GOP Senator's son sentenced to 28 years in prison for death of police officer

The adult son of North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer was sentenced to serve 28 years in prison Monday in connection with a wild chase in which he fled from a hospital and drove into a deputy’s vehicle, killing the deputy, reported CNN.

Ian Cramer, 43, pleaded guilty in September to all of the charges against him, including homicide while fleeing a peace officer, preventing arrest, reckless endangerment, fleeing an officer and drug- and driving-related offenses. Those charges related to a December 6, 2023, chase and crash that killed Mercer County Sheriff’s Deputy Paul Martin, 53.

State District Judge Bobbi Weiler handed down the sentence of 38 years with 10 years suspended, three years of probation and credit for over a year served in jail. She also included recommended treatment for addiction and mental health. But he likely won’t serve the full 28 years, the judge said.

“The (state) Department of Corrections has their own policy on how much time you’re going to serve,” Weiler said. “These are not mandatory minimums, which means that you’re probably going to serve a small portion of that 28 years and be out on parole, so that’ll … give you an opportunity to have a second chance that Deputy Martin does not have, nor does his family have.”

Cramer, who wore orange and sat quietly next to his public defender, apologized to Martin’s family when asked if he would like to speak.

“I had no intention to do any of this. It was an accident, and I just hope that someday they can forgive me, and I think the best thing for me is to go to a hospital and just get more help,” Ian Cramer said.

Much of the sentencing focused on Cramer’s addiction and mental health. Mercer County State’s Attorney Todd Schwarz, citing doctors, said Ian Cramer had been experiencing long-term effects of “taking drugs to put himself into a mentally ill state.”

Cramer admitted to using methamphetamine and bath salts the day of the crash, Schwarz said.

Cramer’s mother, Kris Cramer, read a statement in which she said her son “has hurt his brain a lot on his own” and is dealing with a mental illness. She apologized and said, “I really do feel responsible for what happened on December 6 (2023).”

Bismarck police said she had taken him to a hospital because of mental health concerns. Court documents say he crawled into the driver seat of his parents’ vehicle after his mother got out and smashed in reverse through the closed garage door of the hospital’s ambulance bay. He later fled from deputies when one confronted him in Hazen, about 70 miles from Bismarck, authorities said.

Cramer hit speeds of over 100 mph and kept going even after a spiked device flattened two tires, according to court documents. More spikes were set up, and Cramer swerved and then crashed head-on into Martin’s patrol vehicle and launched him about 100 feet, authorities said. Martin was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Schwarz said Martin was loved by his colleagues and will be remembered for his kindly nature, which showed in his regular check-ins with a young girl who had a troubled father and a fear of officers. A week before the crash, Martin shared his retirement plans with Schwarz, who had known him since the 1990s.

Cramer pleaded not guilty in the homicide case in April. He was initially charged with manslaughter, later changed to the homicide offense, which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. He has been held at the McLean County Jail in Washburn on $500,000 cash bail.

All of the offenses to which he pleaded guilty carry a maximum sentence of just over 38 years in prison, according to the prosecutor’s sentencing brief filed earlier in December.

In March, Ian Cramer pleaded not guilty to separate felony charges of theft, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment in connection with the events at the Bismarck hospital. A jury trial is scheduled for January.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican, has said his son “suffers from serious mental disorders which manifest in severe paranoia and hallucinations.”

The senator told reporters his family commends the officers, court and jail, but said he is “somewhat disappointed that mental health is so casually dismissed both by the court and by the prosecutor.”

“But I don’t think there’s any question there’s not one person, including Ian, who doesn’t know that they were his choices that led to this, whatever they may be, under whatever condition, choices that go back many years,” said Kevin Cramer, who handily won reelection to a second term in November.

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Murders declined sharply across the U.S. in 2024

 The number of murders across the United States declined sharply for much of 2024, continuing a recent downward trend, according to data collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, reported The New York Times.

Murders spiked during the pandemic, and crime became a central focus of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s campaign message. Polls show Americans still see it as a major problem. And several high-profile homicides this year, including the recent killing of a homeless woman who was set on fire in a New York subway, may fan concerns.

But in 2023, the number of murders fell at the steepest rate ever recorded, according to the F.B.I.’s data.

That trend may be continuing, according to data from a mix of sources covering most or part of 2024. In some major cities, the numbers are at or below what they were before the pandemic.

Through October, data collected by the Real-Time Crime Index, based on reports from hundreds of law enforcement agencies, showed a nearly 16 percent decline in murders from 2023. The F.B.I.’s preliminary data for the first half of the year showed an even steeper decline.

But the F.B.I.’s data for the year is not yet complete, and it will not be until next year. Even with all of the statistics, the data set may not reflect the fullest picture on crime across the nation, as some law enforcement agencies do not report their numbers to the F.B.I.

Even with the data limitations, experts said the overall trend of declining murders nationally was clear. And several major cities saw striking reversals in the number of murders over the last two years.

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NY AG investigating corrections officers after beating death of inmate captured on body cameras

Corrections officers punched and kicked a handcuffed, shackled inmate in the groin and chest during a fatal attack at a prison in central New York this month, video footage released publicly reported The New York Times.

The footage was recorded by body cameras worn by four of the officers. It was made public by Letitia James, the state attorney general, as part of her office’s investigation into the death of the man, Robert Brooks, and the beating that preceded it.

Among other things, the videos show one corrections officer using a booted foot to kick Mr. Brooks, whose face is bloodied, and then force him onto his back on an infirmary examination table while another officer punches Mr. Brooks in the upper body.

The videos show corrections officers kicking, punching and restraining Robert Brooks, whose face is bloodied.CreditCredit...New York State Attorney General Office

Ms. James said that the eight videos her office released depicted “shocking and disturbing” behavior.

“I do not take lightly the release of this video, especially in the middle of the holiday season,” she said during an online presentation. “But as the attorney general I release these videos because I have a responsibility and duty to provide the Brooks family, their loved ones and all New Yorkers with transparency and accountability.”

Ms. James’s investigation could result in criminal charges for some or all of those implicated in the assault, as could inquiries by the State Police and the corrections department’s Office of Special Investigations.

Mr. Brooks was Black and all the officers in the video appear to be white. 

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Heritage Foundation: Get schools to report immigration status and the undocumented will self-deport

In his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has doubled down on bashing migrants crossing the southern border. Trump said migrants are criminals who are “poisoning the blood of our country,” reported The New York Times. The Republican National Convention was full of talk of surging “migrant crime,” even though such a rise does not exist.

The number of Americans who think the immigration level is too high has sharply risen since the last presidential contest in 2020, and as Americans move to the right on the issue, Trump plans to go much further than President Biden’s executive order in June, which closes the border when crossings surge. Trump has said he would build “vast holding facilities” — detention camps — to lock people up as their cases progress; end birthright citizenship, even though the Constitution protects it; and bring back a version of the travel ban from his first term, which barred visitors from several mostly Muslim countries. Another Trump promise, mass deportations, hasn’t been tried since the 1950s; now, polls show majority support for it, including among Latinos.

But there is one anti-immigration proposal on the right that Trump doesn’t talk about publicly. It’s a spin on “self-deportation.” The term — for provoking immigrants to leave of their own volition — has gone out of fashion but the idea continues to lurk. This time, instead of directly pressuring undocumented adults to flee, some immigration opponents are threatening access to school for their children. It’s a nuclear option — requiring the reversal of a Supreme Court ruling that has been a linchpin of educational rights for four decades — that some of Trump’s allies on the right are quietly building support for.

In February, the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing Washington think tank that’s become central to mapping out policy objectives for the next Republican administration, recommended requiring public schools to collect data on immigration status when students enroll. Heritage also said schools should charge tuition for children who are undocumented or who have a parent who lacks legal status.

About 600,000 undocumented children live in the country, and another 4.5 million have a parent who is here illegally. To ensure that parents can send their children to school without fear of immigration agents, the Biden administration declared in 2021 that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could take no actions of any kind at schools and other locations where young people gather, like universities and day care centers. It’s easy to see why schools are such a sensitive site of immigration enforcement. Barring children from the classroom punishes them for their parents’ decisions and disrupts families’ daily rhythm. Most searingly, perhaps, it undermines the hope of bettering the lives of the next generation — a reason for coming to the United States in the first place.

It has always been difficult to deter people from migrating to the United States, given instability in their home countries and the lure of economic opportunity at American businesses that depend on cheap labor. But there is a grim logic to the strategy of keeping children out of school in the United States — that if you go so far as to take away a right fundamental to the American dream, people will leave.

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CCJ Report: Overall decrease in juvenile offending

Offending by juveniles (youth under age 18) has been the subject of significant local and national discourse over the last several decades, and especially during the last few years. Incidents of juvenile firearm violence, for example, have been the subject of extensive coverage by the mass media and on social networks.1 Policymakers have also drawn attention to juvenile offending, as evidenced by recent legislation aimed at both reducing youth violence and revising juvenile justice system approaches to this population.2

Juvenile offending accounts for a notable share of crime committed in America each year. Over the period examined for this study (2016 to 2022), roughly 14% of crimes involved at least one reported juvenile offender to the findings in other research on juvenile offending that relied on similar data sources.3, 4  The COVID-19 pandemic, however, may have altered some of these patterns.5 Responses to the pandemic led to the closure of schools—a primary site of youth socialization and, consequently, some offending—potentially influencing juvenile offending patterns. School closures, combined with trends such as the recent shift to digital socialization, have resulted in youth spending more time at home.6

This Counsel on Criminal Justice report focuses on trends in violent and nonviolent juvenile offending from 2016 through 2022. Its analyses examine changes in the frequency of juvenile offending by crime type, demographics, and several other characteristics. The official law enforcement data used in this report are drawn from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) program. The final sample used for the analyses includes 3,484 law enforcement agencies covering jurisdictions with an average of about 91 million residents per study year. Additional details and limitations of these data are discussed in the supplemental methodology report.

Key Takeaways

• Overall, there has been a general decrease in most forms of juvenile offending in recent years; notable exceptions include more frequent use of firearms among youth.
• Juvenile offending (total incidents) was about 14% lower, and the total number of juveniles involved was around 18% lower, in 2022 than in 2016, the beginning of the study period.
• Trends in juvenile crime diverge by age group. Offending among juveniles aged 15 to 17 was roughly 23% lower in 2022 than in 2016; offending among juveniles aged 10 to 14, however, was nearly 9% higher over the same period.
• Homicides perpetrated by juveniles jumped 65% from 2016 to 2022, while burglary (-62%), larceny (-46%), and robbery (-45%) experienced the steepest declines.
• Violent crimes committed by White youth remained essentially unchanged during the study period, increasing by less than one half of one percent (0.44%), while violent offenses committed by Black youth decreased by about 20%. Property crimes perpetrated by Black youth decreased by about 40%, while property crimes perpetrated by White youth decreased by roughly 52%.
• The number of offenses committed by juvenile males was 21% lower in 2022 than in 2016. There was no notable change in the offending frequency among juvenile females over the same period.
• Crimes involving two or more juveniles (co-offending) were 26% lower in 2022 than in 2016, and solo offending was about 10% lower.
• Firearm involvement in juvenile offending was 21% higher in 2022 than in 2016, while other weapon use was 6% higher. This suggests a more pronounced increase in the use of guns relative to other weapons, rather than increased weapon use generally. Firearm use has also increasingly resulted in serious injury for victims in recent years.

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Mangino quoted in Fox News article

 Great to contribute to this Fox News article by Audrey Conklin on President Biden's death row commutations.

"While generally, Biden revealed his disdain for the death penalty, he does believe — and his actions prove it — that there needs to be a death penalty for some."

--Matthew Mangino

To read CLICK HERE

Creators: Biden's Death Row Clemency Proves Need for Death Penalty

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators
December 23, 2024

Why did President Joe Biden commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates?

To start with, the president campaigned in 2020 on ending the federal death penalty. Although he directed the Justice Department to issue a moratorium on federal executions, legislation proposing to end state-sponsored death failed to gain any traction in Congress during his administration.

Additionally, President-elect Donald Trump vowed to carry out executions once in office. His track record reveals he isn't kidding. During the last six months of his prior term, the federal government carried out 13 executions. Contrast that with state executions in 2020, Trump's last year in office. There were seven executions in five states. In 2021, there were eight executions in the same number of states — all below the Mason-Dixon line.

The Trump administration conducted more executions in five months than any other presidency since the turn of the 20th century and carried out six executions during a presidential transition period, more than any other administration in the history of the United States. Prior to 2020, the federal government carried out only three executions in the modern era of the death penalty, most notably Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.

Whether it was a ploy to bolster his tough-guy bona fides or a lowbrow pitch to his "law and order" constituency, then-President Trump's bloodlust saw no boundary.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, those executed by the federal government included the first Native American ever executed by the federal government for the murder of a member of his own tribe on tribal lands.

The Trump administration oversaw the first federal execution in 68 years of an offender who was a teenager at the time the crime was committed.

The federal executions of 2020 included: the first federal execution in 57 years for a crime committed in a state that had abolished the death penalty; executions carried out against the wishes of the victims' families; and the first lame-duck executions in more than a century.

As of December 2024, here were 40 men on federal death row. Biden commuted the sentences of 37. All of the offenders were convicted of murder. They will now serve life in prison without the possibility of parole.

According to The New York Times, of the 37 men whose sentences were commuted, 15 are white, 15 are Black, six are Latino and one is Asian. They were sentenced in 16 states, including three that had abolished the death penalty. Nine are on death row because they were convicted of killing fellow federal prisoners.

The three men who did not receive commutations are notorious mass killers. According to Newsweek, they include Dylann Roof, who carried out the racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three and injured more than 260 in 2013; and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 congregants after storming the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

Prior to these commutations, Biden had already begun to deploy his clemency power aggressively — commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people earlier this month, as well as his controversial pardon of his son Hunter Biden.

In a strange sort of way, President Biden's bold use of his clemency power to prevent the systematic execution of federal death row inmates strengthens the argument in support of the death penalty. He left three men on death row to most assuredly face death. While generally, Biden revealed his disdain for the death penalty, he does believe — and his actions prove it — that there needs to be a death penalty for some.

You are either for the death penalty or you're against it. Like the old saying goes, you can't be a little bit pregnant. One can't be an opponent of the death penalty only until something really bad happens.

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 X @MatthewTMangino.

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Mangino discusses sentencing of Richard Allen for Delphi murders

Watch my breaking news interview with Julia Jenae and Ted Rowland on Court TV discussing the sentencing of Richard Allen for the Delphi, Indiana murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE and HERE

Mangino discusses Luigi Mangione arrest with Nancy Grace

Watch my analysis of the Luigi Mangione arrest with Nancy Grace on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Oklahoma carries out the last execution of 2024

 The 25th Execution of 2024

Oklahoma carried out its fourth execution of 2024 on December 19, 2024 with the death of Kevin Ray Underwood on his 45th birthday. Underwood will be last person executed in 2024 in the United States, according to The Frontier.

With a long sigh, Underwood used his final words to apologize to the victim Jamie Rose Bolin’s family, according to media witnesses.

“I would like to apologize again for all the terrible things I’ve done. I hate that I did those terrible things and I wish I could take them back,” Underwood said. 

Underwood said it was cruel for him to be executed by lethal injection on his birthday and six days before Christmas.

Underwood admitted to luring Bolin,10, to his apartment and killing her because of his cannibalistic fantasy. He bought meat tenderizer, tarp and bbq sauce, to prepare for the murder, according to testimony at his clemency hearing.

He requested chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, pinto beans and a hot roll for his last meal. He also requested a cheeseburger with fries and ketchup.

Underwood also received two doses of Xanax —one the night before the execution and another Thursday morning, said Steven Harpe, the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. 

Underwood was declared dead at 10:14 a.m., about 10 minutes after the execution began. 

After the execution, Lori Pate, Bolin’s sister, delivered a statement and thanked everyone who helped bring justice for their family.

“This doesn’t bring our Jamie back, but it does allow the space in our hearts to focus on her and allow the healing process to begin,” Pate said. 

Greg Mashburn, the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office, stated Bolin’s family now has justice. He stated that Bolin’s murder qualified for the death penalty, which is reserved for the worst crimes.

The United States Supreme Court denied Underwood’s request to delay the execution approximately 45 minutes before his scheduled execution.

Underwood’s attorneys argued two recent resignations from the Pardon and Parole Board violated his constitutional rights to a fair hearing. The board unanimously denied a clemency recommendation on Friday after Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed one new member. 

Underwood’s legal team had argued he deserved clemency because he had autism and a severe addiction to pornography. State prosecutors urged the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole to vote against clemency because Underwood was a danger to others and hadn’t shown remorse for killing Bolin. 

To read more CLICK HERE

 

DPIC: Death Sentences and Executions Remain Near Historic Lows Amid Growing Concerns about Fairness and Innocence

President Biden and North Carolina Governor Consider Commutations of Death Rows to Remedy Systemic Problems

Four States Responsible for 76% of Executions

(Washington, D.C.) This year marked the tenth consecutive year where fewer than 30 people were executed (25) and fewer than 50 people were sentenced to death (26), while high profile cases of death-sentenced people attracted significant attention and new, unexpected supporters. At this writing, widespread coalitions of people with diverse perspectives are publicly urging President Biden and North Carolina Governor Cooper to consider commuting the death sentences of prisoners to remedy longstanding concerns about systemic problems with the application of the death penalty.

“In 2024, we saw people with credible evidence of innocence set for execution, followed by extraordinary levels of public frustration and outrage. Several high-profile cases fueled new concerns about whether the death penalty can be used fairly and accurately. A new poll also predicts a steady decline of support in the future, showing for the first time that a majority of adults aged 18 to 43 now oppose the death penalty,” said Robin M. Maher, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI).

Ten states -- Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas -- sentenced people to death in 2024. Just four states -- Alabama, California, Florida, and Texas -- account for the majority (20) of new death sentences this year. Florida imposed the highest number of new death sentences, with seven. Texas imposed six new death sentences, while Alabama imposed four, California imposed three, while Arizona, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee each had one new death sentence.

About one third of the 26 new death sentences were imposed by non-unanimous juries: six in Florida and three in Alabama. In 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation reducing the number of votes needed to recommend a death sentence from unanimous to just 8 out of 12 jurors. Observers accurately predicted that this change would result in an increase in Florida death sentences. At least ten votes are required for Alabama juries to recommend a death sentence, while every other state requires unanimity. Non-unanimous juries have been criticized for silencing minority voices on a jury, increasing the chances that an innocent person will be convicted, and undermining public confidence in the death penalty system.

Nine states -- Alabama (6), Florida (1), Georgia (1), Indiana (1), Missouri (4), Oklahoma (4), South Carolina (2), Texas (5), and Utah (1) -- carried out executions in 2024. Four states – Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas – were responsible for 76 percent of executions.

Executions resumed for the first time in decades in Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah after elected officials announced they had secured execution drugs or approved new methods. Idaho attempted to resume executions this year after a twelve-year hiatus but called off the botched execution of Thomas Creech when the execution team was unable to establish an IV line after an hour of attempts.

Public support for the death penalty in 2024 remains at a five-decade low (53%), and polling reveals significant and growing generational differences, as well as rising disapproval among people ages 43 and younger. Also, a growing number of conservative lawmakers and elected prosecutors publicly supported prisoners with compelling evidence of innocence, including Richard Glossip in Oklahoma, Marcellus Williams in Missouri, and Robert Roberson in Texas.

Three death row prisoners were exonerated in 2024. DPI’s ongoing research uncovered two additional exonerations from prior years, bringing the number of U.S. death row exonerations since 1972 to 200. In Texas, Melissa Lucio, who came within two days of execution in 2022, was declared “actually innocent” by a trial court in October.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned away almost all petitions (145 of 148, 98%) from death-sentenced prisoners in 2024, even those with strong evidence of innocence. This approach reflects the Court’s retreat from the critical role it has historically played in regulating and limiting use of the death penalty.  The Court’s December 6 certiorari grant in Rivers v. Lumpkin, a non-capital case, threatens to further restrict pathways to relief on appeal for death-sentenced prisoners.

The number of new death sentences (26) and executions (25) in 2024 represented an increase from 2023 when there were 21 new death sentences and 24 executions but represented a dramatic drop from twenty years ago when there were 130 new death sentences and 59 executions. This change can be attributed to an increase in non-unanimous death sentences in Florida, where the law was changed in April of 2023, and Alabama, the only two states that permit non-unanimous death sentencing.  In 2023, non-unanimous sentences accounted for three new death sentences (one in Florida, two in Alabama) but this year accounted for nine (six in Florida, three in Alabama).

Executions reflect the views of jurors at the time of sentencing—increasingly, views that are 20 or 30 years out of date. The majority of individuals executed in 2024 would likely not receive death sentences if their cases were tried today. Legislative and legal changes, increased scrutiny of prosecutorial practices, and shifts in societal attitudes over recent decades have significantly affected whether defendants receive death sentences.

Today’s jurors, with their better understanding of how severe mental illness, developmental disabilities, youth, and profound trauma affect behavior, are increasingly choosing life sentences over death sentences. All but one individual executed in 2024 had at least one of the above-listed vulnerabilities. Six of the 25 people executed were 21 or younger at the time of the crime for which they were executed.

As has been historically true, prisoners of color and prisoners convicted of killing white victims were overrepresented among those executed. Twelve of the 25 prisoners executed this year were people of color. The vast majority of defendants (80%) were executed for killing at least one white victim. Fourteen of the defendants sentenced to death this year (54%) were people of color. Death penalty-related legislation was enacted in at least six states (California, Delaware, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah) to limit use of the death penalty, alter execution methods or protocols, modify procedures, and increase secrecy. Death penalty abolition efforts continue in more than a dozen states, and efforts to reintroduce the death penalty in eight states failed. Only one effort to expand the death penalty to non-homicide crimes was successful, in Tennessee.

Read “The Death Penalty in 2024: Year End Report” here: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/year-end-reports/the-death-penalty-in-2024

Mangino discusses extradition of Luigi Mangione on Law and Crime Network

Watch my interview with Sierra Gillespie on Law and Crime Network discussing the extradition of Liugi Mangione.

To watch the interview CLICK HERE

Indiana carries out first execution in 15 years

The 24th Execution of 2024

An Indiana man, Joseph Corcoran, convicted in the 1997 killings of his brother and three other men received a lethal injection on December 18, 2024 in the state’s first execution in 15 years, without any independent witness present under the state’s laws shielding information about the death penalty.

Corcoran, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, the Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement. Corcoran was scheduled to be executed with the powerful sedative pentobarbital, but the state agency’s statement did not mention that drug. Corcoran’s execution was the 24th in the U.S. this year.

Last summer the governor announced the resumption of state executions after a yearslong hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.

Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to witness state executions, according to a recent report by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Indiana has provided few details about the process. Prison officials only provided photos of the execution chamber, which resembles a sparse operating room with a gurney, bright fluorescent lighting and an adjacent viewing room.

Corcoran’s attorneys have fought the death penalty sentence for years, arguing he is severely mentally ill, which affects his ability to understand and make decisions. Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016, and this month his attorneys asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution but the request was denied.

Corcoran’s attorneys asked the U.S. District Court of Northern Indiana last week to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide if it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran has a serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same Tuesday.

Corcoran’s attorneys then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and issue an emergency order halting his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay.

According to court records, before Corcoran shot the men in July 1997, he was stressed because his sister’s forthcoming marriage to Turner would necessitate moving out of the Fort Wayne home he shared with her and his brother.

Corcoran awoke to hear his brother and others downstairs talking about him, loaded his rifle and then shot all four, records show. While jailed, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in northern Indiana’s Steuben County. He was charged in their killings but acquitted.

Indiana’s last state execution was in 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles was put to death for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.

Since that time 13 executions have been carried out in Indiana, but they were initiated and performed by federal officials in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.

State officials have said they could not continue executions because a combination of drugs used in lethal injections had become unavailable.

For years there has been a shortage nationwide because pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell their products for that purpose. That has pushed states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies, which manufacture drugs specifically for a client. Some use more accessible drugs such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam — both of which, critics say, can cause intense pain.

Indiana planned to use pentobarbital to execute Corcoran and, like many states, is refusing to divulge the source of the drugs. When asked for details, the Indiana Department of Correction directed The Associated Press to a state law labeling the source of lethal injection drugs as confidential.

Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have opposed his execution. About a dozen people, some holding candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 60 miles (90 kilometers) east of Chicago.

“We can build a society without giving governmental authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.

Other death penalty opponents also demonstrated outside the prison Tuesday night, some holding signs that read “Execution Is Not The Solution” and “Remember The Victims But Not With More Killing.”

“There is no need and no benefit from this execution. It’s all show,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that protests every execution in the U.S.

Prison officials said in a brief statement Tuesday evening that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

Corcoran said farewell late Tuesday to relatives, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the prison that they discussed their faith and their memories, including attending high school together. She reiterated her request for Indiana’s governor to commute her husband’s death sentence.

Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she doesn’t think he fully grasps what is happening to him.

“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.

One of Corcoran’s sisters, Kelly Ernst, who lost both a brother and her fiancé in the 1997 shootings, said she believes the death penalty should be abolished and executing her brother will not solve anything.

“I’m at a loss for words. I’m just really upset that they’re doing it close to Christmas,” she said. “My sister and I, our birthdays are in December. I mean, it just feels like it’s going to ruin Christmas for the rest of our lives.”

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Creators: Will Biden's Commutation Further Chill Clemency in Pennsylvania?

Matthew T. Mangino
Creators Syndicate
December 17, 2024

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently pointed out that "Governors and presidents have unique power to grant pardons and clemency and commute sentences. It is an absolute power, and it is a power that should be used incredibly carefully."

Recently, President Joe Biden granted clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans — the most ever in a single day, according to the White House. Biden was convinced these men and women had shown a successful record of rehabilitation and a strong commitment to making their communities safer.

The president commuted the sentences of individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities. He also pardoned 39 individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Biden's decision to commute the 17-year prison sentence of Michael Conahan has become a flash point in northeastern Pennsylvania. Biden has always talked with affection about his upbringing in Scranton, Pennsylvania. However, his decision to commute Conahan's sentence has ruffled feathers in his old hometown and beyond.

In what became known as the "kids-for-cash" scandal, Conahan and Judge Mark Ciavarella shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from a friend of Conahan's who built and co-owned two for-profit detention centers.

Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of children would fill the beds of the private centers. The scandal prompted the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to throw out about 4,000 juvenile convictions involving more than 2,300 children.

The people of Pennsylvania have had a complicated and politically distorted view of clemency.

In Pennsylvania, the governor's clemency authority, derived by Article IV, Section 9 of the state constitution, is limited by the Board of Pardons. The board is comprised of the lieutenant governor, attorney general and three members appointed by the governor. Traditionally, if a majority of the board were to vote in favor of an application, the board recommends favorable action to the governor. If less than a majority of the board vote in favor, the result was a denial by the board and the application was not forwarded to the governor.

In the 1970s, mercy toward those serving life in prison flourished. Democratic Gov. Milton Shapp commuted 251 life sentences.

Today, clemency for a life or death sentence requires a unanimous vote of the board. The change came in 1996 with the election of Gov. Tom Ridge. During the campaign, Ridge attacked his opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, for recommending, as a member of the Board of Pardons, a pardon for Reginald McFadden. Once released, McFadden committed another murder.

As a result of McFadden, pardons for serious crimes slowed to less than a trickle in Pennsylvania. Ridge, who won, in part, on the back of McFadden, never pardoned an inmate serving a life sentence. Ridge's Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker, who took over after Ridge became the first secretary of Homeland Security, pardoned one lifer. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, pardoned five lifers in eight years, and his successor GOP Tom Corbett commuted zero.

Shapiro, Pennsylvania's current governor, said Biden "got it absolutely wrong" when he commuted Conahan's sentence.

Shapiro said, "I study every single case that comes across my desk where there's a request for a pardon or clemency or a reduction of sentence, and I take it very seriously. I weigh the merits of the case. I weigh what occurred in the court proceedings. I think about public safety and victims and all of those issues factor into my decision."

Shapiro's predecessor, Democrat Tom Wolfe, pardon 53 lifers between 2015 and 2023 — a meager few when compared to Shapp in the 1970s, but a substantial improvement, nonetheless.

There are many men and women worthy of mercy. Will Biden's clemency for Conahan have a chilling effect on commutations in Pennsylvania the same way Reginald McFadden nearly extinguished clemency for inmates facing life in prison?

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 X @MatthewTMangino.

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Theory that gun restrictions must align with nation’s history and tradition generates pattern of partisan decisions

 In 2011, a federal appeals court voted 2-1 to uphold Washington, D.C.’s assault weapons ban. The lone dissent came from then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who argued that a gun restriction could only be constitutional if it fit with the nation’s history and tradition of gun regulation. Such a test, he wrote, would be “much less subjective,” preventing judges from injecting their personal ideologies. 

Eleven years later, in June 2022, Kavanaugh and his Republican-appointed allies on the Supreme Court incorporated that test into their decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, reshaping the right to bear arms and setting off a flurry of legal challenges to gun regulations.

But a new analysis by The Trace of more than 1,600 Second Amendment rulings filed in the wake of Bruen found that, instead of limiting judges’ discretion as Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices predicted, the decision has made federal courts even more of a political battleground, where gun laws rise and fall along partisan lines.

The Trace’s analysis identified 150 lawsuits seeking to overturn state assault weapons bans, age limits on buying firearms, licensing rules, and other gun restrictions. In these cases — many of which were brought by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups — Republican-appointed judges sided with plaintiffs 48 percent of the time. 

That is four times the rate of Democratic appointees, who did so in 13 percent of the cases they heard.

The remaining 1,450 rulings reviewed by The Trace involved criminal defendants, many of whom were using Bruen in an attempt to have their charges or convictions thrown out. In these cases, some Democratic judges have been sympathetic to arguments that gun regulations not only have little historical support but also disproportionately affect marginalized groups.

Democratic appointees have sided with gun rights claims in 30 out of the 525 criminal cases they’ve heard, or 6 percent. Two judges — Robert Gettleman and Staci Yandle, both in Illinois — alone issued 17 of those 30 rulings. By comparison, Republican-appointed judges ruled in favor of defendants in 22 out of 748 criminal cases, or 3 percent. (The remaining criminal cases were heard by nonpartisan magistrate judges.)

“You’ve got the same Supreme Court decision, yet you’re getting this ideological difference in how the same rule is applied by all these different people,” said Jeremy Fogel, who served as a federal judge in California for 20 years before retiring in 2018. “It undermines trust when people think that judges are just deciding cases based on their policy preferences.”

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Mangino discusses Ohio Supreme Court decision overturning opioid verdict on WFMJ-TV21

Watch my interview with Sydney Canty on WFMJ-TV21 Weekend Today analyzing the Ohio Supreme Court overturning the massive opioid verdict against pharmacies in Trumbull and Lake Counties.

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ABC News capitulates to Donald Trump

ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump, reported The New York Times.

The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.

Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.

ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.

The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.

“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.

“What we might be seeing here is an attitudinal shift,” she added. “Compared to the mainstream American press of a decade ago, today’s press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened, and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom, rather than embrace a vilification of it.”

ABC News did not elaborate on Saturday about its precise reasons for settling. “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” a network spokeswoman said. A lawyer for Mr. Trump declined to comment on the agreement.

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Drug overdose deaths down 17% according to CDC

Drug overdose deaths in the United States fell 17% between July 2023 and July 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent report, according to CBS News. 

Since 2021, over 100,000 people have died of overdoses each year in the United States. A record number of overdose deaths — over 108,000 — were recorded in 2022. The numbers dipped in 2023 and have continued to drop monthly throughout 2024. 

While overdose deaths for 2024 have not been calculated yet, and will not be until after the end of the year, the CDC said that deaths fell 17% in a one-year period. It's the largest decrease in deaths ever seen in the United States, White House Domestic Policy Council Advisor Neera Tanden said Wednesday. 

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Dr. Rahul Gupta said the decrease shows that the Biden administration's efforts to reduce overdose deaths are working. 

The vast majority of overdose deaths in the United States involve opioids, including fentanyl. There has been a decrease in such deaths, CBS News previously reported, but a rise in deaths involving psychostimulants like meth and cocaine.

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Ohio Supreme Court rejects massive opioid verdict

The Ohio Supreme Court recently that the state's product liability law prohibits counties from bringing public nuisance claims against national pharmaceutical chains as they did as part of national opioid litigation, a decision that could overturn a $650 million judgment against the pharmacies,  reported The Associated Press and WOSU in Columbus.

An attorney for the counties called the decision “devastating.”

Justices were largely unanimous in their interpretation of an arcane disagreement over the state law, which had emerged in a lawsuit brought by Lake and Trumbull counties outside Cleveland against CVS, Walgreens and Walmart.

The counties won their initial lawsuit — and were awarded $650 million in damages by a federal judge in 2022 — but the pharmacies had disputed the court's reading of the Ohio Product Liability Act, which they said protected them from such sanctions.

In an opinion written by Justice Joseph Deters, the court found that Ohio state lawmakers intended the law to prevent “all common law product liability causes of action" — even if they don't seek compensatory damages but merely “equitable relief” for the communities.

“The plain language of the OPLA abrogates product-liability claims, including product-related public-nuisance claims seeking equitable relief,” he wrote. “We are constrained to interpret the statute as written, not according to our own personal policy preferences.”

Two of the Republican-dominated court's Democratic justices disagreed on that one point, while concurring on the rest of the judgment.

“Any award to abate a public nuisance like the opioid epidemic would certainly be substantial in size and scope, given that the claimed nuisance is both long-lasting and widespread,” Justice Melody Stewart wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Michael Donnelly. “But just because an abatement award is of substantial size and scope does not mean it transforms it into a compensatory-damages award.”

In a statement, the plaintiffs' co-liaison counsel in the national opioid litigation, Peter Weinberger, of the Cleveland-based law firm Spangenberg Shibley & Liber, lamented the decision.

“This ruling will have a devastating impact on communities and their ability to police corporate misconduct," he said. “We have used public nuisance claims across the country to obtain nearly $60 billion in opioid settlements, including nearly $1 billion in Ohio alone, and the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling undermines the very legal basis that drove this result.”

But Weinberger said Tuesday's ruling would not be the end, and that communities would continue to fight “through other legal avenues.”

"We remain steadfast in our commitment to holding all responsible parties to account as this litigation continues nationwide,” he said.

In his 2022 ruling, U.S. District Judge Dan Polster said that the money awarded to Lake and Trump counties would be used to the fight the opioid crisis. Attorneys at the time put the total price tag at $3.3 billion for the damage done.

Lake County was to receive $306 million over 15 years. Trumbull County was to receive $344 million over the same period. Nearly $87 million was to be paid immediately to cover the first two years of payments.

A jury returned a verdict in favor of the counties in November 2021, after a six-week trial. It was then left to the judge to decide how much the counties should receive. He heard testimony the next May to determine damages.

The counties convinced the jury that the pharmacies played an outsized role in creating a public nuisance in the way they dispensed pain medication. It was the first time pharmacy companies completed a trial to defend themselves in a drug crisis that has killed a half-million Americans since 1999.

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President Biden pardons 39 and grants clemency to nearly 1,500

 President Biden announced pardons for 39 people and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others, setting a new daily record for clemency with a focus on those who were under home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, reported The Hill.

The sweeping act of clemency came as Biden has been under pressure to pardon individuals after he granted one for his son, Hunter. The president in a statement said he would take more steps in the weeks ahead before he leaves office.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement. “As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

The White House said it was the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern history.

Biden announced pardons for 39 individuals who he said had successfully rehabilitated their lives and contributed to their communities. They were each convicted of non-violent crimes, the White House said, and included a military veteran, a nurse who led natural disaster responses and an addiction counselor.

The roughly 1,500 individuals who had their sentences commuted had been under home confinement for at least a year under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a law passed in 2020 during the pandemic that allowed for extended home confinement for certain prisoners when COVID-19 was rampant. The Associated Press reported that at one point, one-in-five prisoners had the virus.

“These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance,” Biden said in a statement.

Prior to Thursday’s announcement, Biden had issued 122 commutations and 21 pardons, and he offered sweeping clemency to those convicted of marijuana use on federal lands.

He has faced growing pressure in his final weeks in office to use his presidential pardon powers, with advocates ramping up their efforts after Biden’s controversial decision to pardon his son.

The president had for months insisted he would not pardon Hunter Biden, who was convicted on gun charges and pleaded guilty to federal tax charges earlier this year. But he reversed course earlier this month, arguing that his son’s cases had been influenced by politics.

Some Democrats have suggested Biden should preemptively pardon individuals who might be targeted by the incoming Trump administration, such as members of the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Others have called for him to grant clemency to those on death row.

“I will take more steps in the weeks ahead,” Biden said Thursday. “My Administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances.”

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Alleged CEO assassin remains in PA prison fighting extradition

Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan, is fighting extradition to New York, and will remain in custody in Pennsylvania, reported the Pennsylvania Capital Star. 

Mangione, 26, was charged late Monday in Manhattan with second-degree murder, forgery and three gun charges. He was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona on Monday and was arraigned Monday evening at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg on charges of carrying a firearm without a license, forgery, records or identification tampering, possession of instruments of crime and presenting false identification to law enforcement. 

Police said they found a 3D-printed pistol loaded with nine rounds of 9 mm ammunition and a loose hollow-point round in Mangione’s backpack. The gun was with a silencer that had also been 3D printed, police said.

Blair County Common Pleas Judge David Consiglio ordered Mangione held without bail at SCI-Huntingdon pending an extradition hearing. The Associated Press reported that Mangione shouted about an “insult to the intelligence of the American people” as he arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday.

Thompson, 50, was shot and killed outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4. He had been CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the nation’s largest for-profit health insurance providers, for nearly three years.

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Pope Francis prays for commutation of federal death sentences

'Wink-Wink' fellow Catholic President Joe Biden

Pope Francis prayed that the sentences of inmates on death row in the United States be commuted or changed, reported Vatican News.

His prayer during the Angelus address comes as US President Joe Biden has the authority to commute the sentences of people on federal death row before he leaves office in January 2025.

“Today, I feel compelled to ask all of you to pray for the inmates on death row in the United States,” the Pope said. “Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

“Let us pray that their sentences may be commuted or changed. Let us think of these brothers and sisters of ours and ask the Lord for the grace to save them from death.”

Anti-death penalty activists and associations have been imploring President Biden to use his clemency powers before he leaves office to spare the lives of about 40 federal death row inmates who are at peril of imminent execution when the next president takes office.

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Sentencing for Jan. 6 insurrectionist: 'Trump’s gonna pardon you . . . Donald’s got you'

A federal judge appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan said recently that the public discourse about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — and the cases against Donald Trump supporters prosecuted because they committed crimes in support of the once and future president — had been distorted, reported NBC News.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said that while the events of Jan. 6 may be a “distant, hazy memory” for many Americans, there were many who suffered that day who never forget the attack. Emphasizing that “truth and justice, law and order” are bedrock principles of the judicial system, Lamberth said that the jurors who heard the cases “know how perilously close we came to letting the peaceful transfer of power, that great cornerstone of the American republican experiment and perhaps our foremost contribution to posterity, slip away from us.”

Lamberth — who previously said the “preposterous” claims Republican politicians were making about the Capitol attack “could presage further danger to our country” — made his comments during the sentencing of a man who ran for a congressional seat previously held by former Rep. George Santos.

Philip Grillo had been convicted of a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding, but after the Supreme Court this summer ruled against the use of that charge in Jan. 6 cases, Grillo filed a motion for acquittal on that count, which the government did not oppose. So on Friday, Grillo was sentenced to a year in prison on the remaining misdemeanor counts.

“We f---ing did it, you understand? We stormed the Capitol,” Grillo said in a video he took of himself in the Capitol, according to the Justice Department. “We shut it down! We did it!”

Lamberth, who sentenced Grillo to 12 months behind bars, had rejected Grillo’s argument to delay his sentencing due to the possibility that Trump might pardon some or all of the Jan. 6 rioters. He ordered Grillo to be stepped back, or taken into custody immediately, rather than be allowed to self-surrender.

“Trump’s gonna pardon you,” said one of Grillo’s supporters in the courtroom galley. “Donald’s got you, Phil.”

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A legacy of honor: Today marks the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor

Only 16 Pearl Harbor survivors remain. Read their stories of heroism on CNN

White supremacists flourish on Elon Musk's X

 Under owner Elon Musk, the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a hotbed of white supremacist and neo-Nazi content. A recent headline in the Atlantic doesn’t mince words: “X is a white supremacist site,” reported the Texas Observer.

Musk has allowed formerly banned far-right and neo-Nazi accounts back on the platform, and, in some instances, he’s directly responded to accounts that traffic in white supremacist and neo-Nazi rhetoric. Meanwhile, anonymous accounts that regularly promote racial hate on the platform have seen their follower counts grow substantially as Musk has taken a more hands-off approach to moderation compared to the social media network’s prior owners. 

Anonymity has long been a tactic used by extremists to spread their ideology while avoiding consequences, from Klansmen hoods to online pseudonyms. With such ideas spreading rapidly on X, the Texas Observer has identified the operators of four anonymous accounts that regularly share racist, antisemitic, and neo-Nazi content on the platform. Three of the operators appear to live or have claimed to own property in Texas, where X moderation operations are based and Musk resides.

Through reviewing posts on X, web archives, leak databases, and other social media profiles, the Observer identified the following individuals as the anonymous operators of neo-Nazi X accounts, which had a collective 500,000 followers at their peak: Cyan Cruz, a 40-year-old marketing professional who appears to have lived in Austin and Amarillo and operates the X account TheOfficial1984; Michael Gramer, a 42-year-old retired mechanical engineer who has lived in New Hampshire, operates the X account 9mm_SMG, and has claimed to have a house in Galveston and to be spending time in Dallas; Robert “Bobby” Thorne, a 35-year-old vice president at JP Morgan Chase in Plano, who operates the account Noble1945 and previously operated the account Noble_x_x_; and John Anthony Provenzano, a 30-year-old who appears to live in Virginia, operates the account utism_ (formerly known as JohnnyBullzeye), and, according to a tip and a records request response from the U.S. Navy, works at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Maryland—where the Navy manufactures explosive ordnance.

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Mangino discusses CEO assassination in NYC on Court TV

Watch my interview on Court TV discussing the shocking assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

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Missouri executes man for rape and murder of 9-year-old girl

 The 23rd Execution of 2024

Missouri executed death row inmate Christopher Leroy Collings on December 2, 2024, 17 years after he confessed to raping and killing his friend's 9-year-old stepdaughter, reported the USA TODAY.

Collings, 49, was executed by lethal injection as the mother of his victim, 9-year-old Rowan Ford, watched him die, along with other witnesses in the death chamber at the Potosi Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Collings, himself a father of two now-grown daughters, was convicted of killing Rowan on Nov. 3, 2007, in the tiny southwestern Missouri village of Stella. He confessed to police that he kidnapped a sleeping Rowan from her bedroom and took her to his trailer, where he raped and strangled her, according to court records.

Collings became the 23rd inmate executed in the U.S. this year and the fourth in Missouri, one of the most prolific death penalty states in the nation.

Here's what you need to know about Collings' execution.

In his last words, which he wrote out ahead of his execution, Collings said that "right or wrong, I accept this situation for what it is."

He also apologized.

"To anyone that I have hurt in this life I am sorry," he wrote. "I hope that you are able to get closure and move on."

He continued, saying that "regardless which side of this situation that you are on, you are in my prayers and I hope to see you in heaven one day."

It wasn't immediately clear Tuesday night whether he spoke those words aloud in the death chamber, but death row inmates are typically given time to deliver their last words out loud.

Collings' attorneys, at least one of whom witnessed the execution, said in a statement afterward that "Chris was taken too early from this Earth."

"We share Chris' desire that that his death will provide a measure of closure for the victim's family and that the people hurt by him will be able to carry on," the team said. "What occurred today, though, was an act of vengeance, but will not define Chris, nor will it be how we remember him."

On the night of Nov. 2, 2007, Collings was drinking heavily with two friends. One of the friends, David Spears, had a 9-year-old stepdaughter named Rowan Ford, whose mother was working her overnight shift at Walmart.

At some point that night, the men left Rowan home alone and started hanging out at Collings’ trailer. As the third friend drove Spears home on back roads to avoid getting pulled over, Collings later told police that he raced to Spears’ home and kidnapped a sleeping Rowan, put her in his truck and took her to his trailer, according to court records.

Once there, he raped her, police say he told them. After that, he said he intended to take her home but "freaked out" when she recognized him in the moonlight. That's when he strangled her, court records say.

Collings said he then dumped her body in a cave. She was found on Nov. 9, about a week after her disappearance triggered an Amber Alert and intensive search.

Spears also confessed to police, saying he raped Rowan and strangled her, while Collings denied that Spears was involved, the Missouri attorney general's office said in court documents. Spears ultimately was convicted of child endangerment and hindering prosecution, and got out of prison in 2015. USA TODAY could not find a phone number for Spears.

"I am so proud of the girl that she was turning out to be," Rowan's older sister, Ariane Macks, told USA TODAY this week. "A part of me died when my sister died. I did lose my ray of sunshine. ... She was very shy, but when she opened up, it's like the whole room lit up. Rowan, she was something very special."

The morning before Rowan's funeral, teachers and students at Rowan's school planted a pink dogwood tree in her honor and released purple balloons with notes from her classmates attached. A concrete angel was placed in the spot, as well as a marker reading April 11, 1998, for the day she was born and Nov. 9, 2007, as the day her body was found.

Macks, now 35 and living in Lineville, Alabama, said Collings deserved to be put to death for her sister's killing but that lethal injection falls short.

"I wanted him dead. I still do ... but they could have done something better than lethal injection because he's going out easy," she said. "I cannot even imagine the pain when (Rowan) was strangled. Chris being so tall and so big compared to my little sister, she didn't have a fighting chance."

Collings was a problem child who never formed an emotional attachment to anyone because he experienced severe neglect from his birth parents and several traumas after he was placed in foster care, including at least two rapes, his attorneys argued during his trial.

Collings and his five older siblings ended up in the system − and separated from each other − because their parents "were involved in a lot of crime, involved in a lot of substance abuse," his attorney at the time, Charles Moreland, told jurors, adding that "the evidence will also show that there are seeds of redemption within Christopher Collings."

Collings eventually became a father to two daughters but struggled with an alcohol and marijuana addiction, court records say. Macks recalled Collings' drinking problem, saying he became a different person while drunk, 

In its statement following the execution, Collings' legal team described him as standing at 6 feet, 8 inches tall, "but (he) was truly a gentle giant."

"His booming voice followed by a wide grin would greet you whenever he entered the room," they said. "Chris dismissed our offers for a handshake and would always pull you in for a warm hug."

They added that Collings "loved and cherished his children more than life itself."

"He constantly talked about his daughters and his regrets for not being a part of their lives when they were growing up," they said. "He worked for years to develop a relationship with his daughters and those efforts paid off in recent years. Chris spent hours talking with his daughters, and those moments provided him with hope and satisfaction knowing they had grown into successful young women."

In his arguments for Collings' life to be spared, Weis raised questions about his client's confession, saying it wasn't recorded and was given to then-Wheaton Police Chief Clinton Clark, who had four convictions for absence of office without leave and should never been allowed on the force. He emphasized Spears' own confession to the crime, saying it indicated even further doubt that Collings' alleged confession is the truth, as well as pointed out the extreme disparity in the two men's sentences.

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