Governor loses vote for letting man die

Christopher Scott Emmett will not vote for Governor Tim Kaine in the next Virginia election. Emmett was executed after losing his appeal which claimed the State’s lethal injection method would cause excruciating pain. After stating, “Tell the Governor he just lost my vote,” Emmett added, “Y’all hurry this along. I’m dying to get out of …

The price for 50 years of hell

Just shy of five decades after he was sentenced to hang at the age of 14, Steven Truscott has been awarded $6.5 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction in the rape and murder of 12 year old Lynne Harper. In June of 1959, Lynne Harper went missing in a small community in Ontario, Canada. …

Four lineup IDs were wrong

In 1992, two men kidnapped a couple, tied up the man and sexually assaulted the woman, and then held another couple at gunpoint. All four victims identified Patrick Waller as one of the two assailants. All four victims were wrong. After spending more than 15 years in prison, Waller was released and exonerated this month …

Florida’s new lethal injection procedure works

Mark Dean Schwab was pronounced dead at 6:15 PM EDT today, executed for the 1991 kidnapping, rape, and murder of an 11-year old boy, Junny Rios-Martinez. Schwab, who admitted kidnapping and raping the boy, and who led police to a footlocker holding Junny’s nude body, challenged Florida’s new execution procedure, claiming it would cause him …

Would you plead guilty if you’re really innocent?

In 1989, Anthony Hanemaayer pleaded guilty to a knifepoint sexual assault on a 15-year old girl. But Hanemaayer was innocent. So why did he plead guilty? Because he was afraid he couldn’t prove his innocence, that the courts would find him guilty, and that he’d be sentenced to a heavy term in federal prison. In …