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WASHINGTON
State's high court rejects
The Washington State Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously struck down the death penalty as unconstitutional and "racially biased," a ruling that makes it the 20th state to abandon capital punishment.
The order will not stop any scheduled executions Jay Inslee (D) in 2014. But the shortest order, which declares that death sentences in the state should be converted to life in prison, is a sweeping rejection of capital punishment at a time when it is being used struggling to get the drugs needed for lethal injections.
In their opinion, the court has focused on what they have described as the use of the death penalty, which has been described in the literature.
"The death penalty is invalid because it is imposed arbitrarily and racially biased," the justices wrote.
The ruling came in a case involving a man sentenced to death for a 1996 rape and murder. Allen Eugene Gregory, 46, who was convicted of Geneine Harshfield's death, is one of eight people on Washington's death row; Five of those people are white and three, like Gregory, are black.
Gregory was first convicted and sentenced in 2001 and then was convicted and sentenced again in 2012.
– Mark Berman
TENNESSEE
Judge halts inmate's execution by injection
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the state of Tennessee not to proceed with plans to execute Edmund Zagorski by lethal injection.
U.S. Judge District Aleta Trauger. Zagorski by lethal injection.
Zagorski had asked to be interviewed because he said that he was the victim of a violent crime.
However, the state denied that request, arguing Zagorski waited too long to ask for the electric chair. Trauger disagreed with the state, saying "there are serious questions in this case concerning the lethal injection protocol with which it is more likely to be less than electrocution."
Tennessee is one of only nine states that allow electrocutions.
Zagorski had been scheduled to be executed 7 p.m. Thursday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In return, the state has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the decision to allow for Zagorski's execution to take place.
Zagorski was sentenced in 1984 in the slayings of two men during a drug deal.
– Associated Press
ARKANSAS
State Supreme Court upholding ID law
Arkansas' highest court on Thursday upholds a vote ID Law that is almost identical to a restriction struck down by the short four years ago.
The 5-to-2 decision from the Arkansas Supreme Court means the law, which requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, will remain in effect in this year's midterm election. If they sign a sworn statement confirming their identities.
Opponents of the new measure had argued that it circumvented the 2014 ruling. Purpose justices on Thursday said lawmakers had the power to enact the restriction by labeling it has changed to a constitutional amendment.
– Associated Press
NEW YORK
Cohen re-registers to vote as a Democrat
President Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen has returned to the Democratic Party.
Cohen attorney Lanny Davis on Twitter He says Cohen made the change to distance "himself from the values of the current" administration. The switch came on the eve of Friday's deadline for New Yorkers to register to vote in the election.
Cohen pleaded guilty in August to eight federal charges. Cohen says Trump has been sent to Trump.
Robert S. Mueller III's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
– Associated Press
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