[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
June 19 IRANexecution Man Executed at Ahvaz Prison A prisoner was hanged for murder charges at Ahvaz (Ahwaz) Central Prison last Saturday. According to IHR sources, on Saturday, June 15, prisoner Mohammad Shekaf was hanged at the Iranian southern city of Ahvaz’s central prison. He was arrested on January 29, 2015, and charged with murder. His execution is not announced by Iranian authorities or media so far. According to the Iran Human Rights statistic department, at least 273 people were executed in Iran in 2018. At least 188 of them executed for murder charges. There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent. (source: Iran Human Rights) Iran Regime Hangs Three Prisoners at Dawn in Bandar Abbas 3 prisoners were hanged at dawn on Wednesday, June 19, in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran. The state-run Fars News Agency quoted the regime’s top judiciary official in Hormozgan Province, Ali Salehi, as saying the trio were hanged in the city’s central prison. The victims’ names were not given. Iran is the world’s number 1 executioner per capita. On June 10, political prisoner Ali Reza Shir-Mohammad-Ali, 21, was stabbed to death at the Fashafouyeh Prison (Central Prison of Greater Tehran) in a premeditated criminal plot by the mullahs’ regime. 2 of the regime's mercenaries who attacked him were among dangerous criminals. Shir-Mohammad-Ali was arrested last year and sentenced to eight years in prison on bogus charges such as insulting Khomeini and Khamenei and propaganda against the regime. He had gone on hunger strike from March 14 to April 16, 2019 in protest to lack of separation of political prisoners from ordinary and dangerous criminals and insecurity, and in protest to the dire health and living conditions in the prison. Following his murder, the Iranian Resistance once again called for condemnation of the crimes of the clerical regime against political prisoners by the United Nations Security Council and the Member States, the European Union, the UN Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and relevant rapporteurs and other international human rights organizations. It once again insisted on the call of Maryam Rajavi for the establishment of an international delegation to visit prisons and political prisoners in Iran. (source: ncr-iran.org) * Halt Execution of Teenager (Iran: UA 83.19) Urgent Action Danial Zeinolabedini, an 18-year-old imprisoned in Mahabad prison, West Azerbaijan province, is at risk of execution. He was sentenced to death in June 2018 after an unfair trial in which he was convicted of a murder that took place when he was 17 years old. His execution would be a grave violation of international law. Write a letter in your own words or using the sample below as a guide to one or both government officials listed. You can also email, fax, call or Tweet them. Head of the Judiciary Ebrahim Raisi C/o Permanent Mission of Iran to the UN Chemin du Petit-Saconnex 28 1209 Geneva, Switzerland H.E. Majid Takht Ravanchi Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran 622 Third Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10017 Phone: 212 687-2020 // Fax: 212 867 7086 Email: i...@un.int Twitter: @Iran_UN Salutation: Dear Ambassador Dear Mr Raisi, Iranian teenager Danial Zeinolabedini is at risk of execution in Mahabad prison for a crime that took place when he was 17 years old. International law prohibits without exception the use of the death penalty against persons who were below 18 years of age at the time of the crime. Iran would be in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which it is a state party, if it executes him. Danial Zeinolabedini, now aged 18, was sentenced to death on 3 June 2018 after a juvenile criminal court in the city of Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, found him guilty of participating, along with four other young men, in the murder of a man. The court rejected his lawyer’s request that Danial Zeinolabedini should be issued an alternative sentence to the death penalty on grounds that he had not yet attained full maturity. The court reasoned that even though “he is younger than the other defendants [all of whom were aged between 18 and 20 and years old at the time of the crime], the way he speaks, argues and defends himself shows that his level of mental maturity is higher than them.” The death sentence was upheld on 27 October 2018 by the Supreme, Court and the request for a judicial review has been rejected. The legal proceedings that led to Danial Zeinolabedini’s conviction were unfair and flagrantly violated the principles of juvenile justice; he was not allowed access to a lawyer during the entire
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., WYO., ARIZ., CALIF., ORE., WASH.
June 19 OKLAHOMA: Lawyers, Activists seek Clemency for Julius Jones Lawyers for Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones plan to press for clemency for their client. The news was shared at a recent event supporting Oklahoma’s leading organization coordinating efforts to end capital punishment in Oklahoma. Lawyers announce clemency campaign to seek “Justice for Julius” At that dinner, Dale Baich, a federal public defender from Arizona who has been legal counsel to Jones during recent appeals, said, “In the coming months, we will be asking the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, and Governor Stitt, to commute Julius’s death sentence. We have a heavy lift. Julius is grateful for the outpouring of support he has received from the people of Oklahoma and around the world. Soon, we will be coming to you again to ask for your support and to ask you to take action when we file the clemency application for Julius.” In a recent news story, Baich expanded on his grounds for further action to save Jones’ life: “Julius had never had an execution date because his case was in court. Now that it’s out of court, the state can ask for a date, but they still don’t have a protocol in place to carry out executions.” Baich told The City Sentinel, “Julius’s case is out of court. The next step is to ask for mercy through the Oklahoma clemency process.” He added that there is some time before Julius will ask for his death sentence to be commuted because “Once the Oklahoma protocol is final, there will be a waiting period of five months before the state can ask for an execution date for any death row prisoner. And, there will likely be litigation challenging the new protocol that will follow.” Baich and his co-counsel, Amanda Bass, came to Oklahoma City to participate in the annual dinner of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (OK-CADP). The two lawyers received the Opio Toure Courageous Advocate Award, named for the former state legislator who spent much of his career advocating for an end to executions in Oklahoma. The pair have battled tirelessly to save the life of Jones, who was accused, tried and convicted for the July 1999 murder of Edmond insurance executive Paul Scott Howell. The local District Attorney announced last fall that DNA evidence on a red bandana central to the prosecution’s case had proven Jones’ guilt. However, the results call into question whether the bandana found in the home was even the bandana worn by the shooter. In that case, without saliva being on it, the bandana can no longer be linked to the crime. Innocence Project leader details concerns in Jones case, and broader problems In another speech here at the OK-CADP event, Vanessa Potkin, who is Director of Postconviction Litigation for the Innocence Project, a national organization based in New York, reviewed in detail problems with the criminal justice system in general, the death penalty in particular, and specifically faults in the prosecution (and conviction) of death row inmate Julius Jones. She pointed out there have been 2,460 exonerations nationwide to date, with 35 of those from Oklahoma. Of that total 365 exonerations were driven by DNA evidence. And, of the 365 exonerations for major crimes, 20 freed individuals who had been sentenced to death. Since reinstitution of capital punishment in the modern era, 165 persons have been exonerated from death row, 10 in Oklahoma. In her OK-CADP speech, Potkin reported on a comprehensive examination of death row inmates’ cases and of underlying factors in those cases. The 2014 study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In all, 2,721 people were on death rows in the United States as of October 2018. Based on the cited analysis, Potkin and other analysts believe an estimated 4.1 percent of those facing execution are innocent. That translates into 109 presumptively innocent people presently on death rows who are facing execution. In her speech, Potkin frequently pointed to the historic work of the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission to bolster her challenge to the death penalty process generally, and in Oklahoma. As that Commission concluded, “In light of the extensive information gathered from this year-long, in-depth study, the Commission members unanimously recommend that the current moratorium on the death penalty be extended until significant reforms have been accomplished.” The commission pointed repeatedly to weaknesses in the state’s legal process, including unreliability in forensic sciences. The commissioners concluded, “Based on its extensive review, the Commission views the role of forensic evidence and testimony in capital trials with serious concern.” Potkin highlighted problems with use of eyewitness testimony, including in cases where witnesses are incentivized to support the prosecution’s position. Citing the commission’s report: “Of the 34
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.Y., N.C., GA., ALA., ARK.
June 19 TEXAS: How many doses of lethal injection drugs does Texas have? With execution drugs in short supply across the nation and increasing secrecy about the companies that provide them, The Texas Tribune is keeping track of movement in the state’s supply. 06 doses expire June 5, 2019 06 doses expire June 27, 2019 15 doses expire Jan. 12, 2020 Scheduled executions Jul 31 Ruben Gutierrez Aug 15 Dexter Johnson Aug 21 Larry Swearingen Sep 4 Billy Crutsinger Sep 10 Mark Anthony Soliz Oct 2 Stephen Barbee Recent inventory changes -1 dose May 1, 2019 Drugs removed from stock +15 doses April 29, 2019 Drugs added to inventory -1 dose April 24, 2019 Execution of John William King Since 1977, lethal injection has been the method for executing Texas criminals sentenced to death. But the drugs used in executions have changed over the years, as the state has struggled to get a hold of enough life-ending doses. Texas, along with other states that hold executions, has been engaged in a battle for years to keep an adequate inventory of execution drugs. Currently, the state uses only pentobarbital, a sedative it has purchased from compounding pharmacies kept secret from the public. To promote transparency, The Texas Tribune has obtained the inventory history and current supply of execution drugs held by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The information, collected through continuous open records requests, is updated regularly with the available doses and recent changes to the state’s inventory. In 2011, drug manufacturers began blocking their products from being used in lethal injections. As Texas’ struggled to perform executions, it turned to compounding pharmacies, state-regulated agencies that mix their own drugs without federal regulation. When one pharmacy’s name became public, the owner said he received threats, and asked for the drugs to be returned. Texas refused, and the state Legislature passed a law in 2015 to maintain the privacy of any person or business involved in an execution, from the person who inserts the needle to the company that sells the drug. Since then, Texas has kept enough pentobarbital in stock for scheduled executions, faring better than some other states. But the drugs haven’t come easy. In 2016, Pfizer, the last-remaining open-market manufacturer of drugs that were used in executions, banned its products from being used for that purpose. Afterward, states that had regularly performed executions halted the practice as they are unable to obtain any drugs. Others rushed to schedule executions ahead of the expiration dates of their limited supply of drugs or switched to using a controversial sedative, midazolam, which was involved in botched executions in Oklahoma and Arizona. Texas has been able to keep an adequate supply on hand, but part of that is because the state has repeatedly extended the expiration date of doses in stock — retesting the potency levels as the expiration date nears and then relabeling them. The practice has drawn sharp criticism from death penalty defense attorneys, who say the old drugs are causing painful executions. Even with its relative security, Texas is always looking for new supplies. In 2015, the state attempted to import from overseas a drug previously used by Texas in executions, sodium thiopental. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration seized the drugs and later ruled that they couldn’t be brought into the United States because they were unapproved and misbranded, but the state is fighting that ruling. also: see: https://apps.texastribune.org/death-row/ (source for both: The Texas Tribune) * Man convicted in fatal 2013 shooting of West Texas deputy faces death penalty A Nueces County jury convicted a man in the 2013 fatal shooting of a West Texas sheriff's deputy. The jury found Gary David Green guilty of capital murder Monday in connection with the death of Upton County deputy Billy "Bubba" Kennedy, court records show. Green, who is now facing the death penalty, was arrested in October 2013 after a shootout at a McCamey convenience store, according to the Associated Press. The trial was moved from West Texas to South Texas because of a change of venue. McCamey — which is in Upton County and has a population of around 2,000 people — is about 50 miles south of Odessa. After weeks of jury selection, testimony began last week before visiting judge Tessa Herr. The jury returned a verdict in less than half an hour, according to a court official. The trial's punishment phase is expected to start Wednesday. In Texas, capital murder is punishable by either life in prison without parole or the death penalty. According to a news article from the Odessa American, Green's credit card was declined at the convenience store and he demanded free gas. He was approached by Kennedy and another deputy, who ran a check
