Russian policeman gets life for killings

Russian Police Patroloriginally published by: The Raw Story
19th February 2010

A Russian police major who shot two people dead and wounded seven others in a supermarket rampage that stoked public outrage over police brutality was sentenced on Friday to life in prison.

Denis Yevsyukov, the former head of police of the southern Moscow district of Tsaritsyno, was found guilty on two counts of murder and 22 counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said. “The court found Denis Yevsyukov guilty of these crimes and sentenced him to life in prison in a maximum-security prison colony,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.

The life term imposed by a three-judge panel at Moscow City Court was the maximum sentence Yevsyukov could be given for his April 2009 shooting spree, which sparked calls to reform Russia’s notoriously corrupt and brutal police.

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The life of a death penalty lawyer

Legal Hammeroriginally published by: New York Times
11th February 2010

Toward the beginning of “The Auto­biography of an Execution,” David Dow relaxes after a speech with the celebrated death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean. “It was the first time I went drinking with a nun.”

Prejean tells Dow, who has represented more than 100 death row inmates over 20 years, that “support for the death penalty is a mile wide, but just an inch deep.” Dow responds: “Well, Sister, I believe you can drown in an inch of water.” This book is Dow’s effort to drain the puddle.

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Film on ‘suicide’ teen Adam Rickwood

Adam Rickwood
Adam Rickwood

originally published by: The Burnley Express
14th February 2010

A hard hitting documentary detailing the death in custody of Burnley teenager Adam Rickwood hopes to shed new light on his alleged suicide.

News of the yet-to-be released social drama entitled “Adam Rickwood and The Medomsley Heroes” comes as Adam’s mum, Carol Pounder, visited the High Court to demand a new coroner for a second inquest into her son’s death.

Adam became the youngest person to die in British penal custody at the age of 14 when he was found hanged at the Hassockfield Secure Training Centre in County Durham, in 2004.

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