Death Penalty News

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to review the case of Stacey Humphreys , who was sentenced to death in Georgia after a single juror “bullied” the others into voting for death. In an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson , Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Court’s decision “allowing a death sentence tainted by a single juror’s extraordinary misconduct to stand.” Stacey Humphreys was charged with killing two women inside a model home after forcing them to undress and robbing them at gunpoint.

A federal court on Thursday denied a request by attorneys for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to remove the judge overseeing the protracted legal battle over his death sentence.  The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the argument made by Tsarnaev’s lawyers that U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole should be recused from the case because, the lawyers contend, he is not impartial. During an August 2024 hearing, Tsarnaev’s attorneys pointed to what they said were comments O’Toole made about the case on podcasts and at public events during the appeals process. 

Nelson Serrano died today [Aug 8] after being hospitalized for quite some time with a terminal condition. Serrano spent over 3 decades on Florida’s death row and was almost 86 years-old. Serrano was awaiting a new penalty phase that was granted in 2017 after Hurst . He maintained his innocence throughout his time on death row. DOC’s records have not yet been updated. His current location is listed as “Unknown” and he is still listed on the Death Row Roster. 

BOSTON — A veteran prosecutor who nailed the Pentagon leaker and an ex-Harvard professor with ties to China has been put on the Boston Marathon bomber’s last-ditch death penalty appeal.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Casey is “counsel for the United States” against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has won his appeal to determine if he deserves a new death penalty trial. 

Yesterday, as part of what is likely the Court’s last regular release of opinions before summer break, the Florida Supreme Court issued decisions in two direct appeals. Cox v. State This is Allen Ward Cox’s direct appeal from his sentence of death imposed on resentencing granted as a result of Hurst .1 The opinion is authored by Justice Sasso.

Convicted killer Peter Avsenew will represent himself next month when a jury is convened to determine whether he deserves to live or die.  Avsenew, 38, was convicted last year of the murders of Kevin Powell, 47, and Stephen Adams, 52, a Wilton Manors couple who took him into their home during the holiday season in 2010 only to have him turn on them, steal their car and escape to his mother’s home in Polk County.  Earlier this week, Avsenew rejected a deal that would have taken the death penalty off the table if he would agree not to pursue an investigation into jury misconduct at his retrial. Jurors admitted that they improperly discussed the case among themselves in a social media app, with some making up their minds before the penalty phase of his trial even began. 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The final hearing before the penalty phase of Johnathan Quiles’ trial was held Friday. On Thursday, Action News Jax broke the news live on air that the jury found Quiles guilty of raping and killing his 16-year-old pregnant niece, Iyana Sawyer. Sawyer was killed back in December of 2018. At the time, investigators say Quiles had shot and killed Sawyer before leaving her body in a dumpster. Sawyer’s body was never found, but the jury was convinced Quiles killed her . “Not having the body, not knowing where she rests, it’s a continued open wound, and it will always be an open wound,” Sawyer’s family attorney, John Phillips, told Action News Jax.

In most states, a death sentence may only be imposed by a jury in unanimous agreement. But in two recent cases, defendants now face death sentences despite the objections of jurors. In Missouri, a judge imposed a death sentence in Ian McCarthy’s case after the jury deadlocked in the penalty phase. In their recent filing challenging the sentence, Mr. McCarthy’s lawyers argue that “unanimous jury agreement is necessary to ensure that death sentences are imposed reliably on the most culpable defendants and reflect the judgment of the community.” 

Clarck Paul murdered Lamont Smalls in cold blood, jurors agreed Thursday. He did it less than an hour after murdering another man, Carlos Senluis, on Aug. 5, 2018. But he does not deserve to die, the jury decided. The decision to spare Paul’s life came even after the state made it easier to condemn a killer to death in Florida than anywhere else in the country — Florida requires a majority of just eight jurors (out of 12) to recommend a death sentence.

Jurors are continuing to deliberate the fate of the convicted Pittsburgh synagogue shooter PITTSBURGH — As jurors deliberate on the fate of the convicted shooter who killed 11 Jewish worshippers in the Tree of Life Synagogue, the Jewish community is split on its support of the death penalty. In mid-April, before the trial started, sisters Michele and Diane Rosenthal, sisters to two shooting victims David and Cecil Rosenthal, told reporters that a majority of the victims' families are in support of capital punishment in this case. "We don't want to be here, and we know the emotional toll this trial potentially brings, but we owe it to our brothers Cecil and David," Diane Rosenthal said at the time.

The gunman who killed 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 should be sentenced to death, federal prosecutors argued to a jury on Monday, specifically noting his hatred for Jews and ongoing lack of remorse. “He turned an ordinary Jewish Sabbath into the worst antisemitic mass shooting in US history, and he is proud of it,” US Attorney Eric Olshan said of the defendant, Robert Bowers. “This is a case that calls for the most severe punishment under the law – the death penalty,” he said. In contrast, defense attorney Judy Clarke argued his unstable childhood and mental health issues played a role in his “delusional” beliefs. She encouraged the jury to make their own personal moral decisions about the punishment.

CHICAGO — (AP) — Two separate shootings 2,000 miles (3,218 kilometers) apart. One killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The other killed 23 at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. Both were motivated by racial hate. Both involved gunmen who later claimed mental illness. But earlier this year, the Justice Department authorized the death penalty only for the case in Pittsburgh, where jurors will soon answer the weightiest of questions: Should Robert Bowers be put to death? Bowers' trial is in the penalty phase after his June conviction for the 2018 antisemitic attack. A federal judge last Friday gave Patrick Crusius the maximum available sentence for the 2019 Walmart attack on Hispanics: life in prison. He pleaded guilty after the department took a death sentence off the table.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- In deciding whether the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter will face the death penalty, the jury must first decide if he is eligible for the ultimate punishment.  On Monday, the final witness in this phase of the trial testified he meets all the qualifications.  Forensic psychiatrist Park Deitz is a nationally known expert in criminal psychology who has analyzed defendants or consulted in high-profile cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and unabomber Ted Kaczynski.  Deitz told the jury the gunman doesn't have schizophrenia or epilepsy but a personality disorder resulting in social isolation. The gunman, he said, was a loner who lacked close friends and communicated hour after hour only with other white supremacists on the internet who stoked his antisemitic hatred and wild conspiracy theories about Jews.

After the jury returned a guilty verdict Thursday night in the trial of Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles for double murder, the capital murder trial continued with the punishment phase Friday morning. During this phase, both the prosecution and the defense present their opening arguments as well as witnesses and evidence that help jurors reach a sentence for the defendant: life imprisonment without parole or death penalty. Prior to this, defense attorney William Boggs filed a motion that "future dangerousness" language not be included in the arguments because Burgos-Aviles would not be part of any society if sentenced to prison for life and would not represent a danger.

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The sentencing phase of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial is set to begin next week and jurors will decide whether or not the convicted gunman should face the death penalty. Last week, Robert Bowers was convicted and found guilty of all 63 federal charges he was facing for the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue on October 27, 2018 when he killed 11 worshippers from three different congregations, Tree of Life, Dor Hadash, and New Light. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger were all shot and killed that morning. 

A truck driver who spewed hatred of Jews has been convicted of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath and fatally shooting 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die PITTSBURGH (AP) — A truck driver who spewed hatred of Jews was convicted Friday of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die. The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers’ own lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole as the federal trial shifts to a penalty phase expected to last several weeks.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — One by one over the past two weeks, members of Jewish congregations in Pittsburgh have come to the witness stand in federal court and relived the horror of that October morning, when a gunman used high-powered weapons to kill 11 worshippers and badly injure others. Police officers have testified about responding to a scene of horrific carnage and immediately coming under fire themselves, some suffering life-altering wounds from a gunman raging against Jews in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. All of this is being entered fastidiously into the record for the benefit of the jurors and alternates in a federal courtroom in Pittsburgh. So are hundreds of court exhibits showing the aftermath of the violent invasion of sacred worship that day in the Tree of Life synagogue building.

The trial of the man charged in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history opened Tuesday with his own lawyer acknowledging that he planned and carried out the 2018 massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue and made hateful statements about Jewish people. Robert Bowers went to Tree of Life synagogue and “shot every person he saw,” defense attorney Judy Clarke acknowledged in her opening statement. Bowers, 50, could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of some of the 63 counts he faces in the Oct. 27, 2018, attack, which claimed the lives of 11 worshippers from three congregations who shared the building. Charges include 11 counts each of obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death and hate crimes resulting in death.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is currently incarcerated at the so-called “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” A decade after the fatal 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, a new Netflix true-crime docuseries is revisiting the unprecedented investigation and pursuit of the two home-grown terrorists that paralyzed the New England city. American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombing centers on the tense, terrifying days that followed the April 15, 2013 tragedy, culminating with the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the arrest of his then-19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The Tsarnaev brothers planted and detonated two homemade pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon’s finish line, killing three and wounding hundreds. Following his arrest days later, Dzhokhar was indicted for 30 crimes, including 17 capital offenses. In 2015, a jury found Dzhokhar guilty of all 30 charges, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction and the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer. Though D...

Lorenzo pleaded guilty to the sexual torture and killings of Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz as he asked a judge for the death penalty. Sentencing set for February TAMPA — Nineteen years since Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz vanished after visiting the same nightclub, Steven Lorenzo admitted in a Tampa courtroom that he drugged, sexually tortured and murdered both men before disposing of their bodies. In a slightly surreal court hearing Tuesday morning, Lorenzo listened quietly as a prosecutor recited a graphic account of the crimes. He said the details were mostly true, but then briefly told his own lurid if somewhat convoluted story in what he said was an effort to correct inaccuracies. He claimed that there were other people involved in the murder of Galehouse, and that the killing was “a group decision” to stop him from calling the police. He said he didn’t know the other people and was uncertain of their names. He described sexual activity with Galehouse, but said he d...