[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., N.C., MO., ARIZ., COLO.
March 17 TEXAS: History Lessons: The 'Thin Blue Line' This week (March 21) in 1989 Randall Adams walked out of prison after serving 12 years of a life sentence for a murder he did not commit. In 1977, Adams, a 28-year-old drifter, was hitchhiking in Dallas when he was picked up by David Harris, a 16-year-old driving a stolen car. According to Harris's later testimony, Adams fatally shot police officer Robert Wood after Wood and his partner, Teresa Turko, stopped the car Adams and Harris were riding in. They then sped off before Turko could identify the shooter. Adams vehemently protested his innocence, admitting he had spent time with Harris but insisting he had been in his motel when the shooting occurred. And in fact, Harris was the one initially picked up for questioning after police learned he had bragged to friends that he offed a pig in Dallas. Facing a murder charge he fingered Adams. Although the evidence suggested that Harris, not Adams, was the killer, Harris was a juvenile, making him ineligible for the death penalty, the usual punishment for murdering a police officer, and the Dallas district attorney was under intense pressure to get retribution. As a result, Adams was put on trial for murder despite inconsistent testimony from Turko, but the prosecution's case was bolstered by eyewitnesses Robert and Emily Miller, who identified Adams as the killer even though Emily Miller had earlier told police the killer was either Mexican or a light-skinned African-American, which described Harris. When the defense learned of this and tried to recall Miller, the prosecutor falsely claimed she had disappeared. Adams was found guilty but under Texas law he could only be sentenced to death if the jury believed he was psychologically capable of killing again. Here, Adams' story takes a bizarre turn. When the prosecution called a psychiatrist, Dr. James Grigson, to testify that Adams would kill again, it brought Adams to the attention of filmmaker Errol Morris, who was filming a documentary about Dr. Grigson, whose history of convincing juries to vote the death penalty had earned him the nickname Dr. Death. Morris became convinced that Adams was innocent and changed his documentary's focus from Grigson to Adams. The result was the award-winning film The Thin Blue Line, so called because during Adams' trial the prosecutor said the police represent a thin blue line between society and anarchy. Morris' film proved that a thin blue line also existed between the truth and lies, as perjury by prosecution witnesses and malfeasance by the prosecutors came to light. One year after the film's release, Adams — whose death sentence had been commuted to life — was also released. He subsequently became an anti-death penalty activist before dying of a brain tumor in 2010. (source: Appeal-Democrat) DELAWARE: Delaware Police Chiefs Council says capital punishment is meted out objectively Editor’s note: The following letter, signed by Lewes Police Chief Jeffrey Horvath, was sent to the Delaware General Assembly by the Delaware Police Chiefs’ Council. The following paper represents the position of the police chiefs throughout Delaware. The intent is to provide an objective and fact-based viewpoint that is opposed to the repeal of capital punishment. In summary, the Delaware Police Chiefs Council would urge the honorable members of this General Assembly to consider the following key points that are detailed within the report: • The Delaware constituents have throughout history expressed their opinion that the sentence of death is the appropriate punishment for murder of an aggravated nature. To supplant the opinion of the people as to what is right and just will result in further undermining the integrity of the criminal justice system as a whole. • The U.S. Supreme Court agrees that the death penalty for an abhorrent crime such as murder is not cruel and unusual and that it is up to the people to make that determination. To say otherwise, is to in effect say that the life of the victim is worth less than that of the murderer. •The primary goals of capital punishment are incapacitation and retribution, not deterrence. For some, the threat of consequences, even death, is not enough to prevent the commission of crime. It is for this very reason that the most severe of penalties is necessary. Capital punishment is the only method with which to guarantee the public’s safety from the offender in whom death creates no fear. Furthermore, to punish an atrocious murder with anything less than death instills in the public a lack of confidence that the criminal justice system can effectively protect their safety or is willing to enforce their sense of moral right and wrong. Delaware is not discriminatory in the application of its death penalty. Murder is not committed by a proportionate representation of all of the races, genders,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, MD., FLA., OKLA., COLO., ORE.
March 17 USA: How the media is killing the death penalty When Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) signs a bill abolishing the death penalty, the state will be just the latest to wipe capital punishment off its books; since 2007, 17 other states and the District of Columbia have outlawed it and legislators in Delaware last week announced a bill to do the same. Many of the states that have abolished capital punishment – including the recent cases of Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and New Jersey – are, not surprisingly, among the country’s most liberal. But the erosion of public support for the death penalty has occurred across the nation, in large part because Americans are conflicted. Many believe capital punishment is justified, but they worry that innocent people might be executed. And as the political debate has in the last two decades focused on wrongful convictions and death row exonerations, Americans have increasingly come to evaluate the death penalty in terms of its potential unfairness. Although a large majority of Americans – 63 % in a December USA Today/Gallup poll – say they favor capital punishment, many nonetheless harbor misgivings. For instance, in a 2001 Washington Post-ABC News survey, 72 % of Americans agreed with the statement that “the death penalty is fair because it prevents killers from killing again.” Likewise, 60 % said the punishment was fair “because it gives satisfaction and closure to the families of murder victims.” But many respondents simultaneously said capital punishment was not just. Asked whether they agreed that “the death penalty is unfair because it’s applied differently from county to county and state to state,” 63 % said yes. And 68 % concurred that it is unfair “because sometimes an innocent person is executed.” Marylanders, too, appear ambivalent. In a Washington Post poll of Maryland residents last month, 54 percent said they supported the death penalty. But 61 % said they believed it doesn’t reduce crime, and just 43 % said they believed it was applied fairly. Nearly 1/3 said capital punishment has been applied unfairly, and 1/4 said they didn’t know. Such ambivalence is not unique to the death penalty. Work by political scientists has shown that people often possess multiple, and competing, attitudes about lots of public policy issues. After 9/11, for example, Americans expressed discomfort with law enforcement activities that seemed to infringe on civil liberties, but many also believed that such activities were justified to protect the nation from terrorism. But precisely because ambivalence makes people more susceptible to changing their minds, the reframing of the death penalty debate has significantly reduced support for capital punishment. In “The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence,” political scientists Frank Baumgartner, Suzanna DeBoef and Amber Boydstun found that since the mid-1990s, news coverage of the death penalty has increasingly focused on exonerations and wrongful executions. In earlier eras, the debate in the media was more frequently about other issues, such as capital punishment’s constitutionality or cost. This shift in media coverage, which has highlighted problems in the death penalty’s application, has encouraged the public to evaluate capital punishment in terms of fairness, especially the potential for innocent people to be sent to death row. As a consequence, Baumgartner, DeBoef and Boydstun find that along with a decline in the U.S. murder rate and other high-profile events (such as former Illinois governor George Ryan’s (R) 2001 mass commutation of death row inmates), negative news drove down support for capital punishment. How much did public opinion move? By one measure, 86 percent of Americans in 1995 said they favored the death penalty for people convicted of murder. But by 2006, just 70 percent did. These developments have not, of course, erased many Americans’ view that the death penalty may be justified. A May 2012 Gallup survey showed that 58 percent believed capital punishment is “morally acceptable.” But as the “innocence frame” has come to dominate the debate, Americans belief in the morality of the death penalty has come to matter less, and the system’s capacity to make an irreversible mistake has come to matter more. (source: Washington Post) MARYLAND: Death penalty opponents: Repeal ends risk of fatal errors By making Maryland the 18th state to repeal the death penalty, state lawmakers hope to avoid a story like Cameron Todd Willingham’s. Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004, in Texas. After the 35-year-old’s three children died in a fire at his house in 1991, he was accused of arson and convicted for the deaths. But serious doubts were raised about the scientific proof the house had been burned down deliberately. Before his execution, Willingham said he was innocent. A year after he
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
March 17 INDIA: UK MPs call for the death penalty to be abolished in India John McDonnell MP and Fabian Hamilton MP the co-sponsors of the debate in the UK Parliament on 28 February in their speeches provided background to the death penalty in India and how India had ended its unofficial eight year moratorium on 21 November 2012. John McDonnell admitted: ‘The eight-year moratorium lulled us into a false sense of security. Naively, many of us thought that although India retained the death penalty on the statute book the continuation of the moratorium was an indication that it would eventually be abolished once and for all. Unfortunately, that was a naive judgment.’ - John McDonnell MP (Lab) – Hayes and Harlington Fabian Hamilton MP (Lab) – Leeds North East Fabian Hamilton stated: ‘Pranab Mukherjee, India’s President, has now ordered the death penalty for seven convicts in the past seven months, which is more than any other Indian President in the past 15 years. India is currently reporting one death penalty sentence every third day, according to The Times of India this month.’ ‘Human rights activists in India are worried that this precedent could affect the 500 or so people now on death row in India, including political prisoners such as Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar and Balwant Singh Rajoana. As of 11 February 2013, 476 convicts were on death row in India.’ - Fabian Hamilton MP (Lab) – Leeds North East Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar: As expected the case that received the most attention during the debate was that of Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar. The person that spoke with the greatest passion, especially about the Professor was Fabian Hamilton. Using the Sikh Federation (UK) briefing he gave a detailed account of the Professor’s case and said: ‘his case is a real cause célèbre; he has been tortured and treated inhumanely in prison.’ He set out why he had to flee India for Germany in December 1994 and how he was deported in January 1995. The fact the Indian authorities gave specific assurances to the German authorities that Professor Bhullar had nothing to fear if he was returned to India and that he would not be tortured. Fabian Hamilton stated: ‘By deporting someone to a death penalty-prone country, Germany violated the European convention on human rights and remains morally obliged to do all it can now to seek the professor’s immediate release.’ He continued: ‘Professor Bhullar was examined by a police-assigned medical doctor. Although the professor is a highly educated man, his medical examination document is co-signed by him with a thumbprint. We know that the case against Professor Bhullar is highly dubious; it is based on information that has not been properly corroborated, with the prosecution having offered no corroboration at all. None of its 133 witnesses identified Professor Bhullar. Many witnesses actually claimed he was not the man they had seen. One prosecution witness, a rickshaw worker in Delhi, informed the court that he had no knowledge of the case but had been threatened and forced by the police to provide a false statement. Almost every legal system in the world is based on the idea of proof beyond reasonable doubt and respects procedures in order to obtain safe evidence. The Supreme Court of India seems to have departed from those things in the most important of all cases—that of the death penalty—thus setting an unfortunate new precedent for Indian law.’ Balwant Singh Rajoana The other prominent case that received numerous mentions in the debate was that of Balwant Singh Rajoana. John McDonnell pointed out his case has immense significance around the world and is important for its historical context as it symbolises the suffering of the Sikhs at the hands of the former Chief Minister Beant Singh in that period. John McDonnell stated: ‘We now know that Beant Singh personally commanded the police and security forces in the killing and disappearance of possibly more than 20,000 Sikhs—men, women and children. Faced with the failure of the Indian authorities to take action against the former Chief Minister for his crimes against humanity, Balwant Singh . . . took the law into . . . (his) own hands.’ In the debate MPs one after the other called for India to abolish the death penalty, including Hugo Swire MP, the Minister representing the Government. Some of the statements made are reproduced below: ‘Let me state clearly from the outset that the Government strongly supports the worldwide abolition of the death penalty. We believe that the death penalty undermines human dignity, that there is no conclusive evidence of its deterrent value, and that any miscarriage of justice leading to its imposition is both irreversible and irreparable.’ Hugo Swire MP, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘It remains the British Government’s long-standing policy to oppose the death
