capital punishment

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Americans Sentenced to Death in 2016: Only 30

Lowest number since early '70s

(Newser) - Only 30 people were sentenced to death in the United States this year, the lowest number since the early 1970s and a further sign of the steady decline in the use of the death penalty. The number is a sharp drop from the 49 death sentences last year and just...

Now in California: Streamlined Executions

Opponents of the newly passed Proposition 66 say it's unconstitutional

(Newser) - The Election Day count is finally complete, and California voters have approved a measure aimed at speeding up executions for those on death row, the Los Angeles Times reports. Proposition 66 is designed to make the legal process more efficient by providing a bigger pool of lawyers to handle cases,...

Court: Botched Execution Was 'Innocent Misadventure'

Clayton Lockett's execution lasted 43 'horribly painful' minutes

(Newser) - In dismissing his family's lawsuit Tuesday, an appeals court called the 43-minute-long botched execution of Clayton Lockett—during which he regained consciousness and thrashed around—an "innocent misadventure," Tulsa World reports. Lockett, a convicted murderer, was executed in 2014 in Oklahoma. According to Slate , a drug meant...

With Her Love on Death Row, Woman Goes Back to School

Yancy Escobar Balderas is becoming a lawyer to help her husband, others

(Newser) - "I cried so much my nose was bleeding." Yancy Escobar Balderas, 29, was in the courtroom—as she had been every day during the two-month trial—when her now-husband Juan Balderas was sentenced to death for a murder she says he didn't commit. This month—two years...

Petition Calls for Hanging of Man Accused of Heinous Crime

It was pulled from the White House website

(Newser) - West Virginia hasn't executed anybody since murderer Elmer Brunner went to "Old Sparky" in 1959, but quite a few people want that to change after the horrific murder of a 9-month-old baby . Benjamin Taylor is accused of raping and killing his girlfriend's daughter, and a petition to...

In Poll on Death Penalty, a 45-Year First

Supporters no longer in majority: Pew

(Newser) - For the first time in 45 years, Americans who support the death penalty can't count themselves among the majority. Just 49% of Americans polled from late August to early September said they supported capital punishment for people guilty of murder, while 42% said they opposed it, according to the...

Ohio Resuming Executions After 3-Year Moratorium

State will use a new 3-drug combination

(Newser) - Ohio plans to resume executions in January with a new three-drug combination after an unofficial three-year moratorium blamed on shortages of lethal drugs, an attorney representing the state told a federal judge Monday. Thomas Madden with the Ohio attorney general's office said the state will use the drugs midazolam,...

14% of Death Row Inmates Are There Because of Just 5 Prosecutors

Report argues overzealous DAs are making the death penalty arbitrary

(Newser) - Just five prosecutors representing less than 0.2% of US counties are responsible for 14% of all people currently on death row and 5% of people sentenced to death in the past 40 years. That's according to a recently released report from Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project....

Feds Will Pursue Death Penalty Against Dylann Roof

'The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this decision'

(Newser) - The Justice Department announced Tuesday it will seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof , who is accused of killing nine people during a Bible study class inside a historic black church last June in Charleston, South Carolina. "The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm compelled this...

Texas Execution Halted, State Won't Appeal

John Battaglia killed his 2 young daughters as revenge against his ex

(Newser) - The Texas Attorney General's Office is not appealing a federal appeals court ruling that has halted the scheduled execution of a Dallas man convicted of killing his two young daughters 15 years ago, the AP reports. State attorneys could have appealed to the US Supreme Court the decision to...

Pope to Catholic Leaders: No Executions This Year

He says there are no exceptions to 'do not kill'

(Newser) - Pope Francis has urged Catholic leaders to show "exemplary" courage by not allowing executions this year, while expressing hope that eventually the death penalty will be abolished worldwide. Francis told tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that "the commandment 'do not kill' holds...

What It&#39;s Like to Witness an Execution
 What It's Like 
 to Witness 
 an Execution 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Feb 7, 2016 7:03 AM CST

What It's Like to Witness an Execution

Columnist describes his first experience

(Newser) - Last week, reporter St. John Barned-Smith went to cover his first execution. "You'll never be the same," one anti-death-penalty protester warned him outside Texas's Walls Unit prison, where James Garrett Freeman would be put to death for killing a Texas game warden in 2007, when he...

US Executions at Lowest Level in Decades

New death sentences also way down

(Newser) - The number of people executed in the United States this year dropped to the lowest level since 1991, as states impose fewer death sentences and defendants in capital cases get access to better legal help. The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that opposes capital punishment and tracks the...

Documents: Arizona Tried to Illegally Import Execution Drug

Federal agents stopped the shipment at the airport

(Newser) - Arizona tried to illegally import a lethal injection drug, but federal agents stopped the shipment at the Phoenix airport, according to documents obtained by the AP. Arizona paid nearly $27,000 for sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that has been used to carry out executions but is no longer manufactured by...

Scalia: Wouldn't Surprise Me If Death Penalty Struck Down

Justice also talks retirement plans, how the Constitution isn't flexible

(Newser) - The death penalty is not long for this Earth, or at least for the US, if Antonin Scalia's predictions are to be believed. The conservative Supreme Court justice spoke Tuesday at the University of Minnesota Law School, and capital punishment was brought up after Scalia started expounding on his...

Ohio Delays All Executions Until 2017

State is having trouble finding supplies of lethal injection drugs

(Newser) - Ohio has delayed executions until 2017 because of problems finding supplies of lethal injection drugs. The announcement on Monday means Ohio will go at least two years without putting anyone to death and marks another setback in efforts to carry out capital punishment in the state. The Department of Rehabilitation...

Texas Inmate Executed for Cop's Death

He's the 12th convicted killer executed in Texas this year

(Newser) - A Texas man already being sought for a neighbor's slaying when he killed a Dallas police officer outside a club in 2001 was executed Wednesday. Licho Escamilla, 33, was given a lethal injection for the death of Christopher James, who was trying to break up a brawl involving Escamilla....

Supreme Court Gets Highly Political Cases

Unions and abortion rights could be in jeopardy

(Newser) - The Supreme Court is facing a docket of high-profile political cases that will test whether recent liberal victories were more fluke or firm conviction, the New York Times reports. The court—which is divided 5-4 for conservatives, but saw Justice Roberts vote liberal on Obamacare and same-sex marriage—will look...

Drug Glitch Leads Oklahoma to Halt 3 Executions

Problem was discovered just hours before one execution was scheduled

(Newser) - Oklahoma's highest criminal court unanimously agreed Friday to halt all of the state's scheduled executions after the state's prison system received the wrong drug for a lethal injection this week. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals granted the state's request and issued indefinite stays of execution...

Ohio's Trouble: 24 Executions, No Drugs

State has just 4 months to line them up

(Newser) - Ohio has four months to get the lethal drugs it needs to execute two-dozen condemned killers, the first of whom is scheduled to die Jan. 21. The state's last execution was performed in January 2014, when it tested a new two-drug execution method that left a condemned man gasping...

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