Free Republic

Chester D. Turner is no stranger to murder or the punishment that comes with it. He squeezed the life out of more than a dozen women during a decade of terror, and two juries decided he should die for his crimes. So it was merely a formality Friday that Turner, already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a prosecutor called the city's most prolific serial killing. Turner, 47, looked straight at Judge Robert Perry as he handed down the penalty for the string of inner-city killings during the crack cocaine epidemic. As...

HOUSTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review an appeal from condemned Texas inmate Duane Buck, whose supporters contend his death sentence decided by a Houston jury 17 years ago unfairly was based on race. "His death sentence is the product of pervasive racial discrimination," attorneys Christina Swarns, Kathryn Kase and Kate Black said in a statement Wednesday. Without comment, the high court Tuesday rejected Buck's appeal. The ruling was an appeal of a similar rejection in November from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court.

At least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent, according to the first major study to attempt to calculate how often states get it wrong in their wielding of the ultimate punishment. A team of legal experts and statisticians from Michigan and Pennsylvania used the latest statistical techniques to produce a peer-reviewed estimate of the “dark figure” that lies behind the death penalty – how many of the more than 8,000 men and women who have been put on death row since the 1970s were falsely convicted. The team arrived at...

Hideko Hakamada, sister of former boxer Iwao Hakamada who has been on death row in Japan for 48 years, holding a picture of her young brother Iwao during an interview outside the Tokyo Detention House in Tokyo. (AFP) A man believed to be the world's longest-serving death row inmate was Thursday granted a retrial in Japan over multiple murders in 1966, decades after doubts emerged about his guilt. Shizuoka District Court decided to "start the retrial over the case" of Iwao Hakamada, 78, who was convicted for the grisly murder of his boss and the man's family, a court official...

"Lawyers for two men on death row in Oklahoma say the state has informed them it has a new execution protocol that would allow it to choose from any of five lethal injections. The change comes days after the state revealed that it had been unable to obtain the chemicals for its existing protocol: pentobarbital and vecuronium — prompting a court to delay the executions of convicted murderers Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett for a month. In the revised protocol given to the men's defense team, prison officials outline five possible one-drug and three-drug injections it could use to kill...

HOUSTON (AP) — Texas has obtained a new batch of the drugs it uses to execute death row inmates, allowing the state to continue carrying out death sentences once its existing supply expires at the end of the month.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas is set to execute on Wednesday an aspiring rap musician who was convicted of slitting the throat and stabbing to death a music studio owner in San Antonio so that he could rob him of equipment.

• The executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner were put off until April 22 and April 29. The state has had difficulty finding the ingredients of the cocktail used to execute prisoners. OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma court on Tuesday rescheduled a pair of executions set for this week and next so state prison officials will have more time to find a supply of drugs for the lethal injections. The decision came in a lawsuit in which two inmates had sought more information about the drugs that would be used to execute them later this month. The inmates had...

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...