[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
August 7 IRANexecutions 5 Prisoners Executed at 1 Prison in 1 Day3 of them were identified by IHR sources as Mohammadreza Shokri, Yousef Zakeri and Hossein Panjeh-Maryam. 5 prisoners were hanged for murder charges at the Iranian city of Karaj’s Rajai-Shahr prison Wednesday. According to IHR sources, on the morning of Wednesday, August 7, at least 5 prisoners were hanged at Karaj city’s Rajai-Shahr prison, near Tehran. All were sentenced to death for murder charges. 3 of them were identified by IHR sources as Mohammadreza Shokri, Yousef Zakeri and Hossein Panjeh-Maryam. None of the above-mentioned execution has been announced by Iranian media or officials so far. At least 110 people were executed in Iran in the 1st half of 2019; Only 37 of the executions have been announced by authorities or Iranian media. Iran Human Rights (IHR) could confirm 73 more through its sources. IHR only reports the unannounced executions if it could confirm those with 2 separate credible sources. Therefore, the actual number of executions may be even higher than reported. There is a lack of a classification of murder by degree in Iran which results in issuing a death sentence for any kind of murder regardless of intensity and intent. (source: Iran Human Rights) SRI LANKA: Petition filed on legality of Bandulal’s motion on death penalty A petition has been filed at the Supreme Court seeking a ruling that the Private Member’s Bill presented to the parliament by MP Bandulal Banadarigoda on the abolishment of the death penalty is not unconstitutional. The Attorney General has been named the respondent of this petition file by Prof. C. Gunaratne from Nugegoda. On August 01, MP Bandulal Bandarigoda tabled a Private Member’s Motion at the parliament containing provisions to abolish the death penalty. The petitioner pointed out that no clause in the proposal would violate the Constitution of Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the petitioner has requested the Supreme Court to grant a ruling that the motion could be passed by an ordinary majority in Parliament. (soure: Adaderana.lk) PHILIPPINES: British accountant, 47, faces death penalty in the Philippines ‘after being caught with meth' A British accountant is facing the death penalty in the Philippines after allegedly being caught with meth in a drugs raid. Philip Joseph, 47, was in a flat with two locals when police burst through the door in Manila on May 13 at around 5pm. Officers said they found Joseph with a woman, Josephine Olayao, 38, and Rodolfo del Rosario, 42, a tuk tuk rider, preparing sachets of methamphetamine, or shabu, as it is known locally. Police said that Joseph, who owns the apartment, has been held in custody while prosecutors prepare a case against him. He faces charges of possession and dealing, which carries a maximum punishment of the death sentence or a life sentence in one of the country‘s hellish overcrowded prisons. A police report from the Malate district station said four pieces of heat-sealed transparent sachets containing suspected methamphetamine were seized in the raid. It said: ‘Police identified the suspects as being involved in anti-criminality operations and found four sachets of shabu. ? ‘The 3 suspected were brought to the Malate police station for proper disposition and filing of charges. ‘They will be charged with the violation of Section 5 and section 11 Art. II of R.A. 9165 or the illegal Distribution and Possession of Dangerous Drugs.‘ If found guilty of possession, Joseph faces a minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum life term. Joseph had moved to the Philippines and was working in the financial sector as an accountant and legal collections manager. (source: eastoncaller.com) SINGAPORE: Singapore’s execution of drug offenders tripled in 5 years --Total number of executions from 2014 to 2019 is 32. --Executions for drug offence stand at 84 percent of the total executions till date since 2014. --A noticeable spike in execution numbers for drug offence occurred in 2017 and 2018. The number of executions (for drug offences) in the past 5 years (2014-2018) represented a 3-fold jump from the previous 5 year period (2007-2011) before the laws on mandatory death penalty for both drug and murder offences were reviewed in 2012-2013. In terms of total executions, the 2014-2019 period exhibits 1.8 times more executions compared to the 2007-2011 period. It is tragic that Singapore’s amended legislative framework for drug trafficking offences has elicited an increase in the number death sentences carried out. The majority, if not all, of those executed on drug offences since 2014 were due to the failure of the Attorney General Chambers (AGC) to issue a "certificate of cooperation". Without this certificate, an accused still faces the mandatory death sentence. Otherwise the judge could exercise the option
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., IND., ARIZ.
August 7 NORTH CAROLINA: Appeals Court Clears Path for Death-Row Exonerees’ Lawsuit Against North Carolina Police Officers to Go to Trial A federal appeals court has cleared the way for a civil lawsuit by two North Carolina death-row exonerees to advance to trial, rejecting a claim that police officers who allegedly violated their constitutional rights were immune from liability. On July 31, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a trial court ruling allowing Henry McCollum and Leon Brown to sue North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) agents Leroy Allen and Kenneth Snead and Robeson County detectives Joel Garth Locklear and Kenneth Sealey for false arrest, malicious prosecution, deprivation of due process, and municipal liability. McCollum and Brown, who are half-brothers, were just 19 and 15, respectively, when they were arrested for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie. Both men are intellectually disabled, which made them particularly vulnerable to coercion and manipulation by police. In the suit—which was filed on their behalf in 2015, one year after they were exonerated and released from prison—they allege that the officers "coerced and fabricated [their] confessions, and then, to cover up this wrongdoing, - withheld in bad faith exculpatory evidence that demonstrated [McCollum and Brown’s] innocence and buried pieces of specific evidence indicating that' another suspect, Roscoe Artis, had committed the crime. The case has not yet been heard by a jury because of the officers’ appeal. Shortly after McCollum and Brown instituted suit, the officers filed a motion to dismiss it on the basis of qualified immunity, a principle that "protects government officials from liability for violations of constitutional rights so long as they could reasonably believe that their conduct did not violate clearly established law." The district court rejected that argument, holding that, if the facts alleged in their lawsuit were true, the exonerees would be entitled to recover damages from the law-enforcement defendants. The Fourth Circuit agreed, saying "It was beyond debate at the time of the events in this case that [McCollum’s and Brown’s] constitutional rights not to be imprisoned and convicted based on coerced, falsified, and fabricated evidence or confessions, or to have material exculpatory evidence suppressed, were clearly established." The exonerees, the appeals court said were entitled to a chance to prove any "disputed facts" at trial. The suit claims that the officers coerced the two men into falsely confessing. McCollum says that the officers told him if he signed a form, they would let him go home. The form was, in fact, a form waiving McCollum’s Miranda rights. As described by the appeals court, the officers interrogating McCollum allegedly "got into his face, hollered at him, - threatened him," called him racial epithets, and told him they would send him to the gas chamber if he didn’t confess. "McCollum further alleged that the officers told him to sign a paper that said if he could help them in the case as a witness, they would let him go home. McCollum signed the paper - which was actually the confession written out by Snead - but he did not read it and it was not read to him." Brown provided a similar account of his interrogation and coerced confession. Describing Brown’s testimony at trial, the circuit court recounted that "Detective Locklear did not advise him of his rights, that Brown asked for his mother when an officer grabbed Brown’s arm, and that Brown (like McCollum) was told he would be taken to the gas chamber if he did not sign the rights waiver. Then, Brown testified that when the officers gave him a piece of paper, he circled ‘no’ on it. According to Brown, that ‘no’ was supposed to indicate that he could not help the officers." Instead, it indicated that he waived his rights. Of the confession that he signed, Brown said, “Detective Locklear drafted it and told Brown to sign it, which Brown did after an officer told him doing so would ensure his release. Locklear then read the confession to Brown, and Brown told the officers that it was not true. Like his brother, Brown was then placed under arrest.” The officers dispute this account of the interrogations and confessions. Brown and McCollum also allege that police violated their rights because they "failed to investigate and withheld exculpatory evidence regarding (1) the similarities between the rape and murder of Buie and Artis’s rape and murder of Brockhart; (2) a statement by a potential eyewitness, Mary McLean Richards, that she saw Artis attacking Buie; and (3) the alleged coerced testimony of Brown and McCollum’s friend L.P. Sinclair." They say that Artis was a suspect before Brown and McCollum were tried. "[O]n October 5, 1984, three days before [Brown and McCollum’s] first trial, investigators
