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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 Scientist Who Wanted To Bring A Death Row Inmate Back From The Dead Dr. Robert E. Cornish is probably best known for his 1930s revivification experiments with dogs, in which he claimed to bring dogs back from clinical death. He wanted to try a similar procedure on humans — and when a death row inmate volunteered, Cornish petitioned the state of California to let him play re-animator. Cornish's dog experiments would make most dog lovers cringe. Cornish would suffocate the dogs until they were clinically dead, and then he would place the bodies on a teeter board, rocking the...

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...

Attorney General Eric Holder called Tuesday for a national moratorium on the death penalty until the Supreme Court weighs in on the issue later this year. “Our system of justice is the best in the world. It is comprised of men and women who do the best they can, get it right more often than not, substantially more right than wrong. But there's always the possibility that mistakes will be made,” he said. “It is one thing to put somebody in jail for an extended period of time, have some new test that you can do and determine that person...

Officials have released a 911 call from a witness who saw former rap mogul “Suge” Knight strike two men with his truck, killing one and leading to a murder charge. On the recording released Thursday to The Associated Press, a shaken woman reports seeing a vehicle pull back and then forward, running over the men following a fight.... Los Angeles County prosecutors say it was a deliberate act after a fight that began at another location during a video shoot. Knight complained of chest pains after pleading not guilty to murder, attempted murder and hit-and-run. He was released from a...

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...

Recent botched executions aren’t doing much to sway proponents of the practice in a number of states where it remains legal — in fact, they’re causing states to look at older and potentially more brutal methods of execution, according to a recent report. Oklahoma’s most recent execution of Clayton Lockett in April was an extremely disturbing one, in which he writhed while being pumped with lethal drugs, prompting executions to eventually draw the curtains for the gallery. The warden described it as a “bloody mess,” according to the Associated Press. The execution joined a pair of others in Ohio and...

California’s death row houses 749 inmates, including 64 convicted in Orange County. From serial killers to child murderers, here is a closer look at 10 of the most notorious death row cases from O.C., as well as some facts about Death Row in California: ...

Imagine being told you are going to die in a month. Then it's a few hours. Then another month. You may be set free or you may be killed, and it all depends on events that are completely out of your control. How long could you stand it?

Pennsylvania’s chief justice wants the state Supreme Court to ban lawyers at an organization that currently handles many appeals by convicted murderers on the state's death row. Chief Justice Ronald Castille took that position in a rare single-justice opinion issued late Wednesday that resolved a number of issues surrounding a decision he wrote three years ago. In both opinions, Castille took aim at the Philadelphia-based Federal Community Defender Office, writing that the group has engaged in abusive and unethical practices that warrant removing its lawyers from all Pennsylvania cases. …

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...