Jeff Kirchmeier

Anti-death penalty protesters walk 30 miles across Missouri after governor denies man clemency A group is walking across Central Missouri to send a message about the death penalty.

Anti-death penalty protesters walk 30 miles across Missouri after governor denies man clemency. www.ky3.com/2025/10/13/a...

Despite everything else going on, France last night honoured Robert Badinter, the former justice minister who ended the death penalty in 🇫🇷 in 1981. He entered the Panthéon in a moving moment of national tribute that the French do so well

Graphic reading "Black adults compromise 14% of our nation's population but they account 41% of people currently on death row." Hands holding through jail cells.

Racism is embedded in the death penalty.

This World Against the Death Penalty Day and every other day of the year, we’re calling on our elected officials to work toward an end to capital punishment once and for all.

Abolish The Death Penalty Now Capital punishment is a moral stain on our nation: Add your name to the growing calls to abolish the death penalty now.

We must end the death penalty, once and for all.

On this World Day Against the Death Penalty, add your name to the growing number of people calling for an end to capital punishment.

Missouri man who maintains innocence set to be executed for killing state trooper Lance Shockley was condemned for killing Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr. in March 2005.

Missouri man who maintains innocence set to be executed for killing state trooper. www.nbcchicago.com/news/nationa...

Pam Bondi Transfers People Who Received Biden Commutations To Supermax Prison The ACLU previously contested such transfers and raised concerns about the prison's conditions.

Pam Bondi Transfers People Who Received Biden Commutations To Supermax Prison.
www.huffpost.com/entry/pam-bo...

Our statement on Trump's most recent Executive Order, promoting the death penalty in DC.

Trump signs an EO directing Bondi and Pirro to reinstate the death penalty in Washington DC

NC crime bill goes to Gov. Stein’s desk with changes to bail and death penalty laws The wide-ranging bill would open the door to restarting executions in North Carolina after ongoing legal challenges are resolved.

NC crime bill goes to Gov. Stein’s desk with changes to bail and death penalty laws.

www.newsobserver.com/news/politic...

Democrats Send A Warning To Law Firms That Cut A Deal With Trump They may not get far in their demands for details, but key Democrats are laying the groundwork for full-blown investigations when they’re back in the majority.

Democrats Go After Law Firms Doing Free Work For Trump, Warn Of Law-Breaking.
www.huffpost.com/entry/democr...

30 People Have Been Executed in The U.S. This Year. Is Trump Behind This Surge? States have executed 30 people this year — already the highest annual total in more than a decade.

"The Indiana Capital Chronicle recently sued the Dept of Correction for public records, learning the state paid more than a million dollars to purchase enough drugs for four lethal injections. Two doses expired before they could be used." #deathpenalty www.themarshallproject.org/2025/09/13/t...

If Trump sends the National Guard to KC, Missourians’ rights are at risk | Opinion Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt say they care about personal liberties. They need to step in to protect their constituents. | Opinion

I wrote for the KC Star (@kansascity.com) about the inability of civilians to sue federal agents for civil rights violations & the need for Congress to codify Bivens as the President escalates his campaign to deploy federalized military personnel to some of America’s large cities.

The standard at issue is for detaining someone (albeit briefly), as the 4th Amendment does not bar police talking to people. But Kavanaugh's opinion extends the power to detain based on a combination of only factors like the person's race, the town where they live, and their job.

Now, again, I hope that Justice Kavanaugh in concurring does not represent the Fourth Amendment reasoning for the majority. But everyone should be concerned.

Read the dissent by Justice Sotomayor for more thorough analysis.
10/10

More importantly, he ignores that the case involved activities near the border, where the Court gives broader government powers and less Constitutional protections. But Noem v. Vasquez is not a border case and is not focused on being near the border but in Los Angeles.
9/10

Justice Kavanaugh does cite United States v. Brignoni-Ponce for that proposition, though in that case the Court said that ethnicity could not be the sole reason for a stop. . .
8/10

The other factors he lists, like "apparent ethnicity" and the person's job, seems to find reasonable suspicion justifying a stop only for activities relating to existing within the law.
7/10

But even under that low standard of Wardlow, he goes even lower, saying that reasonable suspicion may be based not on a small geographic area but on living in Los Angeles.
6/10

I am a little surprised that he did not cite Illinois v. Wardlow, which does illustrate how low the standard is, finding reasonable suspicion where someone runs from police in a high crime area.
5/10

Kavanaugh is correct in saying that under the Fourth Amendment articulable reasonable suspicion, justifying police stops, is based on totality of circumstances. And he is correct that under precedent, the standard is lower than probable cause. 4/10

But the one concurring opinion, by Justice Kavanaugh, is troubling in its implications and also shows Justice Kavanaugh may not understand Fourth Amendment precedent.
3/10

First, I should note that because the order is only staying the District Court decision, there is no written explanation by a majority of the Court. So we do not know the reasoning of a majority (and could be based on standing). 🧵
2/10

It's hard to keep up with troubling events and it is easy to miss things in the news cycle. But this week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Noem v. Vasquez about ICE stopping people in California has potential broad troubling implications. A few initial thoughts. 🧵
1/10

Why author John Grisham is chronicling the life of Robert Roberson in ‘SHAKEN’ The book will chronicle the story of Robert Roberson III, an East Texas man at the center of a controversial “shaken baby syndrome” case, who, for the third...

Bestselling author and Innocence Project Board Member John Grisham is telling the story of Robert Roberson—an innocent man Texas plans to execute on Oct. 16. Time is running out. www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2...

Man freed from prison after 27 years for a crime he didn't commit, his attorney says A man who was wrongfully convicted of murder back in 1998 was released from prison after a key witness in the investigation confessed to the crime, officials said.

Yet another example of why I oppose the death penalty.

"...a "key witness" in Hooper's trial, allegedly confessed to the murder in July, Hooper's attorney said."

abcnews.go.com/US/man-freed...

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES - No. 25A169 - KRISTI NOEM, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, ET AL. U. PEDRO VASQUEZ PERDOMO, ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY [September 8, 2025] The application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAGAN and by her referred to the Court is granted. The July 11, 2025 order entered by the United States District Court for the Central District of California, case No. 2:25-cv-5605, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE KAGAN and JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting. In early June, the Government launched immigration enforcement raids across Los Angeles and its surrounding counties. During the raids, teams of armed and masked agents pulled up to car washes, tow yards, farms, and parks and began seizing individuals on sight, often before asking a single question. A Federal District Court found that these raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the Government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Based on the evidence before it, the court held that the Government was stopping individuals based solely on four factors: (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work. Concluding that stops based on these four factors alone, even when taken together, could not satisfy the Fourth Amendment's requirement of reasonable suspicion, the District Court temporarily enjoined the Government from continuing its pattern of unlawful mass arrests while it considered whether longer-term relief was appropriate.

Instead of allowing the District Court to consider these troubling allegations in the normal course, a majority of 2 NOEM v. VASQUEZ PERDOMO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting this Court decides to take the once-extraordinary step of staying the District Court's order. That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.

* * The Fourth Amendment protects every individual's constitutional right to be "free from arbitrary interference by law officers." Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S., at 878. After to-day, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation's constitutional guarantees, I dissent.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court — over the objection of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson — allows the Trump administration’s racial profiling of people working certain types of jobs in its immigration raids during litigation.

#BREAKING: With no explanation (save for a solo concurrence by Justice Kavanaugh), #SCOTUS has frozen lower-court rulings that had enjoined allegedly suspicion-less arrests as part of "roving" immigration patrols in California.

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, dissents:

NOEM v. VASQUEZ PERDOMO SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting this Court decides to take the once-extraordinary step of staying the District Court’s order. That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.

Justice Sotomayor is crystal clear in dissent as to what's happening: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."

9th Circuit: When analyzing whether a person abandoned their phone, giving up rights in it, courts should distinguish b/w abandoning the device & abandoning *the data* on the phone. Here, man who dropped phone after being shot did not abandon his phone or data.
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

Saudi Arabia: Deplorable execution exposes broken promise to halt death penalty for juveniles Reacting to the news that Saudi authorities executed Jalal Labbad on 21 August 2025 for crimes allegedly committed when he was under 18 years of age [a child], Bissan Fakih, Amnesty International’s Mi...

It is past time #SaudiArabia put an end to its disgraceful use of the death penalty, which includes executing people for crimes they allegedly committed as children, and leaves families torn apart and devastated. #FreeSaudiArabia #StopExecution #antideathpenalty www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...