[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 11 MALAYSIA: Scrap death penalty on drugs to start ball rolling, Amnesty tells Putrajaya Malaysia should abolish the mandatory death penalty for drug cases at the next Parliament sitting as a pledge to improve human rights here, Amnesty International (AI) said today after the government announced its plans to allow judges a choice in sentencing. AI Malaysia acting executive director Gwen Lee said many drug cases involve people from lower income groups and that it would be unfair if they had to pay with their lives for such crimes. She added that it would be a good first step towards abolishing the draconian punishment. She cited the case of one Hoo Yew Wah, a poor Johorean currently on death row for drug possession charges in 2005, as an example of such cases. "The situation is no different in Malaysia, where it is often those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds who end up paying the price of the death penalty. "The mandatory death penalty on drug is very important to be reviewed," Lee said in a press conference today. She also urged Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said to ensure the law gets tabled in Parliament this month. The minister in the Prime Minister's Department in charge of law previously said in August that the Cabinet agreed to amend the colonial-era Dangerous Drugs Act of 1952 to give courts a choice in sentencing. "We want total abolition, but we see this as a good step forward. We are hoping that it will be tabled and it is on the list of suggested amendments," Lee stressed. She said this would also help in Malaysia's bid to be reappointed into the United Nation's Human Rights Council. Capital punishment is mandatory in Malaysia for murder and drug trafficking, among other crimes. According to Azalina, a total of 651 Malaysians have been sentenced to death since 1992, most of them for drug offences. (source: The Malay Mail Online) ** Abolition of the mandatory death penalty: No more delays - Malaysian Bar-The World Day against the Death Penalty is commemorated on 10 October each year. In Malaysia, the death penalty is mandatory for persons convicted of murder, trafficking in narcotics of various amounts, and discharging a firearm in the commission of various crimes (even where no one is hurt). The Malaysian Bar has been, and remains, in the frontline of the battle to uphold and preserve the rule of law, fundamental constitutional rights, the administration of justice, and law and order. In this regard, we have consistently called for the abolition of the death penalty. The Malaysian Bar at its Annual or Extraordinary General Meetings in 1985, 2006, 2012 and 2015 passed resolutions condemning the death penalty and/or calling for its abolition. The campaign to abolish the death penalty is not meant to confer licence to commit serious crimes with impunity. Persons convicted of serious crimes must receive proportionate punishment. But this does not mean that they therefore ought to die. The Malaysian Bar has always taken the view that there is no empirical evidence or data that confirms that the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent to the commission of crimes. There has been no significant reduction in the incidence of crimes for which the death penalty is currently mandatory. This is particularly true of drug-related offences. In short, the death penalty does not work as a deterrent. The Malaysian Bar's primary opposition to the death penalty is because life is sacred, and every person has an inherent right to life. This is vouchsafed in Article 5(1) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, which eschews the arbitrary deprivation of life. The right to life is a fundamental right that must be absolute, inalienable and universal, irrespective of the crime committed by the accused person. Recently, Minister Dato' Sri Azalina Othman Said stated on 7 August 2017 that the Cabinet had approved the abolition of the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences. However, there has been no announcement of any timeline, or any release of draft legislation to this effect. The Malaysian Bar calls upon the Government of Malaysia to introduce the amending legislation without further delay. Any delay will mean more people being sentenced to die. The Malaysian Bar further calls upon the Government to act swiftly to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, stop executions, and commute each death sentence to one of imprisonment. (source: This statement is issued by George Varughese, president of the Malaysian Bar Council. This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Onlinethemalaymailonline.com) JAPAN: Death penalty sought for alleged 'black widow' serial killer Prosecutors on Tuesday sought the death penalty for a 70-year-old woman, dubbed the "black widow," charged with the m
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
Oct. 11 EGYPT: Egypt sentences 8 defendants to death over violence-related charges An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced 8 defendants to death over storming a police station in a city just south of Cairo in 2013. The ruling by the Cairo Criminal Court also sentenced 50 others to life in prison on charges that include the 2013 attack on the Helwan police station. The attack came after security forces dispersed two sit-ins by supporters of then president, Mohammed Morsi, who was overthrown by the military in 2013. The verdict can be appealed. Prosecutors have already received a non-binding approval for the death penalty in the case from the country's chief Islamic legal authority. (source: radio.gov.pk) RUSSIA: Europe may force Russia reinstate death penalty Russia will consider the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights null and void in the event the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe refuses to reinstate the Russian delegation in 2018, Valentina Matvienko, the Speaker of the Council of the Federation said. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe will be elected in 2018. There is awareness that without the participation of any delegation, in particular, the Russian one, the election of the head of this organization is not going to be completely legitimate. This applies to the elections of the judges of the ECHR too," Matvienko said on Monday on Rossiya 24 television channel. When asked whether the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are going to be considered illegitimate on the territory of the Russian Federation, Matvienko responded: "Naturally, of course." In this connection, Russia may reinstate the death penalty as a form of capital punishment for grave crimes. Will Russia make such a move? Russia was invited to the Council of Europe in 1996. The abolition of the death penalty was a mandatory condition for Russia to join the international European organization. In 1997, Russia signed Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms concerning the abolition of the death penalty (in peacetime). The protocol was not ratified, but Russia has not been practicing death penalty since 1996. Russia does not resort to capital punishment under the Vienna Convention, because a signatory state is supposed to follow the provisions of the protocol before it is ratified. Can Russia reinstate the death penalty and should we do it indeed? We talked about the problem in a brief interview with first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Franz Klintsevich. According to the senator, the Council of the Federation has recently had a heated discussion about a bill, according to which those convicted for terrorism should be provided with conditions to communicate with their relatives and friends. This is also part of Europe's requirements, Franz Klintsevich noted. "Members of the committee have expressed harsh reactions on the subject, but we have made a decision in accordance with requirements of the international law. We have also set up a conciliation commission to revise the document. As for the remarks by Speaker Valentina Matviyenko, I also believe that we should defend our interests more rigidly and look at things the way many people look, including the Americans. I am talking about the need to take into account the mentality of our own people, without being fixated on the things that they impose on us from the outside," the senator said. According to Klintsevich, for the time being, Russia is not going to abolish the moratorium on the death penalty, but one can talk about it today. "I am personally convinced that terrorists, pedophiles, serial killers and corrupt officials, in case of a court verdict, should face such a form of punishment as death penalty," said Klintsevich. (source: pravdareport.com) SERBIA: "2/3 of Serbians want death penalty reintroduced" Deputy Ombudsman Milos Jankovic says the fact that the number of Serbians who are in favor of reintroducing the death penalty is on the rise is worrying. According to Jankovic, who spoke on the occasion of October 10, World and European Day Against the Death Penalty, last year a little over 1/2 of those surveyed favored this, while now the number has reached over 2/3. He recalled that the last time the death penalty was carried out in Serbia was in February 1992, while the practice was formally abolished in 2002. Jankovic, who is the ombudsman's deputy for the rights of imprisoned persons, is convinced, however, that the death penalty will never be reintroduced in this country, and that Serbia will never again execute a human being. (source: b92.net) PAKISTAN: Intizar - an unequivocal call for abolition of death penalty With its final performance, 'Intizar', at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, the w
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., FLA., ALA., OHIO, OKLA., USA
Oct. 11 TEXASimpending execution Junk Science? Unreliable Witnesses? No Matter, Texas Plans to Execute Robert Pruett AnywayThere's no physical evidence linking him the crime, but he's scheduled to die on Thursday. Robert Pruett is scheduled to be executed in Texas on October 12, despite the fact that there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime he was convicted of. Pruett, who is 38-years-old, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of the 1999 murder of Daniel Nagle, a correctional officer at the McConnell Unit in Beeville, Texas. Pruett was already serving a 99-year sentence for being an accomplice to a murder his father committed. Pruett's execution date has been put off twice before, but there are few legal maneuvers remaining that could delay his death sentence ahead of October 12. Pruett, who has now spent more than 1/2 his life behind bars, led a rough life before he ended up on death row. As a child, his parents and other family members repeatedly abused him, physically and sexually. At the urging of his parents, he began using marijuana and cocaine in elementary school. The Pruett family lived in abject poverty, cycling between apartments that they would get quickly evicted from and sleeping outside. For food, they rummaged through dumpsters and bathed using water hoses outside of restaurants. In 1995, Pruett got into a verbal fight with his neighbor, Ray Yarbrough. When Pruett's father, Sam Pruett, returned home that evening, Yarbrough began screaming at the trailer the Pruetts were living in. Pruett, his older brother Steven, and his father went outside and the brothers watched as their father stabbed Yarbrough to death. Sam Pruett was sentenced to life. Steven Pruett received 40 years and Pruett was sentenced to 99 years - effectively a life sentence. He was just 15 years old. Texas' "Law of Parties" allowed anyone involved in a crime to be sentenced as if they committed the crime themselves. "In a lot of cases where there's no physical evidence that directly ties the defendant to the crime scene, [the prosecution] will find experts who fit their theory of the crime." In late 1999, 4 years into his prison sentence, Pruett was accused of stabbing Officer Nagle to death at the McConnell Unit, a medium-sized prison in a small town near Corpus Christi. The day of the murder, Nagle had written up Pruett in a disciplinary report because Pruett tried to eat his sack lunch in an area that wasn't authorized for eating. Nagle was discovered with a bloody shank and Pruett's torn up disciplinary report next to his body. While Pruett had a pending disciplinary case related to gambling, he did not have a history of violence. No witnesses immediately came forward and 2 years passed between the original indictment and the trial. "People's stories can change many, many times" in a long period of time, says Kristin Houle, the executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, about the witnesses who eventually came forward. "The State was not able to discover any physical evidence that connected Robert to Officer Nagle's murder," Pruett's lawyers wrote in his petition for clemency in September. "Such evidence simply does not exist." At trial, the state claimed that Pruett's cellmate, who worked in the prison???s craft shop, gave Pruett tape that he used to wrap around the handle of the shank. The state relied on the testimony of Lisa Baylor, a forensic analyst who testified, using a now-debunked scientific method called "physical matching,??? that the tape came from the craft shop. "In a lot of cases where there's no physical evidence that directly ties the defendant to the crime scene, [the prosecution] will find experts who fit their theory of the crime," Houle says. And although the expert testified that the tape is a match, there's nothing to match Pruett to the tape. "No fingerprint and no cells," said Houle. In the clemency petition, Pruett's lawyers write that DNA testing of the murder weapon in 2015 found DNA that didn't match either Pruett or the victim. Perhaps, Pruett???s lawyers write, it might belong "to the person that killed Nagle." The state has not yet responded to Pruett's petition. Typically, the parole board responds within a few days of the execution. The prosecution in Pruett case's relied heavily on testimony from the defendant???s fellow inmates. But, unbeknownst to the defense and the jury, the state had made promises to inmates who testified against Pruett. According to the clemency petition, which contains the state investigator's notes, one of the state???s key witnesses, Harold Mitchell, was told that if he testified against Pruett he???d be transferred to a prison in Virginia, where his family lived. And if he didn't testify, Mitchell would be charged with Nagle's murder. Mitchell later told his brother that he felt guilty for testifying against Prue
