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Convicted of killing three during a 2007 home invasion in Cheshire, Steve Hayes, 50, was revived by staff and taken to the hospital Monday after he was found unresponsive. The convicted killer has spoken in the past of wanting to die because of his immense guilt over the crime.Convicted Cheshire killer Steven Hayes was found unresponsive in his death row cell on Monday, Connecticut authorities said. Awaiting his date with a state execution, Hayes, 50, was found in his cell at the Northern Correctional Institute around 9:35 a.m. by officers on their “routine tour,” who revived the killer. A spokesman...

Ray Jasper, a Death Row inmate in Texas scheduled for execution in two weeks, has written a lengthy letter from prison where he blasts the justice system and the specter of racial disparity. Jasper, who was a young rap artist at the time, was accused of the brutal robbing and killing of a recording studio owner in 1998. Convicted in 2000 and later sentenced to death, Jasper has used a platform provided to him in where he lashes out at the prison system, likening it to slavery. Gawker Media began a Letters From Death Row series in 2012, in which...

The US state of Texas plans to execute a Mexican national convicted of murder, over the objections of the US and Mexican governments. Mexico says Wednesday's execution of Edgar Tamayo, 46, will violate international law. The country says he was not told of his right to seek legal assistance from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested.

HOUSTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry and a former Texas governor are part of an international coalition trying to halt Texas' execution of a Mexican citizen this week. Edgar Tamayo Arias, 46, is to be put to death Wednesday for fatally shooting Houston Police Officer Guy Gaddis in 1994. Gaddis, 24, had been flagged down near a nightclub by a man who accused Tamayo of robbing him. The officer arrested Tamayo, handcuffed him and put him in the back seat of his patrol car. He was driving away when Tamayo drew a concealed pistol and shot Gaddis three...

Murderer first to be executed with controversial 'air hunger' drug after last meal of beef, ice cream and chicken (rest of title) 'One can scarcely conceive of a sequence of crimes more shocking to the conscience or to moral sensibilities than the senseless kidnapping and rape of a young, pregnant woman followed by her murder,

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Ohio Governor John Kasich on Wednesday stayed the execution of convicted killer Ronald Phillips to assess whether Phillips's non-vital organs or tissues can be donated to his mother or possibly others. Phillips, 40, was scheduled to be executed Thursday for the 1993 murder of 3-year-old Sheila Marie Evans. But Kasich granted a stay until July 2 to allow medical experts to assess whether Phillips's non-vital organs or tissues can be donated to his mother or others.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A prison doctor couldn’t find veins in the arms of an Ohio death row inmate during a pre-execution check-up, the inmate said Friday by video in rare court testimony as he challenges the state’s new, never-tried lethal-injection method. Condemned child killer Ronald Phillips said the doctor could find only a vein on his right hand following an examination on Oct. 18 at the medical centre at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, south of Columbus. “I guess the Lord hid my veins from them,” Phillips said. Phillips testified as part of a lawsuit brought by his attorneys to delay his...

A former South Texas street gang member started snoring as he was lethally injected in a Texas prison. Robert Gene Garza, 30, smiled and blew a kiss to friends and relatives as they entered the death chamber. In a brief final statement, he thanked them for coming and told them he loved them. 'I know it's hard for you. It's not easy. This is a release. Y'all finally get to move on with your lives,' he said. Garza took several deep breaths as a lethal dose of pentobarbital began flowing into his arms, then began snoring. All movement stopped within...

The Rio Grande Valley has seen more than its fair share of heinous and brutal crimes. But only 24 of those crimes ended with the suspects being sentenced to death. Some 503 inmates have been executed in Texas since 1982. Of those executed inmates, 8 of them were from the Valley. Six of the executed inmates are from Cameron County while two are from Hidalgo County. Of the 278 inmates currently sitting on Texas Death Row, some 16 of them are from the Valley. Eleven of those inmates waiting for execution are from Hidalgo County while five of them are...

Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan forcibly shaved in military prison after being sentenced to death • Major Nidal Hasan began growing a beard in the years after the November 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 30 wounded The Army psychiatrist sentenced to death for the Fort Hood shooting rampage has been forcibly shaved, an Army spokesman said on Tuesday. Major Nidal Hasan began growing a beard in the years after the November 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 30 wounded. The beard prompted delays to his court-martial because it violated Army grooming regulations. He was convicted of...

FORT HOOD – U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan will be executed for the 2009 shooting rampage on post that left 13 people dead and more than 30 wounded. The jury panel of 13 U.S. Army officers delivered the verdict on post moments before 2 p.m. Wednesday. They deliberated for less than three hours. Last Friday, the same panel unanimously found Hasan guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood. This sentencing verdict ends the court martial after 17 days. In it, Hasan, who defended himself, never...

An Ohio inmate whose 450-pound weight became an issue in his death penalty case has died seven months after being granted clemency, officials said Friday. Ronald Post died Thursday morning at a prison hospital where he’d been treated on and off since 2011, a state prisons spokeswoman said. He was a week shy of his 54th birthday. Post was sentenced to death for killing Elyria motel clerk Helen Vantz on Dec. 15, 1983. His attorneys sought mercy for Post ahead of his Jan. 16 execution date on the grounds that he was so obese that he could not be executed...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Jim Willett remembers the night of Dec. 6, 1982, when he was assigned to guard a mortuary van that had arrived at the death house at the Huntsville prison.“I remember thinking: We’re really going to do this. This is really going to happen,” says Willett, who was a captain for the Texas Department of Corrections.When the van pulled away early the next morning, it carried to a nearby funeral home the body of convicted killer Charlie Brooks, who had just become the first Texas prisoner executed since a Supreme Court ruling six years earlier allowed the...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Jim Willett remembers the night of Dec. 6, 1982, when he was assigned to guard a mortuary van that had arrived at the death house at the Huntsville prison. "I remember thinking: We're really going to do this. This is really going to happen," says Willett, who was a captain for the Texas Department of Corrections. When the van pulled away early the next morning, it carried to a nearby funeral home the body of convicted killer Charlie Brooks, who had just become the first Texas prisoner executed since a Supreme Court ruling six years earlier...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana woman put on death row at age 16 for killing an elderly Bible school teacher is scheduled to be released Monday after serving a prison term that was shortened after the state Supreme Court intervened. Paula Cooper's death sentence at such a young age sparked international protests and a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II. Now 43 years old, Cooper is being given a second chance at her life. Cooper was 15 when she and three other teenage girls showed up at Ruth Pelke's house on May 14, 1985, with plans of robbing...

A Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening for fatally shooting one of three people he and a partner abducted during a convenience store robbery nearly 11 years ago. Richard Cobb, 29, didn’t deny using a 20-gauge shotgun to kill Kenneth Vandever in an East Texas field where two women also were shot and one was raped. He was convicted of capital murder. “Life is death, death is life. I hope that someday this absurdity that humanity has come to will come to an end,” Cobb said when asked if he had any last words. “Life is too short. I hope...

Arkansas plans to put prisoners to death with a drug that apparently hasn’t been used in a U.S. execution, and lawyers for condemned inmates warn that it could take longer for someone to die from it than from other lethal injection drugs. Arkansas Department of Correction spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the state plans to use phenobarbital, along with lorazepam, in lethal injections. None are currently scheduled, but Arkansas recently passed a law that will allow the state to resume executions. … In a letter obtained by the AP, federal public defender Jennifer Horan told...

Autumn Carter, a Mansfield, Ohio girl, was raped and killed in 1998. She was six-months old (that’s right). Her convicted killer, Steven Smith, has a May 1 date with the executioner. Yesterday, he appeared before the Ohio Parole Board, where he pleaded for mercy. Smith, 31 years old at the time he took baby Autumn’s life, has not repented his evil. He says his life should be spared because he really didn’t mean to kill the infant. He just wanted to have sex with her. The convicted killer’s public defenders, Joseph Wilhelm and Tyson Fleming, had his back yesterday at...

His death warrant was signed, and he had already taken an anxiety-calming sedative and said his final goodbyes to his loved ones. But supporters of this Georgia death-row inmate soon became elated after learning that Atlanta’s 11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals both granted temporary reprieves just a half hour before Warren Hill’s state-sponsored murder was slated to begin at 7 p.m. on Feb. 19. In a 2-1 decision, the federal judges decided that more reviews of the doctors’ statements were necessary. Still, Hill faces strict requirements to get his case reconsidered. “If this...

Start-up mania hits San Quentin prison as inmates turn entrepreneurs One by one, the entrepreneurs, clad in crisp blue jeans and armed with PowerPoint presentations, stood before a roomful of investors and tech bloggers to explain their dreams of changing the world. For these exuberant times in Silicon Valley, the scene was familiar; the setting, less so. With the young and ambitious flocking again to northern California to launch Internet companies, there were signs one recent morning that start-up mania has taken hold even behind the faded granite walls of California's most notorious prison. 'Live stream has gone mainstream. Mobile...