TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The Trump administration plans to continue its unprecedented series of post-election federal executions Friday by putting to death a Louisiana truck driver who severely abused his 2-year-old daughter for weeks in 2002, then killed her by slamming her head against a truck’s windows and dashboard. Lawyers...
Trump Administration Sets 1st of 5 Executions Before Biden Inauguration.
CHICAGO — The Trump administration is planning an unprecedented five more federal executions before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, starting with a Texas street-gang member set to be put to death this week for his role in the 1999 slayings of an Iowa religious couple whose bodies he burned in the...
Trump Ratchets Up Pace of Executions Before Biden Inauguration
CHICAGO — As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. If the five go off as...
Judge Blocks Federal Executions; Administration Appeals
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered a new delay in federal executions, hours before the first lethal injection was scheduled to be carried out at a federal prison in Indiana. The Trump administration immediately appealed to a higher court, asking that the executions move forward....
Saudis Sentence 5 to Death for Jamal Khashoggi's Killing
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death Monday for the killing of Washington Post columnist and royal family critic Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly slaying in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul drew international condemnation and cast a cloud of suspicion over Crown Prince Mohammed...
Report: 5th Straight Year With Under 30 Executions in US
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...
Judge Temporarily Stops 1st Federal Executions Since 2003
WASHINGTON — A judge has temporarily halted the first federal executions in 16 years as a lawsuit on how the government intends to carry them out continues. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said in a Wednesday evening ruling that the public is not served by “short-circuiting” legitimate judicial process....
Court Won’t Block Death Penalty Trials Despite Moratorium
SACRAMENTO — The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block death penalty cases from proceeding during Gov. Gavin Newsom's moratorium on executions. The justices rejected defense attorneys' arguments that jurors can't realistically gauge the seriousness of imposing a death sentence if they think it's never actually going to be carried...
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...