It’s vital that our Government continues working through all possible means for clemency for Andrew and Myuran, and to promote the abolishment of the death penalty in our region. So we need to keep up the messages to Bob Carr and Julia Gillard, and show them that public support for this is not going away.

Send our Foreign Minister and Prime Minister a message now

The state of Georgia has applied to the US supreme court to overturn a stay of execution for Warren Hill, the intellectually disabled prisoner who came within half an hour of being put to death on Tuesday night.

Georgia’s attorney general has filed a petition with the highest court in the US, arguing that Hill is not entitled to a stay of execution, because of the fact that he has exhausted all legal remedies. The petition states that his lawyer’s argument that the prisoner is “mentally retarded” is not new, and has been rejected by previous courts.

In a riposte to the supreme court, Hill’s attorney Brian Jammer countered that the appeal is indeed based on new evidence – the decision of three doctors to change their testimony that has transformed the case.

It now remains to be seen whether the nine justices of the supreme court wish to become embroiled in this particular challenge. In similar cases, the court has wished to remain above the legal fray, leaving the argument to be fought out by the lower courts.

Georgia has until 26 February to execute Hill, after which deadline it will have to apply for a new death warrant. That may help explain its urgency in trying to overturn the stay.

Full story here.

Briton Lindsay Sandiford sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking

Grandmother from Redcar was arrested in May after Bali police said they found £1.6m-worth of cocaine in her suitcase

A British woman has been sentenced to death after attempting to smuggle £1.6m-worth of cocaine into Bali.

Lindsay Sandiford, a 56-year-old grandmother, originally from Redcar in Teesside, was arrested for drug trafficking in May last year after local police said they found almost 5kg of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase.

There were gasps of surprise in Denpasar district court as the sentence was handed down; the prosecution had sought a 15-year prison term, not the death penalty, but the judge ruled that Sandiford’s attempted crime had damaged Bali’s image.

Sandiford wept as judges handed down the sentence, covering her face with a scarf as she left the courtroom to return to prison. She earlier told the court she was forced into taking the drugs into the country by gangsters who were threatening to hurt one of her children, saying “the lives of my children were in danger”.

Full story here.

Date: Friday 12th October 2012
Time: 6.30pm for 7pm start
Venue: Broncos League Club
98 Fulcher Road
Red Hill Qld 4054
Cost: $80 adult, $70 student/conc.
$70 pp for group (table of 10)
Bookings: http://www.stickytickets.com.au/8634
RSVP: Fri 5 October 2012
Enquiries & bookings (plus seating/dietary needs):
Please contact Tina at Justine.hampson@gmail.com

Australians Against Capital Punishment and Australian Lawyers for Human Rights warmly invite you to this year’s dinner in commemoration of the 10th World Day Against the Death Penalty. This Day is recognised globally as a reminder of the inhumanity of the death penalty throughout the entire process, from sentence to execution.

We are delighted to announce that our guest speakers include Fr Frank Brennan SJ, AO and Lee and Christine Rush, with Stephen Keim SC as MC.

We hope you can join us to mark this important human rights event.

For more information email AACP justine.hampson@gmail.com

03 June 2010

Harm Reduction International released a study on the death penalty for drug offences today on the opening day of the 19th session of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice , taking place in Vienna. The report, titled ‘The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2010’, finds that hundreds of people are executed for drug offences each year around the world, a figure that very likely exceeds one thousand when taking into account those countries that keep their death penalty statistics secret.

The report is the first detailed country by country overview of the death penalty for drugs, monitoring both national legislation and state practice of enforcement. Of the states worldwide that retain the death penalty, 32 jurisdictions maintain laws that prescribe the death penalty for drug offences. The study also found that in some states, drug offenders make up a significant portion – if not the outright majority – of those sentenced to death and/or executed each year.

……….. read more

Bryan Stevenson is a public-interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned.

This is his TED speech from March

The whole talk’s worth listening to, but he begins talking about the death penalty around the 8.00 mark.

“These funds can be better spent to address crime and offer support to victims, rather than on bankrolling a punishment that has been rejected by more than 140 countries and 16 U.S. states.”

Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director, Amnesty International U.S.A.

We think this is great news and signals a leap forward in our campaign to end death penalty. This move will free resources in Connecticut to be directed toward policies that truly prevent crime, and support the needs of crime victims and their families. The relatives of 179 murder victims signed a letter of support for the bill.

Connecticut’s lawmakers passed the vote after ten and a half hours of debate by 20 votes to 16. The Governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, described the death penalty as one of the “most compelling and vexing issues of our time”, as he signed the bill to replace the death sentence with life without parole for all new cases.

Connecticut joins 16 other states in America – nearly a third of all U.S. states, and 97 countries worldwide – to have now abandoned the death penalty.

More information at Amnesty International’s page here.

Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit, and his name – Carlos DeLuna – is being shouted from the rooftops of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The august journal has cleared its entire spring edition, doubling its normal size to 436 pages, to carry an extraordinary investigation by a Columbia law school professor and his students.
Full story here.

In his 12 years on death row, Larry Swearingen’s execution date has been set three times. Three times he has known when he would be strapped to a stretcher and put down with drugs: sodium thiobarbital to anaesthetise him, pancuronium bromide to paralyse his muscles and potassium chloride to stop his heart.

In January 2009, he had written his goodbyes and was on his way to the chamber when the stay of execution came through. ”The way I had to look at it was, ‘I’m just gonna lay down and go to sleep,”’ he says. ”I wasn’t gonna grovel. I wasn’t gonna sit there and cry. I can’t be remorseful for a crime that I didn’t commit.”

Swearingen lives at the Allan B. Polunsky unit, an hour or so north of Houston. Along with another 292 men and 10 women awaiting execution for capital crimes committed in Texas, he is kept in solitary confinement. His cell is not quite four metres long and a little more than two metres wide, with a slit above head height, more a vent than a window. He has a toilet, a typewriter, a radio and a hotplate. His daily hour of recreation is spent alone, although he can talk and play chess, through gaps between the cells. Most of his companions are here because they have committed horrendous acts of violence.

Full story here.

By Helen Jung, The Oregonian

SALEM — Gov. John Kitzhaber announced today he will not allow the execution of Gary Haugen — or any death row inmate — to take place while he is in office.

The death penalty is morally wrong and unjustly administered, Kitzhaber said.

“In my mind it is a perversion of justice,” he said at an emotional news conference in Salem.

The governor cited his constitutional authority to grant a temporary reprieve for Haugen, in effect canceling the planned Dec. 6 lethal injection of the twice-convicted murderer. Haugen waived his legal appeals and has been preparing for the execution, which would have been Oregon’s first in 14 years.

Full story here.