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The emergency response to Christa Pike’s botched execution last month was delayed by about half an hour, because of confusion over the authenticity of the 911 call, according to dispatch and radio calls released on Monday. ... The confusion seemed widespread. The initial 911 call did not come, as it might normally, from the central control at the Tennessee Department of Correction, and the caller did not have the right security verification. (Cochrane, 10/12)

Authorities have released the transcript of the 911 call made from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution the night of Christa Pike’s attempted execution. (Cohen, 10/12)

Christa Pike was released from a local hospital and is back in prison, at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Tennessee, her attorneys Luke Ihnen, Randy Spivey, Stephen Ferrell and Kelly Gleason said in a statement on Saturday. (Duster, 10/10)

Lawyers for Texas have appealed a federal judge’s order requiring all state lockups to be climate controlled before 2030 to the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, continuing a yearslong legal fight over air conditioning in the country’s largest prison system. (Nguyen, 10/12)

Maj. Jason Watson is "still in solitary confinement 24 hours a day," his attorney, Christopher Mutimer, told CNN on Friday, Oct. 9. "Even if he gets an hour to eat or to exercise, he's alone," Mutimer said. "He's looking at having his liberty potentially taken away. ... He is looking at being removed from the military, losing his benefits and potentially spending significant time in jail." Prosecutors charged Watson under three articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), including the rarely used Article 88, which bars officers from using "contemptuous words" against the president. (Gramegna, 10/12)

A severely ill, wheelchair bound prisoner at Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson was placed this week in a disciplinary unit with little access to medical care, putting him at risk of serious injury, or worse, his attorney said in an interview with Verite News. On Wednesday (Oct. 7), a disciplinary board at the prison sentenced Nicholas Courville to 30 days in a segregation cell for allegedly stealing two tubes of wound care ointment. Courtney Newberry, Courville’s attorney, said his medical condition is so dire, and his needs so great, that to place him in a cell for even a few days, let alone a month, where he initially couldn’t charge the oxygen concentrator he depends on to breathe, is tantamount to a death sentence. (Webster, 10/9)

Pennsylvania promises legal help to those who say they were unfairly convicted of crimes. Failed by a troubled system, some incarcerated people are left waiting years for their lawyers to act. (Melamed and Purcell, 10/13)

This is not an article about politics, capital punishment or whether the Fort Hood shooter deserves to be executed in public for his crimes. Instead, it’s focused on the unprecedented parental challenge of handling the near-certain prospect that children will hear of or see footage of the Dec. 3 U.S. execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan if the Trump administration follows through with plans to livestream the event. The danger stretches beyond the broadcast itself, because history shows graphic video from the event could be clipped, copied and pushed into children’s social feeds even if the original stream is restricted. (Kellman and Boone, 10/13)

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees the Catholic Church’s pastoral services to Catholics in the U.S. military, is condemning the proposed livestream of the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan. Broglio, in a statement Monday, also stipulated that any Catholic soldier assigned to the U.S. Army firing squad should ask to be excused from that duty, which he described as contrary to the teachings of the church. He joins other Catholic leaders in speaking out against the death penalty and the livestream plans. (10/12)