[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
November 7 MALAYSIA: Malaysia court to resume Kim Jong Nam murder trial on Jan. 7 A Malaysian court on Wednesday set Jan. 7 for 2 Southeast Asian women charged with murdering the North Korean leader's half brother to begin their defense, as their lawyers complained that some witnesses were unreachable. A High Court judge in August found there was enough evidence to infer that Indonesian Siti Aisyah and Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong, along with four missing North Korean suspects, had engaged in a "well-planned conspiracy" to kill Kim Jong Nam. The women appeared somber but calm during Wednesday's hearing. The trial had been due to resume Nov. 1 but was postponed after a defense lawyer fell ill. Aisyah's lawyers made a new application to the court to compel prosecutors to provide them with statements that eight witnesses had given to police earlier. Her lawyer, Kulaselvi Sandrasegaram, said they were informed that one of the witnesses, the man who chauffeured Kim to the airport, had died while 2 Indonesian women who were Aishah's roommates were believed to have returned to their homeland. She said they have only managed to interview 2 of the witnesses offered by prosecutors, while 2 others didn't turn up for their appointments and couldn't be contacted. The witness statements taken by police are important in "the interest of justice" and to ensure that what they say to defense lawyers is consistent with what they told police, Sandrasegaram told reporters later. Prosecutor Iskandar Ahmad said the police interviews are privileged statements and shouldn't be made public. Judge Azmi Ariffin said the court will make a decision on the defense application on Dec. 14. He also set 10 days from Jan. 7 through February for Aishah's defense and 14 days from March 11 through April for Huong. The 2 are accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim's face in an airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017. They have said they thought they were taking part in a prank for a TV show. They are the only suspects in custody. The four North Korean suspects fled the country the same morning Kim was killed. Lawyers for Aisyah, 25, and Huong, 29, have told the judge they will testify under oath in their defense. They have said their clients were pawns in a political assassination with clear links to the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and that the prosecution failed to show the women had any intention to kill. Their intent is key to concluding they are guilty of murder. Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don't want the trial politicized. Kim was the eldest son in the current generation of North Korea's ruling family. He had been living abroad for years but could have been seen as a threat to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's rule. Murder carries a mandatory sentence of hanging, but Malaysia's government plans to abolish the death penalty and has put all executions on hold until the laws are changed. (source: Associated Press) EGYPT: Egypt court upholds death sentence against toddler rapist in final ruling The 35-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping and raping the toddler in a village in the Nile Delta governorate of Daqahliya in March 2017 A high Egyptian appeals court has upheld a death sentence against a man for raping a 20-month-old girl last year, a judicial source said, in a final ruling in a case that provoked widespread public outcry. The 35-year-old man was convicted of kidnapping and raping the toddler in a village in the Nile Delta governorate of Daqahliya. The man was arrested on the same day of the incident, which took place in March 2017. The defendant was sentenced to death by a lower criminal court on 1 June after the Grand Mufti, the country's top religious authority, approved the court recommendation of the death penalty in non-binding but legally required opinion. The Court of Cassation on Wednesday rejected the defendant's appeal against the initial sentence, upholding the death penalty. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed. Investigations showed that the defendant, the victim's neighbour, kidnapped the child as she was playing in front of her house in a village in the town of Belqas in Daqahlia, taking her to an abandoned area where he raped her, causing heavy bleeding. The defendant's father was killed by the girl's uncle in June 2017, the same month of the initial court ruling. (source: ahram.org.eg) IRAN: 2 More People Receive Death Penalty For 'Economic Crimes' 2 men accused of “conducting organized and systematic disruption” in Iran's banking network have been condemned to death and others sentenced to prison terms, judicial sources were quoted as saying on Tuesday, November 6. Dariush Ebrahimian Bilandi and Youniss Bahaoddini are also charged in the southern Fars Province with pocketing more than 150 trillion rials
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, USA
November 7 TEXAS: Death sentence for sex offender who killed prison officer A convicted sex offender found guilty of killing a female corrections officer in Texas has been sentenced to death. A Jones County jury on Tuesday ordered the death penalty for 24-year-old Dillion Compton. Compton was convicted of capital murder Oct. 15 in the July 2016 slaying of guard Mari Johnson, whose beaten body was found in a storage unit at the Robertson prison in Abilene. The killing occurred while Compton was incarcerated for aggravated sexual assault of a child in a 2010 attack on a Dallas County girl. Prosecutors say Johnson suffered blunt force trauma and a crushed throat. Compton was found with scratches on his face and his skin underneath Johnson's fingernails. Compton's defense attorney said Compton and Johnson had a sexual relationship. (source: Associated Press) USA: The Kafkaesque Machinery of the Death Penalty in America Capital punishment is losing support in the United States, but what about on the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court, its conservative majority in place for years, no longer debates whether state-imposed death is morally right or constitutionally valid. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation last month all but guarantees this will remain true for another generation, despite Justice Stephen Breyer’s best efforts. Since the court doesn’t weigh the substance of the death penalty, it instead focuses on the aesthetics of the system it oversees. These aesthetics are vital to maintaining public support for the system. American capital punishment is ritualized, with a carefully orchestrated set of appeals that often culminates in a last-minute denial from the Supreme Court. It’s also theatrical: Executions are choreographed to produce a quiet spectacle for an audience of witnesses, who then convey what they see to the wider world. Justice Harry Blackmun, concluding in 1994 that the system no longer met constitutional standards, described it as “the machinery of death.” The court’s docket this term shows how much that machinery has deteriorated since then, and raises questions about how long the justices can uphold capital punishment while Americans increasingly lose faith in it. The court first heard oral arguments on Tuesday in Bucklew v. Precythe, an unusual lethal-injection case. A Missouri jury sentenced Russell Bucklew to death in 1998 for murdering a man he found with his ex-girlfriend, whom Bucklew then kidnapped and raped. Bucklew does not challenge the validity of his sentence or any of the procedural aspects surrounding it. Instead, he’s challenging the manner in which Missouri seeks to end his life. Bucklew suffers from a gruesome condition known as cavernous hemangioma, which creates malformations in some of the body’s blood vessels. Over time, those malformations swell and fill with blood until they form benign tumors. The rare condition can manifest anywhere on the body. Bucklew’s case is even more unusual because it primarily affects his mouth and throat. His uvula is covered in blood-filled tumors that make it harder to eat, breathe, and sleep. There is no cure for the condition, and it will progressively worsen for as long as he lives. Missouri plans to execute him using the sedative pentobarbital. Bucklew contends that his medical condition raises the likelihood that the lethal injection will go awry. In his brief for the court, his lawyers warned that “the violence of his choking as he slips into unconsciousness will likely cause his tumors to rupture and lead him to aspirate his own blood.” To prevent this, Bucklew asks to be put to death by lethal gas, specifically by asphyxiating him with nitrogen. State officials oppose Bucklew’s request on both substantive and procedural grounds. Neither Missouri nor any other state has performed a nitrogen asphyxiation, the state argues, so it does not count as a “known and available” procedure under the Supreme Court’s precedents. Bucklew argues that all he has to do under those precedents is demonstrate that alternative methods exist. “How a state implements those other options ... are ultimately up to the state,” he told the court. “An inmate need not specify every last step the state should take along the path to killing him.” Since the 2008 case Baze v. Rees, the court has favored a state’s desire to perform executions over concerns that its methods may be cruel and unusual. “We begin with the principle ... that capital punishment is constitutional,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the plurality. “It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out.” That logic isn’t airtight, to say the least. But it’s the law of the land. The court’s conservative justices took it even further in Glossip v. Gross in 2015. In a 5-4 decision, they gave Oklahoma the green light after the state botched 2 executions, and set a high legal
