Lifer Seeks Better Life on Death Row

(NEWSER) - Some state lawmakers have proposed a novel solution for California's budget problems: sell San Quentin Prison, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Experts estimate the 435-acre site, picturesquely situated on a peninsula overlooking San Francisco Bay, could go for more than $2 billion. About half of that would go toward building a replacement prison—for some 5,300 inmates, including Death Row—and the rest could help stem the state’s ballooning budget gap. More»

Coconspirators handed tough sentences for young girl's death

(NEWSER) - A military court handed Jesse Spielman a dishonorable discharge and a 110-year prison sentence for raping and murdering an Iraqi girl last year. Spielman and four comrades planned the 2006 assault on a family near Baghdad over a drunken game of cards; they then gang-raped and murdered the girl, her parents and sister, according to the court. More»

Rodney, Roger Berget led troubled lives

(NEWSER) - Twelve years after his older brother Roger Berget was executed for killing a man, Rodney Berget sits on South Dakota's death row awaiting his own death sentence. Roger was convicted in 1987 of murdering a man for his car and was put to death in Oklahoma at age 39; Rodney was convicted of beating a South Dakota prison guard to death with a pipe while he tried to escape in 2003. At the time, he was serving a life sentence for attempted murder and kidnapping. His execution is scheduled for September, but will likely be delayed for a mandatory review, the AP reports. More»

Shaima Alawadi's family was in turmoil, Calif. records show

(NEWSER) - The brutal beating death of an Iraqi woman in California last month may not have been a hate crime at all, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune in a detailed look at search warrant records. Shaima Alawadi, 32, was planning to divorce husband Kassim Alhimidi and move to Texas, where her mother and siblings had moved recently. The records also show that 17-year-old daughter Fatima, who found her mother and called 911, was unhappy over an arranged marriage to a cousin. While being interviewed by police hours after the attack, someone sent Fatima a text message reading, "The detective will find out tell them (can’t) talk." More»

Just 78 sentenced this year: new report

(NEWSER) - The number of death sentences handed down this year dropped 30% compared to last, hitting the lowest level in 35 years, according to a new report. Just 78 people were sentenced to death this year—marking "the first time we've had fewer than 100 new death sentences in a year in the modern era of capital punishment," says the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, the nonprofit behind the report. In addition, 43 people were executed, compared to 46 last year, the Wall Street Journal reports. More»