As someone born and raised in New Hampshire, a small state in the US, it was surprising that the first time I heard of Renny Cushing, a US politician, was when I began my work on researching the death penalty in Taiwan. Renny was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives as a Democrat from the town of Hampton. First elected in 1996, he served nine non-consecutive terms.
The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) has had a long relationship with Renny and his humanitarian efforts. His own organization, Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MVFHR), was
Maria Wilkinson of Concord is a research intern in Taiwan at Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP). As someone born and raised in New Hampshire, it was surprising that the first time I heard of Renny Cushing was when I began my work on.
The debate over the death penalty, which is always in the background in Taiwan, is occasionally thrust to the fore.
The Chinese-language United Daily News on Feb. 13 published a report headlined “Death penalty convictions and executions reduced to zero last year, a virtual abolition of the death penalty.”
Following the high-profile cases of Tseng Wen-yan (曾文彥) and Chen Po-chien (陳伯謙), whose death sentences were commuted to life in prison, Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said he respected that courts decide on a case-by-case basis.
Regarding the 38 inmates awaiting execution, he said: “There is no deliberate procrastination, we are
Human rights advocates yesterday urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to pardon Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順), the nation’s longest-serving death row inmate.
Representatives from Amnesty International, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) and other rights groups told a press conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that independent investigations have shown that Chiou was tortured and forced to confess to the crimes he was sentenced for.
“No one should be tortured. No one should be tried unfairly. No one should wait 33 years for justice. No one should be sentenced to death, period,” Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said via video
Lin Yu-ju (林于如) pushed her mother down the stairs of her own home, causing head trauma that led to her death.
She poisoned her mother-in-law, first at home, later administering a second deadly dose in hospital via IV drip.
She killed her husband, too, the same way she dispatched her mother-in-law, though this time it took more than one attempt.
That Lin Yu-ju murdered three people is not in dispute.
The fact that two of Lin’s convictions were based largely on confession? That she had long suffered physical abuse at the hands of her husband, with whom she had