Free Republic

Friday, May 5 marks the end of Florida’s 2023 legislative session, which was host to a variety of bills rammed through by the state’s Republican supermajority in tandem with support from Gov. Ron DeSantis. At a bill signing in Jacksonville earlier this week, the governor thanked the state’s lawmakers for being “productive” off the heels of his 2022 reelection, which was host to a steep red wave. “We’ve done so much stuff this year to lead the country as is… We’ve got a lot more in the hopper that we will be signing in the law over the next few...

Child rapists will be eligible for the death penalty and Florida will crack down on drug dealers targeting kids. TITUSVILLE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed tough new legislation that will beef up penalties for drug-dealers who target kids and make child rapists eligible for the death penalty. Another measure will shield Floridians from left-wing bail reform policies that have led to increased crime rates by softening penalties for law-breakers. Gov. DeSantis’ office announced the approval of the laws in a Monday afternoon press release, touting the measures as a means to “strengthen public safety...

Thousands of people are shot, stabbed, beaten, run over – assaulted and murdered – in America’s inner cities, every day. In ones and twos, in fives and tens. Drug crimes, gang wars, imagined insults, intentionally-taught hostility – a cult of violence. When the law-and-order minded conservatives – known as the Right – remind the public of the reasons behind this violence – the welfare state, the pop culture, the easy jail sentences, the early release of prisoners who should have been kept in jail – the Left often accuses us of disregarding all other inputs, and basing our policies on...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing a tough-on-crime agenda ahead of an expected presidential bid with his support for two bills in the state legislature, including one that would challenge the U.S. Supreme Court. DeSantis is backing a bill that would authorize the death penalty for child rapists. Under the legislation, a jury - by a vote of at least 8-4 - can recommend a death sentence for sexual battery on a child under age 12. 'We are authorizing the death penalty for child rapists,' DeSantis said Monday morning during an interview with an Orlando radio state. 'My view is...

Florida has somehow become an even more lethal place to live for queer and trans Americans, thanks to the passage of two new bills. The first, SB 1342, stipulates that child sexual abuse and acts of pedophilia may be punishable by the death penalty. The second bill would make it easier for a jury to send the accused to the gallows.

A split among jurors means there will be no death penalty for an Islamic extremist who maniacally raced a truck along a popular New York City bike path, killing eight people and maiming others. The decision means Sayfullo Saipov, 35, an Uzbekistan citizen who lived in New Jersey, gets an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole in the October 2017 attack. Jurors told the judge Monday that they were unable to reach the unanimous verdict required for a death sentence. The sentencing was the culmination of a trial that featured emotional testimony from survivors of...

Texas has executed an inmate convicted of the drug-related killings of four people more than 30 years ago, including a woman who was 9-months pregnant. Arthur Brown Jr., 52, insisted he was innocent before receiving a lethal injection Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the June 1992 slayings, which took place in a Houston home during a drug robbery. Authorities said Brown was part of a ring that shuttled drugs from Texas to Alabama and had bought drugs from Jose Tovar and his wife Rachel Tovar. Killed during the drug robbery were 32-year-old Jose...

Belarus’s authoritarian president has signed a bill introducing capital punishment for state officials and military personnel convicted of high treason. The amendments to the country’s criminal code endorsed by President Alexander Lukashenko envisage death sentences for officials and service personnel who cause “irreparable damage” to Belarus’s national security through acts of treason. Belarus is the only country in Europe that has not banned capital punishment, which has been applied to those convicted of murder or terrorism. Executions are carried out with a shot to the back of the head. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for nearly three...

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vowed Friday that her administration won’t carry out an execution even though the state Supreme Court scheduled it over the objections of the state’s new attorney general. The Democratic governor’s promise not to execute Aaron Gunches on April 6 for his murder conviction in a 2002 killing came a day after the state Supreme Court said it must grant an execution warrant if certain appellate proceedings have concluded — and that those requirements were met in Gunches’ case. Last week, Hobbs appointed retired U.S. Magistrate Judge David Duncan to examine the state’s procurement of lethal injection...

Palestinian Arab officials are warning against the consequences of the approval of death penalty for terrorists law, which was approved in a preliminary reading in the Knesset plenum on Wednesday by a majority of 55 supporters against 9 opponents. In an interview with the Hamas-affiliated Al-Risala news website, a spokesman for the Prisoners' Media Bureau said that "if the occupation implements its decision, it will open the gates of hell, and it will face an intifada that will uproot its existence, and it will realize that it has made the stupidest move in its history when it sees the bags...

Pro-LGBT Fr. James Martin calls for DeSantis to be denied Communion for supporting death penaltyThe dissident priest made his comments after a man convicted of murders in two separate incidents was put to death in Florida last week. Heretical pro-LGBT Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin has called for conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is Catholic, to be denied Communion because he supports the death penalty.Last week, the Republican governor signed the death warrant for a convict on charges of a second murder committed after the man escaped from a life sentence imposed for his first murder.In response to the...

Gov. Josh Shapiro Thursday boldly called on legislators to abolish Pennsylvania’s costly, ineffective and immoral death penalty. In urging legislators to act, an unprecedented move, Mr. Shapiro showed some sorely needed leadership from the governor’s office. Unless Mr. Shapiro engages the legislature, the death-penalty statute will endure. He needs to take the lead in persuading the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate to approve bills that would repeal it. Former Gov. Tom Wolf refused to do that. In making his statement a month after his inauguration, Mr. Shapiro signaled that getting state government out of the business of killing people will...

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who took office last month after having been state attorney general, said "the system is fallible, and the outcome is irreversible." Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Thursday that he will not sign any execution warrants while in office and called on the General Assembly to abolish the death penalty...

Massachusetts mom Lindsay Clancy will face murder charges from her hospital bed Tuesday in the alleged strangulation of her three young children. The labor and delivery nurse, 32, will appear via Zoom in Plymouth District Court for arraignment on two counts of murder and three counts each of strangulation and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, WCVB reported. Clancy, who was on leave from her job at Massachusetts General Hospital, allegedly killed her daughter Cora, 5, son Dawson, 3, and her 7-month-old son Callan, who died later at a hospital. Upgraded charges are expected after the death of the...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A man convicted of killing three teenagers while they slept in a Texas Panhandle home more than 25 years ago was executed on Wednesday, the sixth inmate to be put to death in the U.S. this year and the second in as many days. Balentine appeared jovial as witnesses were entering the death chamber, asking if someone standing near the gurney could remove the sheet covering the lower two-thirds of his body “and massage my feet.” Then he chuckled.

Federal prosecutors declined Tuesday to seek the death penalty for the alleged Walmart shooter who killed 23 shoppers in an El Paso branch of the store in 2019. The decision is consistent with the Department of Justice’s practice of not pursuing capital punishment in federal cases since President Joe Biden took office, according to local reports. Patrick Crusius is accused of driving 10 hours from Allen, Texas and casing the busy Walmart to make sure it was filled with Hispanic people before gunning down 23 shoppers with an AK-47 and injuring 22 others on Aug. 3, 2019. In a hate-filled...

It was hard to miss the loaded headline regarding a convicted psychopathic killer titled “Clemency Probe Fails to Exonerate Kevin Cooper.” It just goes to show that this was intended as a politically motivated exoneration project and not as a search for objective truth. A better and more accurate headline should have read DNA Tests Confirm Kevin Cooper’s Guilt, Again. This recent probe further proves Cooper’s guilt to a degree of accuracy that more than meets the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. There is a better chance of you having the recent billion dollar MegaMillions ticket than of Kevin...

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 first openly transgender woman slated for execution in the US is appealing to Missouri’s governor for mercy, citing mental health struggles. Lawyers for Amber McLaughlin, 49, on Monday asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to spare her life before her Jan. 3 execution. She was convicted of killing her 45-year-old ex-girlfriend Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003. Guenther was raped and stabbed to death in St. Louis County.

The Missouri Department of Corrections successfully carried out its execution of Kevin Johnson early Tuesday evening. The execution was carried out at 7:40 p.m. at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri. Johnson, 37, died via lethal injection. Prior to his execution, he made no final statement. Missouri Governor Mike Parson issued the following statement after Johnson’s death: Today, the State of Missouri carried out Kevin Johnson’s sentence as ordered by the Missouri Supreme Court. Mr. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of Sgt. Bill McEntee. Mr. Johnson’s claims were reviewed...