Death Penalty News

Three years after four women of Asian descent were shot and killed at spas in Fulton County, it remains unclear when the suspect will face his death penalty trial. Robert Aaron Long pleaded guilty to killing four people at Young’s Asian Massage in Cherokee County on March 16, 2021 and was given a life sentence without parole for each one. However, the now-24-year-old pleaded not guilty in Fulton County, where District Attorney Fani Willis is pursuing the death penalty and hate crime charges.

Kosoul Chanthakoummane is set to be executed August 17 for the murder of a Dallas realtor in a case built on hypnosis and faulty evidence. Kosoul Chanthakoummane, the son of Laotian immigrants, is set to be executed on Aug. 17 in Texas for the murder of Dallas-area realtor Sarah Walker. On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, Walker’s body was discovered by a couple visiting a model home in the Craig Ranch subdivision in McKinney. She had been stabbed 33 times, but the Collin County Medical Examiner noted that ten knife wounds had punctured vital organs or blood vessels—any one would have been fatal. She had put up a fight. She had a broken nose and fractured teeth. And—a point that would later prove critical at the trial—she had a bite mark on the back of her neck. Discredited forensic techniques were subsequently used to help convict Chanthakoummane of capital murder, including long-debunked bite mark evidence and hypnosis of witnesses. Forensic dentistry consultant Brent Hutson was broug...

ATLANTA (AP) — A man already sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to fatally shooting four people at a massage business outside Atlanta pleaded not guilty to shooting four others on the same day at two spas inside the city. Robert Aaron Long, 22, appeared briefly Tuesday in Fulton County Superior Court, where he waived arraignment and entered a not guilty plea on charges including murder, aggravated assault and domestic terrorism. District Attorney Fani Willis is seeking the death penalty, as well as a sentencing enhancement under Georgia’s new hate crimes law. In July, Long pleaded guilty in Cherokee County to charges including four counts of murder. He received four sentences of life without parole plus an additional 35 years. Those killed in Cherokee County were: Paul Michels, 54; Xiaojie “Emily” Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; and Delaina Yaun, 33. The Atlanta victims were: Suncha Kim, 69; Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; and Yong Ae Yue, 63. Tuesday was the second ...

The 22-year-old man fatally shot 8 people in March, six of whom were Asian women. The 22-year-old man who opened fire and killed 8 people in 3 Georgia spas in March pleaded guilty to 4 of the murders on Tuesday. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole over the murders in the city of Acworth, but he could still face the death penalty due to the additional 4 deaths with which he is charged in Atlanta. At the Acworth spa on March 16, Robert Aaron Long fatally shot Xiaojie Tan, 49; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Daoyou Feng, 44; and Paul Andre Michels, 54. He then drove to Atlanta, where he killed Soon Chung Park, 74; Hyun Jung Grant, 51; Sun Cha Kim, 69; and Yong Ae Yue, 63. 6 of the 8 victims were Asian women, and the deadly attack occurred amid a wave of anti-Asian violence. The incident also marked the beginning of a spate of mass shootings across the US after a lull during the pandemic. For the Atlanta killings, unlike in Acworth, Long faces domestic terrorism charges, and prosecu...

A Georgia man who claimed to be addicted to sex pleaded guilty on Tuesday to murdering four people as part of a shooting spree at Atlanta-area spas that highlighted the fear and intimidation felt by Asian Americans in the wake of coronavirus pandemic. Robert Aaron Long, 22, is now expected to be transferred to Atlanta where he faces four additional counts of murder and where the district attorney has indicated she will pursue hate crimes and the death penalty. Dressed in a white, button-down shirt with an open collar, and dress slacks and sporting a mohawk haircut, Long pleaded guilty in court to the four murders at a day spa in Cherokee County, about 40 miles (64km) north of Atlanta. Long, holding his head up but looking sombre, also affirmed agreement with the state's recommendation of four life sentences without possibility of parole, to be served consecutively, plus 35 years on other charges. The judge confirmed that sentence. RELATED |  Suspect in Atlanta-area shootings could ...

A Georgia prosecutor said on Tuesday she would seek the death penalty for the man accused of fatally shooting eight people at Atlanta-area spas, six of them women of Asian descent, saying the suspect committed hate crimes. Robert Aaron Long, 22, was indicted on murder charges in the March 16 killings of four women in Fulton County, Georgia, as well as on aggravated assault and domestic terrorism charges, according to court documents. He was previously charged with four counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in Cherokee County, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Atlanta. In a court filing, Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis said Long had targeted four women in Atlanta because of their race, national origin and gender. "Lady Justice in this community is blind," Willis told a news conference after her court filing. "It does not matter your ethnicity, it does not matter the side of the tracks you come from, it does not matter your wealth. You will be treated as ...

The 19-year-old gunman who killed eight workers and himself at an Indianapolis FedEx center was a former employee who was placed under psychiatric detention last year after his mother reported concerns he might commit "suicide by cop," police and FBI said. Four members of the Sikh religious community - three women and a man - were among the dead in Thursday night's gun rampage, according to a local Sikh leader who said he had been briefed by the victims' families. Law enforcement officials said they had not immediately determined whether racial or ethnic hatred was behind the killings. But a Sikh civil rights advocacy group called for an investigation of any possible hate bias involved in the crime. The incident - the latest in a spate of at least seven deadly mass shootings in the United States over the past month - unfolded at a FedEx (FDX.N) operations center near Indianapolis International Airport after 11 p.m. local time, police said. It lasted only a couple of m...

Robert Long, 21, was charged with eight counts of murder by Georgia prosecutors Wednesday. Eight people, six of whom were Asian, were killed at three Atlanta massage parlours on Tuesday. Long said he did it to remove sexual temptation but prosecutors are considering hate crime charges. The suspect in Tuesday night's Atlanta-area shootings could meet the threshold for receiving the death penalty under Georgia law. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged Robert Aaron Long, 21, with eight counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault after shootings took place at three massage parlors across the city area. In a press conference on Wednesday, law enforcement officials said that Long admitted to carrying out the attacks. However, he has yet to enter a plea to the charges. He is due to appear in court Thursday, where he may issue a plea but does not have to. Death penalty If Long is ultimately convicted, the charges open him to Georgia's death penalty. Prosecutors would have to choo...

(CNN) -- Joe Biden has named Kamala Harris as his running mate, making the California senator the first Black and South Asian American woman to run on a major political party's presidential ticket. "I've decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee wrote in an email Tuesday. In selecting Harris, Biden adds a former primary rival who centered her own presidential bid on her readiness to take on Donald Trump and show Americans she would fight for them. She rose to national prominence within the Democratic Party by interrogating Trump nominees during Senate hearings, from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Harris' selection comes months after Biden committed to picking a woman to join him on the Democratic ticket.  Harris, 55, is now the third ...

The number of people on death row across the United States or facing potential capital resentencings declined by nearly 20% in the 2010s, according to a Death Penalty Information Center analysis of data from the latest quarterly death-row census by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). The Winter 2020 edition of Death Row USA (DRUSA), released in March 2020, reports that 2,620 people were on death row as of January 1, 2020, down 2.6% from the 2,690 LDF reported in January 1, 2019. The death-row population dropped by 19.7% over the course of the last decade—down from 3,261 on January 1, 2010—and has fallen by 28.3% since January 1, 2000, when LDF reported 3,652 people on death row or facing capital resentencing. The DPIC analysis found that fewer people were on death row or facing capital resentencing in the United States at the start of this decade than at the start of any year since 1992, when the December 1991 DRUSA reported 2,547 death-row prisoners or capi...

In a recent survey of California registered voters, the National Asian American Survey found that like most Californians, Asian/Pacific Islander Americans were in favor of keeping the death penalty, with 47.1 % in favor.  Overall, 55.9 % of Californians were in favor, with 57.3 % of non-Hispanic whites, 57.5 percent of Latinos, and 46.4 % of African Americans in favor of keeping the death penalty. However, when asked about a federal ruling that California's death penalty law is unconstitutional because it takes so long for the state to carry out, answers were more ambivalent, with 43.8 % of Asian/Pacific Islander Americans in favor of speeding up the process and 39.4 % in favor of replacing the death penalty with life in prison. "More AANHPIs [Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders] are undecided about the death penalty," said Paul Jung, a Law Fellow at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, "indicating that we need more community educati...