If the supreme court says innocence is no reason to commute, is it any wonder the US is one of the world’s leading executioners? On 28 March, the US supreme court refused to hear the death penalty case of Troy Anthony Davis . It was his last appeal. Davis has been on Georgia’s death row for close to 20 years, after being convicted of shooting dead off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. Despite the doubt surrounding his case, Troy Anthony Davis could be put to death within weeks. Davis is now at the mercy of the Georgia state board of pardons and parole, which could commute his sentence to life without parole. It will be a tough fight, despite widespread national and international support for clemency from figures like Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former US president Jimmy Carter. Davis’s sister, Martina Correia, has tirelessly campaigned for justice for her brother. In response to the supreme court decision, she told me : “We were really shocked and appalled when we received the news … no one wants to look at the actual innocence, and no one wants to look at the witness recantation as a real, strong and viable part of this case, even though new witnesses have come forward. There needs to be a global mobilisation about Troy’s case, and the fact that in the United States it’s not unconstitutional to execute an innocent person needs to be addressed once and for all by the US supreme court.” Correia brings up a significant but little-known fact about death-penalty law in the US – namely, that current court precedent allows the execution of innocent people. Remarkably, the supreme court, in a 1993 opinion, suggested that “actual innocence” is not a sufficient cause to be let free. The court only cares if the legal rules are followed, while acknowledging that innocent people could still be convicted and put to death. In such cases, a prisoner could appeal for executive clemency. It seems the court has not yet learned what many states have: that the death penalty system is broken beyond repair. Illinois recently became the 16th state in the US to outlaw the death penalty. Governor Pat Quinn, after signing the bill into law, said: “I have concluded that our system of imposing the death penalty is inherently flawed … it is impossible to devise a system that is consistent, that is free of discrimination on the basis of race, geography or economic circumstance, and that always gets it right.” He follows an earlier Illinois governor, Republican George Ryan, who commuted the death sentences of 120 death row prisoners in that state. Both Illinois governors bring to mind former US supreme court justice Harry A Blackmun, who wrote, in a dissenting opinion in 1994 after the court denied yet another death row inmate’s last appeal: “From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.” Tinkering with the machinery of death is just what some states seem to be doing. Thiopental is one of the three drugs used in the lethal “cocktail” administered in most executions in this country. Hospira, the last US-based company to make sodium thiopental , stopped making the controlled drug, creating a national shortage. States began scrambling to keep their death chambers well stocked. When California borrowed a similar drug from Arizona, California under-secretary of corrections and rehabilitation Scott Kernan wrote in an email: “You guys in AZ are life savers.” Georgia, it turns out, seems to have illegally imported its supply from a dubious, London-based company called Dream Pharma , run by a husband and wife duo out of a rented space in the back of a driving school. Georgia is not currently licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to import controlled substances, so the DEA recently confiscated the state’s thiopental supply. Pending an investigation, Georgia will not have this key ingredient and will not be able to execute Davis or any other death-row inmate. On the same day that the US supreme court denied Davis’s appeal, Amnesty International issued its annual report on the death penalty . The United States remains among the world’s leading executioners, along with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and North Korea. In addition to leading the fight for her brother, Martina Correia has been fighting for her own life. The day of the court decision was the 10th anniversary of her ongoing battle against breast cancer. Her face adorns the mobile mammography van that helps save the lives of poor women in Savannah. The National Breast Cancer Coalition named her and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi “Women Who Get It Right”. Correia, with customary humility, feels she won’t have earned the title until her brother’s life is saved as well. • Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. © 2011 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate Capital punishment US supreme court US domestic policy State of Georgia Illinois United States Amy Goodman guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …DNA database in UK confirms limb belonged to James Nolan, who has not been seen since his release from prison in 2010 The severed arm of a rapist who served a prison sentence in England has been found in Dublin Bay. Gardaí have confirmed that the arm of a man found on Dollymount beach is that of 46-year-old James Nolan, a sex offender and burglar who has not been seen since he was released from jail in November 2010. After the arm was found on 8 February, a DNA sample was sent to Interpol, and British police identified it as that of Nolan, a native of north Dublin. Nolan’s DNA had been held on a database in the UK; there is no such database in Ireland. He was sentenced to 14 years for rape in 1986, then after his release from prison he was jailed again for 18 months in 2009 for burglary. His whereabouts since his release from the Midlands prison in Ireland on 22 November 2010 is not known. His parents have died and his family in Finglas, north Dublin, have not seen him. Gardaí are now trying to establish the circumstances in which he lost his arm and say he may still be alive, although they fear he has been killed. Ireland DNA database Crime Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …DNA database in UK confirms limb belonged to James Nolan, who has not been seen since his release from prison in 2010 The severed arm of a rapist who served a prison sentence in England has been found in Dublin Bay. Gardaí have confirmed that the arm of a man found on Dollymount beach is that of 46-year-old James Nolan, a sex offender and burglar who has not been seen since he was released from jail in November 2010. After the arm was found on 8 February, a DNA sample was sent to Interpol, and British police identified it as that of Nolan, a native of north Dublin. Nolan’s DNA had been held on a database in the UK; there is no such database in Ireland. He was sentenced to 14 years for rape in 1986, then after his release from prison he was jailed again for 18 months in 2009 for burglary. His whereabouts since his release from the Midlands prison in Ireland on 22 November 2010 is not known. His parents have died and his family in Finglas, north Dublin, have not seen him. Gardaí are now trying to establish the circumstances in which he lost his arm and say he may still be alive, although they fear he has been killed. Ireland DNA database Crime Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Tilikum, the killer whale that drowned a trainer last year and has been involved in two other human deaths, is returning to show business. Officials at Orlando’s SeaWorld say the 6-ton whale, the largest killer whale in captivity, will take part in shows beginning today. The park has spent millions…
Continue reading …Intravenous feeding bags contaminated with bacteria are suspected of having caused nine deaths at Alabama hospitals. Ten other patients treated with the same product—which has now been pulled off the market—were sickened, AP reports. All the patients were critically ill before receiving the IVs and the deaths have…
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The controversy over Natalie Portman’s dance double reveals the culture clash between Hollywood’s colossal budgets and the underfunded world of ballet Feathers are continuing to fly over Black Swan . Darren Aronofsky’s movie, for which Natalie Portman won an Oscar, is about a ballerina losing her grip on reality as she prepares to dance Swan Lake. Portman took ballet classes in preparation for the role, but Sarah Lane of American Ballet Theatre has claimed that she did the actual classical dancing, which includes pointe work. Her face was then, it seems, digitally replaced by Portman’s. Lane, who worked on the film for more than six weeks, was also used for the full body-shots and just-the-legs shots. Lane was not credited for her work as Portman’s dance-double, however, nor was she on the longish list of people thanked by Portman in her Oscar acceptance speech. In addition, she was suddenly and spookily deleted from a video circulating online which showed the face-replacement special effects used in Black Swan. In the online Dance Magazine, journalist Wendy Perron wrote of a “blackout” and a “propaganda of omissions” relating to the ABT soloist. None of this surprised Lane, because by then a Fox Searchlight producer had called to ask her to stop giving interviews until after the Oscars. “They were trying to create this facade that she (Portman) had become a ballerina in a year and a half,” she said. “So I knew they didn’t want to publicize anything about me.” Portman’s fiancé, the choreographer and New York City Ballet dancer Benjamin Millepied , who worked on the film, denies Lane’s claim that Portman did no more than 5% of the dancing. “Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie” Millepied told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week, and his version is backed up by Aronofsky. If it sounds like a storm in a teacup, there’s big money at stake. The story of Portman’s supposed transformation from actress into ballerina is a large part of the film’s appeal, and was almost certainly a factor in her winning the Oscar. If that story is called into question, then so is Portman’s credibility. There’s another dimension to the spat, concerning Millepied. Before Black Swan the 33-year-old dancer-choreographer was involved with a colleague of Lane’s at ABT, dancer Isabella Boylston . The two had been living together in New York’s East Village, and very much an item . While working on the film, however, he became involved with Portman, and not long afterwards it was announced that an “indescribably happy” Portman was pregnant and that the couple were engaged. Underlying all of this is a clash of cultures: that of Hollywood, with its colossal paychecks, and the pinched, underfunded world of ballet. It takes upward of ten thousand classroom hours to make a professional ballet dancer, and while most dancers are happy to receive scant financial reward (the $2000 a week after taxes that Lane made on Black Swan may well have been the most she’s ever earned), they do appreciate respect. It seems obvious to me as a critic how much of the movement ascribed to Portman’s character is actually performed by a professional. Portman may have taken classes for a few months, but her body-shape, musculature and deportment are nothing like a classical dancer’s. What those classes did achieve was to give her a certain amount of dancerly attitude. The way she wears her clothes and slouches around in her practice-kit is well-observed, and the minutiae of darning and breaking in pointe shoes is spot-on. Portman acted well in Black Swan, but if she has failed to acknowledge Lane’s contribution, she may have acted pretty gracelessly too. Ballet Dance Film industry Luke Jennings guardian.co.uk
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Gujarat votes unanimously to ban book, as its author Joseph Lelyveld dismisses claim it suggests Indian leader was bisexual A state in western India has banned Pulitzer-prize-winning Joseph Lelyveld’s new book about Mahatma Gandhi after reviews said it hints that the father of India’s independence had a homosexual relationship. More bans have been proposed in India, where homosexuality was illegal until 2009 and still carries social stigma. Gujarat’s state assembly voted unanimously on Wednesday to ban Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India. The furore was sparked by local media reports, based on early reviews in the US and UK, some of which emphasised passages in the book that suggested Gandhi had an intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach. The book has not yet been released in India. Lelyveld has said his work was taken out of context. ” I do not allege that Gandhi is a racist or bisexual in Great Soul ,” he told the Times of India. “The word ‘bisexual’ nowhere appears in the book.” However, several reviews of Great Soul detailed its sections on Gandhi’s relationship with Kallenbach. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Andrew Roberts said the only portrait on the mantelpiece opposite Gandhi’s bed was of Kallenbach. “How completely you have taken possession of my body,” reads one widely quoted letter from Gandhi to Kallenbach. “This is slavery with a vengeance.” Britain’s Daily Mail ran an article under the headline: “Gandhi ‘left his wife to live with a male lover’ new book claims”. The Mumbai Mirror on Tuesday ran a front-page story under the headline: “Book claims German man was Gandhi’s secret love”, which quoted the same passages as Roberts. Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst who has written about Gandhi’s sexuality and reviewed some of his correspondence with Kallenbach, said he did not believe the two men were lovers. “It is quite a wrong interpretation,” he said. Gandhi’s great goals were non-violence, celibacy and truth, he said. “The Hindu idea is that sexuality has this elemental energy which gets dissipated,” Kakar said. “If it can be sublimated and contained it can give you spiritual power. Gandhi felt his political power really came from his celibacy, from his spiritual power.” He said Gandhi often filled his letters, including those to female associates, with strong love language, but that did not lead to physical intimacy. “Nothing happened,” he said. “He is telling his feelings, but they are platonic. They are not put into action. That would have been terrible for him.” Politicians in the state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital, Mumbai, have also called for a ban on the book and, along with Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, have asked the central government to ban publication nationwide. Modi said Lelyveld should apologise publicly for “hurting the sentiments of millions of people”. “It has become a fashion to tarnish the image of great Indian leaders for self-publicity and the sale of books,” said Sanjay Dutt, spokesman for the ruling Congress party in Maharashtra. “The government should invoke a law to severely punish anyone who tarnishes the image of the father of the nation.” Ranjit Hoskote, a writer and general secretary of Pen India, which fights for free expression, condemned the ban and said the local media had misconstrued both Lelyveld’s intentions and the nature of Gandhi’s relationship with Kallenbach. “You can’t cite a worse example of third-hand reportage and comment,” he said. “How can you ban a book you haven’t read?” He said Gandhi’s correspondence with Kallenbach has been available in library archives for decades. “There’s no secret. There is no scandal,” he said. Mahatma Gandhi India Censorship Gay rights guardian.co.uk
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Erwin James talks to the ‘queen of British crime writing’ about childhood and her prison popularity Erwin James
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Newspaper vendor knocked down by riot officer had earlier been shepherded out of the police’s way at G20 protests Ian Tomlinson seemed to be “in his own world” and was not responding to police officers on the day he died at the G20 protests, an inquest has heard. Tomlinson was struck with a baton and pushed to the ground by Metropolitan police officer PC Simon Harwood in the City of London at around 7.20pm on 1 April 2009. Witnesses have told the jury at the inquest into Tomlinson’s death that 10 minutes earlier in a separate location, the 47-year-old newspaper vendor looked drunk as he stood in the middle of the road blocking the way of a police carrier. The incident on nearby Lombard Street, which was partially captured by photographs, occurred as Tomlinson attempted to find a way home from work past police cordons outside the Bank of England. The jury heard that officers used minimal force to escort Tomlinson off the road so a carrier van could pass. A number of witnesses said he had not responded to instructions to move and seemed oblivious to what was going on around him. “He was open mouthed,” said James Stone, a City worker attending a gym on the street, in a statement read out to court. “He had a vacant expression everywhere he looked. “I remember looking at my watch and seeing that it was 7.15. I saw Mr Tomlinson and thought to myself: ‘Boy, does he look wasted.’ The inquest has been told that Tomlinson was an alcoholic and had been drinking on the day he died. Traffic had been blocked on Lombard Street, which was behind a heavy police cordon of riot officers when Tomlinson arrived. PC Gareth Edwards, who was driving the van, said he beeped his horn twice, leaned out of the window and shouted at Tomlinson to get out of the way but the father of nine did not react. The inquest then heard how a number of officers from the police cordon firmly pushed Tomlinson, moving him on to the pavement. The van does not appear to have touched Tomlinson and there was no evidence that he was injured in what appeared to be a minor encounter. One witness, Warren Fraser, an IT worker taking photographs in the area, said Tomlinson appeared oblivious to his surroundings. “His responses were slow,” Fraser said. “He looked as if he was in his own world.” Although Tomlinson was calm and did not appear agitated, he said, the encounter, which involved two or three police officers, did prompt some in the crowd to complain. Fraser said he heard one person, possibly with a megaphone, say: “It takes three policemen to move one old man.” Once the van and gone past, Fraser said an officer gave Tomlinson “an encouraging push”, as if to send him away from Lombard Street. But Tomlinson did not immediately leave. “I got the impression that he stayed where he was in order to show independence and defy police,” Fraser said. The hearing continues. Ian Tomlinson Police London Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bill Murray—presumably in serious mode—has been lined up to play Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sources tell New York . Murray is set to play FDR in Morning Glory director Roger Mitchell’s adaptation of British radio play Hyde Park On the Hudson. The movie, set during the weekend in 1939 when…
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