[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Dec. 12 INDIA: Death penalty in India has no clear guidelines, new research revealsCapital punishment is considered a deterrent by some, but judges have little guidance for deciding what can merit such a sentence The death-penalty sentencing process in India is broken, and now there is fresh research that reiterates this fact. In pathbreaking work carried out by the National Law University in Delhi, 43 of 60 former judges of India???s Supreme Court interviewed for the research, who had adjudicated 208 death-penalty cases among them between 1975 and 2016, expressed grave doubts about wrongful convictions. But 39 of the judges interviewed favor retaining capital punishment. 8 of them were former chief justices of India. Of the 60 judges interviewed, 47 adjudicated capital-punishment cases and confirmed 92 death sentences in 63 cases. Judges of the apex court are regarded as the embodiment of the letter and spirit of the law, and are supposed to judge with objectivity, without letting their biases and prejudices creep into rulings. The death sentences confirmed by the Supreme Court are final decisions, unless they are reversed on review, which happens very rarely. However, the report throws up a grave fact - that there is a lot of subjectivity in the nature of judgments. Many judges don't have clarity about the the legal statutes behind the sentencing procedure. The report, which is in the form of an opinion study, kept the views of individual judges anonymous so as not to divert focus from the system to specific persons. Justification for torture The rampant use of torture, the study found, shows how deep the crisis in the criminal justice system is. Torture is used to generate evidence as well as to fabricate it. Though some former judges did offer justifications for this abysmal state of affairs, there was an overwhelming sense of concern about the integrity of the criminal justice system from multiple perspectives. Of the 39 judges, only one thought torture by the police and other investigative agencies was not perpetrated. Of the rest who accepted that torture does take place, 12 thought it could be justified, given the pressures investigators are working under. The existence of torture was also rationalized by stating that investigating agencies are "either lazy, or don't have enough manpower, or do not know methods of scientific investigation," the report says. The judges voiced their concerns, but it had little bearing on their views on the administration of capital punishment. Judge-centric sentencing In 1980, a 5-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in the Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab case, laid down a binding doctrine on how death sentences are to be handed down. It was to be only in the "rarest of rare" cases, and the principles for determining this sought to take away the subjectivity caused by prejudices and views of individual judges. However, the report reveals a shocking detail. Only 13 of the interviewed judges were able to articulate their views on how this doctrine was to be implemented. One judge who confirmed a death sentence that led to an execution expressed helplessness about the subjectivity in sentencing: "The problem is so rampant, so obvious, that it is difficult to find any consistency in the approach, and it is difficult to see [the] rationale in awarding [the] death sentence in one case and not awarding in another, more severe case." The report states: "For a significant number of judges, the 'rarest of the rare' was based on categories or description of offenses alone and had little to do with judicial test requiring that the alternative of life imprisonment be 'unquestionably foreclosed.' This meant that for certain crimes, this widely hailed formulation falls apart, rendering the sentencing exercise nugatory." There is a growing consensus among criminologists that executions do not deter criminals. Despite this, deterrence emerged as the strongest justification for retaining the death penalty, with 23 former judges seeing merit in that argument. When former judges spoke of the deterrent value of the death penalty, significant differences emerged in their understanding of it. The 1st of the 2 main strands that emerged viewed the fear of death for achieving deterrence. Judges in this category took the position that the qualitative nature of the death penalty distinguished it from any other punishment, and that the fear of death was an effective deterrent. A judge who has confirmed three death sentences in his 4-year tenure as a Supreme Court judge remarked: "What is the greatest fear of every human being? ... Death. Everything else you can swallow, but death you cannot." Most of the judges felt that since there are very few executions, retaining capital punishment is justified. This, the researchers of the report regretted, did not factor in the intense mental agony and
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., KAN., CALIF., USA, US MIL.
Dec. 12 ARKANSAS: Arkansas Man Goes to Trial for Allegedly Beating Man With Ax An Arkansas man will stand trial in a capital murder case after being accused of beating another man to death with an ax handle. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that 36-year-old Randall Jordan is scheduled for trial Tuesday in connection with the death of 59-year-old Larry Eugene Jones. Jordan faces a conviction that carries possible death penalty for beating Jones with an ax handle as he slept in his bed in June 2016. Crawford County reports show Jordan had been living with Jones but was kicked out of Jones' house. Reports say a woman who was staying at Jones' house at the time witnessed the attack and contacted Jones' family members. Reports say Jones' son confronted Jordan and drove his father to the hospital. An autopsy report says Jones died from head and brain injuries shortly after. (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: U.S. Supreme Court lets death penalty stand for man who murdered Kansas sheriff The U.S. Supreme Court is letting a death sentence stand for a southeastern Kansas man who fatally shot a sheriff during a 2005 drug raid. The high court declined Monday to review Scott Cheever's case a 2nd time. Cheever faces lethal injection for killing Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels as Samuels tried to serve a warrant at Cheever's rural home about 75 miles northeast of Wichita. Cheever acknowledged shooting Samuels, but his attorney argued Cheever was too high on methamphetamine for the crime to be premeditated. The Kansas Supreme Court in 2012 ordered a new trial for Cheever because prosecutors used a court-ordered mental evaluation from a different trial against him. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision in 2013. The Kansas court then upheld Cheever's death sentence last year. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: California Chief Justice Expects More Death Penalty Lawsuits The California Supreme Court has largely upheld the new, expedited death penalty procedure voters approved last November through Proposition 66, but the chief justice expects more challenges. In a roundtable discussion with reporters, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye suggested 2 areas she thinks the court will likely have to rule: She says Proposition 66 puts competing pressures on the state's pool of attorneys who represent death row inmates in a certain type of appeal, called habeas corpus petitions. "This entity, the Habeas Corpus Resource Center - that was originally contemplated to provide the attorneys for these habeas corpus petitions - are now having their salaries reduced, even though the effort is that they take on more work," Cantil-Sakauye says. "So I'm not sure how that's going to work out." The measure also requires attorneys who do not work on capital cases to accept them, when death penalty attorneys are booked up. Cantil-Sakauye did not take part in the Proposition 66 decision, since she oversees the state's courts, which must implement it. (source: Capital Public Radio News) ** Prosecutors seek death penalty in torture-murder of 8-year-old Closing arguments concluded Monday morning and deliberations were beginning in the penalty phase of the trial for Isauro Aguirre, convicted of brutally beating his girlfriend's 8-year-old son to death. A jury is being asked to recommend whether Aguirre, 37, should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Aguirre. Previous testimony convinced the 7-woman, 5-man panel of jurors Gabriel Fernandez, of Palmdale, died in May of 2013 after months of torture and abuse. Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder involving the infliction of torture, making Aguirre eligible for capital punishment. Among several family members, Gabriel's biological father, Arnold Contreras, served as one of the prosecution's witnesses. He said he felt guilty and hopeless and "should have been there" when he learned that his son had been beaten and was on life support. Jurors were shown photos of Gabriel's tortured body lying on an autopsy table with injuries from head to toe and heard testimony from a Los Angeles County sheriff's detective that he had never seen a child with that many injuries in his 26-year career in law enforcement. In court on Monday, prosecutor Jonathan Hatami gave the closing arguments. "Death penalty is justified for what the defendant did to Gabriel Fernandez," Hatami urged the jury. He then put a blown up picture of Gabriel in front of the jury and asked them to always remember what this case is about. Hatami told the jury the case is not about the defendant, his family or a paid prison expert. He reminded the jury about all the weapons he brought in that were used on Gabriel. "There's nothing worse in our society than a grown man murdering and torturing a
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., LA., OHIO
Dec. 12 TEXAS: Salvadoran man on Texas death row loses Supreme Court appeal The U.S. Supreme has refused to review an appeal from a 48-year-old Salvadoran man on Texas death row for the slayings of 2 Houston store clerks during an attempted robbery more than 17 years ago. The high court had no comment in its decision Monday in the case of Gilmar Guevara. Attorneys for Guevara asked the justices to reverse lower courts' rulings rejecting arguments that he's mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty. Guevara was convicted and sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of 48-year-old Tae Youk and 21-year-old Gerardo Yaxon. Youk was from South Korea and Yaxon from Guatemala. Guevara, identified as the shooter, and 2 accomplices fled the scene in southwest Houston in June 2000 without any money. He does not yet have an execution date. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Convicted killer Duane Owen wants off death row Attorneys for a man convicted of 2 heinous murders in the 1980s and sentenced to death are fighting to save his life. "Duane Owen is nothing more than a cowardly, misogynistic bully who preys on people he knows he can overcome," the state argued before a judge inside a Palm Beach County courtroom on Monday. Decades after juries convicted him and judges sentenced him to death for two murders in Boca Raton and Delray Beach, Duane Owen wants to get off of death row. Attorneys are trying to now use a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court ruling to vacate Owen's death sentence for the gruesome rape and murders of 14-year-old babysitter Karen Slattery and 38 year-old single mother Georgianna Worden. Owen's attorney argues juries in both cases were split 10-2 when recommending death for Owen and the judges had the final say. Florida law now requires a unanimous verdict for the death penalty. ???At the end of the day, Mr. Owens was denied his rights in both cases," attorney James Driscoll argued. "We would ask for the court to grant relief in both cases." "It disgusts me, that's how I feel. It disgusts me to think that we have to go there," said Jane Smith, who was one of Slattery's teachers. "Just pray for the family. It's been a heartache. You can't bring her back if you execute him but there's got to be closure, somewhere." The judge didn't indicate when he'll rule or how long it could take. (source: WPEC news) * Convicted killer sentenced to death for 3rd timeJury unanimously recommended execution for Randal Deviney For the 3rd time since a woman was brutally killed 9 years, a Duval County judge has sentenced Randal Deviney to be put to death for the murder. In August 2008, when Deviney was 18 years old, he slit the throat of Delores Futrell and beat her during an attempted burglary. He then moved her body and staged the scene to make it appear that she had been sexually assaulted. In October, after two days of testimony from detectives, forensic scientists, family members and psychologists, a jury unanimously recommended he be given the death penalty. On Monday, Judge Mark Borello formally sentenced Deviney to be returned to death row. On Monday, Borello said the nature and cruelty of the crime and age of the victim were all factors that led him to give Deviney to the death penalty. "All lives have value, but we are a nation of laws," Borello said. "Randall Deviney, you have not only forfeited your right to live among us, but under the laws of the state of Florida, you have forfeited your right to live at all." This and all death sentences are automatically reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court. Futrell's family was in court Monday, but did not comment after the hearing, but did make remarks after the jury recommended the death penalty 2 months ago. "We're glad it's finally over (and) he got the sentencing he deserved," Futrell's granddaughter Raqia Blades said. "I'm glad we don't have to keep replaying the memories of what happened and keep asking the question, 'Why?'" It was the 3rd jury that has been asked to sentence Deviney to death for the crime. The 1st conviction was overturned on appeal and his 2nd sentence was thrown out when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that death penalties are only constitutional if there is a unanimous jury recommendation. Futrell, a dialysis technician and mother of four, was described in court this week as loving life and having a thirst for knowledge. "A person like my mom should have died a peaceful death," said Jacquelynn Blades, Futrell's oldest daughter. During the sentencing hearing, the defense presented 37 mitigating factors to try and convince the jury to spare Deviney from the death penalty. It called Deviney's father and a forensic psychologist to testify an abusive childhood. Despite Deviney mental, sexual and physical abuse as a child, Borello said Deviney still had a loving family and
