News Roundup

The disappearance and suspected murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi captured international headlines this week with news reports suggesting that Khashoggi was the victim of a state-sponsored hit that reads like something from a spy novel. Khashoggi is a prominent journalist who was living in the United States after fleeing Saudi Arabia late last year. He disappeared upon entering a Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this month to obtain marriage documents, and it is widely suspected that he was murdered and dismembered there by highly trained Saudi security operatives and a forensic specialist. Saudi officials have denied any involvement in Khashoggi's disappearance. Keep reading for more news. Death Row. The Center for Death Penalty Litigation recently released a report titled "Unequal Justice: How Obsolete Laws and Unfair Trials Created North Carolina's Outsized Death Row." As part of that title suggests, North Carolina has a considerable death row population -- 142 prisoners which makes our state's death row the sixth largest in the nation. For reference, North Carolina was the 9th most populous state in the nation in 2017. The report includes some interesting information, including that about three-quarters of people on death row were sentenced in the 1990's and, consequently, were sentenced prior to criminal justice reforms related to false confessions, eyewitness identifications, open-file discovery, and the creation of IDS. Fatal Feud. The Laurinburg Exchange reports that an "ongoing dispute between neighbors" turned deadly this week when Jaser David Peeples, apparently with assistance from his wife Barbara Ellen Peeples, allegedly shot James Chesnutt and his wife, who had [...]