Clarence Brandley: Ex-Death Row Inmate Still Fighting for Restitution

Clarence Brandley, who spent nearly 10 years on death row for a murder he did not commit, will be back in the news today.

He and supporters are holding a press conference this afternoon to push for restitution from the state for being wrongly imprisoned. Like Anthony Graves, another Texan who spent time in prison for a murder he did not commit, Brandley is being denied compensation because the court order freeing him does not include language declaring him innocent.

"This is a righteous cause to bring justice and have it work the way it is supposed to work," said his brother, Ozell Brandley. "We will hold those public officials accountable for their actions of refusing compensation for those who were wrongfully imprisoned. Their careers should be over if they cannot dispense justice. My brother Clarence and the families of the wrongfully convicted as well as the victims' families deserve more. Clarence and my family have paid a high price for their injustice."

Brandley was convicted for the 1980 rape and murder of a 16-year-old student at the Conroe school where he worked as a janitor. He was freed in 1990.

The judge who heard his plea for exoneration famously said, ""In the thirty years that this court has presided over matters in the judicial system, no case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the outcome of which has been predetermined."

The case became the subject of a made-for-cable movie.

Brandley has faced issues with child support since his release, and has lost a huge lawsuit he filed against various state agencies.

At today's press conference, organizers say, "Representatives of civil rights and community organizations, including Witness to Innocence, the National Black United Front, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, and others will be present Wednesday in support of Brandley's claim for compensation."

Source: Houston Press, May 18, 2011

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The state of Texas administers another turn of the screw to Anthony Graves

Administrative madness on a grand scale, Texas style!

Anthony Graves

The injustices just keep on coming for exonerated death row inmate Anthony Graves, freed last year after 18 years' imprisonment for a 1994 capital murder conviction produced by false testimony and prosecutorial misconduct.

After his release, the Texas Comptroller's Office refused to pay the 45-year-old Graves $80,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment compensation because a judge neglected to put the magic words "actual innocence" in the order dismissing charges against him.

Gov. Rick Perry and special prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who helped exonerate Graves, have both acknowledged that he's innocent. But a spokesperson for Comptroller Susan Combs claimed her office did not have the authority to approve the payment. Graves is now suing the state to collect the money.

As the Chronicle's Harvey Rice reports, the Texas Attorney General's Office also is garnisheeing $175 a month from the former inmate's salary as a legal investigator for nearly $5,500 the state claims he owes in back child support while he was behind bars.

The state also seized a $250 honorarium that Graves was to be paid for a presentation to political science students at Prairie View A&M University about his prison ordeal.

"The state of Texas tried to kill me for something I didn't do, and now they are trying to get child support out of me," Graves told Rice. "I feel powerless."

According to a spokesperson for Attorney General Greg Abbott, because a judge ordered then-prisoner Graves to pay the child support in 2002, the AG's office has a legal obligation to collect the money. He did express sympathy for Graves, adding, "his experience is truly troubling and deeply compelling."

Obviously not troubling or compelling enough for the governor, the comptroller and the attorney general to get their heads together and try to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and remedy the continuing effects of a truly horrible miscarriage of justice.

The state took away Graves' freedom for much of his adult life, dismissed on a technicality the compensation owed him by law, and now bills him for the consequences of his wrongful imprisonment. It's a truly sickening situation.

Where there's a will to right an injustice, the most powerful officials in the state must find a way. If they had real sympathy for what this man has suffered, they'd promptly set things right.

Source: Houston Chronicle, Editorial, April 29, 2011

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Texas science panel adopts arson recommendations

Todd Willingham
and daughter

A state panel on Friday recommended more education and training for fire investigators following its review of a case involving a Texas inmate executed after a fire labeled arson killed his three daughters.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission also recommended establishing procedures for revisiting old cases.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004. Prosecutors accused the 36-year-old unemployed mechanic of setting the fire at his home in Corsicana, about 60 miles south of Dallas. A jury convicted him of capital murder and sent him to death row. His conviction was upheld nine times on appeal.

Willingham didn't testify at his trial but always insisted _ even in an obscenity-filled tirade the moment before his death _ that he was innocent. He suggested the fire could have been started accidentally by his 2-year-old daughter, Amber, who died along with her 1-year-old twin sisters, Karmon and Kameron.

Death penalty opponents have questioned arson investigators' testimony that led to Willingham's conviction and suggest he may be the first person wrongly executed in the U.S. since capital punishment resumed more than three decades ago. Several experts have since concluded the fire at his home was of undetermined cause or accidental but not arson, as two fire marshals at the scene ruled in 1991.

The commission on Friday completed an often tedious review of its nearly 50-page draft report based on Willingham's case and settled on the 16 recommendations for fire investigators, prosecutors and defense attorneys and lawmakers.

"We're suggesting somebody else is going to have to carry these things out," said Commission Chairman John Bradley.

The panel said Thursday that it wouldn't decide whether arson investigators were negligent or guilty of professional misconduct in Willingham's case until the Texas attorney general's office decides whether the panel has that authority.

The state commission can't exonerate Willingham or reopen his case but determines whether forensic science in such cases was sound. The eight-member panel won't make a ruling on negligence or professional misconduct by the fire's initial investigators until it gets word from the attorney general, a decision not likely until July. John Bradley, a suburban Austin district attorney and the commission chairman appointed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2009, had requested the legal opinion. After courts rejected appeals in Willingham's case, Perry refused to stop Willingham's execution.

"In general, I'm satisfied," said Stephen Saloom, policy director for the Innocence Project, which first raised questions about the case. "They were constrained by the AG's opinion and have had to overcome the chairman's relentless efforts to keep a lot of issues down. In the areas they're permitted to address, they've made some significant progress and deserve credit for that."

He called it a great improvement over the draft report released Thursday.

"They've gotten much more specific," he said. "It responds to the allegations as much as possible. This gives a chance for all those past cases."

The panel's recommendations also include establishing a code of ethics for investigators and making procedure for involving the state fire marshal's office in fatal home fires. The commission acknowledged the Texas Legislature controls the money needed to implement a number of its recommendations.

Another wants the fire marshal's office to adhere to standards established by the National Fire Protection Association and become a model for local fire investigators in Texas. They also urged investigators to keep original files of their cases and forward copies of documentation to other interested parties like prosecutors and defense attorneys. In Willingham's case, the Forensic Science Commission can't see arson investigators' files because they've been lost.

The commission spent lengthy time Friday debating a review procedure they said fire investigators should establish for resolved cases, a re-examination process common in medical settings.

Commissioner Sarah Kerrigan called it central to the overall report, saying results and interpretations like Willingham's from 1991 may not be valid years later. They needed to be looked at and "stakeholders" impacted by any new interpretations be informed, she said.

"If the answer is 'no,' then we're really in trouble," she said.

"Conceptually, I don't disagree," Bradley said. "But in practice if we say something about this we have to be very careful. You've got adversaries in these cases and adversaries make wildly different claims that are decided by a jury."

After prolonged wrangling but in a direct reference to the Willingham case, they agreed to a recommendation that urges the state fire marshal's office develop standards similar to accredited disciplines of forensic science that "promote the re-examination of cases when science has evolved to create a material difference in the original analysis or result." Under its recommendation, the state fire marshal's office had a "duty to correct, duty to inform, duty to be transparent" and implement corrective actions.

The panel noted the evolution of fire standards never was disclosed by the fire marshal's office or Corsicana Fire Department as Willingham's case moved through the legal system.

Bradley came to the panel days before it was to hear from Craig Beyler, a Baltimore, Md., fire expert critical of the original investigation. Beyler's appearance was stalled until early this year. Bradley has denied allegations of bias and has labeled criticism directed toward him as "politics and circus sideshow." At the same time, his confirmation as board chairman is stalled before the Texas Senate and likely doomed after a contentious appearance before a senate committee. He can remain on the board through the end of the legislative session next month.

In its report, the commission determined investigators at the scene reasonably concluded Willingham's theory about his oldest daughter setting the fire was only a remote possibility because the children were so young and because no lighters were found near their bodies. The report also pointed out no uniform standard of practice existed for state or local fire investigators in the early 1990s.

Source: AP, April 22, 2011

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Repeal Capital Punishment in North Carolina, Says Study

BOONE, N.C. - "End the death penalty in North Carolina," suggests a recent study, which asserts that capital punishment is not a deterrent to criminals and costs the public more does than a sentence of life in prison. Another factor is the recent revelation that evidence has been mishandled by the state crime lab, possibly sending innocent people to death row, as study author Dr. Matthew Robinson, professor of government and justice studies at Appalachian State University, explains.

"It's not fixable. It's not something that we can make effective. It's not something that we can bring about justice with. It's not something we can guarantee won't be used against the innocent."

Executions in North Carolina haven't taken place since 2006, in part because of a dispute over the constitutionality of the lethal-injection process. Meanwhile, the murder rate declined by 19 percent from 2008 to 2009.

In March, Illinois became the fourth state in the last two years to repeal the death penalty. That state had halted executions in 2000 because of revelations of false convictions and evidence mishandling.

Robinson says changing the law will give the state more resources for victim services and law enforcement.

"The savings that they're going to retain in money from not having the death penalty, they're going to actually use to solve crimes and pursue violent crime."

Supporters of the death penalty say the punishment should still be available for the most violent crimes. Capital punishment is used in 34 states and in certain federal cases, but most western democracies no longer carry out executions.

The study is available at www.pscj.appstate.edu

Source: Public News Service, April 18, 2011

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Freed from death row, speaker decries capital punishment

Of all the horrors on Florida’s Death Row, one stood out: The terrifying noise of the electric chair firing up, twice a day like clockwork.

“You got to sit there and listen to that chair being tested, knowing that it was being tested in your honor,” said Shabaka WaQlimi, 62, who came within 15 hours of being executed at a state prison in Starke, Fla.

Today, WaQlimi is a free man.

After nearly 15 years on Death Row, WaQlimi’s convictions on rape and murder were set aside in 1987, after a judge determined that prosecutors blocked testimony that undercut the evidence against him.

At one point, his trip to the electric chair was postponed with less than a day to spare because a different judge found that his appeals hadn’t been exhausted in the Florida state courts, he said.

WaQlimi — or Joseph Green Brown, as he was known when he was convicted — recounted his experiences Saturday at a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People conference in Colorado Springs.

With a business suit and close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair, he could have been confused with any other speaker at a weekend hotel convention. Instead, an audience of 30 listened in rapt attention while he spoke of the torture of knowing his death was planned “down to the second.”

When he was close to execution, he told the crowd, a tailor came to take his measurements, so that his burial suit could be prepared.

In 1979, when it looked like his protests of innocence would follow him to the grave, his brother died in a Florida hospital near the state prison, after prison officials refused his attempts to donate a kidney.

And when his long fight to prove his innocence began to gain ground, he focused on reclaiming family members who had shunned him: “It took 10 years for me and my daughter to connect,” he said.

Saturday’s talk was sponsored by Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CADP), as part of an effort to put a human face on the 138 Death Row inmates who have been exonerated after wrongful convictions.

WaQlimi, of Charlotte, N.C., will be making four presentations in Colorado this week, some of them with Juan Melendez, a fellow Florida Death Row inmate who was also cleared of wrongdoing.

Three people are awaiting the death penalty in Colorado.

“We need to continue to educate the public until it’s looking like we’re at the point where we can actually get a repeal through the Colorado Legislature,” said CADP Executive Director Lisa Cisneros.

Source: The Gazette, Lance Benzel, April 16, 2011

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Forensic panel urges new look at old arson cases

Willingham's house
after the blaze

Adopting a stronger call to action Friday, a state agency concluded its review of the Cameron Todd Willingham case by urging Texas fire officials to re-examine investigations that may have relied on arson evidence now known to be unreliable.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission also added language to its final report clarifying the role that now-discredited "arson indicators" played in Willingham's conviction on murder charges.

The commission's inquiry, focused on the arson science behind the Willingham case, was never intended to weigh the guilt or innocence of the man Texas executed in 2004.

But the report adopted Friday marked the first time a state agency has acknowledged that unreliable evidence played a role in Willingham being convicted of setting fire to his Corsicana home in 1991 and killing his three young children.

"It's a good report," said Stephen Saloom, policy director of the Innocence Project, a New York legal advocacy center that filed the Willingham complaint with the commission in 2008.

"It makes clear that the old forms of arson evidence are not reliable and need to be banished from fire investigation practices in Texas," Saloom said. "And this gives a chance for justice for all those past cases where people may have been wrongfully convicted of arson."

The report, adopted 8-0 with one member absent, will be posted on the commission's website Monday.

The final version urged the Legislature and cities to set aside enough money to ensure that fire investigators are fully trained in the ever-evolving scientific understanding of fire behavior.

The panel offered 15 other recommendations for improving fire investigations, including formal adoption of investigative standards outlined in a National Fire Protection Association document, NFPA 921: Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigation, and establishing peer review panels to examine pending arson cases.

But much of Friday's efforts were focused on whether the state fire marshal's office — whose investigator was the prosecution's star witness against Willingham — has a duty to re-examine other past investigations that may have been influenced by now-discredited investigative techniques.

"If the science changes, if the interpretation of the case changes over time, is there an obligation to inform the stakeholders and the criminal justice system? If the answer is no, then we're really in trouble," said commissioner Sarah Kerrigan, a forensic toxicologist and associate professor at Sam Houston State University.

Accredited forensic labs, when presented with evidence that a result was invalid or mistaken, are required to correct the error, inform everybody involved and fix the underlying problem, added commissioner Nizam Peerwani, chief medical examiner of Tarrant County.

Agencies that engage in interpretive scientific analysis, including fire investigators, should follow a similar guideline, Peerwani said.

Commissioners agreed, adding language to the final report urging the state fire marshal's office to develop standards to review past cases and correct any errors discovered.

Commissioners also noted that neither the fire marshal nor the Corsicana Fire Department notified judges or prosecutors that standards of arson investigation had improved in the years between Willingham's 1991 conviction and his 2004 execution.

In a letter to the commission last year, State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado insisted that his agency stood by its investigator's arson finding in the Willingham case. On Thursday, commissioners responded by calling that an "untenable position in light of advances in fire science."

Maldonado issued a statement Friday noting that he had not yet seen the final report but that "the State Fire Marshal's Office is always open to improving the quality of its fire investigations. We will look to the final report for guidance and direction in achieving that goal."

The commission's report included a sample list of post-fire conditions once thought to be arson indicators, or evidence that fires had been intentionally set using an accelerant or combustible liquid. Scientists, largely by setting test fires over the past two decades, have concluded that the same conditions are present in many natural and accidental fires.

Indicators singled out by the commission included:

• V patterns: Former Deputy Fire Marshal Manuel Vasquez testified that a V-pattern in Willingham's hallway indicated that he had started one of three fires there. "Scientists now know that the 'V-pattern' simply points to where something was burning at some stage of the fire, not necessarily the origin," the report says.

• Pour patterns: Vasquez testified that burn marks on the floor of Willingham's house could only have been caused by a poured liquid accelerant. But such patterns often have other causes, including synthetic carpeting, radiant heat, smoldering debris and flashover, the near-simultaneous ignition of every burnable item in a room.

• Spalling: Brown discoloration on Willingham's porch proved that a liquid accelerant had been squirted there, Vasquez testified. But the report said that "while spalling may be caused by burning accelerant, it is more often caused by sustained heat from other sources."

The commission may have another opportunity to revisit the Willingham case to examine whether investigators engaged in professional negligence in their investigation and testimony about the fatal fire. The attorney general's office has been asked to determine whether state law disallows such an inquiry. That opinion is due by July 30.

Source: statesman.com, April 15, 2011

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Texas commission’s report on Cameron Todd Willingham arson case avoids central questions

A state panel’s draft report on the 1991 arson investigation that led to Cameron Todd Willingham’s execution, released Thursday, avoids central questions raised by fire experts and advocates.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission began a 2-day meeting with discussion of the report, which was limited because of a pending request filed with the attorney general’s office that questions whether the commission has authority to investigate the case.

For now, the report addresses only standards of fire investigations based on expert testimony and documents collected over the last 2 years.

Opponents of the death penalty have touted the case of Willingham — executed in 2004 for the deaths of his three daughters in the fire — as a likely case in which an innocent person was executed because now-discredited science was used to declare the blaze to be arson. Others question that, saying Willingham’s guilt was proved by other factors.

The report could be the final, and inconclusive, chapter in the saga, if the attorney general agrees with the Corsicana Fire Department and the state fire marshal’s office that the commission does not have the power to determine negligence or misconduct in the case.

“If they fail to respond to the actual allegation filed, which this report does, then it will have failed to provide the public confidence in forensics that the Legislature intended,” said Steven Saloom of the New York-based Innocence Project, which filed the original complaint.

Some commission members said that parts of the report “dance around the issue” by not specifically tying fire investigation standards to the Willingham case.

“It looks at the history and progress of fire science,” said the commission’s general counsel Lynn Robitaille, who drafted the language of the report based on input from the nine commissioners.

It outlines recommendations for arson science, based on the review of the Willingham case.

“The commission has to be cautious not inferring or concluding negligence or misconduct until we have jurisdiction on this issue,” said Chairman John Bradley.

Commissioner Sarah Kerrigan questioned why members of the panel, none of whom are arson investigators, are making suggestions to the state fire marshal’s office about the standards of practice.

The hearing is likely to be the last led by Bradley, the Williamson County district attorney, because his nomination lacks sufficient support in the Senate.

Gov. Rick Perry shook up the commission in 2009, firing its chairman, just before it was to hear from a fire expert who criticized the fire science used to convict Willingham.

Source: Dallas Morning News, April 14, 2011

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Compensating the innocent

Small price to pay; As the number of exonerees grows, so does the question of compensation

IN OCTOBER 2010 Anthony Graves was released from death row in Texas. He had spent nearly 20 years in prison, having been charged, in 1992, with helping another man murder a family of six. That man had sworn that Mr Graves was his accomplice, but later had a change of heart. “I lied on him in court,” he said just before he was executed in 2000. That sent the wheels of justice turning, albeit slowly and creakily. In 2006 a circuit court overturned the conviction. Prosecutors began to reassemble the case, and realised that without the false statement, there essentially was none. The district attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges. On that basis an innocent man was finally exonerated.

This sad story raises a number of troubling issues. Among them is the fact that Mr Graves has been denied any compensation from the state for his long years in prison. Under the state’s 2009 Timothy Cole Compensation Act—an older law which was updated and renamed for another exoneree, who died in prison while serving 25 years for a rape that another inmate subsequently confessed to having committed—people who are wrongfully committed of crimes may collect $80,000 from the state for each year they were imprisoned.

More than half of America’s states have similar laws, and they are being put to use. It is good news, albeit troubling, that hundreds of people have been exonerated in America in the past 20 years. The New York-based Innocence Project, which provides free legal representation to people who it hopes can be exculpated on the basis of DNA evidence, counts no fewer than 268 such exonerations since 1989. That figure partly reflects improved forensic technology, and does not include people such as Mr Graves, who are the victims of perjury or procedural errors and misconduct.

Financial compensation may be only a small response after the gross injustice that exonerees have suffered. But it can help the wrongly accused to rebuild their shattered lives and is a lot better than nothing, which is what some exonerees in some cases receive. Another egregious example comes from Louisiana. In 1985 a man named John Thompson was convicted of murder after prosecutors hid a blood test that would have cleared him of a prior conviction, for armed robbery. That conviction contributed to the murder charge, because in the light of it, Mr Thompson was advised not to testify in court; and, eventually, that led to a capital sentence. The concealed blood test led to another deathbed confession—this time from one of the prosecutors involved. After the confession came to light, both of the convictions were overturned.

Louisiana state law provides a measly compensation of $15,000 a year, up to a maximum of $150,000. Mr Thompson, who had spent 14 years on death row and was within weeks of being executed, sued the district-attorney. In addition to being unjust, it is illegal for prosecutors to withhold exculpatory evidence; they are obligated to turn it over to the defence. A circuit court awarded Mr Thompson $14m, but last month the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned that decision. The majority opinion acknowledged the violation, but held that there was no proof of “deliberate indifference” to civil rights. That is, at best, a technicality.

Anthony Graves:
"Not eligible for compensation"

As for Mr Graves, the holdup in his case rests on another technicality: the state comptroller’s office, which controls the money, noted that Mr Graves had not actually been declared innocent. That, of course, reflects the peculiarities of the case. The charges against Mr Graves were dismissed, per the order, because there was “no credible evidence” against him. The district-attorney decided that since he was obviously innocent, there was no need to go to the trouble of asking a court about it. Last month, Mr Graves sued—not directly to get the money, but to be officially declared innocent so he can be eligible for it. His lawsuit specifies that he “holds no grudge” against the state, and adds that he believes the comptroller “made an honest error” in denying his claim. If only all of America’s states could manage to be so fair-minded.

Source: The Economist, April 13, 2011

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URGENT APPEAL for Troy Davis facing the possibility of his 4th execution date

Troy Davis

Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis is facing the possibility of his fourth execution date in four years after the US Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on 28 March. Doubts persist about his guilt in the crime for which he was sentenced to death two decades ago.

Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. No physical evidence directly links Davis to the murder – no murder weapon was ever found. The case against Davis primarily rested on witness testimony. Since his trial, seven of nine key witnesses have recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.

In 2009, the US Supreme Court ordered a federal evidentiary hearing to review Troy Davis’ innocence claim.

At the hearing in June 2010, US District Court Judge William Moore addressed not whether the state could demonstrate a watertight case against Troy Davis, but whether Davis could show “by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in the light of the new evidence” that had emerged since his 1991 murder trial. Under this “extraordinarily high” standard, Judge Moore wrote, “Mr Davis is not innocent”. Elsewhere in his ruling, however, he acknowledged that the new evidence presented by Troy Davis cast “some additional, minimal” doubt on his conviction, and that the state’s case was not “ironclad”. In 1991, the jury had found Troy Davis guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” Judge Moore noted, “but not to a mathematical certainty”.

On 28 March, the US Supreme Court refused to take the Davis case, clearing the way for Georgia to set an execution date. Troy Davis was less than 24 hours from execution in 2007 when the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay. The Board said in 2007 that it would not allow an execution to go ahead “unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused”. Since then Troy Davis has faced two more execution dates, both in 2008, which were stayed by the courts.

Since 2007, three states in the USA have legislated to abolish the death penalty. When signing the abolitionist bills into law the three state governors all pointed to the risk of irrevocable error as a reason to support abolition. Since Troy Davis has been on death row, more than 90 prisoners have been released from death rows around the country on grounds of innocence. In each case, at trial the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

In the past four years, three states in the USA – New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois – have legislated to abolish the death penalty. Signing the bills in law, the three governors pointed to the risk of irreversible error in an imperfect system as a reason to support abolition. In 2007, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine said that “government cannot provide a foolproof death penalty that precludes the possibility of executing the innocent”. In 2009, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico said that to carry out an irrevocable punishment, “we must have ultimate confidence – I would say certitude – that the system is without flaw or prejudice.” This, he added, “is demonstrably not the case”. In March 2011, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said that the capital justice system was “inherently flawed”, and that it was “impossible to devise a system that is consistent, that is free of discrimination on the basis of race, geography or economic circumstance, and that always gets it right.” He said that, “as a state, we cannot tolerate the executions of innocent people because such actions strike at the very legitimacy of a government”.

More than 130 people have been released from death rows across the USA since 1976 on the grounds of innocence. Among other things the cases reveal the frequent unreliability of witness testimony. The Troy Davis case is one in which most of the witnesses who testified against the defendant have since retracted or contradicted their trial testimony in sworn statements. Nevertheless, a prisoner seeking to rely on revised witness testimony faces a high hurdle in the face of deference to the original jury verdict. At the June 2010 evidentiary hearing in US District Court, the Georgia prosecutor argued that “every court in the United States at every level has said, recantations are not favoured, they are looked at with great scepticism, they’re unreliable.” She concluded about the Troy Davis case: “This was their chance. The standard is extremely high…, they have not met it”.

One of the witnesses who appeared at the hearing was Benjamin Gordon, who in 2008 had signed a statement that an alternative suspect (a relative of his by marriage) had told him that he had shot Officer MacPhail. At the hearing, Benjamin Gordon asserted for the first time that he had actually seen this individual shoot the police officer. Benjamin Gordon, who had just turned 16 at the time of the crime, again alleged that he had been coerced by police into signing a statement implicating Davis. He said that he had not come forward sooner with the assertion about seeing who shot the officer out of fear, and that he had decided to “come in today and just let the truth be known”. Judge Moore concluded that Benjamin Gordon was “not a credible witness”.

The international community has agreed safeguards for capital cases in those countries that still retain the death penalty. One of these concerns the burden of proof on the death penalty state: “Capital punishment may be imposed only when the guilt of the person charged is based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts”. The “extraordinarily high” burden of proof chosen by Judge Moore is less protective than this.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of questions of guilt or innocence, the crime in question, or the method of execution. There have been 1,246 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977, including 12 so far this year. Georgia currently does not have the drugs necessary to carry out a lethal injection after the Drugs Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice seized sodium thiopental in the possession of the state in order to conduct an investigation into how it was obtained. It is not known how long this may delay an execution date being set.

For further information on the Troy Davis case, see USA: ‘Unconscionable and unconstitutional’: Troy Davis facing fourth execution date in two years, May 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/069/2009/en ; USA: Less than ‘ironclad’, less than safe, 27 August 2010, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/077/2010/en

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:

-Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Troy Davis was sentenced to death;

-Noting that doubts persist in the case even after the federal evidentiary hearing in 2010;

-Pointing out that the Board acts as a failsafe against irreversible error, and recalling its statement in 2007 that it would not allow any execution to proceed where there was any doubt about the guilt of the prisoner;

-Pointing to the substantial evidence of the fallibility of the capital justice system;

-Calling on the Board to grant clemency and to commute the death sentence of Troy Davis.

APPEALS TO:

State Board of Pardons and Paroles

2 Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, SE

Suite 458, Balcony Level, East Tower

Atlanta, Georgia 30334-4909, USA

Salutation: Dear Board members

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

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Former DR prisoner Anthony Graves decries justice system

Anthony Graves

Anthony Graves spoke to students on Thursday evening in the University Teaching Center about capital punishment in the United States. Graves was wrongly convicted of the mass murder in 1992 and exonerated in 2010.

After surviving 18 years in prison and 2 death sentences, exonerated prisoner Anthony Graves encouraged students to change the system that imprisoned him.

The state accused Graves of taking part in the murder of 2 women and 4 children and setting their home on fire in 1992. The main witness in Graves’ trial, Robert Carter, was eventually executed for committing the murders. Before Carter’s execution, he admitted to lying under oath about Graves’ involvement. Graves was exonerated in October 2010.

“I am the walking example of the flaws of the death penalty because they tried to murder me twice,” Graves said in a lecture Thursday. “They can’t say Texas doesn’t execute innocents."

Graves spoke about the flaws in the state’s criminal justice system to about 40 people Thursday. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty, a national grassroots organization, hosted the talk partially to address the race and class disparity of inmates.

“It’s an epidemic,” Graves said. “Not a black-and-white issue, not a minority issue. It’s an epidemic."

Death penalty abolitionist Laura Brady compared the United States with Apartheid-era South Africa. From 1948 to 1993, South Africa incarcerated 851 black South Africans per 100,000 black residents. 5 % of the black population in the U.S., or 5,000 out of every 100,000 black residents, are inmates in the U.S., Brady said.

“So what does it mean when the leader of the free world locks up black men at a rate almost 6 times higher than the most openly racist country in our history?” Brady said. “More black men are in prison than attending college."

Brady said more black men are in prison, on probation or on parole than the number subjected to slavery prior to the Civil War.

Lawrence Foster, who also spoke at the event, is the grandfather of death-row inmate Kenneth Foster. A judge sentenced Kenneth Foster to death for acting as an accomplice in a burglary that resulted in a man’s death. Foster is currently serving a life sentence after having his sentence commuted by Gov. Rick Perry in 2007.

“Just imagine the agony of an individual as he is waiting to get executed, as he is waiting to have his life extracted from him,” Foster said, “That’s not execution; that’s murder."

Government lecturer Alan Sager said the death penalty deters crime.

“I used to not view the evidence this way,” Sager said. “However, as I saw the continuing studies over the years and an econometric study showing most death penalty studies reflect the bias of the researchers, my views have changed."

Source: Daily Texan, April 8, 2011

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He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old --- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century

George Junius Stinney Jr.
1929-1944

In a South Carolina prison sixty-six years ago, guards walked a 14-year-old boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. At 5' 1" and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg.

The switch was pulled and the adult sized death mask fell from George Stinney’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century die.

Now, a community activist is fighting to clear Stinney’s name, saying the young boy couldn’t have killed two girls. George Frierson, a school board member and textile inspector, believes Stinney’s confession was coerced, and that his execution was just another injustice blacks suffered in Southern courtrooms in the first half of the 1900s.

In a couple of cases like Stinney’s, petitions are being made before parole boards and courts are being asked to overturn decisions made when society’s thumb was weighing the scales of justice against blacks. These requests are buoyed for the first time in generations by money, college degrees and sometimes clout.

“I hope we see more cases like this because it help brings a sense of closure. It’s symbolic,” said Howard University law professor Frank Wu. “It’s not just important for the individuals and their families. It’s important for the entire community. Not just for African Americans, but for whites and for our democracy as a whole. What these cases show is that it is possible to achieve justice.”

Some have already achieved justice. Earlier this year, syndicated radio host Tom Joyner successfully won a posthumous pardon for two great uncles who were executed in South Carolina.

A few years ago Lena Baker, a black Georgia maid sent to the electric chair for killing a white man, received a pardon after her family pointed out she likely killed the man because he was holding her against her will.

In the Stinney case, supporters want the state to admit that officials executed the wrong person in June 1944.

Stinney was accused of killing two white girls, 11 year old Betty June Binnicker and 8 year old Mary Emma Thames, by beating them with a railroad spike then dragging their bodies to a ditch near Acolu, about five miles from Manning in central South Carolina. The girls were found a day after they disappeared following a massive manhunt. Stinney was arrested a few hours later, white men in suits taking him away. Because of the risk of a lynching, Stinney was kept at a jail 50 miles away in Columbia.

Stinney’s father, who had helped look for the girls, was fired immediately and ordered to leave his home and the sawmill where he worked. His family was told to leave town prior to the trial to avoid further retribution. An atmosphere of lynch mob hysteria hung over the courthouse. Without family visits, the 14 year old had to endure the trial and death alone.

Frierson hasn’t been able to get the case out of his head since, carrying around a thick binder of old newspaper stories and documents, including an account from an execution witness.

The sheriff at the time said Stinney admitted to the killings, but there is only his word — no written record of the confession has been found. A lawyer helping Frierson with the case figures threats of mob violence and not being able to see his parents rattled the seventh- grader.

Attorney Steve McKenzie said he has even heard one account that says detectives offered the boy ice cream once they were done.

“You’ve got to know he was going to say whatever they wanted him to say,” McKenzie said.

The court appointed Stinney an attorney — a tax commissioner preparing for a Statehouse run. In all, the trial — from jury selection to a sentence of death — lasted one day. Records indicate 1,000 people crammed the courthouse. Blacks weren’t allowed inside.

The defense called no witnesses and never filed an appeal. No one challenged the sheriff’s recollection of the confession.

“As an attorney, it just kind of haunted me, just the way the judicial system worked to this boy’s disadvantage or disfavor. It did not protect him,” said McKenzie, who is preparing court papers to ask a judge to reopen the case.

Stinney’s official court record contains less than two dozen pages, several of them arrest warrants. There is no transcript of the trial.

The lack of records, while not unusual, makes it harder for people trying to get these old convictions overturned, Wu said.

But these old cases also can have a common thread.

“Some of these cases are so egregious, so extreme that when you look at it, the prosecution really has no case either,” Wu said. “It’s apparent from what you can see that someone was railroaded.”

And sometimes, police under pressure by frightened citizens jumped to conclusions rather than conducting a thorough investigation, Wu said.

Source: Bluffton Today - 'Crusaders look to right Jim Crow justice wrongs' by Jeffrey Collins - Photo: South Carolina Department of Archives and History

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Texas Senate Approves Easing Restrictions on DNA Testing

Hank Skinner

Prisoners in Texas may get easier access to post-conviction DNA testing to prove their innocence. The Senate today passed a bill that would reduce restrictions on post-conviction DNA testing by allowing biological evidence that was previously untested, or tested by older, potentially inaccurate techniques, to be tested and used as evidence in court.

"SB 122 will ensure that if there is DNA evidence available to prove someone's innocence, it can and will be tested," said State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, author of the bill, in a statement. "No longer will the door to justice be shut just because of a procedural error."

Existing law limits post-conviction DNA testing. An inmate can only get testing if at the time of conviction DNA testing was unavailable, if the technology was incapable of providing adequate results, or if the DNA was not tested by “no fault of the convicted person.”

If DNA testing is used to exonerate a prisoner, the bill also has a provision requiring the DNA profile to be compared to the federal CODIS DNA database to help find the actual perpetrator.

The bill could have serious implications for prisoners who claim DNA evidence could prove their innocence, such as with Hank Skinner, a death row inmate who recently won a U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing him to pursue post-conviction DNA testing in federal court. Ellis said DNA testing would help Texas identify innocent death row inmates before they are executed.

Ellis also cited the case of Ricardo Rachell, a man exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing in Harris County. After being physically disfigured by a shotgun wound to the face, Rachell was falsely accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy. He served six years of a 40-year sentence before DNA testing proved he was innocent.

Source: The Texas Tribune, April 6, 2011

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Connecticut's Religious Leaders Say End the Death Penalty

Dozens of Religious Leaders Rally in Hartford to Advocate the Abolition of Connecticut's Capital Punishment Law

Calling it the just and moral thing to do, dozens of religious leaders from the state’s Christian and Jewish communities gathered at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford Tuesday to petition the General Assembly to repeal Connecticut’s death penalty law.

“There are times where sometimes we have theological debates about things in which we disagree, however when it comes to the death penalty this is one item that members of major denominations agree, there is consensus that the death penalty should be abolished,” said State Rep. Bruce Morris, D-Norwalk, who also serves as a minister and emceed Tuesday’s proceedings.

The religious leaders presented Morris and State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, with a letter signed by more than 300 clergy supporting passage of House Bill 5036, a bill introduced by Holder-Winfield that would abolish Connecticut’s death penalty. Speakers advocated replacing the state’s capital punishment law with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release for the state’s most violent convicted murderers.

“As people of faith, we reaffirm our opposition to the death penalty and belief in the sacredness of human life,” the letter stated. “We urge you, our elected officials, to examine the reality of Connecticut’s death penalty and seek ways to achieve true healing for those who suffer because of violent crime. Please support repeal of the death penalty. It is time for Connecticut to move beyond this broken and harmful system.”

Speakers argued that the death penalty was an “ineffective, unfair and fallible” response to violent crimes.

“The death penalty applies disproportionately to the poor and minorities and puts innocent lives at risk of execution,” Morris said. “Since 1973, 138 individuals sentenced to death were later exonerated of their crimes. When a human life is at stake, there’s simply no room for error.”

James Curry, a Bishop from the Episcopal Church, said that he has spoken to the victims of many families who feel that the death penalty only adds to their pain and suffering, because of lengthy trials and appeals and the notoriety associated with the cases.

“By abolishing the death penalty, we in Connecticut have an opportunity to affirm and respect our dignity as a society,” Curry said. “…Life imprisonment without possibility of release is a punishment that can respect the needs of a victim’s family for closure in the legal process, it can respect their needs for justice, and it can respect the memory of all their loved ones.”

Peter Rosazza, a Bishop from the Connecticut Catholic Conference, said that the Catholic Church opposes the death penalty because it violates the sanctity of life.

“Human life is a gift from god that must be respected from conception to natural death,” Rosazza said. “Our profound respect for human life also explains why we are opposed to any attack against human life, including abortion and euthanasia.”

Rosazza noted that Connecticut was the last state in New England to abolish slavery, adding “we hope it is not the last state to abolish the death penalty.”

Rabbi Donna Berman said that the death penalty went against the Jewish tradition and was not an effective deterrent.

“Even in ancient times there were those who felt that capital punishment was a deterrent to crime, but they represented the minority opinion,” Berman said. “In our own day, studies show that capital punishment is in fact not a deterrent. The truth is we can deter crime and protect society just as effectively, more effectively, with life imprisonment without the possibility of release. In this way we can avoid the very real risk of taking an innocent life.”

The death penalty has always been a hot button issue in Connecticut, but has risen in prominence the past several years due to a brutal 2007 Cheshire home invasion. Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11, were sexually assaulted and murdered in their home after a failed robbery attempt. One man, Steven Hayes, 47, was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death, while another, Joshua Komisarjevsky, is currently on trial for the crime. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Komisarjevsky.

Both houses of the legislature approved a bill to veto the death penalty in 2009, but then governor vetoed the bill, citing the Cheshire home invasion.

Holder-Winfield said he expected the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee to vote on the current bill within a week. He said he expected the bill to pass, and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to sign it into law.

“The work that I’m doing on the death penalty comes out of both my religious faith and my sense for justice,” Holder-Winfield said.

During his campaign, Malloy, a former federal prosecutor, repeatedly stated he was opposed to the death penalty.

In the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll on the subject, released March 10, 67 percent of Connecticut residents said they supported the death penalty, compared to 28 percent who said they opposed it.

The event was originally intended to be held on the steps of the state capitol, but was moved indoors because of the weather.

Source: Montville Patch, April 6, 2011

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Death Penalty Opponents Assail Troy Davis Ruling

Troy Davis

Anti-death penalty activists criticized the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reject without comment death row inmate Troy Davis’ appeals seeking to delay his execution while he attempts to prove he was wrongfully convicted of killing a white police officer in 1991.

Without another appeal, commutation or pardon, Monday’s decision likely will allow the state of Georgia to set another execution date for Davis. There may be a slight delay in scheduling because of questions over the state’s supply of a key lethal injection drug.

Federal regulators seized the entire stockpile of sodium thiopental earlier this month after questions arose about the way the state obtained the drug.

“We are deeply shocked and disappointed because we think that [Davis] has made a compelling case of innocence and that there are too many questions to go forward with his execution,” Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer, largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony, but 7 of the 9 witnesses who implicated Davis have since recanted, and other witnesses have come forward to say another man confessed to killing MacPhail. Further, there has been no physical evidence linking Davis, who had no prior criminal record, to the killing.

Restrictions on federal appeals prevented Davis from having a hearing in federal court on the reliability of the witness testimony used against him. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles also rejected Davis’ application for clemency. An appellate court stayed Davis’ execution date so that his lawyers could file the appeals to the Supreme Court.

Davis was granted a stay of execution by the U.S. Supreme Court 2 hours before he was to be put to death in 2008, and the court in 2009 ordered the federal District Court to take another look at the case.

After holding a hearing to review evidence, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled earlier that Davis "failed to show actual innocence" in the case. The District Court suggested that, for procedural reasons, Davis should take his appeal of its ruling directly to the Supreme Court.

In January, Davis’ lawyers filed two pleas. One sought review of the Georgia federal judge's rejection of the innocence claim, and the other asked for a test of the 11th Circuit's refusal to review the case.

"Nobody walking out of that hearing could view this as an open-and-shut case," Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, told WSAV-TV after Monday’s Supreme Court ruling.

"The testimony that came to light demonstrates that doubt still exists, but the legal bar for proving innocence was set so high it was virtually insurmountable," said Cox. “It would be utterly unconscionable to proceed with this execution, plain and simple."

“I think the position of the state has been the burden of proof is on the defense since there’s been a determination in the process,” Rust-Tierney said. “But when all the legalese is pushed aside, the question is is there enough confidence in this conviction to go forward with an execution?”

Davis' sister told CNN Monday that she was "very disappointed" by the Supreme Court's rejection.

Martina Correia-Davis said Davis' attorney told her they would continue to pursue all possible legal options, including a possible repetition of the Georgia State Board of Parole.

MacPhail’s son, Mark MacPhail, Jr. told WSAV-TV in Savannah that the High Court’s ruling proved what the evidence has always shown and what his family has known all along: that "Troy Davis is guilty."

MacPhail, Jr., who was just a few months old when his father was slain, told the television station he had been getting somewhat frustrated and nervous and "wondering what was taking so long."

But Davis’ case has received broad support from entertainment, social and political figures, including former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI. There also have been calls for the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to commute Davis’ sentence.

It is unclear what Davis’ lawyers' options are, but defense attorney Jason Ewart told The Associated Press the likeliest route is appealing to the pardons and parole board, a five-member board that rarely postpones executions.

"The Troy Davis case is emblematic of everything that is wrong with capital punishment," Laura Moye, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, told WSAV. "In a system rife with error, mistakes can be made.

“There are no do-overs when it comes to death," said Moye. “Lawmakers across the country should scrutinize this case carefully, not only because of its unprecedented nature, but because it clearly indicates the need to abolish the death penalty in the United States."

Source: BlackAmericaWeb.com, March 30, 2011

Why the war to save Troy Davis isn't over

On March 28, 2011 I woke up elated about my 10 year anniversary as a cancer survivor. I looked outside and it was cold and gloomy, the sun was nowhere to be found. It's about 9:30 a.m. and the phone rings, it's my brother Troy Davis' lawyer and from the tone in his voice I knew, it was not good news.

My heart sank to a heavy place as I listened to his monotone voice saying, "We just received news that the United States Supreme Court has denied Troy's appeal." Knowing that the appeals for Troy have always been an uphill battle and the lawyers have always stated that from a legal standpoint. Yet today I also heard optimism in the statement, "We will seek and exhaust all legal means available to us." I know from a legal standpoint denial by the Supreme Court is nothing a lawyer finds optimism in, yet I felt the readiness for yet another battle.

My first concern was my mother and my brother Troy. I cannot imagine facing three execution dates and the possibility of a fourth. I knew Troy would be more concerned about our family than himself, but I also knew that as much faith and spirituality as my mother has, she is still a mother and we are fighting for my brother's very existence. In this fight Troy is no longer voiceless and my family is no longer invisible, yet the court still refuses to hear what we have to say. Innocence does matter and beyond a reasonable doubt should be of utmost.

One thing for certain is that the global concern about this case is growing and yet the highest court in the United States is not willing to address the issue of innocence and new evidence. We live in country that is supposed to promote democracy and human rights for other countries yet it is not unconstitutional for us to execute innocent people in the U.S. if the courts feel they received a fair trial.

I am both enraged and empowered, for this battle to save Troy is a war of life and death for me! Until there is no breath left in my body I will fight for Troy, fight against the injustice of the death penalty, because this battle is bigger than Troy it is a war against a system is not impartial, a system that cares less for fairness and more for finality. In no way have we ever diminished the loss and hurt of the McPhail family, yet both families have been victimized. Being a mother and having Stage 4 cancer I understand the importance of life and I am willing to give my life to spare my brother's. No matter the final outcome of this case, my war against the death penalty is far from over and I will no longer be a victimize by this system in the United States, that justice depends on your ability to pay for it.

The hearing held in June 2010 in Savannah was like a puppet show, it was entertaining to some, upsetting to others, yet once the judge opened his mouth and looked at my brother with disgust I knew that no matter what Troy's lawyers had to present the judge had already made his decision to deny Troy, so he was just going through the motions like a puppeteer. I saluted the witnesses, even though they were criminalized by the state prosecutor for recanting their trial testimony. When they testified against Troy all those years ago, the police treated them like heroes, even though they had the same criminal history in 1989. It also seemed amazing that all the police who testified had amnesia about their role of misconduct with the witnesses, yet the judge chose to believe them over recanted testimony of the very witnesses they used to secure a conviction and death sentence for my brother.

The Georgia Parole Board said they will not execute when there is doubt. The case of Troy Anthony Davis is full of doubt.

As Troy said to me, "It's not over 'til God says it's over, this fight for justice did not begin with me and will not end with me."

The battle for Justice and the War to save Troy wages on! My name is Martina Correia and I am on Death Row because that is where my brother lives, our lives intertwined. If Troy is executed he will become even more powerful, because people all around the world are saying, "I AM TROY DAVIS," and his story will be heard.

Source: Opinion, Martina Correia, The Grio, April 3, 2011
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Troy Davis Appeal Denied – Execution Date Could Loom

Posted by: Brian Evans,

18Share

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Troy Davis’ appeals and set the stage for him to possibly face a fourth execution date.  Davis will not be allowed to challenge the August 2010 ruling of the federal district court judge that he failed to establish his innocence, nor will he be able to challenge the standard used to make that ruling.

Doubts about Davis’ guilt, of course, have not been resolved, as most of the witnesses used to convict him continue to maintain that their trial testimony was false and, in many cases, coerced by Savannah police. 

With such witnesses as virtually the only evidence, the case against Troy Davis was always thin, but, ironically, that has meant that, once convicted, Davis has had little to drawn on to prove his innocence.  Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, but, especially in this case, where the evidence available to establish either guilt or innocence is so flimsy, an execution would be a terrible miscarriage of justice.

Japan: Death row inmate, 75 today, should be granted a stay of execution after 43 years in solitary confinement on death row

Execution chamber
at Tokyo Detention Center

A man believed to be the world’s longest serving death row inmate, who has spent the last 43 years on death row and is 75 today, should be granted a stay of execution, removed from death row and his case reviewed, Amnesty International said today.

Amnesty International and the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) today called on the Minister of Justice to grant a stay of execution for Hakamada Iwao in accordance with Article 479 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and for him to be taken off death row. Article 479 provides for a person to be granted a stay of execution in cases where the person is found to be suffering from mental illness.

Clare Bracey, Death Penalty Campaigner for Amnesty International UK, said:

“Having been locked away on death row for the last 43 years, with over 1/2 of that time spent in solitary confinement [emphasis added], and not knowing if each day might be his last, it is no wonder that Hakamada Iwao is suffering from physical and mental ill health.

“International law prohibits the execution of people with mental health issues, and Hakamada's case typifies the worst consequences of Japan's justice system

“The Japanese authorities should grant him a stay of execution in accordance with the law and review all similar cases."

Hakamada Iwao, has been on death row since 1968. He was convicted after an unfair trial of the 1966 murder of the managing director of the factory where he worked, and the man's wife and 2 children.

Within months of the finalisation of his death sentence, Hakamada began to show signs of seriously disturbed thinking and behaviour. The Prison authorities have refused access to Hakamada’s medical records, even to his family members and his legal representatives. Hakamada’s mental health condition continues to be of concern.

Hakamada confessed after 20 days of interrogation by police without a lawyer present but later retracted his confession saying that he had been beaten and threatened during the interrogations. One of the judges who convicted Hakamada, Kumamoto Norimichi, stated publicly in 2007 that he believed Hakamada was innocent, but that he had been outvoted in the decision.

Visitors to Hakamada in recent months have found him to be "confused, disorientated and rambling". He has been known to refuse his medication for hypertension and he suffers from diabetes.

His legal team, family and supporters are calling for Hakamada to be granted a stay of execution and removed from death row. They also continue to press his claim for a retrial based on concerns about the soundness of evidence against him. Japan has not commuted a death sentence since 1975.

Amnesty International further calls on the Government of Japan to initiate an immediate independent review of all cases where there is credible evidence that prisoners may be mentally ill and could fall within the scope of Article 479.

Executions in Japan are by hanging and are typically carried out in secret. Death row inmates are only notified on the morning of their execution and their families are usually informed only after the execution has taken place.

This means that prisoners live in constant fear of immediate execution. Enduring these conditions for years, or even decades, has led to extensive depression and mental illness among death row inmates.

Notes: The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) is a regional network of over 50 members including lawyers, NGOs, journalists, human rights defenders and activists from 23 countries across the Asia Pacific region. ADPAN campaigns for an end to the death penalty across all countries in the region.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty as a violation of the right to life in all cases without exception, regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to carry out the execution. It calls on the government of Japan to immediately commute all death sentences and introduce an official moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolition of the death penalty.

A study group on the death penalty established by the former Justice Minister Ms Chiba Keiko is continuing to work under the current Justice Minister, Mr. Eda Satsuki. No date for its report has been announced.

Source: Amnesty International, March 10, 2011

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