Idaho corrections officials attempted to kill 73-year-old Thomas Creech late last month, but after an hour of repeated attempts to find a vein for its
Three major nitrogen gas manufacturers told the Guardian https://tinyurl.com/vjtyr732 earlier this month that they have taken steps to ensure that corrections departments in the U.S.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued a statement last week indicating that its final stages of closing San Quentin’s death row, which began
Fifty-four-year-old Daniel Gwynn was freed from Pennsylvania’s death row on February 29, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office announced. He served nearly 30 years for a
“It’s way too early to know whether states will increasingly look to nitrogen gas as an alternative to lethal injection, but Alabama’s recent experience suggests
In Louisiana earlier this week, a state legislative committee approved a proposal to add nitrogen gas and electrocution to its execution protocol, the Louisiana Illuminator
“The State of Alabama has a bad track record of botched executions,” a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s new method of execution by nitrogen gas
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation plans to complete the transfer of those on San Quentin’s death row to other prisons around the state
The U.S. Department of Justice decision to seek the death penalty in the case of Payton Gendron, accused of killing 10 people in a racist
In Alabama last week, where corrections officials botched three executions in a row last year because of the execution team’s inability to insert IV lines for lethal drugs, Attorney General Steve Marshall asked the state Supreme Court last week to set an execution date for Kenneth Smith and indicated the state plans to kill Smith by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith’s execution was called off last November after the state repeatedly failed
Gerald Pizzuto, Jr., has been on Idaho’s death row since his 1986 conviction of the murders of Berta Herndon and her nephew Del Herndon in 1985. He is 66 years old, dependent on a wheelchair, diabetic, and on hospice care because of advanced bladder cancer. He suffers from the effects of repeated brain injuries and the horrific consequences of the sexual and physical abuse he suffered when he was a
“It’s quite horrifying — as it’s intended to be,” is how the spiritual advisor who was in the death chamber with Michael Tisius when the State of Missouri killed him last month describes the experience of witnessing the state kill one of its citizens. In an interview with Flatland, the Rev. Melissa Potts Bowers describes the process as both “bizarre” and a “one-man show” [whose] “murder is the highlight of
Florida plans to continue its frantic pace of executions. The state announced it will kill Michael Duane Zack III in October, its sixth execution this year. It will be the eighth state killing since Gov Ron DeSantis, a presidential candidate who has expanded the state’s death penalty laws, was first elected in 2019. Zack, 55, was sentenced to death for the murder of Ravonne Smith in 1996. He is also
Aba Gayle, who became a passionate opponent of the death penalty after her 19-year-old daughter, Catherine Blount, was murdered, died in Silverton, Oregon, in late June. She was 89. Aba Gayle’s (her preferred moniker) daughter, Catherine, and her friend, 29-year-old Eric Hanson, were killed in Placer County, California, in September 1980. Douglas Mickey, an acquaintance of the couple, was convicted of the murders in 1983 and sentenced to death. For
A federal jury in Pittsburgh sentenced Robert Bowers to death earlier this month for his October 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 congregants dead and six others wounded. The jury had found Bowers guilty in June on 63 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion, charges that made him eligible for the death penalty. According to the
(This post was updated to reflect that Johnny Johnson was killed by the State of Missouri on Tuesday night.) The State of Missouri killed Johnny Johnson Tuesday night. The execution was the state’s fourth this year. He was killed by lethal injection for the 2002 kidnapping, attempted rape, and killing of six-year-old Casey Williamson in St. Louis. Johnson’s lawyers had argued that he was ineligible to be executed because of
In California, Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced late last month that he will seek the death penalty for 43-year-old Jesse Ceazar Navarro, accused of killing a Riverside County Deputy Sheriff in January. CBS Los Angeles reported. Navarro is charged with one count of murder for killing 30-year-old Deputy Darnell Calhoun after he responded to a report of a domestic disturbance in Lake Elsinore on January 13. He’s facing
Oklahoma Rep. Kevin McDugle, leader of the effort to free Richard Glossip, alleged last week that the District Attorney’s Council and Pardon and Parole Board decided to deny Glossip’s clemency application before his April 26 hearing had even been held. In an interview with Fox 25, McDugle said that one of the DAs admitted there had been prior communication after the rest of the Council and Pardon and Parole Board
