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Morgan County judge sets deadline for response to former death row inmate’s appeal

Robin “Rocky” Myers was sentenced to death in 1994. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey commuted his death sentence on Friday, Feb. 28. He is seeking to have his conviction overturned and be granted a new trial. (Alabama Department of Corrections) A Morgan County judge last month ordered the state to respond to a former death row inmate who says his court-appointed attorney was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. Judge Charles Elliott gave the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office’s until Aug. 25 to respond to an appeal from Robin “Rocky” Myers whose team says they have found evidence that John Mays, who represented Myers at his capital murder trial in 1994, spoke at numerous white supremacist rallies and was affiliated with the Klan Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton. “This wasn’t just a conflict of interest; it was a total subversion of justice. The State cannot look the other way,” said JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Alabama...

Days before Alabama execution, federal court orders new hearing

A jury convicted Jeffrey Lee, 50, of the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery. A three-judge panel Monday ordered a lower court to hold a new hearing on alternative execution methods after finding that Alabama's nitrogen gas execution method creates a substantial risk of serious harm. (Alabama Department of Corrections) A federal appeals court Monday ordered a new hearing for an Alabama death row inmate scheduled to be executed on Thursday, but did not stay the execution. The three judge panel of 11th Circuit Court of Appeals judges — U.S. District Court judges Adalberto Jordan, Robert J. Luck and Embry Kidd, appointed by Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — ruled that Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas for executions violated the Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment for Jeffrey Lee, 50, who was sentenced to die for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery. The pan...

High-potency cannabis fuels state debates over psychosis and addiction risks

A cannabis flower rests on a rolling tray, surrounded by a pack of rolling papers, a grinder and a lighter. Lawmakers in a handful of states this year have introduced legislation to impose stricter THC limits on certain cannabis products. (Amanda Watford/Stateline) When her son was a teenager, Connecticut mom Amy Wadsworth said, he was the type of kid parents rarely worry about. He played sports, cared about his health and stayed away from drugs. In 2018, when he left West Hartford to start his freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C., she expected his biggest challenge would be adjusting to college life. Instead, she said, he began using cannabis to cope with social anxiety and as a sleep aid. Within months, Wadsworth’s son was calling home in the middle of the night, terrified and disoriented. Over the next several years, his behavior became increasingly erratic, he had psychotic episodes and he was eventually diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder. That’s wh...

DoD tweaks organized religion list after complaints of Latter-day Saints snub

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, participates in a forum hosted by the Sutherland Institute at the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics on Oct. 14, 2024. (Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch) WASHINGTON — The Pentagon changed course Monday after its removal of dozens of religious denominations from a list of recognized faiths drew intense criticism over the weekend from Utah Republicans incensed by the failure to classify the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a Christian denomination. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, a member of the church widely known as the Mormon church, said the policy for military chaplains announced Friday was “offensive” and demanded the Pentagon reverse course, which the department did Monday afternoon. “It’s also just repugnant to any sense of decency, any sense of our common heritage and our common belief that the government needs to not weigh in on doctrinal disputes between various religious denominations,” Lee, a Utah Republican, said ...

Telehealth access to abortion pill is lifesaving for domestic violence survivors, some say

Kaelah Oberdorf, 24, had a medication abortion in 2023 when she discovered she was pregnant while still recovering from the debilitating postpartum depression she had after giving birth to her daughter. Oberdorf said she was in an emotionally abusive relationship and didn't want her daughter or herself to be tied to that partner for life. (Courtesy of Kaelah Oberdorf) Carrie Frail was in the process of leaving an abusive relationship when she discovered she was pregnant. Her partner told her he could hit her in the stomach until she had a miscarriage, and it would save some money. “I firmly believe he would have killed me at some point, whether accidentally or intentionally,” Frail said. She had a medication abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2008 while serving in the U.S. Air Force. She was relieved to have the option of using medication instead of a procedure, and it let her take less time off work. It wasn’t an easy decision, she said, but she k...

Don’t forget who imposed chaos on Alabama’s elections

The U.S. Supreme Court. The court on Tuesday allowed Alabama to use a congressional map previously deemed racially discriminatory. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom) Here’s the word in the Supreme Court’s Allen v. Milligan decision that got me mad. Interposed . Don’t get me wrong. The whole ruling on Alabama’s congressional districts is infuriating. The use of definite articles is the only thing the court did right. If you care about popular will and representation, well, the nation’s high court doesn’t. Particularly when Black Americans vote in ways six conservative justices don’t like. But look at “interposed” in its full context, in the unsigned order: “Here, the District Court interposed itself into Alabama’s ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected . . . While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether...