Death Penalty

Pennsylvania county mails capital defense lawyer’s checks to another person with same name

A Pennsylvania county intending to pay a lawyer for capital defense work sent two checks for more than $40,000 to the wrong person. Luzerne County sent the checks to Pittston mason Bernard Brown rather than Carbondale lawyer Bernard Brown. The Citizens’ Voice, the Wilkes Barre Times-Leader and the Associated Press…

Jan 21, 2015 6:15 AM CST

Defense lawyers say prosecutor in theater massacre is seeking death penalty for political reasons

As jury selection begins in the trial of James Holmes, the accused shooter in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre, some defense lawyers accuse the prosecutor of seeking the death penalty for political reasons. Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler refused a plea deal that would have put James Holmes…

Jan 20, 2015 3:15 PM CST

Jury selection begins in movie theater massacre trial

Jury selection began Tuesday in the capital murder trial of James Holmes, 27, who is accused of fatally shooting a dozen people and injuring 70 more in a July 20, 2012 massacre at a Colorado theater at which a new Batman movie was being shown. Holmes has pleaded not guilty…

Jan 20, 2015 2:45 PM CST

Capital defense lawyer suspended 1 year for late filing in death row appeal

A prominent capital defense lawyer has been suspended from practice before Texas’ highest criminal court for one year for missing a filing deadline in a death row inmate’s appeal. David Dow, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, filed a motion to stop the execution of his client,…

Jan 20, 2015 2:15 PM CST

Inmate is entitled to new lawyers after counsel blew habeas deadline by 117 days, SCOTUS says

A Missouri death-row inmate is entitled to the appointment of new counsel after his lawyers filed a habeas petition 117 days after the deadline, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled. The court’s per curiam opinion (PDF) on Tuesday summarily reversed a decision by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court…

Jan 20, 2015 12:02 PM CST

Judge OKs use of funds from slain mom’s estate to pay lawyer in daughter’s Bali murder trial

Updated: A 19-year-old Chicago woman on trial in Bali for the slaying of her mother at a resort hotel has won an emergency motion filed Thursday in Illinois state court seeking to get money for her defense from her mom’s $1.56 million estate. In a Friday hearing, Cook County Chancery…

Jan 16, 2015 8:30 AM CST

Mom of murdered baby didn’t want killer executed; prior lethal injection in Okla. was botched

Updated: Oklahoma scheduled the execution of convicted baby killer Charles Warner for 6 p.m. Thursday, though the victim’s mother opposed it. The execution took place at 7:10 p.m., and Warner was pronounced dead 18 minutes later, CNN reported. Warner was the first Oklahoma inmate put to death since the botched…

Jan 15, 2015 9:48 AM CST

Lawyer’s capital concession can be raised by death row inmate, SCOTUS says in procedural case

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on behalf of a death row inmate whose trial counsel said in his closing remarks that he could not “quarrel with” a death sentence. The court ruled for Robert Mitchell Jennings in a 6-3 opinion (PDF) that considered whether Jennings’ ineffective assistance claim was…

Jan 14, 2015 10:00 AM CST

Security measures at Boston Marathon bombing trial extend outside courthouse

As jury selection began this week in what is considered by many the highest-profile U.S. terrorism trial since Timothy McVeigh’s over the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, security was high. In addition to a fleet of U.S. Homeland Security vehicles parked outside Boston’s federal courthouse and driving around it and the…

Jan 12, 2015 6:15 AM CST

Ohio drops two-drug combination used in prolonged execution

Ohio has announced that it’s dropping the two-drug combination it used in the prolonged execution last year of death row inmate Dennis McGuire. The state also says it will resume using an anesthetic that it stopped using in 2011 when the manufacturer restricted its distribution for use in executions, the…

Jan 9, 2015 3:47 PM CST

Jury selection to begin in Boston Marathon bombing trial

Jury selection is expected to begin Monday in the federal capital murder trial of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is charged with 30 counts, including 17 that could result in the death penalty if he is convicted in the April 15, 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon…

Jan 5, 2015 7:10 AM CST

Maryland governor will commute sentences of state’s remaining death-row inmates

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley announced on Wednesday that he will commute the sentences of the state’s four remaining death-row inmates to life in prison without parole. O’Malley acted after Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said the state no longer had the authority to conduct executions. The state abolished the death…

Dec 31, 2014 11:44 AM CST

Murder conviction of boy, 14, is tossed 70 years after his execution; judge cites bad lawyering

A South Carolina judge has vacated the murder conviction of a 14-year-old black youth who was executed in 1944 after being found guilty by an all-white jury in a one-day trial. Judge Carmen Mullen granted a writ of coram nobis and vacated the conviction of George Stinney Jr., obtained just…

Dec 18, 2014 9:56 AM CST

Executions hit 20-year low in 2014; which seven states carried them out?

Thirty-five people were executed in the United States in 2014, the lowest number in 20 years. The number of new death sentences imposed this year—72 so far–also declined, reaching the lowest level since 1974, when states resumed capital punishment following a Supreme Court decision invalidating arbitrary death penalty laws. The…

Dec 18, 2014 8:40 AM CST

Ex-lawyer gets death in murder of DA’s wife; judge compares him to Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer

Disagreement by just one of 12 jurors would have prevented Eric Lyle Williams from getting the death penalty. But after less than a half-day of deliberation, all agreed Wednesday that the former justice of the peace should get the ultimate punishment for shooting to death the wife of a Texas…

Dec 17, 2014 2:10 PM CST