Texas: Hundreds of people march against the death penalty

Death penalty protestors gather in front of the Texas State Capitol every year on the weekend before All Souls' Day, or The Day of the Dead, which falls on November second. This Tuesday happens to also be Election Day.

For the men leading the procession from the Capitol, down Congress Avenue to 6th Street, it’s a tough walk. They were once on Death Row. Evidence exonerated them. The journey's been an especially hard one for Gregory Wilhoite. After he was freed, an accident put him in a wheelchair.

“For whatever reason, I'm convinced that God's got a job for me, so I'm a man on a mission, and the mission is educating people about the realities of capital punishment,” Wilhoite says.

He used to be pro death penalty until he found himself on death row for a crime that evidence would later show he did not commit. Another Death Row survivor, Shujaa Graham, says he made a lot of promises while he was there.

“I promised a lot of prisoners that once I was released from prison that I would fight and try to see that they would be able to survive themselves,” Graham says.

The survivors here are not just ex-prisoners. Bill Pelke's grandmother was murdered by four teenage girls. One got the death penalty.

“Originally I supported the judge's decision,” Pelke says. “But I went through a transformation and became convinced that execution is not the solution.”

Some protestors carried signs and shouted chants against Governor Rick Perry, a death penalty proponent. Not everyone at the Capitol agrees with those views.

“I am for the death penalty,” Mike Smith, visiting from Houston, says. “But I also agree to freedom of speech, and it's a good thing that they can voice their opinions.”

Sylvia Garza is voicing her opinion. Her son Robert was convicted under the law of parties.

“It's not a crime to be in a car behind some people that committed a murder,” Garza says. “He didn’t commit the murder.”

Many Death Row inmates claim innocence, including Rodney Reed of Bastrop. Now the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether Reed will get to walk this walk with other death penalty survivors.

Reed’s brother, Rodrick Reed, says, “If he wins this appeal, then my brother will come home and be a free man so that's what, that's what we're shooting for.”

How important the death penalty issue is remains to be seen at the ballot box on Election Day. According to several recent polls, immigration and the economy are the two top issues on voters' minds.

Texas has executed 17 people so far this year. The state executed 24 people last year. There are currently 333 people on death row in Texas.

Source: kvue.com, October 30, 2010

Exonerees, advocates to rally for death penalty reform

One local group is taking action to abolish the death penalty here in Texas.

The group, called Journey of Hope, met at the Capitol Building Friday to discuss alternatives to capital punishment.

On Saturday, Journey of Hope is hosting a march to raise awareness for their cause.

It’s a cause that Curtis McCarty knows a lot about. He was wrongly sentenced to death over 20 years ago.

"I was arrested and charged with first degree capitol murder in the spring of 1985," McCarty said. "I went to trial in 1986, sentenced to die and spent the next twenty years fighting for my life."

The president of Journey of Hope, Bill Pelke, wants Gov. Rick Perry to know his organization believes another man was wrongly convicted and put to death at the hands of the state.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, but new forensic evidence strongly suggests he was not responsible for the arson and murder of his three young children.

"When the death penalty was ended in New York state it really was because people had a moral conversion," Pelke said. "I think it was primarily the realization that we did not have a system that could guarantee that innocent people would not be executed.”

The Willingham case is waiting for an appeals ruling to move forward in an evidentiary hearing. Willingham’s fate will be decided right here in Austin.

As McCarty continues to adjust to being a free man, he still remembers the lessons of youth that didn't hold true for him.

"I believed all those things that I was taught in school, that we're a nation of laws, that we have a constitution that protects us from misconduct, that we all receive a fair trial,” he said. “And it simply didn't happen."

Source: News8Austin, October 30, 2010

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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.

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