THIEL COLLEGE: Comment No. 3

What is the impact of Miller v. Alabama  on juvenile punishment?

Why do states continue to enact laws that apply the death penalty to non-death cases i.e. child rape?

'Campus Carry' arming college students and staff is a lousy idea

In at least six statehouses this year, lawmakers are revisiting a long-running debate over whether guns should be allowed on college campuses, reported Stateline.

Republican lawmakers in Florida, Louisiana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming have introduced bills that would allow students, staff or visitors with concealed carry permits — and in some cases, without permits — to bring firearms onto public college campuses.

Supporters say the proposals would allow people to defend themselves during emergencies. Opponents argue they could make campuses less safe and increase the risk of accidental or impulsive violence.

The push comes amid another year of intense debate over gun policy in state legislatures, where lawmakers are advancing sharply different measures.

And it comes as college campuses continue to grapple with the threat of gun violence.

On March 12, a gunman opened fire inside a classroom at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, killing one person and injuring two others before ROTC students fought back. One of the students stabbed the gunman, killing him, according to law enforcement officials.

Virginia law currently prohibits firearms on public college and university campuses. The FBI is investigating the attack as a possible act of terrorism.

The Old Dominion University attack was the most recent of 17 deadly shootings on college campuses nationwide since 1966, according to Stateline research.

More than half of the states prohibit firearms on public colleges and universities. In some states, individual institutions may decide whether to allow guns on campus.

At least 14 states currently allow firearms on public college campuses, though some restrict them to people who have a valid carry license.

Legal debates

The U.S. Supreme Court has long suggested that governments can bar guns in certain locations — including schools and government buildings — but it has offered little guidance on how far those gun-free zones can stretch across today’s sprawling college campuses.

“It’s fair to say that states and universities still have broad authority to make decisions about guns on campus, to regulate them or to deregulate them,” Blocher said.

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen said that modern gun laws must align with the country’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Bruen also limited the extent to which states can restrict who may carry guns in public, which has shifted some legal debates to focus on where guns can be carried.

Courts generally accept that schools fall within the category of “sensitive places,” Blocher said, but the doctrine is still underdeveloped: Judges have said far less about how to treat off-campus housing, remote research sites or other university properties.

“It is the category that we kind of have the least guidance on — what locations are OK to restrict guns in, and why,” he said.

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Florida carries out nation leading fourth execution of the year

 The 7th Execution of 2026

A Florida man, Michael Lee King was executed on March 17, 2026 for killing a young mother who frantically called 911 from her attacker’s cellphone while tied up in his car, reported The Associated Press.

King, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been convicted of first-degree murder, sexual battery and kidnapping in the 2008 killing of Denise Amber Lee, 21.

The curtain to the death chamber went up at 6 p.m., the scheduled execution time, and King gave a nearly inaudible statement, its text relayed by Gov. Ron DeSantis office.

“Since finding Jesus in prison, I have tried to live as His disciple obeying the Two Great Commandments: To love God with all my heart, my mind and all my being, and to love my neighbor to include everyone — my family, Denise Lee’s family, everyone in the gallery,” as well as Catholic volunteers who visit the prison and “those on the team to end my life,” he said.

King did not apologize or seek forgiveness. Meanwhile, a clergy member was at the foot of the gurney beside him.

As the drugs started flowing, King began breathing heavily, his body twitching. All movement ceased minutes later, and the warden shook King and yelled his name, but he did not respond. A medic subsequently pronounced him dead.

Court records show the victim was outside her North Port home on Jan. 17, 2008, with her two sons — a toddler and an infant — when King drove by, spotted her, and later abducted her while leaving the children home alone.

King took Lee to his home where he bound and raped her, investigators said. Later that day, King drove to his cousin’s house to borrow a flashlight, shovel and gas can, according to prosecutors. While Lee was bound in King’s car, she managed to get his cellphone and called 911. She can be heard on a recording of the call begging for her life so that she could see her husband and children again.

King eventually drove Lee to a remote area of North Port, a southwest Florida community, where he shot her in the face and buried her, authorities said. A state trooper pulled King over a short time later because his 1994 green Chevrolet Camaro matched the description give by another 911 caller. A woman had heard screams coming from the vehicle while stopped at a traffic light and had called police to report a possible child abduction.

Investigators later recovered Lee’s hair and belongings from King’s home and vehicle, authorities said.

Months later, the Florida Legislature unanimously passed the Denise Amber Lee Act, which provides better training for 911 operators. The Denise Amber Lee Foundation, created by her husband Nathan Lee, continues to promote training and raise public awareness nationwide.

The foundation said that besides Lee’s 911 call, at least four other 911 calls were made by others that day, including from her husband and people who saw parts of the crime unfolding — but that communication failures and other issues prevented help from being sent.

Nathan Lee, as well as the victim’s father and one of Lee’s two sons were among relatives who witnessed the execution. All wore shirts in pink, her favorite color.

Afterward, the husband said he was relieved to close out this chapter and continue to focus on improvements to the nation’s 911 system.

”I’m just super blessed that I got to know Denise, let alone marry her and have two amazing kids with her,” he said.

Richard Goff, the woman’s father, pointed out that King didn’t even apologize.

”If you can’t say something from your heart, don’t say it,” Goff said. He added his daughter was a hero after purposely hiding hair and other DNA in King’s car and making sure to leave fingerprints for investigators to find.

Noah Lee was 2 years old when his mother was killed and said he still feels her loss.

“I unfortunately didn’t get the opportunity to know her and be raised by her,” the young man said.

King’s execution was the fourth this year in Florida and the seventh overall in the U.S. in 2026, including two executions in Texas and one in Oklahoma. Two more Florida executions are scheduled this year on March 31 and April 21.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025, including a record 19 executions last year in Florida.

All Florida executions are carried out by injecting a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected King’s final appeals without comment Monday.

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CREATORS: Circumventing Legislatures by Ignoring the Constitution

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS

March 17, 2026

Last June, a federal judge in Texas blocked a two-decade-old law offering undocumented residents the same discounted tuition as other in-state college students, after the Trump administration sued Texas over the law.

That is not surprising. Making it difficult for undocumented residents has become the cornerstone of this administration. However, what is surprising is that the state's Republican lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to change the law only days before the lawsuit was filed.

Most surprisingly, the day the federal lawsuit was filed, the state of Texas settled. According to The New York Times, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, simply agreed that the state law should be invalidated.

The legislature, which was unable or unwilling to amend or strike the law, was sidestepped. What is wrong with smart lawyers at the Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office finding a clever way to get done what the 181 members of the Texas legislature could not?

The problem is that sham lawsuits violate the U.S. Constitution and this is not the only time the Trump Justice Department has colluded with states to violate the Constitution, circumventing the legislative process.

Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution limits federal court jurisdiction to actual, ongoing disputes between adverse parties, prohibiting courts from issuing advisory opinions or ruling on hypothetical scenarios.

Pursuant to the "Cases and Controversy Clause," parties to a lawsuit must truly be adverse to each other, the dispute must be concrete and the dispute must be capable of being resolved through an award of specific relief. That was not the case in Texas. The outcome was known before the suit was filed.

In Florida, according to The New York Times, the Trump administration reached a legal settlement in February, with the Republican-led state requiring the Department of Homeland Security to forgo its authority to admit immigrants for 15 years. Though reached with a state government, the settlement could affect immigration policy for the whole nation.

In Kentucky, the federal Department of Transportation proposed a settlement in a case with a pair of industrial companies challenging decades-old racial and gender-based preferences, acceding to the businesses and agreeing to end use of the preferences in its contracting nationwide.

More than a half a century ago, Chief Justice Earl Warren suggested that cases and controversies "limit the business of federal courts to questions presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process ... a tripartite allocation of power to assure that the federal courts will not intrude into areas committed to the other branches of government." As a result, suits that are collusive or feigned by two friendly parties to resolve a question of interest to them are unconstitutional.

If the blatant legal schemes in Texas, Florida and Kentucky — defying the Constitution —are not enough, consider this major Trumpian hustle. Trump is suing himself and demanding a settlement. The IRS falls under the executive branch of the U.S. government. It operates as a bureau within the Department of the Treasury, which is one of the 15 executive departments. The Secretary of the Treasury is appointed by the president and serves at his pleasure.

At the heart of the case is Trump's contention that the federal government should be held liable for the leak of his federal tax returns during his first term as president.

Trump wants the Treasury Department and IRS to pay damages to him in the amount of $10 billion. Could Trump demand that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent settle the case and pay out?

You probably think something like that is far-fetched. Well, Democrats in the United States Senate don't think so; they introduced the "Stop Presidential Embezzlement Act," which would block any financial benefit to Trump resulting from the $10 billion lawsuit. 

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book, "The Executioner's Toll," 2010, was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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Idaho legislator doesn't want judicial review of execution protocol

The director of the Idaho prison system has exclusive authority to set and revise the state’s protocols for carrying out the death penalty, and a lawmaker wants to ensure those decisions are not subject to judicial review, reported the Idaho Statesman.

 In January, Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, proposed the change in law and described it as a “cleanup bill” for technical updates to statute. Facing pushback from fellow representatives at a committee hearing, Skaug agreed to retool the bill so it did not go beyond his stated intent.

The issue for which Skaug takes aim is at the heart of a death row prisoner’s lawsuit on appeal with the Idaho Supreme Court. Gerald Pizzuto’s attorneys argue that former Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt abused his power when he arbitrarily changed lethal injection procedures in late 2024. That decision violates a law that grants oversight of state agencies and their actions to the legislative and judicial branches of government, attorneys with the Federal Defender Services of Idaho said. “The director of the Idaho Department of Correction believes the Legislature gave him a license to kill condemned prisoners any way he wants,” Pizzuto’s attorneys with the legal nonprofit wrote in a recent court filing. “The director is wrong. The Legislature has not given him unlimited power, cannot give him that power, and has not stripped the courts of jurisdiction.”

Tewalt’s changes to the state’s lethal injection protocols came about eight months after the prison system failed to execute a different death row prisoner in early 2024 when its execution team could not find a vein in his body suitable for an IV to deliver the chemicals. The change added a room where prisoners are to be examined and prepped for either a standard peripheral IV, or a central line — a more invasive procedure that inserts into the internal jugular in the neck, a femoral vein in the upper thigh or a subclavian vein in the chest. The next year, Skaug, who chairs the House judiciary committee, sponsored a bill that makes a firing squad the state’s lead execution method.

The Republican-controlled Idaho Legislature approved the bill that kept lethal injection as a backup option, and Gov. Brad Little signed it into law. Executions are on hold in Idaho as the prison system completes renovations to its execution chamber as part of the transition to a firing squad. The cost of that construction is roughly $1 million. Idaho is one of 27 states with the death penalty, but has not executed a prisoner in what will soon be 14 years.

The state counts eight prisoners on its death row, including Pizzuto. ‘A second bite of the apple’ The Idaho Attorney General’s Office represents IDOC in the legal appeal. It asserts that the agency’s director and their execution procedure decisions are excluded from Administrative Procedure Act review, including by the courts.

With limited exceptions, the governor-appointed Board of Correction, which oversees the state agency and selects its director, is exempt under that law. A district court judge in Ada County sided with IDOC and dismissed the case brought by Pizzuto, who was convicted in 1986 of killing two people in a robbery north of McCall and sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court in 2022 already ruled against Pizzuto in a similar lawsuit based on the same overarching law, leading the Attorney General’s Office to argue this new appeal “seeks a second bite of the apple,” which should be denied. Pizzuto, 70, is Idaho’s second-longest death row prisoner after nearly 40 years, and has overcome five scheduled execution dates during that time. In 2021, the state parole board voted to drop Pizzuto’s sentence to life in prison, but Little rejected it.

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DOJ darling Ed Martin in trouble, again

 Oh how the mighty have fallen. According to Slate, Trump DOJ crony Ed Martin is in trouble again.

It seems fair to assume that Donald Trump’s second presidency hasn’t turned out quite the way Martin had hoped. The former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia has faced a series of embarrassing setbacks over the past 14 months, tumbling down the Justice Department’s ladder, rung by rung, as fellow Republicans turned sharply against him. But the biggest blow so far arrived on Tuesday, when disciplinary counsel for the D.C. bar announced a formal complaint against Martin for professional misconduct. The charges accuse him of violating his oath to the Constitution, then interfering with the investigation into his alleged malfeasance. If found culpable, he could be suspended from the practice of law or disbarred in D.C.

A year ago, Martin fired off a letter to Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) Dean William Treanor demanding that the school immediately cease all DEI initiatives and proactively informing the school that none of its graduates would be considered for positions at the DOJ. Treanor spanked him for being a bad lawyer and a bad Catholic and a bad American — check, check, and check! — and Martin wandered off to piss into the wind somewhere else.

According to Above the Law, that wasn’t the end of the story, because retired California judge Phillip Argento (GULC ’75) was so incensed that he fired off a complaint to the DC Board of Professional Responsibility. At which point Martin LOST HIS DAMN MIND.

From the Specification of Charges:

Instead of responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s letter, on March 31, 2025, Mr. Martin sent, ex parte, a letter to the Chief Judge and the Senior Judges of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. In that letter, he stated that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s “uneven behavior,” and requested a “face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward.” He copied the White House Counsel “for informational purposes because of the importance of getting this issue addressed.”

And although the judges told him immediately that ex parte communications were inappropriate and he should continue with the process, he kept on firing off notes to the court two more times, all the while ignoring letters from the Disciplinary Counsel. Notably, Martin cc’d the White House Counsel on the first nastygram, which raises some interesting questions about the ethical advice David Warrington is giving the administration.

So now Martin has two charges, one for violating the First Amendment and punishing GULC for its protected speech, and one for communicating ex parte with a judge during a proceeding. Perhaps this is why Attorney General Pam Bondi has been desperately trying to take over state bar complaints!

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Killer apologizes before lethal injection in Texas prison

 The 6th Execution of 2026

Cedric Ricks, a Texas man, was put to death on March 11, 2026 for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son in 2013, apologizing profusely to her older son who survived with multiple stab wounds and witnessed the execution, reported The Associated Press

Ricks, 51, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. CDT following a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

He was condemned for the May 2013 killings of 30-year-old Roxann Sanchez and her son Anthony Figueroa at their apartment in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Bedford. Sanchez’s 12-year-old son, Marcus Figueroa, was stabbed 25 times and feigned death in order to survive.

Ricks apologized repeatedly to seven relatives of his victims who looked on, particularly Marcus Figueroa. The attack survivor showed no emotion, watching through a glass window just steps from where Ricks was strapped to a gurney. On the back of Marcus Figueroa’s neck, visible above his shirt collar and below his hair, were several scars apparently from the attack.

“I want to say that I’m sorry for taking Roxann and Anthony from y’all,” Ricks said when asked by the warden if he had a final statement. “I’m glad to be able to speak to tell y’all that face to face.”

He said he hoped one day that his victims’ relatives would be able to find it in their hearts to forgive him. He also addressed Marcus Figueroa, saying he hated that he took his mother and brother away.

“I always thought about you and I’m sorry that I took your mom and your brother away. I hate that you had to experience that, I just can’t imagine, but I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done, and I wish y’all peace and joy as much as you can but I’m sorry, that’s all I can say,” Ricks said. His voice cracking and tear forming in his eye, he added that he hoped to find the woman and her son in heaven and “tell them I’m sorry face to face.”

“I hope y’all go in peace. I really do. I’m sorry,” he concluded before the injection began.

As the drug took effect, he took 19 quick breaths, then made 10 snoring sounds, followed seconds later by some intermittent gurgles. Then all movement and sounds stopped, and he was pronounced dead 30 minutes after the injection had begun.

Among the other witnesses were Roxann Sanchez’s stepfather and brother, and Anthony Figueroa’s father, brother and grandmother. None of them showed any emotion in the death chamber witness area and declined to speak with reporters afterward.

The night of the killings, prosecutors said, Ricks and Sanchez had been arguing in their apartment when the woman’s two sons from a previous marriage tried to break up the fight. Ricks grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began to stab Sanchez multiple times, court records showed.

Marcus Figueroa ran to his bedroom closet and tried to call police. After killing Anthony Figueroa, Ricks began stabbing Marcus Figueroa, who played dead until his attacker left the apartment, authorities said. Ricks did not harm his own then-9-month-old son Isaiah, according to court records. Ricks fled and was later arrested in Oklahoma.

At his ensuing capital murder trial, Ricks testified that he had anger issues and had been defending himself against the two boys after they had come to their mother’s defense.

“Explaining my rage, I was upset. Things happen. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I could bring them back, like, right now,” said Ricks, who also apologized at the time for the killings.

A day before the stabbings, Ricks had appeared in court after having been charged with assaulting Sanchez during a previous incident.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Ricks’ final appeal without comment. His attorneys had argued that prosecutors violated Ricks’ constitutional rights by eliminating potential jurors on the basis of race while selecting the trial panel.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office said court records show the prosecution’s jury selection decisions were “race neutral” and lower courts have already concluded that prosecutors’ actions were not discriminatory.

And earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Ricks’ request to commute his death sentence or grant a 90-day reprieve.

Ricks was the second person put to death this year in Texas and the sixth in the country. Texas has historically held more executions than any other state.

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