Free Republic

A Republican lawmaker is demanding that the man responsible for leaking President Donald Trump’s tax returns in 2019 testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Responsible for one of the largest data breaks in the Internal Revenue Service’s history, the ex-IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for leaking the tax documents of roughly 400,000 wealthy Americans – including Trump – to media outlets in 2019 and 2020. Littlejohn’s short sentence results from the DOJ charging him with only one count of unauthorized disclosure of tax information and then offering a plea deal, which Republicans blasted as...

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman will allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty again in Los Angeles, undoing one of the signature policies of his predecessor, George Gascón. The move comes as little surprise: Hochman campaigned on the issue almost as soon as he announced his challenge to Gascón in 2023. But it still marks a significant shift in one of the largest prosecutor’s offices in the nation. Under California law, the death penalty can only be sought in cases where a defendant is accused of murder with special circumstances. That can include multiple homicides or cases where the victim is...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose. Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens. Before, during, and after the founding of the United States, our cities, States, and country have continuously relied upon capital punishment as the ultimate deterrent and only proper punishment for the vilest crimes. Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order...

DAMMAM – In Saudi Arabia, six Iranian citizens were beheaded for drug smuggling in the coastal city of Dammam. The Saudi Press Agency reported that these individuals were executed after being found guilty of smuggling hashish into the country using covert methods. The exact timing of the executions was not disclosed. According to reports, Saudi Arabia has executed 117 people in 2024 for drug smuggling. In 2023, Saudi Arabia launched an anti-drug campaign, conducting raids and making arrests across various regions. Amnesty International ranked Saudi Arabia third for the highest number of executions in 2023, after China and Iran. Human...

Pope Francis laments ‘ecological debt,’ repeats call for ‘elimination’ of death penaltyPope Francis highlighted the three themes of the eradication of debt, the death penalty, and world hunger during his message for the 2025 World Day of Peace.Issuing a message for the 2025 World Day of Peace, Pope Francis renewed calls for global peace, the tackling of climate change issues, and the “elimination” of the death penalty.Entitled “Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peace,” Francis’ message for the annual World Day of Peace – January 1, 2025 – focused on certain of his favored talking points, as well as...

Marjorie Taylor Green: “Dr. Fauci belongs in prison. He should be tried for mass m*rder and crimes against humanity.”

An assisted suicide device dubbed the “Tesla of euthanasia” is facing backlash after it was set to be used for the first time next week in Switzerland. The pod, named Sacro, created by 76-year-old Dr. Philip Nitschke was scheduled for use sometime next week in Switzerland, according to Metro. However, prosecutors are now reportedly fighting to ban its use, the outlet reported. While voluntary assisted suicide is legal in the country, some are questioning if it’s idealizing death, with some pro-life groups arguing the pods “glamorise suicide,” the Daily Mail reported. The pod is supposed to fill with nitrogen and...

On this date in 1891, Chinese authorities beheaded 15 at Kowloon, including the leaders of the then-notorious Namoa pirates. They were nicknamed for the steamer they had infamously commandeered six months before. The tale is related by an English maritime official’s orientalist (and now public-domain) memoir, The Mystic Flowery Land: The most daring and disastrously successful piracy of late years … was the “Namoa” piracy in 1890. The startling news of this outrage created a general feeling of unsafety and consternation among the foreign communities in China, mingled with grief and just resentment for the cold-blooded murder of Captain Pocock...

A Georgia man should not be executed because he is intellectually disabled and feels remorse for killing his former girlfriend three decades ago, his lawyers wrote in seeking clemency for him. Willie James Pye, 59, is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday using the sedative pentobarbital in what would be the state’s first execution in more than four years. Pye was convicted of murder and other crimes in the November 1993 killing of Alicia Lynn Yarbrough. A clemency hearing is set for Tuesday. In Georgia, those hearings are conducted in secret, with the result announced afterward. “Had defense counsel...

Idaho is moving forward with legislation that would allow the execution of child rapists. The Idaho Capital Sun reports that the legislation, introduced by Republican lawmakers, will target those who have committed the most serious offenses against children as well as repeat offenders. The bill passed the Idaho House by a 57-11 vote. The legislation states: This legislation amends Idaho Codes 18-1508 and 19-2515 to allow a sentence of capital punishment for a person convicted of lewd conduct with a minor, if said minor is under the age of twelve (12) and there are aggravating circumstances. Upon conviction, a jury...

The people familiar with the matter have described the eight former Indian Navy officers as those with "unblemished" tenures of up to two decades. The men had served in important positions including as instructors in the Navy.The war, which commenced with the Hamas attacks of October 7, is far from over and there is much suffering yet to come The close bond between Sita, Urmila, Mandavi, and Shrutakirti proves that women are not enemies—a convenient narrative cultivated through centuries Qatar on Thursday left India 'shocked' when a court announced death sentences for eight former Indian Navy personnel. The men were...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed changes to his state's criminal justice laws on Thursday, including making child rapists eligible for the death penalty and reducing the number of jurors required to dole out capital punishment. Citing the case of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who was spared execution last year after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on capital punishment, DeSantis said that only the vast majority or a supermajority of a jury should be required to issue a death sentence. "One juror should not be able to veto that," DeSantis said at the Miami Police Benevolent Association....

South Carolina’s highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether a newly organized firing squad or the old electric chair are legal ways to execute inmates in the state, which has been unable to obtain drugs for lethal injections. A lower court judge ruled in September that South Carolina lawmakers “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency” when they passed a law effectively forcing condemned prisoners to choose between electrocution or the firing squad. The state appealed and the South Carolina Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday over whether the 2,000-volt electric chair or the...

The coalition negotiations: Ben Gvir will ask to include in the agreements a death penalty law for terrorists Moran Azoulai, November 14, 2022 The chairman of Otzma Yehudit Itamar Ben Gvir is expected today (Monday) to request the death penalty law for terrorists as a clause in the coalition agreements. The law has been on and off the agenda from time to time due to elements that took part in the coalition and opposed it. Now, in the emerging right-wing government, there seems to be a clear majority for the law. However, it is not clear how motivated the Likud...

The three jurors who voted against the death penalty for Parkland killer Nikolas Cruz did so based on “mitigating circumstances” from Cruz’s life. They made the wrong call, but their rationale is superior to the reason many will agree with the sentence: a blanket opposition to the death penalty. Public support for capital punishment has slid over the last 30 years, remaining a majority opinion but barely so. Those who oppose death as a punishment often have kind, even noble intentions. Yet their well-meaning beliefs do not translate into justice or the common good. The death penalty is consistent with...

We never seem to get enough information in the hours and days immediately following a horrific crime, but after a few days or weeks have gone by, usually after the story has faded from the front page, the necessary backstory finally comes out. First, an “All Points Bulletin” on May 12 alerted the state of Texas that Gonzalo Lopez, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, had just escaped from custody during a transfer, by breaking out of his transportation cage and stabbing the driver of the prison bus. He remained on the run for three weeks, using up precious...

Kentucky would make the death penalty off-limits for some defendants diagnosed with severe mental illnesses under a bill that won final legislative approval Friday. The Republican-led Senate voted 25-9 to send the measure to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, capping a long effort led by death penalty opponents to restrict the use of capital punishment. Another proposal that crossed the finish line after languishing for years would require future constables and deputy constables to obtain training and law enforcement certification before wielding police powers. The bill won final Senate passage 23-11 and goes to Beshear's desk. With four days left in...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — ​​South Carolina has given the greenlight to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs... ...Lawmakers set about tweaking state law to get around the lethal injection drug situation. Legislation that went into effect in May made the electric chair the state’s primary means of execution while giving inmates the option of choosing death by firing squad or lethal injection, if those methods are available....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — ​​South Carolina has given the greenlight to firing-squad executions, a method codified into state law l ast year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences because of the state’s inability to procure lethal injection drugs. The state Corrections Department said Friday that renovations have been completed on the death chamber in Columbia and that the agency had notified Attorney General Alan Wilson that it was able to carry out a firing-squad execution. Lawmakers set about tweaking state law to get around the lethal injection drug situation. Legislation that went into effect in May made...

Japan hanged three death-row inmates on Tuesday, its first executions in two years, amid growing criticism by human rights groups of the country's use of the death penalty. One of the three, Yasutaka Fujishiro, was convicted of killing seven people and setting fire to their house in 2004, while the other two, Tomoaki Takanezawa and Mitsunori Onogawa, were convicted in the 2003 killings of two pinball parlor employees. Executions are carried out in high secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. Two death-row inmates recently filed a lawsuit against the...