FEATURED POST

U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

Published
Image
In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.

Louisiana seeks 1-year extension in halt to executions

Published
Louisiana's death chamber
Louisiana authorities are seeking a court order that would rule out any executions in the state for at least one more year.

A lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection protocols has blocked Louisiana from carrying out any death sentences since 2014. Its last execution was in 2010.

In a court filing Wednesday, an attorney for the state asked for a 12-month extension in the court order temporarily staying all executions.

Jeffrey Cody, the state's lawyer, says litigating the case now would be "a waste of resources and time." He asked U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick to postpone a July 17 status conference for the litigation and extend the court-ordered halt in executions for 1 additional year "because the facts and issues involved in this proceeding continue to be in a fluid state."

"It is hoped that, by July 2019, the facts and issues ultimately to be litigated will have become more settled and the parties will then be in a better position to proceed forward with the litigation," Cody wrote.

Dick didn't immediately rule on Cody's request. The case was reassigned to Dick in January after the death of U.S. District Judge James Brady, whose order had temporary blocked all executions.

Drug shortages have forced Louisiana's corrections department to rewrite its execution plan several times since 2010. Under the current execution protocols, the state's primary method is a single-drug injection of pentobarbital, a powerful sedative. The alternative method is a 2-drug combination of the painkiller hydromorphone and the sedative midazolam. The corrections department has none of those drugs in its inventory, according to department spokesman Ken Pastorick.

Louisiana has 71 inmates on death row. The state's last execution was in January 2010, when prison officials put to death Gerald Bordelon, who was convicted of killing his 12-year-old stepdaughter in 2002.

Gary Clements, an attorney for a convicted child killer who sued to block his execution, said the state's request is "probably pretty reasonable under the circumstances" given the "fluid" state of the litigation.

Source: The Associated Press, July 12, 2018


⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!



"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
Location: Louisiana, USA
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

Published
Image
The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977. This written record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution. Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances ( Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977). Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was executed in Marseilles' Baumettes prison in September 1977. The following text was writ
Read more

Alabama SC approves second nitrogen gas execution

Published
Image
The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the execution of a second inmate by nitrogen gas, months after the state became the first state to put a person to death with the previously untested method. Justices granted Attorney General Steve Marshall’s request for an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller, who survived a 2022 lethal injection attempt.
Read more

Utah requests execution of death row inmate

Published
Image
SALT LAKE CITY — The state of Utah requested on Tuesday that a man who’s been on death row for almost 25 years be executed. Taberon Honie was convicted of the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s mother in 1999. In the death warrant application, the state’s lawyers said Honie used up his appeals and there is no longer any legal reason to stop Honie’s execution.
Read more

Arkansas Supreme Court Decision Allows New DNA Testing in Case of the ​“West Memphis Three,” Convicted of Killing Three Children in 1993

Published
Image
On April 18, 2024, the Arkansas Supreme Court decided 4-3 to reverse a 2022 lower court decision and allow genetic testing of crime scene evidence from the 1993 killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The three men convicted in 1994 for the killings were released in 2011 after taking an Alford plea, in which they maintained their innocence but plead guilty to the crime, in exchange for 18 years’ time served and 10 years of a suspended sentence. 
Read more

U.S. | I'm a Death Row Pastor. They're Just Ordinary Folks

Published
Image
In the early 1970s I was a North Carolinian, white boy from the South attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and working in East Harlem as part of a program. In my senior year, I visited men at the Bronx House of Detention. I had never been in a prison or jail, but people in East Harlem were dealing with these places and the police all the time. This experience truly turned my life around.
Read more

North Texas jury sentences killer to death penalty for shooting Burleson woman, cop

Published
Image
A jury of 12 Johnson County residents voted Thursday to send 31-year-old Jerry Elders to death row for the murder of Robin Waddell, agreeing with prosecutors who requested the death penalty. The defense argued for life in prison without parole, saying Thursday morning that Elders’ actions came after a lifetime of drug addiction and going in and out of jails and prisons, being kicked out of his family home as a teenager and not receiving support from family members.
Read more

Iraq executes 11 people convicted of terrorism crimes

Published
Image
Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death and life sentences in recent years for people convicted of membership in a terrorist group. BAGHDAD – Eleven people were executed on Monday at Al-Hut prison in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya after they were convicted and sentenced to death of terrorism crimes, two security sources said.
Read more

Alabama approves second nitrogen hypoxia execution

Published
Image
The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the nitrogen hypoxia execution of Alan Eugene Miller, setting the stage for the state to have at least four executions this year. Miller's execution would be the second carried out using nitrogen gas, the Alabama Attorney General’s office says. Miller, now 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham. He was living in Autauga County at the time.
Read more