capital punishment

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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...

Okla. to Execute Man Today, First Since Botched Death

It's upped dose of midazolam, implemented training, better equipment

(Newser) - Nine months after a botched lethal injection ground capital punishment to a halt, Oklahoma plans to execute a death row inmate today with the same three-drug method Florida intends to use about an hour earlier. Oklahoma prison officials ordered new medical equipment, implemented more training for staff, and renovated the...

Maryland Gov Commutes Last 4 Death Row Sentences

The state abolished capital punishment in 2013

(Newser) - When the Maryland state legislature voted to abolish capital punishment in 2013, five men were on death row. One died of natural causes in April, and now the remaining four—all convicted of murder—have just had their sentences commuted to life without parole on the last day of 2014...

Arizona Makes Changes After 'Not Botched' Execution

Judge rules that Oklahoma can resume executions

(Newser) - Arizona's execution of Joseph Wood was "not botched," a state-commissioned review has concluded, even though it took almost two hours for him to die. The director of Arizona's Department of Corrections says the lethal injection was "done appropriately and with the utmost professionalism," the...

'Delusional' Texas Inmate Gets 11th-Hour Stay of Execution

Attorneys had sought reprieve for 'delusional' Scott Panetti, who killed his in-laws

(Newser) - No one disputes that Texas death row inmate Scott Panetti shot his second wife's parents to death in 1992 to rid them of demons. Or that during his trial, he represented himself dressed in a purple cowboy costume and tried to get 200 witness subpoenas, including ones for JFK...

Utah Aims to Bring Back Firing Squads

State wants backup method in case of drug shortages

(Newser) - Utah—the only state to have executed somebody by firing squad this century—is talking about bringing back the execution method it recently phased out. A bill to use firing squads when drugs for lethal injections can't be obtained sailed through a legislative committee and will be before the...

Texas Executes Killer After Appeals Fail

Supreme Court opts not to stop lethal injection of Willie Trottie

(Newser) - Texas today executed a man for killing his ex-girlfriend and her brother more than two decades ago in Houston. Willie Trottie's lethal injection was carried out about 90 minutes after the Supreme Court rejected his last-day appeals. Trottie, 45, contended he had poor legal help at his trial and...

Missouri Executes Armed Robber

Earl Ringo was convicted of 1998 double murder

(Newser) - A Missouri inmate convicted in a 1998 robbery and double murder was put to death just after midnight in the eighth execution in the state this year and the 10th since November. Earl Ringo Jr. and an accomplice killed delivery driver Dennis Poyser and manager trainee JoAnna Baysinger at a...

Death Penalty Foes Should Cut the Appeals to Human Dignity

They'd have better luck portraying it as a big-government failure: Daniel LaChance

(Newser) - Support for the death penalty is declining in the US, but it doesn't have much to do with botched executions or moral outrage, writes Daniel LaChance in the New York Times . Nope, it's mostly because the death penalty just isn't what it used to be: Executions often...

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