Imam Sues Alabama for Not Letting Him Join Muslim Inmates in Execution Room
An imam filed a federal lawsuit against Alabama on Thursday for barring him from accompanying a Muslim death row inmate during his 2019 execution.
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Death Penalty
Demanding Death
A California voter who’s proudly voted to uphold and enforce the death penalty in the Golden State sued Governor Gavin Newsom and corrections secretary Kathleen Allison on Wednesday, complaining Newsom unilaterally ended executions and Allison dismantled the state’s only death chamber.
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Man Convicted in 3 Killings to Be Last Executed Under Trump
The last federal inmate facing execution before President Donald Trump leaves office was sentenced to death for the killings of three women in a Maryland wildlife refuge, a crime that led to a life sentence for the man who fired the fatal shots.
Read moreExecutions
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the executions of Cory Johnson and Dustin Higgs can proceed. The federal executions are the last two scheduled to occur under the Trump administration.
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US Carries Out Its 1st Execution of Female Inmate Since 1953
A Kansas woman was executed Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has put to death a female inmate.
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Supreme Court Clears Way for Woman’s Execution
The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Justice Department to carry out the first execution of a female death-row inmate in almost seven decades.
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China Court Sentences Ex-Banker to Death for $260M Bribes & Bigamy
The former chairman of one of China’s largest state-controlled asset management firms was sentenced to death Tuesday for soliciting $260 million in bribes, corruption, and also bigamy.
Read moreExecution
A federal court in Washington vacated an order that had delayed the execution of Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a pregnant woman to death and cut out the eight-month-old fetus. Montgomery’s lawyers say she suffers from brain damage and multiple mental illnesses. The decision reinstates the execution scheduled for Jan. 12.
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Texas Supreme Court Orders State to Pay Innocent Man Freed From Death Row
A Texas man who spent 10 years on death row for a crime he did not commit is entitled to compensation, the state’s highest court ruled Friday, despite state officials’ repeated refusal to pay him.
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Justices Dash Relief for Man on Death Row After Casino Trip Killing
Chiding the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday reinstated a death sentence for a man who killed his gambling buddy over some casino losses.
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Trump Cementing Death Penalty Legacy up to Biden Inaugural
As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
Read moreDeath Penalty
A federal judge declined to halt the Dec. 10 execution of Brandon Bernard, who was convicted of murder in 2000 alongside his co-conspirator in a carjacking that left two youth ministers dead. Bernard was present at the murder scene but did not plan the crime or shoot the victims. However, he has exhausted all avenues to appeal his sentence and the public has a vested interest in carrying out a valid sentence.
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Planned Parenthood Shooter Spared Death Penalty
The U.S. Department of Justice will not seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing three individuals at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2015.
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Ohio Killer Asks En Banc Court to Keep Death Penalty Off the Table
An Ohio man whose death sentence was overturned earlier this year by a panel of judges argued before the full Sixth Circuit on Wednesday that his intellectual disabilities make capital punishment unconstitutional.
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New Rule Could Allow Gas, Firing Squads for US Executions
The Justice Department is quietly amending its execution protocols, no longer requiring federal death sentences to be carried out by lethal injection and clearing the way to use other methods like firing squads and poison gas.
Read moreOnly Woman on Federal Death Row Granted Time to Seek Clemency
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Trump administration plans to execute the only woman on federal death row next month, but a
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Federal Executions on Track but DC Circuit Flags Legal Errors
Though it declined to block two federal executions, the first just over 24 hours away, the D.C. Circuit was critical Wednesday that seven lethal injections have been carried out in the last few months without medical prescriptions.
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Challenge to Trump’s Lineup of Federal Executions Hits DC Circuit
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is continuing down the line of federal death row prisoners it plans to execute, but attorneys put up a new fight against the effort at the D.C. Circuit on Monday.
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Covid Sidelines Counsel for Only Woman on Federal Death Row
Attorneys fighting to save the only woman on federal death row from execution next month sued the Trump administration on Thursday after coming down with Covid-19.
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Military Tells High Court There Is No Time Bar to Rape Cases
The U.S. military says it can prosecute rape claims going back decades, but a deeper question arose Tuesday at oral arguments as the Supreme Court focused on the death penalty that such convictions may carry.
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