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Mar
2013
DALLAS (AP) — A Texas man convicted of setting a fire that killed his two stepsons was granted a new trial Wednesday by the state's highest criminal court, which sided with experts who question the fire investigation used to convict him.Ed Graf's case is one of several flagged by a new state panel re-examining arson investigations. The Texas state...Read more http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2013/03/texas-man-gets-new-trial-amid-arson.html
Colorado may follow Maryland in abolishing the death penalty this year, but the repeal will have to come at the hands of voters, not the state legislature.The House Judiciary Committee killed a bill Tuesday to repeal the death penalty by a vote of 6-4, with 2 Democrats siding with Republicans in26
Mar
2013
Measure heads to House for considerationLegislation to repeal the death penalty in Delaware passed the Senate this evening after a lengthy, impassioned debate over the merits of capital punishment.The bill was moved to the House with the narrowest majority, 11 votes to 10. Five Democrats and five26
Mar
2013
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The Oklahoma House has overwhelmingly approved a bill to make the death penalty an option in first-degree murder cases only if the state is seeking it. Current law tells judges to consider the penalty even if the state doesn't ask for it.The chamber voted 82-10 Tuesday in
Public execution in IranBy supporting a UN anti-drug programme operating in Iran, Denmark may be helping Iranian authorities arrest and execute suspected drug users and smugglers.Denmark voluntarily supports the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which supports countries around the
A former senior district judge has called for guidelines on how judges should use their discretion to decide if a capital offender should hang or get a life term.At issue is whether such discretion will lead to inconsistency in sentencing, said Dr S. Chandra Mohan, now a Singapore Management22
Mar
2013
Indian Supreme CourtConvicts who are awarded death penalty cannot claim commuting of their sentence on the ground of delay in the judicial process, the Supreme Court Thursday said.A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan cited an apex court judgement of 1989 which had ruled that "sentence22
Mar
2013
Georgia Execution ChamberThe names of those who carry out Georgia’s executions and the identities of those that supply the lethal drugs would be classified as “state secrets” under legislation moving through the General Assembly.Rep. Kevin Tanner, R-Dawsonville, who sponsored the privacy21
Mar
2013
Prince (left) and servant (right)London: A Saudi prince jailed for life in Britain for murdering his servant has been flown home to serve the rest of his sentence, the British government said on Wednesday.Prince Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Bin Nasser was jailed in 2010 for killing Bandar Abdullah Abdul20
Mar
2013
Public execution in KSAThe conservative kingdom applies a strict interpretation of Shariah and has often faced criticism by Western countries for its frequent use of capital punishment and trials that human rights groups say do not meet international standards. Saudi Arabia has the highest20
Mar
2013
LINCOLN — Nebraska lawmakers will once again debate the death penalty after a proposal to repeal capital punishment advanced Tuesday to the floor of the Legislature.Although Legislative Bill 543 was expected to obtain the minimum five votes to get out of the Judiciary Committee, none of the eight18
Mar
2013
Public execution in KSATardy executioners have prompted Saudi Arabia to re-evaluate their centuries-old practice of public beheadings.The use of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is based on a hardline interpretation of Sharia (Islamic) law. The practice attracts international scorn because of the
Kerobokan JailIndonesia's execution this month of narcotics convict Adami Wilson further tarnishes President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's human rights record. It reflects hypocrisy on the part of Yudhoyono, whose government continues to advocate for all Indonesians facing possible execution26
Mar
2013
Andrew ChanThe Bali 9's Andrew Chan has been dealt a massive blow with Indonesia's National Narcotics Board believed to have recommended that his death sentence should be upheld.A senior source involved in considering Chan's clemency application has told AAP that the narcotics board's decision was
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two Kentucky hospitals have rejected requests to perform a $56,000 hip replacement surgery on a death row inmate whose execution date could come this year.After more than a year of efforts to find a facility to perform the surgery on 56-year-old Robert Foley, the University of25
Mar
2013
Tokyo Detention CenterExecution ChamberIt was shortly after dawn on February 21 when Kaoru Kobayashi was informed that it was to be his last day alive. Officers at the Osaka Detention Centre told the former newspaper delivery man that the justice minister had signed the paperwork to allow his24
Mar
2013
A Puerto Rico man previously convicted of masterminding one of the island's biggest mass shootings was spared the death penalty on Saturday.The sentencing deliberations for 41-year-old Alexis Candelario Santana ended with a hung jury, meaning he will serve life in prison. He had been found guilty
Several years ago, I tried to get inside the head of an executioner. Not literally, of course. I was writing a fictional story about a prison guard whose job included carrying out the death penalty through lethal injection. To understand what an executioner’s life was like, I did extensive22
Mar
2013
INDIA'S Parliament has passed a sweeping new law to protect women against sexual violence in response to a fatal December gang rape and beating of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi.The new law, which still requires the president's signature before it becomes official, makes stalking, voyeurism20
Mar
2013
TOKYO — Japan has had a complicated relationship with tattoos over its history. Unlike in most Western countries where it’s simply considered a form of expression or drunkenly poor decisions, currently body art is generally looked down upon in Japanese society despite having some of the best20
Mar
2013
The death penalty is alive and well in the land of the rising sun -- and death row is particularly wretched.TOKYO – On Feb. 21, Japan hanged three death-row inmates. These executions, the first in 18 months, took place only a few months after Shinzo Abe's new government took office.There is no18
Mar
2013
Since the last six executions in Florida involved inmates who had lingered on death row in excess of 25 years, one must agree capital punishment is inefficient. The fact that we have executed only 7 percent of those sent to death row since capital punishment was reinstated makes it foolish to18
Mar
2013
States use the death penalty less and less often across the country, and some have even dropped it altogether, but Oklahoma likely won’t join the ranks of those that have outright abolished it.The annual number of executions in the U.S. has fallen by more than half over the past 15 years
Belarus PresidentAlexander LukashenkoBelarus Free Theatre will present a new piece – their first in English – that challenges the use of capital punishment around the world at the Young Vic this summer.Trash Cuisine, which will follow its London dates with a week-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe
132 capital punishment verdicts issued since PNA's establishment in West Bank and GazaHuman rights organisations in the Palestinian territories have urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to endorse the death sentence passed by the Gaza Military Court against a collaborator with Israel26
Mar
2013
Death-row inmates cannot use Arkansas' open records law to obtain information about the origin, history of quality of the drugs the state will use to execute them, a state judge ruled Monday.Pulaski County Circuit Judge Collins Kilgore ruled after a hearing Monday that communication between the25
Mar
2013
Kerobokan Prison, IndonesiaAdami Wilson’s execution on March 15, is a timely reminder that the death penalty remains part of Indonesia’s rule of law landscape. Much of the reportage of Wilson’s execution highlighted his continuing criminality in jail. The message is none too subtle — “He deserved23
Mar
2013
Daniel Wayne Cook sexually assaulted, tortured and killed 2 men, a jury agreed. He's dead now, executed last August in an Arizona prison. But Cook's name lives on, as part of a lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration's allowing importation of a drug used in executions byIndia's Supreme CourtIndia's top court upheld the death penalty on Thursday for a mastermind of the country's deadliest series of attacks and ruled a Bollywood star who bought weapons from the bombers must return to jail.Yakub Memon, brother of the alleged main plotter and fugitive Tiger MemonOne of the world’s and the UK's largest pharmaceutical companies has taken steps to ensure its drugs cannot be used to carry out executions by lethal injection.Teva, which describes itself as a “top 10 global pharmaceutical company [with] $20.3bn in sales in 2012,” will put in place distribution20
Mar
2013
Mohamed Ali Baashi, 18 years old gayboy,was buried in a hole up to his chest and then pelted with rocks by fightersfrom the rebel ALQAEDA Link groupALshabaab on Friday, March 15, 2013in Somalia, about 50 miles from thecapital, Mogadishu.A gay teen was allegedly20
Mar
2013
Whether the state of Colorado should be able to sentence people to die came to the forefront Tuesday afternoon as several dozen people crammed into a House committee room to testify on a bill to repeal the death penalty.The measure, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Claire Levy of Boulder and Jovan18
Mar
2013
The Missouri death row prisoner Reggie Clemons will make one final appeal on Monday at a special hearing that marks the last glimmer of hope that his life might be spared.Clemons and his defence lawyer, alongside the opposing legal team of the state of Missouri, will come before judge Michael18
Mar
2013
After refraining from executing individuals for four years, the Indonesian authorities executed a Nigerian national, Adami Wilson, on 14 March 2013. The Tangerang District Court named Adami guilty of drug dealing and sentenced him to death in 2004. The Attorney General Office (AGO) mentioned to the