Matt Mangino

Maine senator says citizens don't trust FBI of DHS

2026-07-20T12:49:28.758-04:00

“The people of Maine are not going to buy an investigation that’s strictly run by the F.B.I. or D.H.S.,” Senator Angus King, an independent, reported The New York Time. “I’m sorry. They just don’t have the credibility.”

Senator King was referring a killing in Maine by ICE of a man legally in the U.S. ICE has said victims in Maine and other states were brandishing a gun, “weaponizing” a car or attacking with a shovel. But these explanations, which federal immigration officials gave for shooting people, were swiftly undercut or contradicted by video evidence.

Now, local officials and some members of the public are meeting the Department of Homeland Security’s accounts of the fatal shootings this month in Houston and Biddeford, Maine, with intense skepticism. In Maine on Monday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a Colombian living in Biddeford. The department said little more than that he had tried to flee a traffic stop and that an officer, “fearing for public safety,” had fired at him.

Videos that capture the shooting have not surfaced. Maine officials have called for state law enforcement officials to help determine what occurred.

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Federal courthouses are crumbling around the country, Congress turns a blind eye

2026-07-18T09:33:14.366-04:00

Judges across the country have been complaining that their courthouses are in a dire state of disrepair, and that the G.S.A. is not doing enough to respond, reported The New York Times. The extent of the problem was highlighted in interviews with chief judges of district courts as well as in a list of maintenance issues compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which coordinates operations across the judiciary.

For years, the chief judge overseeing the federal courts in Chicago had been trying to fix the water inside the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. A study had found that the water flowing to the building’s showers, sinks and drinking fountains most likely contained elevated levels of Legionella, the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.

A judge in Oklahoma worked beside a trash bin to catch water falling from a leaking ceiling, before the problem became so severe that she was forced to move to temporary chambers for more than a year. A century-old courthouse in Asheville, N.C., is plagued by mold and a dilapidated heating system, requiring some court services to move off-site. Judges from other courthouses say the G.S.A. has been slow to address problems with critical HVAC systems, falling ceiling tiles and termites.

In the Middle District of Florida, the G.S.A. has been slow to respond to repeated leaks in Jacksonville and has taken more than two years to fully repair a fence that secures a parking lot for judges in Ocala, Chief Judge Marcia Morales Howard said in an interview. She criticized the agency for failing to take into account the impact of courthouse shutdowns on jurors, litigants and the rule of law. “G.S.A. gets paid their rent no matter what,” she said. “And we can’t move. So there’s just no urgency in getting the repairs done.”

The problems with the nation’s courthouses are one facet of a crisis over the federal government’s longstanding inability to maintain its own buildings. Edward C. Forst, the G.S.A.’s administrator, has blamed a requirement that the agency get congressional approval in advance of major projects. As for courthouses, he has argued that the $1.3 billion the judiciary pays each year in rent is a bargain compared with the cost of repairs. He has also cited a report from the Government Accountability Office that found the judiciary’s own guidelines for the design of its courthouses will lead to higher costs.

But for judges the problem is especially frustrating because they must rely on the G.S.A., part of the executive branch, to persuade Congress to address their needs.

G.S.A. control of courthouse repairs is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of separation of powers, said Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr., the director of the Administrative Office.

“We ought to be responsible for our own buildings. We ought not to be reliant upon an agency of the executive branch to manage our buildings,” Judge Conrad said in an interview. “Judicial independence, conceptually, is more important today than it has ever been.”

After years of frustration, Judge Conrad said the judiciary is now asking Congress to give it control of courthouses in 10 of the country’s 94 judicial districts — a pilot that could eventually lead to a more substantial handover. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, mentioned the possibility of legislation that would transfer control of some courthouses to the judiciary in a hearing on Tuesday.

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Acting AG Blanche meets with Epstein victims, they were not impressed

2026-07-17T09:06:55.891-04:00

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met accusers of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following a request to do so by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, whose support is crucial to advancing his nomination to lead the Justice Department, reported CBS News.

Epstein accuser Annie Farmer said in a statement following her meeting with Blanche that she feels "even more confident in urging senators to vote against his confirmation as the United States' Attorney General."

Farmer alleged that Blanche was "abrasive, condescending, and intentionally noncommittal to survivors," which she described as "a marked contrast" from his testimony at Wednesday's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Dani Bensky, whose name and personal information were mistakenly made public in documents related to the federal investigation into Epstein that were released by the Justice Department last year, testified before the committee earlier Thursday before taking part in the meeting with Blanche.

Bensky said in a statement that Blanche treated the meeting "as a mere 'check-the-box' exercise intended to secure votes for his confirmation."

Bensky said that Blanche "danced around his wording, repeatedly interrupted us and could not commit to anything that would demonstrate good faith or begin to restore trust." She said she believes Blanche "is not qualified to serve as attorney general."

"He did not adequately account for the release of materials that exposed survivors' identifying information and images, and he offered no credible plan to investigate and pursue accountability beyond" Epstein and longtime Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, she said.

The political firestorm over Epstein has been a persistent headache for the Trump administration, which released millions of investigative documents over the last year about the disgraced financier's crimes and connections to high-profile people.

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Florida's machinery of death keeps on churning

2026-07-16T08:08:11.104-04:00

The 17th Execution of 2026

Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was one of three older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state, reported The Associated Press.

Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year’s Eve party.

Sochor was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at the 6 p.m. execution time. Asked by the warden if he had any last words, Sochor said he did.

He apologized several times to the Gifford family, saying he was “deeply sorry” and also thanked his own loved ones for their support over the years. Then he commended his spirit to Jesus Christ shortly before the drugs began flowing at 6:03 p.m.

Sochor underwent about a minute of heavy breathing and then some seconds of sputtering. After two minutes in which Sochor appeared to go still, the warden looked into his eyes, shook his shoulders and yelled his name without getting a response. A medic was summoned at 6:14 p.m., soon after pronouncing Sochor dead.

Another 74-year-old inmate just a week younger than Sochor at the time of execution was put to death last month. And later this month, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old, the state’s first octogenarian facing a lethal injection.

The execution plans highlight the aging death row population in the U.S. and the busy death chamber in Florida, which has now carried out 10 of the 16 executions conducted in the nation this year — more than every other state combined.

Marilyn Gifford, Patricia’s sister, said after witnessing the execution that Sochor’s death brings some closure to the family, but it’s bittersweet since her body has never been found. She encouraged anyone with information that could lead to the remains to contact authorities.

“He had 45 years to return Patty’s remains to us, but he cruelly chose not to,” Gifford said, reading from a statement. “We never got a chance to lay her to rest in God’s arms. Without closure, every happy memory of Patty is immediately crushed by the tragedy of her murder.”

Gifford also pointed out that Sochor got to live more than twice as long on death row as her sister lived her entire life. “Tonight’s execution was appropriate because Dennis Sochor was a lifelong brutal and sadistic man,” she said.

It’s unclear why Florida scheduled the executions of the three prisoners consecutively.

Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to scheduling executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office did not respond to emailed requests for comment about the recent pace of the executions.

A New Year’s Day killing

According to court records, Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother.

The four spent hours talking, but after the friend became ill and went to sleep in her car, Gifford left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast. But instead of going for food, Sochor stopped his truck in a secluded area and attacked Gifford, according to investigators.

Sochor was later arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida. Sochor’s brother told police Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor himself confessed on tape to choking Gifford and disposing of her body. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, and he was sentenced to death.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Sochor’s final appeal without comment.

Oldest inmates executed in Florida

On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer for the killing of his wife Karen. Until Tuesday, Spencer was the oldest inmate executed in Florida.

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates previously executed by the state were both 72: Samuel Lee Smithers on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting of a state representative, Charles Schuh Jr.

Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.

If executed as planned, he would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. history after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of Southern mail bombs.

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CREATORS: How Does The 25th Amendment Protect Democracy?

2026-07-15T08:03:07.064-04:00

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
July 15, 2026

A 2016 article in Psychology Today explored whether having a mental illness would make it difficult for a candidate to get elected president. The author, Guy Winch, Ph.D., cited a study by Jonathan Davidson of Duke University Medical Center that found that of the first 37 U.S. presidents, "half of those men had been afflicted by mental illness — and 27% met those criteria while in office, something that could have clearly affected their ability to perform their jobs."

The study found that 24% of presidents met the diagnostic criteria for depression, including James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, and Calvin Coolidge.

Davidson and his team also found evidence of anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and alcohol dependence among sitting presidents.

Although the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution can prevent an incompetent president from remaining in office, the amendment was not created specifically for that purpose.

The 25th Amendment addresses what happens to the presidency and vice presidency if the president and/or vice president dies, resigns or becomes incapacitated or disabled.

About two years after the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, Congress recommended a succession amendment. On Feb. 23, 1967, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy's successor, who, by the way, may have suffered from bipolar disorder, signed the 25th Amendment into law.

Imagine in 1867 or 1967 if the president made a profane-laced statement in reference to Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight," or a president who frequently naps at meetings took on the Pope as "WEAK on crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy." Is an 80-year-old, at times rambling, president with — as noted by The Hill — dark, unexplained bruising spanning the back of both hands — appropriate for the 25th Amendment consideration?

Succession has been a problem since the infancy of America. The original Constitution allowed for the vice president to become acting president if the president died.

That wasn't good enough for John Tyler who became "Vice President Acting President" in 1841 when former President William Henry Harrison became the first president to die in office. Tyler moved into the White House and assumed full presidential powers, including giving an Inaugural Address.

The first few sections of the 25th Amendment are straightforward. First, if the president dies or resigns — think Richard Nixon — the vice president takes over. Second, if the vice president dies or resigns — think Spiro Agnew — the president appoints a replacement approved by Congress.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment is a little trickier.

Whenever the vice president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the president pro tempore of the Senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the vice president shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as acting president.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment has never been used, although officials considered invoking the section after the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan.

However, like impeachment or indictment, the president has Due Process rights. The president can challenge the declaration of incapacity. If he or she does, the vice president and other administration officials must reassert the claims or the president resumes his authority.

If the claim is reasserted, Congress must decide the issue. Within 21 days of assembling, Congress must vote with a two-thirds majority of both houses that the president is unable to fulfill his constitutional responsibilities as president.

If the two-thirds super-majority is not met in both houses of Congress, "the president shall resume the powers and duties of his office."

For now, there is little chance of invoking the 25th Amendment. The President is Republican, the House is Republican, the Senate is Republican and the Vice-President is a sycophant. There are other options — the midterms are just months away ... a dramatic power shift is not out of the question.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Clock is ticking on PA legislature's responsibility to address felony murder sentences

2026-07-14T09:06:55.680-04:00

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled life in prison for felony murder unconstitutional in March. The court’s decision affected all convictions going forward but left it to the state Legislature to decide by July 24 how it would impact past convictions, leaving more than 1,100 others in limbo, reported the Prison Journalism Project.

A bill authored by Senate Republicans, which passed the chamber on June 25, would impose a minimum sentence of 35 years for second-degree murder except in cases where the defendant meets a strict set of guidelines proving they had no intention, knowledge or participation in the murder itself, in which case they could be sentenced to 10 to 40 years. The bill still allows for life sentences in certain cases.

A competing bill in the Democrat-led House caps sentences at 50 years and expands eligibility for parole after 25 years based on the defendant’s culpability in the crime and consideration of public and victim safety. That bill remains in committee.

If lawmakers cannot reach a consensus, the fate of those convicted of second-degree murder will go back to the court system for resentencing. The uncertainty for the women is exacerbated by limited access to information.

“I feel like there is a lack of information, even conflicting information,” said Tequilla Fields, 53, who has served 21 years in prison for second-degree murder charges stemming from a crime she committed when she was 18. “No one seems to know what’s really going on, not even the people outside. That makes it hard to know what to believe.”

Fields said the mandatory minimum of 35 years imposed by the Senate-led bill is too harsh.

“Thirty-five years? It doesn’t seem fair, right or logical — it doesn’t make any sense,” Fields said. ”It’s too much time for someone who had no intention to kill anyone, or who didn’t kill someone at all. I do not trust the justice system at all. They don’t care about us. We’re not human beings to them.”

Tameka Flowers, 51, who has been incarcerated for 31 years for second-degree murder, said a minimum sentence of 35 years serves the same function as a life-without-parole sentence.

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“It is a blessing to have the opportunity to leave prison, but a minimum sentence of 35 is still a death sentence for most,” Flowers said. “They’re trying to sentence people as if they had the intent to kill when they didn’t.”

Despite her anxiety over her own release, Reyes said she understands the reasoning behind the Senate bill’s 35-year minimum.

“At the end of the day, we have to understand that a life was taken while we were there, even if we didn’t do it,” Reyes said. ”It’s a life sentence for them.”

Markman said she was also thinking about her victim and their family.

“It’s hard for me to know that I might get a second chance at life, regardless of how many years from now it may be, but they will not be,” Markman said.

If lawmakers do not pass a bill by the deadline, judges will have wide latitude to impose new sentences. Some women at SCI Muncy are concerned that this scenario will result in further sentencing disparities.

“My main worry is if a bill isn’t passed and people are kicked back to their counties for resentencing,” Markman said. “Judges will be able to sentence people however they want to, and some counties are harsher than others.”

Flowers said smaller, rural counties will most likely impose harsh sentences while more liberal cities like Philadelphia will impose more lenient sentences.

“The judges and attorneys will have to really dig into people’s lives prior to prison, figuring out who we were then and why we made the decisions we made,“ Flowers said. “I feel like a lot of us might get resentenced to the same amount of time.”

Despite their concerns about how the state Supreme Court ruling will be applied, women serving second-degree sentences at SCI Muncy are hopeful that they will soon have a meaningful opportunity to be released, viewing it as a chance to contribute to society.

”This means everything to me, and I will not waste the chance I am given,” Markman said. “I am determined to make the most of it by making a positive difference and helping other people. If I can help one person who is going through a similar situation to what I was, it will all be worth it. I have to do something to give back.”

While the state Legislature determines its next steps, the community of women at Muncy are hopeful that politicians will agree that everyone is more than the worst decisions they’ve made.

”We are not who we were two, three and four decades ago,” Flowers said. ”We were women who were abused, used, put down and beat down. And yet, we have survived and found ourselves. We’ve learned how to aid others. We just want the opportunity to show society that we will be an asset to any community we are a part of. We want to show that change is real.”

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As substance abuse declines, so goes the murder rate

2026-07-13T08:49:22.803-04:00

Professor James Tuttle of the University of Montana writes in The Conversation, the murder rate in 2025 was the lowest in modern American history.

Preliminary data shows the murder rate fell nearly 20% from 2024, likely making it the lowest rate since reliable national data began to be collected in 1960.

Why was the murder rate so low?

I’m a professor of sociology and criminology who studies crime trends. In my book, “Crime Wave,” I explore how homicide rates have closely followed three trends over the past decade: alcohol consumption, drug abuse and firearm purchases. Now that the drug and alcohol crises are waning and gun purchases are falling, so too is the murder rate.

The 2015-2021 murder increase

The murder rate’s previous low came in 2014, capping a decline that had been more or less continuous since the early 1990s.

The murder rate usually rises and falls alongside other crimes, so through the 2010s, with property crime and overall youth offending dropping, criminologists expected the murder trend to follow suit.

Instead, the national murder rate increased sharply in 2015 and 2016, and then by an even larger margin in 2020.

Suddenly, it appeared that violent crime was spiraling out of control. By 2021, the homicide rate hit its highest level since the mid-1990s.

Popular, but incomplete, explanations

Some researchers and commentators attributed the homicide spikes to a so-called “Ferguson effect” in 2015 and, likewise, a “Minneapolis effect” in 2020. These theories are based on the idea that law enforcement officers were reluctant to be proactive or make arrests after nationwide protests against police brutality related to the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. The evidence for these claims is mixed.

There is little consistent indication that a decline in proactive policing contributed to a crime increase in 2015, although the homicide spike in 2020 was likely exacerbated by a police “pullback”.

Still, the majority of the homicide spike took place before June 2020, when protests over Floyd’s death spread nationwide. A study published in the journal Epidemiology found that the increase began as early as October 2019, suggesting de-policing in the summer of 2020 likely worsened the rise rather than caused it.

De-policing is, at best, an incomplete explanation.

Substance abuse, guns and the ‘homicide epidemic’

As I document in “Crime Wave,” the crisis in violence was related to another crisis: deaths of despair, which include drug overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related fatalities.

In the years leading up to the 2015 homicide spike, the prescription opioid crisis gave way to the illicit opioid crisis. As opioid use shifted toward heroin and fentanyl, it became deadlier. People were more likely to overdose, and the drug market moved from pharmacists into the hands of street dealers. It wasn’t just the pharmacological effect of drugs but the systemic nature of drug markets – disputes between dealers, buyers and users – that contributed to the spike in homicides.

At the same time, alcohol consumption began to accelerate. Alcohol is connected to homicide rates in part because it decreases inhibition, nullifying social and personal constraints. A high percentage of both homicide offenders and victims are under the influence of alcohol during a fatal assault.

Finally, amid growing distrust of the police and the government, firearm sales began to increase during 2015 and 2016, setting an all-time record in 2020. Given that assaults with a firearm are more likely to lead to the death of the victim than assaults using other weapons, confrontations became deadlier.

In my assessment, the homicide rate moved in near lockstep with trends in drug overdoses, alcohol consumption and firearm purchases, each of which increased by its largest margin in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic likely exacerbated the substance abuse crisis, and the gun-buying spree was especially pronounced at three points: in March 2020, when the U.S. declared a national emergency over COVID-19; in June 2020, following the Floyd protests; and in the months surrounding the 2020 presidential election.

With more people under the influence of alcohol, an expanding illicit drug market and more guns available, the murder rate dramatically increased.

The murder rate decline after 2021

After peaking in 2021, the murder rate began to fall. This occurred slowly at first in 2022, but the estimated declines in 2023, 2024 and 2025 have been substantial. The reversal in the homicide trend has followed a similar timeline as the substance abuse and firearm purchasing patterns, though some indicators of firearm possession, such as their use in suicides, remain elevated.

When the homicide rate was rising, it defied criminologists’ expectations, breaking away from the property crime decline of the 2010s. Now, the murder rate is falling back in line with other crime trends, many of which are also among the lowest ever recorded. As the substance abuse crises continue to wane, I expect murder rates to fall even further in the near future.

Additionally, with youth criminal involvement hitting historic lows, the next generation appears to be one of the least criminally prone in decades, which bodes well for continued reductions in the murder rate.

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New Mexico AG accuses DOJ of withholding Epstein documents

2026-07-12T07:45:27.078-04:00

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez publicly released a letter to Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche accusing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) of withholding unredacted copies of documents that are pertinent to New Mexico’s investigation of Zorro Ranch, which was owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reported JURISTnews.

New Mexico reopened its investigation into possible sex trafficking at the ranch in February, but Torrez has not yet announced any findings. In the letter, he summarized a series of unmet document requests, made under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, some dating back to February. Torrez wrote:

The USDOJ’s continued withholding of unredacted records is causing real and escalating harm to the NMDOJ’s criminal investigation. Every day that the USDOJ withholds these records, the foundation upon which a New Mexico prosecution could be built erodes. Witnesses relocate and become unreachable. Memories, already strained by years of trauma, fade further. Physical and documentary evidence degrades, is lost, or is rendered more difficult to authenticate with the passage of time … more than 130 days have now elapsed since the NMDOJ’s initial request. The NMDOJ views this length of time as an unreasonable delay under any rule of reason.

A DOJ spokesperson replied, “DOJ reiterates that it welcomes New Mexico(‘s) … investigation of the Zorro Ranch and stands ready to provide … assistance with New Mexico’s investigation. Should that investigation uncover potential federal crimes, the DOJ will work closely with our law enforcement partners to investigate and, as appropriate, prosecute.”

According to one of the Epstein files that has been released, conservative talk show host Edward Aragon brought a tip to the Albuquerque office of the FBI in 2019. The tipster offered Aragon “7 videos of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and the location of two foreign girls buried on Zorro Ranch for sale for one bitcoin.” In the same year, The New York Times published an article alleging that Epstein planned to impregnate multiple women at his Zorro Ranch.

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Houston authorities will investigate ICE killing of Mexican immigrant

2026-07-11T09:59:24.327-04:00

Hours after three witnesses questioned the official account of how an immigration agent killed a man in Houston this week, city officials said they would begin their own investigation of the federal government’s actions, reported The New York Times.

Mayor John Whitmire of Houston said he, the city’s police department and the district attorney’s office would work aggressively to obtain all evidence and uncover the truth, reversing his earlier position that the city had no jurisdiction over the case.

“We are not settling to wait for an F.B.I. report,” Mr. Whitmire said during a news briefing on Friday afternoon. “We want answers.”

The episode began about 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday as Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant, was driving in East Houston on his way to work at a construction site in a van with three other workers. Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement began tailing him.

On Friday, the agency said in a statement that Mr. Araujo had rammed an ICE vehicle, had not followed orders and had tried to run over an officer. An ICE agent fired in self-defense, the statement said. Mr. Araujo was shot in the abdomen and taken to a hospital, where he died.

No evidence was provided to support ICE’s account.

On Friday, the three men with Mr. Araujo said through a lawyer that he had not used his vehicle as a weapon or tried to run over the immigration officers. The men were arrested and provided their version of events to the lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who visited them in immigration detention.

“I have no doubt that what they are saying is the truth,” Mr. Balderas-Ibarra said during a news conference on Friday. “All three reiterated that at no point was an agent standing in front of the vehicle nor was an agent placed in the line of danger.”

Mr. Araujo’s death came as ICE officers are increasing arrests across the United States, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. In five days at the end of June, agents arrested more than 10,000 people, the documents show. From Tuesday through Thursday, ICE officers arrested more than 6,000 people, internal records show.

Previous surges have been accompanied by violence, and video evidence in recent months has disproved federal law enforcement’s accounts of several shootings.

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Do states' "Unnecessary Rigor Clause" go above and beyond the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment?

2026-07-10T20:03:19.786-04:00

A handful of prisoners in Oregon who filed a proposed class action lawsuit in mid-June challenging the Oregon Department of Corrections' (ODOC) solitary confinement practices. It alleges that the ODOC is violating the state constitution's "Unnecessary Rigor Clause," which goes above and beyond the Constitution's Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment, reported Reason Magazine. States like Indiana, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming also have similar protections in their constitutions.

The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the ODOC's practices are unconstitutional and an injunction prohibiting the department from continuing the practices in the future. They also want to establish a monitoring regime so that the ODOC does not fall back into its old habits.

"It's ironic that in a state that is pushing back against the Trump administration and is a progressive leader in so many ways is at the same time subjecting people to these degrading, cruel and inhumane issues," said George Mills, a staff attorney at the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit public interest law firm representing some of the plaintiffs.

A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Corrections told Reason that the agency can't comment on the specifics of the lawsuit but remains committed to maintaining "safe, secure, and humane operations for adults in custody, staff, and the communities we serve." That includes, but is not limited to, increasing out-of-cell time for people in solitary confinement, building peer mentorship programs, and enhancing violence prevention tools.

"DOC remains committed to this long‑term cultural transformation and to ensuring our practices continue to evolve in alignment with research, safety needs, and constitutional standards," the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Solitary confinement—also known as restrictive housing or administrative segregation—has a long and sordid history in the U.S. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is widely considered the birthplace of solitary confinement. As early as 1829, some prisoners were kept in tiny cells only containing a worktable, a toilet, a skylight, and a Bible. Historian William Kashatus argued in a 1999 article for Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine that the cells were designed in such a way to "remind the inmate that penitence would only be achieved through the light from heaven, the word of God, and honest work."

In 1890, the Supreme Court recognized that the assumption underpinning solitary confinement is inhumane and counterproductive in a case known as In re Medley. The case concerned a convicted murderer named James J. Medley who was held in solitary confinement for 45 days in Colorado before his execution. Chief Justice Samuel Miller, after going through a lengthy historical analysis of the practice, found that prisoners subjected to solitary confinement often "did not recover sufficient mental activity to be any subsequent service to the community."

Keeping prisoners in solitary confinement is also inherently dangerous. Studies have shown that extended time in solitary can permanently damage an individual's brain by shrinking the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and sociability. That is one reason why many prisoners who are sent to solitary return with symptoms of "depression, paranoia, lack of concentration or memory, anger, and hallucinations," according to a 2018 study. Solitary confinement can also cause muscular degeneration, cardiovascular issues, and dermatological conditions because of the lack of regular exercise and restricted hygiene habits.

Jenkins-Millage claimed in the lawsuit that he has experienced similar symptoms since he was sent to solitary confinement. For instance, he said he developed symptoms of depression or bipolar disorder, including suicidal ideation, while he was in solitary. He attributed these symptoms to a lack of meaningful human contact, recreation, and mental stimulation.

Even so, reforming solitary confinement practices has been slow and arduous work. According to 2023 estimates, more than 122,000 people are held in solitary confinement across the U.S., representing just under 7 percent of the nation's total prison population. While many assume that the worst of the worst criminals live in solitary confinement, multiple studies have found that prisons routinely use solitary confinement as punishment for nonviolent offenses like tobacco use and talking back to a prison guard. Solitary confinement is also often considered the "de facto mental health unit" in many prisons, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

"When we made the decision to do whatever put us in prison," Jenkins-Millage told Oregon Public Broadcasting in June. "We didn't stop being humans."

The lawsuit claims directors at the ODOC are aware that their practices may run afoul of best practices. In the 91-page complaint, lawyers point to memos sent by senior ODOC leaders outlining the need to "reduce the use of segregation" and acknowledging that the practice is "detrimental to an individual's health." Another superintendent at Oregon's Coffee Creek Correctional Facility claimed that "segregation isn't an effective tool to change behavior."

Still, the ODOC has been slow to address its issues. For instance, a 2015 study by Disability Rights Oregon found that prisoners in solitary confinement had no access to mental health treatment. A 2016 study conducted by the Vera Institute found that segregated prisoners in the ODOC lived in conditions marked by "isolation, idleness, and sensory deprivation" that created or exacerbated serious mental health issues.

"They know that this is wrong, and they know that they need to make progress on this," Mills said.

The lawsuit was filed at a time when solitary confinement is under strict scrutiny across the globe. In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly revised what are known as its Nelson Mandela Rules, which seek to create an international standard for the treatment of prisoners, to state that solitary confinement should be used only as a "last resort" and should not last longer than 15 days. That led to prison reforms in European countries such as Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, as well as in South Africa.

Several U.S. states are creating more humane approaches to solitary confinement. Nevada reduced the amount of time prisoners can spend in solitary confinement to 15 days in 2023. A bill passed in Virginia adding new restrictions on when a prisoner can be sent to solitary confinement. Other states like Louisiana passed a law to increase access to educational materials for people in solitary confinement, and Tennessee now prohibits pregnant women from being sent to solitary.

To Mills, these initiatives come back to one of America's original principles: "You can't torture people, and that's a foundational principle of our country."

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Conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act'

2026-07-09T09:09:07.488-04:00

Part of a Florida law limiting discussions on race, gender and diversity unconstitutionally restricts the speech of college professors, a divided 11th Circuit panel ruled, according to Courthouse News Service.

“If the First Amendment offers any boundary of protection at all for public university classrooms, this statute crosses it,” U.S. Circuit Judge Britt Grant wrote on behalf of the majority.

In a 2-1 decision, the Atlanta-based appeals court rejected a request by Florida officials to toss out a federal judge’s ruling preventing the Sunshine State from enforcing a provision of Florida’s Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act (Stop WOKE Act).

The law would have restricted state university professors from endorsing certain views on eight concepts related to race, color, national origin or sex during classroom discussions.

The Individual Freedom Act amended the Florida Education Equality Act by creating new speech restrictions barring any “training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels” students at public state universities to believe any of eight concepts: a “blacklist of ideas,” an attorney for the plaintiffs said.

The concepts include ideas suggesting that members of one race, color, sex or national origin are morally superior to others, that a person is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive” by virtue of his race or sex, or that people should feel guilty about the actions of their ancestors.

Students, professors and a student organization at six of Florida’s public universities sued the Florida Board of Governors to prevent officials from enforcing the provision.

“Viewpoint-based restrictions designed to compel or ban a set of beliefs are dangerous in any setting, and they are especially pernicious in the classroom context,” Grant, an appointee of Donald Trump, wrote on Tuesday. “That goes double for broadly worded yet imprecise regulations like these, which are sure to leave both professors and their students guessing about what kind of speech might violate the rules.”

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Woman who said her 18-month-old twins died from vaccinations is indicted for their murder

2026-07-08T09:58:58.133-04:00

An Idaho woman who said her toddler twins died last year after being vaccinated faces murder charges connected to their deaths, reported The Associated Press.

A grand jury indicted Andrea Shaw, who is accused of suffocating her 18-month-old twins in May 2025, on two counts of first-degree murder on June 29, according to court records and a statement from the Payette Police Department.

While appearing last year on an internet show produced by Children’s Health Defense — an anti-vaccine group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Shaw said her twins died after getting vaccinated. Kennedy has not been affiliated with the group since December 2024, when he formally resigned as chairman to join President Donald Trump’s administration.

Shaw, 23, was arrested by Boise police officers Tuesday and arraigned Thursday. She is being held on a $2 million bond and could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted or if she pleads guilty to first-degree murder. Her next court appearance is July 14.

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Bucknell University football coach charged with manslaughter in death of football player

2026-07-07T08:45:25.015-04:00

A Bucknell University football strength and conditioning coach is charged in the 2024 death of a freshman recruit who died of stress-induced sickle cell disease after being ordered to do exercises as punishment, reported the Pennsylvania Capital-Star..

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office announced that Mark Kulbis is charged with felony aggravated hazing and misdemeanor counts of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and hazing.

Calvin “C.J.” Dickey Jr., 18, died July 12, 2024, two days after he collapsed during a workout on the first day of practice in which Kulbis ordered the freshman players to do dozens of “up-downs” because they “came up short,” according to court documents.

The attorney general’s office said an investigation showed Bucknell had provided training for its coaches on working with student-athletes with sickle cell trait, advising them to gradually work such students up to intense exercise rather than forcing them, which can result in death.

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Chicago FBI chief leaving: ' Anyone who is not on board with THIS FBI under the leadership of President Trump . . . is free to leave'

2026-07-06T08:03:02.959-04:00

The head of the FBI’s Chicago field office is abruptly leaving his position, according to a resignation message he sent to colleagues and multiple people familiar with the situation who said he was told to retire, reported The Associated Press.

Douglas DePodesta has served as special agent in charge in Chicago, one of the FBI’s largest offices, for nearly two years and has been with the bureau since 2002.

He told colleagues that his last day would be Monday, according to a message seen by The Associated Press. Multiple people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel move, said DePodesta had been pushed to retire.

The events leading up to his departure were not immediately clear, but DePodesta alluded in his farewell note to a conflict that he suggested had precipitated it.

“I’ve never backed down from a fight, as long as it meant our personnel could continue serving the FBI’s mission,” DePodesta wrote in the message. “Unfortunately, that has proved unpopular over time and my departure is a consequence of that.”

The move is part of a broader upheaval in the FBI’s workforce as Director Kash Patel has sought to force out line agents and supervisors alike who are perceived as not supporting the Trump administration agenda. It also comes amid prolonged tumult in the law enforcement community in Chicago, whose top federal prosecutor, Andrew Boutros, described this week a sweeping review of more than 1,000 grand jury presentations made by Illinois prosecutors following the dismissal of a high-profile case over misconduct.

The FBI declined to comment, but the bureau’s “rapid response” social media account on X responded to a separate post about DePodesta’s departure by saying: “It’s simple: Anyone who is not on board with THIS FBI under the leadership of President Trump — which has achieved the lowest murder rate ever — is free to leave.”

DePodesta also quoted in his note from a farewell message from Patel’s predecessor, former Director Chris Wray, who reminded the workforce that “you have been who the American people have turned to in their darkest moments” and praised them for having “stayed true to the values that define who we are, and to the qualities for which we stand: Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity.”

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Mangino discusses trial of George Pino with Court TV's Ted Rowlands

2026-07-05T10:05:28.008-04:00

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Concerns of the founding fathers not much different than concerns today

2026-07-04T08:28:42.557-04:00

Robert Parkinson, Professor of History, Binghamton University, State University of New York wrote in The Conversation:

The Declaration of Independence, with its block of cursive letters scrawled onto parchment, looks like a relic from the distant past. Likewise, you might think the 27 grievances against King George III, his government and the British people listed in the body of the document would have little relevance to our lives today.

After all, what could the specific complaints of colonists in 1776 have to do with 2026? The parts of the declaration worth knowing about are the soaring sentences in the opening paragraphs about self-evident truths, pursuing happiness and all men being created equal. Right?

I’m a professor of history, and I have been researching the Declaration of Independence for nearly a quarter-century. The document has been featured prominently in the four books I have written on the founding of the U.S., especially the recently published “Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence.”

In my assessment, the issues that most disturbed the Revolution’s leaders in 1776 are ones Americans are still concerned about today: a partisan judiciary, arbitrary power, officials not being responsible to their constituents, people lacking a voice in decisions that affect their families, and even policies about immigration and citizenship. Moreover, studying the grievances reveals how the Revolution depended on ordinary Americans. Without their political outrage and participation in the rebellion, American independence would have failed.

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Mangino discusses Pennsylvania child rape case on Law & Crime's Sidebar with Jesse Weber

2026-07-03T09:03:44.345-04:00

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What? Trump makes $2.2 billion since taking office!!!

2026-07-02T08:37:06.754-04:00

Since returning to office in 2024, President Donald Trump has brought in an estimated $2.2 billion, according to The New York Times.

In 2025, the president made over $1 billion from crypto-related endeavors, a federal report showed. Of this, $600 million was made by his crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, that sold “meme” coins with images of his face, reported Deseret News.

Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Wednesday, Trump said, “I don’t get involved in my personal ... We have funds that run my money.”

President Trump has repeatedly missed legal deadlines and omitted business deals required under federal ethics laws designed to expose conflicts of interest, his latest financial disclosure reveals—lapses that fall to his own appointees to police, reported JURISTnews.

The 927-page annual report, filed with the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and released Tuesday, states that Trump paid late-filing fees for transactions that had not previously been disclosed. It also acknowledges that licensing agreements involving Trump-branded watches, sneakers and fragrances were “inadvertently omitted” from his prior report.

The periodic transaction reports, required under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012 (STOCK Act), must be filed within 30 days of the filer receiving notification of a covered securities transaction exceeding $1,000, and no later than 45 days after the transaction itself, giving the public near-real-time visibility into a federal official’s financial dealings.

The 2025 filing discloses thousands of transactions, including large blocks of exchange-traded fund purchases executed in September 2025. Trump’s 2024 disclosure, by contrast, listed the transactions section as “N/A.”

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Mangino joins Nancy Grace to discuss the murder of a Penn State student

2026-07-01T19:07:01.801-04:00

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CREATORS: Supreme Court Decision Grants Broad Power to the President

2026-07-01T08:02:27.855-04:00

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
June 30, 2026

The U.S. Supreme Court handed supporters of the Unitary Executive Theory a huge victory. For decades, many conservative constitutional scholars have argued that the president should have complete control over the executive branch.

Those who advocated for the Unitary Executive Theory argued that the executive branch of government should have the unchecked ability to remove members of agencies like the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and undo laws that restrict the president's ability to make those moves.

The high court ruled that congressional restrictions on the president's power violated the separation of powers. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says, "The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America."

The modern push for a unitary executive gained traction during the Reagan administration. Organizations like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation began a decades-long effort to bring the theory into the mainstream.

The debate over executive power dates back to the Founding Fathers. In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton argued for a strong executive leader. He asserted, "Energy in the executive is the leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks ... (and) to the security of liberty."

The facts at issue in the case before the Supreme Court related to a law that barred the president from firing members of the FTC except in cases of "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office."

According to SCOTUSblog, during his first term in office, President Donald Trump nominated Rebecca Slaughter to fill one of the Democratic seats on the FTC. She was renominated in 2023 to serve a second term. Last year, Slaughter was informed that she had been "removed from the Federal Trade Commission, effective immediately." The letter did not cite any of the legal grounds that would allow Trump to remove her. Slaughter went to court to stop her removal. The case made its way to the Supreme Court.

By a 6-3 margin, the justices overruled a 91-year-old decision that upheld the law restricting presidential control over executive agencies. According to SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump "sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent."

This ruling brings more room for self-dealing, favoritism and corruption, whatever political party controls the presidency.

Cass R. Sunstein, who once headed the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote in The New York Times, "Now that the White House is in charge of the FCC for example, the president may reward his political friends and punish his political enemies in ways that threaten freedom of expression and that might not be visible to the public."

Chief Justice John Roberts penned the majority opinion. He wrote that "the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust ... (t)hen, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."

According to The Hill, Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a sharp dissent. "Put simply, today the majority reshapes our Government," Sotomayor wrote in her 49-page dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

She added, "Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President's hands."

The Unitary Executive Theory lends itself to abuses of authority. As has been demonstrated in the last 18 months, the concentration of power in a single individual invites abuses of power, undermines legislative and judicial independence, and puts the nation at risk of impulsive or unconstitutional actions.

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SCOTUS requires search warrant for cellphone location history

2026-06-30T07:55:43.913-04:00

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled that law enforcement searches for the location history of cellphones near crime scenes are covered by the Fourth Amendment, requiring warrants to obtain the data, reported the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

But the high court left unsettled when searches for the information are reasonable — likely meaning the justices will eventually weigh in again on the privacy rights of Americans in the electronic era.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers conducted a search for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment when they obtained cellphone location history data during an investigation into a bank robbery in Virginia. The amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

“An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information — even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority opinion.

Kagan was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Kentanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred in the judgment but did not join the majority opinion.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett.

States ask warrants be upheld

Over the past two decades, geofence warrants have become a major tool of law enforcement. At a basic level, they allow police to identify phones within a geographic area for a certain period of time. The data can be tremendously valuable to investigators, offering a way to develop suspects in crimes where their identities aren’t otherwise known.

Civil liberties advocates warned that geofence warrants ensnare people in digital dragnets, handing the government data on anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They argued that accessing data on anyone within a certain area — the geofence — amounts to a general warrant prohibited by the Constitution.

A broad bipartisan coalition of states urged the justices to uphold the warrants. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia filed a brief with the court arguing that geofence warrants can be more precise than many traditional investigative methods when supported by probable cause and appropriately tailored. In the brief, they urged the justices not to prohibit geofence warrants altogether.

Geofence warrants can generate critical leads when the perpetrators of crimes are otherwise unknown, they wrote. When suspects are unknown but the suspected wrongdoing is linked to a specific place and time, location data provides one of the narrowest available tools for finding leads, the brief argues.

Credit union robbery in Virginia

The case centered on a 2019 robbery of a federal credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Okello Chatrie was convicted of armed robbery after surveillance footage showed the robber using a cellphone. A detective then obtained a geofence warrant directed at Google for devices within 150 meters of the credit union within an hour of the robbery.

Google initially provided anonymized data in response to the warrant. The detective then requested and received additional location data on nine users. Finally, the detective received de-anonymized information on three users, without obtaining an additional warrant.

While Google has since changed the way it stores location history data to limit geofence warrants, other apps and tech firms collect the data. Lawyers for Chatrie argued that geofence warrants open the door to the authorities requesting information on everyone at a sensitive location — perhaps an abortion clinic or a political convention — at a particular time.

The records serve as a “personal journal of a user’s movements,” Kagan wrote. Location history resembles other private materials like emails, documents, photos and calendars that, even if stored on Google’s servers, users reasonably view as their own, she wrote. Users, in turn, expect the data to be shielded from the “inquisitive eyes” of the government, Kagan wrote.

‘Reasonable’ question unanswered

But Kagan and the court’s majority didn’t wade into whether the search of Chatrie was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. While the warrant in the case was an uncommon, multi-step warrant, Kagan wrote, the lower appeals court found that a search did not occur, so it did not decide whether the warrant was reasonable.

“We are, as we have said many times before, ‘a court of review, not of first view,’” Kagan wrote. “It is therefore now up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether, at each step of the search process, the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause.”

In his dissent, Alito wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision “further destabilizes” longstanding jurisprudence on the Fourth Amendment. He accused the majority of issuing an advisory opinion by not addressing whether the search of Chatrie’s data was reasonable.

“Indeed, by refusing to review the one question that could have at least theoretically given Chatrie some hope of relief, the Court carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade,” Alito wrote.

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Journalism under attack

2026-06-29T08:26:21.307-04:00

When the Justice Department charged Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, and the reporter Georgia Fort and photographer Junn Bollmann with a pair of crimes that carry, in total, the possibility of 10 years or more in prison, something shifted in President Trump’s legal campaign against journalists.

While Mr. Trump has tried for decades to keep the press in line using civil lawsuits, federal criminal law is a sharper weapon. This time the law may also be on the president’s side, reported The New York Times.

The prosecution of Mr. Lemon and the others arose amid the turmoil in Minnesota following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti this year. On Jan. 18, a group of demonstrators entered and disrupted a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement official served as a pastor. In addition to the three journalists, dozens of protesters are charged with conspiring to violate the rights of the parishioners to religious freedom.

Mr. Lemon has a show on YouTube, and Ms. Fort and Mr. Bollmann are independent journalists. Their defense is clear. “I was there as a journalist, not a protester,” Mr. Lemon told me. “I was interviewing people from all sides. We were livestreaming. It’s all right there on tape.”

The product of journalism, for decades, has enjoyed substantial protection under the First Amendment. The courts almost never uphold prior restraints on publication or distribution of news. Thanks to Supreme Court decisions like New York Times v. Sullivan, it’s difficult for public figures who feel wronged by journalists to recover damages for libel. The courts protect journalistic outlets from potentially ruinous judgments because, in the words of that famous case from 1964, of the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”

But federal law, including the crimes for which Mr. Lemon and the other two are charged, offers no similar protections for the process of journalism. In 1972, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that the First Amendment entitled a journalist to refuse to comply with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury and be asked to identify confidential sources. In that case, Branzburg v. Hayes, the justices upheld the “obligation of reporters to respond to grand jury subpoenas as other citizens do and to answer questions relevant to an investigation into the commission of crime.”

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Florida carries out its ninth execution of 2026

2026-06-27T09:07:59.183-04:00

The 16th Execution of 2026

A 74-year-old man convicted of fatally stabbing his wife became the oldest person executed in Florida’s modern history on June 25, 2026, and the state is scheduled to execute another 74-year-old inmate next month, reported The Associated Press.

Dusty Ray Spencer was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Spencer was convicted of the 1992 stabbing death of his wife Karen.

The curtain to the death chamber went up promptly at the 6 p.m. execution time and the warden asked Spencer if he had any statement as he lay strapped to a metal table with an IV inserted in his arm.

“Sorry, sorry to the family. Into thy hands I commit my spirit and my soul. I’m on my way, Lord. I’m on my way. Amen,” Spencer said, a spiritual adviser nearby at the foot of the table.

Immediately after his words, the lethal drugs began flowing and, after a few minutes of labored breathing, Spencer ceased all movements.

The warden then shook Spencer and shouted his name several times, but there was no response. Several more minutes elapsed before a medic was called in to check Spencer’s vital signs, and the inmate was declared dead.

Alex Lanfranconi, in the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis, told The Associated Press in a text message that there were no complications. He had no immediate response to further phone and text messages seeking comment about the ages of the inmate executed Thursday and the next facing execution.

The family of the victim released no statement.

Florida Department of Correction records dating to 1924 show the oldest inmates previously executed by the state were both 72 — Samuel Lee Smithers on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women; and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting death of a state lawmaker, Charles Schuh Jr.

Another 74-year-old Florida inmate, Dennis Sochor, is scheduled to be executed on July 14. Socor was convicted of killing a woman just hours into 1982 after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Nationwide, the oldest person ever executed in modern times was Walter Leroy Moody Jr., 83, who was put to death in Alabama in 2018 for sending mail bombs during a wave of Southern terror, killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney.

Thursday’s execution was the ninth in Florida this year after a record 19 executions in 2025. DeSantis, a Republican, oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight executions set in 2014.

Court records show Spencer was arrested after choking and threatening to kill Karen Spencer in December 1991. While in jail, Dusty Ray Spencer called his wife and warned her that when he got out, he was going to finish what he had started.

On Jan. 18, 1992, Spencer beat his wife’s teenage son with a clothes iron when the boy tried to stop Spencer from attacking his mother, officials said. Then about a week later, the son responded to a commotion outside their home and found Spencer hitting his mother in the head with a brick, according to officials.

Court records show the teen tried to shoot Spencer with a rifle, but the gun misfired. Spencer threatened the teen with a knife, and the boy ran away to get help. When police arrived, they found Karen Spencer dead with several stab wounds to the chest.

Spencer was initially sentenced to death in 1992 after being convicted of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery. In 1994, the Florida Supreme Court ordered his new sentencing after finding that the trial court had mishandled evaluating aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Spencer was resentenced to death the next year, and subsequent appeals were denied.

Last week, the state Supreme Court rejected Spencer’s appeals. His attorneys had argued that he had health issues such as liver disease that posed a heightened risk of pain and suffering. They also argued that executing him at his advanced age would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal earlier Thursday without comment.

All Florida executions are carried out by the lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

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PA Legislature faces Supreme Court deadline to establish sentence guidelines for felony murder

2026-06-26T08:20:40.207-04:00

With just under a month to go until a Pennsylvania Supreme Court-imposed deadline, the state Senate passed a bill that would create new, strict sentencing guidelines for people charged with second degree murder, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star..

Also known as felony murder, the charge is used when someone is killed during the commission of another felony, even if the defendant did not intend to cause that person’s death.

It can apply to people with varying degrees of culpability. That can include an armed robber who fatally injured but did not intend to kill their victim, as well as a getaway driver who was not present.

Until a state Supreme Court ruling in March, the charge came with a mandatory life without parole sentence. In a case revolving around a 36-year-old Allegheny County man who committed armed robbery with an accomplice who shot and killed someone, the court ruled requiring such sentences in all cases violated the state constitution’s ban on cruel punishment.

The court gave lawmakers 120 days to enact legislation addressing the ruling. But key lawmakers still have disagreements over how to move forward.

More than 1,100 people in Pennsylvania are currently serving life sentences without parole on second degree murder charges. The review of their cases could be the largest resentencing effort in the history of the commonwealth.

The GOP-led Senate bill, which passed with a 30-20 bipartisan vote, would impose a minimum 35 year sentence in almost all cases of second degree murder. It would still allow judges to pass life sentences if they believe them warranted.

If a defendant meets a strict set of criteria proving lesser culpability at sentencing, a judge would be allowed to impose a mitigated sentence between 10 and 40 years. Defendants would have to prove by a preponderance of evidence that they meet six requirements, including that they were not the only participant in the underlying felony; did not cause or intend to cause the victim’s death, nor solicit or conspire in the underlying felony; did not brandish, use or threaten to use a deadly weapon; have no reason to believe another participant would use a deadly weapon; and did not cause serious bodily injury to another.

The measure would also allow the parole board to consider the release of anyone charged with second degree murder who has served at least 35 years of a life sentence or is at least 70-years-old.

“We’ve worked hard to put together a plan that strikes the appropriate balance between judicial interpretations of the rights of convicted offenders, and community interest in seeking the appropriate punishment for those convicted of deadly crimes,” said Sen. Lisa Baker (R-Luzerne), the bill’s prime sponsor.

Roxanne Horrell, the campaign director to end life without parole with the nonprofit Straight Ahead, said she believes the Senate’s bill remains too strict in its minimum sentencing requirements. She noted that even Derek Lee, the man at the center of the Supreme Court case, would not meet the bill’s criteria for receiving a mitigated sentence.

“It’s basically a 35-to-life bill,” Horrell said. “It attempts to do these mitigating categories, but it makes an impossible test to really fulfill … it looks good, but in actuality it will be something that’s very limited.

Horrell said that she hopes negotiations with the Democratic-led House will lead to a bill that would allow judges more latitude in sentencing and earlier eligibility for parole.

“We want a bill that’s going to bring as many people home as possible,” she said. “It’s very easy to make assumptions about who people are based on what they’ve done in the past. But I think a lot of these people are just people that made terrible mistakes.”

The Public Defenders Association of Pennsylvania also opposed the bill. In a joint press release with the Public Defenders Association of Philadelphia, the group said it “replicates the mistakes of Pennsylvania’s current, unconstitutional sentencing scheme with high mandatory sentences that provide narrow opportunity for relief.”

The groups added that it could cost between $34 million and $36 million to adequately represent the 1,100 Pennsylvanians who will have their cases reviewed.

“If Defenders aren’t provided with the resources to provide adequate representation and real mitigation, then this becomes just another unfunded mandate,” said Sara Jacobson, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Public Defenders Association of Pennsylvania. “Only real representation can cure this injustice. Without it, the courts risk new sentences that are just as cruel and just as unconstitutional.”

To become law, the Senate proposal will have to pass the House, where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority. That likely means approval from the Judiciary Committee chaired by Tim Briggs (D-Montgomery), who has introduced numerous bills to end mandatory life sentences for life without parole since entering office.

Briggs said, as it stands, he can not support the Senate plan.

“I haven’t voted for any mandatory minimum [sentences] in 16 years,” he told the Capital-Star.

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AG Blanche faces complaint with New York State Bar

2026-06-25T14:40:46.441-04:00

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s principal focus in recent weeks has been lining up support on Capitol Hill ahead of his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings, with a specific focus on winning over GOP skeptics. But Donald Trump’s controversial former defense attorney has more troubles than lining up 51 votes, reported MS Now.

As this week got underway, Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy and a group of 101 former federal and state judges filed a complaint against Blanche with the New York State Bar, which included a formal request for an ethics investigation.

The 73-page complaint specifically focused on three areas of alleged misconduct:

Blanche’s role in orchestrating the creation of a $1.776 billion compensation fund, widely panned as a “slush fund,” and an IRS audit shield for the president and his family.

Blanche’s role in “abusing the investigative and prosecutorial powers” of the Justice Department to target the president’s perceived political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey.

Blanche supervising the DOJ’s “flawed response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, including the disclosure of thousands of records containing sensitive victim information.”

Time will tell what, if anything, comes of the complaint, but as the process moves forward, it’s worth pausing to note just how frequently former judges have become prominent and influential critics of the president and his team.

In early November, for example, Judge Mark L. Wolf, a Reagan-appointed jurist, resigned from the federal bench in order to give himself the freedom to warn the public about the threats posed by Trump.

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