[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., ALA., LA., OHIO, NEB.
March 21 GEORGIA: Media-savvy campaign pushes clemency for Gissendaner Though a variety of factors may be keeping Kelly Gissendaner alive, the local supporters who have waged a savvy media campaign on her behalf may be one of the most influential, drawing national attention. The execution of Gissendaner, the only woman on Georgia's death row, was delayed in late February because of a winter storm. A 2nd try in early March was cancelled when the drug that was to be used to kill her didn't look right. Her supporters are asking for a federal stay while state execution procedures are investigated. Gissendaner was convicted of the 1997 murder of her husband. She had persuaded her boyfriend to kill Douglas Gissendaner, and the boyfriend later testified against her. Since then, she has graduated from a theology program operated by a consortium of divinity schools in the Atlanta region and earned encomiums from guards, chaplains, and teachers alike as a powerful example of religious conversion. Her case has drawn attention not only from progressive death penalty opponents, but also from mainstream evangelical media outlets like Christianity Today and other believers with high media profiles. Using a multifaceted blend of digital outreach and old-fashioned local networking, her supporters turned a story that had already engaged many volunteers, both inside and outside Lee Arrandale State Prison, into a national clemency campaign. Who knows why one thing gets social media attention and another doesn't? asked Mark Oppenheimer, who described Gissendaner's relationship with famed German theologian Jurgen Moltmann in a New York Times column the same week the Georgia parole board denied her clemency. She's a Christian in the South, and that goes far, Oppenheimer added. It wins a lot of people's empathy and it's attractive to the media. It's easier to rally around a Christian than an atheist on death row. We were really expecting clemency to go through, said activist Melissa Browning, who teaches contextual theology at Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology. But when that didn't happen - 2 requests for clemency have been denied at this point - Browning and others were prepared with a full-court press to save Gissendaner. Between her 2 scheduled execution dates, supporters had uploaded essays to the Huffington Post, launched a popular Twitter hashtag, and worked alongside the nonprofit Faith in Public Life to recruit 1,000 religious leaders to sign a clemency petition. Another petition, at www.groundswell-mvmt.org, attracted about 84,000 signatures in 2 days, Browning reports. Browning says that a number of conservative Georgia faith leaders and congregants (many of whom are death penalty supporters) have been advocating a life-without-parole sentence - on the condition that their names not be made public. Part of the reason the campaign became a national one, says Mercer professor David Gushee, was that Gissendaner put a face and narrative to what might have been an abstract story. Any system in which they are locked away, and the general public never sees them again, human beings become invisible, he said. Now, many people know Gissendaner and her story. For Browning, who has about 700 Twitter followers, the days before Gissendaner's 2nd execution date were an intense and fast education in creating social-media buzz. It was a huge factor, she said, because we did get information out and we got it out quickly. Social media expands the circle of abolitionists, said Stephen Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. More and more people become involved, engaged on the issue or by a case. Some may not stay involved, but some will. As Dear pointed out, the furor over Gissendaner takes place in a national environment in which death penalty cases have been on the decline. After posting an open letter to Georgia's Christian citizens on Baptist News Global, Gushee watched as his impassioned indictment against the death penalty, threaded with scriptural allusions, was shared hundreds of times on Twitter and thousands more on Facebook. It certainly was a very loud campaign, and it would have been impossible for the decision-makers not to notice it, he said. Activists now wait to see if their pleas will make a difference, rippling beyond a state in which there are numerous ties among death penalty opponents across party lines. To me, it's interesting how few clergy and theologians speak about the death penalty, Oppenheimer said, and how strong a consensus there is among conservative evangelicals that it's acceptable. ... The question is whether that will ever change. (source: The Philadelphia Inquirer) * Death penalty case may be derailed by employee's sexting A Fulton County death penalty case could be derailed because of the inappropriate actions of one county employee.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
March 21 GLOBAL: Amnesty International to release annual death penalty report on April 1 On April 1, Amnesty International will be lauching this 2014 report on death penalty developments and statistics from across the globe. The report is likely to cover the key global trends in the use of the death penalty in the past year, and it will look at how executions and death sentences increased and decreased in all countries. Amnesty International has been campaigning for the abolition of death penalty at global level. (source: sikhsiyasat.net) THAILAND: Death penalty for son convicted for killing parents and brother The Thonburi Criminal Court has sentenced the youngest son to death by execution following his conviction for the last year's murder of his father, mother and older brother. The judicial ruling cited prosecution evidence to find Kittinan Toei Homchong, 23, guilty of hiring 4 accomplices to kill his entire family in order to become a sole heir to inherit his father's estate, including Bt100-million plot. Kittinan recanted his confession given to police and denied all charges during trial. He got the mandatory capital punishment for the premeditated murder of biological parents and sibling. The 4 accomplices, including the gunman, also received death penalty before the court cited their confession as grounds for punishment reduction to life imprisonment. The murder took place last April at the Homchong family's home in Bang Khae district. The father, retired military officer Colonel Wichai, the mother, teacher Wanida and their oldest son, police officer Lieutenant Thammanat, were all shot in the head. The scene was tampered with to make it appear like a break-in. Kittinan said his brother's Bt53, 000 cash was missing. He also claimed to have an alibi for staying at his friend's home during the incident. Police found his statement and that of his friend, Sakkarin Golf Phankul, 23 to be suspicious and incoherent. Confronted with his conflicting statements, Sakkarin admitted he wanted to help Kittinanto gain access to the inheritance. He said Kittinan gave the key for the gunman to get into his home. His confession led to Kittinan's initial confession and the arrests of gunman Sirichai Permpoonsak, 43, taxi driver Chalard Thiangtham, 53 and look-out man Surapong Chuphan, 47. (source: thaivisa.com) INDONESIA: Attorney general says no change in execution plan The attorney general reaffirmed here Friday that a plan to execute drug convicts on death row has not been put on hold, although no exact date has been set for its implementation. I have said that judicially it was close to the final stage, but new developments have emerged after several of the death convicts directly or through lawyers filed for appeals, Attorney General HM Prasetyo noted. 5 convicts have filed suits for a judicial review. They include Martin Anderson from Ghana, Mary Jane from the Philippines, and Serge Areski Atlaoui from France. 2 Australian death convicts Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are also appealing against the Presidential Decrees that rejected their clemency pleas. Prasetyo remarked he should respect the ongoing legal processes, although they were already close to the final stage in terms of technical aspects. We have to be patient and wait for certain non-judicial processes, he added. He pointed out he will not act arbitrarily and will still give an opportunity (for them to seek legal avenues), though their efforts are useless because their clemency requests have already been turned down. No other legal avenues can be taken. The only question is when to implement the death penalty, he noted. The attorney general explained that similar to the 1st round, the executions will be carried out simultaneously as planned.(*) (source: Antara News) Brazilian death-row drug convict mentally fit for execution: Attorney General Attorney General M. Prasetyo said on Friday that Brazilian death-row drug convict Rodrigo Gularte was mentally fit enough to be executed. According to testimonies from fellow inmates and doctors, Rodrigo is not sick at all. This means there's nothing stopping us from executing him, he said at the Attorney General's Office in South Jakarta. Prasetyo repeated previous statements that the law only prohibited the government from executing pregnant women and children under 18 years of age. Previously, Yeni Rosa Damayanti of the Association of Healthy Souls called on the government not to execute Gularte because his medical records showed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia back in 1996. Medical reports obtained by The Jakarta Post reveal that Gularte attended psychiatric appointments from March to November 1996 at the Clinica Quinta do Sol in Brazil, where he was prescribed antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, CALIF., USA
March 21 UTAH: Defense attorney will focus on mitigating factors in effort to spare murderer the death penalty After a jury found him guilty for a 2nd time Wednesday for the 1985 murder of Ogden woman Joyce Yost. Douglas Lovell's life is in the hands of those same jurors. Douglas Lovell has been convicted for the 1985 murder twice now. First back in 1993 and again on Wednesday. He has defined himself as a burglar, said Jeffrey Thomson, a deputy Weber County Attorney. He's a convicted burglar. He's a convicted robber. He's a convicted kidnapper. He's a convicted rapist, and he's a convicted murderer. In the prosecution's opening statement during the sentencing phase, they quoted Lovell from a confession to his ex-wife in which he admitted he knew what he had done was punishable by death. Thomson said, quoting Lovell: 'Capital murder is the worst thing you can do, probably the death penalty. I committed a 1st-degree felony to cover up another felony, it's the death penalty.' Those words, all of those words, were his words. Lovell pleaded guilty to killing Yost back in 1985, saying he did so to keep her from testifying that he had kidnapped and raped her. Lovell's 1993 plea was part of a deal to keep him off death row, on the condition he led police to Yost's body. But Yost's body was never found, and a judge sentenced Lovell to die by lethal injection. In 2011, the Utah Supreme Court overturned the conviction. But his defense has never challenged his guilt. Nothing that we present to you is intended to be a smoking gun, Defense Attorney Michael Bouwhuis said. You aren't going to hear anything that's going to make you say, 'I get it. I understand why he raped and murdered this woman.' You're not gonna hear anything like that. Instead, in the sentencing phase, the defense said they plan to focus on mitigating factors like Lovell's family history and good behavior in prison. It's intended to provide you with a reason not to kill him, Bouwhuis said. Greg Roberts, the son of Yost, was the 1st witness called to testify Friday. He said, I'm haunted by a lot of guilt for leaving her unprotected. Roberts was away at college in Virginia in 1985 when his mother, who was just 39 at the time, was murdered. The last time a death sentence was imposed in Utah was in 2008. The penalty phase of the trial will resume Monday. (source: Fox News) ** Utah Representative Scared of Grandma's Opinions on the Death Penalty Utah lawmakers passed a bill last week that would allow the state to bring back the firing squad for executions if lethal-injection drugs were not available. The governor, Republican Gary Herbert, has until April 1 to decide whether it should become law - and he's leaning toward signing it. Utah currently has 8 inmates on death row and no lethal injection drugs. However, Herbert also said that it was unlikely firing squads would even be used if the law were passed, as the state is trying to procure the drugs. The debate is really more than just the firing squad, he told reporters yesterday. It's should we have capital punishment or not? Many states have considered alternative execution methods in recent months, as drug companies here and abroad have grown more reticent to be associated with death. Utah is the 1st state to come this close to changing the law, however, and death-penalty opponents have flooded the governor's office with calls and comments in the past week. Since late January, Herbert has received at least 433 emails on the legislation; 396 opposed it, with many coming from a campaign started by the American Civil Liberties Union, according to the Associated Press. Many of them were from out of state, coming from places as far away as New Zealand. A petition with 6,200 signatures opposing the measure was also sent to the governor's office by Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. One man from Seattle threatened to never again come to Utah to ski if this barbaric execution style is used again in your state. However, the office contends that they received far more comments over previous legislative fights concerning issues like same-sex marriage. Republican Representative Paul Ray, who wrote the legislation, says most of the response he has received has been positive. Others offered alternative methods of execution - one senior citizen from Florida explained how the state might want to create a death chamber. She scared me, Ray told the AP. I'm glad she's not my grandmother. Oklahoma's House recently passed a bill that would allow nitrogen hypoxia executions if lethal injection were declared unconstitutional. Last year, Oklahoma used a relatively untested cocktail of lethal-injection drugs in an execution, given shortages. It took more than 40 minutes for the man sentenced to die to stop breathing. The executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center told the
