On February 9, Robert Badinter died, the man who, as Keeper of the Seals and Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand, put an end to the death penalty in France on October 9, 1981, four years after the last capital execution, that of Hamida Djandoubi, guillotined in Marseille on September 10, 1977 for having raped, tortured and killed his ex-partner.
On the other side of the Atlantic, it was in 1977 that executions resumed in the United States after a ten-year moratorium. “Slowly” between 1980 and 1989 (117 executions), then in a much more frequent manner between 1990 and 2009 (518 executions for the decade 1990-1999 and 598 for the following decade).
Since the beginning of the 2010s, there has been a clear slowdown. 324 applications until 2019 and 71 since 2020.
The octogenarian found dead in Hannut was from Beauvechain: “He died while he was under their responsibility”
A total of 1,587 death row inmates have been executed in the United States since 1977 in the 26 states that apply capital punishment, with Texas holding the absolute record with a third of them.
On the other side of the Atlantic, on death row, there are not only men. Dozens of women also await their fate. At the time of filming of the documentary offered this Monday, May 20 on LN24, there were 54 for 3,200 men! Three of them were allowed to testify in this powerful film, including Linda Carty and Melissa Lucio imprisoned in Texas. The first is accused of having kidnapped and killed her neighbor to steal her baby. The second allegedly mistreated and killed her two-year-old daughter.
USA: execution by electric chair planned in Tennessee
Detained in Arizona, Shawna Forde, head of an anti-immigration militia, was found guilty, with her accomplices, of having murdered a father and his daughter, Mexicans.
They give themselves up without concession, whether they are guilty or victims of judicial errors. Their conditions of detention are the same as male convicts: in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, without any physical contact with the outside world (prohibition in addition to receiving visits from minor children) and under video surveillance night and day.
There is also the story of Michele Byron, convicted of the murder of her husband who after 14 years on death row was released. Hours before his execution, the Supreme Court recognized that his trial had been a travesty, the prosecutor having failed to inform the jury that his son had just confessed to the murder.
Michele Byron is free but she has never been compensated and lives in great destitution…
