Governor halts execution of William Lee Thompson, after Christa Pike survived failed lethal injections
Ron DeSantis cancelled a planned execution in the state on Friday, days before a 74-year-old man was due to be killed by lethal injection.
The move – the first time Florida’s governor has withdrawn a death warrant in his nearly eight years in office – comes just over a week after the botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
The US is facing worldwide condemnation over a “barbaric” plan to execute a disabled man by firing squad and livestream it to the public, with critics comparing the Trump administration to dictatorships in Iran and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, would be livestreamed on 3 December.
Flowers, tried six times over 1996 murders of four people, faced execution before supreme court tossed his conviction
Curtis Flowers, a Black man who spent more than 22 years in prison and was on death row in Mississippi before the US supreme courtthrew out his conviction and death sentence, has died. He was 56.
Flowers’ family confirmed that he died on Wednesday at his home in Mississippi, attorney Rob McDuff told the Associated Press on Thursday.
Recovery marks a dramatic turnaround for Pike, who remains in hospital after a botched execution in Tennessee
Christa Pike is “up and walking” in hospital, her lawyer said, just more than a week after she survived two lethal injections during a botched execution in Tennessee.
The recovery marks a dramatic turnaround after Pike was declared brain dead on Monday, before waking up and beginning to speak on Tuesday. Her ordeal has shocked many in the US and overseas and galvanized critics of the death penalty.
Ousted Venezuelan president and Cilia Flores have been in jail in New York since early January
The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted for alleged conspiracy to commit torture, according to Manhattan federal court papers unsealed on Thursday.
The superseding indictment was unsealed shortly before Flores appeared at court in her ongoing push for pretrial release – which was denied by Judge Alvin Hellerstein. Maduro and Flores have been jailed in New York City since early January.
Attorneys say Pike was set to be taken off life support before she woke up, as judge orders officials to preserve evidence
Christa Pike awoke “angry and confused” after surviving two lethal injections, her attorneys said on Wednesday, as a judge ordered Tennessee state officials to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution.
Pike, 50, was taken to hospital unconscious but alive from Tennessee’s execution chamber last Wednesday after two supposedly lethal doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital.
Christa Pike, a death row inmate who survived the state of Tennessee’s attempt to execute her last week, is conscious and speaking. The 50-year-old is recovering in hospital after surviving two lethal injections in a case that has shocked many in the US and prompted a debate about the death penalty. She was due to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Michael Safi speaks to the chief reporter for Guardian US, Ed Pilkington – watch on YouTube
Christa Pike’s lawyers said that Pike remains shackled to her hospital bed.
“Based on our understanding, medical staff have asked that the shackles be removed and have been denied that request by [the Tennessee corrections department],” they said, adding: “We would also amend our request and ask for that relief.”
Lawyers seek preservation of evidence after prisoner received two doses of pentobarbital on 30 September
Christa Pike, a Tennessee prisoner who survived the state’s attempt to execute her, is awake and speaking as she receives treatment at a hospital, her attorneys said, as they head to court on Wednesday seeking a court order requiring preservation of all evidence relating to the botched exercise by the state.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital, a sedative, as Tennessee officials attempted to put her to death last Wednesday in a case that shocked many in America and created headlines around the world. She was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Officials file ‘denaturalization actions’ against people accused of crimes in what they call ‘largest’ such initiative
Donald Trump’s justice department has moved to strip the citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens accused of crimes in what authorities describe as “the largest” such initiative over a single period during his administration.
US justice department officials on Monday announced the filing of “denaturalization actions” against more than three dozen people alleged to have committed such offenses as “acting as an agent for a foreign government, committing voluntary manslaughter, and aggravated sodomy against a special‑needs man”.
Alito, 76, delivers comment in rare interview with CBS News scheduled to air on Monday
Samuel Alito, the conservative US supreme court justice, has said “I think I have to” contemplate retiring every year at his age.
Alito, 76, delivered that comment in a rare interview with CBS News scheduled to air on Monday, a little more than six months after a widely publicized hospital visit invited speculation about his potential retirement.
Roger Fortson was shot by deputy when he opened door with gun in hand after a false domestic disturbance call
A Florida jury recently found former sheriff’s deputy Eddie Duran not guilty of manslaughter with a firearm in the fatal shooting of Roger Fortson, a Black US air force airman who was killed inside his apartment after authorities responded to an unfounded report of a domestic disturbance.
An Okaloosa county jury acquitted Duran, 38, on Thursday after about two hours of deliberations. He had faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Rhonda Jewell was sentenced to 17 years for forgetting 10-month-old Ariya in car’s back seat, leading to child’s death
A state appeals court in Florida reversed the felony murder conviction of a woman who accidentally left a baby in her car, resulting in the child’s death.
In July 2023, while babysitting four children from two different families, 46-year-old Rhonda Jewell forgot 10-month-old Ariya Paige was in the back of her car, and went inside to care for the other kids. Strapped into her carseat in the Florida summer heat, Ariya died of hyperthermia before Jewell realized her mistake. Jewell was convicted the following year of third-degree felony murder, predicated on the underlying felony of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle. She was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
What happened to Pike was gruesome. No one deserves what she went through, not even those who commit horrible crimes
Botched executions are nothing new in US history. In the era when hangings were common, some condemned people were decapitated. Later, when the electric chair was in vogue, every now and again, someone would catch fire during an electrocution. And nitrogen hypoxia, the US’s newest execution method, has already proven notoriously unreliable.
But, of all of the ways we have tried to execute people, lethal injection has the worst track record. More than 8% of all lethal injection executions have been botched. Most of them resulted when those charged with carrying them out could not find a usable vein.
Three-quarters of nations have rightly abolished capital punishment in law or practice, but killing by the state has surged in the US
What is the kindest way to kill? That’s the question being asked once more following Tennessee’s failed attempts to execute Christa Pike for the brutal murder of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, when she was 18. The 50-year-old was taken to a medical facility, her condition unknown, with witnesses describing her snoring loudly around 40 minutes after receiving two injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday. It is the second botched killing in months, prompting Tennessee’s governor to order a halt to executions.
Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane alternative to firing squads and electric chairs. They in turn were seen as an improvement on hanging, which looked much like lynching in a system disproportionately handing the death penalty to black men. The age and ill health of those executed, and the ethical refusal of most medical staff to be involved, may contribute to botched injections. But analysis of autopsy results has provided compelling evidence that suffering is inherent; injections – especially those involving paralytic drugs – have merely disguised it. What is described as safeguarding the dignity of prisoners is really about reducing the discomfort of witnesses who would otherwise see their suffering.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Connexion
