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Texas’ highest criminal court this month stayed an impending execution date for Hank Skinner, who is seeking DNA tests on evidence that could prove his innocence.
Thousands of Innocence Project supporters spoke up for Skinner by calling on prosecutors to grant DNA tests. Stay tuned to the Innocence Blog for updates on the case.
And thousands of people in Germany & Europe spoke up for Hank Skinner.
And ….
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Over 50 members of the European Parliament have signed an open letter to the President Obama and U.S. military officials expressing concerns about the treatment of Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking secret government documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
Manning, who has been held in military detention since May 2010, spent eight months in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, monitored incessantly and at times forced to sleep naked. The letter comes on the heel of a pre-trial military hearing scheduled to begin on December 16, which will mark Manning’s first appearance in court.
The Parliamentarians echoed sentiments similar to another open letter to the Obama administration released earlier this year and signed by hundreds of US legal scholars arguing that the conditions of Manning’s confinement amounted to torture. In an attempt to investigate allegations of mistreatment, Juan Méndez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, made repeated requests for access to Manning which US authorities have refused to grant. The MEP’s stressed the need for the US to comply with an investigation.
“In order to uphold the rights guaranteed to Bradley Manning under international human rights law and the US constitution, it is imperative that the United Nations special rapporteur be allowed to properly investigate evidence of rights abuses. PFC Manning has a right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. People accused of crimes must not be subjected to any form of punishment before being brought to trial.”
They also expressed alarm that Manning is being charged with “aiding the enemy”, a capital offense punishable by death.
“We certainly do not understand why an alleged whistleblower is being threatened with the death penalty, or the possibility of life in prison. We also question whether Bradley Manning’s right to due process has been upheld, as he has now spent over 17 months in pre-trial confinement.”
You can read the entire letter here.
Doctors Mistreat California Inmates, Still Collect Large Salaries | AlterNet.
1 COMMENT In 2005, a federal court deemed California’s prison healthcare system so jacked up that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Since then, the feds have operated the state’s prison healthcare system, but it still pays salaries to those doctors who made it cruel and unusually punishing. In some cases, doctors are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though they are suspended from treating inmates due to medical missteps and malpractice. Other doctors collect large salaries though demoted to doing things like carrying mail.
Dr. Allan Yin, whose negligence led to the deaths of two inmates and who almost blinded a third, gets paid $235,000 for being a mail courier. Dr. Radu Mischiu, no longer a psychiatrist due to her negligence, gets paid $268,524 for sorting mail.
As reported by the L.A. Times, over 30 medical professionals are collecting six-figure salaries after being deemed too…
