Entries by Hayley Bedard

Attorneys for Warren King (pic­tured), who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Georgia in 1998 for the mur­der of a con­ve­nience store clerk, have uncov­ered evi­dence that shows the pros­e­cu­tor, John B. Johnson, with­held crit­i­cal evi­dence from Mr. King’s defense team at the time of tri­al. A new court fil­ing indi­cates that ADA Johnson failed to dis­close a plea deal reached with Mr. King’s co-defen­­dant, Walter Smith, the only eye­wit­ness to the crime. Both Mr. King and Mr. Smith were charged with…

A July 10, 2024, National Public Radio (NPR) inves­ti­ga­tion has revealed that Rite Away, a small chain of phar­ma­cies locat­ed around San Antonio and Austin, Texas, com­pound­ed and pro­vid­ed pen­to­bar­bi­tal for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) between 2019 and late 2023 to car­ry out lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. During the same time peri­od, records at the Texas Board of Pharmacy and fed­er­al Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) indi­cate the phar­ma­cy was cit­ed for mul­ti­ple safety and…

June 16, 2024, marks 80 years since South Carolina exe­cut­ed 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. Historical reports indi­cate that on March 24, 1944, Mr. Stinney and his younger sis­ter, Aime, were play­ing out­side when two white girls approached them, ask­ing where they could find a par­tic­u­lar flower. Neither Mr. Stinney nor his sis­ter knew where the young girls could find these flow­ers and they quick­ly moved along. That evening, when both young girls failed to return home, a search par­ty was sent to…