[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Nov. 9 SOUTH AFRICA: Ex-SA colonel returns home after escaping South Sudan death penalty William Endley, the former South African defence colonel, is back home from South Sudan after being pardoned by President Salva Kiir last week after he was sentenced to death by hanging by a court in the capital Juba in February following his conviction on charges of espionage and conspiring to overthrow the government. Speaking to the media on Thursday, Endley said he was enjoying drinking a cold beer and the freedom of being able to move around after being held in solitary confinement for long periods of time. And despite his traumatic imprisonment, in what his family told the African News Agency (ANA) were appalling conditions, Endley said on Thursday he would have no problem returning to South Sudan if asked, adding that Dr Riek Machar, the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) had already requested him to return to help integrate rebels with the national army - the reason he said he went to the country in the first place. He was arrested in August 2016 when renewed fighting between government troops and the SPLM-IO broke out after Machar had first returned from exile to take part in a transitional unity government. His defence argued against the charges stating that Endley was only performing his duties as a security contractor to help Machar's forces integrate into the South Sudanese Army. South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 but plunged into a civil war in 2013 after Kiir accused Machar - then vice president - of plotting a coup against him. The 5-year civil war has killed an estimated 380 000 people and left nearly 2 1/2 million others displaced. (source: African News Agency) LIBERIA: UN Human Rights Committee Wants Liberia Repeal Death Penalty The United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) has reiterated its call to the Liberian Government to abolish the death penalty which was reintroduced in 2008. Addressing a 1-day national human rights consultation held in Monrovia on Wednesday, November 7, a member of the HRC, Margo Waterval said it was unfortunate for Liberia, as a State party to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to reintroduce the death penalty in its Penal Code. The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which aims at the abolition of the death penalty, is a side agreement to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Ms. Margo noted that although no execution has taken place since 2008, the judiciary continues to sentence people to death. Her statement is in line with a set of recommendations that the HRC submitted to the Government of Liberia at the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) meeting, which took place in Geneva in July 2018. The 48-count recommendations, among other things, centered on the abolition of the death penalty, impunity and past human rights violations and the administration of justice and fair trial. The committee recalled that adherence to the Second Optional Protocol requires that Liberia, as a state party takes all necessary measures to abolish the death penalty within its jurisdiction and become an abolitionist country in practices as well as in law. In addition, it petitioned the government to remove any provisions in its legislation that provide for the death penalty and to commute all existing death sentences as well as refrain from carrying out any execution. On impunity and past human rights violation, the Committee called on Liberia to establish a process of accountability for past gross human rights violations and war crimes that conform to international standards, including concerning independence and expertise of the judiciary, victims’ access to justice, due process and fair trial guarantees, and witness protection. The committee: “Ensure that all alleged perpetrators of gross human rights violations and war crimes are impartially prosecuted and, if found guilty, convicted and punished in accordance with the gravity of the acts committed, regardless of their status or any domestic legislation on immunities, and remove any persons who have been proven to be involved in gross human rights violations and war crimes.” For administration of justice and fair trial, the committee recommends that Liberia should pursue it effort to reform the justice system and ensure that all court proceedings are conducted in full observance of due process guarantees set forth in article 14 of the covenant. Meanwhile, during the consultation, the civil society organizations resolved to engage government stakeholders to ensure the implementation of the HCR recommendations. Some of the recommendations highlighted during the consultation included the promotion of gender equality, criminalizing all forms of ha
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., MISS., KY., ARK., USA
November 9 TEXAS: Texas AG fights Harris County prosecutors to keep Bobby Moore on death row Prosecutors and defense lawyers agree that Bobby Moore is too intellectually disabled to execute - but the state of Texas wants him put to death anyway. A day after Harris County prosecutors made the rare move of siding with a death row inmate in a Supreme Court filing, the Texas Office of the Attorney General took the possibly unprecedented step of asking to take on the case and keep pushing for the death chamber. "The DA, who represents just 1 of Texas's 254 counties, does not represent the Attorney General's interest," the state's top prosecutor wrote, claiming that the district attorney offered "no analysis" beyond "2 conclusory sentences" in her filing a day earlier. The state's 17-page brief represents yet another twist in a groundbreaking case that's already shaken up how Texas determines whether a prisoner is too intellectually disabled to be put to death. Lawyers for Moore, an attorney general spokesperson and the district attorney's office all did not weigh in on Wednesday's filing. A day earlier, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg offered a short statement pointing to an earlier Supreme Court decision in the case. "We agree with the Supreme Court that the intellectually disabled should not be executed," she said. The convicted killer was 1 of 3 men involved in a botched robbery at the Birdsall Super Market, a 1980 slaying in which he fired the shot that killed elderly store clerk James McCarble. That same year, the former carpenter was sentenced to death during his 1980 trial. For more than 3 decades, Moore fought his appeals, once coming within hours of execution. Then, in 2017, the Supreme Court handed down a groundbreaking decision, in a 5-3 ruling determining that Texas had been, for years, not properly measuring intellectual disability in cases like Moore's. The ruling booted Moore's claims back to a lower court, where prosecutors switched course and asked for a life sentence. But - even though the district attorney's office agreed to the more lenient outcome - the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals didn't, handing down a split decision Moore's lawyers condemned as an "outlier" and "inconsistent" with the higher court. Last month, Moore's legal team appealed that ruling up to the Supreme Court again, asking the justices to yet again examine the state's standards for intellectual disability, but also asking the high court to consider whether an execution should count as unconstitutional if both sides agree that it is. "As far as counsel is aware, this Court never has permitted an execution when both the prosecutor and the defendant agree that the defendant is intellectually disabled and ineligible for execution," defense attorney Cliff Sloan and Pat McCann wrote in their Supreme Court filing. "For good reason." Although the Supreme Court banned states from executing intellectually disabled prisoners more than a decade ago, for years Texas skirted that by relying on an out-dated, nonclinical test to evaluate mental capacity. Named after plaintiff Jose Briseno, the test used seven questions to determine intellectual disability, as outlined in a 2004 ruling that famously referenced "Of Mice and Men" character Lennie as someone most Texans would agree should be exempt from the death penalty. But even though he failed every single grade, did not understand the days of the week by age 13, and fell below the standard for being able to live independently as an adult, under the old standard Moore still didn't qualify as intellectually disabled. The Court of Criminal Appeals twice decided that despite his apparent deficits, he was still fit to execute. Then last year the Supreme Court reversed the first of those two decisions with its groundbreaking 5-3 ruling. The high court's 2017 ruling didn't just impact Moore's case, it also ordered Texas to come up with new standards - something other than the Briseno factors - for determining intellectual disability. The ruling sparked a stream of requests from inmates hoping to get off death row, and 2 condemned killers won stays this year because of the decision. But even the Supreme Court's decision hasn't been enough to spare Moore - at least not yet. After the high court's decision last year, prosecutors in November 2017 agreed with the defense that a life sentence was appropriate. And still, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said no. Even though the appeals court came up with a new, clinical standard for measuring intellectual disability, they still found that Moore didn't meet it. So in October, Moore's lawyers filed another appeal in the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the district attorney's office agreed. "The respondent parts company with the TCCA in its determination that the applicant is not intellectually disabled," the district attorney's office wrote.
