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USA | Democratic Legislators Introduce Death Penalty Repeal Bills, Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences

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Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate have called on incoming President Joe Biden to take quick action on his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. Legislators introduced three bills to abolish the federal death penalty and urged the President to issue executive orders to halt federal executions and commute the death sentences of those on federal death row. Citing the more than 170 people exonerated from U.S. death rows since capital punishment resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, Biden’s official campaign platform on criminal justice advocated repealing the federal death penalty. With his inauguration, he became the first president to have been elected after supporting doing away with capital punishment. “Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time,” the joebiden.com website said, “Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.” Senat

Arizona switches drugs used for executions

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Arizona Death Chamber
Arizona Death Chamber
The Arizona Attorney General's Office announced this morning that it will change the drugs used to execute persons condemned to death.

The new drugs, a cocktail of a Valium-like drug called Midazolam and a morphine derivative called Hydromorphone, will replace the single barbiturate, pentobarbital, which has become unavailable because its manufacturer does not want it to be used to kill people.

Consequently, commercially manufactured pentobarbital supplies have dried up for corrections departments nationwide, forcing them to change drugs or to have them custom made by "compounding pharmacies."

There are four Arizona death row prisoners whose appeals have run out and who are eligible for execution. But the Attorney General's Office has not asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for those prisoners because there were no drugs available to carry out the executions.

The Midazolam-Hydromorphone combination was used in January to perform an execution in Ohio, but not without problems. According to press accounts of that execution, the condemned man gasped for air and took more than 20 minutes to die. Arizona inmates executed with pentobarbital or an earlier drug, thiopental, which also is unavailable, usually die in about ten minutes.

The Attorney General's press release says Arizona will use a stronger concentration.

The press release also says that it will attempt to use a state statute that shields the identity of executioners to keep from revealing the source of the new drugs. That argument was knocked down in U.S. District Court in Phoenix last October.

In 2010, The Arizona Republic revealed that Arizona and other states were sidestepping federal laws to import the drug thiopental from England. Federal courts ruled that the drug had been illegally brought into the country. European courts also banned export of thiopental and other drugs for executions, which led European pharmaceutical companies to institute distribution controls on the drugs.

At least one American manufacturer of Midazolam and Hydromorphone has already said that it will refuse to sell those drugs for use in executions.

Source: AZ Central, March 26, 2014
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Georgia executes Andrew Cook

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Andrew Cook A 38-year-old inmate convicted of killing 2 college students in 1995 was executed in Georgia on Thursday, apologizing to the families of both before being injected at a state prison. Andrew Allen Cook was pronounced dead at 11:22 p.m., about 14 minutes after he was injected with the sedative pentobarbital. He was the 1st inmate to be executed since the state changed its procedure in July from a 3-drug combination to a single dose. With his last words, he apologized to the families of Mercer University students Grant Patrick Hendrickson, 22, and Michele Lee Cartagena, 19, who were shot several times as they sat in a car at Lake Juliette. He said what he did was senseless. "I'm sorry," Cook said as he was strapped to a gurney. "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me. I can't even do it myself." He also thanked his family for "their support, for being with me and I'm sorry I took so much from you all." The Georgi
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Texas | Edward Lee Busby, Jr. set to be executed on February 10

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Edward Lee Busby, Jr., has been given a new execution date of Wednesday, February 10 Edward Lee Busby, Jr., is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm local time on Wednesday, February 10, 2021, inside the Walls Unit at the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. 48-year-old Edward is convicted of the kidnapping and murder of 77-year-old Laura Lee Crane on January 30, 2004, in Fort Worth, Texas. Edward has spent the last 15 years of his life on Texas’s death row. Edward was born in Texas and raised by a single mother. He attended school through the 10th grade, however, he was in special education classes before dropping out. Edward was previously arrested and served time for robbery and drug possession. On January 30, 2004, 77-year-old retired professor from Texas Christian University, Laura Lee Crane was kidnapped from a store parking lot in southwest Fort Worth by Edward Busby and Kathleen “Kitty” Latimer. Busby forced his way into the driver’s seat, while Latimer sat in the bac
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Alabama | Willie B. Smith, III set to be executed on February 11

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Willie B. Smith, III, is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm local time on Thursday, February 11, 2021, at the Holeman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama. 51-year-old Willie is convicted of the robbery, kidnapping, and murder of 22-year-old Sharma Ruth Johnson in October 1991. Willie has been on death row in Alabama for the last 28 years. Willie grew up with an allegedly abusive father and with no economical advantages. Willie did not excel in school. Willie did not have a previous history of criminal activity. In October 1991, 17-year-old Angelica Willis was living with Willie Smith. The 2 left the apartment around midnight on October 26, 1991, looking for Smith’s brother, who was going to Pizza Hut. As they were walking, Willis and Smith saw Sharma Ruth Johnson sitting in car at an automatic teller machine. Smith told Willis to go up to the woman ask for directions to a nearby restaurant. While Sharma was saying she did not know the location of the restaurant, Smith approached wit
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Saudi Arabia | Execution caught on video

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Supreme Court's liberal justices lash out at unprecedented 'rush' of executions as Trump leaves office

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USA | Wesley Purkey Executed For 1998 Murder

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Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death this morning for the murder of a Kansas City teenager in 1998 after the Supreme Court lifted two stays blocking his execution. Purkey was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 8:19 a.m. EDT. His execution came after a flurry of legal moves seeking to halt the procedure.  On Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., granted Purkey a preliminary injunction after his lawyers said he was incompetent to be executed, citing his dementia, mental illness and a history of being abused as a child. A federal appeals court later in the day upheld the injunction, but the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, lifted it, clearing the way for his execution. Purkey admitted to abducting 16-year-old Jennifer Long as she was walking home from high school, raping and murdering her in his Lansing, Kansas, home and then dismembering her body.  A federal jury convicted him in 2003 of kidnapping resulting in a child’s death, and he was sente
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USA | Dustin Higgs becomes 13th and final federal prisoner executed under Trump

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USA | Democratic Legislators Introduce Death Penalty Repeal Bills, Urge President Biden to Commute Federal Death Sentences

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Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate have called on incoming President Joe Biden to take quick action on his campaign pledge to end the federal death penalty. Legislators introduced three bills to abolish the federal death penalty and urged the President to issue executive orders to halt federal executions and commute the death sentences of those on federal death row. Citing the more than 170 people exonerated from U.S. death rows since capital punishment resumed in the U.S. in the 1970s, Biden’s official campaign platform on criminal justice advocated repealing the federal death penalty. With his inauguration, he became the first president to have been elected after supporting doing away with capital punishment. “Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time,” the joebiden.com website said, “Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.” Senat
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Appeals court stays Texas’ first scheduled 2021 execution

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The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday granted the stay for Blaine Milam, 31, to review intellectual disability claims. He had been set for lethal injection on Thursday for killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter during what the couple had said was part of an “exorcism.”  He was convicted of capital murder for the December 2008 slaying of Amora Carson at his trailer in Rusk County in East Texas. Milam’s girlfriend, Jesseca Carson, was also convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Prosecutors say Milam savagely beat, bit, strangled, and sexually mutilated the girl over a period of 30 hours. Milam’s attorneys say 3 of 4 experts who examined him determined Milam is intellectually disabled.  In its ruling, the appeals court ordered Milam’s claims of intellectual disability be reviewed by his trial court. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people, but it has given states some discretion to decide ho
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Will Drop In Saudi Executions Last?

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Saudi Arabia executed 25 people in 2020, according to monitoring carried out by ESOHR and Reprieve. Violations of international law included the execution of at least one minor and at least five people convicted of drug-related offences, amid persistent concerns of systematic torture and resulting unfair trials. This is the lowest figure on record since ESOHR and Reprieve began monitoring executions in 2013. The decline can partly be attributed to the COVID-19 lockdown from February to April, when the government carried out no executions due to restrictions to control the virus. It may also reflect an unofficial de facto moratorium on executions for certain non-violent offences. On January 14, it will have been a full year since the last execution for a discretionary ta'zir offence in the Kingdom. (Executions for qisas and hudud offences, for which set punishments are defined in Sharia law, have continued). However, there is reason to believe that the number of executions will rise
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