"But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

~ Albert Camus, 'Reflections on the Guillotine'.

Why Raju Ramachandran did not appear after appearing in the afternoon? Was he excluded or did he withdraw?

A news report dt 10 Feb 2013 where Raju Ramachandran took a curious stand

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20130210/nation.htm#3
Expert: Guru had no right to challenge mercy plea rejection
R Sedhuraman
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, February 9
Afzal Guru, hanged to death today for his involvement in the December 2001 terror attack on Parliament, did not have any legal right to challenge the rejection of his mercy petition by the President, senior advocate Raju Ramachandran said today.

“The courts have said in judicial verdicts that even the decisions on mercy petitions are open to judicial review. This is different from saying that the death-row convicts have a right to challenge the rejection of their mercy pleas. There is no law that confers such a right to the convicts,” Ramachandran explained when asked about claims to the contrary.

Ramachandran, who has been Amicus Curiae in the Ajmal Kasab and Gujarat riots cases in the Supreme Court, was asked to clarify the legal position in the light of a claim made by Prof SAR Gilani, an acquitted co-accused in the case, that Afzal should have been given a chance to challenge the President’s rejection of his mercy petition before being sent to the gallows.

The senior advocate also justified the burial of Afzal’s body within the Tihar Jail complex here immediately after the execution, instead of handing it over to his family. “There is no legal compulsion. The government is free take a practical view. In normal circumstances, you have to hand over the body, but if it is going to result in security complications like the body being carried in a procession and construction of a memorial, I think the state can use its discretion not to hand over the body,” he said.

About another contention that Afzal did not get a fair trial, the Supreme Court itself had rejected it in its August 4, 2005 judgment confirming the death penalty awarded to the convict. “We find no substance in this contention. The learned trial judge did his best to afford effective legal aid to the accused Afzal when he declined to engage a counsel on his own,” the court had said.

Raju Ramachandran displayed wide smiles yesterday while coming out of the SC after the SC dismissed Yakub's petition yesterday.

Also he refused to issue any statement to the press, why? His client would have been better served by some statement issued in his name.

The two SC judgments from yesterday deal with procedural technicalities and show that Yakub Memon still never got a hearing on the substantive arguments in his favor for clemency.

"Kills"?

What about the fact that he conspired to kill 257 innocents?

@ Kian et al... First be clear everyone here are against capital punishment or against hanging of yakub, it will be easier for readers to decide whether to support or counter the argument putforth..!!

Seriously disgusting headline. If you want to make a point about the hanging, perhaps articulate it in an essay; not by making up tacky, attention-grabbing headlines.

The headline should have said India pre-meditatively murders Yakub Memon in cold blood.

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

-- Albert Camus

A fuller quote above.

We would all wish for a sudden death, like where a person dies in his sleep.

People with terminal illnesses or injuries know they will die, but not when. The hope for life continues.

A death penalty victim is forced to undergo the extreme cruelty of knowing exactly when his life will be taken and he will be killed. There can be no greater suffering.

None of us had the right to decide that Yakub Memon did not deserve to live.

ohh i forget in India i can kill people and then expect mercy as our justice system is not based upon retribution

A good essay on the barbarity of capital punishment

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/camus--the-barbarity-of-capital-punishment/294945

A right..
A pertinacious resistance..
An extra-ordinary set of precedents..
A death

"I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty."

-Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

"It can be argued that rapists deserve to be raped, that mutilators deserve to be mutilated. Most societies, however, refrain from responding in this way because the punishment is not only degrading to those on whom it is imposed, but it is also degrading to the society that engages in the same behavior as the criminals."

-Stephen Bright, human rights attorney

"Society may protect itself without putting a human to death as it would a wild animal. Since we believe each person has a soul, and is capable of achieving salvation, life in prison is now an alternative to the death penalty."

-Richard Viguerie and Brent Bozell, Tea Party supporters

"I've been haunted by the men I was asked to execute in the name of the state of Florida. This is premeditated, carefully thought out ceremonial killing."

-Ron McAndrew, was a prison warden in Florida

"[I am] haunted by the demon of error - error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die."

-George Ryan, former Illinois Governor

"To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice."

-Desmond Tutu

"Imposition of the death penalty is arbitrary and capricious. Decision of who will live and who will die for his crime turns less on the nature of the offense and the incorrigibility of the offender and more on inappropriate and indefensible considerations: the political and personal inclinations of prosecutors; the defendant's wealth, race and intellect; the race and economic status of the victim; the quality of the defendant's counsel; and the resources allocated to defense lawyers."

-Gerald Heaney, former appellate judge

"I have never heard a murderer say they thought about the death penalty as consequence of their actions prior to committing their crimes."

-Gregory Ruff, police lieutenant in Kansas

"As if one crime of such nature, done by a single man, acting individually, can be expiated by a similar crime done by all men, acting collectively."

-Lewis Lawes, warden of Sing Sing prison in NY in the 1920s and 30s

“People say that executing criminals does not take away from their dignity – if it is done with dignity. But the fact of the matter is that whether you’re waiting to die by lethal injection – waiting ... for the poison to flow down your veins – or waiting for a bullet, or waiting for a rope, or waiting for gas, or waiting for the electric current – there is no difference: there is no lesser or greater dignity in dying. The practice of the death penalty is the practice of torture. And by the time people I have been with finally climb into the chair to be killed, they have died a thousand times already because of their anticipation of the final horror.”

– Helen Prejean, author of the book “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.”

“Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process. And I believe that future generations, throughout the world, will come to agree.”

– Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and Secretary General of the United Nations 1997-2007

“It should be clear that the death penalty does just the opposite of promoting decency and respect for life. It dehumanizes people and promotes murder. It can never be applied fairly.”

– John Morrison

“With every cell of my being, and with every fiber of my memory, I oppose the death penalty in all forms.... I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don’t think it’s human to become an Angel of Death.”

– Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1986.

“Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish; it can only add a second atrocity to the original one … So long as one sees killing as wrong there is no need to waste time with the deterrent argument, since it would be nonsense to try to prevent a theoretical evil in the future by perpetrating an actual one in the present.”

– Auberon Waugh, British author and journalist.

“Government ... can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.”

– Helen Prejean, author of the book “Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States.”

“It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it.”

-- Remy de Gourmont

“In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.”

? Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

“through god's eyes murder is still murder. there's no such thing as a legal murder, it's only legal through the eyes of a murderer.”

? David J. Martinez

“The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.”

? Anton Chekhov

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”

? J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I believe [...] that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.”

? Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.”

? Victor Hugo, The Last Day of a Condemned Man

Pope John Paul II

“A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I …appeal…for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”

“I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included. Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”

No man has the right to take God's place and say another man should die. It destroyed my life."

Perry Cobb, who spent eight years on Illinois' death row for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated in 1987.

"My overriding belief is that it is always possible for criminals to improve and that by its very finality the death penalty contradicts this."

The Dalai Lama

I know something about killing. I don't like killing. And I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing. Now, that's just a personal belief that I have.

JOHN KERRY, Wolf Blitzer Reports, CNN, Sep. 17, 1996

Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment; therefore the principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment.

WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, judicial opinion, Jul. 2, 1976

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder

"I disagree very much with Justice Scalia’s certitude that we have never put to death an innocent person. It’s one of the reasons why I personally am opposed to the death penalty. We have the greatest judicial system in the world, but at the end of the day it’s made up of men and women making decisions, tough decisions. Men and women who are dedicated, but dedicated men and women can make mistakes. And I find it hard to believe that in our history that has not happened."

- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in an interview for The Marshall Project, Nov. 17, 2014.

“[T]here has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent...It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty."

- Former President Jimmy Carter

"Give a law enforcement professional like me that $250 million, and I'll show you how to reduce crime. The death penalty isn't anywhere on my list.”

- Police Chief James Abbott, West Orange, New Jersey

Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.

Eliot Spitzer

"Cases such as these provide for me an excruciating agony of the spirit. I yield to no one in the depth of my distaste, antipathy, and indeed, abhorrence, for the death penalty, with all its aspects of physical distress and fear and of moral judgment exercised by finite minds. That distaste is buttressed by a belief that capital punishment serves no useful purpose that can be demonstrated ... Were I a legislator, I would vote against the death penalty."

-Justice Harry Blackmun's opinion in Furman vs. Georgia, 1972

"We are not so mad as to think that we shall create a world in which murder will not occur. We are fighting for a world in which murder will no longer be legal."

-Albert Camus

"We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us: It offers the tragic illusion that we can defend life by taking life."

-Rev. Joseph A. Fiorenza, President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, U.S. Catholic Conference, 1999

"The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment...
It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society."

—United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

"As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivically opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."

-Corretta Scott King

"We regard all forms of capital punishment as barbaric and obsolete"

-Rabannical Assembly

"The Death Penalty is nothing less than human sacrifice. It has ritual, religion, and it is to appease the God of vengence. This society accuses the Aztecs of human sacrifice when they practice human sacrifice in virtually every state in the union."

-Russell Means, First National Director of the American Indian Movement, Activist

"You can take away our names and replace them with numbers, cage and store us in conditions not even fit for your family dog, and exterminate us at your whim, but we are still human beings, capable of everything from love and beauty to violence and hate."

-- Thomas B. Whitaker, Texas Death Row Inmate #999522.

"Evidence of innocence is irrelevant!"

-- Mary Sue Terry, former Attorney General of Virginia, replying to an appeal to introduce new evidence from a prisoner sentenced to death.

"To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today."

-- Albert Camus, French writer and philosopher

"The gallows is not only a machine of death but a symbol. It is the symbol of terror, cruelty, and irreverence for life; the common denominator of primitive savagery, medieval fanaticism and modern totalitarianism. It stands for everything that mankind must reject, if mankind is to survive the present crisis."

-- Arthur Koestler, English novelist and essayist.

"And so to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honour, and peace, until the Gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand."

-- George Bernard Shaw, English playwright

"I don't think there's any words in the English language to explain what it's --what it's like to-- to sit on Texas death row and your thoughts are laying on that gurney, convicted but innocent and being put to death."

-- Kerry Max Cook, twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 rape murder of a 21-year-old secretary in Tyler, TX. Cook was released after 22 years

"The conditions of confinement are so oppressive, the helplessness endured in the roller coaster of hope and despair so wrenching and exhausting, that ultimately the inmate can no longer bear it, and then it is only in dropping his appeals that he has any sense of control over his fate."

-- Dr. Stuart Grassian, psychiatrist and expert in death row inmates; about prisoners who "volunteer" for execution

"I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society. I reject the notion that the death penalty has any essential deterrent effect on potential offenders. I am convinced that the contrary is true - that savagery begets only savagery."

-- Andrei Sakharov, Russian nuclear physicist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

"I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country [USA] that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity." --

Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Oh my God!

"But the chief and worst pain may not be in the bodily suffering but in one's not knowing for certain that in an hour, and then now, at the very moment, the soul will leave the body and that one will cease to be a man and that that's bound to happen; the worst part of it is that it's certain ... To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute ..., but in the other case (execution) all that last hope which makes dying ten times as easy is taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible."

-- Feodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist

"There is a part of the warden that dies with his prisoner. Nobody else can suffer the intimacy of impending death, or experience the pitiable helplessness involved, in the same way as the warden and his condemned prisoner. Both are victims, unwilling captives of a human tragedy that is presented on a stage shrouded by mystery. It is played before a small, invited audience that is hidden from public view. Acted out in the darkness of night, as if to shield the citizenry from the awful reality of it all, an execution is a drama that panders to public fear and to a lust for vengeance, which is otherwise disguised as justice."

-- Donald A. Cabana, former warden of Mississippi's State Penitentiary (Parchman) who supervised two executions in the prison gas chamber before quitting his job and publicly opposing capital punishment

"It is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree....I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge."

-- Albert Pierrepoint, Britain's last official hangman, in his 1974 autobiography

Since when is copying quotations considered 'commenting'? Can you please do something about the dozen or so incredibly annoying 'comments' above so one could actually read the real comments. Very annoying.

Who is funding the legal costs for Yakub's defense through the years?

Imposing Death Penalty is part of the laws we live by and the Supreme Court and the Maharashtra Government is well within their rights to implement the law. All supporters of banishing the Death Penalty have to push for a change in law as opposed to blaming the mechanism that implements the existing laws.

To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE, Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

If only Legally India was the Supreme Court and Seema Sapra was Yakub's lawyer. These quotes would have amounted to something.

the elected representatives of India - starting right from the constituent assembly to the present parliament - in their wisdom have felt the death penalty should be part of India's justice system and the SC and the HC which again represents the best of our legal minds has decided that it is the best punishment in this instance. I think the debate ends there. Due process was followed enuf said.

My personal view - hang the bastard

Rajya Sabha to debate death penalty today
The resolution, set to be discussed in the Upper House on Thursday, quotes former President A P J Abdul Kalam’s support for abolition of the death penalty.


- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/rajya-sabha-to-debate-death-penalty-today/#sthash.5ZVdYpr3.dpuf

Last year's news

Should death penalty go? Law panel begins review

"Almost half a century after it said the time was not right to abolish the death penalty, the Law Commission of India has embarked on an exercise to take a relook at the issue. The Law Commission has issued a public consultation paper on capital punishment with a detailed questionnaire open to the public to send in their views on the issue.

The move comes close on the heels of the Supreme Court commuting the death sentence of 19 persons after their mercy pleas were rejected since January this year. In one of the cases, the apex court referred to the conundrum and observed that "perhaps the Law Commission of India can resolve the issue by examining whether death penalty is a deterrent punishment or is retributive justice or serves an incapitative goal".

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Should-death-penalty-go-Law-panel-begins-review/articleshow/40862013.cms

In a recent one day consultation (July 2015) on reconsideration of the death penalty,

"Law Commission member Professor Mool Chand Sharma noted that the day-long discussion seemed to suggest that there was a need to consider a moratorium on executions till the problems in the legal system are removed. Law Commission Chairman Justice A P Shah also said that there was a “serious need” to re-examine the issue of death penalty, since there were several “inconsistencies in the system” which led to arbitrariness and discrimination in the imposition of death penalty."

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/law-commission-consultation-from-varun-to-tharoor-voices-emerge-against-death-penalty/#sthash.SbdB4usv.dpuf

Unfortunately

"... only six members of Parliament, from a full 900 or so in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, attended the Law Commission's public consultations on the abolishing of the death penalty in early July - Kanimozhi of the AIADMK, Manish Tewari and Shashi Tharoor of the Congress, Varun Gandhi of the BJP, Majid Memon (and early counsel for Yakub Memon) of the NCP and Ashish Khetan of the Aam Aadmi Party.

It is not known what the influential Law Commission is going to say when it gives its report next month. Suffice to say that most of those who participated in the consultations, with the exception of the Supreme Court lawyer Dushyant Dave (no relation to Justice Anil Dave who rejected Memon's curative petition a few days ago) were against the death penalty. The gathering also included people like Julio Ribeiro, the man who successfully dealt with the insurgency in Punjab in the wake of Operation Blue Star, as well as the first chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah."

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/yakub-memon-nagpur-central-jail-bhullar-rajoana-afzal-guru-ujjwal-nikam/story/1/5326.html

Former Supreme Court Judge K T Thomas thinks the death penalty is judicial murder

http://www.outlookindia.com/article/death-penalty-is-judicial-murder/285079

K T Thomas on the death penalty - "Yes. I believe it is judicial murder. Punishment should be corrective and reformatory in nature, not retributive. Death penalty does not help a convict. The law should have scope for reform of the convict’s mind. This is not to condone the convict. Pronouncing death for someone is not an acceptable situation for any kind of crime."

He also believes that persons who have spent 20 or more years in prison should not be hanged.

From May 2015 interview

is eloquence a prereuisite to having an opinion or engaging in debate and why was my comment censored when the person in question had called someone else a troll and u had published it

So eloquently argued by Anti Death protestors... pause. There are a million quotes on google to support death penalty... please google it. Million vs Million, does it even out?

Would that apply to Hitler, Pol Pot, Radic, and countless people who never moved a finger but resulted in the deaths of hundreds... oops millions? Arguments can be shared till dooms day approaches, but is it not clear that they did it?

By extending that logic, how can anybody KILL any living being... stop all meat eaters.

Legallyindia was like Times Now - it was tabloidy and over the top but at least it did not have an agenda - now its slowly becoming like the worst of both Times Now and NDTV - trying to propagate a leftist socialist agenda while still being a tabloid - add to that the trolling by certain ppl who think they are cooler becoz they reveal their names - yes and it includes you Kian. laughable.

Hahaha - back to the ad hominem argument - who is being hateful here - why do i always get under your skin - the only person who is being nasty is you - just look at the no. of likes that my comments get you will know - i will continue to comment and you can keep on blocking - I am fine with that - but I request you - please do not tell me which sites to visit - or do you not like free speech

I am not upset - what gave you the idea - I am just being an asshole.

Interesting thread.

Kian - just so I get your stand right - killing 257 people deserves incarceration for life (where your family can visit you (however rarely), you can interact with other people (however constrained), and you are, above all, alive)? If you were the sole judge on the sentencing, what would the sentence be?

Let's not punish death with death ... (the old MG "eye for an eye" argument) - I agree with that generally - in this case, though, anything other than death seems a tad too lenient? A wanton disregard for life cannot be rewarded with life (however constrained) in return?

Yakub Memon hanging: Kanimozhi to move private member’s bill in Rajya Sabha to abolish death penalty

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Yakub-Memon-hanging-Kanimozhi-to-move-private-members-bill-in-Rajya-Sabha-to-abolish-death-penalty/articleshow/48283942.cms?

What we also need is for some High Court and Supreme Court judges to speak up in general against the death penalty on moral grounds in some judgments.

The International Commission of Jurists has condemned the State murder of Yakub Memon

http://www.icj.org/india-the-icj-condemns-the-execution-of-yakub-memon/

"The ICJ strongly condemned the execution of Yakub Memon, who was hanged in Nagpur Central Jail, India this morning.

“Yakub Memon’s execution is a distressing and regressive move, keeping India in the minority of countries which continue to carry out executions,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ Asia Pacific Regional Director. “While Yakub Memon was convicted of terrible crimes, executing him was not the solution. India should immediately put in place a moratorium on the death penalty.”

..."

No Deterrence

The death penalty fails to deter crime.


"A July 2009 study titled "DO EXECUTIONS LOWER HOMICIDE RATES?: THE VIEWS OF LEADING CRIMINOLOGISTS" by Michael L. Radelet and Traci L. LaCock, demonstrates an overwhelming consensus among criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question strongly supports the conclusion that the death penalty does not add deterrent effects to those already achieved by long imprisonment.

..."

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=82

Is the tide turning against the death penalty in the US?

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/692/the-tide-turns-against-the-death-penalty-in-the-us

"On ... 29 June, the nine-member Supreme Court ruled against the three death-row inmates in Oklahoma who had sought to bar the use of the drug Midazolam in lethal injections. But participants took heart in dissenting opinions by Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Ginsburg, who called the death penalty’s constitutionality into question and signalled the interest of America’s highest court to revisit the issue.

Several states have abolished the death penalty in recent years, most recently, Nebraska in May. And everywhere, even in Texas, death sentences and executions seem to be slowing down. With botched executions, prosecutorial misconduct, and exonerations (155 to date since 1973) covered regularly in the press, all sides of the political spectrum are realising the senselessness of the death penalty.
Bonowitz told me: “As more states abandon their use of capital punishment either in law or in practice, it’s fair to expect the Supreme Court to apply its 'evolving standards of decency' doctrine to the death penalty as a whole, and strike it down the same way they disallowed the execution of juveniles and those with intellectual disabilities. Hopefully the right case will come along soon.”

..."

AS GLOSSIP EXECUTION NEARS, LAWYERS CHALLENGE DEATH PENALTY ITSELF AS CRUEL AND UNUSUAL

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/24/glossip-lawyers-challenge-death-penalty-itself-as-cruel-unusual/

"

Lawyers for Richard Glossip and two other men on Oklahoma’s death row, who last month lost their challenge to their state’s controversial lethal injection protocol, have again asked the Supreme Court to consider their clients’ plight.

But the petition, filed Friday afternoon, does not ask the justices to reconsider their June 29 decision in Glossip v. Gross, which cleared the way for Oklahoma to use midazolam — a drug implicated in a number of botched executions — in its lethal injection protocol. Rather, the petition attacks the death penalty itself as a cruel and unusual punishment that violates the Eighth Amendment.

“It would be appropriate for the Court to use this case to address the constitutionality of the death penalty,” the pleading reads, “because the outcome will turn not on facts specific to any single litigant, but on circumstances common to the administration of the death penalty.”

The new petition, filed by federal public defenders, was written in direct response to a request by Justice Stephen Breyer, made as part of a 40-page dissent filed in Glossip, and joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Breyer’s dissent was a detailed, exhaustive attack on the death penalty’s many proven flaws, from its racial bias to the problems of error and misconduct. “[R]ather than try to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time,” Breyer wrote, “I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.”

Today’s filing seeks to affirmatively answer that question, addressing several persistent pitfalls of the death penalty that were raised by Breyer and are embodied in the Oklahoma cases of three named plaintiffs — Richard Glossip, John Grant and Benjamin Cole. In particular, the petition picks up on Breyer’s criticism of the death penalty for its “lack of reliability, the arbitrary application of a serious and irreversible punishment [and the] individual suffering caused by long delays.”

In Glossip’s case, the petition directly addresses Breyer’s concern for the innocent people who have been sent to death row — and some potentially executed. Glossip has consistently maintained his innocence of the crime that sent him to die: the supposed murder-for-hire of his boss, Barry Van Treese, in 1997.

..."

From http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/supreme-court-justice-stephen-breyer-death-penalty-may-be-unconstitutional-119547.html

Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent: Death penalty may be unconstitutional
By ADAM B. LERNER 6/29/15 1:09 PM EDT Updated 6/29/15 5:35 PM EDT
The death penalty may be unconstitutional, two of the Supreme Court’s liberal judges suggested on Monday.
In a dissent to the majority’s opinion in Glossip v. Gross, which upheld Oklahoma’s use of a key drug used for lethal injections, Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called for a renewed legal debate over the death penalty.
The court has not ruled on the constitutionality of the death penalty at-large since Gregg v. Georgia in 1976 — though it has examined various aspect of death penalty protocols, including applying the punishment to the mentally handicapped, to minors, and via various methods — and Breyer wrote that “[t]he circumstances and the evidence of the death penalty’s application have changed radically since then.”
“Given these changes, I believe that it is now time to reopen the question,” he wrote, adding that the past 40 years of the death penalty in America have led him to believe “that the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a legally prohibited ‘cruel and unusual punishmen[t].’”
The fact that the death penalty is applied so sporadically “is the antithesis of the rule of law,” Breyer wrote. Citing numerous studies, the justice concluded that “the factors that most clearly ought to affect application of the death penalty — namely, comparative egregiousness of the crime — often do not. Other studies show that circumstances that ought not to affect application of the death penalty, such as race, gender, or geography, often do.”
Breyer also cited concerns about “excessive delays” in death penalty proceedings and observed that around 20 states have abolished the death penalty outright, while many more have not executed an inmate in years. And he pointed to an emerging global consensus on the death penalty, noting that a clear majority of United Nations member countries have ceased executions over the past few decades.
Sen. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, flips through several redistricting maps during a special legislative committee hearing to discuss the a state commission's proposed maps of new congressional and legislative districts, at the Arizona Capitol Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
Breyer and a number of other justices have previously expressed their personal opposition to the death penalty, but few have expressed outright the belief that the punishment violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. At one point in 2011, Breyer told an audience at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia that “[o]nly the legislature can abolish the death penalty,” before arguing that public opinion could be swayed on the issue via politics.
But Breyer, in his dissent in Glossip v. Gross, recognized that while the issue of the death penalty, in and of itself, perhaps could be viewed as a legislative matter, “the matters I have discussed, such as lack of reliability, the arbitrary application of a serious and irreversible punishment, individual suffering caused by long delays, and lack of penological purpose are quintessentially judicial matters.”
He concluded, “At the very least, the Court should call for full briefing on the basic question” of the death penalty.
The larger case at hand, Glossip v. Gross, did not deal explicitly with the constitutionality of the death penalty per se, but rather whether or not the state of Oklahoma’s use of the drug midazolam as an anesthetic before executions prevented cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, argued that it did not, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the court’s three other Democratic appointees, dissented. (The decision “leaves petitioners exposed to what may well be the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake,” Sotomayor wrote.)
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in separate concurring opinions, were the only two to respond directly to Breyer’s arguments regarding the overall constitutionality of the death penalty.
In typically colorful prose, Scalia said that it was “Groundhog Day” and that Breyer was trying to revive a long line of anti-death penalty activism even though the Constitution states that “no person … shall be deprived of life … without due process of law,” effectively referring to death penalty practices in place at the time of the founders.
Scalia referred to Breyer’s argument as “gobbledy-gook,” while Thomas called it “pseudoscientific” and based upon an “imaginary constitutional rule against ‘arbitrariness’.”
Later, Scalia wrote that Breyer’s logic saying excessive delays, caused by anti-death penalty activists, make the practice unconstitutional “calls to mind the man sentenced to death for killing his parents, who pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan.”
He concluded, “Justice Breyer does not just reject the death penalty, he rejects the Enlightenment” for arguing against a punishment that even the acclaimed moral philosopher Immanuel Kant supported.
Though the case ultimately left the feud between the two Republican appointees and two Democratic appointees unresolved, Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center, which largely opposes the death penalty, said the vigorous debate sets up a future challenge.
“The death penalty itself, I think, is in trouble,” Dieter said, pointing to previous decisions from Justice Anthony Kennedy suggesting he might someday side with Breyer on the issue. Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, Dieter added, are likely sympathetic to Breyer’s reasoning despite their decisions not to sign the tangential dissent.
“[Breyer’s dissent] says the court should be ready to debate the very constitutionality of the death penalty,” considering it as it’s applied in the 21st century and not as it was debated in the 1970s, Dieter concluded. “Times have changed.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/supreme-court-justice-stephen-breyer-death-penalty-may-be-unconstitutional-119547.html#ixzz3hOVqmlRb

The New Yorker on Justice Breyer's dissent against the death penalty notes:

"...the American public seems to be changing its mind. A 2014 Washington Post poll reported that a majority of Americans favored life without parole over death as a penalty for murder. Over the past fifteen years, both death sentences and executions have dropped dramatically. Thirty states have either abolished the death penalty or not conducted an execution in more than eight years. Those states that still execute have become outliers even within the United States, which in turn is an outlier in the developed world. Considering these trends, the abolition of capital punishment is probably only a matter of time. Whether its end will come at the hands of the Supreme Court or the people remains to be seen."

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/justice-breyer-against-the-death-penalty

Some more links on US Supreme Court Judge - Justice Breyer's recent path-breaking call for abolition of the death penalty - supported by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

http://www.businessinsider.in/Justice-Breyer-perfectly-captured-the-major-problem-with-the-death-penalty/articleshow/47868863.cms

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/29/breyer_and_the_death_penalty_the_justice_calls_for_its_abolition.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/29/politics/scotus-death-penalty-justice-scalia-breyer/

I appreciated your work Kian till this day.

Was aghast to see that you equate capital punishment for the gravest crime as killing.

Sad. Very Sad. Respect lost.

An apalled reader.

I don't think Kian's use of the word "kills" in the headline is provocative. Its a different matter that certain readers are feeling provoked. All Kian is doing is describing a fact. Those feeling provoked are likely ones who equate murder with killing.

Appreciate Kian standing for himself. Like it or not, there is clarity of thought in his comments - not just in this thread but elsewhere too.

going by the logic given by anti capital punishment doyens, i understand that any one can come kill 1000 or more, serve 14 years of imprisonment and should be left free in the society only bcoz studies does not establish that capital punishment is not serving as deterrent, or few people are against capital punishment, is India really a banana republic..???

now people advocating abolition of death punishment please provide any proof to establish that soft punishment is more effective in reforming the criminals..??

is this a trend to criticise every thing to prove your self "enlightened than thou"

maybe this comment will be blocked - maybe it will not - and the great Kian will publish it. Arun Jaitley has a word for ppl like these - he calls them the serial signatories - they sign up for everything - be it the hanging of Qasabs and Afzal Gurus of the world, action against maoists or kashmri insurgents or illegal funding of NGOs - and god forbid if its predicatd on majoritarian view then it has to be evil - But my issue is with something else completely - its one thing to have view and have a debate which hopefully you wanted by publishing this article and another thing to block comments which do not agree with your understanding of what is correct and taking umbrage of the fact that it is your website while at the same time allowing other ppl to troll by pasting a 100 quotes and you being the editor using words and means which go agaisnt your own comments policy - its just petty -Finally one can argue that exists no data to establish correlation between life imprisonment and deterrence - so lets abolish that as well - why dont we send the terrorists back home with a gentle rap and some flowers and hope that they get reformed - and while we are at it lets do the same to the IS terrorists in punjab as well.

The right to free speech means nothing without the right to offend - i hope I have succeeded - but in this case it seems only you have been offended - was never the intention.

There is one anti-death penalty quote which expresses a view very pertinent to Yakub Memon's case who spent 22 years in jail most of them in solitary confinement, and which deserves mention here.

"When you execute a man who has been on death row seven, eight, 10 or 12 years, you are not executing the same man that came in."

Don Cabana, former warden of Mississippi's Parchman Penitentiary

Why??? was the execution on the same day of Dr.APJ Kalam last ritual day, is there a law that can extend the execution or exception,there was a law it only refers when only govt current members dies or any respectful person from govt officials

And for a change, read something about the history of memons...

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/bombay-serial-blasts-search-on-for-bombay-12-member-memon-family/1/302029.html

It appears that law enforcement agencies do not crackdown on small time criminals (which Tiger was when he started off) , which results into such major incidents.

Book Excerpt:
The Yakub Memon story: The man who helped India expose Pakistan's role in 1993 Bombay blasts

http://www.scroll.in/article/744801/the-yakub-memon-story-the-man-who-helped-india-expose-pakistans-role-in-1993-bombay-blasts