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death penalty
'Dirty Move': Pentagon Chief Ditches Plea Deals With Tortured 9/11 Defendants
One lawyer warned it will not only "push 9/11 victim family members over an emotional cliff," but likely lead "prosecutors to resign and defendants to seek dismissal of all charges for unlawful command influence."
Aug 03, 2024
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday withdrew plea agreements the Pentagon had reached with three men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and detained in Guantánamo Bay, the American military prison in Cuba infamous for torture.
"I have determined that... responsibility for such a decision should rest with me," Austin wrote to Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the legally dubious Guantánamo Bay military commissions. "Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31."
The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed Wednesday that Escallier "entered into pretrial agreements" with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The Pentagon did not share details of the deal, but it was reported that in exchange for ruling out the death penalty, the suspects agreed to plead guilty and spend the rest of their lives in prison.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which has represented detainees at the prison, stressed that the deals were not only "a substantial step toward ending military commissions and the extralegal nightmare of Guantánamo," but also "inevitable because the 9/11 case was never going to be tried" through a process that has "never provided justice or accountability for anyone."
Others had also emphasized that point. U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on social media Wednesday that "after all these years, the victims of 9/11 and their families deserve justice and closure. The Bush administration's disastrous decision to torture detainees and set up untested military commissions made a fair trial impossible."
As The New York Timesreported Thursday:
Valerie Lucznikowska, whose nephew was killed in the World Trade Center, said she had been to the Guantánamo Bay prison several times to watch pretrial hearings, but had stopped going out of frustration with the legal process.
"The plea agreements should have been done a long time ago," she said. "The system has not worked for a long time."
Ms. Lucznikowska belongs to the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, many of whose members oppose the death penalty. Her own opposition was both moral and practical, she said.
"If the death penalty stayed as the prime object of the trial, there was no way it would come to a conclusion within my lifetime," she said.
She added: "Guantánamo Bay prison is a stain on America. How are we going to get rid of the stain? We're not going to. But let's get it over with."
However, other relatives of victims and U.S. lawmakers, as well as the union representing New York City firefighters, had criticized the agreements. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) even launched an investigation into "what involvement the White House had in negotiating and/or approving the recently announced plea deal."
After the Pentagon's Friday announcement, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows released a statement calling out Austin for canceling deals that, while "not the justice originally hoped for," had "offered a path to finality, and a modicum of justice and accountability for the crimes of 9/11."
"That the secretary has now overreached and undertaken direct oversight of the 9/11 commission is cause for enormous concern," the group said. "While we understand there are family members who are opposed to plea agreements, the reality stands that the 9/11 accused were tortured and several were sodomized. If any entity is at fault for the inability to prosecute this case with a slam dunk, it's the torturers. Because of the torture, the 9/11 accused will not be put to death. And any administration official or member of Congress who says otherwise is either uninformed, or politically pandering."
"The men who perpetrated the death of thousands on September 11th; men who have never uttered a word of remorse, should be justly punished. But what happened this week to 9/11 families is emotional whiplash," the group continued. "We will recover. We have been working for justice for the death of our loved ones for 23 years. Our larger concerns today are for this country, for the future of our children and grandchildren when legal principles are compromised. We ask that Secretary Austin meet with the 9/11 prosecution team, learn the deep complexities and flaws in the case, and come to his own conclusion that pretrial agreements will provide the finality and accountability we all deserve."
J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at CCR who specializes in challenging unlawful detentions at Guantánamo, decried the "dirty move" by Austin and accused him of "robbing victim family members of their only chance for justice and accountability for 9/11."
The Pentagon chief's "astounding decision" will not only "push 9/11 victim family members over an emotional cliff," but likely have legal consequences, Dixon warned. "Wait for prosecutors to resign and defendants to seek dismissal of all charges for unlawful command influence."
Daphne Eviatar, director of Amnesty International USA's Security With Human Rights program, similarly said Saturday that "this is a terrible development. The victims of the 9/11 attacks deserve accountability for the horrendous crimes committed after waiting more than 20 years."
"The defendants, who were brutally tortured and mistreated by U.S. agents and then detained without trial for more than 20 years, deserve a fair judicial resolution of their cases," Eviatar argued.
"The death penalty should have been taken off the table long ago," she added. "It is shameful for the defense secretary after all these years to intervene now to prevent the resolution of this case, at a time when the United States should be making every effort to acknowledge, account for, and finally end the abuses of the post-9/11 'war on terror.'"
John Knefel, a senior writer at Media Matters for America, also responded critically to Friday's news, saying that "this development is 100% in alignment with the history of Gitmo in general and the military commission system specifically—ad hoc, arbitrary, capricious. A repulsive apparatus, and one wholly fitting of U.S. empire."
This post has been updated with comment from Amnesty International September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.
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Texas GOP Wish List Includes Death Penalty for Abortion Patients
"We're talking about the official priority list of the governing party of the second-most populous state in America," said one advocate and author.
May 30, 2024
"Putting pregnant people to death for abortion has officially gone mainstream," said one reproductive justice group on Wednesday as the Texas Republican Party considered a platform for 2024 that includes a new proposal to ensure "equal protection for the preborn" under the state's criminal laws.
As writer and rights advocate Jessica Valenti, author of the Substack newsletter "Abortion, Every Day," explained on social media, the proposal within the state GOP's platform may have gone largely unnoticed as delegates voted on it last Saturday because the language used in the document doesn't explicitly call for abortion patients to face the death penalty.
But that's exactly what "equal protection for the preborn" means, said Valenti.
"'Equal protection' is a call for abortion to be treated as homicide, and for abortion patients to be prosecuted as [murderers]," Valenti wrote, pointing to bills in South Carolina and Georgia that were both called the Prenatal Equal Protection Act and aimed to make abortion punishable as a homicide.
Plank 35 of the platform calls for Texas Republicans to pass legislation that would grant "equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization." The 50-page document also states that "abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide."
In Texas, the murder of a child younger than 15 is punishable by the death penalty, and with "equal protection" for fetuses and embryos, advocates said this week that it stands to reason that people could also face execution for obtaining or providing abortion care if the state GOP enacts Plank 35 of its platform.
"If a fetus is considered a person, then it's considered a child," Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at Lawyering for Reproductive Justice: If/When/How, toldHuffPost. "I wish I could say that the idea of the death penalty is a jump, but it's not... It's actually the next logical step."
The reproductive rights group Abortion Access Front noted that the Texas GOP is apparently unfazed "by being pro-life" while pushing for the death penalty for people who obtain abortion care.
Valenti cautioned against dismissing the proposal as one that's being promoted by a "fringe" contingent of the pro-forced pregnancy movement.
"The Texas Republican platform is known for being wacky in the scariest way possible: Delegates this year called for the Bible to be taught in public school, for gender-affirming care to be labeled 'child abuse,' and for the government to release all information on UFOs," she wrote. "But the bizarre extremism doesn't make this document a joke or any less dangerous. We're talking about the official priority list of the governing party of the second-most populous state in America."
"They are telling us what they believe and what they want for the future of this country," she added.
Texas Republicans have previously proposed bills that would classify abortion care as homicide and make it punishable by the death penalty, with measures failing to pass in the Legislature in 2017, 2019, and 2021.
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United States and Iran Help China Push Global Executions to 10-Year High
Lawmakers in southern U.S. states accused of demonstrating "a chilling commitment" to state-sponsored murder alongside "a callous intent to invest resources in the taking of human life."
May 29, 2024
The number of executions worldwide hit a nearly 10-year high in 2023 thanks to a surge in state killings by Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and the United States.
A new global report published by Amnesty International documents that the death penalty was imposed on 1,153 people last year, though the total is believed to be significantly higher due to the secrecy surrounding China's penal system. The international human rights group believes "thousands" of people were executed by the Chinese government, but the exact figure is not known.
"This is the list you don't want your country to be on." —Amnesty International
The 1,153 figure was 30% higher than the number of people who received the death penalty in 2022 and the highest annual figure documented by Amnesty since 2015 when the number of confirmed killings was 1,634. In addition to executions carried out, the number of death sentences handed down rose by 20% in 2023, with a total of 2,428.
Among the other key findings of the report:
- U.S. executions rose from 18 to 24, keeping the U.S. among the world's top five executioners in the world.
- The top five nations for the death penalty were China ("thousands"), Iran (853+), Saudi Arabia (172), Somalia (38), and the U.S. (24).
- The 48% spike in executions in Iran made it the nation with the most documented death penalty cases;
- China continues to execute thousands, while threatening the public that crime will result in the death penalty
- Lowest number of executing countries on record shows progress.
In the United States, said Amnesty, the number of executions—all which took place in just five states across the south—rose 30% last year. The executions that took place were in Texas (8), Florida (6) Oklahoma (4), Missouri (4), and Alabama (2).
According to the report, the U.S. increase in state-sponsored murder was accompanied by new legislative moves that will allow for killing people by various means.
"Bills to carry out executions by firing squad were introduced in Idaho and Tennessee, while the Montana legislature considered a measure to expand the substances used in lethal injections," the report notes. "In South Carolina a new law was signed to conceal the identity of people or entities involved in the preparation or carrying out of executions. Alabama executed Kenneth Smith using the cruel and untested method of nitrogen asphyxiation just 14 months after subjecting him to a botched execution attempt."
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general, said legislators in those particular states, all dominated politically by Republican lawmakers, "demonstrated a chilling commitment to the death penalty and a callous intent to invest resources in the taking of human life" in 2023.
While rebuking the U.S. for its approach to the death penalty, Callamard said the "huge spike" in executions globally "was primarily down to Iran" last year.
"The Iranian authorities showed complete disregard for human life and ramped up executions for drug-related offenses, further highlighting the discriminatory impact of the death penalty on Iran's most marginalized and impoverished communities," she said. "Despite the setbacks that we have seen this year, particularly in the Middle East, countries that are still carrying out executions are increasingly isolated."
One bright spot noted in the report is that while executions overall were up, the number of nations where the death penalty was imposed actually went down.
"The inherent discrimination and arbitrariness that marks the use of the death penalty have only compounded the human rights violations of our criminal justice systems," said Callamard. "The small minority of countries that insist on using it must move with the times and abolish the punishment once and for all."
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