[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Sept. 9 SOUTH AFRICA: Death penalty no deterrent to crime, says expert Bringing back the death penalty would be the same as recreating past injustices and targeting predominantly poor people. This is according to rape and violence law expert Lisa Vetten, who told the Pretoria News that reinstating the death penalty would be hard from a legal point of view due to the fact that it was unconstitutional. Calls for the death penalty multiplied last week following increased reports of femicide in the country, with the most recent outcry coming after UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. “There is no research to substantiate or support the idea that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime or violence. If we want to do it for vengeful or retributory reasons we have to really ask ourselves if that kind of stance isn’t part of the reason why we have a problem of violence and crime in SA anyway.” She said using violence to address the scourge of crime in the country was not the way to go. “We already have a problem of violence in the country, and in this instance even if it is legally state-sanctioned murder, it is still violence. (source: Pretoria News) ** Serjeant at the Bar: Can the death penalty assist in reducing the current levels of violent crime? With a generally incompetent police force, and very limited detective and DNA capacity, the death penalty will do little to protect those who live in this country, writes Serjeant at the Bar. It is hardly surprising that calls have been made for the reinstatement of the death penalty in the wake of the recent horrendous murders of young women. Indeed, it is understandable that the public is desperate for any possible solution to the ever-increasing violence, particularly against women and children. The criminal justice system has failed the country abysmally at the very time that any scintilla of social cohesion has disappeared. While no justification for the gross inhumanity perpetrated on a daily basis, in these latest cases against young women with their lives full of promise cut short so savagely, we are truly reaping the harvest of more than 300 years of violence which manifested itself systemically on the basis of race and gender. Twenty-five years into constitutional democracy, and the violence has only intensified. It should not be forgotten that unemployment, even on a conservative estimate is 29%. The geography of our cities have hardly transformed from their apartheid formats and millions live in the same squalor and despair as characterised life before 1994. Patriarchy is still dominant and populist forms of politics seek to divide between us and them – vide the xenophobia engulfing Johannesburg at present. The past 10 years have eviscerated the competence of key institutions, including the National Prosecuting Authority and the police service, which has never been able to transform itself from its repressive past into the key guardian of the safety of 58 million people. I mention all of this, albeit briefly, to focus attention on the key question – can the reinstatement of the death penalty serve the purpose claimed for it by those who now wish it to return? In other words, can the death penalty assist in reducing the current levels of violent crime? Comparative research on this issue is not particularly helpful. In 2012, the National Research Council in the USA published a report on the available research at that time. Of particular relevance was the following passage: "The relevant question about the deterrent effect of capital punishment is the differential or marginal deterrent effect of execution over the deterrent effect of other available or commonly used penalties, specifically, a lengthy prison sentence or one of life without the possibility of parole. One major deficiency in all the existing studies is that none specify the non-capital sanction components of the sanction regime for the punishment of homicide. Another major deficiency is the use of incomplete or implausible models of potential murderers' perceptions of and response to the capital punishment component of a sanction regime. Without this basic information, it is impossible to draw credible findings about the effect of the death penalty on homicide." In 2014, Franklin Zimring - a famous criminologist - took the debate further by analysing the effect of the death penalty in Singapore and Hong Kong. He and his co-researchers found that Singapore had an execution rate close to 1 per million per year until an explosive twentyfold increase in 1994-95 and 96 to a level that we show was probably the highest in the world. Then over the next 11 years, Singapore executions dropped by about 95%. Hong Kong, by contrast, has no executions during the last generation and abolished capital punishment in 1993. Homicide levels and trends are
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., FLA., OHIO, ARIZ., USA
Sept. 9 TEXAS: Forensic testing backlog at issue in RGV courts Gabriel Keith Escalante has been incarcerated in Hidalgo County for 18 months. His chances of making the $1.25 million bond on charges of capital murder of multiple persons are slim to none. And as he sits behind bars, a serious question remains unanswered. Will the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office seek the death penalty against the 40-year-old Edinburg man on accusations that he, along with his girlfriend, 41-year-old Irene Navejar, beat 53-year-old Alejandro Salinas Sr. to death and suffocated the man’s mother, 73-year-old Oliva Salinas, on April 23, 2018. The answer depends on what the analysts at the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Weslaco Crime Lab find when those officials test forensic evidence in the case. As of Aug. 21, the crime lab hadn’t even started. At a court hearing in Escalante’s case last Thursday, Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Almaguer could only tell Judge Linda Reyna Yáñez that the DPS crime lab told him that officials there would begin analysis on several items. That’s a problem for Escalante’s defense attorney, O. Rene Flores. “There currently exists an epidemic of delay with forensic analyses of evidence at the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab — the crime lab of choice for prosecutions in Hidalgo County, Texas,” he said in a motion filed on Aug. 21, the day DPS notified the state testing would begin on several pieces of evidence in the case. “Several announcements have been made by the State in the instant case, effectively placing the accused and this Court on notice that there is a chronic delay in the forensic analysis of evidence across the board in criminal cases in Hidalgo County.” The state, through Almaguer, didn’t disagree. Neither did the judge, Yáñez. “This is an issue for many cases,” she said, while listening to Flores’ argument. But Flores suggested a solution: send the samples to a private lab since forensic testing is “backlogged” at the DPS crime lab in Weslaco. Yáñez is considering the motion, but agreed to give Almaguer until Sept. 16 to provide her with a status of where DPS is at with the forensic analysis. Escalante wasn’t the only defendant at the Hidalgo County Courthouse this week where delays in evidence testing at the crime lab impacted their cases. Take 23-year-old Alamo resident Alex Arevalo, who has admitted to shooting and killing 41-year-old McAllen resident Nicolas Anthony Bazan on June 19, 2017. Court records indicate he agreed to a plea agreement on March 27 to a charge of murder, escaping a capital murder charge. The state in this case said it would recommend a 45-year prison sentence, court records indicate. He was scheduled to receive his sentence Wednesday morning. But he didn’t. Flores also represents Arevalo and said that case has fallen victim to the “crime lab epidemic.” Arevalo’s sentencing was rescheduled until Nov. 6. The spector of the DPS crime lab backup also raised its head on Thursday afternoon during a hearing for 25-year-old Mission resident Guadalupe Garcia Vela, who is accused of gunning down Yvette Garza and Natalie Hernandez on Dec. 20, 2015 during a botched drug deal. Vela has been in jail since January 2016. Nereyda Morales-Martinez and Regina “Regi” Richardson, Vela’s attorneys, said during a pre-trial hearing that DPS began testing cannisters found at the crime scene in early August. The crime happened more than three years ago. Vela’s jury trial, which was scheduled for late September, was canceled in part to wait for the forensic analysis of the cannisters. There was also a delay due to additional ballistic testing that may be conducted in the case due to a request made by the defense on Thursday to test the service weapon of a police officer who may have had a relationship with one of the victims. PROCEDURAL DISMISSAL In the early morning hours of April 11, 2018, after 38-year-old Brownsville resident Robert Galvan finished cutting hair at the Mr. Flawless barbershop and having some beers at a friend’s house, he took a ride that sent him right back to state prison. The Brownsville Police Department arrested Galvan, who was on probation for a violent assault against his former girlfriend, and charged him with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for killing 54-year-old Horacio Eguia and seriously injuring 43-year-old Brian Scott during an argument over gas money in the 200 block of East 10th Street. From the moment police began interrogating Galvan, the man maintained that he acted in self defense when he used a pair of scissors from his barber kit to slash Eguia and Scott, who he claimed were the agressors. Galvan told police that the men offered to give him a ride to a residence and once at the location, demanded gas money. Galvan claims they jumped him, but Scott, who survived, told investigators
