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Tennessee completes yet another execution using the electric chair
As reported in this AP piece, a “convicted murderer was put to death in Tennessee’s electric chair Thursday, becoming the state’s fifth prisoner over 16 months to choose electrocution over the state’s preferred method of lethal injection.” Here are the basics:
Nicholas Sutton, 58, was pronounced dead at 7:26 p.m. at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Asked if he had any last words, Sutton looked directly into the witness room and spoke…
“People Serving Life Exceeds Entire Prison Population of 1970”
The title of this post is the title of this new fact sheet released by The Sentencing Project’s Campaign to End Life Imprisonment. Here is how the document (which is full of interesting images) get started:
As states come to terms with the consequences of 40 years of prison expansion, sentencing reform efforts across the country have focused on reducing stays in prison or jail for those convicted of nonviolent drug and property crimes. At…
Roger Stone gets 40-month federal prison sentence … but will he ever actually serve it?
As reported in this Politico piece, headlined “Roger Stone was sentenced Thursday to just more than three years in prison, a decision that raises immediate questions about whether President Donald Trump will pardon his longtime political confidant for what the president has decried as a miscarriage of justice.”…
Lots of notable clemency news and notes and commentaries after Prez Trump’s flourish of mercy
Unsurprisingly, a number of reporters and commentators have lots to report and comment upon in the wake of Trump’s latest clemency work (basics noted here and here and here). Here are just a few pieces that seem like must reads in full (with a taste to whet appetites):
From the Washintong Post, “White House assembles team of advisers to guide clemency process as Trump considers more pardons“:
The White House is moving to…
Noting that condemned Tennessee inmates are opting for electrocution over lethal injection
This New York Times piece, headlined “Afraid of Lethal Injection, Inmates Are Choosing the Electric Chair,” reviews execution trends nationwide just before Tennessee is scheduled to conduct another state killing through the use of the electric chair. Here are excerpts:
Nicholas Sutton, like other death row inmates in Tennessee, has a choice in how the state will end his life. The default, as set by state law, would be a series of injections, one…
“From Decarceration to E-Carceration”
I am sorry to have missed this article by Chaz Arnett with the title used for the title of this post when it was first posted to SSRN some months ago, but I am glad to have seen it as recently revised. Here is its abstract:
Each year, millions of Americans experience criminal justice surveillance through electronic ankle monitors. These devices have fundamentally altered our understanding of incarceration, punishment, and the extent of the carceral…
Roger Stone case generating some useful reflections on federal sentencing challenges and problems and lessons
Recognizing historic modern first-term commutation work by Prez Trump in a single day
Unsurprisingly, the pardons and commutations handed out by President Trump yesterday to high-profile individuals like Michael Milken, Rod Blagojevich, Bernie Kerik and Eddie DeBartolo have been dominating the news coverage of Trump’s latest clemency work (basics noted here and here). But I wanted to take a moment to note (and, in a sense, lament) that Prez Trump’s granting of four commutations yesterday — to Tynice Nichole Hall, Crystal Munoz and Judith Negron along with Blagojevich…
Another thoughtful and thorough opinion finds statutory sentence reform among “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for reducing sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)
As regular readers know, in lots of prior posts I have made much of a key provision of the FIRST STEP Act which now allows federal courts to directly reduce sentences under the (so-called compassionate release) statutory provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) without awaiting a motion by the Bureau of Prisons. I consider this provision a big deal because I think, if applied appropriately and robustly, it could and should enable many hundreds (and…