June 19
IRAN----executions
Iran hangs 4 rapists in public
Iran hanged 4 rapists in public on Wednesday morning, the state IRIB TV website
reported.
The 4 men convicted of raping young girls by force were hanged in Shahid
Mahallati highway in southeastern Tehran Wednesday, said the report.
Crimes including drug trafficking, murder, adultery, rape and armed robbery are
subject to death penalty in Iran.
(source: Xinhua News)
CANADA:
The next best thing to the death penalty for multiple murderers
It’s not often that a crime is so fearsome it puts an entire city on edge, but
the armoured car multiple murders at the University of Alberta last week did
just that.
The crime had the feel of a bizarre and vile act out of a lawless foreign
country, not something that would ever happen here. It was imperative that the
police quickly get to the bottom of it. Now that there’s been an arrest, the
issue of what penalty our society should enact for such a crime is top of mind
for many of us.
Unfortunately, there will be no death penalty for the culprit in this case.
Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976 and even the tough-on-crime Harper
government never talked seriously about bringing it back.
But the Harper government has enacted a new law that could bring more severe
punishments for anyone convicted of multiple murders. A judge can now decide
that parole eligibility should be 25 years for each murder committed. For
example, someone convicted of three murders could have no chance of parole for
75 years.
In Canada, as it now stands, anyone convicted of a murder automatically gets a
life sentence, but that doesn’t mean they spend the rest of their life in jail.
Far from it.
For 2nd-degree murder, a killer can be eligible for parole in as little as 10
years.
For 1st-degree murder, a killer is eligible for parole after 25 years. At that
point, the only reason the parole board will keep a killer in jail is if he or
she still represents a threat to the public, says University of Alberta
professor Steven Penney.
But the new law gives judges more leeway in sentencing.
“If judges actually start using this provision to impose consecutive periods of
parole ineligibility, that’s a pretty dramatic change from what we had before,”
Penney says. “In theory, a life sentence is a life sentence is a life sentence.
But there’s a huge difference for the offender, and potentially for the
families of the victims, for someone who is eligible to apply for parole after
10 or 15 or 25 years and someone who is eligible to apply for parole after 50
or 75 years.
“In effect, what a judge can do now, especially for someone who is convicted at
a fairly young age, is to ensure that you’re never released.”
When the Harper government brought forward this legislation in the House of
Commons, Conservative MP Daniel Petit said the new measures would be applied to
“the most incorrigible offenders — those whose crimes are such that they would
be unlikely to ever obtain parole.”
The changes, Petit said, “will better reflect the tragedy of multiple murders
by enabling a judge to acknowledge each and every life lost.”
It is “based on the proposition that killing more than one person reflects a
higher degree of moral blameworthiness and ought to allow the imposition of
additional periods of parole ineligibility.”
The new law will also “ensure that our communities are safe and that offenders
convicted of multiple murders, who should never be released, will never be
released.”
Edmonton defence lawyer Kirk MacDonald has concerns about the new law. “There
are some persons who do make remarkable changes to themselves in the course of
their time in the penitentiary,” he says. “Do we want that person locked up for
50 years if after 20 they have rehabilitated themselves and they are safe to
release into the community? Are we well-served by that? I would say no, but
that’s something for the parole board to decide.”
If a killer gets a 50- or 75-year sentence, it also takes away his incentive to
reform and makes him more dangerous in prison, MacDonald says.
There’s also the fact that society is already protected from the most heinous
killers by the life sentences they now get, MacDonald says. “We get wound up
about (Paul) Bernardo and (Clifford) Olson and (Russell) Williams, but, my God,
none of those guys are ever going to see the light of day again.”
MacDonald makes some good points, but Petit’s arguments are more compelling. We
need to properly denounce and punish our most depraved killers.
I’m not against the death penalty, but accept opposition to the measure is too
strong to reinstate it. But this new law will suffice.
When warranted, judges are now able to impose life sentences that really mean
life. It’s a fitting response to multiple murders.
(source: David Staples, The Edmonton Journal)
JAPAN:
New Justice Minister feels death penalty should remain an option
In a recent interview, Makoto Taki, appointed Justice Minister on June 4th,
told the press that he feels the death penalty should remain in Japan’s
judicial system as an option for the most heinous crimes. He says that just
because death sentences can be handed down, it is not a choice that can be
taken lightly. Individual cases should always be closely examined.
Taki said that just because he is keeping the death sentence in the system, he
will not do what his predecessor, Keiko Chiba, did in 2010, letting the media
see the chamber where executions are performed. However, he does plan to
research if hanging should continue to be used as the execution method. As the
recent priority on the issue has simply been to decide if the death penalty
should be kept or not, Taki commented that the leading Democratic Party of
Japan (DPJ) has not discussed adding the punishment of life in prison without
parole as a possible sentence for the most serious crimes. Under the current
regulations, even if a criminal is given a life sentence, they can earn parole
by demonstrating good behavior.
According to Amnesty international, Japan is one of only 58 countries that
conducts executions. Others include the United States, China, India, and Iran.
However, legal activists in Japan argue that there is too wide a gap between
the death penalty and a life sentence with possible parole.
(source: Japan Times)
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