NEWS
June 13, 2013 | Associated Press
CLEVELAND - The man accused of holding three women captive in his home for about a decade pleaded not guilty yesterday to hundreds of rape and kidnapping charges, and the defense hinted at avoiding a trial with a plea deal if the death penalty were ruled out. The death penalty is in play because among the accusations facing Ariel Castro is that he forced a miscarriage by one of the women, which is considered a killing under Ohio law. That charge doesn't...
NEWS
June 13, 2013 | By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press
CLEVELAND - A man accused of holding three women captive in his home for about a decade pleaded not guilty Wednesday to hundreds of rape and kidnapping charges, and the defense hinted at avoiding a trial with a plea deal if the death penalty were ruled out. The death penalty is in play because among the accusations facing Ariel Castro, 52, is that he forced one of the women to miscarry, which is considered a killing under Ohio law. That charge doesn't...
NEWS
June 2, 2013 | By John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
A Philadelphia jury on Friday ordered the death penalty for Kaboni Savage, who became one of the city's most notorious criminals by orchestrating the murders of government witnesses, their relatives, and rivals who threatened him or his sprawling drug operation. The federal court panel deliberated about 10 hours over two days before unanimously recommending that Savage be executed for 12 murders, including a 2004 firebombing in North Philadelphia that killed four children and two women related to a witness cooperating with the FBI. U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick said he would impose the sentence Monday.
NEWS
May 31, 2013 | By Gene Johnson, Associated Press
SEATTLE - The Army staff sergeant charged with slaughtering 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty in a deal that requires him to recount the horrific attack for the first time, his attorney said Wednesday. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was "crazed" and "broken" when he slipped away from his remote southern Afghanistan outpost and attacked mud-walled compounds in two slumbering villages nearby, lawyer John Henry Browne said.
NEWS
May 23, 2013 | By John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
Kaboni Savage should die, a prosecutor said Tuesday, because he wantonly slaughtered children and witnesses, and because he laughed about it and vowed that even prison could not stop him from plotting more deaths. "The fight don't stop 'til the casket drop" was his mantra, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer told a federal jury. The drug kingpin should live, Savage's lawyer countered, because his past was shaped by tragedy in a North Philadelphia neighborhood overrun by crime and drugs, and because even a life of solitary confinement in a tiny windowless cell might make a difference.
NEWS
May 22, 2013 | ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOENIX - Jodi Arias begged jurors yesterday to give her life in prison, saying she "lacked perspective" when she told a local reporter in an interview that she preferred execution to spending the rest of her days in jail. Standing confidently but at times her voice breaking, Arias told the same eight men and four women who found her guilty of first-degree murder that she planned to use her time in prison to bring about positive changes, including donating her hair to be made into wigs for cancer victims, helping establish prison recycling programs and designing T-shirts that would raise money for victims of domestic abuse.
NEWS
May 17, 2013 | By Brian Skoloff, Associated Press
PHOENIX - The same jury that convicted Jodi Arias of murder one week ago took about three hours Wednesday to determine that the former waitress is eligible for the death penalty in the stabbing and shooting death of her onetime lover in his bathroom five years ago. The decision came after a day of testimony in the "aggravation" phase of the trial, during which prosecutor Juan Martinez hoped to prove the June 2008 killing was committed in an especially cruel...
NEWS
May 15, 2013 | BY MENSAH M. DEAN, Daily News Staff Writer deanm@phillynews.com, 215-568-8278
THE CASE against Kermit Gosnell is expected to come to an end today, when the disgraced abortion doctor is sentenced after he unexpectedly waived his right to appeal in order to avoid a death sentence. Gosnell, 72, who was convicted of the first-degree murders of three babies born alive in his West Philadelphia abortion clinic, was supposed to face a penalty-phase hearing starting Tuesday. But yesterday afternoon, Gosnell changed the script when he stood before Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart and waived all of his appellate rights in exchange for a life-without-parole sentence.
NEWS
May 12, 2013 | By John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
Jurors at the federal murder and racketeering trial of accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage closed their first week of deliberations without a verdict. U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick discharged the nine women and three men early Friday afternoon after five days of talks without any signals of their progress. The group had only a few evidence requests over the week, including one for a transcript of testimony by Lamont Lewis, the admitted killer who said Savage directed him in October 2004 to firebomb the North Philadelphia home of a former gang associate cooperating with the FBI. Two adults and four children died in the fire, which officials have called one of the worst cases of witness retaliation in city history.
NEWS
May 11, 2013 | By Thomas J. Sheeran, Associated Press
CLEVELAND - Prosecutors said Thursday they may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro, the man accused of imprisoning three women at his home for a decade, as police charged that he impregnated one of his captives at least five times and made her miscarry by starving her and punching her in the belly. The allegations were contained in a police report that also said another woman, Amanda Berry, was forced to give birth in a plastic kiddie pool. Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty said his office will decide whether to bring aggravated-murder charges punishable by death in connection with the pregnancies that were terminated by force.