North Carolina man exonerated after 17 years
Gregory Taylor was convicted in 1993 of killing a prostitute. A state innocence panel unanimously rules that he didn't. It is the first exoneration by the only such agency in the U.S.

By David Zucchino
February 17, 2010, Los Angels Times
Reporting from Raleigh, N.C.

Seventeen years ago, Gregory Flynt Taylor was a crack cocaine abuser convicted of killing a prostitute during a late-night prowl for drugs.

On Wednesday, Taylor was a free man, the first convicted felon in U.S. history to be exonerated by a state-mandated innocence commission.

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WASHINGTON

Last fall, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it.

There were other important death penalty developments last year: the number of death sentences continued to fall, Ohio switched to a single chemical for lethal injections and New Mexico repealed its death penalty entirely. But not one of them was as significant as the institute’s move, which represents a tectonic shift in legal theory.

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2009-02-14 BBC

The oldest death row inmate in the US has died of natural causes aged 94.

The Arizona Department of Corrections said Viva Leroy Nash died late on Friday at the state prison in Florence.

Nash had a criminal record dating back to the 1930s, and was deaf, mostly blind, mentally ill and had dementia, his lawyer said.

He was sentenced to death in 1983, for shooting a salesman after escaping from jail. But he managed to stave off his execution with a series of appeals.

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Singer slams abolishing death penalty
China Post, Feb 2, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Ministry of Justice will continue the policy of gradually phasing out capital punishment despite the overwhelming popular opposition to the abolition of the death penalty in Taiwan, according to Minister of Justice, Wang Ching-feng.

Minister Wang announced the government policy at a meeting with reporters yesterday.

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Capital punishment to be abolished gradually: Wang
By Shelley Huang, STAFF REPORTER
Taipei Times, Tuesday, Feb 02, 2010, Page 3

Minister of Justice Wang ­Ching-feng (王清峰) said yesterday the ministry would take gradual steps toward abolishing the death penalty, but denied reports saying it would be done by November next year.

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Death penalty abolished only after public consensus: Justice Minister
"A majority of people in Taiwan oppose the policy, but international data shows that the existence of the death penalty and the level of crime in a country were unrelated".

Taiwan News , Staff Writer
2010-02-02

Taiwan will gradually push for the abolition of the death penalty after a consensus is formed, Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng said yesterday.

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 A victory on the road to abolition

 ~ Book review of Staving off the Executioner: Taiwan’s Unofficial Moratorium

 Celia Llopis-Jepsen
 Editor, Taipei Times

  In December 2006, a Taiwanese death row inmate named Chong De-shu came within days, perhaps hours, of being executed. The dramatic series of events that saved his life marked the start of Taiwan’s unofficial moratorium on the death penalty. Today, Taiwan has not carried out any executions since late 2005.

  Staving off the Executioner: Taiwan’s Unofficial Moratorium tells the story — in both English and Chinese — of how Chong’s execution was stopped against all odds by Taiwanese lawyers and NGO workers who barely thought it was possible, but were not willing to give up. It is an inspiration for abolitionists everywhere who may feel they face insurmountable obstacles.

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