Tag Archives: death penalty

SC Supreme Court Delays First Firing Squad Execution

Greenville’s NBC News affiliate reports: The South Carolina Supreme Court has issued a temporary stay halting the state from carrying out plans for its first-ever firing squad execution. Wednesday’s order by the state’s high court temporarily halts a scheduled April 29 execution of inmate Richard Moore. The court order said a more detailed order will follow. Moore’s attorneys had asked …

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South Carolina Inmate Chooses Death By Firing Squad

South Carolina’s The State reports: South Carolina courts gave Richard Moore eight days to decide exactly how he wants to die, and on Friday he made his choice. Moore, who has been on South Carolina’s death row for 21 years, is scheduled for execution on April 29. By state law, the 57-year-old Spartanburg man had to determine which execution method …

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SC Schedules First Execution With Firing Squad Option

The Associated Press reports: South Carolina has scheduled its first execution after corrections officials finished updating the death chamber to prepare for executions by firing squad. The clerk of the State Supreme Court has set a April 29 execution date for Richard Bernard Moore, a 57-year-old man who has spent more than two decades on death row after he was …

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SC Death Row Men Seek Delay Over Firing Squad Law

The Associated Press reports: Lawyers for two men on South Carolina’s death row have asked the state’s Supreme Court to hold off on setting execution dates while they challenge a new law allowing executions by firing squad. The Monday request by attorneys for Brad Keith Sigmon and Freddie Eugene Owens comes after the state Corrections Department said last week that …

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South Carolina Ready For Executions By Firing Squad

The Greenville News reports: South Carolina is now prepared to carry out executions by firing squad, the state Department of Corrections told the state Attorney General’s office on Friday. Once approval comes from the state Supreme Court, the death sentences facing the state’s 35 death-row inmates can follow. Law passed in May 2021 makes the electric chair the state’s primary …

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SCOTUS Reinstates Death Penalty For Marathon Bomber

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court on Friday reimposed the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, reversing a federal appeals court ruling that had voided it. The 6-3 decision rejected defense claims that the judge at Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial improperly restricted the questioning of prospective jurors and was wrong to exclude evidence of a separate crime two years …

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Alabama Set To Begin Executions Via Gas Chamber

Birmingham’s CBS News affiliate reports: The State of Alabama believes it will finalize its protocol for executing death row inmates by nitrogen suffocation “within months.” In a federal court hearing held Friday afternoon, Richard Anderson, a lawyer representing the state attorney general’s office, said that while the state could not provide a “date certain,” officials believe an execution protocol using …

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French President To Push For Global Death Penalty Ban

Politico Europe reports: France is to use its upcoming presidency of the Council of the EU to launch a global campaign to abolish the death penalty, President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday. In a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in France, Macron said Paris would host a summit in 2022 to press for an …

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SCOTUS Halts Execution, Will Hear Plea Of TX Man Who Wants Pastor To “Lay Hands” On Him While He’s Dying

USA Today reports: The Supreme Court halted the execution of a Texas death row inmate Wednesday who asked that his pastor be permitted to lay hands on him and pray while he dies. John Ramirez, convicted of a 2004 murder at a Corpus Christi convenience store, asserted that a Texas policy prohibiting his pastor from placing his hands on him …

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Texas Death Row Inmate Sues Prison To Allow Baptist Preacher To “Lay Hands” On Him While Being Executed

Religion News Service reports: A Texas death-row inmate has sued state prison officials to allow his pastor to lay hands on him as he dies from a lethal injection. John Henry Ramirez, 37, is scheduled to be put to death in the Texas death chamber on Sept. 8, but his attorneys said in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Corpus …

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Garland Orders Temporary Halt To Federal Executions

NBC News reports: Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered a temporary stop Thursday to scheduling further federal executions. In a memo to senior officials, he said serious concerns have arisen about the arbitrariness of capital punishment, its disparate impact on people of color, and “the troubling number of exonerations” in death penalty cases. “The Department of Justice must ensure that everyone …

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Arizona “Refurbishes” Its Gas Chamber, Buys Cyanide

The Guardian reports: The state of Arizona is preparing to kill death row inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz. Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Arizona’s department of corrections has spent more than $2,000 in procuring the ingredients to make cyanide gas. The department bought a solid brick of potassium cyanide in …

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Prosecutor Seeks Death Penalty For GA Spa Shooter

Atlanta’s ABC News affiliate reports: A man accused of killing eight people in shootings at three Atlanta-area massage businesses has been indicted on murder charges. Six of the victims were women of Asian descent. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis also filed notice that she intends to seek hate crime charges and the death penalty against Long, who is white. …

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South Carolina To Legalize Executions By Firing Squad

ABC News reports: The South Carolina House voted Wednesday to add a firing squad to the state’s execution methods amid a lack of lethal-injection drugs — a measure meant to jump-start executions in a state that once had one of the busiest death chambers in the nation. The bill, approved by a 66-43 vote, will require condemned inmates to choose …

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Virginia Is First Southern State To Abolish Death Penalty

The Associated Press reports: The governor signed legislation Wednesday making Virginia the 23rd state to abolish the death penalty, a dramatic shift for the commonwealth, which had the second-highest number of executions in the U.S. The bills were the culmination of a yearslong battle by Democrats who argued the death penalty has been applied disproportionately to people of color, the …

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Supreme Court To Consider Reinstating Death Penalty For 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsaraev

USA Today reports: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a government appeal to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, granting review of a lower court’s ruling that errors during the trial had tainted the sentencing. Tsarnaev, 27, was convicted of dozens of crimes in the 2013 terror attack that killed three people and received …

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Virginia Bill To Abolish Death Penalty Heads To Gov

NBC News reports: State lawmakers gave final approval Monday to a bill that will end capital punishment in Virginia, a dramatic turnaround for a state that has executed more people in its history than any other. The legislation repealing the death penalty now heads to Gov. Ralph Northam, who has said he will sign the measure, making Virginia the 23rd …

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Trump Rushing Rule To Bring Back Firing Squads

ProPublica reports: One proposal has raced through the process with little notice but unusual speed — and deadly consequences. This rule could reintroduce firing squads and electrocutions for federal executions, giving the government more options for administering capital punishment as drugs used in lethal injections become unavailable. The Justice Department surfaced the proposal in August and accepted public comments for …

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Indiana Man Executed After Supreme Court Ruling

The Indianapolis Star reports: After the Supreme Court of the United States stepped in, Daniel Lewis Lee was executed Tuesday morning by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lee, the first federal inmate to be executed in 17 years, was pronounced dead at 8:07 a.m. His last words: “You’re killing an innocent man.” Lee, a member …

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SCOTUS Okays First Federal Executions In 17 Years

NBC News reports: The Supreme Court early Tuesday ruled that the first federal executions in 17 years can be carried out. The justices ruled 5-4 hours after a U.S. District Judge preliminary blocked four inmates from being executed. Daniel Lewis Lee was originally scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital at 4 p.m. ET Monday, but …

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