Tag Archives: death penalty

SCOTUS Rejects Challenge To DOJ Death Penalty Plan

The Washington Post reports: The Supreme Court will not take up a challenge to new federal death penalty protocols proposed by the Justice Department, which wants to resume executions as early as July for the first time since 2003. The court, without comment, declined Monday to take up the lawsuit filed by four death row inmates. As is customary, it …

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Colorado Becomes 22nd State To Abolish Death Penalty

The Week reports: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a bill on Monday abolishing the death penalty. Colorado is the 22nd state to ban capital punishment since it was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. Polis also commuted three death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, saying the “commutations of these despicable and guilty individuals …

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Trump Praises China’s “Quick” Death Penalty System

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump praised China’s death penalty for drug dealers, Monday, though he added he doesn’t know if the United States “is ready” for similar sentences. “Criminal in China for drugs by the way means that’s serious. They’re getting a maximum penalty,” Trump noted. “And you know what the maximum penalty is in China for that, and it …

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Former Pakistan President Sentenced To Be Executed

The BBC reports: General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s former military leader, has been sentenced to death at a special court hearing in Islamabad. The three-member court sentenced him over a high treason charge that has been pending since 2013. Gen Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and served as the country’s president from 2001 to 2008. He is …

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DOJ Seeks Death Penalty For Synagogue Shooter

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports: The Justice Department said Monday that it will seek the death penalty for Robert Bowers, accused of killing 11 at Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill and wounding six others last year in the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history. Within days of the Oct. 27 massacre, the U.S. attorney’s office said it had …

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Florida Executes Serial Killer Of Six Gay Men [VIDEO]

The Associated Press reports: Gary Ray Bowles, a serial killer who preyed on older gay men during an eight-month spree that left six dead, was executed by lethal injection Thursday at Florida State Prison. The sentence was carried out at 10:58 p.m., according to the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis. Bowles received the death penalty for the November 1994 murder …

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House Dem’s Bill Would End Federal Death Penalty

Splinter News reports: Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is set to introduce a bill that will end the federal death penalty on the same day that Attorney General William Barr announced that the Justice Department will schedule at least five executions after a two-decade break. Pressley’s bill is rather short. For those who have yet to be sentenced to death: “Notwithstanding …

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DOJ Announces That Feds Will Resume Executions

ABC News reports: Attorney General Bill Barr announced Thursday the federal government will be resuming capital punishment. In the announcement, the U.S. Department of Justice said the decision was made related to “five death-row inmates convicted of murdering, and in some cases torturing and raping, the most vulnerable in our society — children and the elderly.” The DOJ further added …

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Saudi Arabia Beheads 37, Crucifies One As A Warning

The Washington Post reports: Saudi Arabia said Tuesday it had executed 37 people convicted of terrorism-related offenses, bringing the number of executions there in the first four months of the year to 105, according to the Saudi interior ministry and Reprieve, a human rights group that tracks the use of the death penalty in the kingdom. It was the largest …

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TEXAS: State Bans All Prison Chaplains From Execution Chamber Rather Than Allow Buddhists In The Room

The Texas Tribune reports: The state of Texas has banned all prison chaplains from its execution chamber, days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state was violating an inmate’s rights by not allowing a Buddhist chaplain into the death chamber with him. The high court last week halted the execution of Patrick Murphy, a member of the infamous …

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Pastor Robert Jeffress: The Death Penalty Is Sometimes Mistakenly Applied But Jesus Christ Was Also Innocent

“Let’s admit, the death penalty is sometimes inequitably and even mistakenly applied. We know that. And we ought to do everything we can to prevent that. But I remind people, the greatest example of an innocent person being executed was Jesus Christ himself. He was totally innocent, and yet in spite of that, the New Testament never calls for an …

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Hickenlooper Would End Death Penalty As President

The Denver Post reports: Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper says he would suspend the federal death penalty if elected president. Hickenlooper, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, made the pledge during a CNN town hall Wednesday night. As governor, Hickenlooper refused to execute quadruple-murderer Nathan Dunlap. He said he was opposed to the death penalty and wouldn’t carry …

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom To Halt Executions

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The 737 inmates on California’s largest-in-the-nation death row are getting a reprieve from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who plans to sign an executive order Wednesday placing a moratorium on executions. Newsom also is withdrawing the lethal injection regulations that death penalty opponents already have tied up in courts and shuttering the new execution chamber at San …

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WYOMING: GOP Senator Votes Against Death Penalty Repeal Because That’s How Jesus Absolved Your Sins

The Cheyenne Star-Tribune reports: The Wyoming Senate defeated a bill Thursday that would have repealed the state’s death penalty, ending the most successful legislative attempt to do away with capital punishment in recent memory. Having passed the House by a safe margin, the bill was swiftly voted down by the Wyoming Senate on its first reading. The final vote was …

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Washington State Supreme Court Bans Death Penalty

The Associated Press reports: Washington state’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the death penalty, as applied, violates its Constitution. The ruling Thursday makes Washington the latest state to do away with capital punishment. The court was unanimous in its order that the eight people currently on death row have their sentences converted to life in prison. Five justices said the …

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Death Penalty For White Supremacist Killer Of Florida Gay Couple: “Homosexuals Are A Disease To Mankind”

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports: Peter Avsenew, convicted of killing a Wilton Manors couple days before Christmas 2010 and stealing their car to escape to north Florida, who told a jury in January that he had no regrets and a judge in March that he had killed before and would again, has been sentenced to die. He is the first …

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Pope Shifts Church Policy: Death Penalty Is Inadmissible

USA Today reports: Pope Francis has changed church teaching about the death penalty, saying in a new policy published Thursday that it is always “inadmissible” because it “attacks” the inherent dignity of all humans. The Vatican said Francis had approved a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church – the compilation of official Catholic Church teaching. Previously, the catechism …

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ILLINOIS: GOP Gov Proposes Reinstating Death Penalty For Mass Shootings And Killing Of Police Officers

The Chicago Tribune reports: Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday proposed reinstating the death penalty in Illinois for mass killers and people who slay law enforcement officers as part of his rewrite of a gun control bill. The death penalty provision would create a new category of homicide called “death penalty murder,” which could apply to adults who kill police …

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LIVE VIDEO: Trump Unveils Death Penalty For Dealers

The Associated Press reports: President Donald Trump’s plan to combat opioid drug addiction calls for stiffer penalties for drug traffickers, including the death penalty where appropriate under current law, a top administration official said. It’s a fate for drug dealers that Trump has been highlighting publicly in recent weeks. Trump also wants Congress to pass legislation reducing the amount of …

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WH Finalizing Death Penalty Plan For Drug Dealers

Politico reports: The Trump administration is finalizing a long-awaited plan that it says will solve the opioid crisis, but it also calls for law enforcement measures — like the death penalty for some drug dealers — that public health advocates and congressional Republicans warn will detract from efforts to reverse the epidemic. The ambitious plan, which the White House has …

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