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Article • June 1, 2025 • from PLN June, 2025
Death Row Prisoners Challenge New Tennessee Single-Drug Lethal Injection Protocol by Nine condemned Tennessee prisoners filed suit in state court on March 14, 2025, accusing the state Department of Corrections (DOC) of subjecting them to a “risk of torturous death” with a lethal execution protocol utilizing pentobarbital. Kevin Burns, Byron …
Texas Prison Heat Declared Unconstitutional by In a ruling on March 26, 2025, the federal court for the Western District of Texas agreed that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was likely violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by holding most state prisoners in cells …
Texas Courts, Legislature at Odds over Executing Potentially Innocent Death Row Prisoner by Robert L. Roberson III was sentenced to death in Texas in 2003 for killing his two-year-old daughter, Nikki, whose death the previous year was attributed to “shaken baby syndrome.” Since then research has found symptoms attributed to …
Cruelty Is Now the Point for BOP by Just before leaving office in January 2025, outgoing Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) removed 37 federal prisoners from death row, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.16.] But incoming Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) immediately directed his new Attorney General …
Study Finds Just 1% of Prisoner’s Eighth Amendment Claims Succeed by In a report published on December 19, 2024, Business Insider found just 1% of prisoners succeeded in claims against prison officials for violating the Eighth Amendment ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment. To arrive at that figure, researchers combed …
Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025
Idaho Warden Bought Execution Drugs on Roadside by On March 21, 2025, Idaho lost a bid to prevent disclosing its source of execution drugs to condemned prisoner Gerald Ross Pizzuto, Jr. By then, though, a warden deposed for the case had already admitted to buying lethal drugs for the state …
Article • May 1, 2025 • from PLN May, 2025
South Carolina Conducts First U.S. Execution by Firing Squad in 15 Years by After getting the greenlight from the state Supreme Court, South Carolina’s Department of Corrections (DOC) mustered a firing squad to fatally shoot condemned prisoner Brad Sigmon, 67, on March 7, 2025. Another prisoner, Mikal Mahdi, 41, was …
Article • April 1, 2025 • from PLN April, 2025
Ohio Pauses Executions, Louisiana and Arizona Race Ahead by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) reprieved three condemned state prisoners on February 13, 2025, pushing their execution dates years down the road to give the state time to fix its broken supply chain of lethal injections drug. But Louisiana Gov. Jeff …
Burns v. Strada, TN, Complaint, Methods of Execution, 2025 I. INTRODUCTION 1. Felony sentences imposed by Tennessee courts are, for the most part, entrusted to the Tennessee Department of Correction (“TDOC”) to carry out. In furtherance of that responsibility, TDOC receives over a billion dollars of taxpayer money each year. …
DOJ Finds “Horrific and Inhumane” Conditions in Georgia Prisons by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke "People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed,” lockups where “[i]nmates are maimed, tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not-so-benign neglect.” So began …
Article • March 1, 2025 • from PLN March, 2025
Federal Withdrawal of Single-Drug Execution Protocol Follows Challenges in Indiana, Arizona by On January 16, 2025, days before Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) returned to office for a second term, outgoing U.S. Attorney General (AG) Merrick Garland withdrew the Department of Justice (DOJ) protocol under which condemned federal prisoners are …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Fifth Circuit Revives Texas Prisoner’s Sleep Deprivation Claim—Again by Texas prisoner Michael Garrett has been fighting the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) for a good night’s sleep since 2013. His case has twice gone before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, after the district court …
New York Prison Officials Found Routinely Violating HALT Act With Overuse of Solitary Confinement by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke On June 18, 2024, the New York Supreme Court for Albany County found that the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) routinely violated Correctional Law § 137(6)(k)(ii), the Humane …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Arizona To Resume Executions by On November 26, 2024, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) dismissed David Duncan, the head of the state Independent Death Penalty Review committee that she appointed in January 2023 to review execution procedures after a series of state killings that Hobbs called “botched.” But when executions …
Tennessee Finalizes New One-Drug Execution Protocol by No executions have been carried out by the Tennessee Department of Corrections (DOC) since May 2019, while the state reviewed its three-drug lethal injection protocol. That review was completed on December 27, 2024, when DOC announced a new protocol with just a single …
Article • February 15, 2025 • from PLN February, 2025
Indiana Resumes Executions by On December 18, 2024, Indiana ended a 15-year execution hiatus with a fatal injection of pentobarbital given to state prisoner Joseph Corcoran, 49. Though state law does not provide for journalists to witness executions, Corcoran’s family invited an Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter to join them as …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
Texas Executioners Playing Fast and Furious to Obtain Lethal Drugs by The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has been buying a drug used to execute condemned prisoners from a compounding pharmacy with a history of safety violations, according to an investigation reported by NPR News on July 10, 2024. …
Article • January 15, 2025 • from PLN January, 2025
With Eleventh Circuit Okay, Alabama Executes Third Prisoner by Nitrogen Hypoxia by Getting a green light from the United States Court of Appeals in the Eleventh Circuit, Alabama used nitrogen gas to kill prisoner Carey Dale Grayson, 50, on November 21, 2024. He told William C. Holman Correctional Facility Warden …
Article • December 15, 2024 • from PLN December, 2024
Alabama Shrouds Executioners in Secrecy by "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” remarked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in 1913. Given the effort put into execution secrecy by Alabama’s Department of Corrections (DOC), its death chamber needs a good deal of exposure. On September 26, 2024, …
SCOTUS Stays Texas Execution With 20 Minutes to Spare by Matthew Clarke by Matt Clarke After granting a rare stay of execution minutes before a condemned Texas prisoner’s date with death, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) agreed on October 4, 2024, to hear his challenge to a …
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