[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.Y., N.J., ARIZ., S.C., FLA.
March 21 NEW YORK: Clemency for Death Row Inmates to be Discussed ContactJohn DellaContrada dellacon at buffalo.edu 716-645-5000 ext 1409 Lawyers involved in four highly publicized death-row cases, including the clemency plea of Stanley Tookie Williams, will participate in a panel discussion on Executive Clemency in Capital Cases, organized by the Capital Advocacy Project in the University at Buffalo Law School. To be held at 5:30 p.m. on March 27 in 106 O'Brian Hall on UB's North (Amherst) Campus, the discussion is free and open to the public. To register, send an email to ublaw.cap at gmail.com. Panelists will include: * Defense attorney Jonathan Harris, who represented death-row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams in California. Williams, the former Crips gang leader, was denied clemency and executed in 2005, despite pleas from supporters who said he presented a compelling portrait of redemption and rehabilitation. * Defense attorney Sarah Nagy, who in 2005 won clemency for Arthur Baird, a mentally ill death-row inmate in Indiana. Baird was granted clemency just 36 hours before his scheduled execution. * Cornell University Associate Law Professor John Blume, who recently argued a case before the Supreme Court involving South Carolina death-row inmate Bobby Lee Holmes. In his criminal trial, Holmes was prevented from presenting evidence that a third party committed the crime for which he was convicted, although forensic evidence implicated Holmes. * Connecticut attorney Harry Weller, who prosecuted confessed serial killer Michael Ross. Ross was executed in 2005 after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-minute appeals from his relatives. UB Associate Law Professor Teresa Miller will moderate the discussion. The panel discussion is intended to raise awareness about various defects in the capital punishment system, according to third-year UB law student Jenny Mills, founder and co-president of the Capital Advocacy Project. Clemency rarely ever is granted, even in cases where there is a clear argument for clemency, says Mills, who last summer worked with death row inmates in Kentucky and created clemency materials for one inmate nearing his execution date. Because of the way the justice system is structured, inmates traditionally are barred from raising various claims during their appeals and post-conviction proceedings, she adds. The clemency process is thus the only time they can raise certain issues, but it would appear that most clemency petitions are dismissed out of hand. According to Mills, the goal of the Capital Advocacy Project is to bring awareness about the death penalty to fellow law students and the UB community. Project members focus on legal issues in the debate over capital punishment and are working on a research project involving aggravating factors in capital cases. When completed, the research will be disseminated to capital defense lawyers around the country. (source: University at Buffalo - the State University of New York) NEW JERSEY: Prosecutors ponder retrial of MarshallCourts: Death sentence invalid The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will not hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that invalidated the death penalty for Robert O. Marshall, convicted in the contract killing of his wife, Maria, in 1984. The top court's decision not to hear the appeal means the former Dover Township insurance salesman, now 66, is off death row permanently, unless the state convinces a new jury that he should die for hiring a hit man to kill the 42-year-old mother of his three children. The case was the subject of a bestselling book and television miniseries. The state now has 120 days to retry the death-penalty phase of the case, according to a U.S. District Court judge's ruling in 2004 that was put on hold pending a conclusion to the appeals process. If the state chooses not to retry the penalty phase, it would stipulate a life prison term for Marshall. In that event, Marshall would be eligible to apply for parole in 2014, after having been incarcerated for 30 years, said Tom Rosenthal, a spokesman for the state Public Defender's Office, which has represented Marshall in a long series of appeals. Ocean County Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher said Monday he plans to meet with staff from the state Attorney General's Office to decide how to proceed and whether any retrial should be moved out of Ocean County. The first trial in 1986 was held in Atlantic County because of pretrial publicity. In a retrial of the penalty phase, a jury would be asked if Marshall should be put to death by lethal injection. Insurance called motive In the first trial, the jury found Marshall guilty of hiring someone to shoot his wife during a faked robbery at a staged breakdown of the couple's car on Sept. 7, 1984. The location was at the now-closed Oyster Creek picnic area on the Garden State Parkway in Lacey. The prosecution had argued that Marshall - at the time a prominent
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., USA, N.Y.
March 21 VIRGINIA: Moussaoui death penalty trial resumes The death penalty trial of al-Qaida conspirator and former Oklahoma resident Zacarias Moussaoui resumes today in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The jury is to hear cross-examination of the F-B-I agent who arrested Moussaoui weeks before the 9-11 terror attacks. The agent has testified that Moussaoui's lies after arrest prevented him from persuading the bureau to launch an investigation that might have prevented the attacks. The trial is resuming after a tumultuous week in which the judge nearly took the death penalty off the table because a government lawyer improperly coached witnesses on their testimony. Moussaoui lived in Norman in early 2001 while attending a flight school. While he has pleaded guilty to conspiring with al-Qaida, he denies knowledge of plans for the 9-11 attacks. (source: Associated Press) USA: War, death penalty not 'pro-life' To the Editor: In response to D.J. Lattieri's letter stating that Catholics are obligated not to vote for any politician who directly or indirectly supports abortion, euthanasia or oppression of any kind, I must ask the following. What about voting for politicians who support the death penalty, pre-emptive war, a constitutional ban on gay marriage, or a system that denies health insurance to 46 million citizens? None of these positions could possibly be conceived as pro-life. SARAH MURRAYRandolph (source: Letter to the Editor, Daily Record) Agent Faults FBI on 9/11The man who caught Zacarias Moussaoui testifies that higher-ups blocked his efforts to determine whether there was a larger plot. The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui weeks before Sept. 11 told a federal jury Monday that his own superiors were guilty of criminal negligence and obstruction for blocking his attempts to learn whether the terrorist was part of a larger cell about to hijack planes in the United States. During intense cross-examination, Special Agent Harry Samit - a witness for the prosecution - accused his bosses of acting only to protect their positions within the FBI. His testimony appeared to undermine the prosecution's case for the death penalty. Prosecutors argue that had Moussaoui cooperated by identifying some of the 19 hijackers, the FBI could have alerted airport security and kept them off the planes. Moussaoui is the only person to have been convicted in the United States on charges stemming from Sept. 11. His sentencing trial began several weeks ago, but the prosecution's case was nearly gutted when it was learned that a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration had improperly coached key aviation security witnesses. U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema decided to allow the government to present a limited amount of aviation testimony and evidence. Samit's recollections Monday were the first ground-level account of how FBI agents in Minneapolis - where Moussaoui was arrested on a visa violation 3? weeks before the attacks - were appalled that their Washington supervisors denied their requests for search warrants in the effort to find out why the Frenchman was taking flying lessons and what role he might have in a wider plan to attack America. They obstructed it, a still-frustrated Samit told the jury, calling his superiors' actions a calculated management decision that cost us the opportunity to stop the attacks. The government considers Samit's testimony essential to its case. On March 9, the agent told the court about his arrest of Moussaoui, now 37, and his desperate efforts to win the suspect's cooperation. Yet much of his testimony Monday might have backfired on the government. The jury easily could have been left with the impression of an FBI so at odds with itself that it not only missed critical clues of an impending terrorist attack, but did not even know how best to coordinate efforts to stop it. Samit was not alone in his contempt for his superiors. His suspicions were backed up by Coleen Rowley, then an FBI lawyer in Minneapolis, who in a May 2002 memo to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III complained that Washington had blocked efforts to determine what Moussaoui was really doing. Rowley is not scheduled to testify during the sentencing phase. Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to being a part of the Sept. 11 conspiracy. His lawyers maintain that the government had plenty of leads in the summer of 2001 that a major terrorist action was afoot, even without Moussaoui's cooperation. They point to a memo by an FBI agent in Phoenix warning of Middle Eastern men taking flying lessons, and the fact that then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was apprised of Moussaoui's arrest. Samit testified Monday that he never knew of the Phoenix memo or of Tenet's interest in the case. He also said he was kept in the dark about the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing given to Bush during his vacation in Texas. That briefing, titled Bin Laden
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
March 21 CHAD: Chad says 100 military coup plot suspects arrested Chad's government has arrested 100 military officers and soldiers implicated in a failed assassination plot against President Idriss Deby last week, the security minister said on Monday. Routouang Yoma Golom also ruled out peace negotiations with Chadian rebels and army deserters who are threatening to launch an offensive from the east of the landlocked oil producer to try to topple Deby as he prepares for a May 3 presidential election. The Chadian leader, whose 16-year rule has been weakened by a spate of high-level military desertions in recent months, rushed home from an African summit a week ago to foil what officials said was a plot to shoot down his plane. There are around 100 members of the military implicated in this coup who have been arrested. They will be brought to trial, Golom told reporters, without identifying the suspects or explaining their involvement in the plot. He added a military court would sentence them over the next 1 or 2 months. Deby, himself a former army commander who seized power in a 1990 revolt he led from eastern Chad, reshuffled his military top brass and replaced his personal guard late last year as security fears increased. He has repeatedly accused neighbour Sudan of backing efforts to overthrow him, a charge denied by Khartoum. Conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has also spilled over into Chad. Golom said that since the government announced the failed coup plot last week, Deby had been visiting military barracks to ensure the loyalty of his troops. The situation is totally under control and calm has returned. The head of state has personally gone several times to military camps to restore order, the minister said. Since last September, several waves of Chadian military officers have deserted with soldiers and equipment to join anti-Deby rebels in the east. At least one rebel group has given the president a public ultimatum to either start negotiations on democratic change or face overthrow. NO TO NEGOTIATIONS Negotiating with coup plotters is out of the question, Golom said. If there's someone who you've forgiven two, three times already and he wants to kill you, you're not going to carry on forgiving him. I don't seen any opportunity for negotiations. Last week's announcement of a coup plot came weeks before a presidential election which is widely expected to extend the rule of 53-year-old Deby. Golom insisted there had been a plan to kill Deby, rejecting charges by one rebel leader that this had just been an invention by the government to cover up another embarrassing wave of high-level military desertions. The minister said the arrested plotters had coordinated with those who are rebelling (against Deby) from inside Sudan to allow them into Chadian territory. The plan was to strike in N'Djamena and when N'Djamena falls, the way is open and there'll be less resistance for them to penetrate into Chad and reach N'Djamena, he added. Analysts fear the threat posed to Deby by the rebels, who appear to be able to operate from Darfur, risked increasing the conflict already spilling over from that Sudanese territory, where ethnic and political violence has killed thousands. Those deserting Deby have included members of his own Zaghawa ethnic group, some of whom blame him for not doing enough to help fellow Zaghawa kinsmen in Darfur who have been attacked by Sudanese government-backed Arab militias. (source: Reuters) MALAYSIA: Malaysias law minister supports calls to abolish death penalty In Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian Cabinet minister in charge of law said he supports calls for abolishing Malaysias death penalty, which is largely used against drug traffickers, a news report said on Tuesday. For me, a life is a life. No one has the right to take someone else's life, even if that person has taken another life, Nazri Aziz, minister in charge of law in the Prime Ministers Department, was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper. Nazri was responding to an announcement over the weekend by the Malaysian Bar Council that it would campaign for abolishment of the death penalty. I welcome this proposal. This is definitely something which should be looked into, Nazri was quoted as saying. Nazri and his spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment. The Malaysian Bar Council said the death penalty is barbaric, inhumane and an insufficient deterrent for crime. Malaysia is one of 76 countries which still impose the death penalty. It is mandatory for murder, certain firearms offenses and for trafficking in heroin, cocaine, opium and marijuana, and for offenses against the king. Possession of drugs is presumed to be trafficking. The death penalty, which is administered by hanging, can also be imposed at the discretion of a judge for kidnapping, associating with people carrying arms or explosives and waging war against the ruler. Since 1970, Malaysia
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
March 22 MALAYSIA: PROPOSAL TO ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY: Hang them high, says father of murder victim Those guilty of serious crimes like murder or drug trafficking should face the death penalty. There are no two ways about it. This is the view of Sudin Majid, 50, who wants the Government to maintain capital punishment for serious crimes. The trader was responding to a statement by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz on Monday, that it was worth looking into the Bar Councils proposal to abolish the death penalty. Sudin's sentiments on the death penalty are understandable. This is a man who lost his 23-year-old daughter to violence. About 2 weeks ago, Siti Zawiah, of Kelantan, was found bludgeoned to death in her rented apartment unit at Delima Apartments in Country Homes, Rawang. A blood-stained electric iron was found nearby. The death penalty should remain. It is a deterrent to serious crimes. If someone commits murder, he or she should be punished, said Sudin. There is no justice for the victim or the victim's family, if a criminal gets away scot-free. I hope the Government will not abolish the death sentence, he said in a telephone interview with The Malay Mail yesterday. On March 9, Siti Zawiahs housemates returned from work to find her semi-conscious on the bedroom at their apartment unit. She was sent to the Selayang Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. On March 17, 2 factory workers aged 19 and 26, were remanded for 12 days, to facilitate investigations into the murder. The mother of marketing executive Noritta Samsuddin who was found raped and murdered at a rented apartment unit in Kuala Lumpur, more than two years ago, declined comment on Nazri's statement. Norlaila Bahari, 48, said she believed in the after-life, adding that those who got away with crimes on Earth, would still have to face God. Nevertheless, I leave it (whether to abolish the death penalty or not) to the authorities, she said. On Dec 5, 2003, police found Noritta's nude body at her rented apartment unit in Sri Hartamas. She was gagged and bound. Engineer Hanif Basree Abdul Rahman who was charged with the murder, was acquitted by the High Court on July 1, 2004. In acquitting Hanif, judge Datuk Abdull Hamid Embong ruled that the prosecution had not established a prima facie case against him. The trial which received wide publicity, took 29 days, with the prosecution calling 34 witnesses, including Noritta's father and younger sister. (source: Malay Mail) INDONESIA: Pope sends envoy to death row Indonesians An Indonesia bishop relayed a message of support from Pope Benedict XVI to three prisoners condemned to death after a controversial trial that many observers said was unjust. According to Zenit, Bishop Joseph Suwatan, president of the Justice and Peace Commission of Manado Diocese, northern Sulawesi, told the Catholic inmates that the pope sent his blessing to them. The pope, through the bishop, invited the convicts to pray the rosary together with him, so that they might bear their burden. Bishop Suwatan met Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu in prison on Sunday. The three men have been condemned to death for the massacre of Muslims during interreligious clashes in Poso in 2000. The bishop said he had undertaken the visit to the Palu prison in the capacity of special Vatican envoy. He said Benedict XVI wanted to share the men's pain and to express his solidarity for the legal injustice suffered by the three during their trial, according to AsiaNews.it. Bishop Suwatan gave Tibo and his companions a cross and rosary beads. Tibo said he was strongly moved by the considerable interest shown by the Vatican in their case. This helps us to have courage in facing the death penalty, he said. Human rights groups claim that proceedings were marred by large-scale intimidation by Islamic fundamentalists and the judges refused to hear witnesses for the defence, who would have cleared the 3 Catholics. A lawyers' group recently appealed to the Supreme Court to review the case on the basis of new witnesses who would clear the 3 men. Tibo's cause is also backed by Nawawi S Kilat, a well-known representative of the Muslim community in Poso, and one of the signatories of the Malino peace accords of December 2001 that ended the religious conflict. Bishop Suwatan said AsiaNews.it has also played an important role at the international level, to make known the injustice suffered by Tibo and his friends. Between 2000 and 2001, more than 1,000 people died in clashes between Christians and Muslims in Poso. No Muslims have been tried for their part in the clashes as yet. (source: Catholic News)
