COVID may have seemed like the only thing that happened in 2020, but for Indiana’s legal community, the past year brought watershed developments that will be with us for years to come, many of which were touched directly by the pandemic. Here are the Top 10 non-coronavirus Indiana legal news stories as determined by consensus of the Indiana Lawyer editorial staff.
A second federal inmate scheduled to be put to death next month in a series of executions by the Trump administration has tested positive for COVID-19, his lawyers said Friday.
A federal prisoner scheduled to be executed just days before President-elect Joe Biden takes office has tested positive for coronavirus, his lawyer said Thursday.
The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence for an Arizona prison inmate convicted of killing a man during a 1994 robbery in Yavapai County, state prosecutors said Tuesday.
The Trump administration continued its series of post-election federal executions Friday by putting to death a Louisiana truck driver who severely abused his 2-year-old daughter for weeks in 2002, then killed her by slamming her head repeatedly against a truck’s windows and dashboard.
The Trump administration Thursday carried out its ninth federal execution of the year in what has been a first series of executions during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years. A Texas street-gang member was put to death at at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute for the slayings of a religious couple from Iowa more than two decades ago.
With mere hours left before his scheduled execution, Brandon Bernard is awaiting a decision from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that could delay his death by lethal injection.
A federal judge in Indiana has declined to put a hold on upcoming federal executions, finding that although the executions likely present a COVID-related risk, the inmates who sued to stop the executions have not shown that they personally will be at risk of contracting the virus.
An Indiana judge has declined to stay a federal execution scheduled for Thursday at the Terre Haute federal prison. Meanwhile, another judge is considering whether the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic means all upcoming executions should indefinitely be put on hold.
Facing questions about COVID-19 protocols from an Indiana judge, the federal government is defending its plan to move forward with scheduled executions this month and next despite the continued surge of reported virus cases.
As Donald Trump’s presidency winds down, his administration is ratcheting up the pace of federal executions despite a surge of coronavirus cases in prisons, announcing plans for five starting Thursday and concluding just days before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
In a 7-2 decision, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected a federal death row inmate’s request for an en banc rehearing after a panel of the court in October refused to stay his execution due to his claimed mental incapacity.
A federal judge is temporarily blocking the federal government’s plan to execute the first female death row inmate in almost six decades after her attorneys contracted the coronavirus visiting her in prison.
Orlando Hall was put to death at the federal prison in Terre Haute for abducting and killing the teenager, Lisa Rene. His was the eighth federal execution this year since the Trump administration revived a process that had been used just three times in the past 56 years.
The federal government prepared Thursday to execute an inmate at the federal prison in Terre Haute who was condemned for kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old Texas girl, bludgeoning her with a shovel and burying her alive.
The two attorneys representing the first woman scheduled to be put to death by the U.S. government in more than six decades are seeking to delay her execution because they’ve contracted coronavirus visiting their client at a Texas prison.
A federal judge in Indianapolis has denied a habeas petition filed on behalf of a convicted killer scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute. Defense attorneys immediately appealed, seeking a stay of execution.
The Supreme Court of the United States has rejected an appeal from a Florida death row inmate whose conviction was based in part on the testimony of a controversial jailhouse informant.
A woman convicted of fatally strangling a pregnant woman, cutting her body open and kidnapping her baby is scheduled to be the first female inmate put to death by the U.S. government in more than six decades, the Justice Department said Friday.
The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected appeals from a Floyd County man sentenced to death after he was convicted of two counts of murder for killing two women eight years ago and later confessing to a 2003 slaying.