[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
The next news posting to this list will be either Friday or Saturday, Oct. 27th or 28th ** Oct. 25 KENYA: Kenyan husband facing the death penalty as he's accused of executing his Australian wife, 40, with a single gunshot to the neck The estranged husband of Australian teacher Gabrielle Maina could face the death penalty in Kenya if he is charged and convicted of her murder. The 40-year-old mother of 2 boys, aged 8 and 4, was killed by a single gunshot to the neck in the upmarket Nairobi suburb of Karen last Thursday. Her husband Cyrus Bernard Maina Njuguna and another man, John Njuguna Waithira, were arrested over the shooting and faced court on Tuesday. The investigation is still in the early stages and charges have not been laid against the arrested men. The Kenyan judiciary has warned the pair could face a 'mandatory death penalty' if charged and convicted. Their lawyer Wilfred Nderishu told the ABC his clients were innocent and there was evidence to show neither was at the scene of the killing. 'There is evidence that is capable of corroboration by many people, as many as 10, that Cyrus was in his office at the time that the murder took place,' Mr Nderishu said. 'Therefore, there is no way he can be placed at the scene.' The court granted police a request to hold the two men in custody for another seven days while they gather evidence. They are next due to appear on October 31. Before Tuesday's court hearing Ms Maina's lawyer, George King'ori, who became her legal representative ahead of her death, said the couple was in the midst of divorce proceedings in the Kenyan courts. The head teacher at Hillcrest Prepatory School in Karen was granted a restraining order against her husband in April. 'She feared he had become irrational,' Mr King'Ori told AAP. Karen police have confirmed to Kenya's The Standard that Mr Maina was being held as the prime suspect in Ms Maina's murder. 'We believe he has information that can help us know how and why she was murdered,' Karen OCPD Cunningham Suiyanka told the newspaper. 'He is here with another suspect for interrogation.' Police have also seized and are checking Ms Maina's phone, which was taken by one of her alleged attackers. Investigators believe she was accosted by three men while walking home after dropping off one of her sons at a friend's home. A post-mortem revealed she was shot in the neck, with the bullet exiting through her back, authorities said. Because of the angle of the bullet and marks on her knees, investigators believe she was kneeling at the time. Ms Maina moved to Nairobi from Sydney in 2015 so her 2 sons could experience another culture and grow up near her husband's extended family, a friend told AAP. She had taught English and drama for almost 5 years at Sarah Redfern High School in Sydney. (source: dailymail.co.uk) INDIA: Dr Noose? Spare us - Doctors want no part in hangings India's largest private body of doctors has taken the stand that physicians should not be asked to participate in executions, iterating a resolution passed by a global confederation of medical associations 5 years ago. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has asked the country's medical regulators to revise conduct codes to prevent doctors from playing any role in executions, in line with a 2012 resolution passed by the World Medical Association. Under the existing protocol, prison doctors are expected to attend hangings to examine the convicts for signs of life and to pronounce death. "No doctor should be present during the process of execution. This would be a violation of medical ethics and should be deemed professional misconduct," Krishan Kumar Aggarwal, senior cardiologist and IMA national president, said. He, however, clarified that a doctor may be requested to examine a body after an execution for certification of death. In 2012, the World Medical Association had said in a resolution that it was "unethical for physicians to participate in capital punishment, in any way, or during any step of the execution process, including its planning and the instruction and/or training of persons to perform executions". Aggarwal said the IMA was a member of the world body and, therefore, a signatory to all its policies and resolutions. "We believe the (2012) resolution should be adopted in India and we have written to the Medical Council of India on this," he told The Telegraph. A team of doctors from the Mumbai-based Forum for Medical Ethics had earlier taken the matter up with the National Human Rights Commission in 1994, arguing against doctors' presence at executions. "It's good the IMA is finally taking a position on this," said Amar Jesani, physician and editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics who had been among the doctors who had met the rights panel. What if a doctor examines a just-hanged convict at the execution
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., FLA., ALA., OHIO, ARK., NEV., USA
Oct. 25 TEXASimpending execution/Mexican national Texas set to execute Mexican national amid international dispute Texas next month is poised to execute a Mexican national accused of rape and murder in a case that could further inflame border tensions over apparent violations of the Vienna Convention and international law. The Mexican government is now funding legal efforts by Ruben Cardenas Ramirez to halt his execution after authorities neglected to notify Mexico about the arrest and failed to hold a review required by the United Nations' international court in The Hague. "It is as if the United States were thumbing its nose at the government of Mexico and the United Nations," said Sandra Babcock, a Cornell Law School professor specializing in international issues surrounding capital punishment. "And when I say the U.S., I should be clear that we're talking about Texas." To make matters worse, the condemned man's lawyer is alleging that he didn't actually commit the crime that earned him a death sentence in the first place. But according to Hidalgo County prosecutor Ted Hake, the U.N. ruling is "not enforceable" and there's no mechanism to hold the required review under Texas law. "There's no point," he said. "This guy is guilty as sin." The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has weighed in with a recommendation that the U.S. vacate the death sentence, and the Mexican government has pleaded for an opportunity to be heard, according to court filings by defense counsel Maurie Levin. The Mexican consulate this week declined to comment. The former security guard was arrested for the 1997 slaying of his 15-year-old cousin, Mayra Laguna, whose body was found in a canal after she was abducted by a man who slipped in through the bedroom window. The case has been plagued by claims of unreliable forensic evidence, conflicting statements and witnesses, concerns about ineffective lawyers, and allegations of a coerced confession. Yet it was the concerns about treaty violations and international repercussions that pushed the U.S. Department of State to meet in February with Hidalgo County prosecutors. For now, the Nov. 8 execution date still stands. "It makes us a clear human rights abuser," said Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center. Human rights concerns Authorities in Hidalgo County first collared Cardenas hours after the abduction, but did not immediately notify him of his right to talk to his country's consulate, according to court documents - an apparent oversight that violates Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A 2004 U.N. World Court ruling known as the Avena case - an issue Babcock argued for Mexico - mandates that foreign nationals who weren't told of their consular rights are allowed a review to examine whether that oversight influenced the outcome of the criminal case. And for Cardenas, there's some chance that it could have. Hidalgo County never told Mexico about the arrest, Levin said. Instead, they found out on their own after 5 months, long after Cardenas had given multiple, conflicting confessions that Levin argues were coerced. Repeatedly, Cardenas asked for a lawyer, but authorities ignored his pleas until 11 days after his arrest, instead pushing on in their interrogations without telling him about his consular notification rights, Levin wrote in court filings. Although the treaty violation could have international repercussions, a 2008 Supreme Court decision deemed it unenforceable, unless Congress takes legislative action - and they haven't. In the meantime, some states have complied, but others have not. "There are Mexican nationals whose rights under the Vienna convention have been violated and they have been executed," Levin said. Conflicting evidence Yet the Cardenas case stands out. "This is the 1st case where there has been a really substantial miscarriage of justice in that Cardenas really could be innocent," Babcock said. "Although there is a confession, that confession is inconsistent with the physical evidence, the statements are inconsistent with each other, and he himself is of low intelligence. And then on top of that you have a lack of physical evidence." Now, Cardenas has few remaining shots at avoiding the death chamber. There's a motion pending in Hidalgo County court for DNA testing of scrapings taken from beneath Mayra's fingernails. The prosecution has already opposed the request, which came coupled with a motion to call off the execution. "To permit Mr. Cardenas's execution to proceed without permitting this testing would fly in the face of the most fundamental concept of justice," Levin wrote in a scathing filing. At the same time, there's a long-shot plea for a reprieve and sentence commutation in front of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and a request for a 30-day reprieve pending before Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
