[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
March 21 SOUTH AFRICA: IFP promises to reopen debate on reinstatement of death penalty The Inkatha Freedom Party promised safety of Gauteng residents and to reopen the debate on the reinstatement of the death penalty as a way to fight crime. The party held its provincial manifesto launch rally at Zola sports complex in Soweto on Thursday. It said it would reprioritise the SAPS budget to focus on community policing and police visibility on the streets, among communities and at business centres and public spaces. Gauteng is notorious for high end crimes such as car hijackings and cash heist robberies. Under IFP rule, all unused land held by the state would be distributed to alleviate poverty and address land deprivation. “South Africa’s people suffered immensely under colonial rule and apartheid. Reasonable measures must be taken to redress past injustices and indignities as our political democracy cannot thrive if the masses of our people remain without land or perceptible prospects for a better life,” said the IFP’s “Our Plan for Gauteng”. Despite being the country’s and the continent’s economic hub, Gauteng was still devastated by high unemployment especially among the youth. To address this the party promised to create a provincial and municipal database of unemployed persons and introduce a subsidised unemployment “job seekers metro card for Gautrain, Metrobus and Rea Vaya transit trips”. Free WiFi would be offered to rural and township businesses to increase access to financial services and micro finance for developing entrepreneurs. To realise its vision of a “world class” education, the IFP promised to champion the building of more schools with classes of 500 learners per school and free scholar transport. In an IFP-led government all schools would be guarded by trained security guards. High-spirited Zulu maidens and young men in traditional regalia danced to a mix of hip hop, maskandi and their own Zulu traditional songs in formations of war-styled groups while waiting to be addresse by IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi. (source: The Citizen) NIGERIA: The case against capital punishment in Nigeria Nigeria remains one of the few nations in the world where capital punishment is still fashionable despite the call to abolish it. And while it is true that the 1999 constitution (as amended) clearly spelt out death penalty under Sections 33(1) and 34(1) (a), it has become an outdated and cruel means of dispensing justice. Fundamentally, the truth remains that, society will continue to evolve and as it evolves, the laws holding it together will also change. For instance, until 1807, the slave trade was legal and people were allowed to keep slaves (human beings) as private property. But as society gradually progressed from the thesis, to the antithesis and to the synthesis, a new consciousness overruled the commodification of man. Today, it will be considered a crime against humanity if any man or country ever venture into the slave trade because civilization has moved forward and new laws have emerged to protect the inalienable rights of man. In the same vein, the Nigerian society has not remained static since the first time capital punishment was enshrined in her constitution. As society progresses it is expected that laws are reviewed and the constitution amended in order to meet the recent social realities and lifestyle. It will not make any sense use the laws that were made 20 years ago or thereabout to interpret the current challenges in the country. Laws are made for man and not the other way round. Therefore, we cannot afford to remain judicially conservative when society itself is in the state of flux. Take for example how people will respond to the killing of twins in the 21st century or the gladiator games that defined the beauty and power of the Roman civilization. Whereas these were backed by the laws of those days but as man attained another rational identity epoch, he found it convenient to describe them as barbaric or primitive. If the modern culture could efface slave trade and other anti-progress events, then the neo or contemporary culture should also swallow all the cruel and outdated laws that support capital punishment, especially in Nigeria. Apart from the fact that the Nigerian society has evolved and by default needs better laws to address capital crimes, capital punishment has never been the ultimate solution to homicide. There is no proof anywhere that killing murderers in Nigeria have been able to deter other people from committing murder or other capital crimes that can warrant the death penalty. Furthermore, the Nigerian system is very disorganized. The security and judicial institutions are weak. Nigeria is a country where the police usually make a random arrest for no reason and without bothering to do a proper investigation whether the people arrested are criminals or
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., CALIF., WASH., USA
March 21 COLORADO: Lawmakers in Colorado Should Abolish the Death Penalty In July 2012, Coloradans were devastated by the now-infamous murder of 12 moviegoers in the town of Aurora. Despite the trauma and grief that crime caused, a local jury 3 years later refused the prosecutor’s request to impose the death sentence against the convicted perpetrator. At the time, The Denver Post observed, “The death penalty in Colorado has effectively expired. And it didn’t happen because of bleeding-heart lawmakers or activist judges. It happened because juries themselves wanted no part of it.” Coloradans turned their back on the death penalty in one of the state’s darkest hours this century. They were right to do so. Now, with a new bill, the state has the chance to abolish the practice once and for all. The problems with the death penalty are well known and damning. The practice is irreparably biased; it delays justice for victims’ families and draws out their suffering; and it devours millions of law enforcement dollars that would be better invested where they could actually protect the public — which the death penalty does not. The death penalty is so broken that even law enforcement officials have little faith in it. Police chiefs rank the death penalty last among effective ways to reduce violent crime. And the data supports this belief. Between 2000 and 2010, the murder rate in states with capital punishment was 25-46 percent higher than in states without it. The death penalty does not protect or save lives — it only takes them. And Coloradans are paying dearly in time and money, to say nothing of morality, for this ineffective system. A death penalty trial costs Colorado taxpayers about 15 times the amount of a life-without-parole trial, and it requires over 6 times more days in court. Colorado could save $1.5 million a year by eliminating the death penalty. These monies can and should instead be dedicated to addressing the 1,200 unsolved murder cases in Colorado. As Gail LaSuer, a Coloradan whose daughter was murdered, explained, “I would rather have a larger number of people caught than to have a few executed.” More important than its cost, the death penalty is profoundly unfair. It is applied randomly and discriminatorily, and it is imposed disproportionately upon people of color convicted of murder, people convicted of murdering a white victim, and people convicted in certain geographic regions of the state. For example, a person of color in the 18th Judicial District in Colorado is 14 times more likely to face the death penalty than a white person in another district. A person’s race, the race of the murder victim, and where either lives should not be what decides who lives and who dies. On top of this, our criminal justice system fails to protect the innocent from execution. Colorado executed Joe Arridy, who was proven innocent after execution and had spent the last seven years before his alleged crime in a mental institution. The state’s error meant a man lost his life for no reason. By retaining the death penalty in Colorado, we continue to risk that the government will execute an innocent person. That should be unacceptable to all Coloradans. Extending these harms even further, the death penalty can be traumatic for correctional employees as well. Colorado Warden Wayne Patterson was forced to pull the lever himself in an execution, although he opposes capital punishment. He described the experience as emotionally wrenching. Numerous wardens, executioners, and correctional officers suffer from PTSD as a result of their involvement with the death penalty. Furthermore, American medical bodies consider participation in executions to be a breach of ethics. Because of this, prison officials must call on untrained executioners who often inflict unnecessary pain. Since the introduction of lethal injection, over 7 % of executions have been botched, resulting in agonizing deaths. This is not surprising considering the drugs used in lethal injections have never been validated through medical testing for use in executions. An unlikely anti-death penalty movement has arisen in the corporate world as a result. Unwilling to be complicit in this cruel, unjust system, two dozen companies have blocked the use of their drugs in lethal injections, including the only U.S.-manufactured drug used in Colorado executions. Drug companies manufacture their drugs, as Pfizer recently said, “to enhance and save the lives of the patients we serve. Consistent with these values, Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment.” In response to action by drug companies, prisons have substituted untested drugs, passed or attempted to pass secrecy laws barring the public from knowing which drugs are used, and have asked compounding pharmacies for drugs to use in executions, although the pharmacies then h
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., ARK., IOWA
March 20 OHIO: Ohio attorney general chastises judge over death penalty A federal judge improperly praised Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's decision to delay an execution based on the judge's scathing critique of the state's lethal injection method, the state attorney general said. In a court filing earlier this week, Attorney General David Yost said Magistrate Judge Michael Merz' remarks were an improper use of the judge's position. At issue is a series of execution delays ordered by DeWine, a Republican, after Merz raised concerns about Ohio's lethal injection method. After the governor issued his first delay - of the February execution of death row inmate Warren Henness - Merz said that decision "embodies excellent public policy." The judge also said he was "deeply gratified" by DeWine's expression of trust in Merz' lethal injection ruling. "The Court fully expects that the Governor will do whatever is needed legally to keep the public commitment he has made, the important first step being the reprieve of Warren Henness," Merz wrote last month. The attorney general said judges "are not supposed to use the federal bench as a bully pulpit to influence state policy." The judge's "statements needlessly (and perhaps unintentionally) entangle the federal judiciary in a policy dispute on a hot-button issue," Yost said. A message was left with Merz about Yost's remarks. DeWine has ordered the prisons department to come up with a new lethal injection method, a process that could take months or years. Yost says that wouldn't prevent the state from carrying out executions earlier with its current system. The governor "has announced his intention to develop a new protocol, but he has never suggested that he would deny death-row inmates the choice to use the current protocol," Yost said. Ohio could still use the current method if a federal appeals court rejects Merz' criticism of Ohio's method or if the state can't come up with a new method, Yost said. Merz said on Jan. 14 that Ohio's system could cause inmates severe pain because the 1st drug, the sedative midazolam, doesn't render them deeply enough unconscious. He suggested inmates could experience a sensation similar to waterboarding. But Merz stopped short of halting executions, saying attorneys for Henness hadn't shown that viable execution alternatives exist in Ohio. Afterward, the governor postponed Henness' execution until September and then 3 more executions into the fall and then 2020. "Ohio's not going to execute someone under my watch when a federal judge has found it to be cruel and unusual punishment," DeWine said in January. A DeWine spokesman confirmed that executions could resume if Merz' order was overturned by a higher court, or if the state created a new lethal injection method that was found constitutional. "If the court decision was overturned on the basis of fact, the governor would certainly look if situation has changed," press secretary Dan Tierney said Tuesday. Henness was sentenced to death for killing 51-year-old Richard Myers in Columbus in 1992. Myers had been helping Henness find a drug treatment for his wife, authorities said. (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: TENNESSEE LAWMAKERS 1 STEP CLOSER TO SPEEDING UP DEATH-ROW EXECUTIONS As U.S. executions hover near historically low levels, a bill passed by the Tennessee House aims to remove 1 state court’s review before putting inmates to death which ultimately would speed up the process of getting a death row inmate – to execution The House voted 73-22 Monday for legislation to skip Tennessee’s Court of Criminal Appeals and provide automatic state Supreme Court death penalty reviews. The Senate could follow this week. Court of Criminal Appeals Judge John Everett Williams has said his court’s last four death penalty reviews took 3 to 6 months. Federal courts account for most of the sometimes-3-decades of death penalty court reviews. Tennessee executed 3 inmates last year. (source: 1057news.com) ARKANSAS: Plan on execution competency favored Legislation to create a new method for determining the competency of death-row prisoners -- after the old method was found unconstitutional -- was endorsed Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee. In a pair of 4-3 decisions handed down in November, the Arkansas Supreme Court said a state law granting the director of the Department of Correction the authority to determine whether a condemned prisoner is competent for execution violates the inmate's due-process rights. House Bill 1792, by Rep. Jimmy Gazaway, R-Paragould, would change the law to require that the prison director conduct an evidentiary hearing "that comports with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment" before determining competency. The bill is 1 of 2 proposals being pushed by the state attorney general's office that seek to change state death-penalty
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., GA., FLA., ALA., MISS.
March 21 TEXASimpending execution Death Watch: “Texas 7” Member Contests “Law of Parties”A robbery ended in a police officer death while Patrick Murphy waited outside. Current Texas law holds him responsible. If the state has its way, 57-year-old Patrick Murphy of "Texas 7" infamy will be executed on March 28, though he didn't commit the murder that landed him on death row. Murphy, along with 6 other prisoners (including Joseph Garcia, who was executed in December), achieved the biggest prison escape in Texas history in 2000 when they broke out of a maximum-security facility near San Antonio armed with stolen weapons. The men committed several robberies across Texas before hitting a sporting goods store outside of Dallas on Christmas Eve, an act which went awry, leading to the shooting death of Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins. Murphy, however, maintains he did not wish to participate in the robbery and instead waited outside in the car. He, Garcia, and four others were caught in Colorado soon thereafter (the 7th committed suicide), and each was sentenced to death for Hawkins' capital murder under the controversial Texas "law of parties," which allows accomplices to another felony – such as robbery – that results in murder to be held responsible for the slaying even if they had no part in the killing. As his death date nears, Murphy, who was originally serving a 50-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault, has asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute his sentence or offer a 90-day reprieve to await possible new "bipartisan and bicameral" legislation. Several bills have been filed this Lege session, including Sen. Juan Hinojosa's Senate Bill 929 and Rep. Jeff Leach's House Bill 4113, which would prohibit executions of those found guilty of capital murder under the law of parties (section 7.02(b) of the Penal Code). So the filing asks the BPP to "recognize that Murphy should not be executed when his conviction was obtained pursuant to a charge" that state lawmakers have "recognized cannot sustain a death sentence." If nothing else, the filing argues, Murphy's execution should be put on hold until the fate of the bills is known, so the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals could reconsider his case if the law is changed. Murphy's BPP filing also points out that while Texas law allows juries to sentence an accomplice of a lesser crime to death, under the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, a defendant "can only be" executed for the crime "if he was a major participant in the felony." But Murphy's trial jury was never asked to determine whether or not he played a major role in the robbery that resulted in Hawkins' murder. Hence, executing him without putting this question before a jury would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Killing Murphy, the filing argues, who "neither fired a shot at Officer Hawkins nor had any reason to know others would do so," would "simply be vengeance." In addition to his commutation plea, Murphy has asked the CCA to reconsider its April 2006 Denial of Relief, or otherwise allow him to file for a rehearing. Like his motion before the BPP, Murphy's CCA filing cites pending legislation and violation of his constitutional rights. However, here Murphy's counsel notes that the proposed legislation would not "provide relief for those" like Murphy, because the change in law would only apply to criminal proceedings that start on or after the effective date of Sept. 1, 2019. Instead, the motion insists, "The same concern that has led these legislators to propose the now-pending legislation is nonetheless present in Murphy's case." It's been a long legal fight for Murphy; his last round of appeals – largely arguing ineffective counsel – ended in denial at SCOTUS in November. Without intervention, he'll the 3rd man executed by the state this year and the 5th member of the "Texas 7" to be put to death, leaving only Randy Halprin alive. Though Halprin has not yet been given an execution date, he has also maintained he didn't fire any of the 5 guns that killed Hawkins. (source: Austin Chronicle) ** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present42 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982present-560 Abbott#scheduled execution date-nameTx. # 43-Mar. 28Patrick Murphy--561 44-Apr. 11Mark Robertson--562 45-Apr. 24John King---563 46-May 2--Dexter Johnson--564 47-Aug. 21Larry Swearingen565 48-Sept. 4Billy Crutsinger566 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) USAcountdown to nation's 1500th execution With the execution of Billie Wayne Coble in Texas on February 28, the USA has now executed 1,493 condemned indi
