Results matching “first”

FL Death Penalty Debate Continues:  A Miami-Dade judge ruled Monday that Florida's death penalty system, even with the new changes enacted, is unconstitutional because jurors are not required to agree unanimously on execution.  David Ovalle of the Miami Herald reports that Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch issued the ruling in the case of Karon Gaiter, who is awaiting trial for first-degree murder.  Hirsch stated that Florida's new law requiring 10 of 12 juror votes to impose the death penalty "goes against the long-time sanctity of unanimous verdicts in the U.S. justice system."  Even though the new law also requires jurors to unanimously vote on aggravating factors, Hirsch says the fixes don't matter.  The U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's death sentencing system unconstitutional in January, in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, because it did not require the jury to return a specific finding on the existence of an aggravating circumstance needed to make the case eligible for the death penalty.  (The article incorrectly implies that the problem related to the ultimate sentencing decision.  See Kent's post earlier today.)  The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in the Hurst case and now, with Hirsch's ruling, the debate rages on.

Drug Dealing is a Violent Crime:  Former directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy William J. Bennett and John P. Walters have this piece in the Washington Examiner dispelling the claims made by President Obama that federal prisons are filled with "non-violent drug offenders" and that drug dealing is a "victimless crime."  Bennett and Walters say that the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act that is now before Congress is based on these lies, as 99.5% of those incarcerated in federal prison for drug convictions are guilty of serious trafficking offenses and among state drug inmates, 77% reoffended within five years of release, a quarter of them committing violent crimes.  Beyond that, "only the dishonest and willfully blind can claim that drug trafficking is a non-violent" and victimless crime and push for the release of experienced drug traffickers as the nation endures a 440% increase in heroin overdose deaths over the past seven years.  Bennett and Walters conclude that, knowing all of this, it is irresponsible to release drug dealers from prison before they have completed their just sentences.

Bloody Mother's Day Weekend in Chicago:  By the time Mother's Day weekend came to an end in Chicago, eight people were killed and 43 wounded in shootings across the city, making it the most violent weekend since September.  Alexandra Chachkevitch and Megan Crepeau of the Chicago Tribune report that on Saturday alone, in the span of 3.5 hours, someone was shot every 14 minutes.  The victims ranged in age from 16 to 58.  At least 1,225 people have been shot in Chicago so far this year, breaking records not seen since the 1990s. 

The former Governor of Louisiana has this op-ed in the WSJ:

I think electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration's radical policies.

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The next president will make a critical appointment to the Supreme Court, who will cast the tiebreaking vote in important cases that will set precedents for years to come.

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In my lifetime, no Democrat in the White House has ever appointed a Supreme Court justice who surprised the nation by becoming more conservative, while the opposite certainly cannot be said for Republican appointments. Mr. Trump might not support a constitutionalist conservative focused on original intent and limits on the court's powers. He may be more likely to appoint Judge Judy. However, there is only a chance that a President Trump would nominate a bad justice, while Mrs. Clinton certainly would.

I don't entirely agree with the first sentence.  Electing Bernie Sanders would also be worse, for example.  But I assume that Gov. Jindal is assuming that Sanders is not a realistic possibility, which is a pretty fair assumption.

And it's not just a bad justice.  The next President may very well get multiple appointments and shape the Court for a generation to come.

The Constitution Center in Philadelphia yesterday hosted a discussion of the legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia, by anyone's reckoning a genius, a spectacular writer, and one of the most influential Justices of my lifetime.

Convicted Sex Offender Arrested After Multiple Deportations:  An illegal immigrant from Mexico with multiple state and federal convictions was arrested in Utah by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for failing to register as a sex offender and for re-entering the U.S. illegally.  Fox News Latino reports that 37-year-old Sergio Amador-Olive has two state sexual assault convictions and two federal immigration convictions dating back to 2003.  He faced deportation in 2003, 2010 and 2014, but continued entering the country illegally.  An ICE press release states that Amador-Olive's case will be presented to the U.S. Attorney General's Office for federal prosecution.

Daytona Sword Killer Gets Death for 3rd Time:  A jury voted 11 to 1 Tuesday to recommend the death penalty for the third time for a man who used a sword to hack and slice another man to death in Daytona Beach, Florida, over two decades ago.  Frank Fernandez of the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that 52-year-old James Guzman was found guilty last week at his third death penalty trial for the 1991 killing of 48-year-old businessman David Colvin.  The first two convictions were overturned on appeal.  At the latest trial, the jury unanimously agreed on four aggravating factors presented by the prosecution, including that Guzman killed Colvin during a robbery, that he killed to eliminate a witness, that it was an especially heinous killing and that he had murdered before.  Guzman had served just nine years of a 30-year sentence for the 1982 shooting death of a Miami woman.  He was released from prison four months before he killed Colvin.  Guzman's case is the first in the 7th Circuit in which the jury recommended death since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Florida's death penalty process in January, ruling that judges had too much power in death penalty decisions.

Execution Date Set for TX Man:  A murderer inmate on death row for fatally shooting a young woman in southwest Texas 15 years ago is set to die by lethal injection on August 10.  The AP reports that 33-year-old Ramiro Gonzalez murdered 18-year-old Bridget Townsend in January 2001, but her remains weren't found until two years later when Gonzalez disclosed their location to authorities after receiving two life terms for the abduction and rape of another woman.  The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case last December.

AL Man Found Competent for Execution:  One of Alabama's longest-serving death row inmates has had his request to suspend his May 12 execution denied by a state circuit court judge.  Kelsey Stein of AL reports that Vernon Madison has been on death row for 31 years for the 1985 slaying of Officer Julius Schulte, who was responding to a domestic disturbance call.  Madison's attorneys argued at a competency hearing last month that several strokes had caused such a mental decline that he was no longer competent to be executed, but Mobile County Circuit Judge Robert Smith disagreed, issuing a ruling Friday that attorneys had not proven their argument and the execution can move forward.

Last night, I had the opportunity to talk about proposed sentencing reform legislation in a webinar broadcast by the Tea Party Patriots. (Next month, I'll do so with a politically quite different group, the American Constitution Society National Convention).

The Patriots asked if I would post my remarks, and I am happy to do so.  I'll start out by saying here what I said in the webinar: There are some good people supporting the bill, like Michael Mukasey and Sen. Mike Lee, but also some good ones opposing it, like Sens. Jeff Sessions, Tom Cotton and David Perdue.  Sen. Ted Cruz likewise opposes bill, although he voted for a somewhat similar bill in the last Congress.  And Sen. Orin Hatch opposes the bill at least until it is re-written to include mens rea reform  --  a dim prospect given the Administration's adamant opposition. 

What's different is that, while no extreme leftist supports preserving our present, successful system  --  a system that has helped massively reduce crime  --  many support going back to what President Reagan called the failed policies of the past: Feckless faith in untethered judicial discretion, and a misguided belief in the efficacy of rehabilitation. Among those supporting a return to the failed ideas (and, as night follows day, the failed results) of the past are George Soros, the ACLU, the SEIU, and of course the entire Obama Administration.

Conservatives in the Tea Party might want to think twice before joining forces with that group.

Laurence Steinberg isn't someone I agree with often, but he, Thomas Grisso, Elizabeth Scott, and Richard Bonnie have this op-ed in the NYT opposing the crackpot notion of raising the juvenile court jurisdiction age to 21.

The proposal to expand the jurisdiction of the juvenile system to age 21, in addition to being based on ambiguous science, would also create two potentially serious policy problems. First, just as the adult correctional system is ill equipped to respond to the needs of adolescents, the juvenile justice system is poorly positioned to handle young adults. It is hard to imagine a juvenile facility that could appropriately house 20-year-olds and 14-year-olds, or a juvenile justice staff whose training would allow it to work effectively with young adults. And because a disproportionate number of serious violent crimes are committed by individuals between 17 and 21, the juvenile system would be overwhelmed by the number of young adults it would need to process, and its rehabilitative purpose could be seriously undermined.

Second, the juvenile justice system interacts with several other health and child welfare systems. Those agencies have created relatively separate systems for serving children and adults, in part because of important differences between these two ages. For example, some mental illnesses arise only in young adulthood, and professionals have long specialized in providing services either to children and adolescents or to adults. Creating a juvenile justice system that works well for both adolescents and young adults would require significant (and costly) restructuring of many other agencies.

Nearly 20,000 Criminal Aliens Freed in 2015:  Nearly 20,000 illegal immigrants convicted of crimes were released from custody and into American communities last year, including hundreds charged with sexual assault, kidnapping and homicide.  Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times reports that together, the illegal immigrants tallied a total of 64,000 crimes, including 12,307 drunken driving convictions, 1,728 cases of assault, 216 kidnapping and over 200 homicide or manslaughter convictions.  The precise breakdown can be read here.  Approximately half were released by immigration judges, another 2,000 were freed in order to comply with a 2001 Supreme Court decision that put a six-month cap on the length of detention for immigrants "absent extenuating circumstances," the Obama administration was unable to arrange travel documents to send someone back home in time in 89 other cases.  In 7,000 cases, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released criminal aliens at its own discretion.

GA Executes Man for Triple Slaying:  After the State Board of Pardons and Paroles declined Tuesday to spare the life of a death row inmate, Georgia executed him Wednesday evening.  The AP reports that 37-year-old Daniel Anthony Lucas was put to death by lethal injection for the 1998 killings of a man and his two children, who interrupted Lucas while he was burglarizing their home.  Lucas is the fifth person to be executed in Georgia this year, tying a record set in 1987 and 2015 for the most executions carried out by the state in a calendar year since capital punishment's reinstatement in 1976.  He was the 42nd person executed in the state by lethal injection.

Border Agents Seek More Fencing, High-Tech Gear:  Federal agents in charge of patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border have requested 23 additional miles of fences, better radios and more aerial drones to tighten border security.  Julia Harte of Reuters reports that the extra fences sought by California and Texas agents, if installed, would be the first major fencing along the 1,954-mile border in five years and cost about $92 million.  It would cover three sections of the border and consist primarily of metal or concrete bollards clustered closely together.  There is currently 653 miles of fencing along the border --  a mix of wall-like fences and more basic vehicle barriers.  More high-tech gear such as radios and aerials drones are also being sought by agents, as the Border Patrol agents' union has been openly critical of the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection for neglecting their stocks in basic equipment.

San Bernardino sees Uptick in Homicides:  San Bernardino, Calif., has had seven homicides in nine days, a pattern police Chief Jarrod Burguan says is "more than numbers."  Doug Saunders of the San Bernardino County Sun reports that the city has logged 24 homicides so far this year, all of which have either been drug- or gang-related.  Last year, there was only a total of 44 homicides for the entire year, including the 14 who were killed in the terrorist shooting at the Inland Regional Center on Dec. 2.  San Bernardino police officials believe the "underlying causes trace to the passage" of AB 109 and Proposition 47.  AB 109 was implemented in 2011 by Gov. Jerry Brown in an effort to reduce prison overcrowding by diverting several inmates from state prisons to county jails, resulting in early releases.  Prop. 47, passed by voters in 2014, lessened the sentences of several felony property and drug offenses.

Obama admin Fails to Screen Social Media of Refugees:  Despite promises made following last year's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, the Obama administration is not effectively screening the social media profiles of all Syrian refugees.  Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times reports that the government is 8,370 refugees short of its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees, with just over five months left in the fiscal year, sparking concern that the administration will reduce screening even more to accelerate the process.  In order to meet the president's intended target, 75 applications would have to be approved every workday for the remainder of the fiscal year -- nearly seven times the average so far.  Last year, one of the San Bernardino attackers was found to be an immigrant who had posted her desire to wage jihad on media.  Though her post was not public, the president acknowledged that social media messages should be screened.  While Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Leon Rodriguez insisted months ago that it was increasing its monitoring, another USCIS official confirmed Tuesday that "the agency has not reached that point."

Prop. 47 Shows More Failure than Success:  Local governments in California are searching for solutions to Proposition 47, described by most law enforcement officers as "the biggest public safety disaster in the last several decades."  Lauren King of the Woodland Daily Democrat reports that state voters passed the measure in 2014 reducing "nonserious and nonviolent property and drug crimes" from felonies to misdemeanors and allowing previous convicts of such crimes to apply for reduced sentences.  In the first half of 2015, compared to 2014, California had the greatest increase in property crime, according to a report released by the Public Policy Institute of California, compiled from the FBI's crime statistics.  Specifically, San Francisco property crime jumped 66% while Sacramento became number one in the nation for violent crime.  Overall, the state claimed six of the nations top 10 cities with the biggest increases in crime after Prop. 47's passage.  Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig says one of the measure's greatest flaws is its failure to mandate drug rehabilitation.  He acknowledges that there may be "a few success stories" to come out of the measure, but far more people have become victims because of it.

Sentencing "reform" advocates insist that we should go lighter on sentencing in the name of the distinctly American virtue of "giving people a second chance."

A convicted murderer in Michigan, who was paroled early for good behavior after serving 19 years in jail, reportedly killed again less than one year after his release.

Malcolm B. Benson, 50, was serving a 20- to 40-year prison sentence as part of a plea deal he made in 1995, MLive reports. He was initially charged with first-degree murder but the plea deal reduced the charge to second-degree murder. He was also found guilty of felony use of a firearm, which added an additional two years to his sentence.

Benson was paroled on Jan. 13, 2015, after spending just over 19 years of his minimum 22-year sentence in prison.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe today issued an order removing the disqualification from voting for felons who have completed their time, both in custody and on parole or probation.

Can he do that, constitutionally?  Of course.  Virginia Constitution Article V §12, the clemency power, is quite explicit on that point.

Why did he do it?  The primary reason, in my opinion, is that he expects that the criminal vote will go overwhelmingly to the Democratic Party versus the Republicans, and I believe he is correct on that.

The primary division in America today is not between rich and poor, labor and management, white and black, or any of the old divisions that have been prominent in the past.  The primary division is between people who believe in personal responsibility, obedience to the law, and work ethic, on one side, and those who do not along with their apologists, on the other.

Gov. McAuliffe believes that those who do not are more likely to vote for his party, and that should send a strong message to those who do.

The Senate's bill for mass reduction of federal felony sentences (called sentencing "reform" to keep it opaque) passed out of the Judiciary Committee months ago by a lopsided 15-5 vote.  But it's been downhill ever since.

When I discuss America's sky-high recidivism rate (49% for federal offenders and 77% for state offenders), I sometimes encounter the objection that not all criminals return to the crime for which they went to prison.  This is true.  Not infrequently, they branch out.  Hence today's story:

A Grand Rapids man released from prison last summer for a November 1998 murder pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal cocaine trafficking charge following his arrest in Southeast Grand Rapids with more than a pound of cocaine.

Keith Vonta Hopskin appeared in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids where he admitted to having at least a pound of cocaine he planned to distribute....

Hopskin told police he had been receiving several ounces of cocaine about two times a month since July, court records show. He was released from prison July 5 on a second-degree murder conviction.

The 38-year-old, who has a prior federal drug conviction, told investigators he paid $10,500 for the cocaine and was able to sell three ounces before police stepped in.

The iconic and eclectic musician Prince (his given first name was indeed "Prince") died yesterday.  There are already strong indications he was killed by heroin or some illegally obtained opioid.  The NY Daily News reports:

Prince received drug overdose treatment six days before his death during his plane's emergency landing in rural Illinois, according to a report.

Medical examiners are investigating the cause of the 57-year-old legendary musician's Thursday death at his Minnesota estate. But doctors in Moline, Ill., only 48 minutes from his home, gave Prince a so-called "save shot" during the emergency stop last Friday, TMZ reported.

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The "save shots" usually help combat opiates, such as heroin and narcotic painkillers, in the bloodstream. Doctors and paramedics have used the injectable medication, called naloxone, for years, according to WebMD.

Unfortunately, some people on the conservative side of the political aisle have jumped on the "let-em-out" bandwagon because they see that as a way to reduce government budgets.  Looking at costs to government alone, however, is not the correct way to measure costs of alternative courses of action to society as a whole.  When government fails in its fundamental obligation to protect people from crime, it imposes costs on the victims, a kind of "crime tax" that falls heavily, partly at random, but disproportionately on people of modest means.  Quantifying the cost of crime to victims is a tricky business in many ways, and one of the ways is that much of the cost is hidden.  Science Daily has this article on a hidden cost that has been overlooked to this point:

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Development Economics, researchers Professor Marco Manacorda (Queen Mary University of London) and Dr Martin Foureaux Koppensteiner (University of Leicester) focused on evidence from the exposure of day-to-day violence in Brazil by analysing the birth outcomes of children whose mothers were exposed to local violence, as measured by homicide rates in small Brazilian municipalities and the neighbourhoods of the city of Fortaleza.

The team estimated the effect of violence on birth outcomes by comparing mothers who were exposed to a homicide during pregnancy to otherwise similar mothers residing in the same area, who happened not to be exposed to homicides.

The study found that birthweight falls significantly among newborns exposed to a homicide during pregnancy and the number of children classified as being low birthweight increases -- and that the effects are concentrated on the first trimester of pregnancy, which is consistent with claims that stress-induced events matter most when occurring early in pregnancy.

Supreme Court Begins Hearing Amnesty Case:  Supreme Court justices will begin hearing their biggest case of the term Monday morning to consider whether President Obama overstepped his constitutional powers when he granted a tentative  amnesty to five million illegal immigrants.  Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times reports that Obama first announced his deportation policy in November, the objective of which is to grant nearly half of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. a proactive stay of deportation, allowing them access to work permits, driver's licenses, Social Security numbers and some taxpayer benefits.  The policy prompted 26 states to sue, arguing that the amnesty caused economic harm.  The states, led by Texas, also argue that President Obama broke administrative law and immigration law, and violated the Constitution, when he strayed too far from the Take Care Clause, writing law rather than simply carrying it out.  The amnesty has been halted by lower courts on statutory grounds until justices decide.  The justices are expected to make a ruling by the end of June.

Another Record-Breaking Year Expected in Alien Children Surge:  Unaccompanied alien children apprehended on the U.S. border has surged more than 1,200% since 2011 with no end in sight as the flow increased significantly in the first five months of FY 2016.  Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon reports that a Congressional Research Service report shows that in the first five months of 2016, nearly 20,000 illegal immigrants children -- mostly from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala -- were apprehended at the border, "setting the state for another potentially record-breaking year."  Experts warn that illegal immigrant children will continue to surge into the country so long as the United States' immigration policy is viewed as advantageous to illegal immigrants.

Urgency in CA to Find Roadside Test for Drugged Drivers:  As California moves closer toward legalization of adult recreational marijuana use, there is a new urgency in the state to find a "practical and reliable" field test to determine when a driver is under the influence of marijuana.  Brooke Edwards Staggs of the LA Daily News reports that California Sen. Bob Huff has proposed Senate Bill 1492, which would authorize use of saliva swab tests to help police officers detect for the presence of marijuana and other drugs.  Critics argue that the proposed device is still "too experimental and unreliable to be put into wider use" and isn't even effective at testing the two types of drugs most frequently encountered, marijuana and prescription medicines.  The state is partnering with UC San Diego's Center for Medical Cannabis Research Center to conduct research, beginning the fall, to study how marijuana impacts motor skills.

Today marks the third anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing.  The bombers killed three people and injured and maimed 264 others, some grotesquely and many for life.  They also killed an MIT policeman in the aftermath.

It's no news to readers of this blog that sentencing reform will create costs its backers prefer to conceal.  The most prominent recent example is the Wendell Callahan case.  Callahan, a crack cocaine dealer, was given retroactive benefit of a sentencing reductions bill Congress passed in 2010.  He went on to commit triple murder. This is notwithstanding that we were loudly promised then  --  as we are now  --  that the release of such inmates would be limited to "low level, non-violent" offenders.

A friend of mine familiar with the changes proposed for the original draft of the SRCA (changes that will be rolled out today) tells me that, not only does the new version fail to address the Wendell Callahan problem (now known as the "Wullie Horton" problem), it creates an even bigger one, called the "Scarface" problem.

International maritime drug smugglers are now evidently also a species of "low-level, non-violent drug offender;" Query: if you are smuggling gigantic amounts of drugs in a boat, in what sense are you "low-level"? - a fact that has thus far gone totally unnoticed (or willfully ignored) by everyone talking about the "new and improved bill." 

An unnamed Republican Senate aide is quoted as follows in responding to the Wendell Callahan sentencing reform scandal, in which two little African American girls and their mother were knifed to death by a federal inmate given early release under a 2010 sentencing reform law:

You're never going to eliminate the Willie Horton type of situation, the political ads aside, of somebody coming out [of prison] and committing a crime. It's the nature of the human being. You're never going to have 100 percent certainty, that's never going to happen. But it would be a shame to just not ever do any sentencing reform, any criminal justice reform, because of that.

The Georgia Supreme Court summarized the crimes of Kenneth Fults as follows:

The evidence adduced at Fults' sentencing trial showed that he carried out a week-long crime spree which was centered, at least in part, upon his desire to murder a man who was engaged in a relationship with his former girlfriend. Fults first committed two burglaries, obtaining several handguns. After a failed attempt at murdering his former girlfriend's new boyfriend with one of the stolen handguns, Fults then burglarized the home of his next-door neighbors. After the male neighbor left for work, Fults forced his way through the front door wearing gloves and a hat pulled down over his face. Fults confronted the female occupant of the home, Cathy Bounds, brandishing a .22 caliber handgun he had stolen during one of the burglaries. Ms. Bounds begged for her life and offered Fults the rings on her fingers.  Fults turned Ms. Bounds around toward the bedroom, either taped or forced her to tape her eyes closed by wrapping over six feet of electrical tape around her head, forced her into the bedroom, placed her face-down on her bed, placed a pillow over her head, and shot her five times in the back of the head.

Previously Deported Illegal May Face Criminal Charges in 3 Deaths:  An illegal immigrant who was previously deported in 2008 may face charges of criminally negligent homicide for striking a Texas firefighter head-on in his vehicle, killing him and his two young children.  Lana Shadwick of Breitbart reports that Margarito Quintero did not have a driver's license when he slammed head-on into the vehicle of 36-year-old North Texas volunteer firefighter Captain Peter Hacking, who was driving his four-year-old stepdaughter and 22-month-old son.  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they had no contact with Quintero until Tuesday's accident.  He will face felony charges in the deaths of Hacking and his children if he recovers from his critical injuries.

MO High Court Upholds Man's Death Sentence:  The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Tuesday of a man who killed two women a decade ago after sexually torturing them on videotape.  Jim Suhr of the AP reports that the high court unanimously rejected 51-year-old Richard Davis' claim that he received ineffective counsel during his murder trial, specifically that his defense team failed to assert his mental incompetency.  In 2006, Davis and his then-girlfriend Dena Riley, violently sexually assaulted two women on videotape and then killed them to fulfill Davis' violent sexual fantasies.  Prior to the murders, Davis had spent nearly 18 years in prison for a 1987 rape.  Riley is serving multiple life sentences for her role in the crimes.

Supervised Heroin Use Proposed by CA Lawmaker:  A California Assemblywoman introduced legislation Tuesday that would result in the nation's first legal drug-injection site, allowing people to use heroin, crack, opioids and other drugs at supervised facilities.  The AP and Dave Marquis of KXTV report that Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat, proposed the legislation in response to the growing number of overdoses in the state and across the country, which would legalize the use of controlled substances in clinics that could offer medical intervention.  Last week, there were 40 overdoses, eight resulting in death, in Sacramento alone.  A committee vote on the bill has been postponed.

Death Recommended for KS Man:  A death sentence was recommended by a jury Thursday for a man who fatally shot three adults and an 18-month-old girl on a Kansas farm in 2013.  The AP reports that 30-year-old Kyle Flack was convicted of capital murder on March 23 in the shooting deaths of two adult males, an adult female and her young daughter.  Flack attempted to conceal the bodies of the three adults in the eastern Kansas farmhouse and stuffed the girl's body in a suitcase that was later recovered from a creek.  Prosecutors say the motive for the shootings is unclear.  Deputy Attorney General Victor Braden said during the sentencing phase that the death penalty was justified by three aggravated circumstances, including a conviction for attempted second-degree murder in 2005, the killing of multiple people in the 2013 shootings, and the fact that the murder of the young mother and daughter were done in an "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner."  There are 10 people on Kansas' death row and the state has not executed anyone since 1994.

Obama Commuting More Sentences:  An announcement made by the White House Wednesday that President Barack Obama is commuting the sentences of an additional 61 criminals means that he has now commuted the sentences of more prisoners than all of the last six presidents combined.  Barbara Hollingsworth of CNS News reports that, to date, Obama has commuted the sentences of 248 criminals, including 92 inmates who were serving life sentences.  The White House statement emphasized that the President "considers commutations just the first step in a major overhaul of the criminal justice system, including mandatory sentencing guidelines."  Commutations, while lessening the already-imposed sentence, do not affect the person's legal guilt, says a George Mason professor.

VA Trooper's Killer Hated Cops:  The Virginia state trooper fatally shot Thursday during a training exercise at a Greyhound bus station was gunned down by an ex-con who reportedly hated law enforcement and "always praised those people who got into shootouts with police."  Fox News reports that 37-year-old Trooper Chad Dermyer, a decorated Marine vet and married father of two, was shot and killed by 34-year-old James Brown III during an interdiction exercise involving a dozen other Virginia State Police troopers.  Brown, who was also shot and killed, had previous charges in crimes ranging from domestic battery to murder and, according to his aunt, "pretty much thought he wanted to be infamous...in terms of having a showdown."  Dermyer's death adds to the increasing concern among state and national law enforcement advocates of a growing anti-police climate that is putting targets on the backs on officers.  The Officer Down Memorial Page shows that while overall deaths of police officers is down slightly year-to-date, the number killed by gunfire so far this year -- 15 -- is up 150%.  Over the course of one week in February, five police officers were fatally shot.

PA Supreme Court Upholds Murderer's Death Sentence:  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of murdering three of his relatives in 2009.  Liz Zemba of Trib Live reports that 55-year-old Kevin Murphy was convicted in 2013 for fatally shooting his mother, sister and aunt, because the women disapproved of his relationship with a married woman and his desire to have her live at the family home.  In a 14 page opinion five state Supreme Court justices disagreed with Murphy's claim that prosecutors failed to prove his guilt and the verdicts went against the weight of the evidence.

Police Stops Down, Homicides Up in Chicago:  Since the shooting of Laquan McDonald last year, there has been a sharp drop in police stops in Chicago and a spike in shooting incidents and violent homicides.  WGN reports that numbers released by DNA Info Chicago show police have made fewer than 21,000 investigative stops so far this year, a nearly 90% drop from the same period last year.  While police stops have decreased, shootings and homicides have increased by roughly the same percentage; as of Wednesday morning, homicides totaled 135, a 71% spike, representing the worst first quarter of a year since 1999.  The Chicago Tribune reports that the city is off to its deadliest start in two decades.

MI Supreme Court won't Hear Case of Juvenile Murderer:  The Michigan Supreme Court issued an order Tuesday stating it would not review a felony murder conviction after the state appeals court upheld the guilty verdict of a now 19-year-old who murdered an elderly woman when he was a juvenile.  Gary Ridley of MLive reports that Mark Jones Jr. fatally shot and robbed a 73-year-old woman in 2010 when he was just 14.  He attempted to have the appeals court reverse his conviction, arguing that prosecutors were improperly allowed to introduce previous crimes he committed, but the appeals court disagreed and upheld Jones' sentence.  A 2012 ruling that declaring mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles unconstitutional many have helped Jones avoid a life sentence but he is serving a sentence of 40 to 60 years.  His earliest release date is November 2052.  The appeals court decision is here.

Defense Attorney Wants Brown to Commute Death Sentences:  A retired Sacramento federal defender and longtime opponent of the death penalty penned a letter to California Gov. Jerry Brown imploring him to commute the death sentences of every murderer on death row.  Denny Walsh of the Sac Bee reports that in his letter, Quin Denvir, one of the lawyers who saved Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski from possible execution, cites Pope Francis' Year of Mercy, an "imperfect" criminal justice system and the risk that the death penalty will be imposed "in an arbitrary, discriminatory and unreliable manner."  Denvir encouraged Gov. Brown to exercise his  clemency power to commute the sentences of all condemned murderers to life without parole, a power which is "not wholly unrestricted."  As outlined in California's constitution, the governor may not grant a pardon or commutation to a person "twice convicted of a felony except on recommendation of the Supreme Court, 4 judges concurring."

TX Man Facing Execution Granted Stay:  Wednesday's scheduled execution for a Texas inmate convicted of killing his two young daughters 15 years ago while their mother listened helplessly on the phone, has been halted by a federal appeals court seven hours before it was to be carried out.  The AP reports that attorneys for 60-year-old John David Battaglia argued he deserved a court-appointed attorney to investigate and a fair hearing to determine his mental competency, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.  In May 2001, Battaglia fatally shot his two daughters, aged nine and six, as revenge to his estranged wife, the girls' mother, for reporting complaints to his probation officer that resulted in the issuance of an arrest warrant.  He would have been the 10th convicted killer executed in the U.S. this year and the sixth in Texas.

Orange County Police Blame Prop 47 For Crime Spike:  Orange County, California, saw a 23% jump in crime last year, the greatest single-year jump in at least a decade, and the county's police officials believe Proposition 47, a measure that reduced several felony theft and drug offenses to misdemeanors, is to blame.  Jordan Graham of the OC Register reports that the steepest increases in the county were in stolen vehicles, aggravated assaults, thefts and burglaries, surges that many officers attribute to Prop. 47, which makes it difficult to keep drug addicts and other low-level offenders behind bars, "leaving them on the streets to repeat the same crimes and steal to feed their addictions."  The uptick was felt broadly across the county, with 32 of 34 cities reporting more serious crimes, in some cases spikes of 30 to 50%.  Statewide, violent crime rose 13% and property crime jumped 9% in the first half of 2015, while nationally, violent crime rose 1.7% and property crime fell by 4.2% over the same period. 

Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided Luis v. United States, No. 14-419.  Justice Breyer's plurality opinion begins:

A federal statute provides that a court may freeze before trial certain assets belonging to a criminal defendant accused of violations of federal health care or banking laws. See 18 U. S. C. §1345. Those assets include: (1) property "obtained as a result of " the crime, (2) property "traceable" to the crime, and (3) other "property of equivalent value." §1345(a)(2). In this case, the Government has obtained a court order that freezes assets belonging to the third category of property, namely, property that is untainted by the crime, and that belongs fully to the defendant. That order, the defendant says, prevents her from paying her lawyer. She claims that insofar as it does so, it violates her Sixth Amendment "right . . . to have the Assistance of Counsel for [her] defence." We agree.

Justice Thomas concurred in this result, making the decision 5-3.

Oakland Murder Case Puts Focus on CA Death Penalty:  Despite a moratorium on California's death penalty, prosecutors in the state continue to seek it, as they have in a high-profile Oakland case that goes to trial this week involving the cold-blooded murder of an eight-year-old girl.  Kale Williams of SF Gate reports that the death penalty is being sought against 25-year-old Darnell Williams, charged with first-degree murder in the 2013 killing of Alaysha Carradine while she was sleeping over at a friend's house.  Williams was allegedly hellbent on revenge for an earlier slaying of a friend and looking to gun down anyone associated with the suspected killer when he sent a barrage of bullets into the apartment where the killer's children lived with their mother.  Experts say, however, that even if Williams is convicted and sentenced to death, the likelihood of his execution is "tenuous at best."  The State's new death penalty protocol would use one of four barbiturates that would conform to U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel's 2006 ruling.  Since capital punishment was restored in California over four decades ago, only 13 prisoners have been executed.  A total of 743 condemned inmates continue to sit on death row.

Capital Returning to Normal After Shooting Incident:  The U.S. Capitol reopened Tuesday with heightened security, a day after officers shot and wounded a man who pulled a weapon at a security checkpoint as he entered the Capitol Visitor Center that was teeming with tourists.  Alan Fram of CNS News reports that 66-year-old Larry R. Dawson, who is currently hospitalized, faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault on a police officer while armed in Monday's incident that left one female bystander with minor injuries.  Last October, Dawson disrupted a House session by yelling he was a prophet of God, prompting the District of Columbia Superior Court to issue a "stay away order" that barred him from the Capitol grounds.  Dawson failed to appear in court as scheduled the following month claiming he was exempt due to his status as a prophet of God, and has additional history of questionable behavior.  Police believe Dawson acted alone and the incident isn't "anything more than a criminal act."

Chicago Violence Surges, Policing Debate Rages:  Violence in Chicago continues to surge during a "pivotal moment" for the city's law enforcement, enmeshed in conflict and facing distrust from the black residents.  Monica Davey of the NY Times reports that as of Friday, 131 people had been killed since the start of the year, an 84% increase in homicides from the same period in 2015.  The city has also seen 605 shooting incidents so far, almost twice as many at the same point last year.  Experts cannot reach a consensus on what is causing the rising bloodshed this year; some cite relatively mild winter weather, while many others believe it is because law enforcement officers have "backed off" of proactive policing amid increased scrutiny.  Gangs have also been tied to much of the violence, as many have become "disorganized and splintered into more factions."  Though the current levels of violence are far below that of the 1990s, "it seems like this year is just the worst of the worst," say residents.

This morning we won a major victory in the fight to have capital cases concluded within a reasonable time.  In Habeas Corpus Resource Center v. U.S. Dept. of Justice, No. 14-16928, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken and put the "fast track" process back on track.

With which political party do black lives matter?  It has to be the party that elected Maxine Waters, Charles Rangel, Elijah Cummings to Congress and the first black President, Barrack Obama.  It is no mystery that Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are Democrats.   But which political party supported the Eugenics movement, which sought to cull inferior breeds, including blacks, from the world's gene pool, spawning Planned Parenthood?   Which political party filibustered to block adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and which delivered the highest percentage of votes to finally allow its passage?  And what party's criminal justice policies have saved the most black lives?  Thomas Sowell answers these questions in this column from the Press Enterprise. 

NYC Cop Killer Evades Death Penalty:  A New York murderer who was sentenced to death by two juries for killing two undercover police officers over a decade ago has had his execution overturned after a judge found him to be intellectually disabled, despite the "calculated thought" involved in the crime.  CBS reports that 33-year-old Ronell Wilson was charged in the 2003 execution-style shootings of two undercover detectives in a Staten Island drug sting gone bad.  He was first sentenced to death by a jury in 2007 but it was overturned in 2010 due to an error in jury instructions, and a second jury re-sentenced him to death in 2013.  The year before Wilson's 2013 re-sentencing, a judge determined him to have an IQ showing sufficient intellectual functioning, but a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that a judge could not rely solely on a person's IQ score to determine their intellectual disability.  An appeals court sent the finding to U.S. District Court Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who vacated the prior order and instead sentenced Wilson to life in prison without parole.

Increase in Sex Offenders Arrested at Border:  Federal officials say there are a growing number of sex offenders arrested among the illegal immigrants and drug traffickers along the southern border.  Kellan Howell of the Washington Times reports that so far this year in Tucson, Ariz., border patrol agents have arrested 46 convicted sex offenders, with 10 arrests since March 1.  The number is steadily gaining on the total of 69 sex offenders arrested in fiscal year 2015.  Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is planning to cut back on aerial monitoring of the U.S.-Mexico border by 50% and the Obama administration anticipates another surge of unaccompanied minors.

Bill would make Violence Against Cops a Hate Crime:  Legislation introduced Wednesday by a Colorado republican lawmaker would make violence against police officers a federal hate crime.  Pete Kazperowicz of the Washington Examiner reports that Rep. Ken Buck's proposed bill -- the Blue Lives Matter Act -- comes on the heels of increased violence against police officers in the wake of several high-profile police shootings.  If enacted, the Blue Lives Matter Act would add violence against police officers to federal hate crime laws which could lead to tougher penalties for those who target law enforcement.  Under current law, one can be charged with a hate crime if they violently target others based on their race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

Well, so much for predictions.  Merrick Garland was not the expected choice of many of those venturing a prediction.  Tom Goldstein had this handicapping at SCOTUSblog, and that blog's series of profile posts on potential nominees had not gotten around to Garland by announcement day.  Here at C&C, Bill Otis had this post early this morning.

I was hoping for a diversity pick.  Alas, confirmation of Judge Garland would leave us with nine Justices all of whom went to Harvard or Yale.

I have been browsing Judge Garland's criminal and related opinions and haven't found anything noteworthy either way yet.

Should the Senate confirm him?  Should Republicans even allow the machinery to start?

A "no" answer is, in effect, doubling down on the election.  A victorious President Hillary Clinton would likely nominate someone further into left-wing judicial activism, making the Scalia->X transition a even larger shift than the Marshall->Thomas transition, currently the largest single-appointment shift in modern history.  A victorious Republican candidate would likely appoint someone more aligned with Justice Scalia's views.

Is this a good hand to double down on?