Florida executes man for raping and killing a young woman in 1994

 The 21st Execution of 2025

Anthony Wainwright, 54 convicted of raping and killing a woman three decades ago after kidnapping her from a supermarket parking lot was executed  on June 10, 2025 in Florida. The execution was the second of the day, reported NBC News.

Wainwright received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted in the April 1994 killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, a mother of two young children, in Lake City.

The execution began about 6:10 p.m. Wainwright’s shoulders shuddered a couple of times, and he blinked and took several deep breaths before becoming completely still at 6:14 p.m.

Wainwright was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., according to Byran Griffin, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Wainwright made a final statement, but the words were inaudible from the witness room.

He is the sixth person put to death in Florida this year, and another execution is scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but only carried out one execution last year. There were four executions scheduled around the country this week, including another one on Tuesday in Alabama. A temporary stay was issued Monday for an execution scheduled for Thursday in Oklahoma.

Richard Hamilton, the other man convicted in Gayheart’s killing, was also sentenced to death. But he died on death row in January 2023 at the age of 59.

Gayheart’s sister said before the execution that three decades is too long to wait for justice.

“It’s ridiculous how many appeals they get,” Maria David told The Associated Press, adding that each step of the appeals process reopened her family’s wounds. “You have to relive it again because they have to tell the whole story again.”

Wainwright and Hamilton escaped from prison in North Carolina, stole a green Cadillac and burglarized a home the next morning, taking guns and money. Then they drove to Florida and when the Cadillac began to have problems in Lake City, they decided to steal another vehicle.

They confronted Gayheart, a community college student, on April 27, 1994, as she loaded groceries into her blue Ford Bronco, according to court documents. They forced her into the vehicle at gunpoint and drove off. They raped her in the backseat and then took her out of the vehicle and tried to strangle her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, court filings say. They dragged her body several dozen yards from the road and drove off.

The two men were arrested in Mississippi the next day after a shootout with police.

A jury in 1995 convicted Wainwright of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape and unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death.

Wainwright’s lawyers had filed multiple unsuccessful appeals over the years based on what they said were problems with his trial and evidence that he suffered from brain damage and intellectual disability.

Once his execution was scheduled, his lawyers argued in state and federal court filings that his execution should be put on hold to allow time for courts to hear additional legal arguments in his case.

In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyers argued that his case was “marred by critical, systemic failures at virtually every stage and through the signing of his death warrant.” Those failures include flawed DNA evidence that wasn’t disclosed to the defense until after opening statements, erroneous jury instructions, inflammatory and inaccurate closing arguments and missteps by court-appointed lawyers, the filing says.

The filing also said that a jailhouse informant who testified at Wainwright’s trial finally admitted last month that he and another informant had testified in exchange for lighter sentences, a fact that had not been disclosed to the defense.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied Wainwright’s several of his final appeals without comment.

His lawyers filed a last-minute effort to seek a stay of execution Tuesday morning, focusing on claims that he was improperly barred from hiring a lawyer of his choice under state law. The high court denied his request in the evening.

David, Gayheart’s sister, said she felt cheated that Hamilton died before the state could execute him.

She said she was “overcome with emotion” when she heard the governor had signed a death warrant for Wainwright. Her parents both died while waiting for justice to be served, she said.

“There’s nothing that would keep me from seeing this all the way through,” she said.

Her sister loved animals and surprised her by training to become a nurse rather than a veterinarian, David said. Gayheart was two years younger than her sister but became a mother first, and David said she marveled at her sister’s patience with her young children.

“She was here, she mattered, she should be remembered, and she was loved,” David said of her sister.

Over the years, she has kept a book where she put every court filing, from the initial indictment through the latest appeals.

“I’m looking forward to getting the last pieces of paperwork that say he’s been executed to put into the book and never having to think about Anthony Wainwright ever again,” David said.

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Alabama executes man by nitrogen hypoxia for 1988 murder

The  20th Execution of 2025

The state of Alabama has executed Gregory Hunt by nitrogen hypoxia for the 1988 murder of Karen Lane, reported Montgomery Advertiser.

A doctor pronounced Hunt to dead at 6:26 p.m. June 10, 2025. His death marked Alabama's third execution of the year.

Overall, Hunt is the fifth person to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama. The state executed its first inmate by nitrogen hypoxia in 2024. Across the globe, organizations, including the Vatican, have protested the use of nitrogen hypoxia in execution, calling it cruel and unusual punishment.

Execution timeline

In the execution chamber, there is a digital clock, but the seconds are not visible. The following times are approximate.

5:52 p.m. The curtains to the death chamber were opened. Hunt was wrapped in a white sheet and strapped to a gurney. A mask was affixed to his face.

5:54 p.m. Hunt declined to give any last words. He made what appeared to be a peace sign with his left hand.

5:56 p.m. Hunt began taking deep breaths.

5:57 p.m. He began gasping and lifted his head. His entire body began convulsing.

5:59 p.m. Hunt turned his head and then lifted his head. Hunt's head fell back, and he groaned loudly.

6 p.m. Hunt moved his head and gasped. He continued intermittently gasping for the next several minutes.

6:04 p.m. Hunt appeared to take his last breath.

6:19 p.m. Hunt had remained still for the past 15 minutes. His left fist remained clenched. The curtains to the death chamber were closed.

Victim's family: 'End of a nightmare'

John Hamm, the Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner, defended nitrogen hypoxia as a humane way to execute people in Alabama.

Hamm said that five of Lane's family members witnessed the execution, and Hamm read a statement from her family.

"... Make no mistake, this night is not about the life of Greg Hunt," the family said in the statement. "This night is about the horrific death of Karen Sanders Lane, whose life was so savagely taken from her. Karen was shown no mercy. She was not given a second chance. Karen was shown no grace. This is also not about closure or victory. This night represents justice and the end of a nightmare that has coursed through our family for 37 long years."

Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall released statements in support of Lane and her family.

“Decades ago, Karen Lane, at only 32 years old, experienced unimaginable final hours of her young life," Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. "Tonight, the state carried out the lawfully imposed punishment for Gregory Hunt, who is undeniably guilty.

"And after his last-minute attempts to evade justice, he has faced the consequences of his evil crimes against Karen Lane, actions he has admitted to, even in a letter to the victim’s heartbroken father. Alabama stands with Karen Lane, and we pray her loved ones can finally find peace and closure.”

Marshall called Hunt's execution long overdue and expressed his confidence in Hunt's guilt.

“Karen deserves more than silence," Marshall said in a statement. "She deserves to be remembered for who she was, and yet some have made this case about her killer, barely mentioning her name. That is not justice. That is a disgrace. Karen Lane was a daughter and a sister. She was a human being. And tonight, we honor her by speaking the truth and by refusing to let it be buried under political theater.”

On the day of Hunt's execution, he was visited by two of his attorneys. He ate a breakfast of biscuits, eggs, oatmeal and fruit punch and a lunch of bologna, carrots, black-eyed peas, a roll, rice and gravy and fruit punch. Hunt refused a dinner and did not request any special items.

He had no phone calls June 10 and had no witnesses to his death.

More: James Osgood Execution Alabama executes James Osgood for 2010 rape and murder

The death of Karen Lane

Hunt beat Lane to death Aug. 2, 1988 in her home in Cordova. He was charged with sexual abuse, burglary and capital murder.

Hunt admitted murdering Lane but denied that he sexually abused her, even filing a final appeal May 23, claiming he did not sexually abuse Lane. The appeal requested a stay in his execution to allow the court time to process his argument.

Court documents show Hunt beat Lane with his hands, feet and a bar stool. She had 62 individual external injuries to her body. Internally, Lane had more than 20 fractures to her ribs and rib cage, a broken sternum, a lacerated liver and injuries to her aorta.

She died of blunt force trauma and bruising of the brain.

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CREATORS: Prosecuting Parents for Unsafe Sleep Environments

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
June 9, 2025

Every year in this country over 4,500 babies die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Children's Hospital of Philadelphia defines SIDS as "the sudden and unexplained death of an infant under one year of age." SIDS is one of the leading causes of death in babies from 1 month to 1 year of age. It seems to plague otherwise healthy infants, usually during sleep time.

Several states have infant safe sleep laws. In Pennsylvania, the legislature enacted a specific law requiring parents to follow the sleep recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The law provides, "Infants shall be placed in the sleeping position recommended by the AAP." In 1992, the AAP recommended, "Infants should be placed in the supine position for every sleep until the child reaches 1 year of age."

During a 2007 committee hearing on the proposed Pennsylvania legislation, Eileen Carlins, the Director of Support and Education for SIDS of Pennsylvania, told legislators, "Over and over in my job I keep hearing the same thing, they didn't know, they didn't know."

In an effort to educate new parents, the law requires hospitals, birthing centers and health care practitioners to provide educational materials, then ask the parents to sign off on a certification that they received the information.

Delaware, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Colorado have similar laws, but Pennsylvania has taken it a step further. The state is prosecuting parents for failure to provide safe sleep environments. There has been prosecution of parents in other states like Virginia and Indiana for accidental suffocations and "overlays" where a parent sleeps next to an infant and rolls onto the infant, causing death by suffocation.

According to a recent article in Spotlight PA, a nonpartisan investigative journalism website, two sets of Pennsylvania parents face felony charges after police say their infants died while in "unsafe" sleep positions.

While experts and family advocates agree babies should sleep on their backs without anything in the crib, should simply failing to follow the recommendations amount to murder-three or involuntary manslaughter?

In one case, according to newspaper reports, back in May of last year, police in Lebanon County, Pa., responded to the Penn State Health Hershey Medical Center for the death of a three-month-old infant. Police said that the child's mother, Gina Strause, found the child unresponsive inside his crib.

According to police documents, "(Gina) related she went to get the child inside his crib to feed him and that was when she observed he was cold to the touch and appeared blue and she immediately called 911 and performed CPR until EMS arrived."

Police charged Strause, 40, and her husband, David, 42, with endangering the welfare of children, involuntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person. According to police, Strause said she placed the child back in his crib between 1:00 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. "on a 'pillow' and he was placed on his stomach (prone)."

In a second case, 19-year-old Natalee Michele Rasmus is facing murder charges for the death of her infant in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Rasmus is charged with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in the death of her one-month-old daughter in October of 2022.

An autopsy determined the infant's death was caused by asphyxia due to mechanical compression.

Although parents in Pennsylvania are informed of safe sleep environments — being provided a pamphlet and signing a certification may not be enough, and certainly shouldn't be the basis for criminal charges.

An ongoing study by Johns Hopkins University is analyzing the use of an infant sleep assessment tool and motivational interviewing to enhance parent communication on safe sleep.

While the study is still recruiting participants, researchers hypothesize it will improve effective communication on sleep practices, reducing SIDS risk.

There is even research published in eBiomedicine that has identified a potential biomarker for SIDS. Yet, parents devastated by the death of an infant child face the wrath of the criminal justice system.

Nancy Maruyama, the executive director of Sudden Infant Death Services of Illinois, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about safe-sleep practices told Spotlight PA,

"To charge them criminally is a crime, because they have already suffered the worst loss."

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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Inmate whose Supreme Court case changed threshold for executing persons with mental illness dies in prison

Scott Panetti, a convicted murderer diagnosed with schizophrenia who represented himself at trial in a 1920s-era cowboy costume while attempting to subpoena John F. Kennedy and Jesus as witnesses — and whose execution was stayed by a landmark Supreme Court ruling on capital punishment and mental illness — died on May 26 in a prison hospital in Galveston, Texas. He was 67.

The cause was acute hypoxic respiratory failure, according to the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, reported The New York Times.

In the 2007 case Panetti v. Quarterman, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the bar for executing the mentally ill, holding that an individual must have a “rational understanding” of why the state planned to put him to death. (Nathaniel Quarterman was director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.)

An earlier standard required only that a mentally ill person be aware that he or she was going to be executed and why.

“A prisoner’s awareness of the State’s rationale for an execution is not the same as a rational understanding of it,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s 5-4 majority.

Mr. Panetti was first diagnosed with a psychotic disorder when he was 20. He was hospitalized repeatedly for delusions and psychotic episodes over a decade before he killed the parents of his estranged second wife in 1992.

At a hearing to determine if he was competent to serve as his own lawyer, his first wife recalled an episode in which he was convinced that the devil possessed their home, leading him to bury their valuables in the yard. A jury ruled him competent to represent himself.

In his rambling opening statement at trial in 1995, wearing a big cowboy hat and a purple bandanna, he showed off a tattoo and spoke of bull riding and how his father looked like Colonel Sanders.

A standby lawyer at the trial called Mr. Panetti’s courtroom performance “trance-like” and “scary” and the procedure “a judicial farce.” He was found guilty and sentenced to death. 

For decades, prosecutors in Texas argued in state and federal courtrooms that Mr. Panetti was mentally competent to be executed. Although the Supreme Court made it harder to execute the insane when Mr. Panetti’s case came before it, the court did not commute his sentence. The case was returned to lower courts to further weigh his competency.

Testifying for Mr. Panetti, psychiatric experts who had diagnosed him with schizo-affective disorder said he was under the delusion that he was being put to death because of a battle between “the forces of the darkness and God and the angels and the forces of light.”

Texas prosecutors argued that he was faking it. The state said that secretly recorded conversations with his parents “provide conclusive evidence that Panetti has a rational understanding of the relationship between his crime and his punishment,” and that he “has been grossly exaggerating his symptoms while being observed.”

Greg Abbott, who was Texas’s attorney general then (he is now governor), said in 2014, “Panetti knows that he killed his in-laws while his wife and child looked on, and he knows that he has been sentenced to die for that crime.” The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 7-0 against commuting Mr. Panetti’s death sentence.

Texas’s push to execute him drew a national outcry. Opponents said imposing the death penalty on an insane person who had possibly been unaware of his actions crossed a moral line and violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In December 2014, on the date that Mr. Panetti was scheduled to be put to death, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals in New Orleans stayed the execution and ordered a new competency hearing.

In 2022, while the case continued to wend its way through the courts, Mr. Panetti’s lawyer, Gregory Wiercoch, said, “It is unprecedented to be litigating on an execution competency claim for 20 years.”

The next year, a federal judge in Austin, Robert Pitman, ruled that Mr. Panetti should not be executed. “There are several reasons for prohibiting the execution of the insane,” the judge found, “including the questionable retributive value of executing an individual so wracked by mental illness that he cannot comprehend the ‘meaning and purpose of the punishment,’ as well as society’s intuition that such an execution ‘simply offends humanity.’ Scott Panetti is one of these individuals.”

Scott Louis Panetti was born on Feb. 28, 1958, in Hayward, Wis., one of four children of Louis and Yvonne (Empereur) Panetti. At 18, he enlisted in the Navy, and after an honorable discharge joined his parents in Fredericksburg, Texas, where they had moved to manage ranches.

He is survived by his sisters Victoria Panetti-Studer and Jacki Maenius; three children from his first marriage, Chase, Katrina and Mary Perry; a daughter from his second marriage, Amanda Panetti-Lamb; and three grandchildren.

In Fredericksburg, west of Austin, Mr. Panetti dressed in buckskin clothes and claimed to have fought in Vietnam, though he was 15 when the United States withdrew its forces from the country. His marriage to Jane Luckenbach ended in divorce. His second marriage, in 1989, to Sonja Alvarado, was rocky. Several times he was involuntarily committed to Kerrville State Hospital in the grip of delusional episodes.

In the summer of 1992, Ms. Alvarado left him, obtained a restraining order and, with their young daughter, moved to the home of her parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado.

Mr. Panetti stalked the family, peering into the windows at night. One early morning in September 1992, he shaved his head, put on camouflage clothes and broke a glass door to his in-laws’ home. He shot Mr. and Mrs. Alvarado at close range with a rifle. He took his wife and daughter hostage and drove to a friend’s house, where he was living. He changed into a suit and surrendered to the police.

“I was crying the whole time,” Sonja Alvarado said in an interview 15 years later, when Mr. Panetti’s case reached the Supreme Court. “He told me he’d heard voices, that he didn’t know if he was going to kill us or let us go.”

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President takes unprecedented action to unilaterally call in the national guard in California

President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, reported The New York Times.

It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”

Just what the President wanted, unrest in a deep blue state so he could further incite the perception of lawlessness and expand his authoritarian goals.

Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites “10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday night that Mr. Trump was deploying the National Guard in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.

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Federal Court allows colleges and universities to directly pay student-athletes

A US federal judge granted approval Friday of a landmark $2.6 billion class action settlement that transforms college athletics by allowing schools to directly pay student-athletes for the first time in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history, reported Jurist.

In a released statement, NCAA President Charlie Baker said, “This is new terrain for everyone… Opportunities to drive transformative change don’t come often to organizations like ours. It’s important we make the most of this one.”

The settlement resolves antitrust claims brought by  Division I student-athletes in a class action lawsuit challenging NCAA restrictions on Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation and athletic services payments. The case affects over 389,000 class members comprised of current and former student-athletes dating back to 2016.

The settlement creates multiple funds to pay out damages, the majority of which will be paid to class members made up of football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball players. Within each sport, damages will be paid out based on the sport, conference, years played, recruitment ratings, and various performance metrics.

Friday’s settlement also requires the NCAA to enact new rules for student-athlete compensation over the next 10 years. Schools in the NCAA’s five largest (“Power 5”) conferences will supply benefits and direct compensation to student-athletes in amounts worth up to 22% of the average annual athletic revenue for participating schools. Revenue is estimated to be more than $20 million per school in the 2025-26 school year and over $19 billion in total for the 10-year period.

Shortly after Friday’s court ruling, it was announced that former Major League Baseball executive Bryan Seeley had been appointed to run the College Sports Commission, a newly-formed organization that will oversee student-athlete revenue distribution for the Power 5 schools.

The case involves a contentious legal history starting with O’Bannon v. NCAA. The 2015 case established that NCAA amateurism — a doctrine purported to maintain the fundamental character of collegiate sports — did not exempt the NCAA from federal antitrust laws. However, the court still allowed the NCAA to limit student-athlete payments to the full cost of attending college.

In 2019, California approved Senate Bill 206, allowing for student-athletes playing in-state to accept NIL compensation, and several other states passed similar laws the following year. A 2021 Supreme Court ruling further established that the NCAA was violating antitrust regulations by restricting athlete pay. In July 2021, the NCAA adopted an interim policy that allowed student-athletes to receive NIL payments while maintaining amateur eligibility. NIL payments are made by “Collectives” — independent organizations that fundraise money for the universities. 

Friday’s judicial approval came from Senior Judge Claudia Wilken of the US District for the Northern District of California. Wilken is the same judge who originally heard O’Bannon v. NCAA.

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SCOTUS already capitulated to broad presidential authority on travel bans

President Trump has signed a new travel ban. Travelers from 12 countries will be barred from entering the US, and people from an additional seven countries will face partial travel restrictions, reported NPR.

The proclamation goes into effect June 9 — and fulfills something Trump has long-promised: to bring back the travel ban from his first term.

But that ban was the subject of many legal challenges. Some legal scholars say President Trump has learned a lot since then.

In Trump v. Hawaii, a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court gave broad leeway to presidential authority. The Supreme Court upheld President Trump's travel ban that barred nearly all travelers from five mainly Muslim countries as well as North Korea and Venezuela.

The president's proclamation was "squarely within the scope of Presidential authority under the INA," the court wrote in its majority opinion, referring to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The court acceded broadly to presidential power. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, noted that the INA exudes deference to the president. The executive order, he wrote, was more detailed than similar orders by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.

Roberts then deferred to the president's power. The only thing a president has to signal is that entry for people from various countries would be detrimental to the interest of the United States. The president undoubtedly fulfilled that requirement here, the court noted.

The president, Roberts said, has extraordinary power to express his opinions to the country, as well. The plaintiffs argued that Trump's past campaign and other statements about Muslims should be taken into account, but the majority said it is not the court's role to do that.

The upshot of the court's precedents is clear, he said. The court should not inhibit the president's flexibility in responding to changing world conditions, and any court inquiry into matters of into national security is highly constrained. As long as the president presents an explanation for the travel ban that is "plausibly related" to a legitimate national security objective, Roberts said, he is on firm constitutional ground.

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Pennsylvania criminalizes poor parenting

Two sets of Pennsylvania parents face felony charges after police say their infants died in unsafe sleep positions, reported Spotlight PA.

While experts and family advocates say young babies should sleep on their backs without anything in the crib, simply failing to follow the recommendations shouldn’t amount to a crime.

In both cases, brought in the past six months, law enforcement say the parents knowingly put their children at risk. Parents from Lebanon County are accused of putting their son to sleep on his stomach with a pillow in the crib (the mother told PennLive she put her son on his back, but that he had learned how to roll over). A mother from Luzerne County, meanwhile, was charged after police say she let her daughter sleep face down in a U-shaped pillow.

Law enforcement argued in charging documents that the parents should have known better. They cited signed acknowledgements created as part of a 2010 law the state legislature passed to educate parents about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The law requires hospitals, birthing centers, and health care practitioners to provide educational materials, then ask the parents to certify they received them.

The statement is voluntary, and there is a box noting if parents refused to sign.

The lawmaker who championed the measure, former state Rep. Lawrence Curry (D., Montgomery), died in 2018. News reports from the time say the bill was written with input from two safe-sleep experts with Cribs for Kids, a Pittsburgh-based organization that seeks to prevent sleep-related deaths.

Neither expert was available to comment, but other people dedicated to educating parents and preventing SIDS deaths oppose bringing criminal charges against grieving parents and note that there is no law against stomach sleeping.

“To charge them criminally is a crime, because they have already suffered the worst loss,” said Nancy Maruyama, the executive director of Sudden Infant Death Services of Illinois, a nonprofit organization that educates the public about safe-sleep practices and provides support to families who have experienced the loss of an infant.

“There’s nothing else you could have done to me that would have caused any more pain than the payment I had,” said Maruyama, who lost her son in 1985. “My heart’s broken.”

Safe-sleep experts stressed that these situations are not as cut and dried as a parent should have known better.

They talked about potential contributing factors like the differences in time spent educating parents in the hospital, if someone a parent trusts tells them stomach sleeping is OK, and even images parents see online that show an infant sleeping on their stomach.

The law “says that families have to receive that education, but it doesn’t say how that education is delivered, and it doesn’t state how families’ understanding or learning is evaluated,” said Devon George, chief programs officer at Cribs for Kids. (George was not involved in the drafting of the law.)

In Lebanon County, Gina and David Strause were charged in May with involuntary manslaughter, recklessly endangering another person, and endangering the welfare of children after the death of their son Gavin. Gina Strause told PennLive she put her son on his back, but that he was able to roll over. She told the outlet she did not recall taking home safe-sleep instructions.

In Luzerne County, Natalee Rasmus was charged in December with third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, and endangering the welfare of children after her 1-month-old daughter, Avaya, died.

Officers say they found the baby face down in a bassinet propped up on a U-shaped pillow linked to other infant deaths.

“Yeah, she wouldn’t sleep, she’ll just scream, so she has to be like propped up,” Rasmus, who was 17 at the time her daughter was born, told the investigating officer, according to the documents.

Rasmus’ public defender did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the district attorneys in Lebanon and Luzerne Counties.

Maruyama said it’s her job to use evidence-based, peer-reviewed information to educate people with a baby about safe-sleep recommendations.

“But, you know, sometimes they’re just so tired and they just want their child to sleep, and they know if they put them on their tummy, they’ll sleep,” she said.

In 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics first recommended that infants sleep on their backs or sides. Four years later, the organization changed the recommendation to only back sleeping. Since then, SIDS rates have plummeted, although sleep-related deaths remain a leading cause of infant mortality.

That’s what prompted the 2010 law, which directed the Pennsylvania Department of Health to create and recommend safe-sleep materials.

The “information provided to parents must include risk factors associated with sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) and advise them about safe sleep practices,” a department spokesperson told Spotlight PA.

The agency provides a brochure that complies with Act 73 in hard copy and electronic format. That brochure is two pages long and repeats recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics that babies should not sleep with others and should sleep on their backs in an uncluttered crib.

The state also funds PA Safe Sleep, which provides birthing hospitals with services including patient education information and expert training, and safe-sleep education at the county level through children and youth agencies.

George said it’s important to question how hospitals are delivering information and evaluating what parents are learning.

But the most important question about these situations, she said, should be: “How are we helping families? How are we supporting families?”

Of the 343 infant deaths reported in Pennsylvania in 2022 (the most recent year data is available), unsafe sleep factors were present in 68 cases, according to a state report.

While education is crucial to drop the rates of these deaths, it is not enough on its own, said Michael Goodstein, a neonatologist at WellSpan hospital in York County. He is also the director of the county Cribs for Kids program and a member of an American Academy of Pediatrics subcommittee on sudden unexpected infant deaths.

A parent who watches a video with their doctor and gets all their questions on safe sleep answered versus the parent who gets a handout will have a different level of understanding on the topic, Goodstein said.

Like all experts who spoke to Spotlight PA, Goodstein said this is a complex issue that needs more attention, more awareness, and more research.

“It’s really important to follow the safe-sleep recommendations,” Goodstein said. “I’m not going to say it’s easy to do. Babies get fussy and parents are sleep deprived, and at some point, they sometimes do things that might help the baby get back to sleep faster, so that they get some sleep, but in the end, is not a safe thing to do.”

Rare charges

It’s extremely rare for parents to be charged with a crime after their infants die sleeping on their stomachs, said Daniel Nevins, who has over 20 years of experience as a criminal defense attorney.

Nevins said he couldn’t name another case off the top of his head with similar facts.

Spotlight PA identified a handful of criminal cases nationwide related to the deaths of infants sleeping in Boppy pillows, like the one police say Rasmus used. Charges have also been brought against parents who slept in the same bed as their child.

In the recent Pennsylvania cases, Nevins said the burden of proof for prosecutors is high.

To secure a conviction for involuntary manslaughter — which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison — prosecutors will have to prove that the parents acted dangerously or recklessly and that they should have known better.

For third-degree murder — which can be punished with up to 40 years in prison — prosecutors do not have to prove that the death was intentional but do have to demonstrate malice.

“The commonwealth had better think long and hard about whether or not they have enough evidence to pursue these types of charges,” Nevins said.

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Autocracy 101: Arrest the opposition

Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is launching an investigation into the charges filed against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and the mayor of Newark, N.J., saying the moves appears to violate Justice Department policy, reported The Hill.

McIver was charged last month after a scuffle with Department of Homeland Security officers outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after they began to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D).

Alina Habba, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey and former personal attorney to President Trump, charged McIver with assaulting law enforcement, saying she used her forearms to push back against agents.

Habba’s office has already moved to dismiss the trespassing charges initially filed against Baraka, earning a reprimand from the judge in the case who cited an “apparent rush in this case, culminating … in the embarrassing retraction of charges.”

“Ms. Habba’s unprecedented charging decision is a blatant attempt to intimidate Members of Congress and to deter us from carrying out our constitutional oversight duties. It appears Ms. Habba brought these charges in violation of long-standing Department of Justice (DOJ) policies designed to prevent exactly this type of politically motivated abuse of prosecutorial power,” Raskin wrote.

Raskin fired off a series of questions about the charges brought against both McIver and Baraka.

That includes whether there was any contact with the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ. 

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“DOJ prosecutors must consult with the Public Integrity Section before initiating an investigation of Members of Congress and must seek the Section’s approval before bringing charges. 21 Reports suggest, however, that Ms. Habba did not,” Raskin wrote.  

“The consultation requirement is designed to guard against a rampant Executive Branch weaponizing the vast apparatus of federal law enforcement against the President’s perceived enemies, or even the perception that a DOJ investigation or prosecution was motivated by improper political purpose. The Justice Manual is clear that approval from the Public Integrity Section is required before charging a Member of Congress with a crime based on actions taken in their official capacity.”

The Justice Department said it is considering removing the requirement that prosecutors first consult with the Public Integrity Section.

Raskin asks the DOJ whom Habba consulted before bringing charges, if she coordinated with Trump or any White House staff, and to turn over all communications regarding the charges.

For her part, McIver has denied any wrongdoing and noted she rejected a plea deal from Habba, saying it pushed her to “admit to doing something that I did not do.”

“I came there to do my job and conduct an oversight visit, and they wanted me to say something differently, and I’m not doing that. I’m not going to roll over and stop doing my job because they don’t want me to, or they want to neglect the fact that we needed to be in there to see what was going on and that detention center, and so, absolutely, no, I was not going to do that,” McIver said last month during an appearance on CNN.

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Creators: The Presidential Pardon as a Tool of Political Repression

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
June 3, 2025

American presidents are empowered by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States." The clemency power can refer to multiple forms of presidential mercy:

• Pardons to forgive past crimes and restore civil rights.
• Commutations completely or partially reduce sentences for people in prison or on community supervision.
• Remissions reduce financial penalties associated with convictions.
• Respites are temporary reprieves usually granted to inmates for medical reasons.

All presidents have exercised their constitutional authority to grant mercy to those serving a sentence or relieving those of the burden of a criminal record.

According to the New York Times, "President Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs — using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals."

President Donald Trump has used his pardon power, "to assert personal dominance over processes generally, if not always, governed by established ethical and institutional guardrails." He professes to be tough-on-crime, "but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and the laws."

This week, he justified pardoning Scott Jenkins, the former sheriff of Culpeper County, Va., and a political ally sentenced to 10 years for bribery, saying Mr. Jenkins had been "dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized" DOJ during the Biden administration. In fact, Mr. Jenkins was convicted after evidence showed that he had taken $75,000 in bribes in exchange for making wealthy business owners auxiliary deputy sheriffs in his department.

Trump's mercy extended to the son of a political fund-raiser who happened to be a confessed tax cheat. Then there is the donor to Trump's 2016 campaign who was convicted of campaign fiance fraud. Trump also pardoned a former Republican congressman from Staten Island who invoked Trump's name in his unsuccessful effort to defend himself against tax charges.

The list goes on, Trump pardoned a Long Island labor leader who failed to report $300,000 in gifts; Todd and Julie Chrisley, the reality TV couple known for "Chrisley Knows Best," after they were found guilty of a $36 million fraud and tax evasion; and the co-founder of Death Row Records, who, according to the Times, had endorsed Trump while serving a hefty sentence for conspiracy to commit murder.

Ed Martin, the former nominee for U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., and current Department of Justice pardon attorney, coined the phrase, "No MAGA left behind." Martin has suggested that the DOJ should investigate Trump's adversaries.

"If they can be charged, we'll charge them," Martin told The New York Times, "But if they can't be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed."

During Trump's first term, he drew criticism for granting clemency to many people who had a "personal or political connection to the president," and he often circumvented the formal process for considering clemency requests, according to analyses by the Lawfare blog. According to The Pew Research, President Joe Biden also circumvented the process at times, including when he pardoned his son, Hunter.

Former President Bill Clinton drew bipartisan condemnation for pardoning a fugitive commodities trader, Marc Rich, on his last day in office in 2001. And Clinton, like Biden, also pardoned a family member. On the same day he pardoned Rich, he pardoned his half-brother Roger Clinton, who had been convicted of selling cocaine, reported Pew.

The most famous act of clemency in U.S. history was the pardon of a former president. On Sept. 8, 1974, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, former President Gerald Ford preemptively pardoned former President Richard Nixon for any federal crimes he "committed or may have committed."

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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Four executions schedule in four states in next nine days

Four men are set to be executed in four states over the course of four days in the United States next week, according to Newsweek.

The men—Anthony Wainwright in Florida, Gregory Hunt in Alabama, Stephen Stanko in South Carolina, and John Hanson in Oklahoma—are scheduled to be put to death between June 10 and June 13.

The Context

Nineteen men have been executed in the U.S. so far this year. Most have been put to death via lethal injection, but Alabama and Louisiana have carried out executions using nitrogen gas and South Carolina has executed two men by firing squad.

Another 11 have been scheduled for the rest of the year in eight states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, including Wainright, Hunt, Stanko, and Hanson.

It comes after President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order after returning to office in January to help preserve capital punishment in states that have struggled to maintain supplies of lethal injection drugs. 

Anthony Wainwright

Wainwright, 54, is scheduled for execution by lethal injection at 6 p.m. on June 10.

He was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Carmen Gayheart in 1994. According to court records, Wainwright and another man, Richard Hamilton, abducted Gayheart from a grocery store parking lot in Lake City, Florida, after escaping a minimum-custody prison in North Carolina. Wainwright admitted he had kidnapped and raped Gayheart but said Hamilton, who died on death row in 2023, was the one who killed her.

Appeals have been filed over the years concerning attorney misconduct, criticism of DNA evidence found at the scene and a letter from Hamilton claiming he was the one who shot Gayheart, but all were denied, according to The Florida Times-Union.

Gregory Hunt

Hunt is scheduled to be executed by nitrogen gas on June 10 for the 1988 beating death of Karen Lane. Prosecutors said Hunt broke into Lane's apartment and killed her.

Alabama last year became the first state to carry out an execution using nitrogen gas amid difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs. If Hunt's execution goes ahead, it will be the state's fifth execution using the method.

The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the inmate's face so that they breathe pure nitrogen gas, are deprived of oxygen and die.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has defended the method as "humane and effective," but some witnesses to nitrogen hypoxia executions have described "violent writhing" and other signs of suffering and distress.

 John Hanson

Hanson, 61, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection in Oklahoma on June 12.

He was sentenced to death in Tulsa County, Oklahoma, after being convicted of carjacking, kidnapping and killing Mary Bowles after he and an accomplice, Victor Miller, kidnapped the woman from a Tulsa shopping mall in 1999.

Prosecutors allege they drove Bowles to a gravel pit near Owasso, where Miller shot and killed the property owner, Jerald Thurman. According to prosecutors, they drove Bowles a short distance away, where Hanson shot and killed Bowles. Miller received a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for his role in the crimes.

Hanson had been serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Louisiana for several federal convictions that predate his state death sentence. But he was transferred to Oklahoma custody in March by federal officials acting on President Donald Trump's sweeping executive order to more actively support the death penalty. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentler Drummond and his predecessor have sought Hanson's transfer during former president Joe Biden's administration, but the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had denied it.

Oklahoma's Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 to reject clemency for Hanson last month.

Stephen Stanko

Stanko, 57, is scheduled for execution in South Carolina on June 13.

He is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner's home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying and then shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said.

He is also on death row for killing his girlfriend in her home. He raped the woman's teenage daughter before slashing her throat. She survived and testified against him at one of his trials. Stanko admitted to the killings. His attorneys argue that he was either not guilty by reason of insanity or that he shouldn't get the death penalty because of his mental illness.

Stanko on Friday chose to die by lethal injection. His lawyers said he was troubled by the apparently lingering death of the last person to die by firing squad in the state. He had a choice between the firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair.

What People Are Saying

Matt Wells, deputy director of Reprieve US, said in a statement to Newsweek: "The message being sent from the top is clear: President Trump wants to see more people being executed, and with most federal death sentences commuted, in the short-term at least that means more executions at the state level.

"States are rushing to resume executions, recklessly disregarding the risk that they will cause extreme pain and suffering."

Wells added: "As states rush to kill, ignoring red flags that their execution protocols are a recipe for torture, there is every danger we'll witness more prisoners dying in agony. Evidence shows that executions scheduled in haste are more likely to go wrong. Speeding up the machinery of death may seem politically expedient in the age of Trump, but in practice, it leads to more slow and painful deaths on the gurney."

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, told Newsweek that the executions "provide multiple examples of how the death penalty is reserved for the least among us. The common thread among nearly everyone facing execution in the U.S. is present in the four executions set to take place over four days next week - abuse, addiction and neglect at childhood. Mental illness or brain damage is present in three of the four. Two of the men have co-defendants who are the more culpable killers, who are not being executed. Failures of appointed defense attorneys, including missed deadlines or simply a failure to adequately prepare for trial, may well have determined the path that Wainwright and Hunt are on.

"None of this is necessary because just as we do in the vast majority of murder cases, we can be safe from these men and punish them severely by throwing away the key and letting them die of old age in prison."

The Rev. Jeff Hood, who is a spiritual adviser to two of the men scheduled for execution next week, told Newsweek: "I've journeyed with Anthony Wainwright for over three years. He's no monster. He's become my friend. I hope that he will forgive my inaction as I stand in the execution chamber and pray while Florida executes him."

He added that Hunt "should be at the epicenter of any conversation about redemption. He has transformed from brutal murderer into a faithful pastor to his neighbors on death row. It has been my honor to have sat at his feet and learned from his ministry."

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement, after the state's pardon and parole board denied clemency for Hanson last month: "The Biden Administration protected this monster from justice for too long. Now is the time for him to atone for the pain and suffering he has wrought. Justice will be delivered when the death penalty is rightly served on June 12."

President Donald Trump's executive order on the death penalty said: "The Government's most solemn responsibility is to protect its citizens from abhorrent acts, and my Administration will not tolerate efforts to stymie and eviscerate the laws that authorize capital punishment against those who commit horrible acts of violence against American citizens."

What's Next

If all four executions go ahead next week, it will bring the total number of executions this year to 23.

Another two executions are scheduled for later in June. Thomas Lee Gudinas has been scheduled for execution in Florida on June 24 and Richard Gerald Jordan is set to be executed in Mississippi on June 25.

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Trump turns on Federalist Society for recommending SCOTUS justices that won't fall in line with administration

The Federalist Society was the force behind Trump’s third of the Supreme Court. Now, MAGA wants to see the group’s demise, reported Politico.

Late Thursday evening, Trump attacked the conservative legal giant and Federalist Society’s former executive vice president Leonard Leo — a key figure in his judicial selections during his first term — calling him a “real ‘sleazebag’” in a Truth Social post. “I am so disappointed in The Federalist Society because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations,” he wrote.

It was a remarkable souring on the nonprofit that supported Trump’s push to install hundreds of judges across the federal judiciary and tilt courts in conservatives’ favor.

But the president’s allies had been sowing discontent with Leo’s operation long before Trump publicly turned on his onetime adviser. Frustration had been growing among Trump and MAGA loyalists as a series of court rulings have hampered elements of Trump’s second term agenda — including by the Supreme Court, appellate courts and district courts — and by judges Trump installed on the bench during his first term with Leo and the Federalist Society’s guidance.

Now conflict is openly breaking out among the constellation of conservative judicial leaders that used to operate alongside one another.

“Nobody knew who Leonard Leo was before President Trump gave him a key role picking judges,” Mike Davis, a key Trump ally on judicial nominations who now runs the conservative advocacy group the Article III Project, said in an interview. “Leonard Leo took too much credit from President Trump and he got filthy rich then he abandoned President Trump, especially during the lawfare against Trump.”

On Friday, conservative activist Laura Loomer posted on X that she’s been warning for weeks that anyone from the Federalist Society shouldn’t be in Trump’s inner circle, arguing that the organization has sought to undermine him.

The Federalist Society did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Leo said in a statement, “I’m very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There’s more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it’s ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump’s most important legacy.”

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump’s judicial picks are “America First judges” who respect the President’s authority as opposed to “unelected politicians in robes.”

Founded in 1982 during Ronald Reagan’s first term, the Federalist Society has long been the preeminent conservative legal organization in the country. Members of the society can be found at all levels of government and the group has been widely credited with helping Republican lawmakers install conservative-minded jurists across the federal judiciary.

Leo and the Federalist Society have been boxed out of the judicial nomination process as the second Trump White House has begun to name jurists for vacancies. But the Federalist Society had already been making moves in anticipation of some tension with Trump, given his recent rhetoric on the judiciary, said one person in conservative legal circles granted anonymity because of the sensitive dynamics.

Whereas the former leadership was averse to involving the organization in politics, the new CEO Sheldon Gilbert has realized that the Federalist Society cannot be on the wrong side of a Republican White House and has been strengthening his connections around the administration, the person said.

Separate from his work with the Federalist Society, Leo also chairs conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. CRC touts close ties to Trump — the firm’s clients are involved in White House policy discussions and several of the firm’s employees have left in recent months to join the administration with Leo’s “blessing and support,” said a person familiar with Leo’s operation, granted anonymity to discuss private dynamics.

Yet Davis, who says he advises the White House on judicial nominations, contended that Leo and his allies have sought to undercut Trump. He pointed to the recent nomination of Emil Bove, a top Justice Department aide, to sit on the Third Circuit as a flashpoint in the MAGA judicial wars.

The nomination has divided conservative legal circles between those cheering the potential elevation of Trump’s fiercest enforcer at the Justice Department and those concerned that the nomination forecasts Trump’s intent to nominate judges loyal to him during his second term. Prominent conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan, who has spoken at more than 200 Federalist Society events by his own count, vocally opposed Bove’s nomination, prompting social media pushback from administration officials and Davis allies.

 The groups that used to all share the same goal in Trump’s first term — getting conservative jurists on the bench — are now riven by the split that Trump widened even further with his Thursday comments.

“There’s a lot of people who voted for this president and followed him because they felt they could finally have judges who would read words and not make up what those words meant,” said John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at New Civil Liberties Alliance and longtime member of the Federalist Society. “And those people are on his side all this time, and they are often a useful resource, and why chase them away? Makes no sense to me.”

The New Civil Liberties Alliance is a libertarian non-profit that has challenged the president’s tariffs in court. The organization has taken funding from groups linked to Leo in the past, but Vecchione denies Leo having any involvement in the group’s tariff lawsuit.

For Trump’s allies, the Federalist Society now represents the old guard that “hide[s] behind a philosophy” instead of supporting the Republican cause, said one conservative consultant, who was granted anonymity in order to speak freely about dynamics in the Republican legal world. They want more people like Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and fewer people like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the person said.

Barrett, whom Trump nominated in 2020 to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has come under fire among the President’s allies in recent months after she sided with the court’s liberals and Chief Justice John Roberts in rebuffing a bid by the Trump administration to quickly block a court order requiring the administration to pay out $2 billion for past foreign aid work.

Barrett again faced a barrage of attacks when she joined the court’s Democratic appointees in dissenting from a decision that complicated efforts to mount a broad legal challenge to Trump’s bid to deport Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. Her reputation among Trump’s allies has transformed from being known as a bonafide conservative to a so-called member of the liberal resistance to the president.

“They don’t want someone who’s just going to be like, ‘We’re going to follow the law and do the originalistic thing, and whatever the result is, so may be it,’” said the consultant. “They want someone [who] can figure out how to get the result that they want.”

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Oklahoma enacts unconstitutional law imposing death penalty for sex offense against a child

People convicted of sex offenses against children can be sentenced to death or life without parole on their first offense under a new law signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt, according to the Oklahoma Voice.  The U.S. Supreme Court has unequivocally determined that the death penalty may apply only in cases where the life of the victim has been taken. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for the rape of a child when the victim did not die and the crime was not intended to cause death. 

Senate Bill 599, authored by Sen. Warren Hamilton, R-McCurtain, allows prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for the rape of a child under 14 for first-time offenders. Under existing law, the offender must have been previously convicted of the sex crime to be eligible for the death penalty. 

For lewd molestation against a child under the age of 12, an offender can receive the death penalty, a sentence of at least 10 years or life or life without parole. The law currently requires a sentence of at least 25 years of incarceration.  

“Oklahoma is sending a clear and unequivocal message, crimes against our most vulnerable citizens, our children, will be met with the harshest consequences,” Hamilton said in a statement.

The Oklahoma District Attorney’s Council was involved in the crafting of this legislation and made recommendations to shape its language, he said. Prosecutors will continue to have discretion about which sentence to seek.

Hamilton said this law makes Oklahoma one of the states with the toughest penalties for child sex offenses.

“I deeply appreciate Gov. Stitt for signing this crucial legislation,” he said. “His action reaffirms our state’s commitment to justice and to protecting children from predators who, frankly, don’t deserve a second chance.”

The legislation passed through the Legislature with the only “no” votes coming from some House and Senate Democrats. 

The new law takes effect Nov. 1.

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DOE sues New York for allegedly violating civil rights law with Native American mascot ban

The US Department of Education (DOE) announced Friday that New York state has violated federal civil rights law by banning Native American school mascots while permitting mascots derived from other ethnic groups, reported Jurist. This comes after the DOE launched an investigation into the state’s mascot controversy last month.

The investigation was launched after The Native American Guardians Association (NAGA) filed a complaint with the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), alleging that the New York Department of Education (NYDOE) and the New York Board of Regents (BOR) are violating federal civil rights law by forcing the Massapequa School District to eliminate its “Chiefs” mascot based on its association with Native American culture. In 2023 the BOR voted unanimously to adopt a NYDOE regulation that prohibits the use of Indigenous team names, mascots, and logos by public schools. Four Long Island school districts filed a federal lawsuit challenging the regulation, claiming that it violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal district court judge in March, finding that the school districts did not provide enough evidence that the policy infringed on First Amendment rights.

In its subsequent investigation, the OCR concluded that New York’s policy was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it bans names, mascots, and logos based on Native American race and national origin, but does not ban those “that appear to have been derived from other racial or ethnic groups, such as the ‘Dutchmen’ and the ‘Huguenots.'” Title VI prohibits discrimination based on “race, color, religion, sex or national origin” in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon stated in Friday’s press release:

Rather than focus on learning outcomes, the New York Department of Education and Board of Regents has set its sights on erasing Massapequa’s history—while turning a blind eye to other districts’ mascots that are derived from or connected to other racial or ethnic groups. We will stand with the people of Massapequa until commonsense is restored and justice is served, and until New York comes into compliance with federal law.

The OCR states that New York must rescind the regulation prohibiting the use of Indigenous mascots. The OCR also demands that the state issue letters of apology to Indigenous tribes which acknowledge the BOR “violated Title VI by discriminating against Native Americans” and “silenced the voices of Native Americans and attempted to erase Native American history.” If these conditions are not met within ten days, the DOE notes that it may refer the matter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for enforcement proceedings, and federal funding may be pulled from the state.

This comes amidst a spate of legal actions surround the DOE. Last month, a federal judge in New Hampshire granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the DOE from withholding federal funding from schools that implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In March, a coalition of Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for sweeping layoffs across the DOE, stating that the layoffs represent an illegal dismantling of an agency created by Congress. Executive Order 14242, signed March 20, outlines President Donald Trump’s intention to close the DOE.

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Big news from PA Supreme Court: ARD not counted as prior offense in subsequent DUI charge

Pennsylvania Supreme Court makes big decision in Commonwealth v. Shifflett, essentially reinstating Chichkin. In 2012, George Thomas Shifflett was charged with driving under the influence (DUI) and accepted into an Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) program. In 2022, Shifflett was involved in another DUI incident and was charged as a second-time offender based on his previous ARD acceptance. Shifflett pled guilty to the 2022 DUI but contested the use of his 2012 ARD as a prior offense for sentencing purposes, arguing it was unconstitutional under Alleyne v. United States.

The Adams County Court of Common Pleas granted Shifflett's motion to exclude evidence of his 2012 ARD and sentenced him as a first-time offender. The Commonwealth appealed, and the Superior Court vacated the sentence, remanding for resentencing as a second-time offender, citing recent Superior Court decisions that overruled Commonwealth v. Chichkin, which had held that using ARD as a prior offense for sentencing was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reviewed the case to determine if considering Shifflett's ARD as a prior offense for sentencing violated Alleyne. The Court held that ARD does not equate to a conviction because it lacks the procedural safeguards of a criminal trial, such as the right to a jury trial and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, using ARD as a prior offense for sentencing enhancement is unconstitutional under Alleyne.

The Court concluded that Section 3806 of the Motor Vehicle Code, which includes ARD in the definition of a prior offense, is facially unconstitutional to the extent it allows ARD to be used for sentencing enhancement. The Court reversed the Superior Court's order and remanded the case for reinstatement of Shifflett's original sentence as a first-time offender.

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Autocracy 101: Crush the free press

Joanne Lipman on Catie Couric Media:

Last fall, I created a scorecard for the journalism class I teach at Yale. It listed five strategies that authoritarian-leaning leaders have used to crush the free press in their countries. I flashed the scorecard on a screen. “Take a picture,” I suggested to the students, “and keep track of which of those strategies might migrate to the United States.”

I had culled the five strategies from a Washington Post essay, “How the quiet war against press freedom could come to America,” by New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger. His piece focused on leaders in democracies like Hungary and India who have weaponized existing laws and norms to cripple the news media, deploying an arsenal that includes normalizing harassment of journalists, abusing regulatory authority, and exploiting the courts with frivolous lawsuits.

Sulzberger’s piece was intended to be a warning. The Trump administration apparently read it as a playbook.

Like my students, I’ve been keeping score too. I’ve been around for a while — my first Trump-adjacent article was about the “new” USFL (Google it!) — so I’m not surprised by much. But honestly, it is astonishing how quickly the scorecard has filled out. And it’s growing longer by the day.

By my latest count – and it is likely incomplete– there have been more than 100 actions that threaten American press freedom, most taken since the November election or shortly before. And that doesn’t count yesterday’s headlines about Trump allegedly seeking more than $25 million from Paramount to settle a lawsuit over routine editing of a CBS “60 Minutes” interview. The case is so widely considered frivolous – my pal Katie Couric yesterday called it “bullshit” – that some company execs fear settling it may lead to criminal charges of bribery.

All of these measures have been reported individually. But the visual list is a gut punch — and a wake-up call.

Here’s the original scorecard:

Go HERE to see Trump Administration scorecard.

Mainstream media, for the most part, has remained steadfast in the face of the onslaught. Reporting from major outlets, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and ProPublica, remains robust, as does that from smaller news organizations and independent journalists, like those writing on Substack.

And to be clear, there are valid criticisms of the news media. Trust in the press has been declining for about half a century, long before the current moment, for a variety of reasons, including some that were self-inflicted.

But what’s happening now is an order of magnitude greater than anything we have seen before. And it’s taking a toll — from threatening journalists’ safety to prompting self-censorship among news organizations for fear of reprisals for factual reporting. Already, executives at news organizations from CBS and WNET to The New York Post have allegedly pressured newsrooms to tone down or even kill some coverage of the Trump administration.

I’m a firm believer in the notion, which I realize some colleagues think is outdated, that the role of the news media isn’t to be the resistance. It is to hold power to account and to seek the truth, regardless of who is in power.

If this scorecard shows us anything, it illustrates that the watchdog role is more important than ever, and how crucial it is for journalists, and all of us, to hold the line.

As Sulzberger rightly pointed out in a recently updated speech on the topic, “Fear is contagious. But courage is also contagious.”