Monthly Archive: March 2020

Attorney General William Barr told reporters Tuesday that the Justice Department is investigating a reported cyber incident directed at computers at the Department of Health and Human Services.  Michael Balsamo of the Associated Press reports that a “denial of service” attack was attempted on HHS computer networks but the networks were not penetrated.  This came days after federal officials identified an effort by a foreign entity to spread misinformation about a nationwide quarantine in response to the coronavirus.  The Attorney General said the FBI and other agencies are investigating both incidents and threatened severe action for any foreign government behind disinformation campaigns attempting to spread panic among Americans.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals announced today that the state will delay the execution of triple-murderer John Hummel for 60 days due to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.  Jerry Lambe of Law and Crime reports that, according to state prosecutors, Hummel’s attorneys offered “no evidence whatsoever” that the concerns about the virus would threaten prison employees or cause any impediment to the execution.  Hummel was sentenced to death in 2011 for the stabbing murder of his pregnant wife and the baseball-bat beating deaths of this 5-year-old daughter and his father-in-law, before setting fire to their home.  Hummel’s execution had been scheduled for Wednesday.

In a divided decision announced today the Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld a condemned murderer’s request to end the appeal of his conviction and sentence.   Andrew DeMillo of the Associated Press reports that Jerry Lard, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer during a traffic stop in 2011, was found competent by the court to waive his right to post conviction relief.  Lard’s counsel argued that a mental review by a psychologist had concluded that Lard suffered from mild intellectual disability which should make him ineligible for execution.  The court held that because an execution date had not yet been set, the question of Lard’s eligibility for execution was not yet ripe for review.  Dashcam video from Officer Jonathan Schmidt’s patrol car showed Lard shooting him in the face, and the officer can later be heard begging for his life, before he was killed.