Pending federal executions to be first SCOTUS matters to be resolved without the late Justice Ginsburg
As reported in this CBS News piece, a "former U.S. soldier who said an obsession with witchcraft led him to slay a Georgia nurse in a bid to lift a spell he believed she put on him is the first of two more inmates the federal government is preparing to put to death this week." Here is more about this and another federal execution scheduled for the coming days:
William Emmett LeCroy, 50, on Tuesday would be the sixth federal inmate executed by lethal injection this year at the U.S. prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Another is scheduled for Thursday of Christopher Vialva, who would be the first African-American on federal death row to be executed this year. LeCroy is white, as were four of the five inmates executed earlier. The fifth was a Navajo.
Critics say President Donald Trump's resumption of federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus is a cynical bid to help him claim the mantel of law-and-order candidate leading up to Election Day. Supporters say Mr. Trump is bringing long-overdue justice to victims and their families....
LeCroy broke into the Cherrylog, Georgia, mountain home of 30-year-old Joann Lee Tiesler on Oct. 7, 2001, and waited for her to return from a shopping trip. When she walked through the door, LeCroy struck her with a shotgun, bound and raped her. He then slashed her throat and repeatedly stabbed her in the back....
LeCroy's lawyers have sought to halt the execution on appeal on multiple grounds, including that his trial lawyers didn't properly emphasize evidence about his upbringing and mental health that could have persuaded jurors not to impose a death sentence. None of those appeals have succeeded, though lawyers could continue to ask for court intervention up to the hour of his scheduled execution. Last-minute legal appeals by the previous five death-row inmates all failed.
This lengthy Intercept article, headlined "Trump Prepares To Execute Christopher Vialva For A Crime He Committed As A Teenager," reports on the particulars of the person and crime leading to the federal execution scheduled for Thursday.
As these press reports and the headline of the post indicate, various "last-minute legal appeals" are being brought on behalf of these defendants and these appeals all are likely to come before the Supreme Court in the coming days and hours. As is common in capital cases, many of these appeals may ultimately come before the US Supreme Court. But, for the first time in nearly three decades, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not be one of the Justices considering these appeals.
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