[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----UK, KENYA, INDIA, BANG., MALAY., PHILIP., S. ARAB.
Aug. 11 UNITED KINGDOM: Hanged for murder: 50th anniversary of last people to be executed in Britain When, at 8am on 13 August 1964, Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans took a short walk to the gallows to be hanged for murder, the deaths of 2 hapless petty criminals were little mourned and little noticed. Instead Allen and Evans became the last people to be executed in Britain. Wednesday this week will be the 50th anniversary not just of their deaths, but of a major milestone in the history of British justice. The death penalty for murder was suspended for a trial period the year after they were executed. In 1969 it was abolished altogether by a vote in the House of Commons, which won an overwhelming majority and loud cheers from the public gallery. So a killing characterised more by incompetent desperation than anything resembling cold-blooded calculation acquired a significance few could have imagined at the time. Needing money to pay off magistrates fines of 10 pounds imposed on them for earlier thefts, the 2 jobless men had driven to the home of Evans' former workmate John West, 53, in Seaton, Cumbria, to request the loan of a few quid. Mr West refused to give them any money. His stabbed and battered body was found the next day. Tracing the 2 suspects was hardly difficult. Evans had left his raincoat at the scene, with a medallion inscribed with his name. Letters from both men's mothers begging the Home Secretary Henry Brooke to grant clemency had no effect. At Strangeways, Manchester, Evans, 24, was led from his cell by Harry Allen, who always wore a bow tie for the job as a sign of respect and once claimed he never felt a moment's remorse for his executions. 35 miles away in Walton Jail, Liverpool, Allen, 21, shouted Jesus as he was led to the gallows by his executioner Robert Stewart. Former prison officer George Donaldson who witnessed the execution, told the makers of the ITV documentary Executed: At the last minute he seemed to make some sort of effort to throw himself, but he didn't get the chance. The lever dropped, the door opened and down he went. It was all over. From murder to double execution had taken just 18 weeks. It was too late for Evans and Allen, but an abolitionist campaign that dated at least as far back as the formation of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty (NCADP), in 1923 - after the dubious execution of Edith Thompson - was beginning to bear fruit. It was fuelled by cases like that of Derek Bentley, a 19-year-old with a mental age of 11 who was hanged in 1953 for the murder of a policeman, despite not having fired the fatal shot. The officer had told Bentley's accomplice to hand over the gun, and the teenager had uttered the highly ambiguous phrase: Let him have it. Also in 1953 it was discovered that the Rillington Place serial killer John Christie had been the real murderer of Beryl Evans and her baby daughter Geraldine. Mrs Evans' husband Timothy had been wrongly hanged in 1950. Mr Evans' sister Maureen Westlake told the Executed documentary, to be broadcast on Tuesday night: The last time I saw him, he did look like a 10-year-old. His face was all pale. He waved and said, 'cheerio'. It's the Government that murdered Tim. Not killed him. Murdered him. In January this year, a poll found that 54 % of British people want the return of the death penalty. (source: The Independent) KENYA: Kenyan MP proposes 'Stone the Gays To Death' Bill Kenya's Republican Liberty Party has proposed stoning gays and lesbians to death and has put a bill to that end before the National Assembly for its consideration Kenya's Republican Liberty Party wants to impose the death penalty for homosexuality and has put forward a bill that would see foreign gays and lesbians in the country stoned to death. The party's draft Anti-Homosexuality Bill would also see gay and lesbian Kenyans jailed for life and stoned to death in public for 'aggravated homosexuality' which the bill defines as sex with a person under 18, where the person has HIV or where the person is in a position of authority over the person they have had sex with. The 'aggravated' category also includes same-sex activity with a person who has a disability or where the person is a 'serial offender.' The bill appears to be modeled on a similar law in Uganda that was recently struck down by its Constitutional Court and is now before the Kenyan Parliament's Justice and Legal Affairs. Particularly concerning is the imposition of the death penalty on non-citizens who engage in sex between people of the same sex as a large number of LGBTI Ugandans have fled to Kenya to escape the anti-gay climate in their homeland. The Republican Liberty Party claims that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is needed to combat external threats to the heterosexual family unit in Kenya. 'There is need to protect children and youth who are vulnerable
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, OKLA., ARIZ., CALIF., USA
Aug. 11 OHIO: Judge Extends Temporary Halt To Ohio Executions As Debate Over New Drug Combination ContinuesThe moratorium, which was supposed to end this week, has been extended to Jan. 15. A federal judge has extended a months-long halt on executions in Ohio into 2015 as debate over the state's new 2-drug protocol in lethal injections continued. The 2 1/2 month moratorium issued by federal judge Gregory Frost in May was to end this week. But in an order issued Friday, Frost extended the temporary halt on executions to January 15. This will delay 4 executions in Ohio scheduled in September, October, November and early January. The news was first reported Monday morning by the Associated Press. The moratorium was issued to allow time for the state and inmates' lawyers to address any questions about or challenges to the state's lethal injection protocol, which was revised after Dennis McGuire's prolonged execution in January. According to witnesses, McGuire gasped, choked and said his whole body was burning after being injected with an untested 2-drug cocktail of midazolam and hyrdropmorphone. He died after 26 minutes. After his family sued the state, the Department of Corrections announced April it would use the same 2-drug protocol but increase the doses of the sedative and painkiller. This prompted Frost to issue the moratorium so attorneys of inmates could argue against the state's decision. In Frost's order, dated August 8, he wrote that he was extending the stay because the continuing need for discovery and necessary preparations related to the adoption and implementation of the new execution protocol that became effective April 28. In July, an Arizona inmate took nearly 2 hours to die after witnesses described him as repeatedly gasping and snorting. Arizona and Ohio use the same 2-drug protocol of midazolam and hydropmorphone. In this case, the inmate was injected with 15 separate doses of the drug combination resulting in what his attorneys called the most prolonged execution in recent memory. (source: BuzzFeed News) OKLAHOMAnew death sentence OK Man Convicted Of Killing Wife, Unborn Child Formally Sentenced To Death An Oklahoma man convicted of killing his estranged wife and her unborn baby has formally been sentenced to death. In June, 2014, Fabion Brown was found guilty on 2 counts of 1st degree murder and 1 count of conspiracy for the 2012 murders of his wife, Jessica Brown, and her unborn child. An Oklahoma County jury sentenced Brown to death. The jury decided on the death penalty due to 2 aggravating circumstances: Brown knowingly created a great risk of death to more than 1 person and Brown hired someone to commit the murders for money. Brown defended himself throughout the trial, but he changed his mind and asked to have an attorney represent him in the punishment phase. The court decided it was too late in the process to make a change. On Monday, August 11, Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliot formally sentenced Brown to death on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. Judge Elliot also sentenced him to 10 years and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Judge Elliott told Brown that he will be put to death on October 31, 2014. (source: news9.com) ARIZONA: Penalty phase to begin for killer of Arizona policeman The penalty phase is scheduled to begin Monday at the trial of an Arizona man convicted of murder in the 2007 shooting of a Glendale police officer. A jury last month determined that 40-year-old Bryan Wayne Hulsey qualified for the death penalty in the shooting death of 24-year-old Officer Anthony Holly. Jurors will consider whether to sentence Hulsey to death or life in prison. Hulsey was a passenger in the vehicle that had been pulled over for speeding and not having a license plate. Holly was there to serve as backup to another officer who made the traffic stop. Prosecutors say Hulsey exited the vehicle and fired 2 shots, 1 of which hit Holly. Defense attorneys argue Holly was unintentionally shot by the officer who made the stop. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Testimony begins in penalty trial of man who killed marine and wife Prosecution testimony will get underway today in the penalty trial of a man who joined 3 cohorts in killing a Marine sergeant and his wife at their French Valley home. A Riverside jury last week convicted Kesaun Kedron Sykes of the 2008 slayings of 26-year-old Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak and her husband, 24-year-old Janek Pietrzak. Along with the murder counts, jurors found true special circumstance allegations of killing during the course of a robbery, killing during a burglary and taking multiple lives in the same crime, as well as a sentence-enhancing allegation of committing a sexual assault with a foreign instrument. The same jury will now decide whether to recommend a
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Aug. 11 SAUDI ARABIAexecution Saudi beheads man for killing wife with axe Saudi authorities beheaded a national on Monday after he was convicted of killing his wife with an axe in front of their daughter, the interior ministry announced. Mahdi Al Ghabari battered his wife Shaqraa Al Bahri several times on her neck with an axe, killing her in the presence of their little daughter who witnessed the crime, said the statement published by the official SPA news agency. He was executed due to the hideousness of the crime, said the statement. The beheading in the southwestern city of Najran raised to 23 the number of executions so far this year in the Kingdom, according to an AFP count based on official reports. In 2013, there were 78 executions. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. (source: Agence France-Presse) SYRIA: Isil beheads, crucifies in push for Syria's eastLeader of tribe whose stand was crushed calls for other tribes to help halt the militants The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has crushed a pocket of resistance to its control in eastern Syria, crucifying 2 people and executing 23 others in the past 5 days, a monitoring group said on Monday. The insurgents, who are also making rapid advances in Iraq, are tightening their grip in Syria, of which they now control roughly 1/3, mostly rural areas in the north and east. The group, an Al Qaida offshoot, has fought the Syrian army, Kurdish militias and Sunni Muslim tribal forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organisation opposed to the Al Assad regime, and residents in Syria's east said that fighters from the Al Sheitaat tribe in eastern Deir Al Zor had tried to resist Isil's advance this month. In Al Shaafa, a town on the banks of the Euphrates river, Isil beheaded 2 men from the Al Sheitaat clan on Sunday, the Observatory said, and gave residents a 12-hour deadline on Monday to hand over members of the tribe. In other parts of Deir Al Zor province, the militants crucified 2 men for the crime of dealing with apostates in the city of Mayadin, and 2 others for blasphemy in the nearby town of Al Bulel, the Observatory said. Isil has made rapid gains in Syria since it seized northern Iraq's largest city, Mosul, on June 10, and declared an Islamic caliphate on territory it controls in Syria and Iraq. The Observatory said a further 19 men from the Al Sheitaat tribe were executed on Thursday, 18 shot dead and 1 beheaded, on the outskirts of Deir Al Zor city. It said the men worked at an oil installation. No one will now dare from the other tribes to move against Isil after the defeat of the Al Sheitaat, said Ahmad Ziyada Al Qaissi, an Isil sympathiser contacted by Skype from Mayadin. Tribal sources say the conflict between Isil and the Al Sheitaat tribe, who number about 70,000, flared after Isil took over of 2 oil fields in July. 1 of those, Al Omar, is the biggest oil and gas field in Deir Al Zor and has been a lucrative source of funds for rebel groups. The head of the Al Sheitaat tribe, Shaikh Rafaa Aakla Al Raju, called in a video message for other tribes to join the fight against Isil. We appeal to the other tribes to stand by us because it will be their turn next ... If [Isil] are done with us, the other tribes will be targeted after Al Sheitaat. They are the next target, he said in the video, posted on YouTube on Sunday. A Syrian human rights activist from Deir Al Zor who fled for Turkey last year said rebels opposed to President Bashar Al Assad had retreated to Al Sheitaat tribal areas from which they had been trying to mount resistance to Isil's expansion. He said, on condition of anonymity, that the resistance had been crushed in the last few days. The situation is very bad, but the people can't repel them, he said. He said that in tandem with their violent campaign, Isil was distributing gas, electricity, fuel and food to garner local support. It is a poor area. They are winning support this way. They won a lot of support this way. They are halting theft and punishing thieves. This is also giving them credibility. More than 170,000 people have been killed in Syria's civil war, which pits overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels against Al Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, backed by Shiite militias from Iraq and Lebanon. The insurgency is split between competing factions, with Isil emerging as the most powerful. In Raqqa, Isil's power base in Syria, its hold appears to be growing only firmer even as Syrian government forces intensify air strikes on territory held by the group. One Syrian living in an area of Isil control near Raqqa said the number of its fighters in the streets had grown dramatically in the last few weeks, particularly since it captured the army's 17th Division at the end of July. The group has
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA
Aug. 11 CALIFORNIA: Hearing set for man accused in Mecca hate-crime deathBrother: Juan was bringing home dinner for the family when he was shot A Sept. 5 preliminary hearing was scheduled Monday for a Thermal resident accused of killing a 20-year-old man because of his sexual orientation. Miguel Angel Bautista Ramirez, 25, of Thermal was arrested July 28 in Coachella for the deadly shooting of Juan Ceballos in Mecca on July 13. Ramirez is being held without bail. A bail hearing that was scheduled to be held Tuesday was postponed to Sept. 5. The criminal complaint filed July 30 charging Ramirez with murder includes a hate crime allegation that Ramirez killed Ceballos because of a bias against the victim's sexual orientation. An amended complaint was filed Aug. 1 with broader language that includes sexual orientation, disability, nationality and race. Ramirez also faces a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait and committing a hate crime. He is potentially eligible for the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole if convicted. News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2's Laura Yanez sat down with the Ceballos family. They say Juan was the son of a farm worker and the eldest of 5 children. Ceballos was bisexual, according to his 17-year-old brother Sergio Ceballos. The College of the Desert student worked 2 jobs, 1 at TA of America gas station and at Pizza Hut. His brother, Sergio, told Yanez that Juan was bringing home pizza dinner for his family when he was shot in the front yard. He was coming home from work. He had pizza, said Sergio. He was messaging me. As soon as he parked it happened. Hear more from the family here. The Riverside County District Attorney's Office is not commenting about the facts of the case or a possible motive for the killing, spokesman John Hall said. Riverside County sheriff's deputies were called to the 65-000 block of Dale Kiler Road in Mecca shortly before midnight July 13 and found Ceballos with several gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, sheriff's Sgt. Jim Erickson said. (source: KESQ news) USA: Death penalty decision on LAX gunman due in fall Federal prosecutors should know by mid-November whether they will seek to execute the man charged in a deadly shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport. A prosecutor told a judge Monday that the case has been forwarded to the attorney general's office in Washington for review. Paul Ciancia has pleaded not guilty to murdering a Transportation Security Administration officer and 10 other federal charges. Public defenders say they may not be ready in time to present their own case to the Department of Justice on the death penalty. There are over 10,000 pieces of evidence and 150 DVDs with material in the case so far. The judge says he wants the case to go to trial next year, but the defense says it could take longer to prepare. (source: Associated Press) ___ DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/ ~~~ A free service of WashLaw http://washlaw.edu (785)670.1088 ~~~
