News and Updates

The Supreme Court has given a second chance to juveniles serving life without parole for non-homicide crimes.

Children who commit crimes other than murder can no longer face a sentence of life without parole, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in a highly anticipated decision that civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson calls "an incredibly important win for kids who've been condemned to die in prison."

Justice Paul E. Pfeifer

"There are probably few people in Ohio that are proud of the fact we are executing people at the same pace as Texas," Pfeifer told The Dispatch. His comments came the day after the lethal injection of Michael Beuke, the fifth Ohioan executed this year and the 38th since 1999.

"When the next governor is sworn in," Pfeifer said, "I think the state would be well served if a blue-ribbon panel was appointed to look at all those cases.

CHICAGO (AP) — A former Chicago police detective says it's "wrong" that his one-time boss is being prosecuted for allegedly lying about the torture of murder suspects decades ago.

Michael McDermott worked for the police department for 25 years, 15 of them under former police Lt. Jon Burge.

Burge is a key figure in an investigation into alleged police torture in the 1970s and 1980s. He's pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice and perjury charges.

One day after a momentous hearing had been scheduled for Reginald Clemons, Amnesty International came to St. Louis to release a new report on his case and to pledge funding and volunteers to the determined, grass-roots Justice for Reggie campaign.

On Tuesday national and regional representatives of the international human rights organization gathered with local and regional advocates for Clemons in front of the old Municipal Courts building in downtown St. Louis, where Clemons was tried and sentenced to death in 1993 for allegedly participating in the murders of Robin Kerry and Julie Kerry as an accomplice.