June 2012
4 posts
Courts more cautious on death case
Percentage of overturned verdicts falls ’as review policy is working’
The percentage of death sentences being overturned by the Supreme People’s Court hasfallen sharply since 2007, due to tighter court procedures, Hu Yunteng, the top court’s directorof research, said.
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Latent Effects of Capital Punishment
The final chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Sentencing and Corrections answered a question that has perplexed me since I started serving my prison term 25 years ago. I used to wonder about my judge’s rationale when he imposed a term that would keep me confined for decades despite my not having had a history of violence or previous incarceration. Until I read “The Dark at the Top of the...
Prison too good for some, but execution bad for us
Let’s agree killing people is wrong.
Surely everyone can get together on that.
After all, it is murder that provokes those Old Testament cries for a return to the death penalty every time a new and heinous crime is uncovered.
In the wake of a fatal shooting at Toronto’s Eaton Centre and the arrest of accused “body parts” killer Luka Magnotta, a Toronto city councillor is...
The Case of Carlos DeLuna
A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, “a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”
Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear...
May 2012
1 post
February 2012
13 posts
India
Jan. 28
INDIA:
1st death penalty in a drug crime case
In the 1st ever case of capital punishment in a drug crime, a special
Narcotics
court in Chandigarh has awarded death penalty to a person while sentencing
an
African national to 15-years of Rigorous Imprisonment (RI).
The court of Special Judge (Narcotic Drugs and Physchotropic Substances Act)
Shalini Singh Nagpal awarded death...
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YEMEN: Demonstrators demand to execute Yemeni...
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in Sanaa, demanding the execution of Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh and protesting against the law granting him immunity. The Yemeni Parliament on Saturday granted to Saleh “total immunity against any legal or judicial action.” It also endorsed the candidacy of Vice President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi in the presidential election,...
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TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: 'Govt working to implement...
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says Government will work to implement the death penalty as part of a serious crime reduction tool.
Persad-Bissessar was delivering an address yesterday at the Ministry of National Security Planning Workshop organised by the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) yesterday at the Hyatt Regency (Trinidad) hotel, Port of Spain.
With 30 murders in the...
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Algeria demands death sentence for top Qaeda boss
Algerian prosecutors on Sunday requested the death sentence for Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top leader in Al-Qaeda’s north African branch, and another person in a trial on the deaths of 2 Algerian soldiers.
Belmokhtar and nine co-defendants, of whom 4 are also on the run, are accused of perpetrating several “terrorist acts” including a May 2010 attack on soldiers in the southern...
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Iran to execute programmer
Imagine you are a furniture retailer and one of your customers bought furniture from your shop for a brothel, unfortunately, police raid that brothel and they find the furniture used in there came from your shop. With that, you face charges of associating with prostitution and you’re sentenced to death.
Iran’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal and upheld the death sentence for a web...
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IRAN
Iranian authorities in 2011 carried out more than 600 executions and imprisoned more journalists and bloggers than any other country, Human Rights Watch said today in issuing its World Report 2012 Iran chapter. Iran’s judiciary works hand-in-hand with security and intelligence forces to harass, imprison and convict opposition and rights activists, despite increasing international condemnation of...
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Iran using death penalty more and more, says HRW
Death penalty still persists in a number of countries worldwide.
CAIRO: Iran used the death penalty in an alarmingly increasing manner last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in Cairo while launching their global rights report.
The New York-based organization reported that the country had the highest execution rate for minors.
Iran executed at least three children in 2011, one of them in...
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EU condemns death sentencing in Gaza
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The EU on Thursday urged the Gaza government not to carry out capital punishment after the Hamas-led administration sentenced two men to death in January. In a statement, EU missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemned the death sentence handed down on Jan. 11 by a military court in Gaza. The court sentenced a 48-year-old man to death on charges of collaboration...
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USA- Forgiveness key in group’s fight against...
JACKSONVILLE — There are some images that Bill Pelke can’t erase from his memory. For years the picture in his head that haunted him was of his beloved “Nana,” Ruth Elizabeth Pelke, a woman who taught Bible classes to local children in her hometown of Gary, Ind. In 1985 she was stabbed 33 times by a group of local teenagers who stole 10 dollars from the 78-year-old woman and let her bleed...
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USA- Artist raises awareness about capital...
The death penalty has always been a hot topic issue in the United States. There are currently 34 states with the death penalty, with Nebraska being one of them. One artist who doesn’t believe in the death penalty is taking a stand to try and abolish capital punishment entirely.
Julie Green is an associate professor who teaches painting, drawing and contemporary issues in art at Oregon State...
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India- State moves HC for death penalty to one of...
The Delhi high court on Friday issued notice to Sukhdev Pehalawan, the third person sentenced to life term in the Nitish Katara murder case, on a state’s plea seeking death penalty for him. A bench of justices Gita Mittal and J R Midha sought Pehalwan’s response by February 1 on a petition by special public prosecutor Dayan Krishnan seeking capital punishment for him in the case.
...
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China- Woman's death sentence rouses public debate
Verdict could affect private lending market
SHANGHAI - The death sentence given an ex-millionaire businesswoman found guilty of fraudulent fundraising has provoked widespread discussions on capital punishment for illegal fundraising, as well as on private lending.
Wu Ying, 31, the former owner of Zhejiang-based Bense Holding Group, lost her appeal to the Zhejiang Provincial High People’s...
NOTICE
Catching up on some older news, see the date of the articles! Some may require more recent research.
January 2012
30 posts
“The system is not perfect. Until it’s perfect, let’s do away with the death...”
– Kinky Friedman (via socialistexan)
Rick Perry Just Executed a Man for Another Man’s... →
thinknoevil0:
Rick Perry just executed a man for two murders that the state of Texas admits were committed by somebody else. Steven Michael Woods did not kill anybody and was not even in the building where the murders occurred, but because he was in the car outside the building, the state of Texas convicted him of murder.
Don’t take my word for it. Google the name Steven Michael Woods. ...
Death Penalty.
gordonabishop:
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I was pretty sure that the 8th Amendment prohibited cruel and unusual punishment. Defining capital punishment as anything but cruel and unusual is, in my opinion, absolutely ridiculous. So then, why exactly is it that the death penalty continues to be a legal form of discipline?
“She said that was too bad because she would be glad to go to Hell if only she...”
– God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut (p. 70)
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Children on death row
QUETTA: Child offenders in Pakistan may, under the law, be sentenced to corporal punishment, life imprisonment and the death penalty. Law reform has gone some way to prohibiting corporal and capital punishment for child offenders, but the law is complex and unclear and these sentences remain lawful in certain circumstances.
The Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO) states in section 12:...
Death Penalty Cases Rife With Evidence Flaws
The deputy chief of China’s highest court has criticised inconsistent adherence to evidence standards in the country’s death penalty cases, whose annual number is a state secret. From the South China Morning Post:
Supreme People’s Court Vice-President Zhang Jun, speaking at a conference organised by the China Law Society, said the court had found the quality of capital punishment cases to be...
Lady Justice Rolls the Dice: the Death Penalty is...
The death penalty is supposed to be for the worst of the worst. The system of capital punishment in the United States has always assumed it was so, from its beginnings. Not all crimes may be punished with death, and not all trials for death-eligible crimes result in a death sentence. Therefore, the law must be set up to make rational distinctions, in order to guide prosecutors and juries to winnow...
NAACP tells Ga. lawmakers to end capital...
ATLANTA — The Georgia chapter of the NAACP is asking state lawmakers to end capital punishment.
NAACP state president Edward Dubose said at a rally Monday that execution is murder. State Sen. Vincent Fort has said he will file legislation to end capital punishment.
NAACP state president Edward Dubose said at a rally Monday that execution is murder.
Dubose cited the case of Troy Davis, who was...
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Mongolia takes ‘vital step forward’ in abolishing...
The Mongolian parliament’s approval of a bill which aims to scrap the death penalty is a vital step towards full abolition of the death penalty in Mongolia, Amnesty International said today.
The bill, which ratifies the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) was approved today by a very large majority of MPs.
“The Mongolian parliament’s vote...
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The United Nations tells the Kingdom of Saudi... →
Why the Death Penalty Is Slowly Dying
California is having problems with its death penalty. It hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, when a federal court ruled that its method of lethal injection was improper and could cause excessive pain. The state spent five years coming up with a better method — and last month, a judge threw that one out too. One indication of just how bogged down California’s capital-punishment system is: the inmate...
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Death penalty is not the answer
OPINION: New Zealanders were quite rightly ashamed and revolted at the brutal attack on a five-year-old girl at a Turangi holiday park before Christmas.
The violence of the attack on a defenceless little girl was shocking, the timing heartbreaking, the suspected motive sick.
It is heartening to see the outpouring of support for the family in the form of many emailed messages from New Zealanders....
Juries must answer death penalty question for... →
Pennsylvania court decision sets method to implement landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
INDIA: Noose for 59 in the last decade, HC...
AHMEDABAD: With the two accused in Chandni rape and murder case getting death penalty, the number of people sentenced to death by hanging in 2011 in Gujarat has gone up to 15. This is the second highest figure in the last decade after 17 persons were ordered to be hanged by different sessions courts across the state in 2004.
In all, 59 persons tried in 36 different offences were sentenced to...
Oregon Defends Its Redistribution of Lethal... →
Oregon Execution Halt Part of National Trend? -... →
Lewes members of Amnesty International take anti... →
“Beyond morality, what the chief justice is saying is what the previous chief...”
– John Van de Kamp, at http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/a_model_approach/10854/
Annual total of death sentences in California... →
The prior two years had each seen capital punishment ordered for 29 criminals. Analysts say a broken appeals process is driving the trend, and some observers cite tight budgets prosecutors face.
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Grim reapings: how the cost of US capital... →
A number of US states are debating whether to abolish the death penalty in light of rising costs. But how much does it cost to put a person to death?
(Article from the Guardian, showcasing a mostly economical perspective.)
Japan has year without executions
JAPAN has not executed anyone so far in 2011, the government says, setting it up to be the first year in nearly two decades the country has not carried out a single death sentence.
However, the number of inmates on death row stands at a post-war high of 129 as a debate on the rights and wrongs of capital punishment continues.
In a legal quirk, executions - always carried out by hanging in...
Alleged US spy faces death penalty in Iran after... →
December 2011
35 posts
Capital punishment on the decline in Texas
The American public’s opinion on the death penalty has been changing steadily in the past 17 years. A 2011 Gallup Poll showed that 61 percent of people in the country favor capital punishment, down from 80 percent in 1994. A majority of Americans still believe that capital punishment is a justified and proportionate option for those who commit the most heinous premeditated crimes. But they...
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Commission gets tougher on capital-punishment products
Article | December 20, 2011 - 2:09pm
The European Commission has decided to extend the list of goods subject to export controls by adopting a Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1236/2005, to prevent use of the goods for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
This has the effect...
