[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 26 IRAN/SAUDI ARABIA: Iran warns Saudi Arabia of consequences if activists executed Iran's High Council of Human Rights has warned Saudi Arabia of the consequences of its "cruelties," including reported plans to execute several human rights activists. According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for five rights activists from Qatif in the kingdom's Shia-majority Eastern Province. Iran's High Council of Human Rights "seriously warns the Saudi rulers about the consequences of these clear cruelties and crimes against the oppressed people in Qatif and other right-seeking and anti-oppression activists," it said in a statement. The council, a subdivision of Iran's Judiciary, also stressed "the necessity for international bodies, especially the UN and the Human Rights Council, to show sensitivity and pursue the issue seriously." Saudi Arabia has accused these activists of inciting mass protests in the oil-rich Eastern Province, with human rights groups saying the execution threat is a calculated bid to stifle dissent. Israa al-Ghomgham, who has documented the protests in Eastern Province since they began in 2011, would be the first woman activist to face the death sentence for rights-related work. She was arrested at her home along with her husband Musa al-Hashem in December 2015. The Iranian council described reports of the Saudi prosecutor seeking capital punishment for the couple and other activists as "very regretful and distressing given the country's disastrous record" in the past. In January 2016, Saudi Arabia executed prominent cleric Nimr al-Nimr, the most vocal critic of the dynasty among Shia Muslims, who had come to be seen as a leader of the community's younger activists. In executing Nimr, the kingdom defied an international outcry and warnings by many rights groups and governments, touching off a diplomatic crisis which sent relations with Iran into a downward spiral which continues to this day. Saudi Arabia may for the 1st time execute a female Shia human rights activist for supporting anti-government protests. "Saudi Arabia's policy of cracking down on Muslim thinkers and activists fighting tyranny on terrorism charges is absurd and unacceptable," the statement by the Iranian rights body said. "Should terrorists be confronted, current Saudi rulers are the prime suspects, who bear responsibility for destroying the lives and possessions of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the region," it said. "Who has founded, armed and unleashed al-Qaeda, Daesh and similar criminals to massacre innocent people? Who is publicly supporting, politically and financially, perverted and roaming killers such as Mujahedin Khalq Organization?" it added. The notorious MKO group is responsible for killing thousands of Iranian civilians and several officials since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Senior Saudi officials, including former spy chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, have attended annual meetings held by the terrorist group, raising the stakes in the kingdom's confrontational ways with the Islamic Republic. In its statement, Iran's High Council of Human Rights said the US and major European governments, which arm the kingdom and assist Saudi Arabia's invasion of Yemen, are complicit in the atrocities and should be held to account. (source: presstv.com) CANADA: How Florida and Canada took different directions on the death penalty Canada supplies more visitors to Florida than any other country in the world, with more than 3 million of us visiting the Sunshine State each year. Yet, while the bustle and beauty of South Beach may be just a 3-hour flight from cities like Toronto, there is a sense in which the distance between us is far greater. A decades-wide gulf in fact. We're talking about the death penalty. While Canada abandoned this punishment long ago, Florida remains one of its most enthusiastic proponents. The last executions in Canada were in December 1962, when 2 men were hanged in Toronto's Don Jail. 17 months later, 2 men were killed in Florida's electric chair, in what could also have been the state's last executions. Regrettably, they were not. Florida's halt in executions proved to be nothing more than a 15-year pause. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the U.S.'s capital punishment laws because of the arbitrary way in which death sentences were being handed out. However, later that year, Florida's lawmakers became the 1st in the country to enact a new capital statute. That law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1976. Less than 2 weeks later, the Canadian parliament voted to abolish the death penalty, except for some military offences. In 1998, Canada removed these last vestiges of capital punishment from its statute books. That same year, Florida - which by then had put more than 40 people to death since
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., ALA., NEB.
August 26 NORTH CAROLINA: Civil rights group: NC death penalty cases rife with racial bias Lawyers with a prominent national civil rights group told the state's highest court Tuesday that four black death-row inmates deserve the opportunity to challenge their sentences after prosecutors systemically excluded black jurors from their cases. In , the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund cited statistical evidence of racial discrimination by Cumberland County prosecutors, who dismissed more than 1/2 of all eligible black jurors compared to 1/4 of all others. This bias "unquestionably tainted" the sentencing process, lawyers argued. "The continuing stain of racial discrimination not only invalidates the death sentences imposed on these defendants, but it also undermines public confidence in North Carolina's judicial system as a whole," Jin Hee Lee, LDF senior deputy director of litigation, said in a press release. "The Court must be unequivocal in rejecting racial bias in North Carolina juries, especially in death penalty cases, by giving the defendants a chance to challenge the discrimination they faced." A spokesperson for state Attorney General Josh Stein declined to comment Tuesday afternoon, citing pending litigation before the state Supreme Court. The legal brief centers on the 4 separate cases of Marcus Robinson, Christina Walters, Tilmon Golphin and Quintel Augustine, convicted and sentenced to death in Cumberland County. Their appeals pinballed between North Carolina courts in the wake of the 2009 passage and the 2013 repeal of the Racial Justice Act, which allowed challenges to death-penalty sentences on claims of racial bias. After seeing their death sentences flip to life without parole and back again, the defendants this year will argue their case before the state Supreme Court in State v. Robinson. The LDF's amicus brief sides with the defendants, concluding that black North Carolina residents are "routinely and systemically excluded from capital juries because of their race." North Carolina hasn't executed an inmate since August 2006, when Samuel Flippen was killed by lethal injection. Various legal disputes, including the Racial Justice Act, have prevented death sentences from being carried out since then. Currently, 143 inmates are on North Carolina's death row. (source: feltonbusiness.com) GEORGIA: Peacock attorneys want his statements excluded; judge sets another hearing date In a Friday hearing to discuss legal motions in a Colquitt County quintuple homicide, attorneys for the defendant sought to have a judge toss statements made to police. It was the 3rd court appearance for Jeffrey Alan Peacock in 8 days and only the 4th since his arrest in May 2016. He is charged with 5 counts of murder. Prosecutors say he shot Jonathan Garrett Edwards, Ramsey Jones Pidcock and Aaron Reid Williams, all 21; 20-year-old Alicia Brooke Norman; and Jordan Shane Croft, 22. The 5 were shot in the head before the house was set ablaze. Peacock, who faces the death penalty if convicted, also has been indicted on charges of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and 3 counts of aggravated cruelty to dogs -- related to the deaths of 3 dogs found at the residence, 2 inside who died of burns and smoke inhalation and 1 outside who died of a fracture to the head. On Aug. 16 Superior Court Judge James E. Hardy denied a defense request to throw out the indictment based on the makeup of the grand jury. The following day the judge ruled that evidence seized from Peacock???s truck and his father's residence could be used at trial. On Friday, 1 prosecution witness -- Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Jason Seacrist -- took the stand. The agent answered questions about his seven-hour interview of Peacock on May 18, 2016, 3 days after the slayings at 505 Rossman Dairy Road. Peacock was arrested during that interview, conducted in an office at the Colquitt County Sheriff's Office's Criminal Investigation Division, and he has remained in jail since that time. Seacrist said that Peacock emerged quickly as a suspect, partially based on voluntary statements he made at the burning residence the day of the slayings that did not match evidence uncovered during the investigation. One of those statements was that he left the group watching a television program in the house while he went into Moultrie to get breakfast and cigarettes. Investigators learned that the program had not been viewed at the residence that morning. Under questioning from Allan Sincox, 1 of 2 capital defenders representing Peacock, Seacrist explained some of the interview techniques and strategies used. Prior to Aug. 23, Peacock had not been in a courtroom since May 2017 when his attorney made a plea of not guilty on his behalf. Hardy set a date of Oct. 9 to continue the hearing on the defense request to toss out Peacock's
