Death Penalty News

HOLMES COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – In just three minutes, Johnny Mack “Sketo” Calhoun was sentenced to death for a second time Friday morning. “It is the order of this court that Johnny Sketo Mack Calhoun be sentenced to death in a manner prescribed by the state of Florida for the first-degree murder of Mia Chay Brown,” said Chief Judge Christopher Patterson. After the eight-day resentencing hearing in April, a jury recommended that Calhoun receive the death penalty for the 2010 murder of Mia Chay Brown.

For weeks, Isaiah Mosley shuffled into the morning chaos of the Miami criminal courthouse. He would head upstairs and find his place in the jury box of courtroom 4-1, sitting feet away from the man convicted of leaving a 5-year-old girl to be eaten by alligators in the dark, mucky waters of the Everglades.  Mosley, alongside 11 other jurors, faced a daunting task: Whether Harrel Franklin Braddy, who kidnapped the girl and her mother nearly three decades ago, should get life or death for his heinous crime. 

After about 4 hours of deliberations, jurors on Friday recommended Harrel Braddy should be sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 killing of 5-year-old Quantisha Maycock.  A South Florida man who dropped off a 5-year-old child in the Everglades to be eaten alive by gators nearly 3 decades ago was given a second chance at life as jurors recommended he should spend the rest of his life behind bars instead of being sent to death row. After about four hours of deliberations, jurors on Friday recommended Harrel Braddy should be sentenced to life in prison for the 1998 killing of 5-year-old Quantisha Maycock. 

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Idaho took another step toward its first execution of a female prisoner after the state’s highest court rejected an appeal Thursday from the only woman on its death row. The Idaho Supreme Court ruled to deny a request to send the capital case of Robin Row, convicted of three murders more than 30 years ago, back to state district court for possible resentencing to life in prison. Her attorneys argued she received inadequate legal representation in her original trial, when she was sentenced to death, after they failed to offer evidence of Row’s brain damage.

Man admitted to working with an overseas trafficker for a fee of Dh5,000 per delivery.  Dubai: A man convicted of trafficking large quantities of the amphetamine Captagon has been spared the death penalty after the UAE’s highest court overturned three previous death sentences, citing procedural flaws. He was resentenced to life imprisonment instead. The Asian national had initially been convicted by Abu Dhabi’s federal criminal court after undercover officers arranged a sting operation in which he delivered a car trunk full of drugs on behalf of a dealer based outside the country. 

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday opened a second trial in the case of Mark Dave Velasco, a 30-year-old Filipino migrant worker convicted of killing and dismembering his girlfriend in 2023. Velasco is appealing his life sentence. Prosecutors have also contested the original ruling, arguing it was too lenient and seeking the death penalty, per CNA. Velasco was found guilty in the first trial under Taiwan’s lay judge system of murdering his girlfriend, Red Michelle Selda, following a dispute at their rented apartment in Taoyuan. Prosecutors said he killed Selda during the altercation, dismembered her body, and fled with her wallet and phone.

LOS ANGELES — A California judge on Tuesday resentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez, making the siblings eligible for parole in the shotgun killings of their parents more than three decades ago. The ruling from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic came after months of delays, opposition from Los Angeles County's new top prosecutor and a series of witnesses who testified during a sometimes emotional hearing Tuesday that Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, had changed for the better and are now "different men," as a cousin, Anamaria Baralt, put it.

A federal judge in Boston is vigorously denying the marathon bomber’s last-ditch accusation that another magistrate must reexamine the killer’s death penalty sentencing.  In a stinging rebuke, Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. states he won’t step aside as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev fights for his life.  Tsarnaev was convicted in 2015 of all 30 charges against him and remains locked up for life in the Colorado supermax prison ADX Florence.  Tsarnaev’s lawyers allege 2 jurors were biased when they agreed to sentence the bomber to death in June of 2015 for “using weapons of mass destruction” at the marathon finish line. The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has instructed O’Toole to take another look at the alleged bias of those jurors. 

As the city marks the 12th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits on federal death row for admittingly detonating bombs at the finish line that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Yet, his fate remains uncertain after a decade of legal wrangling, as his lawyers continue to challenge his death sentence.  The federal judge who presided over his 2015 trial was ordered by an appeals court in March 2024 to investigate defense claims that two jurors were biased and should have been stricken from the panel. If he finds they were, then Tsarnaev is entitled to a new trial over whether he should be sentenced to life in prison or death, according to the appeals court. 

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week that a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole for young adults who were 19 or 20 years old at the time of the offense is a “grossly disproportionate punishment” that violates the Michigan Constitution. The decision extends to 19- and 20-year-olds the court’s 2022 ruling in People v. Parks , which applied the federal constitutional ban on automatic life-without-parole sentences for juveniles to 18-year-olds under the broader and more protective provisions of the Michigan Constitution.

Decades after they were sentenced to life without parole for murdering their parents, the Menendez brothers may have a route to freedom. But what is their case, is there new evidence and why has a decision been delayed? The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989, will soon find out if they can be released from prison. Lyle Menendez, 56, and his 53-year-old brother Erik are serving life in prison without parole for the shotgun murders of their father and mother - Jose and Kitty Menendez.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Monday delayed until January his decision on whether to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion 35 years ago, squashing their family’s hope the brothers would be released and home for the holidays. Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said at the hearing in Los Angeles that he needed time to review 17 boxes of documents and give a new district attorney in Los Angeles County time to weigh in on the case.

More than three decades after Lyle and Erik Menendez were convicted of the murders of their parents and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the brothers now see a path to their potential release. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón on Friday will recommend that a judge resentence the siblings – a decision that was the culmination of a review that came after defense attorneys said in 2023 they had new evidence pointing to abuse by their father.

The Los Angeles district attorney has released new evidence in the Lyle and Erik Menendez case that could potentially lead to a review of their life sentences for murder. After their first widely publicized trial ended in a mistrial, a jury convicted the Menendez brothers of murdering their parents, Jose and Kitty, following a second trial in 1996. While they never denied killing their parents, the brothers claimed they acted in self-defense and were lifelong victims of sexual abuse by their father. During the second trial, prosecutors argued the “abuse didn’t happen” and the judge overseeing the case did not allow much of the defense’s evidence of abuse to be presented, according to the brothers’ attorneys.

CNN — Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian dissident rapper who escaped the death penalty earlier this summer has been cleared entirely of the original charges by a lower court in Isfahan, central Iran. Salehi became a key voice of anti-government dissent in Iran during the 2022 ‘Woman, Life Freedom’ protests, with lyrics that galvanized protesters and urged them to unite. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth” last year.

Kansas - A judge has denied a request by death-row inmates Jonathan and Reginald Carr to be resentenced in a December 2000 crime spree that included five murders. The Carr brothers filed motions in November requesting a new hearing to determine whether the evidence supports the death penalty. Their lawyers also sought new pre-sentencing reports and journal entries in the case.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - An Alabama House committee rejected a bill that would have impacted sentences for dozens of death row inmates. The proposal would have required courts to resentence people sentenced to death by a judge who overrode a jury’s recommendation of life in prison. That practice was outlawed in 2017. Representative Chris England passionately argued it should be retroactively applied for more than 30 death row inmates who were sentenced to death over a jury’s recommendation.

SAN JOSE – Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced on Friday that he has ordered the county's 15 inmates on California's death row to be resentenced to life without parole (LWOP). In a statement, Rosen said he is using a state law that allows district attorneys to resentence inmates if they determine the sentence "no longer serve justice."

KUALA LUMPUR: The first case to review a sentence after abolishing the mandatory death penalty and life imprisonment will be heard in the Apex court on Nov 14. Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reforms) Ramkarpal Singh said the case under the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023 or Act 847 will be heard at the Federal Court in Putrajaya. He said as of Oct 31, 924 applications for review of sentences have been submitted to court.

A Columbus man who has been on death row since his 2020 conviction on two murder charges will now serve life in prison under a 2021 Ohio law forbidding the execution of people who were severely mentally ill at the time of their offense. Michael R. Turner, 64, was sentenced to death for the June 12, 2001, killing of his estranged wife, Jennifer Lyles Turner, and her boyfriend, Ronald Seggerman, at her Reynoldsburg apartment. A three-judge panel sentenced Turner to death after he pleaded guilty in 2002 to two counts of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications.