Death Penalty

Judge Allows Animal Drug to Be Used in Lethal Injections in Oklahoma

A sedative used to euthanize animals can be used to execute death-row inmates in Oklahoma, a federal judge has ruled. Oklahoma prison officials want to administer pentobarbital, used on animals and in physician-assisted suicides in Oregon and the Netherlands, according to the Associated Press and NewsOK.com. On Friday U.S. District…

Nov 23, 2010 12:00 PM CST

Inmates’ Last Words May Be Edited Under New Ohio Prison Rule

Ohio prison officials say they had no objection to a death-row inmate’s 17-minute prayer before his execution, but they did see the potential for future problems. Now they have a solution: A new prison rule allows the warden to place reasonable restrictions on final statements and to cut off statements…

Nov 19, 2010 5:26 PM CST

DNA Test Raises Doubts About Guilt of Inmate Executed for Robbery-Murder

A DNA test performed 10 years after the execution of a Texas inmate raises questions about his guilt in the robbery and murder that sent him to death row. The test on a hair shows it did not belong to convicted defendant Claude Jones, described as a “career criminal” by…

Nov 12, 2010 12:26 PM CST

Jail Officials Read Legal Mail & May Record Lawyers, Says Defense in Guard Murder Case

Lawyers defending Curtis Allgier in a Utah capital murder case clearly don’t have any easy job. A self-described white supremacist with a shaved head, the 31-year-old is heavily tattooed over his entire face, skull and neck. He gave an interview to KSL Broadcasting in 2007 in which he reportedly admitted…

Nov 3, 2010 9:53 PM CDT

Human Rights Group to Sue in UK in Effort to Prevent Export of Drug for Use in US Inmate’s Execution

In an effort to prevent, or at least postpone, the execution of a U.S. prison inmate on death row, a London-based human rights group says it has filed or will file suit in the United Kingdom to try to force a ban on the export from Britain of a scarce…

Nov 2, 2010 6:40 PM CDT

Prosecutors Blast Ex-DA in ‘Nightmare’ Case of Innocent Man Jailed 18 Years

Freed yesterday after spending 18 years in prison for a capital crime he did not commit, Anthony Graves was initially convicted because of a “nightmare” of prosecutorial misconduct that included withholding evidence and threatening witnesses, Texas prosecutors said in a press conference today. DA Bill Parham of Washington and Burleson…

Oct 28, 2010 9:07 PM CDT

Divided Supreme Court Vacates Execution Stay; Challenge Focused on Drug Shortage

The U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay of execution on Tuesday in the case of a death-row inmate who challenged the foreign origin of a lethal injection drug. Jeffrey Landrigan was put to death Tuesday evening after the Supreme Court lifted the stay in a 5-4 order that reversed the…

Oct 27, 2010 11:38 AM CDT

John Grisham Channels Upton Sinclair in New Novel

John Grisham’s new legal thriller, The Confession, combines fiction and advocacy in a story about a Lutheran pastor and a dying ex-con who stops by a church to confess to a murder. A Washington Post review calls the book “a superb work of social criticism in the literary troublemaker tradition…

Oct 27, 2010 11:00 AM CDT

Death Penalty Conviction Axed, New Trial Ordered Due to Judge’s Bias Against Defense Counsel

In what the Ohio Supreme Court describes in a slip opinion (PDF) today as a “highly extraordinary” case, it has vacated a death penalty conviction and ordered a new murder trial because of the trial judge’s bias against defense counsel. As Judge Douglas Rastatter of the Clark County Court of…

Oct 26, 2010 9:22 PM CDT

Watchdog Still Seeks to Sanction Top Texas Criminal Judge re Execution-Eve ‘We Close at 5’ Ruling

An attorney for the top criminal court judge in Texas hailed the elimination of a public warning earlier this month as a conclusive win for his client in a legal ethics case over the court’s refusal to accept a late appeal on the eve of the defendant’s execution. But the…

Oct 26, 2010 5:54 PM CDT

Public Warning Tossed Against ‘We Close at 5’ Texas Judge

A three-judge special court of review has dismissed a “public warning” against the Texas judge who refused to keep the state’s top criminal court open late for an execution-eve appeal. The decision means the case is over for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, according to her…

Oct 12, 2010 12:16 PM CDT

Who Gets the Lethal Injection? Drug Shortage Creates ‘Russian Roulette’ Scenario

A national shortage of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs commonly included in a lethal cocktail used to execute prison inmates on death row, has created a “Russian roulette” scenario in at least one state and could do so in 34 more, an expert says. Death Penalty Information Center Director…

Sep 28, 2010 7:36 PM CDT

Teresa Lewis Executed; Kagan Broke with Female Colleagues in Stay Vote

Justice Elena Kagan broke ranks with her female colleagues and voted to deny a stay of execution for Teresa Lewis, who died by lethal injection in Virginia Thursday evening. The only justices who voted in favor of a stay were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, the blog Sentencing Law…

Sep 24, 2010 11:37 AM CDT

50 Years Later, Harper Lee’s ‘Mockingbird’ Still a Cautionary Tale for Our Times, AG Holder Says

It’s been 50 years since Harper Lee published her now-famous book To Kill a Mockingbird. But her fictional tale of racial injustice, focused on a Southern lawyer’s efforts to defend an unpopular client at trial in a rape case, is still a cautionary story for our times, said U.S. Attorney…

Sep 21, 2010 11:44 PM CDT

John Grisham Sees Va. Case as ‘Glaring Example’ of Death Penalty’s Unfairness

Legal thriller author John Grisham is taking a look at a real life case of a woman who got the death penalty for plotting two murders carried out by two men who avoided the same fate. On the advice of her lawyers, Teresa Lewis pleaded guilty after cooperating with authorities,…

Sep 13, 2010 2:13 PM CDT