California’s evolution into a cultural melange in the latter half of the 20th century posed a question that still looms: Can such a complex society achieve the broad social consensus that’s a prerequisite for effective governance? One can apply the question to just about any specific issue that has defied...
Mom Who Killed 4, Now Chowchilla Prison Inmate, Has Death Penalty Overturned
SACRAMENTO — The California Supreme Court on Monday reversed the death penalty for a woman who killed her four young daughters and tried to kill her son by setting their house on fire 23 years ago. The justices unanimously upheld the first-degree murder, attempted murder and arson convictions of 57-year-old...
LA Serial Killer’s Death Penalty Upheld by State High Court
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of raping and strangling 10 women in Los Angeles. However, the court reversed his conviction for the death of one victim's fetus. Chester Dewayne Turner, a 54-year-old one-time pizza deliveryman, was convicted in...
Death Penalty ‘Infected by Racism’ Newsom Tells Court
SACRAMENTO — California's process for imposing the death penalty “is now, and always has been, infected by racism,” Gov. Gavin Newsom declared Monday in a brief filed with the state Supreme Court. Newsom filed the brief in the case of Donte Lamont McDaniel, who was sentenced to death in 2009...
US Executes 2nd Man in a Week; Lawyers Said He Had Dementia
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The United States on Thursday carried out its second federal execution in three days following a hiatus of nearly two decades, killing by lethal injection a Kansas man whose lawyers contended he had dementia and was unfit to be executed. Wesley Ira Purkey was put to death...
US Carries Out the 1st Federal Execution in Nearly 2 Decades
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The federal government on Tuesday carried out its first execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. The execution of Daniel Lewis Lee came over the...
Reedley Man Sentenced to Death for Killing Two Farm Workers
Hernan Rodriguez, 29, of Reedley was sentenced to death Friday in a Tulare County courtroom for the 2015 murders of two co-workers in a Dinuba plum orchard. On the morning of May 20, 2015, in an orchard off Avenue 400 and Road 74 in Dinuba, Rodriguez hid behind a van, took...
Doctors: Execution Drugs Could Help COVID-19 Patients
HOUSTON — Secrecy surrounding executions could hinder efforts by a group of medical professionals who are asking the nation’s death penalty states for medications used in lethal injections so that they can go to coronavirus patients who are on ventilators, according to a death penalty expert and a doctor who's...
California to Move Some Condemned Inmates off Death Row
SACRAMENTO — More than 700 condemned inmates on California's largest-in-the-nation death row soon will have a chance to transfer to one of eight state prisons, a move a former district attorney termed “a slap to the face" of victims. The voluntary transfers from San Quentin State Prison’s all-male death row...
Nickey Stane Charged in 1996 Killing of Debbie Dorian
Fresno County District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp formally charged a suspect Wednesday in the Debbie Dorian cold case homicide. Nickey Duane Stane, 52, faces murder and rape charges for the Aug. 22, 1996 killing of the 22-year-old Dorian. She was found bound in duct tape in her apartment near Fresno State....