Search Results for: cruel AND unusual punishment

British Columbia (BC) Premier David Eby on Sunday announced those who are severely addicted and mentally ill will be admitted into involuntary care. This announcement came in the lead-up to the provincial election campaign. The premier stated that if reelected, the New Democratic Party would open highly secure facilities to provide involuntary care for people [...]

California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday setting guidelines for the removal of homeless encampments by state agencies and departments while requesting that local governments adopt the policies as well. The order will require state agencies under Newsom’s authority to address homeless encampments on state property and set five explicit policies to follow [...]

Utah officials declared on Saturday that they switched the execution method for death row inmate Taberon Dave Honie from an experimental three-drug lethal injection to a well-known single-drug injection, according to The Salt Lake Tribute. Honie was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for murdering Claudia Benn, the mother of his girlfriend at the time. [...]

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed Thursday that a section of the Mississippi Constitution that banned felons from voting for life did not violate the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution and was thereby constitutional. Dennis Hopkins, a disenfranchised voter, claimed that the Mississippi Constitution created a “cruel and [...]

The US Supreme Court ruled Friday in a 6-3 decision to allow cities to enforce bans on homeless encampments even when shelter space is unavailable. In City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson, the plaintiffs filed a class action on behalf of the homeless population living in Grants Pass, alleging that the city’s ordinances against [...]

Alabama inmate Alan Eugene Miller on Friday requested the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama block his scheduled nitrogen gas execution, which would be the second of its kind in US history. In 2000, Miller was sentenced to death for the murder of three people. Alabama law lets death row inmates choose [...]

The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on whether enforcing public camping ordinances against unhoused people without adequate shelter is cruel and unusual punishment and, therefore, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution. The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, originated in southern Oregon. The central question before the court revolves around the [...]

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a new bill into law on Wednesday that prohibits homeless individuals from sleeping in public spaces, such as sidewalks and parks. The bill, HB 1365, is set to take effect on October 1. DeSantis claimed the bill aims to address public safety and quality of life by ensuring homeless individuals [...]

The Georgia Parole Board denied clemency for inmate Willie James Pye on Tuesday, making him soon to be the first inmate executed in the state since 2020. Pye was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 after the murder of Alicia Lynn Yarbough, with whom he was involved in a relationship. During the clemency meeting [...]

A death row inmate in Alabama filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of nitrogen gas executions. He argued that the first person in the nation put to death by this method experienced violent convulsions for several minutes in “a human experiment that officials botched miserably.” Bernard E. Harcourt, counsel for death row [...]