Richard Glossip will not be tried a third time for murder

Less than a month before he was scheduled to stand trial a third time, accused of a murder he has always sworn he did not commit, Richard Glossip agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, a final step toward bringing his three-decade legal saga to an end, reported The Intercept.

Glossip, 63, was twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of his boss Barry Van Treese inside Room 102 of the rundown motel the Van Treese family owned on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. A 19-year-old maintenance man named Justin Sneed admitted to killing Van Treese, but he insisted Glossip put him up to it. Sneed, who is currently serving a life sentence, escaped the death penalty by becoming the star witness against Glossip.

During a brief hearing that was originally scheduled to address pretrial matters, Oklahoma County Court Judge Natalie Mai instead accepted a plea from Glossip to accessory after the fact and dismissed the murder charge against him. With members of Van Treese’s family looking on from their seats in the jury box, Glossip stood to answer a series of routine questions to confirm that his plea was voluntary. Mai did not ask any specific questions about the crime itself.

Glossip, 63, was twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of his boss Barry Van Treese inside Room 102 of the rundown motel the Van Treese family owned on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. A 19-year-old maintenance man named Justin Sneed admitted to killing Van Treese, but he insisted Glossip put him up to it. Sneed, who is currently serving a life sentence, escaped the death penalty by becoming the star witness against Glossip.

Following Glossip’s second trip to the U.S. Supreme Court his conviction was overturned in 2025, finding that it was rooted in false testimony and prosecutorial misconduct. Drummond, who by then was running for governor, did an abrupt about-face, announcing he would once again prosecute Glossip for first degree murder.

“For 30 years, Richard Glossip has maintained his innocence,” Knight said in a statement after the hearing. “After nearly executing him 9 times, the State of Oklahoma has now dismissed the murder charge against him. This morning, to finally put this matter to rest, Rich pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact. We believe Rich has more than paid his debt to society.”

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Intellectually disabled death row inmate will not likely get another bite of the apple from SCOTUS

The Supreme Court appears likely to shut down a Texas death row inmate’s efforts to use updated medical guidelines to secure another chance at challenging his conviction, reported Courthouse News Service.

Dexter Johnson didn’t initially argue that his execution would violate the Eighth Amendment. But the American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-5, adopted new guidelines that classified Johnson as intellectually disabled.

By the time Johnson was convicted of murdering Maria Aparece in 2007, the Supreme Court’s ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, which held it was unconstitutional to execute a person who is intellectually disabled, had been on the books for five years. But Johnson didn’t meet the criteria for such a claim until six years after his conviction.

During his trial, experts testified that Johnson had the intellectual functioning equivalent to a 10-year-old, and his lawyers say he has severe language deficits that place him “well below the lowest one percentile’” of the population. But his IQ scores of 79 and 88 precluded an intellectual disability diagnosis during his trial and initial appeals.

The DSM-5 moved away from solely focusing on IQ scores, taking into consideration other deficits. And the updated guidelines recognized that individuals with IQ scores over 70 may still qualify as intellectually disabled.

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act only permits individuals to file one habeas application unless they can show their claim relies on “a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court that was previously unavailable.”

The Fifth Circuit found Johnson qualified for the exception, allowing him to proceed with a successive federal habeas application. But on Wednesday, the Supreme Court appeared to disagree.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, questioned if Johnson’s case would set a precedent for “eternal Atkins claims and zero finality” because medical standards around intellectual disability are constantly evolving.

And his conservative colleagues were generally skeptical that claims under the two-decade-old precedent could be considered new.

“Does Atkins ever stop being a new rule?” Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, asked.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, another Trump appointee, compared Johnson’s definition of new to the invention of the telephone.

“I mean when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, that was new,” Barrett said. “I don’t think anybody would describe the telephone as new today.”

The liberal wing of the court seemed to side with Johnson, however, stating the Supreme Court in Atkins indicated that who qualifies as intellectually disabled is keyed to medical standards, which can vary and evolve.

As such, Justice Elena Kagan, a Barack Obama appointee, said it was apt to think of Atkins as having multiple rules as those standards have evolved over the last two decades.

“It would be wrong to think of Atkins as a single rule that we decided exactly when we decided the Atkins case given that Atkins was very cognizant that the substantive standard for the rule was going to be supplied principally by diagnostic criteria,” Kagan said. “So, if the diagnostic criteria fundamentally changes…you basically get an Atkins II rule, and then the question with respect to that defendant would be whether that is new.”

Instead of considering whether the claims were generally “new,” Justice Ketani Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, said the court should consider whether the claim is new to a particular individual.

Despite support from the three Democratic appointees, it did not appear Johnson had enough support from the Republican appointees to reach a majority.

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Support for the death penalty falls below 50 percent

Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, and 45% are opposed, according to Gallup. While statistically similar to last year’s 52%, the latest update marks the first time support has been below the majority level since 1971, when it was also at 49%. The last time support was lower than now was in 1966, when a record-low 42% favored the death penalty. The high point for support was 80% in 1994.

Laura Porter, Executive Director, U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty said, “This is the second poll in a row to show that we are at a pivotal turning point in public opinion on the death penalty, as Americans have been horrified by the recent botched executions, as well as the proposal to livestream an execution. At the same time, both Republican and Democratic governors have been granting clemencies at an increasing pace. The death penalty is being seen for what it is, an utter failure.”

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The arbitrary nature of the death penalty--geography dictates state sponsored death

California Governor Gavin Newsom commuted the sentences of every prisoner on the state’s death row—548 people in all. With this action, Newsom is responsible for the largest-ever reduction of America’s death-row population, dropping the national total by about 27 percent. (California’s supreme court must approve some of the clemency requests.), reported The Atlantic.

California last executed a prisoner in 2006, and in 2019 Newsom instituted a moratorium against the death penalty via executive order. But in both 2012 and 2016, Californians narrowly voted against ballot measures that would have repealed the state’s death penalty, meaning many in the state would still prefer to see it in use. Newsom’s commutation order could foreclose that possibility in at least the near future.

Newsom’s commutations underscore how polarized the country has become on the death penalty. Although several states have rejected capital punishment in recent years, a handful of red states are pushing back against that trend, taking ever more extreme measures to hand down death sentences and carry out executions.

America’s death-penalty landscape is defined by dueling philosophies, which means that prisoners convicted of capital crimes face radically different outcomes depending on minor changes in geography: The fate of the same person committing the same murder on either side of the border between Texas, where executions are relatively common, and New Mexico, which does not permit capital punishment, would come down to only a few miles.

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Mangino discusses Netflix series "Taken" on Sidebar with Jesse Weber

Watch my interview on Law &Crime's Sidebar with Jesse Weber discussing the Netflix series "Taken" about the disappearance and murder of Natalee Holloway.

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Florida, Alabama and Indiana carry out three executions in a single day

 The 34th and 35th Executions of 2026

Florida, Alabama and Indiana all carried out executions on November 5, 2026, putting to death three people on a day when California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office, reported The Associated Press. I wrote about the 33rd execution in Indiana here.           

The unusual trio of executions on a single day in the U.S., and Newsom’s plans that experts say would represent the largest mass clemency in American history, underscored national divisions over capital punishment. They also come at a time of renewed attention over the death penalty following Tennessee’s botched execution of Christa Pike in September.

In Florida, the state tied a record with its 19th execution this year and is on track to set a new mark in the coming weeks. Indiana executed a man for killing two children by setting a house fire in 2010, and in Alabama, a man was put to death by lethal injection over killing an older man and woman in a home robbery.

“California may let their criminals escape justice, but not Alabama,” Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said. “Here, we enforce the law and always will.”

It marked the second time since August that three states had conducted executions on a single day, although it remains unusual. Previously, the last time it happened was 2010.

Florida inmate apologized to victims

Jesse Guardado was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at a state prison in Starke. He had pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing Jackie Malone, 75, inside her Walton County home in 2004 before stealing her jewelry box, $80 and other valuables to buy drugs. The woman had helped him get a job and housing.

Florida has carried out more than half of the nation’s 35 executions so far this year under outgoing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Guardado, 64, was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the death chamber curtain went up promptly at 6 p.m. Asked if he had a last statement, he replied, “I would like to once again apologize for the pain and suffering I’ve caused to the victim’s family and my own family as well.”

The drugs began flowing immediately afterward. Guardado began breathing heavily, followed by some sputtering and twitching. Soon after, a warden shook Guardado and shouted his name but got no response and a medic then pronounced him dead.

DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said he wants to bring justice to victims’ families who have often waited decades for death sentences to be carried out. He signed the death warrants that led to a state record of 19 executions in 2025. The state is planning two more executions later this year.

Patrick Malone, the victim’s son, told reporters that he questioned those who oppose the death penalty.

“Do such people ever think about what happened to the victim or consider the unending aftermath the victim’s family endures and relives every time that terrible event comes up?” Malone said.

Alabama man was condemned for a double killing

In Alabama, Michael Taylor, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. local time after a lethal injection. The execution got underway shortly before 6 p.m. as Taylor replied “no, sir” when asked if he had any final words.

He appeared to mouth “thank you” toward his attorneys seated in the witness room. Taylor’s spiritual adviser approached and prayed with him, and he closed his eyes, never opening them again.

In 1991, Taylor, then 19, fatally beat Ivan Moore, 83, and his wife Lucille, 79, with a metal bar during a robbery in their Gadsden, Alabama, home. Police arrested him in their Cadillac an hour away in Birmingham.

Death penalty opponents had urged Ivey to commute Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, noting his age and immaturity then. She declined.

The victims’ family thanked the state attorney general’s office for bringing closure, but they lamented having to wait 35 years for the death sentence to be imposed.

“We know that a person has the right to appeal, but there should come a time when the jury’s decision is final. For all these years, our family has had to live with the waiting, the delays, and the uncertainty,” the family said in a statement. “We have never forgotten our loved ones or what was taken from us.”

The state switched Taylor’s execution method after a judge declared a nitrogen gas method unconstitutional. His attorneys objected since he selected nitrogen gas as his method years ago, but a judge ruled against Taylor.

Attorneys for Taylor said in a statement that he knew the harm he had caused and that “Michael’s life was proof that God isn’t finished with any of us.”

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A time of reckoning for Trump's attorney general

David French of The New York Times writes:

October was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month for the Department of Justice.

The worst moment happened on Oct. 5, when the department made a third attempt to prosecute James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The first attempt, an indictment for lying to Congress, failed when a federal court dismissed the case because the prosecutor was appointed illegally. The second, an indictment for threatening the president by posting a photo online of a collection of seashells on a beach that were arranged to say “86 47,” is still pending.

Comey, however, has filed two motions to dismiss — one based on his free speech rights and the other claiming that the government has engaged in vindictive prosecution.

The case is absurd on its face. In a 1969 case, Watts v. United States, the Supreme Court held that a far more explicit threat — the defendant had said that he would resist the draft, but “if they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.” — was nothing more than “political hyperbole” and protected by the First Amendment.

The third attempt is, if anything, even more specious. The Department of Justice filed what is called a criminal information (not an indictment), claiming that Comey leaked classified information that ended up in The New York Times in October 2016.

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has considered bringing this charge. Trump administration prosecutors looked into this incident in 2017 and 2019 and declined to bring charges both times.

But there’s now a new sheriff in town — Todd Blanche, the attorney general of the United States and President Trump’s former personal lawyer — and Todd Blanche does what Trump says.

To be clear, an information isn’t an indictment. It can’t actually start Comey’s case. The Fifth Amendment says, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.”

Instead, it’s a unilateral filing by prosecutors that has the effect of sometimes tolling (that is to say, stopping) the statute of limitations. It can only actually start a federal felony prosecution if the defendant waives his right to indictment by grand jury, which Comey has not done.

In fact, the Department of Justice admits that it filed the information for the purpose of tolling the statute of limitations. It was filed on the very day that the 10-year statute of limitations was set to expire. In effect, they’re hoping it can serve as a place holder that keeps the case alive until a grand jury finally indicts.

But there’s a problem — a big problem. While some federal criminal statutes allow the department to toll the statute of limitations with an information, this one does not. As Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, wrote in National Review, the relevant statute requires an indictment within 10 years. It makes no reference to an information.

In other words, this legal filing is a bad joke. The lawyers who brought it should be ashamed of themselves, and they should be sanctioned by the court.

But that’s not the only legal embarrassment from the last month. On Monday, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the Department of Justice acted illegally in 2025 when it fired Maurene Comey, James Comey’s daughter, a highly respected prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury refused to indict Cassidy Hutchinson for perjury. Hutchinson was a key witness in the House of Representatives’ investigation of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Hutchinson joins a long line of political opponents that Trump has tried — and failed — to indict, including Attorney General Letitia James of New York and six Democratic lawmakers who had posted a video saying that members of the military had a duty to disobey illegal orders.

It is extremely rare for federal grand juries to refuse to indict. I’ve known prosecutors who’ve gone their entire careers without seeing a “no true bill” (the technical term for the refusal to indict). Under Trump, it’s a regular occurrence.

It gets worse. Also on Tuesday, Zia Faruqui, a federal magistrate judge, eviscerated Trump administration prosecutors after they tried to add a new charge against two former F.B.I. officials charged with lying to Congress without seeking court approval.

The judge ordered the new complaint struck from the record. “It is inappropriate,” he said. “I am surprised that a complaint unsigned by a judge was filed on a docket where I am unaware of that ever happening in this court.”

“Everything you are doing is just giving me more and more concern,” he said.

I’m going to stop there, but even as I do, I feel as if I’m misleading you. I’m stopping because of space, not because that’s the end of the outrages. In case after case after case, the Department of Justice is targeting Trump opponents, making frivolous arguments and engaging in vindictive, meritless prosecutions.

I blame Trump, but I also blame Blanche. He doesn’t understand his own job.

We all know that Trump has an extreme view of executive power that renders him a virtual elected monarch. His administration’s actions extend well beyond conventional unitary executive theory, which puts a premium on presidential control over the executive branch. He treats the law as his plaything, deciding on his own whim which laws will be enforced and which ones will not.

It is true that the president is the boss of every cabinet official. He can fire them at will. But it is also true that the attorney general is different from every other member of the cabinet.

Unlike, say, Pete Hegseth, Blanche has three masters, not one. The attorney general and all the lawyers working for him also answer to the judiciary, which not only decides the cases he brings; it also governs the conduct of D.O.J. officials in court. And he also answers to the bar — rules of ethics are binding on every attorney, including government attorneys.

In addition, Trump may be Blanche’s boss, but he is not Blanche’s client. Blanche’s client is the government of the United States, including its various agencies. Blanche owes his fiduciary duty to the government (and, ultimately, the Constitution), not to the president.

In the criminal context, these additional obligations have profound meaning. In a 1935 case, Berger v. United States, the Supreme Court said, “The United States attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.”

Read those words, and then ask yourself: Does that sound like Todd Blanche to you?

The attorney general is no ordinary lawyer, and neither are the attorneys who work for the Department of Justice. Trump is their boss, but the Constitution is their true master, and no president can compel them to violate ethics rules or court orders.

Last month, I wrote a newsletter urging a Democratic House and Senate (should the Democrats win control on Tuesday) to follow Senator Elissa Slotkin’s advice and hold the administration’s most malevolent actors accountable for their worst misdeeds. It’s time to resurrect impeachment. I mentioned Pete Hegseth. I should have mentioned Todd Blanche too.

His “high crime” is corrupting the Department of Justice, and only a decisive act of political hygiene can cleanse the D.O.J. of MAGA’s terrible stain.

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