Due to reports of the torture and anguish of prisoners and the secrecy surrounding the death penalty’s application in China, it is virtually impossible to independently verify that any executed prisoners truly gave consent for the use of their organs.[100]

Chinese prisoners are generally not notified of their impending execution until just hours before it occurs.[101] As a result, donor consent is rarely obtained in spite of it being a lawful requirement. [102]The family members of the condemned prisoners are also rarely informed of the execution.[103]

Even when the family members are notified of the execution, they are rarely informed of the prearranged plans for organ extraction. [104] In the rare instances where the family members are notified, they are offered money in advance to authorize the use of the prisoner’s organs. [105] If the family refuses the payment, it is then common for the government to provide the family with a large bill following the execution to recoup losses ranging from food and lodging for the prisoner to the cost of the bullet used to perform the execution.[106]

One death row prisoner was witnessed lying on the floor in solitary confinement with all of his limbs stretched out and shackled to the ground by his wrists, ankles, and even his neck. [107] He was fed one meal a day.[108]  Only after he “consented” to donating his organs was he unshackled from the ground. [109] However, he was still in leg irons and handcuffs.[110]

It has also been reported that prisoners who are healthy and have useful organs are often pushed to the front of the waiting lists for executions.[111] In essence, once a prisoner has been deemed fit for an organ transplant, the prisoner becomes nothing more than a warm object sheltering an organ for some other waiting and paying person.[112]

Chinese ideology

The underlying ideological principles of China’s social and political culture justify the use of organs from executed prisoners. [113]Society as a whole is deemed more important than individual rights. [114] Because of the organ deficit for transplantation and the demand from high-paying foreigners, China justifies the use of these prisoners’ organs for the overall good of the country. [115] The Chinese government considers the use of death row prisoners for organ transplants charity.[116]

The criminals are considered bad people deserving of their death sentence. [117] In producing the death, the prisoners create waste that can be used to help others continue their lives, hence charity. [118] Even hospital and prison employees deem the system of retrieving organs without consent just a way to pay back the state for the expense of the prisoners’ care while incarcerated.[119] Continue Reading In Depth Look at the Law: China Death Vans and Harvesting Prisoner Organs for Profit

Tomorrow, our series on the China Death Penalty Vans continues.  This horror is happening right now, and it’s amazing how this story is not being covered by the media.  No one knows about this!!! 

Searching this week for news stories on China’s growing industry in human organs with death penalty vans driving the villages for product, this piece appeared which gives gory details and even includes a photo of a condemned man entering one of the Death Vans. 

Problem is, the newstory comes from Tibet.  That’s right, little Tibet.  Not Japan, or the US, Canada, Australia, England, France, Italy, New Zealand, Germany, India, … you get the idea.

Entitled “China’s hi-tech ‘death van’ where criminals are executed and then their organs are sold on black market,” and published by TibetCustom, this article gives some very good information including:

1.  China isn’t the first to think of Death Vans.  Nope.  The NAZIS were using them back in WWII, killing people in sealed trucks with carbon dioxide they piped in from the exhaust (and yes, TibetCustom provides a photo of a Nazi Death Van).

2. The China Death Vans are designed and manufactured by Jinguan Auto, a Chinese auto maker.  Jinguan Auto charges the Chinese government £60,000 for each vehicle.  They can go as fast as 80mph and they are intentionally designed to look like an ordinary police vehicle out on the roads. 

3.  The vans are supposed to have video cameras inside, so that each execution is videotaped.  Purportedly, this is to make sure that the death isn’t cruel or inhumane.  Yeah, sure.

4.  Undercover investigations are showing that not only the government, but the police and the doctors are making lots of money from these Death Vans.

5.   “Organ Tourism” is a booming business in the Chinese border cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.  Weathy people from all over the world come to China, where they can get a kidney transplant for as little as $10,000.00.   (According to the University of Maryland, in 2009 the cost of a kidney transplant (with the follow up med care for the first year after the surgery) was close to $100,000.00 here in the U.S. )

Granted, the end of the O.J. Simpson murder trial saw Detective Mark Fuhrman with a very spotted reputation. However, in the many years since that Trial of the Century, Fuhrman has worked hard to build a career, and a reputation, based upon solid facts and hard work. The Martha Moxley case comes to mind as one of his turning points.  His courageous book exposing the corruption of death penalty prosecutions in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma is well done, and well worth your time.

Today, many people respect what Mark Fuhrman has to say about crime — and perhaps that will be to the benefit of everyone when his new book is released next month.

Entitled The Murder Business: High Profile Crimes and The Corruption of Justice, Fuhrman reviews several big criminal cases and how the media crosses the line from reporting the news to building an audience through spin and entertainment.  

He’s talking about trial by media in the following cases, whose names you will recognize: Caylee Anthony, Drew Peterson, Melinda Duckett, Martha Moxley, Scott Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Vince Foster, and O.J. Simpson.

With a little tip of the hat to the irony of the media’s coverage of Mark Fuhrman turning him into the household name that may help sell this book, it’s still important to get as many people out there hearing this message as possible .

Trial by media is wrong.   I’m opposed to it and I’ve jumped on my own soapbox about it.  While freedom of the press must be protected, when it turns into a vehicle of entertainment and puffery just to boost advertising dollars, then a line needs to be drawn.  For the sake of justice — something that a trial by media perverts, twists, and all too often, destroys. 

I look forward to reading Mark Fuhrman’s new book when it hits the book stores on November 16th, and I hope you’ll take a look at it too.

Organ harvesting is a government business in China. [77]

At least ninety percent of all organ transplants performed in China come from executed prisoners. [78] Only the government has the power to carry out these executions, and therefore, only the government can control the organ trade.[79]

Without the death penalty in China, the entire system of organ harvesting would be nonexistent. [80] Recently in 2006, both the Vice-Minister of Health in China and senior transplantation specialists finally admitted that the vast majority of organs used for transplants were harvested from executed prisoners.[81]

Different people in the government play an integral role in the organ transplant process.[82]

The judges and other court officials speed up the process from appeals to death sentence, which ensures that prisoners are available for the optimum time to extract organs for waiting patients. [83] Court officials inform doctors when death sentences are handed down, so they can contact the prisons to make matches for waiting patients. [84] Prison guards and other officials allow hospital staff into the wards to test prisoners to determine appropriate donors for waiting transplant patients.[85]

Many times, prisoners are subjected to a large variety of medical screening tests prior to execution to determine the compatibility of their organs for transplantation. [86] In these instances, medical personnel are strictly forbidden from revealing the purpose of these screenings.[87]

The prison guards also set the execution dates and ensure that family members are unaware of the execution until after-the-fact. [88] The guards also allow the doctors to perform the organ extractions immediately after execution directly at the execution site. [89] In fact, medical personnel are routinely informed of the date, time, and location of executions in advance, so they are prepared for the immediate extraction of organs for transplantation.[90]

Deliberately Botched Execution and Harvesting Organs From the Living

There have also been credible reports of deliberately botched executions to postpone brainstem death to aid in the retrieving of the organs while the blood is still circulating through the body.  [91] It has been reported that organs such as kidneys are removed the night before the scheduled execution. [92] Continue Reading In Depth Look at the Law: Death Penalty Organ Harvesting is a Government Business in China

Justice Raoul Cantero III knows his stuff: he’s served as a justice on the Florida Supreme Court. So does Mark Schlakman, who has been a senior program director at the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University. When these two team up to write an opinion piece, you betcha I’m gonna read it — and hopefully a lot of other people will, too.

Cantero and Schlakman are Blunt: the Current Florida Death Penalty System is “FRAUGHT WITH PROBLEMS”

Essentially, these two experts in the field have taken the American Bar Association report that analyzed the state of Florida’s death penalty system as it stood three years ago, and they’ve compared it to the realities of the system today.  It wasn’t a namby-pamby report:  the ABA put together a team of the highest quality experts in the field, and financed their TWO YEAR study of the Florida system.  Surely some of what they recommended (and their recommendations had to be unanimous to be included) would be respected and implemented, right?  Nope.

Florida fails in the comparison. 

According to their op-ed piece, Cantero and Schlakman discovered that neither the Florida Bar Association nor the State of Florida have done much of anything in response to the ABA’s report.  Nada, really.  Meanwhile, since 1973, they note that Florida has exonerated more Death Row inmates than any other state.

 The op-ed itself is R. Cantero & M. Schlakman, “State’s death penalty system still ‘fraught with problems,'” Florida Times-Union, Sept. 25, 2009 (op-ed), 

Here are some highlights: 

“Among the report’s findings was that legal representation of death penalty defendants in postconviction proceedings is often abysmal.”

“…called upon the Legislature to revisit the death penalty statute.”

“The report also expresses concern about socioeconomic and geographic bias. Prosecutors from one circuit might opt for the death penalty while prosecutors from another might opt for life without parole.”

“Circuit judges, who preside over capital cases, while nonpartisan and subject to the judicial canons, are not completely immune from such dynamics, since they also face the voters periodically.”

Please read this opinion piece and share it with others.  It’s important. 

The Death Penalty Information Center is providing details on their website regarding a new online tool for those interested in the death penalty.  Created by OpposingViews.com, an entire database of information on Death Row inmates in this country has been provided for our free use. 

What’s encouraging about this particular project is that this new database can be edited, so if you have details about any of the inmates, you can add it to the site, correct errors, etc.   You can search the list via name, state, birthdate, and other criteria.  Today, a quick search of all Death Row inmates in the State of Florida turned up 8 pages of results.

This is third part of our new Friday Legal Memo Series – In Depth Look at the Law, where we’re focusing on an international horror that is not getting enough attention. In China, people are being executed inside mobile death vans, vehicles that drive from village to village. First, the victim is killed inside the van. Thereafter, his organs are taken from him almost immediately so they can be sold for a profit. All this, while grieving loved ones may well be just outside the vehicle. This is real. Take notice. Spread the word.

Practitioners of Falen Gong have been targeted for execution and organ harvesting by China. Why?

Falun Gong was founded in 1992 by Li Honghzi in northeastern China. [46] Falun Gong followers practice meditative, slow-motion exercises and adhere to the movement’s guiding principles of truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance taken from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.[47]

The Chinese government touts protection of certain religious activities, which include Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. [48]However, all other religious groups, sects, and denominations are illegal and subject to suppression by the Chinese government.[49]

In April 1999, over ten thousand Falun Gong members gathered in Tiananmen Square to peacefully protest the persecution of their practices.[50]

On April 25, 1999, fifteen thousand members of Falun Gong gathered outside of the government’s central headquarters in Beijing and demanded official recognition.[51] Following the April 1999 protests, the Chinese government began a campaign to eradicate the Falun Gong. [52]Leaders of the movement were detained, the organization was outlawed, and a massive media campaign was launched aimed at discrediting the organization.[53]

On July 22, 1999, the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs decreed the Falun Gong an illegal organization.[54]

Following the outlaw of Falun Gong, the international news media and academic groups began producing and disseminating documentation of the group’s rapid dismantling. [55] In October 2000, the Chinese government increased efforts to destroy the Falun Gong by pronouncing the group as a “reactionary and hostile” organization.[56]

As a result, detention and re-education efforts were increased. [57] The Chinese government undertook a three-pronged approach to quash the Falun Gong movement: 1) re-education of members; 2) violent treatment of members; and 3) distribution of anti-Falun Gong propaganda.[58]

Eight hundred thirty thousand Falun Gong followers had been arrested by the conclusion of April 2001. [59] However, it was reported in April 2006 that each year, more than twice as many Chinese nationals join Falun Gong than the Communist Party, much to the Chinese government’s fear and dismay.[60]

In 2001, the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, stated, “Religion must never be allowed when it opposes the direction of the Party of the socialist system, or destroys national reunification or ethnic identity.” [61]

In late 2001, China declared the use of the Internet to organize or coordinate the activities of “evil cults” a criminal offense. [62] In the years following, thousands of Falun Gong followers were detained and charged with violating the anti-cult laws.[63]

President Jiang Zemin actually created the 6-10 office, a special branch of the Chinese government designed specifically to eliminate the Falun Gong movement. [64] The 6-10 office sent thousands of Falun Gong practitioners to prisons and labor camps.[65]

Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to torture, capricious detention, and re-education to include confinement, forced labor, and psychological treatments. [66] One research group identified over three thousand Falun Gong practitioners who have lost their lives as a result of persecution by the Chinese government.[67]

Organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners may have begun a decade ago

Researchers linked the large surge in organ transplants performed in China to the persecution and imprisonment of Falun Gong members in 1999. [68] In many prisons and labor camps, Falun Gong practitioners have been singled out from non-practitioners for blood tests and organ examinations.[69]

Although those practitioners were given medical screenings, presumably to determine compatibility for organ transplants, many diagnosed with illnesses were not provided with any medical treatments.[70]

One study found that Falun Gong practitioners who die in captivity would officially be categorized as suicide by the Chinese government, and their bodies would be immediately cremated. [71] Furthermore, it has been reported that a large number of these deaths were carried out specifically to gather organs for transplants.[72]

Many family members of executed Falun Gong practitioners have reported seeing corpses with surgical incisions and missing body parts. [73] Moreover, the government gave no explanation as to why the corpses were mutilated.[74]

Many Falun Gong practitioners whose organs were harvested following their execution were never identified by their families because these practitioners refused to identify themselves to the authorities when they were captured. [75]Therefore, it is easy to conclude that these unidentified practitioners were the easiest and safest targets for clandestine organ harvesting.

These findings parallel international human rights groups that have widely reported that executions in China are often performed in conjunction with specific transplant requirements, i.e., shooting a prisoner in the head when kidneys are needed or shooting a prisoner in the chest when corneas are needed.[76]

[46]Christopher Chaney, The Despotic State Department in Refugee Law: Creating Legal Fictions to Support Falun Gong Asylum Claims, 6 (No. 1) Asian-Pac. L. & Pol’y J. 130, 142 (Winter 2005).

[47]Leavy, supra note 50, at 756-57.

[48] 48Id. at 757-59.

[49]Chaney, supra note 51, at 142.

[50]Id. at 131.

[51] Leavy, supra note 50, at 761.

[52] Id.

[53]Matas & Kilgour, supra note 46, at 9.

[54]Id. at 10.

[55]Joseph Watson & Alex Jones, Falun Gong Demonstrator Speaks Out on Chinese Government’s Ghoulish Organ Harvesting, Prison Planet.com, Apr. 25, 2006, ¶¶ 13-14, http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2006/250406speaksout.htm (last visited July 29, 2008).

[56] Edelman & Richardson, supra note 48, at 254.

[57]Id.

[58]Id.

[59]Matas & Kilgour, supra note 46, at 10.

[60]Id. at 11.

[61]Leavy, supra note 50, at 756.

[62]David Matas & David Kilgour, Bloody Harvest Revised Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China, OrganHarvestInvestigation.Net, Jan. 31, 2007, at 34 [hereinafter Bloody], available at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/report0701/report20070131-eng.pdf (last visited July 29, 2008). Matas and Kilgour continued their research after publishing their first report and published this updated report with additional findings.

[63] Kirk C. Allison, Ph.D., M.S., Assoc. Dir., Univ. of Minn., Program in Human Rights and Health, Address at the University of Hawaii at Manoa: Transplantation and Human Rights in China, slide 89 (Oct. 29, 2007), available at http://organharvestinvestigation.net/events/Kirk_Allison_102907.pdf (last visited July 29, 2008).

[64]Bloody, supra note 67, at 38.

[65]Allison, supra note 68, slide 70.

[66] Matas & Kilgour, supra note 46, at 9.

[67]Fear of Torture or Ill-Treatment/Prisoner of Conscience, Amnesty Int’l (ASA 17/049/2006), Aug. 29, 2006, at 1, available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/049/2006/en/dom-ASA170492006en.pdf (last visited July 29, 2008).

[68]Bloody, supra note 67, at 45.

[69]Id.

[70]Id. at 35.

[71]Hemphill, supra note 29, at 439-40.

Next Friday: Prisoners as another source for China’s organ harvesting business

Today, the news media is reporting that defense counsel for Casey Anthony (Prof. Andrea Lyon, Jose Baez) have filed a motion with the court challenging the State of Florida’s decision to seek the death penalty. 

I am proactiving providing my response to the questions that I have received already and assumedly will continue to receive regarding this issue. 

First, I am not acting as counsel for Ms. Anthony any longer and I’m not privy to the decision-making process of her defense team. 

Second, the legal focus of the motion is upon “aggravating circumstances” as they are defined here in Florida.  For the legal details on aggravating circumstances as well as mitigating factors under Florida law, please read my earlier articles here on the blog:

1.  Discussion of Aggravating Circumstances

2.  Discussion of Mitigating Factors

3.  Series entitled “Filicide is Different”

For my prior posts on this blog regarding the Casey Anthony case, please review:

1.  When I was on Nancy Grace last week….

2.  Another lesson from the Casey Anthony case….

3.  Five questions to ask yourself about the Casey Anthony case….

4.  Please check out my op-ed piece in the Orlando Sentinel…

The U.S. Supreme Court is back at work, and today it will begin deciding whether or not it will hear the case of Holmes v. Louisiana. What’s at stake is whether or not Brandy Holmes, who is only 23 years old and suffers mental retardation as a result of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, should die by execution for a 2003 murder.  The case docket is available online.   

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a totally preventable cause of mental retardation

When mothers drink alcohol during pregnancy, they damage their unborn child. FAS babies are born with an assortment of disorders, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is the leading cause of mental retardation in the world.

Brandy Holmes is known to be a victim of her mother’s drinking and suffers from FAS. During Brandy’s trial, her mother testified about drinking alcohol all throughout her pregnancy. Get this:  this mother testified that she actually named Brandy after her favorite type of alcohol.  Wow.  There’s no factual controversy that Brandy’s mental retardation is the result of her mother’s drinking alcohol as she carried Brandy.

Thirty-three states already find that the mental retarded should not be executed – what will the US Supreme Court do?

Right now, 33 states have decided it is wrong to execute those who suffer from mental retardation.   For details in the arguments against Louisiana executing this woman, read the amicus curaie brief of the Constitution Project.

This is second part of our new Friday Legal Memo Series – In Depth Look at the Law, where we’re focusing on an international horror that is not getting enough attention. In China, people are being executed inside mobile death vans, vehicles that drive from village to village. First, the victim is killed inside the van. Thereafter, his organs are taken from him almost immediately so they can be sold for a profit. All this, while grieving loved ones may well be just outside the vehicle. This is real. Take notice. Spread the word.

How does China officially respond when confronted with these horrors? China doesn’t deny the death vans exist. Instead, China claims that the death vans are more humane.

Executions in China are performed by either lethal injection or firing squad. [20] China approved the use of lethal injection in 1997. [21] Although the Chinese government is claiming that lethal injection is a more humane form of execution, there have been reports that the executioners have lowered the dosage amounts to cut costs, which results in a lingering, more agonizing and painful death. [22]

China Prefers Lethal Injection Over the Firing Squad – But Not Because it is a More Humane Manner of Death.

Despite these allegations, the Chinese media and government officials continue to tout that lethal injection is a civilized method for administering the death penalty. [23] The Chinese media often justify the use of lethal injection by citing the use of lethal injection in the United States. [24] The death van designer also claims that switching from gunshots to lethal injections show that China is now promoting human rights. [25]

Critics, however, state that the death vans allow China to carry out executions more quickly and easily. [26] Realistically, the government is not seeking a more enlightened vision of capital punishment but rather a more efficient way to execute a larger number of people. [27] In addition, the vans keep the executions out of the public eye.[28]

Death Vans Are a Profit Machine: They are Used for Organ Transplantation and Lethal Injection is Better for a Fast Harvest

It has been reported that the Chinese government uses mobile execution units to harvest organs from prisoners condemned to death. [29] Human rights activists and death penalty opponents fear that China is using lethal injection more frequently to harvest the organs of executed prisoners to supply China’s growing market for organ transplants. [30] Amnesty International is also concerned with China using lethal injection for the purposes of facilitating organ transplants from executed prisoners.[31]

These Silent, Mobile Death Vans are Viewed as Helping the Black Market Human Organ Market to Florish and Grow

The Executive Director of Human Rights in China states that the mobile execution vans help facilitate the black-market trade in organ sales because independent monitoring organizations, like the Red Cross, are denied access to prisons or labor camps. [32] With the secrecy already surrounding executions and organ harvesting in China, the death vans only aid in the business of black-market organ transplants. [33] Critics positively see a link between the silently rolling death vans and the organ trade.[34]

Amnesty International Reports on How Lethal Injection is Preferable in Human Organ Harvesting

According to Amnesty International, the chemicals used for lethal injection, which have neurological and neuromuscular effect, can be flushed through the kidneys without causing permanent damage. [35] The chief concern with damaging organs during execution is depriving the organs of oxygen or harming them physically through trauma. [36] Lethal injection allows the executioner to avoid both of these risks. [37] Although the drugs used for lethal injection in China is not publicly known, even the poisonous mix used in the United States would not damage the vital organs desired for transplants. [38]

With a shot of the anticoagulant, Heparin, beforehand, even a heart could be transplanted if removed quickly. [39] By leaving the body whole via lethal injection, organs can be extracted more quickly and effectively compared to execution by gunshot.[40]

Chinese Doctors Harvesting Human Organs With Grieving Family Members Just Outside the Van

Prior to the death vans, doctors had to hurriedly perform the organ extraction directly at the execution site before they were detected by the common people. [41] During one particular organ extraction inside an ambulance at the execution site, the doctors could hear people outside of the ambulance. [42] Because the doctors feared that those people might have been the prisoner’s family, they left the job half finished. [43] The corpse was then hastily thrown in a plastic bag and left on the flatbed of the crematorium truck. [44] As the ambulance drove away, the people outside pelted the vehicle with stones. [45] Therefore, the windowless death vans would provide a much safer venue for the doctors and police officers performing the executions and organ extractions.

[20] Executed, supra note 5, at 44.

[21]Id. at 48.

[22] Charleton, supra note 3, ¶ 5.

[23] Executed, supra note 5, at 48.

[24]Id. at 50.

[25] MacLeod, supra note 12, ¶ 4.

[26] Antoaneta Bezlova, Death Penalty-China: Rapid Death by Roaming, Inter Press Service News Agency (Italy), July 19, 2006, ¶ 2, http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=34023 (last visited July 29, 2008).

[27] Charleton, supra note 3, ¶ 6.

[28] Bezlova, supra note 26, ¶ 2.

[29] Joan E. Hemphill, Comment: China’s Practice of Procuring Organs from Executed Prisoners: Human Rights Groups Must Narrowly Taylor Their Criticism and Endorse the Chinese Constitution to End Abuses, 16 Pac. Rim L. & Pol’y 431, 440 (Mar. 2007).

[30] Bezlova, supra note 26, ¶ 16.

[31] People’s Republic of China the Olympics Countdown-Failing to Keep Human Rights Promises, Amnesty Int’l (ASA 17/046/2006), Sept. 2006, at 2 [hereinafter Failing], available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA17/046/2006/en/dom-ASA170462006en.pdf (last visited July 29, 2008).

[32] Bezlova, supra note 26, ¶¶ 20-21.

[33] Id. ¶¶ 20-22.

[34] Id. ¶ 16; MacLeod, supra note 12, ¶ 7.

[35] Carers, supra note 14, at 16.

[36] Id.

[37] Id.

[38] Craig S. Smith, In Shift, Chinese Carry Out Executions by Lethal Injection, The N.Y. Times, Dec. 28, 2001, ¶ 11, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E0D91131F93BA15751C1A9679C8B63 (last visited July 28, 2008).

[39] Id.

[40]MacLeod, supra note 12, ¶ 8.

[41] See Organs, supra note 4, at 59 (statement of Wang Guoqi, former doctor, Chinese PLA Hospital).

[42] Id.

[43] Id.

[44] Id.

[45] Id.
Next Friday: Who are the Falun Gong and How are they involved?