McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed a man Thursday for his role in the 1992 shooting death of a convenience store owner after the governor rejected a recommendation from the state’s parole board to spare his life. Emmanuel Littlejohn, 52, received a lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and was declared dead at 10:17 … Read more
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina put Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause because prison officials couldn’t get the drugs needed for lethal injections. Owens was convicted of the 1997 killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk during a robbery. While on trial, Owens killed an … Read more
In 2016, the Democratic Party became the country’s first major political party to formally call for abolishing the death penalty. The party’s platform that year, released in the aftermath of a high-profile botched execution, called the punishment “cruel and unusual,” “arbitrary and unjust,” expensive to taxpayers and ineffective in deterring crime. The document also nodded … Read more
A table fitted with restraints before an execution at Huntsville Unit in Texas (Image: Getty) Moments before her children’s killer was to be executed, the grieving mother confronted prison chaplain Jim Brazzil outside the Death Chamber in Huntsville, Texas. “Let me get this right,” she said. “You want to lead this man to Jesus, so … Read more
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday scrapped a plea agreement with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, just two days after the announcement of a deal that reportedly would have taken the death penalty off the table. Agreements with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices announced Wednesday had appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward … Read more
McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma executed a man Thursday who was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing his 7-year-old former stepdaughter in 1984. Richard Rojem, 66, received a three-drug lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and was declared dead at 10:16 a.m., prison officials said. Rojem, who had been in prison since … Read more
Texas executed Ramiro Gonzales on Wednesday despite a stunning reversal from a psychiatrist who helped send him to death row 17 years ago. Gonzales, 41, was killed by lethal injection at 6:50 p.m. Central time as punishment for kidnapping, raping and murdering Bridget Townsend when they were both 18. At the time, Gonzales was struggling … Read more
In 2006, Ramiro Gonzales was sentenced to death in Texas as punishment for kidnapping, raping and killing Bridget Townsend when they were both 18 years old. There were indications that Gonzales did not represent the “worst of the worst” kind of criminal that the death penalty is supposedly reserved for. Like many on death row, … Read more
BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A man convicted of killing his former lover and her husband in what prosecutors described as a fit of rage was executed Tuesday evening in Missouri. David Hosier, 69, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. following a single-dose injection of the sedative pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. … Read more
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri death row prisoner who is due to be executed next month has been hospitalized because of a “medical emergency,” a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections said. David Hosier, 69, is scheduled to be put to death June 11 for killing a Jefferson City couple, Angela and Rodney … Read more
