Supreme Court won’t consider expanding juvenile death ban
Posted May 14, 2019 9:36 am.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to consider expanding its ban on executing people who committed their crimes as juveniles, declining to review the case of an Alabama inmate involved in a quadruple murder at the age of 19.
Michael Brandon Samra is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday.
The Supreme Court bans executing inmates who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes. Samra’s attorneys asked the justices to consider including 19- and 20-year-olds. The justices declined.
Samra was convicted of helping friend Mark Duke kill Duke’s father, the father’s girlfriend and her 6- and 7-year-old daughters in Alabama’s Shelby County.
Authorities said Samra killed the 7-year-old, and Duke the others.
Duke’s death sentence was reversed because he was 16.
The Associated Press
