[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., FLA., TENN.
Aug. 15 TEXAS: Death penalty foes to hold vigil Aug. 26 The Lubbock chapter of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty will host a vigil from 5:45-6:15 p.m. Aug. 26 at the corner of University Avenue and 15th Street, in front of St. John's United Methodist Church. The prayer vigil will coincide with a scheduled state execution of a prison inmate. The public is invited. (source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal) Former Texas DA an opponent of death penalty Advocates looking for a death penalty opponent would be hard-pressed to find one more convincing than Texas lawyer Tim Cole. Currently Cole, who has recently made headlines in his home state for speaking out publicly against capital punishment, is a Fort Worth-based criminal defense attorney. But for 14 years, Cole was the district attorney in rural North Texas (he spent time as assistant DA before and after he served in that elected position). 20 years a prosecutor, Cole has tried 36 murder cases, he tells me in a phone interview. Of these, he says, 3 were death penalty cases. In another case (not one that he tried), he granted a request from a childhood acquaintance - to die on his birthday. Texas is, perhaps, one of the least likely places to find a prosecutor, even a former one, willing to speak out publicly against capital punishment. Since 1976, according to statistics kept by the Death Penalty Information Center, the state far outstrips any other in executions with 527 inmates put to death. By contrast, Pennsylvania has executed 3 people over that same period. If you want to have an erudite conversation about shades of legal gray, Cole doesn't seem like your guy. As recounted in a wrenching essay in the Texas Monthly (about a decades-old murder trial that still troubles him), Cole became known for his uncompromising stances. As a young prosecutor, he had a man sentenced to a 45-year prison term for stealing a tractor. But the DA who had few qualms about imposing tough sentences, and an evident and profound respect for justice, had never been a death penalty advocate, he says, because "it left life and death in one person's hand." Interestingly, it is in part the lack of clear criteria for capital punishment cases that bothered Cole - where he might view a certain crime as death-penalty-eligible, the DA in the next county over would look at the same set of circumstances and come to a different conclusion. "It became pretty obvious that the death penalty is arbitrarily decided" depending on the county and the prosecutor, he says. In addition, says Cole, capital punishment cases can be ruinously expensive. "The increased cost of the death penalty is enormous" he says, noting that in Montague County, an area with few economic resources, the commissioners had to raise the tax rate on the heels of a death penalty prosecution. Like others during the 1990's, when DNA evidence began to be widely available and used in trials, the numbers of exonerations jumped - and it became evident that testimony had sometimes been tainted, both by the use of jailhouse "snitches" and the poor judgment of a few prosecutors. "It just showed that we prosecutors had it wrong more often than we thought," says Cole. "Personally I don't believe keeping the death penalty is worth the execution of an innocent person. We can correct incarceration. We can't bring someone back to life." In addition, suggests Cole, political considerations, and the grief of the victim's family, may affect a prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty or a less final sentence. Now, he says, prosecutors seem to be seeking death penalty verdicts less often, suggesting to him that it's seen as more acceptable to make the choice of life without parole. (Texas was one of the last states to adopt that as a possible sentence, he says). Last February, Cole was the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Texas Coalitions to Abolish the Death Penalty." Though he's not surprised that he hasn't heard from his former colleagues in DA's offices across the state, he's got a hunch that some of them agree that capital punishment is both exceedingly expensive and a long drawn-out process (on average in Texas, an inmate can spend 12 years on death row before he or she is executed, he says). "As a nation we are moving away from the death penalty," says Heather Beaudoin one of the national coordinators for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of the criminal justice reform group Equal Justice. Beaudoin, who comes from a conservative religious background, works particularly closely with evangelicals. "The more we know about the death penalty, the more public opinion has shifted away from it," she says. "It's just not worth it anymore." While Cole also emerged from a solidly conservative religious background, he says that in the case of capital punishment, it's not religious co
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., COLO., CALIF., USA
Aug. 15 INDIANA: Convicted murderer Wayne Kubsch's bid for new trial rejected A federal appeals court panel has rejected a bid for a new trial by convicted murderer Wayne Kubsch, who is on death row for a triple slaying in Mishawaka in 1998. Kubsch was sentenced to death for the murders of his wife, Beth Kubsch, 31; her ex-husband, Rick Milewski, 35; and their 10-year-old son Aaron Milewski, who were found dead in the basement of their Mishawaka home in September 1998. Prosecutors say Kubsch was heavily in debt and killed his wife to collect on a $575,000 life insurance policy he'd taken out on her. His 1st conviction in 2000 was overturned before a 2nd jury in 2005 also convicted him and recommended the death penalty. Kubsch appealed his sentence, calling it unconstitutional because evidence was excluded. (source: South Bend Tribune) COLORADO: What does it take to get death penalty? What does it take? What does it take in the state of Colorado to give someone the death sentence? A man planned to murder as many people as possible at a soft target and chose a theater, knowing that all or most of the people there would not be armed and it would be difficult for people to get away. Then he does exactly that, killing numerous people, including a young child, and wounding several more. Yet a juror or jurors did not give him the death penalty. Instead he will be given room and board for life at the tax payer's expense. Why? What was in the mind(s) of the juror or jurors who could not bring themselves to give this evil person the death sentence? Was it the sobs of the assassin's mother? What about the sobs of the family members of the victims? Or maybe it was because none of the victims were family members or friends of said juror(s). Maybe not enough people were killed or wounded by this murderer. How many does it take - 25, 50, 100? It should take only 1 murdered victim for a jury to give someone the death sentence. Or maybe the crime wasn't heinous enough. Does a murderer have to use a bomb that kills indiscriminately and scatters body parts over several hundred feet for a jury here to give someone the death sentence? Thank God the Boston Marathon bombing trial didn't take place here! In the state of Colorado, not only can you smoke marijuana, but you can also commit mass murder and not get the death sentence. What more could you want? I want someone to please tell me. What does it take? Ken Miller Colorado Springs (source: Letter to the Editor, Gazette Springs) CALIFORNIA: California defense attorney, 3 state highway police arrested for murder Arrests Murder California Police Lawyers A California defense attorney and 3 state highway patrol officers were arrested on Friday in connection with the 2012 killing of a man thought to be stealing scrap metal and other items from private property, police said. A total of 9 people were arrested near the city of Modesto, about 92 miles (68 km) east of San Francisco, on a string of charges related to the murder of 26-year-old Korey Kauffman, according to the Stanislaus County sheriff's office. Criminal defense attorney Frank Carson, who last year made an unsuccessful run for Stanislaus County district attorney, was named as ringleader of the plot and charged with 1st degree murder, conspiracy and the special circumstance of lying in wait, which could qualify for the death penalty under California law. The probable cause arrest warrant describes Carson as an easy-to-anger property owner with no respect for law enforcement who was hoping to send a message to thieves targeting his belongings. Carson accused Kauffman of stealing items from a property he owned in Turlock, where he stored antiques, scrap and cars. Kauffman was known locally for "scrapping," or stealing metal to sell to recyclers, according to the Sacramento Bee. Carson had complained to authorities about his missing property and had confronted Kauffman, who did not deny his involvement, the arrest documents said. Kauffman went missing in March 2012. His remains were found by hunters in a remote area of Mariposa County in August 2013. Witnesses said he was beaten to death. Among those arrested on Friday were Carson's wife, her daughter, and 3 other associates. Carson's attorney told the Sacramento Bee his client looked forward to fighting the allegations in court and clearing his name. California Highway Patrol officer Walter Wells also faces charges of murder, conspiracy and false imprisonment. It was unclear how he intended to plead. He could not immediately be reached for comment. According to the arrest documents, Kauffman's body was dumped in the woods by a police car, witnesses told investigators. 2 other officers, Scott McFarlane and Eduardo Quintanar Jr., were charged with criminal conspiracy and being an accessory. The 2 officers could not immediately be reached for comment
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Aug. 15 IRAN: At least 32 prisoners executed in past few weeks The machinery of execution and torture in clerical regime is running non-stop and claims victims from people of different cities. In addition to the brutal execution of Sirvan Najavi, the Kurdish political prisoner who was hanged on August 9 by the regime's henchmen in Tabriz, the streets and lanes and various prisons in the country were the scene of the hanging of prisoners. On August 9 2 young men, 24 and 25 years old, were executed in Hafez Circle in the city of Mashhad. On August 3, a prisoner was executed in public in Eghlid in Fars province. On August 10 a female prisoner named Fatemeh Haddadi, 39, mother of an 8 year old girl, was hanged in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj. Earlier, Paridokht Mowlaee, 43, mother of a child, had been hanged on July 29 in Ghezel Hesar Prison after having been transferred from the consultation hall of Varamin's Gharechak Prison. Execution of 3 prisoners, on August 12 in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, execution of a Kurdish 20-year-old prisoner in the central prison of Sanandaj and the hanging of a 27-year-old prisoner, Hossein Bozorgnejad, in the central prison of Esfahan on August 4, the hanging of seven prisoners in prisons of Rafsanjan and Yazd August 4, the execution of Mansour Yousefi, a Kurd prisoner on August 3 in Orumiyeh prison, and the execution of 3 prisoners at the central prison in Rasht on August 1, and mass execution of 10 prisoners on July 28 in the central prison of Qom, are among the crimes that have been published in recent days passing through the wall of repression and censorship of the regime. In the meantime the cruel punishment of amputation of hand and foot of 2 prisoners in the central prison of Mashhad was carried out. (State media, August 3). Amnesty International, referring to the shocking statistics of 700 executions in the 1st 6 months of the year, in a statement on July 23 said: "Iran's staggering execution toll for the 1st half of this year paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale." Religious fascism ruling Iran that the Iranian people call "The Godfather of ISIS", in the face of rising public discontent and hatred, continually increases the dimensions of execution and torture and suppression. (source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran) EGYPT: Egypt's deposed president Mursi appeals death sentence: lawyer. The court-appointed legal team representing deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Mursi filed an appeal on Saturday at the country's highest court challenging sentences of life imprisonment and death handed down in June, Mursi's lawyer said. The Cairo criminal court sentenced Mursi to death over a mass jail break during the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak as well as life imprisonment for giving state secrets to Qatar. It also issued sweeping punishments against the leadership of the Musim Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamic group. The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and 4 other leaders were also handed the death penalty. More than 90 others, including influential cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi, were sentenced to death in absentia. The sentences were part of a crackdown launched after an army takeover stripped Mursi of power in 2013 following protests against his rule. Hundreds of Islamists have been killed and thousands arrested. The government has declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group and has accused it of fomenting an Islamist insurgency since Mursi's removal, but the group has said it is committed to political change through peaceful means only. Mursi has not appointed a lawyer to defend himself and has refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court proceedings, saying he remains the legitimate president of the country. The government has said the judiciary is independent and it never intervenes in its work. (source: Reuters) INDIA: A hanging in India Yakub Memon, a chartered accountant and the brother of a notorious gangster now living in self-imposed exile, was hanged for complicity in the planning and execution of serial bomb blasts that killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993. The hanging, India's 1st in 3 years, has prompted reactions ranging from dismay to scarcely concealed bloodlust. And it has intensified the domestic debate over the death penalty. To be sure, no one suggests that India's judicial system did not function properly in Memon's case. He was convicted according to due process of law, and his punishment was in accordance with valid statutes. During his 21 years behind bars, Memon exhausted every possible appeal available to him, including one for presidential clemency. The Supreme Court even held an emergency hearing at 2:30 in the morning, just hours before the execution was set to occur, before deciding to allow i
