[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Jan. 27 JAPAN: Death sentence sought in woman's April '08 murder Prosecutors on Monday demanded the death penalty for a 34-year-old man on trial for murdering and dismembering the body of a 23-year-old neighbor last April in his condominium unit in Koto Ward, Tokyo. In the prosecution's closing argument at the Tokyo District Court, prosecutors said Takanori Hoshijima's actions did not give any consideration to the victim's character, dignity or life, and left no room for his rehabilitation. In response, the defense lawyer said the attack by Hoshijima, a former dispatch worker, was not premeditated and that the defendant greatly regretted his actions. Life imprisonment should be sufficient, the defense said. The trial concluded with Hoshijima requesting presiding Judge Kiichi Hiraide, "Please levy the death sentence [on me] without further delay." Noting that Hoshijima reportedly attacked Rurika Tojo, 23, with the intent of making her a "sex slave," the prosecution said in its closing argument that the defendant aimed to convert the woman into a human being who would never cause him inconvenience, adding, "There are no bounds to his egocentric motives." A prosecutor, who looked at a seated Hoshijima during questioning, said: "Is there any room to consider this case as one of extenuating circumstances? No, not at all." Regarding reports that Hoshijima dumped the female victim's dismembered body parts in places including the toilet, the prosecution said: "He attempted to commit the perfect crime by wiping out the victim's existence. It was a brutal, malicious act by the defendant who does not care an ounce about other people's feelings." "The defendant should pay with his life," prosecutors concluded as they demanded capital punishment for Hoshijima. In response, the defense lawyer said the death penalty was too harsh, saying, "The statutory penalty for dismembering a body is imprisonment of up to three years and there was only one victim." The defense lawyer added, "The prosecution's efforts to use visual evidence [against the defendant] seems to be succeeding, but I hope the evidence can be evaluated level-headedly." After the closing arguments, Hoshijima turned around to the bereaved family members and said, "I am sorry." He also bowed once. The ruling initially was scheduled to be handed down Feb. 10. However, Hiraide said, "I want to carefully consider my ruling," and postponed the date to Feb. 18. (source: Yomiuri Shimbun) ___ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Jan. 26 UGANDA: Museveni backs court on death penalty PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has praised judges for refusing to scrap the death penalty. Addressing the 23rd National Resistance Movement/Army victory celebrations at Kololo ceremonial grounds yesterday, Museveni said those who kill innocent Ugandans deserve nothing less than death. "There were some people asking the Supreme Court to abolish the death penalty. It is not the work of the Supreme Court to do this but Parliament. I am glad the courts also saw it and said it is not their duty. "Those who say the death penalty should be scrapped are those who think what one does to another should not be done to them. How can you kill people and say your life should not be taken?" he asked. The President was reacting to a recent media poll on whether after 23 years the NRM had achieved the fundamental change it promised. He said one of the indicators of the change achieved was the abolition of extra judicial killings to secure the lives and property of Ugandans. "Right from the bush days, no one would kill a Ugandan and remain free. You kill someone, nawe ofa ssassi (you also die of a bullet), that's our modus operandi," he said. This decisive stand, he added, tamed the army, Police and intelligence agencies. "Nobody from these organs can kill a Ugandan with impunity because they know the consequences," he said. The theme of the day's celebrations was "Consolidating the Vision of NRM; Challenges and expectations." Museveni challenged anybody to name one soldier or Police officer killed by the Idi Amin, Okello Lutwa or Obote II regimes between 1962 and 1986 for wantonly killing civilians. "In these 24 years, over 800,000 people were killed and no soldier was ever punished. Ever since the NRA took power in 1986, a total of 22 soldiers have been executed and 147 condemned to death although the sentences are yet to be carried out," he said. The NRM treasures the blood of Ugandans, he explained. Hundreds of people who braved the morning rain kept on chanting and urging the President on. "Bagambe (tell them)," one group kept shouting. As another indicator of fundamental change, Museveni said national and local government elections are held after every 5 years, electoral reforms have been undertaken to reduce rigging by having party agents and announcing results immediately. The remaining obstacle, he added, was full computerisation of the voter register to catch cheats. (source: Daily Monitor) *** The death penalty should stay The recent Supreme Court judgment in Constitutional Appeal No 3/2006 Attorney General V Susan Kigula and 417 others implies that any time from now, 418 convicted murderers and robbers may walk out of prison as free men and women. The death penalty hanging over their heads has been rendered unenforceable since the sentences were not carried out within three years after being confirmed by the final court. Article 121(4) of the Constitution gives the President the prerogative to pardon a convict from the execution of the punishment imposed on him/her or to commute the sentence to a lesser one. The law does not impose a time limit within which the President is to exercise this prerogative. In imposing a 3-year limit in which to order execution or pardon of death row convicts, the Supreme Court has unduly impeded the exercise of the presidential prerogative of mercy. The President is being stampeded into releasing convicts who may not deserve to be released and ordering mass execution of convicts who may deserve leniency. He will be blackmailed into pardoning death row convicts for fear of being labelled a sadist if he orders daily executions and effectively the death penalty will be practically non-existent. It baffles me that self-appointed human rights activists always aggressively champion the pampering of criminals and not human rights and freedoms of innocent law abiding victims. Is this not being insensitive to the feelings of families of murdered victims, defiled babies, ritually murdered children and hard working citizens who are dispossessed of their property by thugs? Is national security, peace and stability less significant than the so called rights of criminals? Dont criminals have a duty to be law abiding and to respect the rights and freedoms of others? Should we continue to condemn self-help/mob justice? In man lies an amalgam of good and bad impulses constantly in conflict, the bad tending to prevail over the good. The death penalty is an indispensable restraint upon the forces of evil implanted in the minds of murderers, robbers and defilers. Ugandans aspire for peace, security of life and property. (source: Mariam Wangadya; The writer is former commissioner of the Uganda Human Rights CommissionNew Vision) YEMEN: Yemen appeal court upholds death, jail sentences for Shiites A Yemeni court of appeals on Monday upheld a death sentence for a Shiite rebel and jail terms for 12
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN.
Jan. 26 CALIFORNIA: Man charged with murder in homeless burning Prosecutors say a man has been charged with murder in the death of a homeless man who was set on fire. In the case filed Monday, 30-year-old Benjamin Matthew Martin is also charged with 1 count each of torture, arson causing great bodily injury and arson of property. Martin is expected to be arraigned later Monday. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against Martin, who is being held without bail in the death of 55-year-old John Robert McGraham on Oct. 9. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Governor Signs Death Warrant for Convicted Killer Governor Ed Rendell has signed an execution warrant for a man convicted of murder in Berks County. In 1993, Ronald Puksar was found guilty of 1st degree murder for killing his brother and sister-in-law. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the sentence in 1999 and an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was denied. Execution is set for March 26. (source: WFMZ News) ___ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MONT., OKLA., USA, , S.C., ALA.
Jan. 26 MONTANA: Group hopes to end death penalty When Marietta Jaeger Lane's youngest daughter was kidnapped from her tent during a family camping trip in Montana in 1973, Lane thought of the kidnapper and said "I could kill him with my bare hands and with a smile on my face." But when the kidnapper called her exactly 1 year after abducting 7-year-old Susie Jaeger, molesting her and strangling her, Lane talked kindly to him for over an hour. The man cried when Lane said she had been praying for him. That call and another led the FBI to find and arrest him. David Meirhofer confessed to murdering Susie and 3 other children. He hanged himself in his jail cell soon afterward. "The foundation of my Catholic faith let me survive," Lane told about 300 people on Sunday at a National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty conference at Holiday Inn Harrisburg East in Swatara Township. "God's idea of justice is not punishment but restoration. No matter how horrible this man was to my little girl, he was a son of God." Lane joined John Carr of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Sister Helen Prejean, the author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book "Dead Man Walking," at a news conference launching the Catholic Mobilizing Network to End the Death Penalty. That group will collaborate with established death penalty abolition organizations and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to inform the country's 67 million Roman Catholics about the moral and human reasons why capital punishment must be abolished, Carr said. "We can't teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill," Carr said. "We can't defend life by taking life. Every life is sacred." The death penalty is on the books in 36 states, including Pennsylvania, which has 228 inmates on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. Use of the death penalty peaked nationally in 1999 with 98 executions. Last year, there were 37 executions nationally. In 1981, Prejean became spiritual adviser to Patrick Sonnier, sentenced to die in Louisiana for murdering 2 teenagers. As she came to know Sonnier, other death row inmates and the families of murder victims, Prejean realized that the death penalty is inhumane, unjust, arbitrary and racist, and generally applied to those who are too poor to afford decent legal counsel. Her life changed when she accompanied Sonnier to his death. Prejean said that capital punishment erodes society's moral foundation. "We need to take the death penalty off the table and use life without parole," Prejean said. "We need to move from punishment and pain to restorative justice. Everyone is worth more than their worst act." Lane said it took her a while to learn that while dealing with the kidnapping of Susie, the youngest and most energetic of her five children. "Susie was a tomboy who would pretend to be a dog or Kimba the White Lion," she said. "She loved lambs and, in the end, was a sacrificial lamb. "She was very affectionate. The last time I saw her I went into the children's tent to kiss them all good night. She was too far away and I barely grazed her cheek. She got out of bed, came over, kissed me on the lips and said, 'That's the way it should be.'" 2 weeks after Susie's abduction, Lane watched authorities drag the river for her. Suddenly, rage and a desire for vengeance filled her soul. "I had every right to be angry," she said. "My little girl was taken away. When I told that to God, he seemed to say, 'That's not how I want you to feel.' So I said 'OK, God, I'll cooperate with you to move my heart from fury to forgiveness.' " She started by praying for Meirhofer, eventually praying that he would experience God's love. She told the FBI and prosecutor that when he was caught, he should get life in prison but not the death penalty. The night the kidnapper called Lane, he revealed details about the crime which ultimately allowed the FBI to solve the case. She learned that Susie had been killed on a remote Montana ranch a week after she disappeared. Lane later contacted Meirhofer's mother and found a devout Christian woman shocked that her son had a mental illness that made him a serial killer. "We hugged and wept in each other's arms, two heartbroken, grieving mothers who had lost their beloved children," she said. Susie would have turned 43 this year, Lane said. "To kill somebody in my little girl's name would be to violate and profane the goodness and sweetness and beauty of who she was," she said, "It's an insult to her memory. She needs something more befitting. Today, Susie celebrates life in the arms of God in a way I could never have given her." (source: The Patriot-News) OKLAHOMA: One good reason Marcus Evans (Opinion, Jan. 21) advocates ending capital punishment in Oklahoma. One good reason to support the death penalty in Oklahoma is Joshua Steven Durcho, if he is found guilty of the murder of Summer Rust and her four chil
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARIZ., MISS., GA., NEB., UTAH
Jan. 26 ARIZONA: Payne trial in February likely to draw an audience Christopher Payne had been set to go on trial beginning this week, but the judge moved it to Feb. 17 to give defense attorneys a little more time to prepare. Usually, the pretrial hearings have been attended by Payne's parents, a couple of reporters and the remaining few people being court staff or people helping the defense or state. Today, there were 4 spectators. One man said he knew Tyler and Ariana Payne and wanted to see jury selection. 3 other men also thought jury selection began today. This case was one of several that led to an investigation into Child Protective Services practices. If Payne is convicted, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The spectators left today before the hearing was over, one saying it wasn't interesting enough to stay (and I wondered, "How interesting do you think jury selection is?"). Assistant Public Defender John O'Brien, who represents Payne, argued strenuously today that he wanted Judge Richard Fields to allow the defense to videotape jurors being questioned. O'Brien said that he and his co-counsel, Rebecca McLean, wouldn't be able to take in all the nuances of prospective jurors' answers in "voir dire" questioning and the videotape would help them with inflections and gestures they might miss. O'Brien said the technology was "appropriately necessary" to protect Payne's constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury. Fields said he believed that jurors would be uncomfortable being videotaped and might behave differently if they knew they were being videotaped. And Fields asked why allow this when the media weren't allowed to photograph jurors? O'Brien suggested Fields tell jurors being videotaped was a normal part of the jury selection process and the reason the media can't photograph jurors is because it might taint the jury pool. Deputy County Attorney Susan Eazer objected to the videotaping, saying it isn't a "normal" part of the process and that O'Brien couldn't prove that jurors wouldn't alter their behavior on camera. O'Brien was making additional statements when Fields interrupted and made it clear he wouldn't allow videotaping of the jury selection process. Fields also denied a previous request from O'Brien to do individual questioning of jurors from the start. Eazer objected, saying the selection process would take too long. A large jury pool, perhaps 200 or more, will be given questionnaires to fill out first. Attorneys will then go through the questionnaires and eliminate jurors who have time conflicts or other answers to questions that would eliminate them. The remaining jurors would be brought in for questioning in court. Because it's a death penalty case, there will be three stages. The 1st, called the guilt phase, is like any other trial with testimony and evidence presented and jurors returning with a verdict (or being hung). If jurors convict Payne of 1st-degree murder, which is the only conviction that someone can be executed for, the aggravation phase will begin in which prosecutors will present evidence or ask jurors to consider evidence already presented, that would "qualify" Payne for the death penalty. If jurors say there aren't any aggravating factors, then Fields would impose a life sentence either with parole possible after 25 years or without parole. In this case, though, just the finding that the victims were very young qualifies Payne for death. If jurors find that any aggravating factor exists to call fo the death penalty, defense attorneys would begin the mitigation phase, in which they would present testimony and evidence intended to pursuade jurors that a death sentence isn't warranted. Then jurors would decide whether to sentence Payne to death. If they say death is warranted, the trial is over. If jurors say death isn't warranted, then Fields would later choose to sentence Payne to life in prison either without parole or with parole possible in 25 years. The trial is expected to take at least 4 weeks. (source: Tucson Citizen) MISSISSIPPI: Ala. man's death row case before Miss. high court The fate of condemned murderer Joseph Bishop Goff may depend on what happened with the victim's wallet. The Theodore, Ala., man was sentenced to death in George County in 2005 for the killing of Brandy Stewart Yates. He also got 10 years for arson for setting fire to the motel room where Yates' body was found. An attorney for Goff argued to the Mississippi Supreme Court on Monday that Goff's death sentence should be overturned because prosecutors didn't prove Yates' wallet was stolen during the crime. In Mississippi, capital murder is defined as murder committed along with the commission of another crime - in this case robbery. According to court records, Yates, of Irvington, Ala., had left her husband and 2 young children to be with Goff 3 weeks before her body was found at the Rocky Creek Inn in Lucedale on Aug. 27, 2004. A mote
[Deathpenalty] [POSSIBLE SPAM] death penalty news----TEXAS
Jan. 26 TEXAS: College student killer get reprieve A federal appeals court on Monday stopped this week's scheduled execution of a man condemned for abducting, raping and strangling a 19-year-old suburban Houston woman 10 years ago. Larry Swearingen, 37, faced lethal injection Tuesday evening for the death of Melissa Trotter, whose body was found Jan. 2, 1999, in the Sam Houston National Forest south of Huntsville. The discovery came 25 days after she was last seen leaving the library at Montgomery College near Conroe. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reprieve came in response to questions from Swearingen's attorneys about the timing of Trotter's death. Swearingen insisted he couldn't have killed the woman because he was in jail for outstanding traffic warrants when newly evaluated forensic evidence indicates her body was dumped in the woods not far from his home. Swearingen's lawyer, James Rytting, said he was told of the ruling by the court but hadn't seen it at midday Monday. "I can't jump up and down yet because I don't know what it says," he said. "I just don't know how long it's going to be before we have to go through this stuff again." Swearingen would have been the fourth condemned prisoner executed this year. 2 more executions are scheduled later this week in the nation's most active death penalty state. "This is unique," Swearingen told The Associated Press last week from death row last week. "How many cases happen after a defendant is in jail?" Prosecutors had opposed efforts by Swearingen's lawyers to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. Rytting contended deterioration of Trotter's body would have been much more severe than it was when found, raising the possibility somebody else dumped it in the woods. A medical examiner testified at Swearingen's trial in 2000 that she believed Trotter was killed the same day she disappeared. But seven years later, the coroner submitted an affidavit changing her opinion, basing her judgment on temperature data compiled by Swearingen's defense. The new opinion, also supported by other forensic experts, said Trotter's body was in the woods for considerably less than 25 days. The appeals court said Swearingen's due process rights were violated because prosecutors "sponsored the false or misleading testimony" from the medical examiner and that if she had been provided additional information from them she could have testified more accurately about the timing of the victim's death. The court, in returning the appeal to a federal district judge for review, also said Swearingen's trial lawyers should have better cross-examined the coroner and developed evidence from Trotter's body tissue. Judge Jacques Wiener Jr. wrote a concurring opinion "to address the elephant that I perceive in the corner of this room: actual innocence." "I conceive the real possibility that the district court to which we return this case today could view the newly discovered medical expert reports as clear and convincing evidence that the victim in this case could not possibly have been killed by the defendant," Wiener said. The judge, however, complained that under existing Supreme Court rulings, lower federal courts faced with actual innocence claims may have no choice but to deny relief to someone who is actually innocent. Wiener said the full 5th Circuit or the Supreme Court may want to clarify the issue and use Swearingen's case as the precedent. "Someone else killed the girl," Rytting said. "It's impossible (Swearingen) threw that body in the woods." Similar appeals pointing to forensic evidence discrepancies were rejected in state courts. State lawyers said temperature data cited by the inmate is not accurate for the crime scene because it was taken at airports miles away. Swearingen was arrested 3 days after Trotter was last seen. At his trial, he said Trotter met him at the college campus the day of her disappearance but they both left separately. Witnesses said she left the library with him. The 2 had met 2 days earlier at a Lake Conroe marina. Evidence showed Trotter was in Swearingen's trailer in Willis and in his pickup truck, where detectives found hair that had been forcibly pulled from her head. Another section of the pantyhose used to strangle Trotter was found in the trash outside Swearingen's trailer. Cigarettes found in his home matched the brand the victim smoked. Swearingen said his now ex-wife smoked the same brand. Cell phone records from the day Trotter vanished showed he was in the area where her body eventually was discovered. Swearingen had a history of at least 2 accusations of rape plus an allegation of assault on an ex-wife, but charges never were brought against him. He had a previous conviction for burglary when he was 18, for which he spent 3 days in jail and 3 years on probation. "I'm not a choir boy," he said. "Like everybody, I have skeletons in my closet. But being a knucklehead doesn't equate to b
