Free Republic

Oneel Bou Saab keeps a photo of her father in his army uniform. Lieutenant George Bou Saab was killed serving in the Lebanese Armed Forces in 2013 during clashes with an extremist group in the southern city of Sidon, and for years his death sat inside a familiar civic story: a soldier who died defending "all of Lebanon," as his daughter puts it, not any one sect or faction. That story cracked open again this August, when parliament passed a sweeping new law that automatically reduces the sentences of people convicted in cases like the one connected to her father's...

PROVO, Utah — Accused Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson returns to a Utah courtroom Tuesday for a hearing that could send his case to trial or dramatically reshape it, with a judge to weigh whether prosecutors have shown enough probable cause to support the aggravated murder charge that puts the death penalty on the table — and the suspect may finally be asked to enter a plea nearly a year after the slaying. Robinson, a 23-year-old from Washington, Utah, is accused of firing a single shot that killed the 31-year-old father of two during a Turning Point USA event at...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Special Master W. Mark Ward has denied Christa Gail Pike’s emergency motion to reopen a hearing in her challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. It’s an update the legal team for the only woman on Tennessee’s death row is calling disappointing. Pike and her representatives had tried to argue that the physician involved in Tony Carruthers’ botched May execution isn’t fit to play a part in Pike’s, something Ward said isn’t set in stone. “We are deeply disappointed in the Special Master’s denial of our emergency motion to reopen Christa Pike’s hearing to address the qualifications...

Tyler Robinson wants to dodge the death penalty because his bullet only “hit the intended target” when it killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk, his lawyers wildly argued in new court documents. Robinson’s attorneys claimed that no other person was in danger during Kirk’s Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University last year — an aggravating factor that would make it a capital crime. “The only evidence presented supports that the bullet traveled above, not through, the crowd,” defense attorneys wrote in documents late Tuesday to stop the case from proceeding to trial. Prosecutors maintained that Robinson loaded his rifle...

The Death and Life of Capital PunishmentPrecisely because human life is so cherished by God, because we are created in His image and likeness, capital punishment can be a well-deserved destiny.It would seem Pope Francis had a rather odd answer to the question of whether it would be justified to kill baby Hitler: he wouldn’t kill adult Hitler had he survived the war. If every pope was correct in all his deliberations, there would be no disagreements among them. If a pope preaches something potentially contrary to historical Church teaching, intrigue naturally befalls the error. The truth of yesterday suffers...

(Malaysia) The Court of Appeal commuted the death sentence imposed on a Rohingya refugee to 30 years’ imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane for two drug trafficking charges. A three-man bench comprising Justices Datuk Azman Abdullah, Datuk Mohd Radzi Abdul Hamid and Datuk Meor Hashimi Abdul Hamid on Thursday (June 25), set aside the death sentence imposed on Khafai Tullah Nabi Hussein and substituted it with 30 years’ imprisonment for each charge. The court ordered all sentences to run concurrently, including the 10-year jail term for the third charge of possessing 37.2g of methamphetamine. On top of the prison...

The Utah court overseeing the Tyler Robinson case held an evidentiary hearing on Friday regarding the defense’s claims that state prosecutors should be held in contempt over comments the Utah County Attorney’s Office has given to the press over an ATF ballistics report cited in a defense motion. In closing arguments, the defense said that the judge should block the state from seeking the death penalty in the case. Defense attorney Richard Novak said during his closing that "I think that the number one remedy in this case, your honor, is for this court to preclude the state from seeking...

Two Pakistani men who gang-raped a French tourist in front of her three children six years ago will be sentenced to death, a court has ruled. Abid Malhi and Shafqat Ali were convicted of gang rape, kidnapping, robbery and terrorism offences back in March 2021 over the attack on the Sialkot-Lahore Motorway and were handed the death penalty. Both appealed their conviction, with the defence arguing that there were gaps in the prosecution's version of events and that the judge’s decision was unjust. But on Wednesday, two judges dismissed the appeal after the prosecution argued that there was overwhelming evidence...

ALLAS (AP) — A former FedEx driver was sentenced to death on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to killing a 7-year-old girl he took from her Texas home while delivering a Christmas gift.Jurors in a Fort Worth courtroom decided on Tanner Horner’s punishment after hearing about a month of testimony and evidence that included audio of Athena Strand’s last moments from inside his delivery van. Horner, 34, pleaded guilty to capital murder last month in the 2022 killing just as his trial began. Athena’s body was found two days after she was reported missing from her home in the rural...

The Justice Department will adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases, officials said Friday. The Justice Department is also reauthorizing the use of single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital that were used to carry out 13 executions during the first Trump administration — more than under any president in modern history. The Biden administration had removed pentobarbital from the federal protocol over concerns about the potential for unnecessary pain and suffering. The moves were announced as part of a broader push to step up federal executions...

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...