U.S. Supreme Court considers Texas case about religious rights during executions
Conservative Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism Tuesday about a Texas death row inmate's demand that a chaplain be allowed to pray out loud and touch him during his execution.
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2 reasons why Boston Marathon bomber case is being heard in the Supreme Court
With all nine justices back in the courtroom Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of the Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence, eight years after the attack. John Yang reports.
New law in South Carolina makes inmates choose electric chair or firing squad
South Carolina had been one of the most prolific states of its size in putting inmates to death. But a lack of lethal injection drugs brought executions to a halt.
Virginia lawmakers vote to abolish the death penalty
Virginia's Democratic majority pushed the repeal effort, arguing that the death penalty has been applied disproportionately to people of color, the mentally ill and the indigent.
An Associated Press review of court filings shows executioners who put 13 inmates to death during the Trump presidency offered sanitized, incomplete versions of the executions to judges.
The U.S. government's plans to carry out its first execution of a female inmate in nearly seven decades are on hold, and two other executions this week have been canceled because the inmates tested positive for COVID-19.
The series of executions after Election Day, the first in late November, is the first time in over 130 years where federal executions have occurred during a lame-duck period.
Attorney General William Barr defended the extension of executions into the post-election period, saying he’ll likely schedule more before he departs the Justice Department.
The California Supreme Court has overturned the 2005 death sentence for Scott Peterson in the slaying of his pregnant wife but upheld his 2004 murder conviction.
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