Death Penalty News

GALLATIN, Tenn.  — A Tennessee man who had been facing a death penalty trial in the killings of eight people in rural Westmoreland in April 2019, including his parents, uncle and a 12-year-old girl, pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight counts of first-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. The surprise plea came after Sumner County prosecutors were given brain scans of Michael Cummins that showed “significant problems,” Sumner County District Attorney General Ray Whitley told reporters after the hearing. Defense attorneys could have used the scans to try to convince a jury not to sentence Cummins to death, Whitley said. While he thinks prosecutors ultimately could have prevailed in securing the death penalty, he said it was a “close case.”

When the Bureau of Prisons finally turned over the records — after Purkey's second execution date was set — they went to the government's lawyers, who Purkey’s lawyers say failed to turn the records over to them. The government deliberately withheld medical records showing that Wesley Ira Purkey was incompetent to be executed before rushing ahead with his execution last month, Purkey’s lawyers contend in a legal filing in federal court in Washington, D.C. The document, titled “Plaintiff Wesley Purkey’s Motion To Dismiss on the Ground of Mootness,” says that while Purkey’s claims “have become legally moot, the facts surrounding the circumstances of Mr. Purkey’s execution cannot and must not be similarly extinguished.” Purkey admitted to abducting Jennifer Long as she was walking home from high school, raping and murdering her in his Lansing, Kansas, home and then dismembering her body. A federal jury convicted him in 2003 of kidnapping resulting in a child’s deat...

A convicted serial killer whose resentencing is expected to begin in November will undergo brain scans before then. Earlier this month, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Patrick Dinkelacker granted a request by Anthony Kirkland’s attorneys for images of his brain, including MRI and PET scans. The reasons are not yet clear, although his attorneys, Norm Aubin and Perry Ancona, will argue that the death penalty should not be imposed. Last month, Aubin and Ancona said they'd recently found reports by two experts that contained "information helpful to the defense that requires further investigation." The reports were in one of 26 boxes of documents they'd received as part of the case. A hearing surrounding the tests is set for Oct. 5. Kirkland, 48, was in Dinkelacker's courtroom Thursday as his attorneys argued several motions. A psychologist was scheduled to interview Kirkland after the hearing at the Hamilton County jail, where he was being he...