[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
September 12 SAUDI ARABIA: Prominent Cleric May Face Death PenaltyEscalating Crackdown on Dissent Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a prominent cleric on a host of vague charges related to his political statements, associations, and positions, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities brought Salman al-Awda, 61, before the Specialized Criminal Court, the country's terrorism tribunal, on September 3, 2018. A family member told Human Rights Watch that Saudi authorities allowed him contact with a lawyer at the hearing for the 1st time since his detention a year earlier. At the hearing, prosecutors handed down 37 charges and announced that they would seek the death penalty. The vast majority of the charges are connected to his alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatari government, and his public support for imprisoned dissidents. None refer to specific acts of violence or incitement to acts of violence. "At a time when Saudi Arabia's ambitious economic plans such as the Aramco IPO are stalling out, the crown prince's prosecutors are investing in threatening clerics and women's rights activists with execution," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Unless Saudi Arabia has evidence that al-Awda committed a recognizable crime the authorities should release him immediately." Al-Awda was among the first of dozens of people detained in mid-September 2017 by the Presidency of State Security, an agency established only months before, following Mohammad bin Salman's appointment as crown prince. Al-Awda had remained in detention, partly in solitary confinement, with no lawyer and limited ability to contact family members. Authorities have also detained his brother and banned 17 members of his family from traveling abroad. Al-Awda's charges coincided with the opening of trials against a number of other people for alleged association with the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Awda was a prominent member of the Sahwa Movement in the early 1990s, which criticized Saudi Arabia's decision to allow the US military into the country to protect it from a potential Iraqi invasion. Since 2011 al-Awda has advocated greater democracy and social tolerance. In January, the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights described al-Awda as "an influential religious figure who has urged greater respect for human rights within Sharia [Islamic Law]," and called for his release. On September 5, local Saudi media outlets printed the first 5 of the charges, and Human Rights Watch reviewed the others from a copy of the court???s charge sheet it obtained. The initial charges are mostly related to his alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other organizations supposedly connected to it. Saudi Arabia declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in March 2014. One such organization listed in the charge sheet, the International Union of Muslim Scholars, was not named as a terrorist organization by Saudi authorities until November 20, 2018, over 2 months after al-Awda's arrest. The 1st charge reads: "Corrupting the land by repeatedly endeavoring to shake the structure of the nation and bring about civil strife; inflaming society against the rulers and stirring up unrest; and connection to characters and organizations and holding meetings and conferences inside and outside the kingdom to enact the agenda of a terrorist organization against the nation and its rulers." Multiple charges relate to his public solidarity with imprisoned dissidents, opposing the Saudi-led isolation of Qatar in mid-2017, and alleged ties to the Qatari government. Other charges include having "a suspicious relationship" with the former Gaddafi government in Libya, publicly opposing Saudi Arabia's hosting of former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, "mocking governmental achievements," and "offending patriotism and loyalty to the government and the country..." Another group of charges alleges that al-Awda violated terrorism financing regulations by calling for donations for "the Syrian Revolution" and rebel groups "outside the jurisdiction of official agencies," without citing specific incidents or groups. Al-Awda, merely called for people to donate to charity organizations operating in Syria, the family member said. Saudi authorities detained al-Awda on September 7, 2017. On September 12, 2017, the Presidency of State Security announced that it was taking action against those acting "for the benefit of foreign parties against the security of the kingdom and its interests." Authorities detained al-Awda's brother Khaled later that month after he tweeted about his brother's detention, media reported. He remains in detention. A family member told Human Rights Watch at the time of al-Awda's arrest that he believed it was related to al-Awda's failure comply with an order from Saudi authorities to
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----BARBAD., S. KOR., S. AFR., MALAY., BANG., AUST.
Septmber 12 BARBADOS: Mandatory death penalty to go Government yesterday sought Parliamentary approval to abolish the mandatory death penalty in this country, but Minister of Energy and Water Resources, Wilfred Abrahams, who introduced the Bill, made it clear that the death penalty will remain on the statute books. Abrahams, as he piloted the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Bill during the morning session in the House of Assembly, explained that the amendment touches on other Acts including the Constitution of Barbados, the Penal System Reform Act and the Criminal Procedure Act, and therefore proposed that it be treated as a cognate debate. His comments came as he indicated that removing the mandatory death penalty for those convicted of murder will bring Barbados in line with international treaties it has signed. Abrahams, who was filling in for Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall, explained that the new sentencing rules, once passed and enacted, will allow the judiciary to take all the facts of the case into consideration in determining if a person who has been convicted for murder should or should not be given a death sentence. He said this is necessary as there are circumstances where a person may have killed another, but it was not premeditated or intentional. Noting that Barbados is a signatory to the International Convention on Human Rights and therefore recognises the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, he said that keeping the mandatory death penalty on the statute books was a violation of the convention, as it allowed for the deprivation of the right to life. As such, he said the Human Rights Court felt that all murder should not be punishable by a mandatory death sentence and consideration should be given by judges to mitigating or aggravating circumstances as they determine an appropriate sentence. He made the point while noting that the Caribbean Court of Justice, this country's final court of appeal, also found as recent as June this year, that the mandatory death sentence in Barbados was unconstitutional. "Our law as it stands now does not distinguish between those 2 scenarios so that the person who did not necessarily intend to kill the victim faces the exact same charge of murder as does the person who intended to kill the victim and that is what the Inter-American Human Rights Court was trying to get across. We cannot stop you from having a death penalty if that is the rule or the law in your country, because some cultures, some people, some societies require the option of death as being the final, most severe penalty the law could impose. But what it says is that sentence of death must necessarily be reserved for the most heinous of offences and the most of serious crimes, such that no other sentence would suffice," Abrahams a former President of the Barbados Bar Association stated. The Minister's comments came as he noted that the last executions in Barbados took place some 34 years ago, and so while persons convicted of murder have been sentenced to death, that sentence has not been carried out as successive Governments have accepted that "it is not fair that there is no option on the finding of murder, but to sentence a person to death". He explained that in countries where death is the final sanction for murder they recognise degrees of the offence, with only the most serious degree being punishable by the sentence of death. "The Inter-American Court and the CCJ and all the other human rights courts make the point that from the time the judge has no other options but to sentence somebody to death, you have stripped away one of the fundamental pillars of our criminal justice system which is judicial discretion. You have denied the judge the opportunity to take all of the circumstances into consideration and give the sentence that fits the crime and also the circumstances of the offence," he stated. Moreover, he argued that keeping the mandatory death penalty on the books, was also allowing the legislature to interfere with the working of the judiciary and was an obvious breach of the separation of powers. (source: The Barbados Advocate) SOUTH KOREA: Push to abolish the death penalty The National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday recommended that Korea accede to an international protocol renouncing capital punishment. The 11 members of the commission unanimously made the recommendation that the country join the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims to abolish the death penalty, during their 1st meeting presided by the commission???s new chair, Choi Yeong-ae. Korea is 1 of 4 members of the 36-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that have not yet acceded to the protocol, along with the United States, Israel and Japan. Korea has a de-facto
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA, US MIL.
September 12 MISSOURI: New St Louis prosecutor vows change in county still grieving from Michael Brown's deathWesley Bell stunned Bob McCulloch, who held the post for nearly 3 decades, including during the police killing of an unarmed black teen When Wesley Bell declared victory in the battle to become St Louis county prosecutor last month, it came just two days before the region came together once again to honor the life of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed by a white police officer, sparking months of protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Bell's win was a stunning upset that has pushed the previous prosecutor and fellow Democrat, Bob McCulloch, from an office he had held for nearly three decades. With no Republican challenger, Bell is now a shoo-in for the post. The vote, decided by a large margin, was seen as an indictment of McCulloch, on whose watch the Ferguson officer Darren Wilson was cleared of all charges in Brown's killing. But it was also seen as an endorsement for a man who promised a different way of doing things, and energized voters. Lawyer urged prosecutor after Ferguson shooting: 'Do the right thing' for police "People with different politics came together, people were making phone calls around the clock, knocking on doors. It was an across-the-table effort," says St Louis native Tef Poe, a rapper, organizer and Harvard fellow. "I saw people who never vote go out and vote." McCulloch had the financial and institutional advantage and, right up to the end, polls showed him ahead of Bell. McCulloch, even despite his infamy in the eyes of many, also had the advantage of looking like the majority of St Louis county and the majority of prosecutors nationwide. In 2015, a study found 95% of prosecutors are white and just under 80% are white men. "I don't come from money like that," Bell told the Guardian after his victory. "I come from regular people." Bell says he's proud of his campaign. "It was smaller donations, you know? I got a check for 5 dollars ... that's what they had and that's my constituency and I appreciated it. That???s who I represent." Bell, an advocate of robust criminal justice reform, had already garnered national attention when he won a seat on Ferguson city council in 2015. "I grew up, initially, in the projects in Alton, Illinois. I was seeing a lot of people on the other side of law enforcement," said Bell, who went to high school near Ferguson. "Growing up in this area, I was being pulled over, car searched so often I didn't think anything of it - I thought it was normal," Bell said. "But then I got to law school and thought, 'Oh, so they weren't supposed to be doing that!'" Bell won on a platform of progressive ideals such as reforming cash bail and mandatory minimum sentencing, as well as not pursuing the death penalty. But he is also emblematic of a new wave of prosecutors who are aware of and against inequalities in the justice system, as well as the war on drugs and its resulting mass incarceration. "One thing I learned then [in 2015], is the absolute need for public engagement from leaders," Bell said. "I went out to the streets for protests at the time because I wanted the people to see, to ask me questions. We have a trust deficit here and I saw my role as a bridge-builder." But, as Poe says, Bell still has a great deal to prove to a skeptical community riven by grief for Brown and others. "I had a real moment when I realized I was knocking doors on behalf of a prosecutor, you know? That's how wild the system is," Poe said. "St Louis county is still St Louis county - the budget is still there, folks still going to jail, getting these same traffic tickets as we speak." "I don't see this as a big statement about democracy, honestly, or what can happen when people vote," he said. "This is what happens when you kill an unarmed teenager and leave him dead in the street for 4 1/2 hours. And we have a community and a generation that watched it happen and responded. Now here we are." Many activists, like Poe, are holding their praise for Bell for now. I don't put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the people. And in the people's ability to push candidates to enact change Tef Poe, rapper, organizer, and Harvard fellow "It's a chance now for us to engage with power differently than in the past," Poe said, "I don't put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the people. And in the people's ability to push candidates to enact change." "It's hard, though, to get too excited for someone in the same party as McCulloch. But we're in a long-term struggle here," he said. "I'm waiting to see. I can't give him credit for a game he hasn't played yet." Blake Strode, the executive director for the not-for-profit civil rights law firm ArchCity Defenders, agrees. "It's certainly a victory for the organizers who worked so hard on his campaign,"
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., VA., FLA., TENN., ARK.
September 12 TEXAS: Wrongfully convicted ex-death row inmate Clarence Brandley dies, months after DA reopens case Clarence Brandley, a former Conroe High School janitor, was in 1981 wrongfully convicted of the brutal murder of 16-year-old Cheryl Fergeson. Brandley spent nearly 10 years on death row before he was exonerated. If the state of Texas had its way, Clarence Brandley would have died more than 30 years ago. Instead, the modest man from Montgomery County walked out of the Walls Unit in 1990 and started a 1nd life after becoming, at that time, only the 3rd person released from Texas death row. He settled down in the country; he founded a church; he held odd jobs; and he grew older. Finally on Sept. 2, the former janitor whose wrongful conviction for a brutal rape-murder of a teenaged student where he worked helped pave the way for a state compensation fund, died at the age of 66. It was not in a Texas execution chamber, but in the Kingwood Medical Center, where he'd fallen ill with pneumonia, his family said. The timing must have seemed a bitter irony: After years of fighting for the innocence ruling that would win him recompense for his time behind bars, authorities had finally begun investigating the case again earlier this year. "Texas did my brother wrong," said Ozell Brandley. In a town plagued by a racist history - Conroe was the infamous site of the lynching of Joe Winters in front of the courthouse in 1922 - Brandley's case added to the growing national awareness about the possibility of wrongful convictions driven by racial prejudice, bad lawyering and shoddy evidence. "There were a lot of things wrong with his case but it seemed like race was front and center," said Richard Dieter, former director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "There was this black janitor and a murdered high school girl and it eventually dawned on people that he was innocent and he'd been railroaded and framed." The war veteran was convicted in the the 1980 rape and murder of 16-year-old Cheryl Fergeson. The Bellville teen was strangled at Conroe High School during a summer volleyball tournament 9 days before school was set to resume. Brandley was one of the school's 5 janitors suspected in the case, but - as the only black man in the group - authorities quickly zeroed in on him. "Since you're the n*, you're elected," a Texas Ranger reportedly told Brandley. The white janitors all gave alibis for each other, leaving Brandley to fend for himself. The case was before the days of DNA testing, and police never bothered to collect hair samples from the other janitors - even though it could have potentially matched a Caucasian hair found on the slain girl's body. The 1st trial ended in a mistrial, but the following year an all-white jury convicted Brandley and sent him to death row. In the years that followed, the case drew the attention of civil rights activists, who held rallies, raised legal funds and started the Free Clarence Brandley Coalition. Still, he might have been put to death, but for the dogged work of defense attorneys - namely Mike DeGeurin and Paul Nugent - who kept the case in the courts up until the last minute. At one point, Brandley was just days from an execution when he won a stay. "No case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the outcome of which was predetermined," State District Judge Perry Pickett wrote after a 1987 evidentiary hearing. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial lacked even "the rudiments of fairness" and sent the case back for a new trial. But, by that point, key evidence had vanished and there wasn't enough to retry it. The whole ordeal inspired a book - "White Lies" by British author Nick Davies - and later a Showtime movie. The media buzz helped shine a light on the fears of wrongful convictions. "He was one of the early exonerations," said Robert Dunham, the Death Penalty Information Center's current director, "and it was at a time at which it was beginning to be clear that there was a significant risk that innocent people would be sent to death row if you had a death penalty." Through it all - despite his claims of innocence - Brandley couldn't get authorities to clear him, so he was never able to get payment from the state's compensation fund. "He couldn't quite understand why former Governor Rick Perry would do him like that," his brother said. Years later, as he worked to pay off child support accrued during his time in prison, the police department's failure to arrest the right man still stung. "All I know is that I'm the 1st person in the state of Texas to have been indicted for capital murder and go to trial within 90 days," Brandley said. "I participated in the investigation, gave my hair, saliva, my blood. And the medical examiner said that
