Free Republic

After botching a series of executions by lethal injection, the State of Alabama is planning to use nitrogen gas to put condemned prisoners to death. The first execution will amount to a human experiment, because neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way. Late last month, prison guards distributed the state’s new execution protocol to prisoners in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row. One hundred and sixty men and five women await execution in Alabama. They would be secured to a gurney, their nose and mouth would be covered by a mask, and nitrogen...

Gov. Josh Shapiro Thursday boldly called on legislators to abolish Pennsylvania’s costly, ineffective and immoral death penalty. In urging legislators to act, an unprecedented move, Mr. Shapiro showed some sorely needed leadership from the governor’s office. Unless Mr. Shapiro engages the legislature, the death-penalty statute will endure. He needs to take the lead in persuading the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to approve bills that would repeal it. Former Gov. Tom Wolf refused to do that. In making his statement a month after his inauguration, Mr. Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will...

It was hard to miss the loaded headline regarding a convicted psychopathic killer titled “Clemency Probe Fails to Exonerate Kevin Cooper.” It just goes to show that this was intended as a politically motivated exoneration project and not as a search for objective truth. A better and more accurate headline should have read DNA Tests Confirm Kevin Cooper’s Guilt, Again. This recent probe further proves Cooper’s guilt to a degree of accuracy that more than meets the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a better chance of you having the recent billion dollar MegaMillions ticket than of Kevin...

Attorneys for Gabriel Paul Hall claimed that their client had a "no contact" order without consent from legal counsel while "awaiting trial after being indicted on a high-profile capital murder charge," but jail officials allowed Hall to be interviewed by Ross and a production team. Footage from "Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals: Live At Brazos County Jail" was then "introduced against Petitioner at the penalty phase of his trial, and he was sentenced to death," according to the petition. The petition described a "nine-person film crew led by actor and professional insult comic Jeff Ross" being allowed into the high-security area....

Williams was convicted of six murders, including one triple murder in 1989, but freed after almost 30 years in prison when his final murder charge was tossed because evidence of prosecutorial misconduct came to light. Williams was part of a funeral procession for formerly incarcerated friend Tyree Little in Philadelphia, his friends told the Philadelphia Inquirer. As he stepped out of his car on the 3000 block of Lehigh Avenue at around 2.20pm, he was shot once in the head. [snip]

The case stems from an incident on the set of the 2015 film 'Straight Outta Compton.'A civil trial in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against Suge Knight stemming from a 2015 incident ended in a mistrial on Wednesday (June 22). The jurors were deadlocked seven to five in favor of the plaintiffs, the Los Angeles Times reports. Their inability to come to a conclusion led to the mistrial decision. The case stems from an incident on the set of the 2015 film Straight Outta Compton involving Knight and two men, Terry Carter and Cle “Bone” Sloan. The men reportedly got...

An Arizona man convicted of murder in the 1984 killing of an 8-year-old girl was put to death Wednesday in the state’s second execution since officials resumed carrying out the death penalty in May following a nearly eight-year hiatus. Frank Atwood, 66, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for his murder conviction in the killing of Vicki Hoskinson, whose body was found in the desert, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. Vicki went missing months earlier after leaving her home in Tucson to drop a birthday card in a nearby mailbox.

Tennessee's governor on Thursday called off what was to have been the state's first execution since the start of the pandemic, granting a temporary reprieve to the oldest inmate on death row for what was called an "oversight" in preparations for the lethal injection. Republican Gov. Bill Lee didn't elaborate on what issue forced the surprise 11th-hour stop to the planned execution of 72-year-old Oscar Smith. The inmate was to have received a three-drug injection only a short while later in the evening at a Nashville maximum security prison. "Due to an oversight in preparation for lethal injection, the scheduled...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — ​​South Carolina has given the greenlight to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs... ...Lawmakers set about tweaking state law to get around the lethal injection drug situation. Legislation that went into effect in May made the electric chair the state’s primary means of execution while giving inmates the option of choosing death by firing squad or lethal injection, if those methods are available....

SACRAMENTO -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who three years ago placed a moratorium on executions, now is moving to dismantle the nation's largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years. The goal is to turn the section at San Quentin State Prison into a "positive, healing environment." "We are starting the process of closing death row to repurpose and transform the current housing units into something innovative and anchored in rehabilitation," corrections department spokeswoman Vicky Waters told The Associated Press.

Japan hanged three death-row inmates on Tuesday, its first executions in two years, amid growing criticism by human rights groups of the country's use of the death penalty. One of the three, Yasutaka Fujishiro, was convicted of killing seven people and setting fire to their house in 2004, while the other two, Tomoaki Takanezawa and Mitsunori Onogawa, were convicted in the 2003 killings of two pinball parlor employees. Executions are carried out in high secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. Two death-row inmates recently filed a lawsuit against the...

SHANGHAI (Kyodo) Two Japanese nationals in their 50s received heart transplants between 2001 and 2004 at a Shanghai hospital whose organs mainly come from death-row inmates, sources at a Taiwanese company that arranged the procedures said Thursday. Japan was seemingly unaware of the cases, as a survey released March 9 by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said there were no cases of Japanese receiving heart transplants in Asia outside of Japan. Ethical and medical concerns have often been raised regarding organ transplants in China over issues that include the use of organs of prisoners on death row and uncertain...

A man sentenced to death in the US state of California for murdering a 12-year-old girl and four other women has died of natural causes, officials say. Rodney Alcala, 77, died at a hospital near California's Corcoran state prison in the early hours of Saturday. Alcala, who was known as the "Dating Game Killer" after taking part in a US TV show, was convicted in 2010. As well as the California killings, he had also pleaded guilty to the murders of two other women in New York.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill into law over the weekend that would require death row inmates to choose their execution method if lethal injections are not available in the state.The measure will allow the state to restart executions after nearly a decade-long pause, adding firing squads as an alternative method. A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushed the bill forward earlier this year and voted 32–11 in favor on March 2.According to the new law, death row inmates will have to choose between the electric chair or the newly formed firing squad. The state Senate bill will keep...

Washington D.C., Jan 25, 2021 / 12:55 pm MT (CNA).- The Supreme Court on Monday ruled favorably toward a Catholic death row inmate requesting the presence of a priest at his execution. In a set of orders released on Monday morning, the court vacated a ruling of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court against Ruben Gutierrez, a Catholic death row inmate in Texas challenging the state’s prohibition of chaplains at executions. In addition to vacating the Fifth Circuit Court ruling, the Supreme Court also sent Gutierrez’s case back to lower courts for reconsideration, in light of findings by a district court...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An Ohio death row inmate who survived an attempt to execute him by lethal injection in 2009 died Monday of possible complications of COVID-19, the state prisons system said. At the time of the 2009 procedure, condemned prisoner Romell Broom was only the second inmate nationally to survive an execution after they began in modern times. Broom, 64, has been placed on the "COVID probable list" maintained by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, spokesperson Sara French said Tuesday. Inmates on that list are suspected to have died of COVID-19, pending a death certificate, she said.

A judge may force the Trump administration’s Justice Department to schedule the only woman on federal death row’s execution for when after President-elect Biden takes office. US District Court Judge Randolph Moss told lawyers representing Lisa Montgomery and the Justice Department that he was vacating an order from the Bureau of Prisons director rescheduling the execution for Jan. 12. That date was set by Moss in November, after Montgomery’s attorneys contracted coronavirus and asked for an extension in order to file a clemency petition.

Two San Quentin Prison death row inmates died Friday from what appear to be complications related to the COVID-19 coronavirus, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. There have been at least three death row inmates at the prison who have died of the virus since June 24. Scott Thomas Erskine, 57, had been on California's death row since 2004, and Manuel Machado Alvarez, 59, had been on death row since 1989, both died on July 3, 2020, at outside hospitals. A third death row inmate at San Quentin, Richard Stitely, 71, died June 24...

The Supreme Court today rightly rejected yet another attempt by four death row inmates to escape justice. These four men each stand convicted of horrendous acts of violence — including the brutal rape and murder of children. Each criminal was first convicted and sentenced for their offenses more than fifteen years ago. Thanks to the leadership of Attorney General Barr, the families and communities of the victims will finally receive some long-overdue justice. The White House

Lonnie Franklin, the convicted serial killer known as the “Grim Sleeper” who preyed on the women of South Los Angeles for more than two decades, has died in prison. He was 67. California corrections officials said Franklin was found unresponsive in his cell at San Quentin State Prison on Saturday evening. An autopsy will determine the cause of death; however, there were no signs of trauma, corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said in a statement. Franklin had been on death row since August 2016 for the deaths of nine women and a teenage girl. Franklin was linked at trial to 14...