11 February 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

DNA and dollars are killing capital punishment

originally by: smh.com
12th February 2011

The cost of sentencing people to death is changing the minds of cash-strapped states, writes Simon Mann in Washington. America’s financial predicament is having an impact on nearly every aspect of life – and even death.

Cash-strapped states are being forced to rethink their commitment to the death penalty amid evidence that it costs at least three times as much to execute criminals as it does to lock them up for life. The new budgetary imperative is set to keep US execution rates on their decade-long downward path, a trend precipitated by the advent of DNA evidence and a widening acceptance of the judicial system’s fallibility.

29 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Troy Davis files Supreme Court appeal

originally by: Macon.com
24th January 2011

Attorneys for Troy Anthony Davis are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule a federal judge who decided last year the Georgia death row inmate failed to clear his name after getting a rare chance to prove his innocence. Davis’ latest appeal, filed Friday, says the U.S. District Court judge ordered by the Supreme Court to hear his innocence claim last year “evinced a clear hostility to Mr. Davis and his claims throughout the hearing.”

Davis has long said he could prove he was wrongly convicted of the 1989 slaying of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail if a court agreed to hear new evidence.

29 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

SERCO and youth justice agencies condemned for unlawful treatment of vulnerable boy

originally by: INQUEST
27th January 2011

The jury at the second inquest into the death of 14 year old Adam Rickwood in Hassockfield Secure Training Centre in County Durham on 8 August 2004 today returned a damning narrative verdict criticising failings by Serco, the private company running Hassockfield, the Youth Justice Board, Prison Service restraint trainers and the Lancashire Youth Offending Team.

Following today’s verdict, Adam Rickwood’s mother Carol Pounder said:

“Nothing can bring Adam back. I have waited over six years for truth and justice. All I have ever wanted is to find out the truth about what happened to my son and for those responsible for unlawful assaults to be held to account”.