[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., OHIO, TENN., ARK., MO., OKLA., COLO., CALIF.
November 28 TEXAS: Texas is Trying to Execute a Man for a Murder He Didn't CommitThe Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a recommendation to relieve him of execution. Can a state sentence someone to death for a murder that they didn't commit? According to Texas, the answer is "yes." In 1996, 22-year-old Jeff Woods was involved in the robbery of a convenience store, which resulted in the death of Kris Keeran, the store clerk. Woods was outside in the getaway vehicle when his co-conspirator, Danny Reneau, fatally shot Keeran. Though Woods did not kill the clerk, both he and Reneau were sentenced to death. Reneau was executed in 2002. Now, 22 years later, Woods' lawyers are fighting to get him off of death row. Last Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a trial court's recommendation to relieve Woods, who is now 45, of execution. The court argued that Woods posed a future threat because of a previous robbery with Reneau. This assessment was based in part on a 1998 testimony from psychiatrist Dr. James P. Grigson, who carries the nickname "Dr. Death." Grigson's influence in the case has been controversial. His method for determining an inmate's likelihood to reoffend was questioned by Woods' lawyers as they argued that Grigson almost always concluded that defendants would be future dangers. A 2004 article, which looked closely at Grigson's career, states that he often did not even meet with the defendants he recommended for death. Grigson was eventually expelled from both the American Psychiatric Association and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians for his predictability methods, which the boards deemed unscientific. Now that the appeals court has made its decision, it will now set an execution date for Woods. But there is still hope. A request for commutation can now be filed on his behalf. Lucy Hale, the prosecutor in Wood's initial trial, sent a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole in August 2017 asking Gov. Greg Abbott to reduce Woods' sentence to life in prison. Hale noted in her letter that she was unaware of Grigson's history. Had she been made aware, she would have decided against asking him to testify. As previously explained by Reason in 2016, Texas' "law of parties" is to blame for Woods' placement on death row. Though he was not directly responsible for the taking of Keeran's life, Texas law demands that a person who has aided someone else while they commit a capital murder is similarly eligible for the death penalty. Bonus link: Texas is not the only state with overzealous sentencing demands. An Illinois mother is currently dealing with the consequences of being on the sex offender registry despite not being a sex offender. (source: reason.com) VIRGINIA: Appeals court orders new hearing for Va. death row inmateMark Lawlor admitted raping, killing Genevieve Orange in 2008, but court says expert testimony was wrongly limited A Fairfax County, Va., man sentenced to death for raping and killing a woman in 2008 should receive a new hearing because a Fairfax judge wrongly limited the testimony of a defense witness at sentencing, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. But it was not clear if his capital punishment was overturned. Mark E. Lawlor, now 53, is 1 of only 3 people on Virginia's death row. He used a frying pan and a hammer to bludgeon 29-year-old Genevieve Orange to death in September 2008, in the Falls Church, Va.-area apartment building where he was a property manager. Lawlor then sexually assaulted the unconscious woman, prosecutors said. He had previously served prison time for abducting an ex-girlfriend, and was working as a property manager as part of a rehabilitation program. Lawlor did not contest his guilt at trial in February 2011, but claimed he was so drunk and high that he did not have the willful intent necessary to be convicted of capital murder. A Fairfax jury disagreed. At sentencing, Fairfax prosecutors argued both that Lawlor's crime was so vile that it merited the death penalty, and that he posed such a future danger to society that he also deserved the death penalty. Though the jury had to find only 1 of the "aggravating factors" in the case, it found both, and Fairfax Circuit Court Jonathan C. Thacher imposed the jury's death penalty in June 2011. But defense lawyers argued that Thacher had wrongly prohibited one of their experts from testifying about Lawlor’s future dangerousness in prison. Defense attorneys in death penalty cases present mitigating evidence to convince a jury that a life sentence is more appropriate than death. Thacher ruled that the expert must testify about Lawlor's potential dangerousness in all of society, not merely prison, and limited his testimony. The Virginia Supreme Court and a federal district court both ruled that Thacher's rulings were correct. On Tuesday, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of App
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
November 28 IRAN: 5 wildlife conservationists held by Iran could face the death penalty Up to 6 conservation researchers accused of spying by the Iranian government could face the death penalty if convicted, according to multiple media reports. Conservationists Niloufar Bayani, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani and Morad Tahbaz work with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation on the conservation of different wildlife species in Iran, which includes monitoring animals such as Asiatic cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) with camera traps. The country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports to the country's supreme leader, alleges that the team used camera traps to collect information on Iran's missile program, Science magazine reported Oct. 30. The 8 environmentalists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation currently being held in Iran on charges related to espionage. The 5 are among a group of 8 - which also includes Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh and Sam Rajabi from the same organization - being held in custody, according to The Guardian newspaper and other media reports. A sociologist and manager of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, Kavous Seyed Emami, who was arrested in early 2018, died under suspicious circumstances in February while in custody, observers said according to a report in The New York Times. "This is a very bizarre charge to bring against environmental activists," Tara Sepehri Far, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Science. After months of confinement, 5 of the 8 conservationists were charged with the crime of "sowing corruption on Earth" in early October, The Guardian wrote. (Science reported that only 4 of them - Bayani, Ghadirian, Jowkar and Tahbaz - were charged with the capital offense.) "9 months of pre-trial detention with no clear charges and no access to a lawyer is an unusually long time even by Iran's dismal due process standards. It's hard not to conclude that the authorities are struggling to gather enough evidence to charge them with any recognizable crime," Sepehri Far wrote in a post for the Atlantic Council, a think tank, before the revelation of the charges. The Asiatic cheetah, likely numbering fewer than 50 individuals, is found only in Iran. Image by Tasnim News Agency via Wikimedia Commons (CC 4.0). She said an investigation at the behest of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani did not find that the accused environmentalists were spies, which put them at the center of a "domestic power struggle" with hard-liners in the judiciary and the Revolutionary Guard. If convicted, the environmentalists could face sentences ranging from six months up to the death penalty. "It is hard to fathom how working to preserve the Iranian flora and fauna can possibly be linked to conducting espionage against Iranian interests," a group of experts calling on the Iranian government to have the charges dropped said in a statement from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Jon Paul Rodríguez, a biologist at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and chair of IUCN Species Survival Commission, highlighted the value of the work that the researchers had been doing. "As far as I am aware, practically the only information we have on the Asiatic cheetah comes from camera traps," he said. Asiatic cheetahs likely number fewer than 50 individuals, based on a 2017 study co-authored by Jowkar, 1 of the people charged in this case, and the IUCN has considered the subspecies critically endangered since 1996. Because cheetahs live at low densities, the traps represent a much more efficient and economical tool to get an accurate picture of their population. In Botswana in southern Africa, scientists have used camera traps to demonstrate to ranchers that a cheetah on their property isn’t as dangerous to their livestock as they might think. An Asiatic cheetah in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge in Iran. Image by Behnam Ghorbani via Wikimedia Commons (CC 4.0). The detentions and the charges leveled have rattled the international scientific community. "IUCN is deeply alarmed by the charges," Rodríguez said. First reported by Science, hundreds of scientists have signed a letter asking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to ensure a fair and "transparent" trial for the 8 researchers. CITATION Khalatbari, L., Jowkar, H., Yusefi, G. H., Brito, J. C., and Ostrowski, S. (2017). The current status of Asiatic cheetah in Iran. Cat News, 66, 10-13. (source: mongabay.com) MALDIVES: Maldives pledges to uphold moratorium on death penaltyThe moratorium was lifted by former president Abdulla Yameen in 2014. A 65-year moratorium on the death penalty will be maintained by the new administration of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the foreign ministry announced Tuesday. It also announced that the Maldi
