Friday 30 May 2008

The last Briton in Guantanamo faces death penalty


The last Briton in Guantanamo faces death penalty----After being held
prisoner by the US for 6 years, inmate to be charged with terrorism
offences despite protesting his innocence


A British resident who is facing the death penalty in Guantanamo Bay has
made a final desperate plea to Gordon Brown to end his 6-year ordeal and
bring him home today.

In a letter delivered to Downing Street, Binyam Mohamed, the last
Guantanamo inmate with the automatic right to British residency, calls
on
the Prime Minister to use his influence with President George Bush to
stop
an American military "kangaroo court" sending him to his death.

Mr Mohamed, 29, from Kensington, west London, who is expected to be
charged by the Americans with terrorism-related offences in the next few
days, claims he has suffered horrific abuse during more than six years
in
detention without trial.

He denies any involvement with terrorism and says any evidence against
him
has been extracted through torture while he was being questioned by
American interrogators in a Moroccan prison.

In his letter, Mr Mohamed tells Mr Brown: "I have been held without
trial
by the US for 6 years, 1 month and 12 days. That is 2,234 days (very
long
days and often longer nights). Of this, about 550 days were in a torture
chamber in Morocco and about 150 in the 'Dark Prison' in Kabul. Still
there is no end in sight, no prospect of a fair trial."

He blames Britain for supplying the Americans with personal information
which was used against him when he was being questioned in Morocco and
where he claims his interrogators used a razor to repeatedly cut his
genitals.Mr Mohamed also alleges that the British Government is refusing
to release vital evidence that would prove he was tortured.

Last year, three of the remaining 5 British residents held at Guantanamo
Bay were flown home after representations were made by London. A 4th
elected to negotiate his transfer to Saudi Arabia.

But the US has refused to comply with Britain's request to release Mr
Mohamed. In his letter, he pleads: "Because I am a Londoner, your
Government states publicly that you support my right to return home
there
as soon as possible. I am grateful for that. I always viewed Britain as
the country that stood up for human rights more than any other. That was
why I came to Britain as a refugee."

But he adds: "Before the intervention of your Government to help me, I
was
more resigned to my fate. To be held forever without a fair trial. When
your Government intervened, I had hope. But it has been a cruel hope. 9
months later, I am still here, no closer to home, still in this terrible
prison. When I learned that my Moroccan torturers were using information
supplied by British intelligence, I felt deeply betrayed. When I learned
that your Government's lawyers [The Treasury Solicitors] had told my
lawyers they had no duty to help prove my innocence, or even that I had
been tortured, I felt betrayed again."

Born in Ethiopia in 1978, Mr Mohamed came to Britain as an asylum-seeker
in 1994 when he was 16. Although the claim was never finally determined,
he was given leave to remain in Britain, where he stayed for the next 7
years. But, after working as a caretaker, he developed a drug habit and,
according to his legal team, went travelling to Pakistan and Afghanistan
in 2001 in a bid to resolve his personal issues. He was picked up in
Pakistan in April 2002 as he attempted to return to Britain. His lawyer,
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights group Reprieve, said
the UK Government has admitted he was questioned by British intelligence
for three hours in Karachi in 2002.

According to Mr Mohamed's evidence, the security service officer
indicated
to him then that he was to be taken to an Arab country something his
lawyers say shows British knowledge of the plan to render him to
Morocco.
They also believe that flight records relating to the Indian Ocean
island
of Diego Garcia could establish the route of his rendition flight.

Should Mr Mohamed be sent to trial at the Military Commission, the case
will further strain relations between Britain and America. The UK is
opposed to capital punishment and has been increasingly critical of the
treatment of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay.

Both Tony Blair and Mr Brown have called for the closure of the prison
camp at the US naval base in Cuba which still holds nearly 300 inmates,
many of whom have been unlawfully detained for more than 5 years.

The former attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, also expressed concerns
about
the legally flawed system of the military tribunals, set up to try
non-US
citizens and which one law lord likened to "kangaroo courts". Any
convictions supported by findings from the military commissions are
bound
to provoke an international outcry. Human rights lawyers regard the
tribunals as an affront to natural justice because they do not comply
with
the rules to ensure a defendant receives a fair trial.

Mr Mohamed's own account of the abuse he claims to have suffered
includes
a graphic account of being tortured in Morocco: "They cut all over my
body, including my private parts, saying it was better just to cut it
off
as I would only breed terrorists. This went on for weeks every day. I
felt
like I was being stung by a million bees at once. The floor was full of
blood ... All this time they kept reading out their [story] to me and
saying if you say this story as we read it, you will just go to court
and
all this torture will stop. I could not take any more of this torture
and,
after months of torture, I repeated what was read out to me. That
lessened
some of the torture but it was not over."

Recent medical reports indicate Mr Mohamed may have reached the end of
his
psychological tether. In his letter to Mr Brown, Mr Mohamed writes: "It
is
long past time to end this matter. I have been next to committing
suicide
this past while. That would be one way to end it, I suppose."

The men who have been released

Ruhal Ahmed

One of the so-called 'Tipton 3' detained in 2002 for over 2 years by the
US, in Afghanistan and Camp Delta. Released March 2004

Asif Iqbal

Born in West Bromwich and left school at 16 to work in a local factory.
Released March 2004

Shafiq Rasul

Born in Dudley, West Midlands, he travelled to Pakistan in October 2001.
Family lost contact in December 2001. Released March 2004.

Feroz Abbasi

Born in Entebbe, Uganda. Released on 25 January 2005.

Tarek Dergoul

Former care worker in east London. Told family he was flying to Pakistan
in 2001 to learn Arabic. Released March 2004.

Jamal Udeen

Web designer from Manchester. Believed to have been captured while a
Taliban prisoner in Kandahar Jail. Released in March 2004.

Moazzam Begg

Ran a bookshop in Sparkhill, Birmingham. Released January 2005.

Abdenour Sameur

Algerian deserter who came to Britain in 1999. Granted refugee status in
UK in 2000. Released December 2007.

Martin Mubanga

Joint citizen of both the UK and Zambia. Released January 2005.

Richard Belmar

Accused of association with the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. Released January
2005.

Bisher al-Rawi

Iraqi citizen, who became resident in the UK in the 1980s. Released
April
2007.

Jamil el-Banna

Jordanian with refugee status in the UK. Rel-eased December 2007.

Omar Deghayes

Libyan granted refugee status by the UK in the 1980s. Released December
2007.

Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer

Originally from Saudi Arabia, living in UK since 1996. Release being
negotiated by Saudi Arabia.

(source: The Independent)

Monday 26 May 2008

Stop Missouri's Renegade Anesthesiologist From Executing Someone!


Support the Campaign

"Stop Capital Punishment Now!"




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 26, 2008

Stop Missouri's Renegade Anesthesiologist From Executing Someone!

The State of Missouri has obtained a Board Certified anesthesiologist to implement its next execution of a human being, in gross violation of his most fundamental human rights under international law.

We are in the process of obtaining the name of this doctor. Upon its receipt, we will file an emergency Complaint with the American Board of Anesthesiology, demanding the immediate suspension and permanent revocation of this doctor's Board Certification in order to prevent the execution. According to Section 5.02 (Revocation of Certification) of the Board's Booklet of Information (March 2008): "The Board shall be the sole judge of whether or not the evidence or information before it is sufficient to require or permit revocation of any certificate issued by the Board, and the decision of the Board shall be final."

This doctor has willfully defied and maliciously violated regulations mandated by the American Medical Association, by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, and this doctor's own Hippocratic Oath. This doctor is neither fit nor competent to practice medicine. We fully expect the American Board of Anesthesiology to grant our request in order to prevent this execution of their fellow human being by their fellow anesthesiologist.

For the American Board of Anesthesiology to permit a Board Certified colleague to implement the execution of their fellow human being would render them all complicit in this renegade doctor's legal, ethical, and human rights violations.

Francis A. Boyle

Professor of Law

Chair, Stop Capital Punishment Now!

Professor Boyle may be contacted for comments or interviews at the following:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA

217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)

fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Missouri hires doctor for executions


Missouri hires doctor for executions

The state of Missouri has added an anesthesiologist to its execution team,
despite professional guidelines against doctors taking part in executions.

The Kansas City Star reported Sunday the doctor's presence on the team was
revealed in a federal court case brought by several death row inmates
concerning the qualifications and training of Missouri's execution team
members.

Citing the ongoing litigation, attorneys for the death row inmates said
they could not comment.

The Missouri Department of Corrections will not reveal the doctor's name
or role on the team.

Missouri has not set any execution dates, but the attorney general has
asked the state Supreme Court to schedule them for 14 inmates.

(source: KWMU)

Sister’s change began with pen pal


Sister’s change began with pen pal

Posted on Monday, May 26, 2008

Email this story | Printer-friendly version

One of the biggest changes in Sister Helen Prejean's life came in the form of a letter from an unlikely pen pal.

Prejean's unorthodox pal was actually in the pen when he wrote the letter, and this particular prisoner was watching his state-ordained death get closer by the day. It was that friendship that woke her up, she told a packed parish hall at St. Paul's Episcopalian Church in Fayetteville on Sunday.

"I woke up in the'80 s. That's late to wake up," she said. "You know what, it doesn't matter. It's what you do when you wake up that matters."

Two books, an opera and a major motion picture later, the author of "Dead Man Walking," who is, in her own words," a bonafide Roman Catholic nun," is still asking people to choose life over death and compassion over vengeance. She's doing that by pushing for the end of the government-approved death penalty.

"It's a secret ritual. You'll never see it," she said of the penalty. "You'll never see the mental anguish of a person sitting in a cell 15 to 20 years waiting to be taken out and killed."

Prejean has seen it though. Her pen pal was a man named Patrick Sonnier, and he, with the help of his brother, Eddie, murdered two teenagers - David LeBlanc and Loretta Ann Bourque - in 1977 near St. Martin Parish, La. Patrick Sonnier was sentenced to death; his brother received several life-in-prison sentences.

After initial letters, Prejean became Sonnier'spiritual advisor and close friend. She walked with him to the execution chair, and she was the last thing he saw before dying.

Yet, Prejean told the group that the strongest part of the story was not her time with Sonnier, but it was her time with Lloyd LeBlanc, David's father, after Sonnier was killed.

"I'm not the hero; I'm the storyteller," she said.

She told the powerful story of LeBlanc's journey to forgiveness. He even went to the Sonnier' mother, who was shunned throughout her hometown and dealt with people throwing dead animals on her front lawn on a daily basis. LeBlanc offered her a basket of fruit along with the promise that she could call him if she needed anything.

"He's the first person I met that showed me forgiveness is not a weakness," Prejean said," and that love overcomes the hate."

She delivered her story to a teary-eyed group, and then she was off to see the hero of the story one last time. Lloyd LeBlanc passed away this week, and Prejean left on a plane to make it to his funeral right after the talk ended.

The lecture was the last of three talks during the weekend at the church. They were a part of the church's McMichael Lecture Series, said the Rev. Lowell Grisham. The church's Web site said the series is focused on drawing the surrounding community into the church while exploring a wide variety of spiritual issues.

Saturday 24 May 2008

Anesthesiologist Joins Missouri's Execution Team



Anesthesiologist Joins Missouri's Execution Team

Posted on: Friday, 23 May 2008, 18:00 CDT

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1400451/anesthesiologist_joins_missouris_execution_team/

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Despite the medical profession's ethical guidelines against it, an anesthesiologist has joined the team that will carry out executions in Missouri.

The doctor's presence on the team was revealed recently in a federal court case brought by several death row inmates concerning the qualifications and training of Missouri's execution team members.

With all the pieces of its execution team apparently in place, the state is now ready after a hiatus of 2 { years to once again execute condemned prisoners whenever the Missouri Supreme Court issues the order.

The Missouri Department of Corrections will not reveal the doctor's name or specific role on the team.

The doctor's identity also will not be provided to the attorneys representing the death row inmates in the federal case, although they will be given information about licensure and qualifications.

Citing the ongoing litigation, attorneys for the death row inmates said they could not comment.

Corrections department officials also declined to comment, except to say that the team's doctor and two nurses "will perform the duties assigned to them in the DOC's lethal injection protocol."

Those duties include preparing the chemicals, inserting intravenous lines, monitoring the prisoner and supervising the injection of chemicals by corrections employees.

All of those actions violate the American Medical Association's policy against physician participation in executions. The American Society of Anesthesiologists has adopted the AMA's stance.

"It is a fundamental and unwavering principle that anesthesiologists, consistent with their ethical mandates, cannot use their art and skill to participate in an execution," the society stated in a brief it filed last year in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The AMA first adopted its ethical stance in 1980. Its current policy states:

"A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution."

But neither professional group has an official policy on capital punishment in general. The AMA policy states: "An individual's opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual."

And neither group has the power to discipline a doctor who does not comply with the ethics policy.

Physician participation in executions long has been controversial, with some arguing that the best way to ensure that inmates are put to death humanely is to have a highly-trained professional involved.

"The good news is that if the anesthesiologist is qualified ... such involvement should heighten the likelihood that lethal injections will be carried out humanely," said death penalty expert Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law. "On the other hand, the anesthesiologist who has volunteered in Missouri is violating the ethical prohibitions of his or her profession, and attorneys should be entitled to investigate why such a physician would be willing to do that."

The issue drew national attention to Missouri in 2006 when the surgeon who previously oversaw the state's executions testified in another court case that he was dyslexic and sometimes transposed numbers.

Identified in court as John Doe I, the doctor also admitted using only half the proscribed dose of anesthesia during the state's last execution in October 2005 without notifying corrections officials.

A federal judge in Kansas City subsequently banned John Doe I from future executions. The judge ordered that the state employ a board-certified anesthesiologist to mix the drugs used to carry out executions as well as to administer, or at least observe the administration of, the lethal drugs.

At that time, department of corrections officials contacted hundreds of anesthesiologists in Missouri and elsewhere but could not find one willing to take on that role.

The case prompted the then-president of the anesthesiologists' society to advise its members to "steer clear" of participating in executions.

Unable to find a willing anesthesiologist, Missouri corrections officials instead offered a written protocol that called for a doctor, nurse or emergency medical technician to handle execution duties.

That protocol subsequently was ruled constitutional by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Kentucky's lethal injection protocol, which is similar to Missouri's, recently was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since the Supreme Court ruling, states have resumed carrying out executions that had been halted while the case was pending.

Two men have been put to death, most recently on Wednesday in Mississippi.

Missouri has not set any execution dates, but the attorney general has asked the state supreme court to schedule them for 14 inmates.

___

(c) 2008, The Kansas City Star.

Visit The Star Web edition on the World Wide Web at http://www.kansascity.com.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550 , send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.


Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

More News in this Category

Sunday 18 May 2008

At the death house door

At the Death House Door
At the Death House Door

through the eyes of Pastor Carroll Pickett, who served 15 years as the death house chaplain to the infamous "Walls" prison unit in Huntsville. During Pickett's remarkable career journey, he presided over 95 executions, including the world’s first lethal injection. After each execution, Pickett recorded an audiotape account of his trip to the death chamber.

The film also focuses on the story of Carlos De Luna, a convict Pickett counseled and whose execution troubled Pickett more than any other. He firmly believed De Luna was innocent, and the film tracks the investigative efforts of a team of Chicago Tribune reporters who have turned up evidence that strongly suggests he was.

From award-winning directors Steve James ("Hoop Dreams") and Peter Gilbert ("Vietnam: Long Time Coming").

Watch the trailer for the film >>

Update: special hearing on capital punishment in Austin, 3/5/08 >>

UPDATE: Hamdan trial delayed


UPDATE: Hamdan trial delayed

Update 7:15 a.m. Saturday

On Friday afternoon, the military judge heading the commission scheduled to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan postponed the date for starting that trial until July 21. This almost certainly will mean that, by then, the Supreme Court will have clarified the legal rights of Guantanamo detainees. Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald discusses the postponement and other new developments in the case in this story, published Saturday morning. Links to the judge’s order and to a separate order regarding a mental examination can be found at this Pentagon site.

Rosenberg’s story also reports that five Guantanamo detainees charged with roles in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have sought dismissal of their military commission cases, arguing that Pentagon “command influence” tainted their cases. Beside Rosenberg’s story is a link to this motion to dismiss; it is a large document.

Below is a post on earlier developments in Washington.

————–

The D.C. Circuit Court refused on Thursday to block the scheduled beginning of the war crimes trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan at Guantanamo Bay on June 2, but allowed his lawyers to renew the plea after the Supreme Court rules this month or next on the legal rights of detainees.

Lawyers for the Yemeni national had asked the Circuit Court to block his trial before a military commission until after the Supreme Court rules in the pending cases of Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196), arguing that the Justices’ ruling will affect directly his claim that it would be unconstitutional for a commission to try him.

In a brief order (found here), a three-judge panel of the Circuit Court said that Hamdan’s counsel had not met the requirements under the All Writs Act for “a stay pending Boumediene.” The order specified, though, that the motion was being denied “without prejudice to renewal upon the Supreme Court’s disposition in Boumediene v. Bush.”

The Justices heard arguments in Boumediene/Al Odah on Dec. 5; no date has been set for a ruling, but the Justices are expected to issue a decision before recessing for the summer, probably late in June.

Meanwhile, the second-in-command of the Pentagon’s war crimes regime — Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann — told the Associated Press Thursday that he would not resign his position even though the military judge in Hamdan’s case had barred him from any role in that case and intimated that Hartman should resign. Hartman said, however, that he might step aside later if his actions caused other war crimes cases to bog down, the AP said in its story. Hartmann oversees both prosecution and defense in the war crimes system in his role as legal advisor to the commander of that system. The judge in Hamdan’s case sharply criticized Hartmann for interfering in the prosecution of that case.




Monday 12 May 2008

State rejected execution safeguard


State rejected execution safeguard

Before a prolonged execution last year, the Florida Department of Corrections decided against using a machine to ensure an inmate is fully unconscious before lethal chemicals are injected.

An Aug. 15, 2006 memo from department attorney Sara Dyehouse recommended the use of a bispectral index monitor in executions. The monitor can ensure a condemned inmate is unconscious and does not experience pain during the lethal injection process, she wrote in the memo.

The department rejected the advice. Four months later, Angel Diaz appeared to writhe in pain in an execution that lasted about 20 minutes longer than usual.

Department secretary Jim McDonough, in an interview this week, said the company that makes the monitor didn't want it used in executions.

"The people that make it were not inclined to sell it to us," he said.

Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said the department could have bought the monitor from another source. But that would have meant the department didn't have the company's support to properly use and repair the monitor, she said.

The department determined a person could sufficiently do the job of making sure an inmate was unconscious before lethal chemicals are administered, she said.

I witnessed the execution and saw Diaz appear to grimace, wince and shudder for at least 15 minutes. A state task force found that prison guards heard Diaz say "What's happening?" twice during the execution. The Alachua County medical examiner ruled that IVs had punctured completely through Diaz's veins in both his arms, causing chemicals to slowly build up in his tissue before killing him.

Should the department have used the monitor in the execution? Post your comments below.

-- Nate Crabbe

Between life and death



OPINION: Editorial

May 12, 2008

Between life and death

Too many accused of murder lack adequate counsel

With the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of lethal injection as a means of capital punishment, many states see a green light to go ahead with executions.

Georgia wasted no time, putting William E. Lynd to death Tuesday for a 1988 murder. And Florida Gov. Charlie Crist made a point of saying that he's ready to start signing death warrants again.

But there's a bigger problem with the American death penalty, one that will probably never be the subject of a sweeping Supreme Court ruling -- even as it contributes to cases of obvious injustice across the nation. Every principle of fairness insists that no person should be on trial for his life without adequate, competent legal counsel. Yet every national study suggests that the standard of death-penalty defense falls far short of that goal.

The greatest factor identified among people sentenced to death is not their race, age or even the relative heinousness of their crime; it's whether they can afford to hire private counsel. If they can't, they must rely on an underfunded (and possibly inexperienced) public defender, and the risk of being sentenced to death is far greater. "Poor people getting lousy lawyers" represents a significant barrier to justice, said John Holdridge, head of the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project.

The problem is particularly obvious in Florida, which leads the nation in death-row exoneration. On paper, this state does come closer than many others to guidelines set up by the American Bar Association for ensuring adequacy of capital-defense counsel. But in a 2006 assessment, the ABA identified substantial weaknesses in the way Florida administers the death penalty. State laws don't provide enough assurance that capital defendants have access to skilled attorneys, especially for those represented by court-appointed private attorneys. (Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero once angrily noted that these attorneys' work was among the "worst lawyering" he'd ever seen.)

The money paid for the average death-penalty defense is woefully inadequate. There's no oversight to ensure that each of Florida's 20 judicial districts meets basic guidelines for adequate representation. And Floridians pay for that inadequacy -- in the cost incurred by years of appeals, in the doubt that comes every time an innocent person is freed after years on death row.

Other governors have responded to that doubt -- and to the serious concerns that prompt it -- by seeking meaningful reform or asking their legislatures to reconsider use of the death penalty. In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann both say they have no intention of rushing to execute prisoners in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, and Strickland bluntly says he's "not comfortable" with the death penalty.

That caution could serve Florida well. Before Crist cranks up the machinery of execution, justice demands that the weaknesses in Florida's death-penalty process be remedied -- or even better, that the state finally turn away from a punishment that's proven ineffective and unjust.


Henrettelse stoppet etter EU-press


Henrettelse stoppet etter EU-press

(VG Nett) Behnood Shoajee som etter planen skulle henrettets i Iran i dag, ble reddet i siste liten etter press fra EU.


UTSETTES:Behnoods henrettelse er utsatt i en måned.

Behnood var bare 17 år gammel da han ble dømt for drap i forbindelse med et masseslagsmål i en park 2005.
VGNett skrev i går om den planlagte henrettelsen av Behnood Shoajee i Iran. Til tross for at han var mindreårig da forbrytelsen ble begått ble Behnood dømt til døden, og skulle etter planen henges i dag tidlig. Saken har imidlertid fått stor internasjonal oppmerksomhet, og i går kveld iransk tid beordret iransk domstol utsettelse.

Menneskretteighetsforkjemper og forsker Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam har involvert seg sterkt i saken. Han mener utsettelsen er et resultat av EUs offisielle anmodning om å stoppe henrettelsen.
- Utsettelsen er uten tvil en direkte følge av den store oppmerksomheten dette har fått internasjonalt.

Også norske myndigheter har engasjert seg i saken. 2. mai kontaktet Utenriksdepartementet iranske myndigheter og uttrykte bekymring for Behnood og andre dødsdømte mindreårige i landet.

Faren ikke over

Amiry-Moghaddam understreker imidlertid at faren ikke er over for Behnood.

- Vi er selvsagt glade for at Behnood lever i dag, men det er grunn til å glede seg veldig forsiktig. Vi vet at slike utsettelser kan komme etter mye internasjonal oppmerksomhet, for så å gjennomføres når oppstyret har lagt seg.

Ett eksempel på slik praksis er småbarnsmoren Rahele Zamani. Hennes henrettelse ble stoppet 19. desember 2007 etter sterkt internasjonalt press, men ble så gjennomført 2. januar i år.

Les Amiry-Moghaddam blogg om menneskerettigheter i Iran

Jobber for tilgivelse

I følge Amiry-Moghaddam jobber nå Behnoods støttespillere i Iran for å få foreldrene til den drepte gutten til å tilgi. Ifølge Iransk rettssystem kan nemlig de pårørende til avdøde i drapssaker hindre henrettelser ved å tilgi den dømte.

Til tross for at Iran har ratifisert FNs barnekonvensjon som forbyr dødsstraff mot mindreårige, er det det landet i verden som henretter flest mindreårige. Og samtidig som det kjempes for livet til Behnood venter 86 andre dødsdømte mindreårige i iranske fengsler.

- Behnood kan være glad for at han lever i dag, men i morgen kan det være Ali, Ahmad eller Reza. Vi har en lang liste, sier Amiry-Moghaddam.

Between life and death


May 12, 2008

Between life and death

Too many accused of murder lack adequate counsel

With the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of lethal injection as a means of capital punishment, many states see a green light to go ahead with executions.

Georgia wasted no time, putting William E. Lynd to death Tuesday for a 1988 murder. And Florida Gov. Charlie Crist made a point of saying that he's ready to start signing death warrants again.

But there's a bigger problem with the American death penalty, one that will probably never be the subject of a sweeping Supreme Court ruling -- even as it contributes to cases of obvious injustice across the nation. Every principle of fairness insists that no person should be on trial for his life without adequate, competent legal counsel. Yet every national study suggests that the standard of death-penalty defense falls far short of that goal.

The greatest factor identified among people sentenced to death is not their race, age or even the relative heinousness of their crime; it's whether they can afford to hire private counsel. If they can't, they must rely on an underfunded (and possibly inexperienced) public defender, and the risk of being sentenced to death is far greater. "Poor people getting lousy lawyers" represents a significant barrier to justice, said John Holdridge, head of the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project.

The problem is particularly obvious in Florida, which leads the nation in death-row exoneration. On paper, this state does come closer than many others to guidelines set up by the American Bar Association for ensuring adequacy of capital-defense counsel. But in a 2006 assessment, the ABA identified substantial weaknesses in the way Florida administers the death penalty. State laws don't provide enough assurance that capital defendants have access to skilled attorneys, especially for those represented by court-appointed private attorneys. (Florida Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero once angrily noted that these attorneys' work was among the "worst lawyering" he'd ever seen.)

The money paid for the average death-penalty defense is woefully inadequate. There's no oversight to ensure that each of Florida's 20 judicial districts meets basic guidelines for adequate representation. And Floridians pay for that inadequacy -- in the cost incurred by years of appeals, in the doubt that comes every time an innocent person is freed after years on death row.

Other governors have responded to that doubt -- and to the serious concerns that prompt it -- by seeking meaningful reform or asking their legislatures to reconsider use of the death penalty. In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann both say they have no intention of rushing to execute prisoners in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, and Strickland bluntly says he's "not comfortable" with the death penalty.

That caution could serve Florida well. Before Crist cranks up the machinery of execution, justice demands that the weaknesses in Florida's death-penalty process be remedied -- or even better, that the state finally turn away from a punishment that's proven ineffective and unjust.


Death Row: Big number, no meaning


exonerees


Death Row: Big number, no meaning

By Randy Schultz

Palm Beach Post Editorial Page Editor

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Florida's Death Row is a fraud.

As of last week, 385 people were under sentence of death - 237 white men, 134 black men, 13 men of other races or ethnicities and one white woman. Now that the Supreme Court has blessed the most common method of lethal injection, Florida can resume the executions that Jeb Bush halted in December 2006 because of problems with the injection of Angel Diaz.

But let's assume that Florida began killing 12 inmates a year. That's a ridiculously high guess; the state hasn't killed more than eight people in any year since 1979. Even at that rate, however, it would take a decade to kill less than one-third of those on Death Row.

This column appears now because of the high court ruling last month on lethal injection. It's been kicking around for months, though, since a call from Tom Warner, former state representative from Martin County, former state solicitor general - Florida's chief appellate lawyer — and former and current supporter of the death penalty.

As a legislator, Mr. Warner was known for bucking the far-right Republican ideology of the last decade. That's why he never became a member of the leadership. He's in private practice now, for the big firm of Carlton Fields, but he still thinks a lot about public policy. He called because of what he had seen about the death penalty as solicitor general.

'The courts won't allow it'

"I observed at the time," Mr. Warner said last week, "that there were 60 to 70 people on Death Row who wouldn't be executed, no matter what, because of issues like, say, mental capacity. They just won't. The courts won't allow it."

He's right. Some inmates are on Death Row for crimes committed more than three decades ago. The law changes, technology changes - look how many men DNA has freed from Death Row; Florida leads the nation - and so do post-conviction appeals on behalf of condemned inmates. Death Row cases make up a fraction of the Florida Supreme Court's caseload but roughly half of the court's workload.

Trial court judges decide whether someone gets the death penalty or life in prison, but juries recommend which sentence. As Mr. Warner points out, there are people on Death Row because juries voted only 7-5 or 8-4 for execution. Given recent Supreme Court rulings, that alone is enough to delay those executions. Even Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer, as strong a death penalty supporter as you'll find, believes that the vote ought to be 12-0.

"In my mind," Mr. Warner said, "the state really needs to evaluate all the Death Row cases and identify where there is a realistic and practical chance of the sentence being carried out. It's about fairness and doing it right. You want the process to be legitimate."

Ducking death penalty responsibility

Making the process "legitimate," though, carries the political risk of looking soft on the death penalty. That may explain the reaction when I tried to find out who might ask for the review Mr. Warner suggests.

I started with the Department of Corrections, which directed me to the office of Attorney General Bill McCollum, which directed me back to Corrections, and elsewhere. "The Attorney General's Office does not have the authority to commute sentences," said spokeswoman Sandi Copes. "We are responsible for defending the state through (Death Row) appeals, but cannot unilaterally direct sentences to be changed. You may wish to speak with the Governor's Office or the Office of Executive Clemency. Thanks!"

But does the attorney general have any thoughts on the matter? Does he believe that all 385 death sentences ever will be carried out? "We do not have the authority to initiate the review you have suggested. Thanks!"

Few politicians win by appearing to stand up for Death Row inmates, and Mr. McCollum sends out so many e-mails each week that you know he's ready to run for governor if Charlie Crist winds up in a McCain administration. And Mr. Warner says that responsibility does go higher. "This is a state policy question," he said, "so it would have to come from the governor." Gov. Crist signed a death warrant last year without waiting for the ruling on lethal injection.

Since Florida is set on having capital punishment, the system ought to be at least reasonably legitimate. The current system frustrates almost everyone. That won't change until someone in a position of power has the political courage to say that Death Row is a fraud.

Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is schultz@pbpost.com

Commentary: War crimes trials and outside pressure

From the SCOTUS blog :

Commentary: War crimes trials and outside pressure

Commentary

The Nation’s first war crimes trial in the post-9/11 era is still set to begin in 17 days — unless the D.C. Circuit Court delays it — but that prosecution and perhaps others will occur under potentially embarrassing conditions. In fact, the entire regme of military commissions set up to try terrorism suspects is under the most significant legal cloud to form in what was already a troubled history.

In a ruling made public over the weekend, a military judge at Guantanamo Bay has barred the Pentagon’s second-in-command over military commission trials from taking any further part in the first case, and has in fact suggested that he perhaps should resign.

The decision Friday night by a Navy officer serving as the head of a military commission, Captain Keith J. Allred, amounts to a sharply worded rebuke of top Pentagon officers for putting outside pressure on the trial process –to bring cases for their political impact, to get the trials moving faster, and to influence the evidence to be used (including evidence obtained by torture or coercion). The 13-page ruling can be downloaded here.

The main target of Judge Allred’s findings is Air Force General Thomas W. Hartmann, who is the legal adviser to the top Pentagon official overseeing military commissions. It is Gen. Hartmann who has been barred by the judge from any further participation in the war crimes case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan — likely to be the first such trial at Guantanamo. (Note that Hamdan’s attorneys have pending at the D.C. Circuit a motion to delay his Guantanamo trial until after the Supreme Court rules this Term on the legal rights of detainees. That matter has been fully briefed, but the Circuit Court has taken no action on it in Hamdan v. Gates, Circuit docket 07-5042. )

In one of the military judge’s key findings, he wrote that Hartmann’s “intimate involvement in the details of prosecutorial decision-making have led one prosecutor to resign, another to seek ethical guidance from the Navy JAG ethics office, and has led both prosecutors in this case, and their foirmer supervisor, to believe they were being ‘nano-managed’ in both the performance of his duties and the exercise of their discretion.”

Allred also found that “the national attention focused on this dispute has seriously called into question the Legal Advisor’s ability to continue to perform his duties in a neutral and objective manner. While the public’s view of the matter is not controlling, the fact that a national magazine should have called the public’s attention to General Hartmann’s actions and suggested that he can no longer perform his duties is deeply disturbing.”

The judge disqualified Hartman from any further role in the Hamdan case, required the Pentagon to name a substitute for Hartmann for any future role in that case (and barred from such an assignment anyone on Hartmann’s current staff), ordered top Pentago officials to ensure that no person suffers retaliation or harmful consequences for testimony given in an internal Pentagon review of Hartmann’s actions or in Judge Allred’s review of those actions, and kept control of the challenge. The judge stressed that he would be “alert for evidence of unlawful influence” until the Hamdan case is over, and added that “additional corrective and preventative measures remain within the Commission’s discretion until that time, if necessary.”

The judge’s ruling came in response to a plea by Hamdan’s defense lawyers to throw out all charges against him because of Hartmann’s actions, and those of other top Pentagon officials. The judge refused to go that far, finding no unlawful influence in bringing the specific charges against Hamdan. The judge also declined to take any action against Hartmann’s superior, Susan Crawford, who is in overall charge of the military commission system. (Crawford, a former judge of the Court of Appeals of the Armed Forces, has the title “Convening Authority” for military commissions.)

The defense lawyers’ challenge was based in large part on information from the former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who resigned his post after a continuing dispute with Hartmann over commission affairs. Davis has gone public with his complaint of improper political and command influence in the war crimes system. He also testified in Judge Allred’s review of the issue in Hamdan’s case.

Judge Allred’s decision against any continuing role for Hartmann in the Hamdan case presumably could be appealed by the Pentagon to the Court of Military Commission Review. It is unclear whether there is any review role on this aspect of the commission system for the D.C. Circuit or for the Supreme Court.)

The judge found his authority to rule on Hartmann’s actions in provisions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 barring any person from coercing or using unauthorized means to influence the exercise of professional actions of war crimes prosecutors and defense lawyers. The judge said that “Congress had the intent to protect military commission participants from unlawful influence, and specifically from political influence” and that its purpose was “to protect the integrity of the proceedings and enhance their reputation in the public view.”

Spinning Baze for lower courts


From the BLOG Sentencing Law and Policy :

Spinning Baze for lower courts

Elisabeth Semel has this new piece in The National Law Journal, headlined "Fearing too much justice," which tries its darnedest to argue that Baze should be viewed by lower courts and state officials not as a green light for resuming lethal injection executions, but rather as a yellow light calling for additional caution and inquiry concerning modern execution realities:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.'s plurality opinion establishes that the court is primarily concerned with whether states are able to successfully administer the first drug in the three-drug formula — the anesthetic. Failure of that first drug results in a "constitutionally unacceptable" risk of suffocation and excruciating pain. On the limited facts before the court, Roberts took the view that delivery of the anesthetic is a relatively simple endeavor. But in other states, where courts have allowed full inquiry into lethal injection protocols, it has become apparent that getting the first dose "right" is not a simple matter.....

The plurality opinion in Baze may succeed — as Roberts intended — in precluding stays of execution when the demonstration of substantial risk is not greater than that presented by the Kentucky record.... [But] if courts allow discovery of execution records and depositions of executioners, outcomes will be different than they were in Baze. They may well resemble the result in Tennessee, where a federal district judge found that "due to lack of training and other issues," the state's "new protocol poses a substantial risk" that the inmate "will not be unconscious when the second and third drugs are administered." Or trial courts may find, as did a federal judge in California, that the record, "is replete with evidence that in actual practice the [state's protocol] does not function as intended."

Judicial fear of too much litigation, too much inquiry and too much truth about how the death penalty operates is a familiar one. In 1987, in McCleskey v. Kemp, the court held that a reliable statistical study showing the likelihood that racial prejudice influences Georgia capital sentencing decisions could not be used to establish race discrimination in the decision to sentence Warren McCleskey to death. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Lewis Powell, made much, as did Roberts' opinion, of the constitutional legitimacy of capital punishment and of federalism. Central to the ruling, however, was the concern that "McCleskey's claim, taken to its logical conclusion," would instigate challenges to discrimination at every level of the criminal justice system. Dissenting, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. responded that the fear of "apocalyptic consequences" was, rather, "a fear of too much justice," and the fact that the death penalty was the legislatively adopted norm in most states was unpersuasive given the issues at stake: "death and race."

It was scrutiny that the majority in McCleskey feared. It is scrutiny that some members of the current Supreme Court fear. It is certainly scrutiny that departments of corrections fear. In 1991, Powell stated that if he could change his vote in any case it would be the one he cast 14 years earlier in McCleskey. If trial courts allow discovery to go forward in lethal injection challenges, we will not have to wait 14 years for some justices to reconsider what went wrong in Baze.

Actually, I think that what some members of the current Supreme Court truly fear is what Semel and other death penalty opponents often seem eager to seek: the de facto elimination of the death penalty through persistent constitutional litigation rather than de jure reform through the democratic process. The fear is not of too much justice, but of too much persistent effort by death penalty abolitionists to achieve through the courts what they have not been achieve through the ballot box.

I do not begrudge sincere efforts by death penalty opponents to argue forcefully against state killing (just as I do not begrudge other sincere "culture of life" advocacy against abortion and doctor-assisted suicide). I am, however, consistently troubled when death penalty abolitionist advocacy is directed so forcefully toward courts rather than at politicians and the public.

Some related post-Baze posts:

Nathan Crabbe on CBS - Angel Diaz execution



You can see the video here :

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3510366n

and you can see the Watchdog Blog here :

http://watchdog.gainesville.com/?q=angel+diaz&Submit=Go


How can Florida start the executions again after this ...

Sunday 11 May 2008

Stevens alters stance on lethal-injection methods


Stevens alters stance on lethal-injection methods

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says the euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles probably died more humanely than death-row prisoners do.

Stevens' comments Friday night came a month after he voted with a majority of the Supreme Court to approve the most widely used method of lethal injection, while saying for the first time that he now thinks the death penalty is unconstitutional.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, Stevens told an audience of judges and lawyers that he checked into the procedure used to kill Eight Belles and was surprised to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal-injection cocktail that many states, including Kentucky, use to execute prisoners.

Stevens drew a round of applause for the comments to the 50 federal judges and more than 800 attorneys at a conference of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Eight Belles was euthanized after breaking both front ankles a quarter-mile after the finish at Churchill Downs on May 3.

In its 7-2 ruling last month, the Supreme Court turned back a challenge to the execution procedures in place in Kentucky, which employ three drugs to sedate, paralyze and kill inmates. Similar methods are used by three dozen states.

The argument against the three-drug protocol is that if the initial anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of those drugs, a paralytic, would render the prisoner unable to express discomfort.

In his opinion, Stevens suggested that states could spare themselves legal costs and delays in executions by eliminating the use of the paralytic.

Saturday 10 May 2008

Posted on Sat, May. 10, 2008



Posted on Sat, May. 10, 2008

Tenn. Supreme Court Justice derides lethal injection


The Associated Press


CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. --Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says the euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles probably died more humanely than death row prisoners do.
Stevens drew a round of applause for his comments Friday night in Chattanooga at the 68th conference of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


The comments were reported in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.


According to the newspaper, in brief remarks Stevens told the audience he checked into the procedure used to kill Eight Belles and was surprised to learn it is against the law in Kentucky to kill animals using one of the drugs in a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that many states, including Kentucky, use to execute prisoners.


The speech comes on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling that shot down a challenge to the three-drug lethal injection protocol by two Kentucky inmates. Stevens voted with the majority on the question of lethal injections but said for the first time that he now believes the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Friday 2 May 2008

In Memory of WILLIAM CODAY - Florida death row suicide April 2008

In Memory of WILLIAM CODAY

A friend who died before his time.

~THEN I DIED~

Freedom taken

Life forsaken

Steel bars

Painful scars

Mental strains

Concrete walls

No one hears your calls

Nothing’s fair

Hard to bear

Mind games

Nicknames

Count bells

Stair wells

Masked strangers

Constant dangers

Jingling keys

Trembling knees

Lonely hours

Faith sours

Years wasted

Hope tasted

Questions Why

Then I died….



Florida death row April 28, 2008