Free Republic

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- A Florida man who fatally shot his sleeping wife and then raped and killed his young stepdaughter 22 years ago was put to death Thursday for the child's slaying. Chadwick Banks, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:27 p.m. EST Thursday after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, the office of Gov. Rick Scott said. Banks was condemned for the September 1992 killing of 10-year-old Melody Cooper. Banks also received a life sentence for the murder of his wife, Cassandra Banks, in the attack in the Florida Panhandle region.

Milwaukee – A woman who faked a pregnancy and panicked as her supposed due date grew near attacked a pregnant mother with a baseball bat and cut her full-term fetus from her womb with an Exacto knife, killing the mother and baby, according to court documents filed Monday. Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 33, faces one count each of first-degree intentional homicide while armed and first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child while armed in the death of Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and the boy she was set to deliver next week. Morales-Rodriguez faces mandatory life in prison if convicted.

The Supreme Court will hear a case Monday that examines what is cruel and unusual punishment.When a state panel recommended in April that Tennessee abandon the three chemicals used in executions across the nation in favor of the single drug usually used in animal euthanasia, the state's corrections commissioner said no. Though the move would have simplified executions and eliminated the possibility of excruciating pain, the commissioner, George Little, said Tennessee should not be "out at the forefront" of a decision with "political ramifications." Little's decision helps illuminate one of the questions lurking behind the year's most eagerly anticipated death...

A court on Thursday sentenced an Iraqi woman and six other people to death for their roles in the triple hotel bombings that killed 60 people in Jordan's capital last year. The 35-year-old woman, Sajida al-Rishawi, is the only defendant in custody. She confessed on Jordanian television shortly after the blasts that she intended to carry out a suicide attack on one of the Western hotels. Six others, including another Iraqi woman, were sentenced in absentia and remain at large. They are believed to be hiding in Iraq. The late al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had claimed...

SAN FRANCISCO—The death of Laci Peterson, as well as the unsolved murder of another pregnant woman whose torso washed up in San Francisco Bay, points to a disturbing phenomenon well known to police, health advocates and experts on battered women: the leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide. "People think that pregnancy is a joyful, happy time for families. That's not always true," said Phyllis Sharps, an associate professor at The Johns Hopkins University's school of nursing who researches violence against women. In some cases, the woman has been abused for years, and the violence escalates to murder...