death penalty

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Insanity Defense Will Be Tough for Loughner

Lawyer will be lucky if he avoids death penalty

(Newser) - Once upon a time, it would have been easy for Jared Lee Loughner’s lawyers to mount an insanity defense—after all, the guy sure seems nuts . But these days, that's easier said than done, legal experts tell the AP . Congress made it drastically harder to mount an insanity defense...

Iranian Man Executed as Israeli Spy
Iranian Man Executed
as Israeli Spy
Dec 28, 2010 11:15 AM CST

Iranian Man Executed as Israeli Spy

Second man executed for supporting opposition group

(Newser) - Iran today hanged Ali-Akbar Siadat after convicting him of “spreading corruption on earth,” “supporting the Zionist regime,” and “opposing the Islamic republic" as a spy for Israel. According to Iranian authorities, Siadat met with Israel repeatedly over the course of six years, traveling to such...

Oklahoma Executes Man Using Animal Drug

John Duty executed with new mixture of lethal injection drugs

(Newser) - Oklahoma has found a way around the nationwide shortage of a drug used in lethal injections . Convicted murderer John David Duty was put to death yesterday using a cocktail of drugs that included pentobarbital, a sedative typically used to euthanize dogs and cats, Tulsa World reports. He is believed to...

California's About to Execute a Framed Man
California's About
to Execute a Framed Man
Nicholas Kristof
Dec 9, 2010 1:54 PM CST

California's About to Execute a Framed Man

Case shows everything that's wrong with the death penalty

(Newser) - Judges around the country are decrying an upcoming California execution, because there’s ample reason to believe the condemned man was framed by police. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to hear the case of Kevin Cooper, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times explains, despite an extraordinary...

Texas Court Suspends Death Penalty Challenge

Observers doubt they will continue

(Newser) - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has called a stop to a challenge to the constitutionality of the death penalty, after an emergency appeal by prosecutors. Defense attorneys for accused murderer John Edward Green had brought a pretrial challenge to Texas’ death penalty, arguing that it didn’t do enough...

Texas Prosecutors 'Stand Mute' at Death Penalty Hearing

Challenge to decide whether Texas' death penalty is constitutional

(Newser) - The death penalty is facing a major constitutional challenge in Texas, but the district attorney in the case literally doesn’t think it’s worth talking about. At a hearing yesterday to determine whether Texas’ death penalty is unconstitutional because it doesn't have enough safeguards for defendants, prosecutors said they’...

Texas Could Soon Rule Death Penalty Unconstitutional

State has unfair risk of wrongful conviction, lawyers will argue

(Newser) - In Texas of all places, the death penalty could soon be declared unconstitutional. The state (which leads the US in number of executions since 1976, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice ) has a disproportionately high number of wrongful convictions, attorneys will argue at a hearing Monday. Twelve...

Iran Hangs 'Temporary Wife' in Murder

Mistress had been convicted in slaying of soccer star's wife

(Newser) - Iran hanged the mistress of a former soccer star today, the final chapter in a long saga that entranced the nation and highlighted the place of "temporary wives" in Iranian society. Shahla Jahed had been jailed for eight years in the murder of her lover's wife after convictions in...

Mike Huckabee: Death to the Leakers!

Huck joins conservative chorus

(Newser) - Count Mike Huckabee among those who think sending info to WikiLeaks is a hangin’ offense. “Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.” Huckabee opined at a book signing yesterday, according to Politics...

UK Blocks Export of Popular Execution Drug to US

Thiopental sodium can't be exported for use in executions

(Newser) - Soon, the US will no longer be able to execute criminals using thiopental sodium from the UK. The UK government will issue an order requiring suppliers of the anesthetic to obtain a license before exporting to the US—and if there is a risk it will be used in executions,...

Justice Stevens Explains Shift on Death Penalty

Former supporter cites racism, politics, judicial activism

(Newser) - Former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens is making clear for the first time why he switched course on the death penalty in 2008, calling it unconstitutional, the New York Times reports. Writing in the New York Review of Books, Stevens, who supported capital punishment in 1976, reveals his revised...

Somali Militants Execute Teens
 Somali Militants Execute Teens 
Nov 23, 2010 10:05 AM CST

Somali Militants Execute Teens

The two boys were accused of molestation, spying, respectively

(Newser) - Militants from Somalia's most feared insurgent group used a firing squad to execute two teenagers in public yesterday, say witnesses and officials. The executions took place in front of hundreds of people summoned to witness the killings in the capital. The firing squad was made up of five masked men....

Condemned Iranian Woman: 'I'm a Sinner'

Facing death, Ashtiani allegedly confesses on television

(Newser) - Iranian state-run television has broadcast what it says is a statement from Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman whose on-again, off-again death sentence has sparked an international outcry. (For details click here .) “I’m a sinner,” Ashtiani said—or at least, allegedly said. The woman’s face was...

DNA Test Suggests Texas Executed Wrong Man

Then-Gov. George Bush's staff failed to tell him Jones was asking for test

(Newser) - A DNA test has cast doubt on the guilt of a man who was executed in Texas 10 years ago—an execution that went forward after then-Gov. George W. Bush's staff failed to tell him the condemned man was asking for genetic analysis of a single strand of hair. That...

US in Company of Thugs on Capital Punishment
US in Company of Thugs
on Capital Punishment
OPINION
Nov 10, 2010 1:58 PM CST

US in Company of Thugs on Capital Punishment

Op-ed: It should make all of us stop and think

(Newser) - A new Gallup poll about the death penalty may not change anyone's views on the matter, but one aspect of it should at least "give us all pause for thought," writes Steven L. Taylor at Outside the Beltway . It's not the big takeaway stat—that support for capital...

State Fights to Use Animal Death Drug on Humans

Because Oklahoma is short on the anesthetic used in lethal injections

(Newser) - Oklahoma is short on the anesthetic it uses to execute prisoners—so it’s asking a court if it can substitute a drug used to euthanize animals. Several states are dealing with a shortage of sodium thiopental, the only anesthetic yet used in lethal injections; its only manufacturer has shut...

Hayes Sentenced to Death for Grisly Triple Murder

Conn. man convicted in fatal home invasion

(Newser) - A Connecticut man was condemned to death today for a night of terror inside a suburban home in which Jennifer Hawke-Petit was strangled and her two daughters tied to their beds, doused in gasoline, and left to die in a fire. Jurors in New Haven Superior Court voted unanimously to...

Arizona Executes Man Using Unapproved Drug

Shortage of sodium thiopental could be a big problem

(Newser) - What to do when faced with a nationwide shortage of a lethal injection drug? In Arizona's case, take the slightly sketchy step of buying it from somewhere else. The state last night executed Jeffrey Landrigan for a 1989 murder in the state's first execution since 2007—using sodium thiopental it...

Debate Over Killer's Fate Seeps Into Conn. Races

Death penalty becomes central issue after home invasion conviction

(Newser) - One of the most horrific crimes in Connecticut's history may weigh on the state's elections. Stephen Hayes is awaiting sentencing for the home invasion murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her two daughters next week and Republican candidates for Senate and governor have been making the death penalty a central issue....

Murderer's Last Plea: It's Too Expensive to Kill Me

Conn. killer hopes to avoid execution

(Newser) - With their client convicted in a ghastly triple murder of a mother and her two young daughters, the lawyers for Steven Hayes have mustered what seems like a grasping-at-straws argument to keep him from being executed: It's too expensive. When the penalty phase of the trial begins, the lawyers will...

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