I would be the happiest attorney in Virginia if I was representing James Comey.
Imagine having the opportunity to represent a former FBI director who has been charged, as The New York Times put it, "[by] an inexperienced
prosecutor loyal to President Trump, in the job for less than a week, fil[ing]
criminal charges against one of her boss's most-reviled opponents. She did so
not only at Mr. Trump's direct command, but also against the urging of both her
own subordinates and her predecessor, who had just been fired for raising
concerns that there was insufficient evidence to indict."
What you've read is just the tip of the iceberg. This is
going to be like stealing candy from a baby. Here are the top ten reasons,
based on the findings of NBC News, why it's good to be Comey's
attorneys.
1. The former FBI director was indicted five days before the
statute of limitations was set to expire. That means if he wasn't charged by
Sept. 30, 2025, he could never be charged. Seasoned career prosecutors,
including Trump's own appointees, had five years to bring charges. They
refused.
2. President Donald Trump publicly said that U.S. Attorney
General Pam
Bondi should prosecute Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and New York
Attorney General Letitia James. All three political adversaries.
3. The president posted on Truth Social, his social media
platform, his frustration that his political foes have not been arrested:
"We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility.
They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST
BE SERVED, NOW!!!"
4. Lindsey Halligan, the new acting U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, brought the charges against Comey despite
concerns from prosecutors within her department. Prior to the charges, a senior
Justice Department official told NBC News that career prosecutors in Halligan's
office sent her a memo documenting why they believed that probable cause did
not exist to secure an indictment against Comey.
5. The president's appointment of Halligan came after he
expressed frustration that her predecessor, acting U.S. Attorney Erik S.
Siebert, was refusing to bring charges against Comey. Trump fired
Siebert.
6. The indictment was handed down by a grand jury in
Alexandria, in the Eastern District of Virginia. The grand jury did not return
an indictment on an additional count of making a false statement, according to
court filings – some of the Justice Department's claims were rejected.
7. The government's case against Comey is based on the
testimony of Andrew McCabe, a Comey deputy. McCabe said that Comey authorized
him to leak information to the press, according to a 2018 Justice Department
inspector general's report. But the report also found that McCabe made multiple false or misleading statements.
8. The indictment includes two counts: making a false
statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The charges stem from
testimony Comey made during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He denied
that he authorized leaking information regarding the FBI's investigations into
then-President Donald Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He
told Congress, "I stand by the testimony."
9. The Inspector General's report found that Comey flatly
denied, under oath to investigators, authorizing McCabe's leak to The Wall
Street Journal. Investigators concluded that "the overwhelming weight of
evidence supported Comey's version of the conversation and not McCabe's."
10. During Trump's first term, the president directed
then-special counsel John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia
investigation. Durham's team did not charge Comey with a crime, nor did
Durham criticize Comey by name in his final report.
This stuff is better for the defense than DNA is for
prosecutors in a murder trial.
And it would be funny if it wasn't such a blatant challenge
to the rule of law, shaking the very fiber of our democracy.
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. He is a regular contributor to Law & Crime. You can
reach him at www.mattmangino.com and
follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this
article are those of just the author.
To visit Law & Crime CLICK HERE
The U.S. Supreme Court's "Shadow Docket" conjures
up this mysterious image of justices surreptitiously moving through the Supreme
Court building in the dead of night, making monumental, yet anonymous
decisions.
University of Chicago law professor William Baude first
coined the phrase "Shadow Docket" in 2015. The name may be modern,
but the concept has been around as long as the Supreme Court itself. The term
refers to the U.S. Supreme Court's practice of issuing emergency orders and
summary decisions outside its regular case docket, typically without oral
argument.
Traditionally, the Shadow Docket was rarely used. Like
seeking injunctive relief in a trial court, a litigant had to prove that they
would suffer irreparable harm if the request was denied.
According to Jack Laskey, writing on EBCO, a litigant
wishing to get their case decided via the Shadow Docket applies to any one of
the nine justices, who can then forward the case to the rest of the Court for
review. If at least five of the justices agree to grant the litigant's request,
the case is placed on the Shadow Docket.
There have been 25 emergency applications sent to the court
by the Trump administration this year. In each of those cases, a lower court
had ruled that the president's actions were unconstitutional.
For example, recently in California, judges ruled that
immigration agents could not arrest someone without reasonable suspicion based
solely on a person's ethnicity or the language they spoke. President Donald
Trump sent an emergency request to the Supreme Court to overrule the decision
of the California judges and lift that ban.
In Noem v. Perdomo, the Court allowed immigration agents to
consider race, language and work status when deciding whom to stop in Los
Angeles.
Cooley Law School Professor Joseline Jean-Louis Hardrick
wrote about how the Shadow Docket is impacting fundamental protections
previously provided by the Supreme Court. In 1968, the Court created the
"reasonable suspicion" standard in Terry v. Ohio. It was meant as a
compromise, allowing police to act on less than probable cause while protecting
civil liberties.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, concurring with the majority in
Noem, wrote that while ethnicity alone cannot justify a stop, it "can be a
relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors." That
formulation opens the door for immigration agents to use race, language, and
class as part of the suspicion calculus.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing, "We should
not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks
Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job. Rather than stand
idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent."
University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck examined
the implications of the Shadow Docket in his book, "The Shadow Docket: How
the Supreme Court uses stealth rulings to amass power and undermine the
republic."
According to NPR's Nina Totenberg, Vladeck pointed to a
speech Justice Amy Coney Barrett gave in 2021, in which she assured the
audience that the current court "is not composed of partisan hacks"
and urged people to "read the opinions." But as Vladeck noted,
"What's remarkable about the Shadow Docket is that so often the court is
handing down rulings with massive impacts in which there's no opinion to
read."
"We may not agree with the specific principles the
justices are articulating" in major decisions, Vladeck wrote, but at least
we have some sense that these decisions are based on legal principles. In
contrast, he argued, "The shadow docket has none of that."
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
To visit Creators CLICK HERE
The 34th Execution of 2025
Victor Tony Jones, 64,convicted of killing a married couple during a robbery in South Florida in 1990 was put to death September 30, 2025 in a record 13th execution this year in the state, reported The Associated Press.
Jones was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Jones’ death extended Florida’s record for total executions in a single year, with the state planning to carry out two more executions next month.
The curtain to the viewing room opened right at the
scheduled 6:00 p.m. start of the procedure. Asked if he had any last statement,
Jone said, “no, sir.” Then the drugs began flowing. His chest began to heave
for a few minutes, then slowed and stopped completely.
The warden shook Jones and shouted his name several minutes
into the procedure, but there was no response. Jones’ face lost color as he
laid motionless, and a medic eventually entered the death chamber and declared
him dead minutes later. Officials said the execution was without complications.
“After seeing what I saw tonight, I wish my parents had that
opportunity to die so gracefully, close your eyes and just go,” said Irene
Fisher, daughter of the victims. “They were violently killed. My father fought
for 20 minutes with a stab wound in his heart, and my mother died instantly in
the bathroom on a cold floor.”
Jones was a new employee at a Miami business owned by
Matilda and Jacob Nestor in December 1990 when he stabbed the woman in the neck
and her husband in the chest, court records show. Investigators determined that
despite his wounds, Jacob Nestor managed to retreat to an office, unholster a
.22 caliber pistol and fire five times, striking Jones once in the forehead.
Police said they found Jones wounded at the scene with the
Nestors’ money and personal property in his pockets. Jones was hospitalized and
later convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1993 and sentenced to
death. The jury also found him guilty of armed robbery.
Fisher attended the execution of her parents’ killer with
her own two adult daughters and three other family members. She said she had
mixed emotions, as she had never watched anyone die before. But she said she
was glad it was finally over and that justice had been served.
The Nestors owned a medical supply store in Miami’s Wynwood
neighborhood, years before it became an internationally known arts and
entertainment district. The building where the business had been located is now
a community center.
“My parents would have loved that because they were always
helping people in the community,” Fisher said.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in
1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in
2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, followed
by Texas with five.
Jones filed an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court earlier
this month, based on intellectual disability and alleged abuse he suffered as a
teen at a since shuttered state-run reform school. The court denied the claims,
finding the disability issue had already been litigated and that allegations of
abuse were never presented at trial.
Hours before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected
a final appeal without comment.
With Tuesday’s execution, a total of 34 men have
undergone court-ordered
execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least eight other
people are scheduled to be put to death during the rest of 2025.
Barring legal reprieves, two more executions loom next month
in Florida under death warrants signed by the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Samuel
Lee Smithers, 72, is scheduled to be executed on Oct. 14. He was convicted
of killing two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond in 1996.
Norman
Mearle Grim Jr., 65, is scheduled to be put to death Oct. 28. He was
convicted of raping and killing his neighbor, whose body was found by a
fisherman near the Pensacola Bay Bridge in 1998.
To read more CLICK HERE
The American Bar Association (ABA) has waded into a politically charged dispute over Justice Department independence, releasing a statement condemning the use of government power to threaten political opponents and officials “who were doing their job.” The move underscored the organization’s increasingly visible advocacy role, reported JURISTnews.
In the statement, the national professional
organization for lawyers in the US wrote:
Using government power to threaten people and groups on
political grounds is antithetical to our system of justice and the rule of law.
Intimidating a political opponent, a lawyer or law enforcement official who was
doing their job, an organization that pursued missions not favored by the
president, state attorneys general and even members of Congress is
unacceptable. Evidence, not ideology, should always be the north star.
Additionally, ABA noted that decisions of prosecutors must
be free from political influence to avoid the erosion of public trust in the
judicial and political system. The association reiterated that 15 years ago, a
policy was passed concerning the political interests of prosecutors and other
government lawyers.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution,
commonly known as the Appointments Clause, grants the President the authority to “nominate” with
the advice of the Senate, “Officers of the United States,” including federal
prosecutors. This provision limits undue political influence over the justice
system by requiring the Senate’s confirmation role in preventing partisan
appointments to the judicial system.
In addition to appointments, however, the threat of
utilizing the already-appointed officials is imminent as indicated by the ABA
statement. In Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78 (1935), the Supreme
Court argued that the Attorney General is not a
representative of an “ordinary party to a controversy,” but of a “sovereign
whose obligation to govern impartially,” and whose prosecution may have
earnestness and vigor, but no liberty to strike unfairly.
Earlier this month, former FBI director James Comey
was indicted on making false statements to Congress and
obstruction of justice. According to Comey, the DOJ is politically attacking
him for his stances against President Donald Trump.
The politically charged statement highlighted the ABA’s
increasingly visible advocacy role at a time when several Republican-led states
are questioning whether the organization should continue overseeing law school
accreditation. Texas on Friday became the first state to announce it
would end that arrangement, while Florida has cited concerns about the “ABA’s active political
engagement” in launching its own review.
The ABA is the nation’s largest voluntary
legal network, representing more than 400,000 lawyers. It has served as the
sole federally recognized accreditor of American law schools since 1952. Many
states have traditionally required graduation from an ABA-accredited law school
as a prerequisite for bar admission, making the organization’s approval
essential for most law schools. But the ABA serves functions beyond academia as
well, including in vocally advocating for the legal profession and advancing
the rule of law.
To read more CLICK HERE
The Pentagon is preparing to ask President Donald Trump to authorize the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major convicted of carrying out the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, a senior Department of Defense official told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
If approved, it would be the first U.S. military execution
in more than six decades. Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people
and wounded 32 others in the attack.
Hasan entered Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Center armed
with a semi-automatic pistol and opened
fire on fellow service members preparing for deployment.
During his subsequent trial, Hasan admitted to the shooting
and claimed it was necessary to protect the "Islamic Empire" from
American forces.
The Pentagon had categorized the massacre as an act of
"workplace violence," a decision that drew sharp criticism from
lawmakers, victims’ families and national security experts. They argued it
obscured the ideological and terrorist motivations behind the attack.
In 2013, a military jury convicted Hasan and sentenced him
to death.
He has been held on death row at the U.S. Disciplinary
Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, ever since.
After years of appeals, Hasan's final legal challenge was
rejected in April 2025, clearing the way for execution.
"I am 100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is
carried out for Nidal Hasan," Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News Digital. "This savage
terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at
Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays."
Hasan is one of just four prisoners facing the death penalty
under military jurisdiction.
The Army secretary has already recommended execution, and
the Department of War is advancing the request.
To read more CLICK HERE
According to The New York Times, Donald Trump has never been coy about his intentions. He ran in 2024 on a promise of payback, and declared in a speech at the Justice Department this year his intention to pursue vengeance against the “scum” he says weaponized the criminal justice system against him.
While Mr. Trump and his team acted quickly to purge the
Justice Department and the F.B.I. of officials who had roles in prosecuting him
and his allies, it has taken a while for the president to exert maximum
pressure to bring charges against his highest-profile foes.
In July, William J. Pulte, an obscure but ambitious housing
finance official, padded into the Oval Office and pressed doubts in Mr. Trump’s
mind about Mr. Siebert’s role in the James investigation. It fueled his growing
frustration over the pace of Justice Department inquiries into all of his
enemies, including Mr. Comey.
Mr. Pulte argued that Mr. Siebert was slow-walking the James
case in order to get confirmed by the Senate for a job in a state with two
Democratic senators, according to people briefed on the conversation.
The president’s drive for vengeance was stoked by allies in
and outside his government, most notably Mr. Pulte, whose accusations of
wrongdoing against a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, helped
instigate Mr. Trump’s move to oust her. Mr. Pulte has often teamed up with
Ed Martin, who runs the Justice Department’s “weaponization” task force.
Mr. Pulte, who referred the James mortgage case to the
department earlier this year, was not just veering out of his lane. He had
jumped the median. Todd Blanche, the former Trump defense lawyer who now runs
the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department as the deputy attorney
general, made it clear he did not appreciate Mr. Pulte telling the boss what
the department should do, according to officials briefed on their interactions
and familiar with Mr. Blanche’s thinking.
Mr. Blanche told people in his orbit that Mr. Pulte was
hyping up the president’s expectations, even though the legal threshold for
bringing charges against Ms. James, proving criminal intent, had not been met.
Mr. Pulte declined to comment. Mr. Blanche did not respond
to a request for comment.
Mr. Blanche is a Trump loyalist. He left a partnership at a
top New York law firm when colleagues refused to let him take on Mr. Trump as a
private client, and he has promoted the view that Mr. Trump has nearly
unlimited authority under Article II of the Constitution. He strongly believes
law enforcement was weaponized against the president.
Yet unlike Mr. Martin and Mr. Pulte, Mr. Blanche is also a
seasoned former federal prosecutor with a firm grasp of evidentiary rules and
an appreciation of work done by career department investigators that is not
shared by the president, or many others in the West Wing.
He passed along their unwelcome findings in the James
investigation to the White House, knowing it would not be happily received,
according to officials.
He knew that Mr. Trump viewed him as his personal lawyer. He
also knew his client wanted revenge, not a legal lecture, and understood that
it was futile to protest too much.
By late summer, bigger political forces were at work, namely
the backlash over his department’s failure to release the full tranche of
investigative files into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. In what was
seen as an effort to divert public attention, many pro-Trump influencers —
egged on by government officials like Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director — turned
up the volume on their demands about prosecuting the president’s enemies.
The calls for vengeance reached such a frenzy that Mr. Trump
himself eventually issued a chilling yet all but undeliverable threat: He
claimed that former President Barack Obama had committed treason and should
face “consequences.”
Enter Mr. Martin, a far-right activist from Missouri, who
had been given an ill-defined but potentially powerful role at the department
to pursue Trump enemies after Senate Republicans quashed
his nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
He had a direct line to the White House, at times bypassing
Mr. Blanche, and had a mandate to work directly with U.S. attorneys to bring
cases.
By mid-August, he was focused on indicting Ms. James over
questions Mr. Pulte had raised about a mortgage application for a house she had
purchased in Virginia. One of the spurs driving him: His special agreement to
work with Mr. Siebert’s office on the James case expires at the end of this
month.
Prosecutors working under Mr. Siebert, however, determined
that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.
But Mr. Trump was growing increasingly fixated on the fact
that the Justice Department had not yet indicted a single person he had
targeted, according to multiple people in his orbit, and was receptive to the
agitation of advisers. Mr. Pulte soon had frequent access to Mr. Trump by
phone, and efforts by some Trump advisers to stall Mr. Siebert’s dismissal were
failing.
Sergio Gor, the director of the presidential personnel
office, moved to dismiss Mr. Siebert after Mr. Trump said multiple times that
he wanted him fired, according to two people with knowledge of the events. And
Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump legal adviser, spoke with Ms. Halligan, who
was serving as a lawyer in the White House, about stepping in to lead the U.S.
attorney’s office. The president quickly settled on her for the role, according
to a person familiar with the situation.
Senior Justice Department officials, meanwhile, suggested
that the Comey investigation was moving forward, and did not rule out the
possibility of a prosecution.
Another deadline accelerated the pace of that investigation:
the five-year statute of limitations on potential crimes emanating from Mr.
Comey’s Senate testimony, which would have expired on Tuesday.
In early September, prosecutors from Mr. Siebert’s office
subpoenaed Daniel C. Richman, a Columbia law professor and close adviser to Mr.
Comey, in connection with an investigation into whether the former F.B.I.
director lied about authorizing Mr. Richman to leak information.
Mr. Richman’s statements to prosecutors were not helpful in
their efforts to build a case, according to people familiar with the matter.
And Mr. Siebert began expressing serious doubts about the case, which quickly
made their way up the chain of command.
By mid-September, Mr. Trump was determined to rid himself of
Mr. Siebert, a 15-year veteran of the office. Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche, who
had worked closely with Mr. Siebert on immigration, drug and gang cases, pushed
back.
The president was unswayed. On Friday, Sept. 19, he told
reporters he wanted Mr. Siebert to leave. The prosecutor, who had hoped to find
another job in the department, knew that time was up and resigned, according to
officials in his office who requested anonymity to avoid retribution.
The next morning, shellshocked staff members in the U.S.
attorney’s office awakened to find an email in their inboxes from Maggie
Cleary, a veteran state prosecutor, saying she was their new boss.
At 6:44 p.m. on Saturday, Mr. Trump dashed off a rambling
but pointed social media message to Ms. Bondi demanding action. It landed with
a boom.
It read: “Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts
saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action.’
Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia???
They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”
His coda erased any questions about his intentions.
“JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” he wrote. Soon after, Comey was indicted by a grand jury.
To read more CLICK HERE
Edward Luce writing in the Financial Times:
It has been widely observed that the speed of America’s democratic slide surpasses that of other “elective autocracies” such as Narendra Modi’s India and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. But that understates Trump’s impatience. Others have shifted to authoritarianism with relatively fast-growing economies, which makes it easier to sustain public support. Trump’s trade war and his “big beautiful [budget] bill” will rob most Americans of income growth. The idea that the disaffected middle will therefore clip Trump’s wings in next year’s midterm elections is quixotic. Having silenced most institutional dissent within his first nine months, what could Trump accomplish in the next 14?
To read more CLICK HERE
The 33rd Execution of 2025
Texas death row inmate Blaine Milam was executed on September 25, 2025 for the 2008 killing of his then-fiancée’s 13-month-old daughter after his two
previous execution dates were delayed, reported the Texas Tribune.
In 2008, Milam and the girl’s mother, Jesseca Carson, called
police to their home near Tatum, where authorities found 13-month-old Amora
Carson dead, with human bite marks on her body and signs of physical and sexual
assault, according to court documents. The two initially gave police different
reasons for the toddler’s death, including that they had left the home and
found her injured, that she had eaten insulation and later that they had
performed an exorcism on the child.
Milam was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead
at 6:40 p.m., according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his
final statement, the 35-year-old thanked those who supported him while he was
on death row and the TDCJ chaplains for helping him find religion.
"If any of you would like to see me again, I implore
all of you no matter who you are to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior
and we will meet again," Milam said.
Milam’s appeals in the years since his conviction largely
focused on his potential exemption from the death penalty due to intellectual
disability and since-discredited bite-mark science used during his trial.
Executing intellectually disabled inmates is unconstitutional, and the
discreditation of bite-mark science has led to at least one overturned
conviction in Texas under the state’s “junk science” law.
Milam received two stays on his execution in 2019 and
2021 to have appeals heard, but all eventually failed as he was ruled mentally
fit for execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined
to grant Milam clemency on Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Milam's application for a
stay of execution on Thursday. The application claimed “demonstrably unreliable
and prejudicial forensic evidence” was used because prosecutors could not
justify a motive for Milam to have killed the toddler, as well as new
understanding of bite-mark science and updates to DNA testimony.
Milam's death marks the fifth execution in Texas this year,
the same number of executions as 2024. In March, David Wood’s execution was
halted two
days before he was scheduled to be put to death. The Texas Criminal
Court of Appeals granted him a stay, and subsequently remanded Wood’s
case back to trial court, where it awaits further action.
remainder of the year
is that of Robert Roberson, whose innocence in the death of his 2-year-old
daughter, Nikki, has long been maintained not only by him but by a number of
state lawmakers. On Wednesday,
Roberson’s lawyer said the 58-year-old inmate would not seek clemency, but
rather focus on obtaining a new trial.
In August, Roberson filed a new appeal that
provided new evidence the petition claimed was only made available because of
intervention by Rep. Lacey Hull,
R-Houston. The appeal alleges that the Anderson County Judiciary acted unconstitutionally
multiple times in the opening days of Roberson’s case, including improperly
informing the hospital caring for Nikki that her grandparents had the right to
remove her from life support.
To read more CLICK HERE
The 32nd Execution of 2025
Geoffrey Todd West, 50, was executed on September 25, 2025 at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama for killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery. He was executed by nitrogen gas, a method Alabama began using last year. It was one of two executions on the night in the country, as Texas put to death a man convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter.
West was convicted of capital murder in the 1997 killing of
Margaret Parrish Berry, 33, according to The Associated Press.
West said “No sir” when asked by the warden if he had final
words. Strapped to the gurney with a blue-rimmed gas mask covering his face, he
gave a thumbs-up in the direction of his attorney as the execution began at
about 5:56 p.m.
West’s eyes were open as he appeared to gulp and struggle
for breath during the first two minutes. His head rocked from side to side, his
left fist curled up and he appeared to slightly foam at the mouth. At about
6:01 he began to take a long series of breaths with long pauses in between
before becoming still at about 6:07. He was pronounced dead at 6:22.
In a final statement provided by his attorney, West said: “I
have apologized privately to the family of Margaret Parrish Berry, and am
humbled by the forgiveness her son, Will, has extended.”
He added that he was baptized in the Catholic Church this
year and was “at peace because I know where I am going.”
Berry, the mother of two sons, was shot in the back of the
head while lying on the floor behind the counter at Harold’s Chevron in Etowah
County on March 28, 1997.
Prosecutors said she was killed execution-style to ensure
there was no witness. Court records state that $250 was taken from a cookie can
that held the station’s money. A jury voted 10-2 to recommend a death sentence.
AD
West, in an interview last week, did not deny killing
Margaret Berry. He said that at age 50, he struggles to understand what he did
as a young man. He and his girlfriend were desperate for cash and went to the
station, where he once worked, to rob it.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret it and
wish that I could take that back,” West told AP by telephone. He said he wanted
Berry’s family to know he regrets what happened.
A plea from victim’s son
Will Berry urged Alabama’s governor to commute West’s
sentence to life in prison. He said taking another life will not help his
family. He exchanged letters with West ahead of the execution.
“I forgive him and so does my dad. We don’t want him to
die,” Will Berry said.
He was 11 when his mother was killed, and he said
prosecutors urged the family to support a death sentence. Now a father and
grandfather, Will Berry said time and faith have given him a different
perspective.
Ivey said in a Sept. 11 letter to Berry that she intended to
let the execution go forward. She wrote that she appreciates his belief but
said it is her duty to uphold Alabama law.
“Almost 30 years ago, Margaret Parrish Berry went to work at
the convenience store, but she would never get to return home. Geoffrey West
went in with the intent to rob and kill, and he cowardly shot Ms. Berry in the
back of the head,” Ivey said in a statement issued after the execution.
“Tonight, the lawfully imposed death sentence has been
carried out, justice has been served, and I pray for healing for all,” the
governor added.
Also in a statement Thursday, Will Berry expressed
astonishment at the execution and offered condolences to West’s loved ones.
“From what we understand, he acted out of character that
night. People he grew up with said he was a good person who got off track,”
Berry said. “We pray that he gains peace when he meets his maker.”
Berry and West asked to meet ahead of the execution, but the
Alabama Department of Corrections denied the request citing security
regulations.
The Federal Defenders Office of the Middle District, which
represented West, said in a statement that denying the meeting was a “lost
opportunity — for closure, for healing, for humanity.”
“The execution of Mr. West demands that we reflect as a
society: on how we handle capital punishment, on how age and life circumstances
are considered, on how we balance justice, mercy, and the possibility of
redemption,” his attorneys said in a statement.
Nitrogen gas
The
execution method used to put West to death involved strapping a gas
mask to his face and forcing him to breathe pure nitrogen gas, depriving him of
the oxygen needed to stay alive.
Asked about West’s movements during the execution.
Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said he believes they were largely
involuntary and things went “just as expected, according to protocol.”
Alabama became the
first state to carry out a nitrogen gas execution in 2024. Nationally,
the method has now been used in seven executions: six
times in Alabama and once
in Louisiana.
To read more CLICK HERE
The clearest way to understand the extraordinary nature of the indictment of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, is to offer this simple recitation of the facts by The New York Times:
An inexperienced prosecutor loyal to President Trump, in the
job for less than a week, filed criminal charges against one of her boss’s
most-reviled opponents. She did so not only at Mr. Trump’s direct command, but
also against the urging of both her own subordinates and her predecessor, who
had just been fired for raising concerns that there was insufficient evidence
to indict.
Visit The New York Times
A new report from ACLU on the greying of America's prisons:
America’s prison population is aging — and aging faster than
ever. The graying of America’s prisons is transforming the landscape of the
nation’s correctional systems, presenting myriad operational and fiscal
challenges for prison systems across the country. Of most importance, though,
is that the ballooning elderly incarcerated population, coupled with
correctional agencies' inability to adequately address their distinct needs,
has created conditions that are ripe for a multitude of civil rights
violations, the exacerbation of chronic medical conditions, and ultimately,
needless suffering and preventable deaths. These problems are only getting
worse.
To read the report CLICK HERE
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian
honor that can be bestowed on an individual by the President of the United
States. The honor was established by former President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The award has been given to 673 people, and collectively to
the crew of Apollo 13.
As the president demands his Attorney General Pam Bondi
prosecute his political foes, we would do well to remember a past recipient of
the Presidential Medal of Freedom — William D. Ruckelshaus.
Ruckelshaus was known for his work protecting the
environment, fighting pollution and serving as the first leader of the
Environmental Protection Agency, but tucked away in the White House statement
announcing his award, he was recognized for his courage to stand up to former
President Richard Nixon, who sought to circumvent the rule of law.
In 1972, five men hired by the committee to re-elect Nixon
broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate
Building in Washington, D.C.
About a year later, Archibald Cox was appointed to
investigate the matter.
Cox demanded that the White House turn over 10 hours of
secret Oval Office recordings, some of which could implicate the president in
covering up the break-in.
Later that year, Nixon, feeling the investigation closing in
on him, demanded the Department of Justice fire Cox for refusing to obey the
president's order to abandon his demand for the "White House tapes."
Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than
dismiss Cox. Nixon then turned to Ruckelshaus, his Deputy Attorney General, to
fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also chose to resign. The incident became known as the
"Saturday Night Massacre."
Robert Bork, the solicitor general, became acting attorney
general and fired Cox. Within minutes, the White House sent the FBI to seal the
offices of the Special Prosecutor, Attorney General and Deputy Attorney
General.
Under enormous public pressure, Nixon appointed a new
special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. He eventually obtained the missing tapes and
Nixon resigned the following year.
Ruckelshaus is certainly not a household name, but he was a
true American hero. He told The New York Times years later, "I thought
what the president was doing was fundamentally wrong — I was convinced that Cox
had only been doing what he had the authority to do; what was really of concern
to the president and the White House was that he was too close. He hadn't
engaged in any extraordinary improprieties, quite the contrary."
Ruckelshaus took a principled stand and was willing to put
it all on the line for what he believed in — the rule of law. The conduct of
our current president reveals just how few American heroes we have today.
In his letter of resignation, reprinted at the time by The
New York Times, Ruckelshaus politely thanked Nixon for the opportunity to serve
and wished him well, but admonished that "my conscience will not permit me
to carry out your instructions to discharge Archibald Cox. My disagreement with
that action at this time is too fundamental to permit me to act
otherwise."
According to Reuters, the Department of Justice under Bondi
has launched criminal probes into Trump's perceived enemies, searching the home
of former national security adviser John Bolton, and using grand juries to
probe mortgage-fraud allegations against New York Attorney General Letitia
James, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa
Cook. What will Pam Bondi do?
In 2018, Ruckelshaus wrote in the Washington Post, the
"Saturday Night Massacre" was not only the beginning of the end for
Nixon, "but it also accelerated the growing wave of political cynicism and
distrust in our government we are still living with today. One manifestation of
that legacy: a president who will never admit he uttered a falsehood and a
Congress too often pursuing only a partisan version of the truth."
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.
To visit Creators CLICK HERE
The federal investigation into the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has yet to find a link between the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, and left-wing groups on which President Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to crack down after the killing, three sources familiar with the probe told NBC News.
One person familiar with the federal investigation said that
“thus far, there is no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing
groups.”
“Every indication so far is that this was one guy who did
one really bad thing because he found Kirk’s ideology personally offensive,”
this person continued.
In addition, two of the people familiar with the probe said
it may be difficult to charge Robinson at the federal level for Kirk’s killing,
while the third source said there is still an expectation that some kind of
federal charge is filed against Robinson.
Factors that have complicated the effort to bring charges at
the federal level include that Robinson, a Utah resident, did not travel from
out of state; Kirk was shot during an open campus debate at Utah Valley
University. Additionally, Kirk himself is not a federal officer or elected
official.
A Justice Department spokesperson said, “The investigation
is ongoing and beyond that we decline to comment.”
Robinson currently faces state charges, which were announced on
Tuesday. He is being charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice,
among others, and Utah prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case.
Prosecutors said Robinson targeted Kirk, the co-founder of the conservative
political group Turning Point USA, during the Sept. 10 event because of his
“political expression.” His mother told investigators in part “that over the
last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean
more to the left.”
Thomas Brzozowski, who was until recently the Justice
Department’s counsel for domestic terrorism, told NBC News that while Kirk’s
assassination appears to meet the definition of domestic terrorism, finding a
federal charge to bring against the shooter might be a challenge. There’s no
federal law that makes acts of domestic terrorism a stand-alone crime, although
prosecutors can seek a sentencing enhancement after conviction.
The FBI is frequently involved in domestic terrorism
investigations that ultimately result in only state-level charges.
“As is always the case, the FBI needs a federal hook to
initiate an investigation,” Brzozowski said. “Here, it appears that they’re
acting in an assistance to state authorities’ capacity.”
Charging documents filed Tuesday also contained a series of texts between Robinson and a roommate,
whom police described as “a biological male who was involved in a romantic
relationship” with the suspect and transitioning to female. The roommate’s
identity has not been made public.
To read more CLICK HERE
This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Sign up for future newsletters.
On Monday, North Carolina lawmakers will return to the state
capitol with plans
to tighten rules around bail and pretrial release for people accused
of crimes. The proposed legislation would require that people arrested in the
state pay a cash bail to be released from jail before trial if they have a
prior violent offense on their record.
The push comes on the heels of the fatal, unprovoked
stabbing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in August.
Footage of the attack went viral and was amplified by some
right-wing commentators and political figures, including President Donald Trump,
as proof that lenient bail policies are allowing violent criminals to roam the
streets.
The alleged attacker, Decarlos Brown Jr, had
a long criminal history and had been released without posting bail
after his most recent arrest. It’s not clear that the newly proposed bill, had
it been law at the time, could have prevented Zarutska’s death. The maximum
sentence for the crime in Brown’s most recent arrest — for misdemeanor misuse
of 911 — is 120 days. A retired North Carolina judge noted that even if Brown
had been denied bail altogether, he almost
certainly would have been released by April, long before the August
stabbing.
Cash bail is money
a defendant pays to be released from jail before trial — often thought
of as a kind of collateral or placeholder to ensure that the accused returns to
court. In practice, however, courts often intentionally set bail at amounts
defendants can’t afford — effectively using it as a tool to keep a legally
innocent person detained until trial.
Republicans in New York are also working to advance
new bail laws that would limit pretrial release, more than five years after
a hotly contested bail reform package was signed into law. Currently, the state
is somewhat of an outlier on pretrial release due to a 1971
law that makes it illegal for judges there to consider a person’s
“dangerousness” when setting bail. The bill proposed earlier this
month would allow considering dangerousness, and make it a key factor in
release decisions.
The New York effort faces unlikely odds in the
Democratic-controlled state legislature. The North Carolina bill has
a clearer path to pass in the Republican-controlled legislature, but could
face a veto by Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.
Then there’s Texas, which passed
comprehensive and bipartisan bail-stiffening laws earlier this summer,
including limiting the situations where people are eligible for cashless bond –
or released without paying money. Voters there will also consider a state
constitutional amendment this fall that would ban bail altogether for
defendants charged with certain violent crimes.
Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to
dismantle bail policy in the state’s largest city. In a landmark
2017 ruling, a federal judge concluded that the misdemeanor bail system in
Harris County — where Houston is located — violated the constitutional rights
of poor people who could not afford to purchase their freedom. The ruling led
to an agreement with the federal government that dramatically reshaped
misdemeanor bail in the county, and it’s that agreement Paxton is trying to
vacate.
Some criminal justice reform advocacy groups, like the Texas Civil Rights Corps, see these moves as connected to broader national political trends. In a statement, the organization said the changes in Texas mirrored an executive order signed by Trump in late August aimed at cracking down on jurisdictions with “cashless bail” pretrial release. Trump’s order gave Attorney General Pam Bondi until this coming Wednesday to name jurisdictions that have “substantially eliminated cash bail” for crimes that “pose a clear threat to public safety and order.” Under the order, those jurisdictions would then lose access to federal funds if they don’t change their bail systems.
Trump’s order was quickly followed by proposals in the U.S.
House and Senate with similar aims. Nicole Zayas Manzano, deputy director
of policy at The Bail Project — a national nonprofit that advocates for ending
cash bail — said these efforts reflect a genuine belief among some supporters
in the utility of money bail. But she added that they’re also “getting at the
idea of increasing pretrial detention wherever possible,” suggesting that the
deeper goal may be keeping more people in jail, rather than preserving any
specific feature of the current system.
Even some of the president’s supporters agree that getting
money back into the system isn’t necessarily the goal. John Koufos, a lawyer
who worked with the Trump administration on the 2018 First Step Act, argued in
a recent USA Today op-ed that the end result of Trump’s order would not be a broad
revival of cash bail, but policies that put “risk
of re-offense and severity of the crime first.”
As we often mention in this newsletter, laws are mostly
written at the state level and enforced locally. That means threats to federal
funding (or the promise of new grants) are the primary way for the president or
Congress to influence the workings of the criminal justice system, and it’s not
a partisan concept. In 2021, eight Democratic legislators introduced
a bill to discourage the use of cash bail by taking federal justice
grants away from states reliant on it.
That effort never made it out of committee, let alone to a
floor vote. The recent Republican cash bail bill is much more likely to
advance, with the party in control of Congress and the issue being a top
priority for Trump.
Some conservative legal scholars have argued that these
efforts may violate the Tenth Amendment, which sets limits on how much
the federal government can intervene in areas traditionally handled by the
states, like criminal justice.
Research
on cash bail and crime rates is incomplete and mixed, but most studies have
found that eliminating it does not increase
overall crime rates, while reducing jail populations and minimizing
the harms of jail. In fact, some research has concluded that time in jail
is so destabilizing that increasing
pretrial release reduces recidivism — which is to say, future criminal
activity.
But public safety research may carry less weight if that
isn’t the real focus of the administration’s efforts. “I
don’t think there’s really much logic or much policy behind Trump’s declaration
here,” Sharone Mitchell Jr., the chief public defender of Cook County,
Illinois, told Bolts last month. “I really do think this is much more about
politics. It’s about getting over a blue state.”
To read more CLICK HERE
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, accepted a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover F.B.I. investigation before he was named to the job. The case was later shut down by Trump administration officials.
As First Amendment scholar Evelyn Douek watched the news unfold of ABC yanking Jimmy Kimmel from air, she was aghast: "The hypocrisy is enough to give one vertigo," she told NPR.
It's shocking to Douek, because she is a close-watcher of
what's known as "jawboning," when regulators or government officials
pressure private actors, like a social media company or broadcast network, to
stifle speech. The libertarian Cato Institute calls the practice "censorship
by proxy."
For years, Republicans excoriated social media platforms
over their belief that the Biden administration overly pressured Twitter and
Facebook to remove Covid misinformation. It spurred a constant drumbeat of
online attacks, Congressional subpoenas and hearings in Washington.
Now, the Trump administration's Federal Communications
Commission appears to have bullied ABC into dropping Kimmel, said Douek, a
professor at Stanford Law School. She said it makes social media companies'
removal of Covid-related posts at the request of government officials
"gentle by comparison."
The Kimmel episode follows CBS' cancellation of Stephen
Colbert's The Late Show, which often pilloried President Trump. Together,
the incidents have intensified concerns among free speech experts that the
Trump administration is using the extraordinary powers of the federal
government to muzzle political speech.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who
in 2020 called political satire one of "the oldest and most
important forms of free speech," wrote
on X on Thursday that broadcast stations have "long retained the
right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the
public interest, including their local communities' values."
Gigi Sohn, a former senior advisor to the FCC under
President Obama, said Kimmel's suspension is the result of decades of media
consolidation, where financial determinations can override concerns about free
speech.
"When control of media and tech are in the hands of a
handful of companies, it becomes easier for authoritarian leaders to control
them," Sohn wrote.
What happened exactly?
On Monday night, Kimmel's opening monologue included remarks
about the suspect in the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Camera crews and onlookers gather in front of the Jimmy
Kimmel Live studio on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
He said: "We hit some new lows over the weekend, with
the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie
Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score
political points from it," he said. (It should be noted that authorities
say the suspect in the shooting, Tyler Robinson, targeted Kirk over his
conservative political views, but the full extent of Robinson's political ideology has not
yet surfaced in his legal case. Kimmel's comments were made before
prosecutors in Utah unveiled their charges against Robinson.)
On Wednesday, Carr appeared on the podcast of MAGA
influencer Benny Johnson. In the interview, Carr said, "We can do this the
easy way or the hard way."
He went on to say: "These companies can find ways to
change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there's going to be
additional work for the FCC ahead."
Hours later, Nexstar and Sinclair, which own more than 60
local ABC stations, announced that they would not carry Kimmel's program
"for the foreseeable future," over his Monday night comments about
the Kirk slaying.
Soon after, ABC, which has aired Kimmel's late-night show
since 2003, said it was suspending him indefinitely.
The decision is not happening in a vacuum. Nexstar announced recently that it is in the process of trying
to acquire its rival, Tegna, in a deal estimated to be worth $6.2 billion that
is subject to the review of Carr's FCC.
Nexstar also needs Carr's support to loosen regulations to
complete the deal. Under current rules, no one company can own stations that
reach more than 39% of U.S. households. The Nexstar-Tegna tie-up is estimated to extend the company's combined reach into
80% of American homes.
Carr celebrated the series of events kicked off by Nexstar,
thanking the company on
X for "doing the right thing."
Carr wrote: "I hope that other broadcasters follow
Nexstar's lead."
First Amendment expert: Kimmel is "prime example"
of government censorship
Legal observers say the Kimmel saga could be setting up a
high-profile First Amendment case.
Government officials are legally permitted to try to
persuade a private actor, like ABC, to change speech, yet they cannot coerce a
broadcaster to do so, according to Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight
First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
The delicate line between persuasion and coercion was at the heart of a Supreme Court case last year that
examined whether the Biden administration broke the law in its communication
with social media companies about Covid misinformation.
By a 6-3 vote, the court found that states did not have standing
to sue the Biden administration because there wasn't enough evidence showing a
direct line between government outreach and social media companies restricting
content.
The court declared that in order for government influence to
violate the First Amendment, there needs to be a "concrete link"
between officials' actions and the suppression of speech.
In the Kimmel case, according to Abdo: "It's as direct
a line as you could dream up."
He added: "An FCC regulator threatening legal liability
against a media company for Constitutionally-protected political speech. If the
First Amendment was meant to prevent censorship, this is the prime example of
it."
Jennifer Huddleston, of the Cato Institute, said if the Kimmel
decision sticks, there could be a chilling effect, with network television
dialing down the tone of their political jokes and confrontational news
coverage, lest they wind up in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
"That is one of the greatest risks," Huddleston
said. "It's not only the impact on a specific situation, but what signal
does that send to the broader discourse and to other networks watching?"
President Trump cheered Kimmel being pulled from the airwaves on Truth
Social. He called on NBC to cancel The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late
Night with Seth Meyers.
"Do it NBC!!!" the president wrote.
For Kimmel, experts say even if he has a strong legal case,
it does not guarantee that he will fight his departure in court, especially if
he believes ABC reinstating him is unlikely.
"In some sense, it almost doesn't matter if they're
right in the law, because, on the ground, they're achieving the censorship of
protected speech, which is their goal," Abdo said. "The truth is
Kimmel's voice is silenced and the voice of others will likely be
silenced."
To read more CLICK HERE
The 31st Execution of 2025
A Florida man
convicted of killing his estranged wife’s sister and parents and setting their
house on fire was put to death on September 17, 2025, a record 12th execution in
the state in 2025.
David Pittman, 63, was pronounced dead at 6:12 pm local time
following a lethal injection at Florida state prison near Starke, under a death
warrant signed by Governor Ron DeSantis.
Florida’s Republican governor has signed more death warrants this year than any
of his predecessors.
DeSantis spokesperson Alex Lanfranconi said the execution
was carried out without complications. Pittman’s last words, according to
Lanfranconi, were: “I know you all came to watch an innocent man be murdered by
the state of Florida.
I am innocent. I didn’t kill anybody. That’s it.”
Pittman’s final appeal was rejected by the US
supreme court.
Two more Florida executions are scheduled for this fall.
Victor Tony Jones is scheduled to die on 30 September for the 1990 killings of
two people during a robbery. Samuel Lee Smithers is scheduled for execution on
14 October for the murders of two women in 1996.
Pittman was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 on three
counts of first-degree murder, according to court records. Jurors also found
him guilty of arson and grand theft.
Pittman and his wife, Marie, were going through a
contentious divorce in May 1990, when the killings occurred, and investigators
say he had threatened to harm her family several times.
Trial testimony showed Pittman cut a phone line at the
Mulberry, Florida, home of his wife’s parents, Clarence Knowles, 60, and his
wife, 50-year-old Barbara Knowles. Pittman stabbed the couple to death as well as
their other daughter, 21-year-old Bonnie Knowles. Pittman then set their house
on fire and stole Bonnie Knowles’s car, which he also set ablaze. The family
was found dead on 15 May of that year.
A witness during his 1991 trial identified Pittman as the person
running away from the burning car. A jailhouse informant also testified that
Pittman had admitted to the killings. Jurors recommended the death penalty on a
9-3 vote.
Pittman’s most recent appeals focused on recent evidence
indicating he suffers from intellectual disabilities, including an IQ in the
low 70s, that was apparent at the time of the killings. His lawyers say his
execution would violate the constitution’s protection against putting to death
a person with severe mental problems.
Lawyers for the state disagreed, contending it was now too
late for Pittman to claim mental impairment from years earlier. The Florida
supreme court, reversing a previous decision, ruled in 2020 that such claims
cannot apply retroactively.
“Pittman’s underlying intellectual disability claim is
meritless. He was not intellectually disabled when he murdered the three
victims in 1990 or when he went to trial in 1991,” the state attorneys told the
US supreme court.
Before Pittman, 30 people have been executed in the US in
2025, with Florida leading the way behind the flurry of death warrants signed
by DeSantis. The last execution in Florida was the 28
August lethal injection of 59-year-old Curtis Windom, convicted of the
1992 murders of his girlfriend, her mother and another man.
Florida executions are carried out via a three-drug injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state department of corrections.
To read more CLICK HERE
Watch my interview with Lindsay McCoy of WFMJ-TV21 on the arrest of Tyler Robinson for the murder of Charlie Kirk.
To watch the interview CLICK HERE
Violence is never the answer. Charlie Kirk's death is
tragic, but unfortunately not unprecedented in this country. During the final
decades of the nineteenth century and the infancy of the twentieth, three
American presidents were murdered.
From 1963 to 1968, a president, a candidate for president
and two civil rights leaders were slain. Not unlike those prior assassinations,
the reaction to Kirk's death is both sympathetic and callous.
In the wake of Kirk's death, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn,
R-Tenn., called for the immediate firing of multiple people in her state.
"This person should be ashamed of her post. She should be removed from her
position," Blackburn wrote on X about an assistant dean at Middle
Tennessee State University, reported NPR.
Screenshots shared by Blackburn from the assistant dean's
Facebook posts included: "Looks like ol' Charlie spoke his fate into
existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy." The assistant dean was fired,
according to USA Today.
Fifty-seven years ago, in the state Blackburn represents,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
Elizabeth Bumiller wrote in The New York Times about Kirk
and King. She suggested "Beyond an ability to inspire passion in others,
Dr. King and Mr. Kirk had almost nothing in common," with the exception
that they were both influential political leaders never elected to office.
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., posted on X that he planned
to "use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech
platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that
belittled (Kirk's) assassination."
"I'm also going after their business licenses and
permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be
kicked from every school, and their driver's licenses should be revoked,"
he wrote.
Imagine if Congress had censored comments after King's death
or threatened the careers of people exercising their First Amendment rights, a
right that Kirk celebrated on college campuses across the country. After all,
Kirk was free to say that King was "awful" and "not a good
person" and to describe the Civil Rights Act as a "huge
mistake."
The rhetoric after King's death was caustic. U.S Senator
Strom Thurmond from South Carolina blamed King for his own violent death. He
dismissed King as an "outside agitator" who was "bent on
stirring people up, making everyone dissatisfied."
Thurmond attributed the assassination to the very movement
King led, writing to his constituents, "We are now witnessing the
whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people
that each man could be his own judge in his own case."
Former President Ronald Reagan, who was governor of
California at the time of King's death, said it was "a great tragedy that
began when we began compromising with law and order and people started choosing
which laws they'd break". This view suggested that the civil disobedience
central to King's activism created a general disrespect for law that eventually
led to violence and King's death.
Georgia's Governor Lester Maddox called King an "enemy
of our country". He refused to attend King's funeral ceremony or close
state government offices for the day. He even considered personally raising the
flags outside the Capitol that were at half-staff.
On the evening of King's assassination, Senator Robert F.
Kennedy, then a candidate for president — two months later himself a victim of
assassination — told a crowd in Indianapolis that "it is perhaps well to
ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in."
Elizabeth Bumiller interviewed Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of
the Episcopal Diocese of Washington for her Times article. "Public grief
is necessary and this is a time for those who loved and admired Charlie Kirk to
grieve and to grieve publicly." She continued, "For those who were
hurt or aggrieved by his positions, I think this is a time for us to be
gracious, and allow grief to be expressed."
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
To visit Creators CLICK HERE
Watch my interview with Kelly Krapf on Court TV about the arrest of Tyler Robinson for the murder of Charlie Kirk.
In the days since the assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk, institutions from airlines to schools have moved quickly to discipline employees accused of celebrating or mocking his death, a reflection of the charged atmosphere surrounding the killing, reported NBC News.
On the right, some have called for the aggressive punishment
of anyone seen condoning his assassination. Former adviser to President Donald
Trump and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon called for mass arrests and a
crackdown on universities, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed
staff to identify and discipline service members who mocked or condoned
Kirk’s killing, two defense officials told NBC News.
Kirk was one of the right’s most prominent and polarizing voices. He built his following by amplifying the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen and by railing against what he called “woke” culture. His comments on race, feminism, LGBTQ rights and immigration often drew sharp criticism, sparking campus protests when he visited and making him a lighting rod for mockery and inspiration.
Kirk was the 31-year-old co-founder of conservative youth
organization Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that promotes conservative politics
on high school and college campuses nationwide. He was fatally shot Wednesday
during an event at Utah Valley University.
Officials on Friday identified 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, now in custody, as a suspect in his
murder.
Since Kirk’s assassination, terminations and
disciplinary actions against employees have mounted across industries.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called for the firing of
American Airlines pilots accused of celebrating Kirk’s death. The pilots were
“immediately grounded and removed from service,” according to Duffy.
“We heal as a country when we send the message that
glorifying political violence is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!” he wrote on X.
American Airlines confirmed it had “initiated action to
address this,” emphasizing that “hate-related or hostile behavior runs contrary
to our purpose, which is to care for people on life’s journey.”
Delta Air Lines also announced it had suspended employees
pending an investigation after they shared social media posts that “went
well beyond healthy, respectful debate.” The airline did not disclose details
about the posts, but said that violations of the company’s social media policy
can lead to termination.
Schools and universities
Idaho’s West Ada School District said it fired an employee
who allegedly posted a video online. The school district did not elaborate
on the contents of the video but said in a statement that it was “shocked and
saddened” by it.
“West Ada remains committed to nurturing and supporting our
students and families, and to addressing harmful actions thoughtfully, with
care, and with a focus on doing what is right,” the school district said in a
statement.
In Oregon, a middle school science teacher was placed on
administrative leave for posting on Facebook that Kirk’s death “brightened up”
his day, NBC affiliate KGW reported. The teacher ultimately resigned.
South Carolina’s Clemson University announced Saturday that
an employee was suspended pending further investigation after they made social
media posts about Kirk’s death. The university did not share the contents of
the posts and said it was also thoroughly reviewing posts made by other
employees in response to Kirk’s death.
“Clemson University remains committed to upholding the
principles of the U.S. Constitution and the employment laws of the State of
South Carolina,” the university said in a statement.
The actions at Clemson prompted Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to post, “Free speech
doesn’t prevent you from being fired if you’re stupid and have poor judgement.”
Health care sector
The University of Miami’s health system announced that it
fired an employee after “unacceptable public commentary,” but did not elaborate
on what the individual said.
“Freedom of speech is a fundamental right,” the statement read. “At the same time, expressions that
condone or endorse violence or are incompatible with our policies or values are
not acceptable.”
A Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta employee was fired after
making “inappropriate comments” about Kirk’s killing Friday.
“This type of rhetoric is not acceptable for Children’s
employees and violates our social media policy,” a spokesperson for the health
care center said in a statement.
In Portage, Michigan, an Office Depot employee was fired
after allegedly refusing to print flyers about Charlie Kirk at a customer’s
request. The specific contents of the flyer are not clear at this time.
Office Depot called the incident deeply concerning,
adding that the employee’s behavior “is completely unacceptable and
insensitive, violates our company policies, and does not reflect the values” of
the company.
“We are committed to reinforcing training with all team
members to ensure our standards of respect, integrity, and customer service are
upheld at every location,” the company said in a statement.
The investigation into Kirk’s death is ongoing.
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