execution news stories on Newser

Missouri to Use Jacko Death Drug in Executions

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:23:36 CDT

The same anesthetic that caused Michael Jackson's overdose death is now the drug of choice for executions in Missouri, causing a stir among critics who question how the state can guarantee a drug untested for lethal injection won't cause pain and suffering for the condemned. Last week the Missouri Department...

How Texas Executed an Innocent Man

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:56:38 CDT

Carlos DeLuna was executed in 1989 for the murder of Wanda Lopez, but a 400-page article in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review asserts that Texas actually put the wrong man to death, while the real killer bragged about the murder and the fact that DeLuna took the fall. Lopez,...

California to Vote on Death Penalty

Rob Quinn — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:00:00 CDT

Voters in California, home to nearly a quarter of America's death row inmates, will decide on abolishing the death penalty this November. A ballot measure on repealing the death penalty has received the necessary 500,000 signatures, reports the Los Angeles Times . The measure would make life imprisonment without the...

Experts Can't Figure Out If Death Penalty Deters Murder

Kate Schwartz — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:17:48 CDT

Ohio executed one death-row inmate yesterday and has 11 executions on the books over the next 20 months. The AP notes that could once again make the state one of the country's busiest executioners. So is all that capital punishment deterring murders there? Who knows? That's basically the finding of...

China's Execution Show Axed After West Takes Notice

Rob Quinn — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:01:36 CDT

Hit Chinese TV program Interviews Before Execution has been abruptly canceled—after five years on the air and just about a week of attention from the West. The show, which reached 40 million viewers every Saturday night, featured glamorous host Ding Yu speaking to condemned criminals days, hours, or even...

Death Row Inmate Boasts of 'Leisure' Life

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:38:26 CST

A murderer awaiting execution in North Carolina wrote a letter to his hometown newspaper ridiculing the justice system and describing his life in prison as one of "leisure." 50-year-old Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. is on death row for killing teenager Heather Catterton in 2009, reports ABC News . Hembree sent the...

New Death Sentences Hit 35-Year Low

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 07:53:28 CST

The number of death sentences handed down this year dropped 30% compared to last, hitting the lowest level in 35 years, according to a new report. Just 78 people were sentenced to death this year—marking "the first time we've had fewer than 100 new death sentences in a year...

EU to Halt Export of Lethal Injection Drug

Matt Cantor — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 05:59:54 CST

By week's end, it will become even more difficult for the US to get its hands on a key drug used in lethal injections. Early this year, an Illinois firm stopped making thiopental. Now, the European Union is poised to ban the export of the drug without a permit, Der...

Oregon Governor Declares Execution Moratorium

Rob Quinn — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:22:27 CST

John Kitzhaber has declared that there will be no more executions in Oregon as long as he remains governor. "It is time for Oregon to consider a different approach,” the Democrat said at a news conference. “I refuse to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer;...