[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., GA., IND.
June 30 TEXAS: From America's Busiest Death Chamber, a Catalog of Last Rants, Pleas and Apologies Texas Department of Criminal Justice Karl Eugene Chamberlain went to his neighbor's apartment that night in Dallas under the pretense of borrowing sugar. He returned later, forced her into a bedroom, bound her hands and feet, raped her and then used a rifle to shoot and kill her. His victim, Felecia Prechtl, 29, was a single mother with a 5-year-old son. 11 years after he was convicted of capital murder, Mr. Chamberlain, 37, was strapped to a gurney in Texas' execution chamber at the Walls Unit prison here and was asked by a warden if he had any last words. Thank you for being here today to honor Felecia Prechtl, whom I didn't even know, he told her son, parents and brother on June 11, 2008. I am so terribly sorry. I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am. His words did not die with him. Texas wrote them down, kept them and posted them on the Internet. The state with the busiest death chamber in America publishes the final statements of the inmates it has executed on a prison agency Web site, a kind of public catalog of the rantings, apologies, prayers, claims of innocence and confessions of hundreds of men and women in the minutes before their deaths. Charles Nealy asked to be buried not to the left of his father but to the right of his mother. Domingo Cantu Jr., who dragged a 94-year-old widow across the top of a chain-link fence, sexually assaulted her and then killed her, told his wife that he loved her and would be waiting for her on the other side. The condemned praised Allah and Jesus and Sant Ajaib Singh Ji, a Sikh master. 3 cheered for their favorite sports teams, including Jesse Hernandez, whose execution last year made headlines after he shouted, Go Cowboys! They spoke in English, Spanish, French, Vietnamese, Gaelic, German (Meine schone prinzessin, said Mr. Cantu, German for my beautiful princess). They quoted the Koran and the Bible, but also Todd Beamer's phrase aboard United Airlines Flight 93. Sir, in honor of a true American hero, 'Let's roll,' said David Ray Harris, who was dishonorably discharged from the Army and was executed in 2004 for killing a man who tried to stop him from kidnapping the man's girlfriend. The execution on Wednesday of Kimberly McCarthy - a 52-year-old woman convicted of robbing, beating and fatally stabbing a retired psychology professor near Dallas - was the 500th in Texas since December 1982, when the state resumed capital punishment after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. In those 30 years, Texas has executed more people than Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma and Virginia combined. The state's execution record has often been criticized as a dehumanizing pursuit of eye-for-an-eye justice. But three decades of last statements by inmates reveal a glimmer of the humanity behind those anonymous numbers, as the indifferent bureaucracy of state-sanctioned death pauses for one sad, intimate and often angry moment. I hope that one day we can look back on the evil that we're doing right now like the witches we burned at the stake, said Thomas A. Barefoot, who was convicted of murdering a police officer and was executed on Oct. 30, 1984. Among the death-penalty states, Texas and California are the only ones that make the last words of offenders available on their Web sites. But only Texas has compiled and listed each statement in what amounts to an online archive. The collection of 500 statements, which includes inmates' verbal as well as written remarks, has been the subject of analysis, criticism and debate by lawyers, criminal justice researchers and activists who oppose the death penalty. It has spawned at least one blog, Lost Words in the Chamber, which has regularly posted the last statements since 2011. Officials with the prison agency, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said there were 3 million page views of inmates' final words last year. It's kind of mesmerizing to read through these, said Robert Perkinson, the author of Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire and a professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Most people about to be executed haven't had a lot of success in school or life. They're not always so skilled at articulating themselves. There are plenty of cliches, sometimes peculiar ones, like the Cowboys reference. But I think many of these individuals are also striving to say something poignant, worthy of the existential occasion. The last statements are not uttered in a vacuum - they are heard by lawyers, reporters and prison officials, as well as the inmates' families and victims' relatives. But the power of their words to change the system or even heal the hearts of those they have hurt is uncertain. Nearly 7 years after he murdered a Houston city marshal who caught him with cash and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
NOTEmy postings to this list will resume July 9 ** June 30 IRELAND: British hangman cut a bargain deal with Free State Authorities in 1925; Irish government availed of 'buy one get one half price' offer The Irish government availed of a 'buy one get one half price deal' in 1925 - from the notorious English hangman Thomas Pierrepoint. Newly revealed documents confirm that Pierrepoint struck a deal with the Dublin authorities to carry out the execution of Annie Walsh (31) and her nephew Michael Talbot (24). They were sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of Annie's elderly husband, Edward Walsh, at his County Limerick farm. Pierrepoint was the hangman of choice for the Free State government who chose not to employ an Irish executioner after the War of Independence. The Englishman would regularly travel from his home in Yorkshire to carry out hangings in Ireland at a cost of 10 pounds per execution. In August of 1925 he travelled to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin for the rare double hanging and struck a bargain price deal with the Irish authorities. His invoice totalled just 15 pounds, with the hangman slashing the price for the 2nd execution to just 5 pounds - or 50% off. Now his invoice and expenses claim, submitted to Ireland's Department of Finance, is to be auctioned by the Mealy's sales house in March. The Irish Times reports that the document, handwritten in spidery black ink, is possibly the most macabre ever submitted to the department. The letter, from his home address near the city of Bradford, requests reimbursement of fees and travel expenses for Pierrepoint an unnamed assistant, believed to be his nephew Albert Pierrepoint, who was later appointed hangman. The senior hangman travelled 1st class, by rail and saloon, according to his expense claim, while his nephew went by 3rd class travel. They spent the night before the execution in Mountjoy Prison where they rested the gallows equipment. According to the report, refreshments for each man amounted to only '10 shillings' as 'hangmen were discouraged from drinking alcohol the night before a job'. Auctioneer George F Mealy believes the letter could fetch a thousand dollars. It might appeal to collectors and is interesting as a curiosity and a historical manuscript,' he told the paper. A total of 35 hangings took place in Dublin between November 1923 and April 1954. Walsh was the only woman hanged in the history of the Free State although the British did pardon 6 women sentenced to execution during their stay. (source: Irish Central) NIGERIA: 'Nigeria will not drop the death penalty' The Nigerian Federal Government has sealed the fate of homosexuals and those clamouring for the abolition of the death penalty in the Criminal Code, according to the local PUNCH newspaper Saturday. The paper said the government has rejected the recommendation by the United Nations Human Rights Council on the protection of same sex marriage and abolition of the death penalty. This is contained in the draft report to the United Nations Human Rights Council on resolution 16/20 discussed at a Stakeholders' Consultative Forum on the 2nd cycle of Nigeria's Universal Periodic Review in Abuja on Friday. The Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, said same sex marriage was against the tradition and customs of Nigeria, so it could not be imposed on the country by external forces. Ashiru, who wondered why gay rights had generated interest from the United Nations, queried the negative campaign against polygamy, which, according to him, was allowed in African tradition. He said, You should not shy away from defending what you believe is right. Whatever is in our constitution, you must defend it. We must stand by our constitution. We must stand by our customs and tradition. If you want to have gay rights in your constitution; fine, but we have our own constitution. The same human rights they want to protect for gay people; how about people that want to go into polygamy if they so desire and women are willing to marry them. Polygamy is human rights in our tradition. On the abolition of the death penalty, the minister said Nigeria should not be blamed because the Criminal Code in use was enacted by the colonial masters, saying, If anything is wrong about it, why are they blaming us? Ashiru also denied allegations of extra-judicial killings by the military against the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, where emergency rule had been proclaimed by President Goodluck Jonathan. Challenging those with credible evidence to come forward, Ashiru maintained that the record of Nigeria???s military in peace keeping mission was unassailable. The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Bem Angwe, said Nigeria had done creditably well in Human Rights. Although he noted that the country
