death penalty

February 28, 2017 (Fault Lines)– Jeffrey S. Knoble, Jr. was recently spared the death penalty after he was convicted of first-degree murder in Easton, Pennsylvania. While Knoble apparently committed a horrific murder, the District Attorney agreed to...

February 27, 2017 (Fault Lines) – On April 21, 1997, a Loomis-Fargo armored-car driver, James Day, was shot in the back of the head outside a Memphis Walgreens where he’d just picked up a bag of...

February 24, 2017 (Fault Lines) –In 1982, Troy Wicker, Jr. was murdered. While he was still in his bed, Wicker was shot four times, the fatal shot passing through his eye. Shot with a .22 rifle,...

February 22, 2017  (Fault Lines) — Since I handle death penalty habeas cases, I must be careful not to express opinions on the merits of pending or impending cases involving the death penalty. While I discuss...

January 17, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The death-row-prison staff says that they’ve never had anyone fight or struggle on their way to the Death House. Executions are highly scripted events. The prison staff seems to think...

January 10, 2017 (Fault Lines) – The story is almost a cliché. Kentucky men Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark were convicted in 1995 for the murder of Rhonda Sue Warford. Highly suspect circumstantial evidence,...

January 10, 2017 (Fault Lines) — Convicted white supremacist murderer Dylann Storm Roof is, by many accounts and by all colloquial sentiments, totally crazy. Of course, that doesn’t mean he is insane or incompetent, as a...

November 21, 2016 (Fault Lines) — For fourteen years, Clayton Lockett lingered on Oklahoma’s death row after a jury recommended the death penalty for him. For fourteen years, Lockett fought in the judicial trenches to avoid...

October 26, 2016 (Fault Lines) — The title to this post is taken from the above-the-fold main story in Sunday’s Lincoln Journal Star (October 23, 2016). For most, you know nothing, and don’t care to know...

September 14, 2016 (Fault Lines) — Idaho wants to kill Jonathan Renfro. Well, that’s not quite accurate. It would be more accurate to say that Kootenai County wants to kill him. Or to be even more granular,...