FEATURED POST

Women Being Sent to the Gallows in Alarming Numbers in Iran

Published
Image
Many Were Child Brides Hanged for Murder of Abusive Husbands From Whom There Was No Protection  December 18, 2024 — Amidst a huge surge in executions in the Islamic Republic— 862 so far in 2024, the highest per capita execution rate globally—the Iranian authorities are now increasingly including women in those it sends to the gallows. Since the start of 2024, Iran has executed at least 29 women. More executions of women may have taken place that are unknown.
Post a Comment

Wrongly convicted Fort Worth man gets state's first posthumous pardon

Published
More than a decade after he died in prison, Fort Worth’s Tim Cole – wrongly convicted of rape – finally received a pardon from the state.

Gov. Rick Perry sent out a statement saying that he gave Cole the state’s first posthumous pardon, saying he was innocent of the rape conviction that put him behind bars more than 25 years ago.

“I have been looking forward to the day I could tell Tim Cole’s mother that her son’s name has been cleared for a crime he did not commit,” Perry said in a written release. “The state of Texas cannot give back the time he spent in prison away from his loved ones, but today I was finally able to tell her we have cleared his name, and hope this brings a measure of peace to his family.”

This comes days after the state Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended that Perry issue the pardon.

Cole is the wrongfully convicted inmate who died in prison in 1999, at the age of 39, from complications of asthma. Last year, he was exonerated of the rape of a Texas Tech student after DNA tests cleared him of the crime. His family traveled to Austin during the regular and special legislative sessions to repeatedly ask Perry to issue the pardon.

Perry’s office maintained last year that the governor didn’t have the authority to issue a posthumous pardon. But after the Attorney General’s office issued a new ruling saying that Perry did have the power to issue a pardon, the matter went to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

The board sent a letter to Cole’s attorney at the Innocence Project of Texas Friday saying that it recommended clemency and had forwarded its decision to Gov. Rick Perry.

Last year, the Texas Legislature passed the Tim Cole Act, increasing the lump sum compensation to victims of wrongful imprisonment from $50,000 to $80,000 for each year of imprisonment.

“To say that the wheels of justice turn slowly would be an understatement,” Cole’s brother, Cory Session, said on Saturday. “The question is: How many more Tim Coles are out there?”

Source: Star-Telegram, March 1, 2010
Related content:

Comments

Post a Comment

Constructive and informative comments are welcome. Please note that offensive and pro-death penalty comments will not be published.

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Women Being Sent to the Gallows in Alarming Numbers in Iran

Published
Image
Many Were Child Brides Hanged for Murder of Abusive Husbands From Whom There Was No Protection  December 18, 2024 — Amidst a huge surge in executions in the Islamic Republic— 862 so far in 2024, the highest per capita execution rate globally—the Iranian authorities are now increasingly including women in those it sends to the gallows. Since the start of 2024, Iran has executed at least 29 women. More executions of women may have taken place that are unknown.
Read more

Indonesia | 14 years on death row: Timeline of Mary Jane Veloso’s ordeal and fight for justice

Published
Image
MANILA, Philippines — The case of Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking, has spanned over a decade and remains one of the most high-profile legal battles involving an overseas Filipino worker. RELATED |  Philippines | Mary Jane Veloso returns to joyous welcome from family after narrowly escaping Indonesian firing squad Veloso was arrested on April 25, 2010, at Adisucipto International Airport in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, after she was found in possession of more than 2.6 kilograms of heroin. She was sentenced to death in October – just six months after her arrest. Indonesia’s Supreme Court upheld the penalty in May 2011.
Read more

Oklahoma executes Kevin Underwood

Published
Image
Oklahoma executes Kevin Underwood by lethal injection for brutal 2006 murder Nearly two decades after Kevin Ray Underwood murdered his 10-year-old neighbor, he died by lethal injection Thursday morning at 10:14 a.m., according to media witnesses. By coincidence, it was his 45th birthday. Underwood was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing Jamie Bolin in Purcell two years earlier. He confessed to police that he lured Bolin into his house, beat her over the head, attempted to decapitate her and stashed her body in a plastic tub with hopes of later eating it.
Read more

Indiana executes Joseph Corcoran

Published
Image
Indiana carries out first execution in 15 years An Indiana man convicted in the 1997 killing of four people including his brother and his sister’s fiancé was put to death on Wednesday in the state’s first execution in 15 years. Joseph Corcoran, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, according to the Indiana Department of Correction, making it the 24th execution in the U.S. this year. He was scheduled to be executed with the powerful sedative pentobarbital, although officials did not mention that drug in their statement.
Read more

China executes former regional official for corruption

Published
Image
China on Tuesday executed a former official for corruption, a court in the northern region of Inner Mongolia said, the latest development in Beijing’s sweeping campaign against graft. Li Jianping, former secretary of the Communist Party working committee of the Hohhot economic and technological development zone, had previously been sentenced to death for crimes including bribery and misappropriation of public funds.
Read more

Philippines | Mary Jane Veloso returns to joyous welcome from family after narrowly escaping Indonesian firing squad

Published
Image
A Filipino woman who spent 14 years on death row in Indonesia arrived in Manila on Wednesday, reuniting with her family after narrowly escaping a firing squad in 2015. Convicted in 2010 of carrying 2.6kg heroin hidden in a suitcase, Mary Jane Veloso claimed she was duped by a recruiter who promised her a job abroad. The single mother’s conviction and death sentence sparked outrage in the Philippines, prompting advocacy and diplomatic efforts to save her from execution. “I am grateful to God who has answered my prayers. I will return to my country and I believe that God has a beautiful plan for my life,” Veloso, now 39, said. “Thank you, Indonesia, I love Indonesia.”
Read more

Indiana | Pastor speaks out against upcoming execution of Joseph Corcoran

Published
Image
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WPTA) - A local pastor has been arranging protests against the state’s decision to continue with the upcoming execution of Joseph Corcoran for the past couple weekends. Anna Lisa Gross is a co-pastor at Beacon Heights here in Fort Wayne and has been working with multiple churches to protest the execution of Corcoran. “Our community has failed him more than one time, and now to kill him would do nothing,” says Gross.
Read more

Florida | Man sentenced to death for 'executing' five women in a bank

Published
Image
Zephen Xaver text a friend from the bank parking lot, saying: ’Watch for me on the news’ A prison guard trainee who executed five women inside a Florida bank has been sentenced to death. Zephen Xaver, 27, appeared to gulp but otherwise showed no emotion as Judge Angela Cowden pronounced the sentence at the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring. At gunpoint, Xaver ordered his victims, all women, to lie on the floor and then shot each the head as they begged for mercy.
Read more

USA | Biden commutes sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, excluding Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Published
Image
President Biden used his clemency authority Monday to commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row to life without parole, in one of the most significant moves taken against capital punishment in recent presidential history. Biden did not commute the sentences of three men who were involved in cases of terrorism or hate-fueled mass murder, including Robert Bowers , convicted for the 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue; Dylann Roof , convicted for the 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, S.C.; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev , convicted of the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon.
Read more

Indonesia | Ailing Frenchman on death row pleads to return home as Indonesia to pardon 44,000 prisoners

Published
Image
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — An ailing French national on death row for drug offenses has made a last-ditch plea to be returned home, Indonesian authorities said Friday, as the new administration of President Prabowo Subianto planned to give pardon to 44,000 inmates nationwide. Subianto has surprised the nation with the clemency plan, barely two months after he took office. Past Indonesian leaders have rarely used the presidential prerogative of giving amnesty. Serge Atlaoui, who had spent almost 20 years in Indonesian prison, won a last-minute reprieve in 2015 and was excluded from being executed by a 13-member firing squad.
Read more