Latest Case: Mullins v. State (Criminal Law)

Upcoming Execution Tests Trump Administration’s Commitment to Religious Liberty

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on a religious liberty issue presented by the upcoming execution of Wesley Ira Purkey. Sarat explains that Purkey’s spiritual advisor is unable to attend Purkey’s execution due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and he points out that for the federal government to carry out the execution anyway would belie its purported commitment to religious liberty.

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Mullins v. State

Docket: 20S-CR-451

Opinion Date: July 6, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Court exercised its constitutional authority to revise Defendant's sentence, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when sentencing Defendant but that, in Defendant's circumstances, her sentence was inappropriate. Defendant pleaded guilty to several drug-related offenses. The Supreme Court sentenced Defendant to an aggregate sentence of twenty-four-and-one-half years. The Supreme Court exercised its authority under Ind. Const. art. VII, 4 to review and revise Defendant's sentence, holding that, due to Defendant's youth, her difficult childhood, and her non-violent criminal history, her aggregate sentence was inappropriate. The Court remanded the case to the trial court to issue a revised sentencing order reflecting an aggregate sentence of eighteen years.