35% of US executions ‘botched’ in 2022 as use of capital punishment remains near 50-year lows, report says
Executions and death sentences in the United States remained near 50-year lows in 2022, but “an astonishing 35%” of execution attempts were “visibly problematic,” according to a report released Friday.
The year-end report by Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit focusing on capital punishment issues,found that 18 executions were carried out in the U.S. since January — the fewest in any prepandemic year since 1991.
The report also noted a decline in the handing out of death sentences. To date, 20 death sentences have been issued, with two more sentencing decisions scheduled to be announced in San Bernardino County, California. With the exception of the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the number of sentences will be the lowest imposed in the U.S. in the past half-century.
The ongoing trends point to the “continued durability of the more than the 20-year sustained decline of the death penalty in the United States,” with more and more jurisdictions taking steps to move away from capital punishment, according to the report.
Nearly three-quarters of the country (37 states) have either abolished the death penalty or have not carried out an execution in over a decade.
—New York Daily News
Prosecutors charge father of alleged Illinois parade shooter with felonies for sponsoring son’s firearm ID card
CHICAGO — Lake County prosecutors announced Friday they have charged Robert Crimo Jr., father of alleged Highland Park parade shooter Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, with felony reckless conduct for sponsoring his son’s firearm owner’s identification card.
Crimo Jr. faces one count one for each person killed in the July 4 attack. Felony reckless conduct has maximum penalty of three years in prison, but probation is also an option.
Crimo Jr.’s attorney, George Gomez, said over the summer that when Crimo Jr. sponsored the FOID card, he wasn’t aware that his son was a danger to anyone.
Gomez could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
Police reports show officers were called to the Crimo home nine times between 2010 and 2014 in response to domestic altercations involving the parents, Robert Crimo Jr. and Denise Pesina. Records showed neither had been charged with domestic violence in Lake County.
In 2019, Highland Park police reports stated officers were called to domestic cases involving the family, and were told Crimo III had tried to kill himself with a machete and threatened to kill “everyone.”
Crimo III denied it, and no charges were filed.
Local police reported Crimo III to Illinois State Police as a “clear and present danger,” but state police approved his application for a FOID card, with his father’s sponsorship, in December 2019.
Crimo Jr. told ABC News he was shocked and felt “horrible” about the shooting, but had “no regret” over helping his son get access to guns.
—Chicago Tribune
US vacates 1954 security decision for ‘father of the atomic bomb' J. Robert Oppenheimer
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Department on Friday vacated a decision made in 1954 to revoke the security clearance of J. RobertOppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb.”
Oppenheimer died in 1967 from cancer. The scientist played a key role in the Manhattan Project, a large-scale U.S. governmenteffort to create the first nuclear weapons. His security clearance was revoked amid what the Energy Department said was aneffort to discredit him.
“As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjectedto while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed,” the department said in a statement.
—Bloomberg News
Large aquarium tank bursts in Berlin city center, 2 injured
BERLIN — Two people were injured after a large tank at Berlin's Sea Life aquarium burst, flooding a nearby street in the city center, a spokesperson for the fire brigade said Friday.
The injured people, whose identities remain unclear, have been taken to the hospital.
A very loud noise could be heard in the hotel near the German capital's cathedral where the aquarium is located at around 5:45 a.m., with parts of the building's façade sent flying onto the street, a police spokesperson said.
"The aquarium is damaged, water is leaking. The situation is not clear at the moment," the fire brigade had said earlier on Twitter, adding that 100 firefighters had been deployed to the Hotel DomAquarée.
The Karl-Liebknecht, a major thoroughfare in central Berlin on which the hotel is located, has been closed off, the traffic information center tweeted, saying "there is an extreme amount of water on the roadway."
Police say there are no indications of a targeted, violent attack on the large aquarium in Berlin. "Not at all at the moment,"said a police spokesperson in response to a question on Friday morning, adding that the cause of the incident is not yet known.
—dpa
