11 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Illinois votes to abolish death penalty

originally by: Chicago Tribune
5th January 2011

The death penalty would be abolished in Illinois under legislation the House approved for the first time Thursday, but the ban’s fate is uncertain in the final days of the General Assembly’s lame-duck session. The historic vote comes 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty following revelations that several people sent to death row were not guilty.

The capital punishment ban still has some hurdles to clear. But the vote represented a growing recognition that DNA and improved technology in criminal science have exposed an uncertainty in verdicts that cannot be reversed once a death sentence is carried out.

8 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘Kidney sisters’ leave Mississippi prison

originally by: BBC News
7th January 2011

Two imprisoned sisters whose sentences were dropped on the condition that one donate her kidney to the other have been released from jail in Mississippi. The pair, who had been in jail for 16 years, are moving to the US state of Florida, where their family lives.

Jamie Scott requires daily dialysis, which costs the state roughly $200,000 (£129,000) per year, officials said. She and her sister Gladys Scott were convicted in 1994 of taking part in a robbery that netted a mere $11 (£7).

8 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Police killings and the law

originally by: International Socialism
4th January 2011

Many people, even those of us with little or no illusions in the police, felt a deep sense of shock and outrage when on 22 July 2010 the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that there would be no prosecution of PC Simon Harwood, who was filmed striking Ian Tomlinson shortly before he died during the G20 protests in April 2009.

What made the announcement especially perverse was the date on which it was made, the fifth anniversary of the killing by the Metropolitan Police of Jean Charles de Menezes, a killing that also failed to result in any criminal prosecution of the police officers concerned.