Guarding Solitary Confinement

<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/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s1600/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Solitary confinement cell: Entombed alive" border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXedosnEnVevuCSuR7FGA0a05RqQxdGHO51jX3RE4m572xRFlpLP4tCHfgfA0m-mgdcd_wMOMu2NdmdHZwSrXhzy8KFzy3OceZ9n1muRQd0gcon4RrwgMqhvjYsk_0AwvVGWeG7BaY780/s400/Solitary+Confinement.jpg" title="Solitary confinement cell: Entombed alive" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Solitary confinement cell: Entombed alive</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Interview with a Former Corrections Officer Who Worked in Prison Isolation Units</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recently, <i>Solitary Watch</i> had the opportunity to sit down with “X,” a former corrections officer who spent almost two years working on a segregation unit in Pennsylvania. (The guard requested complete anonymity in exchange for the interview). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X, now 48, worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections between 2006 and 2009, and in the Special Housing Units (SHU) from 2008-2009. He spoke candidly with journalist Aviva Stahl about what drew him to work “in the hole,” what he saw while he was there, and what he thinks about the growing movement to reform the use of solitary. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This interview has been edited for length and clarity</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: Did you start working in the SHU or did you work in general population first?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: It’s always general population first. Always. You don’t work in solitary confinement until you’ve established yourself as a CO. They want to see how you react. How you handle yourself. How you are with the other CO’s, how you interact with inmates. And they take that all… and you get to know your lieutenants, your captains, your majors, and your other staff members, your peers, your other CO’s. Whether or not they can trust you and you can trust them before you’re ever considered for down there, the hole. We used to call it the hole. People want to see what you’re made of.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: Do you remember the kind of people who were there for disciplinary or punishment, do you remember the range of stuff they had done to warrant being put in the hole?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: Mm-hm. It could be an offense towards an officer. It could be, any inmates if they got in any kind of a fight or something both of them automatically go down. Normally a couple days, you have a trial, find out what’s going on, bring the officers in that seen it. “Yeah I seen this, the inmate so and so you know initiated it.” So normally the one that didn’t, they’d get released back to general population. They could be down there for, I mean, stealing, whether it had been in the chow hall, from one of the workshops trying to bring things in, offenses that they committed during visiting when they were visiting family and friends during visiting hour. There would be state offenses against officers like spitting, hitting. Anything.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: Did you ever see people go crazy in the SHU?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: Oh yeah. Yeah it was, we had one inmate, he was in his 70’s… We had another inmate being transferred from another institution and he said yeah, he would take a cellie. Well, ended up, both celled together. It was the second night together and the younger inmate who was like 24, raped the 77 year old inmate. And I remember when [the 77-year-old] came out of there, the Lieutenant comes out and we had him on a stretcher and I mean this man, we thought he was going to have a heart attack, a stroke or…he was just horrified that this had happened.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: I think you told me you walked in on someone who had hanged himself, right?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: We had one inmate, he was dead when we got him. He snapped his neck from hanging himself. Had some that the genitalia, tried to cut it off with a plastic spoon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: And the people who tried to commit suicide in solitary or who cut themselves, do you think it was because they were in solitary? Do you think it was the solitary that was driving them crazy?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: No, I think it was just incarceration. And situations that happen while they were in there, if they had a loved one that died or their spouse or their child or someone you’re going to know what happens when it happens. The inmates don’t take time to tell you. They’ll tell you what happened. But they can’t go on anymore and they’ll tell you they don’t want to live anymore. They’ll write Dear John letters. It’s the same as what happens out here. They start giving away everything, they write a note, they start, they lose all affect for anything. You don’t want to be involved anymore and they withdraw. It’s a norm. [In fact, 50 percent of all prison suicides take place among the approximately 5 percent of prisoners held in solitary.]</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: The other thing I was curious about that we talked about when we met was forced cell extractions. I don’t know if you want to talk about that, what it was like to participate in those or kind of what it looked like.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: Basically, where we would be doing, whether it would be a fence, they would grab ahold of one of the nurses, when it was pill-passing time. They would mix up stuff, they would defecate all over their cells, they would paint the windows, so you have to be able to see, no matter what, you have to be able to see to do your count, make sure for the safety of the inmates. You have to be able to see in that cell. And they would cover the windows with feces, it was bad. And man, it stunk. But you don’t know if they were dead or what was going to go on there. If they had something they had made shanks out of. We had one inmate he took towels and kind of strapped his shanks to his hands and he was like “come and get me.” And so you have to go in, that’s just it. So a team assembles and you give them several chances to come to the grill to be cuffed and he comes down there, he’s the one giving the order, and no matter what happens before the cellie’s direction or any sort of pepper spray or anything there’s always a lieutenant there. He’s the one giving the order. I’m ordering you to inmate so and so, I’m giving you a lawful order and you need to come to the pie hole to be handcuffed. “No. Come on and get me.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If they didn’t want to come out then be cuffed up, you have no other choice but to go in. Or you have to hit them with pepper spray. We had our teams for them with our batons and our pepper spray and everybody has a set of cuffs on them. You used to have to overpower them and take them down. I mean you came out with some bangs and bruises on you but, you got done what had to be done.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AS: How often would that happen?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">X: Sometimes you may not have a cell extraction for a week or two. But normally it was probably 2 or 3 times a week. Yeah, it happened quite frequently. If you believe somebody had something in their cell, a weapon, and they wouldn’t come out, you’d have to go in and get it.</div><br /><b><a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2016/06/28/guarding-solitary-confinement/" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: Solitary Watch, Aviva Stahl, June 28, 2016<br /><br /><div><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div>

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Solitary confinement cell: Entombed alive Interview with a Former Corrections Officer Who Worked in Prison Isolation Units Recently, Solitar...

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For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVmFCt7PAgeu2hgUBVMfBd0VGk1JlbDYYPDagm2068K11g4skJNevhnx7grENhBCDYWgRaAbVjtTgVZbqRjHe1UAryGv0rfWzxAZBi2Yvef3wZLV1Z588ypKKyg_7r0LJNvTT9uUVBKo/s1600/Police+interrogation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVmFCt7PAgeu2hgUBVMfBd0VGk1JlbDYYPDagm2068K11g4skJNevhnx7grENhBCDYWgRaAbVjtTgVZbqRjHe1UAryGv0rfWzxAZBi2Yvef3wZLV1Z588ypKKyg_7r0LJNvTT9uUVBKo/s400/Police+interrogation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So why do so many suspects confess to crimes they didn't commit?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"You have the right to remain silent."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you've ever watched any of the tens of thousands of hours of television devoted to crime dramas, you know the 1st warning given to suspects who are arrested and questioned. And the 2nd: "Anything you say can and will be used against you." The Miranda warnings - named for<i> Miranda v. Arizona</i>, the 1966 Supreme Court decision that required them - celebrate their 50th anniversary on June 13. In that period, they have become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget their origin and purpose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Miranda </i>was the culmination of 30 years of Supreme Court cases that were designed to protect criminal suspects from abuse in police interrogations. The earliest of these decisions prohibited violence and torture. The 1st concern was to prevent confessions that are "unreliable"- that is, false.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1966, false confessions seemed like a rare problem. 50 years later, we have seen hundreds of exonerations of innocent defendants who confessed to terrible crimes after they received Miranda warnings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a good time to take stock.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Do innocent people really confess without torture?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why would an innocent person ever confess to a murder or some other terrible violent crime?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Torture would explain it. That was the issue in <i>Brown v. Mississippi</i> in 1936, the 1st case in which the Supreme Court excluded a confession from a state court prosecution. 3 suspects had been tortured for days. Asked how severely one defendant was whipped, the deputy in charge testified: "Not too much for a Negro; not as much as I would have done if it were left to me."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 1936 and 1966 the use of torture to extract confessions declined greatly, a major accomplishment by American courts and criminal justice reformers. When <i>Miranda </i>was written, a shift was underway to more "modern" methods of interrogation: isolation, deception, manipulation and exhaustion rather than beating. Without torture or threats of death or violence, it seems implausible that an innocent suspect would confess to a serious crime. That is precisely why confessions are such powerful evidence of guilt. But we know it happens, time and again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The National Registry of Exonerations has collected data on 1,810 exonerations in the United States since 1989 (as of June 7, 2016). They include 227 cases of innocent men and women who confessed, 13 % of the total, all after receiving Miranda warnings (at least according to the police). Nearly 3/4 of those false confessions were homicide cases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But these exonerations deeply understate the extent of the problem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, most suspects who falsely confess - probably the great majority - are never convicted at all. In a classic 2004 study, Steven Drizin and Richard Leo identified 125 proven false confessions in the United States from 1971 through 2002. Only about 1/3 were cases of exoneration after conviction. In most, charges were dismissed before trial or never filed at all because of indisputable proof of innocence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2nd, few convictions based on false confessions are cleared by exoneration. That's true for all wrongful convictions, but especially for those based on confessions. It's very hard to convince people that a defendant who confessed is innocent. We see this in the cases: Exonerations of defendants who confessed are more likely to depend on the most unassailable evidence, DNA, to overcome the weight of a confession. 42 % of exonerated defendants who had confessed were cleared by DNA tests, compared to only 21 percent of exonerees who had not confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In some cases, even exculpatory DNA evidence doesn't help. In October 1992, after a grueling four-day interrogation, 19-year-old Juan Rivera falsely confessed to the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl in Lake County, Illinois. In fact, he confessed twice. His 1st confession was so riddled with factual errors that the detectives made him do it again to "clear up" the inconsistencies, even though Rivera was plainly in a state of mental collapse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rivera was convicted of murder in 1993, and again in 1996 after his 1st conviction was reversed for a host of legal errors. In 2005, DNA tests proved that a different man was the source of semen recovered from the body of the victim. Rivera's conviction was vacated but the prosecution took him to trial again, and in 2009, despite the DNA evidence, Rivera was convicted a 3rd time. Finally, in 2011, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that River's conviction was "unjustified and cannot stand" and dismissed the charges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Juan Rivera barely overcame his false confession even with conclusive DNA evidence of innocence. Without it, he'd be in prison today - together with other innocent defendants who confessed but did not have DNA tests to rescue them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>False confessions by co-defendants</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In many cases, innocent suspects who confess implicate others who are also innocent. Some do it because that's the story their interrogators want to hear. John Kogut, for example, not only falsely confessed to his own involvement in murder, he also said he did it with 2 friends Dennis Halsted and John Restivo, both of whom (like Kogut) spent 20 years in prison before they were exonerated in 2005.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And some innocent suspects who confess blame others to deflect responsibility and reduce their punishment. Richard Ochoa, for example, was facing the death penalty for the murder of Nancy DePriest in Austin, Texas in 1988. He confessed, named his roommate Richard Danziger as the actual killer and agreed to plead guilty and testify against Danziger. Both were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Both were exonerated by DNA in 2002.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Registry includes 195 exonerations with confessions by co-defendants who implicated the exonerees, 11 % of all exonerations. The net result is that in 19 % of all exonerations in the United States - and in 34 % of homicide exonerations - the innocent defendant confessed or was implicated by a false confession of a co-defendant, or both.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Who falsely confesses?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All sorts of people falsely confess, but two groups are particularly vulnerable: young suspects and those with mental disabilities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1983, for example, Earl Washington, a 22-year-old black man with an IQ of about 69, was arrested in Culpeper, Virginia, for burglary and malicious wounding. Over 2 days of questioning, Washington "confessed" to 5 separate crimes, 4 of which were not pursued because his confessions did not match the actual crimes and the victims could not identify Washington as the criminal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Washington's 5th confession, however, was to a murder, that of Rebecca Lynn Williams. His initial version - before police officers cleaned it up - was riddled with errors. He did not know the race of the victim (white), the address where she was killed, or that she was raped. Nonetheless, Washington was convicted and sentenced to death in January 1984. He was exonerated by DNA 16 years later, in 2000.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Overall, of exonerees with reported mental illness or intellectual disability, 72 % had confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Young suspects fared almost as badly. 40 % of exonerees who were under 18 at the time of the crime falsely confessed, including 53 % of 14- and 15-year olds, and 86 % of the few who were 13 years old or younger. By comparison, only 7 % of adult exonerees without reported mental disabilities falsely confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Why do all these innocent defendants confess?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Innocent suspects confess because they are terrified and confused and exhausted; because they are deceived or tricked; because they don't understand what they are doing; because they feel hopeless and helpless and isolated. But what leads to this desperate predicament? <i>Miranda </i>sets the stage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In part, <i>Miranda </i>was a step in the Supreme Court's campaign to eliminate violence in interrogations. But <i>Miranda </i>also ratified the "modern practice of in-custody interrogation [which] is psychologically, rather than physically, oriented." <i>Miranda </i>described how this is done:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The officers who conduct "modern" interrogations may lie about the evidence and tell the suspect that his fingerprints were found at the scene; that a codefendant already confessed and put the blame on him; that he was seen by an eyewitness. They routinely say that they already have him dead to rights and that this is his only chance to tell his side of the story and help his cause; that the victim must have provoked him; that what he did is understandable. They may describe dire consequences if he does not come clean, perhaps the death penalty, and imply leniency if he does. This can go on for days, in isolation, with police officers constantly repeating that they know the suspect is guilty, that the evidence is overwhelming, that this is his only chance to help himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court recognized that this process "exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty, and trades on the weakness of individuals," but it did not forbid any of these practices. As a result, <i>Miranda </i>is regularly cited as authority for the legality of all of these coercive techniques.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead of regulating the process of non-violent interrogation, the court required police to give warnings before they start, and then only continue if the suspect waives his right to silence. But most do waive their rights at the outset of the ordeal; it's hard to tell an officer who has you under arrest that you won't talk to him. After that, the issue almost never comes up again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the time they confess, <i>Miranda </i>is a distant memory, if not entirely forgotten. The process works. Many suspects confess after <i>Miranda </i>warnings and most are guilty; that's why these techniques are used and trusted. But some are innocent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Can we do better? Here again, <i>Miranda </i>is a good starting point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court noted that it's difficult to regulate interrogations because we don't know what goes on: "Interrogation still takes place in privacy. Privacy results in secrecy, and this, in turn, results in a gap in our knowledge as to what, in fact, goes on in the interrogation rooms."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That's changing. 50 years ago almost no interrogations were electronically recorded. The FBI, for example, prohibited recording. Now the FBI requires it, as do 23 states and many local police forces, at least in homicide cases. It should be universal. Recording greatly helps us evaluate any claim that a confession was false, and it has taught us how to improve the conduct of interrogations. It's a good start.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Marshall Project, Commentary, June 2016. Samuel Gross is the editor and co-founder of the National Registry of Exonerations and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Maurice Possley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and senior researcher at the registry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

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So why do so many suspects confess to crimes they didn't commit? "You have the right to remain silent." If you've ever wat...

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A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates

<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/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s1600/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="San Quentin's death row" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd6T7Wrv-JmT6gLhuIBC8jNKy99J5jFlpnwzNDYc_gqqgRqMmuEIR1slDOVw2-NpW7BHwgC6wRA57gtVuGGsLfDtBlk-A0biXMUpFaPfwuRuHyjxUiaLMy9h0LPDXP3n_0etecIyID9WI/s400/California+Death+Row_+A+guard+stands+watch+over+the+condemned+prisoners+housed+in+East+Block+during+a+media+tour+of+death+row+a.jpg" title="San Quentin's death row" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">San Quentin's death row</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">California's death penalty system has been broken for so long, you could forgive people for thinking that it no longer exists. The last person executed at San Quentin was Clarence Ray Allen, who arranged the murders of 3 people in Fresno - 1 who revealed details of a burglary Allen had planned, and 2 others who testified against him. His January 2006 execution came 23 years after his conviction.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then, legal challenges have left California without a constitutional method of executing prisoners. The state has proposed a new lethal-injection protocol, but more lawsuits will likely stall the resumption of executions for the foreseeable future, and an initiative headed for the fall ballot would ban it outright. It's unclear how many executions have been forestalled by the freeze. Of 747 people on California's death row - most of them men held at San Quentin - only 18 have exhausted their appeals and could be slated for execution should the "machinery of death," as Justice Harry A. Blackmun once described it, ever be turned back on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We hope it won't be. The result of a too-easily manipulated system, the practice is barbaric, immoral and applied disproportionately to people of color. As Paige St. John reported recently in our news pages, there also are many condemned prisoners in California who can't legally be put to death. The Supreme Court has held that the state can't execute someone who doesn't have a "rational understanding" of why he or she is about to be executed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The state historically has argued that it could not acquiesce in removing a convicted killer from death row unless it believed there was a miscarriage of justice. And the mental state of a condemned person does not become a legal issue until execution is near, in part because many forms of mental illness come and go.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But now, under an agreement worked out with the state-funded office that coordinates death sentence appeals, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris has taken the unusual step of joining the defense in asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the death sentence of Ronnie McPeters. McPeters, a panhandler convicted of the 1984 murder of Linda Pasnick in Fresno, converses with a nonexistent wife and children, hoards his feces and says he's tormented by the voices of his victim's relatives.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn [every day].</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though we wish that Harris, who personally opposes the death penalty, would use this opportunity to make a broader call for its abolition, we welcome her efforts to move inmates such as McPeters off death row. Working with defense lawyers to identify those ineligible for the death penalty earlier in the appeals process keeps the state from wasting time and resources pursuing executions that are constitutionally barred from occurring. No public interest is served by the state doggedly fighting a battle it knows it can't win, and we hope the state Supreme Court affirms this new process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What depths of insanity are involved here? One inmate continually bangs his head against the wall, believes he is controlled by computer chips and says he dies every night only to be reborn the next morning. Another seesaws between delusions and catatonia, spending days at a time naked and smeared with his own feces on the floor of his cell. Several have had their appeals indefinitely delayed because they are too incapacitated to assist in their own counsel, yet they remain on death row ostensibly awaiting execution. If they're too crazy for court, they're certainly too crazy for the death chamber.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Victims' families have legitimate grievances, and a right to want the guilty punished. But executions do not achieve justice; they are revenge killings conducted by the state on behalf of the victims, and serve no broader societal or judicial purpose. And fighting to push the insane closer to the needle moves the practice into the realm of the absurd.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If a condemned person doesn't understand why he or she is to be killed by the state, the state must recognize that and place the convicted in circumstances that will ensure basic constitutional rights are protected. Even the guilty are human beings, and must be treated as such.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Editorial, Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

California lethal injections Mental Illness mentally incompetent inmates Psychiatric disorders USA A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates

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India: The ones who got death

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiqeFNRY1dWkD9ACns9qxcEA0zI-NrapGY8iurh_jpvoTScL3ACxJrOVjE6CGsp9JEdGojYAhvw53AZEjKOoHPvA_OnL9Z_nkRBgwp2lipL46ERseFphu9LyxJK5mosRx7aZ-kSkMLy0I/s1600/noose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiqeFNRY1dWkD9ACns9qxcEA0zI-NrapGY8iurh_jpvoTScL3ACxJrOVjE6CGsp9JEdGojYAhvw53AZEjKOoHPvA_OnL9Z_nkRBgwp2lipL46ERseFphu9LyxJK5mosRx7aZ-kSkMLy0I/s400/noose.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Who gets the death penalty in India? <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Death-Penalty-India-Report-Summary.pdf" target="_blank">The Death Penalty India Report</a> (pdf), brought out by the National Law University last month, attempts an answer. A 1-of-its-kind study, it documents the socio-economic profiles of prisoners sentenced to death, as also their engagement with the criminal justice system. Here, rather than the crime they were party to, the focus is on the lives they led and the legal aid they had access to before receiving the death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The report documents the stories of 373 of the 385 prisoners on death row countrywide. This includes stories of their families, too, some of whom cooperated in the exercise and some didn't. The 2 1/2 year long study was aided by over 80 undergraduate law students and volunteers. The 2-volume, 384-page report attempts to go beyond the 'for vs against' debate on death penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"For an issue as grave as this, there have been far too few attempts in India to understand questions about who gets the death penalty, how they get it and what it is like to live under the sentence of death in Indian prisons," says Anup Surendranath, director of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic, in the preface.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The project is not meant to make a case for abolition but is meant to present voices that are rarely heard."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here we are reproducing 5 stories of death row inmates featured in the report. A few of them had their sentences commuted in due course. Names of the prisoners and their family members have been changed in the report to preserve anonymity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Edited excerpts:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Pranay Singh</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pranay Singh was sentenced to death for murdering five members of his cousin's family by setting their house on fire. According to his brother, Singh had been mentally ill a few years prior to the incident. He had stopped farming and was indifferent when his yield was destroyed. Singh left the village and returned 12 years later. He was unkempt, did not eat much and remained withdrawn.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During our interactions, Singh did not seem to remember the incident. He was unaware that he was implicated for murder. Singh remembered going to the court for hearings but did not know the details of the case, and was under the impression that he had been acquitted. He believed he was living in prison out of his own volition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although in his '50s, Singh believed he was 32 years old. He insisted the 5 people, whose deaths he was convicted for, were alive. No one from his family had visited him in prison and the officials were the ones he communicated with. Despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2010, Singh's mercy petition was rejected by the President. A month after the submission of his mercy petition, Singh was admitted to a mental hospital. About 10 months after being discharged, Singh was informed about the rejection of his mercy petition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His death sentence was subsequently commuted by the Supreme Court (SC) on the ground of his mental illness. In its judgment, the SC noted that the Ministry of Home Affairs did not make a reference to his mental condition while advising the President to reject the mercy petition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Singh had at the time of the interview spent 11 years and 3 months in incarceration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Inder</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his employer's daughter. Inder recounted that he yielded to the investigating officer's pressure due to the relentless torture and agreed to confess before the magistrate. During the proceeding, the magistrate did not inform him about the effect of the confession nor did he inquire if it was being made under duress. The magistrate only asked 2 questions, "Did you rape the victim?" and "Did you murder her?"</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During his interview, Inder ruefully shared that he was illiterate and did not have a lawyer to guide him through the legal process, else he would have never made the confession before the magistrate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Inder's horrors over a 10-day period in police custody were not limited to brutal beatings. The police blindfolded him and fired gunshots in the air, making him dread for his life with every passing moment. Petrol was poured over his buttocks and he was tortured in ways that he felt ashamed to discuss. During his interview, Inder shared that the only way for him to escape this nightmare was to comply with the investigating officer's demands to confess before the magistrate.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Remembering the torment he had undergone, Inder shared that for anyone who was tortured like he was, "it would no longer matter whether you did it or not, you will agree to anything to make the torture stop." Inder's case was pending in the High Court (HC) at the time of the interview in October 2013.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Chetak</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chetak was sentenced to death for murdering five people in the house where he was a domestic help. He was paid a meagre salary of 1,500. His employers often abused him verbally and did not pay his full salary to make sure he continued working.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The economic condition of his mother was worse. When the interviewers met Chetak's mother she was found wearing a torn sari without a blouse. She had a basket in one hand and a broom in the other. Frightened and bewildered, the frail old woman sat down on her haunches amidst a curious crowd and repeated in a barely audible voice, "I know nothing, I understand nothing." She lived alone in a dilapidated room surrounded by a yard piled with bricks and rubble. She survived by cleaning cowsheds and making dung cakes. She was not paid for her labour, but given food, sometimes just enough to make a day's only meal. Often, she did not even get this and would go to bed hungry. The other villagers did not know her name, though she worked in their houses. One proudly whispered, "We do not associate with her."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chetak's mother visited him once in jail.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the jail, Chetak was not allowed to work or earn. His legal aid lawyer told him that he would fight the case well only if he was paid. Chetak was convinced that his fate would have been different had he been able to afford a private lawyer. Represented by state-appointed counsels throughout the trial and appeal process, Chetak never had an opportunity to discuss the case with his lawyers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the confirmation of his death sentence by the SC, Chetak remained unaware of his remaining legal recourses. Fellow inmates told him about clemency and his mercy petitions were sent to the President and the governor through the prison. Chetak did not receive any legal assistance in preparing these petitions nor did he have their copies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While the President denied Chetak's request for pardon 3 years later, the prison received an official communication after a delay of 3 months. Chetak learnt about it through a local Hindi newspaper. He was not given a copy of the letter.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Chetak despaired that he was alone throughout this complex process, with "no one to listen to his voice or look out for him."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Subsequently, the SC commuted his death sentence considering the delay of 3 years and 10 months in disposal of his mercy petition. The court also took into account his solitary confinement for 6 years and 7 months after he was sentenced to death by the trial court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He had at the time of the interview spent 10 years and 8 months in incarceration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Nimish</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nimish, along with his co-accused, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 6 members of a family and their help. Their death sentences were upheld by the SC. After his review petition was dismissed, Nimish tried to seek legal assistance in preparing his mercy petition but without any results. In order to understand his rights, he also asked the prison officials for a copy of the prison manual. His demands irked the officials and were rejected.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It compelled him to prepare his own mercy petition. When he received no news about the fate of his mercy petition for 10 years, Nimish sent an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005, to the President's Secretariat. He learnt the petition was still pending before the governor. However, on enquiring with the state government, Nimish learnt that his mercy petition had been rejected by the governor, but the relevant documents were destroyed in a fire in the department. 14 years after submitting his mercy petition, Nimish is still awaiting the outcome of his plea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nimish had quit school after Std VII due to financial difficulties. He migrated to another state from his native village, and was only 20-21 years old at the time of his arrest. In the 2 decades that he has spent in prison, he has completed his Bachelor's degree in commerce and political science, as well as a certificate course in tourism. Currently, he is pursuing Master's in sociology from prison.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He wonders if the President would consider his endeavours to educate himself while deciding the fate of his petition. He hopes that someday he will "get back to society and lead a life of dignity."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He had spent 19 years and 7 months in incarceration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ranjay</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ranjay's trial lasted 3 months and he was sentenced to death for murdering a 1-year-old child. The trial court and HC rejected Ranjay's claim that it was an accident under the influence of alcohol.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shivmani, Ranjay's wife, recounted that she had got Ranjay to give up a life of petty crime and take up a stable job after nearly 2 decades of struggle. They were content before this incident destroyed their lives. Overnight, they had to sell most of their possessions to secure legal assistance for Ranjay.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His case was pending before the SC at the time of his interview in December 2013. His narrative is of significance in the discussion on surrender by prisoners. According to the prosecution's case, Ranjay had demanded 100 from the child's grandfather, and when denied, he fired his pistol, which killed the child instantaneously.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shivmani said Ranjay was an alcoholic and, on that particular evening, had come home in a heavily inebriated state. She tried coaxing him to go to bed. However, he insisted on going out to buy gutka (chewing tobacco), and took his pistol along as he was afraid that someone was trying to kill him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">According to her, Ranjay fired at a wall but the bullet ricocheted and hit the child. The child's grandfather stabbed Ranjay in the neck with a pair of scissors. Thereafter, he staggered home and asked Shivmani for the keys to his autorickshaw, saying that he needed to take a child who had been shot to the hospital.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">She was informed that people were beating up Ranjay, and at the scene she saw the entire neighbourhood assaulting her husband. The mob started beating Shivmani and her children as well. Her younger daughter was stabbed in the abdomen. Upon Ranjay's request, she took him to the police. The mob surrounded the police station and the victim's mother threw a stone at the station-in-charge and asked him to hand over Ranjay so they could "take care" of him. Ranjay was admitted to a hospital and was so intoxicated that he was not sober until the next afternoon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: thehindubusinessline.com, June 10, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

India India DP Research Project Inordinate delay Mental Illness Social status Torture India: The ones who got death

Who gets the death penalty in India? The Death Penalty India Report  (pdf), brought out by the National Law University last month, attempts ...

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Aussie sentenced to life for drug trafficking in Vietnam, escapes death penalty

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejwOxmZZaL0bwwNK5UiXaXQFAxmO3yhEbfHAnuoSqXLe9zWTkUufwRlYJUHrAN5MFEp0cWDqF2dqHLwYOxFrsczaSHkMk-Q8yVSQ3xSSpeRZs1Xoa_onDThu9z9Wu0YBLLqst2bNBEbk/s1600/Hanoi+Vietnam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Hanoi, Vietnam" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgejwOxmZZaL0bwwNK5UiXaXQFAxmO3yhEbfHAnuoSqXLe9zWTkUufwRlYJUHrAN5MFEp0cWDqF2dqHLwYOxFrsczaSHkMk-Q8yVSQ3xSSpeRZs1Xoa_onDThu9z9Wu0YBLLqst2bNBEbk/s400/Hanoi+Vietnam.jpg" title="Hanoi, Vietnam" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A court in southern Vietnam has sentenced an Australian man to life in prison for drug trafficking.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nathan Andrew James was convicted in a one-day trial by the People's Court in Ho Chi Minh City this week, a court official said Wednesday on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2013/10/vietnam-arrests-two-australian.html" target="_blank">James, 34, was arrested in October 2013</a> while checking into a flight to Australia after customs officials at the airport discovered 1.5 kilograms ( 3.3 pounds ) of heroin hidden in his luggage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The indictment said James owed some money to a man named Tim, who offered to write off the debt if James agreed to take the heroin hidden in two suitcases from Vietnam to Australia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">James told the court that he had received the suitcases from the man, but denied that he knew heroin was hidden in them, an explanation that was rejected by the court, the official said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">James could have been sentenced to death, but the court took into consideration his history of mental disorders, she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement Wednesday that it has provided consular assistance to a man convicted in Vietnam. It did not name him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That assistance included attending court proceedings and visiting him in prison. The statement gave no other details, citing privacy obligations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Vietnam has one of the world's toughest drug laws, where trafficking 100 grams of heroin is punishable by death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Associated Press, June 1, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Australia Consular assistance Drug trafficking Mental Illness Vietnam Aussie sentenced to life for drug trafficking in Vietnam, escapes death penalty

A court in southern Vietnam has sentenced an Australian man to life in prison for drug trafficking. Nathan Andrew James was convicted in a o...

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