FEATURED POST

To U.S. Death Row Inmates, Today's Election is a Matter of Life or Death

Published
Image
You don't have to tell Daniel Troya and the 40 other denizens of federal death row locked in shed-sized solitary cells for 23 hours a day, every day, that elections have consequences. To them, from inside the U.S. government's only death row located in Terre Haute, Indiana, Tuesday's election is quite literally a matter of life and death: If Kamala Harris wins, they live; if Donald Trump wins, they die. "He's gonna kill everyone here that he can," Troya, 41, said in an email from behind bars. "That's as easy to predict as the sun rising."
Post a Comment

Texas executes John Balentine

Published
Texas executed John Balentine without incident Wednesday, despite several calls for a stay.

Balentine, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. after being executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

He was injected with a single dose of pentobarbital.

Balentine was convicted of capital murder for the 1998 murders of three Amarillo teenagers.

According to police reports, Balentine entered the Amarillo home he previously shared with his ex-girlfriend, Misty Caylor, and shot and killed her brother, Edward Mark Caylor, 17, as well as Kai Brooke Geyer and Steven Brady Watson, both 15 years old. He shot each in the head while they slept, according to court records.

Prosecutors said Caylor’s brother, Edward, disapproved of Balentine and Caylor’s interracial relationship and had previously threatened Balentine. Balentine was Black, the three victims were white.

In his final statement, Balentine apologized to the 8 victim witnesses present saying, “I apologize for the pain I caused. I hope you find in your heart to forgive me.”

There were also 6 witnesses presenting on behalf of Balentine, including 4 friends, his attorney Shawn Nolan and spiritual advisor Morris Whiteside.

As Balentine was receiving the injection, a personal witness began to sing a portion of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

Earlier this week, it was unclear whether Balentine's execution would move forward after his attorneys requested a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the trial was riddled with racial bias. Less than two hours before his execution, the U.S. Supreme Court also declined an appeal by Balentine’s attorney.

Separately, a judge delayed the execution last week stating that Balentine’s attorney was not properly notified of the lethal injection, as required by law.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reinstated the execution order Wednesday.


Balentine becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 581st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, He becomes the 63rd condemned inmate to be put to death since Greg Abbott became Governor of Texas in 2015.

Balentine becomes the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,564th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.   

Source: The Huntsville Item, Staff; Rick Halperin, February 8, 2023

_____________________________________________________________________




_____________________________________________________________________


FOLLOW US ON:


TELEGRAM


TWITTER







HELP US KEEP THIS BLOG UP & RUNNING!



"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: Texas, USA
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Photographing the Community on Tennessee’s Death Row

Published
Image
From 2010 to 2015 I was incarcerated in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, the Tennessee prison that houses death row for the men’s system. On one side of a gate, 250 of us lived in a “support staff” unit working maintenance, landscaping, kitchen service or whatever else kept the facility operational. On the other side of the gate were maximum-security prisoners and those in protective custody, and a unit just for the condemned.
Read more

To U.S. Death Row Inmates, Today's Election is a Matter of Life or Death

Published
Image
You don't have to tell Daniel Troya and the 40 other denizens of federal death row locked in shed-sized solitary cells for 23 hours a day, every day, that elections have consequences. To them, from inside the U.S. government's only death row located in Terre Haute, Indiana, Tuesday's election is quite literally a matter of life and death: If Kamala Harris wins, they live; if Donald Trump wins, they die. "He's gonna kill everyone here that he can," Troya, 41, said in an email from behind bars. "That's as easy to predict as the sun rising."
Read more

South Carolina executes Richard Moore

Published
Image
South Carolina executes Richard Moore despite broadly supported plea to cut sentence to life   South Carolina put Richard Moore to death by lethal injection Friday for the 1999 fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk, despite a broad appeal for mercy by parties that included 3 jurors and the judge from his trial, a former prison director, pastors and members of his family.
Read more

Iran executes Jewish man for fatal stabbing

Published
Image
Arvin Netanel Ghahremani's relatives claim he did not receive adequate defense. Authorities in Iran on Monday executed a Jewish man, Arvin Nathaniel Ghahremani, who had been sentenced to death for murder, Iranian media reported. “The sentence of retribution was executed this morning,” said Hamidreza Karimi, the prosecutor for Kermanshah in western Iran, according to the Mehr news agency.
Read more

Idaho Supreme Court says second attempt to execute Creech does not meet 'cruel and unusual punishment'

Published
Image
The Idaho Supreme Court held Tuesday night that a second execution attempt of Thomas Creech does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment or imposing multiple punishments for the same offense. Earlier Tuesday, a federal judge in the district of Arizona said he will block the scheduled execution of Creech, according to the Idaho Statesman.  U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow said in court that a second execution attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Read more

Iranian Women Use Their Bodies to Fight the Regime

Published
Image
A female student at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University stripped to her underwear on campus after university security personnel harassed her and tore her clothing for not wearing a headscarf. University officials later claimed she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Social media users now call her the "Science and Research Girl," after Tehran's Science and Research Campus, where the incident occurred. Known for its scenic mountainous location, this unit of the Islamic Azad University has become the focal point of a protest that sparked widespread attention online.
Read more

Iran | At Least 166 Executions in October; Highest Monthly Execution Toll in Two Decades

Published
Image
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); November 2, 2024: Amid escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, and under the cover of war propaganda, the Islamic Republic carried out at least 166 executions in October alone. This marks the highest number of executions recorded in a single month since Iran Human Rights began documenting executions in 2007. Among those executed were 13 Afghan nationals, six women, and an Iranian-German citizen.
Read more

Prisoners plead for air conditioning in lawsuit against Florida corrections department

Published
Image
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — It was the hottest September in more than a century in parts of South Florida, and Dwayne Wilson could hear his 81-year-old fellow inmate gasping for breath and crying out for help at the Dade Correctional Institution, 45 miles southwest of Miami on the edge of the Florida Everglades. The elderly man was confined to a wheelchair and for weeks had been complaining of severe chest pain and difficulty breathing in the unventilated dorm where he was serving his sentence, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed this week on behalf of Wilson and two other inmates at the prison.
Read more

Georgia | Death row inmate’s last cigarette request 'denied over health concerns'

Published
Image
Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has represented a number of clients who have been sentenced to death row across the USA and he's recounted some of their final moments A human rights attorney has reminisced about the bitterly ironic moment his executed client was initially denied a last cigarette over health concerns. Clive Stafford Smith shared the poignant tale with LadBible, recounting how Nicholas Lee Ingram skipped his final meal in favor of a smoke.
Read more

Texas | Jewish death row inmate granted new trial over claims that judge was antisemitic

Published
Image
A Texas appeals court has ordered a new trial for Randy Halprin because of antisemitic bias by the judge in his case A Texas appeals court ordered a new trial Wednesday for a Jewish man on death row — who was part of a gang of prisoners that fatally shot a police officer in 2000 after escaping — because of antisemitic bias by the judge who presided over his case. Lawyers for Randy Halprin have contended that former Judge Vickers Cunningham in Dallas used racial slurs and antisemitic language to refer to him and some of his co-defendants.
Read more