We attach this month’s death penalty report thanks to group member Lesley for compiling it. Note that apart from a small item, China does not feature despite being the world’s largest executioner of its people. Details are a state secret.
Death penalty report
We attach the latest death penalty report thanks to group member Lesley for the work in assembling it.
Death penalty report: Jan-Feb
The latest monthly death penalty report is attached with thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it.
Temporary halt to Saudi arms sales
President temporarily halts arms sales to Saudi Arabia
It’s only temporary, but it may be a start. It is being cast as part of the normal review of sales which a new president undertakes upon taking office but let us hope that it becomes permanent. The scale of destruction in Yemen continues apace so anything which acts to reduce it must be welcomed.
Sources: HRW; The Hill
The US execution spree
The US rushed to execute 13 before Jo Biden became president
January 2021
Shock was widely expressed following the execution of 13 people in the final days of the Trump presidency and just days before president elect Jo Biden takes office on 20th. President Trump has been the most prolific executioner in more than a century. There has been a gradual drift away from this use of the penalty in the USA – the only American nation still to have the penalty – and the executions are out of step with trends and attitudes among the US public. These executions took place in federal prisons. It has been criticised as vindictive.
The Attorney General, William Barr said:
[…] We owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system. US Department of Justice statement when federal executions were resumed after two decades. July 2019 [accessed 16 January 2021]
Death Penalty report December – January
The death penalty report for December to January is now available thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it.
Death penalty in America: CNN interview
This is an interview on CNN of Helen Prejean who is an active campaigner against the death penalty in the USA. Helen is a Roman Catholic, born in Baton Rouge Louisiana, and was chair of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty up to 1995. She is the author of a book, Dead Man Walking.
The interview was made because of President Trump’s programme of carrying out a string of Federal executions in the lame duck period before President elect Joe Biden takes over in January. The number of these is unprecedented.
Death penalty Report: Nov- Dec
This months Death Penalty report is now available thanks to group member Lesley for putting it together. Two cases in particular are noted and links to those can be found below. Note that China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the world put together but details are a state secret.
Execution ‘spree’ in USA
Lisa Montgomery execution to go ahead in the dying days of the Trump presidency
The execution by lethal injection of Lisa Montgomery is now scheduled to take place at Terre Haute Federal prison Indiana on January 12 just days before president-elect Joe Biden takes office. She is the first woman to be executed in almost six decades.
Lisa’s crime was truly awful and involved murder of a woman and the removal of her unborn baby. The argument has been about her mental state and her background. She was the victim of gang rape, incest and sex trafficking. Her defence (defense) has argued that the balance of her mind was disturbed at the time of the murder.
It is some kind of fitting end to the President’s term of office to rush through a number of Federal executions including this one. No other lame duck president has carried out more than one execution since Grover Cleveland’s first presidency in 1888 – 89.
This has been an administration that’s been historically out of step. Not just out of step with the views of America in 2020, but out of step with federal practices by administrations, Democratic or Republican, for the course of [a] century, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham told The Washington Post.
The USA is the only country in the Americas to retain the death penalty.
China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined but details are a state secret.
See our latest monthly death penalty report.
Further details of other executions being rushed through on the Death Penalty Information Center
Sources: USA Today; Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Washington Post; Guardian; US Dept. of Justice
Kris Maharaj: Florida
Kris Maharaj remain in prison in Florida despite being found innocent
Today is Marita Maharaj’s birthday.
She is 81 years old – she’s now had 34 birthdays without her beloved husband Kris by her side.
It’s been a difficult year for the elderly couple. A judge found that Kris was innocent by “clear and convincing evidence” but still refused to order his release.
Marita worries about Kris, this year more than ever before – he’s 81 years old, in poor health and at risk of the worst effects of coronavirus in a crowded Florida prison. And because of the pandemic, instead of a visit each week, she has not been able to see him since March.
Further details can be found on this link about this shocking case and miscarriage of justice in America.
Amnesty in Salisbury & South Wiltshire 