Results matching “thomas”

Timmendequas's Law is set for a vote tomorrow in the New Jersey Assembly, to change New Jersey's abolition of the death penalty from de facto to de jure. Tom Hester has this report for AP. Google News has comments by Robert Blecker and Richard Dieter.

GPS Tracking provided a quick partial solution to drive-by murder of Nelly Vergara in Los Angeles Monday, Thomas Watkins reports for AP. Police cross-checked the time and place of the murder with the tracking devices worn by some parolees and arrested MS-13 gang member John Garcia. "We are not dealing with the brightest bulbs in the circuit," said Chief Bratton. "This character has to be one of the stupidest people in the city of Los Angeles." Although GPS shows Garcia's presence at the scene, witnesses are still needed.

"She wanted to save money and buy her first home and because of these people that shot at her, her dreams are not a reality any longer," Vergara's mother Mireya Robles said in Spanish through heavy tears as she asked for witnesses to come forward. "I can't even begin to tell you my pain."

The Kimbrough and Gall cases are the subjects of copious commentary, but this one by Frank Bowman at SCOTUSblog is particularly good.

Curtis Dean Anderson, a notorious sexual predator, died in prison of unspecified medical problems, Marisa Lagos reports in the SF Chron. Anderson kidnapped and raped two young girls in Vallejo, northeast of San Francisco, and murdered one of them, Xiana Fairchild.

Here is some coverage of the Federalist Society convention: Fred Lucas of CNS News on Justice Thomas's talk Thursday; Robert Barnes of the Washington Post, on the Thursday night dinner with remarks by President Bush and by Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito; and Blog of the Legal Times on today's Barbara Olson Memorial Lecture by Chief Justice Roberts.

None of the press coverage I have seen picked up on what I thought was the most interesting remark in Justice Thomas's talk. An audience question began with the premise of his "commitment to natural law." He rejected the premise. He said natural law was an important concept in the philosophy that went into the Constitution, so one needs to understand it to understand the document, but he has never made natural law itself a basis for judging. That was very good to hear. When "natural law" is used as a basis for judicial review of statutes, it carries the danger of greasing the already slippery slope to judicial activism.

Also on today's program was a debate between Judge Reinhardt and Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit on property rights. In the middle of a property rights debate, Judge Reinhardt managed to get in a swipe at the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996's limitations on habeas corpus. Really.

The U.S. Supreme Court released its orders list from Friday's conference this morning. No criminal cases were granted. One of the Confrontation Clause cases we were following, Cage v. California, was denied. Prior post on Cage is here.

Daily Writ tallies humor in oral argument here. They count the number of times "(Laughter)" appears in the transcript following a justice's question or statement. In order: Scalia, Roberts, Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Kennedy, and Alito. Goose eggs for Thomas and Ginsburg.

UPDATE: Senators Schumer and Feinstein declared their support for AG nominee Mukasey, making his confirmation "virtually assured," report Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro of Reuters.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sen. Charles Schumer, who had recommended AG nominee Michael Mukasey, finds himself in a tough spot as fellow Democrats turn against the nomination over waterboarding. The Washington Post has an article by Dan Eggen and Paul Kane today. Memo to Senators: Have you forgotten you are the legislative branch? Just pass a law. Instead of grilling Judge Mukasey about whether he thinks waterboarding is legal, specify in a statute whether it is or not.

In the constitutional system of checks and balances, the separation of powers is not total. The President exercises legislative power in the veto. The Senate exercises executive power in its advice and consent function. There are a few other examples. These checks on other branches' powers are important, but they should be used sparingly. The President should sign almost every bill Congress sends him, and historically he has. Similarly, the Senate should confirm the vast majority of nominees, and historically it has. Using the advice and consent function to grill nominees regarding their interpretation of what the statutes presently allow is a misuse of that function. Instead of asking whether the nominee thinks that general law X allows specific practice Y, Congress can and should pass a statute specifically governing Y. If the members concerned about Y can't pass the statute because they can't convince a majority of their colleagues of their position, then the nominee's views are not so far outside the mainstream as to justify not confirming him.

Death Penalty: Senior Ninth Circuit judge Arthur Alarcon, who supports capital punishment says the delays in executions, averaging over 17 years, are the result of the California legislature's unwillingness to fund the system, as reported by Henry Weinstein in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. The judge said that legislators "may be comfortable with a de facto abolition of capital punishment."

Fugitive Caught: A man sought by both state and federal police for the videotaped rape of a 3-year-old girl has been arrested in Henderson, Nevada according to this AP story by Ken Ritter. Habitual criminal Chester Stiles was identified and arrested by police after he was pulled over late Monday for not having a license plate.

Justice Thomas is the subject of this favorable Los Angeles Times editorial by James Kirchick, which addresses criticism of his views on affirmative action. He cites liberal Thomas bashers for being guilty of "blatant intellectual inconsistency" and hypocrisy.

Patriot Act: A federal district judge in Oregon has ruled two key provisions of the Patriot Act unconstitutional as reported in this Associated Press story by William McCall. The opinion by District Judge Ann Aiken held the search and wire-taping provisions of the Act "extra constitutional". Orin Kerr has an analysis at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Mistrial: The judge in the Phil Spector murder case has declared a mistrial according to an Associated Press story by Linda Deutsch. The judge issued the ruling after learning that the jury was deadlocked 10-2 in favor of conviction. A juror in the majority said that the holdouts wanted psychiatric evidence that the victim, Lana Clarkson was not suicidal. The District Attorney is expected to announce the intention retry Spector at a hearing on October 3.

DeLay Dismissal Affirmed: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected a request to reconsider a trial judge's ruling dismissing election-law conspiracy charges against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as reported in this story by AP writer Kelley Shannon.

Alabama Stay: Gov. Riley stayed the execution of Thomas Arthur for 45 days. Statement here. “The evidence is overwhelming that Thomas Arthur is guilty and he will be executed for his crime. The decision to grant a brief stay is being made only because the state is changing its lethal injection protocol, and this will allow sufficient time for the Department of Corrections to make that change,” Governor Riley said.

"Capital punishment is exclusively for people without capital," is one of the anti side's favorite lines. The well-heeled and the politically connected never receive death sentences, they will tell you. One minor problem: it's not true. Yesterday, the California Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Enrique Zambrano.

The prosecution’s evidence indicated that defendant, a member of the Berkeley Waterfront Commission, bludgeoned the Mishells, a University of California professor and his wife, because he believed they had made anonymous telephone calls exposing his extramarital affair. The evidence further indicated that defendant then fatally shot Reyna, a fellow waterfront commissioner, to prevent Reyna from testifying against him in the Mishell matter.

Defendant admitted attacking the Mishells, but claimed provocation. He asserted that Reyna’s death was an accident. Defendant admitted that, to cover up the homicide, he decapitated, dismembered, and scattered Reyna’s body, then fled to Mexico with his girlfriend.

Henry Lee has this story in the SF Chron. There are other examples, such as the Thomas Capano case in Delaware. They are not common simply because the well-heeled rarely commit capital murder, but they are frequent enough to disprove the exaggerated claims we often hear.

Justice Thomas's jurisprudence is the subject of this article by Brent Kendall in the LA Daily Journal, available through How Appealing.

Grayson Execution
From The Montgomery Advisor an AP story, reports that Darrell Grayson was executed Thursday evening by lethal injection for the murder of 86-year-old widow Annie Laura Orr and pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m.. The 46-year old Grayson had been adopted by activists as an example of the need for a state law mandating DNA testing for Death Row inmates. The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit that represents the condemned, had argued that DNA tests not available at the time of Grayson's trial might have proved him innocent. The victim’s granddaughter, who witnessed the execution, wiped away tears and in a statement said, “The Orr family has seen the final chapter of a 27-year struggle.” More on this in yesterday’s News Scan.

Home Invasion Suspects on Parole Hit Other Homes, Prosecutors seeking the Death Penalty
The AP reported Thursday that Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, both on parole for non-violent crimes, could face the death penalty if convicted of killing Dr. William Petit’s wife and two daughters, then setting the house on fire. The Houston Chronicle has story today about the two suspects possibly being involved in two other burglaries in the area the night before. Two other homeowners who spoke with police said the suspects had burglarized them while they were sleeping. “We were within 24 hours of being that family,” said one of the victims of the burglaries.

CA Supreme Court overturns Inmates Death Sentence
The California Supreme Court, in a rare ruling, withdrew an inmate from death row after concluding that a new penalty phase is needed because there is now “substantial doubt” that he was the actual killer. The LA Times reports that the prosecution alleged that James Edward Hardy was hired by Mark Reilly (also convicted in 1983) to murder Reilly's wife and 8-year old son to collect insurance money. Hardy's lawyers presented evidence that a third man was the actual killer. The Supreme Court agreed that the evidence proved Hardy wasn't the actual killer but still guilty of murder for his active participation in planning it. In an opinion written by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, she said that the new evidence "so undermines our confidence in the penalty verdict that a different, more favorable result was reasonably probable had this evidence been presented to the jury."

It's been clear for some time that Congress overreacted to the crack "epidemic" in the mid-1980s by providing the same sentence for 5 grams of crack cocaine as for 500 grams of powder. Stated another way, a major pusher with 499 grams of powder cocaine gets a lower sentence than a smaller fish with 5 grams of crack. Though it is generally agreed something needs to be done, there has been deadlock on exactly what to do.

Senators Sessions, Pryor, Cornyn, and Salazar have introduced S. 1383, available through Thomas. This bill reduces the powder threshold for the mandatory minimum from 5kg to 4kg and increases that for crack from 5g to 20g, leaving a 20/1 ratio. The bill also seeks to increase the sentencing spread between leaders and minor followers in drug enterprises, directing the Sentencing Commission to increase the former and decrease the latter.

Senator Biden has introduced S. 1711 (hat tip, SL&P). The text isn't on Thomas yet, but his introductory remarks are in the Congressional Record at S8614-S8615. One historical nugget in his remarks: The Reagan Administration proposed a 20/1 ratio. It was Sens. Biden, Byrd, and Dole who upped it to 100.

Can Scott Panetti be executed for the murder of his wife's parents, Joe and Amanda Alvarado? We don't know. What is the standard for determining mental competence for execution? We don't know. Can a condemned murderer omit any claim of incompetence in his first federal habeas petition and then claim incompetence in a new petition without meeting the stringent requirements set by Congress for "second or successive petitions"? Yes, but he probably has to ask the state court first, and Congress's limits on relitigation will apply if the state court doesn't blow it.

That's pretty much what today's decision in Panetti v. Quarterman says. Procedural issues are resolved largely as expected, but the substantive Eighth Amendment question is not resolved. Justice Thomas in dissent calls this decision "half-baked."

The bright side of today's opinion is that Justice Kennedy makes clear we are talking about psychotic disorders, not the broad sweep of "mental illness" as including every collection of behaviors that has a code in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). Here is the best part:

Someone who is condemned to death for an atrocious murder may be so callous as to be unrepentant; so self-centered and devoid of compassion as to lack all sense of guilt; so adept in transferring blame to others as to be considered, at least in the colloquial sense, to be out of touch with reality. Those states of mind, even if extreme compared to the criminal population at large, are not what petitioner contends lie at the threshold of a competence inquiry. The beginning of doubt about competence in a case like petitioner’s is not a misanthropic personality or an amoral character. It is a psychotic disorder.

Here are articles on the case by Pete Yost of AP and Charles Lane of the WashPost.

The new issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law is now available on-line and is freely available for the time being. There are two articles worth noting.

The first profiled here is a new paper examining the myth surrounding the notion of antipsychotic drugs as "mind controlling" agents. That paper has been published here.

The second paper by Thomas Grisso, Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Law-Psychiatry Program titled "Progress and Perils in the Juvenile Justice and Mental Health Movement" explores the ever-changing field that is the juvenile justice system.

Ex-deputy set to die Wednesday evening for Houston woman's slaying
Michael Griffith is scheduled to be executed for the murder of Deborah McCormick, while attemting to rob her 12 years ago, reports Allan Turner of The Houston Chronicle. The Texas AG's office issued an advisory in May chronicling the case which can be found here.

Delaware now faces criticism of it's Inmate Executions
Sean O'Sullivan of The News Journal reported on Sunday that attorneys representing inmates argue that "no one knows the exact procedure for executing inmates" and have filed a lawsuit.

Confession essential to case is thrown out
Sarah Lundy of The Orlando Sentinel reported that a murderer's confession will be thrown out because he was not informed of his rights.

Gay Inmate receives Conjugal Visits
Don Thompson of the AP reports that California is now allowing gay and lesbian inmates to receive overnight conjugal visits under the domestic partnership law. Randy Thomasson, President of the Campaign for Children and Families, objects to conjugal visits for both gay and straight inmates. They "are unsupervised...and the guards can't go in there" he said.

Uttecht v. Brown coverage from Charles Lane (welcome back) in the WashPost, David Savage in the LA Times, and Linda Greenhouse in the NYT.

The U.S. Supreme Court dropped the federal sentencing case of the deceased Mario Claiborne, as expected. The order reads:

The Court is advised that the petitioner died in St. Louis, Missouri, on May 30, 2007. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is therefore vacated as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950).

This order is unlike those issued in state cases, where the high court only vacates its own order granting certiorari and dismisses the petition. Compare Pasch v. Illinois, 510 U.S. 910 (1993). In this federal case, the lower court decision is vacated. The citation to Munsingwear emphasizes that the lower court decision is no longer precedent.

In other Supreme Court action, the Court noted once again the deference due the trial judge in juror challenge questions in Uttecht v. Brown. The decision was 5-4 along the usual lines. Mark Sherman reports for AP. Further comment is here.

The Court also summarily reversed the Tenth Circuit in a prisoner rights case, admonishing them not to be too strict in pleading requirements, especially for pro se prisoners. The decision in Erickson v. Pardus is here. Justice Thomas dissents on the merits, and Justice Scalia dissents from the decision to grant certiorari.

Dog Maul Case: The California Supreme Court decided unanimously yesterday to send back to the Superior Court the case of Marjorie Knoller’s second-degree murder conviction. In January 2001, Knoller and her husband Robert Noel’s two Presa Canario dogs mauled to death 33-year-old Diane Whipple in the hallway of their San Francisco apartment building. Knoller and Noel were originally charged with manslaughter and both paroled from prison in 2004. If the second-degree murder conviction is restored, Knoller would spend 15 years to life in prison as reported by Bob Egelko with the San Francisco Chronicle. The court held that, in granting Knoller's new trial motion, the Superior Court had set the bar for "implied malice murder" too high, but in reversing that order the Court of Appeal had set it too low. The remand directs the trial court to reconsider in light of the Supreme Court's clarification of the standard.

Put us to Death! Former head of the Sicilian Mafia, and current Italian prisoner, Carmelo Musumeci has written and had distributed a letter stating that life sentences violate the Constitution, therefore demanding the death penalty. Now, after 309 convicted murderers serving their life in prison sentences have signed this letter, it has been sent to President Napolitano for help, according to this (London) Times Online story. Italy’s death penalty was abolished after World War II. A new bill in discussion in a Senate Commission would do away with life sentences if approved. A senior judge is quoted as giving the bill little chance.

"Dr. Death" is Free: The Detroit News reports today that Jack Kevorkian has been released from prison this morning in Michigan as reporters and protesters gathered outside. 79-year-old Kevorkian spent almost 9 years in prison after being convicted in 1999 for the videotaped assisted death of Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrig’s Disease. After failed appeals, the state’s Parole Board last year granted Kevorkian early release from prison under the condition that he is prohibited to participate in assisting suicides.

Gang-related Killings Drop: Richard Winton and Jill Leovy of the Los Angeles Times report today that gang-related killings in the Los Angeles have dropped 32%, according to statistics released yesterday. Chief William Bratton gives credit to the officers for the decrease, while some officers also credit, “demographic changes, improved trauma care for assault victims and longer prison sentences, are also affecting crime statistics such as homicide.”

Three-strikes laws, for example, have thinned the ranks of some gangs in the LAPD's 77th Division, Det. John Radtke said. "If I sit down and go through the gang list, it's amazing how many names are in jail or dead."

The Supreme Court today "dismissed as improvidently granted" the case of Roper v. Weaver, No. 06-313. The slip opinion is here.

The case involved prosecutor arguments in the penalty phase of a capital case that the defendant claimed were improper. The Missouri Supreme Court disagreed, but the Eighth Circuit agreed. The question before the Supreme Court was whether the Eighth had properly applied the deference standard of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). CJLF's brief, by Prof. Barry Latzer of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is here.

The habeas petitioner, William Weaver, contended that AEDPA never should have applied to his case. He filed a federal petition pre-AEDPA, but the district court dismissed it as unexhausted because a certiorari petition was pending to the U.S. Supreme Court from the state collateral review. That exhaustion ruling was clearly wrong under law going back decades. Certiorari to SCOTUS is not part of exhaustion of state remedies. The Eighth Circuit declined to interfere, and Weaver did not seek Supreme Court review. He refiled the petition after denial of certiorari in the state collateral case and after enactment of AEDPA.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, two other defendants prosecuted by the same prosecutor making the same argument got relief in pre-AEDPA petitions. The difference in treatment of these cases is enough to convince five Justices to drop the case without resolving any questions of law. The Court did not decide whether AEDPA should have applied to the refiled petition. The Court did not decide whether the Eighth Circuit correctly applied AEDPA. The Court did not decide whether the arguments were actually improper. The only decision is that, in the quirky and unlikely to be repeated circumstances of this case, the Supreme Court will not interfere and Weaver gets a new sentencing hearing.

Chief Justice Roberts concurs in the drop-kick but not in the stated reasons. Justice Scalia dissents, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito:

A postscript is warranted in light of the unusual circumstances in which we dispose of this case. The greatest harm done by today'Â’s cancellation is not to the State of Missouri, which will have to retry this murder case almost two decades after the original trial——though that is harm enough. The greatest harm is that done to AEDPA, since dismissing the writ of certiorari leaves the Eighth Circuit'Â’s grossly erroneous precedent on the books. (That precedent, by the way, cannot be explained away——as perhaps the CourtÂ’'s own opinion can——as the product of law-distorting compassion for a defendant wronged by a District Court'Â’s erroneous action. As noted earlier, the Eighth Circuit was not informed of that erroneous action. It presumably really believes that this is the way AEDPA should be applied.) Other courts should be warned that this Court'Â’s failure to reverse the Eighth Circuit's decision is a rare manifestation of judicial clemency unrestrained by law. They would be well advised to do unto the Eighth CircuitÂ’'s decision just what it did unto AEDPA: ignore it.

Supreme Bias is the title of Ed Whelan's review of the Merida & Fletcher biography of Justice Thomas, at National Review Online.

MySpace has revealed that they will not release the names of sex offenders using the site claiming that to do so would violate state and federal laws. An AP article on todaysthv.com states that eight attorney generals from different states made the request since MySpace is one of the most popular social networking sites, especially for young people. The chief security officer assured AG's that they are exercising every effort to ensure that sex offenders are removed from the popular network site.

Death Penalty: A federal judge in Tennessee has rejected the request of a Tennessee cop killer who did not want an autopsy preformed after his execution. Philip Workman executed on May 9, for killing a Memphis police officer in 1981, argued that his religious beliefs prohibited the autopsy. An AP story
by Rose French reports that the judge decided that the state's need to determine if the execution was preformed properly outweighed the murderer's request.

DNA Testing: The Georgia Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in a challenge to that state's DNA testing law, reports Carlos Campos in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Unlike the usual claim that the law sweeps too broadly, counsel for convicted rapist Kenny Quarterman contends that the law is too narrow. Only convicted felons who actually go to the slammer get tested, and that supposedly denies them equal protection of the law. Of course, equal treatment is only required for persons similarly situated. Those felons sent to prison have been adjudicated to be worse than those granted probation.

Cal. Injection Coverage: Henry Weinstein in the LA Times, Bob Egelko in the SF Chron, and Denny Walsh in the Sacto Bee.

Doug Berman at SL&P discusses H.R. 563 by Congressman Duncan Hunter, also noted on the NYT's political blog. The bill provides, "It is hereby ordered that the conviction and sentences of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are vacated." These are the two Border Patrol agents convicted for shooting a drug smuggler.

If the bill were to pass and be signed by the President, which is unlikely, its constitutionality is doubtful under Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U.S. 211 (1995). Deciding cases is the judicial power, and issuing pardons is executive. The legislative power is to make the law by which cases are decided, not to decide them. As Justice Scalia notes in Plaut, the Constitution's relatively strict separation of powers was adopted in reaction to the unhealthy mixing that was common in the states in the Articles of Confederation period.^*

Constitutional questions aside, though, if Congressman Hunter and his 99 cosponsors believe that the verdict in this case is an injustice, and if they can actually pass a bill, why not do it the right way and clarify the substantive law? If the use of deadly force in these circumstances should not be a crime, then Congress can and should enact a statute saying so, applicable not only to these two officers but to all similarly situated.

The people of France elected the tough-on-crime candidate president yesterday. The Canberra Times reports, "As interior minister, he cracked down on drink driving, crime and illegal immigration. He promises tougher sentences for repeat offenders. He is intense, ambitious and blunt.... Visiting a crime-ridden housing project in 2005, he called young delinquents 'scum' and refused to apologise."

Stay Lifted: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit today lifted the stay of execution obtained in a rather blatant case of judge-shopping. Attorneys for Philip Workman got a stay from the Middle District of Tennessee, even though his case had previously been in the Western District. The opinion by Judge Sutton notes both the lack of probability of success and the extreme delay in bringing the case 9 years after Tennessee adopted lethal injection, 7 years after the normal review of the case was completed, and long after numerous other death row inmate had brought challenges to injection. The execution is scheduled for Wednesday.

Death Penalty A New Jersey Senate committee has become the most recent venue for a hearing to abolish the death penalty according to an AP story by Tom Hester. This is the logical next step following a legislative-appointed special commission's report in January that found the death penalty costs exceed that of life in prison and that it has no deterrent effect on murderers. Not enforcing the death penalty for 44 years might help explain its lack of deterrent effect in New Jersey. The report somehow also missed Kent Scheidegger's presentation which pointed out the the state's life tenured Supreme Court is the reason the death penalty is not enforced. NJ may well become the first state to abolish capital punishment since it's reinstatement 31 years ago.

Oklahoma will be the first in the nation to permit photo buttons of crime victims to be worn at trials if Gov. Brad Henry signs the bill. According to an AP article, Sen. Jim Reynolds introduced the bill and contends that the buttons will pass any legal muster. Although this issue is one that has previously reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006, it was not specifically addressed in Associate Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion when the death penalty for convicted murderer Matthew Musladin was reinstated.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the "Nicole Trazler" bill into law last month which requires that inmates serve longer prison sentences for felonies committed while incarcerated. According to an AP story, Trazler was shot to death on Mother's Day of 2006 by her high-school boyfriend Thomas Bliven. He was released from prison just months prior to this incident in August of 2005 for murdering another high-school girlfriend which he only served 14 years for. The mother of Bliven's second murder victim claims that if this law was already in place it could have prevented her daughter's death since Bliven had been written up for 57 major and minor violations while incarcerated.

It is no surprise that the murderers won in Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman and Brewer v. Quarterman. Given the Supreme Court's decisions in the past few years in Texas death penalty cases tried before the 1991 amendment to the Texas statute, it was to be expected that they would find a way to reverse. What is surprising and disappointing is the utter disingenuousness of Justice Stevens's opinion and, especially, the fact that Justice Kennedy would join it.