Last night John Allen Muhammed, otherwise known as the “DC sniper,” was executed in Virginia. He was pronounced dead at 9:11pm Eastern time precisely, because that’s how we do in Americaland! |CNN|

A few weeks ago we told you about Troy Davis, a Georgia man sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of a Savannah police officer. In the years since Davis’ trial, numerous witnesses who testified against him have recanted their testimony saying that they were coerced and intimidated by aggressive law enforcement officials.

Davis and his attorneys have spent years trying to get new evidence that could possibly exonerate him considered in the appeals process without success, until the U.S. Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of intervening in August of this year. The Davis case has now inspired a new bill proposal in Congress which would give death row inmates the opportunity to present newly discovered evidence in their cases, in the hopes that it would cut down on the number of innocents but to death after being wrongly convicted. |Atlanta Progressive|