Organizations file suit to stop dismantling of Department of Education

The Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle the Education Department drew a pair of court challenges on Monday, as opponents called the plan an attempt to evade congressional authority, reported The New York Times.

The first lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts by the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union; the American Association of University Professors; and two public school districts in Massachusetts. Within hours the N.A.A.C.P., the National Education Association union and other critics had brought a case of their own in federal court in Maryland.

The challenges came four days after President Trump signed an executive order that directed the education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department.”

The day after the order, Mr. Trump announced that the Small Business Administration would assume control of the government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and that the Health and Human Services Department would oversee nutrition programs and special education services.

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Trump comes after the lawyers

Legal advocacy groups have sounded the alarms after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened new actions against lawyers and law firms that bring immigration lawsuits and other cases against the government that he deems unethical, reported Reuters.

In a memorandum to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi late on Friday, Trump said lawyers were helping to fuel "rampant fraud and meritless claims" in the immigration system, and directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against attorneys for professional misconduct.

The order also took aim at law firms that sue the administration in what Trump, a Republican, called "baseless partisan" lawsuits. He asked Bondi to refer such firms to the White House to be stripped of security clearances, and for federal contracts they worked on to be terminated.

Ben Wizner, a senior lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new directive sought to "chill and intimidate" lawyers who challenge the president's agenda. Trump has separately mounted attacks on law firms over their internal diversity policies and their ties to his political adversaries.

"Courts have been the only institution so far that have stood up to Trump’s onslaught,” Wizner said. “Courts can’t play that role without lawyers bringing cases in front of them."

The ACLU is involved in litigation against the administration over immigrant deportations, including the expulsion of alleged Venezuelan gang members.

The Trump administration has been hit with more than 100 lawsuits challenging White House actions on immigration, transgender rights and other issues since the start of the president's second term. Legal advocacy groups, along with at least 12 major law firms, have brought many of the cases.

A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said “President Trump is delivering on his promise to ensure the judicial system is no longer weaponized against the American people."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the memorandum, which directed Bondi to assess lawyers and firms that brought cases against the government over the past eight years.

Law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, which is working with the ACLU in an immigrant rights case against the administration, said in a statement that it was "inexcusable and despicable" for Trump to attack lawyers based on their clients or legal work opposing the federal government.

Representatives from other prominent law firms that are representing clients in cases against Trump's administration, including Hogan Lovells, Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump issued executive orders this month against law firms Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss, suspending their lawyers' security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.

The president also last month suspended security clearances of lawyers at Covington & Burling, in each case citing the firms' past work for his political or legal opponents.

The Keker firm on Saturday called on law firms to sign a joint court brief supporting a lawsuit by Perkins Coie challenging the executive order against it.

Paul Weiss on Thursday struck a deal with Trump to rescind the executive order against it, pledging to donate the equivalent of $40 million in free legal work to support some of the administration's causes such as support for veterans and combating antisemitism.

Lawyers are bound by professional ethics rules that require them to investigate allegations before filing lawsuits and not deceive the courts. Imposing disciplinary sanctions on lawyers who violate such rules falls on the court system, not federal prosecutors, though prosecutors can charge lawyers with criminal misconduct.

Some lawyers aligned with Trump faced professional discipline over claims that they violated legal ethics rules in challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election win over Trump.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who later was an attorney for Trump, was disbarred in New York and in the District of Columbia over baseless claims he made alleging the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, a legal advocacy group suing the administration over deportations, called Trump's sanctions threat hypocritical in a statement to Reuters, saying Trump and his allies "have repeatedly thumbed their noses at the rule of law."

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Fingerprint evidence not infallible

Fingerprints have been police tools for a long time, more than a century. They were considered infallible for much of that history, according to Science News.

Limitations to fingerprint analysis came to light in spectacular fashion in 2004, with the bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid. Spanish police found a blue plastic bag full of detonators and traces of explosives. Forensic experts used a standard technique to raise prints off the bag: fumigating it with vaporized superglue, which stuck to the finger marks, and staining the bag with fluorescent dye to reveal a blurry fingerprint.

Running that print against the FBI’s fingerprint database highlighted a possible match to Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer. One FBI expert, then another, then another confirmed Mayfield’s print matched the one from the bag.

Mayfield was arrested. But he hadn’t been anywhere near Madrid during the bombing. He didn’t even possess a current passport. Spanish authorities later arrested someone else, and the FBI apologized to Mayfield and let him go.

The case highlights an unfortunate “paradox” resulting from fingerprint databases, in that “the larger the databases get … the larger the probability that you find a spurious match,” says Alicia Carriquiry. She directs the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence, or CSAFE, at Iowa State University.

In fingerprint analyses, the question at hand is whether two prints, one from a crime scene and one from a suspect or a fingerprint database, came from the same digit (SN: 8/26/15). The problem is that prints lifted from a crime scene are often partial, distorted, overlapping or otherwise hard to make out. The expert’s challenge is to identify features called minutiae, such as the place a ridge ends or splits in two, and then decide if they correspond between two prints.

Studies since the Madrid bombing illustrate the potential for mistakes. In a 2011 report, FBI researchers tested 169 experienced print examiners on 744 fingerprint pairs, of which 520 pairs contained true matches. Eighty-five percent of the examiners missed at least one of the true matches in a subset of 100 or so pairs each examined. Examiners can also be inconsistent: In a subsequent study, the researchers brought back 72 of those examiners seven months later and gave them 25 of the same fingerprint pairs they saw before. The examiners changed their conclusions on about 10 percent of the pairings.

Forensic examiners can also be biased when they think they see a very rare feature in a fingerprint and mentally assign that feature a higher significance than others, Quigley-McBride says. No one has checked exactly how rare individual features are, but she is part of a CSAFE team quantifying these features in a database of more than 2,000 fingerprints.

Computer software can assist fingerprint experts with a “sanity check,” says forensic scientist Glenn Langenburg, owner of the consulting firm Elite Forensic Services in St. Paul, Minn. One option is a program known rather informally as Xena (yes, for the television warrior princess) developed by Langenburg’s former colleagues at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

Xena’s goal is to calculate a likelihood ratio, a number that compares the probability of a fingerprint looking like it does if it came from the suspect (the numerator) versus the probability of the fingerprint looking as it does if it’s from some random, unidentified individual (the denominator). The same type of statistic is used to support DNA evidence.

To compute the numerator probability, the program starts with the suspect’s pristine print and simulates various ways it might be distorted, creating 700 possible “pseudomarks.” Then Xena asks, if the suspect is the person behind the print from the crime scene, what’s the probability any of those 700 could be a good match?

To calculate the denominator probability, the program compares the crime scene print to 1 million fingerprints from random people and asks, what are the chances that this crime scene print would be a good match for any of these?

If the likelihood ratio is high, that suggests the similarities between the two prints are more likely if the suspect is indeed the source of the crime scene print than if not. If it’s low, then the statistics suggest it’s quite possible the print didn’t come from the suspect. Xena wasn’t available at the time of the Mayfield case, but when researchers ran those prints later, it returned a very low score for Mayfield, Langenburg says.

Another option, called FRStat, was developed by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory. It crunches the numbers a bit differently to calculate the degree of similarity between fingerprints after an expert has marked five to 15 minutiae.

While U.S. Army courts have admitted FRStat numbers, and some Swiss agencies have adopted Xena, few fingerprint examiners in the United States have taken up either. But Carriquiry thinks U.S. civilian courts will begin to use FRStat soon.

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Florida and Oklahoma carry out executions on the same day

 The 9th and 10th Executions of 2025

Oklahoma carried out its first execution of 2025 on March 20, 2025, giving a lethal injection to a Wendell Arden Grissom a confessed killer who had said in his first interview with police that he wanted the death penalty, reported The Daily Oklahoman.

Also on March 20, 2025, Florida officials executed Edward James for the killing of an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother on a night in which he drank heavily and used drugs, according to The Associated Press.

Grissom, 56, was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

"I consider this a mercy. It's going to be all right," he said in his last words after apologizing and asking for forgiveness from "all of you that I hurt."

He did not seek any emergency stays in court and did not speak at his clemency hearing in February. He told Newsweek on Monday, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life in here."

Grissom was executed for fatally shooting a woman during a 2005 home invasion in rural Blaine County. The victim, Amber Dawn Matthews, 23, was at the isolated home near Watonga helping a friend, Dreu Kopf, pack for a move the next day.

Matthews was shot the first time in the back of the head while holding her friend's newborn baby, Gracie. She was shot again in the forehead after collapsing to the floor. Kopf also was shot but survived.

"You guys really need to remember her because she was unbelievable," Kopf said Thursday of her best friend. "She saved my kids."

Florida Prison officials said James, 63, was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He drew the death penalty after pleading guilty to the Sept. 19, 1993, killings of Toni Neuner, 8, and her grandmother, Betty Dick, 58.

As he awaited the injection, James said he did not wish to give a final statement. Then, as the drugs were administered, James breathed heavily, his arms flinching, and then he was still.

Jared Pearson, Neuner’s brother, said afterward that the family was able to find some kind of peace with the process.

“But we lost generations because of him,” Pearson said. “It’s all pure evil. That night was horrific.”

Three other executions were carried out this week in the U.S., including the lethal injection earlier Thursday of an Oklahoma man for the fatal shooting of a woman during a home invasion. Arizona executed a man by an injection Wednesday and Louisiana used nitrogen gas for the first time Tuesday, putting a man to death as that state ended a 15-year pause on executions.

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Arizona executes condemned prison who volunteered to be executed

 The 8th Execution of 2025

Aaron Gunches, who has advocated for his death, was executed shortly after 10 a.m. March 19, 2025 at a prison facility in Florence, reported The Arizona Republic.

On Dec. 30, 2024, Gunches filed a hand-written motion for his own death warrant, asking the Arizona Supreme Court and the state to stop “foot dragging.” He asked to be executed on Valentine’s Day, though it’s uncertain who that romantic irony was supposed to gore, or if it was merely because the day was the anniversary of his first death sentence.

He was the first person killed by the state of Arizona since 2022 and the fourth since 2014. In 2022, three men were executed, and the state struggled to administer all three lethal injections. In 2014, it took two hours for the lethal injection drugs to kill Joseph Wood, leading to an eight-year pause in executions.

Upon taking office in 2023, Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, suspended executions pending a review of the state's capital punishment system by an independent commissioner.

At the time, Hobbs said the review was needed because "Arizona has a history of mismanaged executions that have resulted in serious questions and concerns" about the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry's execution protocols and lack of transparency.

But Hobbs ended the review before it was finished, saying she had lost confidence in the effort.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, a Republican, had been putting pressure on Mayes to pursue Gunches' execution and eventually attempted to get his death warrant from the Arizona Supreme Court on her own, challenging the attorney general's exclusive authority to make such a request. Mitchell's efforts, however, were rendered moot after Mayes filed a death warrant request, which was granted by the court in February.

Hobbs cited an "execution preparedness" review the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry sent her on Nov. 22 as proof the state was ready to proceed with putting prisoners to death.

Gunches was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, a former longtime boyfriend of Gunches' girlfriend. Gunches kidnapped and shot Price multiple times in a desert area off the Beeline Highway.

Dale Baich watched the execution of Aaron Gunches as his invited legal witness. He said appearances could be misleading, because of how the lethal drugs affect a human body.

“The witnesses did not see is what happened under the jumpsuit and sheet. We know from scientific studies that rapid administration of a high dose of pentobarbital is excruciatingly painful. Pulmonary edema develops in seconds as the lungs fill with water and one is not able to breathe," Baich told reporters afterward.

"There is a sensation of drowning from within and not being able to do anything about it. It is like being waterboarded to death," he added.

Baich said the breaths, the heaving chest and gurgling sounds were all signs we was struggling to breathe, and noted, "Even though it may have looked peaceful, it was not.” 

Ted Price's sister, Karen Price, told the media after watching the execution of her brother's killer: “The pain of losing Ted remains profound and cannot be conveyed in mere words."

She fondly remembered him as an avid fan of the Suns and Diamondbacks, and a compassionate man who loved cats. He'd be 63 years old if he'd lived, she said, recalling an idyllic childhood in Utah. She is 15 months younger than her brother, with whom she was very close.

The last time Karen Price saw her brother alive was when she dropped him off at the Salt Lake City airport in February 2002, when she snapped a photo of him. His body was found in the desert 23 days after he went to Arizona, she said.

She struggled for words to convey what the execution of Aaron Gunches means to her and said that she was relieved the process was finally over.

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Louisiana carries out first execution in 15 years using nitrogen gas

 The 7th Execution of 2025

Jessie Hoffman was put to death on March 19, 2025 at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, becoming the first person in the state executed using nitrogen gas, reported the Louisiana Illuminator.

It also marked the first time Louisiana has carried out the death penalty in 15 years, citing its inability to obtain the drugs necessary for lethal injection. With no foreseeable sources to resuming using that method, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and the GOP-dominated state legislature approved nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative. 

Alabama is the only other state to have used the technique, having put four condemned men to death since adopting the method in February 2024.

“It went flawless. There was nothing that happened incorrectly,” Gary Westcott, secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections, told reporters after Hoffman’s execution, according to WAFB-TV.

Hoffman, 46, was executed for the 1996 kidnapping, rape and murder of 28-year-old Mary “Molly” Elliot.

Investigators said Hoffman abducted Elliot at a downtown New Orleans parking lot where he was a valet and where she parked daily for her job at an advertising agency. She was taken to rural St. Tammany Parish, where she was assaulted and fatally shot the day before Thanksgiving. A hunter found her nude body the next day at a remote boat launch near the Pearl River.

Landry’s office issued a statement from him after Hoffman’s execution. It stressed how Elliot’s “family and friends have been forced to relive the tragedy through countless legal proceedings.”

“In Louisiana, we will always prioritize victims over criminals, law and order over lawlessness, and justice over the status quo,” Landry said. ”If you commit heinous acts of violence in this State, it will cost you your life. Plain and simple.” 

Read the governor’s full statement below.

Lawyers for Hoffman, seeking a last-minute reprieve from his death sentence being carried out, argued nitrogen hypoxia amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited under the 8th Amendment. Hoffman instead sought death by firing squad or lethal injection, acknowledging his responsibility for Elliot’s violent death.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of Louisiana’s Middle District Court, temporarily blocked Hoffman’s execution date to allow that argument to proceed. Attorney General Liz Murrill challenged that order. Last week, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals removed the injunction from Dick, a federal court appointee of former President Barack Obama. In a 5-4 decision late Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court refused to stop Hoffman’s execution.

Cecelia Koppel, one of Hoffman’s attorneys and director of the Center for Social Justice at Loyola University College of Law, issued a statement shortly after Hoffman’s death. 

“Tonight, the State of Louisiana carried out the senseless execution of Jessie Hoffman,” Koppell said. “He was a father, a husband, and a man who showed extraordinary capacity for redemption. Jessie no longer bore any resemblance to the 18-year old who killed Molly Elliot.”

Koppel had unsuccessfully challenged Louisiana’s move to nitrogen hypoxia, arguing the method was an illegal affront to Hoffman’s Buddhist faith. Justice Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of President Donald Trump, joined the court’s three liberal jurists and wrote the dissenting opinion, calling out the 5th Circuit’s failure to address Hoffman’s religious concerns. 

The expedited nature of Louisiana’s nitrogen hypoxia protocols was also a point of contention for Koppel. Although Landry and lawmakers approved the method last year, the governor didn’t provide the legally required execution protocol until Feb. 10. Those details remained under seal until March 5, giving Hoffman’s team less than two weeks to challenge the pending execution.   

“The State was able to execute him by pushing out a new protocol and setting execution dates to prevent careful judicial review and shrouding the process in secrecy,” Koppel said. 

State corrections officials allowed only two journalists to witness the execution. According to The Advocate, Hoffman was fastened to a gurney and inhaled nitrogen gas for 19 minutes. State officials said he displayed “convulsive activity” as he died, and he was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m.

Hoffman declined to make a final statement before his death and refused a last meal, according to the report.

Ilona Hoffman, the executed man’s wife, issued a statement that said he “was not defined by his worst moment” and that the “system” had failed him as a child.

“This execution was not justice. It was revenge,” Ilona Hoffman said. “True justice recognizes growth, humanity, and redemption. Louisiana chose to ignore that.”

The Promise of Justice Initiative, which opposes the death penalty, was among the groups in Hoffman’s corner. Its senior staff attorney, Samantha Pourciau, took critical aim at the Landry administration in a statement after his death.

“Governor Landry’s yearslong pursuit of this execution concluded with more pain and more trauma. Tonight, while many in our state cannot afford groceries, the state used countless resources to kill one man,” Pourciau said in part. “The governor cannot cloak this in fighting for victims, because today we learned that this is not, in fact, what this family wants. This is what the governor wants. This has been in service of no one, but the bloodlust of our state government.”

There are 55 more people on death row in Louisiana, and Murrill has said the state intends to execute four people this year.

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CREATORS: A New Twist on the "Reviled" Advocate

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
March 18, 2025

American criminal jurisprudence has been turned on its head. For centuries lawyers have been attacked for advocacy on behalf of despicable criminals. Last week, the tables turned. President Donald Trump attacked prosecutors and government lawyers for advocacy on behalf of the people.

The American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients was established more than 250 years ago with John Adams' representation of the British soldiers charged with murder during the Boston Massacre. Adams' trial summation set the standard for law and order.

Adams, who would later serve two terms as president of the United States, said of justice, "On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamours of the populace."

Today, more than ever, the clamor of the populace — through news media and social media — can almost instantly accuse, try and convict a person in the court of public opinion. Lawyers are often intentionally, or unintentionally, drug into the glare of the media and no longer perceived as only representing the accused, but of siding with the reprehensible conduct. A lawyer faced with the decision to take on a controversial client must legitimately ask herself, "Will I ever get any more law business in my community if I take this case?"

Attorneys are advocates for others. Many understand that representing the person or issue does not equate to accepting or endorsing what a particular client does. In practice, however, many people have difficulty accepting that a pedophile, terrorist, mass killer or racist hate group is entitled to legal representation.

At times, attorneys are demonized for representing defendants charged with heinous crimes — as if there was something immoral about providing a defense to someone charged with a crime. Such conduct undermines the fundamental protections of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, "to have the assistance of counsel."

There have also been times when lawyers have failed to meet the lofty standards of protecting the United States Constitution. Denise Lieberman, writing for "Liberties," the newsletter of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, pointed out that during the McCarthy era the American Bar Association "declared that any attorney representing a person associated with the Communist Party was unworthy of membership in the bar, and even demanded that lawyers take loyalty oaths."

However, few were prepared for what we saw last week. President Trump focused his wrath, not on defense attorneys who represent unpopular clients, or legal organizations that capitulate to the rhetoric of demagogues — no, Trump vilified prosecutors.

President Trump made a speech at the Great Hall of the Department of Justice, where, according to The New York Times, he lashed out at lawyers and former prosecutors by name. He also accused the department's previous leadership of trying to destroy him. He labeled those who opposed him as "scum," "corrupt" and "deranged."

"Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and good will built up over generations," Trump said, in speaking — of the Justice Department — to an audience at the Justice Department. "They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people."

Trump called himself the chief law enforcement officer in the country — of course, he is not. However, it was less than reassuring when the country's actual chief law enforcement officer — Attorney General Pam Bondi, said, according to Politico, "We will never stop fighting for (Trump) and for our country."

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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Judges not in line with Administration subjected to threats and intimidation

Federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration this year are confronting a wave of threats, potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary.

The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, and lower court judges who hit pause on some of President Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs have been singled out on social media, reported NPR.

Republican lawmakers close to the president even have proposed impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life.

Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching judges who delay or block parts of Trump's agenda.

Efforts to undermine the judiciary come at the same time the Trump administration has moved to fire lawyers inside the Justice Department and the Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, and to back away from participation in the activities of the American Bar Association.

Judge Richard Sullivan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said in his lifetime four federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench.

"This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a representative body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again," he said.

The Federal Judges Association, a voluntary group of more than 1,000 judges across the nation, said the judiciary plays a "critical role in preserving democracy and a law-abiding society."

"Judges must be able to do their jobs without fear of violence or undue influence," the group said in a written statement to NPR.

Early threats

One thing stands out to legal experts: these attacks on judges are coming at a very early stage in the legal process — often, before the Supreme Court weighs in as the final decider.

"We have a system of justice that allows for appeals," Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, told reporters this week. "That's typically the way it works. Impeachment is not and shouldn't be a short-circuiting of that process. And so it is concerning if impeachment is used in a way that is designed to do just that."

Only 15 federal judges have faced impeachment, mostly for allegations of wrongdoing such as bribery, corruption or perjury, in the past couple of centuries.

Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, said the odds of a successful judicial impeachment are pretty low, and to remove a judge from the bench would require a two-thirds vote from the Senate.

"The more that people like Elon Musk are putting on the wall the idea that it's appropriate to attack these judges for nothing more than ruling against the federal government, the more that we're normalizing what really are in the main very serious threats to judicial independence," Vladeck said.

"Jeopardize the rule of law"

But Paul Grimm, who spent 26 years as a federal judge, said even the threat of impeachment can amount to intimidation.

"And if you try to intimidate judges, if that's your goal, so that they do not do their constitutional duty, then you jeopardize the rule of law," said Grimm, who leads the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. "And without the rule of law, every liberty and every right that we cherish as Americans is vulnerable."

Grimm said he worries a lot about online posts that display the home and work addresses of judges and their adult children, a step that he said "crosses the line."

Nearly five years ago, an angry litigant shot and killed the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey.

In 2022, a California man carrying a gun and zip ties traveled to the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He turned away after spotting a security detail there. The man has pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted assassination of the justice, and awaits trial this year.

And in 2023, a state court judge in Maryland was gunned down in his driveway.

Attacks over rulings

The U.S. Marshals say threats against federal judges have doubled in recent years, according to the most recent data. And those threats have been directed at both Democratic and Republican judges.

Justice Barrett came under withering criticism this month from some right-wing political commentators, after she voted alongside Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberals on the high court against Trump's effort to freeze foreign aid.

Lower court judges have faced online attacks for their early rulings on Musk's DOGE team, efforts to restore government web pages and the freeze on foreign aid.

The Marshals protect judges, but they also report to the U.S. attorney general, not to the courts themselves. That's got some members of Congress on alert.

"A judge's security is dependent in many ways on the Marshals Service who the president appoints to protect the judges, and if a president doesn't like a decision that's coming from a judge, theoretically they could pull their security," Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said at a congressional hearing this month.

The administration has already yanked protection this year from former military and national security officials who disagreed with Trump in his first term.

Swalwell said Congress should consider giving judges their own security force — one that's independent from the White House.

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Judge scolds government for 'lie' about firing employees en masse

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco delivered one of the most far-reaching court defeats to the Trump administration's efforts to gut the federal bureaucracy, according to the USA TODAY.

Alsup, appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton, ordered six federal agencies to reinstate tens of thousands of federal government probationary workers fired in recent weeks.

Alsup said the Justice Department tried to obfuscate that the White House had improperly ordered agencies to fire workers en masse.

“I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years and I know how we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get at the truth,” Alsup said. “You’re giving me press releases, sham documents.”

 Supporters of all sizes, attend a rally to support federal workers terminated recently on Friday, March 7, 2025 at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center at 5000 W. National Ave. in Milwaukee.

He also scolded the government for the bogus boilerplate reason employees were given for their termination.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said.

A federal judge in Maryland likewise said Thursday he didn't believe the government's claim that the fired employees had been individually reviewed.

"On the record before the Court, this isn't true," wrote U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama. "It is simply not conceivable that the Government could have conducted individualized assessments of the relevant employees in the relevant timeframe."

After Alsup's ruling, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Bay Area judge of "attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the executive branch."

"If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for president themselves,” she said in a statement.

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Trump visits Justice Department to gloat over return to power and demand for loyalty

President Trump’s triumphal entry into Justice Department headquarters darkened into an acid recitation of grievances against his enemies, as he demonstrated his power over a department that had tried and failed to hold him to account, reported The New York Times.

The event, held in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, was billed as a major policy address to reposition the department from the purported political “weaponization” of the Biden era to a renewed focus on crime, punishment and fighting drugs.

But in an hourlong speech, Mr. Trump veered from his prepared remarks to lash out at lawyers and former prosecutors by name in a venue dedicated to the impartial administration of justice. He also accused the department’s previous leadership of trying to destroy him and declared former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the head of a “crime” family.

“Scum,” Mr. Trump called his adversaries, in the same room where Attorney General Robert Jackson delivered a tone-setting 1940 speech urging prosecutors be animated by “fair play” rather than a blind drive to win.

If Mr. Trump’s delivery verged on free association, his message was unmistakable: The president intends to bend the vast powers of federal law enforcement to his will — in the pursuit of an anti-crime agenda and, perhaps, vengeance.

“Unfortunately in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and good will built up over generations,” Mr. Trump told an audience of supporters and law enforcement officials. “They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.”

He implored his political appointees at the department not to “be deflected” by critics in enforcing his agenda. He also suggested he was preparing new executive actions to personally target the “violent vicious lawyers” who had prosecuted him or opposed his policies in court.

“We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals, and we’re restoring fair, equal and impartial justice,” Mr. Trump said, standing at a lectern flanked by signs reading “fighting fentanyl.” Though he repeatedly railed against corruption, his Justice Department recently moved to dismiss a case against New York’s mayor and has drafted plans to shrink an anti-corruption unit.

As he assailed the investigations into him, Mr. Trump also heaped praise on Aileen M. Cannon, the federal judge in Florida who dismissed the criminal charges against him over the handling of classified documents, calling her “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”

“The case against me was bullshit,” Mr. Trump said, standing in the building where the charges were approved.

His appearance in the Justice Department headquarters, while not unheard of, was relatively rare for a president. Several of his recent predecessors have made the trip to deliver remarks or preside over ceremonial events, but none used the perch for aggressively partisan attacks as Mr. Trump did.

The speech served to punctuate the president’s return to power. Less than two years ago, in June 2023, his legal defense team trudged into the building to be briefed on the details of criminal charges he would face for hoarding classified materials at his house in Florida — the first of his two federal indictments that summer.

Mr. Trump reflected on those experiences several times and thanked his lawyers for their efforts in getting him off the hook. They had less success in his felony trial in New York, where he was convicted on 34 counts related to hush money paid to a porn actress.

Mr. Trump eventually returned to the text of his speech, and to the theme of crime-fighting, vowing to crack down on distributors of fentanyl and reduce the number of overdose deaths from the drug by 50 percent.

One of the keys to doing so, he said, was to appeal to the vanity of drug users. “You lose your look,” he said. “Everyone’s vain. They don’t want to lose their look.”

His digressive style gradually dampened the enthusiasm of many in the friendly crowd, who began scrolling their phones, particularly during his meandering description of the college basketball coach Bobby Knight. But they perked up when he reverted to bombast.

Mr. Trump accused judges who have ruled against him of being “corrupt,” even as he chastised critics of Ms. Cannon and her rulings in his favor, saying they sought undue influence. And he threatened to punish Biden administration officials who were responsible for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and those he falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election.

“These are people that are bad people, really bad people,” he said.

During his first several weeks in power, Mr. Trump and his appointees have torn down many of the barriers that have long existed between the White House and the Justice Department to prevent political interference in the application of justice — and forced out those standing in the way.

As a general rule, presidents are wary of injecting politics into the agency’s work. But Mr. Trump, who was twice indicted by the department, views it as the center of “deep state” resistance to him. For a man who long ago dispensed with the notion of an independent Justice Department, the visit was as much an expression of conquest and vindication as it was a venue for a policy-focused speech.

“Is it appropriate that I do it?” Mr. Trump mused, as he recounted his decision to deliver a speech inside the Justice Department.

“And then I realized, it’s not only appropriate, I think it’s really important,” he added.

The event had many trappings of a Trump campaign rally, including the music, even if set against the backdrop of the department’s marble-clad inner sanctum. The setting was part of an effort to emphasize the power of the institution Mr. Trump controls through loyal appointees.

Mr. Trump’s first two warm-up speakers, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, offered a cheerful and cherry-picked recitation of the department’s accomplishments under Mr. Trump thus far — the acceleration of immigration enforcement, efforts to punish academic institutions that do not bow to the administration’s demand to purge diversity and inclusion programs, and intensifying efforts to fight fentanyl trafficking.

Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who served as the lead attorney in Mr. Trump’s two federal criminal cases, began by expressing his commitment to upholding the best traditions of the department. But he quickly shifted gears to profess personal loyalty to the president — something that none of his predecessors in the Biden administration ever did.

Mr. Trump, he said, “is a complete inspiration to me.”

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, echoed Mr. Blanche, calling Mr. Trump “the greatest president in the history of our country” and saying she works “at the directive of Donald Trump.”

Her words were another nod to the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to have a Justice Department that does not operate at arm’s length from the White House, but under its direct command.

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Bipartisan group of PA legislators seek to eliminate death penalty

A Lebanon County Republican State Rep. Russ Diamond has introduced legislation with bipartisan support to eliminate the death penalty in Pennsylvania, which he said aligns with "pro-life values," reported the Lebanon Daily News.

Rep. Diamond introduced HB 888, which would abolish the death penalty in the commonwealth if adopted. In a memo to the House, Diamond said that "the role of government should not be to decide who lives and who dies, but to protect and promote life wherever possible."

"As legislators, we must uphold the principle that all human life has inherent value and dignity, regardless of the circumstances," he said. "Abolishing the death penalty aligns with pro-life values by affirming that the state should not take life as punishment, even in response to the gravest of crimes."

According to the state Department of Corrections website, there are currently 94 individuals on death row in Pennsylvania. Since 1978, only three individuals have been executed in the commonwealth, all of whom waived their appeals and asked for the execution to be carried out.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has stated that he will not issue any execution warrants during his term in office, and has asked the General Assembly to abolish the death penalty. No executions in the commonwealth have been carried out since 1999.

Lebanon County District Attorney Pier Hess Graf has stated she will be seeking the death penalty for Alex Torres-Santos and Ivan Claudio-Rosero for homicide charges. Both men were allegedly involved in a triple homicide in the 400 block of N. 5th St. in 2023. The criminal trial is scheduled for later this year.

Speaking on his Substack account, Diamond said that as someone who considers himself 100% pro-life, he believes in "the sanctity of life from conception to natural death." Diamond added that being tough on crime and opposing the death penalty are not mutually exclusive.

"Since as an individual I cannot take another’s life except in the most extreme instance of self-defense, I cannot consent to grant a greater power to government and consider it just," he said. "There is no element of self-defense in executing someone already in captivity. Permanent incarceration satisfies our collective need for self-defense."

Citing the Death Penalty Information Center, Diamond said that 13 individuals who had been sentenced to death in Pennsylvania were later exonerated, including one in 2024. Diamond also pointed towards a recent survey in 2016, which said the death penalty cost taxpayers at least $816 million more than the cost of life without parole.

More than 23 states and Washington D.C. have already abolished the death penalty, with Diamond calling for Pennsylvania to follow suit "and should prioritize a consistent ethic of life in our justice system by joining them."

Diamond's bill has been co-sponsored Rep. Liz Hanbidge (D-Montgomery), Rep. Marla Brown (R-Lawrence), Rep. Ben Waxman (D-Philadelphia), Rep. Joseph D'Orsie (R-York) and Rep. Nathan Davidson (D-Cumberland and Dauphin). 

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Mangino joins Nancy Grace to discuss Danielle Lopez's disappearance in New Jersey

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The U.S. Supreme Court must do its job and remain independent

 From Suzanne Spaulding at Lawfare:

“Judicial independence is not conferred so judges can do as they please. Judicial independence is conferred so judges can do as they must.” This essential insight from Justice Anthony Kennedy is cited by Chief Justice John Roberts in his 2024 Year End Report on the Federal Judiciary. The report rightly expresses concern about declining trust in the independence of the courts.

On March 4, following an address to Congress, cameras caught President Trump patting Roberts’s shoulder, saying, “Thank you again. Thank you again. Won’t forget.” Earlier, Attorney General Pam Bondi—commenting on the freeze on federal funds instituted by the administration—asserted that “the Supreme Court is backing us up.” Yet, on Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court rejected a plea from the administration to overrule a lower court’s decision that funds must be released to pay foreign aid contractors for work they have completed.

That said, many more cases involving the current administration are making their way to the Supreme Court. When faced with even more fundamental constitutional claims, there is a risk that, in a sincere effort to preserve the institution and avoid a constitutional crisis, the Court may seek to sidestep a significant confrontation with the executive branch in the face of recent threats to ignore court orders. This would itself reflect a devastating lack of independence and de facto create the very constitutional crisis and damage to the public’s trust that the chief justice presumably seeks to avoid.

Roberts’s entire 2024 report focuses on the importance of independent courts. He describes King George’s efforts to undermine the independence of the courts in the colonies, noting that such actions contributed to the colonies’ rebellion. He reminds us of Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist 78, quoting the French political philosopher Montesquieu in support of the principle that “there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.” He then cites four areas of activity that “threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.” These threats are designed to coerce judges into ruling based not on the law but rather to avoid the threatened action, thus undermining their independence.

The threats the chief justice describes are very real. Violence and threats of violence against judges have skyrocketed recently in the U.S. Efforts to impeach judges who rule against actions by the current administration reflect the kind of intimidation, short of violence, that threatens careers. And, as Roberts points out, disinformation—that is, intentional lies as distinguished from disagreement and criticism—is amplified and exacerbated by foreign and domestic actors, including Russia, who see undermining trust in the courts as a powerful way to weaken our democracy.

But it is threats to defy court orders that most clearly aim to defeat the courts’ independence and demolish a key foundation upholding our constitutional republic.

Roberts notes that two of the major pillars of our republic—separation of powers and judicial review—create an inevitable tension between the branches of our government:

Every Administration suffers defeats in the court system—sometimes in cases with major ramifications for executive or legislative power or other consequential topics. Nevertheless, for the past several decades, the decisions of the courts, popular or not, have been followed …. Within the past few years, however, elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.

Some observers saw this as a warning shot across the bow to Vice President Vance, who in September 2021 said that Trump, if reelected, should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, [and] every civil servant in the administrative state … and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say: ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’” More recently, the president, citing a quote attributed to Napoleon, wrote “He who saves his Country does not violate any law.” However, the president has also stated his intention to abide by the decisions of the courts even if he disagrees with them.

Regardless, it would be a mistake for the courts to make decisions on the assumption that a ruling against the administration will inevitably provoke a clash between the branches. Threats to ignore a court decision are designed to elicit such behavior. The intent is to intimidate the courts into reaching for dubious procedural or substantive excuses not to find constitutional impediments to executive branch actions. Yet, if these legalistic gymnastics lack legitimacy, the constitutional crisis will not have been avoided, even if it is less theatrical. The role of the Court in maintaining the constitutional framework of checks and balances and serving as an independent interpreter of the Constitution—calling balls and strikes—still will have been ceded, along with the public’s trust.

If the executive branch is determined to provoke a constitutional crisis, then confrontation is inevitable. It is better that the crisis arises from the Court doing its job than from the Court being cowed into submission.

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CREATORS: The Dubious Origin of "Three Strikes Law"

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
March 11, 2025

The rising tide of urban violence during the 1980s and 1990s caused lawmakers to consider ways to up the ante for chronic offenders. In 1994, Congress enacted the former President Bill Clinton-backed Violent Crime and Control Law Enforcement Act. Part of the Act included a "three strikes" provision.

The federal three strikes statute, or habitual offender law, as it is sometimes referred, punishes a defendant with "mandatory life imprisonment if he or she is convicted in federal court of a 'serious violent felony' and has two or more prior convictions in federal or state courts, at least one of which is a 'serious violent felony.'

Many states followed the federal government. Today 28 of them have some form of three strikes laws. Many considered the habitual offender laws as an innovation in sentencing that would make neighbors safer. In fact, habitual offender laws were not innovative, they were dubious laws repackaged from an embarrassing era in American jurisprudence.

A new report from The Sentencing Project authored by Daniel Loehr entitled "The Eugenic Origins of Three Strikes Laws: How "Habitual Offender" Sentencing Laws Were Used as a Means of Sterilization" traces the connection between eugenics and three strikes laws.

"Habitual offender" laws first spread across the country in the early 1900s as part of the eugenics movement, which grew in the 1880s and reached its peak in the 1920s. The movement aimed to create a superior race to address social problems such as crime and disease, which, as Loehr suggested, the movement assumed had a biological basis.

Applying pseudoscience, laws and policies were created to prevent those who were deemed inferior, such as the mentally ill, those convicted of criminal offenses, or the physically frail, from reproducing, according to Loehr. Eugenics and racism are deeply entwined, as eugenics supported "racial nationalism and racial purity." One example of the relationship between race and eugenics is found in Nazi Germany, where "Nazi planners appropriated and incorporated eugenics as they implemented racial policy and genocide."

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' opinion in Buck v. Bell — which upheld the sterilization of women in the state of Virginia — was even cited in defense of Nazi judges during the Nuremberg War Trials.

Carrie Buck became pregnant at age 16. Her foster parents had her institutionalized as a "feeble-minded moral delinquent," despite her claims that she had been assaulted by their nephew.

After she gave birth, Buck was sent to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded in Lynchburg, where her mother was already a resident.

Virginia had a law authorizing sterilization of, among others, the feeble-minded and the socially inadequate. With three generations available for examination, the colony set out to prove that the Buck women were defective. They sought to have Carrie Buck sterilized under the new law.

The Supreme Court supported Buck's sterilization by a vote of 8-1. Holmes' 1927 opinion is remembered as containing some of the most infamous language ever delivered by the high court — "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Three strikes laws reduce crime primarily through a theory of sentencing known as incapacitation. Proponents of incapacitation argue that an offender who is locked up cannot commit another crime while incarcerated. The longer the prison stay, the less opportunity to commit crime. Incapacitation is hard to argue against, especially when the person is a repeat offender. However, there is a downside to incapacitation.

Three strikes laws significantly increase the sentence length of a growing segment of prisoners, resulting in a growing and aging prison population. The fiscal impact of the measure has been significant at both the state and local levels.

According to Jacob Bush in an article in the Kentucky Law Journal entitled "Habitual Offenders Statues: A Need for Change" state expenditures for corrections went from $10.62 billion in 1987 to $80 billion in 2021.

States will face significantly higher future costs resulting from habitual offender laws as that population continues to grow and age. Tough-on-crime legislation, immigration crackdowns and promises of draconian sentencing practices continue to put a huge strain on an already overwhelmed criminal justice system.

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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Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders?

 Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of Berkley Law School at the University of California, writes in The New York Times:

It is not hyperbole to say that the future of American constitutional democracy now rests on a single question: Will President Trump and his administration defy court orders?

Federal judges have issued more than a dozen temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against Trump administration actions. But it is unclear whether the government will comply, and in at least two cases, judges have said their orders were ignored.

The Trump administration is already facing at least 100 legal challenges. Two recent court orders no doubt will test Mr. Trump’s patience.

The Supreme Court this week upheld the authority of a Federal District Court judge in Washington to lift a Trump freeze on nearly $2 billion in foreign aid appropriated by Congress. The government had missed a deadline set by the judge to send out the money, which Mr. Trump had blocked on his first day in office. And on Thursday, another federal judge, in Rhode Island, extended an order forcing the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in congressionally approved funds for nearly two dozen states and the District of Columbia. The judge said the White House had “put itself above Congress” in blocking the money.

But the hard truth for those looking to the courts to rein in the Trump administration is that the Constitution gives judges no power to compel compliance with their rulings — it is the executive branch that ultimately enforces judicial orders. If a president decides to ignore a judicial ruling, the courts are likely rendered impotent.

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Perhaps the threat of flouting court orders, suggested by Mr. Trump, and his vice president, JD Vance, and some of his nominees, is a way to put pressure on courts to treat the Trump administration favorably. Trump allies have also been pressing for the impeachment of judges who rule against his administration’s policies. Elon Musk wrote recently on his platform X that “the only way to restore rule of the people in America is to impeach judges” and “we must impeach to save democracy.” Mike Lee of Utah, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on social media that “corrupt judges should be impeached and removed” and that rulings against the administration gave the impression of a “judicial coup.”

Removing federal judges because of disagreement with their rulings would be unprecedented. The Constitution allows for impeachment only for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” There is no plausible basis for claiming that standard has been met. And it is risible to see conservatives, who repeatedly went to court to enjoin Biden and Obama administration policies, now saying that the judiciary should not review executive branch actions. All of this is about an administration that does not want to be constrained by the Constitution, laws or courts.

It is unsettling even to be asking whether the president would defy a court order. Throughout American history, presidents have complied with mandates from the courts, even when they disagree. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court struck down many of the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt. He was angry and proposed expanding the size of the Supreme Court to uphold his initiatives, but never went as far as defying the rulings. When the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Harry Truman’s order to seize steel mills during the Korean War, a major blow to his presidency, Truman, too, was angry, but he complied with the decision.

Similarly, when the court ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the White House tapes, he did so even though it meant the end of his presidency. More recently, when courts blocked Biden administration policies — from student loan relief to vaccine mandates — the White House complied.

At times, there have been disputes between courts and agencies over compliance with judicial orders. In a 2018 Harvard Law Review article, the Yale law professor Nicholas Parrillo wrote that “the federal government’s compliance with court orders is imperfect and fraught, especially with orders compelling the government to act affirmatively.” In part, this has been because agencies may lack the money, personnel or information they need to comply.

But there are no definitive instances of presidents disobeying court orders. The line attributed to Andrew Jackson about the chief justice, that “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” is likely apocryphal. Purportedly about a Supreme Court ruling that Georgia could not enforce its laws against whites on Cherokee land, the quotation did not appear in print until long after Jackson’s death. And, in fact, the court order was directed at Georgia, not Jackson or the federal government. In addition, modern scholarship has undermined the story that Abraham Lincoln defied an order from the chief justice invalidating a suspension of habeas corpus during the early days of the Civil War.

Thus far, the Trump administration has given conflicting signals as to whether it will defy court orders. On Feb. 11, Mr. Trump said, “I always abide by the courts, and then I’ll have to appeal it.” And that same month, the acting solicitor general, Sarah Harris, wrote in a footnote in a brief to the Supreme Court: “The executive branch takes seriously its constitutional duty to comply with the orders of Article III courts.”

But just one day prior, Mr. Trump posted on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” A week earlier, Vice President JD Vance posted, “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” implying that the president decides what is “legitimate.” This follows a history of assertions by Mr. Vance suggesting that the president need not comply with adverse court rulings. And while this did not involve a court order, in January, in one of his first acts in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to delay enforcing a federal ban on TikTok, even though that ban had just been upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court.

The reality — and Mr. Trump and those around him know it — is that he could get away with defying court orders should he, ultimately, choose to do so. Because of Supreme Court decisions, Mr. Trump cannot be held civilly or criminally liable for any official acts he takes to carry out his constitutional powers.

Those in the Trump administration who carry out his policies and violate court orders could be held in contempt. But if it is criminal contempt, Mr. Trump can issue them pardons. Although civil contempt can involve being jailed until the person complies with the court order, that is enforced by the United States marshals, who are part of the Department of Justice and thus under the president’s control.

Defiance of court orders could be the basis for impeachment and removal. But with his party in control of Congress, Mr. Trump knows that is highly unlikely to happen.

If the Trump administration chooses to defy court orders, we will have a constitutional crisis not seen before. Perhaps public opinion will turn against the president and he will back down and comply. Or perhaps, after 238 years, we will see the end of government under the rule of law.

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Mangino talks with Jesse Weber on Law & Crime's Sidebar

Great to join Jesse Weber on Law & Crime's Sidebar to discuss Luigi Mangione's motion to suppress filed in Pennsylvania

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South Carolina executes convicted murderer by firing squad

 The 6th Execution of 2025

The state of South Carolina executed a convicted murderer by firing squad on March 7, 2025 in the first such execution in the United States since 2010, reported The New York Times.

The inmate, Brad Sigmon, 67, was declared dead at 6:08 p.m. after a firing squad shot three bullets at the target placed over his heart, the State Department of Corrections said.

A judge had ordered Mr. Sigmon, who was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat in 2001, to choose from three methods of execution: lethal injection, electrocution or firing squad. His lawyer, Gerald King, said that Mr. Sigmon had chosen to be shot because he had concerns about South Carolina’s lethal injection process.

According to three reporters who witnessed the execution, Mr. Sigmon took several deep breaths before the shots were fired. After he was shot, his chest rose and fell about two times and his arms stiffened, according to the reporters, who were from The Associated Press, The Post and Courier and WYFF, a local TV station.

Mr. Sigmon is the first inmate in South Carolina history to be killed in such a manner. Polls show that a majority of Americans favor the death penalty, but many view the firing squad as an archaic form of justice. But as lethal injection drugs have become harder to obtain, and have at times resulted in botched executions, several states have recently legalized firing squads as an execution method.

Utah had previously been the only state to use a firing squad in modern times; it did so in 2010, 1996 and 1977.

Mr. Sigmon was executed in the death chamber at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, the state capital. He was strapped to a metal chair in a corner of the room, sitting 15 feet from a wall with a rectangular opening. Behind that wall was the three-person firing squad, facing Mr. Sigmon through the opening.

Witnesses sat in chairs along one wall of the chamber behind bullet-resistant glass. They could see the prisoner, but not the firing squad’s rifles through the opening.

In a final statement read by his lawyer, Mr. Sigmon said he wanted his message “to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.”

“Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man,” he said in the statement.

Mr. Sigmon wore a black jumpsuit and his mouth was covered. He could slightly move his head, witnesses said, and he tilted it toward the witness room before nodding toward Mr. King, his lawyer, and appearing to exchange words with him. Witnesses said it was not clear what was said.

A hood was then placed over Mr. Sigmon’s head. There was no countdown before the shots were simultaneously fired.

The group of witnesses also included three members of the victims’ family and Mr. Sigmon’s spiritual adviser, the Rev. Hillary Taylor.

Mr. Sigmon’s lawyers had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and issue a stay of execution, but the court did not grant one. Mr. Sigmon had also asked Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, for clemency, but that was denied by Mr. McMaster, who has not granted clemency to a prisoner on death row since the state restarted executions last year.

Shortly before the execution, dozens of protesters held signs outside the correctional facility that read “Thou shalt not kill” and “All life is precious.”

Ms. Taylor said that Mr. Sigmon had become an astute reader of the Bible and served as an informal chaplain to other prisoners. She added that he chose to share his last meal, a large bucket of KFC fried chicken, with his fellow inmates.

Because of a shield law passed in 2023, little is known about the members of the firing squad. According to a spokeswoman with the Department of Corrections, they train every month, year-round. A 2022 news release about renovations to the death chamber said that the firing squad consisted of department employees who volunteered to take part. They shoot a type of ammunition often used in police rifles.

Three other states — Mississippi, Oklahoma and Idaho — allow the firing squad as a secondary method of execution, to be used only if a lethal injection drug cannot be obtained. In Idaho, the State Senate recently passed a bill that would make death by firing squad the primary method.

The firing squad became legal in South Carolina in 2021, after the state passed a law that allowed death by electric chair or firing squad as options for people on death row. Inmates sued the state, claiming that both methods were cruel, corporal or unusual punishments, which are prohibited by the State Constitution.

The South Carolina Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republican appointees, ruled last year that both methods were legal, writing that neither could be considered cruel or unusual because prisoners could choose their method.

Since that ruling, the state’s Department of Corrections has now executed four people, three of whom chose to be killed by lethal injection. But Mr. King said that Mr. Sigmon had chosen a firing squad because of his concerns about South Carolina’s process with the lethal injection drug, pentobarbital.

Mr. King has argued in court that the Department of Corrections had not shared basic facts about the drug that one “would want to know to feel confident that they’ll work as intended,” such as how it is stored, how quickly it expires and how it has been tested. South Carolina does not make its lethal injection protocol public.

A department spokeswoman said last month that the agency had turned over all information about the drug in litigation and that it had “sworn to the effectiveness” of it.

Lindsey Vann, the executive director of the nonprofit Justice 360, represented two inmates in the state, Richard B. Moore and Marion Bowman Jr., whose recent executions by lethal injection did not go as planned.

Ms. Vann said that in both instances, a second dose of pentobarbital was administered 10 minutes after the first, and that in both cases the men did not die for more than 20 minutes after the procedure began. (Mr. Moore initially chose to be executed by a firing squad but changed his mind after the state procured lethal injection drugs.)

Mr. King said Mr. Sigmon felt that “the firing squad is what is left, given what he knows about the electric chair, and what he doesn’t know about lethal injection.” Mr. King said his client was feeling a “mix of fear and frustration.”

“Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity, from the choice to the method itself, is abjectly cruel,” Mr. King said in a statement.

Mr. Sigmon’s lawyers have said that he suffered from an inherited mental illness and childhood brain damage. Those factors, they argued, contributed to him murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke. After he killed them, Mr. Sigmon tried to kidnap his ex-girlfriend.

The victims’ grandson, Ricky Sims, told The Greenville News that Mr. Sigmon needed to pay for what he had done. “He took away two people who would have done anything for their family,” he said.

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