Latest Prisons News
Alabama to use nitrogen gas to execute man for 1994 slaying of hitchhiker
An Alabama prisoner convicted of the 1994 murder of a female hitchhiker is slated Thursday to become the third person executed by nitrogen gas. Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie Deblieux, 37, who was hitchhiking through Alabama on her way...
Nicaragua's Ortega proposes reform to make him and his wife 'copresidents'
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday proposed a constitutional reform that would officially make him and his wife, current Vice President Rosario Murillo, “copresidents” of the Central American nation. While the initiative has to pass through the...
Faulty fentanyl tests spurred NYC’s push to ban mail on Rikers Island
NEW YORK (AP) — In 2022, New York City’s jails commissioner, Louis Molina, issued a dire warning to local lawmakers: fentanyl was pouring into Rikers Island through the mail, he said, spurring an overdose crisis among the jail's detainees and putting guards at risk. As evidence...
Susan Smith is denied parole 30 years after drowning 2 sons by rolling car into South Carolina lake
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A parole board decided unanimously Wednesday that Susan Smith should remain in prison, despite her plea that God has forgiven her for infamously killing her two young sons 30 years ago by rolling her car into a South Carolina lake while they were strapped in their car seats....
Two corrections officers plead guilty in death of mentally ill man in Alabama jail
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Two corrections officers agreed to plead guilty to federal charges in the case of a mentally ill man who froze to death — marking a total of eight jail employees who have entered plea agreements related to the death. Federal court records filed on Monday...
Former West Virginia jail officers plead guilty to civil rights violation in fatal assault on inmate
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Two more former correctional officers in West Virginia have pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation in the death of a man who died less than a day after being booked into a jail. As part of plea agreements, Johnathan Walters entered a plea Monday...
Kansas agrees to increase hospital beds for mentally ill defendants
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has promised to provide more hospital beds for mentally ill criminal defendants to settle a federal lawsuit filed over defendants waiting months for evaluations of whether they were fit for a trial. The agreement between state officials and...
Serbia's opposition is locked in a standoff with police as tensions rise over deadly roof collapse
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian opposition protesters blocked a court house Tuesday over a deadly roof collapse at a railway station in the country’s north earlier this month, setting off a standoff with riot police in a sign of persistent tensions over the crash. The roof...
Concerns grow for imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi's health in Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi underwent a complex surgery in Iran that saw part of a bone in her right leg removed over cancer fears but was immediately returned to prison, raising the risks to her life, rights groups warned. ...
Sean 'Diddy' Combs lawyers claim seizure of writings from cell is 'outrageous government conduct'
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accused prosecutors on Monday of engaging in “outrageous government conduct” by using materials seized from his jail cell to try to keep him incarcerated before a May trial. They said information gathered in a raid on Combs'...
