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George Banks is getting a chance to live a bit longer, thanks to a court ruling Wednesday that puts his execution, originally set for tonight, on hold. A successful appeal to the state Supreme Court will send Banks' case back to Luzerne County Court for an evidentiary hearing to determine his mental capacity and competency, which his defense lawyers hope will spare him from ever being put to death. The high court ordered that the hearing be held "expeditiously." "This is exactly what we were looking for," said Banks' defense lawyer Albert J. Flora Jr. "It was obviously very close...

Some family members of violent-crime victims are jaded by California's sluggish rate of executing condemned killers. "If it went faster, the death penalty would be a deterrent," said Carole Carrington, the mother and grandmother of two Yosemite sightseers murdered by handyman Cary Stayner in 1999. Modesto's Scott Peterson, 32, faces a sentence of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole at the conclusion of a penalty phase scheduled to begin Tuesday. He was convicted Nov. 12 of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Stayner killed four people in all. In federal court, he...

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Marine being investigated for allegedly killing an unarmed, wounded Iraqi was acting under extreme combat stress, comrades said yesterday. It was also disclosed that the Marine had just returned to duty after being shot in the face the previous day. [snip] Marines interviewed yesterday said the shooting wasn't a scandal, but evidence of how soldiers react under extreme circumstances. "I can see why he would do it," said Lance Cpl. Christopher Hanson. "He was probably running around being shot at for days on end in Fallujah. There should be an investigation, but they should look...

he Rosenberg clan - the circle of defenders and sympathizers that has come together for half a century on behalf of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - gathered once again yesterday, but this time the emphasis was as much on family as it was on politics. A documentary film about the case and its consequences for the Rosenberg family made by a granddaughter of the couple, Ivy Meeropol, was shown at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in Lower Manhattan. The Rosenbergs were convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and were executed in 1953.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A man whose death sentence for impulsively killing a woman during a 1992 robbery was opposed even by some capital punishment supporters was executed by injection early Friday. Frank Chandler, 32, was put to death at Central Prison for killing 90-year-old Doris Poore, who surprised him when he broke into her house on a misguided search for drugs. He lay on a gurney, raising his head several times to look at the gathered witnesses, then reclined and closed his eyes. When the injection was administered, he gave two sharp breaths, then stopped breathing.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. – Just the other day, Marc Klaas received a letter explaining the latest delay in executing the man responsible for his 12-year-old daughter Polly Klaas' brutal 1993 kidnap and murder, a case that shocked California. Such letters are commonplace in California. The state has condemned 629 criminals to die since the California legislature re-enacted the death penalty in 1977, but it very rarely metes out society's ultimate punishment. In fact, the state has only put 10 people to death since resuming executions in 1992. "We've passed the 11th anniversary of my daughter's murder, we have passed the...

TWENTY YEARS AGO today, San Francisco auto broker Paul Cosner disappeared. Cosner's sister Sharon Sellitto told the police her brother was missing, but they wouldn't come to his apartment. Police, however, did show up when she reported his 1980 Honda Prelude stolen. It was that car that ended one of California's most heinous killing sprees seven months later. Killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng had been driving the car when they were caught shoplifting in South San Francisco. Ng escaped, but police nabbed Lake, who swallowed a cyanide pill and died. Police then traced the bullet-riddled car to the missing...

HUNTSVILLE -- A man convicted in a 1992 murder case in which the troubled Houston police crime lab allegedly mishandled evidence was executed Tuesday evening despite last-minute legal battles and pleas from relatives of the murder victim that his life be spared. U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas had blocked Dominique Green's execution after his attorneys argued that boxes of improperly stored and catalogued evidence, kept by the crime lad and recently discovered, could contain information relevant to the case. The state attorney general's office objected to the reprieve, which was then lifted by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals....

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Convicted killer Ricky Morrow was executed Wednesday for the slaying of a Dallas savings and loan office worker during a robbery 22 years ago. His voice choking with emotion, Morrow expressed love to family members and called them a blessing. "I am so sorry you are going through what you are now," he told three sisters who watched from a few feet away. "But we are both headed to a better place." He listed a number of people by their first names and said he loved them all. Addressing his sisters again, he said, "Thank you for...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio — A killer who partially blamed his victim for moving when ordered to hold still was executed Wednesday. At 28, Adremy Dennis was the youngest inmate executed in Ohio since 1962. He was put to death by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Dennis was 18 when he and an accomplice tried to rob two men outside an Akron home in 1994. One of the men gave up $15. The other, Kurt Kyle, 29, began searching his pockets, and Dennis shot him in the head with a sawed-off shotgun. Dennis told an Ohio Parole Board member he...

HUNTSVILLE - Condemned inmate Donald Aldrich was executed Tuesday for the abduction of a homosexual East Texas man who wound up victim of a gay-bashing murder. In a brief final statement, Aldrich apologized to the family of his victim although none was present. "I hope that you can forgive me," he said. "To my family and loved ones and friends, I thank all of you for your support and I'm sorry for the pain and hurt I have caused you," Aldrich said. "I love you all and will see you on the other side." Aldrich closed his eyes and gasped...

A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under Saddam Hussein. US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s. The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity. It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific exhumation of a mass grave. "It...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A convicted killer was executed even though the handling of his case by Houston's troubled police lab had been called into question by two state senators and the police chief himself. Edward Green III, 30, was put to death Tuesday night despite his attorneys' pleas that evidence relevant to his double murder trial might be in some 280 recently discovered boxes that had been mislabeled and improperly stored. Green's lawyers as well as the senators and the police chief had wanted all executions out of Harris County stayed pending review of the boxes. In Green's case, prosecutors...

Gov. Rendell signs death warrant, but attorney for the mass murderer plans action. HARRISBURG - Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday signed a death warrant for mass murderer George Banks. But further appeals by his defense attorneys make it unlikely the execution will go off as scheduled on Dec. 2, one of the attorneys said. Basil Russin, chief public defender for Luzerne County, said there are a number of legal issues the defense team plans to present. He declined to identify them, but said the case most likely will go back to Luzerne County court. The death warrant comes four months...

A man convicted of murder in part because of evidence analyzed by Houston's embattled police crime lab headed to the death chamber Tuesday, despite calls by the police chief and two legislators for executions connected to the lab to be put on hold. Edward Green III was convicted of killing two people in a 1992 robbery. His lawyers asked that the execution be delayed until authorities can review some 280 recently discovered boxes of evidence that had been mislabeled and improperly stored at the crime lab. Defense attorneys said the boxes could contain something relevant to Green's case, but prosecutors...

Saddam may face execution after trial next monthBy David Rennie in Washington and Jack Fairweather in Baghdad(Filed: 20/09/2004)Saddam Hussein, now being held in one of his former Baghdad palaces, could go on trial for crimes against humanity as early as next month, the Iraqi interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, said yesterday. An October trial would offer a powerful political boost to President George W Bush in the run-up to the presidential election on Nov 2. Dr Allawi, a tough, even ruthless, former neurologist with long-standing links to the CIA and MI6, said he did not expect the trial to take...

FOX News reports that a man who attempted to park an explosive packed auto on a Moscow street used by many Russian leaders on their commute to the Kremlin died of a "heart attack" several hours after being taken into custody. In a related story, unnamed Pentagon sources suggest the DOD may attempt to cut Iraqi War costs by outsourcing prisoner interrogations to the KGB.

JARRATT, Va. (AP) — A man who killed an elderly woman with a metal can and a pair of scissors in a drunken attack eight years ago was executed Thursday by injection. James Edward Reid, 58, was pronounced dead at Greensville Correctional Center at 9:12 p.m. The intravenous line carrying the lethal dose of drugs was placed in Reid's upper groin because veins in his arms, where IV lines are usually placed, apparently had deteriorated from years of drinking. It took medical technicians 12 minutes, three times longer than usual, to place the IV lines."I forgive you for what you...

EXECUTING KIDNAPPERS IN NINEVEH'S PUBLIC SQUARES Mosul , As-Sabah , August 30, Page 1 Mr. Duraid Muhammed Kashmoula the governor of Neneveh said that the execution sentence has been resumed and became valid law in the city .At the weekly conference , Mr. Kashmoula said that the kidnapping and deliberate killing will be among the said cases , stressing that the police directorate in serious in implementing the instructions issued by the ministry of interior regards arresting the criminals , denying that these procedures is a violation on the judgment .On the other hand , a security source at the...

AUSTIN - A Dec. 1 execution date has been set for a Houston woman who would be the first African-American woman put to death since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982. Frances Elaine Newton, 39, was sentenced to die for killing her husband and two children on April 7, 1987. She was arrested two weeks later when she attempted to collect on recently purchased life-insurance policies. Newton shot Adrian Newton, 23; Alton Newton, 7; and 21-month-old Farah Elaine Newton with a .25-caliber pistol she had borrowed from her boyfriend. "There was never any question about Ms. Newton's guilt," said Roe...