Edward Donald Slovik was a United States Army soldier during World War II and the only American soldier to be court-martialled and executed for desertion since the American Civil War. Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's death sentence was the only one that was carried out.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty in 27 states, throughout the country at the federal level, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 19 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 8, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Capital punishment is a legal punishment under the criminal justice system of the United States federal government. It is the most serious punishment that could be imposed under federal law. The serious crimes that warrant this punishment include treason, espionage, murder, large-scale drug trafficking, or attempted murder of a witness, juror, or court officer in certain cases.
The United States Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), colloquially known as Leavenworth, is a military correctional facility located on Fort Leavenworth, a United States Army post in Kansas. It is one of two major prisons built on Fort Leavenworth property, the other is the military Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, which opened on 5 October 2010. Together the facilities make up the Military Corrections Complex which is under the command of its commandant, who holds the rank of colonel, and serves as both the Army Corrections Brigade Commander and Deputy commander of The United States Army Corrections Command.
Robert Alton Harris was an American car thief, burglar, kidnapper and murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 for the 1978 murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. His execution was the first in the state of California since 1967.
The murders of Julie and Robin Kerry occurred on April 5, 1991, on the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri. The two sisters were raped and then murdered by a group of four males, who also attempted to murder the sisters' cousin.
The use of capital punishment by the United States military is a legal punishment in martial criminal justice. Despite its legality, capital punishment has not been imposed by the U.S. military in over sixty years.
On May 22, 1995, 16-year-old Jimmy Farris, the son of a Los Angeles Police Department officer, was stabbed to death. Farris and his friend, Michael McLoren, were next to a clubhouse-type fort in McLoren's backyard. Four acquaintances of Farris and McLoren jumped the chainlink fence and approached the fort. There was a fight inside the fort. Farris and McLoren went into the house, bleeding from stab wounds, while the other four climbed back over the fence and left. Farris died before paramedics arrived. McLoren was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center.
Kenneth Eugene Foster Jr. is a prisoner formerly on death row in Texas, convicted under the Texas law of parties. At 19 years old, he was convicted of murdering Michael LaHood Jr. on August 15, 1996 at 2:46 a.m., despite not firing a shot. On that same night, Foster, along with three of his friends, Julius Steen, Mauriceo Brown, and Dwayne Dillard, were driving around San Antonio committing armed robberies. Eventually, the group found LaHood outside his parents' home. From there, Mauriceo Brown allegedly exited the car and killed him with a shot to the head. Foster's conviction and death sentence were contested because he was convicted under the law of parties, not for physically committing the crime.
Stephen Anthony Mobley was a convicted murderer executed by the State of Georgia for the 1991 killing of John C. Collins, a 25-year-old college student working nights as a Domino's pizza store manager. On appeal, Mobley's attorneys advanced a novel argument that Mobley was genetically predisposed to seeking violent solutions to conflict. The case was described by Nature Reviews Neuroscience as "perhaps the most widely cited case in which defence lawyers used genetic factors in the defence of their client".
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
Ronald Adrin Gray is an American serial killer and rapist whose convictions include four counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and eight counts of rape. His crimes were committed when he was in the United States Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Scott Allen Hain was the last person executed in the United States for crimes committed as a juvenile. Hain was executed by Oklahoma for a double murder–kidnapping he committed when he was 17 years old.
United States v. Hasan K. Akbar was the court-martial of a United States Army soldier for a premeditated attack in the early morning hours of March 23, 2003, at Camp Pennsylvania, Kuwait, during the start of the United States invasion of Iraq.
Leroy Keith was an American criminal and serial killer who killed three people in Ohio and New York during robberies. Originally sentenced to death twice in Ohio, he was released on parole and went on to kill two more people before being executed at Sing Sing in 1959.
Brandon Anthony Micah Bernard was an American man convicted and executed for the 1999 robbery, kidnapping, and murder of Todd Bagley, 26, and Stacie Bagley, 28. He was sentenced to death for the murders and remained on death row until his execution in December 2020. Bernard's conviction and execution attracted controversy due to questions about the extent of his culpability in the murders. In the time leading to his execution, prominent politicians, public figures, and five surviving jurors who convicted him advocated for his sentence to be commuted.
Capital punishment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a legal penalty; however, the nation has not carried out any executions since 2003, meaning that the country experienced a de facto moratorium on the death penalty from their latest executions in 2003 until March 2024.
On November 20, 1994, 22-year-old nurse technician Stacy Rae Errickson was abducted from a gas station in Jacksonville, Arkansas, near Little Rock. The kidnapper, Marcel Wayne Williams, forced Errickson to withdraw money from various ATMs before he raped and killed Errickson near the Arkansas River. Williams confessed to the crime when he was arrested nine days later for unrelated cases of rape, and he was charged with the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Errickson. Williams was convicted and sentenced to death on January 14, 1997, and he also received three life sentences plus 70 years for separate rape incidents he committed on two women. Williams was incarcerated on death row for 20 years before he was executed on April 24, 2017.
On June 19, 1992, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, 31-year-old convenience store owner Kenneth Meers was gunned down during a robbery perpetrated by two gunmen. The murderers – Glenn Bethany and Emmanuel Littlejohn – were arrested and charged with robbing and murdering Meers. Littlejohn was sentenced to death, while Bethany received a life sentence in separate trials between 1993 and 1994.
