Articles

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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Man withdraws effort challenging conviction in Gary officer’s death

A man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for fatally shooting a northwestern Indiana police officer in 2014 has withdrawn his effort to challenge his conviction. Carl Le’Ellis Blount filed a petition last year alleging Lake County prosecutors threatened him to get him to plead guilty to murder in the shooting death of Gary Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield, but he asked to withdraw his petition in April.

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2 death row inmates make similar requests, get different results

Death row inmates Patrick Murphy and Domineque Ray each turned to courts recently with pleas to stop their executions if their desired spiritual advisers couldn't accompany them into the execution chamber. The Supreme Court  allowed Ray’s execution to go forward, but gave Murphy a temporary reprieve Thursday night.

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Justice Thomas talks at court arguments, 1st time in 3 years

The Supreme Court was about to adjourn for the day when the Georgia baritone politely inquired of the lawyer at the lectern. Justice Clarence Thomas was breaking a three-year silence at high court arguments with a couple of questions in a case about racial discrimination in the South.

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Supreme Court set for case on racial bias in jury selection

Curtis Flowers has been jailed in Mississippi for 22 years, even as prosecutors couldn’t get a murder conviction against him to stick through five trials. This week, the Supreme Court will consider whether his conviction and death sentence in a sixth trial should stand or be overturned for a familiar reason: because prosecutors improperly kept African-Americans off the jury.

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