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Brain defects caused him to follow orders, attack pair, they say: Lawyers for Donald Beardslee, scheduled to die by lethal injection Jan. 19 for the murders of two young women in San Mateo County in 1981, appealed to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency Thursday, arguing that Beardslee is a mentally impaired dupe who is facing execution for crimes orchestrated by others. "The jury was unaware of the extent to which his actions and conduct were controlled by severe brain damage that impaired his functioning since birth,'' attorneys Michael Laurence and Susan Garvey said in a 48-page petition to Schwarzenegger. They...

Public defender's office still seeking to represent killer The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on whether a lower court erred in denying the state public defender's request to litigate on behalf of serial killer Michael Ross. The court set the hearing for Wednesday. Gerard Smyth, the state's chief public defender, said his office filed the appeal because New London Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford made a mistake when he refused to let the public defenders represent Ross as his “next friend.” “It's so important that we pursue this and make sure that, whatever the outcome, that it's...

Redwood City killer's execution date set for Jan. 19 A federal appeals court late Wednesday upheld the death sentence of Donald Beardslee for murdering two young women in San Mateo County in 1981, moving him one step closer to execution on Jan. 19. A day after hearing arguments on a last-ditch appeal by Beardslee's attorneys, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that errors in his penalty trial did not affect the jury's verdict. Beardslee can still ask the full appeals court for a rehearing and appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has previously refused...

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The Connecticut Civil Liberties Union is entering the legal fray over next month's scheduled execution of serial killer Michael Ross, challenging lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment. The CCLU lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court on behalf of Ross' father, Dan Ross, acting as "next friend" to his son. The lawsuit cites an anesthesiologist's critical report of Connecticut's death penalty procedures and his conclusions that the process could inflict severe pain and trauma on Ross. "Media witnesses or family witnesses are being misled [about the procedure ], because it looks like the person is...

Termination of bL&Z, 29Dec04 Almighty God, we approach your throne in humbleness of heart because we see these days how quickly lives can be lost in natural disaster. Our lives are brief, and we are unwise not to admit that fact. Nonetheless, our lives are assigned by Your Almighty Hand, and, therefore, they are not unjustly to be despised, debased, or destroyed by the hand of man. Your command to us is this: "Thou shalt not murder." That is why we lift our voices imploring for the soon termination of binLaden and alZarqawi. These have unjustly taken into their own...

NEW LONDON, Conn. - A judge ruled Tuesday that a confessed serial killer — set to become the first inmate executed in New England in 40 years — is mentally competent and can forgo further appeals of his death sentence. Michael Ross, 45, is scheduled to be executed Jan. 26 for killing four young women in eastern Connecticut in the 1980s. He has admitted to killing a total of eight women and raping several of them. Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford ordered Ross to testify in court and be examined by a psychiatrist to ensure he was competent to decide...

There is a better way to handle the terrorists, labeled insurgents by the media, in Iraq. In World War II, for a couple of years, there were a group of Nazi terrorists called “werewolfs” who attacked and killed the allied forces and key civilians in former Nazi-held territory. They were as vicious and ruthless as the current terrorists in Iraq. Their favorite techniques were bombings, sniper attacks, ambushes and even poisoning of food supplies. What history does not tell us is that the allied forces had to take “justice” in their own hands when these terrorists were found and captured,...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Hippocratic Oath doctors swear to save lives, not end them. But one doctor accused of doing just that also happens to be the governor of Kentucky, and a lawmaker willing to sign execution orders on death row inmates. "There is a distinct difference between acting as a physician for a patient and acting as a governor for the people of the commonwealth of Kentucky," Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a former family physician and U.S. congressman elected to the state's highest office last year, told FOX News. Last month, Fletcher signed the death warrant for 51-year-old Thomas Clyde...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Hippocratic Oath (search) doctors swear to save lives, not end them. But one doctor accused of doing just that also happens to be the governor of Kentucky, and a lawmaker willing to sign execution orders on death row inmates. "There is a distinct difference between acting as a physician for a patient and acting as a governor for the people of the commonwealth of Kentucky," Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a former family physician and U.S. congressman elected to the state's highest office last year, told FOX News. Last month, Fletcher signed the death warrant for 51-year-old Thomas...

HARTFORD, Conn. - More than 940 people have been executed since the United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Not one was in New England. That is set to change Jan. 26, the date for the execution of serial killer Michael Ross. Ross, 45, admits killing eight women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s, and raping most of his victims. He has been in prison for 20 years - 17 on Connecticut's death row - for four of those murders and faces lethal injection. After numerous appeals, including two decided by the Connecticut Supreme Court, Ross has...

Gov.M. Jodi Rell said on Monday that she would not grant a reprieve to a serial killer who is to become the first person in the Northeast to be executed in more than 40 years. She also said she would veto any effort by the General Assembly to repeal Connecticut's death penalty law.

HARTFORD -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell said Monday she will not interfere with plans to put a serial killer to death next month in what would be the first execution in New England since 1960. "I have no sympathy for Michael Ross," the Republican governor said. Ross, 45, is on death row for killing four young women in the 1980s and has admitted killing four other women. He is set to die by lethal injection Jan. 26. The governor has no power to commute Ross' death sentence. The state constitution allows her, however, to grant a reprieve to postpone the...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

HOUSTON, Dec. 1 - Hours before she was to have been executed for the murders of her husband and children, a Texas woman was spared on Wednesday when Gov. Rick Perry granted her a 120-day reprieve to review disputed evidence that convicted her. Although Mr. Perry said that after a lengthy review of the case "I see no evidence of innocence," he accepted a recommendation made Tuesday by the Board of Pardons and Paroles to delay the execution of the woman, Frances Newton. The delay is to be used to apply "new technology" in a retesting of a gun prosecutors...

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...