The victims of evangelist Tony Alamo, who was convicted of taking five underage girls across state lines for sex, showed him no mercy.
U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes acknowledged their sentiments at the sentencing hearing.
On Friday, the judge sentenced the Texas minister to 175 years but said he hoped a greater judge would have mercy on his soul for his sex crimes.
Maybe a death sentence isn't so bad for the more than six hundred California inmates facing capital punishment.
The state not only has the nation's largest death row population but a wait list with long delays. The appeals process can last decades.
Shocking video footage from an interrogation tape of two of convicted teenage killers was released Tuesday.
The tape shows the police interrogation of 16-year-old Daniel Russell and 16-year old Calvin Pearson, just 3 days after they had broken into the North Sacramento home of a 90-year-old woman and beaten her to death using her cane.
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday reinstated the death sentence of a Ohio killer convicted of murdering a man he met in a gay bar.
This overturns a decision last year by a federal appeals court in Cincinnati that ruled the lawyers who represented Robert J. Van Hook, 49, during the sentencing phase of his trial in 1985 failed to do an effective job.
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused Fort Hood gunman who last week opened fire in a processing center on the base, killing 13, now will likely face a long and complicated legal proceeding.
As he lay injured and under heavy guard at Fort Sam Houston, Hasan could become the first serviceman executed through military death penalty in almost 50 years.
A 14-year-old boy from Central Valley California faces charges as an adult for killing 4-year-old Alex Christopher Mercado and stuffing him in a dryer.
The Associated Press reports that Raul Renato Castro told investigators he drowned Alex Christopher Mercado, his 4-year-old neighbor, in a bathtub then hid the murdered boy in a dryer because the child was going to reveal the teen molested him, according to an affidavit released when he appeared in court Wednesday.
Instead of mentally ill people awaiting trial behind bars or on the streets, Miami-Dade courts are taking a different approach.
The courts have rolled out a new pilot program for mentally ill people which allows prosecutors to drop felony charges if defendants finish one year of treatment.
The program is featured in the Miami Herald, which explains how it works.
John Allen Muhammad, convicted DC sniper is scheduled to be executed next month.
Virginia officials said he declined to choose between lethal injection and electrocution.
For Marion Lewis, it's an easy choice.
He said he'd prefer to personally execute Muhammad.
In his CBS interview, Lewis said if it were up to him, Muhammad would be taken into the Idaho desert and killed slowly over three days.
Instead, Lewis will be present in the Virginia death chamber to watch Muhammad die on Nov. 10.
The DNA evidence linking the infamous serial killer Richard Ramirez, known as the "Night Stalker," to the April 10, 1984 death of 9-year-old Mei Leung might finally solve one of many cold cases for the San Francisco Police Department.
It also brings San Francisco police officer Holly Pera's nightmares to an end. She's been haunted by them ever since she first worked the original case years ago.
Thomas and Meeks Griffin were electrocuted by the state of South Carolina in 1915 for allegedly murdering confederate Civil War veteran John Louis. Last Wednesday, they were pardoned for that murder.
The Griffin brothers' pardons happened with the aid of their great nephew, prominent radio host Tom Joyner.
Joyner participated in Professor Henry Louis Gates' "African American Lives 2" series which aired in 2008 on PBS. While analyzing Tom Joyner's genealogy, Professor Gates informed Joyner that he was related to two men executed in South Carolina in 1915 for a murder many believed they did not commit. Thomas and Meeks Griffin were the brothers of Joyner's grandmother Ruth Griffin. (Video of this portion of the series can be seen here.)
With the assistance of historians and attorneys, Joyner pursued the case to clear his great uncles' names. Last week, the South Carolina Board of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services granted the pardons.
How did Joyner make the case? He used voluminous affidavits collected from locals before the execution, along with a petition filed by those who tried to save the Griffin brothers' lives. After they'd been found guilty at trial (in which their counsel was allowed two days to prepare) and appeals had failed, over 120 locals asked the governor to commute the sentences. Amongst those who signed the petition: two trial jurors, the grand jury foreman, the town's mayor, and a former sheriff.
