Eleven years ago this month, the Supeme Court held that mandatory life-without parole sentences for all children 17 or younger was unconstitutional. See Miller v. Albama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). Today, the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth reports that "1,000 individuals who were sentenced to life in prison as children are now FREE!" View Full Story.
The Campaign noted some compelling facts about this group of individuals, now freed:
Washington, D.C., police officer's son after a judge vacated his death sentence and three firearms convictions (view full article).
Lighty, who was 19 at the time of the January 2002 kidnapping and killing, was one of three defendants convicted in the crime. The other two men received life sentences for their roles.
Two former governors of Alabama from opposite sides of the political aisle published an opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for the state to put an end to executing people who were sent to death row by a split jury, and for Alabama to commute the sentences of 146 death row inmates.
Last Saturday the Justice Department suspended attorney Erez Reuveni, acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, after he admitted during a court hearing that the Trump administration mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El Salvador’s Cecot mega-prison (aka, Center for Terrorism Confinement).
A federal court in Maryland Friday ordered the Trump administration to take immediate steps to return a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison (view previous coverage).
Ahead of his federal death penalty trial, the attorneys for Payton Gendron who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket want to move his trial to New York City, because it would be difficult to seat a diverse and impartial jury in the upstate city (view full article).
Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4, 2024 (view full article).
Detroit man spends 15 years in jail for a murder he didn't commit, based primarily on inconsistent and retracted testimony of an eyewitness who identified him from a standalone photo (not in a photo array) that didn't match the witness's prior description of the shooter. After exoneration, he sues the detective on the case, Detective Donald Olsen, who also failed to disclose that the eyewitness had identified another man from a photo array. Detective: Claims qualified immunity.
Los Angeles District Attorney is allowing county prosecutors to seek the death penalty again, reversing a ban put in place by his predecessor and making good on a campaign promise (view full article).
Removing the death penalty was one of the first changes implemented by former DA George Gascón when he took office in 2020. In a special directive, he called it “inextricably intertwined” with racism and said executions did not deter crime.
Earlier this week, the United States Sentencing Commission released its 2022 Federal Sentencing Statistics. The data covers sentencings from October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022. These reports examine federal sentencing statistics from each judicial district, the districts within each judicial circuit, and the districts within each state. Each report compares the statistics from the respective district, circuit, or state to the nation as a whole.