Death Penalty News

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A man who was nearly put to death before an execution warrant expired last month amid disagreements between U.S. Supreme Court justices is again set to die by lethal injection in Alabama. Christopher Lee Price's execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday [May, 30] at Holman prison. The 46-year-old was convicted of using a sword and knife to kill a country preacher during a 1991 Christmastime robbery. Price would become the second inmate put to death in Alabama in two weeks. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused a stay on Wednesday for Price, who is challenging the state's method of using three drugs during lethal injections. He could again ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Price has asked to instead die by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method Alabama has legally authorized but not developed. His lawyers argue the method, which kills by depleting the body of oxygen, would be less painful than lethal injection. Price sued...

Harold Wilson was convicted of a triple murder in a Philadelphia crack house in 1989, and sentenced to die 3 times. Instead, he fought for his life. Wilson became the 6th person exonerated from Pennsylvania’s death row, and spent his later years a staunch and outspoken death-penalty abolitionist. He died May 18 of complications from a stroke. He was 61. Despite 17 years in solitary confinement, he told a Democracy Now! interviewer in 2005, “I never gave them that opportunity to dehumanize me.” He grew up on 18th Street in South Philadelphia, in a house spilling over with his 5 brothers and a sister, according to Avis Savage, a friend of 40 years.  An entrepreneur, he had 2 children and a couple businesses before he was charged and convicted in the 1988 hatchet slaying of Dorothy Sewell, 64, her nephew Tyrone Mason, 33, and Mason’s girlfriend, Cynthia Goines Mills, 40. “He was in shock for a long period of time. He didn’t understand how they were going to kill...

Thailand has toughened its laws related to rape in a bid to better prevent, or at least curb, sexual crimes. Sexual attacks against children below the age of 13, for example, will result in life in prison under the tougher law, while penalties will double for rapists who share recordings of the assault. The new law also recognises sexual crimes against men and corpses. Promulgated in the Royal Gazette on Monday, the act to amend the Criminal Code’s rape section prescribes harsher punishments against sexual attackers and recognises new forms of the crime. Death penalty will be given in cases where the victim dies as a result of sexual violence. Panadda Wongphudee, a beauty queen-turned-campaigner, has hailed the new law as being more comprehensive and in line with the modern context. “For instance, it addresses the issue of audio and video recordings of sexual assaults,” she said, adding that under this law, police can no longer push victims to settle the matter out of co...

BAGHDAD -- Iraq on Wednesday handed over 188 Turkish children of suspected Islamic State militants to Turkey, while a court sentenced two former Islamic State members to death for joining the extremist group.  They included one Frenchman and a Tunisian resident of France, raising the number of French citizens condemned to death in the past week to seven. The two developments Wednesday point to the legacy left behind by the Islamic State and its so-called caliphate that once spanned a third of both Iraq and Syria.  Besides the atrocities and devastation the group wreaked, thousands of foreigners -- including hundreds of children born to parents who lived under or fought with the Islamic State -- have been caught in Iraq's justice system. At Baghdad airport, the 188 Turkish children were handed over to Turkish government representatives in the presence of Iraqi government officials and the U.N. children's agency, Judge Abdul Sattar Bayraqdar said. The Fren...

Baghdad (AFP) -- A Baghdad court sentenced a Frenchman to death on Wednesday for joining the Islamic State group, bringing to seven the number of French jihadists on death row in Iraq . Yassin Sakkam was among 12 French citizens transferred to Iraqi authorities in January by a US-backed force fighting the jihadist group in neighbouring Syria. "I admit to having sworn allegiance" to IS, he told the court, saying he was paid $70 (62 euros) a month. Sakkam, who was dressed in a yellow prison uniform and sported a closely cropped goatee, said he regretted his decision to join IS, and asked to be pardoned. Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists in recent months after they were captured by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces during the battle to destroy the IS "caliphate". They include hundreds of foreigners suspected of IS membership, raising the question of whether suspected IS jihadists should be tried in the region or repatriated. ...

BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana state senators Tuesday narrowly scrapped a measure that would have shielded the identity of drug suppliers for executions, appearing to end debate over capital punishment for the legislative session. Republican Rep. Nicholas Muscarello of Hammond described his House-approved bill, which was backed by Attorney General Jeff Landry, as helping to restart long-stalled lethal injections in the state. Louisiana held its last execution in 2010. The corrections department has said it can't get lethal injection drugs because companies don't want their products publicly associated with capital punishment. Michelle Ghetti of the attorney general's office described threats made to pharmacies that she said have discouraged them from supplying execution drugs. She said 18 other states have enacted similar public-records exemption laws. "It does work. It has alleviated the problem and has allowed states to move forward with enforcing their ...

In a video posted to her office's Facebook page Tuesday morning, Aramis Ayala announced she will not seek re-election as state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties next year. Ayala, who became Florida's first African American state attorney when elected in 2016, is the chief prosecutor for Florida's Ninth Judicial Circuit.  In the three-minute video, she cited her opposition to Florida's death penalty and an August 2017 state Supreme Court decision that found that the state's elected prosecutors can't impose anti-death penalty policies.  "After the Florida Supreme Court's decision on the death penalty, it became abundantly clear to me that death penalty law in the state of Florida is in direct conflict with my view and my vision for the administration of justice," Ayala said. "Now as state attorney, those views will not impact the administration of law, and I will continue to follow the law. But I also realize it is time fo...

An Iraqi court on Tuesday sentenced two high-profile French members of the Islamic State group to death, including one who featured in a propaganda video praising the 2015 Paris attacks, bringing the total number of French former jihadis condemned to death this week to six. France said it would do all it can to spare the group from execution in Iraq. Although it has made no effort to bring back the captured fighters, France is outspoken against the death penalty globally. The sentencings in Iraq come amid controversy about the legal treatment of thousands of foreign fighters who had joined IS at the height of its power in Syria and Iraq when the militant group declared its self-styled caliphate. Human rights groups are concerned they are being rushed through Iraqi counterterrorism courts in trials that raise questions over whether justice is being done. Convictions are often based on confessions that defendants and rights groups say are extracted by intimidation, torture ...

A judge will take the jury's recommendation and make the final decision on his sentence. A jury is recommending the death penalty for Lionel Francis, who last week was found guilty of murdering his daughter. A judge will take the jury's recommendation and make the final decision on his sentence. Sentencing is scheduled for July 25. Francis was found guilty on Friday in the trial for the May 2016 death. Police say Francis got into a fight with the mother of his 20-month-old daughter, Alexandria Francis, leading him to shooting the young girl in the head. He was arrested and charged with capital murder. RELATED | Huntsville man found guilty in daughter’s murder Francis has said he accidentally fired his gun when his daughter tried to hug him while he was cleaning the weapon. Prosecutor, Tim Douthit, said when Francis shot the toddler in the head, it was evil and not an an accident. "The toughest part for me to get over and for the j...

Sixteen people face the death penalty after allegedly luring a teenager to a rooftop and burning her alive.  Nusrat Jahan had reported a case of sexual assault by her headteacher, and faced a backlash from other students for it who didn’t believe her.  She had gone to police to give a statement, but had been filmed crying by an officer on his phone as she described the molestation, in a video later leaked to local media.  Police can be heard telling her it was ‘no big deal’ as she refuses to move her hands from her face.  After refusing to withdraw the allegations, she went into Feni Madrasa, her Islamic school, to try to sit her exams with her brother as protection.  Instead, she was brought up to a rooftop on the pretense that a friend was being beaten up, and met by a group who allegedly poured kerosene over her and set her alight.  Nusrat, 18, died in hospital from her burns five days later, sparking huge protests and demands ...