[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Jan. 14 AUSTRALIA: Brother speaks out against death penalty at world premiere of Bali 9 member Myuran Sukumaran's art show The brother of executed Bail Nine member Myuran Sukumaran joined community leaders to speak out against the death penalty at the emotional world premiere of an art exhibition featuring his paintings in Campbelltown last night. Chintu Sukumaran choked back tears as he told the hundreds of people who attended the opening night of the Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise exhibition that he and his family felt a cross between pride and anger to see his brother's emotive and thought-provoking artworks on display. "We are proud that Myru???s work is being shown to the world but we are angry that he is no longer with us," he said. "Our family feel great sadness that his life was cut short so violently. We miss him all the time. "It's important to stand up against the death penalty." Mr Sukumaran, who attended the opening night with mum Raji and sister Brintha, said art gave his brother an outlet and the paintings showed the power of redemption. Myuran Sukumaran found a passion for art and painted hundreds of portraits, including a series featuring each Bali 9 member, while incarcerated in Bali's Kerokoban Jail and from his final incarceration on Nusa Kunbangan Island. Sukumaran and fellow Bali 9 member Andrew Chan were executed by Indonesian authorities on Nusa Kumbagan Island in April 215. Chan's brother Michael also attended the opening night of the exhibition, which is on display at Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of the Sydney Festival. Mr Chan said the paintings were excellent and showcased what Sukumaran tried to do. "He made mistakes but he rehabilitated and this is what you see," he said. Mr Chan said he and his family had their good days and bad days and he hoped something good would come out of the situation. Sukumaran's lawyer Julian McMahon also attended the launch and described how he watched his client mature from a naive and angry young man to a person who reformed and found a passion for art and tried to make life better for the other prisoners in the jail. Campbelltown Mayor George Brticevic offiically opened the exhibition and became emotional as he commended the bravery of the Sukumaran family for attending the event. He said he had served as a police officer for 22 years and the attendance of the family at the opening night was the bravest thing he had seen. Macarthur Federal Labor MP Mike Freelander and Fowler Federal Labor MP Chris Hayes, who served on the group Australian Parliamentarians against the Death Penalty, also attended the event and spoke out against capital punishment. The exhibition was co-curated by Sukumaran's mentor, Archibald Prize winning artist, Ben Quilty, and Campbelltown Arts Centre director Michael Dagostino. The series of self portraits are on display at Campbelltown Arts Centre as part of the Sydney Festival. One of the paintings featured in the series, The Final 72 Hours. Quilty became emotional at the launch and thanked the arts centre and Campbelltown Council for being brave enough to stage the exhibition. He said he hoped the exhibition blew the "haters" out of the water. Dagostino said he was keen for the arts centre to show thought-provoking works and become a vessel to discuss issues. "This exhibition is proof that art can change lives," he said. Alongside Sukumaran's paintings, the arts centre commissioned works by 6 leading Australian artists which also explore the exhibition's themes and are displayed alongside his work. The exhibition is free to enter and will be on show at Campbelltown Arts Centre until March 26. (source: Daily Telegraph) IRAN: Watchdogs Urge Iran to Halt Rushed Executions of 12 Alleged Drug OffendersHuman rights watchdogs said that Iran should immediately halt the execution of 12 convicted drug offenders, as the decision to give the death penalty to drug offenders does not comply with international legal standards, and is not effective at resolving the nation's drug problem. Iran should immediately halt the execution of 12 convicted drug offenders, as the decision to give the death penalty to drug offenders does not comply with international legal standards, and is not effective at resolving the nation's drug problem, 2 human rights watchdogs said in a joint statement Friday. "Packing prisons with drug offenders and rushing to send them to death row without due process in highly flawed trials will just worsen Iran's justice problem while doing nothing to solve Iran's drug problem," Human Rights Watch (HRW) Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said in the statement. The HRW and Amnesty International noted in their statement that some of the convicted offenders were not even guilty of their crime, but were nevertheless convicted due to improper court proceedings, refusal of courts to grant
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., OKLA., NEB., MONT., CALIF., USA
Jan. 14 INDIANA: 2 men to face death penalty in Indiana County killings Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty said Friday his office will seek the death penalty for 2 Indiana men accused of killing a Cherryhill couple in October. Justin T. Stevenson, 19, and Nathan R. Price, 18, were charged with killing Timothy J. Gardner and Jacqueline I. Brink following an alleged drug deal, according to court documents. Both are charged with criminal homicide, conspiracy and robbery and are being held in the county prison without bond. Isaiah Treyvon Scott, who was 17 when he was arrested, is ineligible for the death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the slaying. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for those who had committed their crimes at under 18 years of age was cruel and unusual punishment and barred by the constitution. Affidavits of probable cause detail how troopers believe the teens planned the robbery and drove to the Hillside Drive home where Brink, Gardner and his 2 young sons lived. A neighbor told investigators he heard a knock on Gardner's door about 12:30 a.m., followed by a fight. The neighbor called 911. Troopers found Gardner dead in the doorway and Brink dead in an upstairs bedroom. Coroner Jerry Overman indicated Gardner was assaulted with a pipe and Brink was struck with a baseball bat, police said. (source: Tribune-Review) ** The rarity of the death penalty in Indiana It is alleged that Marcus Dansby, on Sept. 11, 2016, shot to death Consuela Arrington, 38, and 2 of her 3 children - Traeven Harris and Dajahiona Arrington, both 18, and attempted to murder the 3rd, Trinity Hairston, 14. Dansby had been the boyfriend of Dajahiona, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant with a son. When it was determined that the baby would have lived if his mother had not died, a 4th murder charge was added. And now, Dansby is going to pay a price - perhaps the ultimate one. The Allen County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has requested to add the death penalty to his charges. Capital punishment is so rarely turned to, that it is worth reflecting on how the state of Indiana handles it. Dansby is only the 4th man in 20 years to face the death penalty here. 2 of the other 3 plea-bargained their charges down to life without parole. Joseph Corcoran, convicted of murdering his brother, James Corcoran, and 3 other men in 1988, is the only person sitting on death row, courtesy of Allen County. There are 2 main reasons for the rarity. One is that just plain old murder isn't enough to merit the death penalty in Indiana. It must be murder with one or more "aggravating circumstances," such as a murder committed during the commission of arson, a burglary, kidnapping or rape. Murder for hire would count, as would murder of a law enforcement officer. So would a murder if the victim were dismembered, burned or mutilated - or younger than age 12. The other is the cost. A fiscal impact report by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency for the 2010 General Assembly, found that the average cost of a death-penalty trial and direct appeal was more than $450,000, compared to $42,658 for a life-without-parole case. We can take pride in the fact that Indiana is not promiscuous in its use of capital punishment. This state only executes the worst of the worst. Or we can ask ourselves if there is really any point to keeping a penalty so rarely used that it can't possibly be a deterrent. Are we really seeking justice or just exacting revenge because we can? That's a worthy subject for discussion. Legislators looking for a topic for a summer study sessions could do a lot worse. (source: Opinion; (Fort Wayne) News-Sentinel) OKLAHOMA: Advocate: No reason to celebrate Oklahoma's death penalty Despite voters in November approving State Question 776, which enshrined the death penalty in the Oklahoma Constitution, our state's death penalty remains a mess. Botched executions and wrongful convictions have plagued the Oklahoma death penalty, putting the practice on hold. Due to such practical problems with capital punishment, there is mounting evidence that we'd be better off without it. We've learned that it's much less costly to imprison people for life than to execute them because of the death penalty's mandated legal costs. According to most reports, the death penalty costs millions more than life without parole. The death penalty's inconsistency with fiscal responsibility isn't its only shortcoming. Oklahomans would also be shocked and dismayed by the wrongful convictions and racial disparities found in capital punishment's application. More than 155 people nationally and 10 in Oklahoma have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to die due, in large part, to prosecutorial misconduct, junk science and mistaken eyewitness testimony. That's a high error rate given the death
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., GA., FLA., ALA., OHIO
Jan. 14 TEXAS: Supreme Court to review Texas death penalty caseThe U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it would review the legal complexities in a Texas death penalty case, where a man killed a 5-year-old and her grandmother. The U.S. Supreme Court will review the death penalty case of a Fort Worth man who shot and killed a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother at a children's birthday party. The high court said Friday it would look into a legal distinction between ineffective lawyering in the trial court and during state appeals. Erick Davila, 29, received the death penalty for the 2008 shooting deaths of Annette Stevenson, 47, and her 5-year-old granddaughter, Queshawn, according to Davila's brief filed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Davila, a gang member, drove up to a house where he knew a rival gang member, Jerry Stevenson, was and shot into the house and front porch. Instead of killing the man, Davila killed Stevenson's daughter and mother. During his trial, defense attorneys said Davila didn't intend to kill multiple people, only Jerry Stevenson, which would make the case ineligible for a capital murder conviction and the death penalty. To be convicted of capital murder in this case, Davila must have knowingly and intentionally killed multiple people. In his brief to the high court, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Davila did intend to kill multiple people because he said after his arrest that he wanted to shoot "the guys on the porch and ... [was] trying to get the fat dude." Aside from Jerry Stevenson, only women and children were at the party, the brief said. The trial jury seemed to hesitate on the intent issue, submitting a question to the court during deliberations asking: "Are you asking us did he intentionally murder the specific victims, or are you asking us did he intend to murder a person and in the process took the lives of 2 others." The court sent legal definitions and included a charge that said Davila would be responsible for a crime if the only difference between what happened and what he wanted was that a different person was hurt, the brief said. The defense objected, saying it was an improper jury instruction, but the court overruled the objection. Within an hour, the jury came back with a capital murder conviction, later sentencing Davila to death. The crux of Davila's current legal argument rests on this jury instruction and how his subsequent appellate lawyers dealt with it. Davila's direct appeal began after his sentence, but his appellate lawyer didn't raise improper jury instruction as an issue - a mistake Davila's current lawyer says was "life-threatening." "The judge gave a bad instruction. The lawyer on direct appeal did not raise it," said Seth Kretzer, Davila's federal appellate attorney. "Had she attacked it and won, he might have gotten a new trial, not death-eligible." After his direct appeal, Davila's state habeas appeal, where one raises issues outside of the trial, didn't argue that his lawyer in the direct appeal was ineffective for not raising the jury issue - another mistake, Kretzer said. Paxton said in Texas' brief that Davila's arguments are meritless, that a federal district court looked into the jury instruction in question and found no fault against it. Death row inmates can also appeal their case in the federal courts system, but it is generally ruled that issues that could be raised at the state level - like the jury instruction - can't be reviewed at the federal level until they have gone through the state courts. One exception to this rule is if the state habeas lawyers failed to raise the issue of ineffective trial counsel. Now, Kretzer is trying to argue that exception should also apply to state habeas lawyers who fail to raise the issue of ineffective appellate counsel as well. In that case, Davila could argue that because his state habeas lawyer didn't fault his direct appeals' lawyer for not bringing up the jury instruction, the federal courts can now hear it. "The way the law works right now is if the trial counsel made a mistake, the federal court could save the inmate's life, but if the appellate counsel made the mistake, they would have to go ahead and execute," Kretzer said. The Supreme Court has gotten involved because different federal appeals courts have ruled differently on the distinction between ineffective trial counsel and appellate counsel. In previous rulings, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has said that there is no distinction between the 2, but the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, as well as the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th circuit courts, all have ruled that the 2 shouldn't be treated the same, the state's brief said. "If the Court was willing to address a potential circuit split, Davila's case is not an appropriate vehicle for doing so," Paxton wrote, re-emphasizing that the federal district court rejected the case based on both
