Cases and articles

A recent DNA match revived the 22-year-old murder case.

YOUNGSTOWN — With Bennie L. Adams’ death penalty murder trial looming March 31, the trial judge will hear arguments this week concerning the constitutionality of Ohio’s lethal injection method of execution.

The hearing will be at 10 a.m. Thursday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

In Tennessee, who lives and who dies boils down to a grim game of chance.

By Sarah Kelley, Nashville Scene
Posted on March 7, 2008

In Tennessee, not just any cold-blooded murderer is supposed to face the death penalty -- only "the worst of the worst." Like Brett Patterson, who raped and choked a woman to death with a silk scarf, then strangled her husband with a cord during a home invasion. Or Courtney Matthews, who shot four Taco Bell employees execution-style during a robbery, even though they cooperated with his demands. Then there's David Scarbrough and Thomas Gagne, who broke into an elderly couple's home, shooting them both several times before robbing them. And William Bogus, who strangled his estranged wife, then stole the tips she had earned as a waitress at Shoney's so he could fund a crack cocaine binge.

1999: Walter LaGrand, a German gassed in America

(Thanks to German political scientist Matthias Lehmphul for the guest post -ed.)

The last man — so far — to die in the gas chamber, Walter LaGrand, was executed by the state of Arizona on March 3rd, 1999. He was one of just 11 prisoners gassed among the 1,099 executions to date since the U.S. death penalty was reinstated in 1976.