US: Justice of the Supreme Court Breyer renews call to review constitutionality of death penalty

ABA Journal
Justice Stephen G. Breyer has used an Alabama capital case to renew his call to examine the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of execution for the inmate, Chistopher Eugene Brooks, drawing a dissent from Breyer, report BuzzFeed News, the Montgomery Advertiser and Al.com.

Brooks was executed Thursday evening.

Breyer said Alabama allows jurors to issue an "advisory verdict" in death penalty cases using a system that is much like the death penalty scheme struck down on Jan. 12 in Hurst v. Florida.

"The unfairness inherent in treating this case differently from others which used similarly unconstitutional procedures only underscores the need to reconsider the validity of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment," Breyer wrote.

In a concurrence to the cert denial, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg also pointed to possible problems with Alabama's capital sentencing scheme, but said they believed procedural obstacles would have prevented the court from granting relief.

Breyer dissented a day before the U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to consider a cert petition raising the Eighth Amendment issue in the case of Shonda Walter, BuzzFeed News reports.

"The death penalty has outlived any conceivable use," Walter's cert petition asserts. "It is imperfect in application, haphazard in result, and of negligible utility."

If the court is considering taking up the case, it probably won't act before its next conference on Feb. 19, BuzzFeed reports.

At that time, a Louisiana case also raising the constitutional issue will likely be before the court.

US: Press Uzbekistan on Political Prisoners, Prison Death

Human Right Wath

In Washington Talks, Raise Enforced Disappearances

Washington, DC – United States officials should publicly press Uzbekistan to free political prisoners during Annual Bilateral Consultations on January 19, 2016, Human Rights Watch and the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia said today. The Uzbek foreign minister, Abdulaziz Komilov, is scheduled to meet with high-level officials at the US Department of State at a time of continuing US military engagement with Uzbekistan over its role in a global coalition to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) and ongoing US military operations in Afghanistan.

Akram Yuldashev

Human Rights Watch learned on January 11 that a prominent religious figure, 52-year-old Akram Yuldashev, one of Uzbekistan’s longest held political prisoners, died in prison in 2010 of tuberculosis. He had been due for release in February 2016, but no one knew of his fate because the authorities forcibly disappeared him in prison, denying anyone information about his whereabouts or fate since 2009.

“Akram Yuldashev should have walked out of prison next month a free man but instead he died over five years ago in a cell, hidden from his loved ones and the entire world,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The terrible end met by of one of Uzbekistan’s most prominent and longest held religious figures demands a strong, public response from US officials.”

Despite numerous calls by Human Rights Watch and other organizations to confirm Yuldashev’s fate, authorities refused to reveal his whereabouts or allow him any contact with his family since 2009. The refusal to provide, or concealment of, information on the fate or whereabouts of a person deprived of their liberty constitutes an enforced disappearance, a crime under international law, and is prohibited in all circumstances.

Yuldashev, a former mathematics teacher turned religious philosopher, gained a large following in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley in the 1990s after publishing a tract about how to live a moral life under Islam. Many of his followers started small businesses, operating them in accordance with his teachings. The authorities repeatedly interrogated him, and imprisoned him on an apparently trumped-up drug charge in 1998 and then again following a series of bombings in Tashkent in 1999 that the government attributed to Islamic “extremists.” While imprisoned in 2005, authorities accused him of being the mastermind behind an extremist group Akromiya, which authorities said was responsible for extremist attacks in Andijan, although there was no evidence linking him to any crimes.

The annual bilateral consultations are one of the most prominent meetings between the two governments. While human rights issues are regularly raised by some US officials, the quiet approach has done nothing to give Uzbekistan an incentive to address its woeful record on torture, the ongoing imprisonment of government critics and religious believers, and the widespread use of forced labor, the groups said.

The US administration should make clear during next week’s bilateral meetings that if there isn’t an improvement in the status quo they will be prepared to impose targeted restrictive measures such as visa bans and asset freezes on officials found responsible for egregious human rights abuses, including in detention. The US should also consider re-implementing the restrictions on military assistance that were in place until 2009.

In the Yuldashev case, the US administration should publicly press the Uzbek authorities to carry out a meaningful investigation and bring those responsible for his imprisonment and the concealment of his whereabouts to justice. The Uzbek government should inform Yuldashev’s family about the circumstances of his death and previous custody and allow them access to his remains.

There was no discernible improvement in Uzbekistan’s rights record in 2015. The Uzbek government, led by authoritarian president Islam Karimov, has imprisoned thousands of people on politically motivated charges, including human rights and opposition activists, journalists, religious believers, artists, and other perceived critics. Many are in serious ill-health and have been tortured, and their sentences have been arbitrarily extended in prison.

Among those imprisoned for no reason other than peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression are 14 human rights activists: Azam Farmonov, Mehriniso Hamdamova, Zulhumor Hamdamova, Isroiljon Kholdorov, Gaybullo Jalilov, Nuriddin Jumaniyazov, Matluba Kamilova, Ganikhon Mamatkhanov, Chuyan Mamatkulov, Zafarjon Rahimov, Yuldash Rasulov, Bobomurod Razzokov, Fahriddin Tillaev, and Akzam Turgunov.

The Uzbek government has refused to disclose the whereabouts of Nuriddin Jumaniyazov or provide his lawyer with access to him since October 2014.

Five more prisoners are journalists: Solijon Abdurakhmanov, Muhammad Bekjanov, Gayrat Mikhliboev, Yusuf Ruzimuradov, and Dilmurod Saidov. Three are opposition activists: Samandar Kukanov, Kudratbek Rasulov, and Rustam Usmanov. Seven others are independent religious figures and perceived government critics: Ruhiddin Fahriddinov, Botirbek Eshkuziev, Bahrom Ibragimov, Davron Kabilov, Erkin Musaev, Davron Tojiev, and Ravshanbek Vafoev, and one, Dilorom Abdukodirova, was a witness to the May 13, 2005 Andijan massacre, when Uzbek government forces shot and killed hundreds of mainly peaceful protesters.

The US State Department’s annual country report on Uzbekistan recognizes a wide spectrum of human rights abuses by the government. But the US administration has preferred a policy of private dialogue, without any serious policy consequences for the abuses.

For a decade, the State Department has designated Uzbekistan a “country of particular concern” due to its crackdown on religious freedom. But the White House has not imposed sanctions, citing national security grounds. While the designation itself is significant, it has not kept pace with the scope and severity of the abuses in Uzbekistan. Nor has the full spectrum of diplomatic opportunities and tools been tapped to raise concerns or press for redress.

“US officials should make clear to the Uzbek Foreign Minister that his government’s continuing repression will result in meaningful, and if need be, punitive policy consequences,” said Nadejda Atayeva, president of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia. “Knowing they’ll be held to account for abusive conduct might make Uzbek authorities think twice.”

The US should also seek to establish a special rapporteur devoted to Uzbekistan’s human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Council, the groups said.

The US should press Uzbekistan to:
Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders, journalists, political opponents, and other activists held on politically motivated charges;
End the crackdown on activists and allow domestic and international human rights organizations to operate without government interference, including promptly re-registering international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch that have been forced to cease operating in Uzbekistan;
Take meaningful measures to end torture and ill-treatment and the accompanying culture of impunity, including by implementing in full the recommendations of the UN special rapporteur on torture, the Committee Against Torture, and the Human Rights Committee;
Ensure genuine media freedom, stop harassment of journalists, and allow domestic and international media outlets, including those that have been forced to stop operating to resume their work; grant accreditation to foreign journalists;
Allow unhindered access for independent monitors, including 13 UN monitors who have been refused permission to visit, and implement recommendations by independent UN monitoring bodies;
End forced labor in the cotton sector, and allow independent organizations and activists to conduct their own monitoring without harassment;
End religious persecution, including decriminalizing peaceful religious activity, and ending the imprisonment of thousands of people for their nonviolent religious expression.

US - Hillary Clinton Wants Death Penalty to Be “Legal, Limited and Rare”

Patheos
Hillary Clinton, speaking to students at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, has called for the death penalty to be “very limited and rare.”

Clinton outlined her belief regarding the use of capital punishment in response to a question asked by a student from the college’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics during a Q&A. “I do not favor abolishing it,” she said of the death penalty,

“…because I do think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty. But I’d like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we’ve seen in most states. We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way, so I think we have to take a hard look at it.”

Her defense of the death penalty puts her in opposition to her rivals for the Democratic nomination for President.
Senator Bernie Sanders has called for an end to capital punishment nationwide; instead, he quipped that the U.S. should “lock people up… and throw away the key” when they commit “terrible murders.”
And former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley abolished capital punishment in Maryland during his term of office.

The Catholic Church, too, stands in opposition to Mrs. Clinton in judging the immorality of the death penalty. In Section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the life of a guilty person can be taken only if no other means is available to protect society; and that in today’s society, the case in which execution would be necessary is “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.” According to Section 2267 of the Catechism:
Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
Beyond the matter of necessity, another reason that the Church regards the death penalty as a horrendous use of force is that the criminal himself, were he permitted to live out his natural life, would have greater opportunity for repentance and could ultimately could find his way back to Christ, securing his eternal salvation.

US death penalty - Missouri governor spares death row inmate Kimber Edwards three days before execution

The Guardian
Jay Nixon made a surprise announcement on Friday amid a mounting chorus of protests that the prisoner, Kimber Edwards, was innocent

Missouri governor Jay Nixon

The governor of Missouri has spared a death row inmate from execution just three days before the prisoner was scheduled to be killed by lethal injection, commuting the punishment to life without parole.

Jay Nixon made a surprise announcement on Friday amid a mounting chorus of protests that the prisoner, Kimber Edwards, was innocent. Edwards was sentenced to death for having hired a hit man, Orthell Wilson, to murder Edwards’ ex-wife, Kimberly Cantrell, in St Louis in 2000.

But in April Wilson told the St Louis Post-Dispatch that he had committed the murder alone and that he had lied about Edwards hiring him to do it because he wanted to spare himself the death chamber. Wilson was given a life sentence as part of a plea deal.

In a statement, Nixon said he remained convinced that Edwards was guilty of the first-degree murder of Cantrell. However, he did not explain why in that case he had decided to commute the death sentence – an unusual move for a governor who, though a Democrat, is an enthusiastic advocate of capital punishment.

All he said was that the commutation was “not taken lightly, and only after significant consideration of the totality of the circumstance. With this decision, Kimber Edwards will remain in prison for the remainder of his life for this murder.”

Wilson was categorical in his interview with the Post-Dispatch that Edwards played no role in the murder. He told the paper: “Him and I never had that conversation about him trying to kill his wife. We never had that conversation. I’m just telling you point blank.”

Kimber Edwards’ impending execution had been contentious for other reasons. He was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury after prosecutors for St Louis County had struck all three potential black jurors from the jury pool.
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One of those African Americans was rejected by prosecutors under a ruse dubbed the “Postman’s Gambit” whereby people who have worked for the postal service are deemed unsuitable for sitting on a jury. The St Louis County prosecutors’ office has denied any racial motivation behind striking postal workers, though defense lawyers have pointed out that most employees for the postal service in the county are black.

In 1986 the US Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to strike potential jurors from the pool on grounds of race.

The postman’s gambit was used in 2001 to achieve an all-white jury in the case of Marcellus Williams, who is still on death row in Missouri. It was also used in the case of Herbert Smulls, who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury and executed in 2013. Both Williams and Smulls are black.

During jury deliberation at the start of the Smulls trial, a St Louis County prosecutor explained his decision to strike a black woman who had worked in Monsanto’s mailroom. “In my experience, [postal workers] are very disgruntled, unhappy people with the system and make every effort to strike back.”

The Edwards commutation marks the second time in two days that death row inmates have been pulled back from imminent execution. On Wednesday, Oklahoma’s governor Mary Fallin issued a stay for Richard Glossip after an embarrassing mix-up in its lethal injection supplies was discovered.

The unexpected interventions in Oklahoma and Missouri come amid a flurry of activity among death penalty states which are renewing their efforts to judicially kill prisoners with renewed vigor following a recent US Supreme Court ruling that deemed new experimental lethal injection protocols constitutional. That ruling was also posited on the case of Glossip, whose fate still hangs in the balance – he has already come within hours of the death chamber three times.

US - Connecticut - Despite ruling abolishing the death penalty, inmates still being housed on death row

Daily Reporter
Hartford, Connecticut — Former death-row inmates in Connecticut may soon be living under less restrictive prison conditions than other inmates convicted of similar crimes, legal experts say.

American Death Row

Connecticut's Supreme Court last month declared capital punishment unconstitutional in the state, striking down part of a 2012 law that had allowed the death penalty only for those already facing execution.

That statute replaced what had been known as "capital felony" with a new crime, "murder with special circumstances." Under the new law, anyone who is convicted of what would have previously been a death-penalty eligible crime is now sentenced to life in prison under conditions mimicking death row.

That means being held in single cell for 22 hours a day, being escorted by at least one staff member and placed in restraints when moving outside that cell. Of the two hours considered "recreation," one would typically be spent indoors, in an area that houses a law library and a phone. The other would be spent alone in a cage outside in a courtyard. There would be no physical contact with other inmates.

Ironically, the 11 inmates currently housed on death row may soon be escaping those conditions.

Those inmates must now be re-sentenced to life without parole under the old capital felony statue, which existed when they were convicted, their attorneys say.

Though the Correction Department has leeway in the conditions imposed on individual inmates, someone sentenced to life without parole under the old statute was typically placed in the general population and allowed to be out of a cell six to seven hours a day with other inmates. They also have access to the prison commissary and gym.

"At some point, the death-row inmates are going to be let into general population," said attorney Mark Rademacher, who successfully argued for the abolishment of capital punishment as the attorney for Eduardo Santiago and currently represents death-row inmate Russell Peeler Jr. "I don't see how the state could oppose that."

So far, none of the death-row inmates has been moved, said Department of Correction spokeswoman Karen Martucci.

"Nothing has changed with the management of the death-row population since their sentence has not been legally changed by a court," she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "I really couldn't predict when any court action will take place."

The process has been delayed, in part, because prosecutors have asked the court to reconsider the August ruling that declared capital punishment unconstitutional.

The chief state's attorney's office, citing that pending litigation, declined to comment for this story.

Michael Courtney, who heads the capital defense unit for the state's Office of the Public Defender, said the high court typically does not grant motions to reconsider, but the legal maneuver could lead to further delays in abolishing death row.

"I guess (prosecutors) feel like they have to keep swinging," he said. "They have the procedural mechanism to delay this, and they have used it."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is also monitoring the proceedings.

ACLU attorney David McGuire said the Correction Department already has the authority to decide where the former death-row inmates belong based on factors such as their age, mental health, disciplinary record while in prison and the security risk they present.

It is possible that some will remain at the Northern Correctional Institution under the state's tightest security, known as level five, while others are sent to other prisons as level four inmates or even to medical units, he said.

"All of those are very restrictive environments," he said. "These are not luxurious settings."

US - Death penalty - Oklahoma delays Richard Glossip execution amid evidence concerns

CNN

An Oklahoma appellate court granted a two-week stay of execution for Richard Glossip just hours before he was scheduled to die Wednesday, granting a temporary reprieve for a man whose lawyers say he is innocent.

 Richard Glossip

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals issued the order about three hours before Glossip's scheduled afternoon execution for the 1977 death of motel owner Barry Van Treese.

The move came amid concerns, expressed by Glossip's supporters and attorneys, about his trial and the way the state planned to execute him. The appellate court said it needed time to consider several motions that Glossip's attorneys made less than 24 hours before the scheduled execution, including one asking for an evidentiary hearing.

"Due to Glossip's last minute filing, and in order for this court to give fair consideration to the materials included with his subsequent application for post-conviction relief, we hereby grant an emergency stay of execution for two weeks," the court wrote.

The order resets the execution date to September 30.

After the stay was issued, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin issued a statement saying the "court is the proper place for Richard Glossip and his legal team to argue the merits of his case."

"My office will respect whatever decision the court makes, as we have throughout this process," Fallin said.

Glossip's lawyers have been asking Fallin for a 60-day reprieve, based on what they say is new evidence of innocence discovered in the past two weeks.

Glossip was convicted of murder in Van Treese's death, though Glossip wasn't the actual killer.

The man who bludgeoned Van Treese to death, Justin Sneed, testified that Glossip hired him for the murder. But jurors weren't presented with evidence that Sneed gave contradictory accounts to police about what happened, wrote Sister Helen Prejean, who ministers to prisoners on death row.

Prejean also noted what she said was the lack of evidence linking Glossip to the crime.

Concerns with midazolam
Glossip had been scheduled to be the first inmate to be executed in Oklahoma since a bitterly divided Supreme Court allowed the use of the drug midazolam in June.

The drug was used in the highly publicized execution of Clayton Lockett last year. Lockett's execution was one of the longest in U.S. history; he moaned and writhed on the gurney for 43 minutes before dying of a heart attack.

A state investigation linked the problem to the IV lines not being inserted correctly.

But the state did not deem it necessary to change its controversial three-drug formula. Of particular concern is the use of the sedative midazolam, also used in two other executions that went awry: Dennis McGuire agonized for 26 minutes in Ohio, and Joseph Wood gasped more than 600 times and took two hours to die in Arizona.


'Afraid of how they'll kill me'
In a phone interview with CNN's Moni Basu earlier this year, Glossip said he was terrified he will suffer a similar agonizing death for a crime he says he didn't commit.

"I am worried they will botch it again," Glossip said.

Oklahoma upped its dosage of midazolam to 500 milligrams, compared with the 100 milligrams Lockett got.

Glossip, who has spent more than 17 years in a cell near the death chamber, also spoke about the man whose testimony led to his death sentence.

"At first I was angry at Justin, but now I feel sorry for him," Glossip said. "He's afraid of how Oklahoma will kill him if he owns up to what really happened, just like I am afraid of how they'll kill me."

At a clemency hearing for Glossip last year, Van Treese's brother expressed no sympathy for the inmate.

"I will speak for my brother," Kenneth Van Treese said. "'It hurts like hell to have your head bashed in with a baseball bat. Do not feel sorry for the bastard who took my life.'"

US - death penalty - Dates set for executions of 8 inmates on Arkansas’ death row

The City Wire
Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) set the execution dates for eight death row inmates after more than a decade-long dearth of lethal injections.

Hutchinson was urged to set the dates by Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who informed the governor two weeks ago that the state of Arkansas had procured the necessary chemicals to carry out state executions by lethal injection.

The following schedule was released by Hutchinson’s office for execution dates:

The judgments against Bruce Earl Ward, convicted of the Aug. 11, 1989, murder of Rebecca Doss of Little Rock, and Don William Davis, convicted of the Oct. 12, 1990, murder of Jane Daniel of Rogers, will be carried out on Oct. 21, 2015.

Terrick Terrell Nooner, convicted of the March 16, 1993, murder of Scot Stobaugh of Little Rock, and Stacey Eugene Johnson, convicted in Sevier County of the April 1, 1993, murder of Carol Heath of DeQueen, are set for Nov. 3, 2015.

Marcel Wayne Williams, convicted of the November 20, 1994, murder of Stacy Errickson of Jacksonville, and Jack Harold Jones, Jr., convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the June 6, 1995, murder of Mary Phillips of Searcy, are set for Dec. 14, 2015.

Jason McGehee, who was convicted of the Aug. 19, 1996, murder of John Melbourne, Jr., of Harrison, and Kenneth Williams, who was convicted of the Oct. 3, 1999, murder of Cecil Boren of Grady, are set for Jan. 14, 2016.

Arkansas has not carried out the death penalty since 2005 due to legal challenges and a lack of available drugs to produce lethal injections. Last month, the state said it received the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections.

In Arkansas, a person convicted of capital murder may face either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Capital murder is often sought by prosecutors when another crime, like kidnapping or rape, is committed in connection with a murder. There are 39 inmates on death row in Arkansas.

US - Connecticut - Prosecutor appeals end of death penalty

ctpost
Rocky Hill — The state’s top prosecutor is asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider its 4-3 decision ending the death penalty in Connecticut.

Chief State’s Attorney 

Kevin Kane

“The Division of Criminal Justice recognizes the complex legal and policy issues that the court confronted in this crucially important case,” Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane said in a motion filed Friday afternoon with the Supreme Court.

“And, as always, the division realizes there are legitimate opinions on both sides of the death penalty debate. But the process that the majority followed in reaching its conclusion deprived the division of the opportunity to address the concerns that drove the results and led the majority unaided by the time-tested adversarial process t o inaccurate assumptions and errors of law.”

This motion leaves the 11 inmates on Connecticut death row in limbo.

Kane said the motion “speaks for itself,” and declined further comment.

Last month, the state Supreme Court, in deciding the death penalty case of Eduard Santiago, went beyond what it was asked to consider in that case and threw out Connecticut’s death penalty.

Though neither side in that case argued the points, the state’s highest court ruled the death penalty should be abolished because: the state rarely imposes the death penalty; there are other states that have abolished the death penalty; and there are racial disparities in the way the death penalty is administered.

“The majority opinion, along with the concurring opinion of two justices, addresses issues, undertakes analysis and relies on materials that were never raised or presented and never subjected to any adversarial inquiry,” the prosecutor’s motion states.

Iran reformists implore US Congress: Approve nuclear deal to boost human rights #SupportIranDeal

The Jerusalem Post
Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh said it was "unrealistic" to hope that the deal would automatically resolve civil rights issues in Iran, but that it was still a step forward.
Iranian pro-democracy activists, lawyers and artists have thrown their weight behind last month's nuclear deal with world powers, hoping it will lead to a promised political opening that President Hassan Rouhani has so far failed to deliver.

Dozens of prominent figures, many of whom have spent time in jail and faced travel or work bans, have recorded short video clips on social media sites this week praising the July 14 accord that will lift international sanctions from Iran in exchange for strict curbs on its nuclear program.

"These video messages show that those who have paid the highest prices for the cause of democracy and human rights in Iran are supporting the deal," Mohammadreza Jalaeipour, a pro-democracy activist who organized the campaign said.

Many of the videos implored the US Congress to approve the deal in a vote due next month, arguing that it offers the best hope of promoting democracy in Iran and is not a capitulation to Iranian hardline factions to which they, too, are opposed.
"War and sanctions create crisis, and crisis is the death of democracy, the death of peace and human rights," film director Jafar Panahi, who has received accolades abroad but seen his work banned in Iran, noted in his video.

Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition politicians and activists, said it was "unrealistic" to hope that the deal would automatically resolve civil rights issues in Iran, but that it was still a step forward.

"We are hopeful that the same approach that was adopted by the Iranian government to resolve international animosity, can be used to resolve differences within the country," she told Reuters by telephone from Tehran.
Opposition Republican lawmakers in Congress have vowed to sink the deal but need to recruit dozens of Democrats reach the two-thirds majority needed to override President Barack Obama's veto. Some hardliners in Iran's parliament have also opposed the deal, but have no legislative power to reject it.

Reformists have been excluded from Iranian politics since 2009, when the authorities put down pro-democracy demonstrations after a disputed presidential election, arrested several leaders, and barred candidates from subsequent elections.

Some of those who appear in this week's videos have paid a high price for their activities.

Jalaeipour spent five months in solitary confinement, Panahi was banned from making films and forbidden from traveling in 2010, while Sotoudeh was sentenced to six years in jail in 2010 and banned from practice.

At the 2013 election, reformists turned out in force to elect Rouhani, a pragmatic insider who promised to lift social and political restrictions. But the United Nations noted in March that the rights situation remains dire.

The video campaign suggests many Iranian reformists hope and expect that Rouhani, who championed the nuclear talks, can finally fight for political reform against hardline factions that dominate the judiciary and security establishment.

"Rouhani has focused on external engagement, but now will be expected to use the political capital to fulfill his other promises," Jalaeipour told Reuters.

"Hardliners in Iran have benefited, and civil society has suffered, from the standoff with the West."

US - State by state, the death penalty is losing ground

Los Angeles Times
When the Connecticut Legislature abolished the state's death penalty three years ago, it explicitly left in place the death sentences of those who committed their crimes before the repeal. Abolition for future crimes, said the Legislature, not for past crimes.

But last week, in a landmark 4-3 decision, the Connecticut Supreme Court found that the death penalty violates the state's constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that abolition must therefore extend to everyone. The 11 prisoners on the state's death row, plus a 12th man facing a death sentence, have been spared.
Although the State of Connecticut vs. Eduardo Santiago ruling definitively bans capital punishment in Connecticut, it raises three key questions about the death penalty nationally.

The first question is for the U.S. Supreme Court: How many states must abolish the death penalty before the high court will strike it down for good? Whenever the high court next turns its attention to the validity of capital punishment, it will look to "objective evidence of contemporary values," something much discussed in the Santiago case. Nineteen states have abolished the death penalty. Are 19 states — as opposed to, say, 26 — sufficient to tip the constitutional scales toward invalidation nationally?

The Connecticut Supreme Court's 92-page majority opinion suggests that the answer should be yes. "If the legally salient metaphor is the evolution of our standards of decency," write the Connecticut justices, "then a gradual but inexorable extinction may be as significant as the sociological equivalent of the meteor that, it is believed, suddenly ended the reign of the dinosaurs."

In short, abolition does not need a majority; 19 should do. This is especially true given that most states retaining the death penalty are retentionist in name only. "Of the 35 executions carried out in 2014," the Connecticut Supreme Court tells us, "approximately 90% occurred in just four states: Texas, Missouri, Florida and Oklahoma." These four states are the proverbial tail wagging the dog of our standards of decency.
If legislatures are going to repeal the death penalty, they have to do it for everyone, or the court will do it for them.-

The second question is for state legislators throughout the country seeking to abolish the death penalty: What now? In many ways, the Connecticut justices have strengthened these legislators' arguments by writing far and away the most persuasive testimony in support of repeal.

But the court's decision has also complicated matters. Here's why.

Since 2007, seven states have abolished the death penalty. Most have done so for future crimes only, leaving to governors and parole boards the hard question of what to do with prisoners currently on death row. Others are lining up to do the same, including Delaware, Kansas, Washington state, Colorado and New Hampshire.

According to the Connecticut Supreme Court, however, maintaining the death penalty after repeal is unconstitutional. If legislatures are going to repeal the death penalty, they have to do it for everyone, or the court will do it for them.

Nebraska public officials, meanwhile, have argued just the opposite. When Nebraska abolished its death penalty this year, for future and previous crimes, its governor and attorney general cried foul, saying that the Legislature's repeal of the death penalty for people on death row violated the governor's power to commute sentences.

Legislators are now in a pickle. According to Connecticut's high court, it is unconstitutional for a legislature to leave people on death row after repeal; it violates "evolving standards of decency." Nebraska's governor and attorney general argue, though, that it would violate the constitutional separation of powers for a legislature not to leave those convicts on death row.

Both can't be right. The Connecticut ruling has yielded a puzzle that legislatures, governors and courts will be sorting out for some time.

The third question is for all of us: Do we, as a society, approve of vengeance? Supporters of the death penalty say that a legitimate desire for closure and restoration of moral order motivates the death penalty, not vengeance. But that is nonsense. The primary reason that Connecticut's Legislature retained the death penalty for those on death row in 2012, Connecticut's justices tell us, was "to placate the public's desire to exact vengeance" on two particular offenders, "the much reviled perpetrators of the widely publicized 2007 home invasion and murder of three members of Cheshire's Petit family."

The court noted in its ruling that one of Connecticut's state senators suggested they be lynched: "They should bypass the trial [in the Cheshire case] and take that second animal and hang him by his penis from a tree out in the middle of Main Street."

This is the festival of cruelty that the death penalty incites. Do we approve, or have we evolved?

Kevin M. Barry is a professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a civil rights attorney, specializing in legislative advocacy and litigation in support of death penalty abolition.

USA: Death penalty ruling may pave way for national abolitionists

AP
A sweeping decision this week by the Connecticut Supreme Court that found the death penalty no longer meets society's evolving standards of decency could be influential across a nation that is increasingly questioning the practice, legal experts said.

Thursday's ruling found capital punishment violates the Connecticut constitution, but the justices backed their decision by citing what abolitionists say are universal problems with the death penalty, including economic disparities in its use, the costs involved with appeals, the inherent cruelty involved in lengthy waits for execution, and the risk of executing innocent people.

"It reads as a missive to the U.S. Supreme Court," said Kevin Barry, a Quinnipiac University law professor and expert on death penalty law. "It is a blueprint for our nation's high court to strike down the death penalty nationally."

31 states still have capital punishment, but seven states have eliminated it in the past decade, including Nebraska in May and Maryland in 2013, which both passed legislation outlawing the death penalty.

Connecticut's abolishment is different because it comes in the form of a court ruling, one that found the 2012 state law that banned executions for future crimes did not go far enough, experts said. The court found the death penalty "no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose."

"This is one more institution saying this is too broken and it can't be fixed, and let's be done with it," said Shari Silberstein, executive director of the anti-death penalty group Equal Justice USA.

The ruling could also influence courts in states such as Maryland and New Mexico, which, like Connecticut, eliminated the death penalty only for future crimes, said Robert Blecker, a professor at New York Law School and a proponent of the limited use of capital punishment. States including Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, New Hampshire and Washington are also considering repealing the death penalty only for future crimes, he said.

"My view is that there will never be an execution of anyone who, if they had committed the same crime on the day of their execution, would not be subjected to the death penalty," said Blecker, author of the book "The Death of Punishment." ''This ruling backs that up."

The death penalty was widely used in the United States for decades until the 1960s, when questions about its fairness reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which eventually ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972. After states reworked their laws, the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976.

In recent years, the number of death sentences and executions in the U.S. has plummeted as juries take advantage of new laws offering life with no chance of parole and as prosecutors hesitate to bring capital charges because of the cost, especially at the appeals stage. In the past 5 years, executions have slowed again while the supply of lethal drugs has dried up as manufacturers, responding to activist pressure, have put them off limits for capital punishment.

The number of death sentences imposed last year marked a 40-year low in the country, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks information about the use of capital punishment in the United States.

There have been recent indications that the U.S. Supreme Court may be preparing to take its first broad look at the constitutionality of the death penalty since 1976, perhaps as early as this fall.

In June, Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent of an opinion upholding Oklahoma's use of a new lethal injection drug, said that circumstances have changed drastically over the past 40 years, and that the death penalty may now constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

"Given these changes, I believe that it is now time to reopen the question," he wrote.

One of the main tests the U.S Supreme Court would look at is the nation's standards of decency, Barry said. If it follows Connecticut's lead, in may not need to find that the majority of states oppose the death penalty, only that the trend is heading in an undeniable direction, he said.

But death penalty supporters may also look to Connecticut to back their position that executions should remain legal in states where it has public and legislative support.

Connecticut's ruling drew harsh criticism from the 3 dissenting justices and legislative Republicans, who accused the court of improperly taking on the role of policymakers.

Connecticut Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano noted that multiple lawmakers would not have voted to repeal the death penalty in Connecticut if that ban had applied to those already on death row.

In her dissent, Connecticut Chief Justice Chase Rogers wrote court ignored the most obvious evidence that society still accepts the death penalty.

"The legislature, which represents the people of the state and is the best indicator of contemporary societal mores, expressly retained the death penalty for crimes committed before the effective date of (the repeal)," she wrote.

US - Indiana - Lewis Fogle: Prisoner freed after spending over 30 years in prison, following DNA test

The Indipendent
A man who was handed a life sentence in connection with the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl over three decades ago has walked free from a Pennsylvania prison, after a DNA test proved his innoncence.

Lewis Fogle, 63, filed repeated appeals denying his involvement in the 1976 rape and murder of Deann “Kathy” Long.

Lewis Fogle

A judge in Indiana, Pennsylvania, has quashed Fogle’s conviction and granted him $25,000 bail.

However, a senior court official believes he may have been involved in the plot to attack the teenager.

The prisoner must now wait until 14 September for the Indiana County District Attorney to decide whether to retry him on second-degree murder charges. The verdict will be given on 14 September.

Fogle family members took him away from the Correctional Institution Pine Grove at around 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, a prison spokeswoman said.

New DNA testing of sperm evidence from the case has excluded Fogle and pointed to an unidentified male, according to the Innocence Project, a group that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people.

Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty agreed for the DNA test to be used and backed calls by lawyers from the Innocence Project in asking that the conviction be thrown out.

Read the whole article

Connecticut Death Penalty Law Is Unconstitutional, Court Rules. Spared the lives of 11 men on death row

The New York Times
Casting the death penalty as an outdated tool of justice at odds with today’s societal values, Connecticut’s highest court on Thursday spared the lives of 11 men on death row by ruling that capital punishment violated the State Constitution.

The court ruled, 4 to 3, that a 2012 law abolishing capital punishment must be applied to the 11 inmates facing execution for offenses they committed before the measure took effect. But the decision went well beyond the narrow question of whether those men could be executed, declaring that the death penalty, in the modern age, met the definition of cruel and unusual punishment.

“We are persuaded that, following its prospective abolition, this state’s death penalty no longer comports with contemporary standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose,” Justice Richard Palmer of the State Supreme Court wrote for the majority.

In a blistering dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers said the majority’s decision overstated the societal aversion to the death penalty, calling the ruling “a house of cards, falling under the slightest breath of scrutiny.”

Read the whole article

US - Texas inmate set to die for killing his mother gets reprieve

AP
Huntsville, Texas — A 54-year-old East Texas man set to die this week for his mother’s slaying more than 11 years ago has won a reprieve from Texas’ highest criminal court.

Tracy Beatty

Tracy Beatty had been scheduled for lethal injection Thursday evening for the death of 62-year-old Carolyn Click in November 2003. Beatty recently had been paroled.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in a brief order Tuesday, stopped the execution pending further orders from the court. It gave no timetable.

Click’s body was found buried near her trailer home outside Tyler in Smith County. By then, Beatty already was in jail on auto theft and weapons charges.

His attorneys argued Beatty had deficient legal help at his 2004 trial and during early appeals and that prosecutors used improper testimony at his trial.

US - Justices speak out about death penalty, but executions go on

Philly.com
Washington - Wherever their summer travels have taken them, Supreme Court justices probably will weigh in over the next few days on Texas' plans to execute two death-row inmates in the week ahead.
If past practice is any guide, the court is much more likely to let the lethal-injection executions to proceed than to halt them.

The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States

Opponents of the death penalty took heart when Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the case against capital punishment in late June as arbitrary, prone to mistakes, and time-consuming. Even if death-penalty opponents eventually succeed, the timeline for abolition probably will be measured in years, not months.

That's because Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, was writing in dissent in a case involving death-row inmates in Oklahoma, and five sitting justices, a majority of the court, believe "it is settled that capital punishment is constitutional," as Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in his opinion for the court in that same case.

In February, Gov. Wolf put a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania, though no inmate has been put to death here since 1999. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams then sued, asking the state Supreme Court to overturn Wolf's order. New Jersey does not use the death penalty, abolishing it in 2007.

Texas has scheduled back-to-back executions Wednesday and Thursday for Daniel Lee Lopez and Tracy Lane Beatty.

Lopez was convicted of running over a Texas police officer with his car during a chase. Lopez's lawyer already has asked the court to stop the execution.

Beatty strangled his 62-year-old mother, then stole her car and drained her bank accounts. He has an appeal pending in lower courts and could also end up at the Supreme Court.

The justices rarely issue last-minute reprieves to death-row inmates. Even after Breyer's opinion calling for a reexamination of capital punishment by the Supreme Court, no justice publicly backed a Missouri inmate's plea to halt his execution to allow the court to take up the constitutionality of the death penalty.

The heightened attention on the death penalty comes amid declining use of capital punishment in the United States, and a sharp drop in the number of death-penalty prosecutions.

The 18 executions that have taken place so far this year have been carried out in just five states - Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma. Nine of those were in Texas. In May, the Nebraska legislature abolished the death penalty in that state.

Twelve states with the death penalty have not had an execution in more than five years. That list includes California and Pennsylvania, which between them have more than 900 death-row inmates.

US Welcomes Iraqi Christian Refugees, with Jail Time

The Hope
San Diego – Some Iraqi Christians fleeing the Islamic State sought safety and freedom in America. But instead of being welcomed in as religious refugees, they were arrested and sent to a San Diego prison.

The news comes despite the fact that 300,000 immigrants from Muslim countries were welcomed into the United States last year.

"It's clear our border is open to everyone except Christians," Mark Arabo, spokesman for the Minority Humanity Foundation, observed.

Arabo recently joined fellow Iraqi Christians in prayer outside San Diego's Otay Detention Facility. They gathered in protest and support for some of those detained inside.

For nearly six months now, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has imprisoned 20 Chaldean Catholics here for attempting to enter the United States from Mexico without prior approval.

Rarely does the government comment about pending detainee cases. However, Arabo said the INS did tell the families that it lacked sufficient resources to go through individual case files to provide them with an explanation.

Arabo suggests the families deserve better.

"We're going to protest. We're going to pray for the administration and the officials to open up their hearts and minds to the victims of genocide. We're not going to stop and we're going to hold them accountable," he vowed.

Iraqi Christian Aamer Moshi served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army during the Iraq war.

Muslim extremists threatened his life because he worked for the Americans. Now, he's living in San Diego and prays that his 26-year-old cousin Ziad Matty will soon be able to join him.

Matty was taken into INS custody last January. His case is finally scheduled to be heard later this week.

Moshi wonders why his cousin is still detained. He's not an Islamic terrorist, explained Aamer, but a kind Christian who would not hurt anyone.

"Ziad will not be harmful to this country, will not be a danger to this country. Let him go live with his family. It's not too much. He is young, he can work, he can pay taxes, he can be happy around his family, and his family will sponsor him," Moshi said.

Just moments before the prayer vigil, word came that the mother of one of the detainees inside had died of cancer. The detainee had requested release for a day or two to go to the hospital and see her mother before she died. That request was denied.

These Chaldean Christians say that's just another example of a broken immigration system.

Moshi said many of them now believe America's early troop withdrawal from Iraq is to blame for the rise of ISIS. The jihadist group has been forcing Christians to convert to Islam, leave, or die.

"They did not finish the mission. And we cannot get papers to stay in America? Where should we go now?" Moshi asked.

"When did the symbol of America become a gated fence as opposed to the statue of Liberty?" Give me your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. These are those Christians," he said.

The tide turns against the death penalty in the US

The Tablet
Here in the US the death penalty’s days are numbered. And none are more encouraged by this than those who spend their lives fighting to end it.

They represent organisations such as Journey of Hope, Witness to Innocence, the Catholic Mobilising Network, the Catholic Worker, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the Action Abolition Committee. And last month they gathered to protest against capital punishment for four days in front of the US Supreme Court during the 22nd annual “Starvin for Justice Fast and Vigil to End the Death Penalty.”

“For many years it was hard to see progress, but now its unmistakable. This struggle is almost over,” said long-time anti-death penalty strategist Abe Bonowitz, who has worked on many of the successful state-level repeal efforts.

I attended the fast and vigil as a representative of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic movement engaged in global abolition movement. I spoke about my friendship with Ivan Cantu, a death row inmate, and called for an end to the death penalty, not only because I believe all life is sacred, but because capital punishment is arbitrarily and unjustly applied, and there’s no evidence that it deters crime. I take heart in Pope Francis’ call for everyone to struggle for the abolition of the death penalty.

Capital punishment is legal in 31 American states, but most actively applied in a handful of southern ones. Texas, where my friend Ivan lives, has carried out nine executions already this year.

On the fast and vigil’s opening day, 29 June, the nine-member Supreme Court ruled against the three death-row inmates in Oklahoma who had sought to bar the use of the drug Midazolam in lethal injections. But participants took heart in dissenting opinions by Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Ginsburg, who called the death penalty’s constitutionality into question and signalled the interest of America’s highest court to revisit the issue.

Several states have abolished the death penalty in recent years, most recently, Nebraska in May. And everywhere, even in Texas, death sentences and executions seem to be slowing down. With botched executions, prosecutorial misconduct, and exonerations (155 to date since 1973) covered regularly in the press, all sides of the political spectrum are realising the senselessness of the death penalty.

Bonowitz told me: “As more states abandon their use of capital punishment either in law or in practice, it’s fair to expect the Supreme Court to apply its 'evolving standards of decency' doctrine to the death penalty as a whole, and strike it down the same way they disallowed the execution of juveniles and those with intellectual disabilities. Hopefully the right case will come along soon.”

At the fast and vigil, family members of murder victims bore witness to the healing power of forgiveness.

Bill Pelke, whose grandmother Ruth, was murdered in 1986, said forgiving her killer, Paula Cooper, happened automatically, and was almost unexplainable, except for the fact that he didn’t want Cooper’s family to suffer as he did. He forgave Cooper, befriended her, and fought for her release, which took place in 2013. He co-founded Journey of Hope with other victims’ family members who say that executions bring neither justice nor healing.

“Society is starting to learn that murder victim family members can heal without seeing someone else die, and as a result support for the death penalty is waning,” Pelke said.

Journey to Hope and others in the abolition movement will bring their message to Texas for the World Day Against the Death Penalty conference in Dallas from 9-11 October.

“Jesus taught us to forgive. He said we were to forgive 70 times seven,” Pelke said. “He is saying forgiveness should be a habit, a way of life. It almost seems like a secret, but the beauty of forgiveness is its healing power.”

Dani Clark is a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic peace and justice movement, in Washington DC

US alarm at growing number of illegal child migrants - 60,000 children will enter the US illegally this year.

BBC News
President Barack Obama has described the growing influx of unaccompanied children migrating to the United States as an "urgent humanitarian situation".

Latest estimates say as many as 60,000 children, mostly from Central America and Mexico, will enter the US illegally this year.

The White House has asked Congress for an extra $1.4bn (£836m) to cope with the situation.

It said the US would temporarily house the children at two military bases.

More than 90% of children caught trying to cross the Mexico-US border without parents come from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Many are escaping domestic abuse or the violent gangs that prey on them.

Others are driven by poverty in their home countries.

In the US, many of the children hope to reunite with a parent or other relatives.

The director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Cecilia Munoz, said the number of children travelling alone had been increasing since 2009.

She said the number of girls and of children under 13 had been on the rise, too.

"All these things are contributing to the sense of urgency," she said.

The US government says the number of unaccompanied child migrants could grow to nearly 130,000 next year.

Between 2008 and 2011 the number of children in the custody of theOffice of Refugee Resettlement fluctuated between 6,000 and 7,500 per year.

But 13,625 unaccompanied children were apprehended by border agents in 2012 and almost double that number - 24,668 - in 2013.

Many are unaware of the dangers they face when travelling to the US, including sexual assaults, forced labour and hunger.

Alito Jr. of the US Supreme Court orders Suspension of Execution in Missouri

Associated Press
Bonne Terre, Mo. — Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the United States Supreme Court late Tuesday issued an order halting the planned execution of a Missouri inmate.

Justice Alito’s order did not offer an explanation of why he had suspended the scheduled execution of Russell Bucklew, but it indicated that he or the Supreme Court would have more to say about the matter.

The order was issued shortly after the full United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit lifted a stay of execution granted hours earlier by a three-judge panel of that court. The panel had issued the stay over concerns that a rare medical condition Mr. Bucklew has could cause him undue suffering during the lethal injection.

Mr. Bucklew was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

The 2-to-1 ruling by the panel said Mr. Bucklew’s “unrebutted medical evidence demonstrates the requisite sufficient likelihood of unnecessary pain and suffering beyond the constitutionally permissible amount inherent in all executions.”

The execution would have been the first in the nation after a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma last month left a condemned man writhing on a gurney before he died of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after the procedure began.

Mr. Bucklew, 46, has a congenital condition known as cavernous hemangioma that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels, as well as tumors in his nose and throat.

Mr. Bucklew told The Associated Press by telephone last week that he was scared of what might happen.

“The state does not have the right to inflict extreme, torturous pain during an execution,” said one of his lawyers, Cheryl Pilate. “We still hope that Mr. Bucklew’s grave medical condition and compromised airway will persuade the governor or a court to step back from this extremely risky execution.”

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Missouri, sospesa pena di morte - Corte appello: ok richiesta condannato

Una corte d'appello statunitense ha sospeso un'iniezione letale prevista sei ore più tardi nel Missouri, tre settimane dopo la lunga agonia di un condannato a morte in Oklahoma. Russell Bucklew, condannato alla pena capitale per l'uccisione del suo rivale amoroso e lo stupro della sua ex compagna, ha contestato davanti alla giustizia la norma del segreto di Stato che circonda la provenienza dei barbiturici utilizzati per le esecuzioni negli Stati Uniti.

Texas: Federal Appeals Court Stays Execution of Death Row Inmate Robert James Campbell

New York Times
Huntsvolle, Texas - A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Tuesday granted a Texas inmate’s request for a stay of execution hours before he was scheduled to die.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans granted the request from lawyers for the inmate, Robert James Campbell, on the grounds that his execution be stopped because of intellectual disability. The stay came just hours after it had refused to stop the execution based on a different line of reasoning.

Mr. Campbell’s lawyers said that new information uncovered in state files showed that he had an intellectual disability and was ineligible for execution. They said state officials withheld the results of two I.Q. tests given to Mr. Campbell — a 68 when he was a child and a 71 shortly after he arrived on death row at the age of 19. Mr. Campbell is now 41.

The United States Supreme Court has banned the execution of those whom the law refers to as mentally retarded, and has said that an I.Q. score of “approximately 70” indicates retardation.
Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said he had walked to Mr. Campbell’s cell here at the Walls Unit prison, where the execution chamber is, to inform him of the stay. But Mr. Campbell had already heard the news.

“He was talking with the chaplains who were there at the front of the cell,” Mr. Clark said. “He was smiling. He says, ‘I’m happy. The Lord prevailed.'”

Minutes later, Mr. Campbell boarded a van and was driven back to death row, which is about an hour away at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Tex.

Mr. Campbell’s sister, Terri Bridges, told KPRC-TV that the family was “very happy,” adding, “The way they prosecuted him was unfair and unjust. He should have had a better trial than what he had.”

[...]