[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 5 BOSNIA: Court Orders Bosnian Serb Entity to Outlaw Death Penalty Bosnia's Constitutional Court has given the Serb-led entity, Republika Srpska, a deadline to remove mention of the death penalty from its laws and constitution – although the ruling is largely symbolic, as the entity does not use it. The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has upheld an appeal filed by a group of Bosniak delegates in the parliament of Bosnia’s Serb-led entity, ordering the Republika Srpska to remove references to the death penalty from its laws and constitution. Friday’s ruling is mainly symbolic, as the entity does not use the death penalty in practice, even though it remains in certain statues. The constitution of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia’s other entity, does not mention the death penalty. Presiding Judge Zlatko Knezevic gave the RS a deadline of three months to change its laws. The ruling comes after a group of Bosniak delegates in the RS assembly filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court in June. Bosnia abolished the death penalty in 1994, a decision formalised in 1998. The last death sentence in Bosnia was issued by the Sarajevo District Military Court in March 1993, which sentenced Borislav Herak and Sretko Damjanovic to death for genocide. The penalty was not carried out. The RS has a history of ignoring rulings from the state constitutional court. It has taken no notice of a March 29 ruling outlawing celebration of January 9 as Day of Republika Srpska, as BIRN has previously reported. Belarus is the only European state still using the death penalty, and carried out two executions in 2018. Russian law still allows for its use, but it has been suspended there since the late-1990s. The Council of Europe long ago made abolition of the death penalty a prerequisite for membership, while the European Union not only prohibits it among its members but actively campaigns against its use worldwide. (source: balkaninsight.com) INDIA: President commutes 20 death sentences in 9 years These commutations were based on the President’s exercise of powers under Article 72 of the Constitution after the convicts filed mercy petitions. The President commuted death sentences to life imprisonment in at least 20 cases over the past nine years, based on the recommendations received from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). These commutations were based on the President’s exercise of powers under Article 72 of the Constitution after the convicts filed mercy petitions. Separately, last week the MHA took a decision to commute the death sentence of Balwant Singh Rajoana, convicted over the assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh, as a “humanitarian gesture” ahead of the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Sikh founder Guru Nanak. It also decided to release 8 other prisoners convicted for life for their involvement in Sikh militancy as a ‘token of goodwill’. Beant Singh and at least 16 others were killed in an explosion outside the Civil Secretariat in Chandigarh in 1995. Rajoana was sentenced to death in 2007 by a special court and he refused to file a mercy petition. The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex body of the Sikhs, filed a petition on his behalf in 2014. BJP ally and NDA member, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), had been pressing the Centre to commute Rajoana’s death sentence. “Rajoana never engaged a lawyer when the case was being heard in the court,” said Manjinder Singh Sirsa, an SAD leader who had recently met Home Minister Amit Shah regarding Rajoana’s case — the only Sikh prisoner on death row in a militancy related case. “To highlight the atrocities against the Sikhs, he refused legal assistance. After he was sentenced to death, the SGPC decided to file a mercy petition on his behalf,” added the SAD leader. The ministry’s decision to release the 8 Sikh prisoners convicted under the repealed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) is seen as a one-off gesture as it is not in consonance with the guidelines regarding the 2018 “Cabinet decision to grant special remission to prisoners on the occasion of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.” As per the guidelines: “special remission will not be given to prisoners who have been convicted for an offence for which the sentence is sentence of death or where death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment; cases of convicts involved in serious and heinous crimes like dowry death, rape, human trafficking and convicted under POTA, UAPA, TADA, FICN, POCSO Act, money laundering, FEMA, NDPS, Prevention of Corruption Act, etc.” A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “This was in response to the long pending demands on release of Sikh prisoners raised by various sections of the Sikh community.” Process on to commute Rajoana sentence: MHA
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., NEV., USA
Oct. 5 TEXASstay of 2 impending executions Texas Courts Halt 2 Imminent Executions Texas state courts have halted the executions of 2 condemned prisoners who had been facing imminent execution dates. On October 4, 2019, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the October 10 execution of Randy Halprin and directed a Dallas trial court to consider his claim that the religious bigotry of the judge who presided over his case denied him a fair trial before an impartial tribunal. The previous day, a Henderson County District Court judge withdrew the death warrant that had scheduled Randall Mays to die on October 16, amid concerns that Mays may be mentally incompetent. The twin rulings were a dramatic development in the continuing saga involving the Lone Star State’s efforts to execute 13 prisoners in the last 5 months of 2019. A DPIC analysis of those cases found that they raised troubling questions of innocence, significantly flawed legal proceedings, junk science, and diminished culpability arising from one or more of mental illness, intellectual disability, youthfulness, and chronic exposure to trauma. Supported by a coalition of national and local Jewish organizations, Halprin, who is Jewish, filed petitions in the state and federal courts seeking a stay of execution and a new trial based upon recently discovered evidence of his trial judge’s virulently anti-Semitic statements and beliefs. He supported his claim with affidavits from court personnel who said that his trial judge, Vickers Cunningham, disparaged Halprin as “a f***in’ Jew” and “g**damn k**e,” and made racist comments about his Latino co-defendants. One court employee said Cunningham had bragged that, during their trial, “[f]rom the w**back to the Jew, they knew they were going to die.” Halprin’s defense team began investigating Cunningham’s possible anti-Semitic bias after learning from a report in The Dallas Morning News in 2018 that Cunningham had put provisions in his will that conditioned his children’s inheritance upon marrying a straight, white Christian. Halprin’s current counsel, assistant federal defender Tivon Schardl, praised the state court’s decision, as “a signal that bigotry and bias are unacceptable in the criminal justice system.” “A fair trial requires an impartial judge, and Mr. Halprin did not have a fair and neutral judge when his life was at stake,” Schardl said. Mays’ death warrant was withdrawn by Henderson County District Judge Joe Clayton after defense lawyers moved to have May declared incompetent to be executed. The defense motion said that prison mental health personnel had recently diagnosed Mays with schizophrenia and prescribed him anti-psychotic medication. A forensic psychiatrist reported that Mays’ mental health condition has deteriorated, that he is increasingly delusional and incoherent, and that he claims the prison guards are poisoning the air vents in his cell. Mays was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 2 county sheriff’s deputies. The competency pleading says he believes he is to be executed because he has designed a process for creating renewable energy that threatens the interests of the oil companies. Judge Clayton wrote that he withdrew the execution date so the court could have time to “properly review all medical records submitted.” (source: Death Penalty Information Center) *** "Texas 7" member Randy Halprin wins stay of execution amid claim of anti-Semitic judgeHalprin's lawyers had requested the stay amid allegations that the judge who handled his case made racist and anti-Semitic comments during his time on the bench. Editor's note: This story contains explicit language and has been updated throughout. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution of Randy Halprin on Friday, less than a week before he was to be put to death. Halprin, one of the infamous "Texas Seven" — who were convicted in the 2000 murder of a police officer during a more than month-long prison escape — had recently argued that his trial was biased because his judge was "a racist and anti-Semitic bigot." Halprin, who is Jewish, said in his latest appeal that former Judge Vickers Cunningham had described Halprin as “a fuckin’ Jew” and “goddamn kike” shortly after the trial. Cunningham also admitted to putting stipulations in his will that his children could only receive inheritance by marrying a straight, white Christian, as was first reported by The Dallas Morning News in 2018. The Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, stopped Halprin’s execution, set for next Thursday, and sent the case back to the Dallas County trial court for further review of the claims. "A fair trial requires an impartial judge – and Mr. Halprin did not have a fair and neutral judge when his life was at stake," one of Halprin's attorneys, Tivon Schardl, said in a statement
