[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 24 PAKISTAN: Schizophrenia and our Supreme Court The recent furore which followed the Supreme Court judgment regarding schizophrenia is not without cause: The Court has concluded that since schizophrenia is "not a permanent mental disorder', it is "therefore, a recoverable disease, which, in all the cases, does not fall within the definition of 'mental disorder' as defined within the Mental Health Ordinance, 2001." This judgment was passed in a petition filed by death-row prisoner Imdad Ali's wife to delay his execution on the grounds that he was mentally ill and therefore be allowed time to get medical treatment to be able to prepare his will. SC upholds death penalty for mentally ill man Ali, from Burewala district of southern Punjab, was awarded death sentence in 2002 in a murder case. The latest petition must be distinguished from his earlier appeal against the death sentence which was dismissed by the Supreme Court in October 2015 and the mercy petition which was dismissed by the President in November 2015. The judgment in the present Supreme Court case followed the dismissal of the same request in the Lahore High Court in August of this year and is based on the Court's understanding of schizophrenia. It is unfortunate that the Mental Health Ordinance, though dealing in large part with the management of the property of those suffering from a mental disorder, does not make any reference to the manner in which such a person can make a will. However, that lacuna is not the source of current public dismay. Instead the reason is the glaringly obvious failure of the judgment in deeming it "appropriate to ascertain what schizophrenia is" and then failing to take into account any universally accepted medical definition of the illness. Rather than looking at diagnostic tools - such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems - for guidance, the Court chose to rely on the dictionary meaning of the disease in New Webster's Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam Webster's online dictionary, among others. This lapse was highlighted by a group of doctors in their open letter to President Mamnoon Hussain titled "Save Imdad; Schizophrenia is a chronic and debilitating disease". Rights group urges Pakistan not to hang mentally ill man In addition, the judges extrapolated upon two Indian cases from 1977 and 1988, the latter of which reached the jaw-dropping conclusion that "I do not use the word 'schizophrenia' because I do not think any such disease exists...". In fact, it is worth noting that the case judgment from 1988 (AIR 1988 SC 2260) was given in the context of a dissolution of marriage. So not just is that judgment almost 3 decades old, but it also dealt with circumstances which had less at stake than the current case, in which the outcome determines whether an individual's right to life will be upheld or not. There is no doubt therefore that Ali's case requires deeper scrutiny than simply a repetition of an apparently dismissive and uninformed judgment from 1988. This is especially true when looked at it in the context of the advances that medical sciences have made in recent years in relation to understanding mental illness in general and schizophrenia in particular. In short, therefore, it is clear that the Court gave its binding judgment on what schizophrenia is without taking into account the years of medical research that have gone into doing just that. The consequence of the judgment's reliance on non-medical definitions and outdated judgments was the conclusion that its lack of permanence meant that schizophrenia did not fall within the statutory definition of mental disorder. This is worrying on 2 fronts: Firstly, that it is now internationally acknowledged by medical science that the condition is in fact largely permanent, with medication only being able to manage but not cure the disease. Secondly, the requirement of permanence, on which the judgment heavily relied, is not actually a statutory requirement. "Mental disorder" in the Ordinance is defined, not with a single definition, but as covering a spectrum of mental illnesses, from mental impairment, severe personality disorder to severe mental impairment. While the definition of one of these 3 types, namely severe personality disorder, requires there to be a "persistent disorder or disability of [the] mind", the other 2 defined types of mental disorder do not make any reference to the requirement of permanence at all. Even further, the Ordinance provides a catch-all provision to include "any other disorder or disability of mind". The bottom line is that for the Supreme Court to determine that a recognised and admittedly severe mental illness does not fall within the wide definition in the Ordinance is clearly to misconstrue Parliament's intentions. In any
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., Neb., USA
Oct. 24 TEXAS: She watched her husband get sentenced to death. Now she's becoming a lawyer to save him and others. When her boyfriend Juan Balderas was sentenced to death in March 2014, Yancy Escobar Balderas couldn't understand what was happening. She sobbed uncontrollably as the lawyers she believes failed her soon-to-be husband walked out of the courtroom. 2 1/2 years later, on a Saturday earlier this month, Yancy sat in a classroom at the University of Houston, dressed in a smart suit, holding her new, hard-earned paralegal certificate. Yancy - a 29-year-old immigrant from El Salvador who is the 1st from her family to graduate from high school - is turning her experience of marrying a death row inmate into a powerful motivation to become a lawyer and help defend other people facing capital punishment. "After sitting through this trial, seeing the injustices in Juan's case, I want to do something where I can make a change in the system, in people's lives," she told me this week. Yancy and Juan, who went to the same middle school, started dating when they were 14 and 15. Her family emigrated from El Salvador, and she was undocumented when she was brought to the U.S. at age 6. (She's now a U.S. citizen.) Theirs was a pretty typical childhood romance: Yancy remembers holding Juan's hand in church, and him getting all dressed up to meet her mother. "We would just talk every day on the phone, and he would always try extra to make me happy," she said. "He was my best friend." The 2 grew up in a rough neighborhood on the edge of Houston's suburban sprawl. Juan, who had done time in juvenile detention, was involved with a street gang of 18- and 19-year-olds known as La Tercera Crips. Yancy says he was trying to avoid the group, go to college, and move on with his life - but he wasn't able to escape. On December 16, 2005, when Juan was 19, he was arrested as part of a larger raid picking up seven alleged gang members who police said were behind a string of shootings. He was charged with murder, accused of gunning down 16-year-old Eduardo Hernandez in a bleak apartment complex near an expressway. When she first heard that her boyfriend was arrested, Yancy was reeling. "I was in disbelief," she said. Because she didn't own a car, she had to take 3 buses to get to the Harris County jail in downtown Houston to visit him. He said he was innocent, and she stood with him. Juan and Yancy waited and waited as his trial date kept getting pushed back. The trial didn't actually begin until January 2014 - an extraordinary 8 years after he was arrested, all spent behind bars. The case was delayed because of his lawyer getting sick, changes in judges and prosecutors, and a back-and-forth while the district attorney decided whether or not to seek the death penalty. Moreover, Harris County was facing a backlog of more than 1,000 criminal cases. While Juan was waiting for a trial, according to court documents, his brother committed suicide and he wasn't allowed to attend his funeral. Before he was arrested, he was preparing to go to college and study art. Instead, he spent the equivalent of 2 college degrees incarcerated without being convicted of anything. Once the trial finally began, Yancy quit her job and stopped going to her community college classes because she couldn't concentrate. She attended Juan's trial every day for 2 months, sitting behind him, filled with nerves. Juan's court-appointed lawyer was Jerome Godinich, who has been reprimanded by a federal appeals court for missing deadlines and failing to file appeals in other death penalty cases. A 2009 investigation by the Houston Chronicle found that he represented more criminal clients than any other court-appointed attorney in the county. Between 2006 and 2009, he represented 21 different defendants facing the death penalty - a caseload that legal experts say makes it almost impossible to provide sufficient representation. Godinich and his 2nd chair attorney didn't even meet with Juan until just before the trial, and conducted almost no investigation, Yancy said. According to Pat Hartwell (an anti-death penalty activist who attended the trial and befriended Yancy), at times during jury deliberations, neither of Juan's lawyers were present while the judge and prosecutors responded to questions from the jury by themselves. Hartwell said that when she confronted Godinich, he told her, "I have another trial to take care of." (Godinich did not respond to a request for comment.) On March 14, 2014, the jury sentenced Juan to death. When the foreman read the verdict, "I didn't know what was going on," Yancy told me. "A few jurors were crying, but it was not clicking in my head. Then it became clear to me, the decision - I guess I cried so much, my nose was bleeding." 2 weeks after the sentence, the couple decided to get married. They had talked about it before, but now they
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 24 INDIA: Heavy workload possible reason for 'serious mistakes' in Soumya case: Markandey Katju Former SC judge Markandey Katju on Monday said the apex court had made some "serious mistakes" in the Soumya case by commuting the death sentence of the accused to life, and attributed it to "judges not being able to give much time to cases due to heavy workload of pending cases". In a Facebook post, he said, "I genuinely believe that the Supreme Court had made some serious mistakes in its judgement by reversing the death penalty awarded by Kerala High Court". "Possibly these mistakes were made because the court was so overburdened with work that it cannot give as much time to cases as they deserve, which they would have otherwise done, had it not been for this heavy load of cases to decide," he said. The Former Press Council Chairman also said that when he first heard that he had been issued notice, asking him to appear before the court on 11 November, he was "upset" as he thought the SC was trying to "humiliate" him since he had criticised their judgement and such an order was "unprecedented". Hence, he had initially said that he would not appear before the court as directed. However, when he received the apex court's notice and read it, Katju said he realised the court used "very respectful language to me and had requested me, not ordered me, to appear since they seemed to be sincere about their desire to reconsider their judgement and did not have a closed mind." "Since reading the Supreme Court notice, I felt that the judges had no intention to humiliate or insult me, rather were anxious to get my help in reconsidering their judgement, I have decided to appear on 11 November at 2 PM (the date and time fixed)," Justice Katju said. Quoting celebrated British Judge Lord Denning, Katju said 'The Judge has not been born who has not made a mistake'. "We are all humans, and all of us make mistakes, but a gentleman is one who realises his mistake, acknowledges it, and seeks to make amends," Katju said. "This should apply to judges too. I myself have sometimes made mistakes in my judgements," he said. (source: jantakareporter.com) CHINA: Doubts over death sentence should delay its execution Jia Jinglong is to be executed anytime soon, after he and his attorney were reportedly informed of the Supreme People's Court's approval of his death sentence. We are not in the position to call a halt. Yet we feel strongly that the order must not be carried out. Not because social media are rife with cries against the ruling. But because the circumstances are anything but normal, and there are some outstanding questions that need to be properly answered. Legal experts, from professors to lawyers, deem the sentence problematic. Jia shot and killed the head of his village in 2013, and he was convicted of murder. His death sentence is controversial, though, for the murder was a reaction to the ruthless, illicit forced demolition of his home that the victim allegedly masterminded. Legal professionals have argued that Jia qualifies for a lesser sentence, a reprieve for instance, as he tried to turn himself in and confess to police afterwards. Considering both the judicial authorities' new emphasis on prudence in applying the death penalty, and the reasonable doubts surrounding the sentence, we urge the court to demonstrate discretion, and avoid the double tragedy to which we are dangerously close. Whatever happens, Jia's case should not be allowed to slip away as if it were just another regular criminal offense. Because it is not. Outside the courtroom, there are pricey lessons to be learnt. "I am a victim...from the very beginning," Jia told the first-instance court in self-defense. "I would not have embarked on such a road of no return had there been a way out." The murder took place months after his home was demolished by force. He called the police in the vain hope of stopping the demolition. He tried to negotiate for compensation afterwards. He lodged complaints to local authorities. He found himself helpless, hopeless, with no way to have justice done. As in many similar cases, Jia used to be an ordinary citizen concerned primarily about living a normal life. Like others who ended up desperate, vengeful and hurting themselves and others to have their injustices noticed, Jia would probably not have acted as he did if his loss had been properly taken care of. When residents are victimized by those who have power in their hand, they should not be deprived of the hope of having their wrongs addressed and justice delivered. (source: Opinion, China Daily) ___ 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:
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., CALIF.
Oct. 24 TENNESSEE: The most broken system in Tennessee Need a reason to be against the death penalty? How about a dozen? 1. It's not reliable. Since 1973, a long line of death row inmates have been exonerated, their innocence discovered years after their capital trial, meaning that what needs to be our purest, most trusted system of justice is our most flawed: We have imprisoned innocent people and, more than likely, executed them, as well. Last year, the 156th inmate was set free. "And those are just the ones we know about," Ray Krone told the Times Free Press. In 2002, Krone became the 100th exoneree. Sentenced to die in Arizona for a crime he didn't commit, Krone was later released after DNA evidence proved his innocence. He now lives in Tennessee. With Sister Helen Prejean, Krone co-founded Witness to Innocence. 2. The death penalty is applied in unconstitutional ways. Instead of being used in a majority of American courtrooms, death penalty sentencing only happens in approximately 2 % of all counties, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Such geographical arbitrariness - how can we have a system of justice that 98 % of all counties ignore? - makes it unusual, unequal and, many argue, unconstitutional. 3. Death row is a place of poverty. "Almost all death row inmates could not afford their own attorney at trial," Amnesty International reports. "Court-appointed attorneys often lack the experience necessary for capital trials and are overworked and underpaid." "From the U.S. to Iran, the single most common demographic amongst those on death row is poverty," adds Jack Todd in Borgen magazine. 4. Death row is racist. "More than 1/2 of the people on death row in this country are people of color," reports the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala. If the murder victim is white, there's a greater chance death row sentencing will take place, especially if the accused is black. Blacks are less than 15 percent of the U.S. population, yet more than 40 percent of the nearly 3,000 death row inmates. Of the 63 males on Tennessee's death row, 30 are black. "35 % of those executed since 1976 have been black," states the EJI. A growing body of research illustrates the connection between the death penalty and lynching. As lynching became taboo and outlawed, the practice morphed into a legal version of itself: death row. If lynch-happy counties couldn't hang a black man anymore, they could legally sentence him to die in prison. Between the 1870s and 1950s, Shelby County, Tenn., had one of the highest rates of lynchings in the South, according to the EJI. Today, the majority of inmates on Tennessee's death row - 27 of 64 - come from Shelby County. 6. It's a money pit. California has spent $4 billion on its death penalty system since 1976, according to DPIC. A North Carolina study shows death row trials cost $2 million more than life-without-parole trials. With 64 inmates, how many millions is Tennessee's death row costing each year? 7. By shifting sentencing from death to life without parole, all that money could be spent elsewhere. - Funding addiction programs. - Aiding victims' families. - Staffing prisons. - Boosting police training to diagnose and aid the mentally ill. A new coalition, Tennessee Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Exclusion, is building support among communities, legislators and law enforcement on ways to exclude the mentally ill from death row sentencing. 8. Less than 1/2 of all Americans favor the death penalty, according to Pew Research. 9. Executions are at historic lows. 10. Research shows the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime. 11. The death penalty is hollow justice. Victims' families wait years, if not decades, for an execution that sometimes never comes. Life without parole provides closure in a way the death penalty process does not. 12. Killing our own citizens is a bizarre and bloodthirsty practice at odds with democratic America. "I believe the system is a disaster on every level," said the Rev. Stacy Rector. "It's falling apart." Rector, a Presbyterian minister, is the executive director of Tennesseans Against the Death Penalty. Thursday evening, she will join a diverse panel - from conservatives to former cops - each of whom believes the death penalty in Tennessee ought to be abolished: - Amy Lawrence, with Tennessee Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. - Marc Easley, former Chattanooga police officer who's working with TASMIE. (And is one of the most powerful speakers I've heard). - Krone, the 100th exoneree, whose story alone - which he'll tell - is reason enough. (source: David Cook, Opinion; Times Free Press) CALIFORNIA: California Prop 62 would repeal the death penalty. A lifer says it doesn't go far enough. California Proposition 62, which would abolish the state's rarely enforced death penalty, effectively
