[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

July 1



INDIA:

Neelam Katara appeals for death sentence for son's killers


Nitish Katara's mother, Neelam, moved the Delhi High Court on Tuesday
seeking death penalty for her son's killers. On May 30, a trial court had
handed down life imprisonment to former Uttar Pradesh MP D P Yadav 's son
Vikas and nephew Vishal for murdering Nitish Katara.

In the petition, filed through lawyer Kaushik Dey, Neelam contended that
the trial court has ignored the fact that the convicts had a criminal
background and that they were involved in various criminal cases earlier.

Neelam also said that the trial court had failed to consider that Vikas
had murdered her son while he was on bail in the 1999 Jessica Lall murder
case.

"The trial court failed to consider that the murder was gruesome,
grotesque and diabolic in nature," the appellant said and sought the court
to set aside the May 30 order on sentence.

Nitish, an MBA, was killed on the intervening night of February 16 and 17,
2002 because of his relationship with the Vikas's sister Bharti. Vikas and
Vishal had kidnapped Nitish from a marriage party in Ghaziabad and killed
him.

(source: The Times of India)






BAHAMAS:

The death penalty  many clerics dead wrong


Dear Editor,

The growing number of "men of the cloth" advocating elimination of the
death penalty is worrying. They seemingly do so more from a humanistic
rather than a biblical perspective.

Progressive thinking, humanistic, liberal clerics have steered the church
far from biblical teaching. It is because of such progressive, humanistic,
liberal thinking that an openly gay Anglican priest, living in "union"
with his male mate, has risen to the high office of bishop of the church.
Moreover, the fact that notwithstanding his lifestyle, the bishop was
elected by other bishops of the church speaks volumes to the pervasive
extent to which depravity engulfs the church today.

In an article on the subject of the death penalty which I wrote sometime
ago, I noted words with import similar to the following:

"Those opposed to the death penalty generally argue that capital
punishment does not deter or prevent an individual intent on committing
murder from doing so." I presume they argue from the standpoint of various
studies on the subject, studies albeit carried out in someone else's
jurisdiction rather than ours no doubt. I don't intend to argue otherwise,
at least not just yet.

In my earlier article I had noted that those who focus on the issue of
deterrence surely miss the point.

The primary purpose of capital punishment is not to prevent murder any
more than the principal reason of a fine or incarceration is to prevent
any other form of criminal behaviour.

Retribution, recompense if you will, extracting from an offender pay-back
similar in degree to the individual's transgression, is the genesis, the
foundation forming the basis for imposition of a sentence. The punishment
must fit the crime."

The death penalty is the ultimate punishment. It fits the most egregious
of crimes, snuffing out of another's life.

In my article I also communicated that proponents and opponents of capital
punishment are so firmly ent-renched in their positions that what I had to
say likely would not have had much bearing on their views.

I nevertheless offered a perspective which I pronounced to be somewhat
unique and, to a degree, erudite. I noted that both the Old Testament and
the New Testament spoke in clarion clear terms to the issue of the
punishment fitting the crime. The ultimate punishment, the surrendering of
one's life, clearly fits the ultimate crime, the willful, deliberate,
premeditated taking of another's life.

Laws of the Old Testament characterize appropriate punishment as an "eye
for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". In the New Testament Jesus described it
thusly, "With which measure ye mete it shall be measured to you."

Liberalist, modernistic, so-called progressive thinking New Testament
scholars seek to limit Jesus' words of 'giving back in equal measure', to
the dispensing of rewards only. I regard such limitation as being
reflective of intellectual depravity for surely, the dispensing of
punishment (by the appropriate authority) is inherent in the words
uttered.

The second argument, ad-vanced by opponents of the death penalty, is the
possibility of someone being wrongly convicted and punished.

Why limit discourse to the death penalty? The wrongful conviction and
punishment of anyone for any crime is abhorrent. Do we therefore have the
courts dispense with the imposition of all penalties? God forbid.

While wrongful convictions can and no doubt do occur, though with
significant infrequency, I doubt anyone has the gumption to suggest courts
should discharge every case that comes before them because such a risk
exists. Moreover, capital cases by their very nature receive far more
review than other cases. Hence, the risk of erroneous judgment is
minimized.

As to the finality of imposition of the death sentence, I previously
offered the following perspective from a good reverend gentleman: "Death
is a phase not finality. It is temporal rather than terminal."

In closing out my previous note on this subject I opined that I subscribe
to the view that lawlessness begets lawlessness. I also noted that
lawlessness may arise from acts of commission as well as acts of omission
and that the state's failure to carry out the capital punishment statute
on our law books might be considered an act of lawlessness thus begetting
the lawlessness which has become so prevalent, so rampant in our once
quaint, God-fearing nation.

Earlier, I suggested that I did not intend to immediately argue the merits
or otherwise of the efficacy of capital punishment serving as a deterrent
to murder.

The opportunity is now presented to study the subject in a local context.

Murder statistics over the past six to seven years that capital punishment
has been pending is a given. Similar statistics can be looked at once
capital punishment is resumed.

The opportunity exists. It ought to be embraced without delay.

Sincerely,

Michael R. Moss --- Freeport

(source: The Freeport News)






AUSTRALIA:

Intelligence freeze boost for Bali condemned


Civil libertarians have praised a parliamentary push for Australia to
withhold information from foreign police forces that could lead to
Australians facing the death penalty.

The change would have had consequences for the Bali 9, 3 of whom remain on
death row in Indonesia.

The Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties has recommended a
review by its counterpart committee on Intelligence and Security into
"Australian policy and procedures concerning police-to-police cooperation
and intelligence-sharing arrangements".

"The committee recommends that information should not be exchanged with
another country if doing so would expose an Australian citizen to the
death penalty," the committee said as it tabled its 91st report to
Parliament.

That report also said that Australia's responsibility for people
extradited should "not end at the conclusion of the extradition process,
but should extend to a formal system of monitoring the detention of
extradited people, the judicial proceedings they are subject to, their
sentencing and imprisonment".

The chief executive of Civil Liberties Australia, Bill Rowlings, said that
the proposed changes would correct inadequacies in the current guidelines
given to the Australian Federal Police.

"Most Australians don't want their police force shopping Aussies to
overseas countries, when our citizens could be arrested, tried, convicted
and jailed in Australia, if only the AFP waits a few days or weeks," he
said.

The AFP's handling of the Bali 9 case had been "totally inappropriate".

"The AFP appear to be quite proud of what they did, and would do exactly
the same thing next time," he said.

He believed most Australians would be horrified if the AFP repeated the
procedure "when they could wait a bit, and arrest people back in Australia
under our own laws, and not expose them to the death penalty".

He described as a scandal Australia's previous practice of handing
extradited people over when "no-one has done any checking on what happened
to them".

"We congratulate [the committee] of tackling both issues trying to stop
the Bali 9 situation happening again, and introducing formal monitoring of
what happens to people we hand over to other countries," he said.

The committee's extradition recommendation urges that new agreements
"should explicitly provide a requirement that the requesting country
provide annual information concerning the trial status and health of
extradited persons and the conditions of the detention facilities in which
they are held".

After being advised of all extraditions by the Attorney-General's
Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade "would be expected
to formally monitor all extradited Australians through the consular
network".

(source: The Canberra Times)