Trump Dreams of a Swifter Death Penalty

Published

5 months ago

June 28, 2024

admin

During a recent campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona, Donald Trump mused about capital punishment. Weve never had [such] massive amounts of drugs pouring into our country, he said. And by the way, youll never solve the problem without the death penalty. Trump also said he had made a deal with Xi Jinping prior to the end of his term that would have seen China executing anyone found to be manufacturing fentanyl for sale in America, though the only verifiable fact related to this claim is that China cracked down on fentanyl sales to America under pressure from the Trump administration.

He then riffed on the same theme at a rally in Las Vegas, where he again announced that the United States would have no drug problem if this country, like China, captured, tried, and executed drug dealers all within a very short span of time. Trump declared that Xi told him that these almost instantaneous capital proceedings are known in his country as quick trials, and that theyve essentially resolved Chinas struggle against illegal narcotics. (According to fact-checkers at Politifact, Trumps description of Chinas liberal use of capital punishment is essentially correct, but evidence refutes his assessment that the method is as effective as he claims, or would be effective here.)

Trumps strange pontification on sharks and batteries attracts more attention than his criminal-justice designs, but these more substantive policy ideas are at least as disturbing. Theres something satisfying in the presumption that one simple fix could erase all American addiction. But its nonsense, and destroying the death-penalty appeals process would be both naive and intentionally cruel. Trump may be dreaming aloud when he offers up the possibility of sudden death for drug-related crimes, but enacting such a policy would significantly degrade American law and justice.

Trumps fixation is odd, in part because capital punishment has never eliminated any category of crime. Use of the death penalty in a particular jurisdiction does not even deter crime: Decades of research have consistently found that murder rates are lower in states that do not execute criminals. But for Trump, its the punishment frequently offered up in place of a credible plan to actually treat opioid addiction and other forms of drug abuse. He suggested its use in a 2023 Fox News interview, saying, I dont know that this country is ready for it. I just dont know, reflecting on how shocking it would be to introduce capital punishment for selling drugs. Its not easy to say the death penalty. (Drug trafficking is already a capital offense federally and in two states, a fact Trump appears to be unaware of.)

Trump is right that the death-penalty process is not quick, and the long period of time between a death-row prisoners sentencing and execution has expanded dramatically in the past several decades. Prisoners who once could have expected to spend only a few years awaiting death can now expect about 20, though some have waited nearly 40 years. The length of the capital-punishment processmainly the appeals that ensue after a capital sentence is handed downaccounts for most of this delay, though several other factors (including the length of capital trials) contribute. But the long timeline of the capital-appeals process is commensurate with the enormity of the punishment. Executions cannot be reversed. If supporters of capital punishment, frustrated with the length of prisoners appeals, want something approaching a fair and just death penalty, then careful, meticulous review of each sentence is a prerequisite.

Ronald Brownstein: Trumps stop-and-frisk agenda

Lets pause briefly for a primer on capital appeals. People sentenced to death in a given state may make a direct appeal (either automatically or at their discretion) up to their jurisdictions court of last resort, usually the states supreme court. Only issues related to the criminal trial and its accompanying death sentence can be litigated in this venue. Judges may reverse the death sentence and the conviction, just the sentence, or neither at all. Prisoners may then appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court. During this stage of the appeals process, prisoners have the opportunity to litigate matters in state court that could be adjudicated only posttrialineffective assistance of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, or newly discovered evidence, for example. The resulting decisions can then also be appealed to the Supreme Court. If the Court rules against the defendant at this stage, then their state appeals are exhausted, and they may file a habeas corpus petition in federal court, seeking review of federal issues introduced in the state appeals process. Prisoners may again appeal lower courts rulings all the way to the Supreme Court, though the justices rarely agree to hear such cases.

In order to be fair, Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun explained in a 1994 dissent, a capital sentencing scheme must treat each person convicted of a capital offense with that degree of respect due the uniqueness of the individual That means affording the sentencer the power and discretion to grant mercy in a particular case, and providing avenues for the consideration of any and all relevant mitigating evidence that would justify a sentence less than death. Reasonable consistency, on the other hand, requires that the death penalty be inflicted evenhandedly, in accordance with reason and objective standards, rather than by whim, caprice, or prejudice. In other words, there is no way to justly administer the death penalty without thorough review.

Ample opportunity for appeals also helps prevent the killing of innocents. Since 1973, 197 people have been exonerated and released from death row. Many others have been exonerated posthumously. The Equal Justice Initiatives founder, Bryan Stevenson, told me over email last week that the error rate in capital cases is extremely high The appeals process doesnt ensure no one innocent will be executed but its clear that without it we would have certainly executed scores of innocent people.

Even if Trump wins in the fall, hes unlikely to persuade enough lawmakers to enact his quick trial plan. But it isnt impossible. Laws governing the use of capital punishment in America have changed dramatically over time. If Trump succeeds, every flaw in the American death-penalty regime will be intensified and expanded. Of course, the simplest way to curtail appeals, save innocent lives, and eliminate the gap between sentencing and punishment is to do away with capital punishment altogether.

*Lead-image sources: James Devaney / GC Images / Getty; Tingshu Wang / Getty; georgeclerk / Getty; Bettmann / Getty.

World

At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

Published

41 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.

A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.

They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.

Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.

The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.

The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.

All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.

Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

41 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

41 mins ago

November 15, 2024

admin

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.