The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its June ruling banning capital punishment for child rapists, rejecting Louisiana officials' argument that a "significant error" led to its conclusion that there is a "national consensus" against executing non-murderers.
A double murderer scheduled to be executed next month in Ohio said Tuesday he has not deliberately gained weight to rule out his death by lethal injection.
The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday.
Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin, whose death penalty conviction in the rape and murder of two teen girls sparked international controversy, was put to death in Texas on Tuesday night, prison officials said.
Executions jumped by a third in Iran and quadrupled in Saudi Arabia last year, causing the total number of executions around the world to rise yet again in 2007
The U.N.'s highest court is ruling Wednesday on an emergency Mexican appeal to block the execution of its citizens on death row in the United States
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed, concluding that capital punishment for crimes against individuals can be applied only to murderers.
Virginia is set to carry out its 100th execution, the country's eighth by lethal injection since the Supreme Court upheld the procedure. An update on an unending debate
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday morning that child rapists cannot be given the death penalty, effectively reserving the punishment only for murderers.
Convicted killer James Earl Reed was executed Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute request for a stay, said Josh Gelinas, spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
The Supreme Court has refused to reconsider its June ruling banning capital punishment for child rapists, rejecting Louisiana officials' argument that a "significant error" led to its conclusion that there is a "national consensus" against executing non-murderers.
A double murderer scheduled to be executed next month in Ohio said Tuesday he has not deliberately gained weight to rule out his death by lethal injection.
The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday.
Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin, whose death penalty conviction in the rape and murder of two teen girls sparked international controversy, was put to death in Texas on Tuesday night, prison officials said.
Executions jumped by a third in Iran and quadrupled in Saudi Arabia last year, causing the total number of executions around the world to rise yet again in 2007
The U.N.'s highest court is ruling Wednesday on an emergency Mexican appeal to block the execution of its citizens on death row in the United States
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday that child rapists cannot be executed, concluding that capital punishment for crimes against individuals can be applied only to murderers.
Virginia is set to carry out its 100th execution, the country's eighth by lethal injection since the Supreme Court upheld the procedure. An update on an unending debate
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday morning that child rapists cannot be given the death penalty, effectively reserving the punishment only for murderers.
Convicted killer James Earl Reed was executed Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute request for a stay, said Josh Gelinas, spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
A man scheduled to be executed on Friday was issued a stay just minutes before he was to be electrocuted
Viewpoint: The court's recent ruling that lethal injection is legal will give a boost to one growing category of death-row inmates: those who volunteer to die
After more than three years of waiting for courts to consider an appeal he never wanted, convicted killer Marco Allen Chapman may soon get his wish
John Allen Muhammad, who is on Virginia's death row in connection with the 2002 Washington-area sniper spree, has written to Virginia prosecutors saying he wants to waive all rights to appeal.
A Georgia man convicted of kidnapping and killing his girlfriend was executed Tuesday.
Washington-area sniper John Allen Muhammad is asking prosecutors in a letter to help him end legal appeals of his conviction and death sentence "so that you can murder this innocent black man"
Georgia's Parole and Pardon Board has denied a condemned inmate's request for clemency, paving the way for William Earl Lynd to die by injection at 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
Earl Wesley Berry came within 21 minutes of dying at the hands of the state of Mississippi in October, before the Supreme Court issued a last-minute stay.
The Supreme Court on Monday denied the appeals of more death row inmates, setting the stage for a possible nationwide resumption of capital punishment in coming weeks or months.
The Supreme Court's opinion may clear the way for most executions, but the death penalty debate remain confused
The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 ruling, upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection as a means of executing prisoners, ruling that the method -- used in 35 states -- is properly and humanely applied.
The Supreme Court focused Wednesday on whether "evolving standards of decency" in the United States forbid a resumption of capital punishment for any felony but murder. But the justices offered no clear indication of how they will rule in the case of a man who is on Louisiana death row for raping a child.
He is not a killer, but the state of Louisiana is determined to execute Patrick Kennedy for his crime.
The Ohio Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a man who argued he cannot be executed because he is mentally retarded
A woman convicted of murdering an expectant mother and kidnapping the baby from her womb received a federal death sentence.
Former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 27 years ago, deserves a new hearing to determine whether he should be executed for his crime, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday he is "kind of hoping" the prisoners facing military trials in connection with the September 11 attacks do not receive the death penalty, which would fulfill their desire to be martyrs.
A child killer received a reprieve Friday from the Nebraska Supreme Court, which ruled that electrocution, the state's only means of capital punishment, is unconstitutional.
The Nebraska Supreme Court outlawed the electric chair in the only state that still used it as its sole means of execution
The Supreme Court blocked a scheduled execution at the last minute, keeping in place a de facto moratorium on capital punishment while it considers the constitutional question over how lethal injection is administered.
The U.S. Supreme Court appeared divided along ideological lines Monday over whether lethal-injection execution methods in about three dozen states are being properly and humanely applied.
The use of lethal injection will be expanded in China to replace execution by shooting, a senior legal official said in an interview with a government-owned Chinese newspaper.
A Texas mother convicted of capital murder in the drowning deaths of her five children will have the rest of her life to mull over her crime: a jury on Friday decided to spare her from the death penalty and sentence her to life in prison.
A day after New Jersey banned executions, newly released figures show that capital punishment dropped this year to a 13-year low.
They were convicted one after another -- four U.S. soldiers who helped gang rape and kill a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in one of the war's worst atrocities
The man who raped and killed 7-year-old Megan Kanka -- the 1994 crime that inspired "Megan's Law" -- is one of eight men whose sentences were commuted to life in prison this week as part of New Jersey's new ban on execution.
New Jersey becomes the first state in modern times to abolish capital punishment, as momentum builds nationwide to reconsider seldom-used death-penalty statutes
New Jersey lawmakers have voted to abolish the death penalty in the state, sending the governor a bill he has already said he will sign. The measure will make New Jersey the first state in more than 40 years to outlaw capital punishment.
A Texas couple charged with killing the little girl known as "Baby Grace" now face capital murder charges, after a Texas grand jury upgraded the charges on Wednesday.
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday denied a death row inmate's request to stay his execution, saying the state's lethal injection procedures are not cruel and unusual punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday stayed the pending execution of a Virginia man convicted of beating a co-worker to death in 2001 for drug money.
The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to delve into a divisive controversy over capital punishment -- whether lethal injection causes excruciating pain and violates the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
Even though more countries are renouncing the death penalty, more people were put to death last year -- 5,628 -- than in the past two years, an anti-death penalty group reported Thursday.
Texas, which leads the nation in carrying out the death penalty, has executed the 400th person since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.
Troy Davis, sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of a police officer, gets time to prove he was wrongly convicted
What Troy Davis' case tells us about the dangers of trying to speed up the wheels of justice
The state's overcrowded corrections system is in crisis. But a federal panel's judgment could force open prison doors
The Supreme Court once again split 5-4 on an important death penalty case on Monday, with a majority of conservative justices rejecting an Arizona killer's claims his legal team did not do enough to keep him off death row.
Sitting on Iraq's death row is a 25-year-old woman convicted in the slayings of three relatives. She says her husband carried out the killings and fled. She confessed to being an accomplice, she says, only after being tortured in police custody.
Just hours before his execution by injection, a Tennessee death row prisoner who was convicted of killing a police officer ordered his final meal -- pizza for a homeless person.
When Gary Gilmore was choosing between the firing squad and the electric chair in 1977, Dr. Jay Chapman remembers discussing the inhumanity of each option with his colleagues at the Oklahoma state medical examiner's office.
Lawyers for convicted cop killer Philip Workman and Tennessee prosecutors were locked in a federal court battle Monday over Workman's execution, scheduled for early Wednesday.
Lethal injection has become the most common method of execution in the United States. Last year, 52 of the 53 executions in the country were by injection.
Seven years ago, Philip Workman got the kind of news a death row inmate wants.
Philip Workman has prepared to die three times before.
An Iraqi court Monday changed the sentence of a convicted former Iraqi vice president under Saddam Hussein from life in prison to execution by hanging.
While many countries and rights groups around the world said they did not support the death penalty, most expressed the hope that the execution of Saddam Hussein would prove a turning point for the people of Iraq.
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is expected to be executed "this weekend," Bush administration officials told CNN on Thursday.
The Iraqi High Tribunal's appellate chamber on Tuesday upheld Saddam Hussein's death sentence in the Dujail massacre case, Judge Aref Shaheen announced.
After it took 34 minutes for an inmate in Florida to die by injection, Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday ordered a moratorium on all executions in the state. Meanwhile, a federal judge in California ruled Friday that lethal injection could be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment and stopped executions in that state.
Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's trial in the killings of nearly 150 Shiite Muslim villagers in 1982 was "fundamentally unfair," and the death sentence he received earlier this month was "indefensible," a leading human rights group said Sunday.
President Bush Sunday said the trial that led to the conviction and death sentence of Saddam Hussein is "a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy."
In a world sharply divided on Iraq since the U.S.-led war began in 2003, Saddam Hussein's death sentence Sunday unleashed fears of fresh violence, European condemnation of capital punishment and new questions about the fairness of the tribunal that ordered him to hang.
The Supreme Court upheld Kansas' death penalty law Monday with a 5-4 decision that offers further proof of how deeply at odds the justices remain over the issue.
Two death row inmates won separate victories in the Supreme Court Monday -- one hoping to prove he did not commit a 1985 Tennessee murder, the other seeking to show that lethal injection methods used in Florida are cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court will decide the following key cases in June:
A Russian judge has sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in jail -- saying Nurpashi Kulayev deserved the death penalty but the court had to observe the country's moratorium on executions.
The jury in the case of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui recommended Wednesday that he should receive life in prison rather than the death penalty for his role in the attacks of September 11, 2001, on the United States.
Deliberations in the sentencing trial of al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui resumed Friday after being delayed for a day when a juror called in sick.
The Supreme Court expressed concern Wednesday that the chemical cocktail used to execute Florida inmates could cause "excruciating pain" in violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The Supreme Court used a shocking decade-old Kansas murder Tuesday to examine the factors juries must weigh when deciding whether defendants deserve the death penalty.
Jurors must answer dozens of preliminary questions before they resolve the final one: Should al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui live or die?
"Compare and contrast," read the directions for essay exams in the old college blue books. Compare and contrast the trials of Zacarias Moussaoui and Jeffrey Skilling.
A Florida judge formally sentenced mechanic Joseph P. Smith to death Wednesday for the 2004 murder of Carlie Brucia, whose abduction was captured by a security camera and shown around the world.
Outrage and frustration reached from the governor's mansion to the living rooms of the victim's family and friends after the execution of convicted murderer and rapist Michael Morales was postponed again.
California death row inmate Michael Angelo Morales received a temporary reprieve before his scheduled execution Tuesday when two anesthesiologists refused to participate, citing ethical concerns.
Three more Australians have been jailed for life on drugs charges by a court on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, ending a series of tough verdicts against a group of nine young Australians.
Even though admitted al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was behind bars on September 11, 2001, the U.S. government blames him for the 2,973 lives lost in the attacks.
Death did not come quickly for Stanley Tookie Williams, the co-founder of the violent Crips street gang who was executed by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 robbery murders of four people in Los Angeles.
Death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang who has worked from behind bars to quell gang violence, has asked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare his life. The request was denied and he will be put to death shortly after midnight.
Death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang who has worked from behind bars to quell gang violence, has asked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare his life.
Community leaders Friday called for peace in the city if convicted killer and Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams is put to death next week as scheduled.
With his execution scheduled for Tuesday, his attorneys have made their final appeals. Now, Crips co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams must wait on death row to find out if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will spare his life.
At dawn on Friday, a hangman at Changi Prison in Singapore placed a hood over the head of drug trafficker Van Nguyen, put a noose around his neck and opened a trap door in a "long-drop" procedure that killed the Australian citizen.
California's Supreme Court Wednesday refused to stop the execution of convicted killer Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the founder of the Crips street gang who became an anti-gang crusader while on Death Row, a court spokeswoman said.
Attorneys representing admitted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui want potential jurors to answer more than 300 questions when they are screened to sit on the panel that decides whether Moussaoui should be sentenced to death.
Prosecutors want to ask jurors who will decide the punishment for a convicted al Qaeda terrorist about their views of capital punishment and whether they know anyone who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
A Texas death row inmate who escaped last week from a Houston jail and was taken into custody Sunday night outside a liquor store in Shreveport, Louisiana, is back in Texas, a court official told CNN late Monday.
The Iraqi government on Thursday hanged three people convicted of murder and rape, according to Laith Kubba, spokesman for the prime minister's office.
The Iraqi government on Thursday hanged three people convicted of murder and rape, according to Laith Kubba, spokesman for the prime minister's office.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens steered the debate over President Bush's nominee to a new subject -- capital punishment -- sharply condemning the country's death penalty system.
In New England's first execution in 45 years, the state of Connecticut put serial killer Michael Ross to death early Friday.
Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty when they retry a man who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a string of sniper-style shootings in the greater Columbus area.
Connecticut's Supreme Court on Monday struck down another request to postpone the execution of convicted killer Michael Ross, scheduled to be New England's first execution in 45 years.
Four years after Zacarias Moussaoui was arraigned in a Virginia court on terrorism conspiracy charges stemming from the attacks of September 11, 2001, a jury will be impaneled to weigh his punishment -- either life in prison without the possibility of parole or death by lethal injection.
Defendants facing the possibility of the death penalty frequently plead guilty in exchange for a promise from the government not to seek execution. The practice is unsettling, as the threat of death may induce an innocent person to plead guilty simply to save his skin.
Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person convicted in the United States for the conspiracy behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, told the judge presiding over his case that he wants to be buried outside the United States if he is executed.
Indonesian police will seek the death penalty for all nine Australians accused of attempting to smuggle more than eight kilograms (18 pounds) of heroin from the popular tourist island of Bali to Sydney.
The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide whether a convicted murderer can present evidence at sentencing that might call into question his guilt or culpability, a case with strong parallels to an expected death penalty appeal by confessed terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.
Nine Australians arrested in Bali, Indonesia have formally been declared suspects in a heroin smuggling operation, that could see them face the death by firing squad if convicted.
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