[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
December 7 IRANmass executions Mass Execution of 12 inmates in Kerman Central Prison Iran on Thursday executed 12 prisoners in Kerman Central Prison, most of them convicted of drug charges. 4 of the executed prisoners were identified as, Abdolghani Ghalandarzehi, Yaghub Ghalandarzehi, Jalil Khodabakhsh and Yousef Jalaledin, all from Iran’s ethnic Baluch minority. According to witnesses, the bodies of 12 people executed today were handed over to their families. More recently, on November 21, the Iranian authorities, hanged three prisoners collectively in public in Shiraz on charge of moharebeh (fighting with God). In yet another case on November 14, Iran carried out a mass execution of 10 prisoners in in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj. National Council of Resistance of Iran in November called on all international human rights advocates, in particular the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, and the Working Group on arbitrary death penalty, to condemn these executions. (source: Iran Human Rights) MALAYSIA: Make death sentence non-mandatory and subject to judges' discretion In Malaysia, the death sentence has been an integral part of the Penal Code since the time of independence. It was even made mandatory for certain offences, including possession of firearms and drugs. However, a bill to abolish the death sentence may be presented to Parliament next week. The arguments for and against abolishing the death sentence are many. I would like to state beforehand that I am against the mandatory death sentence as practised at the moment in this country. However, I am also against the total abolishment of the death sentence as suggested. As we can see, there have been many heinous crimes that cause public outrage, from serial murders or sexual abuse to the death of an infant recently. The common arguments against the death sentence are that: 1. A state has no right to take away the life of an individual Every individual’s life is his or her basic human right that is recognised worldwide. Cases where death sentences were overturned on appeal, or upon the emergence of new evidence, were always quoted as the reason why innocent lives might be lost. However, the “individual” loses this right once the person oversteps into the forbidden areas of crimes defined by laws that may result in the death sentence, especially if he or she took away the lives of other people. Ironically, many countries in the world that ban the death sentence have also legalised abortions. What gives these states the right to say it is acceptable to take the lives of unborn children? It is certain that these aborted foetuses were 100 % innocent and had no chance to do any wrongs whatsoever. Yet those who claim to defend the innocent can condone abortions that are performed for non-medical reasons. The 2nd scenario is that our soldiers are required to kill when commanded. An enemy soldier can be killed even if he has not fired a shot. His only “crime” is that he was born in an enemy country. The 3rd scenario is that our police are to shoot if necessary to stop a criminal that can be a danger, like one who is brandishing a knife. A person who has yet to commit a crime may be killed before he is even given a chance to be tried in court. In Malaysia, a person who is found to have murdered many people in a terror attack with multiple witnesses and evidence will go through a full trial, with defence lawyers, appeal process and appeal process to the highest court, and many years on the death roll with no new evidence emerging. To say it is wrong for the state to consider the death sentence is bending the arguments too much to the other extreme. 2. The death sentence has proven not to deter criminals from committing crimes The death sentence definitely will not deter determined criminals. However, it does deter many people from breaking the law. Similarly, life sentences and caning will not deter would-be criminals as well. The death sentence was not enacted as a deterrent; it was enacted from ancient times to be the punishment for the most heinous of crimes. It was also the justice and closure needed by families of the victims for them to move on after the loss of their loved ones. The judges can always take into account the wishes of the families concerned. 3. A life sentence is a worse punishment for the wrongdoers than a death sentence This is contradictory in the way that people who claim to be concerned about human rights want to impose a worse penalty on the wrongdoers. Certainly, some wrongdoers will be worse off with a life sentence. However, all ordinary criminals would prefer a life sentence to a death sentence. Those who suggest that a life sentence is worse appear not to be in tune with the common people at all. In summary, I am supportive of the idea to abolish
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., NEB., CALIF.
December 7 TENNESSEEexecution Tennessee Executes David Earl Miller for 1983 MurderMiller is the 2nd Tennessee prisoner to be put to death in Tennessee's electric chair in as many months Nearly 37 years after he was convicted of murdering Lee Standifer, a 21-year-old Knoxville woman he'd been dating, David Earl Miller has been executed in the electric chair. Miller was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 6. His last words were "Beats being on death row." Miller is the 2nd Tennessee prisoner to be killed by electrocution in as many months. Edmund Zagorski was executed in the electric chair in November. After going nearly a decade without an execution, Tennessee has now carried out 3 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville this year. Miller, the longest-serving prisoner on Tennessee's death row, had been awaiting death for nearly 37 years. The Scene offered Miller the chance to give a statement before his death, and sent questions to him through his attorneys, but he declined. The brutal murder for which Miller was sentenced to death took place on May 20, 1981. After the 2 had gone on a date, Miller killed Standifer — who was intellectually disabled — by bludgeoning her with a fireplace poker before stabbing her dead body numerous times. Prosecutors asserted at the trial that the murder had taken place after Miller sexually assaulted Standifer. The state’s medical examiner found evidence that sexual intercourse had taken place, but Standifer’s body showed no signs of sexual assault. The court determined that there was not enough evidence of sexual assault to put it before the jury. Later, during Miller’s sentencing, a different judge allowed prosecutors to present that charge to a jury, but the jury rejected it. Gov. Bill Haslam announced just after noon on Thursday that he would not intervene to stop the execution, despite a plea for clemency from Miller's attorneys that detailed the condemned man's horrific history of mental illness and childhood physical and sexual abuse. As a young boy, Miller was allegedly raped by his mother on multiple occasions, and brutally beaten by his stepfather. Miller's attorneys note that by age 10 he had attempted to kill himself twice and was already drinking alcohol. Sexual abuse, mental illness and addiction would be a theme throughout his life, up until the night he killed Lee Standifer. Miller had a daughter of his own, Stephanie Thoman, who was just 2 years old when her father was sent to prison. She first remembers meeting him when she was 12 and has maintained a relationship with him since. “I think that he’s a kind person," she told the Scene earlier this week, when asked to describe her 61-year-old father as he is today. "He’s quiet. He kind of stays to himself. It’s hard to imagine him getting mad.” Lee Standifer's 84-year-old mother, Helen, lives in Arizona now. She did not make the trip to see the man who murdered her daughter put to death. “I don’t see that it accomplishes anything at all," she told the Scene in an interview. "It’s immaterial. It doesn’t bring my daughter back, it doesn’t accomplish anything. Frankly, I don’t see any reason to be there.” Miller becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Tennessee and the 9th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 2000. Miller becomes the 23rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,488 overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. The 23 executions equals the total of executions carried out in the USA last year; there are executions scheduled in Texas (Dec. 11) and Florida (Dec. 13) next week. (sources: Nashville Scene & Rick Halperin) * Tennessee executes another inmate by electric chair after supreme court battleDavid Earl Miller was the 2nd inmate in 5 weeks to reject the state’s preferred method of execution A convicted killer who spent more than 36 years on death row in Tennessee was executed by electric chair on Thursday, the second time in five weeks that the state used electrocution to carry out a death sentence. Corrections officials say 61-year-old David Earl Miller was pronounced dead at 7.25 pm Thursday at a Nashville maximum-security prison. Both Miller and Edmund Zagorski before him chose the electric chair over lethal injection, a process proponents said would be painless and humane. The execution came nearly 2 decades after the state adopted lethal injection as its preferred method. But the inmates argued in court that Tennessee’s current midazolam-based process causes a prolonged and torturous death. They pointed to the August execution of Billy Ray Irick, which took about 20 minutes and during which he coughed and huffed before turning a dark purple. Their case was thrown out, largely because a judge said they failed to prove a more humane alternative was availa
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., MISS.
December 7 TEXASnew execution date 'I can't forgive till you're dead': Execution set for brain-damaged Texas man behind 4 killings It was a warm summer night when Dexter Johnson killed Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo. Along with 4 friends, the brain-damaged, schizophrenic 18-year-old had carjacked the young couple hours earlier, driving them around town to get money before eventually leading them out into the woods and shooting them both in the head - just one of the many brutal crimes prosecutors say Johnson pulled off during his monthlong spree of violence. That was all 12 years ago. On Thursday, on a cool winter morning - over Johnson's angry protestations of his innocence - the now-30-year-old got a date with death. With one appeal still pending in the courts, Judge Denise Collins signed off on a May 2 execution, while the victims' families - who'd filled the benches in the 208th District Court - sobbed and Johnson's family looked to the heavens. "You changed all of our lives for the worse," said Jose Olivares, whose father Jose was killed in Johnson's string of violence. "I know they say you're supposed to forgive, but I can't forgive till you're dead." Ngo's sister wept as she addressed the court, while one of Aparece's family members raised his voice, almost shouting as he promised no pity. Afterward, Johnson - mumbling over the sobs behind him - apologized to the families, even while denying his own guilt. "I do understand their hate, I do understand," he said. "But I never killed nobody." The emotionally-charged court appearance drew prosecutors from earlier in the case, including attorney Brian Wice who served as an appointed pro tem earlier in the appeals process. "This was my 1st experience as a special prosecutor," he said. "I'd handled over a dozen death penalty appeals and writs and until today I never really had a sense of what the families of the victims are going through and how they may never obtain closure for a loss that can only be described as unspeakable." In the years since he was sent to death row, Johnson has fought his sentence with appeals based on bad lawyering, racial bias, intellectual disability and his long history of schizophrenia and psychotic breaks. "Mr. Johnson has significant brain damage that is at the root of this tragedy, and that same damage has made him unable to help his defense throughout this process," defense attorney Pat McCann said last year. "He has an actual hole in his brain where functional brain matter ought to exist." Thursday's court setting was significantly calmer than the trial that put him on death row more than 10 years ago. Then, two of his relatives collapsed in the hallway, while the mother of his child lay on the floor moaning and breathless after hearing the verdict. At one point he'd refused to come to his own court dates. Later, he hurled a chair across the courtroom. "My son is no murderer," Renee Johnson told the Chronicle at the time. "He didn't have it in his blood." But it took a Harris County jury only 2 hours to find him guilty of the carjacking, rape, robbery and murder. The night of the June 2006 crimes, Johnson and 4 accomplices came across the young couple sitting in Aparece's Toyota, where they were chatting outside Ngo's home. Johnson and 2 others threatened them with a pistol and a shotgun, according to testimony at trial. Then, 3 of the attackers drove the young couple around Houston in Aparece's car, stealing her cash and credit cards and trying to get money from her bank accounts. Behind them, 2 other accomplices followed in their own car. Eventually, the violent crew pulled over and, according to trial testimony, Johnson raped Aparece in the backseat. Her boyfriend was forced to listen to it all on his knees as the other attackers taunted him. Then, Johnson shot Ngo in the head before slaughtering Aparece. At trial, Johnson's defense team argued that it was someone else who walked the couple into the woods and fired the fatal shot. It took investigators 5 days to figure out what happened. After a quick guilty verdict, jurors heard testimony about the monthlong crime spree before and after the double slaying. That May, prosecutors said, Johnson killed a 60-year-old man washing his barbecue pit at a local car wash. A few weeks later - the day before the slayings that put him on death row - Johnson and a partner in crime robbed 2 men standing at a pay phone, killing one after he offered them only a roll of quarters, prosecutors said. In the days that followed, Johnson and his confederates pulled off a string of other robberies,. Then, according to trial testimony, he was potentially involved in the murder of a man inside his car on Annunciation Street. In his appeals since then, Johnson's attorney has focused on arguments alleging that his client lacked the brain functioning to be held to the same standard as adults. Instea
