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.
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Video tour of Florida’s death row shows how inmates live as they await execution
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A tour of Florida’s death row reveals the sparest of one-person cells, lined up along one side of narrow hallways where rows of prison bars form the wall on the opposite side.
The cells are meant as a final waypoint before the death chamber, with its white hospital gurney and window of glass for witnesses in an adjacent room.
The Florida Department of Corrections provided a video recording of death row in connection with a request from the Tampa Bay Times last month for information on dealing with contraband in the state prison system.
It is a view that few people outside the prison system ever see.
Inside these cells at the Union Correctional Institution near Raiford, and in a few more at adjacent facilities, some 345 people await execution.
One of them is Tommy Zeigler, the second-longest serving death row inmate, who has proclaimed his innocence since he arrived more than 40 years ago and is the subject of “Blood and Truth,” a six-part series by staff writer Leonora LaPeter Anton appearing this week in the Times.
Since 1999, 51 people have been put to death in Florida by lethal injection. Jose Antonio Jimenez, who was convicted of killing a woman in Miami-Dade County in 1992, has an execution date set for Dec. 13.
A typical death row cell includes a thin mattress, a steel sink and toilet combination, a locker, and a small table for writing. An inmate spends an average of 23 hours a day inside the cells.
When a death warrant is signed, an inmate is moved to one of the "death watch" cells at Florida State Prison. The cells, adjacent to the execution chamber, are slightly larger than regular death row cells.
An ongoing federal lawsuit by eight inmates challenges the constitutionality of the conditions on death row. Their time there ranges from 12 to 30 years and more — a situation they describe as "permanent solitary confinement."
Source:tampabay.com, Dan Sullivan, November 26, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
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.
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.
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.
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.
Deranged nurse escapes the death penalty as she admits to killing three patients - and has been connected to 14 more - by injecting them with lethal amounts on insulin A Pennsylvania nurse who administered lethal or potentially lethal doses of insulin to numerous patients avoided the death penalty after she pleaded guilty to three counts of murder.
Based on the registered statistics at the Center for Statistics and Documentation of Iran Human Rights Monitor (Iran HRM), and through extensive research conducted in this field, the final figures of executions in April 2024 have been obtained. It should be emphasized that the actual numbers are significantly higher, as most executions in Iran are carried out secretly.
On the morning of Tuesday, April 30, 2024, four prisoners, including a woman, were executed in Birjand prison. The identity of the executed woman has not been determined. The other three prisoners were Mahmoud Gergij, Mohammad Shah Bakhsh and Mehdi Eshterak, from Sistan and Baluchistan province.
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 2, 2024: Ali Ashraf Khani, a man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed Kermanshah Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison on 1st May. His identity has been established as 45-year-old Ali Ashraf Khani who was sentenced to qisas for murder.
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 30, 2024: Mousa Fazeli, a man sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed Qom Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Qom Central Prison on 30 April. His identity has been established as Mousa Fazeli who was sentenced to qisas for murder.
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); May 1, 2024: Ten men including an Afghan national, were executed in Isfahan Central Prison over two days. Seven were on death row for drug-related offences and three were sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Isfahan Central Prison (Dastgerd) on 28 April. They were sentenced to qisas for murder but their identity has not been established at the time of writing.
