However, since 2000, there has been an increasing number of applications for cases covered by the death penalty. That year, ± federal prosecutor sought the death penalty against defendants Acosta Martãnez and Joel Rivera©Alejandro for the kidnapping and murder of merchant Jorge Hernández Dáaz. Both were acquitted. In 1917, the Jones Act was passed, granting U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. In 1950, Bill 600 was passed, which supposedly recognized the principle of government by consent. E concerns the fictitious PACTO. Although the death penalty is unconstitutional in Puerto Rico, the federal justice system can prosecute some defendants on the island. The United States District Court for Puerto Rico, according to Hon. Judge Toledo noted that the Commonwealth Constitution was not part of Puerto Rico`s Federal Relations Act, as Congress intended to approve that Constitution, the organization of a local government in which the application of United States laws or federal jurisdiction in Puerto Rico would not be altered in any way. 49 Subsequently, Justice Toledo stated that this Constitution was the supreme law for the purposes of Puerto Rico and its state jurisdictions and therefore could not impose conditions on Congress to exercise public policy in its provinces.
In a similar statement by the Circuit of Appeals for Puerto Rico in Caribtow v. Occupational Safety & Heatlh Review Commission,50 it was noted that section 9 of the L.R.F.P.R. certainly does not require the prior approval of Puerto Ricans for the enactment of a federal law. In particular, he pointed out that nothing in the wording of article 9 or in Puerto Rico`s legislative history could reasonably support any other conclusion that that article was identical to that of the Organic Charter and that prior consent was not required under that Protocol. “Acosta`s case was very important because Judge Salvador Casellas ruled that the death penalty cannot be imposed in Puerto Rico, but it was overturned in Boston,” said attorney Kevin Rivera Medina, president of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. 14On 3 November 1991, a referendum was held in Puerto Rico in which Puerto Ricans voted against the application of the death penalty on the island. Despite this ban, the federal prosecutor`s office has been trying since the late 90s and early 2000s to obtain the death sentences of a number of defendants on the island. Él decide entonces si instruye a la fiscalía federal local a buscar la pena de muerte contra la persona acusada. In 2005, an appeals court in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ruled that it would be unconstitutional to extradite Juan Melendez Cruz to Pennsylvania if he faced the death penalty. The court described the issue as one concerning the fundamental right to life. In July 2003, Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney for the District of Philadelphia, confirmed that Melendez Cruz, a native of Puerto Rico, faced the death penalty in Pennsylvania. Melendez Cruz`s lawyer, Eileen Diaz, argued that her client`s extradition in such circumstances was prohibited by the Puerto Rican constitution.
En Puerto Rico aplica la pena de muerte federal porque es una colonia. PUNTO. Rivera Medina opinÓ que la cantidad de casos certificados para ser tratados bajo la pena de muerte aumentÓ entre 2012 y 2013 con los casos criminales de La Tómbola y la acusación contra Edison Burgos. “There has been an attempt here to impose the death penalty more than in any other jurisdiction,” Rivera Medina said. “Between 2012 and 2013, Puerto Rico accounted for 20 percent of all death penalty cases at the federal ± level,” the Puerto Rican lawyer said. (4) The application of the death penalty to citizens without their consent is unjust. That same year± defendant Xavier Jimã©nez Bencevó also©escaped the death penalty after a jury failed to hand down the death penalty for the murder of a federal informant. Jimã©nez Bencev was convicted of the murder of Delia Sánchez and sentenced to life in prison. President Joe Biden spoke out against the death penalty during the election campaign. “In a death penalty case, the government of the nation, theoretically the most powerful in the world, decides that it wants to kill your client and the only thing standing between the death penalty and your client is you.
They are fighting against this monster that will not save resources,” the lawyer explained. In this struggle over the centuries to abolish the death penalty, many abolitionists have fallen victim to their cause. While it is true that some of them have had no impact, they have also not achieved the expected success. While Pope Nicholas I condemned torture in the ninth century, figures such as Greek, Bekker and Voltaire turned to the conscience of the people for the abolition of the legal execution of death. Authors such as Daniel Sueiro4 and Thorsten Sellin5 agree that with Beccaria`s writings, the movement for the abolition of the death penalty has gained momentum. Beccaria, who was a criminal lawyer and later a professor, published his work and remained anonymous to avoid persecution that the church or state could unleash against those who defied the law.6 The court`s opinion in the United States.