Tag Archives: death penalty

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

“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 …

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 …