Another Texas death penalty case was argued at the United States Supreme Court this week. The two questions presented was whether executing someone 35 years after the imposition of a death sentence, and allegedly using outdated medical standards to determine intellectual disability, is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. The Eighth Amendment prohibits executing those who are intellectually disabled.
ISTANBUL (AFP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday warned the European Union he would sign a law bringing back the death penalty if it was approved by parliament.
Egypt’s Court of Cassation overturned on Tuesday a death sentence against deposed President Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and ordered a retrial.
Support is growing among California voters for two contrary propositions on the state’s death penalty procedure.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Tuesday that Turkey is considering reinstating limited use of the death penalty if there is an agreement between political parties.
Despite Silicon Valley executives’ expectation they could lead a national effort to abolish the death penalty by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into a California initiative, law enforcement and conservatives have raised cash to defend the death penalty, and appear headed
My default on ballot measures is to vote “no,” unless there is a compelling reason to vote “yes.” There are, in my opinion, four measures that are no-brainer “yes” votes.
There is a shared policy of state-sanctioned killings behind the stark religious divisions between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, the region’s greatest rivals.
Texas held the largest naturalization ceremony this week that the Lone Star State’s capital has ever seen. The ceremony was used to assault Donald Trump, the Second Amendment, and the death penalty before 1,210 new U.S. citizens and their families and friends.
Leaving aside traditional Catholic teaching, Pope Francis said Tuesday that capital punishment is “inadmissible” and that the right to life is absolute and applies equally to the innocent and the guilty.
In a 5-3 split decision, last Thursday the Supreme Court held that Chief Justice Ronald Castille of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court cannot be part of deciding a convict’s case because 30 years ago he was one of the prosecutors involved with the original prosecution, creating an “impermissible risk” of bias that would violate due process.
Nebraska state Senator Colby Coash (R-Dist. 27) is joining hands with colleague Bernie Chambers (I-Dist. 11) in a fight to abolish the death penalty.
Voters in California will face a tidal wave of ballot measures in the November general election, on issues from the death penalty and condoms to marijuana and plastic bags.
On Sunday, the California GOP voted to endorse a ballot initiative to “hasten death penalty appeals” while opposing initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana, expanding gun control, and mandating condoms in pornography.
A man attacked and beheaded a four-year-old girl in Taiwan as she and her mother headed to a metro station in Taipei.
North Carolina prosecutors have announced they plan to seek the death penalty for an alleged Islamic State sympathizer accused of killing his neighbor.
In an impassioned appeal Sunday, Pope Francis called for an “international consensus” for the abolition of capital punishment, arguing that the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” has absolute value and includes both the innocent and the guilty. After his weekly
One particular execution carried out by Saudi Arabia this weekend, that of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr, led to violent protests and the sacking of the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump pledged Dec. 10 that he would seek the death penalty for cop-killers.
Court watchers say that the John Roberts-led U.S. Supreme Court may at last take a case that directly pertains to whether or not the death penalty is a Constitutional punishment.
Many conservatives viewed the prospect of the Pope’s visit to the United States with a mixture of hope and trepidation: hope, because the Pope’s visit would force heavy media coverage of religious issues; trepidation, because of Pope Francis’ mixed record on issues ranging from climate change to illegal immigration.
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – State prosecutors have announced that they plan to seek the death penalty for a teenage girl accused of taking part in the grisly machete murder of a Homestead student.
Among the several controversial points in his historic address to the U.S. Congress Thursday, Pope Francis lobbied strongly for the abolition of the death penalty, while remaining mostly silent on the issue of abortion. Pro-abortion Catholic politicians including Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden will undoubtedly capitalize on the Pope’s omission to continue snubbing Church teaching on the sanctity of life.
British aid money is simultaneously being spent on lobbying countries to overturn their death penalty laws, and to assist Pakistani forces in capturing drug smugglers, who face capital punishment if caught. Tanzania, Belarus, Nigeria, Kazakhstan and South Sudan and China
An illegal alien from Nicaragua, scheduled for execution in Huntsville, Texas, on Wednesday evening, received a stay of execution from the state’s highest criminal court.
Twelve jurors failed to agree on a death sentence for Colorado theater shooter James Holmes on Friday, prompting shocked sobs from victims, police officers and his own mother.
On August 3 the 12-person jury in the trial of Aurora theater gunman James Holmes unanimously decided he is eligible for the death penalty.
The national parliament of Chad has unanimously approved a rigorous anti-terrorism bill that reintroduces the death penalty just six months after its abolition.
On July 31, alleged Charleston gunman Dylann Roof pleaded “not guilty” to 33 federal charges, including hate crime and gun charges.
British foreign aid money is helping fund executions in Pakistan, a human rights group has claimed. Legal charity Reprieve, which campaigns against the death penalty, says that nearly £13 million has been used to fund anti-drugs operations in the country,
Amnesty International’s latest report on Iran states the regime executed 694 people between January 1 and July 15. This means the country averages at least three executions a day.
Jurors convicted Colorado theater shooter James Holmes on Thursday in the chilling 2012 attack on defenseless moviegoers at a midnight Batman premiere, rejecting defense arguments that the former graduate student was insane and driven to murder by delusions.
Now that the Supreme Court has upheld Oklahoma’s three-drug lethal injection method, California can resume carrying out the death penalty, although mandatory administrative procedures and hearings could slow the process.
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States continued its gushing vomit of nonsensical opinion, issuing three rulings of varying degrees of logic and coherence.
At a Johnston, Iowa, gun range on June 20 Senator Ted Cruz said the attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston shows the need for the death penalty, not gun control.
In our society, the act of dying is treated respectfully as a private affair. This is because it is an emotionally difficult process for the living and often a painful one for the dying. As all of us can or will attest, dealing with death is difficult and in my own case the loss of my brother to a terminal illness brought these issues home.
On Wednesday, Hillary Clinton made a far-reaching appeal for reform of the nation’s criminal justice system, reflecting a bipartisan shift against the law-and-order politics of the past three decades — and reversing her own shift to the right after starting her career as a crusader against capital punishment.
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry said she worries “there is a social construction of evil” that influences how people view Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and police officers who kill people that are unarmed on Saturday. After criminal defense attorney Seema
Glenn Ford was released after serving 30 years on death row when the Caddo District Attorney asked that the man’s conviction and sentence be set-aside. The District Attorney found new evidence about the actual gunman after an investigation into another homicide. The attorney who prosecuted apologized for his part in not looking under every rock for the evidence. The man’s release was extensively covered by the media but the murder victim’s family want people to know “Glenn Ford is not an innocent victim.”
Kent William Sprouse, 42 years-of-age, was put to death at 6:33 CST on April 9, 2015 in Huntsville, Texas, for fatally shooting Ferris Police Officer Harry Marvin “Marty” Steinfeldt III. The murder occurred at a Ferris, Texas, Diamond Shamrock gas station and food mart on October 6, 2002. Sprouse is the fifth Texas death row inmate to be executed this year. There were no late-filed appeals to stop the execution.
