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Category: incarceration

Getting to Grips with Guantánamo I: Rendition to the Caribbean

Published 2 June 2016 by hcornell

KMSThis post is by Kasey McCall-Smith: a lecturer in Public International Law and programme director for the LLM in Human Rights at Edinburgh Law School.

This post is the first in a series of blogs that chronicle the history and current state of play regarding the US rendition and detention programme in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. They were written during the author’s visit to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to observe military commission proceedings in the case of USA v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et. al.  30 May – 3 June 2016, which is the initial phase of her project Getting to Grips with Guantánamo.

Following the attacks against the US on 9/11, then-President Bush declared open-season on all individuals with any established link to al Qaeda. In furtherance of the Bush declaration, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) commenced what would eventually prove to be the most egregious and calculated rendition and detention campaign in modern, post-WWII history. A campaign defined by blatant breaches of both US and international law. To this day, it serves as a black mark on America’s international image, and the resulting impact of the decisions taken by the Bush Administration in the early days of 2001 continue to resonate today.

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Mental Health and Justice: the Execution of Scott Panetti

Published 2 December 2014 by hcornell

HC Profile PicThis post by Dr Harriet Cornell, Development Officer for the Global Justice Academy, examines the relationship between mental illness and justice in light of the planned execution of Scott Panetti in Texas on Wednesday, 3 December 2014.

A Public Policy Polling national survey was published yesterday, 1 December 2014, showing that Americans oppose the death penalty for mentally ill defendants by a 2-1 margin. The Death Penalty Information Center reported that ‘opposition to the execution of people with mental illness was strong across lines of race, gender, geographic region, political affiliation, and education. Democrats (62%), Republicans (59%) and Independents (51%) all opposed the practice’. Tomorrow, 3 December 2014, the state of Texas plans to execute Scott Louis Panetti for the 1992 murders of his parents-in-law, Joe and Amanda Alvarado. With a long, documented history of severe mental illness, Scott Panetti’s case has garnered international news coverage and a notable spectrum of support for clemency.

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We kill people to tell people that killing people is wrong?

Published 30 April 2014 by hcornell

Harriet Cornell is the Development Officer for the Global Justice Academy. In this guest post, she reports on the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, and the state of the death penalty in the United States.

Ohio drugs protocol
In 2005, this memo was posted next to the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio. Credit: AP File Photo

The state of Oklahoma executed Clayton Lockett at 6pm local time on Tuesday 29 April 2014. Or, according to widespread news reports and a statement from Robert Patton (Director of Oklahoma Department of Corrections), the state attempted to execute Lockett but failed, and he died 43 minutes later from a massive heart attack. Charles Warner was due to follow Lockett to the gurney at 8pm, but has been granted a 14-day stay by Governor Mary Fallin, pending an investigation into what happened in that execution chamber.

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