death penalty

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 on Wednesday to recommend clemency to death row inmate James Coddington, who iss on death row for the 1997 murder of his friend Albert Troy Hale in Choctaw.

Attorneys for Oklahoma death row inmates are fighting a legal challenge against the state's controversial three-drug lethal injection protocol. A district court ruled it constitutional on Monday.

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas issued a stay of execution Monday and sent the case back to a lower court for review. Lucio had been scheduled for execution on Wednesday.

The state Supreme Court is temporarily blocking what was set to be South Carolina's first-ever firing squad execution. The planned April 29 execution of Richard Bernard Moore is now on hold.

Richard Bernard Moore is the first prisoner in South Carolina to face the choice of execution methods since the state made electrocution the default and gave inmates the option to face rifles instead.

Four years after he killed 17 people and wounded 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Nikolas Cruz goes on trial. He's already pleaded guilty and hopes to avoid the death penalty.

Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed Cathy Stocker to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board on Thursday. She replaces Kelly Doyle, who abruptly resigned in March.

South Carolina's governor signed a law last year forcing death row inmates to choose the manner of their execution: either by firing squad or electric chair if lethal injection is not possible.

Oklahoma's secrecy laws allow the state to obscure where it gets lethal injection drugs. Given the state's track record, the critics say, that shouldn't be the case.

Gilbert Ray Postelle was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 10:14 a.m. Thursday morning. He's the fourth death row inmate to be killed since the state resumed capital punishment in October after a six-year moratorium.