[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 24 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Death sought for accused in rape-murder case of boy in Abu DhabiSuspected committed the heinous crime in the holy month of Ramadan, say prosecutors Prosecutors here asked for the death penalty for what they termed as a "merciless beast" suspected in the rape and murder of a Pakistani boy in June. Public prosecutors presented evidence in court, during which the victim's father broke into tears - and prosecutors argued for the maximum punishment to be meted out on the accused. The suspect earlier pleaded not guilty in court after he was accused in the Pakistani boy's murder-slay case. The victim's father burst into tears after hearing the detailed narrative of the case and the merciless rape and murder of his son. The prosecution said the suspect didn't care about the fact that it was during holy month of Ramadan when he committed the heinous crime. The boy, Azan Majid Janjua, 11, had gone missing in June. His body was later found on the rooftop of the building where his family lived. Upon the defence lawyer's request to study the claims of the prosecution, the case was adjourned to October 31. During the October 11, 3rd hearing, it was established that the accused is mentally and psychologically fit to stand trial. Medical records submitted to the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court on Wednesday affirmed the mental fitness of the accused. In a previous hearing, his defence lawyer claimed the accused was psychologically unfit and demanded for a professional evaluation of his mental capacity. (source: Gulf News) INDONESIA: Indonesia Rejects UN Recommendation to Abolish Death Penalty Jakarta. Indonesia on Thursday (21/09) accepted 167 of the 225 recommendations it received from international delegations during the 27th session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, or UPR, earlier in May, but crucially rejected the recommendation to abolish the death penalty. Indonesia said the remaining 58 recommendations, including ones on abolishing the death penalty, addressing past human rights violations and ending prosecutions under blasphemy laws, "were noted" but considered "not in line with the priorities in Indonesia's human rights agenda." Indonesia went through its third UPR cycle in May, and had straight away accepted 150 recommendations put forward by 101 delegations during the review while placing the remaining 75 under further examination. Indonesia stated its final position on the pending recommendations during the 36th session of the Human Rights Council last week. During the session, Indonesia reaffirmed its position that "the death penalty is still a prevailing positive law in Indonesia." "However, the revision of the penal code had provided a more robust safeguard in due process of law on the death penalty," Indonesia's deputy permanent representative to the UN office in Geneva, Michael Tene, said. The United Kingdom said it "regretted that the recommendations on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty had not been supported" and repeated its call that no evidence suggests death penalty is a more effective deterrent than alternative forms of punishment. Other delegations in the session also expressed concerns that the Indonesian government had not addressed discrimination against minority groups in the country, which include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and followers of religious minorities. "Indonesia took note of the remaining 58 recommendations with the consideration that they are not in line with the priorities in Indonesia's human rights agenda. Some of the recommendations were also inaccurate and not based on facts," Michael said, according to a statement released by the Foreign Affairs Ministry. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) urged the Indonesian government nevertheless to take some measures to deal with the recommendations it did not accept, including "measures to eradicate impunity, prioritize the settlement of gross human rights violations, guarantee freedom of religion and belief, ensure freedom of expression and abolish the death penalty." Komnas HAM and Amnesty International also noted that Indonesia has yet to ratify several international human rights accords, including the Optional Protocol on the Convention Against Torture and Convention for the Protection of All Persons From Enforced Disappearance. (source: Jakarta Globe) SYRIA: IS 'executed' 116 in Syria town revenge campaign: monitor The Islamic State group killed 116 people it suspected of collaborating with the Syrian regime in Al-Qaryatain this month before losing the desert down to government forces, a monitor said Monday. "IS has over a period of 20 days executed at least 116 civilians in reprisal killings, accusing them of collaboration with regime forces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARIZONA
Oct. 24 ARIZONA: What Happened to Rachel Gray?Barry Jones Was Sent to Death Row for the Murder of a 4-Year-Old Girl. Did Arizona Get It Wrong? On a Monday morning in early September, Hildegard Stoecker was on her front patio in southwest Tucson, where she likes to spend the sunrise. In a few hours, the sun would beat hard on the Arizona desert and temperatures would hit 100 degrees. But at 6 a.m., it was cool. A soft glow illuminated the peaked foothills of Tucson Mountain Park behind her home; in her front yard, cacti and Caesalpinia bushes were bathed in pink light and a hummingbird hovered by the window. Stoecker was not feeling serene. On Friday she had received a message about a man on Arizona's death row, whose name was all too familiar. Barry Lee Jones was convicted in 1995 for the rape and murder of a young girl. It was the kind of unfathomable crime that Stoecker felt should send someone to hang "from the highest tree," she recalled. The trial judge agreed and sentenced Jones to die. But 22 years later, Stoecker was disturbed to hear that Jones was still on death row. Not because she thought he should have been executed by now. In fact, it was the opposite: She had mistakenly assumed he'd probably been removed from death row - maybe even exonerated. "What you're saying bothers me quite a bit," she said. The sentiment was surprising coming from Stoecker. She was one of the jurors who convicted Jones. Some 10 years ago, she explained, an investigator with the Arizona Federal Public Defender's Office had visited her at home. He was interviewing trial jurors as part of the appellate process in Jones's case. Her memory of the meeting is vague. But it made a strong impression, bringing up old doubts about the evidence presented at trial. She had always felt that Jones's lawyers did a poor job representing him. The meeting made her think there had been other flaws in his case - and the state would be forced to address them. Stoecker is in her 70s, with cropped gray hair. She wore jeans and a T-shirt with a bald eagle on it and was barefoot, seated in her motorized wheelchair. Decades ago, she was diagnosed with an incurable lung condition she contracted while working at a ceramics plant. At the time of Jones's trial, she had just begun her treatment and was increasingly unable to work. She got involved in animal welfare. That morning, her rescue cockatoo, Max, squawked insistently from inside the house. Stoecker explained that Max had been traumatized after seeing "a bird friend" killed by dogs and had plucked out his own feathers. She was fostering him until he found a new home. If Stoecker's natural compassion made her an unlikely death penalty supporter, Jones's sentence had not been for her to decide. In those years, judges, not juries, imposed the death penalty in Arizona. "Whether we as a jury would've sentenced him to death, I don't know," she said. But there was another reason capital punishment made Stoecker uneasy. When she was a teenager in San Francisco during the 1950s, California executed a man named Burton Abbott for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl. Abbott swore he was innocent; like Jones, his conviction relied heavily on circumstantial evidence. On the day he died, the governor called the prison to grant a last-minute stay, only to find the execution was already underway. "I don't know that I was fully convinced he was guilty," Stoecker said about Abbott. But she was only in high school - "What did I know?" She did not give the death penalty much thought after that. Not until the trial of Barry Jones. "This is something that's been with me for a long, long time," Stoecker said. The possibility that she might have made the wrong decision distressed her. "I realize a lot of people just put it out of their minds and go on with their lives," she said. A friend had told her, "'Look, you did the best you could at the time. You know, just kinda let it go.' And I can't let it go." Since the day of his arrest in 1994, Barry Lee Jones has insisted he did not rape or kill his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter, Rachel Yvonne Gray. Jailed on the same day the child's lifeless body arrived at a Tucson hospital, Jones admitted she'd been injured on his watch, repeatedly saying she had fallen from his parked yellow work van the day before, hitting her head. Jones said Rachel told him a little boy had pushed her out. But even if it was true, that did not explain the bruises covering her body, or the abdominal injury that took her life. Almost no physical evidence linked Jones to Rachel's injuries - and there was nothing to show he was guilty of rape. But when children die under mysterious circumstances, early suspicion typically falls on the adults who were closest to them in their final hours. On that day, witnesses said, that person was Jones. He and Rachel's mother, Angela Gray, were tried back to back
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., KAN., NEB., S.DAK.. IDAHO, CALIF., USA
Oct. 24 MISSOURI: Jury selection begins today - and other details of the Craig Wood trial Selection begins today for the trial of Craig Wood - the man accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 10-year-old Hailey Owens in 2014. Within the next few weeks, a jury will decide whether Craig Wood is guilty and, subsequently, whether he will live or die. Wood is charged with 5 felonies: 1st-degree murder, armed criminal action, child kidnapping, rape and sodomy. In order to prove Wood guilty of 1st-degree murder, prosecutors will have to show he deliberated before the killing. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty for Wood if he is found guilty of murder. There are several aggravating factors a jury considers when determining if the death penalty is appropriate, including whether the murder was "outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, or depravity of mind." According to the lawyers handling the case, here's how this process will play out: On Monday, the prosecuting and defense attorneys, Wood and Judge Thomas Mountjoy will be in Platte County for jury selection. Jury selection is expected to last a week. The initial pool of jurors started at roughly 500 and has already been whittled down through written questionnaires. Hailey OwensBuy Photo Eventually, 16 jurors - including 4 alternates - will be selected and brought to Greene County for the trial. The jurors will stay at an undisclosed hotel where deputies will patrol their floor. A deputy must be present when they call their families and jurors are not allowed to leave on their own. Arguments in Wood's trial are expected to begin on Monday, Oct. 30, and last a week. If Wood is found guilty, then the sentencing phase begins. The sentencing is also expected to last a week. Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson is pursuing the death penalty for Wood. Wood has said he's willing to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison if prosecutors are willing to take the death penalty off the table. Hailey's mother, Stacey Barfield, told the News-Leader earlier this year that Patterson should take that deal. (source: Springfield News-Leader) KANSAS: Death penalty appeal this week for Justin Thurber A man on death row convicted of torturing and murdering an Arkansas City woman will appeal his sentence to the Kansas Supreme Court this week. Jodi Sanderholm's memory remains in the hearts of many people in Ark City, and throughout Kansas. She was kidnapped, tortured and murdered. The convicted killer's appeal is Friday in Topeka, and Jodi's family will be there. "This is the 1st of many, we could have as many as 6 or 7 more which could be one per year, so we've got a long year ahead of us," said Jodi???s mother, Cindy Sanderholm. Jodi's father, Brian Sanderholm said, "His defense is going to try to bring up anything they can in the trial that was wrong." The Sanderholms are returning to court all these years later. Justin Thurber was sentenced to death in 2009 for murdering their daughter. "We're just up there just to see what's going to happen, and he's not even going to be there, so that's good, don't really want to see him," said Cindy. Jodi Sanderholm would have turned 30 last month. Instead, the 11th anniversary of her death approaches in January. "She was a very loving and caring girl, she didn't know a stranger, she helped anybody and everybody she could, she was just a doll to be around and fun to be around," said Cindy. Jodi's death initiated changes across the state including a stalking law. "If you as a girl feel threatened you need to get something done about it, don't suffer through it, that's Jodi's law up there on the wall," said Brian. This is Thurber's 1st appeal... All death penalty cases are appealed. The defense is bringing up 27 issues in the case such as saying jurors weren't removed who had bias against Thurber. (source: KWCH news) NEBRASKA: At D.C. event, ex-State Sen. Colby Coash will argue that fiscal conservatives should oppose death penalty A recent effort to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska may have been rebuffed, but a former state senator is traveling to Washington, D.C., to urge conservatives and Republicans in other states to keep trying. Former State Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln will be among several past and present state legislators speaking Wednesday at an event organized by Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. That organization argues, as does Coash, that conservatives are turning against the death penalty due to high cost of appeals and litigation, distrust that government can fairly mete out capital punishment and concern that it conflicts with valuing life. That shift, the former senator said, was evident in Nebraska in 2015 when the Legislature overrode a veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts to repeal capital punishment. That decision,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., MD., FLA., OHIO, ARK.
Oct. 24 TEXAS: Capital case goes to trial: Tracy could face death if convicted in slaying Opening statements and testimony are expected to begin this morning in the capital murder trial of a Texas prison inmate accused in the July 2015 death of a correctional officer at the Barry Telford Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The fate of 39-year-old Billy Joel Tracy lies in the hands of 12 Bowie County citizens. If the 7 men and 5 women on Tracy's jury find him guilty of capital murder in the July 15, 2015, beating death of Timothy Davison, 47, they will then be tasked with deciding if he should receive the death penalty or a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. At a pretrial hearing last week, 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart said he expects the guilt-or-innocence phase of Tracy's trial to take about a week. Commencement of the punishment phase of trial has been tentatively scheduled for Nov. 1, in the event Tracy is convicted. Davison, an officer with less than a year on the job, was escorting Tracy back to his cell in administrative segregation when the inmate slipped his left hand free of its cuff and attacked. When Davison was on the ground, Tracy allegedly grabbed his metal tray slot bar and used it to pummell him. The attack was captured from multiple angles on video surveillance. Davison was pronounced dead the same morning at a Texarkana hospital. Tracy has voiced his objections to being held at the Telford Unit during his trial. The next closest TDCJ unit to New Boston is several hours away, making it impractical to house him elsewhere. Personnel from TDCJ will be present in the courtroom, dressed in street clothes so as not to give the appearance to the jury that Tracy is an especially dangerous man. Tracy also will be dressed in street clothes rather than prison garb. Beneath his clothing, Tracy is expected to wear a locking leg brace and a device capable of delivering an electric shock. Tracy has been behind bars for more than 1/2 his life. In 1995, he was sentenced to a 3-year term for retaliation in Tarrant County, Texas. Three years later, Tracy was sentenced to life with parole possible, plus 20 years for burglary, aggravated assault and assault on a public servant in Rockwall County, Texas. In 2005, Tracy received an additional 45-year term for stabbing a guard with a homemade weapon at a TDCJ unit in Amarillo, Texas. Tracy was sentenced to 10 years in 2009 for attacking a guard at a TDCJ unit in Abilene, Texas. Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp has filed notice of her intent to call a long list of witnesses who are expected to provide first-hand accounts of Tracy's violent past. The last time a death sentence was sought in Bowie County was in 2004, when Stephon Lavelle Walter was tried for the 2003 Labor Day weekend murders of 3 employees of Outback Steakhouse in Texarkana, 1 of whom was in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy. A Collin County jury declined to sentence Walter to death, opting for a sentence of life instead, after a change of venue was granted in the case. At that time, Texas law did not include life without parole as a possible sentence for capital murder, as it does today. Walter, 25 at the time of the murders and now 38, will be eligible for parole Sept. 4, 2043, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The last time a death sentence was pronounced in Bowie County was in March 2001. James Scott Porter was already serving time for murder when he killed a fellow inmate at the Telford Unit with a shank and a rock in May 2000. He was executed Jan. 4, 2005. The month before Porter was sentenced to die, a Bowie County jury sentenced Deon James Tumblin to death for the June 2000 murder of a 75-year-old woman. Tumblin hanged himself in his cell on death row in 2004. Lee Andrew Taylor was sentenced to death by a Bowie County jury in 2000 for the 1999 murder of a fellow inmate at the Telford Unit where he was serving time for aggravated robbery. He was executed June 16, 2011. Tracy is represented by Mount Pleasant lawyer Mac Cobb and Texarkana lawyer Jeff Harrelson. Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards is assisting Crisp with the state's prosecution. (source: Texarkana Gazette) PENNSYLVANIA: Pennsylvania prosecutors see positive in death penalty study The association of Pennsylvania prosecutors said Monday it sees some positives in a new report that found death sentences are more common when the victim is white and less common when the victim is black. The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association released a statement noting researchers found the death penalty is not disproportionately targeted against black or Hispanic defendants, a conclusion prosecutors described as a vindication of their evenhandedness in applying it. "For so long, those who have sought to abolish the death penalty have argued that the race of the
