Free Republic

On Wednesday, barring a reprieve, Kimberly McCarthy will become the 500th convicted killer in Texas to receive a lethal injection. [...] The death penalty is on the books in 32 states. On average, Texas executes an inmate about every three weeks. The murderer: Kimberly McCarthy

Sitting calmly in his impeccably neat office at Alabama's Justice Building, state Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker does not look like a man at war with the U.S. Supreme Court.But even before he says a word, his desk offers hints. Prominently displayed are Mark Levin's conservative attack on the U.S. Supreme Court, "Men in Black," and Phyllis Schlafly's "The Supremacists: The Tyranny of Judges and How to Stop It."The book Parker refers to the most, however, is a small one he pulls out of his pocket frequently during the conversation with a visiting reporter. It contains the texts of the...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Shackled at the waist, Scott Peterson returned to court Wednesday to learn his fate for the slaying of his wife and her fetus, four months after jurors found the former fertilizer salesman guilty of their murders. Peterson was escorted into San Mateo County Superior Court under heavy security, wearing a dark suit and handcuffs chained to his waist. Ten of the 12 jurors who sentenced him to death in December sat in the jury box. Judge Alfred A. Delucchi was set to decide Wednesday whether to grant the former fertilizer salesman a new trial, sentence him...

A bit more than a year after George Ryan, then the governor of Illinois, declared the state's capital punishment system broken and emptied death row, the struggle over the death penalty is returning here. On one side of the new debate are legislators and prosecutors who say landmark reforms state lawmakers have adopted in recent months mean it is time to begin executions again. On the other side are critics of capital punishment who praise the reforms but say many more must be made before Illinois can be certain it is not executing an innocent person — if that can...

South Africa's once dominant white political parties were in chaos last night as hundreds of white politicians defected to set up a coalition with the ruling African National Congress. The defections delivered Cape Town and Durban councils to the ANC, the only major areas where it had not won control since coming to power in 1994 after the end of apartheid. The turmoil also led to the ANC seizing control for the first time of the university town of Stellenbosch, the cradle of Afrikaner intellectual thinking and alma mater of Hendrik Verwoerd, chief architect of apartheid. The winner is the...

<p>Gross domestic product grew at a 1.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, compared with 5 percent in January-March, the Commerce Department said. A separate survey of purchasing executives showed that manufacturing in the Chicago area expanded this month at the slowest pace since contracting in January.</p>