Entries tagged with “Matthew Reeves”
Issues
Jun 22, 2022
On 20th Anniversary of Atkins v. Virginia, Supreme Court Denies Petition to Review Procedural Loophole Permitting Execution of Intellectually Disabled Prisoners
On the twentieth anniversary of its landmark decision in Atkins v. Virginia prohibiting the use of the death penalty against individuals with intellectual disability, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Florida case that creates a procedural loophole that allows those executions to continue. In a one-line ruling issued June 21, 2022, the Court summarily denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed on behalf of Florida death-row prisoner Joe Nixon, declining to review the state’s refusal to…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Jan 28, 2022
Divided Supreme Court Vacates Injunction, Permits Alabama to Execute Intellectually Disabled Prisoner
A divided U.S. Supreme Court voted 5 – 4 on January 27, 2022 to allow Alabama to execute an intellectually disabled death-row prisoner, vacating an injunction issued by a federal district court on January 7 and unanimously upheld by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on January 26. In a decision rendered 1½ hours after the execution of Matthew Reeves was scheduled to begin, the five conservative male justices on the Court voted, without explanation, to let the…
Issues
Methods of Execution
,Jan 10, 2022
Alabama Federal Court Issues Injunction Against Executing Matthew Reeves by Any Method but Nitrogen Hypoxia
An Alabama federal judge has issued an order halting the scheduled January 27, 2022 execution of Matthew Reeves (pictured). On January 7, Judge R. Austin Huffaker of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, granted a preliminary injunction preventing Alabama from executing Reeves “by any method other than nitrogen hypoxia.” Huffaker found that Reeves is likely to succeed in his claim that the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when prison officials…
Issues
Jul 16, 2021
In Partisan Vote, Supreme Court Summarily Reverses Grant of Penalty-Phase Relief for Alabama Death-Row Prisoner Who May Be Intellectually Disabled
In a ruling rendered along partisan lines without benefit of oral argument, the United States Supreme Court has overturned the decision of a federal appeals court that had vacated the death sentence imposed on an Alabama death-row prisoner whose trial lawyers had failed to obtain expert assistance to present evidence of his intellectual disability. By a vote of 6 – 3, with all members of the conservative bloc of justices voting for the prosecution, the Court on July 2, 2021 summarily reversed the…