death penalty

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Drug Maker 'Horrified' It's Being Used in Executions

Pentobarbital was intended as an epilepsy drug

(Newser) - A Danish pharmaceutical company says it's desperately seeking a way to stop US prisons from executing people with its epilepsy drug Nembutal. “We are horrified at this fact, and we are looking at ways to prevent prisons from getting this drug,” a spokesman for Lundbeck A/S said....

Ohio to Bend Execution Rules for Inmate With Cancer

Kenneth Smith will be executed with one arm free, in order to use his voice box

(Newser) - Ohio will make it easier for an inmate who lost his larynx to cancer to make a final statement at his execution. The state will raise the gurney where Kenneth Smith will lie and let him keep one arm free to make it easier for him to use his artificial...

California Holds Off on Executions for 6th Year

San Quentin warden asks for time to replace execution team

(Newser) - Officials in California have given up on efforts to resume executing convicts this year, meaning that the state will have gone at least 6 years without executions. A review of lethal injection procedures has been delayed until at least January because the new warden of San Quentin prison wants to...

Military Court Less Likely to Sentence KSM to Death

Military hasn't executed anyone in 50 years

(Newser) - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is dying to be executed. He’s confessed to plotting the 9/11 attacks and a host of other terrorist activity, and said he’d like to be a martyr. But that’s significantly less likely to happen now that he’ll be tried by a military commission,...

DEA Seizes Georgia's Execution Drug
DEA Seizes Georgia's Execution Drug
Mar 16, 2011 2:12 PM CDT

DEA Seizes Georgia's Execution Drug

Sodium thiopental may have been acquired improperly

(Newser) - The DEA has seized Georgia’s supply of sodium thiopental, one of the key drugs used to execute prisoners, because it believes the state may have improperly imported it. Like many states, Georgia was forced to import the drug from England last year thanks to a shortage in the US,...

Illinois to Ban Death Penalty

Gov. Quinn expected to sign repeal bill today

(Newser) - Capital punishment is facing its end in Illinois and a last-minute reprieve from the governor is highly unlikely. Pat Quinn is expected to sign legislation today abolishing the death penalty in the state, and abolition supporters have been invited to a private bill-signing ceremony, reports the Chicago Tribune . "They...

China Drops Death Penalty for Tax Evasion

Along with a dozen other non-violent crimes

(Newser) - China has eliminated the death penalty as a possible punishment for 13 non-violent offenses, the AP reports. But critics say it probably won't make a big dent in the estimated 5,000 annual executions in the country—nearly 70 crimes still carry a possible death sentence, many of them non-violent....

Border Vigilante Gets Death in Killing of Girl, Dad

Shawna Forde plotted home invasion turned murder

(Newser) - Shawna Forde, the self-styled border vigilante convicted in the deaths of a 9-year-old Arizona girl and her father, was sentenced to death yesterday. Forde’s attorney had asked jurors to spare Forde’s life because repeated childhood abuse had left her a “broken person,” but the DA noted...

Even If Convicted, Loughner Unlikely to Be Executed

Federal death penalty has been carried out just 3 times in 23 years

(Newser) - Even though the prosecution is looking hard at the death penalty for Jared Lee Loughner in the Tucson shootings, he could still die an old man behind bars, reports the LA Times . Loughner faces charges in federal court, where death penalties are rarely given out—only three out of 182...

Sole Producer of Lethal Injection Drug Quits

Hospira's decision could cause delays for states

(Newser) - The capital punishment system faces a serious obstacle: the only US producer of an anesthetic used in lethal injection has decided to stop making it, the Wall Street Journal reports. Thiopental sodium is made exclusively by Hospira, an Illinois company. It had already suspended production in 2009 because of manufacturing...

Iran's on an 'Execution Binge:' Rights Group

An inmate meets his maker every 8 hours or so since year began

(Newser) - Iran's basically executing people left and right, says a US-based human rights group. With 47 people hanged since the beginning of the year, Tehran's averaging a staggering pace of one every eight hours. "The Iranian Judiciary is on an execution binge orchestrated by the intelligence and security agencies,"...

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...

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