Articles

7th Circuit temporarily stays federal execution set for next week

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily stayed an execution scheduled for next week after finding that two issues raised by a Terre Haute inmate were “worthy of further exploration.” Wesley Ira Purkey’s execution was scheduled for July 15, but now it will be stayed “pending the completion of proceedings in the Seventh Circuit.”

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Supreme Court refuses to block upcoming federal executions

The Supreme Court of the United States on Monday refused to block the execution of four federal prison inmates who are scheduled to be put to death in July and August. The executions, if permitted to proceed after further expected court challenges, would mark the first use of the death penalty on the federal level since 2003.

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SCOTUS halts Texas execution over clergy question

The US Supreme Court granted a reprieve Tuesday to a Texas inmate scheduled to die for his conviction of fatally stabbing an 85-year-old woman more than two decades ago, continuing a more than four-month delay of executions in the nation’s busiest death penalty state during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Death penalty ‘secrecy statute’ now in hands of justices

It’s now year six of an ongoing battle between the Indiana Department of Correction and a Washington, D.C., lawyer who wants to know the drugs used in Indiana’s lethal injection cocktail and who supplies them. In those six years, a public records request, a lawsuit and a legislative change have propelled the dispute to the Indiana Supreme Court, which now has a consequential ruling in its hands.

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Year in Review: Baer death penalty reversal most-read IL story of 2019

A federal appeals court’s reversal of Madison County killer Fredrick Baer’s death sentence was the most-read story on the Indiana Lawyer’s digital edition, www.theindianalawyer.com. Indiana Lawyer readers clicked on stories on our website more than 2.6 million times between Jan. 1 and Dec. 10, 2019, according to Google Analytics. Here are the 50 most-viewed story headlines during that time.

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