2003-JAN-13: Kenya: government plans to abolish the death penalty: The newly-elected government of Kenya plans to abolish the death penalty in the country by the middle of the year. Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi said: "We think the fundamental human right to live should be respected, and no human being should have the authority to take the life of another," There are over 1,000 prisoners on death row in Kenya. Nobody has been executed in the country since 1984. ₂

2003-FEB-10: AR: State can make inmate sane enough to execute: By a close ruling of 6 to 5, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that prison officials can force an inmate on death row to take antipsychotic medication, in order to make him sane enough to execute. If he were allowed to avoid taking the drugs, then he would remain too ill to suffer the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that the execution of the insane was barred by the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Judge Roger L. Wollman of the Court of Appeals wrote, in part: "[Charles] Singleton presents the court with a choice between involuntary medication followed by an execution and no medication followed by psychosis and imprisonment." He noted that "Eligibility for execution is the only unwanted consequence of the medication." and that the courts did not have to consider the ultimate result of giving the prisoner medication. Judge Gerald W. Heaney issued a dissenting opinion saying: "I believe that to execute a man who is severely deranged without treatment, and arguably incompetent when treated, is the pinnacle of what Justice Marshall called 'the barbarity of exacting mindless vengeance.' " ₃