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

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”.

3 January 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

More sentenced to die while executing none

originally by: latimes.com
29th December 2010

California continued to buck a nationwide trend away from costly and litigious death sentences in 2010, adding 28 new prisoners to the country’s most populous death row, according to correction officials and a national database on capital punishment. Los Angeles County alone condemned eight defendants to death this year, the same number as Texas, and Riverside County sent six men to await execution, officials said.

The state’s death chamber was idle for a fifth year, though, because of protracted legal challenges of lethal injection practices and a nationwide shortage of the key drug used in the three-injection procedure.