April's Death Penalty Focus, India Approves Death Penalty for Child Rapists,death penalty for drug crimes,Three States Opt for Execution by Nitrogen,Death Penalty Lawyers & How Old is Too Old, How Sick is Too Sick to Be Executed?

This month the Death Penalty Focus looks at the Trump Administration’s horrific and counterproductive proposal to execute opioid drug dealers, and the deplorable rush by three states to start using nitrogen gas to execute prisoners.

And as I personally said somewhere here a minute after that announcement is that I agree, and that I feel that we should start with all of people processing all of the opioids that have been part of conduit that have led to certain overdoses and deaths.

If anyone is a part of those corrupt ways of prescribing and distributing it should be at the front of the line.

I am kidding of course because I feel that any humans that kill other people should be locked up for 23 hours a day. Or, they should be put to work somehow until they doing something productive for anyone and everyone else.

Besides, like I have also said many times is that that way the private prisons can make bank money instead of killing off their cliente carrying out death penalty sentences.

Anyway....

As the death row population ages, we ask at what point is it clearly cruel and unusual punishment to execute the very old and the very sick. Death penalty lawyers have a new resource thanks to the the American Bar Association, and there’s good news and bad news in a new poll on the death penalty. We have a roundup of death penalty developments around the country and some reading recommendations. In our Voices feature, we have an update on Walter Ogrod, and how justice may finally be at hand for him.

Child Rapists in India to Face the Death Penalty.

Decision follows weeks of outrage over two high-profile assault cases.

India is set to introduce the death penalty for people convicted of raping a child under the age of 12.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the executive order on Saturday at an emergency cabinet meeting in response to weeks of outrage over two high-profile assault cases. The order needs to be signed by India's president, Ram Nath Kovind, to take effect.

India already has the death penalty for crimes including murder, kidnapping, terrorism, and treason, and the rape of a child will now be added to that list. The change of law will also mean police have to complete rape investigations within two months, according to the Guardian .

It will also increase the maximum possible prison sentence for the rape of girls under 16 and women but, according to news agency Reuters, there was no mention of assaults on boys or men.

"Government has taken serious note of incidents of rape in various parts of the country," said the document, according to Reuters . "While expressing deep anguish over such incidents, it has been decided to devise a comprehensive response to deal with the situation."

Other steps to tackle the problem include the launch of more fast-track courts for rape cases, more public prosecutors being appointed, and more police stations to be provided with forensic kits for use in the investigation of rape cases.

The Indian government has come under fire in recent weeks , accused of not doing enough to prevent sexual assaults in the country, particularly of children.

Protests erupted in India over the gang rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl, Asifa Bano, in January in a temple in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Then last week, a member of the governing party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was accused of the rape of a teenage girl in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Sexual assault and violence is a serious problem in India, and has shown little sign of dying down despite the launch of fast-track courts and tougher rape law following the assault of a student on a bus in Delhi in 2012 — a case that brought sexual violence in India to global attention.

Nevertheless, there were still 40,000 rapes reported in 2016, according to Reuters . Of these cases, 40% were attacks on children.

The head of Delhi’s Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal, has been one of the leading voices in the call for a law change. She went on hunger strike on April 13, saying she would refuse to eat until India’s rape laws were amended.

Maliwal wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Modi, saying India “should have a system … where anyone who rapes a young girl should be hanged within six months.”

On the same day, Modi said : “I want to assure the country that no culprit will be spared, complete justice will be done. Our daughters will definitely get justice.”

But human rights campaign groups have spoken out against the decision to introduce the death penalty.

Asmita Basu from Amnesty International India described it as “knee-jerk reaction that diverts attention from the poor implementation of laws on rape and child protection.”

“Studies have shown that most perpetrators are known to child victims,” she told the Guardian . “Introducing the death penalty in such circumstances will only silence and further endanger children.”

Only three executions have been recorded in India in the past 10 years, according to the BBC , with 371 prisoners on death row. Those on death row include the four men convicted for the 2012 bus attack in Delhi.

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Explainer: Trump, Sessions, and the death penalty for drug crimes

Last month, the president shocked and baffled many by announcing that he wants to see drug dealers executed. We try to put the proposal into context by looking at the "War on Drugs," Southeast Asia, racism, and more responsible efforts to curb opioid abuse.

Three States Opt for Execution by Nitrogen

Three states, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama, have recently given the go-ahead to execute prisoners using nitrogen gas, a new, untested, untried method of killing women and men – or, as Oklahoma State Representative Mike Christian refers to them, “these beasts.”

How Old is Too Old, How Sick is Too Sick to Be Executed?

Just how old, how sick, or how mentally ill does a death row prisoner have to be for the government to opt not to execute him and let him die in prison?

American Bar Association Launches Program to Assist Death Penalty Lawyers

Stating that there’s “a major gap in resources for lawyers who defend capital cases,” the American Bar Association is launching The Capital Clemency Resource Initiative, a project that it says will provide “state-specific information about clemency in death penalty states, plus past petitions, court decisions, academic papers and ABA policy on the subject.”

New Poll Finds Majority Favor LWOP Over Death Penalty

A Quinnipiac University poll finds that American voters choose life without parole over the death penalty 51-37 percent, the first time a majority chose life over death since the poll first asked the question in 2004.

In Brief: April 2018

From Texas to Connecticut, the death penalty was at the center of debates in state houses and courtrooms.

While We’re on the Subject. . . .

A collection of the writings of the late Rabbi Leonard Beerman, and a new crime database in Florida that Wired says could start a “criminal justice revolution," are just a couple of the reading recommendations we have this month.

Voices: Justice for Walter Ogrod May Be Finally at Hand

One year ago, we interviewed Tom Lowenstein, the author of a book about the case of Walter Ogrod, a man whom many believe was wrongfully convicted, based largely on the testimony of jailhouse snitches, of killing four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn in Philadelphia in 1988. Now, thanks largely to Lowenstein, justice may finally be at hand for Walter Ogrod.