News and Updates

(Reuters) - Florida is scheduled on Wednesday to execute a 65-year-old man who has spent more than three decades on death row for the murder of a woman he met at a bar.

Robert Waterhouse is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. He would be the fourth inmate executed in the United States this year.

He was sentenced to die for the January 1980 murder of Deborah Kammerer, a 29-year-old St. Petersburg woman who encountered Waterhouse at a bar in the Tampa Bay area.

Activists from the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty began lobbying efforts on opening day of the legislative session

HARTFORD, Conn. — Some state lawmakers are reviving a push to end Connecticut's death penalty, hoping for an easier road this year following the conclusion of two widely publicized trials for a brutal 2007 triple slaying.

While the only survivor of the Cheshire home invasion personally lobbied legislators last year to keep the death penalty, at least one state senator who was swayed by Dr. William Petit says he is now ready to vote for repeal.

"Last year was not an appropriate time to discuss (repeal)," said Sen. Andrew Maynard, a Stonington Democrat.

An interview with J. Patrick O’Connor

Kevin Cooper

In this interview, author J. Patrick O’Connor discusses his newly released book Scapegoat: The Chino Hills Murders and The Framing of Kevin Cooper, explaining why he is convinced of Kevin Cooper’s innocence.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A man set to be executed next week should be spared because of newly discovered evidence, his attorney told the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Robert Waterhouse, 65, was sent to death row for the rape and murder of a 29-year-old woman in St. Petersburg in January 1980. Gov. Rick Scott already has signed a death warrant and Waterhouse is scheduled to be put to death next Wednesday.