Convicted in the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, Troy Davis presented affidavits of seven of the nine witnesses at his trial who have since recanted their testimony. Davis never received a new trial and was unjustly executed this week.

Judge Greg Mathis, a noted television judge who "rose from jail to judge," posted the following evisceration of the U.S. justice and political system, saying "this was without a doubt a grave miscarriage of justice...Davis's execution shows just how flawed the system has become."

Watch Mathis's thoughtful rebuttal to the execution below.

In a court filing yesterday, the State of California (Jerry Brown's office to be exact) said they had obtained a fresh supply of twelve grams of the lethal injection drug sodium thiopental with a 2014 expiration date — enough to execute four inmates. You may recall the halted execution of last week of Albert Greenwood Brown due to a lack of supply of the lethal injection drug.

It's unclear when a new execution date for Brown or any other inmates may be, but Brown's spokesperson earlier stated that, once some fresh sodium thiopental had been obtained, a "new execution date will be sought in accordance with applicable law and in conformity with all court orders."

Albert Greenwood Brown had yet another stay of execution handed to him, this time care of the California Supreme Court. The Chronicle reports: "The justices unanimously denied the state's request to allow new procedures for lethal injections at San Quentin State Prison to take effect by 7 p.m. Thursday, two hours before the 56-year-old inmate is scheduled to die for the 1980 rape and murder of a 15-year-old Riverside girl."

Brown was scheduled to die Thursday night. He was convicted of murdering Susan Jordan in 1980 in Riverside. The 15-year-old, according to the LA Times, "was walking to school when Brown pulled her into an orange grove, raped her and strangled her with her shoelaces." He later calledJordan's parents and told them where to find her body.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel has cleared the way for California's first execution since 2006 "after the state revised its lethal injection procedures." Albert Greenwood Brown, convicted of raping and murdering a 15-year-old Riverside girl in 1980, will be the unlucky recipient in today's ruling, which cited the state's "'extensive efforts to address the court's concerns' that the previous lethal injection procedure was unconstitutional." What's more, Brown will also be the first inmate to test drive San Quinten's new execution chamber. Next week's execution, if pro-death penalty folks have taught us anything, will deter all murders and all rapes from happening again, ever. [KTVU]

At midnight last night, the U.S. executed convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner by firing squad in Utah. This execution was most notable for two things: Gardner's decision to die by firing squad (inmates can choose between a hail of gun fire or the more popular lethal injection), and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's use of Twitter to recount the details.

According to Shurtleff, here's how the killer went down late last night:

@MarkShurtleff A solemn day. Barring a stay by Sup Ct, & with my final nod, Utah will use most extreme power & execute a killer. Mourn his victims. Justice about 23 hours ago via TwitBird iPhone

@MarkShurtleff I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner’s execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims. Fri Jun 18 06:02:49 via TwitBird iPhone

@MarkShurtleff We will be streaming live my press conference as soon as I'm told Gardner is dead. Watch it at www.attorneygeneral.Utah.gov/live.html about 12 hours ago via TwitBird iPhone

While some might decry the use of Twitter during an execution as going too far -- our country's insistence on still using capital punishment as a bogyman deterrent is, arguably, the bigger issue here -- at least Shurtleff was being transparent. So, you know, there's that.

Anyway, as with most doomed prisoners, Gardner had a comparatively lavish week before facing the firing squad. Gardner watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy in his observation cell, the Guardian reports. His final meal consisted of steak, lobster tail, apple pie and vanilla ice cream with 7-Up soda. He ate the meal on Tuesday, because he wanted to fast before the execution "in keeping with his Mormon faith."

Surf and turf, an excellent choice. But what about other last meals? Below are a few noteworthy final menus requested by death row inmates.

Timecapsule: January 7, 1898

The most notorious criminal of San Francisco's Gilded Age was executed 111 years ago today.

Sure, Jack the Ripper had set a certain tone for serial killing just a few years earlier, but the crimes of Theodore Durrant were even more shocking. See, Jack's victims had been prostitutes, but San Francisco's "Demon of the Belfry" had murdered a pair of girls who were respectable churchgoers. In his very own church.

On the day before Easter Sunday, 1896, a group of women held a meeting at the Emmanual Baptist Church in the Mission District. As they bustled about the small kitchen preparing tea, one woman reached towards a cupboard, looking for teacups. As the door swung open, she shrieked in horror and fainted -- crammed inside was the butchered and violated body of Miss Minnie Williams.

Minnie had been a devoted church-goer, and the police quickly connected her death with the case of another young woman who'd gone missing two weeks earlier. The vivacious Blanche Lamont had also been a member of the church, so the grounds were searched from bottom to top. The body was found in the dusty, disused bell tower -- two weeks dead, arranged like a medical cadaver, and brutalized in an equally horrifying way.