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Cincinnati, OH (AHN) - The Ohio Supreme Court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against staying the execution of an inmate because he is obese. The two courts upheld an earlier ruling of the U.S. The double murder convict argued that lethal injection might not be properly administered to him and might be painful and slow because his physical condition will make it difficult to find a vein where the lethal drug will be injected.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - A double murderer scheduled to be executed next month in Ohio said Tuesday he has not deliberately gained weight to rule out his death by lethal injection. Instead, Richard Cooey said in a death row interview that his execution cannot be carried out humanely under current state procedures because his veins are hard to reach. "Vein access was an issue even when I was back in the service," Cooey, 41, said in an hour-long interview with the Associated Press at the Ohio State Penitentiary. Cooey, 5-foot, 7 inches tall and 267 pounds, said he has gained perhaps...

ACKSON — Georgia’s longest-serving death row inmate was executed Tuesday in the slaying of his wife 34 years ago. Jack Alderman was pronounced dead at 7:25 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson. The 57-year-old Alderman was sentenced to die by lethal injection in the 1974 slaying of his wife, Barbara. He and an accomplice beat her with a crescent wrench and choked her at their Chatham County home before dumping her body in a creek. Prosecutors allege he wanted to collect $20,000 in life insurance money. Alderman has been on death row for 33 years.

from some good friends: GET READY, GET READY, GET READY!! An Urgent Letter of Warning, Preparation and Promises Dear Friends and Family, (This letter recently came to us from people we trust.. Please read prayerfully and be warned. Be ready! For in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. Matt 24:44 The only thing the NWO people don't know is that the 4 angels of Rev 7 are still holding back the winds...till God's servants are sealed...Nonetheless, it behooves us to be ready. Europe is talking about the imminent US economic collapse which will spread...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers killed four handcuffed and blindfolded Iraqi prisoners with pistol shots on the bank of a Baghdad canal last year, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Sergeant First Class Joseph P. Mayo, the platoon sergeant, and Sergeant Michael P. Leahy Jr., Company D's senior medic and an acting squad leader, made sworn statements in January to Army investigators in Schweinfurt, Germany probing the incident, the newspaper reported on its website. The men each described killing one of the Iraqi detainees, as directed by First Sergeant John E. Hatley, according to the statements. Hatley shot...

Attorneys for [Jeffery] Wood were in the federal courts this week seeking permission to hire mental health experts to pursue their arguments that Wood is incompetent to be executed tonight. Texas courts have turned down Wood’s appeals. Wood was convicted in the January 1996 slaying of Kriss Keeran, 31, at a Texaco in Kerrville. ...[Daniel] Reneau, Wood’s roommate, was executed in 2002 for shooting Keeran.

Condemned inmate Michael Rodriguez, convicted of taking part in killing a Dallas-area police officer nearly eight years ago while a member of the infamous "Texas 7" gang of escaped fugitives, was executed Thursday. He was the eighth convicted killer executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state and the fourth this month. Another is set for next week.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A twice-convicted killer with a history of violence that continued even after he was sent to death row was executed Tuesday for gunning down two video store workers during a robbery 14 years ago in Dallas. "...See y'all when you get there," Leon David Dorsey IV said in his final statement. "Do what you're going to do." Dorsey was the seventh prisoner executed this year in the nation's most active death penalty state and the first of two inmates scheduled to die this week. Two more are to die next week.

(Dallas, TX) -- A Dallas killer, one of the most dangerous men on Death Row, will be executed tonight. Leon Dorsey freely admits that he murdered two Blockbuster employees in Dallas during a high-profile 1994 robbery. He shows no remorse over the brutal killings and refuses to apologize. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice keeps Dorsey on its highest lockdown level because of a history of violence and threats. In his eight years on Death Row, Dorsey has amassed nearly 100 infractions including an attack where he stabbed a guard 14 times with a hand-made shank. The guard was saved...

HUNTSVILLE — An illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed his treaty rights were violated when he was arrested for a robbery-murder near Dallas was executed Thursday evening. "God forgive them, receive my spirit," Heliberto Chi said in English. In Spanish, he told a friend watching through a window that he loved him and appreciated his hard work. He appeared to be whispering a prayer in Spanish with a tear at the corner of his right eye as the lethal drugs began to take effect. One of Chi's cousins, who was among the witnesses, sobbed uncontrollably. Two sons of his victims...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's judiciary has decided to scrap the punishment of stoning convicts to death in draft legislation submitted to parliament for approval, the local press reported on Wednesday. Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi was also quoted as saying that stoning sentences against several convicts had been suspended, with four commuted to either lashes of the whip or jail terms. "In the latest version of the Islamic penal codes bill, which has undergone several modifications, such punishments are not mentioned," Jamshidi said, the reformist Etemad newspaper reported, referring to both stoning and amputation.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday. Protesters for and against Jose Ernesto Medellin's execution gathered before he was put to death Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas, for raping and murdering two teens in 1993. His death ended 15 years of legal disputes on a sour note. "The government of Mexico sent the U. S. Department of State a diplomatic note of protest for this violation of international law, expressing its concern for the precedent that it may create for the rights...

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Lawyers for three Islamic militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings lodged a legal challenge on Wednesday over Indonesia's method of executing convicts by firing squad, calling it inhumane. The three men -- Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Gufron -- face a firing squad for their roles in the nightclub bombings on the island of Bali that killed 202 people. "We believe that execution by way of a gunfire is inhumane. It is for these reasons that the defense attorneys are applying to challenge the legislation," said lawyer Wirawan Adnan, adding...

A Mexican-born convicted rapist and murderer was executed Tuesday. Jose Medellin was killed by lethal injection in a Texas prison for the rape, torture and murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena and 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate,” Medellin said to the group who had gathered to watch him die. He was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. Medellin, 33, was convicted in the 1993 gang rape, beating and murder of Pena and Ertman. He and five fellow gang members attacked the girls as they...

Medellin executed for rape, murder of Houston teens By ALLAN TURNER and ROSANNA RUIZ Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Aug. 6, 2008, 12:36AM Comments Recommend 1 2 3 Texas Department of Criminal Justice Jose Medellin's case created international controversy when the United Nations' world court determined Texas had violated the killer's rights under the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzHUNTSVILLE — The state of Texas defied an international court and executed Jose Ernesto Medellin late Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for the killer in the 1993 Houston gang rape-murders of...

HOUSTON — In a case that has drawn international attention, Texas executed José E. Medellín on Tuesday night in defiance of an international court ruling and despite pleas from the Bush administration for a new hearing. The execution came just before 10 p.m. Central time, shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied a last request for a reprieve. Protesters for and against the death penalty clamored in the rain outside the Huntsville Unit, about 70 miles north of Houston, where Mr. Medellín was executed by lethal injection. “I’m sorry my actions caused you pain,” he said to the witnesses...

Medellin Execute For Rape, Murder of Houston Teens Link Only

After backing the sovereignty of the state of Texas and rejecting international meddling, the US Supreme Court’s consideration of a last-ditch appeal has put illegal alien rapist/double murderer Jose Medellin’s scheduled execution tonight on hold. Stay tuned for late-breaking developments.

The state of Texas urged the Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to go ahead on Tuesday with the execution of Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin, arguing that he has several times received all of the review of his case that American or international law requires. But, the state added, if there are other foreign nationals in Texas who have not had the same review of their treaty-based claims, the state will join in to make sure that it happens. Medellin’s lawyers have asked Justice Antonin Scalia, as Circuit Justice for the area that includes Texas, to postpone his...

Southern states execute two killers HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Texas executed a man Wednesday who was convicted of killing a woman and her child, while Mississippi put to death a man who took part in the fatal beating of another man. Derrick Sonnier shook his head "no" when asked if he had any final statements. he was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal dose was administered. Sonnier was convicted of murdering Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son, Patrick, in their Houston apartment in 1991. Flowers was raped, stabbed, strangled and beaten with a hammer until...

(CNN) — Support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama extend to death row Wednesday. According to The Jackson Clarion Ledger, a Mississippi newspaper, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop's final words before being executed Wednesday night included an appeal to Americans to vote for the Illinois senator. "For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said, according to the paper.

PARCHMAN - One of Marcus Gentry's killers is dead. "The Mississippi Department of Corrections today conducted the mandated execution of inmate Dale Leo Bishop," Commissioner Christopher Epps said Wednesday. "This evening closed the final phase of the Dale Leo Bishop case, which began on Dec. 10, 1998, with the kidnapping and murder of Marcus James Gentry." The death by lethal injection was carried out, he said, "with dignity and decorum." Bishop wore a goatee and a red prison jumpsuit with flip-flops to his execution by lethal injection at 6 p.m. He was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. A couple of...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - A man convicted of murdering his adoptive parents was put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Thursday, the second prisoner executed in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted an unofficial death penalty moratorium in April. Carlton Turner's was the first of three executions scheduled for July in Texas -- the country's busiest death penalty state. Texas has 14 more executions slated for this year. Turner, 29, was convicted of fatally shooting his adoptive parents -- Carlton Sr., 43, and Tonya, 40 -- in their Irving, Texas, home in August 1998. Turner, 19...

Three Indonesian Muslim militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings have reaffirmed their readiness to die, provided the execution is done in accordance to the Islamic laws. Their lawyers have told Antara news agency the planned execution will only go ahead if the Supreme Court denies their third legal review; the latest attempt to stall their executions. The three men, Ali Ghufron, alias Muhklas, his younger brother Amrozi and Imam Samudra, are currently waiting for the legal decision. Indonesia's Supreme Court turned down the three men's final appeal in March 2004, and rejected a similar request for a...

May 29, 2008'Jihad Watch: Dr. Foroud Fouladvand ____________________________ This message comes from an Iranian ex-Muslim and lover of freedom in London: Urgent Attention Another free thinker is to be executed in Iran in the coming days. It is with great regret that I inform all freedom loving people of the world that the Mullahs' terrorist regime is about to execute one of Iran's finest thinkers, a true patriot, scholar and historian. Dr. Foroud Fouladvand is a dedicated monarchist, a Ferdousi expert as well as expert on the history of Iran and Islam. A confirmed report sent to the office of...

Virginia's 100th execution in modern times was carried out last night as Robert Stacy Yarbrough died by injection for the 1997 slaying of a country store owner. Yarbrough, 30, was pronounced dead at the Greensville Correctional Center at 9:28 p.m. Asked if he had any last words, he said, "Tell my kids I love them. Let's get it over with. Make people happy," according to a prison spokesman. He was sentenced to die for the May 8, 1997, capital murder of Cyril H. Hamby, 77. Hamby was tied up and nearly decapitated with a knife during a robbery of the...

TEHRAN, June 20 -- An armed Sunni group said Friday that it had executed two Iranian policemen, and it threatened to kill 14 others abducted a week ago in an area near the border with Pakistan. Iranian authorities did not immediately react to a videotape purporting to show the killings, part of which was aired Friday by the al-Arabiya satellite channel, based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Iran has accused the United States of assisting the group, known as Jundallah, or God's Brigade. In 2007, ABC News quoted U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that Jundallah members...

South Carolina on Friday electrocuted a man for murdering his ex-girlfriend's parents in 1994, the second execution in the state since a Supreme Court ruling lifted a de facto national moratorium, a state official said. James Earl Reed, 49, was convicted in 1996 of shooting Joseph and Barbara Lafayette multiple times, including execution-style shots in the heads, after they refused to tell him where their daughter was. He had dismissed his attorney during his trial and tried to defend himself in court. "The execution of James Earl Reed was carried out at 11:27 p.m.," state prison spokesman Josh Gelinas said....

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - The Corrections Department announced that James Earl Reed was executed at 11:27pm Friday. The execution comes after the South Carolina 4th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Corrections Department permission to proceed with the execution. Just minutes before his previously scheduled 6pm execution, Reed was granted a stay of execution by US District Court Judge Henry Floyd. According to the order from the US District Court, Attorney Diana Holt wrote that the execution violated Reed's right to have an attorney at trial, his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment and his right to...

18 June 2008) The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran published a list of 114 child offenders awaiting execution in Iran today, the first time such a list has been made available detailing the practice, which has been banned in all but a handful of countries. The list is the result of comprehensive primary research by prominent Iranian human rights defender Emad Baghi. It forms part of his thus-far unpublished book “Right to Life II,” which demonstrates that such executions are not sanctioned by Islamic law as argued by Iranian authorities. The Iranian censors have not permitted the book...

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday executed three people including notorious serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, a fetishist convicted of murdering four little girls and eating some of their bodies, officials said. Miyazaki, 45, was nicknamed the "killer nerd" for his obsession with sexual cartoons and pornography. But defence lawyers contended he was mentally ill and could not be held fully responsible for his actions. Japan is the only major industrialised nation other than the United States to apply the death penalty and has been stepping up the pace of executions, which enjoy wide public support. "We are carrying out executions...

Japan hangs 3 convicted murderers By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press writer 9 minutes ago A serial killer who mutilated the bodies of four young girls and reportedly drank the blood of one of his victims was among three convicted murderers executed in Japan on Tuesday for crimes an official called indescribably cruel. Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, whose rash of grisly killings in the late 1980s triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos, was hanged at a detention center in Tokyo, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said. Miyazaki burned the body of one 4-year-old and left her bones on her parents'...

It was two years ago yesterday that 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, a 1996 Kalani High School graduate, declared publicly that he would not deploy to Iraq with his Stryker brigade combat team. Today, Watada is still in the Army working at a desk job at Fort Lewis, Wash., while his case is tied up in federal court. Ken Kagan, Watada's attorney, told the Star-Bulletin that federal judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma will probably take up the matter early this fall. In November, Settle ruled that no court-martial will be held for Watada pending the outcome of his claim that it...

JARRATT, Va. — Lawrence Vaughan didn't get to see his wife's funeral. But after nearly 10 years, he was able to see her killer take his last breaths. Vaughan and his family watched Tuesday as Kevin Green, 31, was executed by lethal injection for killing Patricia Vaughan in August of 1998 when he robbed the store she and her husband owned in rural Brunswick County. Green was pronounced dead at 10:05 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center. It was Virginia's first execution in nearly two years and the third in the U.S. since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of lethal...

Washington - The US state of Georgia is set to execute William Earl Lynd on Tuesday, the first use of the death penalty in the United States in more than seven months. The execution comes after the Supreme Court last month upheld the right of states to use lethal injections, which opponents argued were unconstitutional and amounted to "cruel and unusual punishment."

In a widely splintered decision, the Supreme Court cleared the way for executions to resume across the country, concluding that the most common method of lethal injection does not violate the Constitution.

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Friday he hoped the six Guantanamo prisoners charged with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington would not receive the death penalty.

Gay Iranian teenager faces deportation to Tehran and likely execution. CNN's Alphonso Van Marsh reports. (video link)

Seoul - Fifteen North Koreans have been executed because they illegally crossed the border with China. The South Korean humanitarian organisation Good Friends says they did so in search of food. The group which consisted of 13 women and two men, was shot dead in a public execution on a bridge in the town of Onseong. The humanitarian organisation says the local population was extremely shocked by the incident. Border crossings by starving North Koreans are a daily occurrence. Many North Koreans have family or friends in China and visit them illegally. Normally, anyone caught crossing the border is sent...

The long-delayed execution of "Chemical Ali", Saddam Hussein's cousin and one of his most notorious henchmen, has been approved, an Iraqi government adviser said. Ali Hassan al-Majid known as Chemical Ali Chemical Ali - whose real name is Ali Hassan al-Majid - was one of three former Saddam officials sentenced to death in June after being convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for their part in the 1988 Anfal campaign that killed nearly 200,000 Kurds. An appeals court upheld the verdict in September.

22 N. Korean drifters executed after return home: source SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, a source here said Sunday. Two fishing boats carrying the 22 North Koreans, including 14 women and three teenagers, drifted into the western waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Feb. 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention to defect, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release on Saturday....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2008 – The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is sound and can work, but the challenge lies in executing that strategy and sustaining success over time, a Defense Department official told Congress today. James Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in response to two recent reports that contend the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan needs to be fundamentally changed. Shinn described the strategy in Afghanistan as one of clearing, holding and building. The coalition has done very well in the clearing aspect of the strategy, he said,...

Three Japanese prisoners executed Three death row prisoners have been executed in Japan, the authorities have announced. The justice ministry identified the men as convicted murderers Masahiko Matsubara, 63, Takashi Mochida, 65, and Keishi Nago, 37. They were hanged at separate prisons in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka. Human rights groups are critical of the secrecy surrounding executions in Japan, one of the few industrialised countries to retain the death penalty. Relatives are told only after the hangings have taken place and this is just the second time the names of those executed have been publicly announced. The first was in...

Five Hanged in Evin January 30, 2008 AFP Tehran -- Iran hanged five convicted murderers in Tehran's Evin prison on Wednesday, the Fars news agency reported, as curbs were imposed on executions being carried out in public. A man identified only by his first name of Faraz was hanged for killing his girlfriend Andia in February 2004. "This morning Faraz begged Andia's father to forgive him, but the father reminded him of how he had murdered his daughter and refused to pardon him," Fars said in the report. Ramezan, 29, was executed for stabbing his brother's wife to death after...

Iran hangs 13 on single day: reports Wed Jan 2, 12:21 PM ET Iran hanged 13 convicted criminals on Wednesday, including the mother of two young children who had been found guilty of murdering her husband after discovering he was having an affair, reports said. Raheleh Zamani, who reportedly chopped her husband's body into pieces, was hanged alongside seven men convicted of murder, in a mass execution at Tehran's Evin prison, the Iranian Student Correspondents' Association (ISCA) reported. Three drug traffickers were also hanged on Wednesday in public in a square in the central city of Qom and another two...

This news bulletin just in from our victorious comrades on the Northern Front !!

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year old Iranian citizen of Kurdish origin from the city of Paveh, in the Western province of Kermanshah, has been sentenced by the government to execution. Makvan has been convicted of multiple counts of anal rape and sentenced to execution for crimes allegedly committed when he was 13 years old. IGLHRC calls for an international response to stop this scheduled execution. Imposing the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles is prohibited under international law as well as by the Iranian legal system. In addition,...

When Junny Rios-Martinez's cell phone rang Thursday afternoon, he and his wife were in their car, getting the family together on their way to witness the execution of their son's killer scheduled for that night. According to state records, on April 18, 1991, a schoolmate of Junny reported the boy got into a U-Haul truck with a man. Days later, Junny's body was found in a footlocker. Authorities said he'd been raped and asphyxiated.

The wife of executed killer Michael Richard filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday accusing Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of causing the inmate's Sept. 25 lethal injection. Marsha Richard of Houston claims Keller had no authority to prevent what would have been a successful appeal to stay her husband's execution. The lawsuit says Keller violated Michael Richard's due process rights when she ordered the court clerk's office to close promptly at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25 before his lawyers could file an appeal. Houston attorney David Dow had asked for more time after having computer problems. The...

Billy Ray Hamilton, who killed three people with a sawed-off shotgun inside Fran's Market in Fresno more than a quarter-century ago, has died in prison. We have to ask the same question asked by the parents of one of his victims: Why did Hamilton spend 27 years on death row? His prison stay lasted more than one and a half times as long as his youngest victim's entire life. His victims were Douglas White, 18, Josephine Rocha, 17, and Bryon Schletewitz, 27. We support the death penalty. At the same time, we believe those sentenced to death must have every...