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Facing overwhelming evidence against him and a possible death penalty, Esteban Santiago's legal team has only two realistic options, experts say: Try to make a swift plea agreement or pursue an insanity defense. Neither of those choices is a sure thing,.... Santiago, 26, is accused of fatally shooting five people and injuring six others last week at the international airport in Fort Lauderdale. -snip- "But you're not defending against guilt in these types of cases, you're defending against the punishment. ... -snip- Federal prosecutors rarely seek a death sentence and even more rarely persuade jurors that execution is appropriate. The...

A Virginia inmate asked a federal court Wednesday to block the state’s plans to execute him next month with lethal injection drugs from a secret compounding pharmacy, suggesting even a firing squad would be more humane. Attorneys for Ricky Gray said in a federal complaint that there is a serious risk that Virginia will “chemically torture” the man to death when it uses compounded drugs for his execution scheduled for Jan. 18. Although firing squads aren’t permitted under Virginia law, his attorneys argue even that method would be a more humane alternative. […] Gray’s attorneys plan to ask Gov. Terry...

The southern US state of Georgia was preparing Wednesday to execute a man convicted of killing a police officer, after the state parole board denied a request for clemency. Gregory Lawler, 63, was set to die by lethal injection at 7 pm (2300 GMT) at a prison in Jackson, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside Atlanta, prison authorities said. According to court documents, Lawler during a domestic dispute in 1997 opened fire with an AR-15 rifle on two officers at his home, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

Ohio said it plans to resume executions in January with a new three-drug combination after an unofficial moratorium dating to early 2014 and blamed on shortages of lethal drugs. It said it will return to an approach it previously used to execute dozens of inmates. The state will use the drugs midazolam, which puts the inmate to sleep; rocuronium bromide, which paralyzes the inmate; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart, the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced Monday in a development first reported by The Associated Press. The drugs aren’t compounded and are approved by the U.S. Food and...

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday halted an execution planned for next week of a man convicted as an accomplice to a murder he did not commit in a case that raised questions about how the state applies the death penalty. Jeffery Wood, 43, was scheduled to be executed on Aug. 24 by lethal injection. He was convicted of taking part in a 1996 convenience store robbery during which clerk Kriss Keeran was fatally shot. In its decision, the appeals court asked a lower court to review his sentence and claims from Wood's lawyer that it was obtained...

Human rights campaigners warn action is needed to stop use of unlicensed drugs or other legally unsatisfactory methodsHuman rights groups have welcomed news that pharmaceutical firm Pfizer is to block the sale of its drugs in the US to perform executions, but warned that legally dubious alternatives could take their place. All companies licensed by the US government to manufacture drugs for state executions have now blocked their use in lethal injections. Pfizer’s withdrawal follows a campaign targeting pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders. The company said: “Pfizer makes its products to enhance and save the lives of the patients we...

Lethal injections will probably become more difficult to carry out in the United States because Pfizer, the second-largest pharmaceutical company in the world, has strengthened controls to prevent its products from being used in executions. Drugs used in executions are no longer available through “the normal pharmaceutical market,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Every U.S. drug maker with products that have been used in executions has gone on record to say they don’t want that to happen any more, he said. “States at this point have decisions to make,” Dunham said. …

A man convicted of killing five people including his ex-wife in a 1997 shooting rampage near Houston was put to death Wednesday. Coy Wesbrook’s lethal injection was the eighth this year nationally and fourth in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any state. Two Georgia inmates have been executed so far in 2016, plus one each in Alabama and Florida. […] Wesbrook killed his ex-wife, Gloria Jean Coons, 32; her roommate, Diana Ruth Money, 43; and three men: Antonio Cruz, 35, Anthony Ray Rogers, 41, and Kelly Hazlip, 28. …

A bill that would force condemned inmates to die by the electric chair if the state can't find lethal injection drugs is one step closer to final approval in Virginia. [...] The bill sailed through the GOP-dominated House last month. A spokesman for Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, has declined to say whether he would support the bill. ...

A Virginia legislative committee has defeated a measure that sought to prohibit officials from using execution drugs they received from another state if they don't reveal the source of the drugs. Democratic Sen. Scott Surovell's bill was voted down by the Senate Education and Health Committee on Thursday. ...

Mississippi's attorney general said Wednesday that he will ask lawmakers to approve the firing squad, electrocution or nitrogen gas as alternate methods of execution in case the state is prevented from giving lethal injections. States are struggling to obtain execution drugs since European pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for lethal injections. Executions are on hold in Mississippi because the state's supply of lethal-injection drugs expired. In October, Ohio delayed executions for a year while it searches for the drugs. ...

International Law and Agreements: Their Effect upon U.S. Law Michael John GarciaLegislative AttorneyFebruary 18, 2015 Summary This report provides an introduction to the roles that international law and agreements play in the United States. International law is derived from two primary sources—international agreements and customary practice. Under the U.S. legal system, international agreements can be entered into by means of a treaty or an executive agreement. The Constitution allocates primary responsibility for entering into such agreements to the executive branch, but Congress also plays an essential role. First, in order for a treaty (but not an executive agreement) to...

Two days after the shooting deaths of nine people during a Bible study at a Charleston church, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said the gunman 'absolutely' should be put to death. However, the state, though largely pro-death penalty, cannot secure one of the drugs needed for lethal injections and has not executed an inmate since 2011. Any potential execution order for Dylann Storm Roof, 21, would be years away. He is charged with nine counts of murder in Wednesday's killing spree at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. He appeared briefly before a judge on Friday and his next court appearance is...

Washington (AFP) - The state of Texas executed a man convicted in the triple murder of his girlfriend, her mother and her grandfather, officials said. Derrick Charles, 32, was put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville at 6:36 pm (2236 GMT), according to spokesman Jason Clark. His last words before being injected with the lethal drugs were "I'm ready to go home," Clark said. The US Supreme Court earlier on Tuesday denied a last minute appeal by the condemned man, allowing the execution to proceed. Charles was just 19 at the time of the murders,...

It is a macabre choice to make - and almost unique to some inmates on Utah's death row: would you be injected with toxic chemicals, or shot in the heart? But, amid cries of outrage against the southwestern state bringing death by firing quad back into law, almost half of those due to die that way have picked the punishment themselves. Ron Lafferty, who slit the throats of his sister-in-law and her baby daughter in 1984, is one of three who has opted to die by the bullet. Two others in Utah's eight-strong death row have made the same choice,...

The execution of the only woman on Georgia's death row has been postponed at the last minute for a second time in less than a week - because the drug used in the lethal injection she was scheduled to receive was 'cloudy'. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, was due to be given an injection of pentobarbital at a prison in Jackson at 7pm on Monday in retribution for plotting the murder of her husband in 1997. But after officials observed the drug to be used in the execution had a 'cloudy' appearance, they postponed her death until a future, unspecified date...

A hotly contested proposal that resurrects Utah’s use of firing squads to carry out executions narrowly passed a key vote Friday in the state’s Legislature after three missing lawmakers were summoned to break a tie vote. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 39-34 Friday morning to approve the measure, sending it to an uncertain fate in the state’s GOP-controlled Senate. Leaders in that chamber have thus far declined to say if they’ll support it, and Utah’s Republican Gov. Gary Herbert won’t say if he’ll sign it. […] (Rep. Paul) Ray argues that a team of trained marksmen is faster and...

Four death row inmates who are suing Ohio officials over a new state law that shields the names of companies providing lethal injection drugs want a federal court to prevent the law from taking effect in March. Attorneys for the inmates filed the motion Monday in U.S. District Court in Columbus. They want the court to stop the provisions that they say violate the right of free speech from taking effect, pending a trial on the lawsuit. […] Supporters of the new law have said that shielding the names of companies that provide lethal injection drugs is necessary to protect...

Oklahoma executed a death row inmate Thursday for killing a baby in 1997 in the state’s first lethal injection since a botched one last spring. Prison officials declared Charles Frederick Warner dead at 7:28 p.m. CST Thursday. The execution lasted 18 minutes. “Before I give my final statement, I’ll tell you they poked me five times. It hurt. It feels like acid,” Warner said before the execution began. He added, “I’m not a monster. I didn’t do everything they said I did.” […] It was the second time Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam as part of a three-drug method, which...

Oklahoma this week plans to conduct its first execution since a faulty lethal injection last April led to U.N. criticism and prompted President Barack Obama to seek a re-examination of how capital punishment is implemented in the United States. The state is set to execute child rapist and murderer Charles Warner on Thursday after spending months revising its protocol for the death chamber to prevent the shortcomings with its last execution. Lawyers for death row inmates said even with the new protocols, the state's execution process remained deeply flawed. They are seeking a court-ordered halt on grounds the Oklahoma process...