[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Nov. 25 INDIA: Do the December 2012 gangrape convicts really deserve the death penalty?Supreme Court's amicus curiae points out the pitfalls of a collective punishment for murder in the absence of any evidence of premeditation. If the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape roiled the nation like no other case and even led to legal reforms, it was surely due to the brutality of the violence suffered by the victim, who has widely come to be known as Nirbhaya. What has not however been judicially established is the identity of the 1 out of the 6 accused persons on the bus who had actually inflicted the fatal injuries with an iron rod. This gap in the narrative has been flagged by the Supreme Court's amicus curiae, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran, while providing an independent appraisal of the death sentence pronounced by the lower courts on the 4 convicted persons in the 2012 Delhi rape case. In his written submissions earlier this month, Ramachandran raised a host of procedural and substantive issues questioning the order of sentencing by the trial court in 2013 and the confirmation of the death penalty by the Delhi high court in 2014. One of the substantive issues is that in the sentencing process, those 2 courts did not take into account this mitigating circumstance in favour of all the convicted persons: "that there was no attribution of individual role with respect to the use of the iron rod". Objecting to the idea of sentencing the convicted persons in a "collective" manner, Ramachandran said: "It may be pertinent to note that the use of the iron rod was a crucial consideration in convicting the accused under section 302 (for murder) and also in determining the brutality of the crime." He even cited Supreme Court precedents rejecting the death penalty "for lack of attribution of specific roles". Exception - not the norm Significantly, this is the 3rd high-profile case in which Ramachandran came out in the apex court against the death penalty. The earlier ones were about the hanging of Ajmal Kasab for 26/11 and Yakub Memon for Bombay blasts. Ramachandran's stand in the latest case is also in tune with the reservations to the death penalty expressed by scholars and women's groups before the Justice JS Verma Committee, which had been set up in the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi rape case to tighten the provisions relating to sexual crimes. The most telling precedent cited by Ramachandran to buttress his arguments against the death penalty in the case is the 1953 Supreme Court verdict in Dalip Singh vs State of Punjab. This belongs to the era when the courts, governed by the criminal law of colonial vintage, were justified in awarding death penalties as a matter of course. For the 1898 Code of Criminal Procedure required that if the court refrained from awarding death for an offence punishable with death, it would have to give reasons why the death sentence was not passed. It was only subsequent to the 1953 Dalip Singh verdict that Parliament reversed the law to stipulate that for offences punishable with death, the court shall give special reasons for awarding the death penalty. Yet, while deciding the Dalip Singh case prior to the liberalisation of the criminal law, the Supreme Court held that the failure of the lower courts to ascribe an individual role to the accused was a reason for setting aside the death penalty. This, the amicus curiae in the 2012 Delhi rape case, has interpreted to mean that "surely, under the new code when life imprisonment is the norm and death the exception - the lack of individual role must be a major mitigating circumstance". Planned and premeditated? On another substantive issue, Ramachandran said that there was no evidence on record "to demonstrate that the rape and murder of the victim was planned and premeditated." According to him, the testimonies of neither her male friend who was with the young woman on the fateful bus journey nor the previous male victim who had been robbed and thrown out by the same accused persons suggest any premeditation. "The accused never knew the victim or had any occasion to believe that she would be present at the relevant spot on the fateful day," Ramachandran added. In the written submissions that otherwise steered clear of the merits of the conviction of the four accused persons, this was as close as Ramachandran could get to challenging the finding of conspiracy in the case. So does his critique of the death sentence in the 2012 Delhi case necessarily mean that the 4 convicted persons should have instead been awarded a life sentence, subject to the usual remission after a term of 14 years? For all his opposition to the death penalty, Ramachandran conceded that the prospect of a 14-year incarceration for the guilty in the 2012 Delhi rape case might be inadequate. He pointed therefore to the 3rd option for sentencing created by the Supreme Court in 2008,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., S.C., CALIF.
Nov. 25 TEXAS: Texas judge apologizes for lynching comment about suspect in shooting of San Antonio cop A Texas judge has apologized for writing "time for a tree and a rope" on Facebook about the black man accused of killing a San Antonio police officer. Burnet County Judge James Oakley has since deleted the comment and issued a public apology Wednesday, according to the Austin American-Statesman. His remark has been harshly criticized on social media, many suggesting the allusion to lynching was racially motivated. The San Antonio Police Department posted online Monday about the arrest of 31-year-old Otis Tyrone McKane in the slaying of Detective Benjamin Marconi. Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the department, was shot in the head during a traffic stop. Police say the shooter pulled up behind the Marconi's squad car, got out and walked over to the passenger side. The man then fired twice, killing 50-year-old Marconi. Oakley shared the Police Department's Facebook post about McKane's arrest. In the comments, he wrote: "Time for a tree and a rope..." The judge is the top elected official in Burnet County, which is near Austin. He was appointed by former Gov. Rick Perry to the board of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. His term expires next year. Oakley also serves on the board for the Pedernales Electric Cooperative and the Capital Area Council of Government's executive committee. People have been posting reviews on the Burnet County Facebook page, calling Oakley's remark racist and inappropriate. Oakley called his comment "indeed curt and harsh," the Statesman reported. "What I should have posted, if anything, is a comment that more clearly reflects my opinion on the cowardly crime of the senseless murder of a law enforcement officer," he said in an email to the Statesman. He said his view of McKane "is the same regardless of ethnicity." He also said he supports due process and the death penalty. "I also support the death penalty in cases where the ultimate crime has been committed and there is clear and complete evidence and where all steps of the judicial process have been respected," Oakely wrote in the email. "I would also point out that I am an administrative judge and do not preside over criminal court." (source: Dallas Morning News) ** Court allows appeal in case of murdered Fort Worth mom, sonStephen Dale Barbee is on death row after being condemned for the suffocations of 34-year-old Lisa Underwood and her son, Jayden. A federal appeals court is allowing Texas death row inmate Stephen Barbee to move forward with an appeal contending his trial attorney improperly told jurors that Barbee was responsible for the February 2005 slayings of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her 7-year-old son at their Fort Worth home. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an appeals claim that Barbee's trial lawyer was deficient for making the comment to jurors and not having Barbee's permission to say it to jurors during closing arguments of the trial's punishment phase. The court rejected several other appeals claims but said Wednesday it took the action to resolve any doubts in a death penalty case. The 49-year-old Barbee was condemned for the suffocations of 34-year-old Lisa Underwood and her son, Jayden. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Mifflin County's 2017 budget to raise taxes With a dramatic increase in expenditures looming, the Mifflin County Commissioners on Wednesday unveiled their proposed county budget for 2017 with a tax increase totaling 1.75 mills. Citing 2 huge expense-related activities that are on the horizon, the proposed spending plan will total $30,486,639, as opposed to the current year's budget which totaled $25,853,887. Commissioner Lisa Nancollas said the average property tax rate in the current budget is $541.50. With the tax increase, that average will rise to $608.10. As a comparison to normal every day purchases, Nancollas said the $5.55 average monthly increase is less than the price of a movie ticket, a Big Mac meal, a pack of cigarettes or 2 pounds of hamburger, among other things. 2 major increases in expenditures explored in detail Wednesday include a federally mandated requirement that the Mifflin County Correctional Facility be in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) and the county's share of the cost of an upcoming death penalty criminal trial. "All 3 of us worked very hard to develop the best budget for Mifflin County," Nancollas said. "These are trying times for Mifflin County. We have urgent issues. This is a difficult time with the proliferation of regulations." Commissioner Stephen Dunkle said the federally mandated PREA compliance represents the biggest cost increase, noting that only 20 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties are in compliance today. He said 1 of the main reasons for that is the enormous cost
