Newsletter: April, 2020
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Our newsletters are sent to members at the end of every month. They are composed of articles (usually US death penalty-themed) written by members for members.
We publish an abbreviated version here shortly after it is sent out. If you'd like to write for the newsletter and support us, click here to become a member.
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In the News
State officials urged to release stockpiled lethal injection drugs for Covid-19 patients
In mid-March, a group of doctors, pharmacists and public healthcare experts wrote an open letter to state correctional facility officials asking them to divert certain essential paralytics and sedatives to hospitals treating COVID-19 patients. These medicines are currently highly sought after by US hospitals due to their use in sedating and immobilising coronavirus patients who need ventilators... Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
COVID-19 in Pennsylvania: adjusting death row practices
On 9th April, District Judge John Jones approved a settlement between the State Corrections Department in Pennsylvania and its death row inmates. The settlement aims to reduce the risk of infection to inmates by adjusting standard confinement rules. Most death-sentenced inmates shall be afforded the same housing conditions and privileges as inmates in the prison’s general population... Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
Federal appeals court approves Trump admin’s plan to resume federal executions
A lower court decision prohibiting federal executions has been overturned by an appellate court after nearly a two-decade hiatus, and handed the Trump administration a “boost”1 in their efforts to resume federal death sentences… Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
Nebraska supreme court rejects challenge to state’s capital sentencing procedures
The 3rd of April 2020 marked a unanimous decision on the constitutionality of Nebraska’s death penalty law in the case of State of Nebraska v. Jeffery Hessler. In 2004, Hessler was convicted and sentenced to death for first-degree murder, kidnapping, first degree sexual assault and the use of a firearm in the shooting of 15-year-old Heather Guerrero… Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
Executions are on hold, but states are still pushing for death amid the coronavirus pandemic
Walter Ogrod started developing symptoms of Covid-19 in mid-March, suffering from a fever and respiratory distress. Walter is in serious need of testing and treatment, but this is out of his control: he has been on death row since 1996... Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
Uncertainty at the gallows – a peek into capital punishment in Malaysia
When the Federal Court overturned a drug trafficking conviction on the basis that a smuggler would not agree to voluntary luggage screening1, Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 55, not only escaped a death penalty sentence but walked away from becoming part of an unsettling statistic of 546 foreigners on death row in Malaysia for similar offences... Read more by becoming an Amicus Member
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