[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
July 13 RWANDA: Petty Crime Suspects Summarily Executed State security forces in Rwanda have summarily killed at least 37 suspected petty offenders and forcibly disappeared 4 others since April 2016, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Most victims were accused of stealing items such as bananas, a cow, or a motorcycle. Others were suspected of smuggling marijuana, illegally crossing the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo, or of using illegal fishing nets. The 40-page report, "'All Thieves Must Be Killed': Extrajudicial Executions in Western Rwanda," details how military, police and auxiliary security units, sometimes with the assistance of local civilian authorities, apprehended suspected petty offenders and summarily executed them. 2 men were killed by civilians after local authorities encouraged residents to kill thieves. In all the cases Human Rights Watch documented, the victims were killed without any effort at due process to establish their guilt or bring them to justice, and none posed any imminent threat to life that could have otherwise justified the use of lethal force against them. "Rwandan security forces are carrying out a brutal campaign of cold-blooded murder in the Western Province," said Daniel Bekele, senior director for Africa advocacy at Human Rights Watch. "Fighting petty crime or offenses by committing murder doesn???t build the rule of law, but only reinforces a climate of fear. The Rwandan authorities should immediately halt the killings and bring those responsible to justice." Human Rights Watch conducted interviews in Rwanda with 119 witnesses, family members and friends of victims, government officials, and others. Human Rights Watch also released photographs of some of the victims. On July 5 and 6, 2017, Human Rights Watch shared its findings with 5 local authorities in Rubavu and Rutsiro districts, the areas where Human Rights Watch documented the killings. The officials denied that any extrajudicial executions had occurred, although one said that people had been killed while crossing the border from Congo because of a "security issue." Human Rights Watch also shared its findings with senior government officials in the capital, Kigali, but has not received a response. These killings occurred in advance of Rwanda's presidential elections, scheduled for August 4. President Paul Kagame, who has been in power since 2003, is running against two opponents, both of whom have complained of harassment, threats, and intimidation since announcing their candidacy. The executions, some in front of multiple witnesses, are rarely discussed in Rwanda. Given Rwanda's strict restrictions on independent media and activists, no local media outlets have reported the killings, and local human rights groups are afraid to publish information on such issues. The killings and enforced disappearances appear to have been part of a broader strategy to spread fear, enforce order, and deter any resistance to government orders or policies, Human Rights Watch said. In 1 example, Fulgence Rukundo, a father of two, was detained by a local government official and six soldiers at his home in the village of Munanira in Rubavu district in the early morning of December 6. Witnesses said he was questioned about a stolen cow, then taken to a community meeting with the district mayor. "When the meeting was finished, the soldiers walked Fulgence to a small field near a banana plantation," one witness said. "There were many of us following; some were primary students. We wanted to see what would happen ... A soldier told him to stand up and walk, and another soldier told us to leave. At that moment, I heard three shots." More than 40 people interviewed said they had participated in community meetings in Rubavu and Rutsiro districts at which military officers or local government officials declared that thieves would be arrested and killed. Authorities used the extrajudicial executions to serve as a warning. In most of the cases documented, local military and civilian authorities told residents, often during public meetings, that the suspected petty offender had been killed and that all other thieves and other criminals in the region would be arrested and executed. In the case of Francois Buhagarike, killed between October 19 and 20 in Busuku cell in Rutsiro district, one resident said: "[The authorities] say, 'Someone who supports thieves will also have problems with us. Those caught stealing will be killed, like Francois. To anyone who knew Francois, if you steal, you will also be killed.' All this was said by the military so it must be taken seriously." Many family members were threatened when they tried to recover the bodies of their loved ones. Some families buried the body in secret, and several left their villages, fearing that they could also be targeted. In almost all the extrajudicial killings
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., KY., NEB., NEV., ARIZ., ORE., USA
July 13 ARKANSAS: State fails to stop execution-drug suitJudge studies jurisdiction question A lawsuit claiming that Arkansas prison officials duped a medical supplier into selling them medication used to execute four convicted killers survived another court challenge on Wednesday. After a 2-hour hearing Wednesday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray rejected a motion from the attorney general's office to dismiss the suit filed by McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc. But the judge said she needs more time to consider whether she has any further jurisdiction over the proceedings. At issue is whether state attorneys can move the proceedings to another judge in another county under a new statute that has never been court-tested. Gray promised a decision on the jurisdiction issue as soon as possible. McKesson wants the judge to make Arkansas return the supply of vecuronium bromide the company sold to the prison department last year. The company is accusing Department of Correction officials of tricking its salesman into selling them the paralytic, then reneging on a promise to return the drugs when McKesson refunded the state's payment. The bromide is 1/3 of the drug combination Arkansas uses for lethal injections. The state carried out 4 of 8 planned executions in April before the supply of another drug it uses passed its use-by date. Arkansas does not have enough of the necessary drugs to conduct further executions, and none have been scheduled. State attorneys deny that Arkansas officials did anything wrong, calling the litigation a case of "seller's remorse" brought on by the public disclosure of McKesson's role in providing the paralytic, a disclosure that could open McKesson to government sanctions in Europe and from the bromide's manufacturer. State Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has been pressing for the lawsuit by McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc. to be transferred to Faulkner County Circuit Court since the litigation began in April. But Rutledge will not say why she prefers that court. Wednesday marked 3 months since the lawsuit was filed, and Rutledge's spokesman continued to decline to answer questions about the attorney general's insistence on moving the lawsuit out of Little Rock, the usual venue for civil actions against the state. Senior Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Merritt told the judge the state has an "absolute right" to change courts under the new law, Act 967 of 2017, arguing that the statute requires Gray give up jurisdiction to Rutledge's choice of Faulkner County. The law, which was passed and went into effect about a week and a half before the lawsuit was filed, allows the government to have any suit brought against it moved to any circuit court of its choosing if the plaintiff is not an Arkansas resident. Attorney Michael Heister, representing McKesson, told the judge that the company is sufficiently established in Arkansas, through a distribution center in Little Rock, to meet the standard for residence. He said the state attorneys are trying to get Gray to apply a different standard, state citizenship, as the test for whether the litigation remains in Little Rock. "Our point is, the venue statute doesn't talk about [citizenship]; it talks about residence," Heister told the judge. "We are a resident of the state under the statute. We pay taxes." The company, an arm of the international health care giant McKesson Corp., sued to block the state from using the vecuronium bromide the company had sold to the Department of Correction last year. The drug is a general anesthesia recognized internationally as an essential medication, but McKesson and the drug's manufacturer, Pfizer, don't want it to be used for executions. The company has also asked for the drug to be returned. 2 Pulaski County circuit judges, acting in separate proceedings, sided with the company and ordered the prison department not to use the paralytic. But the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned those orders on emergency appeals by Rutledge, so the state was able to use the drug in the four executions that were conducted. About 30 minutes of Wednesday's proceeding involved Merritt trying to convince an obviously skeptical Gray that the judge still had jurisdiction over the case, even though the attorney general's office has appealed the judge's April ruling to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Gray had ordered the Department of Correction not to use McKesson's bromide, which would have halted the executions. But the high court suspended Gray's order while the justices consider whether Arkansas' sovereign immunity shields it from the McKesson suit. Gray ruled in April that the state isn't immune from the McKesson suit. The attorney general's appeal has lodged the immunity question with the superior court, Gray said. So how could she also take up the same question again until the Supreme Court makes its decision? Gray
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
July 13 JAPANexecutions Japan executes 2 convicted murderers Japan executed 2 convicted murderers on July 13, the justice ministry said, ignoring calls from international rights groups to end capital punishment. The hangings of Masakatsu Nishikawa and Koichi Sumida bring to 19 the total number of executions since conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to power in late 2012. Nishikawa, 61, was convicted of killing 4 female bar owners in western Japan in 1991, while Sumida, 34, was sentenced to death for killing a female colleague in 2011 and dismembering her body. "Both are extremely cruel cases in which victims were deprived of their precious lives on truly selfish motives," Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda said. "I ordered the executions after careful consideration," he told a news conference. Human rights group Amnesty International protested at the Japanese government's continued use of the death penalty, saying it demonstrates "wanton disregard for the right to life." "The death penalty never delivers justice, it is the ultimate cruel and inhumane punishment," Hiroka Shoji, East Asia researcher at the campaign group, said in a statement. Nishikawa was hanged while seeking a retrial. Though not unprecedented, it is rare in Japan. Kaneda indicated it was mistaken to believe that death-row inmates cannot be executed as long as their retrial pleas are pending. "When a rejection is naturally expected, we cannot help avoiding carrying out (capital punishment)," Kaneda said, noting he was not commenting on either of Thursday's cases but speaking in general terms. Out of 124 death-row inmates, 91 are seeking retrial, according to Jiji Press. Japan and the United States are the only major developed countries that still carry out capital punishment. Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said "the justice minister made the decision appropriately under the provision of the law." The death penalty has overwhelming public support in Japan despite repeated protests from European governments and human rights groups. Opponents say Japan's system is cruel because inmates can be on death row for many years in solitary confinement and are only told of their impending execution a few hours ahead of time. (source: Hurriyet Daily News) *** 2 men hanged as reprehensible executions continue The Japanese government's continued use of the death penalty demonstrates a contempt for the right to life, Amnesty International said, following the execution of 2 men on Thursday. The executions, the 1st in Japan in 2017, take the number of people executed under the current government to 19 since 2012. Masakatsu Nishikawa, who was convicted of the murder of four people in 1991 and 1992, was executed at Osaka Detention Centre. He maintained his innocence on some of the charges against him and the Asahi Newspaper reported that he was seeking a retrial. Koichi Sumida, who was convicted of murder in 2011, was executed at Hiroshima Detention Centre. "Today's executions shows the Japanese government's wanton disregard for the right to life. The death penalty never delivers justice, it is the ultimate cruel and inhumane punishment," said Hiroka Shoji, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International. "Executions in Japan remain shrouded in secrecy but the government cannot hide the fact that it is on the wrong side of history, as the majority of the world's states have turned away from the death penalty." On 1 July, Mongolia became the most recent and the 105th country worldwide to abolish the death penalty for all crimes. There are 124 death row prisoners detained in Japan, based on the latest figures from the Ministry of Justice. Secret executions Executions in Japan are carried out with prisoners typically given only a few hours' notice, and some given no warning at all. Their families, lawyers and the public are usually notified about the execution only after it has taken place. Secret executions are in contravention of international standards on the use of the death penalty. This and the lack of other adequate legal safeguards for those facing the death penalty in Japan has been widely criticized by UN experts. This includes defendants being denied adequate legal counsel and a lack of a mandatory appeal process for capital cases. Several prisoners with mental and intellectual disabilities are also known to have been executed or remain on death row. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the crime, the guilt, innocence or other characteristics of the offender or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. The death penalty violates the right to life and is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. (source: Amnesty International) *** Death penalty sought for
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., S.C., FLA., OHIO
July 13 TEXAS: Texas' slow, tortuous fight to kill a mentally ill manThe state's fight to kill Scott Panetti is now in its 3rd decade. Scott Panetti is very seriously mentally ill. He once buried his furniture in his backyard in the belief that this would purge the devil, who Panetti believed to have possessed his home. He was institutionalized about a dozen times, often involuntarily, for suicidal and homicidal behavior. Eventually, Panetti's illness overcame him, and he murdered his estranged wife's parents. At Panetti's trial, he was inexplicably allowed to represent himself. With his life on the line, Panetii wore a purple bandana around his neck, a cowboy hat and suspenders. He tried to call the Pope, Jesus Christ, and John F. Kennedy to the witness stand. And he sometimes shifted into an alternate personality named "Sgt. Ranahan Ironhorse." He was sentenced to die. Since then, Panetti's been the center of a seemingly never-ending legal fight between lawyers trying to save his life and Texas officials who want to kill him. The 1st time Panetti's lawyers sought a court order stopping his execution, Bill Clinton was in the White House, TLC was topping the music charts, and Buffy Summers was still in high school. Panetti won a victory in the Supreme Court, had that victory rendered largely meaningless by lower courts, sought refuge in a second, unrelated Supreme Court decision, and, just this week, won another incremental victory in a federal appeals court. There are no signs that his litigation saga is anywhere near completion. Tuesday's decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit arose out of Texas' apparent effort to execute Panetti without telling his lawyers about it. At a prosecutor's request, a state court set a December 3, 2014 execution date for Panetti without consulting his attorneys. The lawyers found out that their client was about to be killed from an October 30 news report. Multiple courts then refused to delay Panetti's execution or to provide his lawyers with the time or resources they needed to contest his execution?- though the Fifth Circuit did eventually stay that execution to give the lawyers time to seek these resources. Tuesday's decision in Panetti v. Davis holds that Panetti must receive paid legal counsel, assistance from mental health experts that can help him build his case, and a full hearing to determine whether he is competent to be executed. The Texas legislature, it should also be noted, since changed the state's law to prevent the kind of ambush executions attempted in this case. But Panetti's life remains in jeopardy largely due to an inconsistency in the Supreme Court's precedents governing people with mental disabilities charged with capital crimes. In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held, using a term that is now considered antiquated, that "death is not a suitable punishment for a mentally retarded criminal." People with intellectual disabilities, the Court explained, "have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others." These deficiencies sufficiently "diminish their personal culpability" to take the death penalty off the table. A few years later, the Court extended this holding to juvenile offenders in Roper v. Simmons. The Court has not, however, held that people with severe mental illnesses like Panetti are similarly ineligible for the death penalty, even though people with such disabilities also possess diminished capacities like the ones described in Atkins. Instead, the Court applies a very different test to determine whether someone with a severe mental illness may be executed. ???It might be said that capital punishment is imposed because it has the potential to make the offender recognize at last the gravity of his crime," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court in Panetti v. Quarterman -?an earlier stage of Mr. Panetti's litigation saga. But "the potential for a prisoner's recognition of the severity of the offense and the objective of community vindication are called in question . . . if the prisoner's mental state is so distorted by a mental illness that his awareness of the crime and punishment has little or no relation to the understanding of those concepts shared by the community as a whole." A death row inmate must have a "rational understanding" of why they are being executed before the state may put them to death. This rule creates a bizarre framework whereby an inmate who flashes back and forth between periods of delusion and moments of sanity may be killed so long as the execution occurs while the inmate is lucid. It encourages the very kind of never-ending litigation that characterizes the Panetti case, and potentially pulls
