All posts tagged: Clemency

Supreme Court stops execution of prison minister Jeffery Lee

Supreme Court stops execution of prison minister Jeffery Lee

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — The Supreme Court on Thursday (June 11) prevented Alabama from executing a man who became a Christian ministry leader during his 26 years on death row, deciding that killing him using nitrogen gas was unconstitutional. Jeffery Lee, who is imprisoned for the murder of two people, elected in 2018 to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia over lethal injection. But following the method’s first use in 2024, he was among several Alabama inmates to file lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of nitrogen suffocation. After two lower court rulings blocked the method this week, deeming it cruel and unusual punishment, NBC News reported that the Supreme Court denied the state’s request to execute Lee yesterday evening.  Lee was convicted of fatally shooting Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery outside Selma, Alabama, in 1998. Lee’s trial lasted two days, and in a 7-5 vote, the jury chose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Yet, in a move that has defined Alabama criminal court proceedings, the presiding judge sentenced Lee to death. Alabama is …

A pardon for a price? How Donald Trump has reimagined presidential clemency | Donald Trump News

A pardon for a price? How Donald Trump has reimagined presidential clemency | Donald Trump News

Published by Sam Flores

Limits to pardon powers But there are limits to presidential clemency, and already, Trump has brushed against them. In December, Trump announced that he would pardon Tina Peters, a former county clerk in Colorado who supported Trump’s false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election. Peters, however, was also convicted of state-level crimes, after she used her office to allow an unauthorised person to access her county’s election software. A president may only pardon federal charges, not state ones. Peters continues to serve a nine-year prison sentence. Still, Trump has sought to pressure Colorado officials to release her. “She did nothing wrong,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “If she is not released, I am going to take harsh measures!!!” While Trump has argued that presidents have the “complete power to pardon”, legal experts have repeatedly affirmed that clemency is not without bounds. Pardons, for example, cannot be used to avoid impeachment or to undercut the Constitution, nor can they be used to absolve future crimes. Still, the question remains how to enforce those limits …

Mississippi Man Serving an Illegal Sentence Granted Clemency, Weeks After His Brother

Mississippi Man Serving an Illegal Sentence Granted Clemency, Weeks After His Brother

Published by Sam Flores

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A man handed an illegal prison sentence that was years longer than the maximum penalty for his crime has been granted clemency by Mississippi’s governor, weeks after the man’s brother received clemency for a similar sentence. Gov. Tate Reeves announced Wednesday that he was granting clemency to Maurice Taylor after ordering the man’s brother, Marcus Taylor, to be freed earlier this month. In February 2015, both brothers accepted plea bargains and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell hydrocodone acetaminophen, a Schedule III substance. Combinations of hydrocodone and acetaminophen are used to treat pain severe enough to require opioid treatment when other pain medicine does not work or cannot be taken, according to the Mayo Clinic. At the time of the brothers’ sentencing, the maximum penalty for conspiracy to sell a Schedule III substance was five years. Yet Maurice Taylor was sentenced to 20 years in prison with five years suspended, and Marcus Taylor to 15 years. “Like his brother, Maurice Taylor received a sentence more than three times longer than allowed …