Is Texas About To Execute Another Innocent Man?

One thing's for sure: no one seems all that interested in finding out.

Some important points to consider:

Skinner has been on Death Row in Texas since 1993, awaiting execution for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons. He has maintained his innocence since his arrest, and investigators from the Northwestern University Journalism School’s Medill Innocence Project have shot numerous holes in the prosecution’s case. But Texas officials refuse to conduct a simple DNA test that could point to the condemned man’s innocence or cement his guilt.

Why not test the DNA?

Well, you might find out something that would prevent the execution ... and what fun would that be?!

Full article here (HT: Brendan Nyhan).

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Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill Raises Health, Human Rights Questions

This morning a gay Ugandan activist Julius Kaggwa offered (via Huffington Post) his account of what it means to be LGBT in his country:

"In an attempt to determine the cause of my sexual variance, a dentist once asked me if there were witches in my family. In addition to my dentist's unwelcome inquiries, I've had my house set on fire, had several demands for invasive body searches as a prerequisite for job interviews and church membership, and lost a job due to slanderous media coverage about my sexuality."

Homosexuality is already punishable in Uganda with up to 14 years of prison, but if a new controversial bill becomes law, HIV-positive gay men could receive death penalty for a capital crime of "aggravated homosexuality." The bill, introduced last October, would also legalize jailing of those who are aware of homosexual activity, but don't report it. As more gay men start choosing to hide under the masks of heterosexuality and marry/date women while having sex with men, AIDS and HIV-prevention groups fear the bill would impede their efforts even more than the current oppression of gay Ugandans already does. To make matters worse, the U.S. and U.N. AIDS and HIV programs don't offer any buffer to special projects aimed at helping the gay community.

These complications are addressed in depth in this Time article, which also points out that the idea of this bill effectively originated with American evangelical missionaries, including the infamous California Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren. As it commonly does, the human rights issue is becoming intricately interlaced with religious overtones. Warren has since asserted that the right of free choice is God-given, but immediately distanced himself, his Church and effectively religion from the issue by proclaiming the problem political.

In her latest column in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker spotlights how supportive the U.S. has appeared of Uganda's gay rights activists officially and in theory -- but how distanced and even destructive it has been de facto. As the U.S. LGBT community fights for its civil rights here, how could one bridge a gap between their efforts and those of gay rights activists in Uganda, who find themselves standing up for such a fundamental human right as the right to life? Is there one even? And if even the Ugandan president claims to not be able to influence the outcome of the vote on the bill, whose responsibility is it to protect human rights of gay Ugandans? Are human rights even at stake here--who can and can't decide what qualifies as a capital crime?

Iran Defends Human Rights Record Before U.N. Council

This article talks about recent human rights conversations between Iran and the United Nations. The article is an interesting example of the world popularity surrounding human rights. Representatives from Iran make the claim that the situation of human rights has been consistently used as a tool to apply pressure against them by some Western governments. While the UN states that human rights violations are indeed still happening in Iran, the Iranian representatives bring up an interesting point. Fighting for human rights has given Western government’s great legitimacy within their own nation, to enter other nations. In this specific situation, it is made clear by multiple professionals that Iran is indeed violating and needs to be stopped but the battle between nations to secure human rights seems ongoing and rather subjective. There is clear a disadvantage to any nation that outwardly violates human rights and the pressure put on them by other nations can me strong. Because human rights atrocities are currently popular global issues, Western governments can make human rights violation claims to their public and gain momentum to enter the nation that is violating the rights. Again, this concept is very subjective and may not be the case with Iran, but it is interesting that Iran argued this point.

Women's Work - Veteran Frustration at Being Barred From Combat

In this opinion piece, Iraq veteran Catherine Ross describes her frustration at being barred from combat based on her sex. It features a link to a very interesting video about women in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) who are allowed into combat. Recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been proving that women are able to handle themselves in combat capacities since the front line has become less traditional and has moved to locations where women are allowed to serve. Ross describes the effort that women in the U.S. military must put forward just to prove themselves. Part of this could be due to the tiny percentage of military personnel that are women. Ross explains that women are only 14% of the Army, and in the Marine Corps they make up 4-5%. The Marine recruiting website explains that "with the exception of engaging in offensive combat, women in the Marine Corps have exactly the same opportunities for advancement and growth as male Marines" (http://parents.marines.com/page/Achievement-WomenCorps.jsp). One has to ask though how these opportunities can be the same when so much of advancement and promotion, especially at the higher ranks, is dependent on combat experience. Also, what does it mean to be in the military but not be allowed to fight...can women really be considered to be in the military in the same way that men are considered to be in the military? This issue is very important when considering the access of half the population to military service. As an access issue, it has been argued to violate women's human rights. Of course, the interesting question is whether increasing access to an institution which, some argue, violates many human rights can itself be a human rights question or if increasing such access is even desirable. Given that aside, I think that talking about it is still important. Looking at women in the military gives good indications of what we really believe as a society about women and men regardless of all of our politically correct speech. Reasons given for keeping women from combat are based on the same sorts of assumptions about women that Wollstonecraft began to question hundreds of years ago.

I would love to know what others think about this article, my comments, and the IDF video, so feel free to comment below.

Air Travel, Human Rights, Twitter Access, and Weight

The recent removal of Kevin Smith (of Clerks fame) from a Southwest Airlines flight for being too overweight to fit in the seat brings out many questions that can be considered in this course. The most apparent is part of a debate about access to air travel, weight, and what is fair in these sorts of cases given the tiny seats aboard airplanes. More interesting perhaps given the use of Twitter in this course could be the response Smith was able to elicit from Southwest Airlines after complaining via his Twitter account. The link for this post connects to a story that questions whether an average Southwest customer experiencing the same situation would get such a rapid response, if any. Intuitively, we suspect that an average customer would not. Included in this though are certain assumptions about access and the difference resources make. We all have access to Twitter, in much the same way that we all have access to voting (as long as you can get to a voting center or an absentee ballot you can vote, and as long as you get to a computer or cell phone you can tweet), but this does not mean that our tweets have the same influence, reach, or effects. Recourse in a weight case is interesting to consider as well, since it seems still a sensitive topic but one which people feel passionately about. The complaint is either that seats are too small for many Americans to begin with, or the complaint is that one pays a good amount of money for the seat if the person next to oneself is larger, then they get to take up the space they paid for as well as some of your own. It provides a way for us to consider what one is due based on payment for services, what one can expect logistically from minimal space, and what is yours based on payment (i.e., the expectation of a certain amount of space in a plane contrasted with the a plethora of body sizes). 

Six Trafficking Victims Rescued from the Philippines

About a month ago, the International Justice Mission rescued six sex trafficking victims from a village in the Philippines. The International Justice Mission is a human rights agency which investigates international cases of abuse and violent forms of oppression such as sexual exploitation and slavery, working with the local government to provide relief for the victims, bring justice to the perpetrators, and work with the community to help reduce the occurrence of violent crimes in the future. They currently have 14 field offices located all over the world in countries such as Bolivia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia, actively seeking to uphold and protect people’s basic human rights by personally bringing to an end gross violations of those rights. One of their more recent cases involved a city in the Philippines and a disco bar which was found to be a front for prostitution. A family of a young girl contacted the IJM staff, pleading with them to investigate their case and rescue their daughter who had been entrapped by sex traffickers while under the assumption she was to work in a canteen in Laoag City in the Philippines. IJM investigated the case and was able to rescue the family’s daughter along with five other sex trafficking victims from the bar, while also arresting three of the bar’s employees for their involvement in the crime.

This story can be found on the International Justice Mission website: http://www.ijm.org/newsfromthefield/sixtraffickingvictimsrescuedinphilippinesoperation

If you are at all interested in this organization, I urge you to look through the rest of their website. There are many other stories regarding their work, both past and present, and they provide a much better overview of their organization, their purpose, and their work on their website.

Louisiana Sues Its Own Death Row Inmates

"I’ve been hanging around death penalty cases for 25 years ... and I have never seen anything like this."

Apparently, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is suing all eighty-four inmates on their death row in an effort to prevent them from challenging the state's lethal injection procedures.

Here's how this works:

The Corrections Department’s litigation is a countersuit, filed in response to an earlier lawsuit claiming that Louisiana’s lethal injection procedure is in violation of state law. That suit was filed by the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana (CPCPL) on behalf of death row prisoner Nathaniel Code. It stated that Louisiana had not met the requirements of its own Administrative Procedures Act in creating guidelines for execution by lethal injection. The state procedure ought to specify exactly what drugs should be used to kill prisoners, the CPCPL argued, rather than simply calling for the administration of drugs.

 [...]

Immediately after the ruling in Code’s suit, the Corrections Department filed its countersuit against all death row inmates. The department’s attorney, Wade Shows, told the Baton Rouge Advocate that Louisiana was asking the court “to formally declare—‘once and for all’—that the state’s lethal injection protocol is not subject to the Louisiana Administrative Procedure Act.” Such a ruling, Shows said, “‘means you don’t have to go through the rule-making process….It’s sort of an internal management decision.’”

Full blog post -- with links to newspaper treatments of the story -- here (HT: W. Thomas Webb).

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