From the NYTimes:
The Timely Justice Act, a grotesquely named bill passed by the Florida Legislature, could get to Gov. Rick Scott as soon as this week for him to sign into law. The measure would require a governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a review of a capital conviction by the State Supreme Court, and the state would be required to execute the defendant within 180 days of the warrant.
Also this week, an inmate on Florida’s death row, Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin, presented DNA evidence that could exonerate him. He was convicted in 2006 of murdering two women, based largely on circumstantial evidence. On Monday, he was in court seeking a new trial because the DNA evidence showed that blood at the crime scene — none of it his — was that of a victim’s daughter, who, his lawyers argue, likely committed the murders.
Mr. Aguirre-Jarquin’s case offers good reason for Governor Scott to veto the bill. The state’s indisputably defective death penalty system is made more horrifying by attempts to rush inmates to execution. There is a strong chance that Mr. Aguirre-Jarquin will become the 25th death-row inmate exonerated in Florida since it reinstated capital punishment in 1973. More death-row inmates have been exonerated in Florida than in any state.
As the American Bar Association explained in a scathing 2006 report on the state’s death penalty system, Florida is one of the few states that allows a jury to recommend a sentence of death based on a majority vote rather than a unanimous one. Defendants charged with capital crimes often have woefully unqualified counsel, and are much more likely to be convicted and sentenced to death if the victim is white — a sign of racial disparity that is clearly unconstitutional. The flaws in Florida’s system, which soaks up huge amounts of resources, cannot be fixed. It is long past time to abolish capital punishment.
Texas is set to draw closer Wednesday to the ignoble distinction of having put to death 500 people in the modern era of the death penalty. The Lone Star State plans to kill Jefferey Williams, whose execution would be No. 498. Unless Williams receives a stay, Execution Watch will broadcast live coverage and commentary on the state killing.
TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE: JEFFEREY D. WILLIAMS, condemned in the 1999 shooting death of a plainclothes Houston police officer who was trying to arrest him for driving a stolen Lexus. Williams claimed he did not know the man was an officer, assumed he was being attacked, and shot the man in self defense. Williams’ execution would be the 498th in Texas in the modern death-penalty era..
EXECUTION WATCH RADIO SHOW PREVIEW:
Unless a stay is issued, we’ll broadcast live: Wednesday, 15 May 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time, KPFT FM Houston 90.1 HD3 and Online…
http://executionwatch.org > Listen
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Posted in Capital punishment
Hours before his scheduled execution at 6 p.m. today, the Mississippi Supreme Court hasissued a stay to Willie Jerome Manning, whose death sentence was upheld in a 5-4 court ruling last week even though the state refused to test available DNA evidence, and the FBIdeemed major pieces of evidence in the case “unscientific” and “invalid.” As a consequence, Manning will not be executed tonight and will have more time to continue arguing his case.
Late Tuesday afternoon, an 8-1 majority granted Manning’s last-ditch motion, which included new letters from the Department of Justicedescribing how crucial hair samples were improperly tested, and testimony improperly linked bullets near Manning’s home to bullets at the crime scene. Manning was convicted in the 1992 abduction and murder in part based on testimony that the hair samples were likely his because both he and the hair strands were African American. The trial also featured testimony from a jailhouse informant, which studies have shown is particularly unreliable.
Carroll Joe Parr, whose childhood neglect and abuse were extreme even by death-row standards, is slated to be put to death Tuesday, May 7, 2013 by the State of Texas. His would be the 497th Texas execution in the modern death-penalty era. No other state comes close for volume. Second-place Virginia has executed 110.
CARROLL JOE PARR grew up in poverty so extreme, he was often given baked dirt to eat. His sister once tried to kill him. Texas plans to execute Parr for the shooting death of a man in a drug deal outside a North Waco convenience store in 2003. Parr and his fall partner, Earl Whiteside, were accused of approaching two men sitting in a car, forcing them to the side of the building at gunpoint, and robbing and shooting them. One victim survived. Whiteside testified against Parr and received a 15-year sentence on a plea to aggravated robbery. Parr’s would be the 497th Texas execution in the modern death-penalty era.
EXECUTION WATCH RADIO SHOW
Unless a stay is issued, we’ll broadcast live: Tues, 7 May 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time, KPFT FM Houston 90.1 HD3 and Online…
http://executionwatch.org > Listen
Join the discussion on Facebook: Execution Watch
Posted in Capital punishment
The release this week of Amanda Knox’s book, Waiting to be Heard, and her hour-long interview on ABC last night puts the focus on the growing problem of citizens of one country being convicted in the unfamiliar court system of another country.
Knox has gained strong sympathy in her native United States. But feelings toward her in Italy, where her murder conviction occurred before being overturned, and in Great Britain, where murdered roommate Meredith Kercher was from, are less favorable.
The shoe is on the other foot in the murder conviction in the United States of a British citizen of Indian descent, Kris Maharaj, who grew up in Trinidad and made a fortune in Britain before moving to Florida. Maharaj has gained lots of support and media exposure in Britain, but relatively little in the U.S.
Maharaj got a rude introduction to the American justice system when two business rivals were killed in a Miami hotel room in 1986 and he was convicted of their murders and sentenced to death. Maharaj’s case had many sordid aspects, including a judge who was arrested mid-trial on bribery charges, a lackadaisical attorney (who is now a judge), police and prosecutors who withheld evidence, Caribbean con-artists and Columbian cocaine dealers.
Clive Stafford Smith bares these facts in his compelling book, The Injustice System: A Murder in Miami and a Trial Gone Wrong, which was previously published in Britain as Injustice.
Stafford Smith has an interesting perspective. The British citizen attended the University of North Carolina and graduated from Columbia Law School. He then spent two decades representing death-row clients in the United States before returning to Britain, where he is founder and director of Reprieve, a nonprofit legal defense firm. One of his American clients was Maharaj. In his book, Stafford Smith recounts how he developed convincing evidence that the murders for which Maharaj was sentenced to death were really committed by a Columbian hit man to exact revenge for the victims’ theft of a drug cartel’s profits.
Stafford Smith tells how he got Maharaj’s death sentence overturned with some regret. Why? Because, Stafford Smith says, American courts are far less likely to consider evidence of innocence if the defendant isn’t on death row. As a result, Maharaj, now in his 70s, languishes in prison with little chance of having the evidence Stafford Smith has developed ever considered. You can read more about the case here and here.
Two inmates were hanged in Japan yesterday. It seems like the number of executions are increasing in Japan in recent years…
Read more here about the death penalty in Japan and how executions are carried out.
From the Japan Times:
Apr 26, 2013
The inmates were Yoshihide Miyagi, 56, and Katsuji Hamasaki, 64, the Justice Ministry said.
Members of a yakuza syndicate, the pair were convicted of conspiring with an accomplice to gun down two rival gangsters at a family restaurant in Chiba Prefecture in 2005.
The human rights watchdog Amnesty International immediately condemned the hangings, saying the fast pace of executions by the LDP-led government tells the world that Japan is determined to ignore calls by the international community to abolish the death penalty. Continue reading
Texas is preparing to put to death Richard Cobb Thursday in what would be the state’s 496th execution of the modern death-penalty era. No other U.S. state has put more citizens to death. The closest, Virginia, has executed 110.
TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE:
RICHARD COBB, one of two men condemned in a 2002 robbery-slaying in the small, East Texas town of Ruskin. He and Beunka Adams, who was executed April 26, 2012, were convicted of forcing three convenience-store workers into a car, driving them to a field, raping one of the women, and shooting all three with a shotgun. One worker, a mentally disabled man, died. The women survived by playing dead.
EXECUTION WATCH: Unless a stay is issued, we’ll broadcast live: Thurs, 25 April 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time, KPFT FM Houston 90.1 and Online…
http://executionwatch.org > Listen
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NEXT SCHEDULED TEXAS EXECUTION:
On May 7, Texas plans to kill CARROLL JOE PARR.. If it does, Execution Watch will air.
Posted in Capital punishment
Texas is preparing to carry out its 495th execution of the modern era Tuesday, the date for Ronnie Paul Threadgill. The Lone Star State is fast approaching its 500th execution. No other state comes close. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, second-place Virginia has executed 110.
TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE: RONNIE PAUL THREADGILL, sentenced to death for a 2001 slaying outside a Navarro County nightclub in which a 17-year-old boy was fatally wounded when two shots were fired into a car. The U.S. Supreme Court declined in 2012 to review the case. Threadgill’s appeal asserted that his lawyers should have negotiated for a felony murder charge instead of capital murder. His would be the 495th execution in Texas during the modern era, in which nearly 40 percent of all U.S. executions have been carried out by Texas.
RADIO SHOW PREVIEW: EXECUTION WATCH
Unless a stay is issued, we’ll broadcast live: Tues, 16 April 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time, KPFT FM Houston 90.1 and Online… http://executionwatch.org > Listen
Join the discussion on Facebook: Execution Watch
Posted in Capital punishment
The documentary by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns about the wrongful convictions of ”The Central Park Five” received high praise today from what some might consider an unlikely source — conservative columnist George F. Will.
As a critic of the overreach of government, though, Will has expressed concern in the past about the abuse of power by police, prosecutors and the courts. And he says what happened to the five innocent young men in the media-fueled hysteria created in the aftermath of a horrific rape and assault of a young woman in 1989 is a cautionary tale of government excess that should give conservatives pause.
”A society’s justice system can improve as a result of lurches into officially administered injustice,” Will writes. ”The dialectic of injustice, then revulsion, then reform often requires the presentation of sympathetic victims to a large audience, which ‘The Central Park Five’ does.”
Will goes on to say that ”this recounting of a multifaceted but, fortunately, not fatal failure of the criminal justice system buttresses the conservative case against the death penalty: Its finality leaves no room for rectifying mistakes, but it is a government program, so . . .”
You can read Will’s eloquent column here.
EXECUTION WATCH: Unless a stay is issued, we’ll broadcast live:
Tues, 9 April 2013, 6-7 PM Central Time, KPFT FM Houston 90.1 HD3 and Online… http://executionwatch.org > Listen
Join the discussion on Facebook: Execution Watch
TEXAS PLANS TO EXECUTE:
RICKY LYNN LEWIS, Convicted of sexually assaulting a Tyler woman and killing her fiance during a home burglary in 1990. A previous execution date was stayed because of claims that Lewis had extremely poor intellectual functioning, but a court ruled in 2005 that his intellectual abilities were not an issue.
SHOW LINEUP
Host: RAY HILL, an ex-convict and activist who founded — and hosted for 30 years — The Prison Show on KPFT. His internet radio show airs each Wednesday at 2 PM CT.: hmsnetradio.org.
Legal Analyst: JIM SKELTON, a legal educator, retired attorney and native Texan who has seen capital trials from both the prosecution and defense tables. Joining him will be Houston criminal defense attorneys SUSAN ASHLEY, LARRY DOUGLAS and MICHAEL GILLESPIE.
Featured Interview: TBA.
Reporter, Outside the Death House, Huntsville: GLORIA RUBAC, member, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, abolitionmovement.org. Reporter, Vigil, Houston: DAVE ATWOOD, founder and former board member, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, ww.tcadp.org.
NEXT SCHEDULED EXECUTION
On April 16, Texas plans to kill RONNIE THREADGILL. If it does, Execution Watch will air.
PRODUCER: Elizabeth, eliza.tx.usa @gmail.com. STUDIO ENGINEERS: Doyle, Mike Lewis. THEME: By Victoria Panetti, SheMonster International, myspace.com/shemonster
Posted in Capital punishment
The BBC has put out an interesting article (by Rob Walker) on the problems of using accused/convicted persons as police informants. It focuses on US practice, specifically the plea bargain process and the cutting of prosecutorial deals. However, the article’s observations are also relevant for countries where accused persons may be “incentivised” to provide the police or prosecution with apparently useful information in exchange for a lower sentence. For example, 2012 amendments to Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act, which used to impose a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking, now gives judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment instead of the death penalty if certain conditions are fulfilled. One of these conditions is that the Public Prosecutor “certifies to any court” that “in his determination” the accused person has “substantively assisted the Central Narcotics Bureau in disrupting drug trafficking activities within or outside Singapore”. In such situations, the accused person has an incentive to provide the police or prosecution with information even if he/she does not have any. To avoid wrongful convictions based on the manufacture of false information by accused persons, there needs to be clear regulations and an oversight system put in place. These should be accessible to those who may be wrongly accused, so as to enable their defence or requests for review, as well as the general public to ensure continued confidence in the system.
Posted in Asia, Capital punishment
On 11 March 2013, the Singapore Court of Appeal quashed the conviction of a death row inmate. Mervin Singh had been sentenced to death for drug trafficking by the lower court.
Singapore’s Misuse of Drugs Act presumes that a person is possesses a drug for the purpose of trafficking if he or she is found with certain drugs above specified amounts. The said person is then required to rebut this presumption. Singh argued that he had not known that the package he had been found with contained drugs. Rather, he believed that the package held contraband cigarettes. The Court of Appeal accepted Singh’s argument. Among others, the Court of Appeal cast doubt on the narcotics officer’s claims that he had seen Singh opening and looking into the package, highlighting inconsistencies between the officer’s earlier statement and his testimony at trial.
The court also noted that Singh’s DNA had not been found on the box, the newspaper sheets, or the plastic bags containing the drugs.
The important role played by DNA testing in this case is noteworthy. Many studies show how the practice of DNA testing has led to the prevention and overturning of wrongful convictions in many countries. Singh was fortunate on many counts. He was lucky that there was evidence that could be subjected to DNA testing. He was lucky that DNA analysis was conducted. And he was lucky that the Court of Appeal gave sufficient weight to the results of this analysis. This raises a number of points: 1. Sometimes a piece of evidence that could be submitted for DNA analysis may not be available at the time of trial or the said evidence, though available, may not have been tested due to unintentional oversight or mistakes made in good faith; 2. It is necessary to ensure that there are laws or regulations in place that provide for the preservation of evidence, access to evidence, and DNA testing; 3. There should be accessible and transparent procedures that enable convicted persons and their legal representatives to request access to preserved evidence or submit new evidence for DNA testing at a post-conviction stage.
Posted in Asia, Capital punishment
Debra Milke was convicted of kidnapping, abusing and murdering her 4-year-old son. But a federal appeals judge says the prosecution was “unconstitutionally silent” on the “history of misconduct” of its key witness.
Read the full story here.
From the Japan Times:
Opinion divided on life term without parole
by Daisuke Sato (Last In A Series), Feb 21, 2013
The inmate, who has now served 15 years, has been behaving well and prison guards often describe him as an “exemplary” prisoner.
He was initially sentenced to death by a district court. However, a high court determined that there was a possibility he could be rehabilitated and reduced the punishment to a life term. This sentence was later finalized.
“The death penalty may have been upheld” if his trials had been conducted today because sentencing has gotten tougher, the inmate said in an interview in the prison’s visiting room.
Technically, inmates serving life terms can be released on parole if they serve 10 years, demonstrate signs of reform and meet other requirements. The reality, though, is that the period such inmates are actually serving has been getting longer, recently reaching an average of about 30 years, according to data released by the Justice Ministry.
Even so, the Chugoku inmate is happy just for the opportunity to atone. Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Capital punishment, Reforming/Improving the system
Tagged Death Penalty, Japan, Life without Parole, LWOP
From Huffpost, 2/19/13:
During his seventeen years as an executioner in Virginia, Jerry Givens executed 62 death row inmates in the prison system. But after almost executing an innocent man, Givens quit his job and began lobbying for the end of the death penalty. Givens joined Huffpost Live’s Ahmed Shihab-Eldin to tell his story.
“They had a guy by the name of Earl Washington and he came within weeks before he was scheduled to be executed,” Givens said. After conducting another DNA test, it was revealed that Washington was innocent, just in time to save his life.
But not everyone has had that second chance at justice. After DNA testing became more prevalent, Givens found out some of the lives he had already taken were innocent.
“You sentenced a guy to be executed. You give him a trial, then you send him to me to be put to death. Then later on you [say] that this guy was innocent. You didn’t put him to death. I did. I performed the execution. So you might suffer a little. I’m going to suffer a lot, because I performed the job.”
Givens started as a correctional supervisor, where he said his job was to save lives, helping inmates to readjust to society. Transitioning to what he describes as a “so-called executioner” was a dramatic change.
“You have to get away from yourself. You have to eliminate yourself,” Givens told ABC.
“Prayer helped me,” Givens said. Before every execution, he would pray for the death row inmate and ask for forgiveness.
Posted in Capital punishment
Three executions were carried out today in Japan. These were the first executions since Shinzo Abe (Liberal Democratic Party) became the Prime Minister in December 2012.
The three men executed today were Masahiro Kanagawa (at the Tokyo Detention Center), Keiki Kano (Nagoya Detention Center), and Kaoru Kobayashi (Osaka Detention Center). Justice Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, who has the ultimate power to order execution of death row inmates, did not comment when and why these three were chosen.
One of the three men, Kobayashi, was convicted of kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old girl in 2004. After he was sentenced to death by the Nara District Court, he withdrew his appeal, saying that he did not want to live anymore. However, he filed a motion for a retrial in 2008 (the motion was rejected by the Nara District Court). Shinichi Ishizuka, who was Kobayashi’s attorney, commented: “Kobayashi was frustrated that he could not appropriately raise the fact that he did not act with the intent to kill the victim at the trial. We were preparing to file for a retrial again. We regret the fact that he was executed before he could have his day in court” (this paragraph is from the Mainichi (in Japanese)).
Justice Minister Tanigaki told the press that if there are problems within the current system of capital punishment, they should be fixed. However, he also commented that he does not think an overall reform is needed. Tanigaki did not witness the executions today, since it is very uncommon for a Justice Minister to do so.
As of December 2012, there were 133 inmates on death row, a record-high number.
Read more about today’s news in English here (the Mainichi), and here (the Japan Times).
Numerous organizations immediately issued statements criticizing today’s executions: Japan Federation of Bar Associations, Amnesty International, and Center for Prisoners’ Rights (all in Japanese).
Read more about the death penalty on this blog (ex. here, here, here and here).
Even though the Supreme Court denied a stay, it was granted by the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals with less than 30 minutes left before the execution was to take place.
See full story here.
Posted in Capital punishment
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