Results matching “thomas”

On their way out the door, the Senators of the 111th Congress confirmed a batch of judicial appointments.  The Senate Daily Digest is here.

Speaking of the Ninth, Goodwin Liu is not on the list.  He is the Berkeley law professor who attacked Samuel Alito as "out of the mainstream" in large part because Alito voted for the murderer in only 40% of the capital cases to come before him.  Liu's view of the "mainstream" would have required something like 90%.  This demonstrates that Liu is so far to the left he has no idea where the middle is.

The President can, of course, renominate Liu for consideration by the 112th Congress, but I hope he will not.

AP story is here. WSJ story by Evan Perez is here.  WSJ Law Blog post by Nathan Koppel is here.

Correction:  This post earlier stated that Robert Chatigny was among those confirmed.  The digest page cited actually lists his nomination as among those returned to the President.

"Parent Accountability Act" Sends Parents to School:  Thomas Watkins of the Associated Press reports on the recent implementation of California's "Parent Accountability Act," the first state law allowing judges to order parents of gang members to attend parenting classes.  The law went into effect in January, but classes only recently started due to budget cuts and low attendance.  The training courses teach parents about warning signs that a child may be involved in gang activity and the legal consequences of gang-related offenses, and will eventually include victims of gang violence as guest speakers.

Suspects in Hotel Killing Could Face Death Penalty:  A husband-wife duo appeared in court today, accused of killing and dismembering a man in a Los Angeles hotel room.  The couple is charged with first degree murder with special circumstances, meaning they could face the death penalty if convicted.  49-year-old Herbert Tracy White's body was discovered mutilated in late November in a hotel room the two were renting.  The Los Angeles Times has this story.

Misdirected Criticism?:  The Washington Post has this editorial on Attorney General Eric Holder's attack on a recent House vote to bar federal funds to move any detainee from Guantanamo to the US for any purpose, including trial.  The editorial begins: "We have some sympathy for Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. as he rails against Congress's latest proposed limits on moving detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - but not much.  The House is irresponsibly filling a vacuum created because the Obama administration failed to lead."

 Death Row Inmate Back in Prison:  A former Ohio death row inmate is back behind bars, reports John Futty of The Columbus Dispatch.  Thomas Anderson was sentenced to death at the age of 17 for murdering a Columbus police officer during a robbery, but was released in 1988 after the Ohio Supreme Court reduced his sentence to life.  His most recent crime, one count of robbery for punching a women who confronted him after he stole a purse from her car, is his seventh felony charge since his early release.

"An Eye for an Eye"... Literally:  FoxNews reports an Iranian man who blinded his lover's husband by throwing poison into his eyes has been sentenced to a punishment to match his crime:  having acid poured in his eyes.  The sentence has been upheld by Iran's highest court and the prosecutor on the case indicated that officials, "have asked for forensic specialists to oversee the blinding of the convict."

The US Supreme Court today declined to review a decision of the Eleventh Circuit overturning the well-deserved death sentence of James Lawhorn.  Justice Scalia dissented, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito:

In March 1988, Altion Maxine Walker offered to pay her nephews, James Lawhorn and his brother Mac Lawhorn, $100 in exchange for murdering her boyfriend, William Berry. The Lawhorns accepted. After they ambushed Berry, Mac Lawhorn shot him, causing him to fall. James Lawhorn (hereinafter Lawhorn) then heard Berry making"'gurgling noises'" and shot him repeatedly "'to make sure he was dead.'" 519 F. 3d 1272, 1278 (CA11 2008).

*                               *                             *

It has been over 21 years since Lawhorn was sentenced to death. Alabama should be not barred from carrying out its judgment based on a federal court's lawless speculation. I would not dissent from denial of certiorari if what happened here were an isolated judicial error. It is not. With distressing frequency, especially in capital cases such as this, federal judges refuse to be governed by Congress's command that state criminal judgments must not be revised by federal courts unless they are "contrary to, or involv[e] an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," 28 U. S. C. §2254(d)(1) (emphasis added). We invite continued lawlessness when we permit a patently improper interference with state justice such as that which occurred in this case to stand. We should grant Alabama's petition for certiorari and summarily reverse the Eleventh Circuit's judgment.

Although the AEDPA deference standard has been largely a success in the guilt phase, it has been much less effective in the penalty phase.  We have reached a point where federal court review of state penalty phase determinations is causing more harm than good.  While the Ninth Circuit is the worst offender, and the Sixth is second, these miscarriages of justice occur in other circuits as well.  The penalty phase should now be removed from federal habeas review of state judgments altogether.

We have made no secret here of the fact that we consider President Obama's transfer of terrorist trials from military commissions to civilian courts to be a huge error.  However, we have not questioned that as commander-in-chief he did have the authority to make that decision.

Maybe not much longer, though.  AP reports:

In a setback for President Barack Obama, Democrats still controlling the House have approved legislation to prevent Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay from being transferred to the U.S. for trials in criminal courts.

The Guantanamo ban was included in a huge catchall spending bill that passed the House Wednesday by a 212-206 vote. The Senate has yet to act on the legislation, which would further imperil Obama's effort to close the detention center for terrorist suspects.

The move comes after the first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial, Ahmed Ghailani, was found guilty last month of just one of the hundreds of charges brought against him connected to attacks on two U.S. embassies in 1998.

Although Ghailani faces up to life in prison, Republican lawmakers pointed to the case as a reason to support military trials for the Guantanamo detainees.

Update:  David Ingram at BLT has this post and a link to the actual bill language. (The official government system, Thomas, typically does not give bill language to the public until it is too late to contact your congressman.)  Section 1116 of the bill provides:

SEC. 1116. None of the funds made available in this or any prior Act may be used to transfer, release, or assist in the transfer or release to or within the United States, its territories, or possessions Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other detainee who--

(1) is not a United States citizen or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States; and
(2) is or was held on or after June 24, 2009, at the United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the Department of Defense.

The Framers of the United States Constitution decided to separate the legislative, executive, and judicial powers to a greater degree than was true in England at the time.  The judicial branch is headed by a separate Supreme Court, not the upper house of the legislature, an example imitated by the mother country only recently.

They didn't go the whole hog, though.  They did leave with the Senate one judicial power of the House of Lords -- trial of impeachments.  This less-than-complete separation is defended in the Federalist Papers, especially in number 66 by Hamilton.

The Senate exercised this judicial power for the first time in a decade today, convicting a corrupt judge from Louisiana, Thomas Porteous. Michael Memoli has this story in the LA Times.

Conviction on the first count was unanimous.  Subsequent counts were less than unanimous, but they have no consequence.  One is enough for removal from office, and the Senate is powerless to impose any other punishment.

"Porteous, who served on the federal court for the eastern district of Louisiana, was charged with accepting cash and other favors from individuals with business before his court in order to pay gambling debts, and with lying to the Senate and FBI following his nomination to the federal bench."

The "everybody does it in Louisiana" defense apparently didn't get much traction.

Date Set for Second Trial in Connecticut Home Invasion:  Randall Beach of the New Haven Register (CT) reports a February 22, 2011 trial date has been set for Joshua Komisarjevsky, the second alleged perpetrator of the Petit family slayings in Connecticut.  Given the publicity of the trial and sentencing for Steven Hayes, however, jury selection could take months.  Hayes's defense team had attempted to portray Komisarkjevsky as the real monster, offering as evidence some of Komisarjevsky's disturbing journal entries describing the night of the killings (which can be viewed via the New Haven Register here).

Full Supply of Lethal Injection Drugs in California:  In response to a public records request from the ACLU, California corrections officials today disclosed they have imported enough to sodium thiopental from Arizona and Britain to execute 175 death row inmates.  The source of the drugs was submitted as part of a report to U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who is expected to rule early next year whether California's revised executions procedures are constitutional.  Read the Los Angeles Times's story here.

Ninth Circuit Lifts Injunction on Revised California Parole Standards:  The Ninth Circuit yesterday cleared the way for California's Prop. 9, an initiative that significantly extended the time period prisoners must wait for deferred parole suitability hearings.  Earlier this year, a federal district judge halted enforcement of the law, finding that a constitutional challenge to the law by a group of life-term inmates was likely to succeed.  The Ninth Circuit concluded inmates likely did not have a valid ex post facto claim and reversed the district judge's ruling.  Denny Walsh of The Sacramento Bee has this story.

Looking for a New Career?:  How about pot delivery?  Garvin Thomas of NBC Bay Area reports on medical marijuana delivery services in California.  Thomas spent the day with one such delivery man, Chris Rynearson of MedEx in San Jose, who Thomas said packs his delivery suitcase with 1/8 ounce containers of several types of marijuana, cannabis-based lotions, rolling papers, and lighters.  Rynearson said of his job, "This is something that's normal.  It doesn't seem abnormal to me."

Justice Stevens and the Press:  At Accuracy in Media, Lester Jackson has this critical review of press coverage of Justice Stevens, with emphasis on the death penalty issue.

I generally don't join with those who bash defense lawyers as a group.  For the most part, they are responsible professionals who perform an important function in our system.  When it comes to the death penalty, though, some on the defense side seem to come completely unhinged.  AP has this story on the sentencing of Steven Hayes in Connecticut.  Our friend Dudley Sharp has this reaction to defense counsel's remarks:

Defense attorney Thomas Ullmann defended  Steven Hayes in the capital murder trial of the three rape/torture/murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, who was raped and strangled to death, along with her two daughters, 17-year-old  Haley and 11-year-old Michaela. Michaela was sexually assaulted. Both girls were burned alive and died of smoke inhalation.  Dr. Bill Petit was beaten with a baseball bat, suffers permanent injuries, but survived. He is the sole survivor from his immediate family.

When the day came for sentencing Hayes to death, what did Ullman say?

"Today when the court sentences Steven Hayes to death everyone becomes a killer. We all become Steven Hayes." 

Ullman said that with Bill Petit and  the extended Hawke/Petit family, loved ones and friends in the courtroom. Ullman called all of them Steven Hayes, as well as all others who find the death penalty a just and appropriate punishment for horrendous crimes.
 
The moral decay of Ullman's statement is hard to fathom, as is the profound cruelty of when and where he voiced it.
 
Even Steven Hayes voiced knowing the moral differences between guilty murderer and innocent victims, the punishment of the guilty and the violation of the innocent.

US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (Ret.) is the principal architect of today's constitutional jurisprudence of capital sentencing.  Looking back over the decisions from Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) to last term, Justice Stevens was on the winning side of more of the major battles than any other justice.  So it is exceedingly odd that he has written this article in the New York Review of Books bashing a body of law that is largely his own creation.

The article is a review of a book by David Garland, titled Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition.  From the title alone, we know where Garland is coming from.  He asks why America has the death penalty when Europe has abandoned it.  The short answer is that our government is more democratic than theirs, but Garland manages to spin that in ways that make it sound like democracy is a bad thing.  I'll leave refuting Garland for another day.

For much of the article, Justice Stevens makes the claim that the jurisprudence of the death penalty has moved in the prosecution's favor as a result of changes in the membership of the Supreme Court, and he speculates how Justice Stewart would have voted on various cases decided after he retired.  This is where the review gets most peculiar both for what he says and what he leaves out.  To understand how truly peculiar this is, it is important to have some background on the overall evolution of "the fog of confusion that is [the Supreme Court's] annually improvised Eighth Amendment, 'death is different' jurisprudence," Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U.S. 719, 751 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting), and Justice Stevens' role in creating it.

AP reports from Connecticut:

HARTFORD, Conn. -- A Connecticut judge has decided that a jury was fair in deciding that Steven Hayes should be executed for a home invasion that left a woman and her two daughters dead.

Lawyers for Hayes had argued that the jury was swayed by emotion after hearing and seeing gruesome testimony. Jurors condemned Hayes to death on Nov. 8.

New Haven Superior Court Judge Jon Blue on Friday denied defense lawyers' motion seeking a new trial, new penalty phase hearing or a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The judge says the jury wasn't "driven by passion and prejudice." Public defender Thomas Ullmann says he believes the same issues will come up on appeal.

A capital sentencing jury certainly should not be driven by prejudice.  Is it necessary that the jury's deliberations be devoid of passion?  Is it possible?  Is it desirable?

Thomas Hargrove has this report for Scripps-Howard News Service:

Authorities in Indiana and Ohio have launched investigations into suspected serial killings after a study of FBI computer files found clusters of unsolved homicides of women across the nation.

Also, police in Nevada are hunting a likely serial killer who has targeted up to seven women, mostly prostitutes, and has scattered their partial remains across three states.

Many of the suspected serial killings detected in the study have never before been disclosed to the public.

All told, authorities in seven cities have confirmed that a statistical analysis of federal crime files conducted by Scripps Howard News Service has detected known - or strongly suspected - serial homicides in their communities.

The study was based on computer records of 525,742 homicides committed from 1980 to 2008. The FBI provided most of the data. But Scripps supplemented these using the Freedom of Information Act to obtain detailed records of 15,322 killings that police did not disclose to the federal government's voluntary crime reporting system.

The resulting database - which crime experts say is the most complete accounting of homicide victims ever assembled in the U.S. - was created to determine whether serial killings could be identified among the nation's 185,000 unsolved homicides.

Ohio Governor Commutes Death Sentence: Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today spared the life of Sidney Cornwell, scheduled to die tomorrow for killing 3-year-old Jessica Ballew during a 1996 gang-related shooting.  The state parole board recommended against clemency, but Strickland said jurors might have chosen a different sentence if they knew Cornwell suffered from Klinefelter Syndrome, a genetic condition that caused him to have development disabilities and large breasts as a child.  Julie Carr Smyth of the AP has this story.

Dead Man Crime Spree:  Holbrook Mohr of the AP reports on yesterday's arrest of Thomas Steven Sanders, a man declared legally dead 16 years ago after abandoning his family in Mississippi.  Sanders has lived unnoticed in several states since then, despite accumulating several arrests in Tennessee and a two-year sentence in Georgia for battery.  Sanders was wanted in the kidnapping of 12-year-old Lexie Roberts, whose skeletal remain were found by hunters in Louisiana.  Sanders allegedly met Lexie and her mother Suellen Roberts several months ago in Nevada, and vacationed with them over the Labor Day holiday.  Suellen is also missing and authorities fear she may be dead.

Syracuse Study Released On Police Stops and Race:  Douglass Dowty of the Post-Standard (NY) has this article on a recent study of Syracuse Police Department, finding a higher percentage of black and Latino citizens are let go after being stopped and frisked than white citizens.  The authors of the study concluded a bias by the Syracuse against blacks and Latinos, claiming officers made more errors in judgment in searching minorities than white people.  The Syracuse police have countered there is much more behind the numbers, arguing the study did not take into account the differences between a frisk intended to result in an arrest and a frisk to ensure officer safety, or between searches conducted before a decision to arrest and those conducted alongside an arrest.  The department also noted that because officers are most likely to stop people in high-crime neighborhoods, which tend to be predominantly black, officers will naturally interact more frequently with black citizens, thus giving rise to the disparate statistics.  

Potential Deadlock in Ghailani Trial:  A note from a juror in the Ghailani terrorist trial states she has come to her decision, is alone in her views, and requests to be excused from further deliberations because she has been "attacked for [her] conclusion," reports Benjamin Weiser of The New York Times.  One of Ghailani's lawyers asked presiding Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to declare a mistrial, but the judge declined to do so and ordered the jurors to continue deliberations. 

NEW HAVEN -- A juror in the Steven J. Hayes triple homicide trial was dismissed today after being overheard saying to another juror that this is "bullshit," an apparent reference to testimony being presented during testimony in the penalty phase of trial.

Eugene Volokh provides us this splendid example of how not to write a petition for rehearing, which he got from Paul Milligan at Lowering the Bar.

The petition states that the court failed to address the key issues.  Okay, I've seen that before. Then there is this:

As stated earlier, the Court will address these issues, or there will be civil unrest. Civil unrest that is going to start at the doorsteps of the slime ball, piece of <expletive> judges that thought they were going to violate the constitutional rights of the innocent and poor with impunity.

When the question the jury is supposed to be deciding is clearly against your client, what do you do?  Try to get them to decide some other question? 

In Connecticut, the law (§53a-46a(e)) says the jury is supposed to decide "whether any aggravating factor or factors outweigh any mitigating factor or factors..." In the case of triple murderer Steven Hayes, the answer to that question is quite obviously "yes."  So his lawyers want to argue about other things, such as the cost of the death penalty.  The trial judge rejected that argument today.

Jason Vallee reports for the Record-Journal:

At the end of today's orders list is the "allotment order" specifying the justices assigned as circuit justice for the various circuits.  That assignment means a lot less than it did in the old days, when the circuit justice actually presided over the circuit court.  (E.g., Chief Justice Marshall presiding in the Aaron Burr trial.)  Now it pretty much means ruling on the extension of time and stay requests for cases from the circuit.  Even the more important stay requests, such as capital cases, are routinely referred to the full court for decision.

Anyhow, bad news for Texas defense lawyers -- the extension-stingy Justice Scalia still has the Fifth Circuit.  Former Circuit Judges Roberts, Breyer, Ginsburg, Alito, and Kennedy have the circuits from whence they came (D.C., First, Second, Third, and Ninth, respectively). The Chief also gets the Fourth and Federal, and Justice Alito also gets the Eighth.

Justice Thomas gets the Eleventh, which includes his native Georgia.  Justice Sotomayor gets the Tenth.  The rookie gets the Midwest (Sixth and Seventh).

The Sacramento Bee has this page with video of its editorial board's interview with California Attorney General and candidate for Governor Jerry Brown.  They have conveniently broken up the video by topic, so you can watch the death penalty portion separately from the others.  For those who like to have a transcript for more convenient reference, I have transcribed it as best I can given the technical issues.  The transcript follows the jump.  I will have some comments in another post.

Terry Collins reports for AP:

On Monday, Brown asked Marin County Superior Court Judge Verna Adams to halt his execution until a lawsuit filed by Brown and another death row inmate is resolved. The suit challenges the state's new lethal injection regulations, saying the procedures were improperly adopted....

Judge Adams said after an hour-long hearing Monday that she would not halt Brown's execution while the lawsuit is pending.

"Mr. Brown can not prove that he will suffer pain if he is executed under the current regulations," Adams said.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the Golden Gate, the following order has been entered in the Ninth Circuit case on appeal from Judge Fogel's denial of a stay (noted here), Morales v. Cate, No. 10-99019:

By order of the district court, Albert Brown was granted leave to intervene in Morales v. Cate, No. C 06 219/926 JF HRL (N.D. Cal.). The instant appeal and related motions arise out of the Morales case and are inextricably intertwined with the issues in that case. Therefore, Albert Brown's appeal from a collateral order, alternative petition for a writ of mandamus, and motion for a stay of execution filed in this case are collectively referred to the panel having jurisdiction over Morales v. Ornoski, No. 06-99002. All other appeals, petitions for extraordinary writs, and motions filed by Brown that are not related to the Morales litigation will be referred to the panel having jurisdiction over Brown v.Ornoski, No. 05-99008.

That would be Judges Hawkins, Thomas, and Bea.  I do not expect any off-the-wall decisions from a majority of this panel.

Kentucky Supreme Court Limits Post-Conviction DNA Testing:  Kentucky's high court today defined the scope of an inmate's access to post-conviction DNA testing, reports the Lexington Herald-Reader (KY).  In response to a lawsuit by death row inmate Thomas Clyde Bowling, the court held that inmates are entitled to only one DNA test of old evidence - regardless of the results that test might produce.  Bowling was sentenced to death for the 1990 murders of Eddie and Tina Early, whom he shot in their car in the presence of their 2-year-old son.  The Kentucky Supreme Court's opinion can be accessed here (from the court's minutes, click on the link to the case Bowling v. Commonwealth).

Hearing in Massachusetts Bullying Case:  Three teenage girls appeared in a Massachusetts court today, charged with civil rights violations following the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince.  Prosecutors claim the three girls, along with several other students at their high school, bullied Prince so relentlessly that she hung herself earlier this year.  All three have pleaded not guilty, with trials set to begin in 2011.  Prince's case in part prompted Massachusetts lawmakers to pass anti-bulling legislation.  The Boston Herald has this story.

Proposed Bill Would Strengthen Response to Sexual Assault Crimes:  The International Business Times reports that U.S Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) today introduced the Justice for Rape Victims and Improving Use of DNA Evidence Act of 2010.  Under the bill, state and local governments would receive extra federal funding if they meet specific requirements related to the handling of rape cases, such as establishing a process through which a victim can have her rape kit tested within 180 days.  The bill would also require the Department of Justice to issue annual reports detailing the rape kit DNA backlog.  Rep. Nadler highlighted the need for this legislation, citing the "unconscionable" statistic that "fully 1/5 of American women fall[] victim in their lifetimes."

Mexico's Largest Prison Break in History:  CNN reporter Gustavo Valdes reports on a massive manhunt last Friday after 85 inmates escaped from a Mexico prison on Mexico-Texas border.  The prisoners used a ladder to escape and quickly dispersed through the streets of Mexico.  66 of the fugitives were serving time on federal charges, and the rest for less serious violations.  Two prison guards remain missing and 44 have been detained under suspicion for corruption.   

"Speed Freak Killer" Set to be Released:  One of two convicted in a methamphetamine-fueled murder spree lasting 15 years in San Joaquin County, California, is set to be released from prison in the coming days, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.  Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog were each initially convicted of several first-degree murder charges, but in 2004, the California Court of Appeals tossed out Herzog's convictions and sentence after finding his confession to be coerced.  Without his videotaped confession, prosecutors had no choice but to enter a plea deal with Herzog.  Now, though Shermantine fortunately remains on death row, Herzon will walk free after serving 14 years of a 78-year sentence. Residents of San Joaquin County fear Herzog's release even though he will be released hundreds of miles away.  Herzog and Shermantine are also implicated in several unsolved murders.

Impeachment Trial Begins Against Federal Judge:  In its first impeachment trial since 1999 against former President Clinton, the Senate today began impeachment hearings in the case against U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous of Louisiana.  Porteous, who was appointed by Clinton in 1994, is charged with accepting money gifts from several attorneys, including an all-expense paid trip to Vegas complete with expensive meals and a trip to the strip club.  Porteous's conduct was discovered during the FBI investigation "Operation Wrinkled Robe."  Though he was never charged with a crime, the Judicial Conference of the U.S. recommended that Congress consider impeachment.  If convicted by the Senate, Porteous will be the eighth judge to be removed by impeachment.  Read the AP's story here.

Homeland Security to Test Iris Scanners:   USA Today reports on DHS's plan to test iris scan technology on illegal immigrants in a Texas Border Patrol station.  Able to scan and take pictures from three to four feet away, iris scanners pose a faster method of identification than fingerprinting.  The military has used the procedure since 2007 to track suspected Iraqi militants.  The ACLU has expressed ... wait for it ... objections to such an efficient means of tracking persons. 

I go past the California State Capitol twice a day, so I see a lot of silly demonstrations and displays.  This one goes in the Hall of Infame.

The banner says "1920 -- Votes for Women; 2010 -- Vote for Women's Values."

So let me get this straight. Barbara Boxer and Ann Coulter are both women. So in terms of values, they have more in common with each other than Boxer does with Barack Obama or Coulter does with Glenn Beck, right?

It seems like the message here is similar to the one directed at black conservatives such as Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell.  Don't think for yourself.  Don't stray from the script.  If you do, you are not "authentic." 

This kind of stereotyping is a betrayal of the drive for equal rights, not a celebration of it.

So what are "women's values" on issues of crime and punishment? I haven't seen any strong correlation between sex and positions on this issue.

Update: It's worse than I thought. The rally was staged by the California Nurses Association for the purpose of taking cheap shots at the person who is at least even money to be the first woman governor of California. Jack Chang has this story in the SacBee.

CNA Executive Director Rose DeMoro said, "We're basically here to call attention to the hypocrisy of her running and to say just because you're female, that doesn't make you a woman."

Yep. That's pretty much the same as the "not authentic" comments noted above.

Alabama Inmate Executed:  The AP reports Michael Land, an inmate on Alabama's death row, was executed yesterday after his last minute appeal and clemency request were denied.  Land broke into the home of 30-year-old Candace Brown, shot her in the back of the head, and dumped her in the woods.  Brown's 2-year-old son was present at the time and was discovered by the police in the house alone the next day.

President Signs $600 Million Border Bill:  President Obama today signed a bill directing $600 million to border security efforts, including funds to hire 1000 more agents, purchase new surveillance equipment, and assist in prosecuting drug dealers and human traffickers, reports the AP.  While Republicans in Congress supported the bill, they maintain the bill falls short of what is required to effectively combat illegal immigration.

Life Sentence for 9-Time DWI-er:  ABC reports Bobby Stovall was arrested early last month in Texas after hitting a vehicle and testing a .32 blood alcohol concentration - four times the state's legal limit.  The sentencing judge imposed a life sentence after learning that this was Stovall's ninth drunk driving conviction.

Federal Judge Enjoins Controversial Parts of AZ Law:  The Washington Post reports U.S. District Judge Susan Bolten ruled this morning that several of the most contentious parts of Arizona's new immigration law will not take effect until the courts resolve the issues.  Included is the section of the law requiring police to check a person's immigration status while the person is being detained for other reasons.  According to Judge Bolton, this requirement "burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked." 

Death Penalty Still On the Table For CT Killer:  A Connecticut Superior Court Judge today denied Steven J. Hayes's motions to bar the death penalty from his triple murder trial set to begin in September, as reported by the Middletown Press out of Connecticut.  In 2007, Hayes and co-defendant Joshua Komisarjevsky - both parolees at the time - broke into the home of Dr. William A. Petit, Jr., raped and killed Petit's wife, sexually assaulted one of his daughters, then set the house on fire killing both of his daughters.  (See C&C previous post here.)  Seeking to avoid a possible death sentence, Hayes's defense team claimed the state legislature's 2009 attempt to abolish the death penalty (see our previous posts here, here, and here) demonstrated that the sentence no longer comported with contemporary standards of decency.  The judge rejected the argument, pointing out this same argument has already been rejected by SCOTUS and the Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Bill Narrowing Gap in Cocaine Sentencing Sent for Presidential Approval:  The AP reports the House today approved a bill amending a 1986 law outlining mandatory minimum sentences for possession of cocaine.  Under the 1986 law, a person convicted of possession of crack cocaine receives the same mandatory minimum as a person convicted of possession of 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine.  If signed into law, the bill would reduce this ratio to about 18-1.  Notably, the bill also requires stricter penalties for drug violations involving violence.

Homegrown Terrorists:  The FBI has documented a dramatic increase in domestic Islamist extremist activity, more than at any time since 9/11 according to a former White House counter terrorism adviser.  An ABC news story by Jason Ryan, Pierre Thomas and Xorje Olivares reports that law enforcement sources are deeply concerned about the unprecedented spike in homegrown terrorists that have been identified since 2009.  The story discusses several including (1) Zachary Chesser, who was playing high school football in Virginia two years ago and is now facing charges for assisting terrorists who killed 73 world cup fans in Uganda, and (2) Chicagoan David Headley, who was recently convicted of helping plan a terrorist attack in Mumbai which killed 170.

Florida Releases Child Molester Sentenced to 315: WFTV out of Florida reports that a Brevard County man sentenced to 315 years will soon walk free after serving only thirteen years.  In the early 1990's, Thomas Spioch was arrested for molesting young boys, some of whom Spioch met while he was working at a Coast Guard auxiliary unit.  While behind bars, Spioch and his mother conspired to kill several people, including witnesses, a prosecutor, and a detective.  (See WFTV story here.)  Spioch was originally sentenced in 1997 to 315 years, but as a result of successful appeals was set to go free in 2007.  Florida managed to keep Spioch behind bars for another three years in a sex offender facility, but doctors now claim he does not meet the criteria for further commitment.  Prosecutors and Spioch's victims remain fearful that he will strike again.     

Not really  --  or at least such is the view of those of us who weren't thrilled with what was arguably the biggest criminal law decision of the term, Graham v. Florida.  Now, Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog joins in debunking the notion that conservatives are running the show.  Here is one excerpt of his analysis:

In United States v. Comstock, which upheld Congress's power to provide for the civil commitment of sexually dangerous persons after the completion of their prison sentences, the Chief Justice joined in full in the left's broad interpretation of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause; Kennedy and Alito did not; and Scalia and Thomas would have invalidated the statute.  In Padilla (the case about advising clients about the immigration consequences of pleading guilty), Kennedy joined the left, Roberts and Alito articulated a middle ground standard, and only Scalia and Thomas would have found that the attorneys had no relevant obligation.  And in Citizens United itself, Alito (along with Thomas) joined an opinion by Justice Scalia defending the result on originalist grounds, but the Chief Justice did not; Alito in turn joined the Chief's discussion of stare decisis, but Scalia and Thomas did not.

Mr. Goldstein is nobody's version of a conservative, but he's a fair-minded man and a keen observer of the Court.  His summary of the just-completed Term is here.

So Adam Liptak writes in the NYT. I have a different view.

Last June, the Supreme Court term ended with restraint and a cliffhanger, as the court left the Voting Rights Act intact and ordered re-argument in Citizens United, the big campaign finance case.

A year later, the profile of the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is fundamentally changed. Judicial minimalism is gone, and the court has entered an assertive and sometimes unpredictable phase.

Really?  Let's look first at the criminal cases, the ones I know the most about.

No big surprise, the right to bear arms recognized as an individual right in District of Columbia v. Heller is "incorporated" in the Fourteenth Amendment and made applicable to the states. The decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago is 5-4 on the practical outcome, divided along the predictable conservative-liberal lines.

On the theoretical question of whether it is the Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause that does the incorporation, Justice Alito's plurality opinion sticks with the traditional view of the Court's Warren/Burger-era precedents. Justice Thomas alone would go with the Privileges or Immunities approach. That approach is a better fit to the language and history of the Fourteenth Amendment but contrary to a lot of precedent. Justice Scalia goes along with Substantive Due Process based on the weight of precedent, but he grumbles a bit. He also crosses swords with Justice Stevens's dissent on fundamental issues of constitutional interpretation.

The majority portion of Justice Alito's opinion reiterates some good language from Heller on the importance of the right of self-defense.  (Use of force by the victim of crime, BTW, is the one issue of substantive criminal law where CJLF has filed briefs in support of defendants.)

The opinions and syllabus run 214 pages, so I expect to have more to say when I have a chance to read them in depth.

The Supreme Court handed down its three honest services opinions this morning (Skilling, Black and Weyhrauch).  By far the most important is the Skiling case.  Seldom has a defendant suffered a more devastating win.

Skilling, it will be recalled, was one of the Enron executives who made a fortune short-selling the stock while lying to shareholders and employees about Enron's true financial condition.

Skilling won what was certainly the most hyped part of the case.  That is, he won the vacating of his conviction for conspiring to violate the honest services statute, on the ground that the conviction came about under what the majority decided was an excessively broad construction of the law.  But that is pretty much as far as it went for Skilling.  The conviction was not reversed; it was remanded to the lower courts to determine whether the error was, against the backdrop of the other massive evidence of Skilling's deceitful behavior, harmless.  
 
Almost everything else in the case was bad news for Skilling and other honest services defendants.

Today the Supreme Court dropped the other shoe left from Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147 (2007).  When a state prisoner gets federal habeas relief on punishment but not guilt and is then resentenced, does the successive petition rule bar any claims in a new habeas petition that could have been raised in the first one?

No, says the Court in Magwood v. Patterson. Interesting lineup on this one. Justice Thomas writes the opinion, joined by Justice Scalia in full and by Justices Stevens, Breyer, and Sotomayor in all but one part. Justice Kennedy dissents joined by CJ Roberts and Justices Ginsburg and Alito. Justices Breyer, Stevens, and Sotomayor don't like the part of Justice Thomas's opinion that they think tends to undermine Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930 (2007).

I expect to have more to say on this interesting opinion later.

Homebuyer Tax Credit for Inmates:  As noted in Steve Erickson's post earlier today, over the past year our government gave about $9 million of your money in the form of homebuyer tax credits to 1,295 prison inmates, including 241 who are serving life terms.  AP writer Stephen Ohlemacher reports that an Inspector General at the Treasury Department found that roughly 14,100 people fraudulently took $27.7 million in tax credits as first-time homebuyers, in one case 67 people took the credit for supposedly buying the same home.  None of the inmates took the credit on a joint return, eliminating the chance that a spouse actually did purchase a home. 

Innocence Hearing in Davis Case:  The U.S. District Court in Savannah heard argument and reviewed evidence today from attorneys representing condemned cop-killer Troy Anthony Davis.  Last August the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the lower court to hear Davis' claims that he did not murder Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot 29 years ago.  A story by Bill Rankin in today's Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that for the hearing the high court required that the evidence presented  "clearly establish" Davis' innocence.  In his dissent to the order, joined by Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia called the hearing a "fools errand" because Davis' innocence claim is "a sure loser."  Anti-death penalty groups have been holding vigils in Savannah and Atlanta in support of Davis.  For the record, Officer MacPhail, the 27-year-old father of two, was off duty when he heard cries from a homeless man being pistol whipped in a Burger King parking lot.  As MacPhail ran to the victim's aid, he was shot three times by a man identified by witnesses and other evidence as Davis.

In the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress decided to cap the sentence reduction credits for behaving in prison at about 15%. The formula they chose was 54 days per year, which actually works out to 14.8%. But is that 14.8% off the total sentence or credit for 14.8% of the time actually served? That was the question before the Supreme Court in today's decision of Barber v. Thomas. The difference works out to about 10 weeks for a 10-year sentence.