Results matching “thomas”

The big news out of the US Supreme Court today is, of course, the same-sex marriage cases.  CJLF takes no position on the underlying issue.  We are quite interested in the "standing" question.  When the state's executive fails to defend the constitutionality of an initiative measure in court, can the proponents step in and defend it?

The answer should be yes.  Initiative proponents invest much time and money getting their measure qualified and then campaigning for it.  Whether their interest is tangible or intangible, that investment should be more than enough to allow them to defend their measure in court.

Even more importantly, without such standing, the people's precious power of initiative can be defeated by collusive litigation between an opponent and an executive that simply does not want to enforce the measure.  This is a very dangerous situation indeed.

Today in the Prop. 8 case, the Ninth Circuit is directed to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, leaving in place an unreviewable district court injunction against enforcing a state statute.  Even if one disagrees with the statute and believes it to be unconstitutional (a point on which I know our readers are sharply divided), this is not a good result.

Justice Kennedy dissents, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor, a line-up you don't see every day:

In my view Article III does not require California, when deciding who may appear in court to defend an initiative on its behalf, to comply with the Restatement of Agency or with this Court's view of how a State should make its laws or structure its government. The Court's reasoning does not take into account the fundamental principles or the practical dynamics of the initiative system in California, which uses this mechanism to control and to bypass public officials--the same officials who would not defend the initiative, an injury the Court now leaves unremedied.

The US Supreme Court today decided a case on the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), a law passed by Congress in 2006.  The majority upholds SORNA as applied to the particular offender in a rather peculiar and fact-specific opinion.  The case is United States v. Kebodeaux, No. 12-418.

The US Supreme Court today upheld, 3-2-4, a prosecutor's comment on the fact that a murder suspect failed to answer a single question during a voluntary interview.  He was not under arrest at the time, and the case had been litigated on the assumption he had not received Miranda warnings.  (He actually had, according to the state's brief, but apparently no one brought that to the attention of the trial court.)  The case is Salinas v. Texas, No. 12-246. CJLF's brief is here.

The plurality opinion by Justice Alito (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy) is based on the fact that the suspect did not expressly invoke his Fifth Amendment right.  In Berghuis v. Thompkins, decided three years ago, the Court held that a prolonged silence during most of an hours-long custodial interview did not invoke Miranda rights so as to require a cut-off of questioning, and thus the suspect's response to a single question was admissible.  This case is a mirror-image.  Salinas freely answered most questions but made no verbal response to the one most incriminating question.  The plurality extends, slightly, the express invocation requirement to cover this situation.

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, concurs in the judgment on the broader ground that commenting on silence is not compulsion within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, and Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), forbidding comment on the defendant's failure to testify at trial, was wrongly decided.  There is zero chance of overruling Griffin with the current Court, but there is much to be said for not extending it.

The US Supreme Court today decided, 5-4, that an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines that increases the guideline range for a crime cannot be applied to a crime committed prior to the amendment.  Such application would violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of Article I, Section 9.  (The same holding would apply to states under the parallel Article I, Section 10 clause.)  The case is Peugh v. United States, No. 12-62.

The federal system adopts procedural measures intended to make the Guidelines the lodestone of sentencing. A retrospective increase in the Guidelines range applicable to a defendant creates a sufficient risk of a higher sentence to constitute an ex post facto violation.

Justice Kennedy did not join part III C of Justice Sotomayor's opinion, making that part a plurality opinion.  That part concludes, "But, contrary to the dissent's view, see post, at 11-13, the Ex Post Facto Clause does not merely protect reliance interests. It also reflects principles of 'fundamental justice.' "

What makes this case close is that the Sentencing Guidelines were transformed from mandatory to advisory in the Booker case.  Justice Thomas notes in the dissent (joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Alito):

First, the Guidelines do not constrain the discretion of district courts and, thus, have no legal effect on a defendant's sentence. Second, to the extent that the amended Guidelines create a risk that a defendant might receive a harsher punishment, that risk results from the Guidelines' persuasive force, not any legal effect. The Guidelines help district judges to impose sentences that comply with §3553(a). The risk of an increased sentence is, in essence, the risk of a more accurate sentence--i.e., a sentence more in line with the statutory scheme's penological goals. Guideline changes that help district courts achieve such pre-existing statutory sentencing goals do not create a risk of an increased sentence cognizable under the Ex Post Facto Clause. We have never held that government action violates the Ex Post Facto Clause when it merely influences the exercise of the sentencing judge's discretion.

It's always a good sign when someone with day-to-day exposure to the realities of the criminal justice system gets a voice in a body as powerful as the US Senate. Today, Gov. Chris Christie, himself a former US Attorney, appointed his one-time chief adviser in the USAO, Jeff Chiesa, to serve as the interim Senator from New Jersey, taking the seat of the late Frank Lautenberg.

Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health has announced that the organization will not use the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders:

In a few weeks, the American Psychiatric Association will release its new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). This volume will tweak several current diagnostic categories, from autism spectrum disorders to mood disorders. While many of these changes have been contentious, the final product involves mostly modest alterations of the previous edition, based on new insights emerging from research since 1990 when DSM-IV was published. Sometimes this research recommended new categories (e.g., mood dysregulation disorder) or that previous categories could be dropped (e.g., Asperger's syndrome).

The goal of this new manual, as with all previous editions, is to provide a common language for describing psychopathology. While DSM has been described as a "Bible" for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been "reliability" - each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. (emphasis added).

But with its reliability also in question, the new DSM5 is turning out to be quite controversial.

The US Supreme Court took up a federal criminal case from Iowa.  Here is the Eighth Circuit's summary of its decision:

113602P.pdf 08/06/2012 United States v. Marcus Burrage U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 11-3602 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa - Des Moines [PUBLISHED] [Benton, Author, with Bye and Beam, Circuit Judges]
Criminal case - Criminal law. District court did not err in rejecting defendant's proximate cause instructions as this court has held that a showing of proximate cause is not required in a prosecution under 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(b)(1) for distributing heroin resulting in death; use of "contributing cause" language was appropriate under this court's case law; prosecutor's cross-examination of defendant and his closing comments as to whether the voice on a tape sounded like defendant were not improper; evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction; even if a police officer's testimony regarding defendant's status as a drug dealer was hearsay, its admission was harmless in light of the other evidence in the case.

The Supreme Court limited its review to "questions 1 and 2 presented by the petition."  These are apparently the causation issues, not the evidence issues.

The Court dumped Boyer v. Louisiana, a speedy trial case.  As is normal for dismissals "as improvidently granted," the opinion of the Court is a one-liner.  Justice Alito, joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas, explains why they concur in the dumping.  Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan, dissents.

The cross-petitions in the Phillips case, previously noted in this post, have been denied without comment, after six relists.  Wonder what went on behind the scenes.

Boston Bomber Suspect Could Face Death:  The Associated Press reports that suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face the death penalty under federal prosecution. Although Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, Tsarnaev is expected to be charged federally with using weapons of mass destruction to kill people, which is a capital offense. Because of the nature of the attack, Tsarnaev will be interrogated by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team, a group of CIA officers who have been involved in questioning prominent terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The suspect will be tried in a civilian court, rather than as an enemy combatant, because he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in September 2012. According to a report by the Boston Herald, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino would support a death penalty sentence, saying that Tsarnaev "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Continued from this News Scan.

NC Killer's Death Penalty Trial Delayed Over Mental Evaluation:  WRAL News reports that Mario Andretti McNeill, charged with the murder, rape and kidnapping of Shaniya Davis, 5, has had his trial delayed pending questions of his mental capacity. The child's body was found on November 16, 2009 six days after her mother had reported she was missing. McNeill's capital murder trial was put on hold when defense attorney's asserted he may not have the mental capacity to proceed. Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons has postponed the trial, ordering jurors to reconvene next Monday.  The judge has ordered an independent mental evaluation for McNeill, to be conducted this week. McNeill is alleged to have taken Davis from her mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, because the woman failed to pay a drug debt. The mother is also facing multiple charges including first-degree murder, indecent liberties with a child, and human trafficking.

TX Ex-Justice of The Peace Suspected of Murdering DA, Wife:  FOX News and the Associated Press report that Eric Lyle Williams, a former justice of the peace in Texas, was arrested Saturday on charges of making a terrorist threat. Williams is now a prime suspect in the murders of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife. Williams, 46, was arrested after agents investigating the killings found multiple weapons and a car similar to one described leaving the neighborhood of the murders in a storage unit linked to him. An email threatening another attack against Kaufman County officials was traced back to Williams' computer. McLelland and Mark Hasse, also recently slain, were both crucial to prosecution against Williams over theft charges last year. The trial resulted in Williams losing his justice of the peace position. Williams has a reputation of making violent threats. He is known to have threatened his ex-girlfriend Janice Gray with a gun on multiple occasions. Continued from this News Scan.

Court to Review Order Blocking CA Executions:  Howard Mintz of the Mercury News reports that on Tuesday, the 1st District Court of Appeal will review a Marin County judge's 2011 order halting executions. The ruling announced that the state had failed to adequately follow the Administrative Procedures Act when revising its execution protocol.  The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation appealed the ruling.  The State Attorney General office argues CA satisfied the rules and did more than was required, including holding public hearings and considering 29,000 public comments. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said such administrative rules should not take precedence over enforcement of a state law such as the death penalty statute. Continued from this News Scan.

CO Teen Enters Not Guilty Plea for Murder of Girl:  Thomas Peipert of the Associated Press reports  that Austin Sigg, 18, pleaded not guilty to murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and robbery on Friday. Allegedly, Sigg earlier confessed that he kidnapped, murdered, and dismembered Jessica Ridgeway, 10. Some of her remains were also found at Sigg's home. He also pleaded not guilty to attacking a 22-year-old jogger in the same neighborhood as Jessica, in May. Three counts of sexual exploitation of a child have also been entered by prosecutors based on the alleged discovery of child pornography in the investigation. Because he was 17 when the slaying occurred, he is ineligible for the death penalty. A maximum sentence would give him life in prison with possibility of parole after 40 years. Continued from this News Scan.

OK Court Set to Hear Murderer's Appeal:  Tim Talley of the Associated Press reports that Oklahoma Death Row inmate Roderick Lynn Smith will have his appeal heard on May 7. Smith was convicted of the 1993 murders of his wife Jennifer Smith and her four children.  Two of the children, Glen Carter Jr., 9, Ladarian Carter, 7, were stabbed to death. The other two, Shemeka Carter, 10, and Kanesha Carter, 6, had been strangled. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals will hear arguments that Smith's death sentence should be overturned because the jury failed to consider evidence that Smith is mentally retarded. His defense attorney alleges he was deprived of his constitutional rights because of improper jury instructions. Smith, 47, first went to death row in November 1994 when he was convicted on five counts of first degree murder. His five death sentences were overturned in 2004 by the Tenth Circuit ruling finding ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing.  Resentencing resulted in Smith receiving two death sentences for the girl's murders and LWOP for the stabbing of his step sons and wife.

CA Child Killer Suspect in Several Cold Cases: KTVU News reports that the FBI is looking for six more victims of convicted child killer Curtis Dean Anderson. In 2007, one month before he died, Anderson told investigators he had killed six other victims. Anderson had been convicted of kidnapping and murdering 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild in Vallejo. He also confessed to the kidnap-murder of Amber Swartz.  From 1986 to 1999, Anderson had been arrested and released from prison 10 times. Anderson told the federal investigator he would have continued killing more women if released. The FBI is out of leads and is seeking help from the public to solve these murders.

Transient Boxer is a Suspected Serial Killer: Russell Goldman of ABC News reports that career criminal Samuel Little, 72, is being investigated as a possible serial killer. Little had been arrested in Kentucky in September for the possession of drug paraphernalia. He was extradited to Los Angeles after his DNA was linked to three 1989 unsolved murders. In all three cases, the victims were knocked out and strangled. Little's criminal record covers 56 years of crimes across 24 states. There have been a significant number of unsolved cases matching Little's method of operation in areas and at times when he resided nearby.  

Realignment Criminal Arrested After Robbery Spree: Kim Minugh of the Sacramento Bee reports that Emanuel Looney, 28, was arrested Tuesday for multiple robberies in the Sacramento area. At about 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Looney allegedly entered a convenience store and robbed the clerk at gunpoint. Immediately after, he allegedly knocked on the door of a home, still armed, and forced his way inside when the door opened. He demanded money and stole the victim's car. The vehicle was spotted by officers at 1:45 a.m. Looney led officers on a pursuit then fled the car on foot. He was arrested after running into a park which deputies surrounded. In 2008, Looney received a 3-year prison sentence for the felony charges of possession of stolen property, grand theft auto, resisting arrest, and falsely identifying himself to police. He was released on probation (called Post Release Community Supervision) rather than parole because of Realignment. 

CA Convicts Released Early, Unsupervised:  The Associated Press reports that many California counties are sentencing the majority of convicts to straight jail sentences in lieu of a combined custody and supervision program. Due to continued jail overcrowding under Realignment, convicts are being released before their time is served and are exempt from supervision under the terms of their sentences. Law enforcement and probation officers say they have no way of tracking these felons, stressing the growing threat to public safety. According to data covering October 2011 through September 2012, only 31 percent of convicts realigned to county jails have been given split sentences; Over two-thirds have opted for straight time without supervision upon release. Only five percent of inmates in Los Angeles County are serving split sentences. More in this blog entry.

CA GPS Trackers Flawed:  The Associated Press reports California officials replaced thousands of parolee ankle monitors last year after field tests confirmed flaws. The devices were found to have inaccurate location reporting problems and ineffective tamper alert systems. Some devices could be disabled when covered with foil, or by using illegal GPS jammers. 3M Co., the GPS supplier for about 4,000 parolees, was denied a state contract worth approximately $51 million over a six year period after a second round of tests confirmed the faulty nature of the devices. Although a Sacramento County judge ruled that Denise Milano, head of the state's GPS monitoring program, violated  contract laws by rejecting 3M Co.'s bid, her decision was still upheld based on the flaws discovered. The devices were replaced by another company, Satellite Tracking of People, based out of Houston, Texas. About 7,900 people are currently monitored by the new devices.

Double Cop Shooter Gets 60 Years:  The Sun-Times reports that Rashaun Carlisle was sentenced Tuesday to 60 years in prison for shooting two Illinois police officers in 2010. Carlisle, a gang member, got into a fight with rival gangsters at around 2:30 a.m.on May 8, 2010 in a liquor store parking lot. Following the altercation, he retrieved a sawed off double-barreled shotgun from his home then returned to the parking lot. The area had been vacated except for police officers and one of the men involved in the fight. Carlisle opened fire on the officers, permanently disfiguring the face of one and killing another with a shot to the chest.

Aryan Brotherhood May Be Responsible for TX Law Enforcement Killings:  Pierre Thomas and Russell Goldman of ABC News report that investigators are examining whether a white supremacist prison gang played a role in the recent Texas slayings of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife and Assistant DA Mark Hasse. Both men were responsible for indicting members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and members of Mexican drug cartels. Law enforcement officials have been on the alert for retaliation since December, a month after 34 suspected associates of the prison gang were indicted on federal racketeering, murder and drug conspiracy charges. Ten of those indicted could receive death sentences. Authorities also suspect they may be involved in the March killing of Colorado Prisons Chief Tom Clements. Alleged gang member Evan Ebel had various white supremacist tattoos on his body. Continued from this blog entry.

DNA Helps Close Cold Case From 1996:  The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Florida convict Rafael Crespo was linked to the 1996 rape and murder of 17-year-old Anjeanette Maldonado Monday in Philadelphia. The match came from a sample that was entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Combined DNA Index System during the cold case investigation.

There is one constant in journalism, as constant as the North Star always being north -- the main editorial page of the New York Times will always muck it up.  Today they have this editorial on the dog sniff case, Florida v. Jardines.

The Supreme Court correctly ruled this week that using a drug-sniffing police dog on a suspect's property without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. The ruling was not surprising; the split among the justices was.

Why are they surprised?  Because they commit the rookie error of labeling the justices "liberal" or "conservative" and expecting them to vote in accordance with those one-dimensional labels every time:

The majority included conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and three of the court's more liberal members (Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan). The four dissenting justices were: Samuel Alito Jr., Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., all on the conservative side; and Stephen Breyer, a moderate liberal.

Everyone with a modicum of sense and any experience at all watching the Supreme Court knows its not that simple.  I explained it in this post on Jardines.

A newspaper that has the conceit to consider itself the nation's premier paper should be able and willing to hire some more sophisticated thinkers for its editorial page.

The US Supreme Court decided one law-enforcement related civil case today.  In Millbrook v. United States, No. 11-10362, the high court held that a suit by a federal prisoner against the government for an alleged sexual assault by correctional officers can go forward under the Federal Tort Claims Act.  It comes within an exception to an exception to the FTCA's exception to sovereign immunity, if you pick your way through the statutes.

Justice Thomas wrote the opinion for a unanimous court.  The case was argued a little over a month ago, making this one of the more rapid decisions.

This may be the Year of the Snake in China, but it's the Term of the Dog in the US Supreme Court.  Last month, the high court decided unanimously in Florida v. Harris that a trained dog's alert is probable cause for possession of drugs without the strict requirements laid down by the Florida Supreme Court.  See prior post here.

Today, the other shoe dropped in another Florida case, Florida v. Jardines.  From the syllabus:

Police took a drug-sniffing dog to Jardines' front porch, where the dog gave a positive alert for narcotics.  Based on the alert, the officers obtained a warrant for a search, which revealed marijuana plants; Jardines was charged with trafficking in cannabis. The Supreme Court of Florida approved the trial court's decision to suppress the evidence, holding that the officers had engaged in a Fourth Amendment search unsupported by probable cause.

Held: The investigation of Jardines' home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

The opinion was written by Justice Scalia and joined by Justices Thomas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.  Justice Alito dissented, joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Kennedy and Breyer.  This division does not follow the simplistic "liberal/conservative" lineup, but it is not particularly surprising in a Fourth Amendment case where the question is the substantive reach of the constitutional protection as distinguished from the scope of the exclusionary remedy.  This is the kind of case where we sometimes see Scalia and Thomas showing their libertarian streak and Breyer siding with the government.

In the opinions we see some interesting discussion about the Fourth Amendment and property versus privacy and the special status of the home.

Todd Ruger has this article in the NLJ (registration required) on sequestration cuts to the judicial branch, including federal defenders.

Money for federal defender organizations would be reduced by $53 million, which "could compromise the integrity of the defender function," [AOUSC Director Thomas] Hogan wrote. Allocations for defender salaries would be reduced by 4 percent, non-salary funds by 25 percent and training funds by 50 percent. Payment of Criminal Justice Act panel attorney vouchers could be deferred for almost three weeks at the end of the fiscal year.

Well, the first thing to cut is representation not authorized by law at all.  The second thing to cut is representation authorized only by Joe Biden's drafting error.

In Cook v. FDA, presently pending in the D.C. Circuit, the Federal Public Defender for Arizona is representing murderers from several states in a suit against the Food and Drug Administration for allowing importation of thiopental.  The cases federal defenders are authorized to take on at public expense are listed in 18 U.S.C. §3006A(a)(1)&(2), and civil suits against the FDA do not come remotely within any of the categories.  It's hard to have much sympathy with an office complaining of budget cuts when that office has been making patently illegal expenditures from its existing budget.

Many years ago, then-Sen. Biden snuck a provision into a drug bill, 21 U.S.C. §848(q)(4), to provide representation in capital cases for both federal defendants and state prisoners on habeas corpus.  A provision for continued representation in such things as successive petitions and executive clemency, which only makes sense for federal defendants, was misdrafted so that it applies to state prisoners as well.  (As a matter of code maintenance, the language was later moved without substantial change to title 18, where it belongs, as 18 U.S.C. §3599.)  Now we have federal taxpayer dollars paying for representation in purely state proceedings that follow the appointment in federal habeas, including representation in state collateral reviews and clemency petitions.  Congress needs to fix this so that the continuing representation provision only applies to federal defendants.

Conor Friedersdorf has this post at The Atlantic, with the above title, on Justice Thomas's recent talk at Harvard, with video of his full appearance.

See also this post from 2006.

From reading the opinions in Chaidez v. United States this morning one thing becomes very clear.  Justice Kagan understands the rule of Teague v. Lane.  Justice Sotomayor does not.  It's not just that she misapplies it in a close case.  She genuinely fails to understand what it is about.

Once upon a time, judges pretended that they did not make law but merely discovered what the law had always been.  Once we got past that conceit, judges had to grapple with the question of when changes made through case law would apply retroactively.  Initially, the Warren Court came up with a subjective, hard-to-predict approach that sounded more like legislating than adjudication.  That was the Linkletter-Stovall rule.  Justice Harlan went along at first but later proposed a more categorical approach.  All new rules of procedure would apply to cases on direct review, but not on habeas corpus to cases where the judgment has already become final on appeal.  The Supreme Court adopted the first half in Griffith v. Kentucky in 1987 and the second half in Teague v. Lane in 1989.

When is a rule "new"?  The Supreme Court adopted an expansive definition.  A rule is new if it was not dictated by precedent existing at the time the judgment became final.  A rule can be a logical extension of existing principles and precedents and still be "new" for Teague.  This is the part Justice Sotomayor apparently doesn't get.

Thomas Fleming, former president of the Society of American Historians, has this op-ed in the WSJ:

My grandmother Mary Dolan died in 1940. But she voted Democratic for the next 10 years.

*                               *                               *

I have to laugh when I hear current-day Democrats not only lobbying against voter-identification laws but campaigning to make voting even easier than it already is. More laughable is the idea of dressing up the matter as a civil-rights issue.

*                               *                               *

Later I became a historian of this nation's early years--and I can assure President Obama that no founding father would tolerate the idea of unidentified voters. These men understood the possibility and the reality of political corruption. They knew it might erupt at any time within a city or state.

The president's party--which is still my party--has inspired countless Americans by looking out for the less fortunate. No doubt that instinct motivated Mr. Obama in his years as a community organizer in Chicago. Such caring can still be a force, but that force, and the Democratic Party, will be constantly soiled and corrupted if the right and the privilege to vote becomes an easily manipulated joke.

Trial Judge Throws out Death Sentence: Steve Miletich of the Seattle Times reports that on Thursday in Washington a judge denied a prosecution motion to seek death sentences for Michele Anderson and ex-boyfriend Joseph McEnroe. Anderson and McEnroe have been charged with six counts of aggravated murder each in the brutal slayings of Anderson's parents, 60 and 61, brother and sister-in-law, both 32, her niece, 5, and three-year-old nephew. The victims were shot to death at her parents' Washington home on Christmas Eve 2007. The ruling rejecting the death penalty rests on a 13-page order from Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell who asserted that the prosecution should only consider a death sentence if mitigating circumstances, not the strength of evidence, are a factor. The prosecution has described the decision as having blindsided them, and as wrong. They not only cite concerns for justice for the victims, but also the potential impact on other aggravated murder cases. They promised to appeal.

OR Convicts Attempted Car Bomber in Terrorism Plot: Kirk Johnson of The New York Times reports that on Thursday, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 21, was convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Oregon. In 2010, he was arrested in an F.B.I. sting operation targeting Islamic terrorism. Mohamud attempted to set off what he believed to be a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland. Had the bomb been real, about 25,000 people would have been packed into its blast area. After a day of deliberation, the jury rejected Mohamud's claim of entrapment. Mohamud faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and will be sentenced by Senior Judge Garr M. King on May 14. Continued from this News Scan.

Death Sentence for Rapist, Murderer: CBS News reports that Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas has sentenced Joel Lebron to death for the first-degree murder of Ana Maria Angel, 18. In April 2002, Lebron, with the aid of four accomplices, kidnapped, gang raped, and fatally shot Angel execution-style. Her boyfriend, 17-year-old  Nelson Portobanco, who was left for dead by the assailants after having his throat slit, survived the assault and contacted police. In a case that Judge Thomas described as having clear and convincing aggravating circumstances, the Judge was visibly upset as he recounted the crime and sentenced Lebron to death, stating that Lebron's actions required "the ultimate penalty." In addition to the death penalty, Lebron was sentenced to six consecutive life terms for armed robbery and kidnapping, attempted first-degree murder, and armed sexual battery. The victim's mother expressed a sense of justice and relief at the Judge's decision. Lebron will be held in Florida State Prison until the date of his execution.

CA Murder Dies on Death Row: Sam Stanton of the Sacramento Bee reports James Leslie Karis Jr., a convicted murderer and rapist was found dead in his cell on San Quentin's death row Thursday.  Karis, 61, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at 6:40 a.m. An autopsy will be conducted to determine cause of death. Karis was convicted of the rape and murder of Peggy Pennington, 34, and sentenced to death in September 1982. In July 1981, Karis abducted Pennington and another woman, 27, while walking near their workplace. Karis took them to a secluded area, forced them to strip, raped Pennington, then shot both women. The other woman survived the attack and testified against Karis in court.  Karis was given the death sentence twice.  After a federal judge overturned Karis' death sentence in 1998, hee was then tried again in 2007. During the second trial, Karis rebuffed his lawyers' attempts to introduce mitigating evidence and took over his own defense. The second jury also sentenced Karis to death. 

OH Murderer Seeks Clemency: Andrew Welsh-Huggins of the Associated Press reports the lawyers for condemned killer Frederick Treesh asked Ohio's parole board for a recommendation of clemency Thursday. Treesh, 48, and a co-defendant are accused of bank robbery, robbery of businesses, multiple sexual assaults, car theft, and car-jacking in a crime spree that stretched through Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Treesh received the death sentence in Ohio for the murder of Henry Dupree. Two days prior, Treesh and his accomplices murdered another victim at a Michigan video store. The parole board will make their recommendation for or against clemency next week. Ohio Gov. John Kasich has the final say. If denied, Treesh will face execution on March 6.

As noted in this post, Justice Thomas's comment from the bench in Boyer v. Louisiana earlier this month was news on what was evidently a slow news day.  The Court has now posted a revised transcript.  From page 42:

The 1991 decision in Coleman v. Thompson is one of the most important protections for the finality of criminal judgments in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence.  Without it, there could be an endless stream of collateral attacks on a judgment, with each lawyer claiming the supposed ineffectiveness of the lawyer before as "cause" for the earlier default of the claim.  Coleman drew the line on such "ineffectiveness as cause" claims at the first appeal.

California has not followed Coleman for state habeas corpus, and the result has been a disaster.  Even though successive petitions are very rarely granted, they are filed in nearly every case.  They regularly claim ineffectiveness of the first habeas lawyer as cause for default, and the "ineffectiveness" generally consists of nothing more than the first lawyer not bringing a claim the second lawyer wants to bring.  The California Supreme Court put some limits on these petitions last August in In re Reno, but not enough yet.  See this post.

The U.S. Supreme Court made two narrow exceptions to Coleman last term.  Maples v. Thomas made an exception for clients actually abandoned by their lawyers, fortunately a rare occurrence.  Martinez v. Ryan made an exception for states that actually bar all ineffectiveness claims from direct appeal, an odd little rule that a state should quickly jettison.

Now in Trevino v. Thaler, petitioner seeks to expand Martinez into an exception that swallows the rule.  That would be a disaster, as the California experience demonstrates.

Today CJLF filed an amicus brief opposing this change.