Tag: Capital Punishment

Russia Has No Formal Death Penalty. Here’s How That Might Change.

The attack at a concert hall just outside Moscow that killed 139 people last Friday has prompted some Russians to call for bringing back capital punishment in Russia, and to execute the assailants. Through a combination of presidential action and court rulings, Russia has had a moratorium on the death penalty for 28 years. And […]

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In Death Penalty Cases, a Texas Court Tests the Supreme Court’s Patience

After a Texas prosecutor’s extraordinary concession that his office had used false evidence to secure a death sentence, the Supreme Court told a Texas appeals court last year to have another look at the case. It is not every day that a prosecutor “confesses error,” as lawyers say, and joins a defendant in asking that […]

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A Select Few Witnessed Alabama’s Nitrogen Execution. This Is What They Saw.

When Alabama conducted the first known execution using nitrogen gas last week, the world was watching — in a figurative sense. Only a small group of witnesses actually watched Kenneth Smith die on a gurney in an execution chamber in rural Alabama, an execution that state officials described as a model for other states looking […]

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Was Alabama’s Nitrogen Execution ‘Textbook’ or Botched? Sides Are Divided.

A day after Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner with nitrogen gas, officials vowed on Friday to continue using the method in executions despite witnesses’ accounts that the prisoner writhed on the gurney for at least two minutes. Two very different accounts of the execution emerged from the state’s death chamber in […]

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Alabama Hails Nitrogen Gas Execution, a New Attempt to Address an Old Challenge

For as long as America has had the death penalty, there have been questions about how best to carry it out. The execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama on Thursday, the first American execution in which death was caused by suffocation with nitrogen gas, gave no indication of settling the legal, moral and technical […]

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What to Know About the Execution of Kenneth Smith in Alabama

Alabama is scheduled to carry out the first execution using nitrogen gas in the United States on Thursday, a method that state officials have argued is painless but that critics say could cause prolonged suffering. The execution of the inmate, Kenneth Smith, is set for around 6 p.m. Central time at the William C. Holman […]

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Nitrogen Hypoxia: What to Know About This New Method of Execution

The planned execution of a death row inmate by the state of Alabama on Thursday evening will be carried out by a procedure that has never been used for capital punishment in the United States. The inmate, Kenneth Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 stabbing murder, will be put to death by inhaling nitrogen […]

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Arsonist Sentenced to Death for Killing 36 People in 2019 Kyoto Studio Fire

A Japanese judge sentenced to death a man who killed 36 people in an arson attack at an anime studio in Kyoto in 2019, one of the country’s deadliest attacks in decades, after he was found guilty of murder on Thursday. Shinji Aoba, the defendant, was charged with murder in 2020, a year after setting […]

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Alabama Is Set to Carry Out First U.S. Execution by Nitrogen

Alabama is set to carry out the first American execution using nitrogen gas on Thursday evening, potentially opening a new frontier in how states execute death row prisoners despite concerns from death penalty opponents about the untested method. Several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have allowed the execution to move forward, though lawyers for […]

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Supreme Court Declines to Stop Nitrogen Execution in Alabama

The U.S. Supreme Court and a federal appeals court each declined on Wednesday to intervene to stop Alabama from conducting the nation’s first-ever execution by nitrogen gas, putting the state on track to use the novel method to kill a death row prisoner. Alabama plans to use nitrogen gas to kill Kenneth Smith, who was […]

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A Death Row Lawyer Blunders. Must His Client Pay the Price?

Joseph Gamboa, a death row inmate in Texas, says his court-appointed lawyer robbed him of the chance to challenge his murder conviction in federal court. Among other things, court records show, the lawyer ignored evidence supplied by Mr. Gamboa, filed a cut-and-paste habeas corpus petition that still bore the name of an earlier client and […]

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New Shocking Development For Buffalo Supermarket Shooter

The white man who opened fire inside a Buffalo supermarket in a racially motivated massacre is facing the ultimate penalty by the Department of Justice. “Obey Your Crazy”: ‘The Book of Clarence’ Cast Shares Their 10 Commandments for Living Off English Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to state charges […]

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U.S. to Seek Death for Man Who Killed 10 in Racist Supermarket Massacre

The Justice Department on Friday said in court papers that it would seek to execute the gunman who killed 10 Black people in a racist massacre at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. It is the first time that President Biden’s administration has sought the death penalty in a new case. Payton Gendron, the 20-year-old […]

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2 South Carolina Jails Under DOJ Investigation After Reports of Abuse

The Justice Department on Thursday opened a far-reaching civil rights investigation of two troubled jails in South Carolina after reports of violent and unhealthy living conditions, failure to treat mentally ill prisoners and the abuse of inmates by guards. The department initiated a so-called pattern or practice investigation into the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center […]

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Alabama Has a New Execution Method for Its ‘Machinery of Death’

Lawyers for Mr. Smith are likely to object to this human experiment on the basis that it violates the Eighth Amendment’s proscription against “cruel and unusual punishments.” It is true that Mr. Smith’s lawyers appealed to the court for this method of execution. But that was only because of the twisted logic of the U.S. […]

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