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Amnesty International Death Penalty Blog

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Last Entry: November 05, 2008 at 15:31:17

Executing Accomplices

Posted on August 21, 2008
UPDATE: Jeffery Lee Wood was stayed this afternoon by a federal judge in order to allow for more time to evaluate his mental capacity. Jeffery Lee Wood and Dennis Skillicorn are two death row inmates that have something in common--they both were scheduled to be executed within a one week time span for crimes in which they did not directly kill the victim...

Mentally Ill Offenders Languishing on Death Row

Posted on August 13, 2008
Raymond Riles has spent 33 years on Texas death row for the 1974 robbery and murder of Houston used car salesman John Henry. In the nation's most active execution state, Riles' stay on death row defies standards set in place by Texas to ensure that executions take place as speedily as possible...

Iran's Judiciary to Review Stoning

Posted on August 12, 2008
Last Wednesday, Iranian press reported that Iran's Judiciary had drafted legislation to remove stoning from their methods of execution. The draft legislation has been submitted to the parliament for approval, where the parliament's legal commission will prepare a final draft for Iranian MPs to vote on...

Another Foreign National Executed in Texas

Posted on August 08, 2008
Last night, two nights after putting Mexican national Jose Medellin to death, the state of Texas executed Heliberto Chi, a national from Honduras. He was convicted of a killing Armand Paliotta during a robbery in the Dallas area in 2001. Unlike Mexico in the Jose Medellin case, Honduras did not appeal to the International Court of Justice, or World Court, but the government of...

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Live from the Maryland Commission...

Posted on August 06, 2008
Yesterday's Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment featured a continuation of racial, jurisdictional, and socio-economic disparities in capital punishment sentencing. The Commission heard expert testimony on the U.S. Supreme Court and Maryland Death Penalty Law...

Jose Medellin Executed

Posted on August 06, 2008
In upholding the Jos� Medellin execution the unsigned opinion of Supreme Court's 5-4 majority makes some strange arguments. First, they insist that: "The beginning premise for any stay, and indeed for the assumption that Congress or the legislature might seek to intervene in this suit, must be that petitioner's confession was obtained unlawfully...

My experience testifying ...

Posted on August 01, 2008
On Monday I had the opportunity to sit and experience the Commission on Capital Punishment recently convened by Maryland's General Assembly. Expert testimony was offered by six witnesses followed by ten members of the public who spoke as well. Much of the discussion was devoted to the presentation of statistics that prove there are racial, socio-economic, and jurisdictional disparities in...

Thomas Arthur Execution Stayed

Posted on July 31, 2008
The Birmingham News is reporting that the Alabama Supreme Court has "indefinitely delayed" the execution of Thomas Arthur, who was scheduled to be put to death tonight. Earlier this week, someone else has confessed to the crime for which Thomas Arthur was sentenced to death...

MORE ON MEDELLIN

Posted on July 29, 2008
Today, the Dallas Morning News, urging Texas Governor Rick Perry to halt the execution of Jose Medellin, made an extremely important point: "The State Department calculated that 4,456 Americans were arrested abroad in 2006, up from 3,614 in 2005. The bulk of those arrests occurred in Mexico...

The Strange and Continuing Odyssey of Dr. Doerhoff

Posted on July 25, 2008
Dr. Alan Doerhoff first came to the attention of the world as "John Doe 1", an anonymous physician who testified in 2006 in a federal court that during his participation in executions in Missouri, he had improvised drug dosages, had no set protocol and kept no records...

Putting Some Humanity in Something Inherently Inhumane

Posted on July 23, 2008
If California is going to insist on the death penalty, it must at least be humane. Last month's scathing California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice revealed just how much the hidden death tax is costing residents of California, whose state budget is already stretched too thin...

Hidden Victims of the Death Penalty-What about Death Row Family Members?

Posted on July 22, 2008
If California is going to insist on the death penalty, it must at least be humane. Last month's scathing California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice revealed just how much the hidden death tax is costing residents of California, whose state budget is already stretched too thin...

One year ago today?

Posted on July 17, 2008
One year ago today - July 17, 2007 - was the original execution date set for Troy Anthony Davis, a man with a strong innocence case who still sits on Georgia's death row. Yesterday, July 16th, was the one-year anniversary of that infamous hearing in front of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles...

The World (Court) Is Watching

Posted on July 16, 2008
Today, the International Court of Justice (aka the World Court) issued an order calling for the US to take "all measures necessary" to stay the execution of Jose Medellin and four other Mexican nationals in danger of being put to death in the near future...

Kevin Young Gets a 30 Day Stay-- PLEASE ACT NOW!

Posted on July 16, 2008
On July 15th, Governor Brad Henry of Oklahoma granted a 30-day stay of execution to Kevin Young, who was originally scheduled to be executed on July 22nd. His new execution date is August 21st. Governor Henry announced the stay in order to have more time to review Kevin Young's case...

Cost Effective Administration?

Posted on July 15, 2008
Not everyone wants to abolish the death penalty, but some states do want to change the efficacy of it. While some see the lack of reverence for human life alone as reason enough, states such as Ohio and Texas are searching for fairer ways to administer the death penalty and make it cost effective...

SHOULD VICTIMS? FAMILY MEMBERS WHO OPPOSE THE DEATH PENALTY GO TO JAIL?

Posted on July 11, 2008
"If you don't follow my orders, I will sanction you. I will not hesitate to put you in jail." That's what a judge (William R. Pounders) told a victim's family member. Why? Because, according to the Los Angeles Times, he was worried she might tell jurors "that she had forgiven" her husband's accused killer "or that she believed he should be spared the death penalty...

Good News! But We Still Need Action to Help Spare Kevin Young...

Posted on July 09, 2008
The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 yesterday to grant clemency to Kevin Young, who is scheduled to be executed on July 22nd. The Board's action to recommend commutation of his sentence is encouraging, but the final decision of whether Young lives or dies now belongs to Governor Brad Henry...

Executions Are For the Victims' Families (except when they're not ? )

Posted on July 07, 2008
On Thursday, Texas is set to execute Carlton Akee Turner. He murdered his parents. He has said he killed his father in self defense (Carlton Turner Sr. had been a very abusive, including breaking his son's leg when he was 7 years old); he has also said he doesn't know why he killed his mother...

Paul House Moves from Death Row

Posted on July 03, 2008
After years of allowing his case to drag on, Tennessee released Paul House into the custody of his mother Joyce, where he will remain till October. House's story represents another strong claim of innocence on death row, and his treatment exemplifies the depravity of the system, and the state's negligence to treat prisoners with respect...

?No Right Way To Do The Wrong Thing?

Posted on July 03, 2008
"No right way to do the wrong thing" is an old saying; a Google search doesn't shed much light on its origins, although one website suggests that "no right way to do a wrong thing" is an old Turkish proverb. One of its most recent incarnations is in a Toby Keith song, entitled "Ain't No Right Way"...

Calculating Executions by Computer

Posted on July 02, 2008
While the death penalty is inherently irrevocable and unjust to those sentenced to death, the variables that lend themselves to determining death sentences all become complex indicators in deciding who will live and who will die. Even though one person executed would be one too many, the actual number of people sentenced to death and the number of those that are actually executed make...

California Recognizes Need for, Massive Cost of, Reform

Posted on July 01, 2008
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice issued a 117-page report yesterday on the administration of the death penalty in California. They have agreed unanimously that capital punishment in California is broken and that implementing reforms will cost a fortune...

Alabama, Germany and the Death Penalty

Posted on June 30, 2008
Today Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions concluded a two-week tour of the US by issuing a strong statement on a variety of issues, including the death penalty. Professor Alston visited two states, Alabama and Texas...

Virginia Carries Out 100th Execution

Posted on June 26, 2008
Virginia became only the second state in the U.S. to reach the grim milestone of 100 executions yesterday when Robert Yarbrough was put to death by lethal injection at 9:28pm. Virginia is joined only by Texas, a state that has now executed 406 inmates since the reinstatement of their death penalty...

Not on my turf--Texas ignores World Court

Posted on June 20, 2008
With all of the atrocities the world has seen committed since World War II, academics and the public have gradually seen Human Rights as global and not just rights enjoyed by a few in privileged Western nations. While this seems like a no-brainer; sadly, International Law and Human Rights are predicated by state and federal laws, which have MORE jurisdiction than those treaties...

A Soap Opera Execution almost Happens

Posted on June 18, 2008
Execution delayed in Texas! Since yesterday, death penalty advocates and opponents have their eyes focused on Texas. Charles Hood was supposed to be executed for the 1989 murders of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace, but his execution was put on hold after hours of legal wrangling between attorneys and judges...

No Stay for Charles Hood - Execution to go forward tonight

Posted on June 17, 2008
"The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals failed to uphold the integrity of the justice system yesterday by refusing to stay the execution of murderer Charles Dean Hood" begins today's editorial in the Dallas Morning News. You may have already read in Amnesty's urgent action that Hood is scheduled to be executed today, despite the fact that a trial court recently recommended that he get a new...

Witnessing an Execution; or signing up to be an executioner: You pick!

Posted on June 17, 2008
The death penalty in the United States fails to serve the American people. Capital Punishment in the United States (and around the world!) does not deliver any viable consequences. While its advocates claim that the Death Penalty is a successful deterrent, cost-effective, effective, unarbitrary and FAIR, those that oppose the death penalty realize that these arguments are simply ineffective...

When Politicians Vote with their Conscience

Posted on June 12, 2008
Pro-death penalty supporters often take a sense of pride in their advocacy of capital punishment, pushing for greater usage and arguing for the deterrent effects and money that they have saved taxpayers. Campaigns by governors in the Deep South have been run on platforms of speedier executions and more death warrants signed...

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