CREATORS: Your Car is Spying on You

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
May 20, 2025

Most late-model vehicles have the ability to log speed, when and where a vehicle's lights are turned on, which doors are opened and closed at specific locations as well as gear shifts, odometer readings, ignition cycles — and that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Preinstalled safety and performance features that car dealers push on consumers can increase a driver's exposure to government surveillance and the likelihood of being the subject of a police investigation.

As the U.S. Supreme Court has extended protections to the privacy of your smartphone, your car has unexpectedly become a safe haven for law enforcement to access your personal information without a warrant.

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, protects cell phone location information. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court recognized that location information collected by cell providers creates a "detailed chronicle of a person's physical presence compiled every day, every moment over years."

Subsequent court rulings have clearly established that individuals can maintain an expectation of privacy in information that they provide to third parties. As a result, the police must now get a warrant before obtaining cell phone data.

According to documents reviewed by WIRED Magazine, law enforcement agencies regularly train on how to take advantage of "connected cars."

For instance, the California Highway Patrol trains officers on how to acquire data using a variety of hypothetical scenarios, each describing how vehicle data can be acquired based on the year, make, and model of a vehicle.

When police are focused on a suspect, they will often use a technique known as a "ping" to geographically locate a specific device known to belong to that suspect. A cellphone ping can put a specific person in the area of a cellphone tower at or near a specific time.

However, according to WIRED, when police have a crime scene and no suspect, investigators will rely on a procedure known as a "tower dump," requesting that an Internet Service Provider cast a wider net and identify virtually any devices that have connected to a specific cell tower during a certain period of time. Investigators can examine the data and analyze it contemporaneously with access to storefront surveillance footage, traffic cameras and even doorbell cameras to identify a person or vehicle.

In some instances, a vehicle owner who had not purchased a safety or performance subscription may still be producing data that is being maintained by the manufacturer and ultimately available for review by law enforcement.

Access to personal information goes beyond what police might find when trying to recreate an individual's whereabouts — more alarming is what an individual may voluntarily make available to police.

Plugging into your vehicle is the same as throwing your personal information in the garbage and putting it out on the curb. In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a California case that the Fourth Amendment does not require police obtain a warrant before searching trash containers placed on the curb.

No person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in items left in a public place. "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection," said the justices. That goes for personal information dumped into a vehicle's data system.

An individual who rents a vehicle and plugs their phone in for directions, or music, or to make a hands-free call may have unwittingly left their personal information in the vehicle. It's like throwing your diary in the trash can. As a result, law enforcement can access that personal, sometimes embarrassing, and maybe even incriminating, information without a warrant.

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, told WIRED, "It's an ongoing scandal that this kind of surveillance is taking place without people being aware of it, let alone permitting it."

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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Mangino discusses Diddy trial on Court TV

Watch my interview with Ted Rowlands on Court TV as we analyze the latest testimony in the Diddy sex trafficking trial in federal court. 

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Texas man executed for setting 76-year-old convenience store clerk on fire during a robbery

 The 18th Execution of 2025

A Texas man was executed on May 20, 2025, 13 years to the day of a convenience store robbery in which he set a clerk on fire in a Dallas suburb, reported The Associated Press.

Matthew Lee Johnson, 49, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the May 20, 2012, attack on 76-year-old Nancy Harris, a great-grandmother he splashed with lighter fluid and set ablaze in the suburb of Garland. Badly burned, she died days afterward.

Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Johnson turned his head and looked at his victim’s relatives, watching through a window close by.

“As I look at each one of you, I can see her on that day,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly. “I please ask for your forgiveness. I never meant to hurt her.” He added, “I pray that she’s the first person I see when I open my eyes and I spend eternity with.”

“I made wrong choices, I’ve made wrong decisions, and now I pay the consequences,” said Johnson, who also asked forgiveness from his wife and daughters.

There was little reaction from Harris’ relatives — three sons, two daughters-in-law and a granddaughter — who witnessed the execution and declined to speak with reporters afterward.

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, Johnson gasped several times, then made repeated sounds like snoring. Within a minute, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead at 6:53 p.m. CDT, 26 minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms.

Johnson’s execution was the second carried out Tuesday in the United States. Hours earlier in Indiana, Benjamin Ritchie received a lethal injection for the 2000 killing of a police officer.

The day’s executions were part of a group of four scheduled within about a week’s time. On May 15, Glen Rogers was executed in Florida. On Thursday, Oscar Smith is scheduled to receive a lethal injection in Tennessee.

Security video captured part of the attack against Harris who, despite her burns, was able to describe the suspect before she died.

Johnson’s guilt was never in doubt. During his 2013 trial, he admitted to setting Harris on fire and also expressed remorse. “I hurt an innocent woman. I took a human being’s life ... It was not my intentions to -- to kill her or to hurt her, but I did,” he had said at the time.

Johnson said he had not been aware of what he had done as he had been high after smoking $100 worth of crack. His attorneys told jurors Johnson had a long history of drug addiction and had been sexually abused as a child.

Harris had worked at the convenience store for more than 10 years, living only about a block and a half away, according to testimony from one of her sons. She had four sons, 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Prosecutors said Harris had only been working her Sunday morning shift for a short time when Johnson walked in, poured lighter fluid over her head and demanded money.

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Indiana executes cop killer state's second execution in 15 years

 The 17th Execution of 2025

An Indiana man, Benjamin Ritchie, 45,  convicted in the fatal shooting of a police officer in 2000 was executed on May 20, 2025 by lethal injection in the state’s second execution in 15 years, reported The Associated Press.

Ritchie had been on Indiana’s death row since 2002, when he was convicted of killing Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney during a chase on foot.

Ritchie was executed at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, according to Indiana Department of Correction officials. IDOC said in a statement that the process started shortly after midnight and Ritchie was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m.

Ritchie’s last meal was from the Olive Garden and he expressed love, support and peace for his friends and family, according to the statement.

Under state law, he was allowed five witnesses at his execution, which included his attorney Steve Schutte, who told reporters he had a limited view of the process.

“I couldn’t see his face. He was lying flat by that time,” Schutte said. “He sat up, twitched, laid back down.”

The process was carried out hours after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case, exhausting all of Ritchie’s legal options to fight the death sentence.

Dozens of people, both anti-death penalty advocates and supporters of Toney, stood outside the prison until early Tuesday.

The Rev. Richard Holy leads a prayer vigil Monday, May 19, 2025, before a scheduled execution at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Ind. (AP Photo/Ed White)

Indiana resumed executions in December after a yearslong hiatus due to a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide. Prison officials provided photos of the execution chamber before Joseph Corcoran’s execution, showing a space that looks like an operating room with a gurney, fluorescent lighting and an adjacent viewing room. They’ve since offered few other details.

Among 27 states with death penalty laws, Indiana is one of two that bars media witnesses. The other, Wyoming, has conducted one execution in the last half-century.

The Associated Press and other media organizations filed a federal lawsuit in Indiana seeking media access, but a federal judge denied a preliminary injunction last week that would have allowed journalists to witness Ritchie’s execution and future ones. The judge found that barring the news media doesn’t violate the First Amendment nor does it single out the news media for unequal treatment.

The execution in Indiana is among 12 scheduled in eight states this year. Ritchie’s execution and two others in Texas and Tennessee will be carried out this week.

The 2000 fatal shooting of a police officer

Ritchie was 20 when he and others stole a van in Beech Grove, near Indianapolis. He then fired at Toney during a foot chase, killing him.

At the time Ritchie was on probation from a 1998 burglary conviction.

Toney, 31, had worked at the Beech Grove Police Department for two years. The married father of two was the first officer of the small department to be killed by gunfire in the line of duty.

Relatives spoke at a clemency hearing last week in support of the execution.

“It’s time. We’re all tired,” said Dee Dee Horen, who was Toney’s wife. “It is time for this chapter of my story, our story, to be closed. It’s time for us to remember Bill, to remember Bill’s life, and not his death.”

Appealing a death sentence

Ritchie’s attorneys have fought the death sentence, arguing his legal counsel at trial was ineffective because his lawyers failed to fully investigate and present evidence on his fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and childhood lead exposure.

Current defense attorneys say Ritchie suffered “severe brain damage” because his mother abused alcohol and drugs during pregnancy and he’s struggled with decision-making. He was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005.

Disability rights advocates argued that Ritchie’s brain damage should have excluded him from the death penalty.

“This is a foolish, senseless, agonizing waste of time and money,” said Schutte, who added that Ritchie was no longer “the same person who committed that crime.”

Attorney General Todd Rokita said the execution honored Toney’s “sacrifice to the community.”

Republican Gov. Mike Braun rejected Ritchie’s clemency bid last week without explanation.

The Indiana Supreme Court denied a request to stop the execution. Ritchie’s attorneys challenged that decision in federal court, which a judge rejected. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the lower court on Sunday.

As the sun set Monday, the Rev. Richard Holy, a Catholic priest, recited the rosary with about 20 people in the prison parking lot.

“We don’t have to keep taking one life to exact justice for taking another,” he said.

Dozens also showed up to honor Toney’s memory.

“I support the death penalty in certain cases and this is one of them,” said Mark Hamner, an Indianapolis-area officer.

Expressing regret and awaiting execution

Attorneys said Ritchie changed during his more than two decades behind bars and had shown remorse.

In court as a young man, Ritchie smiled at Horen and laughed as the verdict was read.

He told a parole board he deeply regretted his actions, especially how he acted with Toney’s widow.

“I wish I could go back to the day in court, because that man’s wife deserved to say everything she needed to say to me, and that punk kid should have just kept his mouth shut and let her say whatever she needed to say,” Ritchie said.

Ritchie, who was also a father, spent his last days getting visits from friends and family.

“I’ve ruined my life and other people’s lives, and I’m so sorry for that night,” he told the parole board earlier this month. “You can’t take back what you did.”

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States make it a felony to bring illegals across their borders

Alabama lawmakers have passed legislation that would make it a felony to knowingly bring someone into the state who is in the U.S. illegally, echoing similar bills nationwide that could restrict domestic travel for some immigrants, reported The Associated Press.

The legislation given final approval Wednesday protects “not only the citizens of Alabama but also the people that are immigrating here legally and doing everything the right way,” said the bill’s Republican sponsor, Sen. Wes Kitchens.

The measure carves out exemptions for medical professionals such as ambulance drivers and employees for law firms, educators, churches or charitable organizations carrying out “non-commercial” tasks. The bill also outlines a process for law enforcement to determine whether a person who is arrested is in the country legally. It now goes to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, who has 10 days to sign the legislation or else it fails by a pocket veto.

Alabama joins at least nine other states that have considered legislation this year that would create crimes of transporting immigrants who are unlawfully in the U.S., according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. It’s one of many recent bills passed by conservative statehouses seeking to aid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.

Activists say Alabama could end up ensnaring people who provide transportation across state lines for essential services, such federal immigration court hearings in New Orleans and Atlanta, mandatory trips to out-of-state consulates and visits to family.

Jordan Stallworth, 38, works as a civic engagement coordinator for the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice and lives in Wedowee, Alabama, a rural town of about 800 people that is just a 20-minute drive from Georgia. His wife has relatives living without legal status in both states and he often assists family members and other immigrants in the community with transportation.

Recently, he drove a family member lacking legal status to the maternity ward in Carrollton, Georgia, 35 miles (56 kilometers) away, since the local hospital doesn’t have one. Stallworth worries that similar trips will be criminalized.

“I’m not gonna sit here and somebody’s dying in front of me just to have a baby — I’m not gonna sit here and just let her die, family or not,” Stallworth said.

Federal law already makes it a crime to knowingly transport someone who is in the U.S. illegally. That law has been used in border areas against drivers picking up people who illegally cross into the U.S. But it has not historically been used for minor things like giving someone a ride to the grocery store, said Kathleen Campbell Walker, a longtime immigration attorney in El Paso, Texas.

But immigrant advocates are watching to see whether that changes under Trump.

“The likelihood of that being enforced is higher now because of the focus on removing undocumented people from the United States,” Walker said.

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SCOTUS Supreme Court Deals New Blow to President Trump on Immigration

The Supreme Court on Friday denied the Trump administration's request to swiftly resume deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime law, according to Newsweek.

In a 7-2 decision, the justices rejected the emergency appeal filed by administration lawyers seeking to remove Venezuelan men accused of gang affiliations, an allegation the administration says qualifies them for expedited deportation under the rarely used 1798 statute.

President Donald Trump quickly took aim the decision on Truth Social. "THE SUPREME COURT WON'T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY!" he posted Friday afternoon.

Newsweek reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice via contact form and the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the original suit, via email for comment.

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) in March, on the basis that the United States is under alien invasion due to immigration. The order was aimed at alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, allowing for swift removals without court hearings.

The Court had previously paused AEA deportations to El Salvador's high-security CECOT prison in a late-night order last month, temporarily blocking removals from a detention center in North Texas.

Friday's decision, in which conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority, also related to those being held in Texas. Conservative justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch joined the liberal justices in the unsigned order.

In their decision, the justices sent the case back to an appeals court to decide on the underlying issue of the use of the Alien Enemies Act, while calling out the federal government over the time frame given to plaintiffs to launch legal challenges to their imminent deportations.

"Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster," the unsigned ruling said.

At least three federal judges have said Trump was improperly using the AEA to speed deportations of people the administration says are Venezuelan gang members.

On Tuesday, a judge in Pennsylvania signed off on the use of the law.

The court-by-court approach to deportations under the AEA flows from another Supreme Court order that removed a case from a judge in Washington, D.C., and ruled that detainees seeking to challenge their deportations must do so where they are held.

Other courts have sought to enforce longer time frames for immigrants to file challenges, with at least two judges calling for 21 days, rather than the current 12-24 hours.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines ordered immigration officials to give people 21 days in her opinion, in which she otherwise said deportations could legally take place under the AEA.

The Supreme Court also clarified on Friday that it was not blocking other ways the government may deport people.

Earlier on Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social, criticizing the court after it heard oral arguments on his attempt to amend birthright citizenship. Justices appeared skeptical of the idea of limiting the scope of the 14th Amendment while also leaning toward limiting lower court powers.

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Context matters in split second use of force decision by police

Marco Poggio of writing at 360.com:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for a civil rights lawsuit against a Houston-area traffic officer who shot and killed a fleeing man, ruling that courts must weigh the full sequence of events — not just the instant a threat arises — when deciding if police used excessive force.

The decision broadens legal protections for civilians and could open new avenues for holding officers accountable for split-second decisions they make during encounters, especially when it was their own actions that put them in danger.

In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court concluded that a federal court erred in dismissing a civil suit against Roberto Felix Jr., who fatally shot 24-year-old Ashtian Barnes during a 2016 traffic stop in Houston. The court found the Fifth Circuit erred in upholding that decision.

The majority opinion by Justice Elena Kagan held that the Fourth Amendment requires courts to consider the "totality of circumstances," including whether an officer's actions prior to a shooting helped create the danger they later claim justified deadly force.

Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan said that "by limiting their view to the two seconds before the shooting, the lower courts could not take into account anything preceding that final moment."

The decision reinforces precedent the Supreme Court set in 1989 with the case Graham v. Connor, where the court first embraced the "totality of circumstances" approach. Eight circuit courts have been using such a test when probing excessive force claims, while the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth circuits have only looked at the "moment of threat" arising in a police encounter.

"While the situation at the precise time of the shooting will often matter most, earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones," Justice Kagan wrote.

The ruling sends the case back to the lower courts where Barnes' estate will get a renewed chance to argue that Felix provoked the fatal confrontation.

Katie Wellington of Hogan Lovells — counsel of record for Barnes' mother, Janice Hughes Barnes — told Law360 in an email that she was "incredibly pleased" by the ruling.

"This was a hard-fought victory through three federal courts, and Janice Barnes will continue fighting for the constitutional rights of her son, Ashtian Barnes, when this case returns to the Fifth Circuit," she said.

Craig B. Futterman, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and expert in civil rights law and police accountability, said in an email that "the court rightly recognized that context matters." The Fifth Circuit could still affirm the district court's dismissal of Barnes' suit as long as it uses the standard the Supreme Court endorsed on Thursday, Futterman said.

Attorneys for Felix did not respond to a request for comment.

The shooting occurred on April 28, 2016, after Felix, a traffic enforcement officer with the Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office, pulled Barnes over on a Houston highway, citing unpaid tolls linked to the rental car Barnes was driving. Barnes, who was unarmed, ignored instructions to get out of the car and instead began to slowly drive away.

Felix leapt onto the hood of the moving car and, seconds later, shot Barnes through the windshield. The officer later claimed he fired in self-defense, believing Barnes' erratic driving put his life at risk.

Janice Barnes sued Felix and Harris County in Texas state court under Section 1983 of the federal civil rights statute, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Felix invoked qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields officers from civil liability unless they violate clearly established constitutional rights.

The case was moved to federal court, where U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett sided with Felix. The court found the shooting was reasonable under the Fifth Circuit's moment-of-threat doctrine, which limits judicial review to the seconds before force is used.

Still, Judge Bennett noted in his decision that the doctrine was too narrow and that by following it the Fifth Circuit "has effectively stifled a more robust examination of the Fourth Amendment's protections when it comes to encounters between the public and the police." The judge ultimately said he was bound to apply the rule.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit upheld the district court's ruling, calling the moment-of-threat framework "well established" and refusing to consider whether Felix's decision to jump onto the moving car had contributed to the deadly outcome.

"We may only ask whether Officer Felix was in danger at the moment of the threat," the panel wrote. "Any of the officer's actions leading up to the shooting are not relevant."

In a separate concurrence, U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Errol Higginbotham warned that the doctrine conflicted with Graham v. Connor, and called on the justices to resolve the circuit split.

Attorneys for Barnes' mother saw a path opening. They appealed to the Supreme Court in May, arguing the doctrine was "profoundly wrong" and that Felix had no legitimate reason to kill an unarmed man who posed no imminent threat.

During oral arguments on Jan. 22, several justices signaled unease with adopting a legal standard that narrowly looks at the exact moment a threat arises during a police encounter.

Charles L. McCloud of Williams & Connolly LLP, who argued on behalf of Felix, told the justices that once an officer is in danger, the use of deadly force is presumptively reasonable.

"That conclusion should end this case," he said.

Justice Kagan suggested sending the case back to the lower courts to assess the broader circumstances.

"It seems as though we should kick it back and let you guys fight it out," she told the attorneys.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared less sympathetic toward Barnes' arguments.

"What's an officer supposed to do when at a traffic stop and someone pulls away, just let them go?" he asked.

Arguing for Barnes, Nathaniel Avi Gideon Zelinsky, then an attorney with Hogan Lovells who has since joined Milbank LLP, responded by saying that Felix could have opted to chase Ashtian Barnes in his car or request backup from other police units instead of shooting.

Ultimately, the justices rejected the moment-of-threat doctrine as "improperly narrowing" the Fourth Amendment analysis in excessive force claims.

Still, in Thursday's opinion, Justice Kagan made clear that the high court was not weighing in on whether dangerous situations officers themselves create during stops must be part of the analysis to determine whether use of deadly force is reasonable.

"The courts below never confronted that issue, and it was not the basis of the petition for certiorari," Justice Kagan wrote.

Janice Hughes Barnes and the Estate of Ashtian Barnes are represented by Katie Wellington of Hogan Lovells.

Roberto Felix Jr. and Harris County are represented by Charles Luther McCloud of Williams & Connolly LLP.

The case is Janice Hughes Barnes, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Ashtian Barnes v. Roberto Felix Jr. et al., case number 23-1239, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

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Florida serial killer's last words 'President Trump, keep making America great'

The 16th Execution of 2025

A serial killer used his last words on Earth to shout-out President Donald Trump on May 15, 2025, according to USA TODAY.

"President Trump, keep making America great. I'm ready to go," Glen Rogers, known as the "Casanova Killer," said as he lay strapped to an execution gurney seconds before three drugs coursed through his veins and ended his life at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.

His last words were reported by the Tampa Bay Times and the Associated Press, with reporters representing both outlets as witnesses to the execution.

Randy Roberson, whose mother Andy Lou Jiles Sutton was a victim of the Casanova Killer, witnessed the execution and said that Rogers' comment about Trump seemed to confuse people in the room.

"I was like, 'Where did that even come from?'" he said.

His wife, Amy Roberson − also a witness to the execution − said she thought: "What the hell?"

In addition to his support for Trump, Rogers expressed his love for his family. He also addressed the victims of his crimes.

“I know there’s a lot of questions that you need answers to," he said. "I promise you in the near future the questions will be answered and I hope in someway will bring you closure."

Here's what you need to know about Rogers and his victims, and what Trump has said about the death penalty.

Why was Rogers executed?

Glen Edward Rogers, 62, was executed Thursday by lethal injection for the murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, one of four single mothers in their 30s with reddish hair who fell victim to the so-called "Casanova Killer." Rogers was known both as the "Casanova Killer" for his good looks and ability to charm his future victims, and as the "Cross Country Killer" because the victims all lived in different states: California, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida.

"He's an animal," one of his victim's sisters said in court before Rogers was sentenced to death, according to an archived report from the Associated Press. "He's about the evilest thing I think I've ever imagined."

Soon after his arrest, Rogers claimed to have killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in June 1994, and about 70 people overall. There was no evidence to back that up.

Rogers − a native of Hamilton, Ohio − was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., becoming the 16th inmate executed in the U.S. this year and the fifth in Florida. Another three men are set to be executed in the U.S. next week, in Texas, Indiana and Tennessee.

Authorities connected five victims to the Casanova Killer. Four of them were mothers with reddish hair in their 30s. Three of the murders happened within a six-day period.

·         Mark Peters, a 72-year-old retired electrician in Hamilton, Ohio, with whom Rogers lived with briefly, was found dead in a shack owned by Rogers' family in January 1994 in Beattyville, Kentucky.

·         Sandra Gallagher, a 33-year-old mother of three, of Santa Monica, California, killed on Sept. 28, 1995 in Van Nuys. Her body was found in her burning vehicle. She had met Rogers in a bar the night of her murder.

·         Linda Price, a 34-year-old mother of two, found stabbed to death in the bathtub of her home in Jackson, Mississippi, on Nov. 3, 1995. Price briefly lived with Rogers, telling her mother: "He is my dream man," according to an archived story in the Dayton Daily News.

·         Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two, found stabbed to death in a Tampa, Florida hotel bathtub on Nov. 7, 1995. Like Gallagher, she had met Rogers at a bar on the night of her murder.

·         Andy Lou Jiles Sutton, a 37-year-old mother of four: three sons and a daughter who were 19, 17, 8, and 6 when she was found stabbed to death in her bed on Nov. 9, 1995 in of Bossier City, Louisiana. Sutton and Rogers met before her murder and are believed to have slept together.

What has Trump said about executions?

Trump is a staunch supporter of the death penalty and has called for the ultimate punishment to be carried out expeditiously for murderers languishing on death row for decades.

He has also said the punishment should be used for migrants who kill Americans, people who kill police officers, and drug dealers and human traffickers.

Earlier this year, Trump issued an executive order restoring federal executions.

"Before, during, and after the founding of the United States, our cities, States, and country have continuously relied upon capital punishment as the ultimate deterrent and only proper punishment for the vilest crimes," his order said. "Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil."

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Yale professor on the danger to democracy 'there is no such thing as a ship that can't sink'

Yale Professor Marci Shore, who has spent two decades writing about the history of authoritarianism, is leaving the U.S. because of what she sees as the sharp regression of American democracy, reported The New York Times. “We’re like people on the Titanic saying our ship can’t sink,” she said. “And what you know as a historian is that there is no such thing as a ship that can’t sink.”

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American emergency rooms treat at least one firearm injury every 30 minutes

The COVID-19 pandemic and its corresponding increase in shootings sparked a national conversation around firearm injury, emergency room visits, and the treatment of gun violence victims in hospitals. Five years later, the conversation has faded, but new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that gun violence remains a stubborn presence across the country, with 93,022 shooting injuries treated in hospitals from 2018 to 2023. 

According to the research, an American emergency room treats at least one firearm injury every 30 minutes, reported The Trace.

“Most cities use police data to inform prevention planning, but data from hospital and public health sources is an essential, and often missing, piece to guide action, as many incidents of violence and crime are not reported to police,” said Dr. Adam Rowh, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC and lead author of the study, via e-mail to The Trace.

The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine last month, analyzed the CDC’s data on emergency department firearm injuries, which is limited to the District of Columbia and nine states: Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. The study showed that the monthly rates for shooting injuries were highest in July and lowest in February; daily rates were disproportionately high on holidays, and nighttime peaks were the highest on Friday and Saturday, consistent with prior research. The researchers also found that rates were highest between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., and were the lowest between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. 

The authors of the study concluded that knowing the periods when gunshot injuries are highest could be essential both in deploying care and in effectively allocating resources, such as trauma preparedness, ambulance services, hospital staffing, and strategies for intervention. 

One of those strategies is hospital-based violence intervention programs (HVIPs), an effort aimed at mitigating reinjury by providing holistic and rehabilitative care to shooting victims. The model, first developed 30 years ago, has spread nationwide, and various programs fund their services through myriad resources, most notably through grants now facing the threat of cuts and closures. 

“It’s happening on every front,” January Serda, the grant coordinator of one such program in Newport News, Virginia, said of federal cuts to community violence intervention funding, education, and healthcare.

Dr. Randi Smith, a trauma surgeon who launched an HVIP at Grady Memorial Hospital, in Atlanta, Georgia, said she has attended to a gunshot victim on every one of her on-call days in the trauma center. Financial and social investment in such programs is as paramount to treatment as life-saving medical care, she emphasized. 

“I was very motivated to start a violence intervention program, taking best practices from some of the programs that I have been a part of and shortcomings that I had learned from the past,” Smith said. The program she started in 2023, Interrupting Violence Among Youth and Young Adults, is one of the few based in the Southeast. 

The program has served more than a thousand people, including survivors and their family members. According to Smith, its reinjury rates are less than 3 percent, compared with national benchmarks that are up to 30 percent and institutional benchmarks that are between 12 and 15 percent. 

Her work has a long legacy. Nearly four decades ago, physicians and nurses —  especially those with public health experience — were among the first cohort of medical practitioners to recognize gun violence as a public health issue. That recognition was largely based on what they witnessed in hospitals and emergency rooms, as the rate of shootings reached historic highs in the 1980s and ‘90s. Those firsthand accounts were pivotal in the development of the nation’s first hospital-based violence intervention programs.

Serda, the grant coordinator for an HVIP in Virginia, said in today’s multilayered crisis, it’s more paramount than ever to prioritize care for the people on the frontlines. She came to violence intervention from nonprofit management and fundraising for survivors of sexual assault in 2022, after her 17-year-old son, Justice Dunham, was fatally shot in a high school parking lot after a basketball game.

“I was blown away by the lack of training around trauma-informed care, or safe spaces and outlets, for nurses and practitioners, and people who are seeing this firsthand and helping the community,” said Serda, who began to advocate for trauma-informed initiatives designed to help patients, her HVIP team and others address the emotional impact of caring for victims of violence and firearm injuries. “There was no discussion about compassion fatigue, or burnout, or vicarious trauma.”

As hospital personnel adjust to the ever-evolving firearm violence crisis, Smith said listening to their experiences, and supporting their well-being, has never been more crucial. 

“I think a lot of people are looking at the recent news, post-pandemic, that shootings have decreased, and have not realized that we as hospital staff are still treating patients day after day,” said Smith, “dealing with a medical environment that shifted significantly since the pandemic, and navigating extreme burnout.”

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CREATORS: States Look to Their Own Constitutions for Guidance on Racial Equality

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
May 13, 2025

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that held racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Six justices joined with Brown, who opined that although the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed the legal equality of all races in the United States, "it was not intended to prevent social or other types of discrimination."

The much-maligned decision in Plessy remained in effect about education for 58 years. Finally, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education — which held that the "separate but equal" doctrine was unconstitutional in the context of public schools and educational facilities.

The Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in favor of Brown. The Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and therefore laws that impose them violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Brown paved the way for minority students to have a fair and equal education. In 1974, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act was established, prohibiting discrimination against faculty, staff and students. This included racial segregation of students and required school districts to take action to overcome barriers to students' equal participation.

However, 69 years after Brown, the Supreme Court rejected affirmative action at schools of higher education, declaring that the race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were unlawful, eliminating a pillar of higher education.

In Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and SFFA v. University of North Carolina, the Brown decision was often quoted in the 230 pages of opinions.

The Supreme Court held that state laws cannot favor one race over another, that the equal protection clause requires equal treatment under the law for everyone "without regard to race or color." The decisions turned the Brown decision on its head. Affirmative action — which had been used to level the playing field for minority students was now considered to be imposing discriminatory practices on white prospective students.

The landmark decision in Brown, which overturned a legacy of racism in this country, was used to rationalize an argument eliminating affirmative action. The decisions in Harvard and North Carolina will, as Adam Liptak wrote in The New York Times, "(A)ll but ensured that the student population at the campuses of elite institutions would become whiter and more Asian and less Black and Latino."

Then came President Donald Trump's second term. Almost immediately upon taking office, a letter went out to state education leaders across the country, suggesting Title I funding — targeted to schools with a high proportion of low-income students — would be cut if the use of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) programs continued.

School and state officials were asked to sign a certification or "loyalty oath" and return it to the U.S Department of Education acknowledging they are complying with the directive. The oath has been challenged in court.

In light of an unsympathetic Supreme Court and an administration bent on rewriting the history of discrimination in this country, advocates for racial equality are fighting back. They have turned to state constitutions and state courts to fight "resegregation."

State judges in New Jersey and Minnesota have interpreted their respective state constitutions as imposing responsibility on the state to remedy racial discrimination. Expect more states to look to their state constitution for relief, while other states relish the federal government's undoing of years of progress toward racial equity.

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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Nearly 1,000 people convicted by split juries remain in prison in Louisiana

Louisiana allowed split jury criminal convictions. If one or two jurors disagreed on a guilty verdict, the defendant could still be convicted. Oregon was the only other state to allow split verdicts.

Louisiana adopted the practice in 1898, fueled by efforts to maintain white supremacy after the Civil War. Diluting the voice of Black jurors allowed the often-white majority to determine the outcome.

In 2018, Louisiana voters did away with the use of nonunanimous jury convictions. Two years later in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that juries in state criminal trials must be unanimous to convict a defendant, settling a quirk of constitutional law that had allowed divided votes to result in convictions in Louisiana and Oregon.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court that the practice is inconsistent with the Constitution’s right to a jury trial and that it should be discarded as a vestige of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and racial, ethnic and religious bigotry that led to its adoption in Oregon in the 1930s.

Of the 1,500 people in Louisiana prisons from split jury convictions at that time, about 80% were Black and most were serving life sentences, according to a Project of Justice Initiative analysis.

Following the high court decision, Oregon’s Supreme Court granted new trials to hundreds of people. But Louisiana’s Supreme Court rejected arguments to apply the ruling retroactively, leaving people locked up with scarce legal options or waiting on a miracle.

Nearly 1,000 people convicted by split juries remain in prison in Louisiana.

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Washington law requires Catholic priests to report confessions of child abuse

The secrecy of the confessional in the Roman Catholic Church is so sacrosanct that any priest who violates it is automatically excommunicated.

In Washington State, a new law requiring clergy to break the seal when child abuse has been revealed has kindled a heated battle involving the state, the Roman Catholic Church and the Justice Department, reported The New York Times.

The legislation, signed into law last week by Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, requires members of the clergy to report child abuse or neglect to authorities, even if that knowledge arises during the sacrament of confession. It has outraged many Catholics in the state, and across the country.

“This law is a clear intrusion into the practice of our Catholic faith,” said Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle. “The state is now intruding into the practice of religion, and if they’re allowed to get away with that, where do we draw the line?”

The Justice Department apparently agrees. On Monday, the department announced it was opening a civil rights investigation into the law, which it called “anti-Catholic.” The investigation will focus on the law’s “apparent conflict” with religious freedom under the First Amendment.

Clergy are considered mandated reporters in a majority of states, meaning they are legally obligated to report to authorities if they suspect a child is being abused. In most states, however, the state reserves protections for the clergy-penitent relationship. In seven states, including New Hampshire and West Virginia, there is no such exception. (In Tennessee, the privilege is denied only in cases of child sexual abuse.) It’s not clear that any priests have been prosecuted or penalized in those states over failing to report abuse that they learned about during a confession.

A similar bill in California was withdrawn by its sponsor in 2019 after a backlash, including from critics who pointed out that it would be difficult to enforce. The Vatican also appeared to weigh in, releasing a document in the run-up to the California vote emphasizing that the secrecy of confession is an “intrinsic requirement” of the sacrament.

President Trump has made “eradicating anti-Christian bias” a priority for the Justice Department. In April, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the department’s civil rights division, rewrote a mission statement for the division to prioritize investigations into issues including anti-Christian bias and transgender women’s participation in sports, a sharp shift for an agency known for decades for its work on racial equality.

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SCOTUS to decide "unreasonable force" by a police officer

 23-1239 BARNES V. FELIX 

DECISION BELOW: 91 F.4th 393 CERT. 

GRANTED 10/4/2024 

ARGUED: January 22, 2025

FACTS: On April 28, 2016, Officer Roberto Felix Jr. fatally shot Ashtian Barnes during a traffic stop on the Harris County Tollway. After spotting Barnes’s Toyota Corolla, which had been flagged for toll violations, Felix initiated a stop and Barnes pulled over to the median. When Felix requested documentation, Barnes, who was driving a car rented in his girlfriend’s name, could not produce it and began “digging around” in the car. Claiming he smelled marijuana, Felix questioned Barnes, who then turned off the vehicle and suggested checking the trunk for documentation. Dash cam footage shows that after Barnes opened the trunk and exited the vehicle at Felix’s request, the car’s blinker came back on and the vehicle began to move. Felix, with his weapon drawn, stepped onto the moving car and pressed his gun against Barnes’s head. While holding onto the car frame with his head above the roof—leaving him unable to see inside the vehicle—Felix fired two shots. Barnes’s vehicle stopped, and he was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:57 p.m. Though both the Houston Police Department and Harris County Precinct 5 Constable's Office investigated the incident, a grand jury found no probable cause for an indictment.

The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, focusing exclusively on the two seconds before the shooting when Barnes’s car began moving with Felix holding onto it. The court ruled that because Felix reasonably feared for his life in that moment, his use of deadly force was justified regardless of his previous actions, such as jumping onto the moving vehicle. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. 

QUESTION PRESENTED: The Fourth Amendment prohibits a police officer from using "unreasonable" force. U.S. Const. amend. IV. In Graham v. Connor, this Court held that reasonableness depends on "the totality of the circumstances." 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (quotation marks omitted). But four circuits-the Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth-cabin Graham. 

Those circuits evaluate whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred under the "moment of the threat doctrine," which evaluates the reasonableness of an officer's actions only in the narrow window when the officer's safety was threatened, and not based on events that precede the moment of the threat. In contrast, eight circuits-the First, Third, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits-reject the moment of the threat doctrine and follow the totality of the circumstances approach, including evaluating the officer's actions leading up to the use of force. 

In the decision below, Judge Higginbotham concurred in his own majority opinion, explaining that the minority approach "lessens the Fourth Amendment's protection of the American public" and calling on this Court "to resolve the circuit divide over the application of a doctrine deployed daily across this country." Pet. App. 10a-16a (Higginbotham, J., concurring). 

The question presented-which has divided twelve circuits-is: Whether courts should apply the moment of the threat doctrine when evaluating an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment.

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How a pregnancy loss can result in criminal prosecution

 Cary Aspinwall of The Marshall Project writes:

In late March, police in southern Georgia arrested a 24-year-old woman who had a miscarriage after a witness reported seeing her place the fetal remains in a dumpster.

The coroner in Tift County determined it was a 19-week fetus from a naturally occurring miscarriage, but some legal experts consider the arrest a bellwether for the criminal suspicion that surrounds pregnancy loss in many states in post-Roe America.

The Marshall Project previously examined how the way a person handles a pregnancy loss — and where it occurs — can mean the difference between a private medical issue and a criminal charge.

Nationally, federal data shows that about 20% of pregnancies end in a loss, but only a small number are investigated as crimes. In several states, a positive drug test after a pregnancy loss can result in criminal charges for the mother, and even prison time.

Prosecutions related to pregnancy appear to have increased since the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the legal rights of pregnant people. In the first year after the Dobbs decision — from June 2022 to June 2023 — there were at least 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions, researchers for the group found.

Here are some states where miscarriages and stillbirths have been investigated by the criminal legal system in recent years:

Alabama

Arkansas

California

Georgia

Ohio

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Alabama

Alabama has a broad “chemical endangerment of a child” law allowing prosecutors to charge someone for drug use during any part of a pregnancy, whether the mother delivers a stillborn fetus or a healthy newborn.

Our 2022 investigation with AL.com found that more than 20 women had been prosecuted after a miscarriage or stillbirth in Alabama. Some of the harshest sentences resulted in cases where a fetus was stillborn and the woman went to trial.

The Pregnancy Justice report examining nationwide prosecutions related to conduct associated with pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth in the first year after the Dobbs ruling found that nearly half of the cases came from Alabama.

Arkansas

Arkansas is among several states that still make it a crime to “conceal” a birth or stillbirth. Such laws date back to the 17th century, and were intended to shame and accuse women of crimes if they were pregnant and unmarried.

In 2015, Annie Bynum walked into a hospital with a plastic bag containing the remains of her stillborn fetus and ended up going to jail — and eventually prison. She was accused under the concealment law.

A jury originally convicted and sentenced Bynum to six years in prison. Later, an appeals court ruled that the jury shouldn’t have been allowed to hear evidence that Bynum ingested medications to induce labor before the stillbirth or had previously had abortions — because the charge was that she had concealed the pregnancy, not tried to end it. While pregnant, Bynum had planned to quietly let a friend adopt the baby, and she eventually pleaded guilty to a legal violation for the attempted adoption.

California

In 2022, the state passed a law banning investigations and prosecutions of pregnancy loss.

But prior to that law, at least two California women had already served time in jail and prison for stillbirths that prosecutors had alleged were related to drug use.

Adora Perez had served nearly four years of an 11-year sentence before a judge ruled her plea agreement — to a charge of voluntary manslaughter of a fetus — was unlawful, and overturned her conviction in 2022.

That only happened after the case of then-26-year-old Chelsea Becker garnered international outrage. Becker was charged with “murder of a human fetus” in 2019, but the case was dismissed in 2021 and led to Perez’s case getting a second look. Anger about the prosecutions of both women led to the change in state law, to avoid punishing “people who suffer the loss of their pregnancy.”

Georgia

At least one woman who had a miscarriage has been arrested under a state law that makes it a crime to conceal a dead body, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

On March 20, police in Tifton, Georgia, issued a press release announcing that a dead fetus had been found in a dumpster at an apartment complex, after an ambulance was called for a woman who was found bleeding and unconscious. The next day, the Tifton Police Department announced it had arrested the woman who miscarried that fetus, accusing her of one count of concealing the death of another person and one count of abandonment of a dead body.

On April 4, Tift County District Attorney Patrick Warren announced that his office was dropping charges against the woman. His office determined that neither charge was applicable to her case under Georgia law, because a medical examiner determined the woman had a naturally occurring miscarriage.

Ohio

Ohio’s abuse of a corpse law allows a fairly broad interpretation, if applied to fetal remains: “No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.”

In 2023 in Warren, Ohio, Brittany Watts was arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse after experiencing a miscarriage at home in her toilet. She had been to a hospital prior to her miscarriage but left when she felt she was getting inadequate treatment, according to news reports. When she went back to the hospital after her miscarriage, a nurse called police and reported that Watts had given birth at home and did not want the baby — an assertion Watts’ lawyer denied. A grand jury declined to move forward with the criminal case in 2024.

Earlier this year, Watts filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging medical professionals conspired with a police officer to fabricate criminal charges against her.

Oklahoma

Criminal charges related to drug use while pregnant — in cases of pregnancy loss or infants born healthy — have become increasingly common in recent years in Oklahoma.

Kathryn Green gave birth to a stillborn baby in Enid, Oklahoma, in 2017. She was struggling with meth addiction at the time and scared. She cleaned her stillborn son’s body, wrapped him in a blanket and put him in a box. Police later found the remains in the trash and arrested her. Prosecutors initially charged her with second-degree murder, alleging that the stillbirth happened because of “meth toxicity.” But medical tests later showed otherwise: Green’s stillborn son had an infection that had caused his death, records show.

In 2022, Green decided to enter an Alford plea — a guilty plea in which the defendant maintains innocence. At her sentencing hearing, a judge said he wasn’t convinced that prosecutors had proven Green willfully and knowingly harmed her baby by using methamphetamine while pregnant, but he was bothered by her “lack of maternal instinct.”

South Carolina

South Carolina was the first state to prosecute a woman for a stillbirth allegedly due to drug use. In 2001, Regina McKnight was sentenced to 12 years in prison for giving birth to a stillborn baby who tested positive for cocaine. McKnight served eight years before the state Supreme Court overturned her conviction, in part because her trial lawyer didn’t present witnesses to challenge prosecutors’ claim that her drug use definitively caused the stillbirth.

The state charged at least 200 women between 2006 and 2021 with unlawful neglect of a child or homicide by child abuse for alleged perinatal drug use.

In March 2023, a college student in Orangeburg, South Carolina, named Amari Marsh went from miscarrying a fetus in her bathroom to being investigated for a homicide. She told investigators she didn’t realize she was pregnant until she went to an ER with severe pain. She left the hospital and miscarried later in a toilet at home (which medical experts say is common). Her boyfriend at the time called 911. Police became suspicious that she may have sought to end the pregnancy or not called 911 fast enough, records show. She was jailed and accused of homicide by child abuse — before the fetus was autopsied.

An autopsy showed later that the fetus died of natural causes due to an infection that Marsh was unaware of, her lawyer said. In South Carolina, police can arrest someone on a criminal complaint without approval from local prosecutors (called solicitors). After a grand jury reviewed all of the evidence in the case, the charges against Marsh were dismissed.

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South Carolina 'sharp shooters' miss heart during firing squad execution

The wounds were on the lowest area of the chest, near the abdomen, and the bullets had a “downward” trajectory mostly missing the heart

A South Carolina firing squad botched the execution of Mikal Mahdi last month, with shooters missing the target area on the man’s heart, causing him to suffer a prolonged death, according to autopsy records and his attorneys, reported The Guardian.

Mahdi, 42, was shot dead by corrections employees last month in the second firing squad execution this year in South Carolina. The state has aggressively revived capital punishment over the last seven months and brought back the controversial firearm method that has rarely been used in the modern death penalty era.

Autopsy documents and a photo reviewed by the Guardian, along with analysis commissioned by Mahdi’s lawyers, suggest the execution did not occur according to protocol, and that Mahdi endured pain beyond the “10-to-15 second” window of consciousness that was expected.

Mahdi’s lawyers submitted the records to the South Carolina supreme court on Thursday.

Mahdi was sentenced to death in 2006, and the execution was carried out on 11 April. On the evening of his killing, Mahdi was brought into the state’s execution chamber, strapped to a chair and had a red bullseye target placed over his heart. Witnesses were positioned behind bulletproof glass, and three prison employees on the firing squad stood roughly 15ft (4.6 metres) away.

Officials placed a hood over Mahdi’s head before the staff fired, according to an Associated Press reporter, who was a witness. As shots were fired, Mahdi cried out and his arms flexed, and after roughly 45 seconds, he groaned twice, the AP said. His breaths continued for around 80 seconds, then a doctor examined him for a minute. He was declared dead roughly four minutes after the shots.

South Carolina regulations call for the shooters to fire bullets “in the heart … using ammunition calculated to do maximum damage to – and thereby immediately stop – the heart”.

But the autopsy report commissioned by the SCDC indicates there were only two gunshot wounds, not three, and that the bullets largely missed his heart before hitting his pancreas, liver and lower lung, Mahdi’s lawyers say.

Dr Bradley Marcus, the pathologist who performed the autopsy for the state, described two roughly half-inch gunshot wounds on Mahdi’s chest, but suggested three shots might have been fired, writing: “It is believed that gunshot wound labeled (A) represents two gunshot wound pathways.”

South Carolina’s death chamber in Columbia, including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. Photograph: AP

But Dr Jonathan Arden, a forensic pathologist retained by Mahdi’s lawyers, wrote in a report submitted to the court that it would be “extraordinarily uncommon” for multiple bullets to enter through one wound. Arden also interviewed Marcus for his report and said the state’s pathologist was “surprised to find only two wounds” and took a photograph to send to the SCDC, which clearly showed two wounds. Arden said Marcus also acknowledged the odds were “remote” that two shots made a single wound.

Arden said the wounds were on the lowest area of Mahdi’s chest, near the abdomen, and that the bullets had a “downward” trajectory that mostly missed the heart.

In the firing squad execution of Brad Sigmon, in March, the bullets “obliterated both ventricles of the heart”, but in Mahdi’s body, there were only four perforations of the right ventricle, Arden wrote.

Arden said Marcus, too, “expected the entrance wounds to be higher” and “did not expect to find such severe damage to the liver”, according to Arden’s summary of their call.

“If the procedure is done correctly, the heart will be disrupted, immediately eliminating all circulation,” wrote Arden, who previously testified in litigation challenging firing squads. Because “the shooters missed the intended target area”, Mahdi continued to have circulation, allowing him to remain conscious for up to a minute, said Arden, noting the AP’s report of his groaning after 45 seconds.

Mahdi suffered a “more prolonged death process than was expected had the execution been conducted successfully according to the protocol” and experienced “excruciating conscious pain and suffering for about 30 to 60 seconds”, Arden concluded.

“Among the questions that remain: did one member of the execution team miss Mr Mahdi entirely? Did they not fire at all? How did the two who did shoot Mr Mahdi miss his heart?,” Mahdi’s attorneys wrote to the court. “Did they flinch or miss because of inadequate training? Or was the target on Mr Mahdi’s chest misplaced? The current record provides no answers.”

Arden’s report noted the autopsy did not involve X-rays or an examination of Mahdi’s clothes to assess the target’s placement.

Chrysti Shain, the director of communications for SCDC, “strongly refuted Mahdi’s lawyers’ claims. She said all three weapons fired simultaneously and that no fragments were found in the room. She said all three bullets did strike Mahdi, pointing at Marcus’ conclusion that it ‘is believed that gunshot wound labeled (A) represents two gunshot wound pathways’.”

She added the autopsy concluded all three bullets struck Mahdi’s heart, before hitting other organs.

When the state supreme court issued a ruling authorizing firing squads last year, it assessed whether the method was considered “cruel” based on the “risk of unnecessary and excessive conscious pain”. The court, citing Arden’s testimony in the litigation, concluded it was not cruel because the pain, even if excruciating, would only last 10 to 15 seconds “unless there is a massive botch of the execution in which each member of the firing squad simply misses the inmate’s heart”.

Mahdi’s lawyers said “a massive botch is exactly what happened”: “Mr Mahdi elected the firing squad, and this court sanctioned it, based on the assumption that SCDC could be entrusted to carry out its straightforward steps: locating the heart; placing a target over it; and hitting that target. That confidence was clearly misplaced.”

“I don’t think any reasonable, objective observer can look at what happened and think we can keep setting execution dates,” David Weiss, Madhi’s lawyer who sat as a witness, said in an interview. “I heard Mikal’s cries of pain and agony, and I don’t want that to happen to somebody else.”

South Carolina had ceased executions for 13 years as it struggled to obtain lethal injection supplies, but resumed last year, directing people on death row to choose either firing squad, electric chair or lethal injection.

Weiss is a federal public defender and part of the capital habeas unit for the fourth circuit, which has represented four of the five people executed in rapid succession by South Carolina. The lawyers have said that two of the executions by injections of pentobarbital, a sedative, took more than 20 minutes to cause death, in one case appearing to lead to a condition akin to suffocation and drowning. Mahdi chose what he considered the “lesser of three evils”, the attorneys said.

“Lethal injections were adopted because they were supposed to be more humane with a lower risk of error, but as more information became available, we realized it was actually quite tortuous,” said Weiss. “And the intent of the firing squad was that in some ways it would be simpler, quicker, more straightforward, harder to make mistakes. But they couldn’t get that right either.”

A human rights report last year chronicled 73 botched lethal injection executions in the last 50 years, which have disproportionately affected Black people on death row. Alabama began using an untested nitrogen gas method last year, claiming it was “perhaps the most humane” option, but in its first case, witnesses reported that the condemned man’s body began violently shaking, and it took roughly 22 minutes to kill him.

There have only been three other firing squad executions in the last 50 years, though Idaho recently adopted legislation making shootings the main method of killing.

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Texas GOP push for sweeping anti-abortion law which includes century old criminal statute

In late March, women who had suffered severe pregnancy complications and were forced to leave Texas for care sat in the state Senate chamber and implored Texas lawmakers not to make such situations even worse, according to Bolts. Some had previously sued the state over its abortion bans, after being denied needed medical care in Texas. Devastating fetal diagnoses—one woman learned that the fetus was developing without a skull and would not survive, another was told that severe complications with one developing twin threatened her life and the life of her other healthy twin—left some scrambling to get over the state line. 

But instead of expanding medical exceptions to the state’s abortion bans in order to protect people in these circumstances, the women said, measures being pushed by Texas Republicans threatened to further criminalize them and their loved ones. 

The senators had been hearing testimony on abortion legislation, including a bill that purported to clarify the narrow medical exceptions in Texas abortion bans, following reports of deadly delays in care due to the vague language and penalties of up to life in prison for doctors who violate them. For weeks, that bill, Senate Bill 31, dominated advocacy efforts and headlines. This was in part because the bipartisan measure, deemed a priority bill by even the staunchest anti-abortion lawmakers, contained what some called a “Trojan Horse” provision: By including an early 20th-century, pre-Roe abortion law among the several abortion bans that SB 31 amended, critics said the bill could help resurrect the century-old abortion ban that would allow for criminalizing pregnant people seeking abortions, along with anyone who helps them get the procedure, even if it’s out of state. Eventually, the bill’s authors agreed to add language clarifying that the legislation was neutral on this issue, and it passed the Texas Senate last week. 

Yet Texas Republicans have at the same time been pushing forward another sweeping anti-abortion bill, Senate Bill 2880, which also includes language that could be used to enforce the same pre-Roe ban, often called the 1925 law. 

“This is a backdoor effort to fully reinstate the 1925 law,” Houston-area Democratic Senator Carol Alvarado said last week, just before SB 2880 also passed the full Senate. “It is a vote to criminalize women, trap them within the borders of Texas, and to threaten anyone who tries to help them, regardless of whether the abortion occurs legally in another state.” This includes situations where the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, or where the fetus has an anomaly that means it will not survive—none of which are an exception under Texas law. 

Multiple Texas attorneys who specialize in reproductive health told Bolts that SB 2880 and its inclusion of language amending the state’s century-old abortion law could constitute an unprecedented step toward the sweeping criminalization of abortion in a state that already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country. The measure, billed as an effort to crack down on abortion medication following an influx of the pills into the state via telemedicine, would allow anyone to sue individuals or companies who prescribe, manufacture, transport, or distribute abortion pills to a Texas resident, in exchange for a $100,000 reward. The bill would also empower people to bring wrongful death lawsuits following an abortion, and give new powers to the Texas Attorney General to enforce the state’s abortion bans, including the 1925 ban.

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