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HUNTSVILLE, Texas ? Hours after setting a fire in his cell to protest his punishment, a Houston air conditioning contractor was executed Thursday night for the deaths of two Florida men gunned down in a dispute over missing drug money. Roy Lee Pippin, 51, had vowed to fight his execution and be uncooperative with corrections officers, but he walked to the death chamber and caused no additional disturbances. "I charge the people of the jury, the trial judge, the prosecutor that cheated to get this conviction, I charge each and every one of you with the murder of an innocent...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas ? A San Antonio man convicted of killing an Air Force officer during a carjacking 10 years ago was executed Wednesday evening. In a brief final statement, Vincent Gutierrez said, "I'd like to tell everybody I'm sorry the situation happened. My bad ? everybody is here because of what happened." It was unclear from his statement whether he was apologizing for the fatal shooting. He thanked a number of relatives and friends and expressed love to them. "Where's a stunt double when you need one?" he said, laughing.

(March 20, 2007)--A Dallas man with a history of robberies was executed Tuesday evening in Huntsville for murdering a convenience store owner during a 1997 holdup. The execution of Charles Anthony Nealy, whose 43rd birthday would have been Friday, was briefly delayed while the US Supreme Court considered his 11th hour appeal Tuesday evening. The high court declined to block the execution. Nealy was the ninth death row inmate put to death this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. Nealy had at least three earlier convictions for aggravated robbery when he was accused of murdering Jiten Bhakta. He...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio - The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a man who had been scheduled to die Tuesday for killing a woman in 1991 and scattering her remains across two states. Inmate Kenneth Biros ? and the family of the victim, Tami Engstrom ? had waited for the decision more than six hours past his 10 a.m. scheduled execution time at Ohio's death house. The justices' one-sentence decision agreed with two lower courts that delayed the execution so he could continue arguing that Ohio's method of lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court...

A MAN who spent 25 years on Texas death row was executed by lethal injection today for a 1980 murder but only after prison officials had to carry him to the death chamber. Joseph Nichols, 45, was the second person in as many days and the eighth person put to death this year in Texas. The state leads the nation with 387 executions since 1982, when it reinstated the death penalty six years after the US Supreme Court lifted a capital punishment ban. He refused to walk to the death chamber but did not put up a fight, a prison...

(March 7, 2007)-- Joseph Nichols, 45, was executed just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in Huntsville for the shooting death of an elderly store clerk during a robbery more than a quarter century ago. The US Supreme Court refused late Wednesday to block the execution. Nichols and an accomplice, Willie Ray Williams, were both sentenced to death for the 1980 shooting death of Houston convenience store clerk Claude Shaffer, 70. Williams was executed for the crime in 1995. Appeals and protests from death penalty opponents focused on the fact that one bullet wound killed Shaffer and that Williams was convicted of...

(March 6, 2007)--The head of a notorious prison gang who allegedly approved more than a dozen killings in San Antonio during the 1990s heads was put to death just after 6 p.m. Tuesday in Huntsville. Mexican Mafia chief Robert Perez was executed for the Alamo City hits on Jose Travieso and James Rivas 13 years ago. He was the seventh prisoner Texas has put to death this year and the first of two in as many nights. Appeals were exhausted for Perez. A lawsuit on his behalf challenging the Texas execution procedures was dismissed in a Houston federal court last...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A paroled car and truck thief was executed Tuesday evening for a robbery and shooting that left two men dead a quarter-century ago outside Houston. When asked by the warden if he had anything to say, Donald Miller shook his head once. At 6:16 p.m., six minutes after the lethal dose began, he was pronounced dead.

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a condemned Texas woman set to die for the slaying of a three-month-old child she was baby-sitting. The court rejected the appeal yesterday of 50-year-old Cathy Lynn Henderson, who faces execution April 18th for the 1994 beating death of Brandon Baugh. The baby's body was found stuffed in a wine cooler carton and buried in a field in Bell County, about 50 miles north of Henderson's Austin-area home. The discovery came nearly three weeks after the child was first reported missing.

HUNTSVILLE — Texas death row inmate Newton Anderson has been executed. The career burglar was sent to the Texas death chamber this evening for torturing and killing a retired couple during the break-in of their home eight years ago. Anderson, 30, who said he began stealing from homes even before he was a teenager, had been out of prison only about four months after serving four years for burglary when he was arrested for the slayings of Frank Cobb, 71, and his 61-year-old wife, Bertha, at their rural home near Tyler in Smith County. Anderson became the fifth Texas inmate...

BEIJING, Feb 9 (Reuters) - China has executed a Uighur activist in a far-northwestern city for attempting to "split the motherland" and possessing explosives, drawing condemnation from a human rights group which said the evidence was insufficient. Ismail Semed, who was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003, had told the court a confession had been coerced, but he was executed nevertheless on Thursday in Urumqi, capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia on Friday quoted his widow, Buhejer, as saying. "When the body was transferred to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet...

(February 7, 2007)--Convicted killer James Jackson, 47, was executed just after 6 p.m. Wednesday in Huntsville for strangling his two stepdaughters in 1997 at their Houston-area home. Prosecutors say Jackson also killed his 39-year-old wife, Sharon. The younger victims were 19-year-old "Sonnie" Mayes and her 18-year-old sister, Ericka. Police say in his confession, Jackson said he and his wife had been arguing for several days over his unemployment and that she intended to divorce him. Jackson was the fourth condemned killer to be executed so far this year in Texas.

Terror suspects 'face execution over hearsay' By Tim Hall and agencies Last Updated: 8:51am GMT 19/01/2007 Terror suspects could be jailed for life and even executed on the basis of hearsay or coerced testimony under new rules put forward by the US. The Pentagon has drawn up a draft manual ahead of trials at Guantanamo Bay, which are expected to begin soon. The proposals will grant judges wide freedom in deciding what evidence to hear, including statements obtained under duress. Human rights groups say the regulations would allow evidence that would not be tolerated in civilian or military courtrooms. “No...

Iraqi court to sentence Saddam's deputy to death next week Press Trust of India Baghdad, January 17, 2007 Another deputy of former leader Saddam Hussein will be given the death penalty later this month after the appeals court ruled that his previous sentence of life in prison was too lenient, a spokesman has said. Raid Juhi, a spokesman for the Iraqi High Tribunal, said a session will be held on January 25 in which a judge will read the new verdict against former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. On November 5, Ramadan was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to...

A self-described fascist who adopted the dark punk and Goth lifestyle was put to death just after 6 p.m. Wednesday in Huntsville. Thirty-two-year-old Johnathan Moore was sentenced to die for shooting San Antonio police Officer Fabian Dominguez to death 12 years ago. He was the second Texas death row inmate put to death this year and the second of five set to die this month in the nation's busiest capital punishment state. Authorities say Moore gunned Dominguez down after the officer interrupted him and two companions during the January 1995 burglary of a house in Dominguez's neighborhood. When he confronted...

LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman said that the way in which Saddam Hussein's half-brother was executed was "wrong", after it emerged his head was severed during hanging. Human rights groups criticised the punishment after the Iraqi government said "no violations" had occurred but confirmed that Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti's head was ripped from his body as he swung on the gallows. Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon, Blair's spokesman restated Britain's opposition to the death penalty and again said it recognised Iraq's right as a sovereign government to make its own decision on capital punishment. "However, we...

Iraq hanging video shown to reporters BAGHDAD, Iraq - The official video of hanging of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants screened for reporters Monday showed the former leader's half brother lying headless below the gallows, his severed head several yards away. The video shows Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, being hanged side by side. They wore red prison jumpsuits. As they reached the gallows, black hoods were put on their heads and five masked men surrounded them. After the trap doors opened, al-Bandar could be seen dangling from the...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A man convicted of the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son has been executed. In a brief final statement, Carlos Granados, 36, expressed love to his family and others and addressed Katherine Jiminez, his former girlfriend and the mother of the child he killed more than eight years ago. "Kathy, you know I never meant to hurt you," he told the woman who also suffered 27 stab wounds during the attack. "I gave you everything and that’s what made me so angry. But I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry." She stood up against the...

UN human rights : Iran set to execute 7 Arabs Thursday, January 11, 2007 - ©2005 IranMania.com LONDON, January 11 (IranMania) - Three UN human rights investigators accused Iran of planning the imminent execution of seven Arabs sentenced to death after a trial held in secret, The Associated Press reported. In a joint statement released in Geneva, the investigators said family members of the seven Ahvazi Arabs were informed earlier this week that the executions would happen "in the next few days." The UN-appointed experts said the prisoners were part of a larger group of Arabs arrested in June 2006...

America's attachment to the death penalty is well-rooted but there are significant signs that US courts, politicians and public opinion may be turning against capital punishment. On Friday, the US Supreme Court agreed to set a new standard for when a death row prisoner is too mentally ill to be executed without violating the constitution. On Monday, the justices will consider whether to force attorneys representing death row prisoners to take extraordinary measures to persuade juries to spare their lives. And next week the court will hear three cases that could have a significant impact on the imposition of the...