Results matching “first”

Katie Mettler reports for the WaPo:

When the historic black church in Greenville, Miss., first burned last month, many, including the city mayor, speculated that the intentionally lit fire was a hate crime.

It was a particularly tense time in America, just a week before the bitterly divisive 2016 presidential election came to a close. Then-candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and banning Muslims from the United States -- or, at the very least, aggressively vetting Muslims seeking entry to the country. A prominent newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan offered a de facto endorsement of Trump and he secured the support of the KKK's former grand wizard, David Duke.

"Secured" is an exceptionally poor choice of words there.  It implies that Trump sought this endorsement when the truth is nothing of the sort. But let's go on.

Among African Americans, Trump polled with low support.

All this led church and community leaders to believe that, when they found the words "Vote Trump" spray-painted on the outside of the charred, 111-year-old Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, the fire was a political act.

Turns out it wasn't.

The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs board has this post:

President Barack Obama made one of the final moves of his presidency appointing Debo Adegbile, the lawyer for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, to a six-year term on the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In 2014, President Obama's attempt to appoint Adegbile to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division was rejected by the United States Senate, with eight Democratic Senators among those opposing his confirmation.

Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky paid careful attention to defense submissions in the Stanford rape case this past spring, including, famously, the one arguing that the defendant, varsity swimmer Brock Turner, should not be forced to pay a steep price for merely "20 minutes of action."

Woman Arrested in Connection to Police Shooting: A woman has been taken into custody in connection with last week's shooting of a Tennessee police officer. Juan Buitrago at the Tennessean reports Kathleen Daly, 26, surrendered herself to police Sunday night for her involvement with the shooting of Officer Terrence McBride on December 13th. Officer McBride and his partner were responding to a call about a man with an outstanding warrant who spoke of committing a robbery. While securing the area, Paul Hardesty, a 43-year-old parolee, opened fire and injured the officer. Police say that on arrival, Kathleen Daly provided officers with a fake identity including name, and social security number and stated that she was alone in the room, making her culpable in the shooting.

Obama Refuses to Deport Criminal Illegal Immigrants: Recent reports reveal some shocking numbers regarding the frequency with which criminals who are in this country illegally are flying under the radar under Obama's immigration policy. Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart News reports that recent reports reveal that an estimated 820,000 illegal immigrants in this country are currently avoiding deportation under the policies of the Obama administration regardless of their criminal history. Many of these immigrants have been convicted of serious crimes such as murder, sexual assault, and various drug offenses.

How Trump can end the war on cops:   Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald has this piece in the Wall Street Journal outlining how incoming President Donald Trump can turn around the ongoing assault on police officers inspired by the fake news narrative that white officers are indiscriminately shooting blacks.  First on the to do list is to put an end to the promotion of this thoroughly disproved fiction by the White House and the Department of Justice.  Not a WSJ subscriber?  Goggle "Trump can end the war on cops, Heather MacDonald" and you should get a working link.

The pro-defendant Marshall Project has published a piece setting forth four reasons that mass sentencing reduction for drug traffickers  --  more often palmed off as sentencing "reform"  --  might do better in this Congress than the last one.

The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up two cases from the District of Columbia's local court system (not to be confused with USCA-DC).  The cases involve the rule of Brady v. Maryland (1963) that the prosecution must disclose to the defense material exculpatory evidence in its possession.  "Material," in this context, means evidence that might have made a difference in the result.

The high court rewrote the question presented as simply, "Whether petitioners' convictions must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1983)."  This is highly unusual.  Application of settled rules of law to particular fact patterns is something the high court generally leaves to lower courts.  Characterizing a case as "fact-bound" is what you do when you won in the lower court and don't want SCOTUS to get involved.  If you can get the Supreme Court to accept that characterization, it's usually the kiss of death for the other side's request to take the case up.

What is different about this case?  Is the court worried that this is a case of actual innocence injustice so compelling that it must break its usual pattern to intervene?  The justices usually defer to trial court judge's judgments on such matters, and that is certainly not how the district court judge saw this case.

Academia, the Left, and libertarians relentlessly tell us that the War on Drugs is a failure.

According to a recent report released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), today's teens are actually better behaved than the generations which preceded them, relatively speaking.

According to the annual Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) fewer teens are having sex and using drugs or alcohol. In fact, today's teenagers actually have the lowest rates of ecstasy, heroin, and meth use on record.

Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case of Tyler v. Louisiana, No. 15-8814.  Tyler's complaint is that his lawyers ignored his direction to focus on the guilt aspect of the case and instead focused solely on penalty, effectively conceding his guilt. 

I have more sympathy with Tyler's claim than I do with most ineffective assistance claims.  There is a fundamental principle in the attorney-client relationship that the client chooses the goals and the attorney uses his professional judgment regarding the best way to achieve the client-chosen goals.  I have letters from death row complaining that, on appeal, the client has chosen a "give me liberty or give me death" goal, directing the lawyer to focus solely on the guilt verdict, and the lawyer has ignored the direction.

In the Tyler case, though, some of the reporting is leading people to believe that the guilt case against Tyler was thin and his lawyers effectively conceded the guilt of a person who might well be innocent.  After the break, I will quote a portion of the state's brief in opposition on the actual state of the evidence.

Another controversy relating to the execution of Ronald Smith concerns use of the three-drug protocol with midazolam (Versed) as the first drug.  This is the same protocol that was at issue in Glossip v. Gross in 2015.  Kent Faulk of the Birmingham News reports:

During the 34-minute execution at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Smith heaved and coughed for about 13 minutes and underwent two consciousness tests to make sure he couldn't feel pain.

We have known for some time that the single-drug method with thiopental or pentobarbital is the way to go.  Texas has done dozens of these without incident.  The incoming administration should take steps to make sure the states can obtain these drugs, both to reduce the chance of an actually inhumane execution and to ensure that justice is not defeated by a complete unavailability.

There are a number of possible routes to a fix.  The erroneous decision that prevents states from importing thiopental from willing sellers overseas could be abrogated by statute or taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court.  The government could itself  import the drug or the ingredients from which it is compounded and distribute them to the states.  A government entity with the capability to do so might manufacture the drug.  One way or another, a permanent fix to this problem should be a priority.

There is a right way and a wrong way to invoke the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster or to limit the topics on which it may be used.  There is a lawful way and a lawless way.  Harry Reid and his gang did it the lawless way.  The Senate majority of the incoming 115th Congress should do it the lawful way as the first order of business.

Bret Stephens writes the Global View column at the WSJ.  He was that paper's most persistent and outspoken critic of Donald Trump throughout the campaign.  He has these thoughts on the global populist wave (italics added):

...here's a juicy item from today's Sentencing Law and Policy:

The title of this post is the title of this intriguing little paper authored by Emily Fetsch for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and now available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

One in three Americans has a criminal record.  Given the significant size of this population, the ability for these individuals to attain economic success after they leave prison has tremendous implications for our economy and economic mobility...

There is a paragraph and a half following that squib in the SL&P entry, but I stopped right there, because there is a limit on how many brain cells I'm willing to kill by reading pure tripe.

I wrote a few days ago about the hundreds of victims of murder, rape and robbery whose victimizers were set loose early because of the sentencing "reform" statute followed in the District of Columbia.  That statute, the Youth Rehabilitation Act, was born of exactly and precisely the thinking that continues to push sentencing "reform" in Congress:  That we must avoid the collateral consequences of giving young adults a felony record, that we're too punitive, that the system is racially biased, and that everyone deserves a second chance. 

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech ...."  The Fourteenth Amendment is understood to extend this limitation to state legislatures.

Note the wording carefully.  It does not say "the freedom of speech" has no limits.  The freedom of speech may not be abridged, meaning reduced from what it was when the First Amendment was adopted.  "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52 (1919) (Holmes, J.).

Threatening people is not within "the freedom of speech."  Fourteen years ago, CJLF defended Virginia's cross-burning law as applied to a cross burned in a manner that constituted a threat to specific people, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it as so applied in Virginia v. Black.*

A few years later, the Virginia Legislature added a "noose law" along similar lines.   The Virginia Court of Appeals upheld the law as applied on Nov. 22 in Turner v. Commonwealth.

Sherri Papini went for a run on November 2nd, but never returned home.  She did not pick up her two young children from daycare that evening and her cell phone was found lying on the side of the road.  Three weeks later, she is found alive in the very early morning hours by a passing motorist on the side of a County Road approximately 150 miles from her home.  She is chained and severely injured.  Her nose is broken and her skin has been branded by her captors. 

I live in the County where she was found that morning.  A friend of mine was the CHP Officer first on the scene.  When I got the news that she had been found alive, my first reaction was of shock and disbelief.  Too often these types of missing persons cases end with a dead body.  The cynic in me assumed that Sherri Papini would be found at some point in a similar manner.  Thankfully for her children and family, her story did not end in a typical fashion.

Unfortunately, immediately upon her discovery, the media and public jumped to the conclusion that the whole thing was a hoax.  Really?  A hoax by whom?  The severely beaten, branded and chained up woman who'd been thrown from a moving car onto the side of a pitch dark road in the middle of the night in the freezing cold?  Why are people so quick to assume that she's lying, or her husband is lying?  Perhaps I'm too trusting or gullible to believe otherwise.  Or perhaps despicable people like Scott Peterson or Drew Peterson make it hard to believe the story being told.

The details will come out eventually and I hope whoever is responsible is caught.  Any punishment the perpetrators receive, however, will in no way compare to the cruel and unusual torture that Sherri Papini endured and will continue to endure emotionally for the remainder of her life.   

Immigration Violations at an All-Time High: For the first time, Immigration violations have been identified as the majority of federally prosecuted cases. William La Juenesse from Fox News reports in this last fiscal year, 69,636, or 52% or all federally prosecuted cases in the United States were related to the violation of immigration laws. The two most common charges among these cases are illegal entrance into the country and illegal re-entry into the country following deportation, the penalty for which can be up to two years incarceration in a federal penitentiary.

North Carolina Terrorist Pleads Guilty: Justin Nojan Sullivan, 20, plead guilty this Tuesday to charges of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act in the United States. Anna Giaritelli at the Washington Examiner reports that Nojan was indicted earlier this year in connection with alleged communication with a member of the Islamic State in Syria with the intent to coordinate a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Nojan also faces capital charges for the robbery and murder of his neighbor. Nojan admits to having committed the crime in hopes to attain the funds necessary to purchase a firearm with which to perpetrate a mass shooting.  Following a plea deal on the terrorism charges, Nojan will serve life in prison.

Charlotte Officer Cleared of Charges: It was announced that Officer Brentley Vinson, the Charlotte police officer involved in the recent shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, has been cleared of all charges regarding the shooting. According to Michael Gordon, Mark Washburn and Fred Clasen-Kelly at the Charlotte Observer, evidence in the case shows that prior to the shooting, Scott had exited his car with a loaded firearm which he had stolen several days prior. Witness testimony that stated that Scott was unarmed was found to be false. In light of considerable evidence that the shooting was lawful, the district attorney has chosen not to bring charges against Officer Brentley.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court summarily dumped a case brought by Visa, Inc. et al. because the petitioners got the court to take the case up saying it was about one issue and then relied on a different argument once they reached the merits stage.

It's not nice to bait-and-switch the nation's highest court.  Yet lawyers for a habitual criminal who blew the head off a store clerk during a robbery may get away with doing exactly that.  Capital defense lawyers are special, you see.  Rules don't apply to them.

Here is the Question Presented as drafted by lawyers for Texas murderer Bobby James Moore:

Whether it violates the Eighth Amendment and this Court's decisions in Hall v. Florida, 134 S.Ct. 1986 (2014) and Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002) to prohibit the use of current medical standards on intellectual disability, and require the use of outdated medical standards, in determining whether an individual may be executed.

See any issue there about whether the Texas standard of Ex parte Briseno ever conformed to the subsequently "outdated" standards in the first place?  Nope.  It's not there.  But today's oral argument was nearly all about that.  The Chief Justice was not pleased, but he may not have a majority.

OSU Attacker Identified:   The man who drove his car into a group of Ohio State University students and then stabbed several of them with a butcher knife before he was shot and killed by a police officer has been identified as 18-year-old Somalian immigrant Abdul Razak Ali Artan.  Aamer Madhani of USA Today reports that, prior to the attack, Artan had posted a rant on Facebook saying that he had reached a "boiling point" about America's interference with Muslim communities.  He also referred to lone wolf attacks, and described radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as a hero.  According to news reports police are still searching for a motive.  

Is Twitter-Stalking Free Speech?  A Dallas man in jail on charges of felony stalking, claims that the threatening Twitter posts he made against a judge who presided over his previous conviction for tweeting threats to kill his brother-in-law are protected by the First Amendment.  The Dallas Morning News reports that 46-year-old Babak Taherzadeh used up to 10 separate Twitter accounts to stalk the judge and his family and threaten their safety.  While some legal experts insist that hate speech is protected by the Constitution, there is a line when a person's safety is threatened.   In its 2014 ruling in Elonis v. United States, the Supreme Court declined to find targeted threats of murder on social media serious enough to constitute a felony.  The CJLF brief in that case is here.

Melanie Kirkpatrick has this story in the WSJ on President Lincoln's 1863 proclamation and the magazine "editress" who led the campaign for the Thanksgiving holiday in its modern form.

Election Day has come and gone, and after one of the most divisive campaigns in memory, "healing" seems to be the word of the hour. What better time to begin than Thanksgiving, which Benjamin Franklin called a day of "public Felicity" to give thanks for our "full enjoyment of Liberty, civil and religious." Thanksgiving, our nation's oldest tradition, is a moment to focus on our blessings as Americans, on what unites us, not on what divides us.

Such was the case in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln called for a national Thanksgiving celebration. He did so at the urging of a farsighted magazine editor who believed that a Thanksgiving celebration would have a "deep moral influence" on the American character, helping to bring together the country, which was divided over the issue of slavery. Lincoln's 1863 proclamation was the first in the unbroken string of annual Thanksgiving proclamations by every subsequent president. It is regarded as the beginning of our modern Thanksgiving holiday.

Death Penalty Possible for 1 of 4 AL Killers:  Alabama prosecutors are still deciding whether they will seek the death penalty against a 22-year-old man who, along with three teens, killed two men during a 2015 crime spree.  Ashley Remkus of AL reports that if Joseph Conwan is convicted of killing Joshua Davis and Antonio Hernandez-Lopez, he will either be sentenced to death, if capital punishment in sought, or face life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Conwan was 20 in 2015 when he and his brother Cedric Conwan, then 16, along with Cortez Mitchell and Amani Goodwin, 16 and 17 at the time, respectively, engaged in a crime spree that included several armed robberies, shootings into homes and the two fatal shootings.  This week, the three teens were denied youthful offender status, which would have guaranteed they not be sentenced to more than three years.  They are ineligible for the death penalty because they were juveniles at the time the crimes were committed.  All four are charged with three counts of capital murder, six counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of shooting into an occupied dwelling.

MI Officer in Critical Condition After Shooting:  A Wayne State University police officer was shot in the head Tuesday night while patrolling off the Detroit, Mich., campus.  J.J. Gallagher, Tom Liddy and Morgan Winsor of ABC News report that Officer Collin Rose, 29, a five-year veteran of the force, was conducting a traffic stop when he sustained his injury. The nature of the stop and the events leading up to the shooting are still being investigated.  Rose underwent surgery and remains in critical condition, with doctors stating that it is still too early to say if he will recover.  The shooting comes just days after a violent weekend, in which four officers in three states were shot in a 24-hour period, one of them fatally.  Rose is the first Wayne State University officer to be shot in 36 years.

Chattanooga School Bus Driver was in Another Crash 2 Months Ago:  The man who crashed a school bus earlier this week, killing five children and injuring several more, was reportedly involved in another school bus crash two months ago.  Holly Yan, Natisha Lance, Madison Park and Martin Savidge of CNN report that in September, Johnthony Walker, who received his commercial driver's license in April, was driving around a blind curve when he sideswiped another vehicle after failing to yield, though there were no injuries and only minor damage to both vehicles.  Walker was driving with 37 children on board his school bus on Monday afternoon when he swerved off the road and plowed into a tree.  The crash killed five children and a dozen others remain hospitalized, some with serious head and spinal injuries.  Walker was allegedly driving well above the posted speed limit, and his blood sample has been sent to the state lab for testing.  He faces five counts of vehicular homicide and charges of reckless endangerment and reckless driving.  The bus company that hired him, Durham School Services, is under intense scrutiny.

Driver in TN School Bus Crash Charged:  The driver of a school bus that crashed in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Monday, killing five young children, has been arrested and charged.  Michael Edison Hayden, J.J. Gallagher, Tom Liddy and Jeffrey Cook of ABC News report that Johnthony Walker, 24, was driving the bus carrying 37 children Monday afternoon "well above the posted speed limit of 30 mph" when he lost control and crashed into a tree.  Among the five children who died, three were in fourth grade, one was in first grade and the other was a kindergartner.  Six other children remain in intensive care.  Walker faces charges of vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving.

Gunman who Killed San Antonio Cop Arrested:  The suspected gunman who killed a San Antonio, Tex., police detective in cold blood on Sunday has been taken into custody.  Julia Jacobo and Michael Edison Hayden of ABC News report that Otis Tyrone McKane, 31, was arrested without incident on Monday afternoon and said he wished to apologize to the family of the slain officer, 20-year veteran Detective Benjamin Marconi, 50.  Marconi was shot to death on Sunday afternoon while sitting in his patrol car writing a ticket.  The gunman, identified as McKane, pulled up in a car behind Marconi, stepped out and shot the officer in the head at close range before driving off.  After his arrest, McKane told police that he was upset over losing a custody battle and "lashed out at somebody who didn't deserve it."  Charges against him are pending.

NJ Lawmakers' Bill would Reinstate Death Penalty in Extreme Cases:  Two New Jersey senators have introduced a bill that would restore capital punishment in certain cases classified as "extreme."  S.P. Sullivan of NJ Advance Media reports that the bill, authored by Steve Oroho (R-Sussex) and Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May), who cited recent terror attacks and ambushes on law enforcement officers, would restore the death penalty in cases involving the murder of a police officer, the murder of a child in commission of a sex crime, deaths caused by an act of terror, killings committed by persons previously convicted of murder and for serial killers.  The state eliminated the death penalty nearly 10 years ago.  In order to pass, the bill have have to be approved by the Democrat-controlled state Legislature.  In the same vein, responding the recent ambush attacks on police officers, Jacksonville Police Chief Tony Grootens has proposed making the killing of a police officer a federal crime punishable by death.

Expecting the sourpuss contingent at the New York Times to give Jeff Sessions a fair shake is like expecting George Soros to have a kind word for America.  So it was no surprise when the Times' hatchet job appeared a few days ago, "Jeff Sessions as Attorney General: An Insult to Justice."  There was the usual wail about racism, as phony as it is ancient, but what caught my eye was this breathtakingly ignorant squib about Sen. Sessions and sentencing "reform":

Based on his record, we can form a fairly clear picture of what his Justice Department would look like:....Forget [about] any federal criminal-justice reform, which was on the cusp of passage in Congress before Mr. Trump's "law and order" campaign. Mr. Sessions strongly opposed bipartisan legislation to scale back the outrageously harsh sentences that filled federal prisons with low-level drug offenders. Instead, he called for more mandatory-minimum sentences and harsher punishments for drug crimes.

AR Man Sentenced to Death for Killing Son:  An Arkansas man was sentenced to death this week for his son's murder, an outcome prosecutors said was not only justice for the little boy, but for the killer's other children who suffered physical and sexual abuse at his hands.  Zuzanna Sitek of KFSM reports that a jury on Tuesday recommended the death penalty for Mauricio Torres, who was convicted a day before for capital murder in the 2015 death of his son Maurice Isaiah Torres, 6.  He also received an additional 20 years for first-degree battery.  Five of Torres' children and stepchildren testified against him, all of whom detailed years of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by him.  Torres' wife, Cathy, is scheduled to go to trial next year on the same charges.

GA Carries out 8th Execution of the Year:  A Georgia death row inmate was executed on Wednesday, marking the state's eighth execution of the year.  Kate Brumback of the AP reports that Steven Frederick Spears, 54, died by lethal injection after refusing to initiate any post-conviction appeals.  Spears was convicted in 2001 for murdering his ex-girlfriend, who he choked to death after suspecting she was romantically involved with someone else.  Eight is a record number of executions in a calendar year for Georgia, and the most carried out this year by any state.  A total of 18 inmates have been executed in 2016.

POTUS Encourages Violent Protesters:  President Obama shared some words of encouragement this week with the groups of Anti-Trump protesters that have been gathering all over the nation since the election and carrying out violent demonstrations.  Debra Heine of PJ media reports that President Obama stated, "I would not advise them to be silent," citing the supposed regularity with which presidential nominees are faced with mob protests.  He failed to address the widespread occurrence of rioting and destruction that has followed these demonstrations as they moved their way through several major U.S. cities.  It is anticipated that these demonstrations will continue and that protestors plan to interrupt Donald Trump's coming inauguration.

Racist Cop Claim Debunked in Study:  John R. Lott, Jr and Carlisle E. Moody have released a study report on officer-involved shootings in the United States, concluding that there is "no statistically significant difference between killings of black suspects by black and white officers," debunking the claim that racist white renegade cops are targeting minorities.

For about the last two years, there has been a major crime surge across this country, as even liberals now concede.  The heroin crisis is out of control.  A major part of the reason for this is repeat criminals:  It would be all to the good if the thousands of inmates we release each year went straight, but by-and-large, that is not what happens.  To the contrary, we have an appalling overall recidivism rate of 77%. For violent crimes, it's over 70%.  And all those figures are low, because a huge amount of crime never gets reported.  This is particularly true of drug crimes, a major component of federal criminal enforcement.

Passerby Shoots, Kills Man Beating Deputy:  A man who physically attacked a Florida sheriff's deputy Monday morning was shot and killed by an intervening bystander.  Fox News reports that the incident began after Lee County Deputy Dean Bardes, a 12-year veteran of the department, attempted to make a traffic stop, prompting the driver to take off at unsafe speeds.  The car chase ended on an exit ramp, where the suspect got out of his car, pulled Bardes out of his car and repeatedly beat him.  Another driver then got out of his car and intervened, telling the suspect that he'd shoot him if he refused to stop beating the deputy.  When the suspect refused to comply, the bystander shot three times.  Bardes was not hit and sustained only minor injuries from the attack.  The unidentified suspect, who was unarmed, later died.  The bystander, whose identity also remains anonymous at this time, possessed a concealed weapons license.  It is not known if any charges will be sought.

CA Serial Killer Denied Parole:  A California serial killer who murdered and mutilated more than two dozen farm workers over four decades ago was denied parole for the eighth time last week.  The AP reports that Juan Vallejo Corona, 82, was denied parole on Thursday for another five years for the murders of 25 men, whose bodies were discovered buried on two Yuba City ranches in 1971.  Corona was convicted in 1973 of 25 counts of first-degree murder, and again in 1981 after it was overturned on appeal.  He skirted the death penalty because it had been ruled unconstitutional in the state during his first trial.  At the time the men's remains were discovered, the murders represented the deadliest rampage in the nation.

Psychologists Testify TX Child Killer is Unfit for Execution:  A Texas man who murdered his two children over a decade ago is not mentally competent for his upcoming execution, psychologists testify.  Ed Adamczyk of UPI reports that John Battaglia, 60, is scheduled to die on Dec. 7 for fatally shooting his daughters, 6 and 9, in 2001 while on the phone with his estranged ex-wife, who was pleading with him not to hurt their children.  Battaglia's wife had reported a parole violation to the authorities that was going to put him back in jail.  Prosecutors argue that Battaglia has sufficient understanding of his crime, while the defense states that he suffers from delusional disorder, marked by a strong belief in untrue things.  Battaglia was initially scheduled to die in March 2016 but it was postponed for further psychological evaluation.  More testimony will be heard on Tuesday.  Battaglia's competency will then be at the determination of the judge.

CA Officer Killed, Suspect in Custody:  A California sheriff's deputy was fatally shot in the head "execution style" over the weekend, and the suspect was captured and taken into custody.  Devon Armijo of KCRA reports that Stanislaus County Deputy Dennis Wallace, 53, a 20-year veteran of the department, arrived at a fishing access on Sunday morning to investigate a report of a suspicious vehicle and person.  After finding that the vehicle was reported stolen, he requested backup.  When backup arrived they discovered Deputy Wallace dead from two gunshot wounds to the back of the head.  The suspected gunman, David Machado, had a felony warrant at the time of the stop and was apprehended by police later in the day after attempting to steal a woman's purse.  The charges Machado will face have yet to be released.

CA Cop Killer Faces Capital Murder Charges:  A California parolee is facing capital a murder charge for fatally shooting a sheriff's sergeant last month, and could face a possible death sentence.  Debbie L. Skylar of My News LA reports that Trenton Trevon Lovell, 27, is charged with the early October killing of Lancaster Sheriff's Sergeant Steve Owen, 53, a 29-year veteran of the department, who was responding to a burglary call.  Lovell was on parole at the time of the shooting and had been convicted of robbery as a juvenile in 2006 and again in 2009 as an adult.  Lovell faces a murder charge with special circumstance allegations of murdering a peace officer in performance of their duties and committing a murder to avoid a lawful arrest.  Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty.

Border Apprehensions Surge at Start of FY:  Border apprehensions are already record high in the first month of FY2017, says Customs and Border Protection.  Brittany M. Hughes of MRCTV reports that in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, 46,197 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southwest U.S. border, including 13,124 members of family units -- 118% higher compared to October 2015 -- and 6,754 unaccompanied minors.  Last month's apprehensions exceeded the heaviest month in FY2016, May, when 40,337 illegal immigrants were caught.  Many of the illegal immigrants who are apprehended will be released into U.S. communities with an order to appear before an immigration judge, though more than half will fail to show up and disappear into the shadows.

"October surprise" has come to mean a story damaging to a candidate that is sprung in late October, too late to be effectively refuted with the truth.  "A lie gets half way around the world before the truth can tie its shoelaces," as the saying goes.

This year, with election day on the unusually late date of November 8, we have November surprises.  One of the worst is this op-ed published in the Sacramento Bee under the byline of Linda Klein, this year's President of the American Bar Association.  The article urges people to vote no on Proposition 66.

What does a civil attorney from Georgia know about the California death penalty and the proposal to reform it, you might ask?  Nothing, it would seem.  This article is obviously ghost-written by anti-66 partisans.  It has one of the highest densities of false and misleading statements that I have ever seen in a newspaper opinion piece.

The article begins by touting how wonderful the ABA is.  "Our expertise gives us a unique perspective on some of the likely pitfalls and unintended consequences of Proposition 66."  Wouldn't an assessment of pitfalls and consequences require an objective analysis of what the proposition actually says?  Of course, but the ABA clearly did not bother to get one or to check out the opponents' claims with the proponents.

First, it would require attorneys with no death penalty experience to represent prisoners in their first appeal if qualified lawyers are not available. Imagine being required to visit a dermatologist after you have been diagnosed with lung cancer because no oncologist is available.

The implication that an attorney who is highly experienced in felony appeals but has not previously handled a capital case is unqualified in the same sense as a doctor from a completely different specialty is absurd.  The basic requirement under the present rule requires four years practice of law and seven completed felony appeals for the defense, including at least one murder case.  (Rule 8.605(d)(1)&(2).)  Proposition 66 does not change the qualification standards except to direct that prosecution-side experience be counted.  (Initiative § 18, amended  Govt. Code § 68665(b).)  The provision on requiring lawyers to step up when there is a backlog of appointments is specifically limited to those who "meet the qualifications for capital appeals."  (Initiative § 5, new  Penal Code § 1239.1(b).)  In addition, the California Supreme Court contracts with the California Appellate Project to provide advice to appointed lawyers in capital cases, and nothing in Proposition 66 changes that.

But if the present rule promulgated by the California Judicial Council is not enough to establish that prior capital experience is not essential for a lawyer to be qualified, there is another source that also says so.

UT Officer Killed in Hit and Run, Three Suspects in Custody:  A Utah police officer died early Sunday after being struck by a fleeing vehicle that had been stolen by three suspects, who have been taken into custody.  Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Officer Cody Brotherson, 25, a three-year veteran of the West Valley City police department, was struck and killed by the vehicle as he was attempting to lay down a set of tire spikes during a police chase that began when officers observed three individuals steal the car.  The chase lasted less than three minutes, ending when the stolen car was eventually run off the road and disabled.  The suspects, all of whom are under the age of 18, fled the scene but were later arrested.  It is not clear at this time whether the suspects intentionally hit Brotherson.  Brotherson is the first West Valley City officer killed in the line of duty since the city was established in 1980, and the second in Utah this year.

GA Officer Fatally Shot, Suspect Arrested:  A Georgia deputy was fatally shot and his partner critically wounded over the weekend after responding to a dispute between neighbors.  Fox News reports that Peach County Sgt. Patrick Sondron, 41, and his partner, Del Smallwood, responded to a call Sunday evening placed by the neighbors of Ralph Elrod.  Elrod had allegedly confronted his neighbors and threatened them with a gun because they were riding four-wheelers in the area.  When the deputies arrived, they made it just 10 to 15 yards from their patrol vehicles when Elrod opened fire.  The officer returned fire, shooting Elrod in the abdomen and injuring him.  He is currently in custody and will face charges of murder and three counts of aggravated assault.

Obama Shortens Sentences for 72 More Inmates:  President Obama last week granted clemency to an additional 72 federal inmates.  Josh Lederman of CNS News reports that Obama's final months in office have been marked by several rounds of commutations, including 98 two weeks ago.  Nearly all of the prisoners being granted clemency were convicted of drug-related offenses, some of them convicted of firearms charges in connection with drug crimes.  Obama has, in total, commuted the sentences of 944 people, 324 of whom were serving life sentences, which is more than the previous 11 presidents combined.  Many of the federal inmates will be freed in 2017 and 2018, after Obama has already left office.

In the race for control of the Senate, the elephant and the donkey are neck and neck in the home stretch.  As of 7:45 am PST, Nate Silver has the probability at 50.1 to 49.9.

There is something to be said for having the Senate and the White House in control of opposing parties.  We will get more moderate judges that way.  Yet due to a quirk in the U.S. Constitution, there is a decent chance that His Superfluous Majesty will be anything but superfluous for the next two years and will actually determine control the other way.

Two IA Police Officers Killed, Suspect in Custody:  Two Iowa police officers were fatally shot early Wednesday in what appears to be ambush-style attacks, and a suspect is in custody.  Jason Hanna and Max Blau of CNN report that Des Moines police Sgt. Anthony Beminio and Urbandale police Officer Justin Martin were found two miles apart, both shot while sitting in their squad vehicles near intersections. Scott Michael Green, 46, was named a suspect was detained, though detectives didn't elaborate further.  The shootings come eight months after two other Des Moines officers were killed when a wrong-way driver slammed head-on into their vehicle.  They also come just four months after five Dallas police officers were ambushed and killed by a sniper during a protest and three Baton Rouge officers were slain in a surprise attack.  Wednesday's shootings bring the number of police officers fatally shot in the U.S. and Puerto Rico in 2016 to 51, the highest one-year total since 2011 when 73 officers were shot dead, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

La. Man Sentenced to Death:  A jury in Lafourche Parish, La., sentenced someone to death Tuesday for the first time in 40 years.  Bridget Mire of the Daily Comet reports that the unanimous decision was reached three days after the jurors unanimously sentenced David Brown, 38, to first-degree murder for killing Jacquelin Nieves, 29, and her daughters Gabriela, 7, and Izabela, 1, almost four years ago to the date.  On Nov. 4, 2012, Brown stabbed the young mother and her daughters, and also sexually assaulted her and her eldest daughter, before setting the family's apartment on fire.  Assistant District Attorney Joe Soignet said a death sentence was "the only appropriate sentence for this man."  The last time a jury sent someone to death row in the county was in 1978, when David Dene Martin was sentenced to death for shooting and killing his wife's lover and three other people.  He was executed in 1985.

AR Officer Injured During Arrest, Suspect Arrested:  A North Little Rock, Ark., police officer sustained injuries Tuesday night while attempting to arrest a fleeing suspect.  KARK reports that Ranthony Stephenson, 25, was partially unclothed and harassing children at a bus stop when officers appeared on the scene.  Stephenson fled on foot before managing to gain control of a patrol car, and one of the pursuing officers sustained injuries to the head and hip while attempting to wrest control of the vehicle.  Stephenson will be charged with second-degree battery, aggravated assault, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, fleeing and theft of property.

CA Taxi Driver Convicted of Terrorism Repatriated:  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week returned to his home country a former California taxi driver who had been convicted of providing material support to Somalian terrorist groups.  As reported on ICE's official website, Ahmed Nasir Tahlil Mohamud, 41, who resided in Anaheim, was repatriated to Mogadishu on Tuesday due to a prior conviction for providing material support to al-Shabaab, a militia group that engages in suicide bombings, targets civilians for assassination and uses improvised explosive devices.  Nationwide, ICE repatriated 351 individuals classified as high-profile removals in FY 2015.  Among those repatriated, 274 were wanted for crimes committed overseas, often of a very serious or violent nature, 20 were classified as human rights violators and 54 were considered national security threats.