Supreme Court won't hear Missouri execution case

ST. LOUIS | The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a case questioning the constitutionality of Missouri's death penalty method, and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said he would now seek an execution date for a convicted killer.

The top court's ruling was the last legal hurdle to resuming executions in Missouri, Koster said. He asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for Joseph Franklin, a white supremacist responsible for several killings, including the sniper shooting of a man outside a suburban St. Louis synagogue in 1977.

"Today's decision clears up any lingering ambiguities related to the constitutionality of Missouri's death penalty protocols," Koster said in a statement. "Legal hurdles have held the imposition of justice in Missouri in abeyance for 12 months. With today's ruling, these hurdles have been set aside."

Jennifer Herndon, an attorney for several death row inmates, disagreed. She said another lawsuit questioning the legality of Missouri's fatal three-drug cocktail is still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Our position is we have another lawsuit pending that is in the middle of discovery, and now is not the time to resume executions," Herndon said.

Beth Riggert, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Supreme Court, said there was no way to predict if or when the court would set an execution date for Franklin.

The lawsuit filed by death row inmate Reginald Clemons and joined by Franklin and several others on Missouri's death row challenged the training and competence of Missouri's execution team.

In 2006, a federal judge declared Missouri's lethal injection process unconstitutional after the surgeon who was overseeing executions testified he sometimes transposed numbers and operated without written procedures or supervision.

Mistakes, the lawsuit argued, could result in prisoners being insufficiently anesthetized and cause undue harm and suffering during the execution process.

The state Department of Corrections responded by adopting written procedures detailing the precise amounts and order of the chemicals to be injected. A federal judge upheld the protocol in 2008, and the state Supreme Court later upheld the process by which Missouri adopted the execution procedures.

In November, a three-judge appeals court panel rejected the lawsuit. The Supreme Court's decision not to hear it essentially ended the case.

Missouri executed 66 men from 1989 through 2005. There has been just one execution since then while lawsuits over the protocol were pending.

Franklin, now 60, was convicted in 1997 for shooting and killing Gerald Gordon, who was standing in the parking lot of a St. Louis area synagogue after a bar mitzvah. Franklin also was convicted of shooting two other men who were in the synagogue parking lot. They survived.

While Franklin could be executed for his crimes in Missouri, he also was convicted in the murder of two African-Americans in Utah, the murder of an interracial couple in Wisconsin and the bombing of a synagogue in Tennessee. He has claimed responsibility for the 1978 shooting of Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler magazine.

Source: KansasCity.com, June 28, 2010

Comments

Israel builds execution chamber for Palestinians convicted of murder

In March, the Knesset approved legislation that calls for the execution of Palestinians convicted by a military court of killing Israelis Israeli authorities are preparing a prison wing—replete with an execution chamber—designated specifically for Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder, Israel’s i24NEWS channel reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approved legislation in March that calls for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted by a military court of murdering Israelis.

Florida executes William Frances Silvia

Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening amid the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and injuring his mother-in-law in 2006, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving the lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution while a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Alabama executes Jeremy Williams

Tennessee and Oklahoma have put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men in one day. Tennessee and Oklahoma put inmates to death within 30 minutes of each other Thursday, and Alabama followed suit hours later as U.S. states executed three men by lethal injection in one day for the first time since 2010. The Tennessee man was executed for killing a maid at a motel in 1985, and the Oklahoma man for killing his girlfriend in 2003. In Alabama, a man was put to death Thursday evening for killing a 5-year-old girl he had paid her mother to abuse.

Tennessee | The doctor who helps put prisoners to death

Dr. Mark Fowler assisted in the failed execution of a Tennessee prisoner. Physicians are meant to heal patients—why is he working in the death chamber? Mark Fowler, a physician with 25 years’ experience, stepped beneath the bright lights and approached the middle-aged man lying on a gurney. Around him, people in medical gowns prepared needles and sterile tubing. It had all the appearances of a hospital setting. Fowler had been called in to help establish an IV line through which the 57-year-old man, Tony Carruthers, would be injected with pharmaceutical drugs. The team had struggled to find a vein, so Fowler was summoned to set a central line—an intravenous catheter inserted into the major vein below the collarbone.

Cartoons about Capital Punishment

More cartoons about capital punishment HERE

Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101 after 76 years behind bars

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

Alabama is trying a death penalty bait-and-switch

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Tennessee executes Darrell Hines

The state has spent millions of dollars over decades to execute a seriously ill man who was already incarcerated. The state of Tennessee executed death row inmate Darrell Hines Thursday morning, according to an advocacy group. No formal announcement of the execution has been issued by state leaders yet. The execution was slated for 10 a.m. Thursday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. [DPN update] Hines was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. CDT. His last meal was fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, corn, fries, biscuits, a chicken sandwich, chocolate chip cake, and sweet tea.

The 'Black Widow' shakes Iran: 10 death sentences for a serial killer who killed 12 men

Kolthum Akbari, an Iranian woman widely dubbed the “Black Widow,” was convicted of serial murders of elderly men she married, often temporarily. Official accounts generally center on 11 murders (plus one attempted murder), though Akbari herself gave varying figures and investigations suggested she had many more marriages. The sentencing occurred primarily in September 2025 in Mazandaran Province, with ongoing reporting and updates into 2026. The 56- to 59-year-old killer confessed to killing at least 11 elderly men after temporarily or officially marrying them; Iranian authorities have linked her to additional marriages and possible further victims.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog