a US state supreme court has quashed a death sentence handed down to Robert Harlan because jurors consulted the Bible in reaching their verdict. The Colorado Supreme Court on March 28 ruled that the Bible, which includes the premise of "eye for an eye" justice, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the judges called a "higher authority."
Read everythingthe only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life.
Read everythingsix people were hanged by the clerical regime in Tehran and Hamedan (western Iran) on Wednesday and Tuesday respectively, Iranian state-run media reported. Two others in Tehran and another in Karaj (west of Tehran) were sentenced to death.
Read everythingthe Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a black death row inmate who said Texas prosecutors unfairly stacked his jury with whites, issuing a harsh rebuke to the state that executes more people than any other.
Read everythingthe government of Sierra Leone has published on late June proposals for implementing the recommendations of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In one statement that pointedly contradicts the TRC recommendations, the government's 17-page policy document entitled “White Paper on the Truth and Reconciliation Project” rejects the abolition of the death penalty.
Read everythingZimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was cleared of treason charges carrying a possible death sentence, which he described as a desperate ploy by the government to sideline its bitterest critic.
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