Connecticut
Killer who ate part of his victim’s brain granted supervised release from psych hospital
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man who was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing a victim with a hatchet and eating body parts has been granted conditional release from the state’s only maximum-security psychiatric hospital, despite concerns expressed by the victim’s family and state lawmakers.
Tyree Smith was ordered confined to Whiting Forensic Hospital for 60 years in 2013 in connection with the killing of Angel Gonzalez, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant apartment in Bridgeport in January 2012 a month after he was hacked to death. Smith’s cousin had testified that Smith told her he ate part of Gonzalez’s brain and an eyeball while drinking sake.
The state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board granted Smith conditional release from the hospital on Friday after hearing from a psychiatrist, who said Smith’s schizophrenia and alcohol and drug disorders were in full remission as a result of medication and other treatment.
A conditional release means Smith will be placed in a community setting, but under supervision with strict conditions including continuing treatment. Smith already has been staying full-time at a community facility with around-the-clock supervision for the past nine months, with Friday’s decision formally discharging him from the hospital, officials said.
During a hearing before the board ruled, Gonzalez’s sister-in-law, Talitha Frazier, said she was concerned Smith was now hiding his mental illness.
“How do we really know he’s not going to do this again?” she asked.
State Sens. Heather Somers, Paul Cicarella, Henri Martin and Stephen Harding called the decision “outrageous” and “mind-boggling” in a statement Friday afternoon.
“This terrible decision puts public safety in jeopardy and is yet another terrible message to send to CT violent crime victims and their families. This person should never be out,” the Republican lawmakers said.
Smith attended the hearing virtually with his lawyer, but was not shown on video screens because of safety concerns stemming from media coverage, his lawyer said.
Louisiana
Judge reopens challenge to execution protocol as state prepares to use nitrogen gas
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge on Friday reopened a lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s execution protocol as the state prepares to carry out the death penalty using nitrogen gas in the coming weeks.
For the past 15 years, Louisiana had paused executions due to a lack of political interest and inability to secure lethal injection drugs. But with a nitrogen gas execution protocol finalized this month and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry eager to proceed, the state is scheduled to execute two death row inmates on consecutive days in March.
Christopher Sepulvado, convicted of murdering his 6-year-old stepson, is scheduled to be executed on March 17. Jessie Hoffman, convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, is slated for execution the following day.
Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick dismissed the lawsuit in 2022 because the state had no executions planned. On Friday, she agreed that the new nitrogen gas protocol deserved scrutiny with executions imminent.
“The significant demands of justice, i.e., access to the courts and the protection of constitutional rights in relation to human life, outweigh any interest of finality here,” Dick wrote in her ruling.
Hoffman’s attorney Cecelia Kappel, director of the Loyola University Center for Social Justice, said her team is now requesting a hearing to review the nitrogen gas execution protocol.
“This has always been about examining the state’s execution method in the light of day and when the state wants to speed forward with executions under the shroud of secrecy,” Kappel said.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.
All of the men executed in Alabama using nitrogen shook or gasped to varying degrees on the gurney as they were being put to death, according to media witnesses including The Associated Press.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal Dick’s decision to reopen the lawsuit.
“I believe it is egregiously wrong as a matter of law.” Murrill said in a post on X.
St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Collin Sims, who is seeking to execute Hoffman, told The Associated Press in a text message that he respects “any and all judicial review that does not cross the line into legislating from the bench and imposing personal beliefs.”
Maryland
Judge blocks 2 federal agencies from disclosing personal records to Trump adviser Musk’s DOGE
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A judge agreed on Monday to temporarily bar two federal agencies from disclosing records containing sensitive personal information to representatives of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled that the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing people’s personal information to DOGE without their consent.
Boardman issued a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys for unions and groups representing current and former federal employees.
The judge, who heard arguments on the request last week, said her order doesn’t prevent President Donald Trump, a Republican, from “effectuating the administration’s policies.”
“It prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties,” she wrote.
The personal information that DOGE representatives accessed includes bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. DOGE could use the information “to create a comprehensive picture of the plaintiffs’ familial, professional, or financial affairs,” the judge said.
“This continuing, unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates is irreparable harm that money damages cannot rectify,” wrote Boardman, who was nominated by Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include the American Federation of Teachers, the National Active, the Retired Federal Employees Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
AFT president Randi Weingarten said Boardman’s ruling is “a significant decision that puts a firewall between actors who we believe lack the legitimacy and authority to access Americans’ personal data and who are using it inappropriately.”
“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government — namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan — they expect that data to be protected and used for the reasons it was intended, not appropriated for other means,” Weingarten said in a statement.
Musk has been leading Trump’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government. Over the weekend, he demanded that federal employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, prompting attorneys for the workers to say in a lawsuit in California on Monday that he had violated the law.
Trump has defended Musk’s actions as necessary to root out fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.
Maryland
Federal judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious groups.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
The preliminary injunction from the Maryland-based judge only applies to the plaintiffs, which also include a Georgia-based network of Baptist churches and a Sikh temple in California.
They sued after the Trump administration threw out Department of Homeland Security policies limiting where migrant arrests could happen as President Donald Trump seeks to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations.
The policy change said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” can conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the new DHS directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas,” or “sensitive locations.”
Five Quaker congregations from Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia sued DHS and its secretary, Kristi Noem, on Jan. 27, less than a week after the new policy was announced.
Many immigrants are afraid to attend religious services while the government enforces the new rule, lawyers for the congregations said in a court filing.
“It’s a fear that people are experiencing across the county,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Girard told the judge during a February hearing. “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.”
Government lawyers claim the plaintiffs are asking the court to interfere with law-enforcement activities based on mere speculation.
“Plaintiffs have provided no evidence indicating that any of their religious organizations have been targeted,” Justice Department attorney Kristina Wolfe told the judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans have also filed a similar but separate lawsuit in the state of Washington.
Plaintiffs in the Maryland case are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation, whose lawyers asked the judge to block DHS enforcement of the policy on a nationwide basis.
“DHS’s new policy gives it the authority to enter any house of worship across the country, no matter its religious beliefs,” the attorneys wrote.
Government lawyers say immigration enforcement activities have been allowed in sensitive places, including houses of worship, for decades. The only change in the policy is that a supervisor’s approval is no longer mandatory, they added.
Killer who ate part of his victim’s brain granted supervised release from psych hospital
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) — A Connecticut man who was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing a victim with a hatchet and eating body parts has been granted conditional release from the state’s only maximum-security psychiatric hospital, despite concerns expressed by the victim’s family and state lawmakers.
Tyree Smith was ordered confined to Whiting Forensic Hospital for 60 years in 2013 in connection with the killing of Angel Gonzalez, whose mutilated body was found in a vacant apartment in Bridgeport in January 2012 a month after he was hacked to death. Smith’s cousin had testified that Smith told her he ate part of Gonzalez’s brain and an eyeball while drinking sake.
The state’s Psychiatric Security Review Board granted Smith conditional release from the hospital on Friday after hearing from a psychiatrist, who said Smith’s schizophrenia and alcohol and drug disorders were in full remission as a result of medication and other treatment.
A conditional release means Smith will be placed in a community setting, but under supervision with strict conditions including continuing treatment. Smith already has been staying full-time at a community facility with around-the-clock supervision for the past nine months, with Friday’s decision formally discharging him from the hospital, officials said.
During a hearing before the board ruled, Gonzalez’s sister-in-law, Talitha Frazier, said she was concerned Smith was now hiding his mental illness.
“How do we really know he’s not going to do this again?” she asked.
State Sens. Heather Somers, Paul Cicarella, Henri Martin and Stephen Harding called the decision “outrageous” and “mind-boggling” in a statement Friday afternoon.
“This terrible decision puts public safety in jeopardy and is yet another terrible message to send to CT violent crime victims and their families. This person should never be out,” the Republican lawmakers said.
Smith attended the hearing virtually with his lawyer, but was not shown on video screens because of safety concerns stemming from media coverage, his lawyer said.
Louisiana
Judge reopens challenge to execution protocol as state prepares to use nitrogen gas
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge on Friday reopened a lawsuit challenging Louisiana’s execution protocol as the state prepares to carry out the death penalty using nitrogen gas in the coming weeks.
For the past 15 years, Louisiana had paused executions due to a lack of political interest and inability to secure lethal injection drugs. But with a nitrogen gas execution protocol finalized this month and Republican Gov. Jeff Landry eager to proceed, the state is scheduled to execute two death row inmates on consecutive days in March.
Christopher Sepulvado, convicted of murdering his 6-year-old stepson, is scheduled to be executed on March 17. Jessie Hoffman, convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, is slated for execution the following day.
Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment.
U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick dismissed the lawsuit in 2022 because the state had no executions planned. On Friday, she agreed that the new nitrogen gas protocol deserved scrutiny with executions imminent.
“The significant demands of justice, i.e., access to the courts and the protection of constitutional rights in relation to human life, outweigh any interest of finality here,” Dick wrote in her ruling.
Hoffman’s attorney Cecelia Kappel, director of the Loyola University Center for Social Justice, said her team is now requesting a hearing to review the nitrogen gas execution protocol.
“This has always been about examining the state’s execution method in the light of day and when the state wants to speed forward with executions under the shroud of secrecy,” Kappel said.
The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.
All of the men executed in Alabama using nitrogen shook or gasped to varying degrees on the gurney as they were being put to death, according to media witnesses including The Associated Press.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal Dick’s decision to reopen the lawsuit.
“I believe it is egregiously wrong as a matter of law.” Murrill said in a post on X.
St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Collin Sims, who is seeking to execute Hoffman, told The Associated Press in a text message that he respects “any and all judicial review that does not cross the line into legislating from the bench and imposing personal beliefs.”
Maryland
Judge blocks 2 federal agencies from disclosing personal records to Trump adviser Musk’s DOGE
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A judge agreed on Monday to temporarily bar two federal agencies from disclosing records containing sensitive personal information to representatives of billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled that the Department of Education and the Office of Personnel Management likely violated the Privacy Act by disclosing people’s personal information to DOGE without their consent.
Boardman issued a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys for unions and groups representing current and former federal employees.
The judge, who heard arguments on the request last week, said her order doesn’t prevent President Donald Trump, a Republican, from “effectuating the administration’s policies.”
“It prevents the disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates who, on the current record, do not have a need to know the information to perform their duties,” she wrote.
The personal information that DOGE representatives accessed includes bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. DOGE could use the information “to create a comprehensive picture of the plaintiffs’ familial, professional, or financial affairs,” the judge said.
“This continuing, unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiffs’ sensitive personal information to DOGE affiliates is irreparable harm that money damages cannot rectify,” wrote Boardman, who was nominated by Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include the American Federation of Teachers, the National Active, the Retired Federal Employees Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
AFT president Randi Weingarten said Boardman’s ruling is “a significant decision that puts a firewall between actors who we believe lack the legitimacy and authority to access Americans’ personal data and who are using it inappropriately.”
“We brought this case to uphold people’s privacy, because when people give their financial and other personal information to the federal government — namely to secure financial aid for their kids to go to college, or to get a student loan — they expect that data to be protected and used for the reasons it was intended, not appropriated for other means,” Weingarten said in a statement.
Musk has been leading Trump’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government. Over the weekend, he demanded that federal employees explain their accomplishments or risk being fired, prompting attorneys for the workers to say in a lawsuit in California on Monday that he had violated the law.
Trump has defended Musk’s actions as necessary to root out fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government.
Maryland
Federal judge blocks Trump immigration policy allowing arrests in churches for some religious groups
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked immigration agents from conducting enforcement operations in houses of worship for Quakers and a handful of other religious groups.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chang found that the Trump administration policy could violate their religious freedom and should be blocked while a lawsuit challenging it plays out.
The preliminary injunction from the Maryland-based judge only applies to the plaintiffs, which also include a Georgia-based network of Baptist churches and a Sikh temple in California.
They sued after the Trump administration threw out Department of Homeland Security policies limiting where migrant arrests could happen as President Donald Trump seeks to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations.
The policy change said field agents using “common sense” and “discretion” can conduct immigration enforcement operations at houses of worship without a supervisor’s approval.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys argue that the new DHS directive departs from the government’s 30-year-old policy against staging immigration enforcement operations in “protected areas,” or “sensitive locations.”
Five Quaker congregations from Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia sued DHS and its secretary, Kristi Noem, on Jan. 27, less than a week after the new policy was announced.
Many immigrants are afraid to attend religious services while the government enforces the new rule, lawyers for the congregations said in a court filing.
“It’s a fear that people are experiencing across the county,” plaintiffs’ attorney Bradley Girard told the judge during a February hearing. “People are not showing up, and the plaintiffs are suffering as a result.”
Government lawyers claim the plaintiffs are asking the court to interfere with law-enforcement activities based on mere speculation.
“Plaintiffs have provided no evidence indicating that any of their religious organizations have been targeted,” Justice Department attorney Kristina Wolfe told the judge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
More than two dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans have also filed a similar but separate lawsuit in the state of Washington.
Plaintiffs in the Maryland case are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation, whose lawyers asked the judge to block DHS enforcement of the policy on a nationwide basis.
“DHS’s new policy gives it the authority to enter any house of worship across the country, no matter its religious beliefs,” the attorneys wrote.
Government lawyers say immigration enforcement activities have been allowed in sensitive places, including houses of worship, for decades. The only change in the policy is that a supervisor’s approval is no longer mandatory, they added.
