[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Nov. 4 ZIMBABWE: Mugabe wants return of death penalty to cure rising murder cases Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has made a case for the return of death sentence onto the law books. Mugabe cited the increasing rate of murder cases in the southern Africa country as justification for a return of the law. He also expressed worry at how people killed others because of trivial and ritual purposes. The 93-year-old was speaking at the funeral of a political ally, Don Muvuti, in the capital Harare on Wednesday. "Let's restore the death penalty. People are playing with death by killing each other. "Is this why we liberated this country? We want this country to be a peaceful and happy nation, not a country with people who kill each other," he added. The AFP news agency reports that the last execution in the country happened 12 years ago after which the hangman retired. But a justice ministry official is said to have disclosed that that over 50 people have since applied for the vacant post of the executioner. Reports indicate that the country currently has over 90 prisoners on death row. Rights groups have increasingly called for the death penalty to be scrapped from the law books across the world. Most African countries only have them sitting on the books but hardly implement them. Nigeria's Lagos State recently mooted death sentence for kidnappers after a spike in the crime. In Tanzania, however, President Magufuli was quoted as saying even though it was on the books, he will not be in a position to sign death warrant of convicts. "I know there are people who convicted of murder and waiting for death penalty, but please don't bring the list to me for decision because I know how difficult it is to execute," he said. Tanzania's Penal Code, Cap 16 stipulates the death penalty for serious offenses like murder and treason. (source: africanews.com) EGYPT: ourist 'faces death penalty in Egypt' for carrying painkillersLaura Plummer remains in custody and her family says they were told she could face execution A British woman has been detained in Egypt after flying into the country with painkillers for her husband's sore back. Laura Plummer, 33, from Hull, was arrested when she was found to be carrying tramadol and Naproxen in her suitcase. The newspaper said she signed a 38-page statement in Arabic which she thought would result in her being able to leave the airport, but she has been held in a 15ft by 15ft cell with 25 other women for nearly a month. Her brother James Plummer, 31, said the family has been told she could face up to 25 years in jail, with one lawyer even mentioning the death penalty, The Sun reported. Irish citizen released from prison in Egypt after 4-year detention Mr Plummer said his sister had been arrested for what he thinks the authorities in Egypt call "drug trafficking", but said she had only brought a small amount of medication for her Egyptian husband who she visits 2 to 4 times a year. The Sun said she took 29 strips of tramadol, each containing ten tablets, plus some Naproxen, adding that her husband suffers back pain due to an accident. Mr Plummer said: "It's just blown out of proportion completely." He said his sister just thought she was doing a "good deed" by bringing the medication over to her husband, and said she will be "completely out of her comfort zone" in jail. "She's so by the book, so routine, she just likes her own home comforts, watches Emmerdale every night or things like that, going to bed at 9 o'clock every night," he said. Mr Plummer said his mother and sisters have travelled to Egypt to visit Laura following her arrest on 9 October, adding: "They say she's unrecognisable. When they seen her, she's like a zombie, they said." He said her hair is starting to fall out due to stress and he voiced concerns about how she will cope. "I don't think she's tough enough to survive it," he said, adding: "She has a phobia of using anybody else's toilet, so let alone sharing a toilet and a floor with everybody else. That will be awful for her, it'll be traumatising." Mr Plummer said the family feel "helpless" due to being in a different country, and said of his sister: "It's awful for Laura ... she's not a tough person at all. She's only small." A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are supporting a British woman and her family following her detention in Egypt." (source: The Independent) IRAN: Thousands of Iranian Death Row Inmates to Receive Sentence Reviews Under Amended Drug Law Thousands of Iranians currently on death row for low-level drug crimes will receive sentence reviews under a newly amended law, announced Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi on October 31, 2017. "The judges presiding over these cases have to be ready to implement the newly amended Law Against Drug Trafficking," he said. "The law will become mandatory 15 days after
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., UTAH, NEV., IDAHO, USA
Nov. 4 COLORADO: Walmart Shooting Suspect Scott Ostrem Could Face Death Penalty The Denver man accused of opening fire inside of a Walmart, killing 3 people in what police say was an act of "mass chaos," could face life in prison or even the death penalty, a judge said Friday. Scott Ostrem, 47, made his 1st appearance in an Adams County courthouse dressed in a blue jumpsuit and giving one word responses to the judge. Although prosecutors asked for more time to consider multiple counts against Ostrem, they were ordered to file formal charges by Monday. Until then, he is being held without bond on an initial warrant of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder. Police in the Denver suburb of Thornton have provided no motive for why Ostrem walked calmly inside of a Walmart on Wednesday night and allegedly fired at random. He fled amid the panic, sparking a manhunt, and was captured the following morning about a half-mile from his home. The victims were identified as Carlos Moreno, 66, of Thornton, and Victor Vasquez, 26, of Denver, both of whom died at the scene, and Pamela Marques, 52, of Denver, who died at the hospital. The affidavit in the case remained sealed Friday. While police released little information about Ostrem, neighbors at the Samuel Park Apartments described him as a loner who would walk around carrying weapons. "He didn't seem to have anybody," Teresa Muniz, one of his neighbors, told The Associated Press. "Being angry all the time. That's what he seemed like, always angry." Muniz said most of the building's tenants talk to one another, but Ostrem never returned her greetings and swore at people for leaving laundry in communal machines. She also said she sometimes saw Ostrem carrying a shotgun or a bow and set of arrows to and from the building. Another neighbor, Gerald Burnett, 63, said he was sitting on the stairs outside drinking coffee one morning when Ostrem came down, told him to move and cursed at him. "Dude had an attitude, big time," Burnett said. "He's the type of person if you said, 'Good morning,' he wouldn't say nothing." Another resident, Dennis Valenzuela, told NBC affiliate KUSA that he noticed Ostrem treated tenants differently because of their race. Thornton is about 1/3 Hispanic or Latino. "Very quiet, but verbally abusive toward Hispanics," said the 49-year-old maintenance worker. "Just real rude, he would use vulgar language with Hispanics and stuff like that." Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila wouldn't say if investigators knew about neighbors' statements or whether race played a role in the shooting, but told NBC News that the case is "an active investigation and everything will be looked at." Ostrem recently had financial problems and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2015. He also had minor run-ins with police dating back to the 1990s. For the past three years, he worked in the metal fabrication shop of a roofing company. On the morning of the shooting, he left his work station without any explanation and never came back, boss David Heidt told the AP. "We're all bewildered as to where we are now," Heidt said. (source: NBC News) UTAH: Capital punishment system unfair to defendants and attorneys When asked if I would be willing to represent a Utah death-sentenced inmate, Floyd Maestas, I said absolutely not. I was well aware of the emotional, physical and financial toll the representation would place on me and on my practice. Yet I eventually agreed because I believe those on death row deserve good representation. Floyd insisted he was not there during the murder, even though at trial 2 eyewitnesses placed him there, his fingerprint was at the scene and there was DNA under the victim's fingernails. But I took my charge seriously and worked feverishly to find evidence of innocence. The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that post-conviction lawyers must diligently scour the evidence, investigate the case for innocence, and search for any evidence that could "mitigate" or reduce a defendant's death sentence. These efforts have resulted in the reversal of death sentences around the nation, where innocent people have been exonerated. Given a shoe-string budget of $30,000, our investigators discovered serious evidence to support Floyd's innocence. This included a letter from 1 of the eyewitnesses, saying he and his friend framed Floyd and that his friend was the real murderer. The DNA "match" was not a match at all, but a Y-chromosome test that would match 421 of 591 Hispanics, Floyd's race. Our fingerprint expert also believed there were serious problems with the fingerprint identification. We discovered a very traumatic family history. Floyd was raised in the ghetto in a cardboard house with no running water. His father froze to death from alcoholism and 2 of his siblings were murdered. As a boy, Floyd held his dying sister in the living room after
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., OHIO, ARK., MO.
Nov. 4 PENNSYLVANIA: After 38 years on death row, Philly man gets new trial - and another guilty verdict It took 32 years of legal filings from his cell on death row, but Robert "Sugar Bear" Lark finally got a new trial. On Friday, the jury delivered its verdict. Guilty. Again. Prosecutors said it was a straightforward case. On Feb. 22, 1979, Lark put on a ski mask, stuffed a gun in his belt, walked into a fast-food store at Broad Street and Erie Avenue, and shot dead the store owner, Tae Bong Cho, a 36-year-old father of 2. The slaying was the night before a preliminary hearing for Lark, who had robbed Cho at gunpoint months earlier. "He killed him in a brazen manner, and then he boasted about it," Assistant District Attorney Andrew Notaristefano said in his closing argument. The defense argued that Philadelphia police detectives systematically provided incentives and threats to induce witnesses to talk. Some had open cases or probation violations when they testified. "They were handpicked," Lark's court-appointed lawyer, James Berardinelli said. "What made someone an elite detective back in 1979 when Frank Rizzo was still mayor was a heck of a lot different from what makes an elite detective today." The jury, which found the prosecutor's version of events to be credible, will now have to decide whether Lark, 63, will face the death penalty once again. Given a statewide moratorium and the stances of the candidates running for district attorney here, some are calling it the last death-penalty case in Philadelphia. It was Lark's 3rd trial: The 1st resulted in a mistrial, the 2nd in a conviction. His charges included not only the murder of Cho but also the kidnapping of a woman and her 2 children - he escaped into their house before police captured him and remained there for 2 hours - and terroristic threats against Charles Cunningham, the prosecutor in Lark's robbery case. But in 2012, he won the right to yet another trial, after persuading a federal judge that the prosecutor had stricken black jurors simply because of their race - a practice that is illegal but was standard operating procedure for Philadelphia prosecutors, according to a training tape of former Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon that became public in the '90s. Half the jury for this trial was black. Proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt 38 years after the fact - when some witnesses are dead and others' memories have faded - was a complicated matter. For those witnesses who are now deceased, testimony had to be reenacted - the prosecutor, defense lawyer, and judge all reading lines along with an actor in the witness box. Some other witnesses, brought in from out of state and, in at least one case, from federal prison, adamantly contradicted the testimony they gave at the previous trials in the 1980s. One, Linda Timbers, who is the mother of Lark's daughter, said the statement police had taken in 1980 was false. According to the statement, she'd been with Lark waiting in line for a movie when a man named Stanley Coleman came up and discussed the murder with Lark. She said that Lark had never taken her to a movie, that she did not know a Stanley Coleman, and that she had not heard about the murder. "If somebody talked to me bragging about a killing, I would remember that," she said. If she did sign a statement, she insisted, it was out of exhaustion. "It seems like I wasn't going to be able to go home with my children to get something to eat unless I signed it." Another witness, James Spencer, previously testified that Lark had boasted to him about the murder, but he recanted that statement on the stand. A 3rd testified he now has no memory of the events. A 4th gave similar testimony; she said she was a drug addict desperate to get out of the interrogation room and get her next fix when she made her statement to police. The defense argued those recantations were clear evidence that the earlier testimony had been tainted - either by prosecutors' promises to offer lenient treatment on open cases or by police threats of implication in the case. For example, Spencer was facing 4 open cases; 2 were thrown out after he testified. "This is someone who had a motive to fabricate," Berardinelli said. Notaristefano, on the other hand, said Spencer's recantation was further proof of Lark's campaign of terror: Spencer, he said, "has to take the witness stand so he can recant everything in public in front of the defendant, so that his family can be safe." The jury will be back on Tuesday to determine whether Lark will return to death row. Prosecutors offered to take the death penalty off the table if Lark would waive his right to appeal. But as Judge Steven R. Geroff stated the offer, Lark interjected. "I reject that," he said. He wants to keep fighting the case. (source: The Inquirer) FLORIDA: Doctor: Death row inmate's upbringing
