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Elaborate last-meal request kills privilege for condemned Texas prisoners

McClatchy Newspapers The Dallas Morning News

Last updated Friday, September 23, 2011 - 5:51am

AUSTIN, Texas — A gut-busting dinner, including a triple cheeseburger, pizza, fajitas, two chicken-fried steaks and pint of ice cream, sent some Texans over the edge.

Death row inmate Lawrence Brewer’s food order seemed more like a feast fit for an army than a man headed to execution. Now, because of public outrage, it’s last special meal that will be made for condemned prisoners.

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Libyans shout slogans at a rally outside the Tibesti hotel in the rebel-held Benghazi, Libya, Sunday, July 31, 2011. The rally was held to pay respect to Libyan rebels' slain military chief Abdel-Fattah Younis. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Ramadan brings back bitter memories for many Libyans

David Zucchino Los Angeles Times

Last updated Monday, August 1, 2011 - 10:01am

BENGHAZI, Libya -- Each year, when the holy month of Ramadan arrives, Ibrahim Shwehdi is gripped by ineffable sadness. A month of reflection and mercy is, for him, an occasion of grief and loss.

It was during Ramadan in 1984, just before Libyans sat down at sunset to break the daily fast, that Shwehdi's brother Sadiq Hamed Shwehdi was hanged before a crowd at a Benghazi basketball arena.

The execution was televised live, and people across eastern Libya watched in horror as thousands in the arena cheered. It was unthinkable for a Muslim leader, even one as repressive as Moammar Gadhafi, to stage a public execution during Ramadan, a month of prayer, charity and fasting. Yet Gadhafi ordered 11 public executions of dissidents around the country during Ramadan.

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States search for alternative drug to use in execution 'cocktail'

Anthony Colarossi, The Orlando Sentinel

Last updated Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 10:47am

ORLANDO, Fla. -- For years, Illinois-based Hospira Inc. worried about its drugs being used across the country for lethal injections.

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Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction/The Associated Press
This undated photo provided by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction shows Frank Spisak. Spisak, a condemned Ohio killer of three who identifies himself as a woman and who has spent 27 years on death row arrived Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011 at the state death house a day before his scheduled execution.

Ohio executes one-time neo-Nazi who killed 3

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Associated Press

Last updated Thursday, February 17, 2011 - 2:35pm

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- Ohio on Thursday executed a one-time neo-Nazi who shot to death two men and a teen more than a quarter century ago on the campus of Cleveland State University in a shooting spree that targeted blacks.

Frank Spisak, who chose to read Bible verses in German for a final statement, was pronounced dead at 10:34 a.m. following an injection of sodium thiopental at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.

Spisak, 59, set the Ohio record for the longest time on death row before execution, at more than 27 years.

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Ohio board rejects condemned killer's mercy plea

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, The Associated Press

Last updated Friday, February 11, 2011 - 2:21pm

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Parole Board has unanimously rejected mercy for the condemned killer of a storekeeper whose family opposes the upcoming execution.

Johnnie Baston is scheduled to die March 10 for the slaying of 53-year-old Chong-Hoon Mah, a South Korean immigrant who operated two retail stores in Toledo.

The nine-member board ruled Friday that Baston's failure to accept responsibility and the severity of Mah's execution-style killing outweigh the personal beliefs of Mah's family about the death penalty.

Mah's son, Peter Mah, says executing Baston won't change anything and won't bring back his father.

If put to death, Baston would become the first person in the United States executed with a single dose of pentobarbital, the new execution drug Ohio is switching to after supplies of the former drug ran out.

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Utah wants help obtaining execution drug

The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - 12:56pm

The Justice Department says it's reviewing a request by 13 states looking for the government's help obtaining supplies of a scarce execution drug.

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New sheriff gets an early lesson in why religion is dangerous

Charles F. Trentelman Standard-Examiner staff

Last updated Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 1:57pm

Weber County's new sheriff, Terry Thompson, sent a letter to his staff earlier this month telling them that they're not just doing law enforcement, they are "in God's service."

Column, Executions, Religion, Staff column, Utah, Wasatch Rambler, Weber County Sheriff's Office Read more Comments

US executions drop by 12 percent in 2010

The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - 8:33am

US executions drop by 12 percent in 2010WASHINGTON — The number of executions in the United States dropped 12 percent in 2010, and the number of people sentenced to die is nearing historic lows, a report from an anti-capital punishment group says.

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Press TV/The Associated Press
In this photo released by state-run Press TV, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, wipes her face during an interview with Press TV, in Tabriz, Iran, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010. EDS NOTE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HAS NO WAY OF INDEPENDENTLY VERIFYING THE CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE.

Iran to air new footage of woman in stoning case

The Associated Press, Ali Akbar Dareini

Last updated Friday, December 10, 2010 - 4:54pm

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's state TV said Friday it will air new footage of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, the latest in state-orchestrated broadcasts on a case that has raised an international outcry.

The footage, to be aired late Friday on English-language Press TV, will show Sakineh Mohammedi Ashtiani at her home in northwestern Iran giving a reenactment of the murder of her husband, for which she has also been convicted, according to the station.

The broadcast is an apparent attempt to deflect international criticism over the adultery sentence by bolstering Iran's claim that Ashtiani is a murderer. But there has been considerable murkiness over the charge. Authorities announced her murder conviction only after the uproar over the stoning sentence erupted last summer, and her lawyer -- who has since been arrested -- said she was never formally put on trial for the killing and was tortured into confessing.

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Drug shortage stirs death penalty debate in U.S. and beyond

Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee, Sam Stanton

Last updated Monday, December 6, 2010 - 3:01pm

Drug shortage stirs death penalty debate in U.S. and beyond

Scripps Howard News Service

A shortage of one of the three drugs used in lethal injection executions has set off legal battles nationwide as states search for ways to put condemned inmates to death.

In the past week, courts in California, Arizona and Oklahoma have weighed in on the dispute, as has the government of Great Britain, where some states have sought supplies of the scarce drug -- sodium thiopental.

California corrections officials have been ordered by a San Francisco Superior Court judge to release records by Tuesday that might show where they obtained a recently purchased supply of the drug.

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Ariz. appeal of order blocking execution rejected

The Associated Press

Last updated Tuesday, October 26, 2010 - 3:41pm

FLORENCE, Ariz. — The state attorney general’s office said Tuesday that Arizona’s supply of a drug used in lethal injections came from England, marking the first time a state has acknowledged obtaining sodium thiopental from an overseas source since a shortage of the drug started affecting executions in the U.S. this year.

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Ruling bars California from moving forward with executions

McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 11:48pm

SAN JOSE, Calif. — California officials are trying to press forward with resuming executions after a hiatus of more than four years, but the state’s lethal injection procedures continue to remain stuck in legal limbo.

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