News and Updates

Texas law enforcement officials have come up with some mighty creative legal arguments over the years to justify executing Hank Skinner without first testing evidence that could prove his innocence -- or confirm his guilt.

At times, they claimed the tests would be costly to the taxpayers. Then Skinner's legal team agreed to pay for the tests.

Credit: File Photo, San Antonio Express-News / EN

There is no evidence that the death penalty deters murders. Here, a warden in 2000 is shown with the gurney in Texas' death chamber in Huntsville.

Last week, Connecticut joined with 16 other states and with the rest of the civilized world when it abolished the death penalty. But the very next day, Texas chose to remain in darkness when it executed Beunka Adams, making him the fifth victim this year of the state's anachronistic practice of killing people. If not for a last-minute stay, on Wednesday Texas would have put another human being to death.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Oklahoma, which executes more prisoners per capita than any other state, said on Wednesday it has only one remaining dose of pentobarbital, a key drug used to kill condemned prisoners.

One reason the state is running out is because of a ban on the sale of drugs for such purposes by the European Union, which opposes the death penalty.

Credit: photo illustration by: Caleb Bryant Miller / Todd Wiseman

Death row inmate Hank Skinner’s decade-long fight for DNA testing, which he hopes will prove his innocence in a grisly West Texas triple murder, will take center stage this morning in the state’s highest criminal court.