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Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and judged incorrigible though he was only 13 at the time of the attack. Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told the teenager he threw his life away. They didn't kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison. Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare and harsh for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United...

RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi court of cassation upheld a ruling to behead and crucify a 22-year-old man convicted of raping five children and leaving one of them to die in the desert, newspapers reported on Tuesday. The convict was arrested earlier this year after a seven-year old boy helped police in their investigation. The child left in the desert after the rape was three years old, Okaz newspaper said. ... In Saudi Arabia, crucifixion means tying the body of the convict to wooden beams to be displayed to the public after beheading.

As Israel struggled to grasp the motive for the brutal murder of six members of the Oshrenko family, including two young children, four MKs from the coalition and the opposition called Monday for the establishment of a death penalty for the murder of children under the age of 13. ... The law would be an amendment to clause 300 of the Criminal Code. The bill's sponsors emphasized that "in light of the revelations of circumstances surrounding the murder of the Oshrenkos, the bill would try to prevent a repeat of circumstances in which people murder babies and children 'just because...

Eric Rogers was 17 when he saw his parents stabbed and bludgeoned to death by his own uncle at their El Cerrito home just before dawn in January 2006. The convicted murderer, a trucker named Edward Wycoff from the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, is as unsympathetic as they come. He insists he deserves to be rewarded for ridding the world of two evil people, that he knew how to raise his sister's three kids better than she and her husband did, and that besides, they had the gall not to invite him over for Christmas. Arguing to a jury...

You might think Mike Hinton's anger had ebbed in the 3-1/2 decades since, as a young Harris County assistant district attorney, he was assigned to prosecute Ronald Clark O'Bryan, the father accused of poisoning his own son's Halloween candy. Or that, in the 25 years since O'Bryan was executed by the State of Texas, Hinton would prefer to let the past dissolve into receding memories. You'd be wrong, though. "I never get tired of talking about that sorry-ass son of a bitch," said Hinton, today an attorney in private practice in Houston.

KNOXVILLE - For the first time in Knox County judicial history, a judge will instruct the jury in the trial of convicted torture-slaying ringleader Lemaricus Davidson that it is more expensive to execute someone than to sentence them to spend the rest of their life in prison. At the request of defense attorney Doug Trant, Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner said this morning that he will tell jurors that a 2004 study by the state Comptroller's Office concluded that execution is a more expensive form of punishment than life without parole

The work of the Medill Innocence Project has already led to the exoneration of 11 inmates in Illinois. In 2000 Governor George Ryan cited the Medill Innocence Project of Northwestern University as one of the reasons he suspended the death penalty in the Land of Lincoln. It has yet to be fully reinstated. The Medill Innocence Project has recently set its sites on the case of Anthony McKinney, convicted of murdering a security officer in 1978. The students of the Project feel that they have successfully proved that McKinney was wrongly convicted and have also succeeded in getting a judge...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad will die by lethal injection when he is executed next month, Virginia officials said Tuesday. Muhammad declined to choose between lethal injection and electrocution, so under state law the method defaults to lethal injection, Virginia Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. Muhammad is scheduled to be executed Nov. 10 for the October 2002 slaying of Dean Harold Meyers at a Manassas gas station during a string of shootings.

Space could be tight in Virginia's death house Nov. 10, with victims' family members seeking to attend the execution of Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad. Muhammad, 48, and Lee Boyd Malvo, 24, were convicted of crimes committed during a three-week shooting rampage in October 2002 that killed 10 and wounded three in Virginia, Washington and Maryland. They also have been linked to woundings and slayings in other states. Muhammad was sentenced to death in Virginia for the Oct. 9, 2002, slaying of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, who was shot at a Manassas-area service station where he stopped for fuel while...

When 7-year-old Somer Thompson disappeared on her way home from school in Orange Park, Florida, earlier this week, officials were hopeful that she would be found safe, and mobilized a massive search for the little girl. Alas, it was not to be, as the child’s mangled body was found on Wednesday in a Georgia garbage dump.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Even when executions are not carried out, the death penalty costs US states hundreds of millions of dollars a year, depleting budgets in the midst of economic crisis, a study released Tuesday found. "It is doubtful in today's economic climate that any legislature would introduce the death penalty if faced with the reality that each execution would cost taxpayers 25 million dollars, or that the state might spend more than 100 million dollars over several years and produce few or no executions," argued Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report's author. "Surely...

Full Comment's Araminta Wordsworth brings you a regular dose of international punditry at its finest. Today: In the nanny state that is contemporary Britain, no one should be punished for committing a minor crime, such as mugging an old lady for her pension or shoplifting or driving while drunk. Sounds risible, doesn’t it? But this call comes from the people in charge of keeping criminals behind bars, the Prison Governors Association. Short sentences don’t work, says its head. Instead offenders should be given a slap on the wrist, and obliged to do community service instead of prison time.

Four local young men are under arrest in connection with the violent stabbing death of a Mont Vernon mother and the vicious attack on her daughter. Steven Spader, 18, Christopher Gribble, 19, both of Brookline, William Marks, 18 and Quinn Glover, 17, both of Amherst, will be arraigned late this morning in Milford District Court, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office. Spader and Gribble are charged with first degree murder in the death of Kimberly Cates, 42, and attempted murder in the attack on her 11-year-old daughter. Marks and Glover are charged with burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary...

Lawrence Reynolds had been scheduled to be executed on Thursday Two more executions have been delayed in the US state of Ohio, three weeks after an attempt to put another man to death by lethal injection failed. On 15 September, the execution of Romell Broom was abandoned after Ohio officials failed to find a vein. Judges halted Thursday's execution in the state of Lawrence Reynolds, 43. The state governor then delayed next month's execution of Darryl Durr, until a judge hears arguments over problems with the injection process. The execution of Broom - convicted of rape and murder - is...

Beltway Sniper Shootings FR THREAD ARCHIVES This thread is for everyone, be sure to bookmark it. If you create a new thread, feel free to post a link to it here as well. It will be updated as often as possible. Maryland Area Prayer Thread: Pray for Metro area Freepers and Families If anyone has time today and is so inclined, you can listen to the Prince George County or Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Dispatches on the internet at http://www.sconfire.com/livedispatch.htm. The links are on the right side about halfway down. I will try to be tuning in through out...

Court sets execution date for Washington, DC sniper mastermind A Virginia judge has ruled that the mastermind behind the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington, DC that left 10 people dead will be executed on November 10. John Allen Muhammad is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and ask Governor Timothy M. Kaine for clemency. Muhammad was sentenced to death for the slaying of Dean Meyers, one of 10 people shot to death during a 2002 rampage that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area. uhammad and teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo killed six people in Alabama and Louisiana before moving...

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will not seek the death penalty for an alleged gang member accused of murdering a father and two of his sons last year, a prosecutor said today. The announcement in San Francisco Superior Court means that Edwin Ramos will at most serve life in prison without parole if convicted of the June 22, 2008, slayings of Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, Matthew, 16. The decision is in keeping with Harris' campaign promise never to seek the death penalty. There had been speculation, however, that with Harris running for...

In a withering critique, a nationally known fire scientist has told a state commission on forensics that Texas fire investigators had no basis to rule a deadly house fire was an arson -- a finding that led to the murder conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

In a case that's been widely ignored by the mainstream media, justice prevailed today as Letalvis Cobbins was found guilty of the vast majority of charges, including that of first-degree murder. Cobbins was one of a group of thugs who carjacked, then raped, tortured and murdered two Knoxville residents. For more on the story, see the Knoxville News-Sentinel. http://digg.com/d311xYc

In Texas, they're conducting the first state-sponsored review of a capital punishment case. Specifically, they're looking into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted and executed for setting a house fire that killed his three children. An expert on fire science says there was "no basis" to rule the fire an arson, the Chicago Tribune reports. The state fire marshal on the case, Beyler concluded in his report, had "limited understanding" of fire science. The fire marshal "seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created," he wrote. The marshal's findings,...

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Scotland freed the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds Thursday, allowing him to die at home in Libya despite American protests that mercy should not be shown to the man responsible for the deaths of 270 people. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said Abdel Baset al-Megrahi's condition had deteriorated from prostate cancer. Al-Megrahi had only served some eight years of a life sentence, but MacAskill said he was bound by Scottish values to release him.

The state of Texas' top criminal court judge testified today that she allowed the doors of her court slammed shut in the face of a killer facing execution that evening, because, in her words, 'last minute appeals are meritless,' 1200 WOAI's Michael Board reports. "They have often in the past been voluminous and meritless," Sharon Keller, the Presiding Judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, made her comments in her disciplinary hearing involving a high profile execution in September of 2007. Keller is facing civil misconduct charges for ordering that her office be closed at 5 PM on the...

Newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor has cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court, joining a dissent by three liberal justices to stop a pending execution in Ohio. The full court turned down the last-minute appeal from lawyers for Jason Getsy late Monday evening by a 5-4 vote. Getsy, 33 and a convicted hit man, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 8 a.m. Pacific time today.

If we thought the last topic was contentious, and it was, then I’m not sure how to class these items. Merely mentioning them will raise blood pressure to dangerous levels in some. Because of this, I will be as careful as I can in discuss Goldberg’s ideas, making clear where mine are different, in as dry a language as I can manage. All emphases are in the original. Race Exists And everybody knows it. Goldberg says in this essay (read it!), “not a single black student of mine fails to find risible the claim that there is no such thing...

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- An appeals court commuted the death sentences for four men convicted of killing an American diplomat and his Sudanese driver after the driver's family decided to pardon the murderers, a news agency reported Thursday. Sudanese law stipulates that if a victim's family chooses to pardon the murderer, the person cannot be sentenced to death and the prison term cannot exceed 10 years. The case will be referred back to the initial court for a new sentence, said the Sudan Media Center.

<p>LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A former chief of staff for Bill Clinton when he was Arkansas' governor has been charged with attempting to smuggle contraband goods into the state's death row.</p> <p>Betsey Wright, of Rogers, faces 51 felony charges stemming from her arrest May 22 at the state's Varner Unit. An Arkansas State Police report claims she attempted to smuggle in a box cutter, a pocket knife, tweezers and tattoo needles.</p>

Because courts can sentence murderers to life without parole, why not get rid of the death penalty? It's a frequent question posed by readers and advocates who oppose the death penalty. For years, my answer has been: If death-penalty opponents ever succeed in eliminating capital punishment, their next target for elimination will be life without parole - or, as lawyers call it, LWOP. As if to prove my point, the Sentencing Project just released a report, "No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America," which advocated for - you guessed it - the elimination of LWOP. The report...

Convicted killer William Wright III of Altoona on Wednesday reiterated his desire to die. Wright asked a federal appeals court to step in, remove public defenders from his case and allow his execution to proceed. In a legalistic, self-written appeal filed in U.S. District Court in Johns-town, Wright said federal public defenders in Pittsburgh “do not have petitioner’s consent to file any further pleadings of any kind on petitioner’s behalf.” The Federal Public Defender’s Office in Pittsburgh had no comment Wednesday. The petition was the latest development in back-and-forth volleys in which Wright’s life hangs in the balance: •  In...

WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has indicted an elderly white supremacist on charges that could earn him the death penalty in the fatal shooting of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Hate crimes charges have been added to the case against James von Brunn, who has been in a hospital since the shooting last month. Officials say the 89-year-old shot and killed museum guard Stephen T. Johns. Von Brunn was shot in the face by other guards in the June 10 shootout, but survived.

34-years-ago, Karen Grammer was brutally killed after a botched robbery in Colorado Springs. Her convicted killer, Freddie Glenn, is now up for parole. Karen's brother, actor Kelsey Grammer has said he will be at that parole hearing at the Limon Correctional Facility Monday. Former Assistant District Attorney Chuck Heim..."She was sitting outside ...waiting for her boyfriend to get out of work and these clowns picked her up," It was July 1st, 1975. 18-year-old Grammer was sitting in a car outside of a Red Lobster in Colorado Springs, when three men, including Freddie Glenn, tried to rob the restaurant. When that...

This news is 2 months old but I felt it needed coverage in light of the debate about the death penalty... ----------------------------------------------------- A former US soldier convicted of rape and murder in Iraq has been spared the death penalty. Steven Green, 24, will now be sentenced to life in prison, after jurors in the state of Kentucky could not agree unanimously on his punishment. A judge is expected to formally sentence Green in September. In May, the jury found Green guilty of the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family near Baghdad in...

Take a trip with me down memory lane to the mid-60’s, 70’s and early 80’s and try to remember the huge surge in violent crime that swept across the United States. The judicial activism of Chief Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren laid the foundation for liberal action against the death penalty. The result of tampering with capital punishment was immediate and clear. Murder rates spiked in the 70’s and didn’t really come back down until voters demanded tough penalties and reinstatement of the death penalty. The impact of bringing back capital punishment is very clear. According to the US Bureau...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — A man who went on a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead, including an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone, was executed Tuesday, the state's second execution in two weeks and the 1,000th lethal injection in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Later Christmas Eve, Keene and accomplice DeMarcus Smith approached 18-year-old Danita Gullette at a pay phone, took her jacket and shoes and fatally shot the woman, prosecutors said. Gullette was the mother of a 2-year-old girl.

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a "wedding" ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard - essentially raped by her "husband." "I regret that, even though the marriages were legal," he said.

Durham, N.C. — Duke University has fired an employee who faces federal child sex charges. Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, was let go from his position as associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke, a spokesman said. Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld said Lombard was placed on unpaid leave at the time of his arrest June 24 and was fired Monday. Schoenfeld added that the university was cooperating with the investigation. Lombard faces extradition to Washington, D.C., to face charges that he solicited an adult to have...

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country's sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways. Monday's ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a "cruel and painful" method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection, which is used in more than 30 U.S. states as a primary method of execution. "How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug...

CAIRO // June has been dubbed “the month of executions” and 2009 “the year of mass executions” by Egyptian newspapers and analysts amid debate about abolishing capital punishment. More than 200 death sentences have been handed down since the beginning of the year, including 68 in June alone, according to official sources at the justice ministry. There are usually about 80 people executed each year. A headline in the state-owned Al-Akhbar el-Youm weekly on Saturday read: the executioner is very busy these days: is execution a necessity to combat the proliferation of crimes? “32 death sentences in 72 hours ......

The state could save up to $1 billion over the next five years, they say, by commuting all 682 death row inmates' sentences to life without the possibility of parole.Nearly 3 1/2 years into a court-ordered suspension of executions, opponents have embraced a new argument: that Californians can't afford to carry out the death penalty in a constitutional manner. They contend that by commuting all 682 death row inmates' sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the state could save up to $1 billion over the next five years -- a view expected to be offered, and challenged, during...

Lawmakers shocked by the brutal beating of little Nathaniel Turner allegedly at the hands of his father are pushing anew for the death penalty as the only punishment that fits the sickening crime. “The way that boy was beaten and tortured, it’s unconscionable. It’s deplorable,” said House Rule Chairman John J. Binienda (D-Worcester). “I would definitely vote for that.” “If this doesn’t convince people we need it I don’t know what will,” said Rep. James R. Miceli (D-Wilmington), who plans on organizing a group of pro-death penalty lawmakers today. “I’m going to do my best to get this on the...

Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas has died after being shot multiple times among students at the school’s weight room this morning, officials have confirmed. Thomas was shot at point blank range, including once in the head, according to the school's business manager Pat Gosch. No one else was injured in the incident. The suspected gunman is in custody. The family of Ed Thomas released a statement through Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo: "The family of Ed Thomas would like the media to know that Ed passed away shortly after arriving at Covenant Medical Center," the statement read. Sports...

Sonia Sotomayor says the death penalty disproportionately impacts minorities. A question for her: Death sentences are meted out most often to (a) blacks, (b) whites, (c) Hispanics or (d) the guilty. A recently unearthed memo not disclosed on the questionnaire filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that the empathy that the Supreme Court nominee feels is more for the predators among us than their victims. It also shows that some of the reasons this self-proclaimed "wise Latina" has for opposing capital punishment are bogus and flawed.

Sotomayor Failed to Disclose to Senate Memo in Which She Argued Death Penalty is 'Racist' Friday, June 05, 2009 By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor (CNSNews.com) – The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN) says Judge Sonia Sotomayor failed to disclose to the Senate Judiciary Committee a controversial document arguing that the death penalty is “racist” and a violation of the present “humanist” thinking of society The 1981 memo, they say, should have been disclosed as required under Question 12 (b) of the questionnaire that the Supreme Court nominee turned in Thursday. Question 12(b) requires a nominee to "(s)upply four (4) copies of...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- The "horrendous decision" that Daniel Wilson made 18 years ago came full circle this morning when he was executed for locking Carol Lutz in the trunk of her car and setting it on fire. Wilson, 39, died at 10:33 a.m. after receiving a lethal injection of drugs at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, who never saw a convicted murderer who deserved execution, has found another dirt bag to save. His latest cause is Troy Davis, who was found guilty in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989 in the parking lot of a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia. A jury found Davis guilty of shooting the off-duty officer to death as he tried to save a homeless man from being pistol-whipped. There were 7 eyewitnesses to the murder and it still took 2 years to convict in this most sluggish of all...

SEOUL (UCAN) -- A letter from the late Pope John Paul II, which saved the life of former President Thomas More Kim Dae-jung, has been made known to the public recently.   Former president Kim Dae-jung The late Pope sent the letter to then-South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan on Dec. 11, 1980, asking for "clemency" for Kim, a Catholic, who had been sentenced to death a week before.The National Archives of Korea (NAK) on May 18 revealed the contents of letter at the request of the "Kwangju Ilbo," the local daily newspaper in Gwangju (Kwangju).Former President Chun, who seized power in a...

Opponents of the death penalty looking to exonerate wrongly accused prisoners say their efforts have been hobbled by the dwindling size of America’s newsrooms, and particularly the disappearance of investigative reporting at many regional papers. In the past, lawyers opposed to the death penalty often provided the broad outlines of cases to reporters, who then pursued witnesses and unearthed evidence. Now, the lawyers complain, they have to do more of the work themselves and that means it often doesn’t get done. They say many fewer cases are being pursued by journalists, after a spate of exonerations several years ago based...

We have few iconic couples from the 1960s and 1970s left. Sonny and Cher divorced and went their separate ways politically. Republican Congressman Sonny Bono died tragically in a skiing accident in 1998. Cher continues to perform by herself. But not all was Laugh-In and flower power. Today another famous couple, comrades-in-arms and former collaborators in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Weatherman, and then Weather Underground — and now coauthors of the book Race Course Against White Supremacy — are bringing their show on the road. I am talking about Bill Ayers, once-fugitive “peace activist,” whose photo of him...

I was hoping you can let them know what we the people think about murder...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A man who fatally stabbed a convenience store clerk during a robbery 23 years ago apologized repeatedly to her relatives and to his mother before he was executed Tuesday. "I know I hurt you very bad," Michael Lynn Riley said to his victim's relatives, including her two daughters and husband. "I want you to know I'm sorry." Brandy Oaks said she accepted Riley's apology and was pleased to hear it. She was 4 when her mother, Wynona Harris, was killed. "This is a difficult day and there are no winners on either side," Oaks said. "Her spirit...