Death Penalty News

“There are a lot of people working hard to pull off an execution successfully, and they don’t want to go through all of that just to be cheated out of it at the last minute by the guy committing suicide.” I began serving my 22-year sentence for theft of property at Tennessee’s Northeast Correctional Complex. From my cell window, I could see the beautiful green rolling hills of the Appalachians. On the yard, the fresh air and the geese, rabbits and squirrels roaming freely about made my days more bearable.Access to this scenery came to an end when I got into an altercation with another inmate. That’s why, in June 2018, I landed in Riverbend Maximum Security Institution minutes from downtown Nashville to serve time in solitary. In my cell here, when I look out of the window, all I can see are two grim buildings. One is a housing unit for Tennessee's inmates condemned to death. The other is what is known as the Death House where the state actually executes people. For the...

Nick Sutton, the man Tennessee will electrocute tonight, was raised amid substance-fueled violence and rage. [ This article was originally published hours before Nick Sutton's execution in Tennessee's electric chair. ] Nick Sutton was not sober or free from abuse until he came to Tennessee's death row. Not that a bed at the old fortress-like Tennessee State Prison, where he arrived in 1985, necessarily brought relief. The Walls, as it was known, was a grim place that was eventually condemned itself and deemed unfit even for society's castoffs.  But the relative stability of institutionalized life — particularly on death row, where violence between prisoners is more rare — allowed Sutton to kick his addictions and begin the long process of calming a mind still reeling from the turbulence of his childhood. Thirty-five years later, Sutton is set to be executed Thursday night in the electric chair. Like many of the people who have gone to Tennessee's deat...

Gov. Bill Lee should commute Stephen Michael West's sentence to life without parole because of the inmate's severe mental illness and because he did not kill the victims in the crime. For the 2nd time in less than a year, Tennessee is set to execute a person with severe mental illness. Both cases dramatically illustrate why doing so is highly questionable. In 2018, Tennessee executed Billy Irick, who had severe mental illness at the time of his crime, and as a result fell well outside the “worst of the worst” for whom the United States Supreme Court has said the death penalty is reserved. The same can be said of Stephen Michael West, whom the state plans to execute next week. Unlike Irick and most people who are sentenced to death, West didn’t kill anyone. While he did rape 1 of the 2 victims in his case, it was his co-defendant who stabbed both of them to death, and who was clearly the instigator of the crimes. Further, West’s life history is beyond horrific...

As the sun began to set over the prayer vigil outside Tennessee’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where 68-year-old Don Johnson was about to die, another execution was underway some 400 miles south of Nashville. “I would like to thank Jesus for everything he’s done for me,” Michael Brandon Samra said as he lay on the gurney in Atmore, Alabama. “I want to thank Jesus for shedding his blood for my sins. Thank you for your grace, Jesus. Amen.” Samra was strapped down and wrapped in a tight white blanket covering his feet. His execution had been scheduled for 6 p.m. on May 16, but for reasons no one explained, it did not start for more than an hour. “At 7:15 p.m.,” a media witness later wrote for the Montgomery Advertiser, “his chest heaved three times in quick succession. After, his breathing appeared significantly labored, with his head slightly jerking with each breath for the next minute.” A consciousness check was conducted at 7:17 p.m.; Samra did not appear to respond....

Tennessee executes Donnie Edward Johnson by lethal injection Death row inmate Donnie Edward Johnson died at 7:37 p.m. CDT Thursday after Tennessee prison officials executed him by lethal injection. He was 68. He was the 136th person put to death by Tennessee since 1916 and the 4th person since the state resumed executions in August. Johnson was sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of his wife, Connie Johnson, in Memphis. He suffocated her by stuffing a 30-gallon trash bag down her throat. Moments before officials began administering the fatal doses, Johnson, held down by straps over his chest and arms, said as part of his final words: "I commend my life into your hands. Thy will be done. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen." Then, for 2 minutes, he sang. Johnson and his legal team have not questioned the horrific nature of his crime. But they had stressed his religious transformation behind bars while urging Gov. Bill Lee to grant him mercy. Johnson b...

Johnson will be executed by lethal injection on Thursday, May 16, 2019 Gov. Bill Lee has denied Don Johnson’s request for clemency, and will not intervene to stop Johnson’s execution on Thursday. “After a prayerful and deliberate consideration of Don Johnson‘s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening," Lee said in a written statement. Johnson was convicted in 1985 for the murder of his wife, Connie Johnson. But Connie's daughter, Cynthia Vaughn, is now pleading for the governor to grant him clemency. The two reconciled in 2012. Johnson's request for clemency focused on his Christian faith and what his lawyers call a "remarkable transformation" over the course of more than 30 years in prison. He was baptized on death row and ordained as an elder in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.  Johnson's supporters have been appealing to the governor ...

Without clemency from the governor, Don Johnson will be put to death on May 16 As detailed in his application for clemency, which was delivered to Gov. Bill Lee earlier this month, Johnson’s mother Ruby was married to a relentlessly brutal man named James Lee who “throughout their 46 years of marriage … treated Ruby like a whipped animal.”  Her husband slapped, beat and choked her, Johnson’s lawyers write. At one point, Ruby fled to Michigan, and a brief relationship with another man, Elmer Young, left her pregnant with a baby boy. But she returned to James Lee in hopes of finding financial security. “It was into this violent and hate-filled home that Don Johnson was born,” Johnson’s lawyers write. They go on: “Donnie Johnson was a frail little boy, with bad eyes, and no love. He wore coke bottle glasses and was a regular target of bullies (at school and at home). He was routinely and mercilessly beaten by James Lee for any and all reasons. James Lee would use a leat...

At the coroner’s office in Dayton, Ohio, Dr. Mark Edgar stood over the body of Robert Van Hook. The deceased 58-year-old weighed 228 pounds; he wore blue pants, a white shirt, and identification tags around his ankles. Edgar, a professor of pathology at Emory University School of Medicine, had done countless autopsies over the years. But this would be the 1st time he examined the body of someone executed by the state.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: It seems that Google made a few changes to the way images are shown on Google-powered blogs. Pictures and links to social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) will no longer be loaded if you are using an ad blocker. Please be advised that no commercial activity whatsoever (ads, links, etc.) is conducted by DPN on their website. Ads, if any shown, are selected and inserted on this page by Google, not by DPN. Disable your ad blocker if pictures and/or videos are no longer shown on DPN pages. Please note that this may not apply to all browsers. When it comes to the death penalty, guilt or innocence shouldn’t really matter to Christians.   NASHVILLE — Until August, Tennessee had not put a prisoner to death in nearly a decade. Last Thursday, it performed its third execution in four months. This was not a surprising turn of events. In each case, recourse to the courts had been exhausted. In each case Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, declined to intervene, tho...