[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----TEXAS, MISS., CALIF.
Dec. 14 TEXAS: His name is Ruben M. Cantu, he was framed, and we killed him If Ruben Cantu had been sentenced to life in prison, he would be a free man today. He would have his freedom not because he served enough time to earn parole from the 1984 incident that put him behind bars. Cantu would be free because he would have been exonerated. It now appears that Cantu did not rob and kill Pedro Gomez, a construction worker. We now know that Cantu had an alibi that put him in Waco, about 170 miles from the crime scene in San Antonio. We knew then that there were no fingerprints, DNA or any other physical evidence that tied Cantu to the crime. But there was an eyewitness. Juan Moreno, who was wounded in the attack, identified Cantu as the shooter. Twice Moreno failed to identify Cantu from photos police showed him. But the third time was the charm. Moreno, an undocumented worker in 1984, recently said he fingered Cantu because police pressured him to do so. Cantu had a bad history with police. Moreno came forward in recent weeks to clear Cantu's name and his own conscience. He told his story to the Houston Chronicle. The accomplice convicted with Cantu likewise has named another person as the killer. Even the former district attorney who prosecuted Cantu for capital murder has conceded that he, too, erred. We should be celebrating the release of an innocent man after more than 20 years in the pen. A mother should be welcoming her prodigal son's return during the Christmas season. But that can never be because Cantu is dead. Texas executed him in 1993 for a crime virtually nobody - including the head juror during his trial - now believes he committed. Welcome to Texas justice. Here, they really do kill them and rely on God to sort it out. No matter where you stand on capital punishment, this case should offend your sense of decency. It's not just the moral dilemma about whether Texas or any state should be in the business of executing people or whether capital punishment is necessary to protect society from violent criminals. This case unearths a frightening truth about the fallibility of government. Cantu's unwavering assertions of innocence have returned to haunt us more than a decade after he was strapped to a steel gurney and injected with lethal drugs. My name is Ruben M. Cantu. I got to the 9th grade, and I have been framed in a capital murder case. Can we now admit that our legal system is fallible and its mistakes can kill innocent people? We shouldn't be surprised. Since capital punishment was reinstated 25 years ago, 122 people have been exonerated and released from death row. The criminal justice system is a government bureaucracy. Government programs are notoriously fallible, whether we're talking about the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the CIA that botched prewar intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Frankly, there is no way that the government can run a foolproof system. Former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap Jr., who prosecuted Cantu, knows that all too well. We have a system that permits people to be convicted based on evidence that could be wrong because it's mistaken or because it's corrupt, Millsap told the Chronicle. It's difficult to stop Texas' death machine once it revs up because the state lacks the rigorous checks and balances of other states. Texas desperately needs an Innocence Commission with real power to investigate, and if necessary, halt executions. That duty should fall on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, but that court has morphed into a rubber stamp for prosecutors. That is a strange posture for the judicial body that is supposed to be the state's last resort for catching errors and sorting the guilty from the innocent. But this is a court that found nothing wrong with a lawyer who slept through his client's trial, prosecutors who hid key evidence from the defense, incompetent defense lawyers or witnesses who perjured themselves. The appeals court overlooked those details or deemed them insignificant in several capital murder trials. Thank goodness the U.S. Supreme Court stopped some of those executions. Post-conviction DNA testing also has helped a number of defendants prove their innocence. But what about the cases, such as Cantu's, where there is no DNA? The Supreme Court didn't intervene, didn't stop Texas from executing the wrong person. I doubt God wants any part in sorting this mess out. (source: Opinion, Austin American-Statesman) *** 2 plead not guilty in 1983 KFC killings The 2 latest suspects in abduction-slayings at a Kilgore Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1983 were formally arraigned on 10 counts of capital murder on Tuesday. Darnell Hartsfield, 45, and his cousin, Romeo Pinkerton, 47, both entered pleas of not guilty after attorneys appointed for them waived their clients' rights to have the capital murder charges read to them. Pinkerton and Hartsfield were indicted last month in the
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----USA, FLA., WASH., N.Y.
Dec. 14 USA: Criminal justice in the US: The American way of death Stanley 'Tookie' Williams was killed by lethal injection in California yesterday. His case highlights the controversy over state executions in the US, says Andrew Gumbel Within the eerie confines of the death chamber at San Quentin prison, supporters of Stanley Tookie Williams whispered their final words of love and defiantly gave the Black Power salute. Outside the prison gates, more than 2,000 people gathered to light candles, pray, sing and shed tears as the needles were inserted into the prisoner's arm and the most controversial inmate on California's death row had his life quietly and clinically snuffed out. The one-time leader of the Crips street gang and convicted murderer, who evolved into an ardent anti-gang activist during his 24 years on death row, was executed just past midnight on Monday night after the denial of his last appeals lodged with the courts and with California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the end, nothing could stop the slow march of California's bureaucracy of death - not the weeks of spirited campaigning led by Hollywood celebrities and inner-city activists, not the outpouring of international support, not the widely expressed sense that if Williams were not regarded as an embodiment of rehabilitation and redemption then the terms had no meaning in the US criminal justice system. The state of California just killed an innocent man! three of his supporters shouted in unison inside the death chamber as the execution was completed. The stepmother of one of the murder victims - a convenience-store clerk blasted by a sawn-off shotgun during a robbery in south Los Angeles in 1979 - turned stony-faced and burst into tears, according to media witnesses inside the room. It took a gruelling 23 minutes for prison officials to insert the needles in Williams' muscular arms, prompting the prisoner to wince in frustration, and another 13 minutes before he was pronounced dead. He lifted his head to look at the 5 friends and supporters in the room before losing consciousness. Just 12 hours before, Mr Schwarzenegger issued astatement to deny Williams clemency, arguing that his crimes were too heinous to merit a commutation of his sentence, and questioning whether his prison-house reformation was genuine. The governor had indicated he found the decision agonising, but politically speaking it was straightforward: he is in deep trouble in opinion polls and has already alienated his Republican base by appointing a Democrat as his chief-of-staff. Sparing Williams' life would almost certainly have triggered a full-scale revolt against him by his own party. And so the execution went ahead, with many Californians quietly applauding the decision to end the life of a cold-blooded killer - Williams has acknowledged doing terrible things, although he maintained he was innocent of the four murders for which he was convicted - even as others expressed outrage and sorrow. The Vatican and several European officials made statements of opposition. In Mr Schwarzenegger's home town of Graz, Austria, the Green Party said their native son deserved to be stripped of his Austrian nationality. Even in the United States, there were signs that Williams' death would prompt continuing debate about the appropriateness of the death penalty. The California legislature is due to debate a moratorium as early as next month pending a 2-year official inquiry into the safety of capital convictions. Kenny Richey: On death row in Ohio for 20 years Earlier this year, Kenny Richey believed he would finally be granted an opportunity to clear his name. Having spent 20 years on death row, an appeals court ruled the British-born prisoner had not received a fair trial. It said he should be released or given a new trial. But last month the US Supreme Court ruled that the lower court had erred and ordered it to re-examine its judgment. The decision means that Richey, 41, could return to death row in Ohio rather than receiving a new trial. Richey, born in Scotland, has always insisted that he faces the death penalty for a crime he did not commit. He was charged and convicted over the death of 2-year-old Cynthia Collins in a fire in the town of Columbus Grove, Ohio, in 1986, allegedly started by Richey to punish the girl's mother, his former girlfriend. Richey's campaign has received support from figures ranging from the late Pope John Paul II to 150 MPs, who signed a motion supporting his claim that he was not responsible for the child's death. The campaign appeared to have made a breakthrough when the appeals court threw out his order for execution, having found he received incompetent legal help in his trial and that the prosecution case lacked proof. The court even found there was evidence Richey had risked his life to try to save the child. In a rare telephone interview this year from the Mansfield Correctional Institute, Richey told The
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----LA., N.J., ALA.
Dec. 14 LOUISIANA: The Road to RedemptionCommentary: A prisoner on death row finds that social change comes in small, painful increments, starting with the self. This essay was written for The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb. Seven of my 40 years in Louisiana's prison system were spent on Angola's death row, doing time for murder. In 1965, as a 20-year old punk looking for fast money, I ordered a convenience store clerk to open the cash register. He refused and chased me out of the store. Running toward my car, I fired over my shoulder to frighten him. The last time I saw the clerk, he was sitting on the sidewalk yelling for the police. He bled to death. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the death penalty nationwide in the case of Furman v. Georgia. I was re-sentenced to life without parole. Apart from the time on death row, I spent 2 years in one of Angola's maximum-security tiers in lockdown, an unspeakably violent environment. One year was spent working in Angola's fields under slave labor conditions, another in the office as a clerk. 9 were spent as a prison journalist, working on The Angolite, the prison magazine. As a result of my testimony in a bribery case, the rest of my years in the prison system have been spent in protective custody away from Angola. Battles against Louisiana's prison system are hard won. But they show that the system is vulnerable. And small victories can fuel larger ones. Change is a potent force behind bars that inspires desperate acts. In February 1951, 31 inmates slashed their heel tendons to protest their brutal treatment at Angola. Newspapers across the state headlined the story. The public reeled in shock. The heel stringers succeeded in improving conditions for a few years. But old ways died hard. It would take repeated assaults to tame Angola. While I was on the row, I won the 1st prisoner rights lawsuit in the history of Louisiana in 1971 with the help of a young VISTA attorney from New York. Sinclair v. Henderson dramatically improved conditions on death row. It was the first in a long string of jailhouse lawsuits I have successfully filed against Louisiana's callous prison system. Other prisoners followed my legal assault. In 1973, four black inmates filed suit against Angola alleging discrimination. The suit charged that conditions at the prison were cruel and unusual punishment. The court found that Angola would shock the conscience of any right thinking person. Life, a militant black inmate from New Orleans, was my best friend. He was a crusader against homosexual rape who was not afraid to take on the criminal subculture. No brother, Life said, should take another brother for a woman. A few years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that released me from death row, the U.S. Justice Department demanded that the prison be integrated. Together Life and I went into the most dangerous dormitories and cellblocks at Angola to argue for integration. It came without violence. But Life was knifed to death for his stand against sexual predators. In 1976, in an effort to quell violence at the prison, the administration unshackled The Angolite, the prison magazine, written by inmates for inmates. The Angolite was little more than a newsletter when it was set free. A hard-nosed reformer, Warden Ross Maggio, appointed me to the staff. My expertise as a jailhouse lawyer won me the spot. Administrators felt that uncensored inmate voices would help decrease the level of violence. The warden's gamble worked. But it had an unintended consequence. The Angolite rose to national prominence. Stories that my co-editor Wilbert Rideau wrote, and others that I wrote, won national awards-the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Special Interest Journalism, the Sidney Hillman Award and the George Polk Award, among others. With the breeze of success in its sails, The Angolite journeyed into uncharted waters for prison journalism. Rideau and I covered stories on sexual violence, prison suicides, inmate killings and a host of other issues. We were a black/white writing team in a southern prison, rife with repressed racism and potential violence. Along with our awards, we became the subjects of stories on television networks, in national magazines and in the foreign press. The Angolite's success lifted me out of a pit of despair in Angola's fields and cellblocks. Rideau and I traveled the state on overnight speaking trips to schools and civic groups. We could pick up the telephone in The Angolite office and arrange for calls to journalists all over the country. We had influence with the administration and the free world. We were the envy of other prisoners. I lost it all in 1986 when I turned down a ranking prison official's offer to sell me a pardon. It was a ticket to freedom I felt that I had earned after 20 years at Angola. I yearned to be free with every breath I took. I was a lifer without
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----worldwide
Dec. 14 GERMANY/AUSTRIA: Arnold the Barbarian California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, famous for playing hard men in Hollywood blockbusters such as Terminator and Conan the Barbarian, has lost many fans in Germany and his native Austria by refusing to pardon gang killer Stanley Tookie Williams. Williams was executed on Monday night after spending 24 years on Death Row during which he wrote children's books encouraging kids to shun a life of crime. Newspaper commentators say Arnie chose the politically safe route of pandering to his Republican party. In doing so, he has turned his back on religious values and on Europe, where countries have abolished the death penalty. Arnold the Barbarian says Berlin's Bild Zeitung tabloid in a banner front-page headline, and its commentary pulls no punches. The man who made his fortune portraying axe-wielding warriors and terminators, the man for whom murder and killing symbolized entertainment for years, said 'No', writes Bild. Schwarzenegger said 'No' to the idea that bad people can become better people. 'No' to a world view that our intellect yearns for and our religion teaches us. With this 'No' Arnold Schwarzenegger has turned himself into a barbarian. Here, on this side of the silver screen. Meanwhile, Bild commentator Franz Josef Wagner is unlikely to make it onto Schwarzenegger's Christmas card list. I despise you, writes Wagner, addressing the governor. Conan the Barbarian made you famous. Sadly it has remained the role of your life. Williams transformed himself in jail, wrote books for children in the ghettos and was repeatedly nominated for Nobel prizes for peace and literature, says Wagner. It was such a man that Schwarzenegger refused to let live. Barbarians are cold-hearted, unfeeling, do bodybuilding. Austria's Der Standard is critical, but with a little less foam at the mouth. The governor could have chosen to grant a pardon and still adhere to Californian practice, writes the paper. No one forces him to be so extremely harsh. Besides, Williams had made visible signs that he had turned his back on violence. The Austrian tabloid Kurier runs a story summing up Austria's disappointment in its hero, especially intense in the Styria region and the city of Graz near where he was born. The Green party wants to strip Schwarzenegger of his honorary citizenship of Graz and to find a new name for the town's Arnold Schwarzenegger stadium, writes the paper. It quotes Wolfgang Benedek, head of the human rights body ETC, as saying: This man is no longer a role model for Graz and Styria. Back in Germany, Berliner Zeitung seizes on the Williams execution to condemn capital punishment per se. It cites French philosopher Albert Camus who described execution as the most premeditated of all murders with which no killing, however calculated, can be compared. Some 3,000 prisoners are vegetating on death row, some of them spending decades waiting for their final hour, writes the paper. In the United States, torture wasn't resurrected in the prisons of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, it had already returned with the re-introduction of the death penalty in 1976. Conservative daily Die Welt says Europe shouldn't be too quick to condemn America's use of the death penalty. Those Europeans who still bother trying to fathom how Americans feel easily overlook that victims in America have a much higher status than the rehabilitation of the criminal, which is so central to the European system of justice, writes the paper. The clerk who Williams shot in the back and the Taiwanese family he murdered are closer to Americans than Tookie's proclaimed transformation into a good citizen, the paper writes, noting that only 30 % of Americans found his treatment unjust. Left-wing Die Tageszeitung says Schwarzenegger chose the politically safe option by refusing to pardon Williams. Had he pardoned him he would himself have been accountable. That doesn't fit in with the political situation: Schwarzenegger hasn't yet overcome his defeats in recent referenda and is under heavy pressure from the Republican right. Bad luck for Stanley Williams. (source: Der Spiegel) JAMAICA: Death row inmate gets life A death row inmate who last year successfully challenged the mandatory death sentence on the grounds that it was unconstitutional was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for double murder. Lambert Watson, a 44-year-old farmer, was convicted in the Hanover Circuit Court 5 years ago for the 1997 murder of his common-law wife Eugenie Samuels and their 9-month-old daughter Georgina Watson. Mr. Watson was sentenced to hang. He chopped them to death because Samuels was insisting that Mr. Watson should maintain the child. After he lost this appeal in the Court of Appeal, his lawyers took the case to the United Kingdom Privy Council which ruled that judges should have the discretion to determine sentences in murder cases. Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, after hearing legal arguments
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----worldwide
URGENT ACTION APPEAL -- 14 December 2005 UA 314/05 Imminent Execution/ legal concern PAKISTAN: Shahzad (m) Muhammad Ashraf (m) Umer Hayat (m) Mubarak Ali (m) Shahzad, Muhammad Ashraf, Umer Hayat and Mubarak Ali are scheduled to be hanged on 21 December in Faisalabad District Jail in Punjab province. They have exhausted all possibilities of appeal. Though President Musharraf has already rejected their petition for mercy, he still has the power to commute the death sentences. The four men were found guilty of gang-raping a Christian girl in Faisalabad in 1999 by the Faisalabad Anti-Terrorism Court. A petition challenging the laws relevant to this case is currently being heard by the Federal Shariat Court, which judges whether laws are compatible with the teachings of Islam. However, proceedings on a point of law usually take a long time in Pakistan and it is unlikely that the four condemned men will benefit from this legal challenge. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases. The death penalty is a symptom of a culture of violence, and not a solution to it. It has not been shown to have any more deterrent effect than other punishments and carries the risk of irrevocable error. The death penalty is seen as the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and a violation of the right to life, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. BACKGROUND INFORMATION So far this year in Pakistan, 241 people have been sentenced to death, mostly for murder, and 32 have reportedly been executed. In 2004, 456 people were reportedly sentenced to death and 29 were executed. The legal challenge currently considered by the Federal Shariat Court relates to the imposition of the death penalty for rape. If four witnesses give evidence concerning the rape, or if the accused confesses, a death sentence is mandatory. However, if these witnesses are not present the court has the power to impose the death penalty at its discretion, as it has done in this case. Those challenging the current law argue that this provision is not in accordance with the injunctions of Islam. They also argue that rape cases should not be charged by Anti-Terrorism Courts. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible: - calling on President Musharraf to use his powers under article 45 of the Constitution of Pakistan to commute the death sentences of Shahzad, Muhammad Ashraf, Umer Hayat and Mubarak Ali immediately; - calling for an immediate moratorium on all executions in the country, in line with worldwide trends to abolish the death penalty with a view to an eventual abolition of the death penalty. APPEALS TO: President: General Pervez Musharraf Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan Fax: 011 92 51 9221422 Email: c...@pak.gov.pk Salutation: Dear President Pervez Musharraf COPIES TO: Ambassador Jehangir Karamat Embassy of Pakistan 2315 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington DC 20008 Fax: 1 202 686 1544 PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights. This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal. Urgent Action Network Amnesty International USA PO Box 1270 Nederland CO 80466-1270 Email: u...@aiusa.org http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/ Phone: 303 258 1170 Fax: 303 258 7881 -- END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL --
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----USA, TENN.
Dec. 14 USA: Tookie is dead. Time to dump the duct tape. Whew! I have waited for 24 years to feel this safe. I lost a neighbor in the rubble of Sept. 11, 2001. I crossed my fingers as my teenage daughter starting driving. I held my breath as reckless drivers sped down my suburban street, oblivious to my 7-year-old playing with her friends. I struggled to stay calm through each of the warnings about the dangers of a high-fat diet. And I waited for society to do something, anything, to make me less anxious, less impotent, less a victim of mysterious forces I could not control. When they suggested duct tape, I bought duct tape. When Brinks had a special introductory offer for its monthly alarm system, I happily paid the tab. But nothing seemed to work. The horrors mounted with relentless ferocity: global warming, failing schools, international terrorism, the scourge of HIV/AIDS, a looming Avian flu pandemic, drive-by shootings, poverty and hunger in an urban neighborhood just 20 minutes from my suburban fortress. There were days when this college professor felt like Charles Bronson in waiting, holding back just this far from an uncontrolled outburst of protective vengeance. Now, it seems the impossible has occurred. After all these years, I can sleep easy, unlock my windows, and wish my family a nice day with a fairly reliable sense that we will all sit around the dinner table unscathed. Our national jitters are over. The machinery of social control is up and running. I will finally have peace, or at least a few moments of it, knowing that my family and I are safe. Stanley Tookie Williams is dead. I am safe. We are all safe. Unbolt the doors and turn off the alarms. Society got off its duff. Just when I thought the world was spiraling out of control, Just when I thought we were condemned to live with an almost limitless supply of evil, hope for the future has presented itself in the execution of Stanley Williams. Who can I thank for this new-found sense of inner peace? The California penal code that enabled his death sentence? The appellate courts that upheld the sentence? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who terminated my torment of fear and worry by not caving to humanitarian pressure? They can all take a share of responsibility for ridding the country, perhaps the world, of its most lethal and pervasive threat. They have earned my gratitude. I think tonight when everyone is asleep, I'll sneak down to the basement and throw away the duct tape and all those useless flashlights. I'll e-mail Brinks to turn off the service. I might even let my daughter know that it'd be OK if she drank a couple of beers before driving home from her next social outing. After all, Stanley is dead. We are safe at last, safe at last, safe at last. Don't you all feel safe at last? (source: Chicago Tribune - Steven M. Gorelick, professor of media studies and journalism at Hunter College of the City University of New York) *** Capital punishment is a crime against society The state of California killed more than 1 man yesterday when it executed Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips, a violent street gang. The Williams who was put to death by lethal injection is not the same angry street tough convicted of brutally killing four people 26 years ago. In the opinion of people who knew him, other than those who were actively seeking his death out of an antiquated notion of justice, Williams was rehabilitated. He had devoted his life to ending gang violence, a scourge that has ripped through urban America and cities elsewhere where young disenfranchised boys and men find family and meaning in groups based around turf and crime. In an interview 2 weeks before his death with a New York Times reporter, Williams talked about what a horrible, wretched person he once was. Then he said: People forget that redemption is tailor-made for the wretched. From prison, Williams reached out to young people by co-authoring a series of children's books that warn of the evils of gangs and the gangster way of life. How much good those books have done was a point of contention between the prosecution and the defense, but the police and gang leaders give Williams credit for helping to bring about truces between rivals. Thousands of letters and e-mails from children credited his books and the movie made about his life with turning them away from violence. By killing Williams, California put an end to its famous convict's good works. Because he's dead, it's likely that one or more young people who might have embraced his message will instead die on a street corner over an insult or a few dollars or for wearing the wrong color scarf. Despite a recommendation for clemency from a panel of three federal judges who cited Williams's anti-gang efforts, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to convert his sentence to life in prison without parole or even to grant a 60-day reprieve to allow his lawyers to
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news-----MISS., TEXAS, TENN.
Dec. 14 MISSISSIPPI-execution State executes killer The state executed its 1st inmate in 3 years at 6:25 p.m. today when John B. Nixon Sr. was pronounced dead at Mississippi State Penitentiary. His mood changed from cheerful and chatty to somber and withdrawn as the time of his execution grew near, state corrections officials said at 4 p.m. 'He's not playing anymore, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said. Time is caving in on Mr. Nixon, and it appears to me that he is realizing that. Epps and officials observed Nixon in Unit 17 of the Mississippi State Penitentiary during a portion of his visitation with family this afternoon. Earlier in the day, Nixon told Epps he did not commit the crime but knew who did. Nixon had his last meal and a shower from 4-4:30 p.m. He called for his spiritual adviser from 4:30 to 5 p.m. The quote Nixon gave his attorneys to pass on to media this morning - That I was where I would be/then should I be where I am not/ here I am where I must be/where I would be I cannot - was taken from a Mother Goose poem titled Katy Cruel. Nixon was convicted of killing Rankin County resident Virginia Tucker for $1,000 and shooting her husband Thomas Tucker in 1985. Elester Ponthieux, Virginia Tucker's ex-husband, hired Nixon to kill Tucker. He is serving a life sentence for his role in the crime. Thomas Tucker survived the shooting and witnessed Nixon's execution. At age 77, Nixon is the oldest person executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Earlier this morning Nixon said he was sorry for himself and the Tucker family. Nixon is the only person put to death this year in Mississippi, and the 7th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Nixon becomes the 60th and last condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1004th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The 60 executions this year represents a slight increase from last year, when 59 condemned inmates were put to death nationwide. There are 8 executions already set for January. (sources: The Clarion-Ledger Rick Halperin) TEXAS: Death row escapee enjoyed time on lam'Relaxed' atmosphere at prison allowed him to walk out, he says A condemned prisoner who got a taste of freedom last month when he escaped from a county jail said Wednesday his flight was worth it even though he was caught after three days on the run. It was great, Charles V. Thompson, 35, said from death row in his first public comments about the November 3 escape from the Harris County Jail in downtown Houston, Texas. I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night, he said. Thompson said he rode trains for more than 2 days to the Shreveport, Louisiana, area and posed as a Hurricane Katrina refugee to get some money before he was arrested there. It was short lived, but I think it was worth it, he said from a tiny visiting cage outside death row in the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Thompson said his flight from the jail, where he had been housed for five months while he was attending a new sentencing trial, was aided by lackadaisical deputies who allowed him to walk out the front door virtually unchallenged. Once I got there and seen how relaxed it was -- they sit ... and play video games, they sleep on the job, he said. The sheriff said it was human error and nothing is wrong with their policies. I have to disagree. Thompson fled a week after he was re-sentenced to death for the 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. After Thompson met with an attorney in a small interview cell, he slipped out of his handcuffs and orange jail jumpsuit and left the unlocked room. He refused to reveal how he got a handcuff key in the Harris County Jail. I'm not a snitch. I'll take that one to the grave with me. Thompson waived a badge fashioned from his prison ID card to get past several deputies. Then I walked out the front door, Thompson said. It was the hardest thing in the world to not run. I walked down the steps, down the street, around the corner, stripped to my jogging clothes and went on the jogging path. Sheriff Tommy Thomas fired one deputy and disciplined 8 others for Thompson's escape. One more retired rather than face discipline. Thompson said he expects to pay for his escape by getting no leniency from Texas courts in his legal appeal. He said prison officials asked if he would try another escape. I said, 'I don't think there's any holes in your security here,' he said. I'm pretty much resolved to my fate. Concrete box 23 hours a day. Just sit in there and think about how they're going to kill you. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: State Implements Execution Changes Often family members want to witness the execution of
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----CALIFORNIA
Dec. 14 CALIFORNIA: Ashburn: Time to speed up death penalty proces. By Senator Roy Ashburn, 18th Senate District The recent spotlight on the impending execution of multiple-murderer Stanley Tookie Williams has once again highlighted the flaws in Californias death penalty law. Williams was put to death at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, after he was denied clemency by Governor Schwarzenegger. Williams was convicted in 1981 of murdering four people and sentenced to death. Yet 26 years after his victims took their final breaths, the killer still lives. His lawyers have continued to maneuver to thwart the sentence duly handed down by a jury of his peers until the very end. Williamss case demonstrates just how dysfunctional the death penalty process is in California. The seemingly endless appeals process for condemned killers now faces a backlog of about 650 individuals living on death row. Since the death penalty was reestablished in California in 1977 only 11 executions have taken place, while 30 death row inmates have died from natural causes. For the handful of executions that have taken place, the average delay from the courthouse steps to the chamber at San Quentin is 16 years. Under both California and Federal Law there is a specific, detailed and lengthy appeals process that must be followed before an inmate may be scheduled for execution. Adding to the delays is the fact that the kinds of inmates who commit capital offenses tend to be indigent and unable to pay for their own defense. Those with some financial means usually exhaust their resources before the appeal process is completed. As a result most death penalty appeals fall on the shoulders of the Office of the State Public Defender. Those cases must then be prioritized, funded, and staffed along with the myriad of other cases the public defender is tasked with, resulting in still more delays. Death by old age was not what the voters had in mind when they reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Delays and backlogs may serve the desires of death penalty opponents; however the people of California continue to demand the ultimate punishment for the most heinous of crimes. Since 1977 California has experienced wide swings in ideological trends and partisan preferences. During that time however one policy stance has remained consistent: support for the death penalty. The respected Field Poll has shown support ranging from two-thirds to 3/4 of Californians. Is it even possible then to both fulfill the wishes of Californias citizens and comply with the lengthy appeals mandated under federal law? Clearly it is possible, as demonstrated in the state of Texas. Compared to California's 11 executions in 30 years, Texas has carried out 355 capital sentences, during the same time period. They have streamlined their death row appellate process and eliminated other legal hurdles, without denying any single killer his right to appeal. Similar capital punishment reform can be accomplished in California, which is why I have co-authored Senate Bill 378 (Morrow). In the mid 1990s the legislature created the California Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC) whose purpose is to represent indigent death row defendants and get the appeal process moving. SB 378 builds on those efforts by nearly tripling the size of the HCRC from its present 45 lawyers and staff to 127. The bill also requires competency standards for the lead counsel in death penalty appeals. This will minimize the all too common last minute plea that incompetent lawyers represented the defendant during his appeals. SB 378 also contains a dozen or so other legal remedies, which will eliminate unreasonable delays in the resolution of post conviction issues and reduce the number of proceedings in capital cases. If any criminal punishment is to have a deterrent effect, such punishment must be swift and certain. Until the death penalty is carried out in such a fashion in our state, innocent Californians will continue to be assaulted and murdered. That capital punishment is a deterrent is beyond dispute. Since the State of Texas made a serious effort to carry out the death sentence in the 1990s, the murder rate fell 60% while the national murder rate fell just 33%. The Stanley Tookie Williams case has reminded us once again how violent murderers continue to live out their lives on death row, reading and writing and taking a deep breath each morning when they awake. At the same time the families of their victims continue to shed tears for the cruel and violent loss of their loved ones. It is not about any one killer and the regret he may have for horrors committed long ago. It is instead time to send a message to potential killers in our midst. It is time to show that punishment for the most brutal murders will be swift and severe. Our families deserve nothing less. Senator Ashburn represents the 18th Senate District including Tulare, Kern, Inyo, and San Bernardino Counties. (source: Bakersfield Online)
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----worldwide
Dec. 15 EGYPT: Indonesian Citizen Escapes Death Sentence in Egypt Jakarta:Darman Agustri (33), an Indonesian tried in a Cairo court in Egypt for having murdered a Malaysian family last year, has escaped the death sentence. The court has reviewed its decision to impose a death sentence on Agustri, said Thamrin, a spokesperson from the Indonesian department of foreign affairs in Jakarta on Wednesday night (14/12). Agustri was alleged to have committed the pre-meditated murder of a Malaysian family on October 15, 2004, in Cairo. The murder is assumed to have been linked to business problems between Agustri and the victims' family. According to Thamrin, Agustris lawyer Amr Ahmed Abdel Hamed Yousef requested the judges to re-consider the death sentence during each of 4 trials. Thank God, these efforts were successful, stated Thamrin. In addition to convincing the judges, Thamrin said that the victims family has forgiven Agustri for his crime. I received information from the Malaysian Embassy that the family of the victims has forgiven Agustri, stated Thamrin. (source: Raden Rachmadi-Tempo News Room)
