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The federal government carries out its final execution under the Trump administration, executing convicted murderer Dustin Higgs by lethal injection at USP Terre Haute in Indiana.
2021-01-16

Shortly after midnight, the federal government executes Lisa Marie Montgomery by lethal injection for the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, after the Supreme Court vacated the last stay on her execution. Montgomery is the first woman to be executed by the federal government since 1953.
2021-01-13

A court in China sentences a woman to death for poisoning 25 kindergarten children with nitrite in their porridge, killing one. The court said the motives of the woman were "despicable" and "vicious".
2020-09-29

The Supreme Court of the United States rules 5–4 to lift the block on four federal executions scheduled for July and August. Convicted murderer Daniel Lewis Lee, whose execution was scheduled for the previous afternoon, is executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Two more executions are scheduled for later in the week.
2020-07-14

The Supreme Court of the United States rejects a request by gun rights activists to grant a temporary stay on the Trump administration's ban on bump stock attachments that allow semi-automatic firearms to be fired rapidly. The policy took effect Tuesday after a similar bid to delay implementation was rejected.
2019-03-28

Pope Francis changes Catholic Church teaching to fully reject the death penalty, saying that it would work to abolish the death penalty worldwide.
2018-08-2

A Chinese court sentences Zhang Zhongsheng, the former Vice Mayor of Lüliang, Shanxi, to death. Zhongsheng was convicted of accepting bribes totaling 1.04 billion yuan (US$160 million).
2018-03-28

The Supreme Court of the United States refuses to vacate a stay of execution issued by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas's highest court has also put on hold the execution of another inmate, Bruce Ward. The state had planned to execute eight inmates in eleven days. That schedule, as well as the use of the drug midazolam, sparked a broad range of legal challenges and humanitarian concerns about the executions. Today's planned execution of Don W. Davis would have been the state's first since 2005.
2017-04-18

The Supreme Court deadlocks (4–4) in the challenge to President Barack Obama's executive order that set up the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans plan, which could have shielded up to five million illegal immigrants. The tie leaves in place an earlier ruling against the plan.
2016-06-23

Elena Kagan is sworn in as the fourth woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.
2010-08-8