Tennessee governor grants clemency to 17

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday granted clemency for the first time since taking office to 17 people, among them a man who was freed in 2019 after spending 12 years in prison for a killing he has long argued he didn't commit. Lee exonerated...

California governor pardons 2 in Native American recognition

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday said he had pardoned two members of California Indian tribes coinciding with Native American Heritage Month. The month “honors the vibrancy and resiliency of Native American culture,” his office said, and the...

Oklahoma death penalty supporters fear executions ending

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — After a six-year moratorium on the death penalty following a series of botched lethal injections, Oklahoma officials announced in August they would seek execution dates for seven condemned men . By the next month, their executions were scheduled, leading some death...

Biden says pardoned turkeys will get ‘boosted,’ not ‘basted’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys, saying that the white male birds were selected based on their “temperament, appearance and, I suspect, vaccination status.” “Instead of getting basted, these two turkeys are getting...

EXPLAINER: How Julius Jones' execution was stopped

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Julius Jones' execution was halted Thursday, less than four hours before he was scheduled to receive a lethal injection following outcry over doubts about evidence at his murder trial nearly 20 years ago. The clock was ticking for Jones as Oklahoma...

Oklahoma governor commutes death sentence of Julius Jones, who was convicted of killing businessman in 1999

Louisiana gov will pardon Plessy v. Ferguson freedom rider

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s governor said Wednesday that he will definitely sign a posthumous pardon for Homer Plessy, whose 1892 arrest for refusing to leave a “whites only” railroad car wound up making “separate but equal” U.S. law for a half-century. ...

Woman who won freedom from prison in 2011 dies of COVID-19

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A woman who won freedom from prison a decade ago after being convicted with her sister in a 1993 armed robbery in Mississippi, then went on to become an advocate for justice, has died of COVID-19. Jamie Scott died Nov. 9 after contracting the...

In long-awaited move, Kuwait's emir pardons dissidents

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait's emir issued a long-awaited amnesty decree, pardoning and reducing the sentences of nearly three dozen Kuwaiti dissidents in a move aimed at defusing a major government standoff. The royal decree, published late Saturday in...

Oklahoma panel recommends governor spare Julius Jones’ life

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board on Monday recommended that Gov. Kevin Stitt spare the life of Julius Jones, a man who has been on death row while proclaiming his innocence for more than two decades in the 1999 killing of a suburban Oklahoma City businessman. ...