In 2009, the number of death sentences dropped for the seventh consecutive year; it's now the lowest since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
They hope to revive the antinuclear movement to have a single sentence dropped from the energy bill moving through Congress that could give the industry $50 billion in loan guarantees for new plants.
This is a conversation which we would have given much to overhear in its entierety, but unfortunately we caught only the last half of a sentence, dropped by one of two ladies who were bustling along in front of the Astor: "...but PM is cuter".
The report highlighted the case of a man who, given a 24-year prison term for stabbing his partner, recently succeeded in having the sentence dropped to two and a half years after producing "provocative" photographs of the woman with another man.
The number of sentences dropped slightly over the last decade and the number of exonerations increased from about 3 to 5 per year since 1987.
Those falling cadences, the way his sentences drop quietly into ideas left hanging, things unsaid, are as haunting as they are disturbing.
According to Al Wattan, a judge in the Red Sea port of Jidda imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence.
Former army generals Cetin Dogan, Ozden Ornek and Ibrahim Firtina were initially given life sentences by the court in Silivri, near Istanbul, but then their sentences were dropped to 20 years.
__________ Because of an editing error, in an earlier version of this article the first clause in the following sentence was dropped: "I didn't see him during the time he was struggling, but then about two years ago, I saw Mickey, and I could tell he was trying to turn things around".
The case never came to court; and eventually the offending sentence was dropped.
