FEATURED POST

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.

New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu vetoes bill to repeal death penalty

Published
New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has vetoed a bill to repeal the death penalty, but the measure is expected to prevail in the Legislature, which passed it with veto-proof majorities this session.

Sununu, surrounded by law enforcement officers in a ceremony in Manchester on Friday, called the bill an injustice to slain police officer Michael Briggs, law enforcement, and victims of violent crimes.

The repeal bill would not apply retroactively to Michael Addison, who killed Briggs in 2006 and is the state's only death-row inmate. 

But supporters of capital punishment argue that courts will see it differently.


Sununu vetoed a similar bill last year. 

The Legislature did not have enough votes to override him. But momentum grew after Democrats won control of both the House and Senate in November.

Source: Houston Chronicle, Staff, May 3, 2019


⚑ | 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: New Hampshire, USA
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Activists Call on President Biden to End the Federal Death Penalty Before Leaving Office

Published
Image
A conversation with Death Penalty Action Co-founder and Executive Director Abe Bonowitz. Now that Joe Biden is a lame duck president, activists are holding him accountable to make good on his promise to end the federal death penalty during his remaining six months as president. Biden’s election campaign in 2020 had pledged to end the federal death penalty and incentivize the remaining 27 states that still allow executions to do the same. While he made history as the first president in the United States to openly oppose the death penalty, there has been no movement to actually end federal executions during his nearly four years in office.
Read more

'Better off without it': Washington closes execution chamber at state penitentiary

Published
Image
WASHINGTON STATE — Fourteen years after the last death sentence was carried out in Washington, the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla was closed in a ceremony held Wednesday morning. Gov. Jay Inslee, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty ten years ago, said shuttering the chamber was the ‘final closure’ of the controversial issue in Washington state law.
Read more

Kuwait | Six Executed, Female Convict Spared at Last Minute

Published
Image
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 5: This Thursday morning at exactly 7:00 am, the Criminal Execution Prosecution carried out the death penalty for six convicts at the Central Prison. Among those executed were three Kuwaiti citizens, two Iranians, and one Pakistani. However, the execution of a Kuwaiti woman, convicted of killing her friend, was withdrawn at the last moment after the victim's heirs accepted blood money and pardoned her. 
Read more

As another U.S. state closes its execution chamber, Trump muses about expanding use of death penalty

Published
Image
11 executions scheduled before 2024 ends, and a Trump win could see federal executions resume in 2025 Washington's governor is set to attend an event at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla on Wednesday to mark the facility officially shutting down its death chamber. That same governor, Jay Inslee, issued a moratorium on executions early in his term, in 2014. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in the 1970s — after an eight-year pause due to legal wrangling over the issue — Washington has executed five people, but none since 2010.
Read more

"Death chamber" permanently closed at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla

Published
Image
WALLA WALLA, Wash.-The "death chamber" at the Washington "State Penitentiary where inmates sentenced to death were executed, the last remaining one in the Washington Department of Corrections system, was taken offline on Sept. 18.  According to KING 5 reporting on the closure of the small room within the penitentiary, the closing is largely ceremonial, as Governor Jay Inslee instituted a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in 2014.  In use since 1904, death row inmates had the choice of hanging or lethal injection in the small room within the penitentiary. 
Read more

Texas | Broad Coalition Supports Robert Roberson’s Clemency Petition

Published
Image
On September 17, 2024, attorneys for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson filed a clemency petition accompanied by letters from hundreds of supporters, including eminent scientists and medical professionals, a bipartisan group of Texas legislators, and former lead Detective Brian Wharton, urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to reduce Mr. Roberson’s sentence. Mr. Roberson is currently scheduled to be executed on October 17, 2024. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, who medical experts have determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome. Despite three new expert reports showing Nikki died of pneumonia, no court has been willing to consider the evidence that clears Mr. Roberson of any crime.
Read more

Florida | 5 things to know about how the Parkland shooter’s life was spared

Published
Image
This article was first published by The Marshall Project , a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. Nikolas Cruz was the rare mass killer in America to have his fate decided at trial; many die during the shooting. It’s a bedrock principle of American justice that every defendant, no matter how serious the crime, is owed a robust defense.
Read more

MHA survey finds growing support among Singapore residents for death penalty in most serious crimes

Published
Image
SINGAPORE: More Singapore residents support the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, according to the findings of a 2023 Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) survey released on Thursday (Sep 19). A survey was first conducted in 2021 to "better understand public perceptions" and the ministry conducted it again two years later. According to the latest survey findings, 77.4 per cent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the use of the death penalty for the most serious crimes, such as murder and trafficking a "significant amount of drugs".
Read more

Author John Grisham Comes Out In Defence Of Death Row Prisoner “Texas Is About To Execute An Innocent Man”

Published
Image
Robert Roberson, an autistic father wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Texas based on the debunked “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis, applies for clemency to stop his Oct. 17 scheduled execution. Bestselling author John Grisham has joined a group of high-profile politicians, lawyers, scientists and doctors defending a Texas man who is about to be executed after being convicted of a crime that never happened.
Read more