15
Feb
2013
Advances in forensic science have made physical evidence increasingly crucial in criminal justice – but the practice of preserving and maintaining that evidence is often underfunded, poorly managed, or just plain sloppy.For more than a decade, lawyers for death row inmate Hank Skinner fought prosecutors – in Gray County and the attorney general's o...Read more http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2013/02/wheres-your-evidence.html15
Feb
2013
Yemeni policemen prepare Yahia al-Raghwa,22, for his execution outside the centralprison in Sanaa on July 6, 2009.Yemeni authorities 'ignored pleas' to save prisoner from execution; Death sentences in Yemen are often passed after proceedings that fall short of fair trial13
Feb
2013
Pranab MukherjeeIndian presidentPresident's refusal to grant mercy sees biggest rise in use of death penalty in India for almost two decades.Pranab Mukherjee, India's president, has reportedly rejected the mercy petitions of four associates of a notorious forest brigand sentenced to death in a
In the shadow of the execution of Afzal Guru, hanged for his role in a 2001 terrorist attack on parliament, India's most high-profile death-row inmates await an uncertain fate.AG Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan - the latter 2 of whom use only 1 name - are lodged in a prison in Vellore, in the13
Feb
2013
Public hanging in TehranFebruary 13, 2013 Iran Human Rights, February 13: One prisoner was publicly hanged in Tehran today.According to the state run Iranian news agency Fars the man was convicted of murdering two girls in 2005.The public execution was carried out early this morning at12
Feb
2013
An effort to abolish the death penalty in Florida finally got a hearing last week in a House committee after a three-year effort, but then quickly went down to defeat.The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee voted 9-4 against a bill (HB 4005) that would have statutorily abolished the death penalty11
Feb
2013
Randolph Arledge, right, embraces hisson, Chris Rodgers, center. CORSICANA, Texas — A 58-year-old Texas man walked free Monday after serving years for a crime he didn't commit — the repeated stabbing of a woman whose body was found on a dirt road in rural North Texas.Randolph Arledge was
Pharmaceutical makers have long promoted their products as a means to enhance or prolong life. Now some have been enmeshed in a transatlantic battle over whether their drugs can also be used to end it. Europe is escalating its war on the U.S. practice of executing inmates with prescription drugs07
Feb
2013
Executions in 2012, from Death Penalty Information Center's 2012 Year End Report. You can read the full text at deathpenaltyinfo.org/YearEnd2012...Read more http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/2013/02/usa-executions-in-2012.html06
Feb
2013
2/3 of Hungarians would consider it desirable for Hungary to review its EU membership or some of the commitments resulting from membership, according to a poll conducted by the Iranytu Institute.A further 23.8% oppose the idea, while 9.7% did not take a stand.Only 17% said Hungary has benefited06
Feb
2013
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia personally intervened to save a local woman from execution after she was sentenced to death eight years ago for murdering a Yemeni man, newspapers in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Wednesday.Amina bin Mohammed Dagreeri, 55, had been on the death row all that time but05
Feb
2013
Public hanging in TehranJan. 20, 2013Iran has begun handing down death sentences for robbery – a crime that previously carried much less severe punishments. In socially and politically uncertain times, the regime is increasingly resorting to Draconian measures in the hope that these will serve as14
Feb
2013
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire — which last executed an inmate more than 70 years ago, by hanging — would likely carry out an execution in a prison gymnasium rather than construct a costly death chamber for its lone death row prisoner, Corrections Commissioner William Wren said13
Feb
2013
The state of Georgia has rescheduled the execution of a mentally handicapped inmate for February 19. Warren Lee Hill Jr. was scheduled for execution last summer; however, the Georgia Department of Corrections changed the lethal injection process and delayed his execution.The same day that the
Dubai: Seventeen men owing allegiance to a bootlegging gang, who were spared the death penalty after being involved in the murder of a member of a rival gang, returned to their home country on Tuesday after a travel ban imposed on them by a Sharjah court was lifted a few days ago.The convicts, all13
Feb
2013
Iran Human Rights, February 12: Two prisoners were hanged in Arak (South of Tehran) and one prisoner is scheduled to be hanged publicly in Tehran tomorrow (Feb. 13), reported the Iranian state media.According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA two prisoners identified as "A. M." (29)12
Feb
2013
Officials in the Kremlin and in parliament have rejected the possibility of a return of the death penalty in Russian after Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said in an interview that he saw nothing wrong in it.Kolokoltsev commented on 2 recent murders of small girls and said that is some
Barely 6 months after he moved into Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the two most talked about mercy petitions in recent times, resulting in the hanging of terror convicts in both cases.The rejection of mercy petitions filed by Mumbai terror convict Ajmal Amir Kasab and09
Feb
2013
NEW DELHI: Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru has been hanged in Delhi's Tihar jail on Saturday morning.According to TV reports, home ministry has confirmed that Afzal Guru has been hanged.Earlier the reports said that his mercy plea had been rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee. He was07
Feb
2013
Sr. Prejean, Paris, 2007Prejean sees the problem is a US “culture of violence” that needs to change. There is a “seesaw” view of the world, “justice means, he’s dead- he dies.” Prejean has seen the pressure this puts on the families of victims to ask for the death penalty. Society says, “you have06
Feb
2013
Prince (L) and servant (R)London: A Saudi prince jailed for life in Britain for murdering his servant is to serve the rest of his sentence in his home country, a British government source said on Tuesday.Prince Saud Bin Abdul Aziz Bin Nasir, a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah II, was
February 5, 2013: Saudi authorities beheaded a man some thirty years after he was convicted of murder, after his victim's youngest son came of age and agreed to the punishment.The country's Interior Ministry announced that Abdullah al-Shomari was beheaded in the northern city of Ha'il for beating05
Feb
2013
Louisiana Death RowThe Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops asked the Jindal administration late Monday to halt the scheduled execution Feb. 13 of a convicted child killer because that lethal injection would occur on Ash Wednesday.“To execute a faithful Catholic on Ash Wednesday would be14
Feb
2013
Seventy-two hours before death row inmates are executed, they are placed under constant surveillance by prison guards. For nearly a decade, it was Bobby Allen's job to monitor these condemned men as they awaited their fate in the execution chamber. In 1981, Allen was only 22 years old13
Feb
2013
South African Minister of Women and Child Lulu Xingwane has dismissed the possibility of reinstating the death sentence, describing it 'as against the democratic values of the country.'Despite an alarming rate of rape cases in the country for which some organisations have called for the death13
Feb
2013
Public execution by beheadingin a KSA parking lotShammari mediated a pardon for killer before he himself was beheadedA Saudi killer who was beheaded in the Gulf Kingdom last week after spending nearly 30 years in jail saved the life of a fellow inmate convicted of murdering another Saudi when he12
Feb
2013
Indiana Death ChamberProsecutors say the decision not to seek the death penalty against 3 suspects charged in last year's south side explosion involved many factors. I-Team 8 took an in-depth look at the decision-making process.Early Monday morning, Prosecutor Terry Curry filed formal requests to12
Feb
2013
Riyadh: Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its nationals on Tuesday in the southwestern Aseer region after he was convicted of murdering a fellow citizen, the interior ministry announced.Mohammad Al Qah’tani shot dead Mueed Al Qah’tani during a fight between the two, the ministry said in a statementPublic execution in KSAA spree of executions that has sent 10 prisoners to their deaths since the beginning of the year in Saudi Arabia must be halted, Amnesty International said today.The beheadings included the death of Abdullah Fandi al-Shammari on 5 February 2013 who had originally been08
Feb
2013
Hood, Holland, the judge, O’Connell, the prosecutorCharles Dean Hood, the death row inmate who insisted he was innocent in the 1989 killings of a Plano man and his girlfriend, has pleaded guilty instead of facing a new sentencing trial. He was sentenced to life and cannot appeal. He will not07
Feb
2013
Iran Human Rights, February 6: Three prisoners were hanged in the prison of Isfahan reported the Iranian state media today.According to the website of the Iranian national broadcasting the three prisoners who were not identified by name were convicted of drug related charges.Source: Iran Human06
Feb
2013
Serge AtlaouiSerge Atlaoui is one of the 2,200 French nationals detained abroad that Florence Cassez's recent release [Cassez was sentenced to 60 years in jail for kidnapping in Mexico and recently freed by Mexico's Supreme Court] has brought to light. As 40% of them, he was arrested for drug05
Feb
2013
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, a beefy, crew-cut man whose blue T-shirt reads “Witness to Innocence,” took the microphone in a church hall here and ran through his story of injustice and redemption one more time. Twenty years ago, he walked out of a Maryland prison, the first inmate inA Saudi man convicted of killing another Saudi could be executed in the next few days after spending nearly 30 years in prison, newspapers reported on Monday.Abdullah bin Fandi Al Shammari was around 23-years old when he used a large stick to hit his victim on the head during a fight in the