*Ø* Blogmanac | Hanged Man Cleared of Murder
London (Reuters) - A British man who was hanged for murder had his conviction quashed Tuesday, 53 years too late.

George Kelly was executed in 1950 for the murder of cinema manager Leonard Thomas during a robbery in Liverpool the previous year. Kelly's family claimed vital material was not disclosed to his defense lawyers during the trial. This included a statement to police by a prosecution witness who said another man had confessed to the crime.

Tuesday, three of Britain's top judges ruled Kelly's conviction was "unsafe." Kelly was 27 at the time of his hanging. Britain abolished the death penalty 15 years later in 1965.

Source

Amnesty International against the Death Penalty: click here

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This month, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) plans to introduce the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2003. This legislation, which is a companion bill to Senate legislation introduced by Senator Feingold (D-WI), will put an immediate halt to executions and forbid the imposition of the death penalty as a sentence for violations of federal law.


The USA has increased its rate of executions and the number of crimes punishable by death. Thirty-eight states currently have the death penalty on their statute books. More than 350 people have been executed in the USA since 1990. More than 3,300 others are on death row.

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