The United Nations and rights groups say capital punishment has no proven deterrent effect and have called for it to be discontinued. Singaporean officials, however, insist it has helped make the country one of Asia's safest.

"The capital sentence of death imposed on a 59-year-old Singaporean was carried out on Aug 7," the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement.

The man was convicted of trafficking "not less than 35.85" grams (1.3 ounces) of pure heroin.

Trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin merits the death penalty under Singapore's tough drug laws.

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A group of nearly 50 evangelical leaders are urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to halt the upcoming execution of death row inmate Jeffery Wood.

In a letter signed by 49 evangelicals from Texas and around the country, the Christian leaders said officials have a "moral obligation" to stop the execution, which is scheduled for Aug. 24.

Evangelicals have historically been divided on the death penalty. The National Association of Evangelicals has stood in favor of the death penalty since the 1970s, though it updated its stance in 2015 to acknowledge that the Christian ethic could also undergird opposition to capital punishment.

"Many of us in the evangelical Protestant community are coming to where the Catholics have been for a while: pro-life in terms of whole life, all vulnerable life, whether in the womb or on death row," one of the letters signatories, Joel Hunter, told The Marshall Project, a news outlet focused on criminal justice.

Source

• Crux
• The Huffington Post
• Image: savejeffwood.com

Marco Archer Cardoso Moreira, 53, was executed on January 18 at on Nusakambangan, Indonesia's execution island

Moreira was sentenced to death in 2004 after attempting to smuggle 13.4 kilograms of cocaine into Indonesia.

The only religious ministers available to counsel him immediately before his death were Buddhist, Muslim and Protestant.

A Catholic priest was refused access.

The Protestant minister offered Moreira counselling before the execution, but the prisoner reportedly didn't see him.

On the day before the execution, Oblate Fr Charles Burrows asked a prison official about administering last rites to Moreira.

"I maintained that a Catholic has the right to receive the Penance, Anointing of the Sick and Viaticum Sacraments before he is executed, and this is very important for a Catholic who will leave this world," Fr Burrows told ucanews.com.

The official apologised, but said only the district court could appoint religious counsellors and there were already Buddhist, Muslim and Protestant ones available.

Fr Burrows, who had counselled Moreira in another prison, was not allowed access in what media called an administrative mix-up.

The priest said that he later heard from other prisoners that Moreira wept when he was taken from his cell for execution.

"Marco said, ‘Help me! Help me!' He even defecated in his trousers because he was so scared," Fr Burrows said.

"It was only his aunt who came to accompany him. He was very upset."

Indonesian bishops' conference spokesman Fr Paulus Siswantoko said Moreira experienced a human rights violation in the last moments of his life.

"It's very concerning that the state couldn't provide [religious counselling]," he said.

Saying that the Catholic Church will always fight against the death penalty for anyone and for any reason, he said the state must also protect convicts on death row.

Five other drug smugglers were executed in Indonesia last month.

The executions of several more are planned.

Last week, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff refused to accept the credentials of the Indonesian ambassador to demonstrate her anger at Moreira's execution.

Sources

• UCANews
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: Independent

Scott Panetti was due to be executed just hours before the stay.

"The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops today expressed appreciation to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for granting a stay of execution for death row inmate Scott Panetti", read a bishops' statement.

"The Texas Bishops have long taught about the immorality of the death penalty and were particularly vocal seeking mercy for Panetti, who has been diagnosed by several doctors as suffering from severe mental illness."

The stay, the bishops said, "means Panetti's attorneys will have another opportunity to argue that the death penalty in his case would violate the constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The Texas Catholic Conference will continue to advocate for the commutation of Panetti's sentence into institutionalization."

Panetti was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening, but the fifth circuit appeals court said it needed time "to fully consider the late arriving and complex legal questions at issue in this matter."

In September 1992, Panetti killed his in-laws Joe and Amanda Alvarado in their home in front of his estranged wife and their 3-year-old daughter. He was heavily armed and dressed in camouflage.

He had been hospitalized for mental illness more than a dozen times before the murders, and is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.

Sources:

• CNA
• Image: The Guardian

In the two-page letter, written out in small, neat script, Valle penned his thoughts about his family, his forthcoming death and being at peace with God.

The study by U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Professor Paula M. Mitchell found that state and federal government have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in 1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then, according to a comprehensive analysis of the death penalty's costs, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The report also forecast that the tab for maintaining the death penalty will climb to $9 billion by 2030, when San Quentin's death row will have swollen to well over 1,000.

In their research for "Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature's Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle," Alarcon and Mitchell obtained California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records that were unavailable to others who have sought to calculate a cost-benefit analysis of capital punishment.

Sources

• CathNewsUSA
• Image: LA Times

In an interview with Piers Morgan, he said he believed the terror chief should have been put on trial in the U.S., but Americans were too scared.

"We've lost something of our soul", he said.

As scenes of jubilation at Osama's death were seen across New York, Moore said, "The world is a better place without him. To celebrate someone's death I think goes a step further... it's the way I was raised."

"A lot of people say "what would Jesus do?" I don't think Jesus would go down to Ground Zero like a lot of people did on Saturday night with champagne and pop corks and have a party", Moore said.

"Common sense tells you he was executed," Moore tells the Wrap in a new interview. "That was the plan all along. Just tell us that and quit treating us like children."

"I have a lot of faith in Obama," he adds, "but we've received three different stories in three days. We heard, "There was a firefight." "He used a woman as a shield." Now it turns out none of these things were true. He wasn't armed".

"I'm a Catholic", Moore said, and the position of the Catholic Church and the Pope is that we are 100 percent against the death penalty unless it is in self-defense.

Look at the Nuremberg Trials. We didn't just pop a bullet in the heads of the worst scum in history. We thought it was important to put them on trial and expose their evil. In a democracy we believe in a system of justice and we believe in a judicial system that gives people a day in court...and then we hang them.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams has voiced his reservation about the manner of bin Laden's death.

"I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling, because it doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done. In those circumstances, I think it's also true that the different versions of events that have emerged in recent days have not done a great deal to help."

"I don't know the full details any more than anyone else; but I do believe that, in such circumstances, when we are faced with someone who was manifestly a war criminal in terms of the atrocities inflicted, it is important that justice is seen to be served", Rowan Williams said.

Sources

• The Wrap
• Church Times
• Mail Online