Articles

DOJ would take halted executions to high court

Attorney General William Barr told The Associated Press on Thursday that he would take the Trump administration’s bid to restart federal executions after a 16-year hiatus to the Supreme Court if necessary. Barr’s comments came hours after a district court judge temporarily blocked the administration’s plans to start executions next month.

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Southern District finds ‘immediate need’ to remove, amend death penalty rule

The Indiana Southern District Court determined there was an immediate need to delete Local Criminal Rule 6-1 ­– Petitions Under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254 or 2255 in Cases Involving a Sentence of Capital Punishment, according to a Monday notice. In response, the rule was replaced with the adoption of Local Criminal Rule 38-2 – Cases Challenging the Conviction and/or Sentence Where a Sentence of Death Has Been Imposed.  

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7th Circuit rules against inmate’s FOIA requests in triple-murder

A Southern District Court judge’s order that the federal government disclose personal information stemming from a triple murder it had previously refused to turn over has been reversed. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that public interest does not support the information’s disclosure, simultaneously affirming that certain documents were protected by an exception of the Freedom of Information Act.

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Man with intellectual disability freed from death sentence

An Arkansas man sentenced to death for murdering a teenage girl in Texas 25 years ago has been granted his petition for habeas corpus after a federal judge determined him to be ineligible for the death penalty due to his intellectual disability. The man will be resentenced in Texas.

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