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HUNTSVILLE -- A woman sentenced to die for the fatal shootings of her husband and their two children some 18-years ago was executed Wednesday evening. Frances Newton is the third woman and first black woman executed since Texas resumed capital punishment. Her execution is the 13th this year in Texas. The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution when justices rejected appeals that could have kept her from becoming the third woman executed in the state since the Civil War, and the first black woman. Without dissent, the high court declined a pair of appeals about an hour...

Newton didn't deny putting a gun in her 7-year-old son's knapsack and stashing the bag at an abandoned house. But she and her lawyers argued the .25-caliber blue steel revolver she hid was not the one used to fatally shoot her son, Alton; her 21-month-old daughter, Farrah; and her husband, Adrian, 23, at their Houston apartment. Newton all along insisted she was innocent, and the claim about the gun was among several in her appeal to the Supreme Court. She also contended her trial attorneys were incompetent and evidence at her trial improperly was destroyed. "I know I did not...

Frances Newton, condemned for the 1987 murder of her husband and two young children, was a step closer to execution Friday after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed her latest application for writ of habeas corpus, saying she had presented no new evidence to warrant a stay. In a petition filed Tuesday, Newton's Texas Innocence Network attorneys argued that two, possibly three, pistols were recovered the night that Adrian Newton, 23, and the couple's children, Alton, 7, and Farrah, 21 months, were shot to death at their Harris County apartment. If multiple weapons were seized as evidence, they contended,...

BELLINGHAM, Wash. - A man turned himself in to authorities in the killing of two convicted child rapists, saying he picked the victims from a sheriff's Web site, police said. Michael Anthony Mullen, 36, called 911 on Monday to claim responsibility for the killings, and officers who talked to him said he gave information that only the killer would know, according to a police news release. He was jailed for investigation of two counts of first-degree murder. Hank Eisses, 49, and Victor Vasquez, 68, were found shot to death at their apartment Aug. 27. They were both classified as Level...

53-year-old Carl Harrison has a history of brutally raping girls and women.Parole officers from the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice are warning the public about Carl Wayne Harrison, a predatory sex offender who has refused to report to his parole officer. Anyone with information about his location is urged to contact police immediately. Harrison has a history of brutally raping girls and women. He uses manipulation, threats and violence during the commission of his assaults and displays little remorse. His first conviction occurred in 1976 when he attacked a 14 year old girl in a bathroom in a Portland...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The bodies of 36 men were discovered Thursday southeast of Baghdad on a road leading to Iran, police said. The bodies were left on a road leading to Badrah, a town near the Iranian border, police Lt. Abbas al-Shammari said. An official said all but one of the men were wearing traditional Kurdish trousers. All had been shot in the head.

HUNTSVILLE - A Friendswood man who was 19 when he was arrested for fatally stabbing and beating a woman at her home, then robbing her and taking her car nearly 11 years ago was executed Tuesday. Robert Alan Shields, 30, was the 12th prisoner executed in Texas this year. A Galveston County jury condemned him for the killing of Paula Stiner, 27, who had been repeatedly stabbed with a knife from her own kitchen and beaten with a hammer when she was found by her husband as he returned home from work Sept. 21, 1994. The couple had lived at...

Robert Alan Shields, 30, was executed by lethal injection just after 6 p.m. Tuesday for the 1994 slaying of a woman who lived next door to his parents. Paula Stiner, 27, was stabbed and beaten to death in her home in the Houston suburb of Friendswood. Police said she was robbed and her car was stolen. Shields’ attorneys were seeking a stay of execution Tuesday, contending that the inmate was trying to defend himself from Stiner, who was stabbed and cut more than two-dozen times. The U.S. Supreme Court refused late Tuesday afternoon to block the execution.

President Jalal Talabani has paved the way for the first legal execution in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, the presidential office said Wednesday. The case involves three men sentenced to hang for murdering three policemen.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Saddam Hussein could be executed after his first trial if he is convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged role in a 1982 Shiite massacre, even though he faces other charges, an official close to the proceedings said Thursday. The first trial, which involves the deposed Iraqi ruler's alleged role in the 1982 massacre of an estimated 150 Shiites in Dujail, north of Baghdad, is expected to begin by the fall, said the official. He briefed reporters on condition that his name would not be used for reasons of security and the sensitivity of the...

Executions for the three Bali bombers could be imminent with their lawyers and justice officials expecting to receive letters from the Indonesian government authorising the carrying out of their death sentences. Adnan Wirawan, the lawyer for the so-called smiling assassin Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, as well as bombing mastermind Imam Samudra and financier Mukhlas, said he has heard that a letter has been sent to authorities in Bali, clearing the way for police to organise firing squads. "I have not yet seen it from the attorney-general, it's not here yet," he said. "But if it's really been issued, we will fight...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A former farm worker from central Texas was executed Wednesday for beating a man to death with a car jack during a violent spree 17 years ago. "I wish I could do something to replace your father, your loved one," Gary Sterling said as two daughters and three sons of his victim stood a few feet away. "But I can't. I know this was a heinous crime." Sterling, 38, was the 11th inmate executed by injection this year in Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state. He was condemned for the May 1988 death of John...

Posted on Wed, Aug. 03, 2005 Anti-government extremist asks court to stay execution in Alabama Associated Press ATMORE, Ala. - An anti-government extremist convicted of capital murder in the shooting death of an Opelika police officer has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block his execution, which is set for Thursday. George Sibley Jr., 62, who previously has contended the courts don't have any jurisdiction over him, filed the petition Wednesday. His personally written filing says his appeal has never been fully reviewed by the court in Washington, D.C., and it is "crucial in a case such as this." The...

The State of Texas avenged the death of a young woman from Minnesota this evening. She fought valiantly and died with honor. Then the perp carved an 'X' into her chest. I wish her parents respite from their grief.

Known as 'Wolf,' he met his victim in an Austin park HUNTSVILLE - When she last spoke with her sister, 24-year-old Kiersa Paul said she was heading out on her bicycle to a popular Austin park to meet a guy she felt sorry for and knew only as "Wolf." The predator nickname turned out prophetic. The next morning, Paul was found dead. She'd been raped, strangled, her throat cut at least eight times and an "X" etched into her chest. David Martinez, known as Wolf, was arrested days after the 1997 slaying. Travis County jurors deliberated only 15 minutes before...

Loving Big Brother by William Norman Grigg July 26, 2005   The killing of Jean Charles de Meneze by London police, who wrongly suspected Meneze of being a suicide bomber, demonstrated the folly of giving police a license to kill on the basis of suspicion. Yet some neoconservatives "love" this and other Big Brother policies. The July 22 shooting death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes at the hands of plainclothes London police left Fox News commentator John Gibson swooning with admiration."I love the way the Brits have 10 million cameras sticking up the nose of every citizen...

7/26/05 EU reminds Iran of moratorium on executions Tehran, July 26, IRNA- European Union on Tuesday expressed concern over reports of executions of two youths in Mashhad on July 19. EU said in statement faxed to IRNA by British Embassy in Tehran that one of the youths, Mahmoud Asgari, was aged under 18 at both the time of the crime and the execution. "The EU recalls its long held position that capital punishment may not, in any circumstances, be imposed on persons below 18 years of age at the time of the commission of the crime. Such punishment is in...

YORKTOWN, Va. -- Is Daryl Atkins mentally retarded? That question will be the sole focus of a trial set to begin this week, and the answer will determine whether he lives or dies. Atkins, 27, is the Virginia inmate whose case led the U.S. Supreme Court three years ago to bar execution of the mentally retarded as unconstitutionally cruel. Yet he has remained on death row for the 1996 robbery and murder of an Air Force enlisted man. While the high court's ruling protected the severely mentally retarded, it provided little guidance for the far greater number of inmates, like...

NASHVILLE - Have condemned inmates who've died because of lethal injection done so peacefully or has a drug that paralyzes the muscle system masked horrific side effects? States are grappling with that question in the latest wave of death row appeals. The Tennessee Supreme Court heard arguments about the drug Pavulon, or pancuronium bromide, in a death row case last month, and is expected to rule by September. In Kentucky, a similar issue is expected to reach the state Supreme Court soon. In Missouri, an inmate got a last-minute stay in May so the U.S. Supreme Court could review his...

TDCJ Alexander Martin: Evidence showed he slit the throat of  Helen Oliveros, had sex with her after she was dead and took about $150 from her. HUNTSVILLE — Condemned inmate Alexander Martinez figures death can't be worse than the life he now has on Texas death row. "You wonder what's past this," Martinez said recently from a small visiting cage at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice near Livingston. "I'm going to find out."Martinez, who would turn 29 next week, ordered all appeals stopped and is volunteering for lethal injection scheduled for Tuesday evening in Huntsville."I...