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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Sunday, May 25, 2008
Capital Punishment News
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Plea to Texas Courts
Appeals Court Weighs Plea to 'Correct Miscarriage of Justice'
28th March 2008
Nearly 10 years after Rodney Reed was convicted of murder and condemned to die, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals now is tasked with deciding whether he should receive a new trial.
Reed's lawyers, including former CCA Judge Morris Overstreet and former Texas Defender Service attorney Bryce Benjet; argue that if Reed's Bastrop jury had known of the available evidence in the case, it would not have convicted Reed of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. "If a jury had the opportunity to review all of the evidence, they would've made a different decision," Overstreet told reporters outside the CCA building on March 20. "This court can do what it needs to do to correct a miscarriage of justice."
Reed was convicted of killing 19-year-old Stites, a Giddings resident, as she drove to work for an early-morning shift at the Bastrop HEB on April 23, 1996. Stites was strangled with a belt and her body dumped alongside a country road just north of town; the red pickup truck she was driving – which belonged to her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, then a Giddings Police officer – was found in the parking lot of Bastrop High School.
Although DNA evidence on Stites' body eventually led investigators to Reed, who acknowledged having an affair with Stites, no other evidence tied Reed to the crime. Reed's supporters argue that Fennell is a far more likely suspect because he was upset about Reed and Stites' relationship.
In fact, although the state claims that Fennell was initially a suspect, documents in the case reflect that police never seriously pursued him: They failed to process fully for evidence from his pickup truck and instead returned it to him within days of the murder. Moreover, they never searched the apartment Stites and Fennell shared, even though it was the last place Stites was known to be alive.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Death Penalty "Walk 4 Life"
International Human Rights Activist to "Walk 4 Life" to Abolish the Death Penalty
Andre Latallade, also known as Capital-"X" will walk from Trenton New Jersey, approximately 1,700 miles to the Governors mansion in Texas in an attempt to bring awareness to the death penalty.
The death penalty has recently been abolished in New Jersey, and Texas is known as "the busiest killing state." He is trying to "build a bridge between the two groups of victims, the executed, and their families and the victims and families of violent crimes."
Andre says "separated we call for life or death, I say we unite and call for solutions." He asks that life without parole be called for as opposed to the death sentence. Currently all executions are "on hold" while the Supreme Court rules whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual.
The walk will begin on March 31, 2008 approximately 5PM. Latallade estimates it will take around 54 days walking 8 hours a day minimum, about 3.5 mph. He will take one break for 3 days about one-third of the way to participate in the Hip Hop Association's HHEAL Festival in the Bronx, New York. Latallade is a hip hop artist himself and is known by the name of Capital-"X" on stage. Andre has created a video about his "Walk 4 Life." Andre will walk through 10 of the 12 highest executing states.
Latallade said "I think it can bring unity. Unite everybody that is fighting injustice, and keep that unity till the end. Can we make this big enough to apply international pressure on the USA?" He says "I have Italy behind me as well as London organizations, France, Denmark and Croatia. I am reaching out to Puerto Rico." Various non profit organizations, human rights groups, and other abolitionists support Andre on his "Walk 4 Life."
Capital-"X" will try to raise funds to educate people on the death penalty, and monies raised from this event will be donated to murder victim's families and abolitionist groups.
Anyone interested in supporting "X" and uniting in this cause to Stop Capital Punishment, can email Andre at this address: projectrevolution2010@gmail.com
Donations much appreciated.
Visit the Walk4Life video blog >
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Death Row Briton 'Innocent'
Death Row Briton 'Innocent And Angry'
A Scottish man who spent more than 20 years on death row has hit back at the family of the girl he was accused of killing, who told him he would "burn in hell".
When asked for his reaction to an outburst from the toddler's aunt who told him "you will burn in hell", he said: "She'll be burning there first long before I will.
"I've got nothing to burn in hell for and as far as there being a hell, there is no hell anyway, this is hell.
See full report & video interviews >
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Justice for Kenny Richey - Released, coming home to Scotland
Home for Christmas - Briton free after 20 years on death row
A Briton who has spent 20 years on death row in an American prison will be freed today, his lawyer said yesterday.
Kenny Richey, 43, once came within an hour of being executed but has agreed a plea deal that will allow him to come home to Edinburgh. Richey was put on death row in January 1987 after being convicted of starting a fire in which Cynthia Collins, aged 2, died. His conviction was overturned this year.
Human rights campaigners welcomed the news of his pending release, with his lawyer describing it as a "complete victory". Ken Parsigian, his lawyer, said: "It is the greatest Christmas present that I or Kenny could have asked for. Kenny is excited and he is thrilled. He is a little nervous as he now has to find a way to get back into the real world."
He is expected to fly from Ohio to Edinburgh tomorrow. He left his mother's home in Edinburgh aged 18 to live with his American father.
At a court hearing today he will plead no contest to attempted involuntary manslaughter, child endangering and breaking and entering. He will be sentenced to time already served. A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but a statement that no defence will be presented. It is treated as a guilty plea by the courts.
Karen Torley, his former fiancée, who helped to lead the fight for his freedom, said: "It was something I had always expected to happen. I just did not expect it to happen now. I am delighted for him and his family. It was always a disgrace that the Ohio justice system found Kenny guilty in the way it did and totally shocking that they put him on death row then fought tooth and nail to keep him there. The authorities have effectively accepted that they never had a case in the first place."
During Richey's trial, prosecutors had claimed that he started the fire as a jealous attack on his former girlfriend and her new lover, who lived in the flat below. Richey always protested his innocence and refused a plea bargain that would have led to an 11-year sentence for arson and manslaughter.
On August 10 the Cincinnati Court of Appeal overturned his sentence. He was moved from the notorious Mansfield Correctional Institution in September to the low-security Putnam County Prison.
Clive Stafford Smith, a director of Reprieve, which campaigns against the death penalty, said: "An innocent man gets a death sentence because he had an incompetent lawyer at trial, his conviction is reversed two decades later, and then he has to enter a plea to avoid a second death sentence. It was the right thing to do - nobody can expect him to trust a system that already got it so terribly wrong - but it's an insane process nevertheless."
Kate Allen, of Amnesty International UK, said: "He now joins the ranks of those released from American death-row prisons when they should never have been there in the first place."
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
New Jersey to become first state in four decades to abolish death penalty
Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Friday December 14, 2007
All credits: The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
For the first time in more than 40 years a US state is to abolish the death penalty. A 44-36 vote in the New Jersey legislature to abolish executions in the state yesterday followed approval for the measure in the state senate on Monday.
The bill now goes to the desk of New Jersey governor, Jon Corzine, a Democrat who has spoken in favour of abolishing the death penalty. The measure will be replaced with a sentence of life without parole.
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It comes as the debate over the application of the death penalty intensifies in the US. While 1,099 people have been executed since the supreme court reauthorised the death penalty in 1976, the rate of executions has slowed in recent years as concerns have been raised about whether the procedure most frequently used, lethal injection, violates the constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment".
Executions have been on hold across the US while the supreme court considers the issue. New Jersey will become the 14th state without a death penalty; 36 states and the federal government and the US military retain it.
In 1999, 98 people were executed in the US. By last year, that number had fallen to 53, the lowest since 1996. In 2006, the US ranked sixth in the world for executions behind China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan.
A New Jersey state commission found in January that the death penalty was expensive to administer, had no deterrent effect and carried the risk of killing an innocent person. It was, said the commission, "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency".
"We would be better served as a society by having a clear and certain outcome for individuals that carry out heinous crimes," Corzine said. "That's what I think we're doing, making certain that individuals would be imprisoned without any possibility of parole."
No one has been executed in New Jersey since 1963. The state reinstated the measure in 1982, but since 2004 it has been barred from carrying out executions after a court ruling that it should review its procedures.
Eight men on death row will now be spared. Among them is Jesse Timmendequas, who was convicted of killing seven-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. That case gave rise to Megan's law, which requires authorities to notify the public of sex offenders living in their communities.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Europe fights capital punishment
Europe is marking its first anti-death penalty day, despite moves from Poland to block the event, calling for it also to condemn abortion and euthanasia.
The day was taken over by the Council of Europe, a human rights body, after Poland's veto threatened to derail an EU-sponsored event.
The event is being held in conjunction with a global anti-death penalty day. Capital punishment is banned in all 27 EU states but Poland's president called on the EU to reintroduce it last year.
Poland, Ireland and Malta are the only EU member states where abortion is illegal.
Contrary view
Last month, Poland was the only member state to oppose an EU-sponsored European Day Against the Death Penalty, with Deputy Justice Minister Andrzej Duda saying the EU "should approach the subject in a broader way and debate the protection of life."
