death penalty

Florida has executed a man convicted of breaking into a woman’s home and stabbing her to death in 1986. Authorities say 56-year-old Darryl B. Barwick was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. Wednesday following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke. Barwick had confessed to killing 24-year-old Rebecca Wendt in her Panama City apartment on March 31, 1986, after...

Miguel Ruiz Lobo’s trial was the last in Florida where the jury had to reach a unanimous decision for the death penalty

A juror in the death penalty trial of Miguel Ruiz Lobo talks to NBC6’s Christian Colón about the decision to give him life in prison.

Florida will no longer require unanimous jury recommendations for judges to impose death-penalty sentences under a bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. NBC6’s Marissa Bagg reports

The new law comes months after the Parkland school shooter avoided getting the death penalty.

Florida will no longer require unanimous jury recommendations for judges to impose death-penalty sentences under a bill signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday.

Florida has executed a man known as the “ninja killer” for the 1989 slayings of a couple visiting the state from New Jersey. The governor’s office says Louis Bernard Gaskin was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday after receiving a lethal injection. He was convicted of killing Robert and Georgette Sturmfels at their Flagler County winter home on Florida’s northeastern...

In an issue that emerged after the Parkland school shooter was sentenced to life in prison, the Florida Senate on Thursday supported eliminating a requirement for unanimous jury recommendations before judges can impose death sentences.

A key Senate committee Wednesday supported eliminating a requirement for unanimous jury recommendations before death sentences can be imposed, but it backed giving judges discretion in making the ultimate decisions. The Senate Rules Committee voted 15-4 to approve a bill (SB 450) that would allow death sentences to be imposed based on the recommendations of eight of 12 jurors —…

Some families of the Parkland victims spoke out as lawmakers discussed a possible overhaul of the death penalty in Florida. NBC 6’s Steve Litz reports

Florida has executed a man for murdering a woman in 1990 while he was a fugitive from prison. The governor’s office said Donald Dillbeck died Thursday at 6:13 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection. This was Florida’s first execution in nearly four years, and the third under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Dillbeck had stabbed Faye Vann over 20 times while...

Lawmakers in Tallahassee will likely buck national trends and make it easier for a jury to recommend the death penalty in Florida.

Five years after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a look at its impact on the state’s death penalty.

Florida could make it easier for juries to hand down the death penalty. Republicans encouraged by Gov. Ron DeSantis have introduced legislation making it easier to send convicts to death row by eliminating a unanimous jury requirement. The movement began after the Parkland school shooter was spared from execution in a decision last November that shocked victims’ families. The bills...

Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed a bill on how the death penalty is decided in the wake of the Parkland shooter sentencing. NBC 6’s Steve Litz reports

Jurors reached a guilty verdict in the federal death penalty case of a 34-year-old man who killed eight people on a Manhattan bike path five years ago in a bid, prosecutors said, to impress a terrorist group.

Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman executed in the U.S. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003.

An annual report on capital punishment says public support and use of the death penalty continued a more than two-decade decline in the U.S. in 2022.

Soon the families who lost loved ones at Parkland will have their final say in court on what this tragedy has done to them as moves are already underway to alter the way Florida decides if convicted killers should be executed.  

The stunning jury decision to spare the Parkland mass murderer’s life is still reverberating among the victims and throughout the legal community, especially after everyone saw the visceral outrage from the families Thursday.