9/11 Executions Could Take Place in Gitmo

(NEWSER) - Two suspected Sept. 11 planners calmly declared their guilt today at what could be the final military tribunal session at Guantanamo Bay, the Miami Herald reports. "We are proud of 9/11," said Ramzi bin al Shibh, who announced his plan to plead guilty, the AP reports. Another of five suspects present, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, said the accused did not fear capital punishment. “We are doing jihad for the cause of God," he said. More»

Untested system for 9/11 suspects stalling

(NEWSER) - Six men detained in Guantanamo in connection with the 9/11 attacks were charged with war crimes two months ago—they were to be the first defendants in President Bush's never-tested military commission system. But not a single one has even met their counsel yet because military lawyers are in extremely short supply. It's one of several snags that have confounded efforts to get on with the military trials, the New York Times reports. More»

Carlos DeLuna allegedly took the fall for Carlos Hernandez

(NEWSER) - Carlos DeLuna was executed in 1989 for the murder of Wanda Lopez, but a 400-page article in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review asserts that Texas actually put the wrong man to death, while the real killer bragged about the murder and the fact that DeLuna took the fall. Lopez, a gas station attendant, was stabbed to death in 1983 by a man who had been lurking outside the store and later came in demanding money. The journal article alleges that Carlos Hernandez, who died in prison on other charges in 1999, was the true murderer; DeLuna said the two men had been together at a strip club before the murder, and that he fled when he saw Hernandez attack Lopez. More»

Existing studies are flawed, and shouldn't be considered: committee

(NEWSER) - Ohio executed one death-row inmate yesterday and has 11 executions on the books over the next 20 months. The AP notes that could once again make the state one of the country's busiest executioners. So is all that capital punishment deterring murders there? Who knows? That's basically the finding of experts brought together to research the question on behalf of the National Research Council. NPR reports that they considered only the science, not the morality, of the death penalty, by reviewing dozens of studies on the topic. More»

China's Interviews Before Execution spoke to hundreds of doomed inmates

(NEWSER) - Hit Chinese TV program Interviews Before Execution has been abruptly canceled—after five years on the air and just about a week of attention from the West. The show, which reached 40 million viewers every Saturday night, featured glamorous host Ding Yu speaking to condemned criminals days, hours, or even just minutes before their execution. Officials at China's Legal TV say the show, which just started popping up in Western press for the first time in advance of a BBC documentary on the show that aired last night, has been axed because of "internal problems," ABC reports. More»