Results matching “first”

It is an article of faith on the political left that efforts to tighten up protections against voting fraud are really just evil, racist Republican efforts to suppress the vote of racial minorities, who supposedly have enormous difficulty complying with such simple requirements as registering 30 days before an election and showing an ID at the polls.  If that were true, one would expect that success in the effort to "impose barriers" would be followed by a sharp drop in turnout.

Well, it didn't happen in North Carolina.  Robert Popper of Judicial Watch has this op-ed in the WSJ.

Turnout data for the 2014 election, posted Dec. 10 on the state's Board of Elections website, tell a different story. Black turnout and registration for the November 2014 election increased by every relevant measure compared with November 2010, the last non-presidential general election.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll published four days ago showed that, as our "national conversation" about race gets pumped by Eric Holder, Al Sharpton and like-minded opinion leaders, Americans view race relations as having hit their lowest point since the last century.

Two convicted terrorists were hanged in Pakistan, AFP reports.

Pakistan hung two convicted militants in the first executions in six years and security forces killed more than 50 suspected militants on Friday (Dec 19) as the country's leaders vowed decisive action in the wake of a Taliban school massacre that left 149 people dead.

The bloody rampage in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday brought international condemnation and promises of swift, decisive action against militants from Pakistan's political and military leaders.

Pakistan's de facto foreign minister Sartaj Aziz told AFP the attack was his country's own "mini 9/11" and a game changer in its fight against terror.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif relinquished the six-year ban on the death penalty in terror-related cases two days after the school attack.

Two militants convicted of separate terrorism offences were the first to face the noose at a jail in central Punjab province, the province's home minister, Shuja Khanzada, told AFP.

As noted in today's News Scan, the states of Nebraska and Oklahoma have filed suit in the Supreme Court against Colorado over its marijuana law.  Here are a few random thoughts.

My first impression was that such a suit would be meritless, bordering on frivolous.  Of course a state is within its constitutional authority to not prohibit something.  After skimming quickly through the complaint, though, it is more nuanced than that.  The gist of the claim is that the Colorado law involves its government in affirmatively promoting a trafficking in marijuana that violates federal law.  I will have to study it more carefully to form an opinion on the merits of the complaint.

Procedurally, there is some inside baseball on the peculiarities of Supreme Court jurisdiction.

University of Virginia Professor and Hoover Institution Fellow James Ceaser has an insightful piece in the Weekly Standard on the disgraceful "journalism" and  -- let's face it  --  copious lying that went on in the Rolling Stone's reporting of a gang rape. It's a rape that, I have come to believe from the available evidence, is a 100% hoax. It is, in that respect, like the Duke lacrosse rape hoax of a few years back: It's not just that the rape did not occur as reported; it's that it never occurred, period.  

Of all the propaganda efforts of the anti-death-penalty movement, the most successful has been the notorious "innocence list," which can be found on the website of the Death Penalty Information Center.  Six years ago, Ward Campbell published in the IACJ Journal (Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice) an article titled Exoneration Inflation noting the various ways that people have been included on the list even though they had not been determined to be actually innocent or if their cases were simply irrelevant to the debate over the present system because they were sentenced under a different, since-abandoned system.

Surprisingly, three of the latter made it on to the notorious list just this year.  Three men convicted in Ohio for a 1975 killing and removed from death row just a couple of years later when the statutes were struck down have now been released altogether.  It is indeed regrettable that they spent so much time unjustly in prison, but the cases have nothing to do with the current death penalty debate.  They were not sent to death row under a law anything like any law now in effect in the United States or that has been in effect for 36 years.

In a report to be released tomorrow the DPIC will crow about a "record" number of "exonerations" of "former death row inmates," but the fact that these three were briefly on death row under a long-ago abandoned system has no relevance to our current capital sentencing system.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has this op-ed in the WSJ:

Considering that the now-abolished Central Intelligence Agency interrogation program adopted in the wake of 9/11 was intended to protect the U.S. from another deadly attack, it is stunning to hear those now criticizing the program issue the solemn reminder that "we are a nation of laws"--while devoting little attention to what was actually in those laws. Odder still, among the critics those who wrote the laws seem to devote the least attention to them.

Take, for example, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the prime mover behind last week's release of a more than 500-page " Executive Summary " of the report by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She attaches her own six-page foreword, beginning with the dutiful assurance on the first page that the "horror" of the television footage of the 9/11 attacks "will remain with me for the rest of my life." Thus credentialed, Sen. Feinstein proceeds to the task at hand: CIA personnel "decided to initiate a program" of "brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values." Setting aside for a moment the reference to "our values," that statement is demonstrably false.

The statement is false, he goes on to demonstrate, because the enhanced interrogation techniques used were not torture as defined in the law.

Kent noted, here and here, the pendency in the en banc First Circuit of a case in which a district court ordered the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to pay the massive costs of sex re-assignment surgery for a convicted murder in its custody. The lower court had ordered Massachusetts to foot the bill, and a divided panel of the appellate court affirmed.

A:  Not a whole lot.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center is the first to gauge reactions to last week's big CIA report on "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- what agency critics call torture.

And the reaction is pretty muted.

The poll shows people says 51-29 percent than the CIA's methods were justified and 56-28 percent that the information gleaned helped prevent terror attacks.

Earlier this morning, Bill noted that the U.S. Supreme Court decided Heien v. North Carolina, No. 13-604, and copied an accurate summary of the decision from the Heritage Foundation. I want to explore a little further the important distinction between the substantive scope of the Fourth Amendment and the judge-made rule of exclusion of evidence found to have been obtained in violation of that amendment.

Today's decision answers a question that does not arise that often.  Is a search "unreasonable" within the substantive scope of the Fourth Amendment if the police officer acts on an interpretation of the law that is reasonable (and not contrary to any precedent existing at the time) but that a court subsequently finds to be incorrect?  The Supreme Court says no, 8-1, but both the majority and the concurrence note that this is a more demanding standard than the generous one provided for qualified immunity for civil liability.  As Justice Kagan puts it in the concurring opinion,

If the statute is genuinely ambiguous, such that overturning the officer's judgment requires hard interpretive work, then the officer has made a reasonable mistake. But if not, not. As the Solicitor General made the point at oral argument, the statute must pose a "really difficult" or "very hard question of statutory interpretation." 

I look forward to citing the "really difficult standard" in a brief.  Justice Kagan goes on to say these cases will be "exceedingly rare."  That is perhaps a tad of an overstatement, but I do not expect them to be common.

This case got to the Supreme Court with this question because, as Justice Sotomayor notes in the dissent, "unlike most States, North Carolina does not provide a good-faith exception as a matter of state law."  An exception, that is, to the rule that once a Fourth Amendment violation is found the evidence must be suppressed.  States can, if they wish, have broader exclusionary rules than federal law requires, so they do not have to follow the various good-faith exceptions that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized.    This is why CJLF passed on the case and did not file an amicus brief.  Our interest is in the broader exclusionary rule question, not the interesting but rarely occurring substantive Fourth Amendment issue decided today.

So here is the bombshell question not answered today but reserved for a future case:  Should the U.S. Supreme Court stop carving out individual good-faith "exceptions" to an overall rule of suppression of evidence and instead make "bad faith" a required element of a defendant's motion to suppress evidence?

George Will is a brilliant man and a superb writer.  He is in many respects a conservative hero.  Yesterday, however, he published an overwrought piece in the Washington Post, "Eric Garner, Criminalized to Death."  The piece is illogical to the point of absurdity.  It also has some startling omissions.

The WSJ has this response to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on interrogation, by former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden (a retired Air Force general), and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland (a retired Navy vice admiral) and Stephen R. Kappes.

They dispute just about all the major conclusions.  They also have some telling comments on the way the report was prepared.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Central Intelligence Agency detention and interrogation of terrorists, prepared only by the Democratic majority staff, is a missed opportunity to deliver a serious and balanced study of an important public policy question. The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation--essentially a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.

*                                                  *                                            *

How did the committee report get these things so wrong? Astonishingly, the staff avoided interviewing any of us who had been involved in establishing or running the program, the first time a supposedly comprehensive Senate Select Committee on Intelligence study has been carried out in this way.

...because the alternatives, Yale and Harvard, have come out with this nonsense op-ed. Stanford has not....at least not yet.

In the wake of the recent grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island, outrage and despair are reverberating across the nation, including at the law schools where we teach. Many of our students are struggling to reconcile their ideals of justice with what they perceive as manifest injustices in the criminal law system.

Remember when those tending to favor the defense in criminal cases were the first to lecture us (correctly, for once) about the presumption of innocence?

Now the narrative [by "Jackie," the alleged University of Virginia rape victim] appears to be falling apart: Her rapist wasn't in the frat that she says he was a member of; the house held no party on the night of the assault; and other details are wobbly. Many people (not least U-Va. administrators) will be tempted to see this as a reminder that officials, reporters and the general public should hear both sides of the story and collect all the evidence before coming to a conclusion in rape cases. This is what we mean in America when we say someone is "innocent until proven guilty." After all, look what happened to the Duke lacrosse players.

In important ways, this is wrong. We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist. Even if Jackie fabricated her account, U-Va. should have taken her word for it during the period while they endeavored to prove or disprove the accusation.

Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty in Cannibalism Case: Prosecutors in Indiana have announced their plans to seek the death penalty for a man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend and eating several parts of her body earlier this year.  Fox 59 reports that Joseph Oberhansley admitted to police that he broke into the woman's home and stabbed her to death. He also confessed to removing and eating parts of her brain, heart, and lungs.  This isn't Oberhansley's first murder arrest.  At age 17, he spent time behind bars for killing his girlfriend and shooting his mother. He was released from custody in 2012 after serving just 14 years.

CA Gang Sweep Nets Multiple Arrests: More than 20 individuals have been taken into custody after a multi-agency sweep targeted a powerful Los Angeles gang with ties to the Mexican Mafia, labeled the most powerful prison gang in California.  Joseph Serna, Richard Winton, and Veronica Rocha of the Los Angeles Times report that roughly 800 law enforcement agents from the FBI, LAPD, IRS, and ATF arrested the known Big Hazard gang members on a variety of charges including drug distribution, assault, and weapons charges.  The gang has been active for at least 50 years, and police believe they have been responsible for several violent crimes and murders throughout the region.

Convicted Killer to be Released: A Michigan family is outraged after learning that the man who murdered their family member is set to be released from prison.  David Custer of WNEM News reports that Clay Hayward was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Mark Schafer, a U.S. soldier who was home on leave.  Custer was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.  He has been granted parole after serving 21 years.  Unless the Bay County prosecutor can show that the parole board ruled improperly, Hayward will be released and remain on parole for at least four years.

Sari Horwitz reports in the WaPo:

The Obama administration on Monday will formally announce long-awaited curbs on racial profiling by federal law enforcement, but the new rules will not cover local police departments, which have come under criticism in recent months over allegations that their officers profile suspects.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has expanded Justice Department rules for racial profiling to prevent FBI agents from considering gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, in addition to race and ethnicity, when opening cases. The department also will ban racial profiling from national security cases for the first time.

Hmmm.  If A beats up B, the FBI is not going to consider any of those things in deciding whether to charge a federal hate crime or leave it to the local authorities as a routine assault case?  Of course the FBI should not engage in "invidious discrimination," charging a person with a crime or a greater crime because of animus against that person based on some characteristic irrelevant to the situation.  But sometimes these factors are relevant.

Can the TSA consider the fact that a person is an adherent of a fanatical strain of Islam and comes from a hotbed of terrorism when deciding whether to screen him a bit more carefully before letting him on an airplane?  Yes, the TSA is exempt.  So is such consideration legitimate or not?  Sounds like DoJ is straddling the fence, and the fence is made or barbed wire.

Not to worry  --  this post is not psychobabble about my feelings.  It's about a question I was asked by two journalists with whom I spoke recently.

Convicted Sex Offender Accused of Murder: A Florida man, who authorities say cut off his court-ordered GPS monitoring device, has been arrested for the recent murder of a woman and the sexual assault of her 10-year-old daughter.  The Associated Press reports that 34-year-old Donald Davidson, a convicted sex offender, was arrested early Tuesday morning after police say he was caught driving the dead woman's vehicle.  Davidson was recently released from prison after serving a four-year sentence for child molestation. 

Appeals Court Halts Execution: A federal appeals court in New Orleans has halted the execution of a Texas man that was scheduled to take place later today.  David Montgomery of the New York Times reports that the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals postponed the execution of 56-year-old Scott Panetti in order to allow more time to consider issues surrounding the case, particularly whether Panetti's mental illness disqualifies him from execution.  Panetti was sentenced to death for the 1992 murders of his wife's parents.  Had the execution gone as planned, he would have become the 11th person executed by the state of Texas in 2014. 

Convicted Murderers Caught Sneaking Across U.S. Border: Border Patrol agents have arrested two convicted murderers after the pair attempted to illegally cross the border on November 24.  Kristin Tate of Breitbart reports that the two men, who happen to be brothers, were convicted of first-degree murder in Illinois and each served between six and ten years before being deported back to Mexico. 

Realignment Offender Suspected of Murder: A California man who was recently released from custody and placed under Post-Release Community Supervision (PRCS), under Governor Brown's Realignment law, has been arrested and booked on murder charges.  The Daily Bulletin reports that the man allegedly stabbed the woman multiple times in a hotel room and left her for dead Saturday night.  Police believe the victim and the suspect were acquaintances, but have yet to determine a motive for the killing.

CA Convicts Man Under New Revenge Porn Law: A California man has been ordered to spend a year behind bars after becoming the first person convicted under the state's new revenge porn law.  The Guardian reports that Noe Iniguez was convicted on two counts of violating a restraining order and one count of violating the state's revenge porn law after authorities say he posted topless photos of his ex-girlfriend on her employer's Facebook page.  The law, which was enacted in October 2013, makes it illegal to post identifiable nude photos of people online without their consent.

Teens Beat Man to Death Near Ferguson: A group of teenagers have been arrested and charged with murder after police say they beat a man to death near Ferguson, Missouri.  Fox News reports that 32-year-old Zemir Begic, a Bosnian immigrant, was driving with his wife and a friend when their vehicle was surrounded by a group of teens who began banging on the vehicle with hammers.  When Begic stepped out of the vehicle to confront the group, they savagely attacked him with the hammers, resulting in his death.  A youtube video posted by an eyewitness, includes her statement that just prior to the attack she saw teens running around the area yelling "kill the white people".  Commenting on the murder, the St. Louis Police Chief astutely observed, "There is no indication that the gentleman last night was targeted because he was Bosnian."  The victim was a white man.    

The country, and individual citizens, face a choice about what should be done now in Ferguson.  I see two directions.

Convicted Killer Gains Early Release: A Wisconsin man convicted of murdering a six-year-old girl is set to be released from state prison after serving just 26 years of his 40 year prison sentence.  The Associated Press reports that 66-year-old Vince Fisher was found guilty of second-degree murder after authorities say he sexually assaulted the young girl before shoving a plastic ball down her throat, which resulted in her death.  Fisher will be required to live in a transitional residence upon his release and will be monitored by a GPS device.  

Sheriffs Blame Realignment for Jail Drug Problem: County jails across the state of California are experiencing an increase in the amount of drugs being smuggled into their facilities, and many Sheriffs believe Governor Brown's Realignment policy is to blame.  CBS News and the Associated Press report that, with a parole violation only punished by ten days in jail under Realignment,  parolees are getting arrested in order to sneak drugs into jails.  Sheriffs report an increase in the volume of drugs being smuggled into jail since the law took effect three years ago.  Berkeley Professor Franklin Zimring said that Sheriffs are just "playing up" the drug smuggling problem because they opposed the law.  

PA High Court Upholds Death Sentence: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for a man convicted of kidnapping and murdering a college athlete nearly 20 years ago.  Larry Miller of The Philadelphia Tribune reports that Arthur Bomar challenged his sentence after alleging he lawyer was ineffective and his trial had procedural errors.  Bomar was found guilty of kidnapping, rape, and first-degree murder after DNA linked him to the killing.

Kent wrote about the Facebook threat case, Elonis v. United States, in this post. The case was argued before the Supreme Court this morning, and Kent will describe and analyse the argument in a Federalist Society teleforum broadcast this afternoon at 4 pm Eastern Time.  The call-in number is 888-752-3232.

David A. Lieb and Holbrook Mohr have this story for AP, headlined, "For some, location of Brown's hands irrelevant."

The word spread within minutes of Michael Brown's death -- a young black man with his hands raised in surrender had just been shot by a white cop.

Soon, "Hands Up. Don't Shoot!" became a rallying cry for protesters in the streets of this St. Louis suburb and a symbol nationwide of racial inequality for those who believe that minorities are too often the targets of overzealous police.

Yet the witness accounts contained in thousands of pages of grand jury documents reviewed by The Associated Press show many variations about whether Brown's hands were actually raised -- and if so, how high.

To some, it doesn't matter whether Brown's hands literally were raised, because his death has come to symbolize a much bigger movement.

I disagree.  Truth always matters, but especially when the goal is to cure or at least ameliorate a pathological condition, whether medical or social.

Elonis v. United States, the Facebook threats case, will be argued next week.  We filed our brief last October, and I wrote this post the same day.

Amy Howe has this "plain English" post on the case at SCOTUSblog.  She noted it is unlikely that the Justices are much familiar with Facebook and wonders if that will affect the case.  It shouldn't, in my opinion.  The definition of a prohibited threat should not vary with the medium.  The fact that people rant all the time on the internet does not warrant extending First Amendment protection when rant crosses the line to threats. 

A couple of amicus briefs supporting Elonis take the position, in essence, that the routine debasement of speech in our society in media such as online posting and gangsta rap are a reason to take a more expansive view of First Amendment protection of threats.  If this downward spiral of our society has any effect at all on the decision, it should be in the other direction, in my opinion.  We have gone way too far in letting it all hang out and need to tuck some of it back in.

A good example of the ill effects of extreme disinhibition is SCOTUSblog itself.  That blog used to have comments, and I enjoyed commenting there, exchanging views with thoughtful, intelligent, informed people, many of whom disagreed with me.  But the comment section turned into a cesspool, as the comments of so many blogs do.  They tried requiring people to use their real names, and that helped but not enough.  Finally they axed the comments altogether because they dragged down the quality of the blog.  The rudeness of a few ruined the medium for those of us who wanted to exchange views at a refined level.

The pattern is becoming all too familiar.  There is a claim of a gross injustice with inflammatory allegations.  Then there is a media firestorm.  When a full investigation reveals the actual facts, there has been no injustice, yet a substantial segment of the population will continue to believe there was, continuing to believe the original, discredited, inflammatory allegations.

First Troy Davis, then Trayvon Martin, now Michael Brown.  Different cases, different underlying facts, but the same overall pattern.

No, Michael Brown was not shot in the back.  The autopsy conclusively refutes that allegation.  Yet the witnesses who claimed to have seen that still said it, and maybe they really believed it, as explained in this article in the WaPo.

These incidents have a deep, corrosive effect on our society.  They add to polarization and alienation.  What can be done?  Well for starters, all of us, but especially those in the media, need to be a bit less prone to jumping on claims such as the ones made in these cases.  Lets get the real facts first.

Almost unnoticed in a busy week was a nugget dropped by Senate Majority (for five more weeks) Leader Harry Reid.  Michael Crittenden reported Tuesday in the WSJ:

The White House has said it is ready to wait until next year for Congress to consider its nominee to be the next attorney general, the top Senate Democrat said Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the White House has told him the confirmation hearings of veteran prosecutor Loretta Lynch could be dealt with in the new Congress in January 2015.

"The White House through intermediaries with me have said 'don't be pushing that, we can do that after the first of the year,' " Mr. Reid said after senators' weekly caucus lunches.

"After the first of the year" means next Congress, assuming Senator Reid does not intend to hold a vote on Friday, January 2, which I very much doubt.  Chuck Grassley will begin his stint as chairman with a very important hearing.

Today the Ninth Circuit decided Doe v. Harris, No. 13-15263.  The opinion by Judge Bybee begins:

California law has long required registered sex offenders to report identifying information, such as their address and current photograph, to law enforcement. Cal. Penal Code §§ 290.012, 290.015. The Californians Against Sexual Exploitation ("CASE") Act sought to supplement and modernize these reporting obligations by requiring sex offenders to provide "[a] list of any and all Internet identifiers established or used by the person" and "[a] list of any and all Internet service providers used by the person." Id. § 290.015(a)(4)-(5). The Act also requires registered sex offenders to send written notice to law enforcement within 24 hours of adding or changing an Internet identifier or an account with an Internet service provider ("ISP"). Id. § 290.014(b). Appellees Doe, Roe, and the nonprofit organization California Reform Sex Offender Laws filed a complaint alleging that the CASE Act infringes their freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment. Appellees filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, which the district court granted. Kamala Harris, the Attorney General of California, and Intervenors, the proponents of the CASE Act, appeal. We hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion by enjoining the CASE Act. Accordingly, we affirm.

Paroled Murderer Accused of Killing Again: A Missouri man released after serving 17 years of a life term for murdering his wife and another man has been charged with killing his ex-girlfriend last week.  The Associated Press reports that 63-year-old Harry Little Sr. was sentenced to life in prison in 1978 on two counts of second-degree murder.  Court documents reveal he was released on parole in 1995.  Little is facing charges of first-degree murder and is being held in jail without bond.

Missouri Murderer to be Executed Wednesday: A Missouri man convicted of murdering a gas station attendant during a robbery attempt two decades ago is scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.  The Associated Press reports that attorneys for Leon Taylor have asked Governor Jay Nixon for a stay of execution based on claims of racial prejudice during his sentence, but the governor has shown no sign of halting the execution.  If Taylor is executed, he will be the ninth person executed by the state of Missouri this year.   

Convicted Double-Murderer Sentenced to LWOP: A California man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was found guilty of killing two USC students from China.  Marisa Gerber of the Los Angeles Times reports that 22-year-old Javier Bolden approached the two students as they sat in their car in hopes of stealing their money.  After his arrest, Bolden was recorded bragging about shooting the two victims to his cellmate who happened to be an undercover police informant.  Bolden's co-defendant pled guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the killings and was also sentenced to life without parole.

Kidnapping Suspect Released Under Prop 47: A California man who was arrested last week on burglary charges and released back into the community just hours later under the newly passed Proposition 47 is behind bars for the attempted abduction of a 13-year-old girl.  Jory Rand of ABC Los Angeles reports that 39-year-old Guillermo Ceniceros was arrested Tuesday for commercial burglary-- a charge that prior to Prop. 47's passing would have required that he be held for trial or post bail.  But, because Prop. 47 redefined the burglary as a misdemeanor, he was released on the day of his arrest.  He was rearrested less than 24 hours later for the attempted abduction.  Ceniceros has been charged with five felonies, including attempted kidnapping and attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child.  

Execution Date Set for Murderer: A South Dakota criminal convicted of murdering a corrections officer is scheduled to be executed during the first week of May 2015.  KOTA News reports that Rodney Berget, who was already serving a life sentence for attempted rape and murder, killed the officer during a botched prison escape in February 2012.  The two other inmates who attempted to escape with Berget were also charged with the officer's murder.  One has already been executed for the crime and the other is serving a life sentence.

Accused Cop Killers Won't Face Death Penalty: The four men accused of murdering a Virginia police officer earlier this year will no longer face a possible death sentence after Attorney General Eric Holder took the death penalty off the table.  CBS News reports that the four men, all known gang members with extensive criminal pasts, allegedly carjacked, kidnapped, and killed the officer and abandoned his body a few counties away.  The men now face a maximum sentence of life without parole.

Murder Suspect Was Set Free by Prop. 36: A habitual felon with a prior murder conviction is the prime suspect for last week's murder of an Air Force Reservist and mother of two.  Marin Austin of Fox 40 reports that Moses Valdez was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for voluntary manslaughter in 1993, but was paroled prior to completing his sentence.  In 2011, Valdez was arrested again for running from police which constituted his third strike, resulting in an automatic 25-year-sentence.   The following year, California voters passed Prop 36, which abolished the third strike sentence for a non-violent felony, allowing Valdez to be released from prison once again.  Police have yet to locate Valdez, and consider him to be armed and dangerous. 

Two Suspects Convicted in Cop Killing:  Two of the four men accused of murdering a Chicago police officer in 2010 have been found guilty of first-degree murder.  The Associated Press reports that the two men served as lookouts for their friends in an attempt to steal the officer's motorcycle.  The officer confronted the group and a gun-fight ensued leaving the officer and one of the suspects dead.  Both men face mandatory life sentences, the fourth suspect is still awaiting trial.

Update: Florida Executes Convicted Killer: A Florida man convicted of murdering his wife and stepdaughter 22 years ago has become the eighth person executed by the state of Florida this year.  Karl Etters of the Tallahassee Democrat reports that Florida uses a three-drug cocktail to execute prisoners.  The execution began at 7:10 p.m. and the inmate was pronounced dead 17 minutes later.  This was the 89th execution carried out by the state of Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1979.