Texas Defender Service

It’s always easy for prosecutors to argue that relief on an appeal based on procedural errors should be overturned, but it’s important to remember that those appeals wouldn’t have been necessary if the State hadn’t bent the rules in the first place.
www.texomashomepage....

Formerly incarcerated push reforms aimed at curbing recidivism Reno's independent, online news and events source. Established in 2009.

Being formerly incarcerated does not need to be end all be all.

From incarceration to the Nevada state legislature, Jovan Jackson wants to help others like him have a second chance outside of jail or prison.

We need more leaders like him.
thisisreno.com/2025/...

Idaho must allow execution witnesses to watch as lethal drugs are prepared and given, judge rules Three news outlets sued Idaho's prison director, arguing that key steps of the lethal injection process were being unconstitutionally hidden from public view.

The participation of the public is essential to holding our elected officials and their agents accountable.

States with the death penalty should not be permitted to hide their execution protocols behind closed doors to shield itself from responsibility.
www.cbsnews.com/news...

A Judge Released Him From Prison. The D.A. Wants to Lock Him Back Up. After Andre Brown’s 40-year sentence was overturned, he went free. The Bronx district attorney appealed, and now he might return to prison and leave his wife and children.

People who demonstrate that they are capable of rehabilitation, especially when freed for a long period of time, are evidence that excessive sentencing does not work.

Everyone deserves a second chance to demonstrate their growth. www.nytimes.com/2025...

Ultimately, the Court hinted that none of the death penalty’s supposed justifications are persuasive, but it also added that its unconstitutionality "may conceivably be applied" in other circumstances.
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In short, that Court questioned “the propriety of spending Kansans’ money and causing the victims’ families the extended anguish in keeping a death penalty that the State has not and apparently never will impose.”
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While on one hand finding it could not rule on the constitutionality of the Kansas death penalty, the Court nonetheless issued a 15-page decision primarily detailing its concerns with the death penalty.
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Court Declines to Rule on Constitutionality of Kansas Death Penalty and Death Qualification | American Civil Liberties Union Both individuals who brought the challenge no longer face a death sentence

A Kansas trial court yesterday issued a curious opinion in State v. Fielder. www.aclu.org/press-r...

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Yet, every method that states have approved have resulted in chaos, and the firing squad is no different. www.theguardian.com/...
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A “bloody spectacle.”

As more states seek to adopt alternative execution methods to lethal injection, some, like South Carolina, have now looked to the firing squad.
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His case will also provide the state prosecutors to represent their local citizenry by standing firm against the death penalty, even as the federal government may pursue a pressure campaign.
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Luigi Mangione Death Penalty Bid May Pit Prosecutors Against Each Other State and federal prosecutors have both accused Mr. Mangione of killing a health insurance executive. Attorney General Pam Bondi is pushing aggressively for capital punishment.

Separate and apart from any political considerations raised by the Attorney General’s decision to seek death in Luigi Mangione’s case, that case will also reveal the complex relationship between federal and state authorities over a single individual. www.nytimes.com/2025...
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Death Row Case Exposes Failures to Protect Childhood Trauma Survivors | ACLU Mikal Mahdi’s life was marked by abuse. Today, as he awaits execution, the courts have the responsibility to acknowledge the systemic failures that shaped his path.

Capital crimes are not committed in a vacuum; people do not commit such crimes because they opt to do so, but often instead because they themselves are the products of generational issues.

The lack of regard for mental illness and trauma must end.
www.aclu.org/news/ca...

With the number of known executions at their highest since 2015, the United States once again stands out for being one of the now-15 countries that still impose the death penalty.

@amnesty's report, which is worth a read, shows the company the U.S. keeps.
www.amnesty.org/en/d...

Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away.

Executions result in the loss of someone who was not the same person that committed the crimes that landed them on the row.

If rehabilitation is not enough, then what purpose, other than plain retribution, does having the death penalty really serve? theintercept.com/202...

For the first time in the current administration, the Justice Department will be seeking the death penalty, against Luigi Mangione, who has already been charged in New York but with crimes that do not have the death penalty as a potential sentence. www.washingtonpost.c...

Louisiana voters reject 4 constitutional amendments, handing Landry major defeat • Louisiana Illuminator In a stunning rejection of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, Louisiana voters turned down all four of his constitutional amendments Saturday. 

Over the weekend, Louisiana voters, by a two-to-one margin, rejected a constitutional amendment that would have made it easier to send children to adult prisons.

By rejecting the amendment, voters demonstrated that harsher incarceration is not the answer. lailluminator.com/20...

The Court, in admonishing the prosecutor for his disregard of integrity, described his actions as “‘tak[ing] us into the dark, unseen, ugly, shocking nightmare vision of a prosecutor who loves victory more than he loves justice.’”
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Juries are supposed to be a place of open and frank conversation, and having someone listen in destroys that trust; moreover, the destruction of trust also degrades the legal profession as a whole.
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Two days ago, in State ex rel. Oklahoma Bar Association v. Shields, the Oklahoma Supreme Court suspended for six months a prosecutor who secretly watched jury deliberations in a murder trial. www.oscn.net/applica...
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This is the kind of judicial humility that allows our legal system to prosper.

We would do well to have more of it.
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... After all, we are only human. But our saving grace is in our aspiration to become more perfect. And achieving that relies not only in our successes when justice is done, but also in maintaining a robust ability to recognize and correct our failures to do justice."
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In his concurring opinion, Justice Richardson made an even more extensive point on the criminal justice system, writing: “It comes with no surprise that our criminal justice system will make mistakes and reach unjust outcomes despite our honest best efforts. ...
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Today, the Court of Criminal Appeals declared that Travis Cobb was actually innocent and deserved relief from a crime he was sentenced twenty-five years in prison for. search.txcourts.gov/...
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Texas ranked second in executions carried out in 2024, behind Alabama | Houston Public Media The annual report by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty found the state continues to execute and sentence to death people of color out of proportion to their numbers.

Death penalty trials have been rarer in Harris County in the past few decades, but the county has continued to seek execution dates for those on the Row and has retained its title as the most prolific execution county in the state. www.houstonpublicmed....
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What to know about Harris County's reputation as the 'death penalty capital' What crimes qualify for the death penalty in Texas? Who decides whether to pursue the...

Though Houston’s Harris County elected a district attorney last November that said he would only seek the death penalty against an “extraordinarily small” subset of those eligible to receive it, he will oversee his first death penalty trial very soon. www.houstonchronicle...
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The Human Cost of Jeff Landry’s Drive to Resume Executions Chris Duncan’s death sentence—built on the testimony of two discredited doctors—illustrates just how faulty the system can be.

As @boltsmag and @MotherJones emphasize, observers should keep in mind just how close Louisiana has been to wrongfully executing multiple individuals, all with cases that involved prosecutorial misconduct, as it ramps up its death-penalty machinery. boltsmag.org/the-hum...

As one of the co-sponsors of the bill seeking an end to the death penalty, it is "not only inconsistent with the sanctity of life, but it also fails to meet the practical and moral standards of justice and equality."
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Editorial: There is a bipartisan bill to abolish Pa.’s death penalty. It must be passed In one of his first major policy proclamations as governor in February 2023, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced not only that he was extending his predecessor’s...

Pennsylvania's governor Josh Shapiro has called for the death penalty in his state to be abolished, and he may have the opportunity to do so during this legislative session. www.post-gazette.com...
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Earlier today the Supreme Court ruled, over the dissent of four judges, not to stay the execution of Jessie Hoffman, Jr., who is set to be executed tonight by suffocation through nitrogen gas.

This is not what justice looks like. www.supremecourt.gov...