USA | Covid-19 Complicates Trump Administration’s January Executions

The Covid-19 pandemic has complicated the Trump administration’s plan to carry out three more executions before Inauguration Day.

A federal judge last week vacated Lisa Montgomery’s Jan. 12 scheduled execution date because the judge had a stay pending when the Justice Department set it. The judge put the stay in place after Montgomery’s lawyers contracted Covid-19 and asked for more time to work on her clemency efforts.

Meanwhile, two other federal inmates scheduled for execution the same week have cited their Covid-19 diagnoses in challenges to their executions.

“It would be a remarkable turn of events if getting infected with the virus literally kept these defendants alive,” said William Jay, co-chair of Goodwin’s appellate litigation practice who worked on capital cases at the Justice Department.

So far, the Justice Department, which has carried out 10 executions since July, including three since Election Day, has signaled no plans to change course.

Dustin Higgs and Corey Johnson, two federal inmates scheduled for execution who contracted Covid-19, were “medically cleared from isolation status” Dec. 27, according to a status report jointly filed Monday by DOJ and the inmates. Both men are still experiencing symptoms, the report said.

Shawn Nolan, a federal defender who is representing Higgs, described the diagnoses as “a game changer.”

“They’ve been having these executions, which are basically super-spreader events, and now it’s come to roost that all of these people are testing positive,” said Nolan, chief of the capital habeas unit for the community federal defender office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The Bureau of Prisons has acknowledged that multiple federal death-row inmates in Terre Haute, Ind., where inmates live and are executed, have tested positive, but the agency won’t say how many.

President-elect Joe Biden, due to be sworn in Jan. 20, ran on an anti-death penalty platform.

Supreme Court

All three inmates’ cases could wind up at the Supreme Court in the coming weeks, before a high court majority that has consistently sided with the government in federal execution cases since July.

Montgomery’s execution could be derailed by the virus in a less direct way.

In a Dec. 24 ruling, a federal judge in Washington said the government improperly scheduled the execution while a stay was pending.

Announcing the Dec. 8 execution date this past fall, former Attorney General William Barr said Montgomery fatally strangled a pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, cut open her body, and kidnapped her baby. Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Barr’s former deputy, took over the post from Barr Dec. 23. Like Barr, Rosen supports capital punishment.

Montgomery’s legal team has pointed to her history as a victim of gang rape, incest, and child sex trafficking, and her severe mental illness as reasons for not executing her.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to say for what date, if any, it would seek to reschedule Montgomery’s execution if the order stays in place. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.

The government is appealing the order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In its motion to stay the ruling pending appeal, DOJ said “Montgomery received ample notice of her execution date” and “has no equitable interest in enjoying a windfall” from the rescheduling of her execution.

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the Government and the victims’ compelling interest in the timely enforcement of a death sentence,” DOJ said in its motion.

The government motion cited the high court’s 2019 decision in Bucklew v. Precythe, where the court split 5-4 against a death-row inmate’s Eighth Amendment challenge. The capital punishment gap on the court since then has appeared to widen to a 6-3 spread, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett replacing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Barr said Johnson murdered seven people “in furtherance of his drug-trafficking activities,” and that Higgs kidnapped and murdered three women. Johnson says his intellectual disability should bar his execution, while Higgs points to the fact that he wasn’t the shooter and that his co-defendant who pulled the trigger was sentenced to life-without-parole.

Source: news.bloomberglaw.com, Jordan S. Rubin, December 29, 2020

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Singapore executes three drug mules over two days

Singapore hanged three people for drug offences last week, bringing the total number of executions to 17 this year - the highest since 2003. These come a week before a constitutional challenge against the death penalty for drug offences is due to be heard. Singapore has some of the world's harshest anti-drug laws, which it says are a necessary deterrent to drug crime, a major issue elsewhere in South East Asia. Anyone convicted of trafficking - which includes selling, giving, transporting or administering - more than 15g of diamorphine, 30g of cocaine, 250g of methamphetamine and 500g of cannabis in Singapore will be handed the death sentence.

Florida | After nearly 50 years on death row, Tommy Zeigler seeks final chance at freedom

The Winter Garden Police chief was at a party on Christmas Eve 1975 when he received a phone call from his friend Tommy Zeigler, the owner of a furniture store on Dillard Street. “I’ve been shot, please hurry,” Zeigler told the chief as he struggled for breath. When police arrived at the store, Zeigler, 30, managed to unlock the door and then collapsed “with a gaping bullet hole through his lower abdomen,” court records show. In the store, detectives found a gruesome, bloody crime scene and several guns. Four other people — Zeigler’s wife, his in-laws and a laborer — lay dead.

Louisiana death row inmate freed after nearly 30 years as overturned conviction upends case

A Louisiana man who spent nearly 30 years on death row walked out of prison Wednesday after a judge overturned his conviction and granted him bail. Jimmie Duncan, now in his 60s, was sentenced to death in 1998 for the alleged rape and drowning of his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter, Haley Oliveaux — a case long clouded by disputed forensic testimony. His release comes months after a state judge ruled that the evidence prosecutors used to secure the conviction was unreliable and rooted in discredited bite-mark analysis.

Oklahoma board recommends clemency for inmate set to be executed next week

A voting board in Oklahoma decided Wednesday to recommend clemency for Tremane Wood, a death row inmate who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next week at the state penitentiary in McAlester. Wood, 46, faces execution for his conviction in the 2001 murder of Ronnie Wipf, a migrant farmworker, at an Oklahoma City hotel on New Year's Eve, court records show. The recommendation was decided in a 3-2 vote by the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, consisting of five members appointed by either the governor or the state's top judicial official, according to CBS News affiliate KWTV. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt will consider the recommendation as he weighs whether to grant or deny Wood's clemency request, which would mean sparing him from execution and reducing his sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Vietnam | Woman sentenced to death for poisoning 4 family members with cyanide

A woman in Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam was sentenced to death on Thursday for killing family members including two young children in a series of cyanide poisonings that shocked her community. The Dong Nai People's Court found 39-year-old Nguyen Thi Hong Bich guilty of murder and of illegally possessing and using toxic chemicals. Judges described her actions as "cold-blooded, inhumane and calculated," saying Bich exploited the trust of her victims and "destroyed every ethical bond within her family."

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers carry out public execution in sports stadium

The man had been convicted of killing 13 members of a family, including children, and was executed by one of their relatives, according to police. Afghanistan's Taliban authorities carried out the public execution of a man on Tuesday convicted of killing 13 members of a family, including several children, earlier this year. Tens of thousands of people attended the execution at a sports stadium in the eastern city of Khost, which the Supreme Court said was the eleventh since the Taliban seized power in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO forces.

Afghanistan | Two Sons Of Executed Man Also Face Death Penalty, Says Taliban

The Taliban governor’s spokesperson in Khost said on Tuesday that two sons of a man executed earlier that day have also been sentenced to death. Their executions, he said, have been postponed because the heir of the victims is not currently in Afghanistan. Mostaghfer Gurbaz, spokesperson for the Taliban governor in Khost, also released details of the charges against the man executed on Tuesday, identified as Mangal. He said Mangal was accused of killing members of a family.

Utah | Ralph Menzies dies on death row less than 3 months after his execution was called off

Judge was set to consider arguments in December about Menzies’ mental fitness Ralph Menzies, who spent more than 3 decades on Utah’s death row for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, has died. Menzies, 67, died of “presumed natural causes at a local hospital” Wednesday afternoon, according to the Utah Department of Corrections. Matt Hunsaker, Maurine Hunsaker’s son, said Menzies’ death “was a complete surprise.” “First off, I’d say that I’m numb. And second off, I would say, grateful,” Hunsaker told Utah News Dispatch. “I’m grateful that my family does not have to endure this for the holidays.”

Iran carries out public hanging of "double-rapist"

Iran on Tuesday publicly executed a man after convicting him of raping two women in the northern province of Semnan. The execution was carried out in the town of Bastam after the Supreme Court upheld the verdict, the judiciary's official outlet Mizan Online reported. Mizan cited the head of the provincial judiciary, Mohammad Akbari, as saying the ruling had been 'confirmed and enforced after precise review by the Supreme Court'. The provincial authority said the man had 'deceived two women and committed rape by force and coercion', adding that he used 'intimidation and threats' to instil fear of reputational harm in the victims.

Kuwait | New Anti-Drug Law Introduces Death Penalty, Surprise Testing, and Strict Enforcement

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 26: Divorce rates in Kuwait are rising, with recent statistics indicating that addiction—particularly among wives—has become a significant contributing factor. In response, authorities are preparing to introduce surprise premarital drug testing as part of a broader set of reforms under Kuwait’s new drug law. The countdown has officially begun for the enforcement of this new legislation, which was drafted by a judicial committee formed by the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Sheikh Fahd Al-Yousef. The committee is headed by Counselor Mohammed Rashid Al-Duaij.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog