Death Penalty News

Federal prosecutors will seek capital punishment for the kidnapping, carjacking and killing of Florence County Paramedic Phonesia Machado-Fore FLORENCE, S.C. — Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a South Carolina man charged in the 2024 kidnapping, carjacking and killing of a Florence County paramedic, according to a statement from the Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina filed a notice of intent to seek capital punishment against Jaremy Alexander Smith, 35, of Marion. A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment on Feb. 24.

Albuquerque man charged with death of Uber driver Seliky Sanchez faces a mandatory life sentence or the death penalty ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An 18-year-old man has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges stemming from a carjacking and kidnapping that resulted in the death of an Uber driver.  On Aug. 7, Sheliky Sanchez of Albuquerque was picked up at his residence on Estrella Brillante Street NW just after 3 a.m. by an Uber ride driven by Joseph Andrus, an Albuquerque Police Department news release said.

Justice Dep't prosecutors rebuffed Pima County Attorney's Office as they pursued 5-count indictment A Mexican man accused in a fatal carjacking was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury Wednesday, including two that could result in life in prison or the death penalty. The case is at the center of a clash between the Pima County Attorney's Office and federal prosecutors. The federal charges of attempted carjacking resulting in death and use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death are the most serious federal charges against Julio Cesar Aguirre, 42, who was in the country without authorization when he allegedly shot and killed a 69-year-old-man during an attempted carjacking on June 30.

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed a man Thursday whose transfer to state custody was expedited by the Trump administration. John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was pronounced dead at 10:11 a.m., prison officials said. Hanson was sentenced to die after he was convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing a Tulsa woman in 1999. “Peace to everyone,” Hanson said while strapped to a gurney inside the prison’s death chamber.

An Oklahoma appeals court on Wednesday ordered a stay of execution to be lifted for a man on death row, clearing the way for him to receive a lethal injection for killing a Tulsa woman in 1999.  John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, has been scheduled to be put to death Thursday, but a district court judge temporarily halted the execution this week after Hanson’s attorneys argued he didn’t receive a fair clemency hearing before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals ordered that temporary stay of execution be lifted.

Hanson was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials following through on President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty. OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge granted a temporary stay of execution Monday to a man whose transfer to death row was expedited by the Trump administration and who was scheduled to receive a lethal injection this week. John Fitzgerald Hanson, 61, was set to die Thursday for killing a Tulsa woman in 1999. Hanson’s lawyers have argued that he did not receive a fair clemency hearing last month before the state’s five-member Pardon and Parole Board. They claim board member Sean Malloy was biased because he worked for the Tulsa County District Attorney’s Office when Hanson was being prosecuted.

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 on Wednesday to deny clemency for George John Hanson, who was sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles. Bowles’ body was found lying in a ditch, covered by bushes, in a dirt pit near Owasso. It took almost a week for her body to be found, and because of an advanced rate of decomposition spurred by summer heat, her remains were identified using dental records. Autopsy reports suggest she was shot four to six times. A bullet lodged in Bowles’ chest matched Hanson’s handgun. His representation said there was no definitive evidence Hanson — who is also referred to as John Fitzgerald Hanson in court documents — was the one who shot and killed Bowles.

A man sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of a Tulsa woman has been returned to Oklahoma custody, where officials plan to move forward with his execution. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, was transferred from a federal prison in Louisiana to Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester Saturday, according to the state Department of Corrections.  The transfer was requested by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Hanson was convicted of kidnapping and killing 77-year-old Mary Bowles after carjacking her from a Tulsa shopping mall. 

President Donald Trump's newly installed attorney general, Pam Bondi, has ordered the transfer of a federal inmate to Oklahoma so he can be executed, following through on Trump's sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty. Bondi this week directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer inmate George John Hanson, 60, so that he can be executed for his role in the kidnapping and killing of a 77-year-old woman in Tulsa in 1999.

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.

Florida's first known execution dates back to 1827 and came to a pause in 1972 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty statewide in the case of Furman v Georgia . A couple of years later in 1976, the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty and became the first state to carry out a non-voluntary execution since the court's decision, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.  As of 2023, 299 men and women are on death row in Florida. Some prisoners have offenses that date as far back as the 1970s.  Death row inmates have specific routines that differ from that of other prisoners. Here's a look at the life of a death row inmate:

Gary Lee Sampson, who was sentenced to the death penalty in connection with the murders of 2 Massachusetts men and a 3rd man in New Hampshire, has died in a prison facility. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database, the 62-year-old Sampson died Tuesday. Sampson was initially sentenced to death in 2003 for killing 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey.  The decision was later overturned by a judge after finding a juror lied about her background. In 2017, a federal jury decided Sampson would receive the death penalty for Rizzo, but not McCloskey. Sampson was also serving a separate life sentence fore killing Robert “Eli” Whitney in New Hampshire. Prosecutors said Sampson tricked the carjack victims into thinking he would spare their lives but then stabbed them more than a dozen times, slit their throats and left them to die in the woods. Source:  boston.cbslocal.com, Staff, December 25, 2021 🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a...

A former Texas man convicted of murdering 2 youth ministers when he was 19 was executed on Thursday, the 7th federal inmate and the 1st Black man put to death since Attorney General William P. Barr announced the resumption of federal executions last year. The inmate, Christopher Andre Vialva, 40, had been convicted in 2000 of carjacking and murdering the couple, Todd and Stacie Bagley, who were visiting Texas from Iowa and had just attended Sunday services, the Justice Department said. Mr. Vialva was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:46 p.m. at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., according to the Bureau of Prisons. Before he was executed, he said a prayer for the Bagleys’ relatives, asking God to “take away the pain and hatred in their hearts,” according to his lawyer, Susan M. Otto. Several of the Bagleys’ family members and loved ones witnessed the execution, Kerri Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said. “More than two decades after Christopher...

The federal government on Tuesday executed an inmate who raped and murdered a 30-year-old nurse in Georgia 19 years ago and blamed the victim for using witchcraft on him. William Emmett LeCroy , 50, was found guilty in March 2004 of carjacking resulting in death by a jury in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.  LeCroy's attorneys Tuesday appealed to the US Supreme Court for a stay of execution, but in the first order since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, the court denied the request.  A pool reporter said he was pronounced dead at 9:06 p.m. ET.  According to the US Department of Justice, LeCroy killed Joann Lee Tiesler in 2001 while he was trying to flee the country.  Tiesler's father, Tom, said Tuesday in a written statement that "justice was finally served."  "I regret that it took 19 years to get to this point but it has brought some needed closure to Joann's family and friends," he said.  When a prison official lean...

The execution of Lezmond Mitchell, a Diné citizen, was a long, grisly test case about tribal sovereignty. At 6:29 p.m. on Wednesday evening, the United States executed Diné citizen Lezmond Mitchell, the first Native person since 1902 to face the death penalty at the hands of the federal government. In 2001, Mitchell and a then-underage accomplice and fellow Diné citizen, Johnny Orsinger, stabbed and murdered Alyce Slim and her nine-year-old granddaughter, also both Diné, within the borders of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. The pair were swiftly caught and detained by local authorities after holding up a nearby trading post. A decision then fell before U.S. federal prosecutors. As outlined by congressional law, the Federal Bureau of Investigations maintains jurisdiction over Indian Country if the committed crimes fall under those outlined in the 1885 Major Crimes Act. This includes violent crimes such as rape, murder, and kidnapping. But in 2001, then–Attorney General John ...

The execution of the only Native American prisoner on federal death row was all but certain Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal. Lawyers for Lezmond Mitchell, a member of the Navajo Nation who was convicted in the brutal killings of an Arizona woman and her granddaughter nearly two decades ago, had asked Justice Elena Kagan to halt his execution until President Trump and the Department of Justice had more time to consider his clemency petition. Mitchell’s attorneys, the Navajo government and death penalty opponents have asked Trump to spare the 38-year-old’s life on the grounds his execution would violate the tribe’s sovereignty and cultural beliefs. But the court appeared to dismiss those concerns, issuing a brief statement late Tuesday night that essentially gives the green light for the Department of Justice to execute him Wednesday evening in Indiana. Unless the Trump administration or a lower court intervenes in the case, Mitche...

On the eve of an Arizona man's scheduled death, a small group of demonstrators gathered in Phoenix on Tuesday to oppose the first federal execution of a Native American in modern history. Lezmond Mitchell, 38, is a member of the Navajo Nation. He is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday evening at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.  He was convicted of killing Alyce Slim, 63, and her granddaughter Tiffany Lee, 9, in 2001.  "It's a question of sovereignty," said Dan Peitzmeyer, spokesman for Death Penalty Alternatives for Arizona. "It is another slap in the face of Indigenous people and another promise broken."  The Navajo Nation has consistently objected to the federal government pursuing the death penalty against Mitchell. According to Mitchell's lawyers, his case is the only time in modern history the federal government has sought the death penalty over the objection of a tribe when the...

In 1991, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called on the church to be “alert and active regarding federal policies which... undermine Native American lives, dignity, and rights.” One effort to devalue the dignity of Native Americans is unfolding right now, as the federal government plans the execution of Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row.  Mr. Mitchell, who is Navajo, is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 26, over the objections of the Navajo Nation, for a crime committed against Navajo citizens on Navajo land. As Catholics, we uphold that the dignity of the human person is God-given and inviolable. It is this belief that leads us to oppose the death penalty in all cases and work for its abolition worldwide in accordance with Pope Francis’ revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018. But ours is not the only tradition which espouses this hallowed tenet. Navajo culture, too, professes the sanctity of life, a teaching which un...