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Is our suffering God's will?

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:35:16 +0000

23 years ago, a bus crash forever changed the life of Joshua Prager
Prager's broken neck led to paralysis; only half his body functions normally
He visited others affected by crash, learned that they accept it as God's will
Prager: I see the crash as result of a dangerous road and poor truck driver

Editor's note: Joshua Prager is the author of the new book "Half-Life: Reflections from Jersusalem on a Broken Neck" and writes for publications including Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, where he was a senior writer for eight years. He spoke at TED2013 in March. TED is a nonprofit dedicated to "ideas worth spreading," which it makes available through talks posted on its website.

(CNN) -- At noon on May 16, 1990, a runaway truck struck a minibus at the foot of Jerusalem and bound together the lives of 22 people: 18 Israeli Chasidim, two American Jews, an Israeli Arab and an Israeli Jew who had just found religion. The last died at the wheel of his bus. The rest of us returned to our homes to heal -- a medical jet flying me, my broken neck and a respirator back to New York. I was 19.

In time, half of my paralyzed body returned to life, my spastic left side not quite keeping up with my right. I was a hemiplegic and would be always. And when last year I returned to Jerusalem at age 40, stepping from the plane with my cane and ankle brace, I hoped to write of the crash and its place in my life.

It had taken me years to tease out where I ended and my disability began. Yes, I knew that had my neck not broken, I would have gotten a haircut that May day, would have played baseball in college, would have become a doctor. But what of the rest?

Was it owing to the crash that I was not married, that I was ever-mindful of time, that people seemed to tell me what they told no one else? I wondered if my crash-mates wondered similar things. I wondered how they had made sense of the crash. And so, 22 years after it, I set off to look for them.

***

I found the Chasidim first. They were a large extended family that, together with me and my American friend, had been riding the bus to Jerusalem where they planned to worship at the Western Wall, the Kotel. I found them in the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak. They welcomed me into their home.

Surrounded by seven shelves of holy books, Yaakov, the family patriarch, told me that God had caused the crash and spared our lives. He said we had to follow the example of Job and serve God though we did not understand him.

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Next, I found the widow of the bus driver. She was a secular Jew of Yemeni descent and lived in the industrial town of Petach Tikvah. (She wished to keep her name private.) She told me that her husband had feared nothing but God. And, she said, it was God who had ordained the crash. "It is written," she told me. "If you don't believe that, you will go crazy."

Finally, in the Arab town of Kfar Qara, I found the driver whose truck had crashed into the left rear of the bus where I sat. Abed told me that he had become religious after the crash and that the crash was an act of God. He then paused from his coffee and his Hebrew to speak an Arabic word: Maktoob. "It is written."

I left Abed, mindful as I drove south toward Jerusalem that, in this land of competing narratives, Arab and Jew were for once in perfect agreement.

***

Maktoob made a certain sense to me, for I had long wished to see the story of what befell me written down, formed into a coherent narrative. But not by God. By me. And so, years ago, I had settled on my own variant of maktoob: It will be written.

Now -- 23 years later -- it finally is. I have written my book. And it occurs to me that whenever any of us wish to assimilate why we suffer (or prosper), we must choose between these same two narratives. We can attribute our lots to God and his writings, his unknowable ways. Or we can root them in the natural world and chronicle them ourselves -- on paper or simply in our minds. We can take comfort in ultimate if inscrutable justice. Or we can take comfort in observable reason and responsibility.

***

At first, I threw my lot in with God. Never mind that I had long struggled with the theological implications of life's evident unfairness. I was being prayed for and I was recovering, and at age 19, that sufficed. Religion and maktoob were comforts -- the notion of divine authorship (and its obvious extension, ultimate justice) elastic enough to accommodate even inflexible facts like the Holocaust and that my mom was both good and burdened with a vascular disease.

But in the end, whether one believes (or not) is not a choice. It is an empirical question. And in time, I came to see that I did not believe in a deity that choreographs crashes. I soon saw just as clearly the uncomfortable fact that I was agnostic regarding God (though my love of Judaism, its traditions and teachings, did not wane). Maktoob -- reassuring, prescriptive -- was gone for good.

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But the need in me to make sense of things was not. Like all of us, I still needed a narrative! And as the years passed, and I failed to translate my thoughts into words on a page, I feared, as had John Keats,

"that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain."

***

I write narratives for a living. And so, seated at my Jerusalem window last year, ready to at last look back and write, I was familiar with the task at hand, the need to gather information and to then look for patterns in it.

But as a writer, I also knew to be wary of pareidolia, the perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not exist. I knew that each of us is apt to overlook those patterns that do exist if they are inconvenient or painful. And I knew that particularly those narratives we write about ourselves can be as detached from the truth as those we inherit.

And so, when written records -- hospital files, diaries, photos -- contradicted my memories, I deferred to them and tried to learn from the difference. That I misremembered that a girl in college had canceled our date after seeing my wheelchair a first time (when in fact she had long known that I used it) reminded me that I had long seen the shadow of disability where it was not present. And it was then I saw how similarly intent my crash-mates were to see God in a wrecked bus.

Yaakov, the Chasid, told me that God had saved his family because grandmother Etel had said Psalms before boarding the bus. He did not note that the family had headed to Jerusalem only because Etel had suggested they go to the Western Wall (or that God might have done better by them by not causing the crash at all).

The widow of the slain bus driver said that God had taken her husband. She did not note that he had died at a bend in the highway known by some in Israel as "sivuv hamavet," the turn of death, where between 1980 and 2010, according to the State of Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 144 accidents with casualties.

Abed, the truck driver, said that God, not he, had caused the crash (adding that he had lived an unholy life before the crash, partying in Tel Aviv and Haifa). He did not note that he had ignored large yellow signs instructing him to shift his truck into a low gear (evidenced by police photographs of his brake pads). And he did not note that he had already been guilty, at age 25, of 26 driving violations.

But I noted these things. And what for so many years had seemed to point to the arbitrariness of life was soon evidence of the opposite -- my broken neck the almost inevitable consequence not of a divine plan, but of a reckless driver, a truck loaded with four tons of tiles, a backseat with no headrest, and a dangerous road. And it was out of this recognition that the narrative of a slim book grew, careful always to make sense, to reflect, to contextualize -- the obvious efforts of a once passive victim to exert agency over an ungovernable act.

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That agency is important for the writer. It is what enables him or her to wring meaning from facts and observations, and then be free of them. And because agency informs the narrative, it is important for the reader too. Millennia after Job suffered, my Chasidic crash-mates put him forth to me as an example of faith in the face of sorrow. But he had ached to write his own narrative too.

"Oh that my words were now written!" Job said. "Oh that they were printed in a book!"

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Joshua Prager.

The courage of teachers

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:33:42 +0000

LZ Granderson says Okla. tornado another case where teachers tried to shield kids from harm
LZ: A report saying teachers are overpaid, union problems led to a lot of teacher bashing
LZ: How could you overpay a teacher who risks or loses her life to shield kids?
We should not vilify teachers, he says. Even on a normal day, what they do is amazing enough

Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and was a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist for commentary. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter @locs_n_laughs.

(CNN) -- Each day more than 55 million students attend the country's 130,000 schools.

Each day, parents and guardians entrust some 7 million teachers with the education of our children.

And on a normal day, that is all we expect teachers to do -- teach.

But on those not-so normal days we are reminded that for six hours a day and more, five days a week, teaching is not the only thing teachers are charged with doing. On those not-so-normal days, we are reminded that teachers are also asked to be surrogate parents, protectors, heroes.

Monday was one of those not-so-normal days.

The nation watched in horror as a 2-mile-wide tornado with winds up to 200 mph tore through Moore, Oklahoma. As sirens blared and the ground shook, the full force of the twister hit Plaza Towers Elementary School around 3 p.m. It was full of students, young scared children who had nowhere to hide as the tornado ripped off the roof, sending debris everywhere.

"We had to pull a car out of the front hall off a teacher and I don't know what her name is, but she had three little kids underneath her," a rescuer said. "Good job teach."

And that teacher was not the only one whose body shielded children from harm.

Tornado hits elementary schools

A couple of years ago, as state and local officials were looking for ways to cut spending, a study from the American Enterprise Institute emerged in 2011, asking a provocative question: Are teachers overpaid?

Using abbreviated metrics -- such as comparing private sector employees' SAT and GRE scores with those of teachers -- the study's co-author Jason Richwine said the findings suggested that "years of education could be an overestimate of cognitive skills."

A counterintuitive and insulting proposition. But in retrospect that shouldn't be too surprising considering Richwine's doctoral dissertation advocated keeping out immigrants with low IQs, which he maintained are lower than those of the "native white population." He also co-authored an attack on immigration reform for the Heritage Foundation. And he resigned as the group's senior policy analyst shortly afterward.

Nevertheless, as educators in Chicago voted to strike and benefits such as tenure came under scrutiny, the question that study proposed sparked a national conversation and helped turn 2012 into a year in which teacher-bashing became a popular past time.

But when I think of the importance of teaching in this country, when I think about the heroism demonstrated in Oklahoma, I find it impossible to overpay teachers.

We can certainly talk about the realities of the economy, debate the best method to evaluate effectiveness and discuss the drawbacks of unions. But anyone who characterizes teachers as overpaid is forgetting what we entrust them with each and every day.

Our children.

On a normal day, you don't think about that too much.

But on a not-so-normal day, that is all you can think about.

Anne Marie Murphy, a mother of four, died trying to protect 6-year-old Dylan Hockley as Adam Lanza terrorized the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School in December. When police found the two victims, Murphy was still holding Hockley in her arms.

And five other educators did not run away from the threat but gave their lives trying to protect students, trying to protect children.

How do you overpay for that?

Obviously no parent or guardian drops their children off at school thinking tragedy is going to happen. But perhaps we should be grateful that if something terrible does happen, that there are these angels in the building who will do right by our kids. Who will give anything -- sometimes even their lives -- to protect them in our absence.

One of the Plaza Towers teachers reportedly was lying on top of six students in a school bathroom to shelter them from the horrific storm.

I'm sure that is not in the job description.

So yes, it is fiscally responsible for a community to talk about loss of tax revenue and budget deficits. But we ought to be careful not to vilify this profession while doing so. Teachers are not glorified babysitters with summers off. Their profession fuels all others, and on a normal day that is amazing enough in and of itself.

But on a day that's not so normal, we hope and pray that they are willing to do much more. And time and time again, in the face of terrible tragedies, we have learned that many of them do.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

Reviving Detroit from the ground up

Wed, 22 May 2013 11:37:44 +0000

John Bare says a smart revival strategy in Detroit took advantage of the scale of nonprofit groups.

John Bare says nonprofits in Detroit saw an opportunity to spark the economy
He says that by bringing together key stakeholders, jobs were created, projects launched
Organizations saw that together, their massive size would provide opportunities, he says

Editor's note: John Bare is vice president of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation and executive-in-residence at Georgia Tech's Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

(CNN) -- When others dismissed Detroit as a falling knife unworthy of investment, David Egner saw something else.

Egner imagined Detroit regenerating from within, with damaged civic tissue repairing itself to foster new life and commerce. As president of a foundation named for a patriarch who emigrated to Michigan 130 years ago and immediately launched a business, he was in a position to test his idea.

The secret, Egner figured, is harnessing the collective power of what he calls "anchor institutions": in this case, Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health System and Detroit Medical Center.

Through what emerged as the Midtown Project, Egner's Hudson-Webber Foundation, alongside other funders, is finding ways to hitch the fortunes of these institutions to the fortunes of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Hudson-Webber's research partner, Omar Blaik from U3 Ventures, compiled the data that confirmed the hunch: The anchor institutions carry breathtaking heft.

At a moment when the City of Detroit has been declared insolvent and foundations are looking for innovation, the approach carries two critical lessons for community development.

First, investors must build from assets, not deficits.

Many foundations like to use quality-of-life indicators to guide their philanthropy. I have been involved in a number of these efforts over the years, and too often, foundations find it irresistible to direct their charitable giving to whatever problem tops the charts. It feels like the right approach; if dropout rates emerge as the worst problem in a neighborhood, why not tackle it?

Problem is, whether the needle moves on this indicator or not, the approach is unlikely to contribute to broader neighborhood transformation.

Hudson-Webber's method reveals the potential of another kind of analysis, one that is based on the untapped power of existing assets.

It turns out Wayne State, Henry Ford and Detroit Medical employ about 30,000 people, hire 3,300 associates every year, enroll 32,000 students, control about half of Midtown's real estate and -- perhaps most important -- spend about $1.7 billion every year on goods and services.

Blaik found that about 4.5% of the $1.7 million in spending on goods and services was going to Detroit vendors; the rest is what Blaik calls leakage. If Detroit businesses could step up to provide quality goods and services at the right price -- this is a business play, not charity -- then even small upward ticks would represent enormous amounts of investment and, in turn, jobs.

Midtown Detroit Inc. organized vendor fairs to introduce local businesses to the big institutions and made sure local businesses got to see all the requests for proposals coming from the anchors.

As a result, a local bakery, a local print shop and a local construction firm were among the firms winning $20 million in business from the anchor institutions. The contracts created jobs for area residents and enabled the small businesses to ratchet up their capacity.

The successes point to the second critical lesson for foundations: Instead of limiting themselves to traditional charitable gifts -- building a playground, offering scholarships to deserving high school students -- the approach strengthens the connections between neighborhood residents and the marketplace.

By aligning work force training with the needs of the anchors, the Midtown Project has placed 50 local residents in entry-level jobs. Once up to full speed, Susan Mosey of Midtown Detroit believes, the arrangement can place 200 residents a year into jobs.

Midtown Detroit Inc. is also rebuilding a strong neighborhood residential core. Incentives to lure renters and buyers have drawn more than 1,000 residents to the neighborhood.

While the experiments are ongoing, the results are promising. Post-Great Recession, cities had to find new approaches to revive neighborhoods. It's not enough to build low-cost housing, says Bruce Katz, founder of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, and there is no massive investment coming from the federal government.

"The cavalry is not coming," said Katz, who describes local innovations from across the country in a new book, "The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy."

Cities cannot wait for old programs to return, Katz says. They are not coming back.

Instead, cities should build from whatever assets they have at hand and make a new kind of business case for investment, from within and without.

U3 Ventures' Blaik believes that focusing on anchor institutions forces a discipline that prevents wishful thinking. Foundations, with their government and private-sector partners, can base expectations on the realities of supply and demand for hiring, business activity and residential growth.

In the end, anchor institutions may present the best hope for neighborhood transformation simply because of their scale. When it comes to sources of employment, investment and connectivity, the scale and power of the Midtown Detroit anchors dwarfs anything a foundation could sustain.

Even better: Instead of assuming residents need a handout, the approach gives residents an opening to participate in capitalism.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of John Bare.

9 myths about drones and Guantanamo

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:50:25 +0000

A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator UAV flies over Victorville, California, on January 7.

President Obama to speak Thursday on drone program, Guantanamo
Peter Bergen says there are many misconceptions about both issues
He says idea that drones target leaders of anti-U.S. terrorist groups is mostly not true
Bergen: It's a myth that all those at Guantanamo are too dangerous to release

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a director at the New America Foundation and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad," the basis for the HBO documentary "Manhunt" that will be shown on CNN on May 24. Jennifer Rowland is a research associate at the New America Foundation.

(CNN) -- On Thursday, President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a major speech in Washington about his administration's counterterrorism policies, focusing on the rationale and legal framework for the controversial CIA drone program and his plans to wind down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

So we thought it might be useful to examine some common myths about the drone program and the prison population at Guantanamo.

1. Drone strikes largely target the leaders of terrorist groups that threaten the United States.

In fact, of the thousands who have been killed in CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, only 37 were leaders of al Qaeda or affiliated organizations, according to a tally by the New America Foundation. And even if we add to that list the leaders of the Taliban who have been killed in drone strikes, only 2% of the victims of the CIA strikes in Pakistan have been militant leaders.

The drone program, which began more than a decade ago as a tool to kill leaders of terrorist groups, has evolved today into a counterinsurgency air force whose principal victims in Pakistan are lower-level members of the Taliban.

2. Drone strikes target specific terrorists who pose some kind of imminent threat to the U.S.

Obama's top counterterrorism adviser and now CIA Director John Brennan said in a speech last year that "in order to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States and to save American lives -- the United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific al Qaeda terrorists."

That's only partly true, because the CIA has also has occasionally conducted "signature strikes" against groups of men who display a particular behavioral "signature" that indicates they may be militants. In these cases, the targeter does not know the identity of the persons in the drone cross hairs.

3. Drone strikes kill a lot of civilians.

That was certainly once the case. Under President George W. Bush, the proportion of those killed by drones in Pakistan who were identified in reliable news reports as civilians or "unknowns" -- people who were not identified definitively as either civilians or militants -- was around 40%, according to data assembled by the New America Foundation.

But the civilian and "unknown" casualty rate from drone strikes has fallen steadily over the life of the program. Under Obama that number has fallen to 16%. And in 2012 it was around 11%.

In 2012, 2% of the drones' victims were characterized as civilians in news reports and 9% were described in a manner that made it ambiguous whether they were militants or civilians.

And in 2013, civilian casualties are at their lowest ever. That is partly the result of a sharply reduced number of drone strikes in Pakistan -- 12 so far in 2013, compared with a record 122 in 2010 -- and also more precise targeting. According to data collected by the New America Foundation, three to five "unknown" individuals have been killed so far in drone strikes in 2013. Two other organizations that track the CIA drone program in Pakistan, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Long War Journal, report zero to four civilian deaths and 11 civilian deaths respectively.

4. The United States has no reason to worry about the legal framework governing drone strikes because it is so dominant in drone technology.

Only three countries currently are confirmed to possess armed drones -- Israel, the United Kingdom and the U.S. But some 80 countries have drones, according to a count by the New America Foundation, and a number of them may already be able to arm them.

In February, a Chinese state-run newspaper reported that the Chinese government had contemplated deploying an armed drone in a remote, mountainous area to kill a drug lord, but decided instead to capture him.

Iran unveiled what it claimed was its first armed drone in 2010.

During a speech last week at the New America Foundation, the U.N. special rapporteur for counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, estimated that "within a matter of certainly a year or two, other states will be deploying the technology, and within five years or so we will see a number of states and possibly nonstate actors deploying similar types of combat technology."

Emmerson also pointed out that the rapid proliferation of drone technology means whatever legal framework the United States puts together to justify its targeted killing campaign "has to be a framework that we can live with if it is being used by Iran when it is deploying drones against Iranian dissidents hiding inside the territory of Syria or Turkey or Iraq." A sobering and instructive thought.

5. The Pakistani government gives a wink and a nod to the drone program, providing tacit approval for its continuation.

It is true that Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quietly agreed to allow the CIA's targeted killing campaign to begin in 2004. But the program has become deeply controversial and unpopular in Pakistan because of the perception that it kills many civilians and that it erodes Pakistan's national sovereignty.

In April 2012, the Pakistani parliament voted unanimously to rescind any previous permission that had been granted by the government for the CIA to conduct the targeted killing program.

During Ben Emmerson's visit to Pakistan in March to discuss the CIA drone program with top officials, the point made to him "consistently, right across government, at the highest level and throughout, was that there is no continuing consent to the use of drones on Pakistani territory."

The next Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who was elected on May 11 with a clear mandate, has urged an end to the drone strikes, telling reporters, "Drones indeed are challenging our sovereignty. Of course we have taken this matter up very seriously. I think this is a very serious issue, and our concern must be understood properly."

6. Obama is soft on terrorists.

The CIA has conducted 355 drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions since the targeted killing program began there in 2004. The vast majority of these -- 307 to be precise -- were carried out under Obama.

Even if you take the most conservative estimate of the numbers of people the Obama administration has killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, 1,600, that is around twice the total number of prisoners that Bush sent to Guantanamo.

7. Many of the Guantanamo detainees who have been released return to the battlefield.

Gitmo prisoners being force-fed

The U.S. government claims that 27% of those released from Guantanamo are suspected or confirmed to have taken up arms. For security reasons the government hasn't released the names of these men since 2009, but a review of the public record suggests that number is quite inflated.

According to a review by the New America Foundation of news articles, Pentagon reports, and other relevant documents, of the 603 detainees who have been released from the prison, only 17 individuals (2.8%) are confirmed to have engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities against the United States or its citizens, while 21 individuals (3.5%) are suspected of engaging in such activities.

8. The detainees still held at Guantanamo are too dangerous to release.

Some undoubtedly are, such as the operational commander of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But contrary to the fulminations of officials such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina -- who said last year that Guantanamo detainees are "crazy bastards that want to kill us all" -- half of the men still held at the prison camp were cleared for release three years ago by a task force of Department of Justice and Pentagon officials.

To be exact, 86 of the 166 men still imprisoned at Guantanamo were either found to be guilty of nothing, or were low-level fighters who could be repatriated subject to some continued monitoring by their home country's government.

9. There are no benefits for the U.S. to release additional prisoners from Guantanamo.

Obama correctly said of Guantanamo in April, "It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."

The cost per year to keep one prisoner at Guantanamo is estimated to be $800,000, more than 30 times the cost of keeping a prisoner in a jail in the United States. And the Pentagon is asking Congress to approve a $200 million renovation plan for the prison.

The prisoners at Guantanamo have also featured frequently in jihadist propaganda, making it a recruitment tool for would-be al Qaeda members.

There is also a way forward through Guantanamo to obtaining some kind of peace deal with the Taliban. As a "confidence-building measure" for peace negotiations, theTaliban have agreed to release the only U.S. prisoner of war, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in exchange for a handful of senior Taliban figures being held at Guantanamo, who would then be held under some form of house arrest in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. This deal is a precondition for continuing serious peace talks with the Taliban.

The 27-year-old soldier has been in captivity since the Taliban seized him on June 30, 2009.

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Photos: Women awaiting execution

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:51:22 +0000

There are 61 women on death row in the United States, making up fewer than 2% of the 3,125 inmates sentenced to die, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Here is a look at the women currently on death row. Source: Death Penalty Information Center

Patricia Blackmon was 29 when she killed her 2-year-old adopted daughter in Dothan, Alabama, in May 1999. Blackmon was sentenced on June 7, 2002.

Tierra Capri Gobble was 21 when she murdered her 4-month-old son in Dothan, Alabama, on December 15, 2004. She was sentenced on October 26, 2005.

Shonda Johnson was 28 when she murdered her husband in Jasper, Alabama, on November 30, 1997. She was sentenced on October 22, 1999.

Christie Michelle Scott was 30 when she murdered her 6-year-old son and committed arson in Russellville, Alabama, on September 16, 2008. The jury recommended a life sentence, but the judge sentenced her to death in August 2009.

Wendi Andriano was 30 when she murdered her husband in Mesa, Arizona, on October 8, 2000. She was sentenced on December 22, 2004.

Shawna Forde was 41 when she murdered a 29-year-old man and a 9-year-old girl in Arivaca, Arizona, on May 30, 2009. She was sentenced on February 23, 2011.

A jury convicted Debra Jean Milke of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse and kidnapping on October 12, 1990, less than a year after her 4-year-old son was found dead. A judge sentenced her to death on January 18, 1991. Those convictions and the related sentence were tossed out by a federal appeals court judge in March. In an earlier version of this gallery, CNN erroneously reported that Milke was still on death row.

Maria del Rosio Alfaro was 18 when she committed burglary, robbery, and murdered a 9-year-old girl in Anaheim, California, on June 15, 1990. She was sentenced on July 14, 1992.

Dora Luz Buenrostro was 34 when she murdered her two daughters, ages 4 and 9, and her 8-year-old son in San Jacinto, California, on October 25 and October 27, 1994. She was sentenced on October 2, 1998.

Socorro Caro was 42 when she murdered her three sons, ages 5, 8, and 11, in Santa Rosa Valley, California, on November 22, 1999. She was sentenced on April 5, 2002.

Celeste Simone Carrington was 30 when she murdered a 34-year-old man during a burglary on January 26, 1992, in San Carlos, California, and a 36-year-old woman during a burglary in Palo Alto, California, on March 11, 1992. She was sentenced to death on November 23, 1994.

Cynthia Lynn Coffman was 24 when she murdered a 20-year-old woman in San Bernardino County, California, on November 7, 1986. She was sentenced to death on August 31, 1989.

Kerry Lyn Dalton was 28 when she murdered a 23-year-old woman in Live Oak Springs, California, on June 26, 1988. She was sentenced to death on May 23, 1995.

Susan Eubanks was 33 when she murdered her four sons, ages 4, 6, 7, and 14, in San Marcos, California, on October 27, 1996. She was sentenced to death on October 13, 1999.

Veronica Gonzalez was 26 when she murdered her 4-year-old niece in San Diego on July 21, 1995. She was sentenced to death on July 20, 1998.

Valerie Dee Martin was 35 when she murdered her boyfriend in Lancaster, California, on March 28, 2003. She was sentenced to death on March 26, 2010.

Maureen McDermott was 37 when she murdered a 27-year-old man in Van Nuys, California, on April 28, 1985. She was sentenced to death on June 8, 1990.

Michelle Lyn Michaud was 38 when she kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered a 22-year-old woman in Pleasanton, California, on December 2, 1997. She was sentenced on September 25, 2002.

Tanya Jaime Nelson was 46 when she murdered two women, ages 23 and 52, in Westminster, California, on April 21, 2005. She was sentenced to death on March 26, 2010.

Sandi Dawn Nieves was 34 when she murdered her four daughters, ages 5, 7, 11, and 12, in Saugus, California, on June 30, 1998. She was sentenced on October 6, 2000.

Angelina Rodriguez was 32 when she murdered her husband in Montebello, California, on September 9, 2000. She was sentenced on January 12, 2004.

Brooke Marie Rottiers was 26 when she murdered two men, ages 22 and 28, in Corona, California, on August 28, 2006. She was sentenced on October 22, 2010.

Mary Ellen Samuels was 40 when she hired someone to kill her husband in Northridge, California, and then murdered her husband's killer in Ventura County, California on June 27, 1989. She was sentenced on September 16, 1994.

Cathy Lynn Sarinana was 30 when she murdered her 13-year-old nephew in Riverside, California, on December 25, 2005. She was sentenced on June 26, 2009.

Janeen Marie Snyder was 21 when she murdered a 16-year-old girl in Rubidoux, California, on April 17, 2001. She was sentenced on September 7, 2006.

Catherine Thompson was 42 when she hired someone to kill her husband in Westwood, California, on June 14, 1990. She was sentenced on June 10, 1993.

Manling Tsang Williams was 28 when she murdered her husband and two sons, ages 3 and 7, in Rowland Heights, California, on August 7, 2007. She was sentenced on January 18, 2012.

Lisa Montgomery was 36 when she murdered a 23-year-old woman in Skidmore, Missouri, on July 16, 2004. She was sentenced on April 4, 2008. She is being held in federal prison.

Margaret Allen was 39 when she murdered a 39-year-old woman in Titusville, Florida, on February 8, 2005. She was sentenced on May 19, 2011.

Tina Lasonya Brown was 39 when she murdered a 19-year-old woman in West Pensacola, Florida, on March 24, 2010. She was sentenced on September 28, 2012.

Ana Marie Cardona was 39 when she murdered her 3-year-old son in Miami on November 2, 1990. She was sentenced in 1992, the sentence was reversed 10 years later. She was resentenced on June 10, 2011.

Emilia Lily Carr was 24 when she murdered a 26-year-old woman in Boardman, Florida, on February 14, 2009. She was sentenced on February 22, 2011.

Tiffany Ann Cole was 23 when she murdered a 61-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman in Jacksonville, Florida, on July 8, 2005. She was sentenced on March 6, 2008.

Kelly Renee Gissendaner was 28 when she murdered her husband in Gwinnett County, Georgia, on February 7, 1997. She was sentenced on November 20, 1998.

Robin Lee Row was 35 when she murdered her husband and her two children in Boise, Idaho, on February 10, 1992. She was sentenced on December 16, 1993.

Debra Denise Brown was 21 when she murdered a 7-year-old girl in Gary, Indiana, on June 18,1984. She was sentenced on June 23, 1986. She is serving a life sentence in Ohio but is sentenced to death in Indiana.

Virginia Susan Caudill was 37 when she robbed and murdered a 73-year-old woman in Lexington, Kentucky, on March 15, 1998. She was sentenced on March 24, 2000.

Antoinette Frank was 22 when she robbed and murdered a 25-year-old police officer, a 17-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman in New Orleans on March 4, 1994. She was sentenced on September 13, 1995.

Brandy Holmes was 23 when she robbed and murdered a 70-year-old man in Blanchard, Louisiana, on January 1, 2003. She was sentenced on February 21, 2006.

Michelle Byrom was 42 when she hired a killer to murder her husband in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, on June 4, 1999. She was sentenced on November 18, 2000.

Lisa Jo Chamberlin (aka Chamberlain) was 31 when she murdered a 34-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in March 2004. She was sentenced on August 4, 2006.

Patricia JoAnn Jennings was 47 when she murdered her husband in Wilson County, North Carolina, on September 19, 1989. She was sentenced on November 5,1990.

Blanche Kiser Moore was 56 when she murdered her boyfriend in Alamance County, North Carolina, on October 7, 1986. She was sentenced on January 18, 1991.

Carlette Elizabeth Parker was 34 when she murdered an 86-year-old woman in North Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 12, 1998. She was sentenced on April 1, 1999.

Christina S. Walters was 20 when she murdered a 19-year-old woman and a 25-year-old woman in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on August 17, 1998. She was sentenced on July 6, 2000.

Donna Marie Roberts was 58 when she murdered her husband near Warren, Ohio, on December 11, 2001. She was originally sentenced on June 21, 2003. That sentence was reversed on August 2, 2006, and she was resentenced on October 29, 2007.

Brenda E. Andrew was 37 when she murdered her husband in Oklahoma City on November 20, 2001. She was sentenced on September 22, 2004.

Angela Darlene McAnulty was 41 when she murdered her 15-year-old daughter in Eugene, Oregon, on December 9, 2009. She was sentenced on February 24, 2011.

Michelle Sue Tharp was 29 when she murdered her 7-year-old daughter in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 1998. She was sentenced on November 14, 2004.

Shonda Dee Walter was 23 when she murdered an 83-year-old man in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 2003. She was sentenced on April 19, 2005.

Christa Gail Pike was 18 when she murdered a 19-year-old woman in Knoxville, Tennessee, on January 12,1995. She was sentenced on March 29,1996.

Suzanne Margaret Basso was 44 when she murdered her boyfriend In Houston on August 25, 1998. She was sentenced on September 1, 1999.

Kimberly Cargill was 42 when she murdered a 39-year-old woman in Whitehouse, Texas, on June 18, 2010. She was sentenced on May 31, 2012.

Linda Anita Carty was 42 when she kidnapped and murdered a 20-year-old woman and the victim's infant son in Houston on May 16, 2001. She was sentenced on February 21, 2002.

Lisa Coleman was 28 when she murdered a 9-year-old boy in Arlington, Texas, on July 26, 2004. She was sentenced on July 7, 2006.

Cathy Lynn Henderson was 37 when she murdered a 3-month-old boy she was babysitting near Austin, Texas, on January 21, 1994. She was sentenced on May 25, 1995.

Brittany Marlowe Holberg was 23 when she murdered an 80-year-old man in Amarillo, Texas, on November 13, 1996. She was sentenced on March 27, 1998.

Melissa Elizabeth Lucio was 38 when she murdered her 2-year-old daughter in Harlington, Texas, on February 16, 2007. She was sentenced in August 2008.

Kimberly Lagayle McCarthy was 36 when she murdered a 71-year-old woman in Lancaster, Texas, on July 7, 1997. She was originally sentenced in December 1998. Her sentence was reversed in 2001 and she was again sentenced to death on November 1, 2002.

Darla Lynn Routier was 26 when she murdered her 5-year-old son in Rowlett, Texas, on June 6, 1996. She was sentenced on February 4, 1997.

Erica Yvonne Sheppard was 19 when she murdered a 43-year-old woman in Houston on June 30, 1993. She was sentenced on March 3, 1995.