[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 17 MEXICO: Mexico does not want El Paso shooter executed President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that Mexico does not want the El Paso shooter who killed 22 people, including eight Mexicans, to be executed, and may seek to extradite him from the United States. The confessed shooter in the mass killing in the Texas border city, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, potentially faces the death penalty in the US. Lopez Obrador, an anti-establishment leftist, said that while Mexico condemns Crusius's "reprehensible, abominable" crimes, it does not want to see him put to death. "Our constitution does not allow the death penalty. We do not want the death penalty, as a matter of conviction. Life imprisonment does not exist (in Mexico), either," he told a press conference. "I have given instructions to explore the possibility of requesting this person's extradition," he added. "We do not want impunity. We want the punishment to serve as an example Given that this was a premeditated crime, and all the aggravating factors, he would face a long time in prison in Mexico... more than 50 years." Mexico has said it considers the August 3 shooting at a packed Walmart store a "terrorist attack." Crusius published an online manifesto before the shooting in which he vowed to fight a "Hispanic invasion" of the US. He later told police he had been targeting "Mexicans." The shooting came at a time of already strained ties between the United States and Mexico, a frequent target of President Donald Trump's attacks. Trump critics accuse him of stoking white nationalist hatred in the US with anti-immigrant rhetoric, including comments referring to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. The Mexican foreign ministry convened a meeting of Latin American diplomats Friday to seek a joint response to what it called the threat of "white supremacism" to Spanish speakers in the United States. "What happened in El Paso represents an inflection point in protecting Hispanic communities in the United States, given that it was a domestic terror attack, sustained by xenophobic rhetoric," Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told the meeting. Mexico has called on the United States to reject the "rhetoric of hate" in the wake of the shooting. (soruce: Agence France-Presse) JAPAN: Mental illness issues could make death penalty impossible for Kyoto Animation arsonist Immediately following the deadly arson attack on anime production company Kyoto Animation last month, police apprehended 41-year-old Shinji Aoba, who was taken into custody near the scene of the crime while saying “They stole my novel” and “I spread the gasoline and lit it with a lighter.” Aoba, who also suffered burns in the incident, has been hospitalized, and is yet to be formally arraigned. The circumstances under which he was taken into custody, though, as well as security footage of him pushing a cart with two canisters of gasoline in the vicinity of Kyoto Animation’s Fushimi studio prior to the attack, leave little room in which he could plausibly deny being the arsonist. However, his culpability, in a legal sense, could be limited. In a press conference held the day after the attack, Ryoji Nishiyama, head of the Kyoto Prefectural Police’s First Investigation Department, said “We have information indicating [Aoba] has a mental illness.” The exact nature of the purported illness has yet to be disclosed, but Japanese news organization Daily Shincho spoke with several psychological and legal experts as to how Aoba’s mental health could affect what legal repercussions he could face. Masaru Wakasa, a lawyer who previously served as vice-director of the Public Prosecutors Office’s Tokyo’s Special Investigation Department, says that if Aoba is found t have been acting under a diminished mental capacity while carrying out the attack, there’s a chance he could be found not guilty, in accordance of Article 39 of the Japanese penal code. Prominent psychiatrist Tamami Katada said that Aoba exhibited signs of what could be schizophrenia or castrophrenia, also known as “thought withdrawal,” in which a person believes that ideas are being forcefully taken from the their mind by outside forces. Katada goes on to say that such a delusion could have fed into a persecution complex and fueled a desire for violent revenge, culminating in the attack. It’s not clear, though, if Katada’s comments were made before or after Kyoto Animation confirmed that it had received a submission from Aoba in one of its regularly held novel-writing competitions. However, Konan University law professor Osamu Watanabe holds that Aoba’s actions are consistent with someone who was well aware of the lethal effects they would have, and went through with them anyway. He cites the premeditated nature of the attack, which required the purchase and transportation of a large quantity of gasoline,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., LA., TENN., ORE., USA
August 17 FLORIDAimpending execution Killer of gay men faces execution Thursday: Gary Bowles’ murders ended in Jacksonville Beach in 1994 Gary Ray Bowles, a serial-killing drifter caught in Jacksonville Beach in 1994, charmed his way into men’s lives and homes with promises of sex and manual labor only to end their lives typically by strangling them. For 8 months, he was a nightmare come to life as he wooed and killed men up and down the East Coast and then quickly moved on to stalk his next prey. The serial-killing drifter with a nasty alcohol problem came across to many initially as rugged and handsome. Gary Ray Bowles charmed his way into men’s lives and homes with promises of sex and manual labor only to kill them, typically by strangling them. A quarter century since his killing spree ended, he is set to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday. To date, the courts have rejected any appeal to halt his being put to death, the most recent by the Florida Supreme Court on Aug. 13. The 57-year-old Bowles lives in isolation, confined to a 6-by-9 foot cell on death row at the Florida State Prison since his 1996 conviction for killing Walter J. Hinton in Jacksonville. Just days before Hinton’s murder, Bowles vaulted onto the FBI’s Most-Wanted List. Bowles, who was living in the Beaches area under the name of Timothy Whitfield, met Hinton in Jacksonville Beach and within days moved into his Jacksonville mobile home. After a day and night of drinking and getting high, Bowles dropped a 40-pound cement block on Hinton’s head as he slept. He then strangled the 47-year-old florist. As he did with most of his other victims — he is believed to have killed at least six men in 1994 — he stuffed toilet paper and rags into Hinton’s mouth and throat. Bowles continued to stay at the mobile home for a few days while Hinton’s body decomposed on the floor. When Hinton died, the name Gary Ray Bowles was well-known particularly along the I-95 corridor. He was wanted for a March 1994 killing in Daytona Beach. He was wanted for a killing in Maryland and two killings in Georgia before returning to Florida for more. He struck fear in the gay community. But Bowles always remained a step ahead of law enforcement by keeping on the move, a killing machine hurtling from state to state and back. After Hinton’s sister discovered her brother’s body, she and others could only tell investigators he had a roommate named Tim who worked at a labor pool at the Beaches. Jacksonville Beach police officer Robert Cook ran the names Tim and Timothy through his department’s computer for possible contacts. 70 references surfaced. Cook narrowed his list to a handful of names by eliminating all but those who worked at labor pools. Yes, Cook learned, a Timothy Whitfield was known at the labor pool. At 5:30 a.m. on Nov. 22, 1994, Cook got a call saying Whitfield was at the labor pool. “I’d go the Nth degree to get things done,” Cook told The Times-Union in 1994. “But I had no suspicion that this could be Gary Bowles.” When Bowles saw police at the labor pool, he rushed into a bathroom. It was too late. After eight months of dodging the law up and down the coast as he killed men, he had been caught — though police at that moment were completely unaware of his true identity. To them, he was Timothy Whitfield, Hinton’s roommate. Soon after his capture, the man stunned investigators with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office when he interrupted his interrogation and asked if they’d like to know who he really was. “I’m Gary Ray Bowles,” he said. Bowles continued to talk, spilling out stories of his other killings. That evening as he was being led past a phalanx of reporters on his way to jail, he said he was sorry and he wanted the killings to stop. 1 BY 1 THEIR LIVES WERE SNUFFED OUT John Hardy Roberts of Daytona Beach was Bowles’ 1st known victim. The 59-year-old insurance adjuster offered Bowles a place to live. On March 15, 1994, Bowles beat and strangled Roberts, capping off the killing by shoving rags down his throat and stealing his car and credit cards. The car was recovered in Tennessee. Bowles quickly became a suspect when police found his fingerprints and probation paperwork at Roberts’ home. Bowles pushed north. David Jarman of Montgomery County, Md., was Bowles’ next known victim. The 38-year-old credit union employee’s body was found April 14, 1994, in a basement. He had been badly beaten and strangled. Again, the victim’s mouth was stuffed with rags. Jarman’s credit cards and car also were gone. Bowles was charged with murder though his whereabouts at the time were unknown. Milton Bradley, a disabled World War II veteran living in Savannah, Ga., was considered generous to a fault. He took Bowles into his home. On May 5, 1994, the 72-year-old’s body was found on a golf course near his home. He had been strangled and again his mouth was
