[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
April 4 BAHAMAS: Death Penalty Limitations Re: 'Criminals Will Ravage Country Unless Death Penalty Enforced' (February 28) It is absolutely mind-boggling that any reasonable person would tout enforcement of the death penalty as a worthwhile solution to crime. Leaving out well-meaning considerations of ethics and religious beliefs etc, it has never been proven to lower crime rates significantly. Therefore, why continue to spout the crime-reducing benefits of a death penalty? Reliance on the death penalty sounds like such an attractively easy and obvious solution. Furthermore, state-sanctioned homicide often has instant appeal to an apprehensive electorate (as long as it's done in private, of course). It grabs the imagination and fires up one's baser emotions very nicely. But in order to improve our crime situation, we must also educate our young properly and use harsh approaches like tough love, community service in distinctive dress, curfews, aversion methods and public humiliation (such as caning) liberally. This should not only better their brutish lives but improve ours as well. At present, far too many of our young people are actually too stupid to comprehend the meaning of a death penalty or any other kind of penalty - unless significant physical pain and/or degradation are involved (please spare me any references to slavery). Furthermore, the imbeciles are often so incredibly dumb that they frequently believe they are invincible and will not get caught. This lack of critical reasoning is carried over into adulthood. On top of all that, they are too mindless to care. Many a bleeding heart will be shocked at terminology such as this. They might prefer to talk about poverty, lack of love in the home, low self esteem, culpability of the church and society etc. Others may even suggest formation of yet another committee to look into crime. Meanwhile, it's as if the Bahamian house is burning. When there is a fire, there is little point in discussing the problem. We have to put the fire out. Immediately. It would be nice if all the aspects of crime could be handled with a simple solution, such as the death penalty, but unfortunately, as much as we would wish it to be, it simply is not the case. It never has been and never will be. We tend to focus on homicides when talking about crime, but homicides are simply a final symptom of the widespread disease of lawlessness. Homicide is not the first and only crime performed by these dangerously silly, mental midgets. Homicide is frequently a result of the previous life of crime that led up to it. Therefore, we have to recognise the 'broken windows syndrome' as well. It is now essential to make some hard, expensive efforts to guide/teach the rudiments of civilised behaviour forcefully to these cowardly and violent predators. If this also means passing appropriate laws, or an introduction of a mandatory National Youth Service etc, then we should do it. Also, we must stop overlooking crimes of friends, family, lovers and especially our professionals and other 'leaders'. We have to confront our failures and admit the only hope for our young, trigger-happy nitwits to become somewhat caring, productive citizens and improve their economic plight is to insist on, and enforce, improved academic or vocational education, as much as possible. If a death penalty, along with praying and marching makes some people feel better, by all means continue. However, the limitations should be recognised. Meanwhile, at the risk of sounding elitist, let's actually do the hard and costly work to do something constructive about the clear connection between crime and our young people's tiny, malicious, underdeveloped minds. Most of these young are worth salvaging. Not only is it essential for our self preservation but it is also our moral duty to try to do whatever is reasonable and necessary to accomplish that goal. KEN W KNOWLES MD Nassau, March 31, 2017 (source: Bahamas Tribune) BANGLADESH: High Court commutes death sentences in Rakib murder The High Court has commuted the death penalties handed to the convicts in the 2015 murder of Rakib Hawlader, a motor workshop worker in Khulna. On Tuesday, Justice Jahangir Hossain Selim and Justice Md Jahangir Hossain sentenced the 2 convicts -- Omar Sharif and Mintu Khan -- to life in prison. They were slapped with a Tk 50,000 fine each. They have to serve 2 more years in jail in case of failing to hand over the money to Rakib's family. "It has been found through evidence that the offenders tried to save the boy," said the court. Both Rakib's father Nurul Alam Hawlader and the defence counsel will move to the Appellate Division against the verdict. Rakib used to work at a motor workshop owned by Sharif in Khulna's Tutpara. Sharif and his uncle Mintu got enraged after he left the job. On Aug 3, 2015, they inserted a high-pressure air pump nozzle
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., ARK., ARIZ.
April 4 LOUISIANA: Death penalty ban to be considered by Louisiana Legislature 3 legislators have introduced bills to abolish the death penalty in Louisiana. All 3 have have experience with the criminal justice system: Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge worked as a prosecutor in New Orleans, Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, as State Police superintendent under Gov. Mike Foster and Rep. Steven Pylant, R-Winnsboro as Franklin Parish sheriff. Claitor and Landry said their views on the death penalty had changed over time. Claitor said his Roman Catholic faith is a major factor in why he changed his mind, but he is also concerned that the death penalty is expensive and not effective. "I definitely expect support from the Catholic Church," he said. The Louisiana House will take up legislation that seeks to get more money into the hands of local public defender offices -- primarily by taking it from the defense teams representing people facing the death penalty. As head of the State Police, Landry was deeply involved in the investigation into Derrick Todd Lee, who was linked to the deaths of 7 women in south Louisiana, convicted and sentenced to death. Lee died in early 2016 of heart problems while awaiting execution. Landry mentions his involvement in investigating Lee's case on his legislative website. Still, Landry said he now questions whether the death penalty makes Louisiana safer. He is also concerned about the cost. "I've evolved to where I am today," he said. "I think it may be a process that is past its time." Claitor has filed Senate Bill 142 to abolish the death penalty for people who commit crimes after July 30. Landry and Steven Pylant have filed House Bill 101, essentially the same legislation. The legislative session begins April 10. The class-action suit filed in Baton Rouge seeks an injunction against a public defenders system that it says fails to provide constitutionally adequate representation. Neither measure would affect the 73 Louisiana inmates already on death row or those facing capital charges in pending court cases. Claitor said he didn't think it was appropriate to change sentences retroactively or to alter pending court cases. But if the legislation passes, it could be brought up by legal teams defending death row inmates in continuing cases as a reason to change their sentences. Louisiana already spends millions of dollars in court to pay defense costs for death penalty cases. The Louisiana Public Defender Board spent $9.5 million on death penalty defense in the fiscal year that ended June 30, about 28 % of the board's total budget. That means the board wasn't able to devote as much money -- about $15 million overall last year -- to local public defender offices, since the two causes compete for funding. Public defenders offices around the state say they are chronically underfunded, so much so that Gov. John Bel Edwards and the state public defender board are being sued by 13 inmates for providing inadequate funding for indigent defense. The Public Defender Board's $9.5 million death penalty fund was paying for the defense in 30 to 40 capital cases last year. The board contracts with private lawyers, many of whom work at non-profit agencies, to provide the services. The legal work is notoriously time-consuming and expensive. Louisiana hasn't executed anyone since 2010, in part because of difficulty in obtaining the drugs for lethal injection. By contrast, Alabama and Mississippi have executed 8 people since 2011, according to those states' corrections agencies. Pharmacies and drug makers have been unwilling to carry execution drugs because of the stigma attached to selling them. The Legislature almost passed a bill in 2014 to make it easier to acquire lethal injection drugs, in part by letting the state hide the identity of the provider, but the legislation was pulled by its sponsor at the last minute. A similar bill hasn't been filed since then. Louisiana's death penalty protocol calls for the use of the same 2 drugs as those administered during a botched execution in Arizona Wednesday. This is the 3rd case in 6 months where one of the particular death penalty drugs Louisiana is scheduled to use -- midazolam -- has resulted in a bungled execution in another state. (source: Julia O'Donoghue is a state politics reporter based in Baton Rougenola.com) ARKANSAS: Arkansas Supreme Court rejects state bid to cloak execution drugAG vows quick re-appeal over Rx label An appeal by state prisons to keep the lid on the source of one of Arkansas' execution drugs was dismissed Monday by the state Supreme Court. Soon after the decision was handed down late in the afternoon, a spokesman with the attorney general's office said the state will try again this morning. Also on Monday, the state and lawyers for the 8 inmates scheduled to die this month prepared for legal battles in a nearby
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA.
April 4 TEXAS: Supreme Court Will Take up 3rd Harris County Death Penalty Case This Year After recently ruling in favor of 2 Harris County death row inmates, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to take up yet another Houston death penalty case this year. Carlos Ayestas was sentenced to death for his role in a 1995 home invasion, in which Ayestas and two others tied up a 67-year-old woman with duct tape and strangled her to death. His guilt is not at issue in the case - but his appellate attorneys argue that if the jury at his sentencing hearing had known he was schizophrenic and addicted to cocaine they would have decided against execution. Ayestas's original defense lawyers did not reveal this during the sentencing hearing. The only mitigating evidence they presented about Ayestas were 3 letters submitted by the Harris County Jail's English-as-a-2nd-language teacher, who said Ayestas was an attentive student. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up the case on the grounds of ineffective counsel, deciding whether the U.S. Fifth Circuit erred when it denied Ayestas additional resources to dig up evidence showing that his original lawyers failed him. The justices denied to consider the case on one other basis Ayestas's attorneys put forth: that Harris County District Attorney's Office prosecutors sought to execute him based in part on his immigration status. In 2014, Ayestas's appellate attorneys with the Texas Defender Service discovered an internal "Capital Murder Summary" memo never shared with Ayestas's trial defense counsel. In the memo, prosecutor Kelly Seigler lists 2 "aggravating circumstances" that support sentencing Ayestas to death. One was the brutal nature of the senior citizen's murder. The other was the fact that Ayestas was not a U.S. citizen. He was an undocumented immigrant from Honduras. As the Texas Attorney General's Office noted in its brief opposing Ayestas's appeal, someone later crossed out that second immigration-status reason, and it was never presented to the jury. The Supreme Court justices did not explain why they would not consider whether the U.S. Fifth Circuit erred when it declined to hear out Ayestas's claims that prosecutors sought his execution for discriminatory reasons. The Fifth Circuit's basis for declining that argument last March was that Ayestas's defense counsel didn't try hard enough to discover the Capital Murder Summary memo until more than a decade after his trial - reasoning the Texas Defender Service argued was flawed in its Supreme Court writ. "Mr. Ayestas's case is about the right to be fairly charged and defended," his attorneys, Lee Kovarsky and Callie Heller, said in a statement. "From the charging decision through the federal habeas process, Mr. Ayestas has been denied his constitutional right to nondiscriminatory treatment and effective representation; these are rights to which all criminal defendants, especially those facing a death sentence, are entitled." This is the 3rd time this year that a Harris County death penalty case is in the Supreme Court spotlight. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Houston death-row inmate Bobby Moore, whose attorneys have maintained that he is mentally disabled and should not be executed. The court ruled that Texas's method of determining whether death-row inmates are mentally disabled, which is sometimes likened to the "Lennie test," a reference to the John Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men, is invalid. And in February, justices ruled in favor of Duane Buck. At his sentencing hearing, an expert witness called by Buck's own attorney suggested on the stand that because Buck is black, he posed a greater "future danger." The court ruled Buck is entitled to a new hearing. In the Texas Defender Service's brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of Ayestas, they began by quoting Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion in the Buck case: "[T]his is a disturbing departure from a basic premise of our criminal justice system: Our law punishes people for what they do, not who they are." (source: Houston Press) Supreme Court to hear another Texas death penalty caseThe U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear the Texas death penalty case of a Honduran national who was convicted for his role in a 1995 murder of 67-year-old Santiaga Paneque during a Houston home invasion. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear the Texas death penalty case of a Honduran national who is arguing that a federal appeals court wrongly denied him resources to investigate and provide evidence of substance abuse and mental illness. Advocates for Carlos Ayestas believe that if a jury had heard he had a history of cocaine addiction and mental illness, they may not have sentenced him to death for his role in a 1995 murder of 67-year-old Santiaga Paneque during a Houston home invasion. State officials have dismissed such
