Alabama
Inmate opposes being ‘test subject’ for new execution method
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.
In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.
“The state seeks to make Mr. Smith the test subject for the first ever attempted execution by an untested and only recently released protocol for executing condemned people by the novel method of nitrogen hypoxia,” Smith’s attorneys wrote.
Under the proposed method, hypoxia would be caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
The lawyers said Smith “already has been put through one failed execution attempt” in November when the state tried to put him to death via lethal injection. The Alabama Department of Corrections called off the execution when the execution team could not get the required two intravenous lines connected to Smith.
His attorneys said Smith has ongoing appeals and accused the state of trying to move Smith to “the front of the line” ahead of other inmates in order to moot Smith’s lawsuit challenging lethal injection procedures.
Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018, but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia, but have not used it.
Trip Pittman, the former Alabama state senator who proposed the new execution method, has disputed criticism that the method is experimental. He said that while no state has carried out a death sentence with nitrogen, people have died by breathing nitrogen during industrial accidents and suicide attempts, so the effects are known.
Smith was convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama’s Colbert County.
Prosecutors said Smith was one of two men who were each paid $1,000 to kill Sennett on behalf of her husband who was deeply in debt and wanted to collect on insurance. The other man convicted in the killing was executed in 2010. Charles Sennett, the victim’s husband and a Church of Christ pastor, killed himself when the investigation began to focus on him as a possible suspect, according to court documents.
New York
JPMorgan to pay $75M on claims that it enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operations
NEW YORK (AP) — JPMorgan Chase agreed Tuesday to pay $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle claims that the bank enabled the sex trafficking acts committed by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
JPMorgan said that $55 million of the settlement will go toward local charities and assistance for victims. Another $20 million will go toward legal fees.
The Virgin Islands, where Epstein had an estate, sued JPMorgan last year, saying its investigation has revealed that the financial services giant enabled Epstein’s recruiters to pay victims and was “indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise.”
In effect, the Virgin Islands had argued that JPMorgan had been complicit in Epstein’s behavior and did not raise any red flags to law enforcement or bank regulators about Epstein being a “high risk” customer and making repeated large cash withdrawals.
The settlement averts a trial that had been set to start next month.
The bank also said it reached an confidential legal settlement with James “Jes” Staley, the former top JPMorgan executive who managed the Epstein account before leaving the the bank. JPMorgan sued Staley earlier this year, alleging that he covered up or minimized Epstein’s wrongdoing in order to maintain the lucrative account.
JPMorgan had already agreed to pay $290 million in June in a class-action lawsuit that involved victims of Epstein’s trafficking crimes.
Epstein died by suicide in a federal jail in 2019.
Texas
Whistleblowers who reported Texas AG to FBI want court to continue lawsuit
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A group of whistleblowers who reported Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to the FBI said Monday they are not giving up their own legal fight against the Republican after his acquittal on corruption charges at his impeachment trial.
Four of Paxton’s former advisers have asked the Texas Supreme Court to resume their whistleblower lawsuit against Paxton after having never received a $3.3 million settlement. The agreement was struck earlier this year but was never approved by Texas lawmakers, who instead went on impeach Paxton over accusations of corruption and bribery.
In all, eight of Paxton’s former top aides went to the FBI in 2020 and accused their boss of misusing their office to help a political donor.
Most of them testified at his impeachment trial that ended with a jury of mostly Republican senators acquitting Paxton on all charges.
“The political trial is over, and it’s time for the case to return to a real court,” said Blake Brickman, one of the whistleblowers.
A spokesperson for Paxton’s office did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Earlier this year, Paxton’s office argued against making the lawsuit active again since a settlement was on the table, telling the court that approval of the settlement could take more than one legislative session.
Paxton returned to office last week and immediately went on the attack against fellow Republicans who drove his impeachment. He had been suspended from office without pay while awaiting the trial’s outcome, but on Monday his office asked the state comptroller to issue him back pay.
Paxton is still under an ongoing FBI investigation and is awaiting trial on state securities fraud charges. He has pleaded not guilty and broadly denied wrongdoing.
Arizona
Judge to rule on Kari Lake’s lawsuit to review 1.3 million signed ballot envelopes
PHOENIX (AP) — The trial in a lawsuit brought by Kari Lake, the defeated Arizona Republican nominee for governor, to get access to 1.3 million voters’ signed ballot envelopes is now in the hands of a judge after wrapping up midday Monday.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said he would issue a ruling as soon as possible after closing arguments in the two-day bench trial.
Lake was not in attendance after appearing Thursday.
Maricopa County election officials argue state law mandates the signatures on the envelopes remain confidential.
Lake’s lawyer counters she has a right to look into how the county runs its election operations and that people’s signatures are public in other places, such as property deeds.
This is Lake’s third trial related to her election loss. Lake previously lost two trials that challenged her competitor Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ win by more than 17,000 votes. In the second trial, a judge rejected a misconduct claim Lake made about ballot signature verification efforts in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and where more than 60% of the state’s voters live.
The former TV anchor’s latest case doesn’t challenge her defeat and instead is a public records lawsuit that asks to review all early ballot envelopes with voter signatures in Maricopa County, where officials had denied her request for those documents.
In Arizona, the envelopes for early voting ballots serve as affidavits in which voters declare, under penalty of perjury, that they are registered to vote in the county, haven’t already voted and will not vote again in that election.
Pennsylvania
Judge dismisses charges against police officer in fatal shooting during traffic stop
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A judge has dismissed all charges, including a murder count, against a Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed a driver.
Philadelphia Municipal Judge Wendy Pew made her ruling Tuesday after watching video of the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry.
The defense had asserted that Officer Mark Dial was acting in self-defense when he fired his weapon at close range through the rolled-up driver’s side window of Irizarry’s sedan during a vehicle stop on Aug. 14.
Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle had urged Pew to drop all charges, which included manslaughter, official oppression and four other counts.
Dial’s bail had been revoked this month after prosecutors argued the charges made him ineligible for release.
Police bodycam footage shows Dial firing his weapon at close range through the rolled-up driver’s side window of Irizarry’s sedan during a vehicle stop. Dial shot Irizarry about seven seconds after getting out of a police SUV and walking over to his car, the video showed. He fired a total of six rounds.
Defense lawyers called the shooting justified. They said the officer, also 27, thought Irizarry had a gun. The bodycam footage shows the driver holding a knife by his right leg.
Dial’s partner, Officer Michael Morris, testified Tuesday that the pair had been following Irizarry, who was driving erratically, turned the wrong way down a one-way street, and stopped. Morris said Irizarry had a knife in his hand and started to raise it as the officers approached.
“I screamed that he had a knife,” said Morris, adding the knife had a black metal handle that could have been mistaken for a gun.
Sitting at the defense table, Dial dabbed his eyes with a tissue as prosecutors played video of the fatal shooting from Morris’ body-worn camera. District Attorney Larry Krasner has called bodycam videos from Morris and Dial “crucial evidence in the case,” saying they “speak for themselves.”
Irizarry’s family has said that Dial deserves a long prison sentence.
The defense, meanwhile, blasted Krasner’s decision to charge Dial with murder.
“When police officers ordered him to show his hands, he instead produced a weapon and pointed it at an armed police officer,” lawyer Brian McMonagle told reporters this month. “In no world (are) those facts murder.”
The police department had to backtrack from initial statements that said Dial shot the driver outside the vehicle after he “lunged at” police with a knife. Dial, a five-year member of the force, was suspended with the intent to dismiss after officials said he refused to cooperate with investigators.
