Fourteen years and numerous judicial reviews have passed since José Medellin was sentenced to die after confessing to the brutal gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Justice Department has appealed to nation's highest court to re-hear a major death penalty case involving sentencing for child rapists, saying the ruling was made without all the facts.

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday approved the first execution by the military since 1961, upholding the death penalty of an Army private convicted of a series of rapes and murders more than two decades ago.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Missouri's lethal-injection procedure is not cruel or unusual punishment, possibly ending a series of lawsuits that kept the state's death chamber closed for nearly three years.

The ruling was issued by U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan Jr. in Kansas City.

Missouri corrections officials said Tuesday they were preparing to end the life of John Middleton on July 30 as originally scheduled.

SHERMAN, Texas — A death row inmate condemned for a 1983 quadruple slaying got at least another two-week reprieve Thursday when a judge postponed deciding whether old evidence will undergo DNA testing not available nearly a quarter-century ago.

Lester Leroy Bower Jr. must now wait until at least Aug. 1 before knowing whether testing will be done on items collected in a Grayson County airplane hangar where four men were shot execution-style.

WASHINGTON - A Georgia man convicted of killing a police officer is asking the Supreme Court to grant him a hearing based on witnesses who recanted their testimony and others who say another man confessed to the crime.

Troy Davis, on death row for gunning down a Savannah police officer in 1989, says evidence of his innocence is strong enough to prevent the state from executing him before a judge hears from the witnesses.

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - Lawyers for four Arkansas death-row inmates say "botched" executions show that the state's lethal injection method remains dangerous and inadequate.

GREENVILLE - Dale Leo Bishop, scheduled for execution July 23 for his role in a Saltillo murder, says two recent developments in his appeals for a stay deserve the U.S. District Court's attention.

In documents filed Thursday, Bishop alleges the misconduct of his first state appeals lawyer and his own mental illness have put him facing lethal injection.

HOUSTON (AP) - An appeals court has denied a third retrial for a former University of Texas honors student condemned for killing an Austin policeman.

Investigators say David Lee Powell killed Officer Ralph Albanedo with an automatic assault rifle 30 years ago.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week upheld his conviction and death sentence -- rejecting defense claims that Powell's rights had been violated.

Albanedo had stopped a car driven by Powell's girlfriend near downtown Austin for not having a rear license tag. Evidence shows that Powell, who was a passenger, opened fire on Albanedo and killed him.

Powell, at the time of the shooting, was wanted for misdemeanor theft and for passing more than 100 bad checks in Austin. Investigators say his drug use led him to become paranoid.

source: http://www.cbs7kosa.com/news/details.asp?ID=7166

HOUSTON — Despite pleas from the White House and the State Department, as well as an international court order to review their cases, Texas will execute five Mexicans on death row, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.

The first of the executions — that of José Ernesto Medellín, 33, convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of two teenage girls here — is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Protesters often wondered about surveillance of gatherings Max Obuszewski is a graying veteran of war protests. In his life, he estimated yesterday, he's been arrested about 70 times for struggling to make a point about critical issues, including the Vietnam War, homelessness in Baltimore and the war in Iraq.

Cell inspection: A guard checked doors at San Quentin prison. The facility is at the center of a debate over death row expansion.

Death-penalty foes want the condemned to be kept at San Quentin Prison rather than transferred to remote areas.

San Quentin, Calif. - If Methodist pastor Liza Klein had her way, no one would be executed in the US again. But for the moment, she has another goal: keeping California's death row in her own backyard.

Despite the estimated $400 million price tag for its expansion, Ms. Klein and other death-penalty opponents want the death row to stay at San Quentin State Prison because its location next to San Francisco provides easier access to lawyers, family members, and activists.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a person found guilty of murdering a law enforcement officer is eligible for the death penalty, even if the killer did not know the victim was an officer at the time.

The 5-2 ruling was issued before the upcoming trials against Antron Dawayne Fair and Damon Antwon Jolly, who are accused of killing Bibb County Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Whitehead in 2006. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against both men, who will be tried separately.

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday decided to stay the execution date for Toledo native James Were, who was convicted for orchestrating the murder of a prison guard during the 1993 Lucasville riots.

The United States Supreme Court ruled recently that the imposition of the death penalty upon individuals who rape children is "cruel and unusual punishment." The ruling, a 5-4 decision, initially stuns regular folks who cannot understand why the death penalty would apply to someone who shoots a person versus someone who uses an innocent child for sexual prey.