[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
April 7 SOUTH AFRICA: 'Never again,' Mabuza pledges at commemoration of Mahlangu's hanging The death penalty will "never ever happen again" in South Africa. Deputy President David Mabuza made this vow minutes after he emerged from the formerly notorious Pretoria Central Prison. Scores of political activists from the PAC and ANC were executed at the prison gallows between 1961 and 1989 before a moratorium on the death penalty was declared by former president FW de Klerk. Mabuzu was among those attending the annual memorial service for Solomon Mahlangu, an uMkhonto weSizwe operative who was hanged at the prison 39 years ago, on Friday. He made the pledge moments after he and several cabinet members arrived at the prison's "death factory", now known as Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, to acquaint themselves with the brutal manner in which the apartheid regime executed political prisoners and common law offenders alike. The government delegation and ANC senior officials such as the party's secretary-general Ace Magashule and treasurer-general Paul Mashatile were retracing Mahlangu's last steps before his execution. But before he was put to death, Mahlangu had the opportunity to declare: "My blood will nourish the tree that will bear the fruits of freedom. Tell my people that I love them. They must continue the Struggle." As Mabuza and his entourage, including the Mahlangu Royal Family, left the so-called death factory, the deputy president vowed it would never happen again. In paying tribute to Mahlangu, Mabuza said he and ANC veteran and Struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who passed away on Monday, represented the "embodiment of the country's liberation Struggle. "They played their different roles. We are encouraged by their deeds and action to continue the journey to freedom," Mabuza told the special memorial service. He said Mahlangu was killed because the authorities wanted to preserve apartheid. "We salute all those who were hanged there. They propelled the country to our new dispensation. We must not go back. "We must never again give people authority to terminate life." Mabuza said the sacrifices made by Mahlangu and Madikizela-Mandela showed that the "revolution was not free". In an apparent plea to ANC members, who were split during the party's elective conference last year, Mabuza urged them to rise above petty squabbles and to focus on the gains of freedom. "We must fight racism, sexism and inequality, which is pervasive in the country." (source: The Saturay Star) MALAWI: Mutharika considering death penalty for albino killers President Peter Mutharika might be the 2nd Malawian president to assent to death penalty, especially for those that are convicted of killing people with albinism. In a statement released by the State House, Mutharika has expressed shock that there are continued attacks on people with albinism. The statement has come following the murder of Mcdonald Masambuka in Mangochi by people who include a Police Officer. According to the statement which has been signed by the Presidential Spokesperson Mgeme Kalirani, Mutharika has vowed to deal with all those who will be fingered by the investigation into the death of Masambuka. Further to that, Mutharika has called on all stakeholders to assist the government in assessing interventions that were previously used to curtail the violence targeting people with albinism. On implementing the death sentence to deter would-be offenders, Mutharika has called for a dialogue on the issue. He has refused to certainly dismiss the prospect of hanging people convicted of killing people with albinism. "President Mutharika is aware that there are some stakeholders who feel passionately that implementing the death penalty on individuals sentenced to death could go a long way as a deterrent to would-be offenders from attacking persons with albinism. On the other hand, the President is also aware of the international community's stand against the death penalty. These 2 view points are on opposite extreme end of each other;hence the need for dialogue and a national consensus," reads the statement. (source: malawi24.com) VIETNAM: Vietnam arrests 2 Lao drug traffickers Vietnamese border guards have detained 2 Lao young men who transported 5 cakes of heroin and nearly 27,000 pills of lab-made drugs for sale in Vietnam. The duo aged 19 and 25 were detained on Thursday when they were transporting the drugs, one handgun and five bullets, the border guard force of Vietnam's northern Thanh Hoa province said on Friday. The detainees confessed that they transported the drugs from Laos to Vietnam for sale. According to Vietnamese law, those convicted of smuggling over 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine are punishable by death. Making or trading 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal drugs
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----NEB., S.DAK., IDAHO, USA
April 7 NEBRASKA: Deadline may have doomed one appeal option for Nebraska death-row inmates The clock may have run out on one avenue pursued by defense attorneys on behalf of inmates on Nebraska's death row. Death penalty opponents argue a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Florida case - which said jurors must make every finding necessary in order for someone to be sentenced to death - puts the constitutionality of Nebraska's sentencing procedures in doubt. But Friday, in arguments before the Nebraska Supreme Court in the case of Marco Torres, it appeared it might be too late for him and others on the state's death row to rely on the 2016 decision in their appeals. That's not because the justices seemed convinced Nebraska's sentencing method was constitutional or that the U.S. Supreme Court decision only applied to new cases going forward. They didn't get that far. And it appears they might not - at least in Torres' case. All because he and most others on death row didn't raise the issue within a year of the Jan. 12, 2016, decision in Hurst v. Florida. Torres' appeal, filed 5 months too late, was the first citing the Hurst decision to reach Nebraska's highest court. Friday, as defense attorney Jeff Pickens of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy began to argue the court should wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to answer whether Hurst applies retroactively, justices quickly jumped in, asking how they "get past" the1-year statute of limitations. "Well, that's a great question," Pickens answered. While it appears that one year has passed since the decision at issue, he pointed justices to another U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2006 that says courts ought to consider whether the administration of justice is better served by addressing the merits raised or dismissing a case. "That's what I'm hanging my hat on," he said. Justice William Cassel said he had a bit of a quarrel with the premise that the district court had denied Torres due process to raise the issue when it dismissed his appeal without a hearing, citing the missed deadline. "They (defendants) do have an opportunity. They may choose not to use it. But that's their problem, isn't it?" Cassel asked. Pickens countered, asking whether a judge would automatically rule in favor of 1 side in a civil case - as compared with Torres' criminal case - without giving notice to anybody involved or having a hearing. "I suspect that probably would not happen," he said. Pickens said he thinks Torres' case is one where a trial court could consider that "the best interest of justice would be for the court not to dismiss the case based on statute of limitations and go ahead and get to the merits." But, Justice Stephanie Stacy said, there is no "interest of justice" exception to the state's statutory time limitations on appeals. Solicitor General James Smith said the Nebraska Supreme Court is required to uphold state law and doesn't have the authority to add an "interest of justice" exception when the Legislature never put such language in statute. "Frankly, the analysis can and should end there," he said. Smith stated it simply: The cases at issue in Torres' motion were more than a year old, so his motion is time-barred on its face. The district court's reason for dismissing the motion was correct, he said, and that court's decision should be affirmed. Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman asked Smith if it was his position that the court didn???t need to get into the Hurst decision, even if Hurst ultimately raised a new principle and was retroactive. Yes, Smith said. In Hurst, the nation's high court found that a man's death sentence in a 1998 murder case violated the Sixth Amendment because, under Florida's sentencing scheme, a judge, not a jury, made the critical findings necessary to impose the death penalty. In Nebraska, juries decide whether aggravating factors exist to justify an execution. If so, a 3-judge panel then determines whether the aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating factors in the defendant's favor to warrant a death sentence. This week, Amy Miller, legal director of the ACLU of Nebraska, said the Hurst decision is also raised in the appeal of death-row inmate John Lotter. "But whether or not it will have any impact on another case I think is the troubling concern," she said, seeming to refer to Carey Dean Moore. State officials this week asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to set an execution date for Moore, who killed 2 cab drivers in Omaha in 1979 and has been on death row for nearly 38 years. If the Supreme Court issues an execution warrant, Moore could be killed by lethal injection before the Hurst issue even is decided. Torres, 43, was sent to death row on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for killing roommates Timothy Donohue, 48, and Edward Hall, 60, in Grand Island in 2007. His DNA was found at the crime scene and he had used Hall's
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., MD., ALA., LA.
April 7 TEXAS: Anthony Graves on Texas request for faster death penalty appeals: "I would have been executed"Death row exoneree Anthony Graves, along with capital defense lawyers, legal groups and former federal judges, criticized Texas' request to speed up federal death penalty appeals by pointing to the cases of men who were taken off death row long after their sentences were handed down. Anthony Graves spent 12 years on death row before a conservative federal court tossed out his wrongful capital murder conviction. Texas courts had previously rejected all of his appeals. "I had to get out of the state of Texas and into the federal court system to get help," he told The Texas Tribune Friday. "If it was up to the state itself, I would have been executed." It's a point he made in arguing against a pending request by the state to speed up the federal appeals process in death penalty cases. He's not alone: Several lawyers, former judges and legal groups have asked the federal government to deny the request by bringing up the cases of people, like Graves, who were taken off death row long after their sentences were handed down. As first reported by the Houston Chronicle, Texas is currently awaiting a decision from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on whether its state appellate system is competent enough to limit death row appeals in federal court. If approved, the time frame for inmate attorneys to file petitions in federal court after state appeals would be cut in 1/2, the courts would have set deadlines on when to rule on the cases, and the scope of claims that could be considered would be further restricted. The request was originally made in 2013 under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott when he was the state's attorney general, but it was tabled by the Obama administration. Then in November, the Sessions-led Department of Justice notified Texas it would begin reviewing the petition for faster appeals and asked for updated information. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office complied. "Opting-in would serve several purposes for Texans, including sparing crime victims years of unnecessary, stressful delays, ensuring that our state court judgments are respected by federal judges as cases progress, and reducing the excessive costs of lengthy federal court proceedings," said AG spokeswoman Kayleigh Lovvorn in a statement earlier this week. Currently, the average inmate on Texas' death row has been there for more than 15 years. Federal law says that the nation's top prosecutor can allow a state to opt in for these greater restrictions in federal appeals if it appoints competent representation for poor capital defendants in post-conviction appeals at the state level. No state has been certified yet, though Arizona???s petition is also currently being reviewed, according to the Department of Justice. Texas said in its letter to the department it does have a competent state appellate system in place, but hundreds of pages of public comments from different groups involved in the capital punishment process argued otherwise. Graves and others have pointed to his case as an example of how the state often get its wrong, arguing that the safeguard of the federal reviews can be lifesaving. "Despite the fact that Mr. Graves was represented by attorneys deemed competent under Texas law at every stage of the proceeding, it took 12 years of sustained litigation for his legitimate constitutional claims - and his innocence - to be discovered, presented, and acknowledged, and for relief to be granted," wrote Bryce Benjet, an attorney for the Innocence Project, in a statement asking the government to deny Texas' petition. A former U.S. district judge from Texas' eastern district, Leonard Davis, also asked for the government to deny Texas' request in a public comment. Davis, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said death-sentenced prisoners in Texas often miss out on full and fair consideration of their constitutional challenges because of inadequate legal representation in state appeals. He wrote of Christopher Wayne Shuffield, a former death row inmate whose lawyer in state appeals failed to investigate a challenge to his future dangerousness. His federal appellate lawyer was able to bring up the claim, and Shuffield's sentence was changed after Davis ruled on the case, he said. Davis said he's concerned that if Texas is approved for the stricter federal guidelines, the case would have gone the other way. "I am also concerned that Texas will continue to fall short in its efforts to guarantee state habeas counsel that will timely investigate and present all viable constitutional challenges to their clients' capital convictions and death sentences," Davis wrote. "It would be a travesty of justice if Mr. Shuffield had been executed on the basis of false evidence that he was a violent man in jail." The high profile case of
