FEATURED POST

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.

Texas executes Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas

Published
Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas
Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas
A man who escaped prison while serving a murder sentence in Mexico was executed Wednesday by the US state of Texas for a separate 1997 killing.

Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, 44, was in the US illegally when he killed a university professor who had hired him to work on a home renovation project.

Texas' parole and pardons board refused to delay his case.

Hernandez-Llanas becomes the sixth Texas prisoner executed this year. He was pronounced dead at 6:28 p.m.

He is also the second person this week executed in the state by lethal injection with a new supply of pentobarbital.

Hernandez-Llanas spent four hours Wednesday with close relatives, including his mother and some of his brothers.

This week a US appeals court rejected a bid by lawyers for Hernandez-Llanas and another death row inmate, Tommy Lynn Sells, to learn who is supplying Texas with the drug.

They argued they needed to know the source in order to ensure the executions would not be botched by the use of expired or ineffective drugs.

But Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials have refused to identify the source of the sedative, saying secrecy is needed to protect the provider from threats of violence.

Mental impairment claim

In 1997, Glen Lich, 49, hired Hernandez-Llanas to work for him.

Unbeknownst to Lich, Hernandez-Llanas had recently escaped from a Mexican prison where he was serving a 25-year sentence for a 1989 murder.

Several days later, Hernandez-Llanas lured Lich away from his house by telling him falsely there was a problem with a generator. He beat the man to death with a length of steel rebar, then entered the house and attacked Lich's wife.

Sentenced in 2000 for Lich's murder, he was among more than four dozen Mexican nationals awaiting execution in the US in 2004 when the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled they had not been properly informed of their consular rights when arrested.

Another one of those Mexican nationals, Edgar Tamayo, 46, was executed by Texas in January despite objections of both the Mexican and US governments.

Euclides del Moral, a Mexico foreign ministry official, said on Tuesday "the execution of a Mexican national is of great concern".

But the issue did not play a large part in Hernandez-Llanas' appeals, which focused primarily on claims that his mental impairment made him ineligible for the death penalty.

Hernandez-Llanas becomes the 6th inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, the 514th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982; and the 275th inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.

Hernandez-Llanas becomes the 16th inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1375th overall since the nation resumed executons on January 17, 1977.

Source: BBC News, Agencies, Rick Halperin, April 9, 2014
Related content:

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Communist Vietnam's secret death penalty conveyor belt: How country trails only China and Iran for 'astonishing' number of executions

Published
Image
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
Read more

Japan | Death-row inmates' lawsuit targeting same-day notifications of executions dismissed

Published
Image
The Osaka District Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit by death row inmates that claimed same-day notifications of executions violate the Constitution — the first ruling of its kind. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit against the government in hopes of sparking a wider discussion on the rights of death row prisoners. They also sought ¥22 million in compensation and plan to appeal to a higher court.
Read more

Texas | State district judge recommends overturning Melissa Lucio’s death sentence

Published
Image
In a rare joint statement, the district attorney and the defense agreed that prosecutors withheld evidence that could point to a Rio Grande Valley woman’s innocence in the death of her toddler. A district judge who previously presided over a woman’s capital murder case recommended last week that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturn Melissa Lucio's 2008 conviction after a district attorney’s office admitted that prosecutors withheld evidence from her defense.
Read more

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Arizona death penalty case that could redefine historic precedent

Published
Image
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments centering on an Arizona death row prisoner that could set new precedent to determining ineffective assistance of counsel.  A Mohave County Superior Court jury convicted Danny Lee Jones for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver and his daughter Tisha, as well as the attempted murder of Weaver’s grandmother. A judge sentenced Jones to death for the two murders.
Read more

Iran | Probable Child Offender and Child Bride, Husband Executed for Drug Charges

Published
Image
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 15 2024: Marjan Hajizadeh and Esmail Hassaniani, a couple sentenced to death for drug-related charges in a joint case, were executed in Zanjan Central Prison.  Marjan is reported to have been 16 at the time of arrest, which IHRNGO is working to confirm. If verified, she will be the first child offender executed for drug charges since 2014. She was also a child bride forced into marriage.
Read more

Bill Moves Forward to Prevent Use of Nitrogen Gas Asphyxiation in Louisiana Executions

Published
Image
There’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430. When Louisiana legislators approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation as an execution method during a second special legislative session in February, the move attracted national attention; not the least because it has only been used in the U.S. once. That’s when Alabama executed convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith on January 25th of this year. Now there’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430.
Read more