The court system can deliver justice, or at least a measure of it. The death penalty, however, is not justice, and pursuing it will only delay, and weaken, the measure of justice the system can provide.

(source: Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution

South Carolina's 1st execution in over a decade will likely be a Greenville County man

A Greenville man is expected to be the 1st person executed by the state since 2011.

The South Carolina Supreme issued the execution order to the South Carolina Department of Corrections for Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, late Friday. His execution has been scheduled for Sept. 20.

Shortly after the death penalty order, the state high court announced a pause in executions until resolving a request by death row inmates, including Owens, to set at least a 13-week interval between executions.

The other death row inmates listed in the motion include Richard Bernard Moore, Brad Keith Sigmon, and Mikal D. Mahdi.

According to the motion, the inmates argued that scheduling executions close to one another heightens the risk of error during the execution, likely resulting in cruel or unusual punishment. The inmates also said multiple executions in a small time period will overburden the corrections staff involved in the process, which would heighten the risk for an execution being cruel or unusual and scheduling executions at a more "frenetic pace" would result in hurried litigation and adjudication of any critical concerns that arise during the election and execution processes.

Owens's execution date will stand despite the inmates' request, according to the court.

In 1999, Ownes was convicted of murder, armed robbery, and criminal conspiracy in the 1997 Halloween murder of Irene Graves, 41, at a Speedway convenience store. He was sentenced to death.

Attorneys for Owens filed at least 2 appeals seeking to reduce his sentence to life in prison. Both were denied, the last in September 2006.

According to court documents, at 4 a.m. on Nov. 1, 1997, Owens and another person robbed the now-demolished convenience store on Laurens Road, with Owens shooting Graves in the head after she told them that she could not open the safe.

During the trial, prosecutors showed surveillance footage of the store. Two men were seen entering the building. Minutes later, one of the men was shown shooting Graves.

Owens maintained he was at home in bed at the time of the robbery turned murder. However, his co-defendant, Stephen Andra Golden, pled guilty before his trial started and told investigators that Owens shot Graves.

Owens was originally scheduled to be put to death on June 25, 2021, but he and other death row inmates filed a lawsuit that halted the execution.

The lawsuit contended the choices of execution, firing squad, and the electric chair went against the state constitution. Last month, the state Supreme Court deemed the choices constitutional.

Owens must decide on his method of death, lethal injection or firing squad, 14 days before execution day. If he declines to decide, he will automatically be given the electric chair. Another Greenville man, Jefferey Brian Motts, 36, was the last person the state executed in May 2011. He died by lethal injection.

Jace Woodrum, the American Civil Liberties Union executive director for South Carolina, condemned the order to execute Owens.

"The death penalty is costly in practice, arbitrary and racist in its application, and ineffective at deterring crime, Woodrum said. "We call on Governor McMaster to grant clemency to Mr. Owens before the state resumes killing in our name."

Oklahoma, Mississippi, Idaho, and Utah, carry out firing squad executions. Five other states, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and Arkansas, use the electric chair.

While incarcerated during his trial in 1999, Owens beat to death his cellmate, 28-year-old Christopher B. Lee. He admitted to investigators with the South Carolina Law Enforcment Division that he punched, kicked and choked Lee until he was sure Lee had stopped breathing. He also stabbed Lee multiple times in the face and eye with a pen.

During Owens's confession to SLED investigators, he wrote "I really did it because I was wrongly convicted of murder."

(source: greenvilleonline.com)

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South Carolina Supreme Court to decide minimum time between executions----The South Carolina Supreme Court won’t allow another execution until it determines a minimum amount of time between sending inmates to the death chamber

The South Carolina Supreme Court won't allow another execution in the state until it determines a minimum amount of time between sending inmates to the death chamber.

The state's next execution, scheduled for Sept. 20, is still on for inmate Freddie Eugene Owens. It would be the 1st execution in South Carolina in over 13 years after the court cleared the way to reopen the death chamber last month.

But as it set Owens' execution date Friday, the court also agreed to take up a request from 4 other death row inmates who are out of appeals to require the state to wait at least 3 months between executions.

In its response, state prosecutors suggested setting the minimum at no longer than 4 weeks between executions.

Currently, the Supreme Court can set executions as close together as a week apart. That accelerated schedule would rush lawyers who are trying to represent multiple inmates on death row, a lawyer for the inmates wrote in court papers.

Prison staff who have to take extensive steps to prepare to put an inmate to death and could cause botched executions, attorney Lindsey Vann said.

Neither argument is a good reason to wait for three months, state prosecutors responded in offering up to a 4-week delay.

“The Department of Corrections staff stands ready to accomplish their duty as required by our law with professionalism and dignity,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Melody Brown wrote in a response drafted after speaking to prison officials.

It is not immediately known when the justices will rule.

South Carolina has held executions in rapid succession before. 2 half brothers were put to death in 1 night in December 1998. Another execution followed on each of the next 2 Fridays that month, with 2 more in January 1999.

Owens, 46, has until the end of next week to decide whether he wants to die by lethal injection, electrocution or the firing squad. His lawyers said he is waiting for prison officials to submit a sworn statement this week about the purity, potency and quality of the lethal injection drug under the terms of a new state law limiting how much information about execution procedures is released, and to see if it satisfies both the state and federal courts.

South Carolina's last execution was in 2011. Since then, the 3 drugs the state used to kill inmates expired and prison officials could not obtain any more.

To restart executions, lawmakers changed the lethal injection protocol to use only 1 drug and added the firing squad.

“Executions scheduled close in time would yield a high risk of error because it has been a significant time since the last execution, one method is antiquated, and the other two are untested,” Vann said.

The inmates' motion includes interviews in news articles in which a variety of prison employees spoke about how difficult it is to perform executions or to work closely with condemned inmates.

The South Carolina inmates are asking for 13 weeks between executions, citing problems Oklahoma encountered when it tried to accelerate the pace of executions there, leading to problems with carrying out death sentences. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in January 2023 that holding an execution each month was burdening prison staff.

State prosecutors wrote that Oklahoma's death penalty laws are different and can't be compared to South Carolina's execution procedures.

Owens was convicted of the 1997 killing of a Greenville clerk in a convenience store robbery.

The other South Carolina inmates who are out of appeals are:

— Richard Moore, 59, convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg in 1999.

— Brad Sigmon, 66, convicted of beating to death his estranged girlfriend's parents with a baseball bat in Greenville County in 2001.

— Marion Bowman, 44, convicted of killing an Orangeburg woman and setting her body on fire because she owed him money in 2001.

— Mikal Mahdi, 41, convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer at his home in Calhoun County and setting his body on fire in 2004.

South Carolina currently has 32 inmates on its death row.

(source: ABC News)

*****************

South Carolina Supreme Court Sets 1st Execution Date in More Than 13 Years

Upcoming Executions Lethal Injection South Carolina

On August 23, 2024, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced that the state supreme court has set a September 20, 2024, execution date for Freddie Owens, which would be the 1st execution in South Carolina since 2011. Mr. Owens was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for the killing of a convenience store clerk in Greenville, South Carolina and he was later convicted in the murder of a cellmate. In a July 31struling, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that the state’s 3 execution methods—lethal injection, firing squad, and electrocution—were valid methods of execution that are not considered “cruel, corporal, or unusual punishment.” Consequently, Mr. Owens will be forced to choose which method will be used for his execution.

The director of SCDOC will have 5 days to determine that all three methods of execution are available and must provide Mr. Owens’ attorneys with proof that the lethal injection drugs in SCDOC’s possession are stable and mixed properly. This is a requirement that comes from the state supreme court’s interpretation of a secrecy law passed in 2023. Mr. Owens will then have just a week to choose a method of execution. If he does not decide, he will be executed by the electric chair. John Blume, an attorney for Mr. Owens, told theAssociated Press that the defense team is waiting for prison officials to submit sworn statements about the purity and potency of the lethal injection drugs in their possession. Mr. Blume said that “the lack of transparency about the source of the execution drugs, how they were obtained and whether (they) can bring about as painless a death as possible is still of grave concern to the lawyers that represent persons on death row.”

In early 2023, South Carolina passed legislation shielding the identities of drug manufacturers and execution team members from the general public. In September 2023, Governor Henry McMaster announced that the state had procured pentobarbital and were “now prepared” to carry out lethal injection executions. According SCDOC officials, the department made more than 1,300 contacts in efforts to secure these drugs. In previous lethal injection executions, South Carolina used a 3-drug protocol, but with the acquisition of pentobarbital, will now have a 1-drug protocol. South Carolina, like many other states, had been unable to purchase the drugs needed to carry out lethal injection executions since their supply expired in 2013. In efforts to bring back capital punishment, in 2021, the state legislature passed legislation that authorized the firing squad as a method of execution.

Mr. Owens also has the opportunity to ask Governor McMaster for clemency and a commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Since 1976, no South Carolina governors have granted clemency to individuals facing execution.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

FLORIDA----impending execution

A Florida man set to be executed this week appeals to the US Supreme Court for a stay

A Florida man scheduled to be put to death on Thursday is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to delay his execution so that his challenge to Florida’s lethal injection procedures can be heard.

Loran Cole, 57, is slated to be executed at 6 p.m. on Thursday at the Florida State Prison after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in July. Cole was convicted of kidnapping adult siblings camping in the Ocala National Forest in 1994, raping the sister and murdering the brother.

On Monday, Cole appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, arguing that his challenge of the state’s lethal injection procedures deserves to be heard. Cole has argued the administration of Florida’s drug cocktail will “very likely cause him needless pain and suffering” due to symptoms caused by his Parkinson’s disease.

“Cole’s Parkinson’s symptoms will make it impossible for Florida to safely and humanely carry out his execution because his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection,” his attorneys argued in court filings.

Many of Florida’s death penalty procedures are exempt from public records. Botched executions in other states have brought increased scrutiny of the death penalty and the secrecy around it, as officials struggle to secure the necessary drug cocktails and staff capable of administering them.

In their filings, Cole’s attorneys note that other death row inmates were granted similar hearings to consider how their medical conditions could affect their executions. Cole’s legal team claims that denying him a hearing violates his 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection.

On Aug. 23, the Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal from Cole, who has also argued his execution should be blocked because he suffered abuse at a state-run reform school where for decades boys were beaten, raped and killed.

(source: Associated Press)

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Push grows to spare convicted killer once confined to troubled Dozier School

Death penalty opponents stepped up their calls for Gov. Ron DeSantis to halt Thursday’s scheduled execution of convicted killer Loran Cole, citing his months of confinement at a notorious Florida reform school in the 1980s.

Petitions bearing signatures from more than 7,000 people were dropped off Monday at the Governor’s Office in the state Capitol as part of an effort to get DeSantis to commute Cole’s death sentence to life in prison.

Cole, now 57, was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of John Edwards, an 18-year-old Florida State University student. He was also convicted of robbing, raping and kidnapping Edwards’ sister who, with her brother, was camping in the Ocala National Forest.

Cole’s execution would be Florida’s 1st in 10 months. DeSantis ordered 6 executions carried out in 2023, the most in the state in almost a decade. Those 6 executions also occurred during the time the governor was unsuccessfully seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

His leading rival, eventual GOP nominee Donald Trump, had during his term as president conducted the most federal executions of civilian inmates since President Grover Cleveland in 1896.

Dozier School history, central to plea

But Cole’s time at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna figures in the push to have him taken off death row. According to an appeal rejected last week by the state Supreme Court, Cole was brutalized there by guards, which he says potentially contributed to his murderous behavior.

DeSantis in June signed legislation making $20 million available to victims of abuse at Dozier and another state reform school in Okeechobee between 1940 and 1975. Cole was at Dozier as a 17-year-old in 1984, when court documents say he was raped by a guard, beaten twice weekly and had both legs broken after trying to escape.

Executions climb in '23 because of Fla.:Executions climb across U.S. because of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, report shows

“I have to wonder what kind of advice DeSantis is getting, signing a compensation bill for Dozier survivors, then turning around and signing a death warrant for one of them,” said Abe Bonowitz, executive director and co-founder of Death Penalty Action, who has fought against capital punishment for more than 30 years in Florida and nationwide.

Bonowitz said advocates believe at least three other former Dozier School students are on Florida’s death row.

“The state of Florida is complicit in the murders they committed, and now it wants to kill some and compensate others. Incredible,” Bonowitz said.

DeSantis’ office didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment on the pitch from death penalty opponents.

Supreme Court rejects appeal

Attorneys for Cole had argued before state justices that his lawyer in 1995 failed to present the Dozier school history as possible grounds for avoiding the death penalty. But justices, in rejecting his latest claim, said Dozier has been raised and rejected in Cole’s post-conviction appeals.

“At its core, Cole’s latest argument related to his time at the Dozier school is only another variation of his claims that were raised and rejected in his first and second successive motions for post-conviction relief,” the court unanimously agreed.

Among the groups urging DeSantis to commute Cole’s death sentence to life are Bonowitz’s organization, as well as Witness to Innocence, the Catholic Mobilizing Network and Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a letter earlier this month urging DeSantis not to execute Cole.

“Never having received mental health and trauma treatment until his arrival on death row in his late 20s, Mr. Cole, at age 57, is not the same person who committed the grave crimes for which he was convicted,” Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference, wrote in the letter to DeSantis.

(source: tallahassee.com)

*********************

Jury selection beings in the resentencing of man who killed St. Lucie County deputy

In 2016, Eriese Tisdale was sentenced to death for the 2013 murder of St. Lucie County Sgt. Gary Morales during a traffic stop. Now, due to a change in Florida law, that sentencing process has started again at the St. Lucie County Courthouse.

The resentencing is a result of recent legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023, which reduced the number of jurors required to recommend the death penalty. This legal change has brought the Morales family back to court.

Before jury selection began, Tisdale addressed the judge and Morales' family, pleading for his life.

"We are getting ready to begin a process that is very tough, it is going to be very traumatic," Tisdale said. "I would just ask the court, the state attorney to find some kind of way. Or even the family to find some kind of way. We could just end all of this if you give me a life sentence."

Attorneys expect jury selection to last several days.

(source: WPBF news)

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Wade Wilson is 1st Florida Killer to Face Death Since DeSantis Law Change

Wade Wilson, the Florida man who could be sentenced to death on Tuesday, is the 1st convicted killer in the state to face death after Gov. Ron DeSantis' controversial law change.

DeSantis signed a law in April 2023 reducing the requirement for jurors to recommend a death sentence from a unanimous decision to an 8-4 vote in favor. Experts argue that this change has turned capital resentencing and trials into a "quintessential game of chance" for those facing the death penalty.

Wilson, 30, killed Kristine Meton and Diane Ruiz within hours of each other in October 2019.

Wilson met Melton at a live-music bar and went home with her on October 6, 2019. The next day, he strangled her to death at her home in Cape Coral, where her body was discovered.

He took her car and was driving when he saw Ruiz walking down the street. She got into the car after he asked her for directions. Wilson strangled her then ran over her repeatedly with the car.

In June, 9 of the 12 jurors recommended the death penalty for the murder of Melton and 10 recommended death for the murder of Ruiz.

Florida allows inmates to choose whether they will be executed by electrocution or lethal injection.

Convicts on death row in Florida have the right to an appeal process, which includes direct appeals and post-conviction relief motions.

This process can be lengthy and involves thorough review by higher courts to ensure that the trial was fair and that all legal standards were met.

Wilson will learn his fate Tuesday afternoon. Prior to the sentencing hearing, Wilson will have a Spencer hearing in which he can address the judge if he chooses.

Death Penalty For Child Sex Crime Offenders

DeSantis also signed legislation in May 2023 that expands death penalty eligibility to those convicted of sex crimes against children.

At the time, he stated that the law could pose a challenge to a 2008 US Supreme Court ruling that declared capital punishment unconstitutional for child sexual battery cases. DeSantis is seeking to have the court reconsider that decision.

"This bill sets up a procedure to be able to challenge that precedent and to be able to say that in Florida we think that the worst of the worst crimes deserve the worst of the worst punishment," DeSantis said.

In December, State Attorney William Gladson announced they are seeking the death penalty for Joseph Giampa, 36, the Florida man who was convicted of forcing a girl under the age of 12 to engage in sexual acts.

DeSantis addressed the indictment on X, writing, "[Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office] has my full support."

Giampa was ultimately sentenced to life in prison in February.

2 Death Sentences In One Lifetime

For a 2nd time in his life, a jury decided last week that Pinkney "Chip" Carter of Jacksonville should be put to death.

In 2002, the now 70-year-old murdered his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Reed, her 16-year-old daughter, Courtney Smith, and Reed's new boyfriend, Glen Pafford. Carter was resentenced due to the death penalty law change, but ultimately got the same result.

Carter has another sentencing hearing set for mid-October when the judge will decide his fate.

(source: newsweek.com)

MISSOURI----impending execution

Gov. Parson open to discussing clemency of Marcellus Williams

Missouri Governor Mike Parson is open to discussing clemency with Marcellus Williams and his lawyers as his execution date gets closer depending on how the hearing in the case goes this Wednesday, his office told First Alert 4 on Monday.

Last week, prosecutors agreed to accept an Alford plea of guilty to a charge of 1st-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Felicia Gayle, 42, on Aug. 11, 1998. Prosecutors said the agreement took the death penalty off the table. Williams is set to be executed on Sept. 24.

Williams, his lawyers and the family of Gayle all agreed to take the death penalty off the table and for Williams to serve life in prison.

After the court accepted the agreement, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office argued that the circuit court does not have the authority to overturn his conviction or resentence him. They filed a request with the Missouri Supreme Court asking the Alford plea to be vacated and the circuit court be prohibited from taking further action in the case.

Hours later, the Missouri Supreme Court sided with Bailey, stating that St. Louis County Judge Bruce Hilton must hold a hearing first or explain why he isn’t before accepting the Alford plea. Judge Hilton bypassed that step in the procedure by accepting the consent judgment.

On Thursday, Judge Hilton said he would vacate his consent judgment from the previous day, throwing out the Alford plea that was agreed upon, and move forward with a hearing initially scheduled for Aug. 28 at 8:30 a.m. as the Missouri Supreme Court suggested.

Monday morning, a spokesperson for Parson’s office told First Alert 4 the governor isn’t leaning one way or another right now.

(source: KMOC news)

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Missouri Execution of Marcellus Williams on September 24, 2024, In Question

Marcellus S. Williams is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm local time, on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Corrections Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri. 55-year-old Marcellus is convicted of murdering Felicia “Lisha” Gayle on August 11, 1998, in University City, Missouri, while robbing her home. Marcellus has spent the last 23 years on Missouri’s death row.

As a child, Marcellus alleges he was physically and sexually abused by family members. He also says his family encouraged him into criminal behavior and exposed him to guns, drugs, and alcohol at a young age. Marcellus later became addicted to drugs and alcohol. His family was impoverished and dysfunctional. Marcellus had a lengthy criminal record, including 16 convictions for robbery, burglary, assault, and unlawful use of a weapon, among others. According to his family, Marcellus was a loving and supportive father to his son and step-daughter.

On August 11, 1998, Marcellus Williams took a bus to University City, Missouri, and began looking for places to burglarize. Williams noticed the home of Lisha Gayle. He knocked on the door. After receiving no answer, Williams broke in. He heard water running from the bathroom. Williams grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and waited for Lisha to exit the bathroom.

Williams stabbed and cut Lisha 43 times. 7 of the wounds were fatal. After killing Lisha, Williams washed his hands and put on his jacket to hide the bloodstains. He also took Lisha’s purse and her husband’s laptop computer. Williams then took the bus to return home.

Williams’ girlfriend discovered the stolen items and confronted him about them. Williams confessed to her what he had done, but she did not go to the police, as Williams threatened her life, her children’s lives, and her mother’s life.

Williams was arrested on unrelated charges on August 31, 1998. During his incarceration, Williams told his cell-mate about the murder after they saw a news report about it. Williams told his cell-mate considerable details of the crime. The cell-mate then went to the police in June 1999, after his release. He provided previoulsy unreported details of the crime, prompting further police investigation. Police contacted Williams’ girlfriend, who told police what Williams had told her. Police discovered several items belonging to Lisha after they searched Williams’ vehicle. Williams was tried and convicted of Lisha’s murder.

Williams has always insisted that he is innocent of the crime. Recently, it was revealed that prosecutors described the 2 witnesses who testified against Williams as “unreliable.” Additionally, DNA tests on the murder weapon have been inconclusive and indicate that it was improperly handled and contaminated.

Williams and his attorney have been seeking to halt his execution, in part due to the new evidence. An agreement had been reached in which Williams can continue to claim innocence but will forgo a new trial and receive a new sentence of life in prison. However, this deal was halted by the Missouri Supreme Court, which claimed that the judge overseeing the agreement overstepped his authority by approving it.

Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Lisha Gayle. Please pray for strength for the family of Marcellus Williams. Please pray that if Marcellus is innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be executed for any other reason, that evidence will be revealed before the execution. Please pray that Marcellus will find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)

KANSAS:

The weight of the wait 30 years after Kansas death penalty law----Kansas has long had an ambivalent relationship with capital punishment. 3 decades after the state passed its current death penalty law, its new execution chamber remains unused. So much has changed since 1994, in fact, that the state might soon be forced to choose yet again how justice should be refashioned.

“It’s possible,” he told reporters, “that one of the cases could be ready as early as nine months from now.”

There were several families on hand for Kobach’s news conference, relatives of people murdered by the 9 men who now sit in Kansas prisons awaiting execution. (2 others convicted of capital murder, Kobach said, had died in prison while their appeals were ongoing. They “escaped justice,” he said.) All of the families have been waiting for years. Some of them for decades.

They are ready for the wait to end.

“We have to live through it every day,” he told the assembled reporters. “There is no closure for us, and we need your help getting us closure. So please help us.”

It’s not unusual that Kansas has taken so long to conduct an execution under the law passed in 1994. Capital cases nationwide often take at least a decade or more to resolve, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan outlet critical of how the penalty is applied.“More than half of all prisoners currently sentenced to death in the U.S. have been on death row for more than 18 years,” the center says on its website.

The process can take a toll on participants. Prosecutors say they warn the families of victims that capital cases take a very long time to resolve.

The history

The death penalty law was repealed the next year, then restored decades later, in 1935. But the law was used infrequently. 15 men were executed between 1944 and 1965. The last 2 — James Douglas Latham and George Ronald York – were Army deserters who in 1961 killed 7 people in 5 states, including 62-year-old Otto Ziegler of Oakley. (Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, the infamous “In Cold Blood” killers, had been executed 2 months earlier.)

“There is nothing to say but that I am going home to heaven,” York said, moments before he was hanged at Lansing.

“I am personally opposed to the death penalty,” she wrote to the Legislature on April 22, 1994, “but believe that a majority of Kansans support it as a matter of public policy.”

And then the wait began.

Why so long?

So why does the death penalty process take so long?

That might seem fairly straightforward. It’s not.

The kind of case that gets prosecuted for capital murder “shocks the senses,” says Kansas Deputy Attorney General Vic Braden, one of the state’s most experienced death penalty prosecutors. Those defendants include Jonathan and Reginald Carr, convicted of killing four people in Sedgwick County in 2000; and John Edward Robinson, an Olathe man convicted of killing eight women starting in the late 1980s.

That’s just the beginning. “When I talk to the victim’s family, if we decide to go with the death penalty, I tell them, ‘It’s going to be at least 3 years from when the crime is charged before we get to a jury trial,’” Braden says.

It requires intense preparation, on both sides.

“Is there some reason that a juror may feel that a life sentence is warranted? And that can be any reason – that can be mercy.”

All this takes a lot more resources, on both sides, than the typical murder trial.

“It is very expensive, it is very time consuming and it takes a long time,” Manna says.

“In a regular murder case, there may only be one defense attorney, there may be a second chair,” or assistant defender, Manna says, “but in a death penalty case, there’s a whole team.”

Then come the appeals

The case of Gary Kleypas shows how that process can be a long and winding road.

Kleypas was 40 years old – and on parole for a 1977 murder in Missouri – when he was arrested in 1996 for the rape and murder of Carrie Williams, a Pittsburg State University student. The next year he became the 1st defendant convicted of capital murder under Kansas’ then-new law.

Kleypas’ defense team does not argue his innocence. “We’re not arguing my client is exempt from criminal responsibility,” one attorney said during a 2015 hearing. “He’s guilty.”

Instead, Kleypas’ original sentence was overturned on grounds that jurors who recommended he be given the death penalty had been given insufficient information on how to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors in the crime. When appealing the 2nd sentencing, his attorneys argued that jurors had been prejudiced when Larry Williams – Carrie’s father – lunged at Kleypas during a hearing.

“I have zero thought that he will be put to death,” Larry Williams told The Wichita Eagle in 2017. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen.”

Williams died 2 years later. Kleypas turns 70 next year.

Young pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder charges in October, rendering the ACLU’s challenge moot. The hope, Stubbs says, is “that the evidence that we developed will be used in other cases.”

Which means more challenges are likely.

Table containing the names, birth dates and date of conviction of Kansas death penalty inmates see:https://klcjournal.com/the-weight-of-the-wait-30-years-after-kansas-death-penalty-law/

The future

In 2001, state officials led reporters on a tour of the lethal-injection chamber they had built at the Lansing Correctional Facility, which remains unused. All but one of the capital murder defendants are held at the El Dorado Correctional Facility — more than 2 hours away – to separate the staff who work with inmates on a day-to-day basis from those who might be responsible for implementing the penalty.

“An execution is something that has a certain amount of impact on all of the staff who participate,” then-Kansas Corrections Secretary Chuck Simmons told The Topeka Capital-Journal in 2001.

That’s why Kobach in February asked the Legislature to add another form of execution to the state’s options: hypoxia. Prisoners would be deprived of oxygen until they died.

Even if the Legislature were to follow Kobach’s lead, however, Gov. Laura Kelly might not.

In the meantime, the system grinds on. The most recent person sentenced to death in Kansas was Kyle Flack, convicted in 2016 of killing three adults and a toddler in Franklin County. (The Kansas Supreme Court rejected his appeal in January.) Those now facing capital murder charges include Michael Cherry, a Topeka man accused of killing 5-year-old Zoey Felix; and Donald Ray Jackson, a Leavenworth man accused of killing his 2 sons in 2020.

Manna continues his work, but hopes the death penalty will one day be repealed. A life sentence, he says, is always appropriate.

Until then, the families of the victims wait. At that February news conference, Jennifer Aldridge – Jodi Sanderholm’s sister – made it clear that she is ready for some finality.

It’s not about revenge, Aldridge said, but justice.

“I don’t have hate in my heart anymore toward my sister’s killer,” she said. “I do want to witness his execution.”

(source: klcjournal.com)

ARIZONA:

Former prosecutors align with Mayes’ in death penalty dispute

Attorney General Kris Mayes has picked up some allies in her fight with Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell over who gets to seek to execute Aaron Gunches.

In a new legal filing, former Attorney General Terry Goddard joined with 2 former county attorneys, Republican Rick Romley of Maricopa County and Barbara LaWall of Pima County, to urge the Supreme Court to reject Mitchell’s bid to seek a warrant of execution. They said the history of the death penalty of the state and associated legislation makes clear why the Attorney General’s Office is in charge.

And attorney Andrew Stone, who filed the friend of the court brief, said his clients believe that Mitchell’s position is “bad public policy and unworkable.”

Hanging in the balance is the life of Aaron Gunches who pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and kidnapping in the 2002 death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex husband.

A warrant for execution had been issued in 2022 at the request of then-Attorney General Mark Brnovich. But that warrant, which had a fixed time limit, expired before the execution was carried out.

Mayes, newly elected in 2023, declined for the moment to seek a new one.

The attorney general said she is waiting on a report by a special Death Penalty Commission named by Gov. Katie Hobbs, also newly elected. She said the process has remained plagued by questions.

“Recent executions have been embroiled in controversy,” the governor said. There were reports that prison employees had repeated problems in placing the intravenous line into the veins of the condemned men.

“The death penalty is a controversial issue to begin with,” Hobbs continued. “We just want to make sure the practices are sound and that we don’t end up with botched executions like we’ve seen recently.”

That report is not expected to be ready before the end of the year.

But Mitchell insists that she has concurrent authority to ask the high court, in the name of “the state,” to set a date for Gunches’ execution, prompting the brief by Goddard, Romley and LaWall.

Setting such a precedent, the three former elected officials are telling the justices, is a bad idea.

“The Maricopa County Attorney believes that just because her office represents the state in some proceedings, it therefore has the authority to represent the state in any proceeding it chooses,” their legal brief argues.

It starts, they say, with state laws which spell out that the attorney general is the “chief legal officer” who shall “prosecute and defend in the supreme court all proceedings in which this state is a party.”

By contrast, they say, the state’s 15 county attorneys can represent the state and “conduct all prosecutions for public offenses, but only within their respective counties.” And the trio contend this has never been understood to extend to seeking execution warrants.

There’s a more practical issue.

Consider, they said, what would happen if any prosecutor argued he or she has the authority to speak for “the state” in any prosecution.

“This would require courts to resolve internal disputes among the various prosecutors’ offices who claimed to be representing ‘the state’ before ever turning their attention to the actual issues of the state,” Stone wrote for the former prosecutors.

“Arizona courts are sufficiently busy without forcing judges to determine conflicting arguments from the same party,” the prosecutors argued. “The Maricopa County Attorney’s request would do little more than sow confusion among an otherwise well-understood and agreed-upon procedure.”

And there’s something else: Seeking a warrant of execution is more complex than simply filing a piece of paper with the Supreme Court.

“There are dozens of motions that are filed after this court grants the state’s request to set a briefing schedule for a warrant of execution,” they noted. And they pointed out that the Attorney General’s Office has been specially funded by the Legislature to handle post-conviction proceedings.

“To permit a prosecutor’s office to seek an execution warrant but not follow through with the ensuing litigation would be no different than allowing one prosecutor’s office to indict a dozen defendants in a complex fraud matter, but then force another office to handle all the subsequent work,” the brief states.

“The indictment, like a motion seeking an execution warrant is the easy part,” it continued. “Securing a conviction and navigating the attendant capital-case appellate issues are much more difficult.”

Mitchell declined to be interviewed on the filing. Instead, she filed her own legal brief saying all it does is repeat Mayes’ “unsupported and unsupportable legal conclusions” about her authority.

It starts with the stated reason for the delay: that “independent death penalty review.” Mitchell said that is irrelevant to the current case, saying there is no dispute that the legal requirements have been met to issue a warrant of execution, just as they were when Brnovich obtained the 1st warrant.

And Mitchell also says the bid to block her from proceeding ignores the constitutional and statutory rights of victims.

These include ensuring “a prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction and sentence.” And Mitchell has said that Karen Price, who was Ted’s sister and his daughter Brittney Kay, have asserted those rights and have asked for her help in enforcing them, something she said state law requires her to do.

Finally, Mitchell said while the attorney general may have some “supervisory authority” over county attorneys, that does not extend to her “legally supported attempt to exercise absolute control.”

The view that Mitchell is exceeding her authority extends to several current sitting county attorneys.

Coconino County Attorney William Ring said he’s not familiar with the process as his county hasn’t sought a death penalty in years. And the Democrat said he sees no need to pursue concurrent jurisdiction with the attorney general in initiating an execution warrant.

“Concurrent jurisdiction to seek an execution warrant only invites a race to the death chamber,” he said. “That would be confusing to the victim representatives and embarrassing to the state.”

Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, also a Democrat, has a more basic problem with the whole issue and the inconsistencies in Mitchell seeking to “speak for the state” on the issue, especially in contradiction with the attorney general.

“We have a Maricopa death penalty, not an Arizona death penalty, because the rest of the state can’t afford or won’t tolerate it,” she said. “The quickest and most efficient way to avoid the inconsistency is for Arizona to stop tinkering with the machinery of death, statewide.”

Several Republican county attorneys contacted by Capitol Media Services declined to comment on the issue of whether Mitchell has authority to seek a warrant of execution.

“In particular, I’m interested in knowing whether there are disparities between counties in Arizona in terms of which receives the death penalty,” she said when the moratorium was first announced.

“It is beginning to look like the death penalty is only being sought in Maricopa County because Maricopa County can afford it,” the attorney general explained, what with the huge price tag on prosecutors and defense counsel devoting years, and sometimes decades, of their time to just a handful of cases. “We need to understand that better before we go forward.”

The statistics show that about 60 % of Arizonans live in the state’s largest county, versus close to 73 % of death row inmates sentenced from courts there.

(source: azcapitoltimes.com)

USA:

Democrats omit call to abolish the federal death penalty from their 2024 party platform

The 2024 Democratic Party platform approved by delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August omits previous platforms’ calls to abolish the federal death penalty.

In 2016, the Democratic Party became the 1st major political party in the U.S. to call for an end to capital punishment in its platform. In 2020, President Joe Biden became the 1st U.S. president to have campaigned on an openly anti-death penalty platform. That year’s Democratic platform stated the party continues “to support abolishing the death penalty.”

After Biden was elected, his administration declared a moratorium on federal executions. But some activists have argued the president has not delivered on that promise and has defended some existing death sentences.

The 2024 platform, however, makes no mention of the death penalty or the party’s position on it. The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, has opposed the death penalty in her current and previous political roles.

The group Democrats for Life of America, which seeks to elect what it calls “Whole Life Democrats” who oppose abortion and practices including capital punishment and assisted suicide, said in a statement Aug. 22 it was “very disappointed to learn that the anti-death penalty plank was removed from the Democratic Party platform.”

Hayden Laye, the group’s development coordinator, said, “We progressed past the need for the death penalty in America long ago. The great state of Michigan abolished the death penalty all the way back in 1984.”

Laye added the pro-life Democratic group urged Biden, a Catholic, “to commute the sentences of every single federal death row inmate to life in prison.”

In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

(source: Catholic Review)

DR CONGO:

Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty For 50 Defendants In DR Congo 'Coup' Trial

Prosecutors called on Tuesday for 50 defendants, including three Americans, on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over an alleged coup bid to face the death penalty.

Military prosectuor Lieutenant Colonel Innocent Radjabu urged judges to sentence to death all those on trial over the alleged attempted coup in May, barring one defendant.

Armed men attacked the home of Economy Minister Vital Kamerhe in the early hours of May 19 before moving onto the nearby Palais de la Nation that houses President Felix Tshisekedi's offices.

The army later announced an attempted coup had been stopped by the security forces.

The alleged plot was led by Christian Malanga, a Congolese man who was a "naturalised American" and who was killed by security forces, army spokesman General Sylvain Ekenge has said.

Among those being tried in the Kinshasa military court are three Americans, including Malanga's son Marcel Malanga.

The defendants also include a Belgian, a Briton and a Canadian who are all naturalised Congolese.

The trial began on June 7 in Ndolo military prison, where all the defendants are being held.

The charges include "attack, terrorism, illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war, attempted assassination, criminal association, murder (and) financing of terrorism", according to a court document.

(source: barrons.com)

EGYPT:

Egypt criminal court seeks Grand Mufti’s opinion on serial killer’s preliminary death sentence

Egypt’s Criminal Court has referred the case of Karim Salim, the notorious “al-Tagamoa Serial Killer,” to the Grand Mufti for approval of the preliminary death sentence passed against him. The decision was made on Saturday under Article 2-381 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, with the final verdict set to be announced on September 12.

Salim, a 37-year-old graduate of the American University in Cairo, holds dual citizenship in Egypt and the US. Previously a teacher, he transitioned to a career in trade. In addition he had gained attention for his popular TikTok account, “Fonix,” which boasts over 600,000 followers. On this platform, he shared educational content and lessons on a variety of subjects, with a particular focus on English. He was found guilty of multiple counts of premeditated murder, sexual assault, necrophilia, and human trafficking in the murder of 3 female sex workers in the New Cairo area. The autopsy reports suggest that the 3 women were killed by the same person, as they all displayed similar signs of torture, including strangulation and flogging wounds. Additional evidence against Salim included a fingerprint found on one of the women’s clothes and laboratory tests revealing the presence of narcotics, specifically crystal methamphetamine, in their systems.

Salim’s trial, which began in June, has been marked by dramatic moments, including the withdrawal of Salim’s first lawyer. Throughout the proceedings, Salim has denied the charges and retracted confessions he made following his arrest. Despite his denials, the prosecution presented overwhelming evidence against him, including incriminating videos that depicted Salim engaging in necrophiliac acts with the victims’ bodies.

The case now advances to Egypt’s Grand Mufti, the country’s foremost religious authority, for a mandatory review of the preliminary death sentence, as stipulated by Egyptian law. While the Mufti’s opinion is not legally binding, it is a crucial procedural step before the sentence can be finalized.

(source: jurist.org)

MALAYSIA:

Federal court has authority to hear reviews filed by pardoned prisoners

The Federal Court today ruled that it has the authority to hear reviews filed by prisoners who have already been granted pardons for their death penalty sentences.

A three-member bench, led by Justice Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, rendered a 2-1 majority decision affirming the court's jurisdiction to hear reviews filed by 4 individuals, namely, P. Balakrishnan, G. Jiva, Thai national Phrueksa Taemchim, and Zambian national Mailesi Phiri.

Justices Harmindar Singh and Datuk Hanipah Farikullah were in the majority, while Justice Datuk Nordin Hassan dissented.

The 4 individuals were initially convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death.

However, several state Pardons Boards later granted them clemency, commuting their death sentences to 30 years imprisonment, starting from the dates of the boards' decisions.

Consequently, the time they served before receiving the pardon will not be considered in calculating their total term of imprisonment.

The prison authorities did not refer the cases of the 4 individuals for review under the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 and the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of The Federal Court) Act 2023 because they had already been granted pardons, making them ineligible to apply for a review.

The four subsequently applied to the Federal Court seeking to vary the state Pardon Boards' decisions.

Today, the Federal Court ruled that it has the jurisdiction to hear their applications for review, and subsequently granted their requests.

The court imposed 30 years of imprisonment effective from each individual's date of arrest, while Balakrishnan, 47, was ordered to be given 12 strokes of the cane.

Balakrishnan will be released from prison after the caning, while Jiva will have 3 more years to serve. Phrueksa and Mailesi have another 5 years remaining on their sentences.

In his submission earlier, lawyer Datuk N.Sivananthan representing Balakrishnan and Jiva, 54, both self-employed, said if their reviews were granted, Balakrishnan and Jiva would be released 20 and 15 years earlier, respectively.

Meanwhile, Phrueksa's lawyer K.Simon Murali, argued that his client, a 40-year-old single mother, was entitled under the law to apply for a revision of her death sentence.

Lawyer Abdul Rashid Ismail, who represented Mailesi Phiri, 47, contended that excluding her from the review process would violate her right to life under Article 5 (1) of the Federal Constitution.

Balakrishnan was granted a pardon by the Pardons Board of Kedah on March 29, 2022; Jiva and Mailesi received their pardons from the Penang Pardons Board on June 13, 2022, and December 13, 2021, respectively.

Phrueksa was pardoned by the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur Pardons Board on Sept 21, 2017.

Deputy public prosecutor Tetralina Ahmed Fauzi, however, argued that the decision of the Pardons Boards cannot be reviewed by the court.

(source: api.nst.com.my)

IRAN----executions

1st Public Hanging in Iran in 2024 - Public hanging is an inhumane, cruel and degrading act that not only victimises the defendant but also the general public.

State media have reported the public hanging of an unnamed man for the murder of a lawyer on a street in Shahroud. This is the 1st public execution in 2024.

Iran Human Rights warns about the return of public hangings to Iranian streets and urges the international community to deal seriously with this type of execution in Iran.

IHRNGO DIrector, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “Public hanging is an inhumane, cruel and degrading act that not only victimises the defendant but also the general public. The international community must condemn this barbaric punishment in the strongest terms. We will witness more public executions if the international community doesn’t show an appropriate response.”

According to the state-run ISNA news agency and quoting the Semnan province head of judiciary, a man was publicly hanged in Shahroud on 26 August. The unnamed man was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for the murder of a lawyer.

Mohammad Sadegh Akbari, the Semnan province head of judiciary said: “According to the definitive ruling by Branch 49 of the Supreme Court, the late Mahmoudreza Jafar Aghayi’s murderer was sentenced to public execution for the crime of intentional murder with a hunting weapon.”

This is the 1st public hanging to take place in Iran in 2024. 2021 was the 1st year in over a decade during which no public executions were carried out by the Islamic Republic.. This followed 2020 when only one execution was recorded, which was the lowest number since 2008, when Iran Human Rights started its systematic monitoring of executions in Iran. There is no indication that the decline in the number of public executions were the result of policy change, but rather a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. In 2022, public executions returned to the streets of Iran with 2 people publicly executed. That number rose to 7 in 2024.

UPDATE: The executed man's identity has been established as 21-year-old Amirreza Ajam Akrami. He was on death row for around a year.

(source: iranhr.net)

**************

Campaign of Tuesdays “No to Executions” supported by 2 members of Italian Parliament.

The 31st campaign of “No to Executions Tuesdays” was joined by a group of prisoners from the Greater Tehran Prison and 2 members of the Italian Parliament.

According to the Iranian Human Rights Society, on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, prisoners in 19 prisons announced a hunger strike for this week’s Tuesday, and the Greater Tehran Prison has also joined the group of prisons participating in the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign.

The 31st campaign of “Tuesdays Against Executions” has gained momentum as prisoners from Tehran’s Great Prison and prominent Italian parliamentarians unite to oppose capital punishment in Iran, highlighting human rights violations and systemic failures of the government.

A significant rise in executions, with at least 126 individuals executed in one month, demonstrates the urgent need for international awareness and support. Despite severe repression from authorities, the campaign continues to thrive as more prisoners join in solidarity against state brutality and the death penalty.

Summary of the “Tuesdays Against Executions” Campaign

The “Tuesdays Against Executions” campaign continues to gain traction, with prisoners from 19 different Iranian prisons, including Tehran’s Great Prison, declaring a hunger strike. This movement has received support from prominent Italian parliamentarians, highlighting the international awareness of the human rights violations occurring in Iran.

Key points:

Hunger Strike Announcement: On September 6, 2023, prisoners in 19 prisons announced a hunger strike as part of the ongoing campaign against executions.

Recent Executions: In August 2024 alone, at least 126 individuals were executed, raising alarms about the systematic failures of the Iranian government.

Repression of Dissent: The Iranian authorities have intensified their crackdown on dissent, punishing prisoners who participate in the campaign by denying them basic rights, such as phone calls and visits.

Solidarity Among Prisoners: Despite the oppressive environment, prisoners continue to resist and stand in solidarity against the death penalty and torture.

International Support: The campaign has garnered attention and support from global figures, including Italian lawmakers, who have publicly backed the movement.

Call to Action:

The campaign urges both domestic and international communities to support their efforts to abolish executions and torture in Iran, emphasizing the need for collective action against state brutality.

This ongoing struggle reflects the resilience of those fighting for human rights in the face of severe repression.Prisoners in 19 different Iranian prisons, including Tehran’s Great Prison, have declared a hunger strike as part of the “Tuesdays Against Executions” campaign.

The campaign has garnered international support, particularly from some Italian parliamentarians advocating against capital punishment.

At least 126 executions have been reported in Iran within just one month, underscoring the urgent human rights crisis in the country.

The Iranian government continues to systematically oppress dissenters, particularly targeting those who express opposition to executions.

Women prisoners have faced punitive measures, including the denial of phone calls and visitation rights, as well as harsh treatment like solitary confinement.

The new Iranian cabinet, viewed as a continuation of repression, has particularly concerning backgrounds that may lead to increased state violence against citizens.

Activists are calling on both domestic and international communities to support the campaign aimed at abolishing executions and torture in Iran.

How do hunger strikes impact political activism within authoritarian governments?

Hunger strikes can have significant impacts on political activism within authoritarian governments, serving as a powerful form of protest. Here are some key effects:

Raising Awareness: Hunger strikes draw public attention to specific issues, often highlighting human rights abuses, political repression, or social injustices. This can mobilize both domestic and international support.

Moral High Ground: Strikers often gain moral authority, as their willingness to suffer for their cause can resonate with the public and garner sympathy. This can lead to increased pressure on the governments.

Solidarity and Unity: Hunger strikes can unite various groups within the opposition, fostering solidarity among activists, political prisoners, and the general populace. This collective action can strengthen movements against authoritarianism.

Government Response: Authoritarian governments may respond to hunger strikes with repression, including increased surveillance, arrests, or violence against protesters. However, they may also be compelled to negotiate or make concessions to avoid negative publicity.

International Pressure: Global awareness of hunger strikes can lead to international condemnation of the regime, potentially resulting in sanctions, diplomatic pressure, or calls for intervention from foreign governments and organizations.

Psychological Impact:

The act of fasting can have a profound psychological effect on both the strikers and their supporters, reinforcing commitment to the cause and inspiring others to take action.

Media Coverage: Hunger strikes often attract media attention, which can amplify the message of the activists and bring their struggles to a wider audience, influencing public opinion and policy.

In summary, hunger strikes can be a potent tool for political activism in authoritarian contexts, capable of mobilizing support, raising awareness, and challenging oppressive governments, though they also carry significant risks for those involved.

(source: en.iranhrs.org)

***************

68 Organisations Declare Support for “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Abolitionist Movement in Iran

Iran Human Rights and 67 human rights organisations from four continents have signed a joint statement in support and solidarity with the “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” weekly hunger strikes in Iranian prisons. In the statement, they call for “an immediate halt on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty in Iran and urge the international community to support the growing abolition movement in Iran.”

IHRNGO Director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam said: “The resilience of prisoners fighting against the death penalty in Iran has impressed and inspired the abolitionist movement worldwide. Our message to these courageous individuals is that we have heard your voices and will stand with you until this inhumane punishment is abolished.”

Zartosht Ahmadi Ragheb, Loghman Aminpour, Meisam Dahbanzadeh, Jafar Ebrahimi, Sepehr Emam Jomeh, Ahmadreza Haeri, Reza Mohammad Hossseini, Saeed Masouri, Reza Salmanzadeh and Hamzeh Savari, ten political prisoners held in Karaj’s Ghezelhesar Prison, began the weekly hunger strike on 30 January 2024 in response to weekly group executions. Inspired by a hunger strike by death row prisoners at the prison, they named their weekly hunger strikes “Black Tuesdays” which later became known as “No Death Penalty Tuesdays.” This collective movement behind bars, which is in its 31st week, has reached 17 other prisons across Iran.

According to Iran Human Rights reports, at least 396 people have been executed in Iran as of 26 August 2024.

Download the Statement -- see: https://iranhr.net/media/files/Black_Tuesdays_PDF-ENG.pdf

In support and solidarity with “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” abolitionist movement in Iran

Every 6 hours, 1 person was executed in Iranian prisons in the first 20 days of August. Execution numbers have been rising every year since 2021, with at least 834 people executed in 2023, and 395 executions recorded by Iran Human Rights as of 26th August 2024. Drug-related executions remain the charges that account for more than half of the executions in Iran. Marginalised groups of society and ethnic minorities, in particular the Kurdish and Baluch, are overrepresented among those executed.

The Islamic Republic uses the death penalty as a tool of political repression and death sentences are issued after unfair trials without the minimal standards of due process.

After bearing witness to months of weekly group executions in Karaj and the execution of several political prisoners in January 2024, a group of brave political prisoners* in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj staged a protest which was violently suppressed. The diverse group of political prisoners from different backgrounds and beliefs thus began a weekly hunger strike on 30th January that became known as “Black Tuesdays” and “No Death Penalty Tuesdays.” They chose Tuesdays for that is the day death row inmates are typically transferred to solitary confinement in preparation for the gallows in Ghezelhesar Prison.

The weekly mass hunger strikes are now in their 31st week and the movement has spread to 17 other prisons across Iran. The participants remain resolute in their demands against the death penalty despite violent crackdowns.

We, the undersigned organisations, declare our solidarity and support for the “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” movement in Iranian prisons. We call for an immediate halt on all executions with a view to abolish the death penalty in Iran and urge the international community to support the growing abolition movement in Iran.

* The “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” hunger strikes were started by Ghezelhesar political prisoners Zartosht Ahmadi Ragheb, Loghman Aminpour, Meisam Dahbanzadeh, Jafar Ebrahimi, Sepehr Emam Jomeh, Ahmadreza Haeri, Reza Mohammad Hosseini, Saeed Masouri, Reza Salmanzadeh and Hamzeh Savari in alphabetical order.

Signatories:

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO)

World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP)

Impact Iran

Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM)

Defenders of Human Rights Center (Shirin Ebadi)

Harm Reduction International

World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)

Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN)

International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute

Justice for Iran

6Rang (Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network)

Kurdistan Human Rights Association-Geneva (KMMK-G)

International Educational Development, Inc (IED)

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran

Kurdistan Human Rights Network

Haal Vsh

Center for Human Rights in Iran

Balochistan Human Right group

Rasank

Iran Human Rights Documentation Center

United for Iran

Kurdpa Human Rights Organization

HANA Human Rights Organization

Siamak Pourzand Foundation

Ahwaz Human Rights Organisation

Baloch Activists Campaign

Association for the human rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (Ahraz)

Hengaw Organization for Human Rights

Hands off Cain

The Advocates for Human Rights, USA

ARTICLE 19

Justice Project Pakistan

European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR)

Odhikar, Bangladesh

Cornell Center on the Death Penalty, USA

PEN America

German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (GCADP)

The Italian Federation for Human Rights (FIDU)

Death Penalty Focus, USA

The Christian Union for Progress and Human Rights, DRC

Capital Punishment Justice Project, Australia

Amnesty International (Group 205), Dallas

Human Rights Dallas

Southern Methodist University Human Rights Program, USA

Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), South Korea

Witness to Innocence, USA

Human Rights Association (Insan Haklari Dernegi - IHD), Türkiye

Redemption Pakistan

ACAT, Ghana

French Collective Free Mumia, France

Function 8, Singapore

Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Masyarakat, Indonesia

International Committee Against Execution (ICAE)

Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)

United Against Gender Apartheid

Global Campaign to Stop Executions In Iran

All Human Rights for All in Iran

Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI)

Iranian Citizens' Initiative Saar (IRBIS)

Parsi Law Collective

NIKA, Network of Iranians for Liberty and Democracy

Iranian’s Socio-Cultural Center of Quebec Simorgh

Global Network to Free Political Prisoners in Iran

Free Iran Switzerland

Solidarity with the women's revolution of Freedom Life Frankfurt Mainz and Wiesbaden

Alliance for Freedom, Washington DC

Iranian Medical Society for Human Rights and Democracy (Berlin MED)

(source: iranhr.net)

**************

NCRI Conference Marks the Anniversary of the 1988 Iran Massacre with Key International Speakers

On Saturday, August 17, a conference was held near Paris to commemorate the anniversary of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran. The event featured Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and Professor Rita Süssmuth, former President of the German Bundestag and former Federal Minister for Youth, Family, Women, and Health. The conference brought together several notable German and European figures, as well as representatives from Iranian communities, who spoke on the significance of the massacre and the ongoing struggle for justice and human rights in Iran.

The conference was particularly poignant as it coincided with the 36th anniversary of the massacre, during which over 30,000 political prisoners were executed in Iran, most of whom were members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). This event remains a dark chapter in Iran’s history and a symbol of the regime’s severe repression of political dissent.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi opened the conference by honoring Professor Rita Süssmuth for her steadfast support of the Iranian resistance and the struggle for freedom. “During the 1988 massacre,” Rajavi recalled, “Ms. Süssmuth, in her capacity as the Speaker of the Bundestag, was the most significant voice of protest in the Western world against the massacre in Iran.” She highlighted how, even at a time when many world leaders remained silent on the atrocities committed by the Iranian regime, Süssmuth used her position to condemn the actions and support the Iranian people’s fight for justice.

Rajavi also addressed the recent report by the UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman, which described the 1988 massacre as “genocide” and “a crime against humanity.” She called for an independent investigation into these crimes and urged the international community to take decisive action against the Iranian regime.

“It is now up to governments and the United Nations to prioritize the continuation of criminal investigations to issue arrest warrants and pursue prosecution against the regime’s leaders for committing ‘atrocity crimes,’ namely genocide and crimes against humanity,” Rajavi emphasized. She also criticized the regime’s continued efforts to discredit the resistance movement through false accusations and a disinformation campaign, noting that these tactics only serve to highlight the regime’s desperation and fear of being overthrown.

Professor Rita Süssmuth, in her speech, reflected on the significance of the 1988 massacre and the importance of remembering the victims. She described the massacre as a symbol of the long history of oppression in Iran and praised the resilience and strength of the Iranian Resistance, particularly the women who have been at the forefront of the struggle for freedom and democracy. “We do not give up; we stand firm,” she declared. “I have learned from the people in Ashraf [3] what perseverance is, what resistance means. We will not be discouraged. The women I see today are filled with energy and determination. We can learn courage, and we can become stronger in resistance.”

Dr. Süssmuth also condemned the policy of appeasement towards the Iranian regime and its pursuit of nuclear capabilities, highlighting the need for a stronger international stance against the regime’s actions. She argued that the West had been too slow to recognize the true nature of the Iranian regime and its intentions, which has allowed the regime to continue its oppressive tactics unchecked. “In Germany, it took a long time for developments in Iran to even become a topic. We thought we had to deal with the Iranian regime cautiously to prevent them from acquiring a nuclear bomb,” she said. “This was naive because they already had crucial elements for this bomb long before, and we still thought we could prevent it.”

Prof. Christoph Degenhart, a distinguished legal scholar, emphasized the importance of confronting misinformation against the Iranian Resistance. He highlighted the removal of the PMOI from Germany’s intelligence surveillance lists as a crucial step in supporting the resistance. Degenhart stressed that the Iranian regime’s disinformation campaigns must be countered with truth and justice, underscoring the significance of ensuring the rights of the Iranian people are upheld. He also praised Professor Süssmuth for her unwavering support for the rights of the Iranian people and her dedication to justice and freedom.

Former Dutch MEP Dorien Rookmaker spoke passionately about the need for Western politicians to speak out against the Iranian regime’s atrocities. She criticized the ongoing policies of appeasement and stressed that actions speak louder than words in the fight against the regime’s human rights violations. “It is clear for everybody to see who we are dealing with,” Rookmaker said, emphasizing that the regime’s actions reveal its true nature as a brutal oppressor of its own people. She expressed her admiration for the courage and perseverance of the Iranian people and their resistance, urging more international support for their cause.

Marion Böker, former President of the International Alliance of Women, also addressed the conference, speaking about the significant role of women in the Iranian Resistance. She emphasized that the oppression of women in Iran has only strengthened their resolve to fight back, citing examples from various regions where women are leading movements for change. Mrs. Böker praised Professor Süssmuth for being a strong advocate for women’s rights and for her contributions to the global struggle for equality and justice. “Women have shown that they are not only the force of change but also the builders of the future,” she noted, echoing Süssmuth’s earlier remarks about the role of women in shaping a better world.

Former German MEP Helmut Geuking highlighted the lack of decisive action among European politicians regarding the Iranian regime. He condemned the economic dealings with the regime, calling them “businesses with death,” and stressed the importance of standing firm against the regime’s human rights abuses. Mr. Geuking praised Professor Süssmuth’s dedication to human rights and democratic values, stating that her leadership serves as a beacon in the fight against tyranny. He underscored the need for European leaders to reject appeasement and take a stronger stance in support of the Iranian people.

(source: ncr-iran.org)

AUGUST 26, 2026:

PENNSYLVANIA----female to face death penalty

Prosecutors to seek death penalty for PhD student accused of killing friend's baby in Pennsylvania----Nicole Virzi, 30, was charged with homicide, aggravated assault and child endangerment

A Ph.D. student charged with killing her friend's newborn baby and abusing the infant's twin brother while babysitting them in Pennsylvania could be sentenced to the death penalty if she is convicted, as prosecutors revealed they plan to seek capital punishment.

Nicole Virzi, 30, was charged with homicide, aggravated assault and child endangerment after allegedly abusing and killing 6-week-old Leon Katz while the child's parents, Ethan Katz and his wife Savannah Roberts, took the baby's twin brother Ari to the hospital on June 16.

Virzi was later accused of abusing Ari.

The Alleghany District Attorney’s Office said in court Friday that it intends to seek the death penalty against Virzi, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Prosecutors filed notice that they will pursue the death penalty, citing several abuses Virzi allegedly committed in the baby's death, including allegations that she killed him by means of torture, according to the outlet.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has said he would not sign any death warrants while he is in office.

Virzi claimed that Leon fell from his bouncer chair when she left him by himself for a moment to grab a bottle.

However, doctors found the injuries to both twins to be "consistent with having been sustained as a result of child abuse, as these are inflicted injuries that are not natural and not accidental," according to a criminal complaint, WTAE reported.

Leon's death was ruled a homicide.

The medical examiner ruled Leon's cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head. A head CT scan found the child suffered a severe skull fracture to the left side of the head and that he had several brain bleeds.

A GoFundMe page started to support the family after the baby's death described Virzi as a "trusted family friend."

Virzi, who was a clinical psychology student at UC San Diego specializing in research into depression's effect on human behavior, is from California but was staying in a Pittsburgh-area Airbnb at the time of the child's death.

Her lawyer, David Shrager, said his client maintains her innocence. She has pleaded not guilty.

She has no criminal history, is backed by "a loving and supportive family," and is a "close family friend of the deceased child's parents and has a long relationship with them," Shrager previously told Fox News Digital.

(source: Fox News)

NORTH CAROLINA:

North Carolina urged to end death penalty before Governor leaves office

North Carolina has not carried out an execution in 18 years and advocates are urging Gov. Roy Cooper to commute all death row sentences before he leaves office.

Noel Nickle, executive director of the North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, warned the long pause could end soon, as it depends on ongoing Racial Justice Act litigation and lethal injection protocol challenges.

"It's not a question of if executions will resume in North Carolina but it is a matter of when they will resume," Nickle contended. "Given the current makeup of our state legislature and our state Supreme Court, we feel certain that the two litigation issues that have prohibited executions will fall away."

North Carolina currently has the 5th-largest death row in the United States, with 136 people. The coalition has placed billboards around Raleigh to highlight the urgency of commuting these death sentences to life in prison.

Nickle argued abolishing the death penalty would be a major step toward a fairer justice system. She noted history has proven not everyone sentenced to death is guilty. In all, 12 people in North Carolina have been exonerated and released from death row. Nickle also pointed out racial disparities in death penalty sentencing.

"60 % of our death row is made up of people of color and the demographic in North Carolina is that 30% of our citizens are people of color," Nickle outlined. "More than half the people on death row were sentenced by an all-white or a nearly all-white jury."

Nickle also challenged misconceptions about the death penalty, arguing it is neither fair nor cost-effective. She highlighted some victims' families have expressed executions do not bring healing or closure. Nickle also cautioned resuming executions would have a significant emotional and financial impact on the justice system.

"When executions resume, just imagine the strain and the traumas that will be placed upon the individuals, our state employees, not having done any executions in 18 years," Nickle emphasized. "We know from other states that have resumed executions that it's a tremendous strain on the system."

With 23 states in the U.S. having abolished the death penalty, the group hopes North Carolina will join the growing number of states choosing to end the practice. The group will continue advocacy efforts with a 136-mile walk on Sept. 26.

(source: publicnewsservice.org)

*************

Robinson Unveils Public Safety Plan in Race for North Carolina Governor

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson announced on Wednesday a public safety plan should he be elected billed as focusing on building up police, fighting violence and drugs and keeping criminals behind bars.

Robinson’s campaign said 30 sheriffs stood with the lieutenant governor at a Statesville news conference as he unveiled his proposal.

“We stand behind law enforcement and law and order in this state,” Robinson said, WSOC-TV reported.

The plan in part attempts to fight what Robinson labels left-leaning efforts to scale back police funding and reduce cash bail for people accused of violent crime so they can more easily be released while awaiting trial.

Robinson said in a news release that he rejects such proposals and links a “pro-criminal, anti-law-enforcement agenda” to Democratic rival Josh Stein and party presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

A Stein campaign spokesperson told The Charlotte Observer recently that Stein, the attorney general, hasn’t supported “defunding the police” and has sought more spending for law enforcement.

In May, Stein released a series of legislative proposals that in part would seek to help fill vacancies in police departments and jails. They would include pay bonuses for law enforcement training program graduates and financial benefits to attract out-of-state or military police.

Robinson’s proposal says he would “prioritize raises for law enforcement officers in state budgets” and “reinstate the death penalty for those that kill police and corrections officers.”

The death penalty remains a potential punishment for people convicted of 1st-degree murder in North Carolina. An execution hasn’t been carried out since 2006, however, as legal challenges over the use of lethal injection drugs and a doctor’s presence at executions have in part delayed action.

Robinson campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan said Wednesday that it’s “hard to say the death penalty hasn’t gone away when it’s in fact been de facto gone since 2006.”

Robinson also wants to work with the General Assembly to enact a measure that would require law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and honor their requests to hold jail inmates thought to be in the country unlawfully.

Current Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is term-limited from running for reelection, successfully vetoed two measures ordering such cooperation in 2019 and 2022.

The House and Senate has been unable this year to hammer out a compromise on a similar measure. Cooper has questioned the constitutionality of such a bill and said a past measure was “only about scoring political points” by the GOP on immigration.

Speaking Wednesday to reporters in Goldsboro, Stein didn’t respond directly to questions about his views on the immigration bill. He said local authorities are seeking help hiring and keeping officers.

“I talk to law enforcement about what they want in their communities,” Stein said. “And I trust them to be able to determine what’s going to be the most effective way for them to keep their members of the community safe.”

Robinson said in the news release that it was Stein and Harris who have made North Carolina and the U.S. “a magnet for violent crime and dangerous drugs.” But Stein said on Wednesday that Robinson “makes us less safe” by his previous comments that the attorney general argues promote political violence.

(source: Associated Press)

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Date set for South Carolina's 1st execution in over a decade

South Carolina has set a Sept. 20 date to put inmate Freddie Eugene Owens to death in what would be the state's 1st execution in more than 13 years.

South Carolina was once one of the busiest states for executions, but for years had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies' concerns that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to officials.

The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and, in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

Owens, who killed a store clerk in Greenville in 1997, will likely have the choice to die by lethal injection, electrocution or by the newly added option of a firing squad . A Utah inmate in 2010 was the last person to have been executed by a firing squad in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The prisons director has 5 days to confirm that all three execution methods will be available. He must also give Owens's lawyers proof that the lethal injection drug is stable and correctly mixed, according to the high court's 2023 interpretation of the state's secrecy law on executions that helped reopen the door to South Carolina's death chamber.

Owens, 46, will then have about a week to let the state know how he wishes to be killed. If he makes no choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default.

The justices didn't specify how much information has to be released but they have promised a swift ruling if an inmate challenged the details in the disclosure.

South Carolina used to use a mix of 3 drugs, but now will use 1 drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections in a protocol similar to executions carried out by the federal government.

(source: Associated Press)

*********************

Execution of Jeffrey Motts, the last man to be executed in South Carolina

The state of South Carolina will hold its 1st execution in over 13 years, and it will be for a Greenville County man named Freddie Owens on Sept. 20, 2024.

Owens will have the choice of his method of execution between lethal injection, electric chair or firing squad.

The last execution before this was of 36-year-old Jeffrey Brian Motts, another Greenville County man, on May 6, 2011.

Motts was serving a life sentence for murdering his great aunt and her brother-in-law in 1995. He was placed on death row in 2007 after strangling his cellmate at the Perry Correctional Institute in Greenville County in 2005.

Between lethal injection and the electric chair, Motts chose lethal injection.

Only 3 South Carolina reporters were allowed to watch Motts take his last breath.

Jeffrey Collins from the Associated Press said, "He blinked 1 time, and you could see his breathing was getting very shallow. He opened his eyes, blinked one more time, and then you noticed that his breathing stopped."

In a written statement, Motts apologized to his victim's family and his own family before his execution. He also wrote a warning to kids about the destructive nature of drugs, claiming narcotics destroyed his life.

"Finally to my mom and grandma 'Happy Mother's Day.' I know this is a sad one but let us remember the good times. I am finally free and peace in Heaven," Motts wrote.

Although the state was once one of the busiest for executions, South Carolina struggled for years to obtain the lethal injection drugs needed due to pharmaceutical companies' concerns that they would have to disclose the purchase of the drugs by officials.

In 2017, Brian Stirling with the South Carolina Department of Corrections said lethal injection may still be possible if state lawmakers passed a shield law, protecting the identity of companies that make lethal injection drugs.

Executions have remained on hold for 13 years before state legislation passed the shield law in May 2023, and in July of this year, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions, revising the policy for a 1-drug protocol.

This led to the execution date being set in September 2024 for the 1st time since 2011. This makes Owens the 44th person to be executed since South Carolina reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

(source: WYFF news)

FLORIDA:

Life or death: Lee County judge to make highly anticipated decision in Wade Wilson case on Tuesday

After 2 months of suspense, a Lee County judge will decide if Wade Wilson will spend the rest of his life in prison or receive the death penalty Tuesday.

A jury found Wilson guilty of 6 crimes, including the 1st-degree murders of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, which took place in Cape Coral on Oct. 7, 2019.

9 of the 12 jurors recommended the death penalty for the murder of Melton. 10 of them recommended death for the murder of Ruiz on June 25, 2024.

Following the trial, Wilson's defense attorneys attempted to request a re-trial or acquittal, both of which were denied.

We will find out if Wilson's MRI and CT scans uncovered any type of brain injury that may potentially impact Judge Nicholas Thompson's decision.

According to court documents, a neurologist believes that Wilson may have suffered brain damage from previous injuries and requires more testing.

Numerous letters were also sent to the Lee County Courthouse addressed to Thompson, all asking for 1 thing: for Wilson to have a chance at life.

The letters suggest that Wilson deserves an opportunity for rehabilitation rather than death.

Wilson's Spencer hearing is set for 9 a.m., followed by the judge's decision expected at 2 p.m.

Count on NBC2 to be inside the courtroom when Thompson announces if he will move forward with the jury's recommendation for the death penalty or sentence Wilson to life in prison.

(source: NBC News)

ARIZONA:

Death penalty trial begins for Mesa man accused of raping, killing teen

It was more than 10 years ago that 14-year-old girl Claudia Lucero was found strangled to death in a Mesa dumpster.

Thursday was the 1st day of the capital murder trial for Alex Madrid, the man accused of killing her.

Police said Madrid is the victim’s mom’s ex-boyfriend and they say Claudia was sexually assaulted before she was killed.

The death penalty is on the table for Madrid.

The prosecution has everything from DNA, cellphone location data, and physical evidence on their side, but the defense said there wasn’t enough time for Madrid to dispose of her body in the dumpster based on surveillance video.

“Sometimes the person that you want the most is the person that you can’t have. For Alex Madrid, 14-year-old Claudia Lucero was that person,” the prosecution began with.

In opening statements, the prosecution laid the groundwork for what happened to Claudia on Dec. 5, 2013.

According to police and the state, Claudia’s mother recently broke up with Madrid and made him move out of their apartment.

They said on that December morning, after Claudia’s mom and brothers left the house, Claudia was getting ready for school when Madrid came into the apartment, raped her, then took her life.

“Alex Madrid made the choice to get a ligature of some kind, wrap it around her neck, and at that point strangle her to death,” the prosecution said.

Police said he then put her in a gray tub wrapped in a comforter along with some of her belongings and disposed of her body in this blue dumpster at a nearby complex.

Claudia’s mother reported her as a missing person, thinking she may have run away, until the next morning when 2 women were searching for bottles and cans in that blue dumpster.

“At some point this female realized that what she was pulling on was a body, because the blanket came open and she saw there were 2 human legs underneath,” the prosecution said.

That body was identified as Claudia.

But the defense said in their opening statements surveillance footage shows an unlikely timeline that Madrid could have dumped the teen’s body.

Madrid’s attorney said, according to the video, that the dumpster was emptied at 7:18 am.

“There’s a window on those videos between 7:18-7:28 a.m.,” said the defense attorney.

He said the surveillance video picked back up at 7:28 a.m. and claimed that in that narrow window, Madrid would not have had time to commit this act.

“You are not going to see Mr. Madrid in that video. You are not going to see Mr. Madrid putting a body in the dumpster,” said the defense.

But the prosecution said in addition to Claudia’s belongings found in the dumpster with her body, she was also wrapped in a trunk floor mat that appeared to be missing from Madrid’s trunk with a tag that matched the same make and model as his car.

DNA results, including semen found on Claudia’s body, also matched Madrid, but his attorney claimed police had their minds made up and never looked at anyone else.

“Investigators in the case fail to investigate other possibilities,” said the defense attorney. “It was a rush of judgement.”

Claudia’s brother testified late Thursday afternoon; he was the last person to see her alive.

He said a blue necktie was missing from his tie rack and had an audibly surprised reaction in the courtroom when he was shown it for the 1st time as evidence.

The insinuation from the state was that it was likely the murder weapon.

This case was incredibly hard to choose a jury for.

This is a death penalty case, which is something people have harsh views for or against, so the court had to find open-minded people who won’t make a judgment until it’s time to decide a verdict.

Also, the judge told the jurors to expect to be here through the end of January.

Because this trial is so long, they were worried about having enough jurors.

There are 18 jurors sitting through the entire trial with 6 alternates, but nobody will know who the alternates are until they reach the end of the guilt phase.

(source: azfamily.com)

INDIA:

What did Justice Verma panel say on death penalty for rape? | Explained

After the brutal rape and murder of a doctor on duty at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, there has been a clamour of voices seeking the death penalty for the accused. The Justice J.S. Verma Committee recommendations, which led to the amendment of criminal laws in 2013, had specifically said it was not inclined to recommend the death penalty for rape even for the rarest of rare cases. “...seeking of [the] death penalty would be a regressive step in the field of sentencing and reformation,” the committee pointed out.

The Union Cabinet did not take the recommendation on the death penalty when it cleared an ordinance on sexual assault in 2013, and signed the criminal amendments into law. The committee to amend criminal laws was set up after the gang rape of a paramedic student in Delhi on December 16, 2012. Led by Justice J.S. Verma (retired), the committee submitted its recommendations on January 23, 2013. One of its key suggestions, that the death penalty does not necessarily act as a deterrent against such crimes, was overlooked.

(source: thehindu.com)

***************

Durgavahini members demand death penalty for accused

(see: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangaluru/durgavahini-members-demand-death-penalty-for-accused/articleshow/112790378.cms)

JAPAN:

Gyoza no Ohsho president’s murder trial mulling not letting average citizens become judges

Yes, that’s a thing they do in Japan.

Back in 2013, Takayuki Daito, the president of the major Chinese restaurant chain Gyoza no Ohsho, was mysteriously gunned down in front of their corporate headquarters in Kyoto. It was so mysterious that it wasn’t until 2022 that police arrested the suspect, Yukio Tanaka of the Kudokai yakuza group out of Fukuoka.

And now, Tanaka is set to finally stand trial in court, but according to a report by public broadcaster NHK, this trial may not involve members of the general public acting as judges. In general, major trials in Japan involve what are called “saibanin” (lay judges) who are average citizens selected to work alongside professional judges.

This may sound strange to people in some countries, but it works in a rather similar way to the jury system often seen in Hollywood movies and TV. Japan doesn’t have a jury system like that but instead recruits six citizens from their voting register to act as lay judges for a single trial at the same bench as 3 professional judges.

Much like with a jury, once the facts of the case and testimonies have been presented, both the professional and lay judges will all confer and vote on the ruling as well as the sentencing if needed. A majority vote gets the decision as long as at least 1 professional judge is in the majority. This means that even if 6 lay judges vote guilty and the 3 professional judges vote not guilty, the resulting verdict will be not guilty.

A big difference from a Western jury is that lay judges are more involved in examining the case. Rather than simply hearing the arguments from the prosecution and defense and managing the protocol of the court, they are allowed to actively analyze evidence and ask their own questions to the lawyers or witnesses.

The purpose of using lay judges is to raise awareness of how the courts operate among citizens and help democratize the outcome of trials. This system is also said to result in more lenient sentences, particularly a decrease in death penalties being handed down, because average people tend to be more sympathetic than career judges who deal with cases day in, day out.

However, as also often seen in Hollywood productions, cases involving organized crime members can be dangerous for judges. That’s why past trials of Kudokai members have not involved lay judges and the prosecution has reportedly made a request with the Kyoto District Court to not use any in this trial either.

The exact motive for Daito’s death is not clear and he was found to have no direct ties to organized crime. However, there are allegations that the previous owners of the company were involved in shady dealings which Daito was working to pull the company out of. According to NHK, Kudokai members also have a history of violence against those who refuse to do business with them, including shooting a construction firm owner who spoke out against giving organized crime groups reduced rates and stabbing a restaurant owner who posted a sign refusing service to organized crime members.

So, while being chosen to work as a judge does sound kind of cool, at least compared to being a boring old jury member, I certainly wouldn’t want to be responsible for the fate of someone who belongs to a group with a well-documented track record of holding violent grudges. That’s probably better left to the professionals.

(source: soranews24.com)

FIJI:

Tabuya stands by death penalty statement

Minister for Women and Children Lynda Tabuya says she is considering proposing her suggestion of the death penalty for drug traffickers caught with large volumes of drugs as part of the review process of the 2013 Constitution.

Tabuya had said last week that she is advocating for the exploration of the death penalty for drug traffickers, which drew criticism from the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission and Independent Members of Parliament.

Tabuya says she understands the argument against the death penalty as a human rights issue made by the Human Rights Commission chair as well as other human rights organizations.

However, she says this issue calls for a national debate on the balance between the public interest to protect our people, especially the youth and children who make up 70 % of our population versus an individual’s right to life and right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment as guaranteed in the Constitution, which are not absolute rights.

Tabuya says it is her duty to highlight all options available so it is her call as the line minister tasked with the welfare and protection of the children and vulnerable Fijians.

She states the proposal can form part of the public consultations on the review of the 2013 Constitution if the Cabinet agrees to include it, and Parliament passes it by 75 % majority, and then a referendum by 75 % of the registered voter public of Fiji.

Tabuya adds it is her opinion that the public interest to protect our children, youth, citizens and our borders outweighs the individual’s right to life and cruel and unusual punishment.

She says small countries like Singapore are dealing with it successfully to protect its borders and people as a hub to South East Asia.

The Minister says Fiji is a hub of the Pacific and vulnerable to drug trafficking and it needs to protect itself from the drug cartels and drug traffickers who are making money illegally and profiting at the expense of the health, safety and well-being of our people, especially our children and youth.

Tabuya says Fiji is a sovereign state and needs to stand up and make a bold statement as a deterrence to the illicit drug trade whether outside or within our borders.

Fiji abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes in 1979 and for all crimes in 2015 and the last execution occurred in 1964.

(source: fbcnews.com.fj)

******************

Tabuya stands her ground, and plans to propose death penalty during constitution review

Minister for Women, Children and Social Protection, Lynda Tabuya is standing by her comments that the death penalty should be considered for those people caught with large quantities of drugs.

Tabuya says the proposal can form part of the public consultations on the review of the 2013 Constitution if Cabinet agrees to include it, and parliament passes it by 75 % majority, and then a referendum by 75 % of the registered voters.

Tabuya says small countries like Singapore are dealing with it successfully to protect its borders and people as a hub to South East Asia.

The Minister says Fiji is a hub of the Pacific and vulnerable to drug trafficking.

Tabuya says Fiji needs to protect itself from the drug cartel and drug traffickers who are making money illegally and profiting at the expense of the health, safety and wellbeing of our people especially our children and youth.

She says Fiji is a sovereign state and needs to stand up and make a bold statement as a deterrence to the illicit drug trade whether outside or within our borders.

Tabuya adds she understands the argument against the death penalty as a human rights issue made by the Human Rights Commission Chair as well as other human rights organisations, but this issue calls for a national debate on the balance between the public interest to protect our people especially our youth and children who make up 70 % of our population versus an individual’s right to life and right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment as guaranteed in the Constitution, which are not absolute rights.

She maintains that it is her duty to highlight all options available so it is the call of herself as the line minister tasked with the welfare and protection of our children and vulnerable Fijians.

(source: fijivillage.com)

MALAYSIA:

Unemployed man’s death penalty commuted to 40 years in prison for killing mother

An unemployed man escaped the gallows when the Court of Appeal commuted his death sentence to 40 years in prison for murdering his mother, whose body was discovered in a septic tank 6 years ago.

The 3-judge panel consisting of Court of Appeal judges Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Mohamed Zaini Mazlan, and High Court judge Datuk Noorin Badaruddin, also imposed 12 strokes of the cane on Mohammad Firdaus Ismail.

In allowing Mohammad Firdaus’s appeal against his sentence, Justice Ahmad Zaidi said the court has taken into account the submission by lawyer Hussaini Abdul Rashid for the prison term, and the fact that deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Roshan Karthi Kayan did not seek to retain the death sentence.

“After considering the facts of the case, the court finds the appeal has merit.

“The death sentence is therefore replaced with 40 years in prison, starting from Sept 25, 2018, the date of his arrest, and 12 strokes of the rotan,” said Justice Ahmad Zaidi.

Hussaini informed the court earlier that Mohammad Firdaus is withdrawing his appeal against his conviction but will proceed with the appeal regarding his death sentence.

He said when the High Court sentenced Mohammad Firdaus to death in 2022, the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 had not yet been enforced.

Mohammad Firdaus, 35, the youngest of five siblings, was convicted and sentenced to death by the High Court on April 15, 2022, for the murder of his 63-year-old mother, Faridah Mat Hashim at their house in Balik Pulau, Penang, on Sept 19, 2018.

It was reported that Faridah’s body was found inside a septic tank behind her house.

(source: thesun.my)

THAILAND:

Spanish film star's son charged with killing and dismembering plastic surgeon in Thailand faces sentencing

A Thai court will sentence Thursday a Spanish film star's son charged with murdering and dismembering a Colombian plastic surgeon he met online.

The case against Daniel Sancho Bronchalo, the 30-year-old son of actor Rodolfo Sancho, has generated enormous interest in his home country, with scores of Spanish reporters flying in for the trial.

The younger Sancho, a chef with a YouTube channel, is accused of murdering and dismembering Edwin Arrieta Arteaga on the tourist island of Koh Pha Ngan last year.

His trial on charges of premeditated murder, hiding a body and destroying documents was held in April on nearby Koh Samui, another tourist hotspot known for its turquoise waters and rave parties.

Sancho denies premeditated murder, but remains in detention after admitting he killed Arrieta, 44, in what he says was self-defense.

He has also admitted hiding the body, but denies destroying the Colombian's passport.

The 2 had agreed to meet up after getting to know each other online.

The trial heard that Sancho had placed parts of Arrieta's body in plastic bags and distributed them around Koh Pha Ngan. Sancho led police to seven sites, where he allegedly disposed of the victim's dismembered body in plastic bags, BBC News reported.

Though his crimes are punishable by the death penalty, Arrieta's family has said they would prefer life in prison.

"Let him be left in Thailand so he can take time, all the time that God gives him to live, to think about what he did," Darling Arrieta, the victim's sister, said in an HBO documentary about the case.

"He not only dismembered my brother, he dismembered a family."

Sancho's father said in the same documentary that Arrieta had threatened his son, after which "there was a fight, and in this fight there was an accident."

According to IMDB, Rodolfo Sancho has dozens of film and TV credits to his name and starred in "El Ministerio del Tiempo" ("The Ministry of Time").

"He finished him off"

The defense maintains that Sancho acted in legitimate self-defense after Arrieta tried to force him to have sex. Sancho told Spanish news agency EFE he had been a "hostage" to the victim, who was obsessed with him, BBC News reported.

"He tried to rape me, and we fought," Sancho said in a statement quoted by the Spanish daily El Mundo.

According to the paper, Sancho said he didn't immediately inform the police of Arrieta's death because he was in shock, and because it was all "an accident."

But a lawyer for the victim's family, Juan Gonzalo Ospina, said in a recent interview with El Mundo that Sancho was living a "false reality."

"He continues to deny responsibility for what he did," he said.

The Thai police, he added, "have done a commendable job" reconstructing the crime and finding evidence.

"When Sancho went to report the disappearance of Edwin Arrieta looking for an alibi, they already knew the author of the crime was him," he said.

Ospina said it was proven at the trial in April that Sancho had bought knives, plastic bags and cleaning supplies ahead of the crime, and kept them in the room where the killing took place.

"This is indisputable," he added.

He said Sancho acknowledged at trial that Arrieta went into convulsions after he hit him.

"In his statement he admitted that afterwards, he finished him off. That is to say, he murdered him," he added.

However, a lawyer for Sancho's family, Carmen Balfagon, told the Spanish news program Cronica that they were "very optimistic, because in the trial we demonstrated that there was no premeditation."

Koh Pha Ngan is famed for white sandy beaches and draws thousands of backpackers to its notoriously wild "full moon" parties.

In 2014, another tourist island Koh Tao was rocked by the double murder of 2 young British backpackers. 2 Burmese nationals are serving sentences of life imprisonment for the murders, but rights groups have accused Thai authorities of using the men as scapegoats.

(source: CBS News)

JORDAN:

Court upholds death sentence for Jerash double murder

The Court of Cassation upheld a death sentence for a defendant charged with killing 2 people in the Gaza Camp in Jerash.

The Grand Criminal Court had convicted the defendant of premeditated murder under Article 328/1 of the Penal Code.

The killings happened after a dispute over money. The victims had forced the defendant to sign a document promising to pay them JD 20,000. The defendant turned resentful and decided to kill the victims.

In November 2023, the defendant went to the area where the victims lived, wearing a heavy coat and a mask to hide his face. He waited until the victims came outside, then shot them both.

The 1st victim was shot in the chest from close range, and the 2nd victim was shot in the back from a distance.

Both victims died after being taken to the hospital.

(source: en.royanews.tv)

IRAN----executions

Kurdish Vahid Abbasi Executed in Nahavand----In 2023, at least 282 people including 2 juvenile offenders and 15 women, were executed for murder charges, the 2nd highest number of qisas executions since 2010.

Vahid Abbasi, a Kurdish man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Nahavand Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Nahavand Prison on 22 August. His identity has been established as 33-year-old Vahid Abbasi who was arrested for murder three years ago. He was sentenced to qisas by the Criminal Court.

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

****************

Abbas Rashidi Executed in Qazvin

Abbas Rashidi, a man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Qazvin Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Qazvin (Choobindar) Central Prison on 24 August. His identity has been established as 45-year-old Abbas Rashidi who was sentenced to death for drug-related offences by the Revolutionary Court.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Abbas Rashidi was a father of 2 and a painter prior to arrest. He was arrested 3 years ago.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

*********************

Kurdish Mohammad Khaled Jahangiri Executed in Tabriz

Mohammad Khaled Jahangiri, a Kurdish man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Tabriz Central Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Tabriz Central Prison on 22 August. His identity has been established as Mohammad Khaled Jahangiri, a Kurdish man from the village of Balu in Urmia. He was sentenced to death for drug-related offences by the Revolutionary Court.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Mohammad Khaled Jahangiri was married with 2 children. He was arrested for drug offences 5 years ago.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

********************

Kurdish Mohammad Daghestani Executed in Miandoab

Mohammad Daghestani, a Kurdish man on death row for drug-related offences, was executed in Miandoab Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Miandoab Prison on 21st August. His identity has been established as 49-year-old Mohammad Daghestani from Haki village in Urmia. He was sentenced to death for drug-related offences by the Revolutionary Court.

An informed source told IHRNGO: “Mohammad Daghestani was a Kurdish citizen who had 2 wives and was arrested for carrying 200 kilograms of narcotics around 2 years ago.”

At the time of writing, his execution has not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

******************

Unidentified Man Executed in Yazd

State media reported the execution of an unnamed man for rape and sexual assault charges at an unspecified prison in Yazd.

According to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency and quoting Hossein Tahmasebi, the Yazd province head of judiciary, a man was executed at an unspecified prison at an unspecified date.

The man was arrested for rape and sexual assault charges around 5 years ago and sentenced to death.

Hossein Tahmasebi said: “The individual raped multiple girls and women after luring them as a fortune teller who claimed to be a person who writes prayers.”

In cases of rape, there is a high chance of defendants being tortured to make false confessions, which is used to issue death sentences. In Iran is one of the few countries in the world that issues the death penalty for rape. A lot of cases are also rushed without the defendants having access to a lawyer.

According to the 2023 Annual Report on the Death Penalty, at least 20 people were executed for rape charges in 2022 compared to 23 in 2022 and 10 in 2021.

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Mohammad Karamizadeh and Esmail Javadi Executed in Karaj

Mohammad Karamizadeh and Esmail Javadi were executed for murder charges in Ghezelhesar Prison.

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, 2 men were executed in Ghezelhesar Prison in Karaj on 19 August. Their identities have been established as Mohammad Karamizadeh and Esmail Javadi who were both sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder.

HRANA news agency which first reported news of the executions reported that Mohammad Karamizadeh was in prison for drug-related charges when he killed his wife during a conjugal visit, and Esmail Javadi was accused of killing his friend in an honour killing.

At the time of writing, their executions have not been reported by domestic media or officials in Iran.

In 2023, at least 282 people including two juvenile offenders and 15 women, were executed for murder charges, the second highest number of qisas executions since 2010. Only 20% of the recorded qisas executions were announced by official sources. In 2023, Iran Human Rights also recorded 857 cases of families choosing diya or forgiveness instead of qisas executions.

(source for all: iranhr.net)

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A Prisoner Executed in Nahavand Prison

On Thursday, August 22, a prisoner, previously sentenced to death on murder charges, was executed in Nahavand Prison, Hamadan province, as reported by Iran Human Rights Organization.

The prisoner has been identified as “Vahid Abbasi, 33 years old and a resident of Nahavand.”

The report cites a source stating that Mr. Abbasi was arrested 3 years ago on murder charges and was later sentenced to death by the judiciary.

As of the time of this report, the execution has not been officially announced by prison authorities or relevant institutions.

(source: en-hrana.org)

***************

Execution of Abbas Rashidi and Khaled Jahangiri in Prisons of Qazvin and Tabriz

2 individuals were executed in Iran in late August 2024, both convicted of drug-related offenses. The executions took place in the prisons of Qazvin and Tabriz, marking yet another instance of the Iranian judiciary’s use of capital punishment for such crimes.

On Sunday, August 25, 2024, Abbas Rashidi, a 45-year-old father of 2, was executed in Qazvin Prison. Rashidi had been arrested 3 years earlier on charges related to drug trafficking and was subsequently sentenced to death. Before his arrest, he worked as a building painter. The execution was carried out without prior public announcement, and no details of the case have been released by Iranian state media or the judiciary.

Earlier, on Thursday, August 22, 2024, another prisoner, Khaled Jahangiri, was executed in Tabriz Prison. Jahangiri, also a father of 2, had been detained 5 years ago on similar drug-related charges. He was a resident of Balu, a village in the Urmia region. Like Rashidi, Jahangiri’s execution was not reported by Iranian official sources or media outlets.

These executions highlight the ongoing use of the death penalty in Iran for drug-related crimes, a practice that has been the subject of widespread international criticism. The lack of transparency surrounding these cases raises further concerns about the fairness of trials and the conditions under which such sentences are imposed.

******************* A prisoner was publicly executed in Shahroud

The Iranian judiciary, early this morning, Monday, August 26, 2024, carried out the death sentence of a prisoner who had previously been sentenced to public execution for the murder of a judicial attorney in Shahroud county. The second branch of the criminal court in Semnan province had issued the death sentence for this defendant publicly.

The ISNA news agency, quoting Mohammad Sadegh Akbari, the head of Semnan Province Judiciary, wrote: ‘Based on the final verdict issued by Branch 49 of the Supreme Court, the murderer Mahmoud Reza Jafar Aghaei was sentenced to public retribution for intentional murder by shooting with a hunting rifle, which the case’s sentence entered the enforcement stage this morning after legal proceedings.’

In August 2022, Mahmoud Reza Jafar Aghaei, a judicial attorney, was shot dead in front of his wife and child on one of the streets in Shahroud county. 4 of the perpetrators of the murder were arrested, and the main suspect was also arrested in September 2022.

Rasoul Koohpayehzadeh, the defense attorney of the victim, had stated: ‘The accused person, by paying a sum of money, issued the order for the murder and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison in Iran Shahr Prison on charges of complicity in the murder.’

Public execution is inconsistent with international human rights laws

According to documents from the United Nations Human Rights Committee, public executions are in violation of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and constitute a departure from Article 7 of this Covenant, which states that ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.’ And it is also a violation of Article 6 of this Convention which emphasizes that ‘Every human being has the inherent right to life.’

Public executions are one of the issues that have always been criticized by human rights organizations and the United Nations, and Iran has been repeatedly urged to change and halt this approach both in laws and in practice.

(source for both: iran-hrm.com)

******************

Conference: Massacre of political prisoners, Genocide against the PMOI in 1988 in Iran

At a conference on Saturday, August 24, 2024, on atrocity crimes in the massacre of political genocide against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in 1988 and the mass executions in 1981 and 1982 in Iran, the imperative of accountability and ending impunity for the masterminds and perpetrators consistent with international laws and treaties was discussed.

The following renowned personalities attended the conference:

– Professor Chile Eboe-Osuji, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) (2018-2021);

– Prof. Leila Sadat, Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the ICC Prosecutor (2012 – 2023);

– Prof. William Schabas, world-renowned scholar on genocide, former chair of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict (2014-2015);

– Prof. Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran (2018 – 2024);

– Prof. Herta Däubler-Gmelin, Minister of Justice, Germany, (1998 – 2002);

– Prof. Wolfgang Schomburg, former Judge, UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda;

– Dr. Mark Ellis, Executive Director, International Bar Association (IBA);

– Prof. Claudio Grossman, Special Adviser to the ICC Prosecutor, Member, UN International Law Commission (ILC);

– Clément N. Voule, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association (2018 – 2024);

– Prof. Jeremy Sarkin, Chair-Rapporteur and Member of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), (2008 – 2014);

– Steven Schneebaum, Adjunct Prof., School of Advanced International Studies, The John Hopkins University;

– Tahar Boumedra, President of JVMI; former Head of the UN Human Rights Office in Iraq;

– Kenneth Lewis, Lawyer for the PMOI in the Swedish trial of the mass murderer, Hamid Noury;

– Gilles Paruelle, Lawyer, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, former president of Val d’Oise Province Bar Association; and

– Amb. Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., former US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.

In their remarks, the speakers underscored the fundamental and universal rights of the Iranian people and the crimes that have shocked humanity.

Prof. Javaid Rehman said, “An overwhelming majority of the executed persons were members and sympathizers of PMOI…. The case for genocide against members of the PMOI rests, in my view, on the basis that the perpetrators of this crime perceive members of the group as Munafiqin (Hypocrites)…. For these perpetrators, members of this group had become deviants. They had deserted Islam and were waging war against Islam. Insofar as the Iranian theocracy was concerned, PMOI was perceived as a religious group, albeit a deviant and heretical group, with a legitimate religious justification of mass executions, torture, and mental and physical harm to members of this group.”

Prof. Schneebaum referred to the sham trial in absentia for 104 leaders and members of the Iranian Resistance currently undergoing in Tehran. “Any red notice requested by Iran should be rejected at the outset by Interpol, and if issued, should be ignored by any country to which it is presented… This fake legal drapery is designed to camouflage a new campaign of terrorism against the MEK and other regime opponents abroad,” Mr. Schneebaum emphasized.

Amb. Bloomfield noted, “The West has accepted and amplified substantially false portrayals of Iran and its resistance for at least a generation,” adding, “Now, when we see defamatory stories in the media about PMOI expelling their children from Iraq in 1991, when in fact these evacuations were no different from many children leaving Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. if we read disturbing accounts of life inside the resistance by former p m o PMOI members only to find that they are on the Iranian intelligence payroll, we can see who in the Western media are essentially functioning as Tehran’s agents of influence.”

NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi described Prof. Rehman’s report as the most appropriate definition of Atrocity Crimes against humanity and genocide. She added: In the face of a regime of executions and massacres, I again call on everyone to expand the campaign against executions…. For years, our resistance has championed the abolition of the death penalty. We stand united for an Iran free from torture, repression, and all forms of injustice and inequality. We advocate for a democratic republic founded on the separation of religion and state, with an independent judiciary adhering to principles such as the presumption of innocence, the right to defense, the right to a public trial, and the complete independence of judges….

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

*****************

36,000 signatures for Pakshan Azizi and Sharifeh Mohammadi----While the campaign against the death sentences given to Kurdish journalist Pakshan Azizi and activist Sharifeh Mohammadi in Iran received support from all over the world, the Women's Press Union announced that 36,000 signatures have been collected.

The Women's Press Union (YRJ) launched a campaign on 12 August against the Iranian state's death penalties against journalist and social worker Pakshan Azizi and activist Sharifeh Mohammadi. Pakshan Azizi was sentenced to death on 23 July and Sharifeh Mohammadi on 4 July. Both women were subjected to severe torture and inhuman treatment during weeks of detention.

YRJ announced the results of its ‘No to the Death Penalty’ campaign against the Iranian regime's death sentence against journalist Pakshan Azizi and activist Sharifeh Mohammadi.

At the press conference held at the ‘Reading Park’ in Qamishlo, YRJ Assembly member Sorgul Sêxo read the statement in Kurdish and YRJ Executive Committee member Xetîce Mirza in Arabic.

According to the statement, the campaign received intense participation from North and East Syria, 4 parts of Kurdistan, Middle Eastern countries, Asia and Africa.

“Our campaign, which was planned to end on 19 August, was extended due to the demand of many institutions and organisations and women's rights defenders,” the statement said, adding that the campaign, which lasted 14 days, ended on 26 August.

“As a result of the campaign, 36,398 signatures were collected from journalists, civil society and women's organisations, legal organisations, politicians, intellectuals, activists, independent personalities and citizens from Europe and Middle Eastern countries such as North and East Syria, four parts of Kurdistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia,” the statement said.

The collected signatures will be sent to the International Federation of Journalists, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders.

‘Our activities have not ended here; we will continue to report on crimes against women wherever they occur until justice is served and women's leading role in society is guaranteed,” the statement concluded.

Institutions and organisations that participated in the campaign and endorsed the statement are as follows:

1- Kongra Star Organisations in North-East Syria and Europe

2-Syria Women's Assembly

3- Zenubiya Women Community

4- North and East Syria Women’s Assembly of Martyrs’ Families

5- Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) Women's Office

6-Jineology Research Centre

7- Free Women’s Foundation

8- Sara Organisation against Violence against Women

9- Women's Economy

10- North and East Syria Women's Assembly

11-Manbij Canton Autonomous Administration

12- Democratic Union Party (PYD)

13- Democratic Modern Party

14-Kurdistan Democratic Peace Party

15-Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party

16-Conservative Democratic Party

17-Women’s Sawushka Association

18-Syriac Union Party

19-Syriac Women's Union

20-Democratic Society Academy

21-Social Justice Assembly

22-Future of Syria Party

23-Self Defence Forces (HPC)

24-Young Women's Union

25- Syrian Construction and Development Party

26- Free Patriots’ Party

27- Revolutionary Political Assembly

28-Kurdistan Future Movement

29-Syria- Kurdistan Democratic Party

30- Herekol Publishing House

31- Keskesora Area (Rainbow)

32- Democratic Green Party

33- Armenian Community Council of North and East Syria

34- Women's Network of Peace Commanders

35- Women's Rights Research and Protection Centre

36- Rojava Yazidi Women's Union

37- Women's councils of North and East Syria Cantons

38-Tabqa Canton Autonomous Administration

39-Heyva Sor a Kurd (Kurdish Red Crescent)

40-Hîlala Zêrîn Movement

41- Lawyers and doctors in all cantons

42- North and East Syria Education Council and all teachers

43- Manbij Circassian and Turkmen Associations

44- FreeYazidi Women’s Movement (TJAÊ)-Shengal

45-Shengal Yazidi Women's Foundation

46- Shengal Yazidi Women Diplomacy

47- European Movement for Culture and Arts

48- Jurists in Europe

49-Kombûna Amazîxî ya Cîhanî

50-Tunisia-Agriculture Project Support Community

51- World Women's March Morocco Coordination

(source: anfenglish.com)

AUGUST 25, 2024:

NORTH CAROLINA:

Black Man Fights Death Sentence Due To Alleged Racial Bias In Jury Selection

Lawyers representing a black man on death row in North Carolina gave closing arguments on Wednesday (August 21), according to WRAL News.

In 2009, judges sentenced Hasson Bacote to death for shooting 18-year-old Anthony Surles during a heist. Bacote is appealing his death sentence under North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, which allows death row convicts to challenge prejudice in their prosecution.

In 2009, a jury of 10 white and 2 black people sentenced Bacote to death. Bacote’s lawyers assert that racism permeated the jury selection and training process, mishandling his case.

If a judge rules in Bacote’s favor and commutes his death sentence, over 100 additional death row inmates in North Carolina may be able to appeal their cases under the Racial Justice Act. The state Supreme Court’s 2020 verdict will allow those who started their appeals before the statute was repealed in 2013 to continue their cases.

Gretchen Engel, executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, said she hopes Bacote’s case sparks a reckoning and prompts Governor Roy Cooper to provide reductions or pardons.

“That would be really compelling to Governor Cooper, a really strong message about the untenable nature of the death penalty and a call for him to exercise his unbridled power to grant commutations,” Engel said.

(source: greatergc.com)

****************

Black Death Row Inmate Argues For Resentencing Based On North Carolina’s History Of Racial Bias

Attorneys for Hasson Bacote are asking for him to be resentenced to life in person due to the history of the state's documented history of racial discrimination.

Attorneys for a Black man who is currently on death row are arguing for their client to be resentenced to life in person due to the history of the state’s documented history of racial discrimination.

According to NBC News, Hasson Bacote was convicted on a 1st-degree charge of murder for the 2007 shooting death of an 18-year-old man during a home robbery attempt. The jury that convicted him was made up of 10 white and 2 Black jurors. One of his attorneys, Henderson Hill, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union argued that white jurors “get shown the box. Black jurors with the same background get shown the door,” during closing arguments on Aug. 21.

Bacote is being allowed to argue his case because of North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act of 2009. The act allows inmates on death row to seek resentencing based on racial bias being a factor in their convictions. After the act was repealed in 2013, the state Supreme Court reversed it allowing inmates like Bacote to argue their case under this act.

Experts from several fields gave testimony to reveal a history and pattern of discrimination used in jury selection, not just for Bacote’s trial but others that have taken place in Johnston County. Another attorney representing Bacote, Ashley Burrell, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, explained how the statistics show racial disparities in death penalty cases. In Johnston County, she disclosed that of the 17 capital cases reviewed, 6 Black defendants were sentenced to death. She also revealed that with the remaining 11 white defendants, more than half of those individuals were spared death sentences.

Department of Justice Attorney Jonathan Babb does not agree with Bacote’s argument and stated that if the test under the Racial Justice Act is “whether racism has existed in our state, then there is no need for a hearing in this case or any other case. But that’s not the question before this court. Rather the question is whether this death sentence in this case was solely obtained on the basis of race. The defendant has not shown that his sentence was solely obtained on the basis of race.”

Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons Jr. will make a ruling but has given no deadline.

Depending on Sermons’ decision, if Bacote emerges victorious, more than 100 other death row inmates in the state could also see their sentences similarly commuted.

(source: blackenterprise.com)

SOUTH CAROLINA----impending execution

South Carolina sets date for 1st execution in more than 13 years

South Carolina has set a Sept. 20 date to put inmate Freddie Eugene Owens to death in what would be the state's 1st execution in more than 13 years.

South Carolina was once one of the busiest states for executions, but for years had had trouble obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies' concerns that they would have to disclose that they had sold the drugs to officials.

The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and, in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

Owens, who killed a store clerk in Greenville in 1997, will likely have the choice to die by lethal injection, electrocution or by the newly added option of a firing squad. A Utah inmate in 2010 was the last person to have been executed by a firing squad in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

The prisons director has 5 days to confirm that all 3 execution methods will be available. He must also give Owens' lawyers proof that the lethal injection drug is stable and correctly mixed, according to the high court's 2023 interpretation of the state's secrecy law on executions that helped reopen the door to South Carolina's death chamber.

Owens, 46, will then have about a week to let the state know how he wishes to be killed. If he makes no choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default.

A lawyer for Owens said the defense is waiting for prison officials to submit a sworn statement next week about the purity, potency and quality of the lethal injection drug under the terms of the South Carolina's new shield law and will see if it satisfies both the state and federal courts.

“The lack of transparency about the source of the execution drugs, how they were obtained and whether (they) can bring about as painless a death as possible is still of grave concern to the lawyers that represent persons on death row,” attorney John Blume said Friday via email.

The justices didn't specify how much information has to be released but they have promised a swift ruling if an inmate challenged the details in the disclosure.

South Carolina used to use a mix of 3 drugs, but now will use one drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections in a protocol similar to executions carried out by the federal government.

Owens can ask Republican Gov. Henry McMaster for mercy and to reduce his sentence to life without parole. No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

South Carolina's last execution was in May 2011. The state didn't set out to pause executions, but its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell the state more if the transaction was made public.

It took a decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get capital punishment restarted.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina's death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 32. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

Along with Owens, at least 3 other inmates have exhausted their regular appeals and a few more are close, meaning the death chamber could be busy to close out 2024.

The recent state Supreme Court ruling that reopened the door for executions found that the state shield law was legal and both the electric chair and firing squad were not cruel punishments.

The South Carolina General Assembly authorized the state to create a firing squad in 2021 to give inmates a choice between it and the same electric chair the state bought in 1912.

Supporters of the firing squad, including some Democrats reluctant about the death penalty, said it appears to be the quickest and most painless way to kill an inmate.

Owens killed store clerk Irene Graves during a string of robberies in 1997. He has been sentenced to death 3 separate times during his appeals.

After being convicted of murder his initial trial in 1999 but before a jury determined his sentence, Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail.

Owens gave investigators a detailed account of how he killed his cellmate, stabbing and burning his eyes, choking him and stomping him while another prisoner was in the cell and stayed quietly in his bunk, according to trial testimony.

(source: WSB news)

FLORIDA:

Who is YNW Melly? Update on Rapper's Florida Retrial in Death Penalty Case

A date for YNW Melly's double murder retrial has been set – but the rapper will have to wait over a year behind bars for it.

Court records show that Melly, whose legal name is Jamell Maurice Demons, is set for retrial on September 25, 2025. A pre-trial hearing is set for December 5, 2024.

Melly's lawyer David Howard declined to comment when contacted by Newsweek.

The rapper's 1st double murder trial ended in a mistrial after a Miami jury could not unanimously decide whether he was guilty or not guilty.

"These types of decisions, they're hard decisions," Judge John Murphy said to deadlocked jurors. "We very much appreciate the fact that you gave us the time because we've been here a long time. We understand that. You gave us the time and you did your best effort to [bring about resolution], but unfortunately that wasn't able to happen."

YNW Melly Double Murder Retrial Date Set

Who is YNW Melly?

YNW Melly, 25, is a rapper and songwriter from Gifford, Florida, best known for his breakout hit Murder on My Mind and Mixed Personalities featuring Kanye West.

His legal troubles began making headlines in 2019 when he was arrested and charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder.

On October 26, 2018, YNW Melly was accused of fatally shooting 2 of his friends, Anthony Williams (YNW Sakchaser) and Christopher Thomas Jr. (YNW Juvy), in Miramar, Florida.

Prosecutors claim that YNW Melly, along with fellow rapper YNW Bortlen (Cortlen Henry), staged the murders to look like a drive-by shooting. Melly was arrested in February 2019 and has been in jail since.

A self-recorded video of Melly stuffed inside a suitcase before turning himself into police in Miramar police was shown in court, but not to jurors.

"My name is Melly, and I'm going to turn myself in," he whispers in the February 2019 video. "But I'm in a suitcase because these c---kers are arresting me, and I want to get on a private jet so they don't see me."

YNW Bortlen was also arrested as an accomplice. Both were charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty for Melly.

Prosecutors claim that forensic evidence, including phone records and ballistic reports, shows Melly's involvement in the killings. They allege that Melly shot both victims from inside the car and then worked with YNW Bortlen to stage the crime scene.

The exact motive behind the alleged murders remains unclear, though there have been various theories, including disputes over money or power within the group. The State of Florida is seeking the death penalty, citing the premeditated nature of the crime, Melly's alleged actions to cover it up, and the brutality of the incident.

The trial has faced multiple delays, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and legal maneuvering by the defense.

Melly also faces legal challenges related to his time in jail, including accusations of conspiracy to escape from prison, though these have not been substantiated.

Melly is being held at the Broward County Jail in Fort Lauderdale. In September, a judge denied his lawyers' request for bond as he awaits retrial.

Bortlen was freed on bond in August 2021 but reportedly arrested on witness tampering charges following a Miami home raid by law enforcement in October 2023. He was originally slated to begin his trial that same month but it has been rescheduled.

Bortlen has been held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Florida since October.

Multiple Personality Disorder

In 2022, Melly's legal team filed a motion to declare him mentally incompetent to stand trial, although the prosecution has contested this claim.

Melly told Complex in 2019 that he has multiple personality disorder, a dissociative disorder that involves having two or more distinct identities within the same person. Melly claimed to have six personalities but has only revealed Melly and Melvin.

"Melvin's not an alter ego; it's a person," he told the outlet. "I got mixed personalities. It's another person."

"Melly is a joker. He's just the one that everybody loves, and he loves everybody," he continued. "Melvin is the one that protect Melly from the wrong people."

Melly has also claimed that he has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD.

Other Rapper Trials

The murder of Tupac Shakur remains one of the most famous unsolved cases in the history of hip-hop and popular culture. Shakur was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. He succumbed to his injuries 6 days later, on September 13, 1996, at the age of 25.

Last October, a suspect was finally charged with Shakur's murder. Prosecutors claim Duane "Keefe D" Davis was the gang leader who orchestrated the killing and is the only person still alive who was allegedly in the car from which the shots were fired.

Meanwhile, Patrick Clark, the man who allegedly shot and killed Migos rapper Takeoff in 2022, has a court date set for January 23, 2024.

Young Thug is accused of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which targets individuals who commit offenses under a criminal organization in 2022. Williams and other defendants are facing charges related to racketeering conspiracy and participation in criminal street gang activity, along with drug and gun charges. His trial remains ongoing.

(source: newsweek.com)

TENNESSEE:

Delaying death -- Tennessee has failed to follow state lethal injection protocol since 2018, report says----A 3rd-party investigation found the Tennessee Department of Corrections has not followed its own lethal injection protocol since 2018.

A 3rd-party investigation found the Tennessee Department of Corrections has not been following the state’s lethal injection protocol since 2018, according to the investigative report obtained by WVLT News.

On Tuesday, Sean Finnegan was sentenced to death after being found guilty of rape and murder in Anderson County.

Even though he was sentenced, he’ll have to wait for his execution to be scheduled after Gov. Bill Lee halted all state executions back in 2022.

The investigation found inconsistencies with the state’s protocol lead to incorrect testing for the drug cocktail used.

Since 2018, the state used 3 drugs for their executions, midazolam, which is a sedative that makes you unconscious, vecuronium bromide, which is used to paralyze the convicted, and potassium chloride to stop the heart.

After the scheduled execution of Oscar Franklin Smith, Lee ordered the executions be placed on hold to investigate the lethal injection protocol.

The investigation found that pharmacies were not testing the drugs properly.

The report stated it wasn’t done intentionally. The pharmacy was following the United States Pharmacopeia testing guidelines because it was never provided the state’s protocol, according to the report.

The state’s protocol was that the lethal injection needed to be tested for endotoxins, potency and sterility.

6 of the injections prepared from 2018 to 2022 were not properly tested. The mixtures either failed, not tested at all or not tested for all 3 required.

46 people are currently on death row in the state, 11 of those have been waiting there since the 1980s.

The 2nd-longest person being on death row since 1985, Terry King, and the only woman, Christa Pike, are both from Knox County.

Lee did not say when the executions would resume. When that does happen, the Tennessee Supreme Court will set the dates for each inmate who is not actively appealing the decision.

(source: WVLT news)

CALIFORNIA:

From death row, Kevin Cooper slams Republicans using his case against Kamala Harris

Kevin Cooper, sentenced to death in one of California’s most hotly contested capital cases, is speaking out for Kamala Harris, who as state attorney general opposed DNA testing that Cooper claimed would clear him. Writing from state prison in Stockton, Cooper said he forgives Harris and warned against Republicans using his case to tarnish the Democratic presidential nominee.

“They are trying to hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’s chances to become the 1st woman — woman of color — president of the Divided States of America. I cannot allow the Republicans to misuse my case against her,” Cooper, 66, wrote in a letter released by his supporters on Wednesday.

“So therefore, I Kevin Cooper am forgiving Kamala Harris for once denying me DNA testing. If I can find it within my heart to forgive her, as I am still sentenced to death for murders that I did not commit, then how can the Republicans, who do not care about me, hold or use what she didn’t do as attorney general against her now?”

In a recent post on X, formerly Twitter, William Shipley, a lawyer for some defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, said that “a ‘lawsplainer’ is in order about Harris’ efforts as AG to prevent an appeals court from considering DNA evidence that would have exonerated a man on death row.”

In another post on X, Jacob Faber, identified as a Trump supporter, wrote, “To all Kamala Harris supporters, just look up Kevin Cooper.” Both posts were first reported in Newsweek.

Cooper was convicted of fatally stabbing Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica Ryen, and their 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes, at the Ryens’ home in Chino Hills (San Bernardino County) in 1983. Cooper had escaped 2 days earlier from a nearby prison, where he was serving a sentence for burglary.

State and federal courts have upheld his convictions and death sentence, and he came within 8 hours of execution in 2004 before a federal appeals court granted a stay. But his claims of innocence have drawn considerable support, including a 101-page dissenting opinion in 2009 by Judge William Fletcher and 4 colleagues on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who said there was reason to believe officers had “manipulated and planted evidence” against Cooper.

His lawyers are filing a new appeal under California’s Racial Justice Act, which allows challenges to sentences or convictions that may have been affected by racial bias.

As state attorney general in 2010, Harris opposed DNA testing of evidence sought by Cooper’s lawyers, who contended it would clear him. As California’s top law enforcement officer, she was required to defend the state’s position in criminal cases unless she decided it had no factual basis or violated her conscience.

8 years later, as a U.S. senator, she urged Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom to order new DNA testing in the case. Newsom issued that order after taking office in 2019, declared a moratorium on executions in California and then ordered a San Francisco law firm to investigate Cooper’s case.

The firm issued a 104-page report in January 2023 declaring that “the evidence of his guilt is conclusive,” noting that Cooper’s DNA had been found at the murder site. Newsom endorsed the finding.

But Cooper’s lawyers said they had reason to believe the evidence had been planted. They said the report brushed aside evidence that Lee Furrow, a paroled murderer who had been in the area, had told construction workers that “me and my boys, we butchered a whole family.” Furrow, who was reportedly seen wearing a pair of bloodstained coveralls soon after the killings, has denied any involvement in the murders.

The law firm’s report also discounted the first response of the only survivor of the attacks, 8-year-old Josh Ryen, whose parents and sister were killed. Josh, whose throat was slashed, was questioned in the hospital by a social worker. Unable to speak, he signaled by touching letters and numbers on a page that the attackers had been three white men. Cooper is Black, and Furrow is white.

In an interview with the Chronicle from prison last October, Cooper called Newsom a “moral coward” for accepting the results of the investigation while the governor maintained his opposition to the death penalty. In his newly published letter, Cooper said he was “the victim of a sham ‘innocence investigation’” and that “my legal team and I are more concerned with what Newsom is doing to me than what Harris once didn’t do for me.”

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

USA----impending executions

EXECUTION PETITIONS----The following is an updated list of currently scheduled executions in the United States. Select the prisoner's name to sign the petition which will be delivered on your behalf to the respective state's government officials.

August 29, 2024 at 6:00 pm ET----Loran Cole in Florida

September 20, 2024 at 6:00 ET----Freddie Owens in South Carolina

September 24, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT:----Marcellus Williams in Missouri

September 24, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT----Travis Mullis in Texas

September 26, 2024 at 10:00 am CT:----Emmanuel Littlejohn in Oklahoma

September 26, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT:----Alan Miller in Alabama

October 1, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT:----Garcia White in Texas

October 17, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT:----Robert Roberson in Texas

November 21, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT:----Carey Grayson in Alabama

December 3, 2024 at 6:00 pm CT----Christopher Collings in Missouri

(see: https://deathpenaltyaction.org/take-action/execution-petitions/?link_id=3&can_id=d7ae93eebfc0128cd15585c7ed4a6fba&source=email-exploring-alabama-next-gas-execution&email_referrer=email_2428611&email_subject=execution-surge)

(source: Death Penalty Action)

US MILITARY:

Guantánamo Hearing Cut Short by Crisis on Defense Team in U.S.S. Cole Case----A military judge allowed the lead defense lawyer to leave next month, but his successor has not yet received the security clearance she needs to take over.

A military judge on Friday cut short pretrial proceedings in the U.S.S. Cole bombing case and allowed the lead defense lawyer to retire next month, creating a potential vacuum in the defense staff as it prepares for a trial in 2025 in Guantánamo’s longest-running death-penalty case.

The lawyer, Anthony J. Natale, 72, had asked to leave the case to retire. But the judge initially ordered him to remain on the job until his replacement, Allison F. Miller, is fully in charge of the defense team, at a date uncertain.

Then on Friday, after holding private talks with defense team members, the judge agreed to let Mr. Natale leave the case on Sept. 14. Defense lawyers say the early release was triggered by a crisis in leadership on the defense team during this period of transition.

Mr. Natale has served as “learned counsel” in the case, which means he has expertise in defending people at death-penalty trials. Brig. Gen. Jackie L. Thompson, who runs Guantánamo defense teams, hired Ms. Miller to replace Mr. Natale in that role. But the government has not yet given her a security clearance to practice law at the national security court. Until then, she cannot meet the prisoner, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, or see classified information in the case.

It was too early to know what impact, if any, the surprise development would have on the judge’s plan to start the trial in October 2025, the 25th anniversary of Al Qaeda’s suicide bombing, which killed 17 sailors off Yemen. Other obstacles remain as well, notably a prosecution appeal seeking reinstatement of confessions that the previous military judge had excluded as obtained through torture.

Col. Matthew S. Fitzgerald, the judge, had originally planned a 4-week hearing in the case but reduced the session to 2 weeks. Then on Friday, he ended the session after just 3 days. He called Mr. Natale “competent and capable” but noted there had been “a fracturing of internal team dynamics,” and that he anticipated an “upcoming pause” in the case as Ms. Miller takes over.

In an unusual scene in open court on Thursday, Mr. Natale sat silently as the judge quoted Mr. Natale as describing himself as “tired and burned out” but still capable of handling certain court functions.

Lt. Col. Joshua B. Nettinga, a military lawyer who works for Mr. Natale, said that Mr. Natale had declared himself no longer able to effectively lead the team — and that he had instructed the lawyers to file a motion seeking to halt the proceedings until Ms. Miller takes over.

Colonel Nettinga said defense lawyers had followed Mr. Natale’s instructions, sent him a copy of the filing to approve it and then filed it out of an “ethical obligation to Mr. al-Nashiri and justice to make sure he is represented by a learned counsel who could provide effective assistance.”

Capt. Timothy J. Stinson, the Navy officer prosecuting the case, accused Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers of engaging in “a defense strategy to delay, disrupt the proceedings and the upcoming trial date” by casting their leader as no longer effective.

Captain Stinson, who has been on the case for 10 months, said he has observed Mr. Natale to be “very competent, very cogent, very effective.”

Mr. Nashiri was tortured by the C.I.A. during his first years in U.S. custody, 2002 to 2006, but some details of what happened to him are classified. In preparing for the eventual trial, capital defense lawyers are responsible for, among other things, obtaining and using evidence of their client’s torture and other abuse to argue against a death penalty.

After Ms. Miller obtains her clearance, she will have to review classified information that has been compiled in the case since arraignment in 2011.

(source: New York Times)

IRAQ:

Security forces seize 200 kg of drugs in Erbil and Al-Anbar, arrest suspected traffickers

On Sunday, Kurdish Asayish forces and Iraq's General Directorate of Drug Control announced the seizure of approximately 200 kilograms of drugs in separate operations in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, and Al-Anbar in western Iraq.

Erbil's Asayish Directorate reported that its forces confiscated 85 kilograms of crystal meth and cocaine during 2 separate security operations. "4 individuals, 3 of whom are Syrian nationals, were arrested on charges of drug trafficking."

Simultaneously, the General Directorate of Drug Control revealed that 100 kilograms of the drug Captagon were seized in Al-Anbar following a meticulous intelligence operation lasting seven consecutive days. "The operation culminated in an ambush that caught the traffickers red-handed as they attempted to smuggle the Captagon pills hidden within a fruit transport vehicle."

The statement added that the entire international drug trafficking network, consisting of four members, was dismantled, and the suspects have been detained under a judicial order. Under Article 27 of the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Law No. 50 of 2017, international drug trafficking in Iraq carries a potential death penalty.

(source: shafaq.com)

EGYPT:

'New Cairo serial killer' receives preliminary death sentence

A Cairo criminal court has sought the opinion of Egypt's grand mufti on the preliminary death sentence passed down on Saturday on a man who killed 3 women earlier this year, in the case dubbed in Egyptian media as the “New Cairo serial killer.”

According to the prosecution, Karim Salim, 37, is accused of killing 3 women, engaging in sexual acts with them both before and after their deaths, recording videos of these acts, possessing drugs, and human trafficking.

The once-American high school English teacher, who used to film educational TikTok videos, killed 3 female sex workers in November 2023 as well as April and May 2024 and disposed of their bodies in Cairo and Port Said governorates.

During the trial which started in June and witnessed courthouse drama moments, including his first lawyer's announcement that he withdrew from representing him, Salim denied the charges and confessions he made following his arrest to the prosecution.

Despite Salim’s claims in the court, the prosecution presented the incriminating videos featuring his engagement in necrophiliac acts with the victims' dead bodies after murdering them at his own house in an upscale compound in New Cairo. It also presented closed-circuit television (CCTV) videos showing him on his way to and from disposing of the bodies.

However, some of those videos were leaked to social media, leading the prosecution to open another investigation in July to stand on how they were leaked. It also warned the public that sharing such videos constitutes a crime according to law.

According to Egyptian media, the murderer who has a US passport has also kidnapped his son from his ex-wife.

Salim's ex-wife, an Egyptian-American who resides in the US, has already requested the return of her son following the arrest of her ex-husband.

(source: english.ahram.org.eg)

IRAN:

UN Experts Call for Accountability in Iran’s 1988 Massacre

A coalition of over 300 United Nations experts, special rapporteurs, legal professionals, Nobel laureates, and human rights organizations, has called for the prosecution of Iranian officials responsible for decades of human rights abuses. This demand was made in an open letter originally published on the website of the Justice for the Victims of the 1988 Massacre in Iran (JVMI) following the release of a comprehensive report by UN Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman, which details systematic atrocities committed by the Iranian regime, particularly the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.

The letter urges the establishment of an international accountability mechanism to end the impunity of those responsible for these crimes. Highlighting Prof. Rehman’s findings, the letter describes the extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances as “ongoing crimes against humanity” and presents substantial evidence that these acts were carried out with genocidal intent.

The letter explicitly states, “Khomeini’s 1988 fatwa is manifestly clear that he intentionally and purposefully ordered the mass executions of all steadfast PMOI members, an ordinance which was also subsequently implemented against members of other groups. The willful executioners implemented Khomeini’s fatwa in full knowledge that they were committing international crimes by systematically and deliberately murdering political prisoners all across the country in a coordinated manner.”

The JVMI organization has been instrumental in rallying international support and is advocating for the inclusion of specific references to the 1988 massacre in the annual UN General Assembly resolution on Iran. Such a step would be pivotal in confronting the culture of impunity that has shielded Iranian officials from accountability for decades.

Prominent figures who signed the letter include Judge Sang-Hyun Song, former President of the International Criminal Court; Prof. William A. Schabas, Chair of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict; and Oleksandra Matviichuk, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Their involvement highlights the urgency of addressing the Iranian regime’s human rights violations and the need for concrete international action.

The initiative led by JVMI represents a growing international movement demanding justice for the victims of Iran’s 1988 massacre. By publishing the open letter and mobilizing a diverse group of experts and advocates, JVMI is ensuring that the world does not forget the atrocities committed and that meaningful steps are taken to hold those responsible to account.

(source: ncr-iran.org)

AUGUST 24, 2024:

PENNSYLVANIA----female to face death penalty

DA seeks death penalty against San Diego woman accused in Shadyside newborn's death

The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office will seek the death penalty against a California woman accused of killing her friend’s newborn son, marking a rare occasion in which the DA’s office has sought capital punishment against a woman.

Nicole Elizabeth Virzi, 30, is charged with homicide in the June 15 death of 6-week-old Leon Katz.

The San Diego woman was babysitting Leon while his parents took the newborn’s twin brother to the hospital for injuries police allege Ms. Virzi caused. She faces multiple counts of aggravated assault and child endangerment.

Ms. Virzi waived her preliminary hearing last month, and she was formally arraigned on the charges against her Friday. She was not in court for the arraignment. Several supporters of the Katz family were present.

The DA’s office this week filed notice that prosecutors will seek the death penalty. To do so, the office must cite so-called aggravating factors — circumstances that make the crime severe or heinous enough to warrant capital punishment.

Pennsylvania law includes 18 aggravating factors that prosecutors can cite in their pursuit of the death penalty. They range from the victim being a law enforcement officer or a judge to the crime involving kidnapping or torture.

In the case of Ms. Virzi, the DA’s office cited 4: the defendant committed the killing while in the perpetration of a felony; the offense was committed by means of torture; the victim was under 12 years old; and the defendant has a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence.

Although Ms. Virzi does not have a criminal history, if a jury finds her guilty of the charges against her in this case, those convictions will count as a criminal history for the purpose of sentencing.

Ms. Virzi’s attorney, David Shrager, said last month that his client is a longtime friend of the infants’ parents and she was “absolutely devastated” by Leon’s death.

“If there was something that she would want to convey, it would just be the absolutely horrible pain that she’s feeling,” Mr. Shrager said after Ms. Virzi waived her July 24 preliminary hearing. “These were her close friends.”

There are currently no women on death row in Pennsylvania.

In 2016, the DA sought the death penalty against a McKeesport woman who police say recorded video images as she smothered her 1-year-old son and sent them to the boy's father.

Christian Clark, 21, was spared the death penalty after she agreed to a plea deal and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2019.

In 2014, the state Supreme Court ordered Michelle Tharp, sentenced to death in Washington County in 2000, receive a new sentencing hearing. That case remains pending, court records show. In 2016, a Clinton County judge resentenced Shonda Walter to life in prison based on “totally incompetent counsel,” according to the Associated Press.

According to the criminal complaint filed June 16, Ms. Virzi was watching over the infant at the family’s Walnut Street apartment in Shadyside, though Ms. Virzi herself had been staying at an Airbnb about a mile away in Bloomfield. The San Diego Tribune reported she is a doctoral candidate at San Diego State University and UC San Diego.

Ms. Virzi called 911 around 11:15 p.m. June 15 to report that Leon had fallen from a bassinet, bumped his head, and was becoming unresponsive. Leon was taken to Children’s Hospital and pronounced dead the next morning. The medical examiner’s office said the child had suffered a severe skull fracture and multiple brain bleeds, according to the complaint.

Police said Ms. Virzi had no “plausible explanation” for the severity of Leon’s injuries. She told them he’d been acting normally and was sitting in his bouncer seat when she fell asleep for a time, according to the complaint. She awoke and went to the kitchen to get a bottle, she said, when she heard the baby screaming.

She said she found Leon lying on his left side on the floor with a large bump on his head. Detectives wrote in the complaint that it is about 18 inches from the tallest point of the bouncer seat to the floor.

Doctors told investigators the injured twin, Ari, had small scratches on both sides of his face, 2 bruises below his belly button and swelling, bruising, redness and scratches to his genitals, according to the complaint. Medical professionals said the injuries to both boys were unnatural and indicative of abuse.

Ms. Virzi told police she was the one who spotted the injuries to the other twin and alerted the parents. She said infant scratched his own face when he flailed as she was putting him in his car seat, according to the complaint. She was the only one watching over Leon once his parents left to take his brother to the hospital.

Pennsylvania has executed only three people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978 and none since 1999. Former Gov. Tom Wolf in 2015 declared a moratorium on executions, and Gov. Josh Shapiro has pledged not to sign any death warrants during his tenure. Capital crimes continue to be prosecuted and death sentences issued.

Since the 1900s, the state has only ever executed 2 women: Irene Schroeder in 1931 and Corrine Sykes in 1946, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-partisan nonprofit that collects data on capital punishment in the United States.

There are around 100 inmates on Pennsylvania’s death row, 6 of whom were prosecuted and sentenced in Allegheny County.

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

SOUTH CAROLINA----new and impending execution date

South Carolina sets date for 1st execution in more than 13 years

South Carolina has set a Sept. 20 date to put inmate Freddie Eugene Owens to death in what would be the state's 1st execution in more than 13 years.

The state Legislature has since passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and, in July, the state Supreme Court cleared the way to restart executions.

Owens, who killed a store clerk in Greenville in 1997, will likely have the choice to die by lethal injection, electrocution or by the newly added option of a firing squad. A Utah inmate in 2010 was the last person to have been executed by a firing squad in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

A lawyer for Owens didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Owens, 46, will then have about a week to let the state know how he wishes to be killed. If he makes no choice, the state will send him to the electric chair by default.

The justices didn't specify how much information has to be released but they have promised a swift ruling if an inmate challenged the details in the disclosure.

South Carolina used to use a mix of 3 drugs, but now will use 1 drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections in a protocol similar to executions carried out by the federal government.

Owens can ask Republican Gov. Henry McMaster for mercy and to reduce his sentence to life without parole. No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

South Carolina’s last execution was in May 2011. The state didn’t set out to pause executions, but its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell the state more if the transaction was made public.

It took a decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get capital punishment restarted.

South Carolina has put 43 inmates to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of 3 executions a year. Only nine states have put more inmates to death.

But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned inmates in early 2011. It currently has 32. About 20 inmates have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.

Along with Owens, at least 3 other inmates have exhausted their regular appeals and a few more are close, meaning the death chamber could be busy to close out 2024.

The recent state Supreme Court ruling that reopened the door for executions found that the state shield law was legal and both the electric chair and firing squad were not cruel punishments.

The South Carolina General Assembly authorized the state to create a firing squad in 2021 to give inmates a choice between it and the same electric chair the state bought in 1912.

Supporters of the firing squad, including some Democrats reluctant about the death penalty, said it appears to be the quickest and most painless way to kill an inmate.

Owens killed store clerk Irene Graves during a string of robberies in 1997. He has been sentenced to death 3 separate times during his appeals.

After being convicted of murder his initial trial in 1999 but before a jury determined his sentence, Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail.

(source: Associated Press)

******************

SC schedules Greenville Co. inmate to be 1st execution in 13 years

The 1st inmate to be executed in 13 years in South Carolina will be Greenville County's Freddie Owens, convicted in 1999 of killing a convenience store clerk and, days after the verdict, his cellmate.

Owens' execution date will be Sept. 20, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced in a late August 23 news release.

The state Supreme Court sent the execution notice to the state's prisons director earlier in the day, giving him 4 Fridays by law to execute Owens.

Owens will be asked to choose how he wants to be executed 2 weeks before execution day. After a recent state Supreme Court ruling, he can choose between lethal injection, the electric chair or a firing squad.

Owens, 46, was convicted of murder for fatally shooting Irene Graves, a convenience store clerk, on Nov. 1, 1997, while robbing the store with an accomplice during a Halloween night spree.

At his trial, Owens maintained he was at home when the robbery and shooting happened, counter to witness statements.

Post verdict, Owens killed his Greenville County jail cellmate Christopher Lee. Before being transferred from the jail to state prison, Lee taunted Owens by saying he would be joining him in prison soon because of his murder conviction, Owens confessed after the murder.

He was resentenced twice, the last of which took place in September 2006, after the Supreme Court reversed his 2 initial death sentences.

He was first scheduled for execution in 2021. He has had an ongoing lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina challenging the constitutionality of execution by electrocution and firing squad under the federal Constitution.

However, because there is no stay of execution ordered by the federal court, Owens can be issued a death warrant.

5 other men on death row have exhausted all of their appeals and are likely to be scheduled for execution soon.

As of August 23, there are 32 inmates on death row in South Carolina. At least 18 death row inmates have been resentenced for a myriad of reasons since the last execution in 2011, ranging from an aggressive prosecutor to successful appeals.

(source: postandcourier.com)

FLORIDA----impending execution

Florida Supreme Court Rejects Death Row Inmate’s Appeal, Execution Likely To Proceed

The Florida Supreme Court has unanimously denied an appeal by Loran Cole, a death row inmate convicted of murdering a Florida State University student in 1994.

This decision paves the way for his scheduled execution next week, though last-minute federal court appeals are anticipated.

Cole’s attorneys had argued that abuse he suffered as a teenager at the notorious Dozier School for Boys contributed to his criminal behavior. They also cited a recent law offering compensation to Dozier victims as new evidence warranting a review of his death sentence.

However, the court rejected these arguments, stating that the law doesn’t constitute new evidence and Cole’s claims about Dozier were raised too late.

The court also dismissed concerns about Cole’s Parkinson’s disease causing complications during lethal injection, stating that his claims were meritless and filed too late.

Cole’s execution is scheduled for next Thursday. Death penalty opponents argue that the trauma Cole experienced at Dozier should be reconsidered, while the court’s decision brings the state one step closer to carrying out the execution.

(source: tampafp.com)

**********************

Florida Supreme Court refuses to block execution of FSU student’s killer----Loran Cole faces execution after Florida Supreme Court rejects appeal

The Florida Supreme Court on Friday unanimously rejected an appeal by a death row inmate convicted of killing a Florida State University student 3 decades ago in the Ocala National Forest, likely setting in motion last-minute federal court appeals before a scheduled execution next week.

Attorneys for Loran Cole launched state court appeals after Gov. Ron DeSantis in late July signed a death warrant that would lead to Cole’s execution Thursday at Florida State Prison.

The Supreme Court decision rejected a series of arguments, including claims related to abuse Cole suffered as a teenager at the state’s notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.

Cole’s attorneys contended the abuse at the now-shuttered reform school contributed to his behavior. They also pointed to a recently passed law that set up a compensation program for people who were abused at the Jackson County school and the Okeechobee School in South Florida, saying the law constituted “newly discovered evidence” that warranted a fresh look at Cole’s death sentence.

The law, approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis, set aside $20 million for people who attended the schools between 1940 and 1975. Cole, who was 17 when he was sent to Dozier in 1984, would not be eligible for the compensation.

The Supreme Court, upholding an Aug. 8 decision by Marion County Circuit Judge Robert Hodges, said the new law “does not amount to newly discovered evidence” that would require another review.

“Indeed, we have routinely held that resolutions, consensus opinions, articles, research, and the like do not satisfy the standard,” said the opinion shared by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz and Justices Charles Canady, John Couriel, Renatha Francis Jamie Grosshans, Jorge Labarga and Meredith Sasso.

Cole’s lawyers for years have argued that his 6-month stint at Dozier played a role in the behavior that led to the 1994 murder of Florida State student John Edwards, who was on a camping trip in the Ocala National Forest.

But the 2024 law added a new twist to the legal pleadings, with Cole’s lawyers arguing the compensation program showed that the state admitted it was “complicit” in the mistreatment of students at the reform schools.

Cole said he was raped by a guard, beaten at least twice a week and had both of his legs broken after trying to escape during his 6-month stint at Dozier, court documents dating back more than a decade said.

“That horrible place helped create the Loran Cole who sits on death row today,” his lawyers argued in an appeal filed at the Supreme Court in 2011.

But Friday’s ruling said that Cole’s claims about the school were not new and were procedurally barred from being raised years after a court deadline for such arguments.

“The state of Florida’s decision to now compensate some of those individuals who attended the school does not revive Cole’s previously denied postconviction claims,” the opinion said.

Court filings contended Cole suppressed memories of his experiences at Dozier, with the memories resurfacing after he watched a documentary in 2009 about abuse at the school.

But Friday’s ruling disputed the suppressed memories argument, pointing to Hodges’ ruling, which found that the Dozier issue was raised in an “investigation report” before a jury’s unanimous death sentence recommendation in 1995.

Death penalty opponents, however, have said Cole’s trauma at Dozier deserves another look.

“It’s concerning that the state has recognized, through recent legislation, the horrors of what occurred at Dozier but, at the same time, seeks to proceed with executing Cole without allowing him an opportunity to litigate his claims based on the abuse he endured at Dozier. The court’s ruling today gets the state one step closer to being able to complete Cole’s execution,” Melanie Kalmanson, an attorney and author of the “Tracking Florida’s Death Penalty” blog, told the News Service of Florida on Friday.

Justices also rejected arguments related to Cole’s symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, which his lawyers said could lead to “needless pain and suffering” during the triple-drug lethal injection process.

But the Supreme Court ruling said Cole, 57, who has suffered from Parkinson’s since at least 2017, “failed to raise any argument related to the method of execution until after the governor signed a death warrant” on July 29.

“Regardless, Cole’s claim is meritless,” the decision said.

Florida’s lethal injection protocol requires the intravenous administration of 3 drugs: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart from beating.

Cole’s appeal did not meet the threshold requirements of establishing “that the method of execution presents a substantial and imminent risk that is sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering,” the Supreme Court ruling said.

“We have already rejected challenges to the … protocol based upon the possibility of involuntary movements,” the ruling said. “And we have repeatedly recognized that the Department of Corrections is entitled to the presumption that it will comply with the lethal injection protocol. … That protocol includes safeguards to ensure the condemned is unconscious throughout the execution.”

Cole was sentenced to death in the February 1994 murder of Edwards, who went to the Ocala National Forest to camp with his sister, a student at Eckerd College, court records show.

Cole and another man, William Paul, joined the brother and sister at their campsite. After they decided to walk to a pond, Cole knocked Edwards’ sister to the ground and ultimately handcuffed her, the records said. Paul took the sister up a trail, and John Edwards died from a slashed throat and blows to the head that fractured his skull, according to the court records. Edwards’ sister was sexually assaulted and was tied to two trees the next morning before freeing herself. (In most cases, The News Service of Florida does not identify sexual assault victims by name.)

(source: WCJB news)

MISSOURI----impending execution

Missouri Supreme Court blocks agreement that would have halted execution

The Missouri Supreme Court blocked an agreement that would spare the life of a man on death row. Instead, Marcellus Williams must now proceed with a hearing on his innocence claim, with a little over a month to go before his scheduled execution.

The ruling late Wednesday came hours after St. Louis County Circuit Judge Bruce Hilton approved a plan allowing Williams to enter a new no-contest plea to 1st-degree murder in the 1998 death of Lisha Gayle. Though Williams’ lawyers said he still maintains he is innocent, the plea would acknowledge evidence was sufficient for a conviction.

Williams, 55, would have been sentenced to life in prison without parole on Thursday. Instead the Sept. 24 execution date is still on, pending a hearing before Hilton on Williams’ innocence claim.

Here’s what there is to know about the case:

The killing

Lisha Gayle was a social worker and a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter. She was stabbed to death inside her home in University City on Aug. 11, 1998.

At the time, prosecutors said Williams broke into Gayle’s home and heard water running in the shower upstairs. They said he found a large butcher knife and waited for her to come down. When she did, Gayle was stabbed 43 times. Her purse and her husband’s laptop were stolen.

Authorities said Williams also stole a jacket to conceal blood on his shirt, and his girlfriend asked him why he was wearing it on a hot day. The girlfriend said she later saw the laptop in the car and that Williams sold it a day or two later.

Prosecutors also cited testimony from Henry Cole, who shared a St. Louis cell with Williams in 1999 while Williams was jailed on unrelated charges. Cole told prosecutors that Williams confessed to the killing and offered details about it.

Williams’ attorneys responded that the girlfriend and Cole, who were both convicted of felonies, wanted a $10,000 reward for information in the case.

Williams was found guilty in 2001 and sentenced to death, and the conviction was later upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court.

DNA evidence emerges

In 2017, Williams was hours away from execution — he’d already eaten his last meal. His lawyers made one final appeal citing DNA testing unavailable at the time of the original trial indicating that the DNA of someone other than Williams was found on the knife.

It was enough to persuade then-Gov. Eric Greitens to grant a stay of execution and appoint a board of inquiry made up of former judges.

But that board never issued a report or released findings. In 2023, Gov. Mike Parson — like Greitens, a Republican — dissolved the inquiry board. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in June that Parson had the right to do so, and set the Sept. 24 execution date.

Prosecutor challenges the murder conviction

When Williams was convicted, St. Louis County’s prosecutor was Bob McCulloch, a tough-on-crime prosecutor who served 28 years before he was upset by Ferguson City Council member Wesley Bell in the 2018 Democratic primary. Bell, who made his name in Ferguson after Michael Brown’s death, pledged a more progressive approach to running the office.

That included taking a new look at potential wrongful convictions. In January, Bell announced that he would seek a hearing before a judge to vacate Williams’ murder conviction, citing the DNA testing. That hearing was set for Wednesday before Judge Hilton.

New DNA test results, released on Monday, changed everything.

They determined that the knife used in the killing was mishandled in the aftermath of the crime. DNA from Edward Magee, an investigator for the prosecutor’s office at the time, was found, and testing also couldn’t exclude the original prosecutor in the case, Keith Larner.

“Additional investigating and testing demonstrated that the evidence was not handled properly at the time of (Williams’) conviction,” Matthew Jacober, a special counsel for Bell’s office, told the judge. “As a result, DNA was likely removed and added between 1998 and 2001.”

Bell was not at the hearing because he was at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Bell defeated incumbent Cori Bush in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District Democratic primary on Aug. 6 and will be heavily favored in November.

A consent judgment

While Williams still maintains his innocence, the contaminated DNA evidence was a gut-punch to his case. The finding prompted hours of negotiations between his lawyers and prosecutors.

By Wednesday afternoon, they reached an agreement: Williams would enter an Alford plea, which is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that there is enough evidence for a conviction. In exchange, his death sentence would be commuted to life without parole.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that given the contaminated DNA evidence, the plea was Williams’ best option.

“Mr. Williams faced an impossible choice: with an execution date in just over a month, he could take a chance on a legal process that has never given him a fair shake and hope that things turn out differently — or he could take the deal that would save his life and bring the victim’s family the closure they sought,” Maher said in an email. “Anyone would take the deal.”

Peter Joy, a professor at the Washington University School of Law, said many aspects of the case are troubling, including the bungled DNA evidence and the setting of an execution date while an innocence claim was still being examined.

“I hope there’s not a rush to execution,” Joy said.

Supreme Court quickly overrules

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey immediately challenged the new plea and reduced penalty, contending that the lower court lacked the authority to essentially overrule the state’s Supreme Court. Within hours, the high court agreed.

Its order also required Hilton to hold the evidentiary hearing, scheduled for Aug. 28.

In a statement, Bailey said people too often “forget about all of the evidence that was used to convict the defendant — the evidence the jury relied on — and the victims.”

But Williams’ attorney, Tricia Bushnell, noted that Gayle’s family supported the new plea and penalty. She said in a statement that the Supreme Court ruling “directly contradicts the will of a duly elected prosecutor and the community he represents and the wishes of a family who has already lost so much.”

Maher, of the Death Penalty Information Center, said there are also “credible claims of innocence” for men on death row in Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama.

“These cases create an impression that our legal system values process and ‘finality’ more than it values innocence and justice and explains why so many people are losing confidence in the death penalty,” Maher said.

(source: Associated Press)

****************

Judge overrules murder suspect's motion regarding death penalty constitutionality

A judge overruled a Jefferson City man's motion to prevent the prosecution in his murder case from seeking the death penalty on Thursday.

Sergio Sayles faces 1st-degree murder charges for the April 2023 homicide of Jasmine King. Shortly after charges were filed against Sayles, Cole County prosecutor Locke Thompson said he plans to seek the death penalty if Sayles is convicted.

In July, Sayles' attorney filed a motion to declare Missouri's death penalty scheme unconstitutional and to bar prosecutors from pursuing it as a punishment. It cites racial biases as a factor that "in practice" prevents juries from constitutionally applying the death penalty as a punishment. The motion further states that the death penalty scheme in Missouri "lacks clear and objective standards."

Judge Brouck Jacobs overruled the motion at a hearing on Thursday, but did sustain a motion to strike one of the aggravating factors in the state's notice of intent to seek the death penalty. That motion relates to the state's assertion that Sayles has prior convictions for serious assault.

The defense argued the conviction prosecutors referred to was from Illinois, and that Sayles was not convicted but rather received an adjudication since the case in question was a juvenile case.

Sayles' case has its next hearing scheduled for October 10.

(source: KOMU news)

USA----impending/scheduled executions

With the execution of Taberon Honie in Utah on August 8, the USA has now executed 1,594 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful practice of state-sponsored killings.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1595-----Aug. 29-----------Loran Cole--------------Florida

1596-----Sept. 20----------Freddie Owens-----------South Carolina

1597-----Sept. 24----------Travis Mullis-----------Texas

1598-----Sept. 24----------Marcellus Williams------Missouri

1599-----Sept. 26----------Alan Miller-------------Alabama

1600-----Sept. 26----------Emmanual Littlejohn-----Oklahoma

1601-----Oct. 1------------Garcia White------------Texas

1602-----Oct. 17-----------Robert Roberson---------Texas

- 1603-----Nov. 21-----------Corey Dale Grayson------Alabama

1604-----Dec. 4------------Christopher Collings----Missouri

(source: Rick Halperin)

******************

Democrats Abandoned Their Anti-Death Penalty Stance. Those on Federal Death Row May Pay the Price.----Witnesses to Trump's execution spree are dismayed by Democrats' decision to remove death penalty opposition from their party platform.

When the Rev. Al Sharpton took the stage to introduce members of the Exonerated 5 on the last night of the Democratic National Convention, it was, for the briefest moment, a nod toward a reality that the DNC had otherwise aggressively avoided: the myriad injustices of our criminal legal system.

“35 years ago my friends and I were in prison for crimes we didn’t commit,” Korey Wise said. As teenagers, Wise, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray were wrongly arrested, brutally interrogated, and imprisoned for the rape of a jogger in Central Park. Donald Trump notoriously spent tens of thousands of dollars on full-page ads in the New York Times calling to bring back the death penalty. “Our youth was stolen from us,” Wise said. “Every day as we walked into courtroom, people screamed at us, threatened us because of Donald Trump.”

“He wanted us dead,” Salaam, now a New York City Council member, said. Now in their late 40s and early 50s, the men once known as the Central Park Five stood as a living testament both to Trump’s cruelty and the futures he sought to crush.

The moment was powerful. But it also exposed a tension that had been present throughout the entire convention. All week, the criminal justice system — and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s role in it — had been cast as a force for good: a source of protection and justice for society’s vulnerable. Harris was praised by a parade of sheriffs, state attorneys general, and members of the U.S. security state as the leader who will keep Americans safe. “Crime will keep going down when we put a prosecutor in the White House instead of a convicted felon,” President Joe Biden said in his speech on Monday.

To anyone who has ever watched the Democrats maneuver in an election year, none of this was particularly surprising. The party’s belief that their candidates must adopt the mantle of law and order is a long-held tradition. Yet Wise, Salaam, Santana, Richardson, and McCray were once themselves demonized as looming threats to American society — branded not only as “felons” but also as “superpredators,” a racist and dehumanizing myth weaponized to give prosecutors the power to punish children as adults. Trump’s targeting of these teenagers was certainly repugnant and cruel. But their convictions came out of an era that saw politicians build careers on criminalizing and punishing young people like them. Few were more successful than Biden and Bill Clinton, both of whom were welcomed as heroes at the DNC.

For years, Harris has presented herself as an antidote to these bad old days: a prosecutor who believed in being “smart” rather than “tough” on crime. As a contender during the 2020 presidential primary, she promised a slew of criminal justice reforms, calling mass incarceration “the civil rights issue of our time.” As senator, she sponsored and co-sponsored legislation to make the system fairer and more humane, including a bill to abolish the federal death penalty and grant new sentences to everyone on federal death row. But now, with the presidency within reach, rather than seize the opportunity to follow through on such work, Harris and the Democratic Party have simply moved on from the discussion. The appearance of the Exonerated Five was bookended by yet another round of speeches elevating prosecutors and bashing criminals.

Unmet Promises

Salaam’s presence in particular was a reminder of a specific policy the Democratic National Committee has abandoned. In the years after his wrongful incarceration, he became an activist against the death penalty, telling his story to audiences around the country. (This is how I first got to know Salaam; for years we jointly served on the board of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.) When the New York State Legislature debated fixing the state’s death penalty law, which had been invalidated by the state’s highest court, Salaam presented himself as a cautionary tale. Had capital punishment been the law of the land the year he was tried, he may well have been executed before proving his innocence.

Yet in the hours before Salaam spoke at the convention, many Americans were learning for the first time that the DNC had removed its goal of ending capital punishment from its official platform. The issue had previously been enshrined in the party platform for years, with the language in 2016 especially robust: “We will abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment,” it read. “It has no place in the United States of America.”

As a document, the platform does not always reflect the priorities or beliefs of a presidential candidate. The 2016 language, for instance, was at odds with candidate Hillary Clinton’s support for capital punishment. But the decision to remove any reference to the death penalty was nonetheless alarming. At best, it raises questions about Harris’s stated commitment to ending capital punishment, something she not only claimed to want to do during the 2020 primary but took action on as senator. At worst, it signals something much darker, especially for the 40 men on federal death row.

The omission is especially worrisome to those who lived through Trump’s unprecedented federal execution spree, carried out in the waning months of his presidency. Under Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr, 13 people were executed at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute. The last 3 executions were carried out back-to-back over the course of a week, just days before Biden’s inauguration. The cases were emblematic of the death penalty’s cruelty and unfairness. Lisa Montgomery, the only woman under a federal death sentence, had lived a life marked by extreme trauma and mental illness. Corey Johnson was killed despite a Supreme Court ban on executing people with intellectual disabilities. And Dustin Higgs, the last man to die, was executed for 3 murders carried out by another man, who had since said that the government’s case was “bullshit.”

Out for Blood

The horror of Trump’s executions made Biden’s 2020 campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty all the more urgent — and his victory over Trump cause for celebration and relief. In this light, the removal of the death penalty from the DNC platform feels like a stunning betrayal. “Biden’s promise 4 years ago created a set of expectations that his 4 years in office so far has not met,” said Robert Dunham, director of the Philadelphia-based Death Penalty Policy Project. “It’s those raised expectations that make the absence of reference to the death penalty so disappointing to people who want him to carry out that promise.”

Still, Dunham doesn’t believe the platform’s revision signals a change in policy. “It isn’t that they dropped their position on the death penalty. The issue here is, when you’re faced with an existential threat to democracy, what issues do you emphasize and what issues don’t you emphasize?”

Rendered Invisible

If relatively few Americans recall Trump’s execution spree, it is almost certainly because it was largely undiscussed by politicians on either side. The executions in Terre Haute were pushed through recklessly, in the earliest days of the Covid pandemic, in a manner that was shocking even to seasoned anti-death penalty activists, legal experts, and defense attorneys. If there was ever a year that presented the moral imperative to speak out against the death penalty, it was then. Instead, the federal executions were completely ignored at Democrats’ virtual convention 4 years ago.

In my correspondence with people on federal death row at the time, several criticized the Democrats for staying silent while Trump killed their friends and neighbors. “The Government is killing people in the name of the tax payers and it is not even a major story,” Christopher Vialva wrote to me before he was put to death in September 2020. He was acutely aware that Biden helped expand the federal death penalty in the first place and was skeptical of his vow to end executions. Those who survived the executions have expressed pessimism that anything will change.

With conservatives’ Project 2025 seeking to execute the rest of the men on federal death row, the stakes could not be higher. But for all their somber warnings of the Republicans’ terrifying blueprint for a second Trump administration, Democrats have been conspicuously silent about this part of the plan.

For those who witnessed the federal executions up close, news that the DNC platform no longer included opposition to the death penalty was dismaying but not reason to lose all hope. “It’s disappointing,” said activist Bill Breeden, who served as a spiritual adviser to Johnson, standing in the death chamber while he was killed by lethal injection. Breeden is certain that the very people who will power the Democrats to victory — especially women and young people — are opposed to capital punishment. But he also is adamant that Harris must win the election. “The opposite, Christian nationalism, is fascism,” he said. As a regular visitor to federal death row, Breeden is acutely aware of the danger posed by a 2nd Trump term. “There will be a serial killer in the White House.”

Yusuf Nur, who served as a spiritual adviser to Higgs and Orlando Hall, another man killed by the Trump administration, echoed Breeden’s sentiments. The federal executions were traumatic for both men. “It really changed my life,” Nur said.

Nur believes the silence about the death penalty evinces a lack of political courage. “They’re scared. They don’t want to bring up anything that they think could be used against them in this election cycle. That’s basically what it boils down to,” Nur said. He questioned how much direct involvement Harris had in the drafting of the platform. “I want to give her the benefit of the doubt,” he said, but he still found it disheartening and a bit ironic. “She wants to project strength and that she cannot be intimidated. But at the same time, this tells me that, yes, she can be intimidated.”

Nur saw a parallel with the campaign’s avoidance of Gaza and its refusal to allow a Palestinian American speaker at the DNC. “It’s the same basic reason,” he said. But whereas the scale and the images of Israel’s genocidal war have made the issue impossible to suppress, executions remain invisible to all but a small handful of Americans who see them up close.

This invisibility has undoubtedly made it easier for Biden to turn his back on his previous promises. So has the silence from Democrats. As Vialva said about the federal government before he was killed, “they want us quiet so they can operate without the public caring too much. They keep us secret.”

(source: Liliana Segura, theintercept.com)

***************

Death penalty divide: Trump urges more capital punishment while Harris silent

Former President Donald Trump has signaled he will continue his administration’s aggressive pursuit of the death penalty if he is elected, while Vice President Kamala Harris has gone mum on the issue.

Trump made his most detailed comments yet on capital punishment since launching his campaign during remarks at the Arizona border on Thursday, at the same time that Harris has come under scrutiny for her silence on the matter.

As he was addressing punishments for illegal migrants who commit crimes, Trump said he would impose the death penalty “for anyone guilty of child or woman sex trafficking.”

Trump has also repeatedly suggested that a solution to the nation’s drug trafficking and addiction problems is to impose the death penalty on drug traffickers, citing countries such as China, which he has said successfully combats illegal drugs with a punishment of death. The former president reiterated those sentiments Thursday.

“We’ll also impose the death penalty on major drug dealers and traffickers,” Trump said. “In other countries on their immigration papers, there is a statement that says, ‘Death for drug traffickers.’ Big letters, big bold letters, 10 times the size of everything else on the page. I saw it this morning, and those are the countries where they have no problem with drugs.”

It is unclear which countries Trump was referring to, but Politifact found in 2018 that Trump accurately made similar comments about China and Singapore imposing the death penalty for drug trafficking. The outlet also noted, though, that there is little data to assess how effective the policy was in those countries.

Trump said his administration would also seek the death penalty for those who kill police, U.S. Border Patrol officers, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Lastly, Trump addressed the protracted period of time that criminals wait on death row, saying his administration would seek a “quicker trial, not a trial that lasts 15 years and everybody gets exhausted.”

His comments align with the Trump administration’s historic use of the death penalty. 16 federal executions have been carried out since 1988, all by lethal injection. 13 of them were under Trump’s tenure, when Attorney General Bill Barr lifted an Obama-era freeze on them.

Harris, a former district attorney and California attorney general, has embraced a persona as “prosecutor” on the campaign trail, but she has a complicated history with the death penalty and has taken no position on it since she was chosen as Trump’s opponent.

During Harris’s tenure as vice president, the Department of Justice vowed to halt federal executions, but it did not entirely live up to that promise.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a moratorium on them in 2021 but changed gears in January when government prosecutors sought the death penalty for 20-year-old Payton Gendron. Gendron pleaded guilty to murdering 10 black people in a racially motivated attack at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in 2022.

Prosecutors under Garland also asked for the death penalty in 2 cases brought by the Trump administration: Robert Bowers’s murder of 11 people at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue and Islamic extremist Sayfullo Saipov’s murder of 8 people in a New York City bike path.

No federal executions have been carried out since Harris became vice president, but the DOJ’s authorization of the death penalty in rare cases upset opponents of it. Gendron is fighting his punishment in court, Bowers’s appeal is still playing out, and Saipov received a life sentence despite prosecutors asking for death. Bowers is among about 40 defendants currently sitting on death row.

20 years ago, Harris opposed the death penalty and received significant blowback when she announced as San Francisco district attorney that she would not seek it in the slaying of police officer Isaac Espinoza.

But later, when she campaigned for California attorney general, she said she would “enforce the death penalty as the law dictates.”

She once again flip-flopped on capital punishment when she unsuccessfully ran for president in 2019, saying she would institute a moratorium on it.

Now, amid a competitive campaign against Trump, Harris is facing a crossroads as she has embraced a tough-on-crime brand, at least when it comes to her opponent, whom she describes as a “convicted felon.” Her party has historically opposed the death penalty, but Trump has called for cracking down on crime with it.

In addition to Harris’s unclear stance on the topic, the newly released Democratic 2024 platform makes no mention of the death penalty, which the Huff Post observed was a first for the party since 2004.

A Harris campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

(source: Washington Examiner)

******************

Exonerated members of Central Park 5 warn about Trump at Democratic convention----The former president has never apologized to the group for taking out newspaper ads calling for the death penalty or for his public antagonism toward the teens in 1989.

4 of the exonerated members of the so-called Central Park 5 — a group of 5 teenagers wrongfully imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a jogger — appeared Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention, warning of what a second Donald Trump presidency could bring.

“35 years ago, my friends and I were in prison for a crime we did not commit,” one of them, Korey Wise, said Thursday. “Our youth was stolen from us. Every day, as we walked into a courtroom, people screamed at us, threatening us because of Donald Trump.”

Their concerns about the former president stemmed from personal experience and go back more than three decades: In 1989, 5 teenagers, all Black or Latino, were arrested after a jogger was found brutally sexually assaulted and tied up in Central Park.

One of them, then-15-year-old Yusef Salaam, would later recount how police used questionable methods, including depriving the teens of food and sleep, to get them to falsely confess to the crime “under duress.” Though all would later recant their confessions and there was no evidence linking them to the rape, the teens became publicly branded as the Central Park 5, were wrongfully convicted and spent years in prison.

During their trial, Trump, already a prominent figure in New York City for his real estate dealings, took out full-page ads in 4 newspapers calling for the death penalty to be reinstated.

“I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes,” Trump stated in the ads. “They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence.”

It wasn’t until 2002, when DNA evidence confirmed a different man’s confession that he had raped the Central Park jogger, that authorities dropped charges against the Central Park 5. The group became referred to as “the Exonerated 5” and in 2014 reached a $41 million wrongful-conviction settlement with New York City. Salaam, a Democrat, won election in November to the New York City Council.

But Trump would never apologize to the group for taking out the newspaper ads or for his public antagonism toward the teens in 1989. During his 2020 presidential campaign, 3 decades later, Trump continued to call into question the group’s innocence.

“You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt ... some of the prosecutors think the city should never have settled that case, and we’ll leave it at that,” Trump said in 2019.

On Thursday, the 4th and final night of the Democratic convention, Salaam and Wise stood on stage with 2 others of the Central Park 5 who had been exonerated: Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson.

“He wanted us dead,” Salaam said, referring to Trump but avoiding using his name. “Today we are exonerated because the actual perpetrator confessed and DNA proved it. That guy says he still stands by the original guilty verdict. He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong. He has never changed and he never will.”

It was not the 1st time Salaam has warned what a Trump presidency could mean. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Salaam publicly spoke out about his concerns that Trump had only doubled down on his actions toward the Central Park 5, even after the group was exonerated.

“For 27 years, I’ve been in Donald Trump’s crosshairs,” Salaam wrote in an October 2016 op-ed for The Washington Post, recounting the fear and confusion he felt in 1989 when he and his friends were wrongfully arrested in the case. Those terrified feelings were only magnified when they learned that Trump had called for them to face the death penalty in full-page newspaper ads.

“He called for blood in the most public way possible,” Salaam wrote then. “… I don’t know why the future Republican nominee bought those ads, but it seems part and parcel with his racist attitudes.”

Trump, he added, never apologized for calling for their deaths.

“In fact, he’s somehow still convinced that we belong in prison. When the Republican nominee was recently asked about the Central Park Five, he said, ‘They admitted they were guilty.’ ... It’s further proof of Trump’s bias, racism and inability to admit that he’s wrong,” Salaam wrote.

On Thursday, Salaam urged the crowd to throw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in November.

Trump “thinks that hate is the animating force in America. It is not,” Salaam said. “We have the constitutional right to vote. In fact, it is a human right. So let us use it ... and together, on November 5, we will usher in Kamala Harris and Tim Walz into the White House.”

(source: Washington Post)

*******************

‘He’s never changed, he never will:’ Exonerated Central Park 5 warn against Trump after his death penalty crusade----Wrongfully convicted men that Trump attacked in the 1980s took the stage at the DNC to back Kamala Harris

When 5 Black and Latino teenagers were wrongly convicted of the rape of a jogger in New York City’s Central Park in 1989, Donald Trump bought out full-page ads in all four major New York newspapers with a headline screaming to “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY.”

“I want to hate these murderers and I always will,” Trump wrote. “I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.”

Their convictions were vacated in 2002, and the city paid $41m in 2014 to settle a civil rights lawsuit. Trump has refused to recant or apologize for those statements.

One of those teens, Yusef Salaam, now 50, spent nearly 7 years in prison for his wrongful conviction. Last year, he was elected to New York’s City Council, representing Harlem.

On August 22, Salaam stood on stage at the Democratic National Convention to endorse the woman running against the man who wanted him jailed.

Salaam was joined by 3 of the other exonerated men from the case — Korey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson — to support Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz.

“45 wanted us unalive,” said Salaam, noting Trump’s nickname as the 45th president.

“He wanted us dead,” Salaam said. “Today, we are exonerated because the actual perpetrator confessed, and DNA proved it. … He dismisses the scientific evidence rather than admit he was wrong. He has never changed, and he never will.”

Their story has been the subject of a Ken Burns documentary and the acclaimed series When They See Us by Ava DuVernay, exploring a broken judicial system and the fog of racism and hate that Trump exploited.

“That man thinks that hate is the animating force in America. It is not,” Salaam said. “We have the constitutional right to vote. In fact, it is a human right. Let’s use it.”

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who advocated for the men in the 1980s, introduced them to the stage.

“I see a candidate who has sought to reform and uphold the law, and a man who wrongly assumes his mug shot appeals to Black Americans,” he said.

Wise spent the longest time in prison among the five of them. He was jailed for 13 years. The men spent a combined 41 years in prison among them.

Trump “called us animals,” Wise said. “He spent $85,000 on a full-page ad in The New York Times calling for our execution.”

Harris has “consistently committed to making government work for those of us who have been at a disadvantage,” Sharpton said.

Trump, meanwhile, has been “making himself richer and sowing division.”

(source: independent.co.uk)

******************

Student Scholars: Moral Disengagement Theory and Support for Capital Punishment

In this new series, the Death Penalty Information Center will occasionally highlight student works on capital punishment, including master’s and PhD theses, and law review articles.

University of Alabama master’s degree candidate Christine Poole’s 2024 thesis explores the use of moral disengagement theory in justifying support for capital punishment. Using online surveys, she evaluated participants’ knowledge of the death penalty, support for the death penalty, and their use of moral disengagement techniques in approaching the issue.

“Moral disengagement is a preemptive cognitive process that justifies socially unacceptable behavior and reduces the associated guilt,” Ms. Poole explains. Her study found that many supporters of capital punishment distanced themselves ethically and morally from death row prisoners and used 3 elements of moral disengagement theory – euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, and dehumanization – to justify their views on the death penalty. “Euphemistic labeling is when language is sanitized to avoid the harsh realities of the action,” she wrote, and “advantageous comparison is where individuals compare their behaviors to those who have committed worse actions to appear more acceptable.”

For example, euphemistic labeling might use “capital punishment” or “justice being served” instead of “execution”; advantageous comparison might contrast the method of lethal injection with graphic details of crimes committed; and dehumanization is used to characterize death row prisoners as ‘monsters’ or ‘animals’. Ms. Poole found that 66.7% of supporters of the death penalty among the study participants adopted a mechanistic tone of dehumanization (p.31) — denying individuals “warmth, agency, emotionality, and the cognitive capacity for depth” (p.6).

Ms. Poole’s methods and findings present a new approach to understanding how opinions on capital punishment are shaped and defended.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

FIJI:

Return of death penalty not solution to Fiji’s fight against drugs, human rights chair and home affairs minister say

The chairperson of the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission (FHRADC) shot down suggestion by a senior government minister to bring back the death penalty to deter international drug traffickers.

This week, Women and Children's Minister, Lynda Tabuya, told local media that she wants "see the death penalty brought to Fiji for those who traffic large quantities of drugs".

The minister said Fiji continues to be used as a transit point for drug traffickers.

"We are vulnerable, our borders are vulnerable, we need to explore the possibility of the death penalty to protect our people," she said.

However, the FHARDC is calling for stronger policies, laws, and judicial processes to tackle the issue.

Fiji abolished the death penalty in 1979 and the country's constitution ensure that every person has a right to life.

"The Commission is of the view that the death penalty is not the solution to the rising drugs problem," FHARDC chairperson Pravesh Sharma said in statement on Thursday.

Sharma said capital punishment "is a serious violation of human rights".

"Rather, the government should conduct baseline research to determine why our people are engaging in drugs, and then put in place measures to better address the issue," he said.

Sharma called for "rehabilitation of addicted people; to prevent drugs from entering Fiji".

"We need to strengthen out border security, raise awareness, and educate our people about the impacts of drugs."

He added severe prison sentences for convicted drug offenders "will continue to have a deterrent effect".

This follows Minister of Social Protection Lynda Tabuya's suggestion of capital punishment for those who traffic large quantities of drugs.

Tabuya's comments were met with mixed reactions from the Fijian public on social media, with comments including "this is a really dangerous rhetoric" to "a death penalty sentence will save our country".

At least 2 MPs have voiced opposition to the suggestion.

Minister emphasises 'humane strategies'

Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, who has been at the forefront of the fight against drugs, said the death penalty was not something that is part of their strategy.

He said the key to tackling the country's drugs crisis "lies in comprehensive and humane strategies that address the underlying issues, while ensuring justice is served".

Tikoduadua said the Fijian government's recent initiatives, such as the National Countering Illicit Narcotics Strategy 2023-2028 and the ongoing Police Reset, were designed to tackle these complex issues more effectively."

The Narcotics Strategy, launched in June, focuses on comprehensive measures, including demand and supply reduction, alternative development, and harm reduction strategies.

It also involves the establishment of a Counter Narcotics Bureau with a budget allocation of $2.5 million, tasked with leading enforcement operations and enhancing border control measures.

"In parallel, the Police Reset aims to modernise the police force through capacity building and cultural shifts, backed by partnerships like the MOU with the Australian Federal Police." Tikoduadua said.

"These strategies represent a holistic approach to addressing drug trafficking and related crimes through stronger institutions, better resources, and international collaboration, which are likely to yield more sustainable results.

He added these were "crucial steps" taken by the government to address the problem.

"These efforts prioritise building a secure environment through robust law enforcement and community-based prevention strategies, avoiding the irreversible consequences associated with the death penalty."

(source: rnz.co.na)

VIETNAM:

Death sentence for 3 men involved in drug trafficking from Laos to Vi?t Nam

3 men, including a Laotian national, were sentenced to death while 4 others, including 2 Laotian nationals, were sentenced to life imprisonment for illegally trafficking drugs from Laos into Vi?t Nam.

The People’s Court of the northern province of Hà Nam on Thursday sentenced 3 men, including a Laotian national, to death for illegally trafficking 23.5 kg of drugs from Laos to Vi?t Nam.

4 others, including 2 Laotian nationals, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the same crime.

According to the indictment, at 5.30pm on December 16, 2022, a task force led by the Ministry of Public Security’s Department of Drug Crime Investigation, in coordination with other units and the Hà Nam Provincial Police, caught several individuals red-handed using illegal drugs in Châu Son Ward, Ph? Lý City, Hà Nam Province.

The individuals involved were identified as Nguy?n Van Sáng, residing in Thanh Châu Ward, Ph? Lý, Xia Xiong, Toua Xiong and Chua Xong, all Laotian nationals.

The police seized numerous pieces of evidence, including 6 nylon bags containing various types of drugs and related items.

Further investigation led to the arrest of Nguy?n Tu?n Anh, residing in Phuong Canh Ward, Nam T? Liêm District, Hà N?i and Hoàng Phuong Th?o, residing in Nguy?n Du Ward, Hai Bà Trung District also in Hà N?i, on December 18, 2022, for drug trafficking.

The police also searched Tu?n Anh’s residence at Hoàng Van Th? Ward, Hoàng Mai District, Hà N?i, where they found and seized three packages of various drugs.

Tu?n Anh confessed to buying the drugs from Sáng and Hoàng Th? Khánh Ly, both residing in Thanh Tuy?n Ward, Ph? Lý, Hà Nam Province.

Sáng, Xia Xiong and Tu?n Anh were identified as the masterminds, while Th?o, Ly, Toua Xiong and Chua Xong were accomplices.

Xia Xiong purchased the drugs in Laos and assigned Toua Xiong to transport them to Vi?t Nam, where they were delivered to Sáng. Xia Xiong also tasked Chua Xong with travelling to Vi?t Nam to receive the drugs and stay at Sáng’s house to ensure the payment was made.

After receiving the drugs from Xia Xiong, Sáng sold them to Tu?n Anh and Th?o in Hà N?i.

Between September 2022 and December 16, 2022, the group trafficked a total of 23.56 kg of various drugs.

Sáng, Tu?n Anh, and Xia Xiong were given death sentences for illegal drug trafficking under Clause 4, Article 251 of the Penal Code. Additionally, Sáng received a two-year prison sentence for illegal possession of military weapons, with the final punishment being the death penalty.

Toua Xiong, Chua Xong, Th?o and Ly were sentenced to life imprisonment for illegal drug trafficking.

(source: vietnamnews.vn)

SAUDI ARABIA:

34 Egyptians among dozens facing execution for drug offences----At least 50 people face the death penalty for drug offences in Tabuk prison, with many tortured while on death row, says a rights group

Dozens of prisoners in Saudi Arabia are facing the death penalty for drug offences, as rights groups warn of a surge in executions despite authorities' pledges to stop the punishment.

The European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) said on Thursday that there has been a sharp increase in the use of the death penalty between May and August, with executions reaching 30 by 22 August.

In Tabuk General Prison alone, at least 50 people are facing execution. According to ESOHR, 34 Egyptians are among those sentenced to death in the prison, along with other foreigners, including Jordanians and Syrians.

Two Egyptian nationals, Walid al-Baqi and Youssef Khudair, were executed on 13 August on charges of smuggling marijuana and amphetamines, the rights group said.

ESOHR also documented abuses faced by Egyptians on death row in Tabuk prison, including a lack from the Egyptian embassy in the kingdom, denial of their right to adequate defence, failure to appoint lawyers for them and instances of torture and ill-treatment.

Between 2020 and 2022, Saudi Arabia halted executions for drug offences. However, they resumed in December 2022, provoking an outcry from campaigners.

The kingdom has executed hundreds of people in recent years for various offences, including political dissent.

In 2023, a joint report by ESOHR and Reprieve revealed that Riyadh's execution rate has almost doubled since King Salman and his son, Mohammed bin Salman, came to power in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, executions surged by 82 %.

In February this year, seven Saudi men were killed in a mass execution, the highest number put to death in one day since 81 were killed in March 2022.

According to Reprieve, foreign nationals, including female domestic workers and drug offenders, are “disproportionately” targeted.

Despite the crown prince’s pledge in a 2018 interview to minimise executions, Saudi Arabia remains one of the world’s most prolific executioners.

(source: middleeasteye.net)

IRAN----execution

Prisoner executed for drug-related charges in Tabriz

Iranian authorities executed Mohammad Khaled Jahangiri, a prisoner from Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, on drug-related charges in Tabriz Central Prison, East Azerbaijan Province, on 22 August.

The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Jahangiri was transferred to solitary confinement for execution the day before.

Jahangiri was a father of 2 from the village of Balu in Orumiyeh.

According to statistics compiled by the KHRN, at least 12 Kurdish prisoners have been executed in the past four weeks in various prisons across the country, including those in Orumiyeh, Kermanshah, Ghezel Hesar (Karaj), Khorramabad, Sanandaj, Sabzevar and Miandoab.

These prisoners had been convicted on charges ranging from drug offences to premeditated murder and “spreading corruption on earth” (efsad-e fel arz).

(source: kurdistanhumanrights.org)

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UN warns of unfair detentions, death sentences for Iran's minorities

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has raised concerns about ethnic and ethno-religious minorities in Iran facing disproportionate detentions and death sentences.

The statement released on Friday called on Iran “to review its legal framework, repeal vaguely worded criminal offenses punishable by death, ensure fair and due process for minority groups, and establish a moratorium on the death penalty with the goal of abolishing it.”

The Committee also expressed concern over reports of “grave human rights violations and abuses committed by law enforcement officers” against ethnic and ethno-religious minority protestors during the November 2019, July 2021, and September 2022 protests, particularly in regions with high minority populations. It called on Iran to conduct impartial investigations into these allegations and to provide reparations for the victims.

Amidst growing repression, rights groups warn that ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, particularly the Kurdish and Baluch communities, are facing escalating challenges, with the Islamic Republic's actions being the root cause of their misery.

Iran's leading Sunni cleric, Mowlavi Abdolhamid, voiced sharp criticism on Friday against the ruling establishment for its persecution of religious minorities. He emphasized that the pursuit of justice is the people's paramount demand and urged the immediate release of political prisoners in Iran.

The outspoken Friday Imam of Sistan-Baluchestan Province stands as a prominent advocate for minority rights in Iran.

In Sistan-Baluchistan, a Sunni-majority Baluch province, the community has faced the highest execution rate in Iran over the past 44 years.

Last year, the former UN Special Rapporteur for Iran described the levels of killings, torture, and brutality against the Baluch minority as “shocking.”

Javaid Rehman reported that since the onset of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, more than 1/2 of those killed were from Baluch and Kurdish provinces, with 63% of child victims hailing from these regions.

The protests were sparked by the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman in Tehran while in the custody of the morality police. The authorities carried out a harsh crackdown that resulted in the deaths of approximately 550 individuals and the arrest of over 20,000 others, which was condemned as a crime against humanity by a UN fact-finding mission.

Rehman highlighted the disproportionate targeting and execution of Baluchis, who make up only 2-6% of Iran's population but account for 30% of executions. He also noted that security forces have targeted them extrajudicially, with at least 90 extrajudicial killings, including 22 fuel carriers, in the first 9 months of 2023.

Amnesty International reports that Iran has the highest execution rate after China.

The former UN Special Rapporteur stated that Baluchis are “systematically undermined,” left in poverty, and politically, economically, and socially disempowered, calling this treatment a “systematic state policy.”

Amidst the diverse tapestry of Iran's ethnic groups, the Kurds stand as another minority deeply impacted by systemic discrimination. According to Amnesty International, Kurds in Iran have long endured the repression of their social, political, and cultural rights. Kurdish activists are frequently subjected to arbitrary arrests, prosecution, and torture, facing grossly unfair trials in Revolutionary Courts, often culminating in death sentences.

(source: iranintl.com)

AUGUST 23, 2024:

PENNSYLVANIA:

Superior Court rules Allegheny County judge can't bar death penalty in Bellevue murder trial

The Superior Court this week cleared the way for prosecutors to continue seeking the death penalty against a man accused of gunning down his ex-girlfriend on a Bellevue street in 2022, ruling the former judge in the case had no authority to bar capital punishment in the case.

Former Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Anthony Mariani, who retired earlier this year, had previously ruled prosecutors could no long seek the death penalty against 27-year-old Deangelo Zieglar, citing Gov. Josh Shapiro’s de facto moratorium on executions.

“As our review reveals,” President Judge Anne E. Lazarus wrote in the opinion, “the trial court has acted outside the parameters of the law.”

The ruling means Zieglar’s case will return to the trial court and proceed as a death penalty case. The public defender’s office could appeal the ruling.

Zieglar is charged with homicide in the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend, Rachel Dowden, in January 2022. Dowden had a protection from abuse order against Zieglar, who she’d alleged had a history of domestic violence. She’d legally bought a handgun for her own protection, which police say Zieglar later stole and used to kill her.

The opinion comes 5 months after a 3-judge panel heard arguments in the case and more than a year after Judge Mariani initially ruled that he would allow prosecutors to seat a death penalty jury in Zieglar’s case. He based his arguments in part on a 1986 case in which the defendant was given a new sentencing hearing after the judge in that case gave these instructions to the jury:

“Somewhere down the line, if you do impose the death penalty, the case will be reviewed thoroughly. And after thorough review the death penalty may be carried out.”

Judge Mariani had cited Gov. Shaprio’s pledge not to sign any death warrants, saying it would be “patently unreasonable and fundamentally unfair” to put jurors through the process necessary to decide a death penalty case “when the outcome has already been determined.”

Judges were skeptical during the brief oral arguments on the issue in March.

“The fact that Gov. Shapiro refuses to sign a death warrant doesn’t matter,” Judge Lazarus said at the time. “Even though Gov. Shapiro’s predecessor did the same thing, it’s still temporary because the legislature hasn’t ruled on this.”

In the Superior Court’s opinion, the judge said the sentencing procedure for 1st-degree murder is clear: “… there is nothing in [the sentencing statute], or any other law that we are aware of, that allows the trial court to deny the Commonwealth’s ability to seek the death penalty.”

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

NORTH CAROLINA:

NC man accused of killing mom, 2 kids

A Charlotte man accused of killing a woman and her 2 children will learn his fate Thursday on whether or not he’ll face the death penalty.

On March 15, Markayla Johnson, 22, and her 2 young children, Miracle Johnson, 4, and Messiah Johnson, 7 months, were found dead at an apartment on Orchard Trace Lane in Charlotte after they were reported missing on March 3. Family members had said they hadn’t seen Markayla in months.

MArkayla’s boyfriend Benjamin Taylor was captured hiding in a tent in California near the Mexico border on March 16th after a multi-agency manhunt led them to an area where they said criminals were known to try and flee to.

He is charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and conceal/fail to report death. According to toxicology reports, both children had fentanyl in their systems, which is listed as what led to their deaths. 7-month-old Messiah also tested positive for cocaine and 4-ANPP, a chemical often used to illegally make fentanyl. 2 drugs used to sedate, diphenhydramine and melatonin, were also found in the infant’s system.

(source: WSPA news)

SOUTH CAROLINA:

South Carolina ACLU asks court to allow interview of death row inmate before execution

As a South Carolina man awaits execution on death row, lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are asking a federal court to supersede prison policy and allow him to give media interviews to tell his story and make the case that his life should be spared.

Marion Bowman, 44, has sat on death row for more than 2 decades after being convicted for the 2001 murder of Kandee Martin — a 21-year-old woman whom he fatally shot over a monetary dispute when he was 20 years old. His execution has yet to be scheduled, but ACLU lawyers cautioned in a court filing that he “could be executed within weeks.”

Bowman is not seeking to be released from prison, but is petitioning Gov. Henry McMaster for executive clemency to commute his sentence to life in prison. However, efforts to publicize his case have proved difficult because of policies at the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) that prevent him — and all other inmates — from giving certain types of interviews to the media.

According to official policy, “personal contact interviews … will be prohibited.” The prohibition includes in-person interviews, telephone interviews, and any interviews conducted with audio or visual recording. The only means by which the media can interview an inmate is through written correspondence.

Lawyers at the ACLU already have in-person access to Bowman and communicate with him over the phone and in video calls through their roles as legal counsel — but are barred from making visual and audio recordings to provide to the public. According to a court filing the ACLU desires to make audio recordings to develop a podcast and video recordings to be published.

Although every state imposes restrictions on media access to inmates, South Carolina is “the only state that bans this category of speech outright,” South Carolina ACLU communications director Paul Bowers told CNA.

ACLU lawyers are asking the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina to rule that this practice violates the First Amendment because it “suppresses a substantial amount of protected speech.” They are also asking the court to expedite their request to block the department’s enforcement of the policy so they can interview Bowman and publish audio and visual of the interviews before he is executed by the state.

“A story about Marion Bowman — that is, a telling of his case and his life behind bars — is not functionally equivalent to a story by Marion Bowman,” the lawsuit argues. “A blog … about how great a loss it would be if South Carolina kills Marion Bowman is no substitute for the public hearing Marion’s own voice, his own laugh, his own anguish.”

South Carolina ACLU legal director Allen Chaney said in a statement that the restrictions on media interviews are also unfair to the public

“That South Carolina shrouds capital punishment in secrecy acknowledges a powerful truth: the death penalty is barbaric and unjust, and public scrutiny would end it for good,” Chaney said. “The public deserves a chance to meaningfully encounter the person being murdered on their behalf. We aim to give them that.”

Bowers told CNA that death row is “a very hidden away part of our state” and that “people don’t think very long and hard about the death penalty.” Yet, if given access to recorded interviews of someone who is awaiting execution, people would “have to be confronted with the faces and voices of the people we are preparing to kill.”

“We want people to think long and hard about what we’re preparing to do,” Bowers said.

“Many [death row inmates] have committed heinous crimes, but [Bowman is] an example of someone who has changed his life to the extent that he can while incarcerated — someone who has sought redemption while on death row,” Bowers added.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, told CNA that Catholics, in particular, should oppose the death penalty and have a “responsibility to bring the inhumanity of the death penalty into the light.” She also criticized policies that prevent the public from learning about those who have been sentenced to death.

“Every effort to make secret the processes and procedures of capital punishment or to obscure the lived experiences of people on death row is a manifestation of this system of death,” Murphy said. “In the Gospel of Luke we are reminded, ‘whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.’”

The Catholic Mobilizing Network works closely with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on efforts to oppose the death penalty and uphold the human dignity of people who are incarcerated.

When reached by CNA, a spokesperson for SCDC provided the department’s filing with the court, which defends the policy against First Amendment objections.

The SCDC filing argues that other states impose restrictions on interviews and that journalists have “frequently interviewed inmates through the medium of written correspondence” in South Carolina.

It further asserts that the current policy is necessary to prevent security risks such as coded messages to criminal associates, to prevent a lack of sensitivity to crime victims, and to prevent a risk of institutional violence or the creation of celebrity status based on comments made by an inmate to the media, among other reasons.

The last execution in South Carolina occurred in May of 2011, after which executions were put on hold because drug companies would not sell the products required for lethal injection.

In 2021, however, South Carolina legalized executions by the electric chair and by firing squad. The state has also obtained the drugs necessary for lethal injection. After the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed last month that the death penalty — and the methods permitted in state law — are permissible by the state constitution, the SCDC expressed its intent to resume executions.

(source: Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency)

FLORIDA----impending execution

1st execution of 2024 deemed as ‘hypocrisy’

In its 111-year history, investigations and former students accounts have chronicled how the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys both in Marianna and Okeechobee were not so much a reform school but rather a place where physical, sexual and mental abuse was rampant.

In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signed a bill — without any press present and with only a handful of Dozier survivors and three representatives who sponsored HB 21 — in which the state will divide $20 million in compensation between those who attended the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in North Florida between 1940 and 1975, as well as the Okeechobee School. This followed years of investigation, including in 2008 when then Gov. Charlie Crist in 2008 directed the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Dozier School and the deaths alleged there, and a federal investigation that closed the school in 2011, which was under the control of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

One moniker from the institution in Marianna was the “White House Boys,” which according to News Service of Florida derived from the white concrete building where boys were beaten and raped by school workers.

One of those boys is Loran Cole, who was housed at Dozier School for Boys for 5 1/2 months in 1984, at the age of 17.

And despite quietly signing that bill in June recognizing the brutality residents of the school faced, the governor signed a death warrant for the White House Boy in July. Cole is slated to be executed Aug. 29, 2024. It is the first execution warrant DeSantis has signed in 2024.

Cole was sentenced to death in 1995, for the murder of John Edwards, an 18-year-old Florida State University student. Cole was also convicted of robbing, raping and kidnapping of Edwards’ sister Pam, who was with her brother camping in the Ocala National Forest. Cole’s execution warrant comes nearly 10 months after Florida’s last execution, which was the last of the state’s 6 executions carried out in 2023.

In post-conviction appeals, Cole’s lawyers have chronicled the neglect, abuse and trauma Cole experienced — including daily beatings that resulted in 2 broken legs and being raped by guards — and argued it changed the entire trajectory of his life and led to the commission of his crime. Cole’s lawyers argued his “post-1984 criminal record also goes to show the effect that life in Dozier had on his psyche. That horrible place helped create the Loran Cole who sits on death row today.”

In a letter to DeSantis, Florida’s Catholic bishops implored DeSantis to stay Cole’s execution and commute his sentence to life without possibility of parole (the codefendant in murder of John Edwards was given life in prison).

“Mr. Cole himself was beaten, raped and tormented at Dozier,” said Michael Sheedy, executive director of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, in an Aug. 14, 2024, letter to DeSantis on behalf of the bishops of Florida. “He witnessed torture and daily beatings of other students. He was once forced to clean up the remains of another student who died by suicide after jumping off a building. He had his legs broken after trying to escape. Mr. Cole’s jury never heard about the physical and mental abuse he endured at the hands of officers at Dozier.”

Survivors of Dozier tell stories of beatings with leather belts, students being tied to a bed, students being put in dryers, forced labor and rape. Various news reports indicate between 80 and 100 children died at Dozier, with the location of their remains is unknown. A graveyard near the school has several unmarked crosses, which survivors believe are boys killed by staffers.

In 2010, while on death row, Cole watched a documentary about Dozier and was flooded with memories of his time there. He shared his memories with a prison mental health counselor.

The 2023 Florida Culture of Life Conference included several speakers, among them were Maria DeLiberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Maria DeLiberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said there are a “half dozen other men Florida’s death row who survived the abuse at Dozier, as well as countless others in the Florida Department of Corrections.” She described the governor’s signing of a death warrant on a Dozier survivor as “hypocrisy,” and said the “state-sanctioned cycle of abuse” must stop.

“Horrifically, shortly before Loran was released from Dozier, he was forced to clean up a smattering of blood and brain matter from another child who had jumped off the roof of one of the cottages and died by suicide,” DeLiberato said. “In passing the compensation bill for Dozier survivors, the state of Florida recognized its direct responsibility for the profound and lifelong impact of the horrific torture and abuse those men suffered there. For the State of Florida to turn around less than a month later and say they are justified in killing one of those survivors is unconscionable.”

Prayer vigils

Prayer vigils are scheduled throughout the state of Florida for the day of the execution, Aug. 29, at local parishes. San Pedro Parish in North Port and Sacred Heart Parish in Punta Gorda (Diocese of Venice) will host vigils. In the Diocese of Palm Beach, a vigil will be held at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola in Palm Beach Gardens and at the corner of Military Trail and Holly Road. See the linked prayer vigil list here and above.

Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty will lead a candlelight vigil in front of the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee at the time of the 6 p.m. execution. Because fencing and metal barricades have been placed around the outside perimeter of the mansion, the vigil will take place outside the perimeter in the small parking area that faces the mansion.

If the execution takes place, the group will also lead a service of remembrance for Cole and victim John Edwards the following day, Aug. 30, at noon at the Capitol Rotunda.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will be across the highway from the death chamber at Florida State Prison beginning 5 p.m. Aug. 29. In the Diocese of Orlando, buses will pick up passengers at Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, and Palm Coast and transport them to vigil in Raiford. First stop is Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, 201 University Blvd. in Daytona Beach at 1:30 followed by stops at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach and a Winn Dixie on SR 100 and Old Kings Road in Palm Coast.

For those unable to attend a live vigil, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty will also host a live, informative, and prayerful online vigil beginning at 5 p.m. It will include live on-the-ground coverage of the vigils at the prison. Register here, or watch on the Death Penalty Action Facebook Page.

(source: thefloridacatholic.org)

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Cole Warrant: Briefing complete at Florida Supreme Court----As of Monday this week, the briefing in Cole’s appeal pending at the Supreme Court of Florida is complete. When the Court will issue its decision is unclear.

Loran Cole’s execution is scheduled for August 29 at 6:00 p.m.

Shortly after Gov. DeSantis signed the warrant, Cole, through his attorneys, filed a successive motion for postconviction relief in the circuit court. (The Motion is covered here.) The court decided to not hold an evidentiary hearing on Cole’s claims.

After the circuit court issued an Order summarily denying Cole’s claims (covered here), Cole appealed the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court.

As of Monday this week, the briefing in Cole’s appeal pending at the Supreme Court of Florida is complete.

On August 15, the State filed its 69-page Answer Brief.

On Monday, Cole filed his Reply Brief.

Therefore, briefing is now complete. Oral argument has not been scheduled on Cole’s claims. In its Answer Brief, the State contends that oral argument is unnecessary.

When the Court will issue its decision is unclear. If the Court denies Cole’s claims, Cole will still have an opportunity to file a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, which also must be briefed and decided before the execution—unless a stay of execution is granted.

All of the briefing can be found on the Court’s docket here, at: https://acis.flcourts.gov/portal/court/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/case/3968b51f-1fb9-4967-b1a4-9c31f296fe90

(source: fladeathpenalty.substack.com)

**********

After delay, convicted Florida killer Wade Wilson faces death sentence decision Tuesday

Wade Wilson, a Fort Myers, Florida man convicted of killing 2 Cape Coral women in 2019, is facing the death penalty at his sentencing scheduled for Tuesday, August 27.

Wilson's legal team filed a motion on July 3 asking for a new trial or acquittal on the murder and several other charges. Trial judge Nicholas Thompson denied the motion on August 15.

A jury found Wilson, 30, guilty on June 12 of the murders of Kristine Melton, 35, and Diane Ruiz, 43, and after weighing aggravating and mitigating circumstances recommended the death penalty.

It will be up to Thompson to impose death sentences or life in prison without parole.

According to Florida law, Thompson will consider each aggravating factor found by the jury and all mitigating circumstances. He can impose a sentence of death only if the jury unanimously found at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt.

Sentencing was initially scheduled for July 23 but a defense motion for a delay over scheduling conflicts for expert mental health witnesses was granted and sentencing delayed.

Here's what to know about Wade Wilson's crimes, trial, upcoming sentencing and Florida's death row:

What crimes did Wade Wilson commit?

Wilson, then 25, met Kristine Melton, 35, and her friend Stephanie Sailors on Oct. 7, 2019, at Buddah LIVE, a Fort Myers bar.

After the bar closed, Wilson and the two women went to the home of Jayson Shepard where they stayed for several hours before leaving in the morning.

Wilson, Melton and Sailors then went Melton's Cape Coral home. After Sailors left, Wilson strangled Melton to death as she slept in her bed and stole her car.

A short time later, Wilson saw 43-year-old Diane Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street, asked her for directions to a nearby school and lured her into the car.

When Ruiz tried to exit the car, Wilson attacked her, beating and strangling her before pushing her out of the car and running her over 10 to 20 times.

After the murders, Wilson called his biological father Steven Testasecca several times confessing to and narrating the gruesome details of his crimes.

Wade Wilson victims Kristine Melton and Diane Ruiz

Kristine Melton, 35, of Cape Coral, was murdered Oct. 7, 2019, by Wade Wilson, 30.

Kristine Melton grew up in Illinois and moved with a friend to Cape Coral where she worked as a waitress.

She reportedly was godmother to her cousin Samantha Catomer's child, owned a cat and lived in a Cape Coral duplex.

Melton loved to dress up and her favorite holiday was Halloween, Catomer testified during Wilson's trial.

Melton had a quick wit, made everyone around her feel safe and understood and "was precious, not just to me, but to everyone who knew her," Catomer said.

After Sailors left, Wilson strangled her to death in her sleep.

Diane Ruiz's body was found in a field in Cape Coral on Oct. 10, 2019, 4 days after she was reported missing.

Diane Ruiz, 43, a mother and engaged to be married, was described as caring and hardworking.

She worked as a bartender at the Moose Lodge in Cape Coral and never missed a shift in 5 years.

Ruiz was walking to work for her 10 a.m. shift when she encountered Wilson.

A short time after killing Melton, Wilson saw Ruiz walking along a Cape Coral street and lured her into the car after asking her for directions.

When she tried to leave, Wilson beat and strangled Ruiz, pushed her out of the car and ran her over repeatedly.

Her body was found in a field 3 days later.

Wade Wilson's father Steven Testasecca was key to his arrest

After the murders, Wilson called his biological father, Steven Testasecca, several times confessing to the crimes in gruesome detail.

"I am a killer," Wilson said, according to Testasecca's testimony.

Testasecca said Wilson confessed to choking Melton after she went to sleep and stopping Ruiz for directions before she got into the car, choking her while he drove.

According to Testasecca's testimony, Wilson said Ruiz was still breathing before he repeatedly ran her over.

Testasecca asked Wilson for his location and told him he would send an Uber to him. Instead, his whereabouts were provided to police who arrested Wilson on Oct. 8, 2019.

What criminal charges was Wade Wilson convicted of?

Wilson, who shares his name with Marvel character Deadpool, was tried and found guilty of 6 charges:

2 counts of 1st-degree murder

1st-degree murder

Grand theft

Battery

Burglary

Petty theft

Wilson also faces charges in unrelated crimes, including attempted escape from jail and drug charges.

Wade Wilson, cellmate Joseph Katz accused of escape attempt

Wilson racked up additional charges while awaiting his murder trial in the Lee County Jail.

In 2020, Wilson and his cellmate Joseph Katz were accused of tampering with a window in their cell in an attempt to escape.

Deputies searched the 10x10 cell Wilson and his cellmate were housed in and found the window tampered with. The metal frame holding the window had been removed and there were several cracks in the thick security glass.

Wilson, who was reportedly the primary planner and instigator of the escape effort, also tried to set up a getaway car.

Wade Wilson tied to white supremacy prison gang Unforgiven

Court records in the attempted escape case connect Wilson to the Unforgiven, a white supremacy prison gang.

Wilson sports several swastika tattoos, including on the right side of his head and below his right eye.

The swastika was adopted in 1920 as the symbol of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party, and since 1945 has "served as the most significant and notorious of hate symbols, anti-Semitism and white supremacy," according to the Anti-Defamation League.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Unforgiven gang was founded in the Florida prison system in 1986 and is the largest white supremacist prison gang in the state.

Wade Wilson tattoos, before and after arrest

Wilson's facial tattoos have gained widespread attention, including on social media.

While Wilson had neck tattoos at the time of his arrest in 2019, none were visible on his face in his booking photo and early court appearances.

At his 2024 murder trial, Wilson's face was covered in tattoos, including a swastika below his right eye and stitches around his mouth.

Prior to the trial, Wilson's attorneys were granted motions requesting he be allowed to wear street clothes and to cover tattoos "that might be objectionable to members of the potential jury pool" with makeup.

Wade Wilson sentencing

On June 25, 2024, the jury in Wilson's trial recommended he receive the death penalty for each of the murders.

During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors had the option of recommending life in prison without parole or death.

After considering aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the jury voted 9-3 and 10-2 for death.

Sentencing, originally scheduled for July 23, was delayed to August 27, 2024, and it will be up to Judge Thompson to decide whether death or life without parole sentences are imposed.

Where is Wade Wilson being held?

Wilson is housed at the Lee County Jail in Fort Myers. Once his sentencing and other unrelated charges, including an escape attempt, are resolved, he'll be transferred into the Florida prison system.

If Judge Nicholas Thompson confirms Wilson's death sentence, he will end up on Florida's death row at Union Correctional Institution in a cell measuring 6x9x9.5 feet high.

Where is Florida death row?

Florida's death row is inside Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, about 45 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, inmates on death row are allowed snacks, radios and 13” TVs, but do not have cable or air-conditioning. They wear orange T-shirts to set them apart from other inmates and the same blue pants worn by regular prisoners.

Death row inmates are served 3 meals a day – at 5 a.m., from 10:30 to 11 a.m. and from 4 to 4:30 p.m.. Food is prepared by prison staff and transported in insulated carts to the cells, where inmates are given sporks to eat from the provided trays.

They’re allowed showers every other day and any visitors must be preapproved. Inmates can receive mail.

Death row inmates are counted at least hourly. They wear handcuffs everywhere except in their cells, the exercise yard and shower. They are in their cells except for medical reasons, exercise, social or legal visits or media interviews.

Once a death warrant is signed by the governor, the inmate is put in a Death Watch cell and allowed a legal and social phone call.

A Death Watch cell is 12x7x8.5 feet high.

What are Florida's methods of execution?

In 1923, the Legislature passed a law replacing hanging with the electric chair. An oak chair was built by prison inmates in that year.

Florida’s current 3-legged electric chair, nicknamed “Old Sparky,” was built of oak by Florida Department of Corrections staff and installed at Union Correctional Institution in 1999.

Legislation passed in 2000 allows for lethal injection as an alternative to the electric chair.

(source: Fort Myers News-Press)

*****************

Jury recommends death sentence for convicted Jacksonville triple murderer 20+ years after crimes----Pinkney ‘Chip’ Carter was originally sentenced to death in 2002 murder of his ex-fiancée, her new boyfriend and her 16-year-old daughter

On his 70th, a jury on Thursday recommended Pinkney “Chip” Carter be resentenced to death for murdering 3 people more than 20 years ago.

The jury had been tasked with deciding whether Carter would spend the rest of his life in prison or be executed for the 2002 murder of his ex-fiancée, her new boyfriend and her 16-year-old daughter.

Carter, who was previously sentenced to death, was granted a resentencing trial after a 2017 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court prompted the Florida Legislature to change how the death penalty could be applied, requiring a death sentence be a unanimous decision by a jury and not just a majority, as it had been at the time of Carter’s conviction.

The Legislature changed the law again in 2023, requiring an 8-4 majority, but Carter’s case fell under the previous ruling, so his resentencing trial moved forward.

The jury’s decision Thursday was not unanimous. On 1 of the murder counts, 10 jurors recommended death with 2 recommended life in prison. On another count, 9 jurors recommended death and 3 recommended life in prison.

Below is a look back at how the resentencing trial unfolded over the last 2 weeks.

Wednesday testimony

“It felt safe in that home,” prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda explained as he delivered closing arguments Wednesday afternoon to jurors, describing what it was like for the four children who were sleeping inside their mother’s home early in the morning July 24, 2002. They were 16-year-old Courtney Smith, 14-year-old Rick Smith, 8-year-old Rebecca Reed and 6-year-old Bryan Smith.

“At approximately 12:30 a.m. the world as they knew it would be shattered,” he said about the moments Chip Carter entered their home and shot and killed their mother, Reed, her boyfriend, Glenn Pafford and Reed’s daughter, Smith.

“I’m asking you to go back in time and think about what this man did,” said De La Rionda as he detailed what he argues is proof that the murders were cold, calculated and premeditated murder.

De La Rionda reminded jurors about a neighbor of Reed’s who found Carter one night before the murders in his backyard, trying to peak into Reed’s home.

“He was trying to figure out how he could surprise them,” he said.

Carter knew Reed, who was his ex-fiancee, was dating someone new.

He still loved her and testified in 2005 that he went to her home that night with a loaded rifle, “to get some answers.”

He said he accidentally shot 16-year-old Courtney during a struggle with Reed, but De La Rionda contends that does not make sense, telling jurors unless it was a “magical” bullet, how would a bullet hit Courtney in the head, if the rifle was pointing down as Carter demonstrated about the struggle for the rifle.

“He was obsessed with her,” said De La Rionda about Carter’s feelings for Reed. “He was jealous, and he thinks he’s been played and that he had the right to go over there and get some answers,” he said, asking jurors to use common sense when deciding if Carter should return to death row or be sentenced instead to life in prison.

“The law says you can use that God-given common sense to evaluate the evidence,” he said.

Defense attorneys for a Jacksonville man convicted in a 2002 triple murder called witnesses Wednesday as they tried to convince jurors to sentence Pinkney “Chip” Carter to life in prison instead of sending him back to death row.

His convictions are not in question but because of changes to Florida law, Carter was granted a resentencing trial because the recommendation for the death penalty from his original jury was not unanimous.

Carter’s attorneys are trying to convince jurors that the combination of medication and alcohol Carter had the day of the murder and his troubled childhood should warrant a life sentence, not a death sentence.

Tuesday testimony

Chip Carter’s father was described as a “monster” by his former step-daughters in Duval County court Tuesday morning.

“He was very abusive to my mother,” Jill Larkin said about P.W. Carter. Larkin’s mother married P.W. Carter after he divorced Chip Carter’s mother.

“We lived in fear, in great fear,” described Larkin about the 6 years she and her 7 other siblings endured at the hands of P.W. Carter. “He got mad at my sister one time and he took off his belt and started beating her. She was on the floor bleeding and we were yelling and screaming.”

Carter did not live with his step-siblings during the abuse. But his brother and sister testified their father was violent.

Defense attorneys also called an expert in pharmacology and toxicology, who testified about how the combination of anti-depressant medication, Prozac, and alcohol can impact the human brain.

Carter testified during his 2005 trial that he had taken 2 anti-depressant pills and drank 4-5 alcoholic beverages within a few hours of confronting Reed and Pafford at Reed’s home in 2002. He testified that night he “was having thoughts I had never had before, I was confused, it was chaos.”

His testimony was read to jurors last week.

Pharmacologist Dr. Daniel Buffington, testified a combination of Prozac and alcohol can, “enhance the adverse side effects of both substances.”

Carter testified during his 1st-degree murder trial in 2005, that he went to Reed’s home to confront her about dating him and Pafford at the same time. He said during a struggle with Reed over the loaded rifle he brought with him to her home, “to get answers,” that he accidentally shot her teenaged daughter and then shot Reed as she went to help her child.

He then shot and killed Pafford. All 3 were shot in the head.

Prosecutors argue Carter had no trouble driving to Reed’s home that night despite having taken Prozac and drinking, and that he didn’t miss a single shot of the 6 he fired.

The murders sent shock waves through the entire community at that time 22 years ago. Pafford was a long-time, beloved manager at a local Publix store, Reed worked at the same store along with her 2 oldest children.

Monday testimony

Carter’s sister, Cindy Starling, testified for more than an hour Monday morning about her brother’s childhood. Marred by poverty and an absent father, Starling said, she, Carter and their 2 older brothers were raised by a single mother who struggled to provide financially for the children.

“We ate saltines that had been heated with butter on top, as a snack,” she told jurors.

She said their father lived with another woman and never provided any financial support to his children.

“He was physically violent with my brothers,” she explained during questioning by defense attorney Alan Chipperfield. She said her mother was so overwhelmed, and she tried to take her own life.

Starling’s son, Jacob Slotin, also testified Monday about his uncle’s arrest and conviction more than 2 decades ago.

“Absolute devastation to the family,” he described upon learning as a teenager that Carter had been arrested for murder.

Slotin said he visited Reed and her family often as a young child. He said he and Smith’s brother, Rick, were close. They vacationed together and Slotin remembers spending the night at Reed’s home, the same home where Reed, Smith and Pafford were killed.

“I love my uncle. I’m still upset about what happened. I love him very much, that doesn’t go away,” Slotin testified when asked what impact the murders and Carter’s death sentence have had on his life.

Last week

The resentencing trial started last week with emotional and gut-wrenching testimony from the family of the victims.

Rick Smith choked back tears on Thursday describing hearing what sounded like loud “slapping” noises coming from the living room where he had left his mother, Liz Reed, and Pafford.

His 16-year-old sister, Courtney Smith, ran out into the living room when she heard arguing.

Rick, then just 14 years old, emerged from his bedroom when he heard screaming and found his sister, mother and Pafford shot and dying.

His 8-year-old sister Rebecca and 6-year-old brother Bryan were sleeping in a back bedroom and were not physically injured.

Reed, Smith and Pafford all died in the shooting.

Chip Carter testimony

“I wasn’t angry, I was hurt,” said Chip Carter in 2005 when he testified during his triple murder trial. When asked why he went to his ex-fiancée’s house with a loaded rifle in his hand, he said, “I was upset about the whole relationship; I wanted to get back with her.”

Those words and the rest of Carter’s testimony nearly 20 years ago were read aloud in court Friday morning.

Carter sat quietly, listening as his testimony was read. Jurors heard him tell prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda why he went to Reed’s home shortly after midnight on July 24, 2002.

“I’m not leaving until you give me some answers,” he said he told the mother of four. “She didn’t show up for the date. I was upset. I was confused. I wanted some answers.”

Carter said the 2 were supposed to meet earlier in the evening, but Reed did not show up. Instead, Carter drove by her house and spotted her new boyfriend’s truck in the driveway.

Pafford, who was dating Reed, was just leaving her home when Carter walked up. It was dark and neither Reed nor Pafford saw the rifle Carter had concealed behind his leg. All 3 went inside.

Carter said he confronted Reed about why she was seeing him and dating Pafford at the same time. Reed then saw the rifle in his hand. He said she, “grabbed the gun and tried to pull it from me” and it went off.

A bullet hit Smith in the head. As Reed rushed to her daughter’s side, Carter admitted to shooting her twice in the head.

“I don’t know why I did it,” he testified in 2005. “I just lost it, is all I can tell you.”

Smith died 2 days after the shooting.

“Before you got into the house did you plan to kill anyone?” asked attorney Alan Chipperfield during the 2005 trial.

“No,” responded Carter.

“When you got inside the house did you have plans to kill anyone?” asked Chipperfield.

“No,” said Carter.

Carter described himself as an “excellent shot.”

How we got here

Carter was granted a resentencing trial after a 2017 ruling by the Florida Supreme Court prompted the Florida Legislature to change how the death penalty could be applied, requiring a death sentence be a unanimous decision by a jury and not just a majority, as it had been at the time of Carter’s conviction.

(NOTE: The Legislature changed the law again in 2023, requiring an 8-4 majority, but Carter’s case fell under the previous ruling, so his resentencing trial is moving forward.)

Carter’s attorneys insisted during opening statements Thursday morning that Carter will never get out of prison and should be allowed to die of natural causes in prison, and not be sentenced to death.

News4JAX has been following the case for 22 years, including finding the fugitive Carter locked up in Reynosa, Mexico, and trying to interview him there. He hid from our camera.

The case was profiled in People Magazine, and Carter was even featured on America’s Most Wanted. He paid off his jailers in Mexico, but was eventually caught by state police in Kentucky and returned to Jacksonville to face trial.

Carter was convicted in 2005 of 1st-degree murder. The same jury that found him guilty also recommended he be sentenced to death, and a judge upheld that recommendation.

Now a new jury must decide if that is still to be his fate.

No chance

During opening statements, prosecutors said the 3 victims never had a chance.

Smith was shot in the head with one bullet. She died 2 days later at the hospital.

Reed had 2 gunshot wounds to her head. She died in the living room.

Pafford, who was the store manager at the grocery store where Reed and her 2 oldest children worked, had 3 gunshot wounds to the head. One of them was fired at point-blank range after he had fallen to the floor.

After Rick Smith’s testimony Thursday, prosecutors called the 1st police officer who arrived on the scene to the stand. They also presented the testimony of the medical examiner who testified during Carter’s murder trial in 2005 and questioned the lead detective who investigated the triple murder case in 2002.

Assistant Chief Chuck Ford described where and how he found the rifle Carter used to commit the murder. It was discovered at the bottom of the Rio Grande River at the border of Texas and Mexico.

The crime

Carter had dated Liz Reed for 4 years, the 2 lived together on and off during that time with her 4 children. They had been engaged to be married, but Liz broke it off.

Carter’s crimes sent shockwaves through the quiet Arlington neighborhood where Reed lived. 3 dead, including a teenager, was not a common occurrence in Jacksonville at the time.

Now the victims’ families must relive the horrors of that day as a new jury weighs whether their loved ones’ killer should spend his life in prison or return to death ow.

(source: news4jax.com)

ALABAMA:

Alabama is getting ready to carry out its 2nd execution by nitrogen suffocation.

Call to Action

Alan Miller is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen suffocation on September 26. Thousands are now demanding that corporations stop supplying the necessary equipment. We have already garnered over 4,000 petition signatures demanding that Allegro Industries not provide the gas masks used to administer the lethal nitrogen. Alongside local faith leaders in South Carolina, we delivered these petitions to Allegro’s headquarters. In response to this peaceful action, Allegro executives called the police. Help us punch back and send 10,000 more petitions.

See: https://worthrises.org/gasexecutions?mc_cid=8015460008&mc_eid=569aa9ffb0

Earlier this year, on January 25, the state of Alabama carried out the nation’s 1st state-sanctioned execution by nitrogen suffocation to end the life of Kenneth Eugene Smith. It delivered on the torture that many feared and garnered international attention, including a condemnation from the United Nations as a human rights violation.

Since then, we’ve continued our yearslong effort to shine a light on the private sector’s involvement in death-dealing and to demand corporations divest altogether. Thankfully, we are continuing to make headway. Earlier this summer, after an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver exposed Absolute Standards for supplying lethal injection drugs to the federal government, you answered our call to action and helped us secure a commitment from the corporation to stop.

We need your help again. Allegro Industries is choosing to continue profiting off of the death penalty with its silence around the use of its gas masks in Alabama for this next barbaric execution. The death penalty has no place in the United States, and corporations should not profit from it. Please help make that message loud and clear by taking action today.

TAKE ACTION NOW -- see: https://worthrises.org/gasexecutions?mc_cid=8015460008&mc_eid=569aa9ffb0

With Gratitude,

The Worth Rises Team

(source: PHADP)

********************

Lawyers for Alabama inmate seek to block his fall execution by nitrogen gas

Lawyers for an Alabama inmate, scheduled to be executed with nitrogen gas this fall, argued in a Tuesday court filing that the state has ignored problems with the method as it seeks to carry out more nitrogen executions.

Attorneys for Carey Dale Grayson asked a federal judge to block the state from using the same nitrogen protocol that Alabama used in January to execute Kenneth Smith. The court filing cited witness descriptions of the execution and the findings of an autopsy conducted on Smith.

Alabama, after becoming the 1st state to carry out a nitrogen execution, has scheduled 2 additional executions with the new method. A 2nd execution via nitrogen gas is set for Sept. 26 for Alan Eugene Miller. Grayson is scheduled to be executed Nov. 21.

“Rather than investigating what went wrong — as other states have done following issues with executions. Defendants have chosen to ignore clear and obvious signs the current protocol contains major problems that will result in more unconstitutionally torturous executions if it continues to be employed,” attorneys for Grayson wrote in the Tuesday night court filing.

The Alabama attorney general’s office declined to comment Wednesday on the court filing but has maintained that the method is constitutional. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall previously described the execution as “textbook.” The state will file a response later to the request for a preliminary injunction.

Smith had blood and fluid in his lungs after his death, according to an autopsy conducted by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. The state autopsy noted that his lungs when cut showed “marked congestion and edema with dark maroon blood.” It also noted that the tracheobronchial tree contained a “small amount of frothy fluid.”

An expert hired by Grayson’s legal team to review the autopsy wrote that the finding is “highly concerning.”

Dr. Brian McAlary, an anesthesiologist, wrote that it was the result of negative pressure pulmonary edema which occurs when drawing a breath is attempted against an upper airway obstruction, leading to fluid being drawn from blood vessels. He said it can also occur after strangulation or smothering with a plastic bag. He also wrote that the lack of a sedative given ahead of nitrogen gas increases the likelihood that the person will panic.

“Mr. Smith’s autopsy demonstrates what happens to the body when this panic response occurs. An individual experiencing panic and the sensation of the inability to breathe while also being denied oxygen will experience a constricted airway similar to an upper airway obstruction,” McAlary wrote.

Dr. Thomas Andrew, who retired after two decades as the chief medical examiner of New Hampshire, told The Associated Press that lung congestion is consistent with asphyxia as the mechanism of death. He said as the heart rapidly fails, “blood backs up and the lungs become quite congested.”

Andrew said he thought it was possibly a “bridge too far” to conclude there was an airway obstruction. However, he did agree that the lack of sedation could cause a person to panic.

“I think that’s a critical critique of the protocols used in this form of execution… You certainly will have a sense of the absence of oxygen, air hunger, and all of the panic and discomfort that is part and parcel of that way of dying,” Andrew said.

Alabama in 2018 authorized nitrogen gas as a new execution method. Grayson in 2018 selected it as his execution method but at the time the state had not developed a process for using it to carry out an execution.

Grayson was 1 of 4 teenagers convicted in the 1994 killing of 37-year-old Vickie Deblieux in Jefferson County. Prosecutors said Deblieux was hitchhiking from Tennessee to her mother’s home in Louisiana when 4 teenagers, including Grayson, offered her a ride. Prosecutors said they took her to a wooded area, attacked and beat her and threw her off a cliff. The teens later mutilated her body, prosecutors said.

Grayson is the only 1 of the 4 facing the death penalty because he was 19 at the time of the crime.

(source: Associated Press)

TENNESSEE:

Attorney: Oak Ridge man sent to death row may die of natural causes before execution----Sean Finnegan, 56, was sentenced to death this week for the 2019 rape, torture and killing of Jennifer Paxton.

Sean Finnegan, from Anderson County, was sentenced this week to death for the 2019 torture, rape and killing of Jennifer Paxton, but he could die of natural causes before ever getting executed.

Legal Aid of East Tennessee attorney Darrell Winfree said there are several factors surrounding death penalty cases that lead to a long legal process, and ultimately, to someone dying on death row.

Finnegan is 56 years old and Winfree said people can spend decades appealing their death sentences.

"The first thing that happens is there's an automatic appeal that's filed with the Supreme Court of the state of Tennessee," Winfree said. "And they look at some pretty specific things, they look at whether the sentence was imposed arbitrarily, they look at whether the aggravating factors were met, and they are supposed to make sure everything was done correctly from that perspective."

After that, Winfree said the state's Supreme Court is able to either affirm the sentence of death, or modify it, and change it to life in prison.

Winfree said after that's done, a convict can appeal at the trial court level, but that appeal must focus on things that happened in the trial, outside of the specific circumstances of the trial.

"So that's when you get into things like ineffective assistance of counsel, or newly discovered evidence, things of that nature," he said.

The case can then go to the Criminal Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the state of Tennessee, Winfree said.

"Throughout both of these steps, at the end of them, whichever side loses is able to take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States," Winfree said. "Which is something that kind of slows things down, somewhat."

Winfree said after that, people can appeal to federal courts, based on habeas corpus.

The appeals process can take decades, Winfree said, adding that healthcare on death row isn't as good as it is in the outside world, which can also contribute to people dying of natural causes while waiting to be executed.

"It seems like it would be very easy to bring someone's life to end," Winfree said. "But it is a very extended process, a very expensive process, and a very complicated process."

There are currently 45 people on Tennessee's death row and the last time someone was sentenced to death, before Finnegan, was in 2021. There are 13 people on death row from East Tennessee, and the oldest person who's waiting to be executed is 74 years old.

Larry McKay, of Shelby County, has been on death row the longest. State records show he was sentenced in 1983, but hasn't been executed. McKay was convicted of two murders during a robbery in Memphis, that police said happened in the early 1980s.

Governor Bill Lee paused executions in Tennessee in 2022, citing issues with the lethal injection process. The Tennessee Department of Correction said that there's no timeline on when executions would resume, and because of that, there's no way to tell which death row inmate would be the next to be executed.

Death row inmates who were sentenced before 1999 have the option of taking the lethal injection or the electric chair, per Tennessee law.

A Sevier County man sent to death row by a Blount County jury in 1996 could be up next to die once executions resume. Gary Sutton and his uncle, James Dellinger, were convicted of killing Sevier County siblings Connie Branam and Tommy Griffin in 1992.

Dellinger and Sutton were sentenced to death, but Dellinger died of natural causes on death row in 2023.

Sutton maintains his innocence in his case, and his loved ones have hired a private investigator who said she has found evidence that proves Sutton didn't kill anyone. Sutton's loved ones are asking for him to be exonerated and for Lee to meet with them about his case. He hasn't responded to that request.

Blount County District Attorney General Ryan Desmond also said he's also considering the death penalty for Kenneth Wayne DeHart Jr., from Alcoa. He is charged with shooting and killing Blount County deputy Greg McCown and shooting deputy Shelby Eggers in February.

Other East Tennesseans on death row include people from Knox and Cocke counties. Lemaricus Davidson was sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Chris Newsom and Channon Christian.

Terry King was sentenced to death for the 1983 killing of Diana Kay Smith. Christa Pike, the only woman on death row in Tennessee, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Dennis Suttles was convicted in 1996 of killing Patricia Gail Rhodes, in the parking lot of a South Knoxville Taco Bell.

Jonathan Stephenson was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his wife, Lisa, who was shot in the head with a high-powered rifle in Cocke County in 1989.

Oscar Smith was convicted in 1989 in the triple slayings of his estranged wife, Judy Lynn Smith, and her 2 sons, Chad and Jason Burnett, from a previous marriage in Nashville. He was just hours away from having his death sentence carried out 2 years ago before Lee abruptly intervened.

In April 2022, the governor halted all executions in Tennessee after launching an independent review of the state's lethal injection preparation process following an unspecified "oversight" discovered just before Smith's scheduled execution. The review finished in December 2022, and the Associated Press reported the Tennessee Department of Correction then fired its top attorney and inspector general for "incorrectly testifying" under oath that they were testing the lethal injection chemicals for bacterial contamination.

The independent report found Tennessee had never fully tested drugs for its executions since rewriting the state's lethal injection protocol in 2018, according to the Associated Press.

Executions have not resumed in Tennessee since the investigation, however. Lee noted he did not wish to stop the administration of the death penalty altogether.

Tennessee has a secondary method of carrying out executions -- the electric chair -- and several death row inmates were put to death by that method between 2018 and 2020. However, the electric chair can't be used as a primary means of execution and can only be used if inmates waive the right to lethal injection.

(source: WBIR news)

MISSOURI----impending execution

Attorney Statement: Missouri Supreme Court Blocks Agreement Between Prosecutor and Marcellus Williams to Prevent Execution----A new evidentiary hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 28.

Yesterday, Marcellus Williams, an innocent man scheduled to be executed in Missouri on September 24, entered an Alford plea in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. This resolution would have ensured that Mr. Williams is not executed for a crime he did not commit. Today, however, the Missouri Supreme Court granted Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s writ application and blocked the St. Louis County Circuit Court from resentencing Mr. Williams to life without parole (see Preliminary Writ here, at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qhrffnVLrqb2ug13pqN14j_cHMNZx_OS/view)

Mr. Williams has always maintained his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle. No physical or forensic evidence has ever linked Mr. Williams to the crime, and his conviction was based on the incentivized testimony of two unreliable witnesses.

Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell had moved to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction after new DNA testing excluded him as the source of male DNA on the murder weapon. A hearing on this motion was scheduled for August 21, but after the parties learned that the prosecutor’s office had mishandled the knife, corrupting the DNA evidence, they reached an agreement to ensure that Mr. Williams is not executed as he continues to seek additional evidence of his innocence

Despite the fact that Ms. Gayle’s family does not support the death penalty in this case, Attorney General Bailey has vigorously opposed the motion to vacate and has pressed to execute Mr. Williams. After the circuit court accepted Mr. Williams’ Alford plea yesterday, AG Bailey filed a writ application to the Missouri Supreme Court, resulting in today’s decision.

Hon. Bruce F. Hilton of the St. Louis County Circuit Court has scheduled a new evidentiary hearing for Wednesday, August 28 (see Order here, at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wXO91WzQHZJ2wxvnb_B_iNHVv1q_Qccz/view).

Below is a statement from Tricia Rojo Bushnell, an attorney for Marcellus Williams:

“After careful consideration of the applicable law and facts, the circuit court accepted the consent judgment overturning Marcellus Williams’ conviction in exchange for Mr. William’s Alford plea and a subsequent sentence to life without parole. This agreement was made with the support of the very office that prosecuted Mr. Williams and secured his death sentence—and who now concedes constitutional error, and with the support of the victim’s family.

“Yet in spite of this, the Attorney General has fought to invalidate that agreement. It is impossible to understand who this decision serves or what justice it provides. This decision directly contradicts the will of a duly elected prosecutor and the community he represents and the wishes of a family who has already lost so much. That is not justice.

“We look forward to presenting the evidence that supports the circuit court’s decision at the hearing next week.”

Tricia Rojo Bushnell, attorney for Marcellus Williams

******************

A Prosecutor Admits His Office’s Incompetence Cut Off an Innocent Man’s Path to Exoneration----A Missouri prosecutor was set to argue that Marcellus Williams had been wrongly convicted. New evidence that prosecutors had mishandled the murder weapon got in the way.

Matthew Jacober stood to address the judge inside the small, packed courtroom on the third floor of the St. Louis County Courthouse in Clayton, Missouri. Jacober, a special counsel representing the county’s elected prosecutor, had a confession to make: The knife used to kill Felicia Anne Gayle Picus inside her home in August 1998 had been contaminated by the prosecution team that had tried Marcellus Williams for her murder.

Because prosecutors had mishandled and improperly stored the weapon, Jacober said, county prosecutor Wesley Bell had concluded that Williams’s rights had been violated. His conviction — and death sentence — could not stand. “The murder weapon was handled without the proper procedures then in place,” Jacober told Judge Bruce Hilton. “The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office regrets its failure to maintain proper protocols surrounding key physical evidence in this heinous crime.”

It was a stunning admission on the day that Jacober had been slated to present the state’s case that Williams had been wrongly convicted of killing Picus. The fact that the state had so tragically mishandled the murder weapon, which had traces of unknown male DNA, meant that a key piece of evidence that would support Williams’s exoneration was no longer usable.

It was a bitter pill. The judge overseeing Williams’s 2001 trial had denied his request for DNA testing. It wasn’t until 2016 that testing ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court excluded Williams as the source of DNA found on the knife. In other words, he could not be linked to the weapon. Now, Jacober admitted, a new round of testing revealed that a prosecutor’s investigator could not be excluded as the source. Nor could the prosecutor who handled Williams’s trial. Whatever DNA evidence there was connecting the perpetrator to the murder had been irretrievably lost.

While Jacober conceded that Williams’s conviction could not stand, neither could the office point to the unknown DNA on the murder weapon to exonerate him. Instead, after hours negotiating behind closed doors with Williams’s attorneys as spectators waited in the courtroom, the county prosecutors offered Williams a deal: agree to a plea that would take the specter of execution off the table, replaced by a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Williams would have to accept the arrangement to avoid being executed for a crime he insists he did not commit. Wearing a silvery gray thobe and white skull cap, his beard flecked with white, the 55-year-old Williams was still as Jacober spoke. The judge asked Williams if he had agreed to the terms. “Yes,” he said.

Hilton said he agreed with the outcome, as did Picus’s husband, Dan Picus. The judge would formally re-sentence Williams to life in prison the following day.

Everyone, it seemed, was on the same page. Everyone, that is, except Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. By Wednesday night, his office had successfully appealed to the state’s Supreme Court to block the deal. But Bell’s office was determined not to let Bailey have the final word.

“Inexorable Doubt”

Dan Picus came home from work on August 11, 1998, to find his wife dead. The former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter had been stabbed repeatedly and the murder weapon, a knife from the couple’s kitchen, had been left lodged in her neck. Additionally, there were hairs found near Picus’s body, bloody fingerprints on a wall, and a trail of bloody shoeprints. Despite the wealth of physical evidence, the investigation stalled. It wasn’t until months later, after Picus’s family posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer, that a jailhouse informant came forward claiming his former cellmate, Marcellus Williams, had confessed to the murder. Police later secured a second informant, a former girlfriend of Williams’s, who also claimed he’d taken responsibility.

Notably, none of the physical evidence at the scene tied Williams to the killing. And there was good reason to question the accounts provided by the informants; both were facing prison time for unrelated crimes, and each had a history of ratting out others to save themselves from trouble. Many of the details they offered police shifted over time, while others did not match the murder. Nonetheless, Williams was tried and sentenced to death.

Each of Williams’s appeals were denied. He was on the eve of execution in January 2015 when the Missouri Supreme Court stepped in and ordered DNA testing on the murder weapon, which ultimately revealed unknown DNA. The court summarily dismissed Williams’s claims without considering those results and reset his execution for August 2017.

The Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, turned to Missouri’s then-Gov. Eric Greitens, asking him to halt the execution and to convene what’s known as a board of inquiry to investigate the case. On the day Williams was set to die, Greitens issued an executive order convening a five-member board of retired judges to “assess the credibility and weight of all the evidence” in the case. The board was given subpoena power and, per state law, tasked with reporting back to the governor whether or not Williams should be executed or his sentence commuted.

That process was ongoing when the current governor, Mike Parson, issued his own executive order in June 2023, disbanding the board. It was time to “move forward,” he said. The Midwest Innocence Project sued, arguing that Parson had overstepped his authority by dissolving the panel before it had issued a report as the statute required it to do. The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed, ruling in June 2024 that Parson could do as he wished. The court reset Williams’s execution for September 24.

Meanwhile, the county court was considering a motion that Bell filed in January, seeking to vacate Williams’s conviction. In addition to the foreign DNA on the knife and the sketchiness of the snitch testimony, Bell cited poor defense lawyering at Williams’s trial and misconduct by prosecutors who struck qualified individuals from the jury pool because they were Black. These factors combined cast “inexorable doubt on Mr. Williams’s conviction and sentence,” the prosecutor argued.

Fast forward to this week: A court was finally slated to consider evidence of Williams’s innocence.

An Unexpected Twist

The rows of wooden benches inside the Division 13 courtroom were full by 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, when the hearing was slated to begin. Forty-five minutes later, Hilton stepped into the room without his robes. He was there to explain the delay. The parties were talking, he said, discussing a way to “resolve” the case. Hilton joked that he wanted everyone to know they weren’t waiting around because the judge was late.

It wasn’t until after 1 p.m. that Hilton finally took to the bench and announced that Bell’s office and Williams’s lawyers had come to an agreement. There would be no hearing as had been planned. Instead, Jacober, the special prosecutor, admitted that the state had so mishandled the murder weapon that the physical evidence was no longer probative of Williams’s innocence — or of anyone else’s guilt.

While the state’s incompetence had violated Williams’s rights — prompting the prosecutors to say his current conviction and death sentence couldn’t stand — it also cut off the most tangible path to his exoneration.

Without the DNA evidence, what remains of the case against Williams is the questionable testimony of 2 snitches, who have both since died. Williams had previously raised the issue of their dubious credibility but was dismissed by the courts. The same is true of his claims about his defense lawyers’ failures at trial and about the prosecution’s striking of Black people from the jury pool. At each turn the courts have shrugged their shoulders. Still, Jacober indicated that Bell’s efforts to make a case for Williams’s innocence were hamstrung without the exculpatory DNA.

Jacober announced that the prosecutors’ office would admit that it had bungled the job and take the death penalty off the table. In exchange, Williams would enter what is known as an Alford plea, accepting a charge of first-degree murder.

Named for the U.S. Supreme Court case North Carolina v. Alford, it is a plea where a defendant maintains their innocence but agrees that the state has enough to convict them and thus pleads guilty to avoid a harsher sentence — in Williams’s case (as in Alford’s), the death penalty.

As part of the deal, Williams would have the right to appeal his sentence if new evidence of his innocence comes to light.

“Marcellus Williams is an innocent man, and nothing about today’s plea agreement changes that fact,” Tricia Rojo Bushnell, Williams’s lawyer and executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement. “The fact that there is DNA on the knife matching members of the trial prosecution team proves the State of Missouri disregarded critical protocols in the investigation of this case, including mishandling pivotal evidence.”

“That Is Not Justice”

During the hours of negotiations on Wednesday morning, Hilton had spoken to Dan Picus, who affirmed that he does not support the death penalty for Williams. Picus would be in court the following morning to testify at the sentencing hearing, the judge said.

Lawyers with the attorney general’s office were displeased. Andrew Clarke, an assistant attorney general, lodged an objection to the agreement, which Hilton overruled. Bailey, Missouri’s attorney general, then appealed to the state’s high court to intervene.

Since being appointed to his post in 2023, Bailey has spent a considerable amount of time attempting to thwart state courts from exonerating the wrongly convicted — or even from considering their claims. Bailey sought to block Williams from ever receiving a hearing, arguing to the state Supreme Court that, by granting a hearing, Hilton was challenging its authority as the highest court in the state. Last month, the court denied Bailey’s motion to scuttle the hearing and clear the way for Williams’s execution.

In a Wednesday evening court filing, the attorney general’s office again argued to the state’s high court that Hilton had overstepped his role by vacating Williams’s conviction and asked it to halt the planned resentencing. The court did just that, issuing an order requiring Hilton to hold the innocence hearing as planned and to issue a ruling by September 13, or to respond to the court explaining why he would not do so.

Picus joined the court session on Thursday morning via video call, but instead of attending Williams’s resentencing, he listened as Hilton responded to the high court’s order. The judge and attorneys had decided to move forward with a hearing on August 28, despite the lack of definitively exonerating DNA. Bell’s office indicated that it would seek to show, without the benefit of dispositive DNA evidence, that Williams’s case was too flawed to withstand scrutiny.

Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project said that evidence presented at next week’s hearing would affirm Hilton’s decision to accept the prosecutor’s confession that constitutional error had poisoned Williams’s case.

She also questioned the attorney general’s continued meddling, noting in a statement that the agreement to overturn Williams’s death sentence and to accept the Alford plea was made after careful consideration and with the support of Picus’s family.

“Yet in spite of this, the Attorney General has fought to invalidate that agreement. It is impossible to understand who this decision serves or what justice it provides,” she said. “This decision directly contradicts the will of a duly elected prosecutor and the community he represents, and the wishes of a family who has already lost so much. That is not justice.”

(source for both: innocenceproject.org)

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Missouri Court Halts Deal to Spare Prisoner From Execution----The State Supreme Court said the trial had to hold a hearing before accepting a deal that would give the man a sentence of life without parole.

In a suburban St. Louis courtroom on Wednesday, it appeared that Marcellus Williams would be spared execution after the local prosecutor’s office raised questions about his guilt and agreed to a prison sentence of life without parole.

Hours later, the Missouri Supreme Court halted the deal over concerns that a judge had overstepped his authority in approving the new plea and sentence.

The late-night order was the latest twist in Mr. Williams’s long-running effort to prove that he is innocent and avoid being executed. And it was the latest skirmish in a power struggle between the state attorney general and local prosecutors over who speaks for the state in wrongful conviction cases.

Mr. Williams, who is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24, was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a well-known newspaper reporter, in her suburban St. Louis home in 1998. Mr. Williams, 55, has always maintained his innocence, but his appeals and post-conviction pleadings were unsuccessful.

In 2021, the Missouri legislature passed a law allowing a prosecutor to challenge old convictions “if he or she has information that the convicted person may be innocent or may have been erroneously convicted.” The law, a response to advances in forensic science and a growing awareness of the factors that can contribute to wrongful convictions, says that a hearing must be held on such a motion, and it permits the attorney general to participate.

The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Wesley Bell, filed a 63-page motion to overturn Mr. Williams’s conviction, saying that the two main witnesses against him had not been credible and that the prosecutor had improperly excluded prospective jurors who were Black. Mr. Williams, the motion said, was not the source of bloody shoe prints, fingerprints and hair found at the crime scene, and a DNA analysis showed that DNA found on the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was not his.

An evidentiary hearing was set for this past Wednesday. But 2 days earlier, a private lab engaged by the prosecutor issued a report based on additional analysis. The lab said it had found that DNA on the knife matched that of an investigator and a prosecutor involved in the original trial.

The finding suggested that the investigator and the prosecutor had mishandled what might have been the most important piece of evidence, leaving their own DNA and perhaps eliminating DNA that had been left by the perpetrator. The surprise finding dashed the defense team’s hope that the DNA would point to an unknown perpetrator, which would bolster Mr. Williams’s claim of innocence.

Instead, Mr. Bell’s office backed away from its motion that sought exoneration and proposed an agreement that would change Mr. Williams’s sentence from death to life without parole. The judge accepted the agreement, but the attorney general, Andrew Bailey, objected, insisting that Mr. Williams was guilty of murder in the death of Ms. Gayle.

Mr. Bailey, who has routinely tried to block exonerations, asked the State Supreme Court to intervene, saying that the judge had not held the required hearing and that he had exceeded his power in accepting the agreement without the attorney general’s assent.

Mr. Bailey has maintained that his office represents the state and that the State Supreme Court has “exclusive authority” to review death penalty cases, positions that appear to be in direct conflict with the new law.

“Because the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney has expressly challenged Mr. Williams’s conviction, he has an inherent conflict of interest that cannot be reconciled with the state’s competing interest in enforcing a lawful, repeatedly affirmed criminal judgment,” Mr. Bailey wrote in a filing to the court on Wednesday.

In its ruling, the court said that the judge, Bruce F. Hilton, had to either hold the evidentiary hearing or make an argument as to why he should not have to. On Thursday morning, Judge Hilton scheduled the hearing for Aug. 28.

In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Bell said, “We still have concerns about the integrity of the conviction of Marcellus Williams as expressed in our motion that requested this hearing, particularly given that his conviction led to the irrevocable punishment of death.”

(source: Shaila Dewan, New York Times)

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Missouri Supreme Court Blocks Marcellus Williams from Entering Plea to Avoid Execution After State Reveals Mishandled Evidence

Innocence Missouri

On August 21, 2024, Marcellus Williams, who is scheduled to be executed on September 24, 2024, agreed to enter an Alford plea in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. This agreement would have ensured that Mr. Williams, who has always maintained his innocence in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle, would not be executed. But hours after Judge Bruce F. Hilton accepted the plea agreement, Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the Missouri Supreme Court to block the deal, claiming that Judge Hilton did not have the authority to resentence Mr. Williams. In response, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the lower court to set aside the plea agreement and move forward with the scheduled evidentiary hearing. Judge Hilton has now rescheduled it for August 28, 2024.

In January 2024, Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ death sentence after DNA testing excluded him as the source of DNA on the murder weapon. A 2021 Missouri law allows prosecutors to challenge past convictions if they believe the individual is innocent or wrongfully convicted. Including Mr. Williams’ case, this law has been used 6 times, with varying degrees of success. AG Bailey has consistently opposed any effort by Mr. Williams to appeal his conviction and death sentence. The Missouri Attorney General’s office has a decades-long history of opposing relief in other innocence cases as well. In 2021 and 2023, respectively, Kevin Strickland and Lamar Johnson were exonerated despite the AG’s efforts to prevent their release.

Mr. Williams’ plea agreement was reached as both parties were scheduled to begin an evidentiary hearing on DA Bell’s motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction and death sentence. In connection with the announcement of the plea deal, however, prosecutors unexpectedly announced that the murder weapon contained the DNA of members of the trial prosecution team. Consistent with his assertion of innocence, the murder weapon does not show any DNA from Mr. Williams, but now confirms that the crime scene evidence was mishandled by prosecutors. No physical or forensic evidence has ever connected Mr. Williams to the crime scene.

A new analysis of the murder weapon found that DNA present was consistent with that of an investigator and a prosecutor involved in the original trial. Matthew Jacober, with Mr. Bell’s office, told the court that the newly revealed DNA evidence, which was instrumental to Mr. Bell’s motion to vacate, “did not fully support our initial conclusions.” Mr. Jacober told the court that Mr. Bell’s office “deeply regrets its failure” to properly preserve the evidence.

Representatives of Mr. Bell’s office determined that the new DNA findings weakened Mr. Williams’ innocence claim, though the case has many other serious errors. His office proposed that Mr. Williams enter an Alford plea, which would have permitted Mr. Williams to maintain his innocence and avoid execution. After speaking with Daniel Picus, Ms. Gayle’s husband, who is opposed to executing Mr. Williams, Judge Hilton determined that the plea agreement is “a proper remedy” to the case. AG Bailey disagreement with this ruling resulted in the Missouri Supreme Court’s order resetting the evidentiary hearing. The lower court may seek a stay of execution for Mr. Williams while the lower court proceedings continue.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

ARIZONA:

Death penalty trial begins for Mesa man accused of raping, killing teen

It was more than 10 years ago that 14-year-old girl Claudia Lucero was found strangled to death in a Mesa dumpster.

Thursday was the 1st day of the capital murder trial for Alex Madrid, the man accused of killing her.

Police said Madrid is the victim’s mom’s ex-boyfriend and they say Claudia was sexually assaulted before she was killed.

The death penalty is on the table for Madrid.

“Sometimes the person that you want the most is the person that you can’t have. For Alex Madrid, 14-year-old Claudia Lucero was that person,” the prosecution began with.

In opening statements, the prosecution laid the groundwork for what happened to Claudia on Dec. 5, 2013.

According to police and the state, Claudia’s mother recently broke up with Madrid and made him move out of their apartment.

They said on that December morning, after Claudia’s mom and brothers left the house, Claudia was getting ready for school when Madrid came into the apartment, raped her, then took her life.

“Alex Madrid made the choice to get a ligature of some kind, wrap it around her neck, and at that point strangle her to death,” the prosecution said.

Police said he then put her in a gray tub wrapped in a comforter along with some of her belongings and disposed of her body in this blue dumpster at a nearby complex.

Claudia’s mother reported her as a missing person, thinking she may have run away, until the next morning when two women were searching for bottles and cans in that blue dumpster.

“At some point this female realized that what she was pulling on was a body, because the blanket came open and she saw there were two human legs underneath,” the prosecution said.