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On the eve of his execution, a Texas death row is saying that he does not want to be the state’s guinea pig for the use of a new drug for lethal injection. Cleve Foster, who is accused of murdering Sudanese refugee Nyaneur Pal in 2002, is set to be executed on Tuesday, but he doesn’t want to be the first Texan to be executed with the new drug pentobarbital.

A man convicted of killing two convenience store employees in a 1989 robbery was executed by the state of Arizona after he lost an appeal that raised questions about the drugs used in putting him to death by lethal injection. A jury convicted Eric John King in 1990 of two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of convenience store clerk Ron Barman and the store's security guard, Richard Butts, during a robbery that netted the killer $72. King, 47, was executed at a state prison in Florence, Arizona, southeast of Phoenix, according to state Attorney General Tom Horne....

In the course of my inquiries into many of history's more recent controversies -- JFK, Waco, Vince Foster, Oklahoma City, Ron Brown, TWA Flight 800, 9/11, Obama's birth, the authorship of Obama's books -- I have come to see that when there are actual conspiracies afoot, they fall into two general categories, conspiracies of execution and conspiracies of concealment. Conspiracies of execution, at least on any kind of scale, are rare in American history. The nature of our national character and the openness of our political culture war against them. Conspiracies of concealment are another matter. When officials fail in...

Tucker Carlson says Michael Vick should have been killed for cruelty to dogs. On last night’s Hannity on FNC, Carlson was filling in for the vacationing Sean Hannity (going on two weeks, now) when the conversation turned to Vick during the "Great American Panel" segment. More specifically, the conversation centered on Barack Obama’s recent support to the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles for giving Vick a second chance. While that is an issue in and of itself, Carlson eventually took the conversation into no man’s land by saying that he wished Vick would have been executed for killing dogs. Interestingly,...

The state of Oklahoma is planning to execute death row inmates with drugs intended for use on animals. Lawmakers want to switch away from the only brand of anaesthetic that has been used in the US for lethal injections because there is not enough to go around. The replacement is likely to attract controversy because it is currently used by vets to anesthetise animals for operations. Other states are watching closely and may well follow suit, but such a move is likely to face a challenge from human rights groups to ensure that it is safe to use.

The decision of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal to sentence Tariq Aziz to death is one that needs to be vigorously opposed for several reasons. Although it is true that, as Saddam Hussein's longtime henchman and deputy, he is morally tainted with some of the most appalling crimes in modern history, Aziz was not, in fact, condemned to execution for his part in the annexation of Kuwait, the destruction of the Marsh Arabs, or the attempted genocide against Iraq's Kurdish minority. (Indeed, there is some evidence that he advised his boss against the insane attack on Kuwait in 1990.) For...

The state of Arizona executed a convicted murderer on Tuesday night despite objections from attorneys that the state would use a non-approved drug from overseas for the lethal injection. Just hours before Jeffrey Landrigan's death, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to lift a stay issued by a federal judge to halt the execution. "There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe," the Supreme Court said Due to a U.S. shortage, the state turned to a non-FDA approved drug. It was later revealed that the source was the U.K., although...

A crack addict was found guilty today of carrying out a nightmare home invasion that lead to the brutal deaths of a mother and her two young daughters. Steven Hayes was convicted of six capital crimes, all of which are punishable by death. The 47-year-old career criminal was found guilty of 16 of 17 charges, including the murder of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters Hayley, seventeen, and Michaela, eleven.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California officials on Wednesday called off the scheduled execution of a convicted murderer after setbacks in federal and state courts. The attorney general's office said in a court filing that it can no longer proceed with the lethal injection of Albert Greenwood Brown at 9 p.m. Thursday. It would have been California's first execution since 2006. "I'm relieved," said John Grele, one of Brown's attorneys. "This was a hastily designed plan." The announcement came after a California Supreme Court ruling made Friday the earliest possible day the state could execute Brown. But by then, the state's...

A federal appeals court in San Francisco late Monday ordered a trial judge to reconsider a ruling that allowed for a convicted murderer and rapist to be executed this week at San Quentin State Prison. Albert Greenwood Brown was scheduled to die at 9 p.m. Thursday for the 1980 killing of a 15-year-old Riverside girl. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel erred by offering Brown a choice of a one-drug lethal injection or a three-drug cocktail.

BREAKING: Schwarzenegger delays California's first execution in nearly five years

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Some executions in the U.S. have been put on hold because of a shortage of one of the drugs used in lethal injections from coast to coast. Several of the 35 states that rely on lethal injection are either scrambling to find sodium thiopental - an anesthetic that renders the condemned inmate unconscious - or considering using another drug. But both routes are strewn with legal or ethical roadblocks. The shortage delayed an Oklahoma execution last month and led Kentucky's governor to postpone the signing of death warrants for two inmates. Arizona is trying to get...

On Sept. 23, 2010, in Jarrat, Virginia, 41 yr. old Teresa Lewis was executed by lethal injection in connection with the murder of her husband, Julian Lewis and her stepson Charles "C.J." Lewis in October 2002. Thousands of individuals petitioned VA Governor Robert F. McDonnell to change her sentence to "life in prison" to no avail. (SaveTeresaLewis.org) News reports around the nation mentioned the story citing details about female executions (the last one in the U.S. was here in Texas in 2005; of the current 10 TX females on death row, 4 are from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex - details)....

SAN FRANCISCO (KABC) -- A federal judge cleared the way for California's first execution since 2006 after the state revised its lethal injection procedures. Officials have scheduled the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, a convicted rapist and killer, for next Wednesday.

OK, the story is all over the Old Media edifice: forty-one-year-old Teresa Lewis has become "the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years." Every news outlet from TV and cable, to newspapers, to radio, to the Internet is using this line, this "the first woman to be executed in the U.S. in five years" line. They are all playing the same narrative. So, here's the question I have. How exactly can anyone be the "first" anything "in five years"? Doesn't the whole "in five years" presuppose that someone else came first? See, the one "five years"...

Teresa Lewis, 41, was executed die by lethal injection. (AP) JARRATT, Va., Sept. 23 - Teresa Lewis, who plotted with a young lover to kill her husband and stepson for insurance money, became the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly 100 years Thursday night when she was killed by lethal injection. Authorities pronounced Lewis dead at 9:13 p.m. Lewis's case generated passion and interest across the world. The European Union asked Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) to commute her sentence to life, citing her mental capacity. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cited the case at an appearance in New...

Jarratt, Va. (CNN) -- Teresa Lewis, a 41-year-old grandmother, met with family members and a spiritual adviser Thursday, hours before she was scheduled to be the first woman executed in Virginia in nearly a century. Lewis is set to die by lethal injection at 9 p.m. ET at Greensville Correctional Center. The victims' family members are to witness the execution, state Department of Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. The death row inmate pleaded guilty in the 2002 slayings of her husband and stepson in their rural home near Danville, Virginia, about 145 miles from Richmond.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Virginia was moving forward Thursday with its first execution of a woman in nearly a century amid appeals from the European Union and repercussions that reached as far away as Iran. SNIP Teresa Lewis, 41, was scheduled to die by injection at 9 p.m. at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt for the October 2002 hired killings of her husband and stepson. To procure the hit men, prosecutors said, she used sex, cash and a promised cut of the insurance benefits the killings would reap her. The U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Bob McDonnell declined to intervene. All...

Virginia is slated to execute Teresa Lewis by lethal injection on Thursday, The Associated Press reported. The 41-year-old woman was sentenced to die after pleading guilty to capital murder for hiring two men to kill her husband and stepson so she could collect a $250,000 life insurance policy. Rodney Fuller and Lewis' lover, Matthew Shallenberger, entered her home on Oct. 30, 2002, and fatally shot Julian Clifton, Jr., 51, and Charles Lewis, 25. Teresa then rummaged through her husband's pockets for money while he was dying. She also waited nearly an hour before calling 911. The triggermen were sentenced to...

The sparsely furnished room with wood panelling and blue curtains could be an annex to any conference room. However the mundanity masks the dark secrets of one of the world's largest economies. For this is where Japan executes those condemned to death by its courts. The last two criminals for whom these walls were their final sight of the world were the killers Kazuo Shinozawa, 59, and Hidenori Ogata, 33, who were hanged last month. And for the first time, the public has been allowed to see the Tokyo Detention House because the country's Justice Minister Keiko Chiba, a known...