[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 16 GLOBAL: Time to work for global abolition of the death penlty In 1976, after an impassioned, last-minute speech by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the House of Commons narrowly passed Bill C-84, abolishing the death penalty in Canada. It was abolished after a decade of fierce debate. Sister Helen Prejean writes Dead Man Walking and narrates the movie of the same name for which Susan Sarandon received an academy award playing the role of Sister Helen. Years later I attended a talk by Sister Helen at UQAM in Montreal. She was forceful and dynamic in expressing why she was against capital punishment. At the end of the Conference I introduced myself as John Walsh, and she adds, Father John Walsh? I had no idea how she knew who I was. The story is that she attended Divine Word Centre in London Ontario as a student and completed her course the year before I began to teach there. Her words:" I have followed your career. " I was with CJAD at the time and asked her for an interview. She was rushed but accepted a half hour interview. There are 2 things I remember to this day. She began: " I lived in a suburb of New Orleans where life for me was very comfortable. I lived with other sisters and we followed an easy schedule of work, prayer, and meals together. Then I was transferred to the other side of New Orleans. My first night in my new home there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and a woman almost bowled me over. That's when I saw she was being chased by a man with a knife in his hand. That night my God changed. " Helen was also very happy to have lived in Canada and was extremely delighted to know that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau had passed legislation abolishing capital punishment. In New Orleans her work with residents of the St. Thomas housing project made her realize that in order to live up to her faith and ideals, now with a very different idea of who God was, that she must shoulder the struggles of the poor as if they were her own. She began to correspond with Patrick Sonnier who was in death row. She becomes aware of the cruelty of capital punishment and the widespread abuse and injustice of the American judicial system. Witnessing Patrick's execution altered Prejean forever. She becomes a full-time anti-death penalty advocate and witnesses a 2nd execution, that of Robert Willie. Helen's work to abolish the death penalty remains incomplete until she realizes that in addition to ministering to the men on death row, she must also try to heal the families of their victims. I can only imagine the happiness she feels today when she reads what Pope Francis recently said about the death penalty. Francis declared that the death penalty is wrong in all cases, a definitive change in church teaching that is likely to challenge faithful Catholic politicians, judges and officials in the United States and other countries who have argued that their church was not entirely opposed to capital punishment. Francis said executions were unacceptable in all cases because they are an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The Church will now work with determination for the abolition of capital punishment worldwide. It could set off a backlash among American Catholic traditionalists who have already cast Francis as being dangerously inclined to change or compromise church teaching. It could also complicate the lives of judges who are practicing Catholics. In 2015 he said that from the beginning of his ministry he had been led to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty. The challenge remains today. (source: Opinion; Father John Walsh, The Suburban) AUSTRALIA: Senate hopeful calls for death penalty for murderers, rapists A controversial Senate hopeful has mounted an online campaign calling for the death penalty to be introduced for murderers and people who rape children. Steve Mav, who ran as a candidate for the Legislative Council seat of Prosser earlier this year, will stand as an independent Senate candidate at the looming federal election campaign, expected in 2019. Fairfax Media understands he has paid to boost his social media posts. On Facebook on Thursday, Mr Mav called for a popular vote on the death penalty, saying change was possible and that one just had to look at the postal survey on marriage equality for proof. Prominent LGBTI rights advocate Rodney Croome took umbrage with Mr Mav's comments. "If this raw, hate-platforming populism gathers pace don't blame marriage equality advocates," he said. (source: theadvocate.com.au) MALAYSIA: Women charged over Kim Jong Nam murder faces death penalty 2 women charged with murdering the half-brother of North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in Malaysia will be forced to defend themselves after a judge refused their acquittal. In 2017 Indonesia's Siti Aisyah, 25, and Vietnam's Doan Thi Huong, 29,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, KY., TENN., NEB., N.MEX.
August 16 TEXAS: Will a Texas law that overturns convictions based on bad science save this death row inmate?The 2013 law was credited with stopping Robert Roberson's execution 2 years ago, and his conviction is now under review in county court. Robert Roberson shuffled into a courtroom this week wearing a striped gray jumpsuit and handcuffs, his life once again hanging in the balance. After 15 years on death row, his face has grown gaunt, and patches of dark hair shoot up from his balding head. But he has maintained during his time in prison that he didn't kill his sickly 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, though he was convicted of that crime. He says that Nikki fell from the bed where they were sleeping in their home in this small East Texas town, and he awoke hours later to find her unresponsive. But as doctors and nurses struggled to revive her blue, limp body in the emergency room that morning, suspicions of child abuse quickly arose - they said a short fall wouldn't have caused such damage. At his trial, doctors testified that her injuries were consistent with what is often referred to as "shaken baby syndrome," a now-questionably diagnosed condition his attorneys say helped jurors opt for the death penalty. But instead of facing the state's death chamber - which he narrowly avoided 2 years ago - Roberson was back in court Tuesday, again fighting against his conviction and for his life, thanks largely to a relatively new state law that allows courts to overturn a conviction when the scientific evidence that originally led to the verdict has since changed or been discredited. "The only reason Mr. Roberson is still alive today is because the state of Texas passed a rather trailblazing statute," his attorney, Gretchen Sween, declared to the courtroom. The law, often referred to as the "junk science law," was the 1st of its kind in the nation and passed with scant opposition in 2013. In pushing for its passage, state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, listed infant trauma as one of several examples of faulty science the bill was meant to target. Since its passage, multiple death penalty cases have been sent back to court for further review, and it has been cited in cases like that of the "San Antonio 4," where women convicted on faulty sexual assault evidence were exonerated after nearly 15 years in prison. In June 2016, Roberson became one of the first death row inmates to have his conviction set for reviewed under the law - a decision the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made just days before his scheduled execution. The court was instructed to decide whether Roberson would have been convicted if new scientific evidence - like new views on fatal short-distance falls and shaken baby syndrome injuries - were available at his original trial. In the last decade, experts have become divided on shaken baby syndrome, where an infant is killed from being violently shaken back and forth. Many doctors strongly stand by the diagnoses, but others, including the doctor who is first credited with observing the condition, think it is used too liberally in criminal cases - that deaths are labeled as murder without considering other possibilities and medical histories. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that 16 shaken baby syndrome convictions had been overturned since 2001. Roberson's attorneys argue in part that new scientific evidence has suggested it is impossible to shake a toddler to death without causing serious neck injuries, which Nikki did not have, and has linked the symptoms used to diagnose shaken baby syndrome to other conditions as well, including short-distance falls. "There has been a tremendous amount of new scientific evidence," said Gary Udashen, board president of the Innocence Project of Texas. "Biomechanical engineering studies have shown that you can generate enough force from a short-distance fall to cause serious head injuries." "A watershed moment" Over time, science has become an increasingly present part of criminal proceedings, but it's always evolving - what may have been thought of as irrefutable scientific evidence 15 years ago could be balked at today. And scientific "experts" who testify in cases sometimes lack any true expertise. The origins of the junk science law, and Roberson's renewed chance at an appeal, began to take form as the state's skepticism of forensic science grew with the science's prevalence - think DNA - and after several high-profile cases involving "bad science" emerged. Perhaps the most well-known is the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, a Corsicana man executed in 2004 for the deaths of his 3 young daughters, despite scientists discrediting the earlier fire examination and finding no reason to call the house fire that killed his children arson. But while state lawmakers passed other bills related to forensic science, like creating a statewide investigatory
