| September 1, 2008 | -
McCain picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 44, as his running mate. Palin, an evangelical Christian, supports the death penalty, believes that the “jury's still out” on global warming, opposes abortion, and is mother to five children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and five-month-old Trig, who has Down syndrome. Rumors arose that Bristol, 17, was the actual mother of Trig; in response, Palin announced that Bristol was actually five months pregnant with the child of a man named “Levi” and would soon marry him.
| Source 1:
Telegraph.co.uk
Source 2:
Washington Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
Independent
|
| August 6, 2008 | - The International Court of Justice condemned Texas for executing a Mexican national who had not been advised of his right to consular assistance. “Texas,” replied the office of the state's attorney general, “is not bound by the World Court.”
| Source:
BBCNews.com
|
| August 5, 2008 | - Under pressure from human-rights groups, Iran suspended death by stoning “for now.”
| Source:
BBCNews.com
|
| June 25, 2008 | - The Supreme Court determined that child rapists should not be sentenced to death if their crime “did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.” John McCain disagreed with that ruling and suggested that by executing those found guilty of “the most heinous of crimes” the United States could protect the innocence of its children, while Barack Obama suggested that the rape of a small child, “six or eight years old,” could be punished by death without violating the Constitution.
| Source:
AFP
|
| June 4, 2007 | - Hundreds of men serving life terms in Italian prisons demanded to be put to death. “We are tired of dying a little bit every day,” said the inmates in a letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. “We have decided to die just once.”
| Source:
The News (Pakistan)
|
| May 25, 2007 | - The execution of an overweight prisoner in Ohio was performed 90 minutes behind schedule because medical workers were unable to find a vein for the lethal injection.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 2, 2007 | - After the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Sudanese officials, Sudan's Minister of the Interior said that any party who tried to enforce the charges would be beheaded.
| Source 1:
AllAfrica.com
Source 2:
Sudan Times
|
| January 1, 2007 | - Two of Saddam Hussein's top aides, Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, were hanged; the force of hanging decapitated al-Tikriti.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 9, 2006 | - Hundreds of Iraqis vied to become Saddam Hussein's
hangman.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 28, 2006 | - A North Carolina judge ruled that Guy T. LeGrande, a convicted murderer who wore a Superman costume to his trial, might be too crazy to execute.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 5, 2006 | -
Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| October 19, 2006 | - A convicted killer on Texas
death row committed suicide 15 hours before he was supposed to die by lethal injection by slitting his jugular vein with a makeshift blade; prison authorities found the message “I didn't do it” smeared in blood on the walls of his cell.
| Source:
AP via MSNBC
|
| October 18, 2006 | - An Ohio cult leader who shot and killed a family of five as they stood in a pit dug inside his barn contested his upcoming lethal injection on the grounds that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to execute a fat man.
| Source 1:
Reuters via New York Times
Source 2:
CNN
|
| August 16, 2006 | -
Rwanda announced plans to end the death penalty for genocidiers.
| Source:
BBC
|
| July 7, 2006 | - A sheikh in Mogadishu said that Muslims who do not pray five times a day should be put to death.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| June 19, 2006 | -
Iraqi prosecutors called for Saddam Hussein to be sentenced to death.
| Source:
Daily Mail
|
| June 15, 2006 | - It was reported that for two years China has deployed a fleet of Golden Champion “death vans” to allow rural communities to carry out lethal injections.
| Source:
USA Today via AOL
|
| June 7, 2006 | -
Texas
executed an axe murderer.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 3, 2006 | - A federal jury in Virginia determined that Zacarias Moussaoui was responsible for some of the deaths of September 11, 2001, and thus eligible for execution.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| January 17, 2006 | -
California
executed 76-year-old, blind, wheelchair-bound, mostly deaf, diabetic Clarence Ray Allen. "It's a good day to die," said Allen via a statement.
| Source:
AP
|
| December 15, 2005 | - Seventy-seven-year-old John B. Nixon Sr. was executed in Mississippi. Nixon was the oldest person executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated.
| Source:
CourtTV.com
|
| December 2, 2005 | - In North Carolina Kenneth Boyd became the 1,000th prisoner executed since the United States reintroduced the death penalty in 1976. “It's a milestone we should all be ashamed of,” said Boyd's lawyer.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| November 27, 2005 | -
Singapore fired its executioner, Darshan Singh, after his identity was revealed in the media. Singh, who conducted more than 850 hangings over 46 years, said that his last words to condemned prisoners were always: “I am going to send you to a better place than this. God bless you.”
| Source 1:
Sky News
Source 2:
News.com.au
|
| September 14, 2005 | -
Texas
executed Frances Newton.
| Source:
CBS News
|
| May 13, 2005 | -
Connecticut held its first execution in forty-five years.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 23, 2005 | - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who belonged to the Hitler Youth before he became a priest, won the papacy by a landslide and styled himself Benedict XVI. The new pope dislikes homosexuality (he moved quickly to condemn a Spanish bill that would permit gays to marry), abortion, and the death penalty, but he loves little kittens. In 2001, he ordered Catholic bishops to hide allegations against pedophile priests from the public.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
New York Daily News
Source 3:
The Observer
|
| April 14, 2005 | - A study found that executions by lethal injection carried out in the United States did not meet veterinary standards.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 16, 2005 | - Scott Peterson was sentenced to death.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| February 18, 2005 | -
Texas
executed another prisoner.
| Source:
CNN
|
| February 11, 2005 | - The Supreme Court of California decided to allow mentally retarded
death-row
prisoners to appeal their cases.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| November 17, 2004 | -
Bush spared two Thanksgiving turkeys from death. “By virtue of an unconditional presidential pardon, they are safe from harm,” he said. The turkeys, named Biscuits and Gravy, were chosen by an Internet poll, beating out Patience and Fortitude.
| Source 1:
Reuters
Source 2:
White House
Source 3:
White House
|
| November 17, 2004 | -
Texas prisoner Anthony Fuentes was executed.
| Source:
Houston Chronicle
|
| November 10, 2004 | - Former high-school football star Demarco McCullum, Texas
prisoner #999180, became the 21st prisoner executed in that state this year.
| Source 1:
The Advocate
Source 2:
CNN
|
| March 2, 2004 | -
Nigeria was looking for ways to "decongest" its death-row facilities.
| Source:
Agence France-Presse
|
| April 17, 2001 | -
Maryland failed to pass a moratorium on executions, but did ban the release of genetically modified fish.
| |
