ATLANTA (AP) — The fact that the COVID-19 vaccine is not available for newborn babies is shielding a group of prisoners on Georgia's death row from execution.
Executions in Georgia were halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the state attorney general's office entered into an agreement with lawyers for people on death row to set the terms under which they could resume for a specific group of prisoners. At least one of those conditions, having to do with the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine, has not been met, and seeking an execution date for a prisoner covered by the agreement would breach the agreement, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shukura Ingram ruled.
The agreement includes three conditions that had to be met before executions could be set for the affected prisoners: the expiration of the state’s COVID-19 judicial emergency, the resumption of normal visitation at state prisons and the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine “to all members of the public.” Once those conditions were met, the state agreed to give three months' notice before pursuing an execution warrant for one of the prisoners covered by the agreement and six months' notice for the rest.
The state has argued that the agreement should no longer apply, contending the conditions have been met. But defense attorneys say it's still valid because the vaccine isn't yet available to infants under 6 months old, and visitation at state prisons has not returned to normal.
Ingram's ruling, issued Friday, addressed only the vaccination question. She plans to handle the visitation issue separately.
Ingram wrote that the state's arguments “all boil down to an attempt to rewrite the Agreement.” The state is “(u)nhappy with the language it drafted” and wants to change it so that the condition would be satisfied once vaccines are available to “most members of the public.”
“But courts cannot rewrite contracts to relieve a party of their regrets,” she wrote. She ruled that the agreement is “binding and enforceable,” that the vaccination condition hasn't been met and that seeking an execution warrant before the requirements have been met would breach the agreement.
The state attorney general's office plans to appeal, a spokesperson said Tuesday.
Ingram noted that the Food and Drug Administration has approved clinical trials for infants under 6 months old, and newborns receive other vaccines. That shows it is possible for the COVID-19 vaccine to ultimately be available for that age group, and the state should have foreseen that that could take years, she wrote.
Experts for both sides had testified that it was probable that the COVID-19 vaccine would eventually become available to babies under the age of 6 months, Ingram wrote.
That was before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed U.S. health secretary. Kennedy last week announced that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. A few days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's website, which had said those groups should get the shots, was revised to say the vaccinations “may” be given to those groups.
The agreement covers fewer than 10 of the 34 people currently on Georgia's death row.
While Georgia stopped carrying out executions during the pandemic, death penalty cases continued to wind their way through the court system, and as people exhausted their appeals, they became eligible for execution.
A committee of a judicial task force on COVID-19 in early 2021 instructed lawyers for people on death row and the state attorney general’s office to come up with terms under which executions could safely resume. The two sides reached the agreement in April 2021.
The agreement only applied to people on death row whose requests to have their appeals reheard were denied by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while the judicial emergency was in place. The agreement was to remain in effect through Aug. 1, 2022, or one year from the date on which the conditions were met — whichever was later.
The legal fight arose from a lawsuit filed when officials set a May 2022 execution date for Virgil Delano Presnell Jr. The Federal Defender Program, which represents Presnell, said the state had violated the agreement because the conditions hadn’t all been met.
Based on that argument, a Fulton County Superior Court judge halted the execution less than 24 hours before it was to take place, and the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in December 2022 that the agreement was a binding contract.
People on death row who are not covered by the agreement have since become eligible for execution. One of them, Willie James Pye, was put to death in March 2024.
FILE - Judge Shukura Ingram listens during a hearing at Fulton County Court in Atlanta on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested Sunday that the United States would not govern Venezuela day-to-day other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” on the country, even as President Donald Trump again insisted that the U.S. would be in control following its ouster of leader Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio’s statements seemed designed to temper concerns that the assertive action to achieve regime change in Venezuela might lead the U.S. into another prolonged foreign intervention or failed attempt at nation-building.
They stood in contrast to Trump’s broad but vague claims that the U.S. would at least temporarily “run” the oil-rich nation, comments that suggested some sort of governing structure under which Caracas would be controlled by Washington.
Still, Trump reiterated Sunday night that “we’re in charge,” while interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez invited the Republican president “to collaborate” in a newly conciliatory stance.
“We’re going to run it, fix it,” he said of Venezuela while aboard Air Force One en route to Washington from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Hours earlier, Rubio offered a more nuanced take, saying the U.S. would enforce an oil quarantine that was already in place on sanctioned tankers before Maduro was removed from power early Saturday and use that leverage to press policy changes in Venezuela.
“And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that," Rubio said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” "We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes, not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”
Venezuela's interim president said she seeks “respectful relations” with the U.S., in a shift from a previously defiant tone.
“We invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence,” Rodríguez wrote in an online post.
After the U.S. operation, she called Maduro the country’s rightful leader and urged the U.S. to release him, declaring the actions an “atrocity” and saying “history and justice will make the extremists who promoted this armed aggression pay.”
Her conciliatory message came after Trump threatened that she could “pay a very big price” if she didn’t fall in line with U.S. demands.
Trump told reporters Sunday night that Rodríguez is “cooperating” but reiterated the threat from an earlier interview with The Atlantic.
He told reporters on Air Force One that he wanted her to provide “total access” to aspects of the country large and small — from major oil operations to basic infrastructure.
“We need access to the oil and to other things in their country that allow us to rebuild their country,” Trump said.
Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled Rodríguez would be acting president earlier Sunday.
Cuba, meanwhile, announced that 32 Cuban security officers were killed in the U.S. operation in Venezuela, which Trump acknowledged: “You know, a lot of Cubans were killed yesterday.”
“There was a lot of death on the other side,” Trump said. “No death on our side.”
Trump's vowing that the U.S. will run Venezuela has sparked concerns among some Democrats and drawn unease from parts of his own Republican coalition, including an “America First” base that is opposed to foreign interventions, and from observers who recalled past nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rubio dismissed such criticism, saying Trump’s intent had been misunderstood.
“The whole foreign policy apparatus thinks everything is Libya, everything is Iraq, everything is Afghanistan,” Rubio said. "This is not the Middle East. And our mission here is very different. This is the Western Hemisphere.”
He also suggested the U.S. would give Maduro’s subordinates now in charge time to govern, saying, “We’re going to judge everything by what they do.”
Though he did not rule out boots on the ground in Venezuela, Rubio said the U.S., which has built up its presence in the region, was already capable of stopping alleged drug boats and sanctioned oil tankers.
The blockade on sanctioned oil tankers — some of which have been seized by the U.S. — “remains in place, and that’s a tremendous amount of leverage that will continue to be in place until we see changes that not just further the national interest of the United States, which is number one, but also that lead to a better future for the people of Venezuela,” he added.
Even before the operation that nabbed Maduro, experts questioned the legality of aspects of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on his government, including the deadly bombing of boats accused of trafficking drugs that some scholars said stretched the boundaries of international law.
A middle-of-the-night operation extracted Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home in a military base in the capital city of Caracas — an act Maduro’s government called “imperialist.” The couple faces U.S. charges of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy.
The dramatic seizure capped an intensive Trump administration pressure campaign on Venezuela’s autocratic leader and months of secret planning, resulting in the most assertive American action to achieve regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Legal experts raised questions about the lawfulness of the operation, which was done without congressional approval.
Maduro is due to make his first appearance Monday in Manhattan's federal court.
He and other Venezuelan officials were indicted in 2020 on narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, and the Justice Department released a new indictment Saturday of Maduro and his wife that painted his administration as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug-trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine. The U.S. government does not recognize Maduro as the country’s leader.
Venezuela’s government kept operating as usual over the weekend as ministers remained in their posts.
The capital was unusually quiet Sunday with few vehicles moving around and convenience stores, gas stations and other businesses closed.
Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolás Ernesto Guerra, has not appeared in public since the attack. On Saturday, he posted on Instagram a government statement repudiating the capture of his father and stepmother.
The country’s incoming National Assembly is set to be sworn in at the legislative palace in Caracas. The unicameral assembly will remain under control of the ruling party.
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville aboard Air Force One, Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, and Isabel Debre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
Protestors hold a banner stating "Trump Must Go Now" as they gather outside the UN Plaza during a demonstration against the U.S. bombing of Venezuela and seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Government supporters burn a U.S. flag in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that U.S. forces had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
National Guard armored vehicles block an avenue leading to Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Destroyed containers lay at La Guaira port after explosions were heard in Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Smoke rises from Fort Tiuna, the main military garrison in Caracas, Venezuela, after multiple explosions were heard and aircraft swept through the area, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Men watch smoke rising from a dock after explosions were heard at La Guaira port, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro embrace in downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
