Category: death sentence

Capital Punishment Still Serves Its Purpose. Don’t Abolish It.

Commentary Bowing to intense political pressure, Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt, the Republican governor of one of the nation’s reddest states, commuted on Thursday the death sentence of convicted murderer Julius Jones. Stitt’s commutation of Jones, who was convicted for a first-degree carjacking murder in one of the most reliably pro-death penalty states, is but the latest…


Death Row Inmate Saved Hours Before Execution After Oklahoma Governor Grants Clemency

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt on Thursday commuted the death sentence of Julius Jones, a death row inmate, just hours before he was scheduled to die. The Republican governor intervened less than four hours before the 41-year-old Jones was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. “After prayerful consideration and reviewing…


Court Upholds Death Sentence for Church Shooter Dylann Roof

RICHMOND, Va.—A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld Dylann Roof’s conviction and death sentence for the 2015 slayings of nine members of a black South Carolina congregation, saying the legal record cannot even capture the “full horror” of what he did. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond rejected…


China’s Death Sentence Against Canada’s Schellenberg Is Terrorism

Commentary On Aug. 10, Canadian Robert Schellenberg lost an appeal against a death sentence, pronounced in a northeastern Chinese court. In China, “justice” is normally swift in these matters. Except the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) guillotine will, at least for the moment, likely be stayed by the high-profile politics of the case, which are by…


Man Sentenced To Life For Role In Long Beach Woman’s Killing

LONG BEACH—One of three men who had been on death row for the December 1998 rape and beating death of a mother of three attacked while walking to a store in Long Beach was re-sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Superior Court Judge Laura Laesecke said the maximum possible sentence…


Supreme Court Could Reimpose Boston Marathon Bomber’s Death Sentence

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office. The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s…