The death penalty, already on the decline across the United States, could face its own demise at the hands of several state legislatures next year.
For just the second time since 1984, Virginia and Maryland will end the year without executing a single death row inmate — reflecting a national trend of states using capital punishment less often over the past decade.
A Northern Virginia man sentenced to death a decade ago in a high-stakes murder-for-hire scheme could be a step closer to freedom.
The office of Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II has declined to seek further review from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a three-judge panel said last month that a Chantilly man sentenced to death in 2002 should be exonerated because the prosecution improperly sat on evidence discrediting a key witness.
The same anesthetic that caused the overdose death of pop star Michael Jackson is now the drug of choice for executions in Missouri, causing a stir among critics who question how the state can guarantee a drug untested for lethal injection won't cause pain and suffering for the condemned.
The same anesthetic that caused the overdose death of pop star Michael Jackson is now the drug of choice for executions in Missouri, causing a stir among critics who question how the state can guarantee a drug untested for lethal injection won't cause pain and suffering for the condemned.
The state Senate voted Thursday to abolish the death penalty in Connecticut, a state that has executed only one prisoner in a half-century and is now on track to join a national trend away from capital punishment.
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber says he intended to start a debate about the death penalty when he announced at an emotional news conference last week that he would block all executions for the remainder of his term.
Georgia's board of pardons rejected a last-ditch clemency bid from death row inmate Troy Davis on Tuesday, one day before his scheduled execution, despite support from figures including an ex-president and a former FBI director for the claim that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer in 1989.
