Imprisonment for life without parole

As Thailand moves to abolish the death penalty, there are fears that, following US example, it will replace death by imprisonment for life without parole. The following leads one to doubt the wisdom of imitating US practice:

In the United States, dozens of 13- and 14-year-old children have been sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole after being prosecuted as adults. While the United States Supreme Court recently declared in Roper v. Simmons that death by execution is unconstitutional for juveniles, young children continue to be sentenced to imprisonment until death with very little scrutiny or review. A study by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) has documented 73 cases where children 13 and 14 years of age have been condemned to death in prison. Almost all of these kids currently lack legal representation and in most of these cases the propriety and constitutionality of their extreme sentences have never been reviewed.
Most of the sentences imposed on these children were mandatory: the court could not give any consideration to the child’s age or life history. Some of the children were charged with crimes that do not involve homicide or even injury; many were convicted for offenses where older teenagers or adults were involved and primarily responsible for the crime; nearly two-thirds are children of color.

Death Penalty in Thailand

Current Death penalty Statistics

For all crimes
Sex. Appeal Court. Supreme Court... Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.....432.............170......................74............................676
Female….46..............24.......................13.............................83
Total....478.............194.......................87...........................759


For drug related crimes
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......183..............42......................59.........................284
Female.....55...............1.......................12..........................69
Total.......220..............62......................71........................353



For crimes of homicide and others
Sex....Appeal Court....Supreme Court....Juridical Process Complete....Total
Male.......249..............128......................15.......................356
Female…....9.................4........................1........................14
Total......258..............132......................16.......................406


Source: Department of Corrections, Bangkok, 30th March 2011

In 2010 the total number of those under sentence of death numbered 708. The increase to 759 is consistent with the 53 reported death sentences in the last year.

Execution of three Filipinos on drug charges in China

On Wednesday 30th March 2011, three Filipinos, Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, aged 32; Elizabeth Batain, aged 38, and Ramon Credo, aged 42 were executed by lethal injection in China. They were charged with smuggling heroin weighing 4 to 6 kilos into the country. By Chinese law the smuggling of a quantity exceeding 50 grams is subject to the death penalty.
Pleas for clemency made by the President of the Philippines were rejected by Chinese authorities.
In a statement made by a spokesperson of the Chinese government:
"In China, our judicial authorities handled the case independently and we grant equal treatment to foreign drug traffickers. The involved individuals rights and treatment are ensured and safeguarded according to the law. China has fulfilled its international obligations in the process.”
This is not so. In international law the death penalty may be inflicted only for the most serious crimes which is interpreted as intentional homicide. The UN Human Rights Council has insisted that drug related crimes do not come under the ambit of “most serious crimes”.
China must not deny the experience of most countries in the world, nor the shared moral sense of the majority in rejecting the death penalty

The three executed were drug mules recruited by foreign drug syndicates preying on jobless Filipinos, not professional drug dealers. In one of the cases there is doubt that the carrier was aware of the nature of the carried package. They appear to have been first time offenders.
They carried the drugs through an ineffective surveillance in Manila International Airport, a process which must be investigated.

The three condemned Filipinos were allowed to meet with their families for one hour before execution. One of the three was unaware that the visit was a prelude to her execution, and her family tried to hide from her the significance of their visit.

The drug trade is the largest crime problem in the world and cannot be solved by the death penalty. The Chinese government should study the case of Hong Kong where the death penalty has not been used in 40 years and where the drug problem is no different than in the comparable city of Singapore, which surpasses even China in its rate of execution per population unit (Evidence may be found on an earlier posting on this blog: See Archives; December 2008)

Many other Filipinos are under death sentence in China and elsewhere. The death penalty has been abolished in the Philippines for the last nine years.
13 Thai women are awaiting execution on drug charges in China