[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
June 1 NIGERIA: Kidnapping rages on despite death penalty Hundreds of Nigerians are still being abducted for ransom even though many states have made kidnapping a capital offence. Daily Trust investigations show that about 630 people were reportedly abducted from May 2016 to May, 2017. Data obtained by this newspaper show that from January this year to date alone, about 200 people have been kidnapped. The latest victim was a House of Representatives member, Garba Umar Durbunde (APC, Kano), who was abducted on Tuesday at Jere, along Kaduna -Abuja road. Report last night said he had been released upon the payment of N10 million. About 16 states have so far passed laws making abduction for ransom a capital punishment. These are Lagos, Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Benue, Rivers, Enugu, Abia, Kogi, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Imo, Cross River and Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But investigations by Daily Trust show that although some of the laws have been passed since 2009, there were no executions of convicted persons. Apart from the recent conviction of abductors of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, most of the kidnapping cases are at various stages of prosecution at the courts. In 2017, January had 60 incidents of kidnapping, which was the highest, followed by February 46, April 42, May 27 and March 24. From May to December 2016, November had the highest kidnapping cases of 115, followed by August 79, December 63, September 42, May and July 35 each, June 33 and October 27. Zamfara State is leading with the highest number of people kidnapped during this period under review. In December 2016 alone, 88 people comprising 35 women, 42 traders and 11villagers were abducted for ransom in the state. In Rivers, analysis of the kidnapping incidents shows that between May 2016 to May this year, 59 people were kidnapped in the state. The months of August and September, 2016, had the highest incident rates of 14 each. Lagos is trailing Rivers, where 13 people were abducted in November 16, 2016. Other states with higher incidents include Jigawa, Delta, Kogi, and Bayelsa, and Kaduna. The anti-kidnapping laws across the states made provisions for capital punishment for kidnapping suspects whose victims died in their custody. The law equally specified life sentence for convicted suspects; in some instances, jail terms between 10 to 30 years for convicted kidnappers who didn't kill their victims. Daily Trust findings show that since Kano state government approved death penalty as the punishment for kidnapping late last year, no one has yet to be convicted or executed in line with the provisions of the law. Kano state's Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Haruna N. Muhammad Falali, said the cases already in courts are yet to be decided. "Yes, government has made the law and the law has helped us immensely in managing cases of abduction and cattle rustling in the state. It happened that the kidnappers and cattle rustlers themselves voluntarily came out and sought for unconditional pardon saying they would not do it again and we granted them amnesty and they go, since then, the cases bothering on abduction and cattle rustling have reduced by 80 %. No more kidnapping and cattle rustling, it has reduced by 80 %. "For those that were arrested, their cases are still with the police who are yet to conclude their investigations before they forward the cases to us for advice and the few others that are already in courts are yet to be decided," the commissioner said. In Rivers State, the law was passed in 2015 but no suspect has been convicted yet. The law empowered the state governor to demolish properties owned by a suspect believed to be a kidnapper or any property linked to a kidnap suspect. Another provision in the law stated that criminals convicted for kidnapping and accessories to kidnapping will forfeit their asset, funds and proceeds of kidnap. Since the bill was passed into law the state has not secured any conviction against any suspect but Governor Nyesom Wike had on 3 occasions led security agents to suspected hideout of kidnappers at Eagle Island and Borokiri where properties belonging to suspected kidnappers were destroyed. In Bauchi State, the law was signed by Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar in October, 2016. The Bauchi State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Barrister Ibrahim Umar, however said 7 months after the signing of the bill into law, it has not taken effect despite the various pending and new kidnapping cases in many courts in state. The commissioner attributed the delay to the process involved in gazetting the law which will empower the relevant enforcement agencies including the judiciary to apply it and prosecute the cases. "There are certain facts which you must have at the back of your mind when it comes to the enforcement of laws. It
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., NEB., ARIZ., ORE., USA
June 1 MISSOURI: Missouri's high court won't intervene in execution drug case The Missouri Supreme Court won't review a lower court ruling that spares the state's prison system from having to reveal where it gets drugs used in executions, though attorneys pressing for the details plan more appeals using different arguments. Missouri's high court, without comment Tuesday, rejected a request to review the case from the American Civil Liberties Union, the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other plaintiffs, including The Associated Press. The appeal argued that the state's source of execution drugs should be disclosed under Missouri's open-records laws. An attorney for the media outlets, Bernie Rhodes, said Wednesday that they plan to appeal to a circuit court where a judge sided with them last year, this time arguing that news agencies have a right to the information under the U.S. Constitution's free-press protections. "The First Amendment is of no value if you can't get the information to report," Rhodes said, acknowledging the appeals process could take time. Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ordered the state in March 2016 to reveal where it gets its pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate the state uses to execute prisoners. But in February, a three-judge Missouri Court of Appeals panel overturned Beetem's ruling, concluding that disclosing the identities of "individuals essential to the execution process" could hinder Missouri's ability to execute prisoners. Corrections officials have refused to disclose who supplies the drug, saying that source is shielded as part of its "execution team." A message left Wednesday with a department spokesman was not immediately returned. The department routinely has declined to publicly discuss the matter, citing the unresolved litigation. The sources of the drugs in Missouri and other death-penalty states are widely believed to be compounding pharmacies, which make drugs tailored to a client's specific needs. Those pharmacies do not face the same approval process or testing standards of larger pharmaceutical companies, which has spawned lawsuits by watchdogs pressing for them to be publicly known and properly scrutinized. Missouri, which has 26 condemned inmates, next is scheduled to execute Marcellus Williams on Aug. 22 by injection for the 1998 stabbing death of a former newspaper reporter during a suburban St. Louis burglary. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Nikko Jenkins was given a death sentence Tuesday for each of the 4 people he executed. But that doesn't mean he's anywhere near death's doorstep. Far from it, in fact. Consider: -- No one has been executed in Nebraska in 20 years. And in the past 58 years, more death-row inmates have died of natural causes (6) than from capital punishment (3). -- The state currently is working to obtain the lethal-injection drugs needed to carry out an execution. That could take considerable time. -- 10 death-row dwellers are in line in front of Jenkins - all have been waiting at least 7 years. In fact, Jenkins falls in line far behind three other Omaha defendants. Roy Ellis, a convicted sex offender who kidnapped and killed 12-year-old Amber Harris, has been on death row for 8 years. Arthur Lee Gales, who killed 7-year-old Lamar Chandler and 13-year-old Latara Chandler, has been on death row for 16 years. And 59-year-old Carey Dean Moore, who killed Omaha fathers and cab drivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard Helgeland in 1979, has been on death row for 37 years. Add in this: All death-penalty cases are automatically appealed. End result: Jenkins' day of reckoning, if it comes, is nowhere nigh. That fact was not lost on the families of the 4 Omahans Jenkins killed during his 10-day spree. Michael-Ryan Kruger, widower of Andrea Kruger, said he is bewildered as to what to tell his children, especially his 2 daughters, now 5 and 7, about the case against the man who killed their mom. "I'm glad he got the maximum punishment," Kruger said. "But what does a death sentence really mean? Does that mean 5 years, 10 years, 15 years? "That (timeline) might be swift compared to where the process actually is. Right now, I don't think Nebraska even has the means to carry it out." It appears it does not. Asked Wednesday if prison officials have acquired lethal injection drugs, Corrections Department spokeswoman Cara Wilwerding said in an email, "The department continues to work on obtaining the substances needed to carry out death penalty sentences." Earlier this year, corrections officials changed the lethal injection protocol with the intention of making executions easier. The former injection procedure, for example, required officials to give the inmate 3 drugs in a strict sequence. Under the new protocol, officials have the flexibility to use a single drug. In February, Corrections Director Scott
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., ALA.
June 1 TEXAS: Death Row Solitary: 'Their Walls Have Driven Them Mad' Anthony Graves emerged from solitary confinement over 6 years ago to become a national crusader for justice reform, but it took a recent report by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to add new urgency to his campaign to reform the practice in his own state. Graves spent more than 18 years in the Texas prison system, including 16 years in the all-solitary Allan B. Polunksy Unit, after being convicted for murders that he didn't commit. He was released in 2010 after DNA evidence helped exonerate him - but the trauma of his nearly 2 decades behind bars is with him still. Graves started his own foundation - with about $250,000 the state compensated him for the years he was wrongfully imprisoned - to support his efforts. His argument that solitary confinement on death row is inhumane has been reinforced by the study published earlier this spring by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law-Austin, entitled "Designed to Break You: Human Rights Violations on Texas' Death Row." The study's title, he believes, couldn't be more accurate. "Every day you have something going on in solitary confinement," Graves, who spent some 12 years of his solitary confinement on death row, told The Crime Report. "From men going insane, to men dropping their appeals, to men overdosing on their medication - and some men not even being men because their walls have driven them mad." Texas death row inmates, according to the report, are subjected to a total ban of visits from attorneys, friends and family; "substandard" physical and psychological health care; and lack of access to what human rights activists would consider "sufficient" religious services. "Prolonged solitary confinement has overwhelmingly negative effects on inmates' mental health, exacerbating existing mental conditions, and causing more prisoners to develop mental illness for the 1st time," the report said. As of April 2017, 233 men were on death row in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Polunksy Unit in Livingston, which "Texas Tough" author Robert Perkinson called the "most lethal" death row prison "anywhere in the democratic world." Another 6 women are housed in death row at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville. According to the UT-Austin study, inmates on death row spend an average of 14 years and 6 months housed there - most of the time in solitary. According to a 2014 ACLU brief, Texas death-row prisoners had most of the same privileges as those in the general prison population until 1999, when they were effectively confined to permanent solitary confinement until their execution. Under current conditions, according to the report, inmates on solitary are confined to 8 by 12-foot cells for at least 22 hours per day, and are banned from socializing or eating with other inmates. Inmates are only able to see out a small window in their cells by rolling their mattresses and standing on them. A bill calling for an Office of Independent Oversight Ombudsman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), which would increase transparency in the prison system was considered by the Texas legislature this session, but failed to move forward. The problem is not confined to Texas. According to the UT-Austin Human Rights Clinic researchers, more than 3,000 death row inmates across 35 states are in solitary confinement. Most are isolated due to their original capital conviction - and not for behavior while in prison. Some states have reformed conditions. 7 - California, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and Indiana - now allow visits on death row with family and attorneys, for example. But the number of exonerations has focused attention on what happens to all prisoners who experience solitary confinement. Graves said he was fortunate to have a support system when he was released from prison. However, he says he suffered from PTSD, sleep deprivation and loneliness. He was so used to having only himself for company that he had a difficult time adjusting to the company of others. "It's like landing on Mars," Graves said of his return to civil society. "The whole word has changed, and you have to deal with that. You're starting to feel like maybe you can't make it out here and you start to deal with it psychologically. "The sad part is there are no facilities or programs trying to deal with these issues." He believes inmates held in solitary confinement are set up for failure when it comes to rehabilitation, and that runs counter to the purpose of any criminal justice system. Considering that even inmates on death row could be released, as he was, on new evidence that exonerates their charges, authorities should not exclude those inmates from reform measures. Researchers found "self-injury" is 8 times more likely, and suicide 5 times more likely, in Texas'
