John Couey was formally sentenced to death for the kidnap, rape, and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, Mitch Stacy reports for AP. "Outside court, [Jessica's father Mark] Lunsford had a message for Couey: 'Skip all these appeals. Take your punishment.' "

Witnesses to a sexual assault in a Saint Paul apartment hallway last Tuesday did not bother to intervene or call the police according to this AP story by Patrick Condon. A security camera video shows that at least 10 people saw the assault by Rage Ibrahim on a 26-year-old woman as it was taking place over a 90 minute period. Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, who is speaking on behalf of the attacker, said that there was no assault and that the incident was just a misunderstanding. The victim, who cried out for help during the attack, probably has a different take on this.

Alabama Murderer Executed: Luther Jerome Williams, convicted of the murder/robbery of John Robert Kirk in 1988, was put to death yesterday after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny a stay. The Associated Press story by Gary Mitchell is here. A jury found that Williams, who claimed that an accomplice committed the murder, led his 63-year-old victim into the woods and shot him in the head with a gun he had found in a car he had stolen in Birmingham.