Death Penalty News

An appeals court in Morocco has confirmed death sentences handed down to three men for the beheading of two Scandinavian tourists in the Atlas Mountains. The murders last year shocked the North African country. An anti-terrorist court in the northwestern city of Sale on Wednesday upheld the death penalty against three defendants and ordered a fourth man to be executed over the murder of two Scandinavian hikers. The four had been convicted in July for decapitating Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and Norwegian Maren Ueland, 28, in the High Atlas mountain range last December. RELATED  |  Morocco court condemns 3 to death for decapitation of Scandinavian hikers They had pledged allegiance to the extremist group "Islamic State" in a video shot days before the women's bodies were discovered near the summit of Mount Toubkal. Among those sentenced to death was ringleader Abdessamad Ejjoud, an underground imam, who had confessed to plannin...

The Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay of execution to Ray “Jeff” Cromartie, who had been set to die tonight. The stay is provisional and focuses on whether the execution order was properly filed earlier this month by in Thomas County Superior Court while the Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the case.  The court asked attorneys for the state and inmate to file briefs addressing the question by Monday morning. The execution order in question said Cromartie was to be executed by next Wednesday, Nov. 6. But the Supreme Court’s ruling said the order “may be void.” Cromartie had been set to be executed at 7 p.m. today by a lethal injection of pentobarbitol, but he was awaiting word on last-minute appeals, which is how the Supreme Court ended up with jurisdiction over the case.  The 52-year-old has been hoping for a court to order new DNA testing, which he said could prove it was actually his accomplice who killed store clerk Richard Slysz, 50, during a r...

Less than a month before Rodney Reed's scheduled execution, a group of law enforcement officials joined a state lawmaker to make an 11th hour effort to save his life. State Representative Vikkie Goodwin of Austin is one of the many people who believe Reed could be innocent. “I’m more convinced that he did not receive a fair trial, that there is a racial basis against Rodney Reed and Reed did not kill Stacey Stites,” said Goodwin Rodney Reed was convicted of Stites' rape and murder in 1998. His defense argued he and Stites were having an affair, and that Jimmy Fennell, Stites fiance, had motive and opportunity to kill her. Fennell later served ten years in prison for the kidnapping and improper sexual conduct with a woman in his custody as a police officer in Georgetown. Goodwin spoke in the same room with the people behind an amicus brief sent to the U.S. Supreme Court. The group made up of 13 current and former Texas law enforcement officers believe Reed’s execu...

(THE CONVERSATION) -- Recently, several states, including Nevada, have introduced bills that cite legal costs as one of the reasons for ending the death penalty. National trends show the death penalty is being sought and imposed less frequently. There is also ample evidence that the costs for seeking and administering the death penalty have increased significantly since the 1980s. As our recent studies have revealed, this is the case in both Oregon and Washington. The findings clearly show that the costs for death penalty trials and appeals for both Oregon and Washington have increased significantly over time. Understanding all of the reasons why costs have increased is complicated. But much of the cost increases can be attributed to changes in public opinion, the law and in the advancement of scientific evidence and methods, all of which impact legal practice regarding death penalty cases. Putting a price on the death penalty Until recently, attempts to measur...

The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has declined to grant a stay of execution to Ray “Jeff” Cromartie, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday for the 1994 murder of a South Georgia store clerk. The denial clears the way for the execution to move forward unless the 52-year-old inmate succeeds in asking various courts to order new DNA testing.  Cromartie has maintained his innocence in the shooting, claiming it was a co-defendant who pulled the trigger and killed Richard Slysz, 50.  Cromartie’s attorneys asked the board to grant a stay to provide time for the DNA fight, but the board found it doesn’t have the authority to grant a stay for that purpose. RELATED |  Georgia: DA, former investigator to argue against clemency for Cromartie In a rare move, Cromartie declined to submit a formal request for clemency from the board because the request would require him to ask for his death sentence to be converted to life without parole. “T...

HECTOR, Ark. — In early December, if nothing else changes, Daniel Lewis Lee will be the first federal prisoner put to death in nearly two decades. He was sentenced 20 years ago after being convicted — along with another man, both white supremacists on the hunt for guns and cash — of taping bags over the heads of a husband, wife and 8-year-old girl, tying rocks around them and throwing them into a bayou. “We owe it to the victims and their families,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in July, “to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.” As much as anyone, Earlene Branch Peterson, who lost her daughter Nancy and granddaughter Sarah in those murders, is the kind of person Mr. Barr was talking about. Now 80, and a conservative Trump supporter who lives in the Ozarks, she has come to a firm conviction about what she is owed and not owed. “Please,” she said. “Don’t put Daniel Lee to death.” There is nothing straightforward about death as retribution...

Premier Su Tseng-chang’s remark on the death penalty sparked activist outrage last week, and discussions on the abolition of capital punishment will be a crucial item on Taiwan’s 2020 policy agenda. “Confirmed death sentences should be carried out,” Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said during a legislative inquiry on October 25, as the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) concluded its Congress in Taipei. Su made his remark when a DPP legislator asked if carrying out death penalty would violate the existing international covenants on civil rights. Taiwan's anti-death penalty community immediately criticized Premier Su’s response to the inquiry. In an open letter, Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡), executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP), and Wu Chih-kuang (吳志光), a law professor at Fu Jen Catholic University, questioned whether Su remembered his promise to explore alternatives to capital punishment from 15 years ago. The Case of Chiou Ho...

A killer who beheaded an 8-month-old girl has been sentenced to death by firing squad. Viktar Syarhel, 26, butchered little Anna Kolb after a mammoth drinking session with the toddler's mother in Brest, Belarus. Brest Regional Court heard how Anna's horrified dad Leonid discovered his daughter "lying in a pool of blood, her head severed" when he came home from work. Viktar and Anna's bloodsoaked mum Natalya were found nearby in a drunken stupor. Anna's 46 injuries were so severe that paramedics fainted when they walked in. Viktar was sentenced to death by firing squad, while the mother was locked up for 25 years - the maximum possible sentence for a woman. The court heard how Anna had been badly beaten before the beheading - which was carried out with "particular cruelty." A neighbour said: "When Leonid came into the flat he saw a scene out of the horror movies. "The ambulance doctor fainted when she came ...