Fewer than 30 people were executed in the United States and under 50 new death sentences were imposed for the fifth straight year, part of a continuing decline in capital punishment that saw only a few states carry out executions, ...

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Prison officials are unconstitutionally limiting public access to executions in Virginia by blocking witnesses from seeing certain steps in the process, four news organizations allege in a federal lawsuit filed this week. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in ...

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A federal death row inmate from Kansas who raped, killed and dismembered a 16-year-old girl and beat an 80-year-old woman to death wants the chance to present claims that his trial lawyer was ineffective. Attorneys for Wesley Ira Purkey  last ...

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A federal jury that convicted a former University of Illinois doctoral student of kidnapping, torturing and killing a young scholar from China now must decide if Brendt Christensen should be put to death. While the state of Illinois, where she ...

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A recent Kansas Supreme Court ruling declaring that the state constitution protects access to abortion opened the door to a new legal attack on the death penalty. Attorneys for five of the 10 men on death row in Kansas argue ...

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Lisa Noland said she was 17 when she wrote a suicide note, planning to end her life after years of being raped by her grandmother’s boyfriend. A day later, she found herself fighting for her life while being raped by ...

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With the American Pharmacists Association taking a stance this week, the medical community is now united in its opposition to playing any role in capital punishment killings, which could prompt death penalty states to return to previously shunned methods.

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St. Louis Circuit Court is preparing for a September death penalty trial of a man accused of a triple murder.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that lower courts should take another look at an appeal from a Missouri man on death row for killing a woman and her two children 16 years ago.

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Pornographic magazine publisher Larry Flynt is persevering in his legal fight to publicize details about Missouri's execution methods. This follows the November 2013 execution of the white supremacist gunman who left him paralyzed.

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Despite a record number of executions in Missouri this year, executions and new death sentences nationwide dropped to their lowest numbers in decades in 2014, an anti-death penalty group said in a new report.

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