Entries by Hayley Bedard

On April 1, 2025, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she has direct­ed act­ing U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Matthew Podolsky, to seek the death penal­ty against Luigi Mangione for the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. This is the first time AG Bondi has direct­ed pros­e­cu­tors to seek the death penal­ty since President Donald Trump assumed office in January 2025, when he issued an exec­u­tive order includ­ing a call to​“restore” the fed­er­al death penal­ty. In a…

Update: On May 13, 2025, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed HB 123 into law, which goes into effect imme­di­ate­ly. On March 31, 2025, the Georgia Senate, in a 53 – 1 vote, passed HB 123, send­ing the bill to Governor Brian Kemp’s desk to be signed. HB 123 pro­vides pre­tri­al hear­ings for cap­i­tal defen­dants to raise intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty claims and would low­er the stan­dard of proof for those claims from​“beyond a rea­son­able doubt” to a​“pre­pon­der­ance of evi­dence,” in…

On March 14, 2025, a group of nine death row pris­on­ers in Tennessee filed a law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s sole use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal in its revised lethal injec­tion pro­to­col, argu­ing it cre­ates a​“high risk of a tor­tur­ous death.” In December 2024, the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) com­plet­ed a mul­ti-year lethal injec­tion pro­to­col review and announced that instead of the pre­vi­ous three-drug pro­to­col, the state would shift to rely on just one drug:…

On March 12, 2025, Idaho Governor Brad Little (pic­tured) signed House Bill 37 into law, mak­ing the fir­ing squad the state’s pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion. In a state­ment to Catholic News Agency, Gov. Little said,​“I have long made clear my sup­port of cap­i­tal punishment…My sign­ing of [this bill] is con­sis­tent with my sup­port of the Idaho Legislature’s actions in set­ting the poli­cies around meth­ods of exe­cu­tion in the state of Idaho.” The bill, which takes effect on July 1,…

On March 11, in sep­a­rate deci­sions, a fed­er­al court in Louisiana and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) stayed the upcom­ing exe­cu­tions of David Wood (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Texas on March 13) and Jessie Hoffman (sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in Louisiana on March 18). In Mr. Wood’s case, the TCCA grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion to allow the state more time to address the eight claims Mr. Wood assert­ed in his state habeas claim. In Mr. Hoffman’s case, the U.S. District Court for the Middle…

Supreme Court of…

In a 5 – 3 deci­sion issued in Glossip v. Oklahoma on February 25, 2025, the United States Supreme Court threw out Richard Glossip’s 2004 con­vic­tion for arrang­ing the mur­der of Barry Von Treese and ordered a new tri­al because pros­e­cu­tors allowed a key wit­ness to lie in court and with­held cru­cial infor­ma­tion about the same wit­ness. Justice Sonya Sotomayor, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, said that pros­e­cu­tors in Mr. Glossip’s case​“vio­lat­ed [their] constitutional…