Free Republic

A transgender baby killer was released from prison 30 years early after attempting to force authorities to use taxpayer money for gender-affirming surgeries. Jonathan Richardson, who now uses the name Autumn Cordellione, was convicted in 2002 of murdering his 11-month-old stepdaughter by strangulation in a brutal killing. Richardson tried for years to have the state of Indiana pay for his transgender surgeries, including demanding breast implants and a 'penile inversion' operation. In September 2024, a court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the IDOC to provide the surgeries to Richardson, finding that denying the inmate constituted cruel and unusual punishment. While...

He snatched the youngster while delivering a Barbie to her home that was to be one of her main festive gifts. Horner told investigators that he accidentally hit the girl with his truck, 'panicked,' grabbed her, and put her in his vehicle. Fearing what would happen if he told Strand's parents, he said strangled her inside the truck and dumped her body seven miles from her home, beside a country road. Her body was found two days later.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided not to seek the death penalty against a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court in New York. Mr. Holder communicated the decision to federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Friday, and they in turn informed the federal judge who is presiding in the case. “You are authorized and directed not to seek the death penalty against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,” Mr. Holder wrote to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ghailani faces federal charges of conspiring...

Chadwick Willacy, a convicted killer who has been on death row since December 1991, testified for Rafael Andres, convicted for the murder of La Carreta waitress Ivette Fariñas.Chadwick Willacy, a convicted killer who has been on death row since December 1991, testified for Rafael Andres, convicted for the murder of La Carreta waitress Ivette Fariñas. Two men on death row, including one who is set to be executed at the end of April, testified in defense of a Miami handyman who could also face the ultimate punishment for killing a La Carreta waitress with a rice cooker power cord in...

A scheduled execution in Florida will not happen on Tuesday. It comes after the Florida Supreme Court refused to lift the stay of execution it granted to the former police officer. James Duckett was convicted of sexual battery and the murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1987. His legal team requested DNA testing, which they hoped would clear Duckett, and the results were inconclusive. Florida’s Attorney General then requested that the stay of execution be lifted, but the Florida Supreme Court refused. Grace Hanna is the Executive Director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “It’s very rare, particularly...

. State Department spokesperson affirms US respect for Israel’s sovereign right to set its own penalties for terrorism, after the Knesset approves Death Penalty for Terrorists Bill.

Israel approves death penalty law for Palestinians onlyDeath by hanging within 90 days is now the default punishment of Palestinians for offenses related to ‘terrorism,’ even as escalating Jewish settler terrorism continues with impunity.On Monday, Israel’s Knesset approved legislation requiring the death penalty for Palestinians found guilty of fatalities due to “terrorist” attacks. The measure was championed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the Jewish Power party, who marked the occasion by celebrating with champagne.The new “Death Penalty for Terrorists Law” specifically targets Palestinians calling for capital punishment in cases where a “terrorist” is convicted of deliberately killing...

HENDERSON COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) -- A North Carolina woman indicted on murder charges after she allegedly poisoned family members with wine during a Thanksgiving dinner could face the death penalty. On Tuesday, Feb. 17, the office of District Attorney Andrew Murray filed a motion to hold a Rule 24 pretrial conference in the case of Gudrun Linda Jean Casper-Leinenkugel. A Rule 24 hearing in North Carolina is mandatory for cases where the defendant is charged with a crime punishable by death, as is the case for Casper-Leinenkugel. Casper-Leinenkugel, 52, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts...

France will summon U.S. Ambassador Charles Kusher to protest comments made by the Trump administration over the death of a far-right activist, the foreign affairs minister said on Sunday. Jean-Noel Barrot was reacting to a statement by the U.S. State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau, which stated that "reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all." The State Department said in its post on X that "violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque's death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We...

A New York federal judge on Friday dismissed murder and weapons charges against alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione, a major blow to prosecutors that means Mangione no longer faces a possible death penalty if convicted. Mangione, 27, previously pleaded not guilty to murder, weapons and stalking charges for allegedly gunning down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in Midtown Manhattan in 2024. Public officials condemned the shocking killing, but Mangione became a folk hero of sorts to some Americans who decry steep healthcare costs and insurance practices. U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett in Manhattan said she dismissed the murder and...

Luigi Mangione won’t face the death penalty for allegedly executing UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, a judge ruled Friday — dealing an embarrassing blow to the Justice Department. The 27-year-old still faces the possibility of life in prison without parole if convicted of executing health care honcho Brian Thompson in a December 2024 targeted hit on a Manhattan sidewalk. But Manhattan federal Judge Margaret Garnett threw out the charges against Mangione that could have led to a rare death penalty trial in New York. The jurist found that the death penalty-eligible parts of the case, brought by the US Attorney’s Office for the...

A Cuban citizen faces a felony charge after federal officials say he rammed his vehicle into two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles in San Antonio on Tuesday, injuring an ICE officer.Robyn Argote Brooks was being detained by ICE officers when he "weaponized his vehicle against federal law enforcement officials and rammed two ICE vehicles with his car," according to a Thursday news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.Argote Brooks was arrested on a charge of destruction of government property, according to a federal criminal complaint. The complaint alleges he caused nearly $5,000 in damage to one of...

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a career criminal who stabbed a woman more than 40 times in an unprovoked attack in a Dollar General parking lot. 54-year-old Lemar Beasley stabbed Cheyenne Kastens, 36, in the parking lot of a Fruitland Park, Florida, Dollar General last month.

Last month’s mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that left four people dead, 13 injured and more than 150 guests at the targeted event likely severely traumatized, should have been a rallying moment for California’s political leaders. In addition to calling for more gun control, elected leaders could have doubled down on support for crime victims — specifically by improving access to emergency financial assistance and trauma recovery services, as well as violence intervention programs. Available data shows these investment strategies to be effective in lowering crime rates.

A Washington woman angry with pro-life protesters outside a Planned Parenthood abortion facility struck one of them with her SUV after an argument, authorities said. Sierra D. Godfrey, 32, of Richland, is accused of swerving toward two men standing near the exit of the Bonnie Avenue abortion facility on December 1 with the intent to scare them. Instead, she hit one in the leg and hip, knocking him down before fleeing the scene. Godfrey, who allegedly admitted to police that she hit the protester and drove away, was arrested December 15 and booked into the Benton County jail on suspicion...

Meanwhile, in the Democrat hellhole of Seattle… A 75-year-old woman lost her eye after she was brutally attacked by a serial assaulter who has a history of punching and stabbing people. 42-year-old Fale Vaigalepa Pea hit Jeanette Marken in the face with a wooden club with a screw through the end of the plank as she was standing on a street corner in downtown Seattle after picking up a food order earlier this month. Close up photo of wooden board with screw in Seattle attack / screen image police bodycam Surveillance footage shows Pea approached Marken and swung the wooden...

A cold-blooded serial killer who slaughtered five people was executed by lethal injection Thursday night in Florida — becoming the Sunshine State’s 19th death row inmate to die this year. Frank Athen Walls, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after being injected with a three-drug cocktail while strapped to a gurney as a Catholic priest prayed by his feet inside the death chamber at Florida State Prison in Raiford. For his last words, the convicted killer apologized for the pain he’s caused his victims’ families.

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – A Seminole County judge on Friday sentenced a man to death after he was convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend when she refused to get an abortion. After roughly two hours of jury deliberation, a jury in October found Donovan Faison guilty of first-degree murder and killing an unborn child. The penalty phase began days later and ended with an 11-1 vote by the jury recommending the death penalty. The case stems from the November 2022 shooting death of Kaylin Fiengo, who was found shot in her car at Coastline Park in Sanford. Fiengo was 18...

Prosecutors announced they will be seeking the death penalty for a Pennsylvania man accused of raping and killing his 2-year-old son in August. The McKean County District Attorney’s Office announced the filing on Monday against 33-year-old Tyler Prescott of Bradford, citing four reasons that support the commonwealth’s first execution this century. That sentence, however, would hinge on Prescott being convicted of first-degree murder, which is the only crime that can be punished by death according to PA law, but also comes with an alternative sentence of life in prison. McKean County DA Stephanie Vettenburg-Shaffer said the Commonwealth will list the...

President Donald Trump on social media has pointed out that the penalty for the refusal of military troops to obey orders is serious. Punishment up to and including execution. The response from the president came after a list of Democrats made a video urging federal employees, including members of the military, to refuse to obey what they called, without a definition, "illegal" orders. Presumably that would be orders from the president, as commander-in-chief of the military, with which the Democrats disagreed, most likely for political purposes. Leftist California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed it was a call by Trump to "hang...