UPDATED: The High Court ruled the U.S. must assure free speech and no death penalty for Julian Assange or the court might have to free the publisher who marked five years in prison today, reports Joe Lauria.
Lawyers for the WikiLeaks publisher — in a final bid on Tuesday to stop his extradition — fought valiantly to poke holes in the case of the prosecution to obtain an appeal.
In prison death chambers, the state is willing to quite literally reenact a practice from some of the country’s bloodiest history, writes Mark M. Smith.
Marjorie Cohn discusses the ramifications of a Supreme Court decision that flies in the face of recent precedents protecting the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Another federal execution was just carried out early Wednesday. Two more are scheduled for this week after both stays were lifted. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg reports on these last three cases and declining U.S. support for the death penalty.
From the Archive: After getting a judge’s stay reversed, Oklahoma officials pressed ahead with Clayton Lockett’s lethal injection, only to have the botched execution leave him writhing in pain before finally dying of an apparent heart attack. In March, Richard L. Fricker…
People around the world were gripped by the grim drama of Troy Davis’s execution by authorities in Georgia, after the state clemency board brushed aside grave doubts about his murder conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed his final appeal.…