Category Archives: Law

Erika’s Law Spotlights Strangulation’s Toll on the Brain

Healthcare professional reviewing a chart beside a hospitalized patient on monitoring equipment

In June 2022, a stranger strangled Erika Rothenberger unconscious in a Blue Bell, PA, parking lot. On Oct. 28, Pennsylvania State Representative Donna Scheuren introduced Erika’s Law, three bills (House Bills 2517, 2518, and 2519) now before the House Judiciary Committee. HB 2517 would make stranger strangulation a felony, as opposed to the misdemeanor that it currently is. After emergency medical care is performed, and as soon as practicably possible, HB 2519 would require police to warn victims of delayed outcomes, as the bill states, “Health consequences may develop or become apparent after the incident and may include internal bleeding, brain injury, thyroid damage, miscarriage, stroke or death. of delayed brain injury and stroke.”

The warnings embedded in Erika’s Law matter. Pressure on the neck cuts off oxygen-rich blood to the brain. Roughly 11 pounds of pressure on the carotid arteries can cause unconsciousness in about 10 seconds, and brain damage within minutes. (According to the Mayo Clinic, “Carotid arteries are a pair of major blood vessels located on each side of your neck that supply oxygen-rich blood to your brain, face, and head.”)

Survivors of strangulation can have a brain injury, and other side effects that are often associated with brain damage like depression and memory loss. In a 2024 emergency medicine study, 49% of patients with brain-oxygen-loss symptoms followed by amnesia couldn’t recall losing consciousness.

Texas Teaches Designated Doctors to See What Brain Scans Miss

Four roofing workers in helmets and harnesses on a residential roof

A roofer hits his head; they get a clean brain scan; months later, they can’t even retain a short grocery list in their mind. In Texas, doctors are now legally mandated to determine if such issues are the results of a brain injury, depression or something else.

In October 2026, the Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation tackled the issue in a six-part online case study related to non-musculoskeletal traumatic brain injury. Designated doctors were taught to rate impairment, using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (Fourth Edition, 1993), by performing a physical exam that covers all areas and functions of the brain. Doctors were told to use neuropsychological testing, structured memory, attention and effort test to objectively determine whether TBI residuals exist or if there is an alternate explanation. (Questionnaires like the oft-used PHQ-9, a nine-question depression screen, can result in exaggerated symptoms, and lack built-in checks which can have legal ramifications.)

Other states, including California, train their independent medical examiners in impairment rating, so Texas’s dedicated TBI module is unique. Its stress on objective evidence echoes federal concussion guidance from agencies like the CDC and VA.

Senate Passes Brain Injury Program Renewal; House Is Next

Thirty years ago, Congress first passed the Traumatic Brain Injury Act, “to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the conduct of expanded studies and the establishment of innovative programs with respect to traumatic brain injury.” The federal program it created has now been without authorization since the end of fiscal year 2024.* On September 29, the Senate passed S.5600, Dennis John Benigno Traumatic Brain Injury Program Reauthorization Act of 2026, by voice vote the same day it was introduced, to possibly fix this financing lapse.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Alan Armstrong (OK), who was appointed to the Senate following the resignation of Markwayne Mullin, who now serves as the head of the Department of Homeland Security. S.5600 is very similar to Mullin-sponsored S.2898 in content and title, although with date adjustments. However, Dennis John Benigno Traumatic Brain Injury Program Reauthorization Act of 2025 never got past the Senate Health committee (HELP), to which it was referred to on September 18, 2025. (The last action on S.2898 was a star print on October 8, 2025.)

Co-sponsors of S.5600 include Senator Andy Kim (NJ), friend and colleague of Representative Bill Pascrell, Jr. (NJ), a fervent advocate for those with brain injury. The federal traumatic brain injury program is named in honor of a teen from Pascrell’s northern New Jersey district who prompted his advocacy. The 2026 bill’s other cosponsors include John Cornyn (TX) and Catherine Cortez Masto (NV).

S.5600 renews CDC prevention and surveillance work and two Administration for Community Living grant programs through fiscal 2031. It also names the CDC surveillance program after Pascrell, who passed away in 2024. The Bill Pascrell, Jr., National Program for Traumatic Brain Injury Surveillance and Registries handles nationwide tracking, research, and support infrastructure. New provisions add tribal eligibility, track high-risk groups such as public safety officers and domestic-violence survivors, and order a study of long-term effects, including dementia.

The current hurdle is the House, which passed its own version, H.R.1493, in July. That bill runs only through FY2030, so the chambers must reconcile their differences.

Pascrell’s successor, Representative Nellie Pou, acknowledges the importance: “We must get a TBI renewal across the finish line this year.”

*Without federal authorization, Congress can and has still funded programs. However, without a law guarantee of financial funding, it must be newly argued each fiscal year.

2026 Update: Mitigation for Morality and Murder

Brain injury may not excuse a crime, but increasingly it has been used in courtrooms to shape punishment. This month, October 2026, Alberto Sierra’s lawyers showed penalty-phase jurors a 3D-printed model of frontal-lobe damage from childhood car crash, in Miani-Dade. (Their expert, though, did not say the injury caused the triple murder.) In Raleigh, Austin Thompson’s brain injury didn’t prevent five life-without-parole terms in February. However, in Indiana, Jeffrey Weisheit is seeking brain scans to support clemency before his November execution date.

Glowing brain and scrolls balanced on scales inside a Gothic courtroom

The CDC has reported that almost half (46%) of incarcerated adults and about 1 in 3 detained juveniles have a TBI history his. While NIH-indexed studies find only a “modest causal link” between TBI and later convictions, it’s notable that less than 2 percent of the general public has a TBI history. It is uncertain, though, to what side and to what level the cause-and-effect aligns. A small 2023 PubMed-available study of 31 TBI patients found moral decision-making “not uniformly impaired”; lesion location and age at injury matter more.

The conclusion seems to be that brain injury buys mercy, not acquittal.

Christa Pike Survived Her Execution. Did Her Mind?

Tennessee tried to execute Christa Gail Pike via lethal injection on September 30. The convicted killer was unsuccessfully given two doses of pentobarbital. (According to the NLM database, pentobarbital is a barbiturate that primarily acts on the central nervous system. It is approved by the FDA for managing seizures, status epilepticus, and short-term treatment of insomnia. In higher doses, it is an anticonvulsant for emergent seizure control and for inducing medically induced comas.)  Currently, Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator. She has burned and blistered arms, suggesting the drug leaked into tissue instead of her veins. A brain injury is likely but has not been confirmed.

Nearly all execution methods kill by depriving the brain of oxygen. Pentobarbital suppresses breathing. Nitrogen removes oxygen directly. Beyond pharmaceutical means, electrocution can burn the brainstem, and hanging and firing squads cut off blood flow. However, a method may not fully work, as a person can survive a stretch of low oxygen, resulting in hypoxic brain injury.oxygen

Periodic table featuring pentobarbital only

Earlier survivors of pharmaceutical execution, including Romell Broom and Kenneth Smith, lived because staff never got an IV line working. Pike is the first person known to survive after the drugs were given.

In a broader sense, recreational drug overdose often involves medications used in the medical field, but at a much smaller dose. Typically, emergency services come quickly. Reportedly, it took more than an hour for Pike to receive emergency treatment. According to prison protocol, inmates who survive or experience acute medical distress during the process are legally required to be transferred to an off-site medical facility for life-saving care.

Her recovery depends on how long her brain was deprived of oxygen, which is unknown. The law generally allows a second attempt. But if she can no longer understand why she is being executed, Supreme Court rulings forbid it. Gov. Bill Lee has paused executions in Tennessee pending an independent review.

CA Chooses Prevention vs Punishment for E-bikers

Electric bicycle with helmet and reflective vest on a bike path

The average e-bikes can travel up to 28 mph. However, drivers may have little or none of the training required to drive vehicles that can obtain that speed.  Young e-bike riders suffer traumatic brain injuries at nearly twice the rate of traditional cyclists, and fewer than half of hospitalized riders wore helmets. To address this, California has passed a law that chooses prevention over punishment, seemingly similar to the law requiring that teenagers take Driver’s Education classes.

On August 27, 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1569, directing the California Department of Education, with the California Highway Patrol, to build a standardized e-bike safety and training program for students in grades 7 through 12 by March 2028. Sponsored by Assemblymembers Laurie Davies and Phillip Chen, the Pupil safety: electric bicycle: safety and training program bill unanimously passed the Assembly 77–0.

California’s attempt to address the risks of e-bikes, brain injury and otherwise, through the classroom, contrasts the approach of eleven other states that currently require licenses for their operation: Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, West Virginia, New Mexico, North Dakota, and New Jersey, the strictest. It will be interesting to compare the efficacy of these approaches and to see if some sort of a combination of law and education is needed.

America’s Silent Emergency, Stroke Act Waits While Senate in Recess

Ben Ray Luján seated in an office beside New Mexico and American flags

“Someone dies of a stroke every 3 minutes and 14 seconds in the United States,” states the CEO of the American Heart Association.” Every second matters when someone experiences a stroke,” Senator Ben Ray Luján (NM) confirms. Luján is himself a stroke survivor, as in 2022 he survived a cerebellar stroke that required emergency brain surgery. On August 5, 2026, he introduced S.5260, the Stroke Act. “I know firsthand how critical it is to receive the right care at the right time.”

The Stroke Act aims to improve stroke care, research, data collection, and prevention nationwide. The bill would authorize $25 million per year through 2032 for NIH research, a CDC national stroke registry, systems-of-care grants, and a public education campaign. Significantly, it is not the first such effort; it follows decades of stroke legislation, including the STOP Stroke Act and the FAST Act.

The current bill has been endorsed by the American Heart Association, in addition to 10 co-sponsors. Though the co-sponsors, including Senator Fetterman, himself a stroke survivor, follow party lines, no opposition to S.5260 has been documented. Upon being introduced, the bill was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions; no further action on the bill has been taken because of Senate’s August recess. 

Federal Crackdown on Commercial Truck Drivers Beyond Immigration

In 2024, Dalilah Coleman was critically injured when an 18-wheeler truck crashed on a California road that the government attributes to an undocumented immigrant driver. On August 31, 2026, in Detroit, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, joined by Dalilah and her father, announced a major interagency crackdown on the trucking industry, targeting fraud. This fraud specifically applies to commercial licenses and unlicensed, non-English-proficient drivers, as Mullin had warned that unqualified drivers who cannot “understand the rules of the road” are endangering Americans.

Emergency crews respond to a truck and car collision on highway

Motor-vehicle crashes cause about 24.5 percent of all traumatic brain injury hospitalizations. A loaded tractor-trailer presents more danger because it can outweigh a passenger car twentyfold. In 2024, crashes involving large trucks killed 5,340 people and injured an estimated 161,201. Data isolating brain injuries caused by unlicensed commercial drivers does not yet exist, but enforcement figures hint at the scale.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration also announced the emergency removal of certifications for 110 CDL schools, and the proposed removal of certifications of dozens of other training schools. Totaling over of 160 schools, and associated with more than 5,000 drivers, the FMCSA cites these school for certifying drivers who fail English language proficiency tests. Additionally, since 2025, the USDOT put more than 28,000 drivers “out of service” for English language proficiency violations, though this equals a temporary stop, not a license revocation. They also forced states to cancel over 30,000 improperly issued licenses.

Head Injury Sidelines AR Justice, Prompting Gubernatorial Appointment

Arkansas Supreme Court seal reading Supreme Court of Arkansas, Est. 1836

Arkansas Supreme Court Associate Justice Barbara Webb has been recovering from a serious head injury since May 6, 2026. The 69-year-old jurist slipped and struck her head on her kitchen’s wood floor. At the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, she underwent surgery. before relocating to a Houston facility for physical, occupational and speech therapy.

The injury, and the physical, occupational and speech therapy that accompany brain injury recovery, have kept Webb off the bench for months, leaving the seven-member court a justice short. Because at least four justices must concur to decide a case, her absence raised the risk of tie votes and stalled rulings. This was of particular concern now, as high-profile disputes over abortion, school vouchers and executions are advancing toward the fall term.

To fill the gap, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed attorney Cory Cox as special justice, a temporary replacement, on August 19, 2026. Cox shares Webb’s conservative outlook, thereby preserving the court’s balance. “As we pray for Justice Webb’s recovery, I know Cory has the character and work ethic to serve on the Court,” Sanders said.

$2.44 Billion Reclaimed: Inside the VA Recoupment Fight

Two women exchange cash and a check at an office desk

Under a law dating to the 1940s, veterans who received separation pay, compensation for time served, had to repay it if they later qualified for VA disability benefits. (Federal rules barred receiving both.) The VA would withhold disability checks until the debt was cleared. From 2013 to 2023, this debt recoupment structure equaled $2.44 billion in separation pay and bonuses from 112,834 veterans.

To many, this payment structure may seem like punishment to the disabled veteran. In 2023, Senator Ruben Gallego’s (AZ) Restore Veterans’ Compensation Act of 2023 which would have barred this practice, arguing the two payments serve different purposes. Since that time, the bill has been reintroduced many times. Most recently, Representative Bilirakis (FL) brought the Restore Veterans’ Compensation Act of 2026 to Congress on January 13, 2026. (HR7027 was referred to the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs on May 7, 2026.)

“It is ridiculous to claw back money from a veteran who has put life and limb on the line, just because later in life they qualify for disability benefits,” stated Gallego, acknowledging the fact that traumatic brain injury symptoms often surface or worsen years after service.

*The bill’s chief criticism is fiscal: ending recoupment means the government forfeits future collections.