In a letter to the Journal Star last month, Aubrey Trail said: "My message to whoever is listening is simple: 'You gave me the death penalty so now use it.'"
Updating results
Capital punishment could emerge as a major campaign issue in the U.S. presidential race for the first time in 30 years.
A federal inmate has remained stuck on death row in solitary confinement for four years despite a judge's ruling that the inmate is intellectually disabled and can never be put to death.
More than a dozen states have passed “shield” laws that conceal key details about the lethal injection process, including the identities of the execution team or drug suppliers.
The Journal Star read the trial transcripts and reviewed the exhibits put before the grand jury to get a glimpse of what happened in the deaths of seven inmates.
An Associated Press review of dozens of legal filings shows that President Joe Biden's Justice Department is fighting just as vigorously as Donald Trump's did to uphold death row inmates' sentences, despite Biden's opposition to capital punishment.
A look at the status of firing squads in the United States.
The United States Supreme Court this week declined to take John Lotter's death penalty appeal, potentially putting him a step closer to being executed for a 1993 triple murder.
Women who get an abortion in South Carolina would be eligible for the death penalty if a proposal at the State House becomes law.
Amber McLaughlin, convicted of killing a former girlfriend in suburban St. Louis, was put to death Tuesday night after Republican Gov. Mike Parson declined a clemency request.
Chris Owens, whose mother was among those killed, told Brooks: “All I ask is you rot, and you rot slow.”
Law
The district court "found Trail’s act of self-harm was 'a calculating gesture,' and we will not disturb this finding on appeal," the Supreme Court said.
For more than 70 minutes on Thursday night, at a rally at the Sioux Gateway Airport, former President Donald Trump painted a picture of America as a place where nearly everything has gone to ruin since he left office.
A jury has rejected the death penalty for the shooter in the 2018 massacre that left 17 dead in Parkland, Florida. He will get life in prison.
Criminal Law
Doug Koebernick, inspector general of the Nebraska Correctional System, said their investigation will be focused on the death, the events that surrounded it and whether staff followed prison policies.
"The defendant doesn't get rewarded for bad behavior," said James D. Smith, senior assistant Nebraska attorney general.
Criminal Law
Patrick Schroeder is the fifth death row inmate to die while awaiting execution by the state.
Law
The state's Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision against John Lotter, finding the convicted murder's lawyers had missed their window of opportunity to claim he is intellectually incompetent.
So far this year, two people have been executed in Oklahoma and one each in Texas and Alabama.
The verdict for 49-year-old Billy Chemirmir came in a second trial after the first jury to hear that case deadlocked.
Three weeks after Roberto Silva Jr. pleaded guilty to killing two Sonic restaurant employees, his attorneys have filed a motion to determine his mental competency.
South Carolina gave the OK to firing squad executions, a method codified into state law last year after a decade-long pause in carrying out death sentences.
The Sarpy County attorney said his office still plans to seek the death penalty, despite Roberto Silva's wish to die, because he thinks the facts of the case amount to the highest punishment allowed by Nebraska law.
If Roberto Silva Jr. is convicted, it will be up to a jury or three-judge panel to determine whether any of the aggravators are present. If so, a three-judge panel will decide if the death penalty is warranted.
California's governor, who in 2019 put a ban on executions, aims to dismantle the largest U.S. death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons.