Free Republic

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...

A Texas father beat a man to death after catching him molesting his four-year-old daughter in a horse barn, The Houston Chronicle reports. The incident happened Saturday evening near Shiner, Texas. Lavaca County Sheriff Micah Harmon identified the victim as a 47-year-old man from Gonzales, Texas. He was reported dead at the scene, however, his name will not be released until his next of kin is notified

Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter's land. Justice Souter's vote in the "Kelo vs. City of New London" decision allows city governments to take land from one private owner and give it to another if the government will generate greater tax revenue or other economic benefits when the land is developed by...

LECCO, Italy (Reuters) - Italy's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a man's appeal to remove a feeding tube keeping his daughter alive, weeks after a bitter row over brain-damaged Terri Schiavo divided the United States. The Italian court confirmed an earlier ruling that called feeding Eluana Englaro, in a vegetative state following a 1992 car crash, a "necessary act." It said a decision to remove the tube required "valuations of life and death that are rooted in concepts of an ethical or religious nature, which are extrajudicial," and said that the issue was also outside the powers of Englaro's father....