2 September 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Deal Frees ‘West Memphis Three’ in Arkansas US

originally by: NYTimes.com
published: 20th August 2011

After nearly two decades in prison for the murder of three young boys, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., commonly known as the West Memphis Three, stood up in a courtroom here on Friday, proclaimed their innocence even as they pleaded guilty, and, minutes later, walked out as free men.

The freeing of Mr. Echols, 36, was the highest-profile release of a death row inmate in recent memory. Mr. Baldwin, 34, and Mr. Misskelley, 36, had been serving life sentences.

In keeping with the tenor of this case since its first horrific hours, the circumstances of the release were bizarre, divisive and bewildering even to some of those who were directly involved.

8 June 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

"Eventually, science will kill capital punishment"

originally by: Sentencing Law and Policy
29th May 2011

We don’t know if the recently executed child rapist and killer Donald Beaty had the genetic defect that scientists call the “murder gene.” I’m pretty sure we didn’t want to know. We wanted him dead. Just as we wanted the murderer Jeffrey Landrigan executed last October, although Landrigan’s attorneys claimed he might have possessed the gene, which is believed to create a predisposition to violence when linked with other factors.

But the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Landrigan had waived his right to raise that issue, and there was no reprieve coming from the governor.

2 April 201116 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Supreme Court declines case of Troy Davis

originally by: The Christian Science Monitor
published: 28th March 2011

The US Supreme Court on dismissed the appeal of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, whose loud and persistent claims of innocence attracted the support of death penalty opponents around the world and forced a series of extra hearings to investigate his case. In the end, court after court rejected his pleas.

On Monday the high court, without comment, dismissed three appeals filed on Mr. Davis’s behalf. The action opens the way for Georgia authorities to set an execution date. Davis was convicted and sentenced to die for the 1989 shooting death of off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail. He’s been on death row since 1991.