Every post published in January 2015, most recent first.
UPDATE: After a twenty-seven minute procedure, Robert Ladd was pronounced dead at 7:02 p.m. Central time. ————– The Supreme Court on Thursday evening cleared the way for Texas to execute death-row inmate Robert Charles Ladd, a new indication that the Justices will leave states with wide leeway to carry out the death penalty.
Another merits case seems likely to drop off the Court’s docket. As Lyle Denniston reported yesterday for this blog, George Toca – who had asked the Court to consider whether its 2012 decision limiting life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of murder applies retroactively – was released yesterday from a Louisiana prison.
John Elwood reviews Monday’s relisted cases. The newspapers were right: snow was general all over New England this week … though, perhaps not as general as some meteorologists had feared.
Yesterday the Court granted Oklahoma’s request to delay the executions of three death-row inmates; the Court had agreed to take on those inmates’ challenge to the state’s lethal-injection protocol last Friday.
Rendered Perspective Clarence Thomas Center Chapel (Hillary Johnson, SCAD student) The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) has recently completed its restoration of the Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation at SCAD.
(UPDATED 6:11 p.m.) George Toca has now been released, his lawyers said in a statement. A Louisiana prison inmate whose life sentence is under review by the Supreme Court was on the verge of being released on Thursday, according to news accounts in New Orleans.
The death penalty is at the forefront of coverage of and commentary on the Court right now. Writing for this blog, Lyle Denniston reports on yesterday’s order by the Court allowing Georgia to execute inmate Warren Hill, while at USA Today Richard Wolf looks at the Court and capital punishment issues more broadly.
It looks like 2015 might be the year of books on the Justices, mainly the female members of the Supreme Court. Cambridge University Press has just released a book on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Without a noted dissent, the Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon delayed the scheduled execution of three Oklahoma death-row inmates, whose case the Justices will hear in late April.
Yesterday the Justices issued one opinion in an argued case, vacating and remanding the decision of the Sixth Circuit in M&G Polymers v. Tackett, a dispute between an employer and its retired employees over the vesting of health-care benefits.