[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, UTAH, CONN., WIS., N.C.
Nov. 13 TEXAS: Prison Show on big screenA documentary focused on RAY HILL is much like his radio show: spontaneous in the studio PRISON LIFE ON THE AIR What: Free screenings of Ray Hill's Prison Show , a documentary by Brian Huberman When: 8 p.m., Friday-Sunday Where: Rice University Media Center, University at Stockton On the radio: The Prison Show airs 9-11 p.m. Fridays on KPFT, 90.1 FM ** He was in prison. She was in love. She gave up a good job with the criminal justice system to marry him by proxy. It was a sizzling romance played out over the airwaves of Ray Hill's weekly call-in prison show. Week after week, listeners thrilled to the wife's one-way conversations with her sweetie. When it all went sour, thousands in radioland grieved as the disgruntled wife demanded a divorce. Such is the stuff of Hill's Friday night The Prison Show on KPFT-FM. Maybe the program, now in its 26th year, doesn't pack the visceral wallop of Jerry Springer, but it comes close. Listeners are family. A lot of joy and pain blasts across the ether. It's good radio, said Hill. It's all the ethos and the pathos and the eros of people's lives in prison. I have no idea what's going to happen. I just turn on the microphone. The Prison Show and the personalities that shape it Hill once served time for jewel theft are the subject of a 60-minute documentary by Rice University film professor Brian Huberman. The film will screen Friday through Sunday at the Rice Media Center. Huberman, supported by a financial backer in San Antonio, said he sought to produce a film that would illuminate the scandal of American prisons. What stood out to me, he said, was the inadequacy of the prison system and the way in which people rightly or wrongly are incarcerated and essentially forgotten. There seems to be very little attempt at rehabilitation. Punishment is the name of the game. Huberman, who received his training at England's National Film and Television School, has lived in Houston 30 years. Ray Hill is an icon in several areas of activism, Huberman said. We approached him about the project, and he was totally open to all these things. Let camera roll In some ways, Huberman's cinematic approach mirrors Hill's broadcast philosophy. For about two months in 2005, Huberman set up his camera in the Pacifica station's cramped Montrose studio and let it roll. I'd just pretty much film the entire radio show, Huberman said. It would start with Ray opening his mail during the 1st hour and responding to the needs of inmates who sent him letters. Then it would be him doing the show. Huberman also concentrated on Hill's life, interspersing segments that examine his four-year stint in prison for burglary and his growth as a gay and prison activist. Much of this material comes from the one-man autobiographical shows Hill has performed here and in the Northeast. I think that the audience will discover that although the activism is very strong there is something much more powerful going on, Huberman said. If you listen to the show, the bulk are families of the inmates, generally women and children. The film basically is watching Ray listening to these people in the studio. There's a very powerful human dimension. It is a very quiet and beautiful gesture. Huberman noted the children of one inmate appeared at the studio weekly to sing You Are My Sunshine. Most of the time, the notoriously expansive Hill lets his callers do the talking. But, he noted, he occasionally tries to shape content. Hill believes his program, highly critical of prison gangs, has led to a reduction in behind-bars gang membership. I have no truck with any group that bonds together to abuse others, he said. I have a captive audience. Even the gangsters listen, Hill said. Ray Hill has their mamas and wives. ... Now that we have their attention, we can talk to them about their responsibilities and their opportunities to make a difference for the positive. I know that sounds a little pipe dreamish, but incrementally, over a long period of time, I think it's working. (source: Houston Chronicle) Death row hunger strike gets outside support Protesters from Houston and Austin held a spirited demonstration in front of the Polunsky Prison Unit here on Nov. 4. Families arriving for or leaving from visits as well as cars traveling on the highway honked their horns in support. Placards supported a hunger strike against conditions on death row that was in its 5th week. Told by a prison official to move across the street, members of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement from Houston said they would not move and that the warden couldn't tell them where to stand during a legal protest. Activists with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Austin also participated in the protest. Four families visiting relatives in prison pulled off the highway and joined the protest. One Latina who had driven all the way from Brownsville
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, CALIF.
Nov. 13 OHIO: US Supreme Court action gives trooper's killer new sentence hearing The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review an appeals court decision throwing out the death sentence for the man who shot to death a state trooper 10 years ago during a traffic stop. The ruling means Maxwell D. White Jr. will get a new sentencing hearing. His attorneys argued for a new sentence because a juror said during jury selection that she was biased in favor of the death penalty. A state court ruled the juror was not biased. The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati overturned that decision but upheld White's aggravated murder conviction. Ashland County Prosecutor Ramona Francesconi-Rogers said new jurors will be chosen and all the evidence will have to be presented again for them to make a decision. White, 41, was convicted of killing trooper James Gross in 1996 when the trooper pulled him over after motorists reported his vehicle was travelling eratically. White wounded Gross when he approached, then shot him in the back, according to the records. The appeals court now must issue an order giving the state 180 days to hold a new sentencing proceeding for White. (source: Associated Press) * Forum calls for end to racist death penalty Student workers had to keep setting up chairs as the crowd swelled to over 250 in the University of Toledo Student Union on Oct. 29. The program was the last in a 10-stop tour called Witness to an Execution, organized by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Community members of all ages and nationalities mixed with students to hear Barbara Becnel, long-time friend of the late Stanley Tookie Williams and editor of his books. Conveners of the program called for a moratorium on the death penalty because it is racist, targets the poor, is barbaric and doesnt deter crime. In addition, it murders the innocent. Washington Muhammad from the Nation of Islam expressed Minister Louis Farrakhan's support for Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan, one of the Lucasville 5 wrongly convicted for the death of a guard in connection with a 1993 prison uprising in Lucasville, Ohio. He declared that the conviction of Imam Hasan was due to fear of a warrior and fear that we might unite across racial boundaries, economical boundaries and religious boundaries. Hasan was an imam, or prayer leader, for the Sunni Muslims in the Lucasville prison and their spokesperson before and during the rebellion, which led the prosecution to target him for capital crimes. Hasan sent a taped statement from death row. A judge on Aug. 14 recommended denial of his petition for habeas corpus and request for an evidentiary hearing. Hasan's attorneys filed objections to the recommendations and the ACLU filed a friend of the court brief. However, Hasan may be nearing the end of his appeals at the federal level. The tape pointed out that prosecutors played to anti-Islamic prejudice and racism in his trial. As an illustration of the racism of the death penalty, Hasan quoted statistics that 80 % of executions are for killing whites, whereas only 13 percent are for killing Black people. Hasan stated, We have to strive, to struggle to bring about change in the criminal justice system, just like the people of Toledo stopped the neo-Nazis from marching. Join forces. Its going to be a long road. (See Nazis kicked out of Toledo, Oct. 18, 2005, and Cops defend Nazis as hundreds protest, Dec. 15, 2005, at www.workers.org.) The audience then warmly greeted featured speaker Becnel, who had been present at the execution of Tookie Williams on Dec. 13, 2005. She was also a witness at a hearing to determine if something was wrong with the way the State of California had carried out Williams' execution. According to Becnel, the California standard is that some pain is okay but excruciating pain is unconstitutional. She stated, I knew that Stan had been tortured to death. When I came out and spoke my truth, they said I was hysterical. They said, 'Don't believe untutored eyes.' This is the `st time in the history of San Quentin prison that a federal judge ordered an execution team to testify under oath. By the end of the first day of testimony, it was admitted that the execution was bungled. Becnel related the testimony of a veterinarian at the September hearing who stated that the protocol used by the State of California is a process he would never use to euthanize an animal. Asked why not, he answered, Because I have ethics. I have standards. I wouldn't do something that would cause the animal pain. The hearing revealed that the state of California uses a 3-drug cocktail to kill. The 1st drug makes the prisoner lose consciousness instantly, but it has a rapid half-life, losing its potency in 2 to 3 minutes. The botched process that Williams was subjected to took 10 minutes, allowing him to regain consciousness. The 2nd drug is a paralytic agent, affecting all parts of the body, including the
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Nov. 13 NEW ZEALAND: Death penalty calls over Dutch abduction Sensible Sentencing Trust wnats death sentence renewed after honeymooning couple abducted and woman raped near Paihia The gunpoint rape of a Dutch tourist on her honeymoon by 2 masked men in Northland has sparked renewed calls for the death penalty. The Sensible Sentencing Trust is so incensed it is demanding the government hold a binding referendum so the public can decide the appropriate penalty for such a crime. The lobby group's spokesman Garth McVicar says if necessary, he would be prepared to supply the rifle and pull the trigger to carry out the execution. Meanwhile Northland's tourism body is worried the region will get a bad reputation after the abduction on Friday. Police are still trying to find the men who drove the couple around the region for several hours on Friday and sexually assaulted the woman. Destination Northland General Manager Robyn Bolton hopes potential visitors are not put off by the incident. She says it is an appalling crime and is very damaging. The group is not encouraging people to free camp as the couple were doing, although nothing like this has ever happened before. The group is now deciding on how best to make even more of an effort to prevent travellers from the practice, after this incident. (source: New Zealand City) ZAMBIA: Death penalty stays The Supreme Court has declared that it can not abolish the death penalty. It says this is because their is no legislation which gives this power. The court noted that only Zambians through their Member of Parliaments can put up a legislation for the abolition of the death penalty. And the supreme court has upheld a Judgement by a Lusaka High Court that rejected a petition by convicts Benjamin Banda and Cephas Miti. Banda and Miti are has since passed away, were sentenced to death for armed robbery. In a Landmark Judgment delivered, Justices Ireen Mambilima, Lombe Cchibesakunda and Sandson Silomba said courts can not abolish the death penalty because it is a creation of the constitution. The 2 convicts wanted the death penalty abolished on grounds that it was inhuman, degrading and torturous. Their lawyer Kelvin Hang'andu argued that article 15 forbade capital punishment. Mr. Hang'andu also said Zambia was a Christian nation and the death penalty is in conflict with its values and principles. But the Court held that death penalty is not incompatible with rights to life enshrined in the constitution on grounds that the right to life is not absolute. It said article 12 sub section 1 clearly permits capital punishment and that under a judgment life can be taken away. They also say section 294 of the penal code is not in conflict with the constitution by providing mandatory Death Sentence for armed Aggaravated robbery. (source: Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation) EAST AFRICA: Govt Officials Discuss Death Penalty, EAC The Minister of State for Lands and Environment, Patricia Hajabakiga recently discussed with residents of Kirehe the prospects of abolishing the death penalty and joining East African Community (EAC). Accompanied by the presidential envoy to the Great Lakes Region, Richard Sezibera, on a recent visit to area, Hajabakiga noted that killing is not punitive and that no one has the right to end the life of another person. The Death Penalty is almost meaningless because one who is killed is just relieved instead of serving the sentence by learning from his or her mistakes and crimes committed. The government has, therefore, decided to do away with the death penalty. Even our Constitution acknowledges the importance of protecting one's life. Moreover, God is the sole giver of life and therefore He should as well be responsible to end life, Hajabakiga said. On his part, Sezibera enumerated the advantages of joining the EAC and added that Rwanda fulfills all requirements to join the bloc. The purpose of the visit is to seek your views and opinions on the two important issues. Rwanda is planning to remove the death penalty in Rwandan laws and we are preparing to join the EAC, Sezibera said. Area residents expressed enthusiasm towards joining the EAC and also supported efforts to scrap the death penalty. (source: The New Times) RUSSIA: State Duma to extend death penalty moratorium Russia will not apply the death penalty for at least 3 years to come, as ending the current moratorium hinges on introducing jury trials in Chechnya. A bill in the State Duma, On the Introduction of the Code of Criminal Procedure, shifts the deadline for introducing jury trials in Chechnya from January 1, 2007, to January 1, 2010. It is scheduled to undergo a first reading on Wednesday. (source: Interfax) CHINA: Avoid death penalty: PRC judge-RESTRAINT: The president of China's highest court said that death sentences should be meted out in an `extremely small' number, but rejected calls for its abolishment
