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RICHMOND, Va. - A convicted killer who chose the electric chair because he was apparently unnerved by the prospect of lethal injection awaited execution Thursday. Brandon Hedrick, 27, was set to become the first person executed in the electric chair in the United States in more than two years. He was condemned to die for the 1997 murder of 23-year-old Lisa Crider, who was abducted, robbed, raped and killed with a shotgun blast to the face. Virginia's death row inmates are given the option of dying by injection or electrocution. Three other Virginia inmates have opted for the electric chair...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - An apologetic San Antonio gang member was executed Wednesday for the shooting death of a man during a robbery attempt in the driveway of his victim's home. With two brothers of his victim watching nearby through a window, Mauriceo Brown told them he was "sorry you lost a brother, a loved one and friend." Brown looked toward another window where his mother and two siblings were among the witnesses. He told them he loved them. "Keep your heads up and know that I will be in a better place," he said. He then looked again toward his...

LIVINGSTON, Texas -- Every day, Norma LaHood and her husband pass the spot where 10 years ago their son was gunned down. It's the driveway outside their San Antonio home. "It was our choice," LaHood says of the couple's decision to continue living at their home following their 25-year-old son's death. "My husband said they will not chase me out of my home. My son loved his home."

Columbia -- Making no final statement and keeping his eyes trained on the ceiling, William "Junior" Downs was put to death by lethal injection Friday for the 1999 kidnapping, rape and murder of a 6-year-old South Carolina boy. The 39-year-old Augusta, Ga., man said he stopped Keenan O'Mailia as the boy rode his bicycle along a dirt path. Downs said he asked the boy his name, then threw him to the ground and strangled him. Downs did not pursue any appeals after pleading guilty to the crimes in 2002. Before he was sentenced to death, he said he deserved to...

(7/11/06 - HUNTSVILLE, TX) - Condemned murderer Derrick Sean O'Brien has been executed for the torture, rape and strangling of two teenage girls. O'Brien is one of six gang members convicted in the 1993 slayings of 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena in Houston. The US Supreme Court had been asked to block tonight's execution. O'Brien's defense argued there's no legal procedure for condemned Texas prisoners to challenge whether the drugs used in lethal injections could cause unconstitutional pain.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. halted executions in Missouri until the state makes sweeping changes to ensure that inmates do not suffer when they are put to death. The judge cited "numerous problems" with the state's lethal injections, including the use of possibly nonsterile needles, inadequate heating and/or air conditioning, and a generally depressing atmosphere. "The nonsterile conditions are especially egregious since they could lead to these prisoners getting infections," said Gaitan. "Improperly set thermostats inflict unnecessary suffering. You know how it is when a room is too cold or too hot. You just can't be comfortable." Gaitan said...

Mexico City, Jun 28 (EFE).- Authorities here expressed regret Wednesday over the execution of Mexican citizen Angel Maturino Resendiz, the notorious "Railroad Killer," at a prison in Huntsville, Texas. Resendiz, sentenced to death in 2000 for the rape-murder of a Houston doctor but also believed responsible in a dozen other slayings, was executed Tuesday night by lethal injection "despite medical evidence about the severe mental disturbances he suffered," the Mexican foreign ministry said in a communique. A Texas court ruled last Wednesday that Resendiz, who asked for forgiveness before being executed and said he deserved his fate, was mentally competent...

(6/27/06 - HUNTSVILLE, TX) - Train-hopping serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, linked to at least 15 indiscriminate murders near railroad tracks around the country, was executed Tuesday night. In his final statement, Resendiz asked for forgiveness. He was pronounced dead at 8:05 p.m. CDT.

(6/27/06 - HUNTSVILLE, TX) - US Supreme Court appeals are still pending for convicted killer Angel Maturino Resendiz -- so Texas prison officials have delayed the scheduled start time of his execution. Officials won't proceed tonight in Huntsville until the appeals are resolved. The death warrant remains in effect until midnight.

Excerpt - ST. LOUIS — A federal judge on Monday halted executions in Missouri until the state makes sweeping changes to ensure that inmates do not suffer excruciating pain when they are put to death. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. cited "numerous problems" with the state's lethal injections, including a lack of a written protocol setting drug levels and a dyslexic doctor who is in charge of mixing the three drugs used. ~ snip ~

(June 6, 2006)--Texas executed its eleventh death-row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening in Huntsville. Thirty-four-year-old Timothy Tyler Titsworth was put to death for the 1992 slaying of his 26-year-old girlfriend in the mobile home they shared in Amarillo. Christine Marie Sossaman was bludgeoned about 16 times with a dull ax as she slept. Evidence showed Titsworth was high on crack cocaine at the time of the July 23,1992, attack.

WASHINGTON — Murder charges may be brought against some Marines for what may be the worst atrocity committed by U.S. military personnel in Iraq, a senior Pentagon official said Friday.

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...