[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
July 30 CANADA: Canada should bring back the death penalty The nationwide manhunt for 2 suspected murderers has gripped Canadians. And while everyone is waiting to see how events will be brought to a conclusion, there are also questions to be asked about what will happen if they are captured alive, and found guilty. In that scenario, Canadian taxpayers would be on the hook for sheltering, feeding, entertaining, clothing, and caring for those individuals in prison, just as taxpayers are on the hook for the worst of the worst within the “justice” system. Meanwhile, many Canadian Veterans are homeless, many Canadian seniors are struggling in poverty, many Indigenous communities don’t have clean drinking water (while prisons have clean drinking water), and the hypocrisies go on and on. Basically, we live in a country where some of the most vicious and vile killers and criminals get taken care of at taxpayer expense, while people who served our nation, people who followed the law, and people who seek a good standard of living are abandoned. That is unacceptable. The question then is what to do about it. First, we need to make sure our own innocent citizens are taken care of. That means slashing foreign aid, and redirecting those billions of dollars towards Canadian Citizens in need. Second, we need to bring back the death penalty for the worst of the worst, in cases where guilt is obvious and undeniable. It’s simply outrageous that horrific killers can get a lifetime of taxpayer-funded service, which ends up being incredibly costly. Additionally, the lack of the death penalty, combined with the pathetically weak laws that even give people like Mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonette the chance to apply for parole (after 40 years) revictimizes the families of those who were killed. That’s because when parole hearings take place, family members often have to go and argue against someone getting released, forcing them to deal with the brutal loss of their family member all over again. So, instead of revictimizing families of those who are murdered, instead of spending hundreds of thousands, and even millions of dollars on caring for despicable killers, we should instead bring back the death penalty. Properly applied, the death penalty sends a clear message that those who brutally take the lives of innocent people will lose their lives in return. And it sends the message that we prioritize the rights of victims of crime and the families of victims of crime ahead of killers. Canada’s justice system has been anti-victim and weak for far too long. It’s time to bring back the death penalty. (source: Spencer Fernando, The Post Millennial) IRAN: Former Iran VP Mohammad Ali Najafi gets death sentence for killing wifeHe was also mayor of Tehran. Iran's state TV says a former mayor of Tehran who also served as one of the country's vice presidents was sentenced to death for killing his wife. Tuesday's report quotes judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili as saying that Mohammad Ali Najafi was convicted of fatally shooting his wife, Mitra Ostad. The verdict can be appealed within 20 days. Police detained Najafi in May, after he went to authorities and confessed to the killing. At the time, officials said Najafi and Ostad, his 2nd his wife, were having domestic problems. Najafi resigned as mayor in 2018, after hard-liners criticized him over a video showing he attended a dance performance by young girls at a school show. Gun violence is very rare in Iran, especially among the country's political and economic elite. A mathematician, professor and veteran politician, Najafi has previously served as President Hassan Rouhani's economic advisor and education minister. He was elected Tehran mayor in August 2017, but resigned the following April after facing criticism from conservatives for attending a dance performance by schoolgirls. Najafi married Ostad without divorcing his first wife, unusual in Iran where polygamy is legal but socially frowned upon. (source: Khaleej Times) SAUDI ARABIA: G20 nations urged to boycott Saudi summit over wave of executionsHuman rights lawyer Helena Kennedy says Riyadh has executed 134 people already this year, with cleric Salman al-Odah among those facing the same threat Members of the G20 should boycott next year's summit meeting in Riyadh unless Saudi Arabia immediately halts its use of the death penalty, a leading human rights lawyer and member of the British parliament said on Monday. 'People live waiting with the anxiety that it is going to happen tomorrow or the next day' Baroness Helena Kennedy, human rights lawyer The report by Helena Kennedy QC, a Baroness in the House of Lords, comes with at least 24 people currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia on protest or non-violent offences at imminent risk of execution, including renowned scholar Salman al-Odah.
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA
July 30 USA: Killeen: Men convicted in fiery deaths of pastor, wife now face execution Thursday's order by Attorney General William Barr clearing the way for the federal government to execute condemned prisoners means that 2 area men convicted of the fiery murders of a pastor and his wife 20 years ago are back on track for a trip to the federal death chamber. No federal executions have taken place in the U.S. since 2003. Christopher Andre Vialva, 39, and Brandon Bernard, 38, were sentenced to death in Waco's federal district court, for the June 20, 1999 murders of Iowa pastor Todd Bagley and his wife Stacey Bagley. Both men currently are held on death row at the federal prison in Terra Haute, Ind., where all federal death row prisoners are held. "It certainly re-engages the issue," Daryl Fields, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office, in San Antonio, said Friday by telephone. The order applies to any federal court sentence of death, but there was a question Friday if the order would also apply to death penalties imposed by military courts martial, such as in the case of Fort Hood mass killer Nidal Malik Hasan. "It hasn't gotten down here yet," Christopher Haug, media spokesman for III Corps and Ft. Hood said Friday. "We'll (Army lawyers) will have to review it and see if it applies to cases tried under UCMJ (the Uniform Code of Military Justice)," Haug said. The military has not carried out an execution since 1961. Todd Bagley died of a gunshot, but his wife Stacy, who also had been shot, died of smoke inhalation, which means she was alive in the trunk of the couple’s car when Bernard, in an effort to hide evidence, set the vehicle on fire. The trial was held in federal court because the crime happened on Fort Hood. Thursday Barr directed the Justice Department to adopt a new rule for carrying out the death penalty, which would restore executions in the federal system for the 1st time in 16 years. "We owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system," Barr said. "The question is, how fast can they do it," Waco attorney Stan Schwieger said. Schweiger said Barr's order is just the first step in a very long and detailed process that has to play out before executions could actually begin. "There is an administrative procedure that has to take place that involves publication in the Federal Registry and an opportunity for people to make comments and all of that has to happen before any executions could begin. "It's just the 1st step in a very long procedure and I hope they don't succeed," Schwieger said. The Federal Bureau of Prisons, immediately upon Barr's order, set execution dates for 5 men on federal death row, all of whom already have exhausted their appeals and all of whom were convicted of murdering children in especially violent crimes. 4 of the 5 also killed adult victims. Those executions are to be carried out in December and January, Barr's order said. KWTX contacted the Bureau of Prisons to learn if execution dates for either man convicted here had been set but has not yet received a reply. Both Vialva and Bernard filed federal appeals, saying the judge who oversaw their trials was not competent to do so. But in September 2018, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court denied the appeal from 2 Killeen former gang members. Since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in the mid-1970s, after an earlier ruling had declared its application unconstitutional, the federal government has executed only three inmates, including Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. The last federal execution was March 18, 2003 when inmate Louis Jones, Jr., 44, put to death after his conviction of rape resulting in death and murder in federal district court in Lubbock in 1999. He was a former soldier and was found guilty in the beating death of USAF Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride, 18, from San Angelo's Goodfellow Air Force Base. (source: KWTX news) ** I’m a Republican and I Oppose Restarting Federal ExecutionsMore and more, conservatives don’t trust the government to get capital punishment right. A long-held stereotype is that conservatives in this country favor capital punishment, while liberals oppose it. But that doesn’t accord with reality: In recent years, more conservatives have come to realize that capital punishment conflicts irreconcilably with their principles of valuing life, fiscal responsibility and limited government. Many conservatives also recognize that the death penalty inflicts extreme and unnecessary trauma on the family members of victims and the correctional employees who have the job of taking the prisoner’s life. It’s been 16 years since the federal government carried out an execution. Last week, however, the Justice Department announced that it had scheduled executions in
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA., ALA., ARIZ., CALIF.
July 30 TEXAS: DA's Office Seeking Death Penalty Against Alleged North Side Murderer The man who is charged with shooting and burning 2 men in Northern San Angelo may get the death penalty. In the early morning of March 20 police responded to 4800 block of North Chadbourne where they found the burned body's of Jared Lohse and Jack "Chubby" Harris Jr. Preliminary autopsy reports for Lohse and Harris determined the manner of death was homicide resulting from gunshots wounds. Chadwick, who was developed as a suspect early on in the investigation, was already in custody at the Tom Green County Jail on unrelated charges when the murder complaints were signed. He has been in the Tom Green County Jail since the murder. He is charged with murder of multiple people. On July 26 District Attorney Allison Palmer made a notice of intent to seek the death penalty toward Chadwick. His initial pretrial is scheduled for August 7. (source: sanangelolive.com) PENNSYLVANIA: Former Pennsylvania Prison Superintendent Describes Toll of Working on Death Row A former Pennsylvania death-row prison superintendent says working on death row makes corrections personnel feel “less human” and “can be profoundly damaging” psychologically. Cynthia Link (pictured) served as the Superintendent of Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution at Graterford from 2015 to 2018, during a period in which the prison housed more than 20 of the Commonwealth’s death row prisoners. In a July 16, 2019 op-ed for Penn Live, Link describes the psychological toll that corrections officers face when working on death row. She explains the challenging nature of working with condemned prisoners even in a state such as Pennsylvania, which has not carried out an execution in 20 years. “Few outside of my profession realize how difficult capital punishment is for the staff; even when executions are not being carried out, housing death row prisoners can be profoundly damaging,” she writes. Enforcing the “inhumane” conditions on death row causes extreme stress and prevents corrections officers from doing the jobs they were trained to do. “Politics, policy and post order often kept us from providing professionally prudent care,” Link says. “Death row was designed to provide temporary housing prior to an execution,” Link says, “but today’s death-sentenced prisoners live inhumanely for many years or decades while staff struggle to help them survive their ‘temporary’ stay.” In an effort to protect corrections officers, Pennsylvania limits them to two year “tours of duty” working on death row and monitors them for mental health problems. Despite those efforts, the stress of the assignment has serious effects on officers. Link explains: “Some officers indulge in alcohol, drugs or other dangerous behaviors to find relief. Some isolate and leave their families. Some have even taken their own lives when it becomes too overwhelming. The stress on death row staff is seldom-discussed but undeniably real. Each tour of duty on death row makes you feel less human.” At its peak, more than 250 prisoners were incarcerated in Pennsylvania’s three death-row facilities. Most eventually had their convictions or death sentences overturned in the courts after spending years in solitary confinement, where they had no contact visits with their lawyers and family members, yet were subject to strip searches each time they left their cells. The prisoners were eventually transferred from the old Graterford Prison (pictured, below) to a new modern supermax facility less than a mile away. Link draws a parallel between the outdated, crumbling building in which death-sentenced prisoners had been held, and the death penalty itself as a policy “relic.” “Prisons eventually outlive their usefulness and turn into relics of an unfamiliar past. Maybe the death penalty is a relic that can also be replaced. I know that doing so would remove a huge burden from the lives of corrections staff.” She urges Pennsylvania’s government to consider prison workers as they make decisions about capital punishment. “As government officials in Harrisburg contemplate what to do about the death penalty, I urge them to factor in the human toll it takes on Pennsylvania’s corrections profession. Death sentences punish them, too.” Numerous corrections officers have spoken about the difficulty of working on death row and carrying out executions. In 2017, a group of correctional officials from around the U.S. warned Arkansas about the extreme impact of the state’s proposal to execute eight people in 11 days. Former Georgia warden Allen Ault has been an outspoken critic of capital punishment, sharing stories of his own experiences conducting executions. Frank Thompson, who held high-ranking positions in prisons in Oregon and Arkansas, wrote, “Many of us who have taken part in this process [of executions] live with nightmares,
