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HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A prison gang member was executed Wednesday for the drug-related slayings of a Harlingen couple after he tried to start an argument with the victims' family, prompting prison officials to cut his final statement short. Jesus Ledesma Aguilar was the 10th prisoner put to death this year in Texas and the third of three this month in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. Aguilar made eye contact with members of the victims' family and asked whether they were happy he was being executed. "I didn't kill your father," he said to someone he mistakenly thought was the...

(May, 17, 2006)—Texas death row inmate Jermaine Herron, 27, was executed Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the 1997 slayings of a woman and her 15-year-old-son at a ranch in South Texas. Betsy Nutt, 41, and her son Cody were attacked at their home on a ranch in Refugio County. Earlier Wednesday the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to block the execution after Herron’s attorneys challenged the drugs used in the deadly cocktail administered to condemned inmates, saying they cause “excessive pain.” The U.S. Supreme Court also refused to stop the execution Wednesday. Herron was the ninth inmate executed so...

WASHINGTON -- I am no great fan of the death penalty. I oppose it in almost all cases, though not on principle. There are crimes -- high, monstrous and rare -- that warrant the ultimate sanction. Not because it is a deterrent; the evidence for deterrence is very equivocal. And not, as our Oprah-soaked sentimentalism suggests, in order bring closure to the victim's family. Family has nothing to do with it. It is The State v. The Miscreant, not the family v. the miscreant. And punishment is meant to do more than just bring order to the state; it brings...

(May 4, 2006)—A Texas death row inmate convicted of killing a 5-year-old girl was executed just after 6 p.m. Thursday in Huntsville. Jackie Barron Wilson was sentenced to die for the 1988 murder of Maggie Rhodes of Arlington. Investigators say Wilson had been drinking, used cocaine and unsuccessfully attempted a sexual elsewhere about an hour before breaking into the girl's home. Wilson had been in the apartment before. He knew the child's live-in baby sitter. He was convicted and condemned in 1989, his conviction was overturned on a technicality, then Wilson was convicted against in 1994. The Texas Board of...

Four of the nation's top arson experts have concluded that the state of Texas executed a man in 2004 based on scientifically invalid evidence, and on Tuesday they called for an official reinvestigation of the case. In their report, the experts, assembled by the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization responsible for scores of exonerations, concluded that the conviction and 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson-murders of his three daughters were based on interpretations by fire investigators that have been scientifically disproved. "The whole system has broken down," Barry Scheck, co-founder and director of the Innocence Project, said...

(April 20, 2006)--Harris County prosecutors say next month's scheduled execution of Angel Maturino Resendiz has been delayed for more psychiatric testing. Maturino Resendiz is the 45-year-old Mexican drifter dubbed the "Railroad Killer." His execution has been moved from May 10 to June 27 to allow for the additional testing. The condemned serial killer's attorneys contend he's insane and ineligible for execution under a 2002 Supreme Court ruling. Earlier this month, they filed reports from two mental health experts who concluded Maturino Resendiz is delusional, schizophrenic and has an organic brain disorder. But prosecutors say Maturino Resendiz is sane and is...

CHINA ORGAN TRANSPLANTS BOOM CHINA IS THE LEADER IN TRANSPLANTS, BUT BUSINESS IS BESET BY CLAIMS THAT ORGANS COME FROM EXECUTED PRISONERS BY TIM JOHNSON Knight Ridder News Service TIANJIN, China - A few weeks after receiving a lifesaving liver transplant, Pakistani businessman Shaukat Javed shuffled slowly around a specialty hospital ward chatting up fellow organ recipients. Patients from around the globe mingled in the fourth-floor ward of the First Tianjin Central Hospital, some of them with nurses bracing their steps. In the past few years, several Chinese hospitals have done a soaring business in liver, heart and kidney transplants....

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A former pizza delivery man with an extensive criminal record was executed Wednesday for the robbery and slaying of a Houston-area man 13 years ago. In a brief statement, Kevin Kincy thanked his friends, supporters and family and mentioned several of them by name. "I love my children. I love my family," he said. "That's it." In the seconds before the drugs took effect, Kincy pursed his lips into a kiss and smiled and nodded to a Swiss woman who married him by proxy last year. The woman and a female companion from Germany wept. Kincy had...

Re: Please stop the execution of Abdul Rahman The Embassy of Afghanistan greatly appreciates public concern about Mr. Abdul Rahman. We have received a significant number of inquiries about his case, which initially involved a civil lawsuit in child custody filed by his family. Please note that the Government of Afghanistan is fully aware of and pursuing the best ways to resolve his case judicially. It is too early to draw any conclusion about the punishment, and we appreciate public understanding of the sensitivity of religious issues. The Afghan judicial system is currently evaluating questions raised about the mental fitness...

Karzai 'gives pledge' to save Christian convert from execution By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad (Filed: 25/03/2006) President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is reported to have given assurances that an Afghan convert to Christianity will not face the death sentence for apostasy. Mr Karzai is under growing pressure from his western allies to resolve the case of Abdul Rahman. Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity Mr Rahman was arrested last week for converting to Christianity from Islam 16 years ago and could face the death penalty if he refuses to become a Muslim again. The case prompted expressions of concern from President...

PRIME Minister John Howard will personally protest to the Afghanistan Government over the prosecution of a man who faces possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity. Mr Howard said those who would advocate such a course were no friends of Australia. Australian diplomats in Kabul have already expressed Australia's view to the Afghanistan Government. "I am going to personally protest again to the president of Afghanistan," he told Southern Cross radio. "This is appalling. When I saw the report about this I felt sick literally. "We are putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line. This is outrageous....

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A Lubbock man was executed Wednesday night for the April 1997 beating death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter. "To everybody on both sides of that wall, I want you to know that I love you both," Robert Salazar Jr., said in a final statement, acknowledging his family and Adriana Gomez's mother and other relatives who were there as witnesses. He looked toward his family during his remarks. "I am sorry that the child had to lose her life, but I should not have to be here. Tell my family I love them all and I will see...

RALEIGH, N.C. — A man who fatally shot his then-girlfriend's husband in a plot to collect insurance money was executed by injection early Friday. Patrick Moody, 39, was executed at Central Prison for the slaying of Donnie Robbins of Thomasville. He was having an affair with Robbins' wife Wanda, who persuaded Moody to shoot her husband so they could collect on a $5,000 insurance policy. Wanda Robbins was sentenced to life in prison plus 65 years after pleading guilty to murder and insurance fraud charges. Moody was pronounced dead at 2:19 a.m. EST, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the...

China Executes Former Tycoon for Murder By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 5 minutes ago A Chinese tycoon once worth more than $360 million has been executed by lethal injection for having a man who tried to blackmail him killed, a court statement and news reports said Saturday. Yuan Baojing and two accomplices were put to death by lethal injection Friday after a court in China's northeastern Liaoning province upheld a death sentence handed down last year, said a notice on the official Web site of China's courts. News photos in several Chinese papers showed a bespectacled Yuan,...

HUNTSVILLE — A former Marine was executed tonight for the death of a Chicago-area woman who was shot and killed along with a friend during a robbery outside a northwest Dallas theater in August 1997. "I love my family," Tommie Hughes, 31, said in his final statement. "You all stay strong. Watch over each other," he told his mother, grandmother and some friends as they watched from a nearby window. Hughes kept repeating "I love you. I love you" and looking at his family until the drugs took effect. He said nothing about his victims, but at one point turned...

ARLINGTON, VA. -- The death of "peace activist" Tom Fox, and the threatened execution of the three others held with him in Iraq, is doubly tragic. It is tragic whenever an innocent person is murdered. It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Mr. Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none. That the "peace activists" believed their brand of Christianity would trump the fanatical Muslims who regarded them as infidels and worthy of death meant that Mr. Fox and the others would either be used for propaganda...

Jordan executes killers of U.S. envoy Two with ties to al Qaeda hanged for 2002 assassination (CNN) -- The Jordanian government Saturday executed two al Qaeda-linked terrorists convicted in the 2002 assassination of a U.S. diplomat, according to Jordan's Petra news agency. Salem Sa'ed Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan national, and Yasser Fathi Ibraheem, a Jordanian, were hanged at the Siwaqa Correctional and Rehabilitation Center for the killing of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley.

THE ESSENTIAL NEED FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Publisher March 3, 2006 WARNING: This DOUBLE-LENGTH article contains material that is brutally and even horrifically graphic. This is not recommended reading for children, those with weak stomachs, or those whose sensitivities may be destroyed by so doing. Neither this author nor The American Partisan will be considered liable for either the contents of this article or the reaction of its readers to viewing, reading or hearing it. Think it over VERY CAREFULLY before deciding to proceed past this point.If there was ever a case begging for capital punishment-despite...

Anyone curious about the motives of the federal judge who has temporarily put the brakes on executions in California should know this: Jeremy Fogel comes with plenty of personal biases. He leans decidedly toward the San Francisco Giants. He would probably rule in favor of the jazz stylings of pianist Keith Jarrett. And he's partial to the steam-poached salmon with Dijon beurre blanc when dining at Maddalena's in Palo Alto. His true feelings about the death penalty, however, are not up for discussion. ``My feeling is that it's constitutional,'' Fogel said this week in an interview with the Mercury News....

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced 21 Islamic militants to death for their involvement in 400 simultaneous blasts across Bangladesh last year. On August 17 last year, 400 bombs were detonated in Bangladesh, exploding in almost every city and town. It was a violent confirmation that Islamic militancy was thriving in the country, despite determined government denials. The outlawed militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) claimed responsibility for the blasts. The JMB wants Bangladesh to be ruled by strict Islamic law. Twenty-one men, all aged between 20 and 25 have now been sentenced to death by hanging for their involvement...