Capital Punishment News

Focus on the Death Penalty
A collection of recent news from around the world


Zambia: Inmates Plead for Deliverance
20th May 2008
The common prayer of those on Zambia’s jam-packed death row is for divine intervention to end their hell on earth and let the waiting hangman carry out his job speedily, according to a recently released inmate. "It is so painful to be in suspense, we would pray to be hanged," Churchill Malama, 33, recounted to IPS. Malama spent three years on death row in the Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison, located in the central town of Kabwe. His death sentence for murder was overturned by the Supreme Court last March.
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Georgia ends lull in US executions
7th May 2008
The state of Georgia has executed the first person to be put to death in the United States since a Supreme Court ruling last month that ended a seven-month moratorium on capital punishment. William Earl Lynd, 53, was killed by lethal injection at 7.50pm yesterday, hours after his appeal for a stay of execution failed in the Supreme Court.
Lynd had been convicted of kidnapping his girlfriend and shooting her dead in 1988, after a row over a trip to Florida.
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Broadcast of execution forces Japan to debate death penalty
6th May 2008
The broadcast today of the execution of a man more than 50 years ago is the first time most Japanese have been confronted by the grim reality of their country's use of the death penalty. Campaigners hope the documentary, aired by Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, will strengthen calls for Japan to fall into line with every other developed country except the US and abolish capital punishment.
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What now for Mumia?
28th April 2008
On 27 March, a US federal appeals court overturned Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, but not his conviction for murder. His lead counsel Robert R. Bryan gives his reaction to the ruling and the next steps in America's most high-profile capital case.
As widely reported in the media, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued its long-awaited decision on March 27, 2008. Mumia and I had legal conferences that day, and have been in frequent meetings since.
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