[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 3 PAKISTAN: Pakistani Christian mother Asia Bibi's death sentence sparks protest in Australia The death sentence handed to Pakistani Christian mother Asia Bibi over a blasphemy charge has sparked a protest in Australia calling on the government to intervene in the case and help save her from being executed. In a letter to be submitted to the Parliamentarians in New South Wales, the demonstrators are demanding that the Australian government guarantee the continuous enforcement of the principle of "one law for all" in their country. They are also asking the government to consider once again donating $49 million in aid to Pakistan. BPCA chairman Wilson Chowdhry also released a statement decrying Pakistan's failure to protect Bibi and other Christian minorities. Echoing the demands of the protesters, he said Australia can be a significant player in the case, pointing out that the United Kingdom, the United States, and other major donors have started donating aid to help improve human rights in Pakistan. "Australia's official policy involves tackling poverty by generating sustainable growth and employment, as well as focusing on education and health, all worthy goals," said Chowdhry. "Some of the poorest Pakistani citizens are Christians, and unfortunately they are typically kept there by a combination of debt-slavery and direct and systematic religious oppression, frequently including systematic sex slavery and targeting of Christian girls and women for kidnap, rape, forced conversion and marriage." Last month, prominent Christian lawyer Sooba Bhatti appealed to the President of Pakistan to grant Bibi pardon for the capital punishment. He also asked the president to order Christian mother's immediate release and acquittal, Christians in Pakistan reports. Bibi was arrested in June 2009 over blasphemy charges and was given a death sentence by a local judge the following year. She was also handed down a penalty amounting to around US$1,100. (source: Christian Daily) IRELAND:/EGYPT: UK Body Builds Cairo Court, as Irish Student Faces Death Penalty in Egypt A state-owned Belfast business is helping to furnish an Egyptian juvenile court, despite concerns over mass trials and death sentences in the country - including in the case of an Irish juvenile. New research by human rights organization Reprieve has revealed that, since March 2015, Northern Ireland Cooperation Overseas (NI-CO) - a state-owned UK business that has contracts with the Foreign Office - has been involved in a 10 million euros EU-funded project to support "the Administration of Justice" in Egypt, in partnership with the country's Ministry of Justice. According to documents relating to the deal, unearthed by Reprieve, the 4-year project includes the provision of equipment by NI-CO for Egypt's court system. Tender documents, apparently provided by the Egyptian government, outline a need for steel structures, security bars and benches for courtrooms, and surveillance equipment for 'interview rooms'. The documents also outline detailed plans for a courtroom for children, including a 'secure waiting area' made out of steel bars, and 'soft chairs for children', which the documents say should be waterproof, and provided in red, white and black - the colours of the Egyptian flag. The project has reportedly included a workshop with 98 judges from Egypt's Court of Cassation, the highest court in Egypt, which has final say over death sentences. NI-CO's EU-funded work in Egypt will raise fears over UK and European complicity in abuses associated with Egypt's justice system. Since July 2014, Egypt's government has come under heavy criticism for human rights abuses that have seen protestors, journalists, opposition activists, and juveniles arrested, with reports of torture common. Egyptian courts have handed down thousands of death sentences, in mass trials that have failed to meet international fair-trial standards. Among the juveniles who have been arrested is Ibrahim Halawa, a student from Firhouse, Dublin, whose trial alongside 493 other prisoners was postponed yesterday for the 15th time since it began in 2014. Ibrahim - who was 17 when he was arrested - is facing a potential death sentence along with hundreds of others, who face identical charges relating to protests. Repeated hearings in the mass trial since 2014 have proved chaotic, and seen hundreds of defendants held in purpose-built pens, where they can neither see nor hear the proceedings, nor talk to the judge or their lawyers. Ibrahim has reported being regularly tortured, and forced to witness others being abused. In a letter published by his family last week, he said that he shares a dormitory cell with 30 other prisoners, and has a sleeping space just over 1 foot wide. The Irish government and the European Parliament have both called for Ibrahim's release, while the UK government has told Repr
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., OHIO, IND., OKLA., CALIF., US MIL., USA
Oct. 3 TEXAS: SCOTUS considers if man may be executed after 'expert' testified that black people are dangerousCount the failures of justice in Duane Buck's case. As a devout Christian, he spends much of his time praying and atoning for his past sins. For 2 decades, he's encouraged young people around him to self-reflect and better themselves. All the while, Buck has maintained a clean disciplinary record - always doing what is asked of him and never stepping out of line. And he's done it all on while awaiting his execution. "On death row, inmates are routinely written up for trivial things like refusing to shave, having too many postage stamps, putting up art or photos on the wall or windows, refusing to shower on a given day," Kate Black, a staff attorney for the Texas Defender Service who works closely with Buck, told reporters last week. "So for Mr. Buck to have existed for over 20 years in these circumstances, and to not have been written up one time, it's really remarkable." Black also spoke of Buck's unrelenting faith, which has become an integral part of his character growth in the decades he's spent behind bars. "Mr. Buck is a deeply faithful man, and he spends most of his time in prayer," she said. "Not just prayer for people who are on his side? - for his lawyers, his legal team? - but also for people we would see as our adversaries. He spends time praying for the district attorney, for the attorney general, for the solicitor general." A case about errors If Buck's life was not at stake in Buck v. Davis, and if his case did not raise grave questions about the reliability of our justice system, then the parade of errors that the case brings to the Supreme Court would almost be comic. There's a good chance that he is there because of 2 sets of incompetent lawyers, a psychologist's racist testimony, a bait-and-switch perpetrated by Texas's current governor, and an opinion authored by one of the most dismissively ideological judges on the federal bench. As ThinkProgress previously explained, Buck is "not simply a case of ineffective assistance of counsel, this is a case of ineffective assistance of counsel aggravated by even more ineffective assistance of counsel." And that is only part of the story. Buck was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and a man he believed to be his girlfriend's lover. At trial, he was represented by Jerry Guerinot, an attorney widely viewed as one of the worst, if not the worst, capital defense attorneys in the nation. Guerinot represented nearly three dozen people facing the death penalty and never won a case. 20 were sentenced to die. As the New York Times' Adam Liptak wrote, "a good way to end up on death row in Texas is to be accused of a capital crime and have Jerry Guerinot represent you." During the sentencing phase of Buck's trial, the phase that determined whether or not Buck would receive a death sentence, Guerinot and his co-counsel introduced testimony from Dr. Walter Quijano, a psychologist with a history of racist testimony in capital cases. At Buck's trial, Quijano testified that African Americans and Hispanics are especially likely to be dangerous as they are "over represented in the Criminal Justice System." Buck is African American. Quijano's testimony matters because Texas law requires the prosecution to show that a capital defendant is likely to be dangerous in the future before that defendant may be sentenced to die. Moreover, as Buck's current legal team explains in their brief to the Supreme Court, it is likely that Guerinot's decision to introduce Quijano's testimony violates the Constitution. "This information was presented in an expert report. It was elicited during Dr. Quijano's testimony. It was referred to by the prosecutor that directed the jury to pay attention to that testimony," Sherrilyn Ifill, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's president and director of counsel, said during a press briefing last week. Under the Supreme Court's decision in Strickland v. Washington, a criminal defendant receives unconstitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel when their lawyers' incompetence prejudices the outcome of the trial. This prejudice does not need to be shown with certainty. Rather, a defendant who received ineffective assistance should prevail when there is a "probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome" of the trial that attorney incompetence impacted the trial's result. In Buck's case, his Supreme Court legal team explains, "it took 2 days for jurors to reach a decision about the special issues" in the case, one of which was whether Buck was likely to be dangerous in the future. Over the course of this time, they sent a note to the judge asking "can we talk about parole with a life imprisonment?" and another requesting the very same psychological report where Quijano said that Buck's race "meant an 'Increased probability' of futu
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 3 IRAN: Iran Judiciary Chief Statement Sparks Fears of New Wave of Mass Executions of Drug Offenders in Iran Iran's head of Judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, recently said that the Judiciary has no plans to abolish the death penalty and called on Iranian judicial officials to not hesitate in carrying out the execution sentences for alleged drug offenders. Amoli Larijani's official remarks were made on Thursday September 29 in Mashhad, at the 13th annual conference for Iran's revolutionary, military and public courts. According to Iranian state run media, Fars, in his remarks Amoli Larijani referred to drug traffickers as "merchants of death" and rejected calls for the complete abolition of the death penalty for crimes related to drug trafficking. "Executions are not necessarily desirable, but narcotics are a great detriment to society and also shatter families. We have no choice but to confront the issue quickly, swiftly, firmly, and decisively. We want prosecutors in the country to not to hesitate in implementing the (death) sentences," said Amoli Larijani. "We should not wait 3 years (before carrying out the execution sentences), until the prisoner learns how to pray in order to get amnesty...It is offensive to say that the death penalty is ineffective. If it wasn't for the strictness of the Judiciary, the situation would be much worse." Amoli Larijani's execution order comes 2 weeks after Mohammad Javad Larijani, Iran's chief of the Judiciary's "human rights council", visited several countries in Europe, including Italy, for human rights dialogue with European officials. Just last month, the deputy of the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Bagher Olfat, said that executing drug offenders in Iran has not decreased the volume of drugs: "The reality is that the death penalty for drug traffickers has not acted as a deterrent so far. We fought against many drug traffickers in accordance to the law, but, unfortunately, the volume of drugs entering and transiting through the country has increased...It is important to note that the individuals who are being executed are not the main drug traffickers, because the main drug traffickers are not involved in the shipment of drugs." Iran Human Rights warns against mass executon of drug offenders after the Judiciary chief's statements. "Iran may be entering a new period of a high number of executions," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson for Iran Human Rights. In 2015, Iranian authorities executed nearly 1000 people on Sadeq Amoli Larijani's orders. According to Iran Human Rights, majority of the prisoners were executed on drug-related charges. "When the Judiciary Chief instructs prosecuters to not hesitate in carrying out the execution sentences for drug offenders or to wait until the prisoners gain eligibility for amnesty, he is actually giving the execution order of thousands of prisoners at a much higher speed than before. The international community must take Mr. Larijani's execution order seriously. One option is that the UNODC could halt its anti-narcotic cooperation with Iran," says Amiry-Moghaddam. "While several top Iranian officials, among them Mr. Olfat, have admitted that executions are not a deterrent against drugs, Mr. Amoli Larijani, without presenting any new evidence, has claimed the opposite." According to Iran Human Rights, Iranian authorities have executed at least 65 people in the past month. 51 of these executions were reportedly carried out for drug-related offenses. (source: Iran Human Rights) *** People in Ahvaz protest against execution of 2 youths On Thursday, September 29, a group of Ahvazi youths staged a protest at night against the Iranian regime by setting up fire and chanting anti-government slogans in Enqelab Avenue in the south-western city of Ahvaz to show their protest against the execution of 2 young ethnic Arabs of the city. The 2 youths were Adnan Mazban al-Amouri and Ali Sharif al-Amouri, residents of Ghaleh Chan'an in Khuzestan province (south-western Iran), who were executed on Wednesday September 28 in Gohardasht Prison (north-west of Tehran) allegedly on the charges of "armed robbery" and "acting against national security." According to the regime's state-run Tasnim news agency, these two young people were charged with "Moharebeh (enmity against God)" and sentenced to death by Branch 15 of Tehran's revolutionary court. Their sentences were then confirmed by Branch 14 of Supreme Court and implemented on Wednesday morning in Gohardasht (Rajai-Shahr) Prison in Karaj. 1 of the relatives of the al-Amouris pointed out that the men did not receive due process and there was discrimination in the implementation of the sentence. The relative said: "Discrimination is evident in all the affairs of this country. Why the 1st and 2nd row defendants were not executed but the 3rd and 4th row defendants were executed, because they were
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., ARK., N.MEX., CALIF.
Oct. 3 TEXAS: Duane Buck deserves a color-blind sentencing trial Gerald Kogan, a former assistant state attorney and chief prosecutor in the Dade County, Fla., State Attorney's Office, served as a justice on the Florida Supreme Court from 1987 to 1998, including 2 years as chief justice. Tim Cole served as an elected Texas district attorney from 1993 to 2006. The authors are co-signers of an amicus brief filed in the Buck case. As former prosecutors, we recognize that the state's decision to seek a death sentence involves the utmost ethical responsibility. Capital cases, more than any other, require meticulous adherence to prosecutorial ethics. Thus, the prosecutors' ethical code, adopted by the National District Attorneys Association, as well as the U.S. Constitution, make clear that no death sentence can be based on a factor as arbitrary as race. But the pernicious use of race, among other troubling issues, including astonishingly ineffective defense lawyering, is at the center of the Duane Buck death-penalty case, which will be argued to the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Following Buck's 1997 conviction in the murder of his former girlfriend and her friend, Buck's court-appointed trial counsel relied on an "expert" who testified during the trial's sentencing phase that, because he is black, Buck was more likely to commit violent crimes in the future. Setting aside for the moment that this claim is patently false, it was particularly significant because in Texas, jurors must find that a defendant will pose a "future danger" before they can impose a death sentence. The prosecutor, on cross-examination, asked the expert to repeat his opinion that Buck's race increased the probability that he would be a danger in the future and, at closing, encouraged the jury to rely on the expert's testimony in support of a finding of future dangerousness. After deliberating for 2 days, and requesting the expert reports, jurors found Buck to be a future danger and he was sentenced to death. This is an extraordinary case that demands extraordinary relief. One reason is the uniquely injurious nature of racial discrimination itself. The testimony connecting Buck's race to his likelihood of dangerousness not only deprived him of his fundamental right to a fair trial, it also compromised the integrity of the criminal-justice system overall. An assessment of future dangerousness is properly based on an individual's personal history, not on innate, immutable traits. It is also extraordinary because Texas recognized the unconstitutional nature of the testimony and promised Buck a new sentencing hearing, but incomprehensibly refused to honor that promise. In 2000, Texas's then-attorney general, John Cornyn, became aware of this particular expert's problematic testimony about race and future dangerousness when another capital defendant challenged it in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal. On behalf of the state of Texas, Cornyn admitted that the introduction of such testimony "violated [the defendant's] constitutional right to be sentenced without regard to the color of his skin." He agreed to have the defendant's sentence vacated so that a new sentencing hearing untainted by such racial discrimination could be held. Following that concession, Cornyn conducted a thorough investigation of Texas's death row to determine if any other cases were similarly tainted by this expert's unconstitutional race-equals-dangerousness testimony. His office concluded that the sentences of 6 death-row inmates, including Buck, were poisoned by such evidence. Texas promised new sentencing hearings for all 6 prisoners but, without explanation, reversed course in only Buck's case. The failure of the prosecutors involved in this case to honor their ethical and professional obligations has been compounded by the failure of the judiciary to recognize the urgent need for relief. Incredibly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied Buck's request for permission to appeal the denial of relief on his resentencing request, declaring that Buck had "not made ... even a minimal showing that his case is exceptional" as required under the relevant federal rule. We would be hard-pressed to think of a more extraordinary case. Prosecutors play a critical role in maintaining public confidence in the criminal-justice system. They are entrusted with the responsibility to seek justice and enforce state and federal law. In Buck's case, that trust was violated by the trial prosecutor's exploitation of the defense counsel's constitutionally deficient performance in introducing the race-as-dangerousness testimony and by the Texas attorney general's failure to keep his promise to ensure that Buck received a new, fair sentencing hearing. Our Constitution, and the integrity of our criminal-justice system, require more from our prosecutors. We call on the Supreme Court to grant relief to Dua
