We are pleased to attach this month’s DP report thanks to group member Lesley for her work in compiling this. A mixture of news as ever with the situation in the USA becoming more troubling in some states. France’s action in trying to achieve a world wide ban is encouraging. As ever there is no information from China where executions are a state secret and are believed to be the worst in the world.
Posts Tagged ‘USA’
Death Penalty report: Sept/Oct 2021
Posted: October 14, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Death penalty, Ernest Johnson, France, Global Business, Malawi, Oklahoma, Philippines, Salisbury, Sierra Leone, Texas, USA
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Urgent Action: USA
Posted: September 30, 2021 in MissouriTags: Death penalty, Ernest Johnson, Missouri, urgent action, USA
Man with intellectual disability to be executed in Missouri
Saudi Arabia is not the only country to flout international law when it comes to the death penalty. The same is true in the US when it comes to executing people with intellectual disabilities.
Ernest Johnson faces execution on 5 October 2021. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the 1994 murders of three employees of a convenience store in Missouri. A jury sentenced him to death despite a claim of intellectual disability in violation to international law. Johnson had surgery in 2008 to remove a brain tumour which has left him with seizures. Medical experts testified that the lethal injection drugs may trigger violent and painful seizures. State and federal courts have denied his claims for relief. We urge Governor Parson to halt the execution and commute his sentence.
Please take action on Earnest Johnson’s behalf. There is no address but you can access the appeal form here.
Latest death penalty report
Posted: September 9, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Death penalty, federal, Fiji, India, Japan, Malawi, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA
We attach the latest monthly death penalty report for August/September thanks to group member Lesley for compiling the information. Note that there China doesn’t feature (except for one small item) as information about executions is a state secret. It is believed thousands are executed.
Monthly DP report
Posted: August 12, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Bahrain, Canada, China, Death penalty, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, USA
Death penalty report: July
Posted: July 8, 2021 in China, Death penalty, Egypt, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Texas, USATags: China, Death penalty, Egypt, Malaysia, USA
We are pleased to attach our latest monthly death penalty report with thanks to group member Lesley for preparing it. Note that it does not contain any details from China which is the world’s largest executioner of its citizens because details are a state secret. However, a report of the Chinese execution practices was printed in the Sun newspaper in the UK (warning – contains disturbing images).
Death penalty report: May – June
Posted: June 10, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Belarus, Canada, Death penalty, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, USA
We are pleased to attach the current monthly death penalty report prepared by group member Lesley. Contains a lot of information: Iran, Saudi, Belarus, Canada, Egypt and the US. Note that China – the world’s largest executioner – is absent because details of its massive execution activities are a state secret.
Death penalty report: April – May 21
Posted: May 13, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Burma, Death penalty, Egypt, Indonesia, Malawi, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, USA
We attach the death penalty report for April – May 2021. Note the report does not include China which is believed to execute thousands of its citizens but the statistics for which are a state secret.
Amnesty’s death penalty report: 2020
Posted: April 29, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Amnesty, annual report, China, Death penalty, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, USA
This is an extract from Amnesty’s annual death penalty report for 2020 which, overall, is good news with a decline in the use of the penalty around the world. It excludes China which executes thousands of its citizens but does not publish figures which are a state secret.
Once again the number of known executions has fallen (by 26%) and at 483 is now at its lowest for 10 years. The number of known death sentences imposed has also fallen. Much of the fall in execution numbers has been driven by significant reductions in Saudi Arabia (down 84%) and Iraq (down over 50%). However, these falls have been offset by a tripling of executions in Egypt to at least 107.
The five countries that executed the most people are China (1,000s), Iran (at least 246), Egypt (at least 107), Iraq (at least 45) and Saudi Arabia (27). In the USA the picture is mixed with state executions significantly down but this was negated by a surge in federal executions ordered by the outgoing Trump administration. The USA remains the only country in the Americas to execute people.
The number of known death sentences handed down has also fallen from 2,307 to 1,477 although some of this reduction appears to be due to delays in proceedings in response to the pandemic.
18 countries are known to have carried out executions in 2020, a reduction of 2 since 2019. Chad and the US state of Colorado abolished the death penalty and Kazakhstan committed to its abolition. On the other hand executions were resumed in India, Qatar, Oman and Taiwan.
Some of the more disturbing trends in 2020 included the following:
- The Trump administration executed 10 people at the federal level in less than six months
- China used the death penalty to crack down on offences related to Covid-19 prevention efforts
- In some countries, including the USA, defence lawyers said that they had been unable to meet clients face to face because of Covid restrictions.
Asia-Pacific countries were notable for imposing death sentences for crimes not involving intentional killing, which is in violation of international law. This included drug offences in China, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam, corruption in China and Viet Nam and for blasphemy in Pakistan. In the Maldives five people under the age of 18 at the time of their offences remain under sentence of death.
Nevertheless the trend remains positive. 144 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or in practice. 123 countries supported the UN General Assembly’s call for a moratorium on executions. In the USA the state of Virginia recently became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty and several bills to abolish it at federal level are pending before Congress.
Amnesty continues to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and will continue to campaign until the death penalty is abolished everywhere for good.
The death penalty in USA
Posted: April 22, 2021 in Death penalty, Florida, USATags: Clive Stafford Smith, Death penalty, Reprieve, USA
Eloquent piece by Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve concerning the death penalty in the USA
Stafford Smith has represented many individuals on death row in the USA so his experience of a dysfunctional and unfair system is considerable. Many more black people are convicted than white people. There is no obligation on the police to make exculpatory evidence available. Prisoners spend decades on death row going through seemingly endless appeals. One case – Kris Maharaj – which we have highlighted on this site, is a case of miscarriage gone badly wrong. Despite copious evidence that he had nothing to do with the murder, he still languishes in prison in Florida. New evidence cannot be introduced at the appeal stage. The level of mistakes is high at around 10% and one of the problems with executions is that they cannot be put right.
Judges may have little criminal experience. Defendants are usually poor and cannot afford experienced or capable lawyers.
This account is of the USA but we should remember that the system is much worse in some other countries of the world: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran for example and that thousands are executed in China where details are a state secret.
Source: Al Jazeera
Death Penalty report: March – April
Posted: April 8, 2021 in Death penaltyTags: Armenia, China, Death penalty, India, Iran, juvenile, Myanmar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA
