Fashion Hats

Israeli party ponders capital punishment bill to prevent another prisoner swap

Since the exchange, several efforts have been mounted to try to ensure that such releases never take place again. One effort involves an attempt to draft a set of rules by which any future Israeli government must operate in the event an Israeli citizen is held hostage.

Another effort has been taken by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to try to ensure that no Israeli soldier is ever taken prisoner. The new directive is to the effect that Israeli soldiers must fire upon any enemy forces attempting to abduct a fellow Israeli soldier, even if such fire jeopardizes the life of the soldier being taken captive.

This week, Shas, one of the parties in the governing coalition announced it would put forward another formula for ensuring no prisoners with blood on their hands are ever released – a bill to be introduced in the Knesset that would impose a death penalty on terrorists who seek to destroy the state of Israel.

Source: Globe and Mail

The military's biased use of the death penalty « Later On

by LeisureGuy

Racism in the application of capital punishment has been well documented in the civilian justice system since the Supreme Court  reinstated the penalty  in 1976. Now comes evidence that racial disparity is even greater in death penalty cases in the military system.

Minority service members are more than twice as likely as whites — after accounting for the crimes’ circumstances and the victims’ race — to be sentenced to death, according to a  forthcoming study  co-written by  David Baldus , an eminent death-penalty scholar, who died in June.

The analysis is so disturbing because the military has made sustained, often successful efforts to rid its ranks of discrimination. But even with this record, its failure to apply the death penalty fairly is more proof that capital punishment cannot be free of racism’s taint. It is capricious, barbaric and discriminatory, and should be abolished.

The number of capital cases in the military system is small: of 105 cases in which the death penalty might have been applied between 1984 — when the military revamped its death penalty process — and 2005, 15 defendants were sentenced to death. (Another capital case in 2010 was not included in the study.) Eight have since been removed from death row because of various legal errors, and two were granted clemency....

Read more...

WitnessLA.com » Blog Archive » The Military and the Death Penalty

by Celeste Fremon

Marisa Taylor For McClatchy has done an excellent three-part series on the military’s use of the death penalty.

Here are clips from all three parts:

RACE AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE MILITARY

Interestingly, it seems that the racial disparities are the starkest when those killed are outside the military. Military on Military murders seem to be less affected to the st

Ten of the 16 men whom the military has sentenced to death in the last 27 years share another common characteristic: They’re all minorities.

The racial imbalance in the military’s death penalty isn’t new. As far back as the early 1970s, the military has acknowledged racial bias in its judicial system. The civilian court systems have similar disparities.

But one recent statistical analysis has found that the problem endures

Read more...