4 October 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Did duo die from police brutality?

originally by: Morning Star
published: 16th September 2010

Human rights campaigners have said that serious questions must be asked after the deaths of two mental health patients in a matter of days following police restraint.

Olaseni Lewis, a 23-year-old student from south London, and 52-year-old Colin Holt from Gillingham were both restrained by police in separate incidents on August 31 this year.

Mr Holt collapsed and died after being restrained by officers at his home while Mr Lewis suffered fatal injuries having been restrained by up to eight police officers at Bethlem Royal Hospital in Bromley. While the details of Mr Holt’s death are unclear it is understood he left the hospital where he had been sectioned and returned home.

20 September 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Death penalty cases impose singular burden.. of proof

originally published by: Delaware Online
published: 14th September 2010

Fairness, justice, equal protection – there is no context for which these ideals are more important than death penalty trials.

Our Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. A death sentence that is arbitrarily imposed or handed down without proper consideration of mitigating evidence (evidence about the crime or the defendant that suggests the death penalty is inappropriate) is cruel and unusual and unconstitutional.

Can our criminal justice system ensure that a death sentence meets these constitutional standards?

31 August 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

The cruel and unusual punishment of Teresa Lewis

originally published by: ChicagoPressRelease.com
22nd August 2010

On 23 September, 40-year-old Teresa Lewis will become the first woman to be executed in the state of Virginia for almost a century. She’ll also be the first woman put to death in the US since 2005.

Considering that, in the intervening five years, around 220 men will have been executed, it puts it into perspective: executing women is unusual. Of more than 1,200 executions carried out since the US supreme court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, only 11 were of women. And each time that happens, it’s stunningly bad PR for an increasingly unpopular facet of the American justice system.