Free Republic

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is undecided on whether to grant clemency in the high-profile case of condemned killer Stanley Tookie Williams. Williams, co-founder of the Crips gang, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13 for the killings of four people. Law enforcement officials have launched an unusually fierce campaign to block clemency, The Los Angeles Times said Friday. Officials are asking the governor to reject pleas from clergy, legislators and entertainers that Williams has redeemed himself by his work on death row to dissuade young people from joining gangs. Speaking to reporters...

KANSAS CITY (AP) - A Kansas woman accused of cutting an unborn baby from her victim’s womb could face the death penalty if convicted of the crimes, federal prosecutors announced yesterday. Lisa Montgomery, 37, of Melvern, Kan., faces trial in April for allegedly strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett with a rope at her Skidmore home, using a kitchen knife for a crude Caesarean section, then parading the infant around as her own. U.S. Attorney Todd Graves had long hinted he would seek death for the defendant, but it was made official yesterday with a court filing outlining aggravating circumstances. The...

Shannon Charles Thomas, 34, was executed just after 6 p.m. Wednesday for the Christmas Eve 1993 murders of three people in Baytown. Two of the victims were children. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the execution Wednesday evening. Thomas was the second inmate to be executed in two days. Robert Dale Rowell, 50, was executed just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in Huntsville for killing two people at a crack house in Houston 12 years ago. Thomas was sentenced to die for the murders of Robert Rios and his two children, Victor 11 and Maria, 10. Prosecutors said Thomas and...

Robert Dale Rowell, 50, was executed just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in Huntsville for killing two people at a crack house in Houston 12 years ago. Rowell had already served a sentence and had allegedly killed a fellow inmate before the bloody rampage in 1993 in which Raymond Mata, 38 and Irvin Wright, 52, were killed. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Rowell’s case last month. Rowell was the 18th inmate executed this year in Texas and the first of two scheduled to die this week. Condemned inmate Shannon Thomas is scheduled to die Wednesday evening for a triple...

Steven Van McHone was put to death at Central Prison early Friday morning, 15 years after he killed his mother and stepfather at their Surry County home. McHone entered the execution chamber on a gurney at 1:50 a.m., and he appeared to say "I'm so sorry" to Wes Adams Jr., a half-brother whom McHone almost killed the night of the parents' deaths. McHone then exchanged smiles and laughter with his attorney and with two friends, who were among nine people who served as official witnesses. At about 2 a.m., executioners added a sedative to McHone's intravenous lines. He closed his...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stanley Tookie Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, is trying to head off a Dec. 13 execution by asking the California Supreme Court to reopen the case, his attorneys said Friday. Among other things, Williams' representatives say forensic testing may have falsely sent him to death row. Williams' lawyer wants California's justices to allow the reexamination of evidence that showed a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a motel robbery in 1979. They said conclusions that a shell casing found at the scene matched the shotgun were based on...

A 55-year-old inmate who was condemned for the abduction, sexual assault and beating death of a nine-year-old girl, was executed just after 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville. Melvin Wayne White confessed to the slaying of Jennifer Gravell, who lived two houses from him in the small West Texas town of Ozona. White blamed a lifelong drinking problem for the killing, but prosecutors insisted White was a pedophile who used alcohol as an excuse for his actions. Jennifer's father, Charlie Gravell, shot himself to death in May 2003.

...just who is Stanley "Tookie" Williams? Williams, now in his 50s is currently on California's Death Row. It was in his teenage years that Williams befriended Raymond "Truck" Washington and several others local teens in the neighborhood. Williams has similar interest as the other group, including avoiding school, running the streets, drinking and at the age 13, sniffing glue. On February 28, 1979, around 4 AM, Williams had his eye on a 7-Eleven store. After two already unsuccessful robbery attempts, Williams found the store clerk, Albert Owens, out front sweeping the parking lot. Owens, who now would have been a...

EDUCATORS and religious scholars are mostly against letting children watch Shariah court verdicts like beheading, stoning to death, amputation or lashing, a report said Sunday. Exposing children to violent and gruesome scenes may make them aggressive and effect their personality, he said. am of the view that children must be forbidden from watching the execution of Shariah penalties so that we are able to protect our future generations from negative effects, in the same way as some countries that prevent children from watching films with horrifying scenes, Dr. Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Al-Dakheel, Assistant Professor of Social Service in King...

While Al Franken continues to have his pick of cable and late night television interviews, there may be signs some are leery of his creepy Rove/Cheney/Bush "execution" rhetoric. Appearing on CNN yesterday, Franken's American Morning interview segment seemed abruptly cut short as soon as he brought up this supposed "joke". Were producers ready and waiting to pull the plug? Interviewer Zain Verjee became visibly uncomfortable as soon as Franken mentioned the "E" word. Was that the planned segment end, after just three minutes?

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Reuters) - A Missouri man who killed two women by pushing them off a bridge spanning the Mississippi River was put to death early Wednesday, a Missouri prison official said. Marlin Gray, 38, died at 12:07 a.m. CDT after workers at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri, injected him with a series of lethal drugs, stopping his heart.

LUCASVILLE - A cocaine dealer whose role models were mobsters in a city once called the nation’s crime capital was executed Tuesday for killing four men in a bid to seize control of the drug trade in a Youngstown housing project. Willie Williams Jr., 48, died by injection at 10:20 a.m. at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

Texas carried out the 15th execution of the year just after 6 p.m. Thursday as convicted killer Luis Ramirez was given a lethal injection for his role in the 1998 shooting death of a San Angelo firefighter who had dated Ramirez’s ex-wife. Ramirez was sentenced to die for initiating the murder-for-hire plot that led to the death of firefighter Nemecio Nandin, 29. An accomplice, Edward Bell, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors described Ramirez as a jealous ex-husband so obsessed with his former wife that he paid $1,000 for help in a plot leading to Nandin's death....

Roane County District Attorney General Scott McCluen announced today he would seek the death penalty against captured fugitives George and Jennifer Hyatte. The Hyattes, who drew national attention during their flight following the shooting of a Tennessee prison guard, will be tried separately, McCluen said in a statement. A Roane County grand jury returned first-degree murder charges against both Hyattes in the shooting death of correction officer Charles "Cotton" Morgan. They also face attempted murder charges in connection with a subsequent gun battle with Morgan’s partner, correction officer Larry Harris. The grand jury also charged George Hyatte with escape and...

Iraqis are clamoring for the Butcher of Baghdad's head. In an exclusive interview on the eve of Saddam Hussein's trial, the country's prime minister told international journalist Daphne Barak executioners were lining up to administer justice. The tyrant could face the death penalty for mass murder. "That's not a problem," said Prime Minister Ibrahim alJaafari. "Many people already volunteered. Many people would love to do the job. This is a man who does not deserve any mercy." The prime minister revealed some details about how Saddam's trial will be carried out so the proceedings - and the defendant - will...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A man was executed Thursday for gunning down a Texas state trooper in 1992, a slaying his trial attorneys had argued was prompted by anti-police rap music. For his final statement, Ronald R. Howard looked at the trooper's widow, daughter and brother and said he hoped "this helps a little. I don't know how, but I hope it helps." Then he turned to friends and a brother who were among his witnesses, expressing love and thanking them for locating two of his young children, who visited him on death row within the past week. "Love you all....

Ronald Ray Howard, 32, received a lethal injection just after 6 p.m. Thursday in the state’s death chamber in Huntsville. Howard was sentenced to die for the death of a state trooper. Howard was 18 and driving with a broken headlight when Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Bill Davidson stopped him. The 19-year DPS veteran and married father of two was shot in the neck and died three days later. The shooting happened the night of April 11, 1992 on U.S. Highway 59 in Jackson County, between Edna and Victoria.

A MAN who impersonated a Communist Party official was among at least 26 people executed ahead of China's October 1 National Day holiday. China, which executes more people a year than the rest of the world combined, often puts to death a large number of convicted felons in the days ahead of National Day and other holidays. According to an announcement posted on the Beijing Intermediate People's Court website today, Cao Zhongwu was executed on September 13 for impersonating a Communist Party official and forging documents leading to some 7.03 million yuan ($1.14 million) in ill-gotten gains. "The case has...

A convicted killer in Ohio has just hours to live, and Hurricane Rita has prevented his adoptive parents from seeing him one last time. Herman Ashworth's parents live in southwestern Louisiana. A combination of a lack of electricity at their home and concerns about gasoline shortages and flooding prevented them from making a flight out of Baton Rouge Sunday. They'd earlier been scheduled to fly from Houston, but the airports were shut down by the storm. Ashworth, who said he deserves to die for beating to death and robbing 40-year-old Daniel Baker in an alley in 1996, designated no witnesses...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Frances Newton (search) was executed Wednesday for the fatal shootings of her husband and two children 18 years ago, becoming the third woman, and first black woman, to be put to death in the state since executions resumed in 1982