At 60% of Total, Texas Is Bucking Execution Trend
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As enthusiasm for executions fell elsewhere, more than 60 percent of all U.S. executions took place in Texas this year.
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Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday stopped the execution of a Texas convict scheduled to be put to death for the 1998 killing of his parents, two days after the court said it will consider whether lethal injection violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
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SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota  - Just minutes before   prison officials had planned to serve death row inmate Elijah   Page his last meal, South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds delayed the   state's first execution in 59 years until at least next July.
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Convicted murderers are being sentenced to death half as often as they were five years ago, and the population of death row is declining as a result, an anti-capital punishment information organization reported Tuesday.
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New data suggests that the prisoners affected by recent changes to drug sentencing laws are very different from the general prison population.
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas  - A Texas man convicted of  killing a bank employee during a 1982 robbery in Dallas was  executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.
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The state becomes the first in modern times to abolish capital punishment, as momentum builds across the country to reconsider seldom-used death-penalty statutes
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas  - Texas executed a mechanic on Wednesday who was convicted of murdering a taxi driver, marking the second of three planned executions this week.
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With New Jersey on the cusp of abolishing capital punishment, death penalty foes are hoping the move will inspire other states to do the same.
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Mexico's top-security jails are on maximum alert after the killing of six prison staff blamed on drug gangs.
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Posted December 1, 2004 - Texas Gov. Rick Perry Wednesday halted the execution of Frances Newton, who was scheduled to be the first Black woman executed in the state.
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Andre Luckett has forgiven the accused  killer of his father. Now he wants Texas, the nation's leading  death penalty state, to do the same.
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A man facing execution in Texas for driving the car a murderer escaped in has his sentence commuted to life.
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SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota  - South Dakota carried out its first execution in 60 years on Wednesday, putting to death a 25-year-old inmate convicted of torturing and killing a 19-year-old man following a robbery.
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The number of people in U.S. prisons and jails or on probation or parole reached a record 7 million at the end of last year, accounting for about 3 percent of the nation's adult population, the Justice Department reported on Thursday.
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The state of Texas executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection on Wednesday, in its 400th execution since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.