by Renée Feltz | Sep 23, 2026 | Bill Lee, Capital Punishment, clemency, Death Penalty, Death Row, Execution, Executions, Gov. Bill Lee, News, Prisons, Rape, sex trafficking, Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence, Solitary Confinement, Tennessee, Torture, Trauma
Christa Pike was sexually abused and raped from the time when she was a toddler until almost a year to the day before she was arrested in 1995 at age 18 for murdering fellow teenager Colleen Slemmer when the two attended a job training program for troubled youth in Knoxville. Tennessee officials do not dispute these facts. “I think everybody in this courtroom wishes that those things had…
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by Victoria Law | Dec 25, 2025 | California, clemency, commutation, Gavin Newsom, Incarceration, News, Prisons, Restorative Justice
Tien Mo is still awaiting a response to her 2017 clemency application. As previously reported in Truthout, at age 20, she was sentenced to life without parole in her classmate’s death. As the years pass, the 44-year-old’s hopes dwindle. Now, a proposed statute gives her renewed optimism. Clemency typically takes two forms — a pardon, which removes the consequences of a criminal conviction…
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