[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
my postings to this list will resume on July 2 June 28 TANZANIA: 'Penalise Albino Killers' Dline Goes Here The Tanzania Albino Society (TAS) has reiterated its call to the government to execute the death penalty pronounced over 19 people who were found guilty of murdering people with albinism. Addressing a press conference in Mwanza yesterday, a TAS official, Mr Josephat Torner, said people with albinism are living in fear because those convicted for the offence are still alive and might use their network to continue killing more albinos. "We are living in a great fear because those who were responsible for killing or chopping off our compatriots or chopping off their body parts haven't been punished in accordance with court rulings," Mr Torner said. He said delays in the the execution of the death penalty against the the criminals is one of the obstacles that frustrate efforts to tackle albino killings in the country since 2007. At least 79 people with albinism have been reported killed while 62 cheated death after being wounded, among them 13 parts of their bodies were chopped off by bandits. "The government should complete the process and procedures to execute death sentence for the the convicts," he stressed. Regarding education, TAS advises the government and other stakeholders to allocate a special budget for public education to eradicate traditions and myths about people with albinism. Referring to stigma, Mr Torner said TAS intends to carry out inspections in all renters taking care of children with albinism to identify those neglected or abandoned by their parents or guardians, who he warned will be taken to court for legal action. "These measures intended to end the practice and misconceptions by some members of the community to see the albino as imperfect humans being who does not worthy to live in the community," said Mr Torner According to TAS earlier investigations, Simiyu region is one of the areas with higher stigmatisation against children with albinism. (source: The Citizen) BANGLADESH: Top terror Joseph's plea for commuting sentence in law ministry The home ministry on Tuesday sent the appeal of listed top terror Tofail Ahmed Joseph for commuting his life sentence to the law ministry for its opinion. Officials in jail said Joseph's mother Renuja Begum applied by letter on 7 June to commute Joseph's sentence. Renuja claimed in her application that her son is suffering the sentence "unfairly." An official at the home ministry confirmed that the ministry sent the letter to the law ministry and the letter will be sent to the prime minister if the law ministry gives a positive response. When contacted, the home minister, Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, told the Prothom Alo that the ministry will send the letter to the president on approval of the prime minister, after taking opinions from the law ministry. "Anyone can plead for mercy from the state. We will send the mercy petition to the president following necessary rules. The Constitution of the Republic gives the president the authority to show mercy. He will take the decision in this regard," said the home minister. Asked under which circumstances the law ministry gives its opinion on the issue of commuting sentence, the law minister, Anisul Huq said the ministry gives its opinions usually weighing all the pros and cons of a matter. "Joseph is ailing and suffering from cardiac complications," the minister hastened to add. An effort has been visible in the past 2 weeks to commute the life sentence for the top listed terrorist who was primarily awarded death penalty. The High Court upheld the capital punishment given by a lower court but the Appellate Division commuted the death sentence to life term in December last year. According to jail officials, top terrorist is scheduled to languish over 21 years in jail more and he will have to suffer another year in jail if declines to pay the fine. Joseph, one of the top-listed terrorists of the 1990s, has been staying at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University's prison cell for the past 10 months. According to prison officials, the 42-year-old convict has so far served 12 years and 17 days in prison and awarded with nine months and 14 days of remission of term. The possible date of his release is on 24 January 2038 if he pays fine otherwise it will be on 24 January 20139. Joseph shot businessman Mostafizur Rahman to death at Mohammadpur in the capital on 7 May 1996. A Dhaka court on 25 April 2004 sentenced Joseph and another convict Masud Jamadar to death. The other convicts, Kabil Sarkar, Haris Ahmed and Anis Ahmed were also sentenced to life term imprisonment for killing Mostafizur. The High Court on 20 September 2007 upheld the death sentence of Joseph and life imprisonment of Kabil. The HC, however, acquitted Masud of the murder charge. (source: Prothom-alo.com)
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., ARIZ.
June 28 TEXAS: Texas' death penalty beyond repair so think about ending it, judge says We welcome Judge Elsa Alcala's frank - and courageous - assessment of the Texas death penalty, not for what people wish the state's capital punishment system to be, but for what it is: Discriminatory, inefficient and immoral. That assessment coming from an experienced judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals - the state's highest court in criminal matters - is not easily dismissed. It's true that many Texans support the death penalty as a tough, fair and painless way to punish those convicted of certain heinous crimes. That category includes crimes in which more than one person was murdered, a law enforcement officer was killed, or circumstances that involve murder and another aggravated felony. An example of the latter would be fatally shooting a store clerk during the course of a robbery, or killing someone during a sexual assault or kidnapping. To be sure, those are horrible crimes that warrant the toughest punishment on the books. The problem with the death penalty is that it is final. Once done, it cannot be undone. As such, it requires a perfect system in which to operate justly and morally. An imperfect system means a killer gets away, while an innocent is imprisoned or executed. It's no wonder that Alcala has growing discomfort with the Texas death penalty system, riddled with imperfections. She wrote about them in a recent opinion regarding the case of Julius Jerome Murphy, sentenced to die for the 1997 shooting death of a man whose car had broken down along Interstate 30 in Texarkana. "I think there are, as I said in that opinion, significant problems with the death penalty," Alcala told the American-Statesman's Chuck Lindell. "There are lots of problems, and I think the public is not aware of the problems." Alcala wrote that Texas courts should study whether the death penalty is unconstitutional because it is arbitrarily imposed by race, disproportionately affecting minorities, and whether excessive delays in imposing the ultimate sentence results in cruel and unusual punishment because inmates are held in solitary confinement for years, if not decades. Those inequities are reflected in state figures that show 71 % of those awaiting execution in Texas are African American or Latino. Alcala came to the bench in 2011, when then-Gov. Rick Perry tapped her to fill a vacancy. Her doubts and concerns regarding the system have been sown by cases that came before her, including: -- Bobby James Moore: Alcala wrote that her court's reliance on a decades-old standard to measure intellectual disability, which is no longer used by medical professionals, "is constitutionally unacceptable." -- Duane Buck: Alcala sharply criticized rulings allowing Buck to be executed despite trial testimony that he was a future danger to society because he is black. Such concerns grabbed the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier this month, announced it would examine the constitutionality of the death sentences given to Moore and Buck. Pointing out the flaws in the state's death penalty system takes political guts, given the wide support it enjoys in Texas, topping 70 % on a recent Gallup poll. That kind of courage has been in short supply since judge Tom Price left the state Court of Criminal Appeals in 2014. Before his departure, Price called for an end to the death penalty, saying he was haunted by a growing fear that Texas will execute an innocent inmate, if it hadn't already. He worried aloud whether he had participated in executing an innocent person. As a long-time judge on the court, Price was part of a body with a dubious history in death penalty matters. The court still is plagued by its unfortunate "sleeping lawyer" ruling more than a decade ago refusing to halt an execution of a death row inmate whose attorney had snoozed through major portions of his capital murder trial. Following that embarrassment, there was the "we close at 5" incident in a 2007 case. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller closed the court clerk's office at 5 p.m., preventing attorneys from filing a last-minute appeal for twice-convicted killer Michael Richard, who ultimately was executed without his final appeal being heard in court. That prompted the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to issue a public warning to Keller, but the rebuke was later dismissed on a technicality after Keller appealed. Aside from the court's well-documented missteps, there are other signs of the system's imperfections in the wave of exonerations of Texans, such as Michael Morton, who were wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for many years, while the true criminals went free. Oftentimes, the guilty go on to commit more crimes, which was true in the Morton case in which the person who murdered Morton's wife, went on to kill another woman. It's worth noting that Texas
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
June 28 BOTSWANA: Will Death Row Hit Men Escape The Hangman's Noose? Among cases to watch during the July Court of Appeal (CoA) session are of death row inmates, Daniel Semi (30) and Gaolatlhe Thusang (35) who are seeking to convince the bench to rescue them from the noose. The duo, who hail from Ntlhantlhe in the Southern District, were sentenced to death by Lobatse High Court Judge Michael Leburu despite pronouncement by Judge Tshepo Motswagole that death penalty was unconstitutional. Leburu had interpreted Section 203 of the penal code differently after Motswagole had argued, in sentencing a murder convict, that it contravened several sections of the constitution hence rendering the death penalty unconstitutional. Evidence led showed that the duo were hired by their co-accused, Agisanyang Motukwa, 34, to kill his father whom he believed to be bewitching him. It is however, believed that Motukwa had his father killed for insurance money. He is set to appeal his 25-year sentence. Motukwa, who in 2008 left many in shock when he was accused of hiring 2 hit man to kill his father after believing he was bewitching him, was in January given a chance to put his house in order after he alleged that the record of proceedings he got from the High Court was incomplete. He said the record did not show most of the proceedings, especially the one between him and the first state witness therefore he was not happy with it. Furthermore he complained that there was communication breakdown between him and his lawyer at the time, which was not also recorded in the records despite having raised it several times in court. (source: mmegi.bw) MALAYSIA: Kevin Morais murder trial adjourned till July 12 The prosecution in the murder trial of Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais offered an alternative charge to one of the seven accused in the High Court today. G Gunasekaran, 48, the second accused, then claimed trial to the alternative charge of hiding the body of Morais and destroying a car registered under plate WA 6264Q, with the intention to prevent the other 6 accused from facing the law. The others are S Ravi Chandran, 43, S Nimalan, 23, A Thinesh Kumar, 23, R Dinishwaran, 24, M Viswanath, 26, and army pathologist Col Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 53, who is changed with abetting the 6 men. DPP Datuk Abdul Razak Musa offered the alternative charge under Section 302 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 34 of the same code. He said if Gunasekaran pleaded guilty to this alternative charge, he would be discharged of the original charge of murdering Morais, which carries a mandatory death sentence. This new development occurred after Gunasekaran's counsel, V Rajagopal, told the court his client wanted to appoint a new counsel to represent him as he (Rajagopal) had refused his client's instruction due to a conflict of interest. He then requested the court to discharge him from representing Gunasekaran. Judge Datuk Azman Abdullah, in granting the request, said the trial had to be adjourned until Gunasekaran, who faces a charge that carries the mandatory death penalty on conviction, has first to be represented. "We cannot proceed without a counsel for the accused and this only surfaced this morning," he said. Abdul Razak, however, objected to adjourning the case as an important witness had come from Bangladesh and has to return today. When another defence counsel, M Manoharan, objected to proceeding with the case with Gunasekaran being unrepresented, Abdul Razak said he could offer Gunasekaran an alternative charge, which carries a seven year jail term and fine, thus does not require a compulsory counsel representation. However, when Gunasekaran pleaded not guilty for the alternative charge, the trial had to be adjourned. Azman then fixed July 12 for case management for Gunasekaran. (source: thesundaily.my) CHINA: 'A bloody harvest': Thousands of people slaughtered for their organs, new report reveals The Chinese government continues to carry out mass killings of innocent people in order to obtain their organs for transplants, a damning new report reveals. The report - by former Canadian politician David Kilgour, human rights lawyer David Matas, and journalist Ethan Gutmann - shows that organ transplants are carried out in China 10 times more than official government figures reveal. "The (Communist Party) says the total number of legal transplants is about 10,000 per year. But we can easily surpass the official Chinese figure just by looking at the 2 or 3 biggest hospitals," Matas said in a statement. The report estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 organs are transplanted each year in Chinese hospitals. According to the report, the tens of thousands of organ transplants not reported by the government, are sourced from executed prisoners of conscience who were locked up for their religious or political
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., ARK., MO., ARIZ., CALIF., USA
June 28 NORTH CAROLINA: 2 teens make court appearance, 2 more sought in Kinston church murder 2 teens were told they could get the death penalty if convicted for killing a Kinston high school student. The victim was found Sunday afternoon behind a Kinston church. Thomas Bullock, 18, of Kinston, and Tyrek Leach, 17, of Knightdale, went before a judge this afternoon. They are jailed without bond. NBA star Reggie Bullock's mother, Danielle Brown, says that Thomas Bullock is a relative. Bullock and Leach were arrested early Monday at Brown's home. While in court Monday, Bullock asked the judge, "Why am I being charged with something I didn't do?" Police are still looking for Jaquel Lawson, 20, and Christopher Hembry, 19, both of Kinston, for the shooting death of Antonio Hines. Officers were sent to a shots fired call around 5:15 p.m. Sunday at Bill Fay Park. Once they arrived, police found Hines had been shot behind Westside Free Will Baptist Church on Lynn Drive, which is adjacent to the park. The 18-year-old was reportedly shot about 6 times and pronounced dead at the scene. Family friends say he went by "DC" and was a percussionist in the Kinston High School band. School officials say Hines would have been a senior at KHS. There is no word yet on a possible motive. 3 of the 4 suspects are former students at Kinston High School. (source: WITN news) ARKANSAS: Judge criticizes secrecy in U.S. executions An Arkansas judge who last year declared unconstitutional a law that allows the state to keep confidential the source of drugs used for execution by lethal injection has lamented a 5-4 decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court reversing his ruling. In a breakout session on the death penalty at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly June 24, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen said that since the Supreme Court upheld the use of capital punishment for certain crimes, the death penalty debate has shifted to whether specific execution procedures satisfy the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. "How it's being done now is we'll make sure it's nice by making sure it's secret so you don't know how barbaric it is," said Griffen, who also serves as pastor of CBF-affiliated New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark. Griffen said legal action surrounding capital punishment now focuses on "seeking to discover the chemicals that are being used to put people to death and discover where they are coming from." The day before the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a state law that allows for the type, manufacturers and sellers of drugs used for lethal injections to be kept confidential. The law is designed to ensure the state can find a place to buy the drugs in a market where pharmaceutical companies are rapidly withdrawing from the lethal injection trade. Not only are inmates on death row not entitled to know who is selling the drugs, Griffen said, they also cannot find out the qualifications of the individuals who will administer them. "If you want to euthanize your dog, you know that under your state only the people who have certain credentials can put your dog down," Griffen said at the CBF workshop. "If you want to euthanize your neighbor - if you want to kill your neighbor in the name of the state - I 10-time double-dog dare you to find out the qualifications of the person who is doing it." "As a matter of fact, there is no requirement that the state tell you, and they have an affirmative obligation to not disclose that," the judge continued. "It is amazing. One would call it irony, but it's too nice a word." Pfizer, the world's 2nd-largest drug company adopted distribution controls in March to prevent its drugs from reaching execution chambers across the United States. "Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve," the company said in a statement. "Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment." Reprieve, a New York-based human rights organization, said in May that all 25 FDA-approved manufacturers of potential execution drugs now have blocked their sale for use in capital punishment. The ruling by the Arkansas high court clears the way for the execution of 8 people on death row whose lives were extended by Griffen's temporary restraining order last Oct. 9. One of the state's execution drugs expires before the Supreme Court decision goes in effect, however, and the supplier has told officials it would not supply any more. (source: baptistnews.com) MISSOURI: Murder charges filed in Edgerton deaths Grayden Denham is now charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of 4 people outside a burned out Platte County home in February. Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said a grand jury indicted Denham on all the charges. He
