WASHINGTON — Fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States and under 50 new death sentences were imposed for the fifth straight year, part of a continuing decline in capital punishment that saw only a few states carry out executions, a new report issued Tuesday said. But even...
Justice Dept. Will Execute Inmates for First Time Since 2003
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Thursday that it will carry out executions of federal death row inmates for the first time since 2003. Five inmates who have been sentenced to death are scheduled to be executed starting in December. In 2014, following a botched state execution in Oklahoma, then-President Barack Obama directed the department to...
Victims' Parents Urge Newsom to Stop Death Penalty Reprieve
SACRAMENTO — Parents of Californians murdered by people now on death row shared gruesome details of their loved ones' killings Thursday as they launched a statewide tour to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to reverse his moratorium on executions. "He was like a thief in the night that stole justice from...
Walters: Three Months in, Newsom Has Only Tepid Approval
Gavin Newsom coasted into the governorship last year, defeating his Republican rival by more than a 3-2 margin. It seems a little odd, therefore, that three months into his governorship, he enjoys only tepid popular support. A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that just 45...
Walters: Newsom Does It Again With Death Row Reprieve
Gavin Newsom is fond of making grandiloquent, headline-grabbing gestures couched in moralistic terms. His tendency first surfaced in 2004 when, as the newly elected mayor of San Francisco, he directed officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of a state law passed by California voters just a...
Newsom Now Says He May Commute Death Sentences
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom not only put a moratorium on executions in California on Wednesday, he said he also may commute death sentences and is pushing to repeal capital punishment. Newsom signed an executive order granting reprieves to all 737 condemned inmates on the nation's largest death row. That means no...