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Court Clears Path For Death Penalty Against 9/11 Plotters

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A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Secretary of Defense can scrap plea agreements shielding three Sept. 11 terrorists from the death penalty, clearing the way for capital punishment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled the “sweetheart” deals for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — who agreed to plead guilty to war crimes to avoid execution — can be rescinded at the Pentagon’s discretion. The plea agreements were struck in July 2024 during the Biden administration, but then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin moved to void them days later. A judge initially ruled in December that Austin acted too late to withdraw the deals.

Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao, who wrote the majority opinion, called it a “rare case” that justified reversing the lower court.

“The government has demonstrated a clear and indisputable right to relief in this case,” they wrote. “The Secretary of Defense had full legal authority to withdraw the Convening Authority’s delegated power over the pretrial agreements. Similarly … no prior performance of promises contained in those agreements prevented the Secretary’s withdrawal.”

In his dissent, Judge Robert Wilkins argued it was not “clear and indisputable” that the lower court erred in blocking Austin’s attempt to scrap the agreements. (Read more from “Court Clears Path For Death Penalty Against 9/11 Plotters” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Capital Murder of 10-Year-Old Girl but Will Not Face Death Penalty

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A man who recently plead guilty to the murder of a 10-year-old girl will not face the death penalty but will spend his life behind bars. According to the Tyler Morning Telegraph the man was related to his young victim through marriage. The Associated Press referred to him as a “Mexican national.”

In a statement Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman expressed his frustration with the criminal not facing the death penalty. The man in this case was determined to be intellectually disabled and Putman said the Supreme Court has ruled that capital murder defendants who are deemed to be intellectually disabled cannot be executed. . .

Today, August 22 2019, Gustavo Garcia-Zavala entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to Life In Prison Without Parole.

This result is a direct consequence of recent action taken by the United States Supreme Court. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that the State cannot execute an Intellectually Disabled capital murder defendant, regardless of how severe or heinous the crime.

The Court’s ruling left victims’ families devastated and communities outraged. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals instituted standards that allowed a jury to apply common sense when deciding if a capital murder defendant was Intellectually Disabled.

(Read more from “Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Capital Murder of 10-Year-Old Girl but Will Not Face Death Penalty” HERE)

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DOJ Preparing to Execute 5 Convicted Murderers: First Federal Executions in 16 Years

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For the first time in almost two decades, the federal government is planning to execute criminals.

According to a Department of Justice press release sent out Thursday morning, Attorney General William Barr has directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to adopt a new addendum to federal protocols “clearing the way for the federal government to resume capital punishment after a nearly two decade lapse” and at the same time has asked BOP’s acting director to schedule the executions of five convicted murderers responsible for truly heinous crimes.

Those set to be executed include:

A man who “emotionally tortured, sexually molested, and then beat to death his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter”

A man who stabbed a 63-year-old grandmother to death and forced her nine-year-old granddaughter to sit beside the lifeless body before slitting the girl’s throat, crushing her head with rocks, and cutting off both victims’ heads and hands

A man who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning, and throwing her remains in a septic pond

A member of a white supremacist group who murdered a family of three

A man who shot 5 people to death

“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the President,” Attorney General Barr said in a statement. “Under Administrations of both parties, the Department of Justice has sought the death penalty against the worst criminals, including these five murderers, each of whom was convicted by a jury of his peers after a full and fair proceeding. The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system.”

The death-row inmates in this situation, according to the release, have been convicted of murdering “the most vulnerable in our society—children and the elderly.”

The last person to be executed by the federal government, as opposed to a state government, was Louis Jones Jr., a Desert Storm veteran convicted of raping and murdering a female soldier by beating her to death with a tire iron in 1995. While Obama stopped short on efforts to put an end to the practice at the federal level in 2015, his administration put a de facto moratorium on executions. (For more from the author of “DOJ Preparing to Execute 5 Convicted Murderers: First Federal Executions in 16 Years” please click HERE)

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Utah Legislature Considers Bringing Back an Outlawed Method of Execution, but Not Everyone Agrees

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After remaining deadlocked in a four hour debate last Friday, the Utah Legislature is now one step closer to resurrecting the firing squad as a death penalty option. The use of firing squads in the state of Utah was halted in 2004 and current law states it is only to be used if lethal injection is unavailable.

Proponents of the bill cite recent cases in Arizona and Colorado, where botched lethal injections have led to potential Supreme Court challenges to the method.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Paul Ray (R-Clearfield), has voiced concerns over the unavailability and potential future legal issues with lethal injection as a mode of carrying out the death penalty:

“Back in 2004, we had no idea that at some time we would not have the drug cocktail available…we are facing a situation where we are going to have to go to court…to defend what we’re doing.”

(Read more about the possibility of bringing back the outlawed method of execution HERE)

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Electric Chair is Back . . . in Tennessee

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Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday signed a bill into law allowing the state to electrocute death row inmates in the event the state is unable to obtain drugs used for lethal injections.

Tennessee lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the electric chair legislation in April, with the Senate voting 23-3 and the House 68-13 in favor of the bill.

Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Tennessee is the first state to enact a law to reintroduce the electric chair without giving prisoners an option.

“There are states that allow inmates to choose, but it is a very different matter for a state to impose a method like electrocution,” he said. “No other state has gone so far.”

Dieter said he expects legal challenges to arise if the state decides to go through with an electrocution, both in terms of whether the state could prove that lethal injection drugs were not obtainable and on the grounds of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Read more from this story HERE.

Washington State Gov. Inslee Suspends Death Penalty

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Photo Credit: Kathleen Tyler ConklinGov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state, announcing a move that he hopes will enable officials to “join a growing national conversation about capital punishment.”

The Democrat said he came to the decision after months of review, meetings with family members of victims, prosecutors and law enforcement.

“There have been too many doubts raised about capital punishment, there are too many flaws in this system today,” Inslee said at a news conference. “There is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system.”

Inslee said that the use of the death penalty is inconsistent and unequal. The governor’s staff briefed lawmakers about the move on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Read more from this story HERE.

Death Penalty in the United States Gradually Declining

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

A shortage of lethal injection chemicals has contributed to declining use of capital punishment in the United States with a new report on Thursday noting only 39 executions this year.

It is only the second time in the past two decades the annual number of inmates put to death has dropped below 40.

The total represents a 10 percent reduction from last year. No further executions are scheduled in 2013.

“Twenty years ago, use of the death penalty was increasing. Now it is declining by almost every measure,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, and the author of the report.

“The recurrent problems of the death penalty have made its application rare, isolated, and often delayed for decades. More states will likely reconsider the wisdom of retaining this expensive and ineffectual practice.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Michael Bargo Sentenced; Now Youngest Man on Florida Death Row (+video)

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Photo Credit: WFTV

Photo Credit: WFTV

An Ocala man is heading to death row for his part in the slaying of a 15-year-old boy.

During a 10-minute hearing on Friday, Circuit Judge David Eddy read 21-year-old Michael Bargo’s death sentence.

Bargo was the last of five defendants to be sentenced in the April 2011 murder of Seath Jackson in Summerfield, near Ocala.

“It is the judgment of the law and the sentence of the court for the premeditated murder of Seath Jackson, you Michael Shane Bargo are sentenced to death,” Eddy said.

Prosecutors said Jackson was lured to the home where he was beaten, shot and tortured before his body was burned in a backyard fire pit. The teen’s remains were then placed into three paint buckets and dumped into a limerock pit.

Read more from this story HERE.

Death Penalty for Boston Bomber a Complicated Question

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Photo Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta, APWhen gang members Richard Tipton, Cory Johnson and James Roane were sentenced to death in 1993 for their roles in multiple murders, they took their places on federal death row, where they have remained for two decades.

A series of appeals and a more recent challenge to the lethal injection protocol used in federal executions have helped prolonged their lives in a place where — despite its designation — executions are rarely carried out.

The high-security wing at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., now represents an increasingly complicated backdrop for a decision Attorney General Eric Holder is set to make in the next several weeks on whether to pursue the death penalty in the federal government’s prosecution of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

There is little argument about the strength of the case against Tsarnaev, charged with 30 criminal counts in connection with the blasts that killed three and wounded more than 260 others. There are photographs of Tsarnaev allegedly planting explosives at the site of one of the bombings. Yet the government’s record in carrying out the death penalty is mixed at best, and there are conflicting views about whether the often-delayed penalty is an appropriate punishment if the 20-year-old defendant is convicted in the bombing case.

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three offenders have been executed and none in the past 10 years.

Read more from this story HERE.

Nidal Hasan Sentenced to Death for Fort Hood Shooting Rampage

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was sentenced to death Wednesday for killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., the worst mass murder at a military installation in U.S. history.

Dressed in Army fatigues, Hasan, who turns 43 next month, listened impassively as the death sentence was handed down by a panel of 13 senior military officers in a unanimous decision after less than two hours of deliberations. If even a single panel member had objected, Hasan would instead have been sentenced to life in prison. He also was stripped of pay and other financial benefits, which he continued to receive while in custody.

No active-duty service member has been executed since 1961, and legal experts said it will probably be many years, if ever, before the sentence will be carried out. Hasan will be flown shortly to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where he will join five other inmates on military death row, officials said.

In military cases, there are several mandatory appeal stages and a military death sentence requires final approval by the president, as commander in chief.

Despite the expected delays, survivors of the shooting welcomed the verdict. According to news reports, Kathy Platoni, an Army reservist, said: “From the bottom of my heart — he doesn’t deserve to live. I don’t know how long it takes for a death sentence to be carried out, but the world will be a better place without him.”

Read more from this story HERE.