capital punishment

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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...

Death Row Inmate Dies, but Not via Execution

California has only executed 13 out of hundreds of death row inmates since 1978

(Newser) - Ronald Seaton had been on death row at San Quentin State Prison for 26 years following a 1986 conviction for murder, robbery, and burglary. On Friday, he died of natural causes while awaiting execution, NBC Bay Area reports. Seaton became the 69th death row inmate to die of natural causes...

Boston Bomber: That Trial Was Completely Unfair

Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev make their argument

(Newser) - Not a huge surprise: Lawyers for Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev today appealed his death-penalty conviction, arguing that "continuous and unrelenting publicity" biased jurors and made a fair trial in Boston impossible, NBC News reports. "Put simply, prejudicial media coverage, events, and environment saturated greater Boston, including the...

Those Who Believe in Pure Evil Tend to Support This

And the issue becomes more black-and-white

(Newser) - As Nebraska becomes the 19th state to abolish capital punishment, researchers out of Kansas State University have been investigating just what makes some Americans more fervently in favor of the death penalty than others. One clear factor, they report in the journal Personality and Individual Differences , is whether someone believes...

Nebraska Gov. Uses Pen to Keep Death Penalty Alive

Pete Ricketts vetoes repeal bill

(Newser) - Gov. Pete Ricketts has vetoed a bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska, saying it would send a message to criminals that the state is "soft on crime." State lawmakers voted 32-15 last week against capital punishment, the Omaha World-Herald reports. It will take 30 votes to...

No More Room on San Quentin's Death Row

It's essentially full, governor warns

(Newser) - California Gov. Jerry Brown has submitted his $113 billion budget proposal, and in it he notes that, on average, 20 new felons are expected to show up per year on death row in San Quentin State Prison, the Los Angeles Times reports. One problem: There's no more room. With...

Utah Approves Firing Squads
 Utah Approves 
 Firing Squads 
Mar 23, 2015 7:00 PM CDT

Utah Approves Firing Squads

Gov. Gary Herbert signs law to OK backup to lethal injection

(Newser) - Utah became the only state to allow firing squads for executions today when Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law approving the method's use when no lethal-injection drugs are available. Herbert has said he finds the firing squad "a little bit gruesome," but Utah is a capital punishment...

During Botched Execution, Inmate Tried to Help

Tulsa World investigates all that went wrong in Clayton Lockett's lethal injection

(Newser) - At the end of the night of April 29, 2014, convicted murderer Clayton Lockett lay dead on a gurney, which is the outcome the state of Oklahoma sought. But the botched execution was a "procedural disaster" from the get-go, according to an investigation in the Tulsa World , based on...

Georgia to Execute First Woman Since 1945

Kelly Gissendaner lost clemency appeal

(Newser) - Georgia is preparing to execute a woman for the first time since 1945. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, is scheduled to be put to death tonight, an event that would make her the 16th woman to be executed since 1976, the AP reports; that's when the Supreme Court ended a...

Guy on Death Row 30 Years Gets Last-Minute Reprieve

US Supreme Court steps in as Texas planned execution for Tuesday

(Newser) - A Texas inmate set to be executed next week for fatally shooting four men at an airplane hangar more than 30 years ago won a reprieve today from the US Supreme Court. Lester Bower Jr., 67, among the longest-serving Texas death row inmates, had been scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday....

'My Body Is on Fire': Okla. Executes Charles Warner

State carries out first execution since botched one

(Newser) - Oklahoma executed a death row inmate last night in its first lethal injection since a botched one last spring , and it carried out the punishment with a three-drug method that Florida used for an execution the same night . Charles Warner's execution for the 1997 killing of an 11-month-old girl...

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