Death sentence for Jenin man convicted of murder

JENIN (Ma'an) -- A military court in the northern West Bank has sentenced a former member of the Presidential Guard to death by firing squad, after he was convicted of murder.

The defendant, identified by a rights group as Waheed Yaseen, was convicted of premeditated murder and possession of an unlicensed weapon as well as making threats and resisting arrest.

After a seven-month trial, Yaseen was convicted Monday of killing Mahmoud Hassouna of Nablus on March 20, 2011. Hassouna operated a jewelry store and money exchange in Jenin.

Last week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to grant the Palestinian National Council "partner for democracy" status partly on the basis that it would abolish the death penalty.

The PLO's revolutionary penal code of 1979 allows for death sentences, but they can be appealed and are subject to ratification by the president. Mahmoud Abbas has not ratified such sentences.

According to research by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Monday's death sentence is the sixth in 2011, two of which were issued in the West Bank and four in the Gaza Strip.

The 1979 code is unconstitutional when implemented by the Palestinian Authority, as it has not been presented to, nor approved by the legislature, PCHR noted in a statement Tuesday.

The group calls for abolishing the penalty as it violates international standards of fair trial.

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Saudi beheads Indonesian woman convicted of murder

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Death penalty no longer the mandatory sentence for persons convicted of murder

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Iran hangs three men convicted of rape

Iran on Monday hanged in public three men convicted of rape and armed robbery in the eastern city of Zabol, the Fars news agency reported.

The report identified the convicts as Baboddin Barkazai, Mohammad Poudineh and Valioallah Meer without giving further details.

The latest hangings bring to 159 the number of executions reported in Iran so far this year, according to a count based on media and official reports.

Iranian media reported 179 hangings last year. But international human rights groups say the actual number was much higher, ranking the Islamic republic second only to China in the number of people it put to death.

Tehran says the death penalty is essential to maintain law and order, and applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings. Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are among the crimes punishable by death in Iran.

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New DNA test in 1994 Waukegan killing fails to match man convicted of crime, lawyer says

A new DNA test of blood evidence from the 1994 murder of a prominent Waukegan businessman has been found to match someone other than the man who has served 15 years in prison for the crime, his lawyer said Monday.

James L. Edwards, 62, has been incarcerated since 1996, when he was convicted in the bludgeoning death of Fred Reckling, owner of Grand Appliance and TV.

Edwards, then already a convicted murderer, has argued that he was coerced into a confession after a 26-hour interrogation.

"We have been advised that there is a potential (DNA) hit, and it is not my client," said Edward's attorney, Paul DeLuca.

Officials will now try to get a fresh sample of the person's DNA to verify the match, he said. The person's identity has not been disclosed.

Reckling, 71, was attacked while closing his store on Dec. 8, 1994. Employees found him the next day in a pool of blood, according to news reports. His car had been stolen.

Blood evidence from the car and crime scene did not match Edwards or Reckling, court documents show. At the time, prosecutors downplayed the blood's significance and said it could have come from others who had used the car, according to court transcripts.

Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller, who personally prosecuted the case, declined to comment Monday.

He sought the death penalty during the trial, but the jury opted instead for a life sentence without parole.

Edwards had come to light as a suspect when he was picked up for questioning in a separate Waukegan armed robbery In January 1996. Detectives said he then confessed to a slew of other crimes, including Reckling's murder and the shooting death of a woman in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

After his Lake County trial, Edwards was convicted of the Ohio crime in 1997 and got another life sentence for that murder.

Defense attorneys in the Ohio case were challenged by an eloquent but uncooperative client prone to filing his own motions, said Vicki Ward, his former lawyer. He "prided himself on his legal prowess," and he ignored lawyers' advice to take a plea deal rather than risk going to trial, Ward said.

Edwards had already served 14 years in prison for the beating death of Cora Young, 83, of Chicago, according to news reports. He was released from prison in 1991.

After his conviction for Reckling's murder, Lake County officials initially denied Edwards' early attempts to have the DNA checked for potential matches. Prosecutor Michael Mermel argued before a Lake County judge in 2007 that the testing "is not going to exculpate the defendant."

Judge John Phillips agreed, denying Edwards' request. Edwards, who had represented himself in court, appealed his case. The Illinois Supreme Court issued a supervisory order on June 30, 2010, that directed Lake County's Circuit Court to test the DNA.

DNA evidence has derailed other Lake County cases in which a defendant was allegedly coerced into confessing a crime he did not commit.http://shop.ebay.co.uk/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=dvd+with+media+on+it&_sacat=See-All-Categories

The most notable example is the case of Jerry Hobbs, who spent five years in jail awaiting trial on charges he stabbed his 8-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old friend to death in 2005. Though prosecutors have known since at least 2008 that semen found in his daughter's body didn't match him, they insisted that didn't rule him out as the killer. But last year, the DNA was found to match another man, and prosecutors dropped the charges against Hobbs, releasing him in August.

Just last month, the man who allegedly matches the evidence, former Marine Jorge Torrez, was charged with a murder that occurred four years after the Zion case. Torrez pleaded not guilty Friday to murdering Naval Petty Officer Amanda J. Snell, 20, in her Washington-area barracks in 2009.

Lisa Black and Dan Hinkel are Tribune reporters; Ruth Fuller is a freelance reporter.

lblack@tribune.com

dhinkel@tribune.com

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Weekly Diaspora: Justice for Brisenia as Minutemen leader convicted of murders

Days after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Attorney General Tom Horne filed suit against the federal government for allegedly failing to protect the state from a Mexican "invasion," the high-profile murder conviction of a Minutemen border vigilante underscores the state's misguided border priorities.

Earlier this week, a jury found Shawna Forde -- leader of the Minutemen American Defense (MAD) -- guilty of murdering 8-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father, Raul Flores, Jr. during a racially motivated home invasion in 2009. Forde faces the death penalty for orchestrating the robbery and murders.

ColorLines' Julianne Hing reports that Forde had planned a number of elaborate home invasions to raise funds for her border patrol activities -- targeting individuals whom she (erroneously) believed to be drug dealers. Though no drugs were found in the Flores home, Forde -- who, incidentally, has close ties to both the Tea Party and the conservative think-tank Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- nevertheless justified Brisenia's murder on the grounds that "people shouldn't deal drugs if they have kids." After watching Forde's accomplices shoot her mother and kill her father, Brisenia was shot twice in the face.

While Latino advocacy groups have characterized the Flores murders as hate crimes provoked -- at least in part -- by state leaders' incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric, many regard Forde's conviction as one of many indicators that the tables are turning on anti-immigrant politicos like Brewer who have curried political support through fear-mongering and misinformation.

Less tolerance for border vigilantes

As Valeria Fernandez reports at New America Media, the verdict comes just weeks after another Arizona court upheld a decision against rancher Roger Barnett who, in an act of unwarranted border vigilantism, assaulted a group of migrants traveling across his property. Barnett was fined $80,000. While the Forde and Barnett cases are only two incidents of a nationwide rash of anti-Latino crime, their convictions are particularly significant in Arizona, where state leaders have long tolerated and even encouraged border vigilantism as a necessary response to purported border-related violence.

A year ago, state politicians -- including Brewer -- fomented a national anti-immigrant mania (which handily ushered in SB 1070) by promoting false reports of border violence. As Valeria Fernandez reported at Feet in 2 Worlds last March, lawmakers were quick to attribute the shooting of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz to an unidentified, undocumented Mexican immigrant -- though the sheriff in charge of the case later told the press that the prime suspect was not actually Mexican.

Brewer, for her part, gained national notoriety after fabricating tales of beheadings in the Arizona desert -- which, as I wrote for Campus Progress at the time -- generated support for her anti-immigrant political agenda while diverting public attention away from the reality that  most of Arizona's border violence is directed at immigrants, rather than perpetrated by them.

Arizona's countersuit against the federal government

Brewer's recent countersuit against the federal government -- which alleges that Arizona is under invasion from the south and that the feds have failed to protect the state accordingly -- similarly conjures nativist fantasies of immigrant-fueled border violence. But, as Scott Lemieux posits at TAPPED, the suit idly and transparently villainizes immigrants:

It is (to put it mildly) a stretch to argue that Arizona is undergoing an "invasion." Illegal immigration does not constitute a military threat or an attempt to overthrow the state government; anti-immigration metaphors are not a sound basis for constitutional interpretation.

Like those propagated by state lawmakers during Arizona's nativist heyday last spring, this new offensive belies the reality that, while anti-Latino hate crimes have risen by 52 per cent nationally in recent years, border crime has been on the decline for quite some time -- a fact noted by Alternet's Julianne Escobedo Shepherd in her coverage of the countersuit.

Yet, in an effort to further their extreme, anti-immigrant agenda, Arizona's nativist lawmakers determinedly maintain the myth that Latin American immigration somehow generates a groundswell of violent crime -- even when doing so requires the hasty revision of a rancher's death, and the callous disregard of an innocent child's murder.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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