Georgia's highest court on Wednesday declined to hear an appeal filed for a man on death row claiming that his execution would be unconstitutional because he has cognitive impairments that cause him to function like a young child.
Lucio is scheduled to be executed for the death of her 2-year-old daughter. Her supporters say she was forced into a false "confession" and that new evidence exists that proves her innocence.
Richard Bernard Moore is the first prisoner in South Carolina to face the choice of execution methods since the state made electrocution the default and gave inmates the option to face rifles instead.
Lawyers say an ambiguous statement by Lucio during questioning was wrongly interpreted by prosecutors as a murder confession, during the investigation into her daughter Mariah's 2007 death.
South Carolina's governor signed a law last year forcing death row inmates to choose the manner of their execution: either by firing squad or electric chair if lethal injection is not possible.
A poor reader, Matthew Reeves is intellectually disabled and wasn't capable of making a decision on the method of execution without assistance, his lawyers argued.
In 1988, Georgia banned the executions of intellectually disabled people and now is the only state that has a more substantial burden than “by clear and convincing evidence.”
Unable to obtain lethal injection drugs, some states have turned to outmoded alternatives, which also includes the electric chair, to execute prisoners on death row.
Former prosecutors and judges say Toforest Johnson's murder conviction was based on shaky evidence. The case is getting a new look as district attorneys review the integrity of past prosecutions.
Takahiro Shiraishi murdered and dismembered eight women and one man in his apartment near Tokyo. He used Twitter to lure most of his victims, promising he could help them kill themselves.
Opposition to the death penalty is "a teaching that deserves our respect," says Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley. "I don't think it can be simply disregarded."
A three-judge panel sends Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case back to a lower court for resentencing, saying the jury that sentenced him to death had not been adequately vetted.
Wesley Purkey was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, the second federal execution this week after a 17-year hiatus. The high court's 5-4 decision allowed the execution to proceed.
Lawyers for the state of Georgia have conceded that the order for an execution scheduled Wednesday is void. Ray Jefferson Cromartie was scheduled to die...
