[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 28 INDIA: Home ministry says death penalty can't be abolishedThe Law Commission had recommended abolishing the death penalty except in cases related to terrorism The home ministry has rejected the Law Commission's recommendation of abolishing the death penalty except in cases related to terrorism. The commission's report in which the suggestion was made was forwarded to the ministry earlier last week by the law ministry for a decision since amendments to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) are in the jurisdiction of the former. The home ministry was of the view that at present the death penalty cannot be abolished, 2 ministry officials said on condition of anonymity. "We will also discuss the issue in detail with the law ministry over the next few days, but our view is clear that in the present situation, the death penalty should not be done away with," 1 of them said. "If required, we may seek some clarifications from the law ministry as well." The 10-member law panel headed by former Delhi high court chief justice A.P. Shah in its report submitted to the law ministry on 31 August had said: "While death penalty does not serve the penological goal of deterrence any more than life imprisonment, concern is often raised that abolition of capital punishment for terror-related offences and waging war will affect national security." While questioning the concept of awarding the death sentence in the rarest of rare cases, the commission observed: "After many lengthy and detailed deliberations, it is the view of the Law Commission that the administration of death penalty, even within the restrictive environment of rarest of rare doctrine, is constitutionally unsustainable. Continued administration of death penalty asks very difficult constitutional questions, these questions relate to the miscarriage of justice, errors, as well as the plight of the poor and disenfranchised in the criminal justice system." The home ministry, however, believes the death penalty acts as a deterrent, at least in cases of sensational crime. "The provision for death penalty in law has been kept for exceptional or extraordinary cases. For instance, if there is a gruesome case of rape and murder or an incident in which several members of a family are murdered for a property dispute or robbery," said the 2nd official cited earlier. "It is not just about terror-related cases only. The home ministry's view is that the time is not right to do away with the death penalty." The government should pay due heed to the Law Commission's recommendations as these have been made after the commission examined the issue in great detail, according to lawyer Yug Mohit Chaudhry. Capital punishment is a shameful remnant of a medieval age and has no place in a modern civilized society, Chaudhry said. At least 3 members of the law panel had given a dissent note, opposing the recommendation to abolish the death penalty. Law secretary P.K. Malhotra, legislative secretary Sanjay Singh and former judge Usha Mehra opposed the recommendation. Parliament in its wisdom has prescribed death penalty only in heinous crimes, Malhotra said in his dissent note. "The need of the hour is to retain it. We have a vibrant judiciary which is respected world over. We should have faith in the wisdom of our judges that they will exercise this power only in deserving cases for which the law is well laid down in various judgements," Malhotra noted. Similarly, Singh maintained that the panel should not recommend something that has the effect of preventing the state from making any law in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of the country. (soruce: livemint.com) ___ A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., VA., GA., MO., OKLA., KAN.
Sept. 28 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Addison attorney challenges death penalty lawMotion argues that death penalty is unconstitutional An attorney for New Hampshire's only death-row inmate is challenging the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law. In a recently filed motion, a lawyer for Michael Addison argues that the two methods of execution allowed by New Hampshire -- lethal injection and hanging -- violate the state and federal constitutions, including the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The attorney argued that the drugs needed for lethal injection are unavailable and would inflict pain and suffering. Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeff Strelzin said the state plans to file a response. Addison was sentenced to death for the 2006 killing of Manchester police officer Michael Briggs. The state Supreme Court upheld his sentence in April. David Rothstein, Addison's attorney, said he also plans to file an appeal of the case with the U.S. Supreme Court within the next month. New Hampshire's last execution was in 1939, and lethal injection was added as an execution method in 1986. The state has no designated facility for carrying out executions. Department of Corrections Commissioner William Wrenn has said the state may use a prison gymnasium to carry out Addison's execution rather than construct a costly new facility. In the motion, first reported by New Hampshire Public Radio, Rothstein argues it will be difficult for the state to obtain the drugs necessary to ensure that Addison is not subject to pain and suffering during his execution. Because New Hampshire has never put anyone to death by lethal injection, the state has not developed proper procedures or protocols, he argued. "A constitutional lethal injection process is dependent on the proper administration of the right drugs, in the right dosages, delivered by the right people, with the right safeguards," Rothstein wrote. State law says executions can be carried out by hanging if it is impractical to use lethal injection. Rothstein argues death by hanging "offends contemporary norms and standards of decency." The filing mentions recent executions in Ohio, Arizona and Oklahoma, where lethal injection procedures caused the people being put to death to gasp for air or writhe in pain. "These executions demonstrate that lethal injection ... poses an acute risk of intolerable suffering," the motion says. "The fact that these states have experience with lethal injection, and New Hampshire has none, is cause for even greater concern." Legislative efforts to repeal the death penalty over the past decade have failed. The debate over repeal in 2014 focused heavily on Addison, with repeal opponents arguing that it could jeopardize the state's ability to legally execute him. U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who prosecuted Addison while serving as attorney general, urged lawmakers not to repeal the death penalty. Both the House and Senate passed a repeal bill in 2000, but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, now a U.S. senator, vetoed it. (source: WMUR news) VIRGINIAimpending execution//foreign national Virginia Preparing to Execute 1st Inmate in Nearly 3 Years Virginia is poised to execute a convicted serial killer who claims he's intellectually disabled using lethal injection drugs from Texas because the state's supply of another controversial drug will expire the day before the execution is supposed to take place. Unless Gov. Terry McAuliffe or the U.S. Supreme Court steps in this week, Alfredo Prieto will be the 1st Virginia inmate to be executed in nearly 3 years Thursday. The El Salvador native was already facing execution in California for raping and murdering a 15-year-old girl when a Virginia jury sentenced him to death in 2010 for the 1988 killings of Rachael Raver and her boyfriend, Warren Fulton III. California officials agreed to send him to Virginia on the rationale that it was more likely to carry out the execution. Authorities have said DNA and ballistics evidence has linked Prieto to several other killings in California and Virginia but he was never prosecuted because he had already been sentenced to death. Matthew Raver, Rachael Raver's brother, said Prieto's seemingly endless efforts to delay his execution have felt like "salt in the wound" for his family, which remains devastated by his sister's death nearly three decades later. Matthew Raver plans to attend the execution at the Greensville Correctional Center. "I look forward to it as a relief that this individual ... and all his games, his plotting, his violence has ended," Matthew Raver said. But Prieto's lawyers are still fighting to prove that the 49-year-old is intellectually disabled and therefore disqualified for the death penalty. Prieto's exposure to violence in warn-torn El Salvador and a lack of proper nutrition because his family was poor contributed to "signif
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 28 INDIA: Delhi High Court awards life term to servant, commutes death penalty in double murder case Negating a local court ruling, the High Court on Friday commuted death penalty and awarded life term to a domestic help for murdering an elderly woman and her 12-year-old grandson here in 2007. In 2010, holding that the offence of Mithilesh Kumar Singh fell in the category of "rarest of rare" case, a Delhi Court had awarded death sentence to the accused. The court had on July 1, 2010 convicted him for the offences of murder, attempt to murder, robbery and for destroying evidence under the IPC. Singh, a resident of Samastipur in Bihar, had killed Karamveer (12) and his maternal grandmother Surjit Kaur, 60, in their house at Vasant Kunj in south Delhi on March 2, 2007. The convict, who was working as a domestic help, sedated their pet dog and killed them before decamping with valuables, and cash. He was apprehended with the help of Mehar Legha, 15, sister of the deceased boy. The girl, who was also attacked by the domestic help, had raised an alarm which led to the accused being apprehended. The girl was later honoured with the national bravery award in 2008. Besides Mehar, her mother Manjit Legha, a teacher of Delhi Public School, Noida, and her husband, a retired army officer, had also testified in the case. (source: Zee News) PAKISTANimpending juvenile execution Pakistan faces outcry over plans to execute 2 men - 1 disabled, the other a juvenile offenderLast week, Pakistan tried to kill wheelchair user Abdul Basit. This Tuesday, it will push ahead with the execution of Ansar Iqbal - who says he was 15 at the time of his arrest Pakistan is facing growing international condemnation over plans to execute 2 men - 1 thought to be a juvenile offender, the other severely disabled. Ansar Iqbal and wheelchair user Abdul Basit both face death by hanging, after their death sentences were upheld by the country's Supreme Court. Last week, it was reported that Mr Basit's death was delayed after his severe paralysis meant he would be unable to walk to the gallows, as is required by the jail's rules on carrying out executions. Now, the campaign group Reprieve says that Mr Iqbal's case involves a fundamental breach of Pakistan's commitments to international law. According to Reprieve, courts in Pakistan have refused to consider evidence from a birth certificate which appears to show that Mr Iqbal was 15 at the time of his arrest on murder charges in 1994. Like many in Pakistan, Mr Iqbal's birth was not registered at the time. He was issued a certificate earlier this year by Nadra, the National Database and Registration Authority - but court officials say it has come too late to be considered. Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, said: "It is a fundamental principle of Pakistani and international law that children should not be sentenced to death. "In Ansar's case, none of the documentary evidence of his juvenility that was presented to court was given proper consideration. Instead, the courts relied solely on an estimation of his age in the police record, and now Ansar faces death by hanging at dawn on Tuesday. "Pakistan has already executed at least three people convicted as children since December. On Tuesday morning they risk hanging another. The Pakistani authorities must stay this execution and allow a full examination of the evidence." (source: The Independent) *** Juvenile set to be hanged tonight in Pakistan Pakistani authorities are preparing to execute a man who was a juvenile at the time of his arrest, in the early hours of tomorrow morning (local time). Ansar Iqbal was arrested in 1994 on murder charges - which he denies - and sentenced to death in 1996, despite telling the court he was 15 at the time of his arrest. All the documentary evidence provided to the courts during his trial or appeal indicates that he was a child at the time of the alleged offence; however, the courts have chosen to believe the estimate of police officers that he was in his 20s. His scheduled hanging follows a recent Supreme Court hearing in which judges refused to consider a birth certificate issued by the country's official National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA). The certificate gives his date of birth as 25 December 1978 - confirming Iqbal's account that he was a 15 at the time of the alleged offence in June 1994. The execution of people who were children at the time of the alleged offence has long been banned under both international and Pakistani law. However, since resuming executions in December 2014, the country has seen at least 3 people executed who were children at the time of the alleged offence, alongside hundreds of others. The executions took place despite Pakistan's commitments to human rights standards set out in trade agreements with the European U
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., GA., OHIO, ILL., OKLA., USA
Sept. 28 VIRGINIAimpending execution//foreign national Virginia Plans For Thursday Execution The Commonwealth is scheduled to execute a man this week at its prison near Jarratt. 49-year-old Alfredo Rolando Prieto is slated to die at 9 p.m. Thursday at the Greensville Correctional Center. Prieto has been sentenced to die for the rape and murder of 22-year-old Rachel Raver and the murder of 22-year-old Warren Fulton, III. Those crimes were committed in Fairfax County. Raver and Fulton were last seen alive in December 1988. He's also been accused of the death of 24-year-old Veronica "Tina" Jefferson. Texas prison officials are helping Virginia carry out Prieto's scheduled Thursday night execution by providing the lethal drug pentobarbital. Prieto was born and spent part of his childhood in El Salvador. (source: WINA news) GEORGIAimpending execution Lawyers seek execution delay for woman on Georgia death row 1 day before she's set to be executed, lawyers for the only woman on Georgia's death row will appear in court to argue that her life should be spared. The hearing is set for Monday morning in a federal courtroom in Atlanta. Attorneys for 47-year-old Kelly Renee Gissendaner want Tuesday night's planned execution halted over concerns about lethal injection drugs the state plans to use. If the execution happens, Gissendaner will be the 1st woman executed by the state in 70 years. Gissendaner was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. Prosecutors said she conspired with her lover, Gregory Owen, who stabbed Douglas Gissendaner to death. Owen, who took a plea deal and testified against Gissendaner, is serving a prison sentence. (source: Associated Press) *** Judge To Hear Emergency Stay Request For Ga. Death Row Inmate A federal judge is set to hear an emergency request to stay the execution of Georgia death row inmate Kelly Gissendaner. Gissendaner's attorneys will ask federal Judge Robert Thrash to reconsider their Eighth Amendment argument. They contend the state has violated Gissendaner's constitutional rights by subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment with delays and postponements of her execution. In August, Judge Thrash heard and rejected that argument. WABE Legal Analyst Page Pate says it's unlikely the judge will come to the same decision. "I don't anticipate this new motion to really stop the execution," Pate says. "I think the judge will probably deny that motion because he's already considered the claims in the lawsuit and found them to be without merit." Gissendaner, who was sentenced for conspiring to kill her husband, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday. Her execution has been postponed twice, first because of weather, and then because of problems with the lethal injection drug. (source: WABE news) Georgia's secret lethal injection protocol wasn't always so mysterious Georgia plans to execute Kelly Gissendaner Tuesday, but many details of the lethal injection are top secret. Under a 2013 state law, Georgia corrections officials don't have to publicly identify the manufacturer of the execution drug, the compounding pharmacist who mixes the solution, or much of anything else. Georgia's lethal injections weren't always so secretive. In 2007, the state's chief medical examiner testified in open court about all the drugs then used for executions, the dosages and the effects on the condemned prisoner. Dr. Kris Sperry was an expert witness for the state of Florida when a death row inmate challenged that state's execution protocols after the botched lethal injection of another prisoner. When Florida executed Angel Diaz in December 2006, the procedure took a remarkable 34 minutes. The intravenous line that was supposed to feed the drugs into Diaz's bloodstream apparently was not properly inserted. The drugs leaked into the muscles of his arm and took far longer than usual to put him to death. The following day, anticipating a challenge from the next inmate scheduled for execution, Florida's attorney general hired Sperry - who frequently moonlights as an expert witness in forensic pathology - to help defend the state's procedures. In a hearing in Ocala, Florida, in July 2007, Sperry testified that Florida and Georgia used the same combination of drugs for lethal injection. The only difference, he said, was that Florida used heavier doses that would kill an inmate faster. The recipe for the lethal "cocktail," according to a transcript of Sperry's testimony: --Thiopental sodium, also known as pentobarbital. Florida administered 5 grams, while Georgia used 2, Sperry said. Any dosage of more than 400 milligrams would leave a person unconscious and in "respiratory depression," he said. "The brain would forget to breathe." --Pancuronium bromide. Florida's cocktail contained 100 mg, compared to Georgia's
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 28 INDIA: When It Comes To Terror, Law Commission Flinches At Its Own Findings The Law Commission's recommendations to abolish death penalty for all offences except terror has been much lauded - but the fact is that it has stepped back from its own conclusions about judicial arbitrariness In the global discourse on the gradual abolition of death penalty, the 262nd report of the Law Commission of India is going to be an important milestone, as it represents one-sixth of humanity. The Commission chief recommendation is that the death penalty be abolished in all cases except for terror cases and cases of waging war against the State often a concomitant charge in terror cases). Though not unequivocal in its rejection of capital punishment, it has concluded that the arguments against death penalty, even for terror cases, are substantial, and has called for 'a more rational, principled and informed debate on the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes.' This is important since in most debates about death penalty, its popular appeal as a befitting punishment for heinous crimes has for long prevailed over any reasoned argument against it. So much so that, the opponents of death penalty are often accused of sympathising with the perpetrators of horrific crimes rather than their victims. The phenomenon of terrorism has further stifled the debate, since those who challenge the rationale behind capital punishment can easily be labelled as 'traitors' in such cases. The doctrine of 'rarest of rare', laid down by the Supreme Court as a prerequisite in the case of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab in the year 1980, is the decisive factor for arriving at whether or not to award capital punishment in a case. The Law Commission, by examining several such cases in its report, has completely exposed the lack of a principled approach by the Supreme Court when it comes to following its own doctrine. An astounding revelation such as this - that the maximum punishment has been awarded arbitrarily - would have been sufficient for the higher courts in India to declare death penalty unconstitutional, since it violates the right to equality. The reason it has not happened is because of what may seem a technicality - the notion that fundamental rights given to the individual by the Constitution is against the state and not the judiciary, and therefore the judiciary cannot by definition violate these rights. This is why, despite having completely demolished the arguments in favour of death penalty as practiced by the courts, the Commission has pinned its hope on the legislature and not the judiciary for its abolition. Terror still the exception Nevertheless, the Commission's report quotes with approval the Supreme Court judgements in Shatrughan Chauhan v. Union of India (2014), where it said that devising a separate category for terror cases within 'rarest of rare' cases is flawed. This case relates to the issue of inordinate delay in the disposal of mercy petitions by the President of India or the Governors of State which are filed by or on behalf of the convicts condemned to death after the conclusion of the judicial process. The Court in this case had commuted the death penalty of several convicts to life imprisonment, citing that keeping convicts waiting for an unreasonably long period of time on their mercy petitions amounts to infliction of cruelty. In the same case, the Supreme Court declared its own earlier judgement, in the case of Devendar Pal Singh Bhullar v. (State) NCT of Delhi (2013), bad in law. In that case, the court had held that a person sentenced to death under an anti-terror law (in this case, TADA) cannot claim that his death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment on the ground of inordinate delay in the disposal of his mercy petition. The Supreme Court in Shatrughan Chauhan observed that 'all death sentences imposed are impliedly the most heinous and barbaric and rarest of its kind. The legal effect of the extraordinary depravity of the offence exhausts itself when court sentences the person to death for that offence.' Given how the Court has enunciated this principle, any attempt by the legislature to distinguish terror and non-terror offences so as to inflict death penalty is likely to be constitutionally vulnerable before a court of law. Unsound jurisprudence The Law Commission's recommendation to retain death penalty in terror cases is unsound also in terms of jurisprudence. Anti-terror laws reduce the threshold for the basis of conviction by making evidences otherwise not admissible under the Indian Evidence Act, admissible. For example, confessions made before the police-officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police are admissible under most anti-terror laws. Given such exemptions, there's a greater probability of innocents being convicted under these laws; all the more reason why the law must gua
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, ALA.
Sept. 28 TEXAS: Texas Prison Guard Union Urges Death Row Reforms In a move that surprised many in the prison reform community, the president of the local chapter of a Texas prison guards' union wrote a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on January 20, 2014, urging officials to introduce major reforms in the state's handling of death row prisoners. Lance Lowry, president of Huntsville's Local 3807 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), wrote the letter amid the TDCJ's review of conditions at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, where Texas death row prisoners are held. Prisoners at Polunsky are housed in solitary confinement, confined to their cells 23 hours a day. "Recreation" comes in the form of exercise 1 hour per day, alone in a dog-run type enclosure. Televisions are not permitted, nor are prisoners allowed to use the telephone or participate in education, work or religious programs. While a 3-tiered classification system allows some condemned prisoners a radio and occasional non-contact visits, all prisoners remain on death row until their execution or, in the rare case, release, for several decades on average. According to Lowry, the draconian conditions at Polunsky are a "knee-jerk reaction" to a 1998 escape from death row, in which convicted murderer Martin Gurule escaped only to drown in a stream nearby. 6 months later, the death row prisoners at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville were moved to Polunsky. "This has not been a positive thing for the inmates or the staff," Lowry said. "There has been increased aggression toward the officers." In his letter to the TDCJ, Lowry wrote that "staff incompetency and lack of proper security equipment" were the biggest factors in the 1998 escape. As a result, "the agency ignored the root of the problem," and in the current death row management model, "inmates have very few privileges to lose and staff become easy targets." The AFSCME letter called for greater privileges to be used as a management tool. Certain death row prisoners should be housed 2 offenders to a cell and [given] privileges such as work assignments and allowed TV privileges by streaming over-the-air television to a computer tablet using a closed Wi-Fi network." Lowry added, "Lack of visual r auditory stimulation results in increased psychological incidents and results in costly crisis management." A coalition of prisoners' rights advocates including mental health groups, religious organizations, security experts and civil rights activists also sent a letter to TDCJ officials urging similar reforms. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) said the TDCJ's current system of long-term solitary confinement causes suicide, depression, paranoia, psychosis and other anti-social behaviors. "Sticking with the status quo is alarming," stated NAMI policy coordinator Greg Hansch. TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark said the agency is "currently reviewing and updating the [department's] Death Row Plan." As of September 9, 2015, 6 women and 247 men were awaiting execution in Texas. (source: Prison Legal News) Texas Murder Trial Set to Resume After Shock Belt Used on Defendant Representing Self A Texas capital murder trial is set to proceed Monday - but the defendant has already experienced a very small taste of how an electric chair might feel: He was given a shock in court for refusing to comply with a judge's orders. James Calvert, 45, has represented himself in the possible death penalty case since 2012, when he was charged with killing his estranged wife and abducting their son. Calvert was outfitted with a shock belt after Judge Jack Skeen raised security concerns and said Calvert was acting erratically, Reuters reported. The belt was used when Calvert didn't follow a judge's order to stand up. Kathryn Kase, executive director of Texas Defender Service, told NBC News that Calvert appears to be mentally ill and shouldn't have been allowed to act as his own lawyer in the first place. "The Supreme Court has ruled: People with a history of mental illness are supposed to show a much higher level of competence to represent themselves," she said. It does not appear that Calvert has shown that level of competence, Kase said, adding that earlier in the trial, Calvert told the judge that all of his objections "will be phrased as 'foxtrot.'" "That's something that someone with mental illness does," she said. "That says to me, someone is losing their grip on reality." A sheriff's lieutenant told Reuters that the shock belt is used like a Taser, and it is less obvious to a jury than leg irons and handcuffs. It was unclear who ordered it to be used, Kase said. Skeen did not respond to interview requests on Sunday, and Reuters reported that he issued a gag order on the trial. After the shock was administered, Skeen told Calvert that would no longer be
