Democrats strike deal to get more Biden judges confirmed before Congress adjourns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate won't hold votes on four of President Joe Biden's appellate court nominees as part of a deal with Republicans to allow for speedier consideration of other judicial nominations and bring Biden within striking distance of the 234 total judicial confirmations that occurred during President-elect Donald Trump's first term.

Currently, the number of judges confirmed under Biden totals 221. Republicans forced numerous procedural votes this week and late-night sessions as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attempted to move ahead in getting more of Biden's nominees confirmed before Congress adjourns and Republicans take control of the chamber in January.

A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Thursday a time agreement had been reached to allow for consideration of seven district court judges the week following Thanksgiving. Plus, another six district judges would be placed on the Senate executive calendar, making it possible for them to be considered on the Senate floor in December.

Excluded from that list were four circuit judge nominations awaiting a floor vote: Adeel Abdullah Mangi of New Jersey, nominated for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals; Karla M. Campbell of Tennessee, nominated for the Sixth Circuit; Julia M. Lipez of Maine, First Circuit; and Ryan Young Park of North Carolina, Fourth Circuit.

Mangi would have been the first Muslim American to serve as a federal appellate court judge if he had been confirmed. Mangi received law degrees from Oxford and Harvard. He works in a prestigious law firm and has secured significant legal victories. But his limited volunteer work with two outside groups has imperiled his nomination. He faced opposition from some Democrats as well.

The confirmation battles over circuit court judges are generally much harder fights given their role in hearing appeals from district courts and often having the last word on legal matters.

Schumer's office said the four circuit nominees lacked the support to be confirmed, and that they received more than triple the amount of other judges moving forward as part of the agreement.

Liberal groups in recent weeks have been pressuring Senate Democrats to do what it takes to get all of Biden's judicial nominees confirmed before Trump takes office again. And some expressed disappointment with the deal.

"Reports that there is a deal that would leave behind critical circuit court nominees are unacceptable. All of these nominees must be confirmed expeditiously before the end of the 118th Congress," said Lena Zwarensteyn, an advisor at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Russ Feingold, a former Democratic senator and now president of the American Constitution Society, called the deal “extremely frustrating.”

“All public officials need to be prepared to fight against the extremism that will come when Trump returns to office and retreating in advance is a dangerous precedent to set," Feingold said.

Schumer has dedicated much of the Senate schedule to getting Biden’s judicial nominees confirmed. He called it a basic responsibility of the Senate.

“We'll take that responsibility very seriously between now and the end of the year,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks with reporters at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — A man convicted in the 1994 killing of a female hitchhiker in Alabama was put to death Thursday evening in the nation’s third execution using nitrogen gas.

Carey Dale Grayson, 50, was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in southern Alabama following the use of the new death penalty method. He was one of four teens convicted of killing Vickie Deblieux, 37, as she was hitchhiking through Alabama on the way to her mother’s home in Louisiana.

Alabama began using nitrogen gas earlier this year to carry out some executions. The method involves placing a respirator gas mask over the person’s face to replace breathable air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death by lack of oxygen.

The execution was carried out hours after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Grayson’s request for a stay. His attorneys had argued that the method needed more scrutiny before being used again.

Deblieux’s mutilated body was found at the bottom of a bluff near Odenville, Alabama, on Feb. 26, 1994. She was hitchhiking from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to her mother’s home in West Monroe, Louisiana, when the four teens offered her a ride. Prosecutors said the teens took her to a wooded area and attacked and beat her. They threw her off a cliff and later returned to mutilate her body.

A medical examiner testified that Deblieux’s face was so fractured that she was identified by an earlier X-ray of her spine. Investigators said the teens were identified as suspects after one of them showed a friend one of Deblieux’s severed fingers and boasted about the killing.

Grayson was the only one of the four teens who faced a death sentence since the other teens were under 18 at the time of the killing. Grayson was 19. Two of the teens were initially sentenced to death but those sentences were set aside when the Supreme Court banned the execution of offenders who were younger than 18 at the time of their crimes. Another teen involved in Deblieux’s killing was sentenced to life in prison.

Grayson’s final appeals had focused on a call for more scrutiny of the new execution method. His lawyers argued that the person experiences “conscious suffocation” and that the first two nitrogen executions did not result in swift unconsciousness and death as the state had promised. Lawyers for the Alabama attorney general’s office asked the justices to let the execution proceed, saying a lower court found Grayson’s claims speculative.

Alabama maintains the method is constitutional. But critics — citing how the first two people executed shook for several minutes — say the method needs more scrutiny, particularly if other states follow Alabama’s path.

“The normalization of gas suffocation as an execution method is deeply troubling,” said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, a group seeking to abolish the death penalty.

A demonstrator holds a sign during a protest outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, against a scheduled execution in Alabama using nitrogen gas. (Kim Chandler/Associated Press)

Abe Bonowitz of Death Penalty Action leads a outside the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024, against a scheduled execution in Alabama using nitrogen gas. (Kim Chandler/Associated Press)