[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
July 29 THE MALDIVES: Branson urges Maldives boycott if government resumes executions for the 1st time in 60 years Sir Richard Branson has described the reported decision by Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen to revive executions as "an awful political move that will send the country back to the Dark Ages of human rights." In a blog post, the creator of the Virgin brand implicitly threatened to remove his money and business from the Maldives and urged other tour operators, governments and businesses to follow suit if the executions went ahead. "I care about where my money is spent and how I conduct my business. President Yameen can still back away from the damaging path he has chosen for his country. If not, I hope the international community - governments... (source: telegraph.co.uk) BAHAMAS: 'Death Penalty Is The Wrong Way To Tackle Rising Crime' The Grand Bahama Human Rights Association yesterday urged the Minnis administration to reconsider its intention to push for the death penalty to be enforced to ensure criminals are punished to the full extent of the law. In a statement released on Thursday, the GBHRA commended the FNM for its stated commitment to reversing the upward trend in violent crime, but further warned "capital punishment is simply not the way to do it." The statement came 2 days after National Security Minister Marvin Dames, in an interview with The Tribune on Tuesday, said his party would use everything on the law books, including capital punishment, to make The Bahamas safe for "law-abiding citizens". However, to debunk the perceived connection between increased capital punishment and decreased crime, the GBHRA contended 90 % of criminologists have agreed that capital punishment is "a totally pointless exercise from the perspective of reducing violent crime". The association said many of the most violent countries in the world are those which have the death penalty on their law books. "This is because, as studies show, the death penalty contributes significantly to the brutalisation of individuals and society as a whole, which in turn leads to higher rates of murder and violence," the GBHRA noted. "In the US, states that retain the death penalty have higher murder rates than those that have abolished it. Capital punishment has also been linked to higher rates of violence against police and officers and increased anti-social behaviour generally. "In addition, it is an inescapable fact that sooner or later, societies that engage in capital punishment will execute an innocent person. No system of justice is perfect, court witnesses make mistakes and jurors do not always vote according to evidence."< The GBHRA asserted the execution of an individual is an "irreversible act of state violence" that can never be taken back or atoned for if it is later realised that it was wrongfully applied. "According to Amnesty International, 130 people sentenced to death in the United States have been found innocent since 1973 and released from death row. Many others were found to have been wrongfully convicted when it was already too late. "Such practical considerations aside, there is also a strong moral objection to capital punishment. As a nation founded on an abiding respect for Christian values and the rights of the individual, The Bahamas must always be seen to affirm the maxim that all life is sacred. "Everyone has a sacred and inalienable right to life, even those who commit murder. Sentencing a person to death and executing them clearly violates this right," the group added. The GBHRA said the government should consider that trends in criminality and anti-social behaviour cannot be meaningfully reversed unless the underlying causes are addressed. The group added that the government, while doing all it can to protect law-abiding citizens, it should look to combat poverty, child neglect, domestic violence, drug addiction and the other social ills, all of which, GBHRA said, have been "repeatedly proven" to drive vulnerable young people toward a life of crime. To this end, GBHRA said returning The Bahamas to a "sense of peace, safety and property," will take nothing short of a total commitment by government, civil society and ordinary citizens to breaking the cycle of social degeneration that, it argued, has given rise to crime. In conclusion, the group urged the government to lead the way in restoring a sense of decency and civility to the nation and to resist taking the country down the road toward further violence, retribution and brutality. A 2006 decision by the London-based Privy Council, The Bahamas' highest court of appeal, quashed the country's mandatory death penalty for murder convicts, which it said was unconstitutional. In 2011, the Privy Council also said the death penalty should only be given in cases where the offence falls into the category of the "worst of the worst".
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., OHIO, TENN., OKLA., NEB., UTAH, NEV., USA
July 29 TEXAS: Death Row Sentencing In Texas Has Significantly DecreasedTexas carried out its 5th execution of the year Thursday night, but overall executions are dwindling, and that trend is likely to continue. Last year, Texas executed 7 inmates on death row. That was the lowest number in the past 20 years. Kristin Houle suggests that the state will keep following that trend. She is with the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Well, Texas like the rest of the United States has been experiencing a steady decline in use of the death penalty," Houle says. This decline can be attributed, in part to sentencing. Houle says there is a big difference from 1999 when Texas peaked at sentencing 48 people to death row and only sentencing 3 in the past 2 years. She says what's led to the decrease in sentencing is cases being put on hold and advancements in forensic science. "Where the science that was presented at the original trial has been called into question or even debunked," Houle says. Although, executions are decreasing in the U.S., she says Texas continues to account for about 1/3 of them. "This year so far Texas has carried out five of the 16 executions nationwide," Houle says. In the state, there are 5 more executions scheduled for this year. (source: houstonpublicmedia.org) FLORIDA: Woman charged in Jupiter homicide to see psychiatric test results Prosecutors agreed Friday to give notes and test results from a state-order psychiatric evaluation to lawyers for Kimberly Lucas, the Jupiter woman charged with the 2014 drowning of her 2-year-old daughter and attempted murder of her then-10-year-old son. That agreement regarding Dr. Wade Myers' evaluation of Lucas comes less than 2 months before the long awaited death-penalty case is scheduled to go to trial in front of Judge Charles Burton. Confusion surrounding Florida's death penalty law had stalled Lucas' case from moving forward. That trial now is slated to begin Sept. 14. Lucas, 43, was not present for the brief hearing Friday. She has been in custody since her arrest May 27, 2014, on murder charges to which she has since pleaded not guilty. Jupiter police say Lucas drowned her 2-year-old daughter, Elliana Lucas-Jamason, May 26, 2014, in a bathtub and attempted to kill her son, Ethan, and herself by overdosing on Xanax. Lucas' suicide note blamed her actions on Jacquelyn Jamason, her then-separated partner and the biological mother to Elliana and Ethan. On that day, Ethan, then 10, woke up drowsy from the drugs, found his sister unresponsive in the bathtub and called 911. Lucas and Jamason, the children's biological mother, had been together for more than 20 years and joined together in a 2001 civil union, but were estranged at the time of the killing. Jamason has said that Lucas suffered from complications from gastric bypass surgery and had subsequently developed a prescription drug problem that contributed to their split. Lucas' attorneys plan to pursue an insanity defense, arguing that she suffers from dissociative identity disorder - formerly known as multiple personality disorder - and that one of her alternate personalities committed the crimes. Her attorneys wrote in a 2015 pleading: "The defendant was receiving mental health-care treatment long before, as well as the time of, the events which resulted in her arrest." Jamason is anxious for the case to go to trial. "I think that once trial is over, Ethan and I can finally have more peace, and not put it behind us, but look to the future," Jamason told The Post in May. (source: Palm Beach Post) * Judge rejects challenge to new execution drugs A death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month failed in a bid to get a Jacksonville judge to delay his execution because of the state's new triple-drug lethal injection protocol. Duval County Circuit Court Judge Tatiana Salvador on Friday rejected a request from Mark James Asay to put a hold on an Aug. 24 execution date scheduled by Gov. Rick Scott. Asay's appeal included a challenge to a new lethal injection protocol --- which includes a drug never used before for executions in Florida, or in any other state --- adopted by the Florida Department of Corrections earlier this year. In its new protocol, Florida is substituting etomidate for midazolam as the critical first drug, used to sedate prisoners before injecting them with a paralytic and then a drug used to stop prisoners' hearts. In a 30-page order issued Friday, Salvador ruled that Asay failed to prove that the new three-drug protocol is unconstitutional. Etomidate, also known by the brand name "Amidate," is a short-acting anesthetic that renders patients unconscious. 20 % of people experience mild to moderate pain after being injected with the drug, but only for "tens of seconds" at the longest, the judge noted. "Defendant has only
