The Supreme Court ruled last year that it is cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to life without parole when the crime is short of homicide. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that life without parole shares “some characteristics with death sentences that are shared by no other sentences” in altering “the offender’s life by a forfeiture that is irrevocable.”

Read More >>

Features · Posted: Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Jason Smith

Deathwatch

Are capital punishment’s days numbered?

by Susan Hardy

“Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?”

For the past decade, about two out of three people in the United States have said yes, they are. But at the same time, the death penalty has been on the decline. In 2000, 224 people were sentenced to death in the United States. In 2010, half as many were given death sentences.

On a basic level, the moral conversation about the death penalty hasn’t changed. A majority of people think that death is the only just punishment for the most horrific of crimes. Others think exacting payment for a murder with yet another killing is moral nonsense.

Read entire article >>

WISE, Va., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A Virginia judge has sentenced a prison inmate to death twice for the murders of two fellow inmates he pleaded guilty to strangling.

Robert Gleason, 41, who represented himself at a four-day sentencing hearing, had asked for the death penalty and threatened to kill again unless he got it, the Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier reported.

James City man, 30, was sentenced to death for killing Ruth Phillips in 2001

JARRATT — With no parting words before his death, a man sentenced to die nine years ago was executed by lethal injection Thursday night at a state prison north of   Emporia.

Jerry Terrell Jackson, 30, was led into the execution chambers at 8:53 p.m., with six prison guards strapping him down on a gurney.

A curtain was drawn for about 15 minutes as intravenous needles were attached to both arms. Jackson declined to give a final statement, appearing to shake his head and say something softly. He was injected with three sets of chemicals that sedated him, stopped his breathing, and stopped his heart.

He died at 9:14 p.m.

Full Story...