The Growing Gap Between the U.S. and the International Anti-Death-Penalty Consensus

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYtit8NJDCRLIRlPKKePilrpPrgqvvSJJBLPmvCxqlhBl0iw0IaNUoc55CgHp6LLD3M9qJnPQVLaPhx25qJuvQiXgEPWYkagbnUz2SSF1ZOG8HSqdNmNxfTJNShoQ3hQP-meHLGxu_FI/s1600/Gallows%252C+Department+of+Corrections%252C+Smyrna%252C+Delaware%252C+1991.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzYtit8NJDCRLIRlPKKePilrpPrgqvvSJJBLPmvCxqlhBl0iw0IaNUoc55CgHp6LLD3M9qJnPQVLaPhx25qJuvQiXgEPWYkagbnUz2SSF1ZOG8HSqdNmNxfTJNShoQ3hQP-meHLGxu_FI/s400/Gallows%252C+Department+of+Corrections%252C+Smyrna%252C+Delaware%252C+1991.jpg" title="Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991" width="373" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In employing the death penalty, the U.S. insists it abides by international law. But it declines to make the most important international commitment - to reject the penalty as a violation of human rights. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Last week, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution calling for a worldwide "moratorium on the use of the death penalty" - the 6th that the U.N. has approved in the past decade. Each one has gained the support of more of the organization's members. The latest vote was 117 countries in favor to 409 against. (31 abstained, and 5 did not vote.) In addition to a call for a halt to executions worldwide, the resolution urges countries that maintain the death penalty to increasingly restrict its imposition and to apply international laws that protect the rights of those facing the penalty. The rights include that a death sentence may be imposed only for the "most serious crimes," defined as intentional crimes that have "lethal or other extremely grave consequences," and that execution be carried out only after "a final judgment rendered by a competent court," following a legal process that insures a fair trial and that provides access to appeal to a higher court and the opportunity to seek a pardon or a commutation of the sentence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">At the General Assembly, the United States cast one of the nay votes. Stefanie Amadeo, the deputy representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, explained the country's position, which is basically unchanged since the U.S. opposed the 1st resolution against the death penalty, in 2007: "The ultimate decision regarding these issues must be addressed through the domestic democratic processes of individual Member States and be consistent with their obligations under international law," which does not prohibit capital punishment. The position reflects the American reality of supporting the death penalty in principle, but increasingly outlawing it in practice. As Jeffrey Toobin reported recently, the U.S. maintains the death penalty under federal and military law and under the laws of 31 states - even though only 5 states conducted executions in 2016 and executed only 20 people in total, the lowest number in 25 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h3>Global norms</h3><br />The U.S. stresses the importance of observing global norms. "Just as the United States is committed to complying with its international obligations," Amadeo said, "we strongly urge other countries that employ the death penalty to do so only in full compliance with their international obligations." Meanwhile, in the past 40 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has increasingly sought to restrict the application of the death penalty to the worst of the worst offenders - 1st, to people who commit the most heinous murders and, then, only to adults who commit them, excluding youth under the age of 18. In addition, it generally takes a decade or more for a state to carry out an execution because of challenges to a death sentence allowed under due process of law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among the states with the death penalty, 12 have not carried out an execution for a decade or more, and another five have not executed anyone for at least 5 years. In California, where the last execution was in 2006, there were 750 people on death row as of December 2nd. Rather than being executed (the state has executed only 13 people since 1978) it is much more likely that a death-row inmate will die as a result of natural causes or suicide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roger Hood, an emeritus professor at Oxford, and Carolyn Hoyle, who directs Oxford's Centre for Criminology, last year published the 5th edition of "The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective." Their book documents the many ways that people are sentenced to death in violation of international law - for drug-trafficking, for example, rather than for "the most serious crimes," in unfair proceedings and with no opportunity to ask for clemency, and while imprisoned in terrible conditions. These and other realities, they write, are moving "the debate about capital punishment beyond the view that each nation has, if it wishes, the sovereign right to retain the death penalty" to persuading "countries that retain the death penalty that it inevitably, and however administered, violates universally accepted human rights." Countries that employ the death penalty and insist that they are abiding by international law, including the U.S., decline to join in making the most important international commitment about the penalty, which is to reject it as a violation of human rights.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There has long been a gap between the idealism that the U.S. expresses when boasting of its dedication to the rule of law, especially the protection of individual rights, and the reality of its persistent refusal to abide by major international human-rights commitments. The U.S. was a leader in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the U.N. adopted in 1948, but stopped supporting the international system to carry it out because, among other reasons, Jim Crow laws directly violated the declaration. There is a sizable list of human-rights treaties - on the Rights of the Child, for example, and on the International Criminal Court - that the U.S. has signed but not ratified. Even when the U.S. ratifies treaties, the government often adds a caveat that excludes protection of some basic rights.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As a result, the U.S. has ended up in some rough company, particularly when it comes to the death penalty. In the past generation, the number of countries that have stopping using the death penalty has doubled, from about 50 to about 100. Of the 57 member states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and of the 35 member states of the Organization of American States, only the U.S. carried out executions last year. The countries that executed the most offenders were, in order, China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. China executed thousands of people, though its secrecy about its use of capital punishment makes it impossible to know exactly how many. Excluding China, Iran (with close to 1000 or more), Pakistan (326), and Saudi Arabia (158) executed almost 9 out of 10 people put to death worldwide - "often after grossly unfair trials," according to Amnesty International, and "for crimes - including drug trafficking, corruption, 'adultery,' and 'blasphemy' - that do not meet the international legal standards for the use of the death penalty." In 2015, according to Amnesty International, at least 1634 people were executed, an increase of more than 50 % from the year before and the highest number in a quarter of a century. (The organization expects to release figures for 2016 in the spring.)<br /><br /><h3>The influence of the U.S. on the death penalty worldwide</h3></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The United States, in other words, ranks with countries that conspicuously are not in full compliance with their international obligations. And its responsibility is sometimes worse than guilt by association. As Maya Foa, the director of the death-penalty team at Reprieve, an international human-rights organization, told me, "The U.S. clearly leads and influences global death-penalty practice. Our partners, who are lawyers and human-rights defenders in jurisdictions that retain the penalty, tell us that the use of the death penalty by the U.S., a 'developed' nation, is used to justify the death-penalty practice in the jurisdictions they work in." Reprieve is providing legal and investigative assistance to people facing execution in 11 countries, in Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, and in the U.S.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In August at a rally in Istanbul, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey, the BBC reported, the country's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said, "They say there is no death penalty in the E.U. ... Well, the U.S. has it; Japan has it; China has it; most of the world has it. So they are allowed to have it. We used to have it until 1984. Sovereignty belongs to the people, so if the people make this decision I am sure the political parties will comply." He said that the Turkish people might want to restore the death penalty to punish those responsible for killing hundreds of citizens during the attempted coup. That has not happened yet, but, if it does, its purpose, Erdogan suggested, will be a display of cold-blooded power.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The influence of the U.S. on the death penalty worldwide has sometimes been constructive. In 1976, for example, when the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a state to make the death penalty mandatory for any crime, it marked the beginning of the decline of mandatory death sentences around the world. "The fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment," the Court said, "requires consideration of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Indian Supreme Court employed this logic when it struck down the mandatory death sentence in the country's penal code, in 1983. The legislature, it held, could not compel judges "to shut their eyes to mitigating circumstances and inflict upon them the dubious and unconscionable duty of imposing a preordained sentence of death." More recently, the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide reports, 18 other countries have followed suit and struck down the mandatory death penalty, including almost every Caribbean nation and Uganda, Malawi, and Kenya.<br /><br /><h3>Replacing Justice Scalia</h3></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In their latest edition of "The Death Penalty," Hood and Hoyle write optimistically about the U.S. example: "Those who campaign for abolition worldwide can hope that it will not be many years before the U.S. Supreme Court will be able to find that the majority of states, in line with a majority of countries worldwide, does not support the death penalty for anyone." Donald Trump has said that he will replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia - the Court's most vehement defender of the death penalty for almost 30 years - with someone in his mold. But, even when that happens, there will be a possibility that Justice Anthony Kennedy will join the Court's moderate liberals in striking down the death penalty, for reasons Justice Stephen Breyer articulated in 2015: "The Court in effect delegated significant responsibility to the States to develop procedures that would" insure the fairness of the capital-punishment system, he wrote. "Almost 40 years of studies, surveys, and experience strongly indicate, however, that this effort has failed." If the Court continues to uphold the death penalty, on the other hand, the gap between the U.S. and a large and growing majority of the rest of the world will continue to increase.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The New Yorker, Lincoln Caplan, December 31, 2016. Mr. Caplan, a former New Yorker staff writer, is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and the author of the new book "American Justice 2016: The Political Supreme Court."</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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The Growing Gap Between the U.S. and the International Anti-Death-Penalty Consensus

Disused gallows in Smyrna prison, Delaware, 1991 In employing the death penalty, the U.S. insists it abides by international law. But it dec...

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Pakistan to hang 'butcher of Swat' Muslim Khan

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6UX9B5NAolsP-_3AO63_l3_vW5wfpUBkqm4Yd7LTVbK8hF2rz1BWky2lHay_alvXSh8k1LuV5GI64521vD2GaNYQPUSGrUo8UIf24bSfl1YjP7glGw3eyQi_DZfRWvG_0kU53gkqlx8/s1600/Muslim+Khan+was+the+face+of+the+Swat+Taliban+for+many+months+PAKISTAN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Muslim Khan was the face of the Swat Taliban for many months" border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS6UX9B5NAolsP-_3AO63_l3_vW5wfpUBkqm4Yd7LTVbK8hF2rz1BWky2lHay_alvXSh8k1LuV5GI64521vD2GaNYQPUSGrUo8UIf24bSfl1YjP7glGw3eyQi_DZfRWvG_0kU53gkqlx8/s400/Muslim+Khan+was+the+face+of+the+Swat+Taliban+for+many+months+PAKISTAN.jpg" title="Muslim Khan was the face of the Swat Taliban for many months" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Muslim Khan was the face of the Swat Taliban for many months.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A military court in Pakistan has sentenced a top Pakistani Taliban leader from the Swat region to death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Muslim Khan, a former spokesman for the militants, was convicted of killing 31 people, including civilians and security personnel, the military said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He is among eight "terrorists" whose death penalty was confirmed by army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The military courts were set up in the aftermath of the 2014 Peshawar school massacre. Their term expires next week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Others whose convictions were confirmed by the army chief on Wednesday include four gunmen sentenced for involvement in a 2015 bus massacre of Ismaili Shias in Karachi, and the assassination of social activist Sabeen Mahmud, also in Karachi the same year.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Why 'butcher of Swat'?</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Muslim Khan, 62, started out as a student activist of a left-wing secular party in the 1960s, but underwent an ideological transformation in the early 1990s when a pre-Taliban Islamist movement briefly emerged in his native Swat region.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2007, he became the chief spokesman of the Swat Taliban, and was the movement's public face during its stranglehold over the region which continued until the winter of 2009.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His forceful defence of the Taliban's policy of killings, beheadings and the destruction of schools in Swat earned him and Swat Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah the title of "butcher of Swat".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The military's statement described him as "a spokesman of a proscribed organisation [who] was involved in killing innocent civilians, attacking armed forces and law enforcement agencies of Pakistan".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These attacks resulted in the death of 31 people and injuries to 69 others, the statement said, adding that he was involved in "slaughtering" four soldiers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"He was also involved in kidnapping two Chinese engineers and a local civilian for ransom. The convict admitted his offences before the Magistrate and the trial court. He was awarded the death sentence."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A former BBC Urdu correspondent, Abdul Hai Kakar, who met him in September 2009, reported that he spoke several languages, including Urdu, English, Arabic and Persian, in addition to his mother tongue Pashto.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He had lived in or travelled across more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, Europe, the US and the Far East.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He has been in custody since his arrest in 2009 during the military operation that drove the Taliban out of Swat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Was the trial fair?</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The military court trials are held in secret, and prisoners on trial are held in internment centres run by the military, away from the mainstream jail population.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Scores of suspects have been convicted by the military courts since they were set up in January 2015 - obtaining accurate information is difficult because secrecy makes it almost impossible to scrutinise the process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dawn newspaper said more than 270 cases had been sent to the military courts in the past two years. They gave death sentences to 161 people, while 116 were given jail terms, mostly life sentences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A report by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in June had a lower figure, saying the military courts had convicted 81 people during the 18 months of their existence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So far only 12 suspects have been executed by the military courts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Others have gone to the courts to challenge the fairness of the trials, but judges have failed to intervene.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ICJ has accused the Pakistani authorities of failing to make public key information about the trials, with similar objections raised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and other groups.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The BBC asked the Interior Ministry for information on cases tried by the military courts but has not yet received a response.</div><h3 style="text-align: justify;"><br />What happens to military courts now?</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The convictions made public on Wednesday are believed to be the last by military courts before their legal term expires in January 2017.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not clear if their term will be extended.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elements within the military want the term of the military courts extended, believing the government is not up to dealing with terrorism-related offences.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But rights groups and some political circles say law and order has improved and the justification for military courts no longer exists.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Source: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38462706" target="_blank">BBC News</a>, December 29, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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Pakistan to hang 'butcher of Swat' Muslim Khan

Muslim Khan was the face of the Swat Taliban for many months. A military court in Pakistan has sentenced a top Pakistani Taliban leader from...

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Nigeria: Edo State Executes Three Inmates

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYDjyxtdwKsyRyEdu5ugEeDNX4J-K5-nZrFgXj5Ii8vDzMtEW0lU4CD9MCmhaQpGFNxJIZM6EX8iHsk0W4vpTtKGyambbespgDTRAUxHRCD90Gv759TgqVIt0Vv1v3UIVYOC9loFkOPA/s1600/Nigeria+flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nigeria flag" border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYDjyxtdwKsyRyEdu5ugEeDNX4J-K5-nZrFgXj5Ii8vDzMtEW0lU4CD9MCmhaQpGFNxJIZM6EX8iHsk0W4vpTtKGyambbespgDTRAUxHRCD90Gv759TgqVIt0Vv1v3UIVYOC9loFkOPA/s400/Nigeria+flag.jpg" title="Nigeria flag" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">December 23, 2016: Edo State government executed three death row inmates who were sentenced to death by military tribunals under the Robbery and Firearms (Special Provisions) Decree 1971 as amended. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state had announced its intention to execute three death row prisoners at Oko Prisons in Benin City. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Nation learnt that the execution took place December 23 as scheduled. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Those executed are – Ogbomoro Omoregie, Apostle Igene and Mark Omosowhota. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They were said to have been executed around 6:00 a.m. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A rights group, the Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP), through its director Chino Obiagwu, had petitioned Governor Godwin Obaseki to halt the planned execution. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“We have filed an appeal pending at the Court of Lagos seeking order that these prisoners have right of appeal under the 1999 Constitution.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Obiagwu told The Nation on December 27 that his clients had been executed despite the petition. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It could not be confirmed if it was Obaseki or his predecessor Adams Oshiomhole who signed their death warrants. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: thenationonlineng.net, December 27, 2016</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

Nigeria: Edo State Executes Three Inmates

December 23, 2016: Edo State government executed three death row inmates who were sentenced to death by military tribunals under the Robbery...

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A Look at the 6 Inmates on US Military Death Row

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHLf0NqMCEG1JsMRTeBbFQOXUwXopA4UbRb8aVxkGO0Bgo-Wb4RkZqcIfmsRdF7PTUfSfx0mBZeiXaV43va0zb-vo0nDZFDDVjxalwYGT6UAqjHX95dMtfDWY9YsM7LxtcZopM9xkpao/s1600/fort-leavenworth-military-prison+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas" border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieHLf0NqMCEG1JsMRTeBbFQOXUwXopA4UbRb8aVxkGO0Bgo-Wb4RkZqcIfmsRdF7PTUfSfx0mBZeiXaV43va0zb-vo0nDZFDDVjxalwYGT6UAqjHX95dMtfDWY9YsM7LxtcZopM9xkpao/s400/fort-leavenworth-military-prison+%25281%2529.jpg" title="U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A look at the six inmates on U.S. military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A federal judge in Kansas lifted a stay of execution for one of the inmates. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The U.S. military carried out its last execution when it hanged Army Pvt. John Bennett in 1961 for raping and trying to kill an 11-year-old Austrian girl. The death chamber has since been remodeled for lethal injections.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">RONALD A. GRAY</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gray was convicted and ordered condemned in military court in 1988 for two murders and three rapes in the Fayetteville, North Carolina, area while he was stationed at Fort Bragg, where he reached the rank of specialist and was a cook. He pleaded guilty in civilian courts to two other killings and five rapes and was sentenced to eight life terms, including three to be served one after the other. A federal judge in Kansas last week lifted a stay of execution for Gray.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">DWIGHT LOVING</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Loving, formerly of Rochester, New York, was convicted of killing Killeen, Texas, taxi drivers Bobby Sharbino and Christopher Fay during separate robberies on Dec. 11, 1988, while Loving was stationed at Fort Hood. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an appeal by Loving, a former Army private, upheld the military death penalty, ruling that President Ronald Reagan in 1994 properly enacted a key section aimed at helping jurors decide who deserves capital punishment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">HASAN AKBAR</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Akbar was condemned after being convicted of killing two fellow soldiers — Army Capt. Christopher S. Seifert and Air Force Maj. Gregory L. Stone — and injuring 14 others in an attack in Kuwait in 2003, during the early days of the Iraq war. In October, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Akbar's appeal, which focused on whether the way in which the armed forces imposes a death sentence complies with recent Supreme Court rulings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">NIDAL HASAN</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 31 others in the 2009 attack at Fort Hood in Texas, where Hasan opened fire in a room of unarmed soldiers. During his 2013 trial, Hasan told jurors he had "switched sides" in what he called America's war with Islam. He admitted beginning the rampage by pulling out a pistol and shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and said he wanted to stop American soldiers from being deployed to kill fellow Muslims. A Fort Hood police officer helped end the attack in a gunfight with Hasan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">ANDREW WITT</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Witt was convicted in 2005 of fatally stabbing a fellow airman and his wife at their duplex at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, as well as wounding a staff sergeant. Prosecutors said Witt killed Senior Airman Andrew Schliepsiek and his wife, Jamie, after they threatened to report he had made a pass at Jamie Schliepsiek and had an affair with an officer's wife. Witt's lawyers did not dispute that he stabbed the couple but contended that the killings were not planned. Officials said the killings were the first ever at the 60-year-old Air Force base in central Georgia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: justify;">TIMOTHY HENNIS</h3><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hennis, a former Army master sergeant at North Carolina's Fort Bragg, was convicted during an April 2010 court-martial trial of killing a North Carolina mother and two of her daughters, ages 5 and 3, in 1985. Hennis was first convicted in state court of the killings, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and he was acquitted in a retrial in 1989. Hennis was living in Lakewood, Washington, when the Army brought him out of retirement for the court-martial nearly two decades after his acquittal. A four-judge Army appellate panel last month upheld Hennis' death sentence.</div><br />Source: The Associated Press, December 27, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! <a href="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=JBVXEBZLP3WKW" target="_blank">DONATE!</a></b></div><form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_blank"><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/fr_FR/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" /></div></form><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>

A Look at the 6 Inmates on US Military Death Row

U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas A look at the six inmates on U.S. military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, acc...

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