I continue to agree with Justice Breyer (and Ginsburg and Stevens) that there are constitutional problems with executing people decades after the trial.
No justice has agreed with them since. Thus, two more people were executed after thirty years, without any red flags being raised.
Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, is scheduled for execution on Sept. 29 for the 1995 murder of a Polk County woman who was bludgeoned with a hammer in her home.
In 1998, a jury voted 10-2 to recommend Beasley die for the death of 62-year-old Carolyn Monfort of Dundee after he had been found guilty on charges of first-degree murder, robbery, and grand theft in February of that year.
It is becoming a standard practice. Florida executes old men for horrible crimes occurring decades ago.
Other problems may exist (e.g., non-unanimous jury recommendation). The final appeals raise multiple claims. The time lag, however, stands out most.
A major argument is that he is a decrepit old man who is not fit to be executed. I consider these types of executions a form of de facto euthanasia.
Christa Pike, aged 50, is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee, USA, on September 30, 2026. She was convicted in 1996 of a 1995 murder committed when she was 18, barely out of a childhood in which she endured rape, sexual and physical violence, abuse, and neglect. The state failed to protect her as a child despite having knowledge of what she was facing. Her court-appointed lawyers then failed her at her trial, presenting little of the mitigating evidence of this abuse or its psychological consequences.
Tennessee last executed a woman in 1819. An execution of a woman is always atypical. The crime here was horrible.
Pike had accused Colleen of insulting her and trying to steal her boyfriend. Two other residents at the camp later testified that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after, and showed them a piece of Colleen's skull.
She did not act alone in the "torturing and murdering" of the teen. A co-defendant reportedly was the one truly into the Satanic rituals practiced during the crime. Her defense was also suspect, including failure to provide adequate testimony about her problems.
A very troubled eighteen-year-old committed a heinous crime. She has been in prison for thirty years. Is that not enough punishment? Not according to Tennessee. She failed the death penalty lottery.
A coalition against sexual abuse submitted a striking amicus brief arguing that her past sexual trauma would lead to PTSD while she was being executed. She would effectively feel like she was being raped.
The justices rejected all the final appeals without comment. I don't like that as a general rule.
It is a tad worse here. Something worse happened the next day. The court of appeals (2-1) temporarily stayed the execution. The Supreme Court overturned the stay, with Sotomayor dissenting for the liberals.
Two appellate courts splitting on the issue shows room for debate. The Supreme Court's intervention allowed someone to die. The orders yesterday kept the status quo, though one allegation was glaring enough to probably warrant some response.
I understand the concern that the court of appeals wrongly stopped things at the last minute. It has been thirty years, and now there was yet more delay.
I wasn't sure if it made the right call. New evidence might be present, but was it really enough? There was also a debate over the ability to even bring the claim.
But once it did stop things, the presumption goes in its favor. An explanation, at the very least, was warranted here. Overall, the execution was misguided.
It was also botched. Media witnesses explained, in brutal detail, how things went down. She was alive over an hour after the execution drugs were administered. I wonder about executions in other states. Were there more problems than apparent?
They were left in the dark about what exactly happened, including whether she was still alive.
"No prison officials were outside to tell the media what was happening as the first responders arrived. No time of death has been publicly provided."
A curtain was repeatedly drawn to hide what was going on in the execution chamber. Later, a court reported that the government provided medical attention. Anyway, I guess her concerns about the use of lethal injection weren't totally off base.
It was not the first botched execution this year.
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Meanwhile, the Supreme Court prepared for the new term. A "long conference" examined a bunch of pending appeals, mostly to dispose of them.
Alito recused himself in a major climate dispute. There was some back-and-forth involved.
Alito (more) and Roberts are the only active justices with individual stocks, which means Alito has to recuse more often. Maybe there is a better way?