Free Republic

As Expected, Utah Governor Signs Measure Banning Firing Squads Mar 16, 2004 By Paul Foy/ Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Gov. Olene Walker has done away with firing squads in Utah, leaving injection as the only method for executing condemned killers. The Utah Legislature passed the measure late last month, and Walker had said she intended to sign it. She did so Monday without comment. Lawmakers have said the elimination of firing squads will deny killers the chance to go out in a blaze of glory. Despite the measure's passage, the state will make allowance for four...

Africa coup 'plotters' could face execution By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg (Filed: 11/03/2004) Zimbabwe yesterday accused Britain, the United States and Spain of plotting a coup in the oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea and threatened 67 alleged mercenaries arrested at Harare airport with the death penalty. President Thabo Mbeki and Robert Mugabe Kembo Mohadi, Zimbabwe's home affairs minister, claimed that Simon Mann, the British leader of the group and a former member of the SAS, confessed under police questioning to a plan to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. The leader of the small west African state...

HUNTSVILLE - After trying to console his mother, convicted killer Marcus Cotton was executed Wednesday evening for the fatal shooting of a Houston-area assistant district attorney during a robbery attempt 7 1/2 years ago. "Well, Mom, sometimes it works out like this," Cotton said from the death chamber gurney as his mother, who was among the witnesses, watched through a window. "When you are dealing with reality, real is not always what you want it to be." Cotton, 29, a native of the Houston suburb of Missouri City, told his relatives to take care of themselves and that he loved...

Condemned Dallas carjacker set to die Thursday07:10 AM CST on Thursday, March 4, 2004Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Frank Meziere had watched a Dallas Mavericks basketball game at a restaurant with a friend and before heading home stopped at a self-service car wash to clean his black Mustang convertible. The 23-year-old Plano stockbroker, a 1996 Texas A&M University graduate, never made it home. His body was found the next day, March 26, 1998, along the side of a road in an industrial area of Oak Cliff, an area of south Dallas. He had been shot in the head 10 times....

Jordanian woman hanged twiceFrom correspondents in Amman March 2, 2004A JORDANIAN woman convicted of murdering two children was hanged twice today after the rope broke the first time because of her weight, police officials said. I'tisam Hussein, 21, fell to the ground when the rope broke but did not fracture any bones, said one of the officials who attended the execution. She was frightened and in pain, but was not given any sedatives, he said, on condition of anonymity. The rope was changed and she was hanged within the hour, after a delay as prison wardens tried to calm her...

Thousands watch as gang rapists are hanged September 29 2002 at 11:06AM By Stefan Smith Tehran - Residents of the Iranian capital were given a public display of revolutionary justice Sunday, with five convicted gang rapists executed by hanging at dawn. The gang, dubbed the "black vultures" by police who tracked their spate of brutal rapes, were strung up from cranes before thousands of people, including the mother of at least one of them, at two different sites in Tehran. With authorities keen to make an example of the gang, the local and foreign press were given full access to...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One in five Americans would likely pay to watch a televised execution of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) if he were found guilty and sentenced to death but more than a third said executions should not be televised, a poll says.   A national telephone poll of more than 1,000 people aged 18 or older, done for TRIO cable network by Harris Interactive, asked respondents who they would most likely pay to watch executed if executions were shown on pay-per-view television. Bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001, attacks...

<p>SALT LAKE CITY - The Utah Senate approved a bill Thursday that would eliminate firing squad executions - used most recently here in 1996 - unless lethal injection executions are found unconstitutional.</p> <p>The bill passed 16-9 and now returns to the House for approval of some minor Senate amendments.</p>

Father executed for setting fire that killed three kids06:58 PM CST on Tuesday, February 17, 2004Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Spewing profanities at his ex-wife standing a few feet away, an angry former auto mechanic was executed Tuesday evening for the deaths of his three young children in a fire at their home two days before Christmas 12 years ago. "The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man convicted of a crime I did not commit," Cameron Willingham, an Ardmore, Okla., native, said. "I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did...

<p>BEIJING, China (AP) -- A man convicted of 67 murders was executed Saturday after what Chinese media said might be the country's longest, deadliest killing spree in modern history.</p> <p>Yang Xinhua, 38, was put to death in Luohe, the city where he was convicted February 1 in the central province of Henan, state television and the official Xinhua News Agency reported.</p>

SERIAL KILLER EXECUTED A man convicted of 67 murders has been executed in China following one of the worst crime sprees in the nation's recent history. Yang Xinhua, 38, was convicted of killings in the central province of Henan and three other provinces during a string of attacks over a three-year period. Yang was also convicted of 23 rapes during his crime spree, which began following his release from a labour camp where he served a term for rape and theft. Little is known about his motives, but earlier reports said Yang had been dumped by his girlfriend and "desperately...

Feb. 12, 2004, 8:34PM Convicted killer in two knife slayings executedAssociated Press HUNTSVILLE -- A former bull rider from New Mexico was executed tonight for fatally slashing and stabbing two young women more than 10 years ago while he was on probation for a drug conviction. "Warden, at this time I have no statement, sir," Bobby Ray Hopkins said when asked if he had a final statement. As the lethal drugs began taking effect, he gasped and gurgled. Eight minutes later at 8:19 p.m., he was pronounced dead. Hopkins, 36, was the sixth Texas inmate put to death this...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Maintaining his innocence, a convicted killer was executed Wednesday for a 1991 triple slaying in which one victims was a 10-year-old girl pregnant with his child. "I just want to say I am not sad or bitter with anybody," Edward Lagrone said in a brief final statement. "Like I've said from Day One, I didn't kill them. But I'm no better than the people that did." He concluded by saying: "Jesus is Lord. That's all I have to say." After the lethal injection, Lagrone, 46, sputtered and gasped before he was pronounced dead seven minutes later....

10:06 PM PST on Monday, SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday night to overrule an appellate court's stay of execution for a convicted killer who pleaded that tests on the evidence would prove his innocence. Acting unanimously, the justices denied a request by the state of California to vacate the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said earlier Monday that justice demands the execution be delayed. Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg also said they would have stayed the execution based on a separate appeal from Kevin Cooper himself. Cooper, who...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A condemned murderer whose bid for clemency has won support from celebrities including Denzel Washington was set to be executed early today, the first death penalty case for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.</p> <p>Kevin Cooper, who was convicted in the 1983 hacking deaths of four persons, was scheduled to be executed just after midnight at San Quentin Prison after spending 19 years on death row.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court on Monday barred convicted killer Kevin Cooper's pending execution, saying evidence in his case should get a fresh look after 18 years of appeals. The decision by an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came less than eight hours before Cooper was to be executed by lethal injection for hacking four people to death in 1983. California asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the 9th Circuit and allow the execution to take place; as of Monday evening, the nation's highest court had yet to rule. Cooper's death warrant...

<p>A federal appeals court intervened dramatically Monday afternoon to block the execution of Kevin Cooper, less than eight hours before he was to die by lethal injection for the murders of two adults and two children in 1983.</p> <p>The 9-2 ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals left Cooper's fate up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which had the power to lift the appeals court's stay of execution. Even before the appeals court acted, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office asked the high court to undo a temporary stay of execution that the appellate court had imposed Monday morning.</p>

Rev. Jesse Jackson, Celebrities Demonstrate Outside Schwarzenegger's Home LOS ANGELES -- A federal appeals court granted a stay that may block the execution early Tuesday morning of condemned killer Kevin Cooper, who has won support from celebrities including Denzel Washington and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday morning granted a request for an 11-judge rehearing of the case. It would be California's first execution in two years. In his first such act as governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Cooper. It was not immediately clear when the en banc panel would hear the...

<p>Barring a successful last-minute appeal, a convicted murderer who has spent 19 years on death row is set to die this week -- California's first execution in two years.</p> <p>Kevin Cooper, who was convicted in the 1983 hacking deaths of four people and is to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday at San Quentin Prison, has won support from death penalty opponents including Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, religious leaders and Hollywood actors.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Barring a successful last-minute appeal, a convicted murderer who has spent 19 years on death row is set to die this week -- California's first execution in two years.</p> <p>Kevin Cooper, who was convicted in the 1983 hacking deaths of four people and is to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday at San Quentin Prison, has won support from death penalty opponents including Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, religious leaders and Hollywood actors.</p>