Missouri: “‘She was failed’: Transgender woman scheduled for execution next month asks for clemency”
This piece from the Kansas City Star reports on Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman convicted of murdering her ex-partner. She is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection next month in Missouri, and her attorneys have submitted an application to Gov. Mike Parson asking for a commutation of her sentence. They “argue her sentence should […]
20th Anniversary: Assessing the Purported SCOTUS Ban on Executing Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities
From the Death Penalty Information Center: “In its landmark decision in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the use of the death penalty against individuals with intellectual disability constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Twenty years later, however, “there is not just the risk, but the certainty” […]
Nikolas Cruz’s defense says his brain was ‘poisoned’ by birth mother’s addictions in death penalty trial
Should someone with an intellectual/developmental disability like Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD, formerly Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) ever be sentenced to death? The defense for Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, is arguing that due to intellectual disability caused by FASD, in conjunction with severe mental illness symptoms, it is not acceptable to issue a death penalty sentence. […]