Tennessee
State sets execution dates for four inmates after nearly three-year pause
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court set execution dates for four inmates, including Oscar Smith, who was within minutes of being executed in 2022, when Gov. Bill Lee issued a sudden reprieve.
The 11th hour stay came after Smith’s attorney, Kelley Henry, requested the results of required purity and potency tests for the lethal injection drugs that were to be used on him. It turned out a required test was never done.
An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state Attorney General’s Office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “incorrectly testified “ under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
The Tennessee Department of Correction issued a new execution protocol in late December that will utilize the single drug pentobarbital. That was the green light the state’s high court needed to reset Smith’s execution date. Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife, Judith Smith, and her teenaged sons, Jason and Chad Burnett, at their Nashville home on Oct. 1, 1989.
The court also set new dates on Monday for three others whose executions were pending in 2022 when Lee issued his temporary reprieve. Those inmates are Donald Middlebrooks, Byron Black, and Harold Nichols. All four inmates were convicted before January 1999, which means they can chose between lethal injection or the electric chair. But Henry said she believes that all four executions should be stayed pending an ongoing lawsuit in federal court.
That lawsuit challenged Tennessee’s previous lethal injection protocol, which used three different drugs in series. When the state announced its review and revision of its execution procedures, Henry agreed to put that challenge on hold with the understanding that attorneys would have 90 days to look over the new protocol and amend the complaint. Middlebrooks is one of the plaintiffs in that case, and the state previously agreed not to oppose a stay in his case.
In addition to the four inmates who got new execution dates on Monday, Tennessee’s state Attorney General has asked the court to set execution dates for five additional inmates: Kevin Burns, Jon Hall, Kennath Henderson, Anthony Hines and William Rogers.
New York
Owner of NYC day care where toddler fatally ingested fentanyl sentenced to 45 years in prison
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman who owned a New York City day care center where a toddler died after ingesting fentanyl has been sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges.
Grei Mendez, 37, dropped her head into her crossed arms in anguish as Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence that triggered sobs among Mendez’s family and the mother whose 22-month-old child, Nicholas Feliz-Dominici, died in September 2023.
Rakoff had previously given the same sentence to Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera-Garcia, after he pleaded guilty to drug charges and causing bodily harm related to the death. The couple each faced a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life for their crimes.
Mendez had pleaded guilty to drug charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.
Before the sentence was imposed, she apologized to the families of children who attended the Divino Niño day care that she operated out of a Bronx apartment where the couple stored and packaged narcotics.
When the poisoning occurred on Sept. 15, 2023, Feliz-Dominici was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died. Three other children exposed to the fentanyl at the day care survived after medics administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
Police found a brick of fentanyl stored on top of playmats for the children, along with equipment often used to package drugs, as well as packages of fentanyl beneath a trap door in a play area.
Prosecutors urged a lengthy sentence, saying she ignored “clear warning signs” that the babies were becoming seriously ill and took no action to call for lifesaving medical intervention.
Washington
High court makes it harder for EPA to police sewage discharges
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for environmental regulators to limit water pollution, ruling for San Francisco in a case about the discharge of raw sewage that sometimes occurs during heavy rains.
By a 5-4 vote, the court’s conservative majority ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act with water pollution permits that contain vague requirements for maintaining water quality.
The decision is the latest in which conservative justices have reined in pollution control efforts.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that EPA can set specific limits that tell cities and counties what can be discharged. But the agency lacks the authority “to include ‘end-result’ provisions,” Alito wrote, that make cities and counties responsible for maintaining the quality of the water, the Pacific Ocean in this case, into which wastewater is discharged.
“When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards,” he wrote.
One conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, joined the court’s three liberals in dissent. Limits on discharges sometimes still don’t insure water quality standards are met, Barrett wrote.
“The concern that the technology-based effluent limitations may fall short is on display in this case,” Barrett wrote, adding that “discharges from components of San Francisco’s sewer system have allegedly led to serious breaches of the water quality standards, such as ‘discoloration, scum, and floating material, including toilet paper, in Mission Creek.’”
The case produced an unusual alliance of the liberal northern California city, energy companies and business groups.
The EPA has issued thousands of the permits, known as narrative permits, over several decades, former acting general counsel Kevin Minoli said.
The narrative permits have operated almost as a backstop in case permits that quantify what can be discharged still result in unacceptable water quality, Minoli said.
With the new restrictions imposed by the court, “the question is what comes in place of those limits,” Minoli said.
Alito downplayed the impact of the decision, writing that the agency has “the tools needed” to insure water quality standards are met.
State sets execution dates for four inmates after nearly three-year pause
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Supreme Court set execution dates for four inmates, including Oscar Smith, who was within minutes of being executed in 2022, when Gov. Bill Lee issued a sudden reprieve.
The 11th hour stay came after Smith’s attorney, Kelley Henry, requested the results of required purity and potency tests for the lethal injection drugs that were to be used on him. It turned out a required test was never done.
An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state Attorney General’s Office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs “incorrectly testified “ under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.
The Tennessee Department of Correction issued a new execution protocol in late December that will utilize the single drug pentobarbital. That was the green light the state’s high court needed to reset Smith’s execution date. Smith was convicted of fatally stabbing and shooting his estranged wife, Judith Smith, and her teenaged sons, Jason and Chad Burnett, at their Nashville home on Oct. 1, 1989.
The court also set new dates on Monday for three others whose executions were pending in 2022 when Lee issued his temporary reprieve. Those inmates are Donald Middlebrooks, Byron Black, and Harold Nichols. All four inmates were convicted before January 1999, which means they can chose between lethal injection or the electric chair. But Henry said she believes that all four executions should be stayed pending an ongoing lawsuit in federal court.
That lawsuit challenged Tennessee’s previous lethal injection protocol, which used three different drugs in series. When the state announced its review and revision of its execution procedures, Henry agreed to put that challenge on hold with the understanding that attorneys would have 90 days to look over the new protocol and amend the complaint. Middlebrooks is one of the plaintiffs in that case, and the state previously agreed not to oppose a stay in his case.
In addition to the four inmates who got new execution dates on Monday, Tennessee’s state Attorney General has asked the court to set execution dates for five additional inmates: Kevin Burns, Jon Hall, Kennath Henderson, Anthony Hines and William Rogers.
New York
Owner of NYC day care where toddler fatally ingested fentanyl sentenced to 45 years in prison
NEW YORK (AP) — A woman who owned a New York City day care center where a toddler died after ingesting fentanyl has been sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug charges.
Grei Mendez, 37, dropped her head into her crossed arms in anguish as Judge Jed S. Rakoff announced the sentence that triggered sobs among Mendez’s family and the mother whose 22-month-old child, Nicholas Feliz-Dominici, died in September 2023.
Rakoff had previously given the same sentence to Mendez’s husband, Felix Herrera-Garcia, after he pleaded guilty to drug charges and causing bodily harm related to the death. The couple each faced a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and a maximum of life for their crimes.
Mendez had pleaded guilty to drug charges including conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.
Before the sentence was imposed, she apologized to the families of children who attended the Divino Niño day care that she operated out of a Bronx apartment where the couple stored and packaged narcotics.
When the poisoning occurred on Sept. 15, 2023, Feliz-Dominici was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died. Three other children exposed to the fentanyl at the day care survived after medics administered the overdose-reversing drug Narcan.
Police found a brick of fentanyl stored on top of playmats for the children, along with equipment often used to package drugs, as well as packages of fentanyl beneath a trap door in a play area.
Prosecutors urged a lengthy sentence, saying she ignored “clear warning signs” that the babies were becoming seriously ill and took no action to call for lifesaving medical intervention.
Washington
High court makes it harder for EPA to police sewage discharges
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for environmental regulators to limit water pollution, ruling for San Francisco in a case about the discharge of raw sewage that sometimes occurs during heavy rains.
By a 5-4 vote, the court’s conservative majority ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act with water pollution permits that contain vague requirements for maintaining water quality.
The decision is the latest in which conservative justices have reined in pollution control efforts.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that EPA can set specific limits that tell cities and counties what can be discharged. But the agency lacks the authority “to include ‘end-result’ provisions,” Alito wrote, that make cities and counties responsible for maintaining the quality of the water, the Pacific Ocean in this case, into which wastewater is discharged.
“When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards,” he wrote.
One conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, joined the court’s three liberals in dissent. Limits on discharges sometimes still don’t insure water quality standards are met, Barrett wrote.
“The concern that the technology-based effluent limitations may fall short is on display in this case,” Barrett wrote, adding that “discharges from components of San Francisco’s sewer system have allegedly led to serious breaches of the water quality standards, such as ‘discoloration, scum, and floating material, including toilet paper, in Mission Creek.’”
The case produced an unusual alliance of the liberal northern California city, energy companies and business groups.
The EPA has issued thousands of the permits, known as narrative permits, over several decades, former acting general counsel Kevin Minoli said.
The narrative permits have operated almost as a backstop in case permits that quantify what can be discharged still result in unacceptable water quality, Minoli said.
With the new restrictions imposed by the court, “the question is what comes in place of those limits,” Minoli said.
Alito downplayed the impact of the decision, writing that the agency has “the tools needed” to insure water quality standards are met.
