Death Penalty News

Still, concerns of the fairness and accuracy of the state’s death penalty system remain Even in Texas – the execution capital of the country – the death penalty's popularity continued to decline in 2019, according to a new report from the Austin-based Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  Released Tuesday, TCADP's year-end report shows a decline in both the number of people sentenced to death in the past 12 months, and the number of executions carried out this year (nine) in comparison to last year (13).  Though the Texas Depart­ment of Criminal Jus­tice's original execution schedule for 2019 was shockingly long, with a total of 18 men set to die at the hands of the state, nine of those received stays from either state or federal courts. (Three, the report notes, received multiple reprieves: Dexter John­son, Ruben Gutierrez, and Patrick Murphy.) The report notes, however, that despite its declining use, the cases scheduled for execution this yea...

Rodney Reed’s death sentence was suspended. But researchers say other current cases raise similar doubt about the guilt of the accused. The number of executions in the United States remains close to nearly a three-decade low. And yet the decline has not prevented what those who closely track the death penalty see as a disturbing trend: a significant number of cases in which prisoners are being put to death, or whose execution dates are near, despite questions about their guilt. Rodney Reed, who came within days of execution in Texas before an appeals court suspended his death sentence on Friday, has been the most high-profile recent example, receiving support from Texas lawmakers of both parties and celebrities like Rihanna and Kim Kardashian West, who urged a new examination of the evidence. Mr. Reed has long maintained that he did not commit the 1996 murder for which he was convicted. And in recent months, new witnesses came forward pointing toward another possible s...

Since the beginning of the year, seven states have executed 19 men convicted of murder. That ranks among the lowest annual execution totals since the practice resumed in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision, according to statistics maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center . But it’s only November, so there’s still time for more. In fact, Georgia has scheduled an execution for Wednesday, and Texas has one set for a week later. And after a 16-year hiatus, the federal government plans to resume executions next month by killing Daniel Lewis Lee, one of two white supremacists convicted of the 1996 murders of a married Arkansas couple and their 8-year-old daughter. The other person convicted in that case , Chevie Kehoe, who by most accounts was the instigator of the violence, received a life sentence. That disparity is a microcosm of one of the key flaws of capital punishment: It is fundamentally arbitrary in its application. Two men were convicted of the same murder...

Ein wegen Mordes und Vergewaltigung verurteilter Mann ist im US-Bundesstaat Texas hingerichtet worden.  Der 48-Jährige sei am Mittwochabend mit einer Giftspritze getötet worden, teilten die Justizbehörden mit.  Das Oberste Gericht hatte einen Einspruch seiner Anwälte zuvor zurückgewiesen.  Die Hinrichtung war in der Vergangenheit fünf Mal aufgeschoben worden. Larry Swearingen war im Jahr 2000 schuldig gesprochen worden, zwei Jahre zuvor eine 19-jährige Studentin vergewaltigt und erdrosselt zu haben.  Er beteuerte bis zuletzt seine Unschuld.  Seine Anwälte argumentierten, es gebe keine DNA-Spuren, die ihren Mandanten belasteten. RELATED |  Texas executes Larry Swearingen Nach Angaben des Death Penalty Information Center handelte es sich um die zwölfte Hinrichtung in den USA seit Jahresbeginn. Source: vn.at , Staff, August 22, 2019 Eine Hinrichtung und viele Fragen Fast 20 Jahre lang saß Larry Swearingen im Todes...

Texas executed Larry Swearingen for a 1998 Texas slaying. His lawyer says bad science got him on death row. Swearingen consistently maintained his innocence in the strangling death of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. Texas prosecutors, however, had no doubt he was her killer. For decades, a staunch claim of innocence and doubts over forensic science engulfed the death penalty case of Larry Swearingen. On Wednesday, he was executed in Texas' death chamber. The 48-year-old man lived on death row for nearly 2 decades, consistently expressing his innocence in the 1998 strangling death of Melissa Trotter, a 19-year-old community college student in Montgomery County he has said was his friend. Multiple state courts had previously taken five execution dates off the calendar over the years to look into different issues surrounding Swearingen’s conviction, but prosecutors and Trotter’s family remain firmly convinced he was her killer. After a late appeal was denied by the U.S...

As his scheduled death date approached, Larry Ray Swearingen still refused to accept that the Huntsville gurney could be his fate. The 48-year-old Montgomery County man was sentenced to die for the 1998 murder of Melissa Trotter, a college student who was raped, strangled and left in the Sam Houston National Forest with torn pair of pantyhose tied around her neck. But Swearingen always said he didn’t do it and, after eking out stays before each of the last five scheduled death dates, he was skeptical the Aug. 21 execution could come to pass. “I don't believe you're going to kill me,” he told the Houston Chronicle, likening the case against him to a house of cards. “I believe I will pull that one single card and it's gonna come tumbling down.” In recent weeks, the courts denied appeal after appeal, and the state parole board on Monday unanimously turned down his one shot at a commutation. He is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. The condemned man’s lawyers have re...