[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Dec. 14 CHINAexecution China executes mafia-style gang leader The leader and 2 core members of a mafia-style gang that terrorised people in southwest China's Kunming city were executed Tuesday, court officials said. Gang leader Jiang Jiatian, his mistress Yang Jufen and Xie Mingxiang were executed after the Supreme People's Court approved their sentences, said Ma Yukun, vice president of the Kunming Intermediate People's Court. Jiang, 58, made a fortune from drug trafficking in the mid-1990s and invested his earnings in at least 10 teahouses, Internet cafes and hotels in Kunming. He organized a gang of 41 members and nearly all of his businesses were used as dens for prostitution, extortion, racketeering, and the sale of drugs and counterfeit banknotes, Xinhua quoted Ma as saying. Jiang and other core gang members were sentenced to death by the Kunming local court in 2009, but the father of Jiang's mistress won a two-year stay of his execution after appealing. (source: IANS) ** US rights group: China executes about 4,000 people a year, half its previous rate China executes around 4,000 people a year, the most in the world but half the number it did before ordering Supreme Court reviews of all death penalty cases in 2007, a U.S. human rights group said Tuesday. Chinese officials revealed the decline in executions during a seminar with United Nations officials and international experts in the eastern city of Hangzhou earlier this month, the San Francisco-based Dui Hua foundation said in a statment. The group said the Chinese officials refused to say how many people were put to death annually but revealed the number fell 50 % after 2007. In 2006, state media and Dui Hua estimated there were 8,000 executions a year. The government says it is trying to ensure the death penalty is used less often and for only the most serious criminal cases. “China has made dramatic progress in reducing the number of executions, but the number is still far too high and declining far too slowly,” Dui Hui founder John Kamm said. Kamm also urged China to be more open with its execution statistics, saying that transparency would help China achieve its goal of eventually abolishing the death penalty. “When officials and the public know the full extent of the death penalty in China, abolition will be achieved more quickly,” he said. Chinese officials also revealed at the seminar that the Supreme Court currently overturns about 10 percent of the death sentences it reviews each year. The China Daily newspaper has reported the Supreme People’s Court overturned 15 percent of death sentences handed down in 2007 and 10% in 2008. (source: Associated Press) IRANexecution Drug trafficker executed in Iran A drug trafficker, convicted for selling 44 kg of heroin, was executed Tuesday in the Iranian city of Rasht. The Herana human rights agency said that with Tuesday's execution of the man named Mohammad Reza Tal, Iran has executed more than 600 people in the last 2 years. Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, US and Yemen are the countries that annually execute large number of people, according to human rights group Amnesty International. (source: IANS) SOUTH AFRICA: Apartheid prison becomes a historic site .By Crystal Van Wyk During the dark apartheid days, Pretoria's Central Prison was a place families and members of the then banned ANC avoided at all costs. It was a place where combatants who were found guilty of terrorism were sent to die. This week, hundreds of families of mostly political prisoners who were executed in the 1960's were allowed to visit the once feared prison. The gallows were dismantled in 1996 after the Constitutional Court abolished the death penalty. The refurbished gallows at Pretoria Central Prison have been out of use since 1989, the year of South Africa's last execution. This week, more than 200 family members were allowed to visit the brutal site to try and make peace with the past. South Africa has since the demise of apartheid in 1994 been hard at work to reconcile and make peace with its brutal past. Correctional Services Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, ordered that the gallows be restored and opened to the public to preserve its history. And according to the orrectional services, the Gallows Memorialisation Project is government's attempt to bring closure to the families of struggle cadres. Prison authorities say at least 4 300 prisoners were executed. It is estimated that at least 130 political prisoners were executed there. Among them were Umkhonto we Sizwe cadre, Solomon Mahlangu, who was hanged on April 9 1979. Mahlangu's death sentence sparked an international outcry, but even that was not enough to convince the apartheid government to spare his life. Mahlangu's brother, Lucas, said he was happy that the site is being turned into a museum. Several ANC veterans and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., OHIO, FLA.
Dec. 13 TEXAS: Mental illness does not provide automatic ticket off death row The rare occurrence While mental illness may frequently be used by defendants in the courtroom as a reason to escape execution, it’s rarely been an effective means to get off of death row once there. In fact, seldom — as in the case of a 1990 shooting outside a supermarket in Harris County — has mental illness been the determining factor in someone sentenced to die in Texas receiving a reduced sentence. “If it does happen, it’s certainly going to be a very, very low number,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. “For one thing, mental illness is not a very easy classification to achieve.” Mental illness, such as schizophrenia and manic-depression, is not to be confused with intellectual disability – or mental retardation. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 barred the execution of people with low intelligence scores. As a result, by 2008, 12 Texas inmates were given reduced sentences, five from Harris County, one from Liberty County. “When the courts come up with something new, that will affect some older cases,” said Roe Wilson, Harris County assistant district attorney. The biggest example of this came in 2005 when 12 inmates from Harris County ended up with reduced sentences after the high court ruled those under the age of 17 at the time they committed a capital crime could not be executed. The rare occurrence In 2004, a federal judge did hand down a ruling that resulted in a death row inmate’s mental illness constituting grounds for a new sentence. As a result, Theodore Goynes, who 14 years earlier gunned down a woman after she left a grocery store, received a life term. Even in this rare case, which only came about because Goynes’ mental problems had not been brought to light during his Harris County trial, there were extenuating circumstances. Goynes’ intellectual disability also was considered by the court with U.S. District Judge Sim Lake writing, “He (Goynes) is not retarded. He does, however, have low intelligence and a long history of mental illness.” Still, the reason Goynes’ sentence was reduced, at least technically, was that his mental illness was among the factors not presented to the court in the first place, Wilson said. “You can stand trial and have mental illness,” she added. “The possible mitigating evidence is presented by the defense as an argument for life rather than death.” On death row After arriving at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, death row inmates are placed in isolated cells in Livingston where they remain 23 hours a day. Spokesman Jason Clark said that doesn’t mean they go without standard mental tests and physical exams, though. “An individual could be sent to a psychiatric facility within TDCJ as a result of mental problems,” Clark said. “When the doctor determines the inmate is well enough to be sent back (to death row), he is.” In part due to privacy guidelines, a listing of inmates on the TDCJ website who were formerly on death row does not cite reasons why many of the 202 have been reclassified since 1974. Of those with listed reasons, 40 died behind bars, 25 convictions were reversed or overturned and 74 were re-sentenced to life. While many of the reduced sentences resulted from the high court ruling concerning minors, 99 inmates, not counting those with intellectual disabilities, were given life terms without a listed reason. However, no record can be found of an inmate’s permanent transfer from death row due to a mental illness diagnosed after arriving at TDCJ. This would seem to debunk a commonly held belief outside the prison walls. “I think people are worried about faking in court and afterward,” said Kathryn Kase, interim executive director of the nonprofit Texas Defender Service in Houston, a group that handles death penalty cases in an effort to expose flaws in the system. In Texas, unlike many states, at some stages of the proceedings mental competency is decided by a jury rather than a presiding judge. Both defense and prosecution lawyers present evidence largely from psychiatrists and psychologists. Incompetency at prison? Kase said there have been cases involving capital murder convictions in which severe mental problems were not brought up, even during the appeals process. In other cases, symptoms of schizophrenia did not become apparent until after the imprisonment began. The Supreme Court has held that all defendants must be examined to make sure they understand why they are facing the death penalty. Later, in the case of convictions, they must know why they are being executed. However, the high court also acknowledged “rational understanding” is difficult to define. “Competency is fluid,” Wilson said. “You can become competent one year and incompetent the next. Those cases are pretty rare.” She
