Results matching “thomas”

Karla Adam reports in the WaPo:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost his battle against extradition Wednesday when Britain's High Court ruled that he should be sent to Sweden to face questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct.

The judgment was handed down by High Court judges John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley with Assange in attendance, wearing a dark suit and a Remembrance Day poppy.

*                                        *                                      *

Lawyers for the 40-year-old Australian are expected to seek permission to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land. The legal team must lodge an application within the next two weeks, and make a case that a "point of law of general importance" is at stake.

How nice.  The man who facilitated the murder of people cooperating with us in the war against Islamofascism wears a Rememberance Day poppy.  He appears to be rather selective in which antifascist fighters he chooses to remember.

There is also this hopeful note:  "Last month, Assange said WikiLeaks faced an 'existential' crisis and could close as early as January if it was unable to boost its financial reserves."

Adam Liptak and Michael Shear have this article in the NYT about the federal judiciary as an issue in the presidential campaign.

Denunciation of judicial overreach is, of course, a grand tradition in the Grand Old Party.*  The party's very first successful presidential candidate made attack on a Supreme Court decision a major theme of his campaign.  Denouncing that decision was controversial at the time, but nearly everyone today agrees he was correct.

Liptak and Shear report:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas favors term limits for Supreme Court justices. Representatives Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Ron Paul of Texas say they would forbid the court from deciding cases concerning same-sex marriage. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania want to abolish the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, calling it a "rogue" court that is "consistently radical."

The Left is furious with Clarence Thomas for his temerity in refusing to be chained on its plantation.  Kent has noted and responded to this fury here, here and here.  My friend Professor John Yoo of Berkeley, a former Thomas clerk, notes Justice Thomas's signal contributions to the law in his WSJ piece this weekend.

Justice Thomas has not always cast votes favorable to my view of criminal law, as, for example, in the disastrous case of Apprendi and some of its progeny.  But as a man of insight and principle, and as a friend to the Constitution as written rather than as re-rigged on the fly to suit the personal tastes of judges, he is nothing short of heroic.  As Prof. Yoo notes:

Justice Thomas's two decades on the bench show the simple power of ideas over the pettiness of our politics. Media and academic elites have spent the last 20 years trying to marginalize him by drawing a portrait of a man stung by his confirmation, angry at his rejection by the civil rights community, and a blind follower of fellow conservatives. But Justice Thomas has broken through this partisan fog to convince the court to adopt many of his positions, and to become a beacon to the grass-roots movement to restrain government spending and reduce the size of the welfare state.

Justice Thomas now celebrates his twentieth year on the Court.  Thanks to my former boss, President George H. W. Bush, for appointing him, and thanks and gratitude to Justice Thomas for his uncompromising defense of the Constitution.

Kent noted that confirmation nastiness has spread outside Washington, DC.  But it certainly had its origin there.  The origin, specifically, was the Ted Kennedy-led, gutter-level attack on Robert Bork.

Twenty four years ago tomorrow, Bork was voted down simply because he was a conservative.  He was, however, superbly qualified for the Court.  He was a law professor at Yale, a  former Solicitor General, and a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.  It was to prove to be a preview of the even more appalling "high tech lynching" of Clarence Thomas  --  although, quite fortunately, that one failed.

The New York Times, of all things, has an op-ed spelling out, in straightforward terms, just how ruthless and unprincipled the attack on Bork was.  If a Republican wins the Presidency next year, and there is a Supreme Court vacany during his term, the scandalous nature of the attack on Bork is, I fear, something we will all have to remember  --  and be prepared to fight.

Christopher Thomas Johnson, a killer discussed here, was executed tonight in Alabama.

His crime was that, in order to get revenge on his wife and to avoid having to pay child support, he killed his six month-old son by beating and suffocating him.  The evidence showed that he struck the child not fewer than 85 times.

The sheer evil of something like this is beyond my capacity to describe.  I notice that the crowd that was raising the roof about Troy Davis  --  to make the case that the death penalty should never be imposed  -- is notably quiet tonight.  I  would like to ascribe this  to an embryonic sense of decency, but more likely it's just because they're shrewd enough to shut up. 

Alabama Set to Execute Man for Murder of Infant Son: Kelli Dugan of Reuters reports Christopher Thomas Johnson, 39, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. local time at the Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama for the 2005 murder of his 6-month-old son. Suffocation and head trauma were cited as the causes of death of Johnson's son, and the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy testified at trial that the infant suffered at least 85 separate injuries. Johnson represented himself at trial and plead guilty. He was sentenced to death in February 2007. Johnson's stay on death row could possibly be one of the shortest on record in the U.S., says one law professor. Johnson will be the sixth inmate executed this year in Alabama, and the 38th nationwide.  See also prior post here.

Record Number of Illegal Immigrants Deported: The Associated Press reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it deported almost 400,000 people, the largest number in the agency's history, in the fiscal year that ended in September. ICE Director John Morton said about 55% of those deported had misdemeanor or felony convictions. Of the 396,906 people deported, more than 1,000 were convicted of homicide; 5,800 were sexual offenders; and about 80,000 were convicted of drug related crimes or of driving under the influence.

Death Warrant Issued for Idaho Killer: Sven Berg of the Idaho Falls Post Register reports Bonneville County Judge Jon Shindurling issued a death warrant for Paul Ezra Rhoades in Idaho yesterday for murdering two women in 1987. Rhoades also received two life sentences for the second-degree murder of a convenience store clerk around the same time. Rhoades has filed a lawsuit against the state, saying that Idaho's method of lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The state has asked that the court throw out the lawsuit. Rhoades' execution is scheduled for November 18. It would be the first execution in Idaho since 1994, and the second since 1957. 

Parole Denied For Women Who Cooked Husband: Gosia Wozniacka of the AP reports that Omaima Nelson, a California woman serving a life sentence for the killing, chopping, and cooking of her husband during Thanksgiving 1991, was denied her second bid for parole Wednesday. Nelson argued that she should be paroled because she was a changed person, claiming to be sorry and claiming that she killed in self-defense. Due to her long criminal history, lack of responsibility, and failure to complete educational and vocational programs, the two-person panel of the state Board of Parole found that Nelson continued to be a danger to society. Parole commissioners said Nelson will not be eligible to seek parole again for 15 years -- the maximum period she can be held without another hearing.

Judge Allows Alleged Murderer's Road-trip: Gene Johnson of AP reports that in an oral ruling Monday, Washington Judge Micheal Moynihan decided to allow accused murderer Peggy Sue Thomas to take a two-week, five-state road trip so she can attend her half-sister's memorial service, receive dental care, and attend to a few other chores. Thomas is charged with killing a man in 2003.  Despite protests from Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks, Thomas is free on $500,000 bail, and had her arraignment delayed a week to Oct. 31 to accommodate the trip. While Thomas will be on a GPS monitoring device, there will be various non-signal points along the trip that might not immediately report if she flees the country. Banks stated: "That's the first time I've ever seen anything like that. We're sure hoping she comes back."

Alabama Immigration Law Leaves Police Uncertain: After a meeting on Thursday with the Department of Homeland Security, Mobile Police Chief Micheal T. Williams announced there are too many gray areas to begin enforcement of the Alabama's new Immigration law, which continues to be disputed by the U.S. Justice and Department and civil rights groups. The law expressly prohibits profiling but states that an officer can make an arrest when "reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States." Police are also prohibited from raiding job sites where illegal immigrants might be working and must consult the federal government when determining if someone is illegal or not. Due to the confusion, John Jenkins, the state's Deputy Director of Homeland Security, told the group of 50 officers from across Mobile and Baldwin counties to consult with their city attorneys for clarification. David Ferrara of the Press-Register reports.  

Kent discussed here the efforts to attack Justice Clarence Thomas.  It's hard to decide whether the attacks are more unprincipled or more hypocritical.*  For its humor value if nothing else, it's worth remembering that they were led by, among others, that renowned authority on ethics, Rep. Anthony "Have you seen my latest crotch shot?" Wiener.

My friend Ed Whelan deconstructs the latest in high-tech lynchings here.  One item Ed points out that made me laugh out loud is that the letter demanding Thomas's prosecution for his supposed ethical wrongdoing is signed by the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee  --  a gentleman whose wife is currently serving a 37 month sentence in federal prison for taking bribes while serving on the Detroit City Council.

Ed' article is short and worth the read. 

* I decline to launch the shopworn if ubiquitous charge that they're racist.  Although it's  true that a prominent conservative black man is the special target of liberal seething, I don't think it's directly because of race.  I think it's because of the general intolerance a segment of the Left bears towards dissent by anyone from its pious claim to The Only Received Wisdom.

SCOTUSblog's new forum is operational, with its heavily moderated, use-your-real-name comments.  Today's topic is Maples v. Thomas, but the actual questions range into habeas more generally.

It's good to see another legal blog where one can discuss serious issues without putting up with the juvenile twits who have nothing substantive to add, sling insults and profanity, and call everyone who disagrees with them a Nazi.

Transcripts are available for the oral arguments in Maples v. Thomas and Martinez v. Ryan.

In the Maples argument, both attorneys took a lot of flak, and the argument bogged down in the peculiar facts of the case.  There were a lot of "I don't know" type responses.  The reason for the sparse record on these questions is that Maples's claim morphed on its journey to the Supreme Court, so a lot of questions about whether he was "abandoned" by his attorneys did not get answered in the District Court.  Hard to predict how the case will come out.  A remand for more fact-finding is a possibility.  But I expect it will set a relatively narrow precedent.

In Martinez, I think it is more clear that counsel for petitioner will not get the rule he wants.  He argues for a broad extension of the Douglas v. California right to counsel on the first appeal to cover claims on collateral review that could not have been brought earlier.  The corollary is that when counsel is constitutionally required, ineffectiveness of that counsel is cause for a procedural default of a claim, allowing it to be raised in federal habeas.

At page 17, Justice Kennedy asks, "Can I leave this argument with the judgment that you have offered me no limiting principle on how many proceedings there must be ... before there's an end to the argument that previous counsel were inadequate?"  Not a good sign for the defense side.

Earlier, at page 11, Justice Sotomayor asks about "a huge reliance interest that has developed since Finley and its progeny...."  See CJLF Brief at 20.

[Some of Justice Ginsburg's questions, as transcribed, don't make sense.  I suspect she was speaking softly and the stenographer had trouble understanding her.]

I expect the Finley rule, that there is no right to counsel in collateral review, will survive.

In a pre-argument post at SL&P Doug Berman noted, "The Maples case seems likely to generate the most media attention, in large part because it is a capital case.  But I think the Martinez case in the most important and potentially the most consequential of this trio."  The first statement was correct.  I think the second is also.

First Hearing Under Racial Justice Act: Paul Woolverton of The Fayetteville Observer (NC) reports Marcus Reymond Robinson is scheduled today to be the first condemned inmate under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act to present evidence of racism in an attempt to convert his sentence to life without parole. Robinson, who is black, was sentenced to death in 1994 for the 1991 killing of a white teenage boy. The Racial Justice Act gives death row inmates in North Carolina the opportunity to claim that their death sentences are the result of racism, and to use statistical trends as proof of racism in the system. All but seven of North Carolina's 158 death row inmates have pending Racial Justice Act claims.

Arizona Prisons Charging Fee to Visit Inmates: Erica Goode reported Monday in the NYT that the State of Arizona has enacted the first of its kind legislation that imposes a one-time $25 fee on visitors to the Arizona Department of Corrections. The fee will only be imposed on those over 18 years of age, and will help address a $150 million maintenance gap for the Arizona Department of Corrections. The Department of Corrections says the fee will serve to keep the facilities safer for visitors and inmates. Prisoner rights groups have the expected reaction -- they have filed lawsuits.

Gold Fever Sweeps the Criminal Underworld: Thomas Watkins of the AP has this so-titled piece about the surge in robberies and burglaries related to gold after the price of the precious metal peaked last month at $1,981 an ounce, an increase of more than $600 from a year earlier. Police in Oakland say dozens of women have had gold necklaces yanked from their necks on the street, and similar stories are emerging from cities nationwide. Earlier this summer, thieves in New Jersey even took off with $400,000 in gold nuggets from a mining museum display. Gold is an easy substance to fence, as jewelry can be melted down, thus destroying the evidence, and sold.

Off topic but interesting.

260 Days For Ruining A Man's Life: Bonnie Eslinger of the San Jose Mercury News reports a 47-year-old San Jose man was brutally beaten in Redwood City Caltrain station by a mob of nine to thirteen assailants trying to rob him. According to San Mateo Deputy District Attorney Karen Guidotti, Thomas Furman, 29, and his mob started to beat the man when he refused to hand over his valuables and tried to walk away. Furman was later caught using the man's credit card and was sentenced to 260 days in the county jail and probation after pleading no contest to burglary and grand theft charges on Monday. The unidentified victim is receiving ongoing care due to a brain injury that leaves him unable to conduct his daily activities.

Death Penalty Considered for Child Murderer: Prosecutors in Missouri are considering seeking the death penalty in the case against accused murderer and kidnapper Shawn Morgan, 43. Morgan is accused of suffocating his three-year-old neighbor Breeann Rodriguez with a white plastic trash bag, holding it over her face and mouth after he spotted the girl standing by his backyard pool. According to a court document, "Morgan states that he felt like it took an hour for the girl to die." Morgan told police he put the girl's body into the same trash bag, and threw it over a railing into a floodway ditch. Morgan has not yet entered a plea.  Chris Perry of CNN has this story.

Optimistic New Strategy for Philadelphia Police: Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey released a plan today that continues to encourage the city's officers to look for creative ways of preventing crime, such as asking the city to fix broken streetlights or clean up overgrown lots.  The plan stresses community cooperation and relies on the realization that small problems and the big are interconnected. Ramsey explains: "Law enforcement is a very small slice of what we do. We're not here to feed the criminal-justice system; we ought to be here to starve it. You have got to be able to come up with ways to keep people out of the system and to keep people on the right side of law." Allison Steele of the Philadelphia Inquirer has this story.

Jury Recommends Death Sentence: Steve Fry of The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that after 55 minutes of deliberation, a Osage County jury decided on a death sentence for James Kraig Kahler for the murders of his estranged wife, two teenage daughters, and estranged wife's grandmother. Kahler shot to death the victims during a 2009 rampage through the grandmother's home. He allowed his son, Sean Kahler, then 10, to escape unharmed. When urging jurors to chose a death sentence, assistant attorney general Amy Hanley said the victims "all died with an awareness that gave them the torture of slow death." Under Kansas law, the presiding judge must now determine whether the evidence supports the verdict.

Guilty Verdict in Major San Francisco Gang Trial: A federal jury in San Francisco jury yesterday returned with guilty verdicts for six members of the MS-13 gang in the city's biggest gang trial in many years. During the four-month trial, prosecutors portrayed the men as as leaders of a heavily armed gang that controlled the San Francisco's Mission District through fear and violence. The prosecutors' case largely relied on informants and secretly-taped conversations with the defendants. MS-13 is a violent gang that originated in Los Angeles by El Salvadoran immigrants, and now has 8,000 to 10,000 members in the U.S. Bob Egelko of the SF Chronicle has this report.

Rong-Gong Lin II reports in the L.A. Times:

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said a new state law to force counties, instead of the state, to jail non-violent felons is a "horribly flawed plan" that would increase crime on the streets.

"Public safety will be seriously jeopardized," Cooley said Tuesday. "We're not kidding. There will be tens of thousands of people let out all over California, who would otherwise be incarcerated.... I've been predicting ... that there will be a spike in crime.

"The state Legislature is abandoning their highest-priority core mission in terms of public safety, shifting it to the counties. And it is a bait and switch. They had a big fiscal problem, so they're abandoning a core mission and the county's going to pick up the pieces, and the public is going to pay the price," Cooley told reporters outside the L.A. County Hall of Administration.

Cooley said there's not enough room in the county jails to house felons who would otherwise go to state prison. Already, county jails are being forced to release their own inmates early.

Cooley is well known in the state (and disliked by some of the hard-core DAs) for his restrained use of the Three Strikes law.  The people who have applauded him for that restraint need to listen to him now.  This bill was a terrible idea, and it needs to be repealed.

Update:  Thomas Watkins of AP has this story on the same subject.  On the SF Chron website, the article is headlined "LA district attorney frets over parolee transfer."  Imagine if the same headline writer had been around on the 18th of April in '75:  "Paul Revere frets over the British coming."

Inmate's "Failure to Warn" Lawsuit to Proceed:  The AP reports a federal judge in Los Angeles has refused to dismiss most of a former inmate's lawsuit claiming that the federal government was negligent in exposing him to potentially deadly disease.  Convicted drug dealer Arjang Panah was transferred to a federal prison in California's Central Valley in 2005, where he contracted coccidioidomycosis ("valley fever"), a disease caused by a fungus found in soil in southwestern United States.  District Judge Gary Feess said the government's immunity in such cases "does not apply to plaintiff's negligence claims to the extent they are based on defendants' failure to warn of the cocci outbreak." 

More Feedback on Police Lineups:  As noted in this earlier post, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered that state to change rules governing police lineups.  A piece in Sunday's New York Times by Erica Goode and John Schwartz reports on research raising questions about the reliability of the identification of suspects via lineups, and on efforts by some larger police departments to reduce the pressure on witness and eliminate influence by detectives seeking a suspect. 

Rethinking Clarance Thomas:  "There are few articles of faith as firmly fixed in the liberal canon as the belief that Clarance Thomas is, to put it as bluntly as many liberals do, a dunce and a worm," notes Walter Russell Mead early in this piece from the American Interest.  While liberal pundits and pop academics have stumbled over each other to malign Thomas since the day his appointment was announced, many who actually read Supreme Court opinions have recognized that Justice Thomas' intellectual depth and understanding of the Constitution put him on par historically with some of the Court's best legal minds.  Mead points to a profile of Thomas by Jeffery Toobin in the New Yorker which finally acknowledges that "In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court."  Areas where Justice Thomas is credited with influencing the Court include the First Amendment, Second Amendment and Eighth Amendment.  While characterizing the 2008 Second Amendment decision (District of Columbia v. Heller)  as a constitutional land mine for the left, Mead describes Thomas' effort to seriously restore the Tenth Amendment as "a nuclear bomb." 

A murderer a day shy of his 18th birthday is categorically exempt from a death sentence.  Should that arbitrary cut-off based on chronological age alone similarly exempt him from a true life-without-parole sentence, regardless of the circumstances of the crime and regardless of the length of his criminal record?  Incredibly, a bill to do just that has made it to the floor of the California Assembly.

Margaret Bengs has this article in the Sacramento Bee:

Prosecutors and judges already have discretion in seeking and imposing life-without-parole sentences and have reserved it for the "worst of the worst." Most teen criminals in California are tried in the juvenile court system and must be released at age 25. Of those tried in adult court, only first-degree murder with special circumstances can result in life without parole, and only for 16- and 17-year-olds. All states allow juveniles to be tried as adults in criminal court under certain circumstances, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

U.S. to Stop Deporting Most Illegal Aliens:  Alicia A. Caldwell of the AP reports that many illegal immigrants who have no criminal record will be allowed to stay in the country and apply for a work permit under new rules from the Department of Homeland Security. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday that the department will focus on deporting illegal immigrants who are criminals or pose a threat to national security or public safety. This decision comes after continued protest by immigrant communities which have criticized the DHS for focusing too much on deporting those whose only offense is being in the country without the proper documents or who have been arrested for traffic violations or other misdemeanors.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said the shift is the administration's "plan to grant backdoor amnesty to illegal immigrants."Missouri City Sets Curfew After Flash Mob Shooting: After a weekend shooting that injured three teenagers who were part of a large late-night "flash mob" gathering in Kansas City, the city on Thursday passed a curfew as early as 9 p.m. for people under age 18, reports Kevin Murphy of Reuters. The ordinance will allow police to issue citations to parents whose children violated the curfew. Passing an ordinance so quickly is unusual, but council members said they had feared a repeat of potentially dangerous gatherings this weekend. 

Lawyer Claims Teenage Girl Will Someday Forget Sex Crimes: Tom Gilchrist of The Saginaw News (MI) reports that the lawyer for former Michigan softball coach Mickey T. Gotwalt, 52, argued to a judge that the 14-year-old female victim of his client's sexual assault crimes will someday forget all about it. Gotwalt pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct against the female student in return for dismissal of nine other alleged crimes against her. Gotwalt's attorney, Thomas A. Warda of Flint, MI, said to the judge: "I mean (Gotwalt) didn't kill this girl... I mean this isn't - I don't think she's gonna have psychological injury the rest of her life. I mean he'll be in prison, but, you know, she'll have forgotten all about it at some point."  Gotwalt was sentenced to a minimum of seven years and two months in prison.

Tuscan Friars Ask God to Deliver Diarrhea for Basilica Bible Thief: Tom Kington of the Guardian (UK) reports a group of Franciscan friars, angry over the theft of bibles from their church in Florence, have taken an unusual approach to get the thief to come forward by praying that the thief gets struck down by diarrhea and sees the error of his or her ways.  One of the friars admits that it is an unorthodox request but it will be forgiven. "It is not exactly clean language," the friar said, '' but we couldn't put up with it any longer. The Lord and the faithful will understand." Hat tip to Kenneth Anderson at The Volokh Conspiracy for the link.  

Nina Totenberg has this article for NPR on the controversies over the Supreme Court, judicial ethics, and H.R. 862, the bill to make the Code of Conduct applicable to the high court.

While I have been critical of Ms. Totenberg's coverage of the Court on other occasions, I find this piece, well, "fair and balanced."

Capital habeas lawyers regularly denigrate trial counsel for not introducing some item of marginally mitigating evidence or other.  But more is not always better.  Sometimes the evidence can backfire.  Thomas Sheeran of AP reports from Cleveland:

Marine veteran Nolan Coleman testified Wednesday at the sentencing phase of the trial of 51-year-old Anthony Sowell (SOH'-wehl). The jury must decide whether to recommend death or life in prison without parole for Sowell, who killed 11 women.

Coleman testified to highlight Sowell's military service for jurors when they decide whether to spare his life. Coleman testified that a boot camp promotion like Sowell's would mean he was a top recruit.

But under cross-examination, Coleman said Marine training would include how to kill or immobilize with the hands, including pressure points and choking. Most of Sowell's victims were strangled.

If trial counsel had not put Coleman on the stand, habeas counsel would have claimed ineffective assistance for not introducing mitigating evidence.  Now that they did put him on and it backfired, you can bet your bottom dollar that (if Sowell is sentenced to death) they will claim ineffective assistance for opening the door to the backfire evidence.

New iPhone App Fights Back: The San Francisco Chronicle has this article from PRWeb about Thugs Mug, the first safety protection app for the iPhone and iPad 2. When activated the app sends photos to the user's safety contacts along with the GPS coordinates of where the crime is occurring while simultaneously calling 911. The goal of the app is to capture evidence and deter criminals.

No Pensions for Pedophiles: Catherine Lucey and Michael Hinkelman of the Philadelphia Daily News report Pennsylvania state Reps. Brendan Boyle (D) and Kevin Boyle (D) are working on a bill that would disqualify state and municipal workers from getting a public pension if they have been convicted of a sex crime against a minor. Under the state's current pension law, forfeiture rules could cover crimes committed while on duty, but sex crimes committed on employee's own time don't disqualify them. No official action can be taken until September when the state House is back in session.

First Death Row Hearing Under Racial Justice Act: Paul Woolverton and Gregory Phillips of The Fayetteville Observer (NC) report Marcus Reymond Robinson will be the first North Carolina death row inmate to argue to a judge that his sentence should be converted to life without parole under the Racial Justice Act. Robinson was convicted for the 1991 robbery and murder of a 17-year-old boy. Robinson was set to be executed in January 2007, but all executions in the state were postponed indefinitely while the courts sorted out other controversies regarding North Carolina's execution procedures. The Racial Justice Act of 2009 says that death row inmates can seek to have their sentenced converted to life without parole if they have evidence that their sentence was racially motivated. 151 of the 158 inmates on North Carolina's death row are pursuing claims under the Racial Justice Act. Robinson's hearing is scheduled for September 6.

Florida Attorney Asks Supreme Court Justice to Lift Stay of Execution: Bill Kaczor of the AP reports the Florida Supreme Court on Monday ordered a month-long stay of execution for Manuel Valle to allow a trial judge to conduct a fact-finding hearing on whether Valle would feel pain from a new drug Florida plans to use for lethal injection.  Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a request to ask U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lift the stay. Valle was sentence to death for killing a Coral Gables police officer and was originally scheduled to be executed on August 2.

Lockerbie Bomber Makes an Appearance at a TV Rally: BBC News reports that Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi made a televised appearance at a rally of members of Megrahi's tribe broadcast live from Tripoli.  Megrahi was released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds because he suffered from prostate cancer and was thought to have only three months to live.  A presenter at the rally introduced Megrahi and announced that "half of the world conspired against" Megrahi.