Breakfast Show Dates Confirmed

David will be co hosting the Absolute Radio Breakfast Show with Christian O'Connell during the week beginning 9th November. Tune in from 6am or listen via the web here.
The dates David will be co hosting have now been confirmed as Wednesday 11th November, Thursday 12th November and Friday 13th November.

Russian Constitutional Court asked to rule on death penalty moratorium

October 29, 2009: A plenary session of Russia's Supreme Court asked the Constitutional Court to rule on whether capital punishment could again be legal in Russia from January 1.

The Constitutional Court said it could consider the issue on November 3.

"Because of the urgency and the extraordinary significance of the question posed, a decision to accept the consideration of the application could be taken at the next plenary meeting of judiciary on November 3, 2009," the court's press service said in a statement.

In February 1999, the Constitutional Court introduced a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, ruling that no court could sentence criminals to death until all courts had switched to jury trials.

However, jury trials have now been established throughout Russia. Chechnya will become the final Russian republic to institute jury trials on January 1, 2010.

Supreme Court Justice Vladimir Davydov said the possible use of capital punishment in Russia from 2010 would come into conflict with Russia's international commitments.

Sources: RIA Novosti, Hands Off Cain, 29/10/2009

America’s Real Death Panels

Jurors in capital cases must pledge support for the death penalty.

Next spring, Texas will decide whether or not to become the first state to admit it executed an innocent man.

Cameron Willingham was put to death in February 2004, 12 years after being convicted of killing his three infant children in a fire at their Corsicana, Texas, home.

In August, the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS) released a report that concluded none of the evidence from the fire indicated it was set intentionally and that the state fire marshal who testified the fire was arson lacked "any realistic understanding of fires."

The IAFSS was asked to investigate the case by the Texas Forensic Science Commission, which was created in 2005 to re-examine questionable forensic evidence. The TFSC plans to continue its examination of the fire, but admits the report is a "major step" toward exonerating all that is left of Willingham: his name.

As in any jury trial in the United States, Willingham, who maintained his innocence to the end, was convicted by a group of his peers--12 men and women who supposedly represented the community in which he lived. However, the prosecution in his case sought the death penalty, and that automatically changed the pool of people allowed to serve on his jury.

For capital cases in which the jury will debate whether or not to sentence a convicted defendant to death, the Supreme Court mandates that jurors be "death-qualified"--that is, they must pledge during the jury selection process that they morally support capital punishment and that they would have no problem signing a sentence that will result in the death of another human being.

Social science research indicates that this selection process seriously limits juries in capital cases to people who share similar moral viewpoints. During the last four decades, U.S. researchers have found that in capital cases the people most likely to be chosen during the jury selection process are those with "authoritarian" personality types--people who believe that strict enforcement of laws is needed to maintain social stability. Authoritarians follow convention. They think the function of disciplinary action is to control criminals. They predictably tend to convict anyone (both the guilty and the innocent) who is unfortunate enough to be indicted and brought to trial before a jury. In other words, they believe one is guilty until proven innocent, and are thus more likely to accept the prosecution's case rather than the defendant's.

Psychologist and litigation consultant Brooke Butler's research has shown that those on death-qualified juries tend to believe in a fundamentally just world--people get what they deserve and that everything that happens in a person's life is a direct result of things they control. She found that such jurors are more likely to make decisions based on aggravating circumstances (the morbid facts surrounding a victim's death, etc.) rather than mitigating ones. They are more racist, sexist and homophobic than their unselected counterparts, and less likely to accept mental illness or age as a defense. Death-qualified jurors are typically "male, Caucasian, moderately well-educated, politically conservative, Catholic or Protestant, and middle-class," she says.

Victoria Springer, social science researcher and sentencing expert, argues that the people with authoritarian personality types who are typically selected to serve on death-qualified juries will face a serious mental conflict. These pro-crime-control jurors are required to "adopt the attitude that the individual to be tried before them is innocent until proven guilty--which stands in direct opposition to their attitudes, orientation, and personality that has been specifically selected for."

From there, it is easy to understand how for such people the fundamental presumption of innocence conflicts with what the prosecution presents to them as "the facts"--the evidence, regardless of strength. Springer says that if the assumption of innocence clashes with the death-qualified juror's desire to remove a criminal from the streets, then the decision to render a guilty verdict reinforces what these jurors feel is their purpose on the jury in the first place.

Cameron Willingham, wrongfully convicted and executed by a Texas jury selected through the filter of "death qualification," was robbed of the right to have a jury of his peers decide his fate. Instead, he was put to death by those of his neighbors who innately believe that the American judicial system is a bastion of truth.

Source: Diana Novak, In These Times, Oct. 28, 20O9

The Governor and his weird coincidence

The New York Times reports that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently issued a veto statement that contained a message — and not a nice message — that some interpret as a put-down of Representative Tom Ammiano, the author of a recent bill. The message can be seen only by a careful reading of the printed version of the veto statement. By taking the first letter of each line, beginning with the third line, two words emerge: The first is obscene; the second is “you.”

Schwarznegger's spokesperson said it was a "weird co-incidence".The chances of it being a coincidence is one in 8 billion.
Hattip Kiwiblog

Iraq: Boy's killer to be first public execution since Saddam Hussein's rule

The Awenis lived in a two-storey house on a dusty road in western Baghdad. To their neighbours they were just another family and no-one suspected that they were capable of abducting a local boy, collecting a ransom for his release, killing him and dumping his body in an acid bath.

The public response to the murder of 11-year-old Muntadher al-Mussewi has led the Iraqi Government to make plans for the 1st public execution since the fall of Saddam Hussein, The Times has learnt. In a departure from the legal practices that the West has tried to encourage, the Governor of Baghdad has declared his support for such an execution and an aide to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, has discussed the matter with members of the boy's tribe.

Government officials said that they feared an outbreak of mass violence if proper vengeance was not seen to be exacted. Police have already broken up an armed stand-off between the Mussewi tribe and the kidnappers Aweni tribe. Both are connected to the top two Shia militia groups.

Two uncles of the leading kidnapper have given written pledges to the judge presiding over the case and the local police commander that they approve of a public execution in a bid to prevent further violence.

Officials have designated a spot outside the home of the dead boy for a hanging and have broadcast the location from the speakers of mosques in the neighbourhood of Hay al-Amel. No date has been set because the official sentencing has yet to take place, but that seems a formality.

The case illustrates how deeply violence has taken root in Iraq, as well as how important tribes are in Iraqi politics and how ambivalent many Iraqis feel about the values that the West has tried to promote since the war in Iraq in 2003.

On September 30, Muntadher left his parents' home in a rough part of Baghdad to visit his grandfather two streets away. On a street corner he was kidnapped by Muhanned al-Aweni and held captive only a minute's walk away in his home. Two days later the kidnappers sent the parents a picture of the boy and a ransom demand. During negotiations over the next 48 hours the demand was reduced from $80,000 to $25,000, which the family says it paid.

Munaf al-Mussewi, the boys father, said: "I delivered the money myself. I never saw the kidnappers, but they told us over the phone Muntadher would be released the next morning.

"We waited but he never came. I could never imagine I was betrayed by my own neighbours. Nothing is safe. The people you live among steal your children and kill them."

According to police sources, al-Aweni, aided by his mother Khaula and his cousins Taha and Ali, bludgeoned the boy to death on the first day, fearing that he could identify them. They tried to get rid of his body by dissolving it in battery acid, which they had access to in large quantities through their militia contacts, who had used it in sectarian killings several years ago.

A week later the remains of Muntadher were found in a plastic bag in the neighbourhood. Pictures of his blackened and partially decomposed body were printed on posters by the family and put up around western Baghdad.

Soon the Mussewi tribe started a hunt for the killers. The ransom negotiations had been conducted by mobile telephone and a court order helped the Mussewis to find telephone records that incriminated the mother of al-Aweni.

Dozens of armed men surrounded the house where she was known to live. Police intervened before the conflict escalated and arrested several of the Awenis. Within hours the house had been looted, the front peppered with bullet holes and the walls covered in red writing saying "owing a blood debt" and "the house of the abusers is destined for ruin."

After the Awenis made a confession, the father of the dead boy vowed vengeance. He said: "I want them to be executed right in front of my house. Only then will my heart, and that of Muntadher's mother, cool down again." For fisteen days the Iraqi police sealed off the neighbourhood to prevent tribal warfare.

Bassam, a resident, said: "There was going to be a big battle. The Mussewis were ready to attack the Awenis."

The Awenis, who come from southern Iraq, were known for gun-running and sheep smuggling during the rule of Saddam. They have since been implicated in various criminal enterprises.

Several members are allegedly commanders in the al-Mahdi Army, the militia of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric.

The Mussewis are more powerful. As direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, they are a dominant force in the other big Shia militia, the Badr Brigades, which is allied to the largest Shia party. Members of the tribe are found in parliament and the military's Baghdad command. The police chief of Basra and the dean of Baghdad university are Mussewis.

The police lifted the blockade of Hay al-Amel last week after the tribes agreed to a public execution. Two senior Awenis, Jabar and Kareem, said in writing: "We strongly denounce this crime and demand the criminal's execution nearby."

In return, Jacoub al-Mussewi, the uncle of the victim, said: "I accept that a public execution will reinstate my rights and dignity, which have been abused."

Separately, 37 sheikhs from the Mussewi tribe and commanders of the Badr Brigades have met Salah Abdul Razzaq, the Baghdad Governor, and Hassan Salman al-Saedi, a tribal adviser to the Prime Minister, to discuss the executions.

The Mussewis have calmed down for now, but if the executions are delayed then the tribes and with them the two main Shia militias could still come to blows.

Bassam, the Hay el-Amel resident, said: "The Iraqi Army has told people in the neighbourhood that the execution will be public. We have not seen that since Saddam's time."

The former dictator held public executions regularly to terrorise the population and to appease powerful victims of crime. A government official involved in the Aweni case said: "We have received the demand for public executions and are prepared to support it."

State killings

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, mass executions were commonplace. On a single day, October 12, 1999, at least 100 prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison were executed

The number of executions carried out by countries around the world almost doubled in 2008, with an average of 7 people put to death every day. The countries that use executions the most are China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US. These five account for 93 % of all state killings.

In China an estimated 8,000 people are executed every year far more than any other country.

Iraq executed at least 34 people in 2008, and plans to put to death another 128 by the end of 2009 in batches of 20 at a time. At least 9 women are on death row.

The state of Texas executed 18 people in 2008.

Sources: London Times, Amnesty International, Nov. 2, 2009

Brash admits Foreshore and Seabed law was a mistake

The man who brought you the " one law for all" and the Nationhood speech [PDF] that sparked a great deal of anger has has said that he believed National got it wrong when it opposed iwi being able to test their claim to ownership of the foreshore and seabed in court.

That inability for Maori to go to court was the injustice in the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Contrary to some opinions, Maori did not have ownership rights extinguished under the Act.

The 2004 Nationhood speech led to what Shane Jones describes as "inflammatory, divisive and extremely hurtful" debate around race relations and the foreshore and seabed legislation. The Foreshore and Seabed Act was written in response to a Court of Appeal case that suggested iwi able to prove continuous customary use of the foreshore and seabed might have a claim to freehold title.The act stopped Maori seeking title through the courts. even National screamed Maori Gain Control of the Beaches.

Now, it appears the Act will be scrapped.

Brash rejected the Treaty. Therefore, any person who rejects an important part of our constitution is never fit to be a leader of a major political party in New Zealand in this day and age, as they may end up leading the country.

It was a real mistake placing Don Brash fifth on the 2002 National party list to secure his entry into parliament.
update
So what next for the Foreshore and Seabed? Read Tim Watkin from Pundit. He has some good thoughts on this.

Symposium and Opening of the Carter House

I have just heard (thanks for finding out Sharon) that the event on 4th is open to the general public. There are lectures from 9-12 at the Mummification Museum, then the Carter House opening from 12-4 and then more lectures from 4-9. Lots of great speakers including Dr Zahi Hawass, Otto Schaden, Salima Ikram, Donald Ryan and Nicholas Reeves amongst others