Monday, May 31, 2021

MAFIA BOSS: GIOVANNI BRUSCA PAROLED FROM PRISON

            On this date, May 31, 2021, Italian Mafia Boss, Giovanni Brusca was released. Amid public backlash, politicians Matteo Salvini of the Lega Nord and Enrico Letta of the Democratic Party were also critical of the decision to release Brusca.

            I will post information about this Mafia Boss from Wikipedia and other links before giving my comments.

Brusca was arrested in 1996.

Enzo Brai/Mondadori via Getty ImagesGiovanni


Giovanni Brusca
(Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni ˈbruska]; born 20 February 1957) is an Italian mobster and former member of the Corleonesi clan of the Sicilian Mafia. He had a major role in the 1992 murders of Antimafia Commission prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and businessman Ignazio Salvo, and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders. Brusca had been sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia for Mafia association and multiple murder. He was captured in 1996, turned pentito, and his sentence reduced to 26 years in prison. In 2021, Brusca was released from prison.

A pudgy, bearded and unkempt mafioso, Brusca was known in Mafia circles as 'u verru (in Sicilian) or il porco or il maiale (in Italian; "the pig", "the swine") or 'u scannacristiani ("the people-slayer"; in the Sicilian language the word cristianu means both "Christian" and "human being"). Tommaso Buscetta, the Mafia turncoat who had cooperated with Falcone’s investigations, remembered Giovanni Brusca as "a wild stallion but a great leader."

INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Brusca

Anger as notorious Sicilian mafioso the ‘people-slayer’ is freed

Giovanni Brusca was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life for more than 100 murders

INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/01/sicilian-mafia-killer-freed-jail-giovanni-brusca

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=4201795499878557&id=105048709553277

GROUP - https://www.facebook.com/groups/3350621811720081/permalink/3981520761963513/

   

Those who allow violent criminals the opportunity to kill, maim and rape, share the responsibility for it and the tragedy such crimes produce. More, they allow these monsters to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as their own.

[PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/3wrd9cs77z9g/1269/those-who-allow-violent-criminals-the-opportunity-to-kill]


The release of an infamous Sicilian mafia killer dubbed 'the people slayer' sparks an outcry in Italy

Jacob Sarkisian

Jun 5, 2021, 10:44 AM

  • Giovanni Brusca was arrested in 1996.
  • Giovanni Brusca is believed to have killed over 100 people.
  • Brusca was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
  • However, he received a reduced sentence after agreeing to colloborate with authorities.

A member of the Sicilian mafia who is believed to have murdered over 100 people has been released from prison following 25 years behind bars.

Giovanni Brusca, 64, was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment after a life of working as the right-hand man for mafia boss Totò Riina.

However, in 2000, Brusca was given a reduced sentence after agreeing to help prosecutors and become an informant. His release from prison has sparked an outcry in Italy, despite it being required by law.

As reported by the Guardian, Enrico Letta, the leader of the center-left Democratic party, said the decision to release Brusca “is a punch in the stomach that leaves you breathless.” Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, said: “After 25 years in prison, the mafia boss Giovanni Brusca is a free man. This is not the ‘justice’ that Italians deserve.”

Amongst Brusca’s most brutal crimes was the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 11-year-old son of a mafia member who helped out the authorities. Di Matteo was kidnapped in 1993 as a result of his father going against the mafia and was held in a house for over two years before being strangled to death.

His body was then thrown into acid, with police calling the murder “one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the Cosa Nostra,” as reported by the Guardian.

Brusca was also responsible for killing Giovanni Falcone, the prosecuting magistrate who spent his life trying to bring down the mafia. Brusca detonated a bomb in 1992 in Palermo that killed Falcone, his wife, and three bodyguards.

Mario Falcone, sister of Giovanni, told ANSA that the news of Brusca’s release “pains” her but that the law of reducing sentences in return for mafiosos helping authorities was one that her brother wanted.

“Therefore it must be respected,” Falcone said. “I only hope the judiciary and police will be vigilant, with extreme attention, in order to avert the risk that he commit crimes again.”

Many relatives of Brusca’s victims do not believe he has repented for his crimes, nor do they feel he has ever told the full truth to authorities.

Luciano Traina, the police officer who arrested Brusca in Agrigentovilla in 1996, told Repubblica: “I will never forget the look on his face when we arrested him.”

Traina, who is the brother of another police officer who was killed by Cosa Nostra, continued: “I will never forgive him. Because I do not believe Brusca has ever told the whole truth.”

After deciding to collaborate with the authorities, Brusca’s information led to the arrest of other murderers and members of Cosa Nostra.

As reported by Repubblica, Brusca told prosecutors after he turned informant: “I’m an animal. I worked all my life for Cosa Nostra. I have killed more than 150 people. I can’t even remember all their names.”

INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=4211244385600335&id=105048709553277

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/prison-release-mafioso-the-people-slayer-italy-sicilian-mafia-2021-6

MY COMMENTS:

            As a consequence in Italy the first pre-unitarian state to abolish the death penalty was the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as of November 30, 1786, under the reign of Pietro Leopoldo, later Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. So Tuscany was the first civil state in the world to do away with torture and capital punishment. Cities for Life Day was celebrated as a bank holiday in Tuscany until 2011, when it was removed under austerity measures.

            Cities for Life Day, a worldwide festivity that supports the abolition of the death penalty. It is celebrated on November 30 of each year. Surprisingly, a mafia boss was released from serving life sentence in that country, Italy. It proves the point that any country that abolishes the death penalty, will abolish life sentences next.

            Just like the State of Illinois, Ray Larsen among rising number of aged convicts to be released. He’d been doing 100 to 300 years after confessing he killed Frank Casolari, 16, in 1972. In recent years, Illinois has paroled a double ax-murderer, other heinous killers, too. The Italian people are outraged at the release of this Mafia Boss who claimed that he had murdered 150 people.

            The next time, if any EU citizen dares to lecture your country on death penalty and life imprisonment. Tell them about this case. Do not be surprise if Brusca might reoffend again like Albert Flick,       a 77-year-old man previously deemed "too old to be a threat" was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a woman in front of her children, four decades after he was convicted of a nearly identical crime. This is another great example of why Prisoner Rights Activists will remain silent as it is too extremely embarrassing for them to talk about recidivist killers.

[https://soldierexecutionerprolifer2008.blogspot.com/2019/08/77-year-old-albert-flick-murdered-again.html]

"If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended.  Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgment. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted."


OTHER LINKS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_for_Life_Day

http://victimsfamiliesforthedeathpenalty.blogspot.com/2019/10/in-loving-memory-of-desiree-mariottini.html

WHY ARE SO MANY ITALIANS IN FAVOR OF THE DEATH PENALTY?

Answering this question is important to analyze how everything that is extreme and violent is increasingly accepted and normalized.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=4167812166610224&id=105048709553277

https://italicsmag.com/2021/05/20/why-are-so-many-italians-in-favor-of-the-death-penalty/

 

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

QUINTON JONES EXECUTED IN TEXAS ON MAY 19, 2021

            On this date, May 19, 2021, Quintin Jones was executed by lethal injection in Texas, for the 1999 killing of his great aunt, Berthena Bryant. However, Jones also committed other murders. Please hear from one of the victim’s daughter at the bottom.

   

Quintin Jones received the lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the September 1999 killing of Berthena Bryan.

[PHOTO SOURCE: https://abc13.com/quintin-jones-execution-death-penalty-tarrant-county/10661790/]


Quintin Jones

Born

Quintin Phillippe Jones


July 15, 1979

Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.

Died

May 19, 2021 (aged 41)

Huntsville, Texas, U.S.

Cause of death

Execution by lethal injection

Criminal status

Executed

Conviction(s)

Capital murder

Criminal penalty

Death (March 16, 2001)

Details

Victims

Berthena Bryant

Date

September 11, 1999

 

Quintin Phillippe Jones (July 15, 1979 – May 19, 2021) was an American man from Livingston, Texas, who was executed for the 1999 killing of his great aunt, Berthena Bryant. Bryant's family and over 180,000 other people petitioned Texas Governor Greg Abbott for clemency to commute his death sentence to a life sentence. He was executed on May 19, 2021, the first execution in the US in almost 30 years without any media presence.

INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintin_Jones_(prisoner)

Biography

Jones experienced 'brutal conditions' during his childhood, suffering neglect by his parents, sexual assault by his siblings, and extreme poverty. His mother threatened him with a gun and he was forced at age 7 by his older siblings to have sex with his stepsister. He shot himself twice, once in the hand to placate gang members and later in the chest in a suicide attempt. He became addicted to drugs by his early teens.

Crime

On September 11, 1999, Jones murdered his great aunt, 83-year-old Berthena Bryant, bludgeoning her to death, after she refused to give him money to purchase cocaine. He was high on heroin and cocaine during the murder.

Trial

Jones admitted to the killing during the trial and showed remorse. The Bryant family gave evidence in the trial of Jones' mental illness and addiction. Jones was sentenced to death and spent 21 years on death row with 23 hours a day in solitary confinement.

Michael Mowla, Jones' attorney, later filed a habeas corpus motion in Texas state court, arguing that prosecutors gave unscientific testimony during the trial, violating Jones' rights. Texas state law only allows the death penalty on the argument of “future dangerousness”, Jones had no record of violence in prison.

The online news media Austin American-Statesman have highlighted racial bias in his sentencing. They have compared Jones to Riky “Red” Roosa who was convicted of murdering two people and was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Jones, who is black, was sentenced to death for one murder.

Clemency petition

Bryant's family, with help from several other people and organisations, petitioned for Texas Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to Jones. They began an unsuccessful petition which reached over 180,000 signatures. Abbott had previously given clemency in 2019 to Thomas “Bart” Whitaker for the murder of his mother and brother, after his father Kent Whitaker, who was shot during the attack, pleaded for clemency.

  • Mattie Long, sister of murder victim Berthena Bryant, wrote in the clemency petition to Governor Abbott "I have forgiven him, I love him very much... I am writing this to ask you to please spare Quintin's life".
  • Writer Suleika Jaouad called for clemency. Jones supported her through treatment for leukemia with a 30% chance of survival in her 20s. She wrote a book about her friendship with Jones, 'Between Two Kingdoms'.
  • Benjamin Jones, Quintin's twin brother stated in the clemency petition “Both of us have long forgiven Quin. Please don’t cause us to be victimized again through Quin’s execution.”
  • Jones worked with the New York Times to ask for clemency from Governor Abbott stating 'I'm writing this letter to ask you if you could find it in your heart to grant me clemency, so I don't get executed on 19 May. I got two weeks to live, starting today.'.
  • On May 10, he was featured in the New York Times essay 'Quintin Jones Is Not Innocent, But He Doesn’t Deserve to Die'.

   

"If a man is a danger to the community, threatening it with disintegration by some wrongdoing of his, then his execution for the healing and preservation of the common good is to be commended.  Only the public authority, not private persons, may licitly execute malefactors by public judgment. Men shall be sentenced to death for crimes of irreparable harm or which are particularly perverted."


Execution

Jones was executed by lethal injection at 6:40 PM CDT on May 19, 2021. While members of the media were scheduled to be present to witness the execution, they were not admitted to the prison by authorities due to a communication error, making it the first execution in nearly 30 years without a media presence.

Before his execution, Jones made this final statement:

I would like to thank all of the supporting people who helped me over the years. To mad Maddie, my twin Sonja, Angie, and all the homies. AKA money and Peruvian queen including crazy Dominican. I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place. It's not an easy life with all the negativities. Love all my friends and all the friendships that I have made. They are like the sky. It is all part of life, like a big full plate of food for the soul. I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. I'm done, warden.

My father Clark Edward Peoples, Jr. as senselessly murdered by Quintin Jones in Fort Worth, Tx in 1999. Quintin has been on death row for 20+ years and is to be executed this Wednesday by the state of Texas. What he gruesomely did to my father is being omitted and it makes me sick to my stomach. I have to let the full story by told.

VIDEO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-8XmqdXE3s

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1968387296645965&id=1299628893521812

     


 

 

OTHER LINKS:

See also