Texas executes man for strangling to death a young mother 20 years ago

 The 13th Execution of 2025

 A Texas man convicted of fatally strangling and stabbing a young mother more than 20 years ago was executed on the evening of April 24, 2025 as the victim’s mother and other relatives looked on, reported The Associated Press.

Moises Sandoval Mendoza, 41, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6:40 p.m. He was sentenced to death for his conviction in the March 2004 killing of 20-year-old Rachelle O’Neil Tolleson.

After a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about two minutes, Mendoza apologized repeatedly to the victim’s two parents and other relatives present, calling to each by name. “I am sorry for having robbed you of Rachelle’s life,” he said, addressing the parents, one of her brothers, a cousin and an uncle watching through a window from an adjoining room.

Mendoza also said he had robbed Tolleson’s daughter of her mother, adding, “I’m sorry for that. I know nothing that I could ever say or do would ever make up for that. I want you to know that I am sincere. I apologize.” The daughter wasn’t present for the execution.

He then spoke briefly in Spanish, addressing his wife, his sister and two friends watching through a window from another witness room. “I love you, I am with you, I am well and at peace,” he said in Spanish, his words provided in a transcript in English translation. “You know that I’m well, and everything is love.”

As the injection began, he could be heard making two loud gasps and then began snoring. After about 10 snores, all movement ceased and he was pronounced dead 19 minutes later.

Prosecutors say Mendoza, 41, took Tolleson from her north Texas home, leaving her 6-month-old daughter alone. The infant was found cold and wet but safe the next day by Tolleson’s mother. Tolleson’s body was discovered six days later, left in a field near a creek.

Evidence in Mendoza’s case showed he also had burned Tolleson’s body to hide his fingerprints. Dental records were used to identify her, according to investigators.

Pam O’Neil, the victim’s mother, told reporters after witnessing Mendoza’s execution that it could not undo the loss of her daughter. Reading from a statement, she said of Mendoza: “He’s been on death row 20 years. That ended today. He was put to sleep. He felt no pain. I wish I could say the same about my daughter’s death.”

As Mendoza’s relatives and friends left the prison, they appeared distraught and embraced one another.

Hours earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a final request by Mendoza’s attorneys to stop his execution. Mendoza’s attorneys told the justices in a filing that he had been prevented by lower courts from arguing that he had been denied effective assistance of counsel earlier in the appeals process.

But the Texas Attorney General’s Office told the Supreme Court that Mendoza’s claim of ineffective assistance of counsel had previously been found “meritless and insubstantial” by a lower federal court.

Lower courts also had previously rejected his petitions for a stay. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied Mendoza’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty.

Authorities said that in the days before the killing, Mendoza had attended a party at Tolleson’s home in Farmersville, located about 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Dallas. On the day her body was found, Mendoza told a friend about the killing. The friend called police, and Mendoza was arrested.

Mendoza confessed to police but couldn’t give detectives a reason for the killing, authorities said. He told investigators he repeatedly choked Tolleson, sexually assaulted her and dragged her body to a field, where he choked her again and then stabbed her in the throat. He later moved her body to a more remote location and burned it, they said.

Mendoza was the third inmate put to death this year in Texas, historically the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, and the 13th in the U.S.

On Thursday, Alabama plans to execute James Osgood for the 2010 rape and murder of a woman.

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Lawyers face intensive scrutiny at the border

 Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport, reported The Guardian. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.

“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning. And that’s when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab.”

But it quickly became apparent, Makled said, that the stop was different from the type of so-called random stop Muslims and Arab-Americans have become accustomed to at US airports. The plainclothes immigration officer said he knew who Makled was and what he did for a living, according to the lawyer; agents wanted to search his phone.

“They made it clear right off the top: ‘We know that you’re an attorney and we know that you’re taking on some higher-profile cases.’ I was like, ‘OK, well, what do you want from me?’” Makled recalled.

Among the high-profile cases Makled has taken on recently: a pro-Palestinian student protester who was arrested at a demonstration at the University of Michigan.

Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the search of Makled’s phone “outrageous”.

“CBP or [the Department of Homeland Security] could not show up at this attorney’s office and say: ‘give me your contact list’ without a warrant,” Cope said. “That would be completely illegal. But because this guy is at the border, and they want it for potentially just domestic monitoring and enforcement, somehow now the fourth amendment goes away.”

Both citizens and non-citizens entering the US are potentially subject to having their phones searched at the border. Fourth amendment protections, which guard against “unreasonable search and seizure”, have been weakened at US points of entry. CBP’s role is to stop people or goods that could pose a threat to the US from entering the country. In the case of US citizens, CBP may pull a traveler whom agents have security concerns about – anything from drug or sex trafficking to espionage concerns – but must ultimately admit them into the country, Cope said.

However, there have been many recent cases of CBP pulling a US citizen about whom they have no border security concerns into a secondary screening at the behest of other federal agencies, Cope said. The FBI, for example, has in the past asked CBP to put flags on people’s travel profiles so that when they cross the border they are pulled into secondary inspection, she said.

“That may be because the person is under domestic investigation themselves or because the traveler is associated with somebody who’s under investigation and the government’s just trying to get around the warrant requirement,” Cope said.

Cope said that, based on the existing information, it doesn’t appear Makled’s stop was routine. “If they tell him: ‘We know you’re a lawyer,’ and then this terrorism flag popped up, that’s not routine, that’s pre-planned,” Cope said.

CBP has access to a vast array of databases through which agents can gain access to personal information about individuals who are traveling into or out of the US. One of these repositories may have contained a “lookout” designation for Makled, a flag on his file that can lead to a secondary screening. Those “lookouts” can remain on a person’s file as long as CBP deems them “pertinent”, according to documents revealed in a 2019 case in Massachusetts federal court.

W hen Makled was finally released around two hours after he was first detained, he asked the official if he should expect to be stopped every time he traveled abroad.

“He’s like, ‘You might be stopped next time,’” Makled said. “You might not. It depends on the agent that’s working.”

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CREATORS: Let History Guide the Court on Deportation Issue

 Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
April 22, 2025

What happens when the government violates an individual's constitutional rights? We may soon find out as the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving the federal government's deportation of noncitizens in violation of a court order and without due process of law.

The Supreme Court's response to unconstitutional conduct by law enforcement as it relates to individuals accused of a crime may serve as a guide.

In 1961, the high court created a dramatic remedy that would prevent the prosecution of an accused whose constitutional rights had been violated. The Court established the exclusionary rule, which remains controversial to this day.

In 1957, Cleveland, Ohio police officers went to the home of Dollree Mapp looking for a suspect in a criminal investigation. She refused to let the police in without a warrant.

The police left, and when they returned, they were armed with a phony warrant. Chicanery took the place of real police work. Instead of going to a judge to get a warrant, they drew up their own. After entering Mapp's home, police searched and confiscated obscene material, resulting in Mapp's arrest.

As a result of the police misconduct, the Supreme Court, in Mapp v. Ohio, provided a remedy — the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence from admission in a criminal prosecution — resulting in a dismissal of the charges.

The rationale behind the exclusionary rule was to deter police misconduct. If police intentionally circumvented their obligation to get a search warrant, or deprived an accused of due process, the penalty would be significant — the inability to use any evidence illegally obtained.

Over the last half century, the Supreme Court has whittled away at the exclusionary rule. The court has ruled that the exclusionary rule does not apply if the police obtained no advantage by their unlawful conduct, if a judge improvidently issued a warrant or if a valid warrant was illegally served.

In 2009, the assault on the exclusionary rule continued. The Supreme Court found that evidence confiscated as a result of an arrest that was the product of an expired warrant was not subject to exclusion. The court found that negligence by one police department in failing to remove a warrant did not contaminate evidence obtained by a different police department that was unaware of the invalid arrest warrant.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court further narrowed the exclusionary rule. Police in Alabama arrested Willie Davis. After he was handcuffed and placed in the backseat of a police cruiser, Davis' car was searched. The police found a gun. They were in conformity with the law as it existed at the time the warrantless search of Davis' car was conducted.

Subsequently, the law changed, and Davis sought to have the evidence excluded. The Supreme Court refused to exclude the evidence. Justice Samuel Alito concluded that suppression of evidence as the result of a change in the law, a change that came after a lawful search, "would do nothing to deter police misconduct."

In 2016, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion in a Utah case ruling that evidence obtained from an unlawful police stop would not be excluded from court because the link between the stop and the evidence's discovery was "attenuated" by the discovery of an outstanding warrant during the stop.

Despite the Supreme Court's diminution of Mapp v. Ohio, history has looked kindly on the Warren Court and the important protections provided by the court to men and women accused of crime.

The current Supreme Court has stepped in to halt deportations to El Salvadore temporarily. The Trump administration faces possible contempt for prior deportations and specifically for the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. History will remember what remedy the Supreme Court crafts, if any, for Garcia and the other Venezuelans deported without due process.

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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Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh's radicalism is mainstream today

April 20th marked the 30th anniversary of the young military veteran and far-right radical, Timothy McVeigh’s attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City . The bombing was met with near-universal revulsion at the carnage he created and at the ideology that inspired it, reported The Guardian.

A crowd yelled “baby killer” – and worse – as 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh was led away in chains from a courthouse in rural Oklahoma where the FBI caught up with him two days after the bombing. He had the same crew cut he’d sported in his army days and stone cold eyes.

An hour and a half’s drive to the south, 168 people lay dead, most of them office workers who had been providing government services, along with 19 young children in a day care centre directly above the spot where McVeigh parked his moving truck packed with ammonium nitrate and other explosives.

The children were, most likely, his prime target.

Bill Clinton, then president, rallied the country by vowing justice that would be “swift, certain and severe”. His attorney general wasted no time announcing she would seek the death penalty. Whatever flirtation the country had been entertaining with rightwing militia movements in the wake of a national assault weapons ban that enraged gun rights activists, and controversies over the heavy-handedness of federal law enforcement, came screeching to a halt.

Even elements of the radical right, McVeigh’s fellow travellers, were stunned by the sight of firefighters pulling dead babies out of the wreckage. Before the bombing, they had been full of heady talk of war against the government, but many of them imagined this would involve an attack on federal judges who had displeased the movement, or blowing up a building at night.

“Didn’t he case the place?” one acquaintance of McVeigh’s asked incredulously. “The bastard has put the Patriot movement back 30 years,” lamented an erstwhile mentor of McVeigh’s from Arizona.

Fast-forward those 30 years, and the movement is not only very much revived but has moved from the outer fringes of American politics to the very centre.

McVeigh wanted to strike at what he saw as a corrupt, secretive cabal running the US government – what Donald Trump and his acolytes refer to as the Deep State and are now busy dismantling.

McVeigh believed the US had no business extending its influence around the world or becoming entangled in foreign wars when white working-class Americans from industrial cities such as Buffalo, his home town, were suffering – an early expression of Trump’s America First ideology, which won him tens of millions of blue-collar votes last November.

McVeigh’s favourite book, a white supremacist power fantasy called The Turner Diaries, blamed a cabal of Jews, black people and internationalists for perverting America’s true destiny – a sentiment now finding coded expression in Trump’s twin wars on immigration and on diversity, equity and inclusion.

McVeigh believed it was up to ordinary citizens like him to take up arms and fight against a tyrannical ruling order, no matter the cost in innocent lives, because that was what the country’s founders had done during the American war of independence. The T-shirt he wore when he was arrested carried a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

During the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, the QAnon-friendly Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert expressed much the same sentiment as she cheered on the rioters smashing and bloodying their way past uniformed police officers into the halls of Congress. “Today is 1776,” she tweeted.

The parallels have not been lost on political veterans of the 1990s. Clinton himself observed in a recent HBO documentary: “The words [McVeigh] used, the arguments he made, literally sound like the mainstream today. Like he won!”

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Bunch: 'Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the critical pawn in a game to end American democracy for good'

 Will Bunch writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the critical pawn in a game to end American democracy for good.

And the regime knows its window for pulling this off is closing. The polls are showing Trump’s popularity with the American people is plummeting, and support for his immigration policies is also shrinking, after people see their rank cruelty. The conventional wisdom is that the president should pull back, but the conventional wisdom has been wrong ever since Trump descended a golden escalator on June 16, 2015. The White House is instead racing to impose dictatorship before opponents can get organized to stop it.

In this life-and-death moment for our liberty, there are still a lot of key people who aren’t getting it, and not just television bloviators. One centrist Democratic member of Congress insisted anonymously to Axios that Trump’s immoral deportation machine is a political trap, and that Dems “shouldn’t take the bait for one hairdresser,” tacking a homophobic dog whistle onto a lack of concern over human rights.

Fortunately for democracy, the mass of decent everyday American people do get it. It’s why a throng of people gathered outside a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md., demanding our government obey the law. It’s why Philadelphia suburbanites driving on U.S. Route 202 in Chester County this week saw their neighbors at an overpass with a giant sign, “Free Abrego Garcia.” It’s why voters at a town hall in deeply conservative rural Iowa confronted GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and cheered raucously when one asked, “Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?”

They understand the most important fact in America right now: that if Abrego Garcia is not free, then none of us are free. The Trump regime understands this, too, but in a very different way. It sees this everyman Salvadoran laborer as the speed bump on its autobahn toward a strongman regime of unchecked corruption and naked retribution against anyone from powerful universities and law firms to college newspaper op-ed writers who dare oppose them. And they are spinning yet another Big Lie to make sure Abrego Garcia is crushed.

But we have seen, time and time again, that injustice to one simple man can change the arc of history. It was one oppressed Tunisian fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi who launched the massive Arab Spring protests, and it was the captured-on-video 2020 police murder of George Floyd that triggered the largest protest in American history. This time, we need to bend the arc a lot further toward justice, and we need to do so in the name of Abrego Garcia.

There will be yet another opportunity this Saturday, with a new round of Easter weekend protests in all 50 states and beyond — and it’s clear now that everything is on the line. Let the chants of liberation ring loudly from Maine to Hawaii: Free Kilmar Abrego Garcia!

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Rest in Peace Pope Francis!

 The holy father led with love, joy and kindness.

Supreme Court acts quickly to stop additional deportations by Trump administration

There are sculptures of tortoises scattered around the Supreme Court grounds. They symbolize, the court’s website says, “the slow and steady pace of justice,” writes Adam Liptak of The New York Times.

But the court can move fast when it wants to, busting through protocols and conventions. It did so around 1 a.m. on Saturday, blocking the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members under a rarely invoked 18th-century wartime law.

The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph order was extraordinary in many ways. Perhaps most important, it indicated a deep skepticism about whether the administration could be trusted to live up to the key part of an earlier ruling after the government had deported a different group of migrants to a prison in El Salvador.

That unsigned and apparently unanimous ruling, issued April 7, said that detainees were entitled to be notified if the government intended to deport them under the law, “within a reasonable time,” and in a way that would allow the deportees to challenge the move in court before their removal.

There were indications late Friday that the administration was poised to violate both the spirit and letter of that ruling. Lawyers for the detainees said their clients were given notices that they were eligible to be deported under the law, the Alien Enemies Act. The one-page notices were written in English, a language many of them do not speak, the lawyers said. And they provided no realistic opportunity to go to court.

The American Civil Liberties Union, racing against the clock, filed its emergency application to the Supreme Court on Friday evening — Good Friday, as it happened — and urged the court to take immediate action to protect the detainees as part of a proposed class action.

The lawyers told the court that they feared their clients could be deported within hours, saying that some had already been loaded onto buses, presumably to be taken to the airport.

The Supreme Court did act fast. “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court,” the order said.

In a typical case, the Supreme Court would await a ruling from the relevant appeals court, here the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and ask for a response from the administration, on a deadline set by the justices.

The justices did neither of those things. Instead, their unsigned opinion said: “The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the solicitor general is invited to file a response to the application before this court as soon as possible.”

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David Brooks' CALL TO ACTION: 'It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising'

 David Brooks of The New York Times:

In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must.

But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.

Trumpism is threatening all of that. It is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.

So far, we have treated the various assaults of President Trump and the acolytes in his administration as a series of different attacks. In one lane they are going after law firms. In another they savaged U.S.A.I.D. In another they’re attacking our universities. On yet another front they’re undermining NATO and on another they’re upending global trade.

But that’s the wrong way to think about it. These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power. And it will take a concerted response to beat it back.

So far, each sector Trump has assaulted has responded independently — the law firms seek to protect themselves, the universities, separately, try to do the same. Yes, a group of firms banded together in support of the firm Perkins Coie, but in other cases it’s individual law firms trying to secure their separate peace with Trump. Yes, Harvard eventually drew a line in the sand, but Columbia cut a deal. This is a disastrous strategy that ensures that Trump will trample on one victim after another. He divides and conquers.

Slowly, many of us are realizing that we need to band together. But even these efforts are insular and fragmented. Several members of the Big Ten conference are working on forming an alliance to defend academic freedom. Good. But that would be 18 schools out of roughly 4,000 degree-granting American colleges and universities.

So far, the only real hint of something larger — a mass countermovement — has been the rallies led by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But this, too, is an ineffective way to respond to Trump; those partisan rallies make this fight seem like a normal contest between Democrats and Republicans.

What is happening now is not normal politics. We’re seeing an assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life, things we should all swear loyalty to — Democrat, independent or Republican.

It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

Peoples throughout history have done exactly this when confronted by an authoritarian assault. In their book, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan looked at hundreds of nonviolent uprisings. These movements used many different tools at their disposal — lawsuits, mass rallies, strikes, work slowdowns, boycotts and other forms of noncooperation and resistance.

These movements began small and built up. They developed clear messages that appealed to a variety of groups. They shifted the narrative so the authoritarians were no longer on permanent offense. Sometimes they used nonviolent means to provoke the regime into taking violent action, which shocks the nation, undercuts the regime’s authority and further strengthens the movement. (Think of the civil rights movement at Selma.) Right now, Trumpism is dividing civil society; if done right, the civic uprising can begin to divide the forces of Trumpism.

Chenoweth and Stephan emphasize that this takes coordination. There doesn’t always have to be one charismatic leader, but there does have to be one backbone organization, one coordinating body that does the work of coalition building.

In his book “Upheaval,” Jared Diamond looked at countries that endured crises and recovered. He points out that the nations that recover don’t catastrophize — they don’t say everything is screwed up and we need to burn it all down. They take a careful inventory of what is working well and what is working poorly. Leaders assume responsibility for their own share of society’s problems.

This struck me as essential advice for Americans today. We live in a country with catastrophically low levels of institutional trust. University presidents, big law firms, media organizations and corporate executives face a wall of skepticism and cynicism. If they are going to participate in a mass civic uprising against Trump, they have to show the rest of the country that they understand the establishment sins that gave rise to Trump in the first place. They have to show that they are democratically seeking to reform their institutions. This is not just defending the establishment; it’s moving somewhere new.

Let’s take the universities. I’ve been privileged to teach at American universities off and on for nearly 30 years and I get to visit a dozen or two others every year. These are the crown jewels of American life. They are hubs of scientific and entrepreneurial innovation. In a million ways, the scholars at universities help us understand ourselves and our world.

I have seen it over and over: A kid comes on campus as a freshman, inquisitive but unformed. By senior year, there is something impressive about her. She is awakened, cultured, a critical thinker. The universities have performed their magic once again.

People flock from all over the world to admire our universities.

But like all institutions, they have their flaws. Many have allowed themselves to become shrouded in a stifling progressivism that tells half the country: Your voices don’t matter. Through admissions policies that favor rich kids, the elite universities have contributed to a diploma divide. If the same affluent families come out on top generation after generation, then no one should be surprised if the losers flip over the table.

In other words, a civic uprising has to have a short-term vision and a long-term vision. Short term: Stop Trump. Foil his efforts. Pile on the lawsuits. Turn some of his followers against him. The second is a long-term vision of a fairer society that is not just hard on Trump, but hard on the causes of Trumpism — one that offers a positive vision. Whether it’s the universities, the immigration system or the global economy, we can’t go back to the status quo that prevailed when Trump first rode down the escalator.

I’m really not a movement guy. I don’t naturally march in demonstrations or attend rallies that I’m not covering as a journalist. But this is what America needs right now. Trump is shackling the greatest institutions in American life. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

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Trump Administration goes after New York Attorney General

"But let me be clear—this is a warning from the Trump administration: 'We are watching. Come after the President, and we are going to exact revenge.' The message is clear—if you're going to challenge Trump, you better be ready for the wrath of the United States government."

-Matthew T. Mangino-Newsweek

Mangino join Angenette Levy on Law & Crime Network's Crime Fix

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Federal judge finds probable cause to find Trump administration in contempt

A federal judge said he has found probable cause to hold President Donald Trump’s administration in criminal contempt of court for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador, reported The Associated Press.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg warned he could refer the matter for prosecution if the administration does not “purge” its contempt. Boasberg said the administration could do so by returning to U.S. custody those who were sent to the El Salvador prison in violation of his order so that they “might avail themselves of their right to challenge their removability.”

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CREATORS: What Is Due Process and Why Is It Important?

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
April 15, 2025

As we slide into the second quarter of 2025, if I were to predict the word or phrase of the year, it would be "due process." News stories lament the absence of due process, and talking heads, lawyers, White House aides, judges and journalists relentlessly examine its history and relevance. What does due process mean?

Due process, established by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, guarantee that the government cannot take a person's basic rights to "life, liberty, or property" without giving advance notice and the opportunity to challenge the action in front of an impartial arbiter.

The concept of due process developed centuries before the U.S. Constitution was drafted. Due process is a historical product of the Magna Carta, through which King John of England promised "that [n]o free man would be deprived of his life, liberty, or property except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land." The phrase "due process of law" first appeared in a 1354 version of the Magna Carta, "No man ... shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law."

The Founders incorporated due process into the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." At the time, due process only applied to federal matters.

In the wake of the Civil War, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified by the states and became part of the U.S. Constitution.

In essence, due process can be encapsulated in a single word — fairness. Due process impacts all of us, even if we are not facing arbitrary imprisonment or deportation.

Due process ensures fair treatment when a homeowner contests property taxes, or a driver fights a traffic ticket, a business seeks a zoning change, an individual seeks unemployment compensation or a student faces discipline.

According to Brandon L. Garrett, Kate Evans and Elana Fogel writing for The Hill, due process is always placed under special stress when people demand quick results without fairness. For instance, a new President wanting to show the nation he is cracking down on criminal gangs and illegal immigrants.

The U.S. government did not provide notice or review before hurrying hundreds of Venezuelan nationals onto planes bound for a notorious prison in El Salvador last month. According to The New York Times, White House aide Stephen Miller has repeatedly asserted that the people deported were not entitled to due process, even though the U.S. Supreme Court recently said the opposite.

David French of The New York Times asked, "How do they know if someone is an 'illegal alien' absent due process?"

French shared, in a recent column, his experience as a soldier deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After six of his comrades were killed in a booby-trapped house, a captured man was brought to French and his commanding officer. They determined, after questioning and examination of the relevant evidence, that he was not an enemy combatant.

He was released. French continued, "As he rolled out, though, a soldier turned to me and voiced our shared fear. 'It sure would suck if he actually turned out to be bad and we let him go.'"

"We're not God," French responded. "I can't look into his heart and know the truth, so we have to go by evidence. The evidence makes the decision for us. Was there enough evidence to hold him?"

That is due process. French continued, "(Due process) doesn't just protect a person's liberty and dignity. It's a humble acknowledgment of our own limitations."

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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Is there a serial killer in New England?

 Bodies of potential victims found in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Speculation about a serial killer in New England is gaining significant traction online – specifically stemming from discussions in a private Facebook group called "New England Serial Killer," reported Fox News.

Members of the Facebook group and social media users on other platforms like TikTok and X are pointing to several recent discoveries of human remains in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island between March and April.

Authorities across all three states have identified remains in New Haven, Groton, Killingly and Norwalk, Connecticut, as well as Framingham and Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Foster, Rhode Island.

Three sets of human remains have been identified. New Haven police identified remains discovered on March 21 as Denise Leary, a formerly missing 59-year-old mother of two. Norwalk police also identified the remains of 35-year-old Paige Fannon of West Islip, New York, on March 6. Her remains were found in a swiftly moving Norwalk River after heavy rainfall the night before.

Rhode Island State Police identified remains found in a wooded area of Foster as 56-year-old Michele Romano, who had been missing since August 2024.Their causes of death have not been released as of Tuesday.

"There is no information at this time suggesting any connection to similar remains discoveries, and there is also no known threat to the public at this time," Connecticut State Police said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

CTSP further told police that troopers responded to Woodward Street in Killingly on April 9 regarding the discovery of possible human remains. Police later confirmed the remains, which have yet to be identified, and said there is no known threat to the public.

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Letter: Incredibly, acting US Attorney served as prosecutor and defense attorney in the same case

Five former prosecutors who worked on criminal cases stemming from the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol are urging the disciplinary office governing lawyers in Washington, DC, to open an investigation into Ed Martin the President’s controversial pick to be US attorney for Washington, DC, reported CNN.

Martin, who has been serving in the post on an interim basis since Trump returned to the White House, is a divisive pick for the job. 

The letter details Martin’s representation of defendants who were prosecuted by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department for their involvement in the Capitol attack. In one case, the letter says, Martin was still repping the individual even after being tapped to serve as interim US attorney. He didn’t withdraw his representation of the man until after the case was dismissed by a federal judge in DC.

“By acting simultaneously as a prosecutor and defense attorney in the same case, Mr. Martin violated Rule 1.7(a), which directs that ‘A lawyer shall not advance two or more adverse positions in the same matter,’” the letter reads.

“Collectively, Mr. Martin’s actions threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia,” the group told the disciplinary board. “The reputation of our community depends on a prompt and thorough investigation into Mr. Martin’s violations of his professional obligations.”

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Pennsylvania governor and family attacked by man with Molotov cocktails and hammer

A Harrisburg man walked an hour from his home with gasoline-filled beer bottles and a hammer before setting fire to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s official state residence early Sunday, then fled the scene and later turned himself in, reported The Associated Press.

The suspect, 38-year-old Cody Balmer, allegedly confessed during a police interview and said if he had confronted Shapiro inside the historic Susquehanna riverfront residence, he would have beaten the governor with the hammer, court records released Monday state.

Balmer was charged with attempted criminal homicide, arson, burglary, terrorism, and other offenses, according to the criminal complaint obtained by Spotlight PA. Court records state Balmer was fueled by “hatred” towards Shapiro, though it does not elaborate on the reason for those feelings.

The attack came during the Jewish holiday of Passover, just after Shapiro had held a Seder in his residence with family and guests.

Of the possibility that Balmer’s arson could have been a hate crime, Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo told Spotlight PA, “It's something we’d look at — we’re not there yet. We haven’t made a determination, but we’re looking at that because of the timing.”

Balmer was initially scheduled to be arraigned Monday, but a spokesperson for Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement that “due to a medical event not connected to this incident or his arrest, Balmer was transported to an area hospital where he is currently receiving treatment.”

According to the State Police, he remains under their supervision and will be arraigned when he is released from the hospital.

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South Carolina used firing squad for the second time in five weeks

The 12th Execution in 2025

A firing squad on April 10, 2025 executed Mikal Mahdi a South Carolina man who killed an off-duty police officer, the second time the rare execution method has been used by the state in the past five weeks, reported The Associated Press.

Mikal Mahdi gave no final statement and did not look to his right toward the nine witnesses in the room behind bulletproof glass and bars once the curtain opened.

He took a few deep breaths during the 45 seconds between when the hood was put over his head and when the shots rang out, fired by three volunteers who are prison employees at a distance of about 15 feet (4.6 meters).

Mahdi, 42, cried out as the bullets hit him, and his arms flexed. A white target with the red bull’s-eye over his heart was pushed into the wound in his chest.

Mahdi groaned two more times about 45 seconds after that. His breaths continued for about 80 seconds before he appeared to take one final gasp.

A doctor checked him for a little over a minute, and he was declared dead at 6:05 p.m., less than four minutes after the shots were fired.

Firing squad executions resume

Mahdi’s execution came a little over a month after Brad Sigmon was put to death March 7, in the first U.S. firing squad death in 15 years and the fourth since 1976. The others all occurred in Utah.

The firing squad is an execution method with a long and violent history around the world. It has been used to punish mutinies and desertion in armies, as frontier justice in America’s Old West and as a tool of terror and political repression in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

But South Carolina lawmakers saw it as the quickest and most humane method, especially with the uncertainty in obtaining lethal injection drugs.

In a statement Mahdi’s attorney, assistant federal public defender David Weiss, called the execution a “horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society.”

Mahdi had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair.

“Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” Weiss said. “Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney.”

Mahdi is the fifth inmate executed by South Carolina in less than eight months as the state makes its way through prisoners who ran out of appeals during an unintended 13-year pause on executions in the state.

Mahdi’s is the 12th execution in the U.S. this year. Twenty-five prisoners in nine states were killed in all of 2024. Alabama and Louisiana have killed inmates by nitrogen gas. Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona and Texas have executed men by lethal injection, while South Carolina has used both the firing squad and lethal injection.

Mahdi’s last meal was ribeye steak cooked medium, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens, cheesecake and sweet tea, prison officials said.

The crime

Mahdi admitted killing Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers in 2004, shooting him at least eight times before burning his body. Myers’ wife found him in the couple’s Calhoun County shed, which had been the backdrop to their wedding 15 months earlier.

Myers’ shed was a short distance through the woods from a gas station where Mahdi tried but failed to buy gas with a stolen credit card and left behind a vehicle he had carjacked in Columbia. Mahdi was arrested in Florida while driving Myers’ unmarked police pickup truck.

Mahdi also admitted to the killing three days earlier of Christopher Boggs, a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, convenience store clerk who was shot twice in the head as he checked Mahdi’s ID. Mahdi was sentenced to life in prison for that killing.

Final appeal

Mahdi’s final appeal was rejected this week by both the U.S. and South Carolina Supreme Courts. His lawyers said Mahdi’s original attorneys put on a shallow case trying to spare his life that did not call on relatives, teachers or others who knew him and ignored the impact of months spent in solitary confinement in prison as a teen.

The defense’s case to spare Mahdi’s life before a judge lasted only about 30 minutes. It “didn’t even span the length of a Law & Order episode, and was just as superficial,” Mahdi’s lawyers wrote.

Mahdi’s earliest memory was his father slamming his mother through a glass table and later lying to his son and saying his mother was dead. Mahdi’s father pulled him out of school in fifth grade when officials suggested he needed behavioral help, defense lawyers said.

Prosecutors said Mahdi constantly used brutality to solve his problems. As a death row prisoner, he stabbed a guard and hit another worker with a concrete block. Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could have used to escape, including a piece of sharpened metal that could be used as a knife, according to prison records.

“The nature of the man is violence,” prosecutors wrote.

Weiss, Mahdi’s attorney, said his client died in full view of a system “that failed him at every turn — from childhood to his final breath.”

Busy death chamber

Mahdi’s death is the end of a busy time in South Carolina’s death chamber. He is the fifth inmate killed since September after the state had not had any executions since 2011. No other inmates are out of appeals but several are close.

The state was able to restart executions after lawmakers allowed the firing squad and passed a bill allowing suppliers of the pentobarbital to remain secret, along with the exact procedures used to kill inmates and the names of prison employees on execution teams, including the firing squad shooters.

Along with Sigmon’s firing squad death last month, three other South Carolina prisoners have been executed via lethal injection since September.

The state now has 26 inmates on its death row. Just one man has been sentenced to death in the past decade.

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Law & Crime:‘Beginning to assert their constitutional authority’: Federal judiciary may be gearing up for a face-off with Trump administration

Matthew T. Mangino
LAW & CRIME NEWS
April 10, 2025

President Donald Trump’s administration apparently believes the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 can be used to address unlawful migration and drug trafficking — but so far, federal courts have pushed back on that notion.

A March 15 executive order issued by President Donald Trump suggested a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua was behind “an invasion of and predatory incursion into” the United States.

The Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when it was used to justify the mass internment of people of Japanese heritage while the U.S. was at war with Japan.

The United States is not at war with Venezuela. However, based on the government’s interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration forcibly deported 238 alleged Venezuelan gang members without due process. Included with those summarily deported was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man with a work permit, married to an American citizen, and raising an American-born child. Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador in spite of a 2019 protection order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador.

In late March, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked any deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, writing that the law refers to hostile acts perpetrated by another nation. On appeal, 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Boasberg.

In the neighboring jurisdiction of the District of Maryland, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis found that the government had no lawful authority to detain and deport Abrego Garcia. She ordered his return. The Justice Department in a Supreme Court filing stated that Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador through an “administrative error,” but the government had no authority to effectuate his return.

Just this week, the Supreme Court lifted Boasberg’s order that had barred the government from removing noncitizens who are designated as members of a Tren de Aragua. By a vote of 5-4, the justices declined to address the challengers’ contention that they are not covered by the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on which Trump relied in issuing the order. Instead, the high court found, the challengers’ lawsuit must be brought in Texas, where they are being held, rather than in Boasberg’s Washington, D.C., court.

However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a brief concurring opinion that “the Court’s disagreement is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers — all nine Members of the Court agree that judicial review is available. The only question,” he concluded “is where that judicial review should occur.”

As the Trump administration celebrated its “victory,” judges in Texas and New York said “not so fast.” Judges in both states temporarily barred the government from deporting Venezuelans jailed in parts of those two states while lawyers challenge the Trump administration’s use of Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

The orders were the first to occur following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the administration can resume deportations under the act.

The broader decision was handed down by U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., appointed by Trump and sitting in the Southern District of Texas. He said that the administration cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to remove any Venezuelans being held at the El Valle Detention Center, in Raymondville, Texas, near the southern border, until at least April 23, giving lawyers for the detainees an opportunity to argue that the Alien Enemies Act is only applicable to enemy nations in times of war.

The Trump administration received further bad news from the U.S. Supreme Court. In what appeared to be a unanimous decision, the high court affirmed on Thursday Xinis’ order requiring “the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador” and to be prepared to share what steps it has taken to bring Abrego Garcia home. She set a hearing for Friday, and — when DOJ lawyers asked for more time to evaluate the Supreme Court’s ruling — excoriated the government attorneys.

“[T]he Defendants’ act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened, and Defendants have been on notice of the same,” Xinis wrote Friday in response to the government’s request. “Indeed, as the Supreme Court credits, ‘the United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.’ Second, the Defendants’ suggestion that they need time to meaningfully review a four-page Order that reaffirms this basic principle blinks at reality.”

As the hearing went forward on Friday, Xinis lashed out at the Trump administration after DOJ lawyers said that the government was “not yet prepared to share” information as to what efforts have been made to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release.

“That means they’ve done nothing,” Xinis said in retort.

The decisions in the deportations cases are coming fast and furious, and with each ruling, courts are beginning to assert their constitutional authority to hold in check an overreaching executive branch.

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

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Mangino a guest on "Who Killed . . . ?" podcast with Bill Huffman

Great to join Bill Huffman of "Who Killed . . . ?" podcast talking about the Idaho murders and fingerprint analysis.

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Wrap your head around this latest State Department directive

The Trump administration has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” 

The directive is part of the State Department's effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government, reported POLITICO.

The department, according to a copy of an internal cable obtained by POLITICO, will work with an administration-wide task force to collect information “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration” and will collect examples of anti-Christian bias through anonymous employee report forms.

We would do well at times like these to remember Sir Winston Churchill's words to the English people during the Second World War, "You see these dictators . . . They're afraid of words and thought . . .  A state of society where men may not speak their mind . . . where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinion. Such a state of society cannot long endure . . ." 

The cable was sent out to embassies around the world under Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s name. The instructions also were released in a department-wide notice.

The document says the task force, which was established by the executive order, will meet around April 22 to discuss its initial findings.

The cable encourages State Department employees to report on one another through a tip form that can be anonymous. “Reports should be as detailed as possible, including names, dates, locations (e.g. post or domestic office where the incident occurred,” the cable reads.

Some State Department officials reacted to the cable with shock and alarm, saying that even if well-intentioned, it is based on the flawed premise that the department harbors anti-Christian bias to begin with, and warning it could create a culture of fear as the administration pushes employees to report on one another.

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Mangino on Law and Crime to discuss murder of 4-month old

Join me and Kennedi Walker on Law and Crime Network as we discuss a Pennsylvania Mom who covered for boy friend who beat 4-month old to death.

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Mangino joins Nancy Grace to talk about missing Houston woman

Listen in as I discuss with Nancy Grace the the alarming disappearance of a young Houston woman on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

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Michigan Supreme Court bans mandatory LWOP for 19-and 20-year-olds

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that automatic life sentences without the possibility of parole for 19- and 20-year-old individuals convicted of murder are unconstitutional under state law, reported The Detroit Free Press. The ruling builds off a 2022 decision by the court to ban such sentences for 18-year-olds.

In a 5-2 majority opinion, Justice Elizabeth Welch wrote automatic sentences of life without parole for 19- and 20-year-olds with murder convictions violates the Michigan Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Welch noted a 2022 Michigan Supreme Court ruling found similar sentences unconstitutional for 18-year-olds because late-adolescence cognitive development can still be taking place.

The ruling issued Thursday applied the interpretation to sentences of life without parole to 19- and 20-year-olds, who also similarly could still be experiencing cognitive development, Welch wrote. It also retroactively applies "to all relevant criminal cases," meaning a prisoner facing a sentence of life without parole for a murder that took place when they were 19 or 20 could ask a judge for a new sentence.

"Late adolescents who are 19- or 20-years-old, as a class, share with 18-year-olds the same mitigating characteristics of late-adolescent brain development," Welch wrote. She later added a sentence of life without parole "that does not allow for consideration of the mitigating factors of youth or the potential for rehabilitation is a grossly disproportionate punishment in violation."

A sentence of life without parole could still be possible, but 19- and 20-year-olds convicted of murder will now receive the same right to a hearing to determine if they can be sentenced to life without parole, currently in place for those 18 and younger.

Joining Welch in the majority were Justices Megan Cavanagh, Richard Bernstein, Kyra Harris Bolden and Kimberly Thomas. All five justices in the majority opinion were nominated by Democrats.

The court's two Republican-nominated justices, Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement and Justice Brian Zahra, dissented. In the dissent, Clement argued the severity of a first-degree murder conviction could be met with the most severe sentence possible.

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Mangino discusses student visas on WFMJ-TV

Watch my interview with Derek Steyer of WFMJ-TV regarding the revocation of student visas across the country.

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Idaho police shot nonverbal, autistic, intellectually disabled juvenile with cerebral palsy nine-times resulting in leg amputation

Dozens of protestors gathered outside the Pocatello Police Department following an officer-involved shooting, according to EastIdahoNews.com.

Their signs read “Bloody Hands, Dirty Cowards,” “Do Better PPD,” “Hold PPD accountable” and “What are Tasers for?”

The protest comes after a teen identified as 17-year-old Victor Perez was repeatedly shot by multiple police officers April 5, 2025 near the 700 block of North Harrison Avenue. Video of the shooting was widely circulated on social media.

The family tells EastIdahoNews.com that Perez has cerebral palsy.

Idaho police officers opened fire from behind a chain-link fence just seconds after exiting their patrol cars and critically wounded a teenage boy — described by his family as nonverbal, autistic and intellectually disabled — as he stepped toward them with a knife, video from a witness shows.

Seventeen-year-old Perez, remained hospitalized in critical condition after having nine bullets removed from his body and having his leg amputated, Ana Vazquez, his aunt, told The Associated Press. Doctors were planning tests on his brain activity.

The video, sent to EastIdahoNews.com by multiple people, shows Perez lying on the ground outside of a home in the front yard. He appears to be holding a knife or some other object and is arguing with a woman, who attempts to get the item from the Perez’s hands.

A neighbor filming the incident is on the phone with a police dispatcher and says Perez, who was on the ground, was hit in the head by a log. Police arrived at the scene at 5:25 p.m., according to a police news release, and four officers get out of their vehicles with guns drawn.

Video shows them yelling at Perez and telling him to drop his weapon. The officers were in front of a chainlink fence and not in the yard. Perez appears to stand up and move toward the officers, who then fire multiple shots.

“Immediate life-saving measures” were performed before Perez was taken to Portneuf Medical Center, according to the news release.

It’s unclear what led to the situation in the front yard, but many say police were too aggressive in their response to the situation.

The Pocatello Police Department remained quiet Sunday and did not release any updates about the shooting. EastIdahoNews.com requested additional information from the department and the city’s public information officer, but our messages were not returned.

The shooting is under investigation by the East Idaho Critical Incident Task Force. Police have asked for public’s patience as the investigation unfolds.

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Florida executes man for 2000 abduction and murder

 The 11th Execution of 2025

Michael Tanzi convicted of killing a Miami Herald employee who was abducted on her lunch break was executed on April 8, 2025, reported The Associated Press.

Tanzi was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison for the April 2000 strangling of Janet Acosta, a production worker at the South Florida paper. The victim was attacked in her van, beaten, robbed, driven to the Florida Keys and then strangled before her body was left on an island.

In a final statement, his voice barely audible, Tanzi said, “I want to apologize to the family” and then recited a verse from the Bible before the drugs began flowing.

Tanzi’s chest heaved for about three minutes, then stopped. A corrections officer shook him by the shoulders and said his name loudly twice to determine if he was still conscious. There was no response shortly before Tanzi, 48, was declared dead.

He was the third person executed in Florida this year. Another lethal injection is scheduled May 1 under death warrants signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

After the execution, Acosta’s family members expressed relief that the ordeal was finally over. “It’s done. Basically, justice for Janet happened,” said her sister, Julie Andrew, who witnessed the execution. ”My heart felt lighter and I can breathe again.”

Acosta’s niece, Janet Vanderwier, noted it took nearly 25 years to find closure. “This is the culmination of more than two decades of work to get justice for Janet,” she said.

Court records show Acosta was on a break on April 25, 2000, when she was attacked. She was reading a book in her van when Tanzi approached, asked for a cigarette, and began punching her in the face, the records state.

“Holding her wrist and threatening her with a razor blade,” Tanzi drove to Homestead, south of Miami, where he bound and gagged Acosta. Prosecutors said he took $53 in cash from her, along with her bank card.

They then headed to the Florida Keys town of Tavernier. There, according to the records, Tanzi used Acosta’s bank card to steal money from her account before stopping at a hardware store to buy duct tape and razor blades.

“He drove to an isolated area in Cudjoe Key, told her he was going to kill her, and began to strangle her,” according to a summary by the state Commission on Capital Cases. “He stopped to place duct tape over her mouth, nose and eyes in an attempt to quiet her and then strangled her.”

Acosta’s friends and co-workers reported her missing after she failed to return from her break. That led police to her van, which Tanzi drove to Key West. Police said Tanzi confessed to the crime and showed investigators where he had left Acosta’s body on Cudjoe Key, more than 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Miami.

“If I had let her go, I was gonna get caught quicker,” Tanzi told officers, according to the record. “I didn’t want to get caught. I was having too much fun ... I told her, I says, ‘I can’t let you go. If I let you go, then I’m gonna be in a lot of trouble.’ ”

Tanzi was convicted of first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping and armed robbery, drawing a 12-0 jury recommendation for the death penalty.

All of his subsequent appeals were unsuccessful, including a late request for a stay of execution rejected Tuesday afternoon by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Florida Supreme Court also recently rejected his claim he shouldn’t be executed because he was “morbidly obese” and had sciatica, raising the risk of unconstitutional levels of pain.

Two other executions were conducted earlier this year in Florida. Edward James, 63, received a lethal injection March 20 for killing an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother during a night of heavy drinking and drug use. James Dennis Ford, 64, was executed Feb. 13 for killing a husband and wife at a remote farm in an attack witnessed by the couple’s toddler, who was unharmed.

Eight other people have been executed elsewhere in the U.S. in 2025: two in South Carolina, two in Texas and one each in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana and Oklahoma. One South Carolina execution was by firing squad, and another firing squad execution is scheduled Friday. About a dozen other executions are still scheduled nationwide.

The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center said Florida’s lethal injection uses a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

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CREATORS: Richard Glossip's Twisted Journey Through America's Courts

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
April 8, 2025

Richard Glossip's twisted journey through the criminal justice system is both amazing and horrifying. Glossip, a condemned prisoner on Oklahoma's death row, was served his last meal three different times while sitting in a cell next to the death chamber.

On two separate occasions, cases bearing his name made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Today, Glossip is no longer on death row where he spent the better part of 27 years. He is awaiting a new trial after his latest visit to the Supreme Court resulted in his conviction being overturned.

Glossip received the death sentence after being convicted for the 1997 killing of his former boss, motel owner Barry Van Treese, in what prosecutors alleged was a murder-for-hire scheme. Justin Sneed admitted robbing Van Treese and beating him to death with a baseball bat but testified that Glossip promised to pay him $10,000 for the brutal murder. Sneed was the state's key witness against Glossip and was sentenced to life in prison.

Glossip has always maintained his innocence and refused to accept a plea deal. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to death. He appealed. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction indicating the case was "extremely weak." He was tried a second time in which he was again convicted and sentenced to death.

While on death row he was scheduled for execution nine separate times. After a botched execution in 2014, a group of death row inmates, including Glossip, led by my inmate Charles Warner, challenged Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol that consisted, in part, the drug midazolam.

Glossip became the lead petitioner after a lurid chain of events beginning with the group of inmates petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 13, 2015. Two days later, while the court was considering the petition, Warner was executed. A week later, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The Court then stayed the surviving petitioners' executions and adopted Glossip's name as the lead petitioner.

Glossip v. Gross was argued before the high court on April 29, 2015. Justice Samuel Alito found the prisoners "failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the use of midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment."

Glossip stayed on death row and came precariously close to being executed on several occasions. While he waited, an independent investigation revealed that the prosecutors in his case deliberately destroyed key evidence, and potentially exculpatory evidence was never made available to Glossip. Despite the new revelations about prosecutorial misconduct, Glossip unsuccessfully sought post-conviction relief.

Then Glossip got his second chance before the Supreme Court. This past February, Glossip v. Oklahoma, the high court overturned his conviction finding "(T)he State allowed Sneed to testify falsely at Glossip's trial that he had never seen a psychiatrist. The newly disclosed evidence confirms that the State knew Sneed's testimony was false and did nothing to correct it."

Glossip's odyssey is not over yet. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who took the unusual step of asking the high court for a new trial, told the Associated Press he will request that Glossip remain in prison until prosecutors decide whether to retry him.

Drummond, said he plans to consult Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, about whether to try Glossip again and whether to seek the death penalty, a lesser penalty of life in prison, or pursue lesser charges, like accessory to murder after the fact.

Behenna has previously said she would not consider the death penalty in the case, and Drummond recently agreed that while certain murder-for-hire cases can qualify for the death penalty, he doesn't believe the facts in Glossip's case justify the death penalty.

Glossip may yet be convicted a third time. However, he has spent nearly three decades trying to prove his innocence. He'll now get his chance.

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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