Results matching “thomas”

Speculation Heats Up About SCOTUS Appointment:  David Savage at the Los Angeles Times reports this morning on the emergence of 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch as the presumed front runner for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Gorsuch, 49 and a Colorado native, was appointed to the 10th Circuit in 2006 by President George W. Bush and won easy confirmation in the then Democrat-controlled Senate.  After earning degrees from Columbia, Harvard Law and Oxford, Gorsuch clerked for Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, before serving in President Bush's Justice Department.  According to the Times, an appointment to replace Justice Scalia could be announced as early as next week.

Released Drug Dealer Murdered:   A drug dealer whose sentence was commuted last November by President Obama was executed at a federal halfway house in Detroit on Monday.  CBS Detroit reports that Damarlon Thomas, a former Saginaw gang member, had served 9 years of a 19 year sentence when he became one of 79 federal drug offenders whose sentences were commuted by the President on November 22, in order to remedy what he called onerous sentencing of non-violent drug offenders. On Monday night, two masked men with automatic weapons entered the Bannum Place halfway house and held roughly two dozen men at gunpoint while Thomas was shot several times.    

DNA Links Ex-Con to CA Murder:  A suspect has been arrested for the December murder of David Wick, a popular resident of the small Northern California town of Burney.  Nathan Solis & John J. Longoria of the Record Searchlight report that habitual criminal Manual Venegas has been arrested for the murder.  On December 22,  surveillance video recorded a man on a bicycle riding to the Rocky Ledge Shell, where Wicks was working, at the time of the murder.  Video shows the suspect entering the store and spraying a flammable liquid on Wicks and setting him on fire, then spraying more liquid on the victim as he was burning.  DNA testing of partially burned clothing found nearby, worn by the suspect, linked Venegas to the murder.  Venegas' criminal record spans over 20 years with several convictions for crimes considered "low risk" under California law.   

Chicago Murder Numbers Higher Than We Thought: The record-setting violence in Chicago last year is even worse than previously believed as new data show that an additional fifty homicides took place in the city. Sean Kennedy at AMI News reports that per the records of the Cook County Medical Examiners office, the city of Chicago reported 812 homicides for the year of 2016. The majority of these homicides in gun-controlled Chicago are gun-related with some 725 of the victims receiving at least one gunshot wound. We see a discrepancy in the numbers due to the fact that the medical examiners office only reports on homicides which is the loss of life of an individual at the hands of another.  This can include killings self defense and police killings of criminal suspects. The city's police agencies count murder as an event where human life is lost in a way that is subject to criminal prosecution.

Roofs Death Penalty Marks Upward Trend: The pending capital case on Dylan Roof for his murder of 9 people in a Charleston church is marking what some are calling a "national departure from the downward trend in capital punishment cases." According to Rick Jervis at USA Today, the overall number of capital cases across the nation has been declining over the past few decades, often attributed to the fortification of capital defense counsel and the growing budgetary concerns that are inherent to capital cases.  In Roof's case, he defended himself, admitted guilt, and alluded to the intention of killing again.  He should be formally sentenced on Wednesday.

Police say BLM Complicates the Job: Police officers throughout the nation believe that the hysteria and controversy surrounding high-profile shootings, such as the Mike Brown and Eric Gardner cases, has made their ability to enforce the law much more difficult.  According to Thomas Tracy at the New York Daily News, nine out of ten police officers say that they are more concerned for their own safety in the current era of the Black Lives Matter movement.  Fully 72% of these officers have reported that they are less wiling to stop a suspicious looking individual for questioning due to the current scrutiny and escalating danger currently associated with policing. The statistics cited in the story were taken from a survey of eight-thousand police officers across the country.

Ft. Lauderdale Shooter a Radical Islamist?:  According to new information, the man who committed a mass shooting in the Fort Lauderdale Airport has been a follower of radical Islam. Judicial Watch reports that the shooter was a Muslim convert who, years before joining the U.S. military, took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda, and recorded Islamic religious music online. Judicial Watch notes that this information is largely unreported in traditional news outlets, although it is mentioned in one ABC story.  That story reports that while the FBI is claiming no evidence of any ties to terrorism, "according to John Cohen, an ABC News consultant and former acting undersecretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, in these instances, 'investigators aren't asking the right questions.' "

As noted in today's News Scan, last night Alabama executed murderer Ronald Smith.  The execution involved last-minute petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is routine, but there was an unusual four-four split on the presently eight-justice court.

At the root of the case is the decision last term in Hurst v. Florida.  Under the post-1976 capital sentencing system mandated by Supreme Court precedents, courts must find the defendant guilty of murder plus at least one factor from a list of aggravating factors defined by state law before the death penalty can be considered.  In Ring v. Arizona (2002), the Supreme Court overruled its own precedent and said the jury, not the judge, must make that latter finding.  In Hurst v. Florida (2016), the court applied Ring to strike down the Florida sentencing system that it had repeatedly approved multiple times against the very same attack.

Does Hurst extend further, to require the jury and not the judge to make the additional findings that state law requires before a "death-eligible" defendant is actually sentenced to death?  In my opinion (and that of the Alabama courts), the answer is clearly no.  However, the Delaware and Florida Supreme Court think it does.

The U.S. Supreme Court needs to take this issue up and resolve the split, and an Alabama case would be the cleanest vehicle to do so.  The high court has sent several Alabama cases back to the state courts, and it presently has several on its docket pending decision on whether to take them up.  The Smith case last night, however, was not a clean case.

The Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention is underway in Washington.  The theme is "The Jurisprudence and Legacy of Justice Scalia."  Regrettably, I am not able to attend this year.  Duty calls.

Live streams of some of the panels and links to video of concluded panels are available at the FedSoc Blog.  The criminal law panel is at 3:30 EST today.  Not sure if it will be live streamed.  Justice Thomas is the dinner speaker at 7:00 EST.  Update:  They are live streaming the Separation of Powers panel instead.

Of course, there is much more to the convention than the presentations, interesting as they are.  Conversations in the hallways and at the events with people I only see "face-to-face" once a year are just as valuable.  I am sure that the question of who will be the next Attorney General is a hot topic, and the question of who will be nominated as the successor to Justice Scalia is even hotter.

GA Man Gets Execution Date:  A Georgia man on death row for killing his ex-girlfriend over 15 years ago is scheduled to be executed next month, the state Corrections Commissioner announced last Thursday.  Kate Brumback of the AP reports that Steven Frederick Spears, 54, will be put to death by lethal injection on Nov. 16 for the August 2001 murder of Sherri Holland, whom he killed after suspecting her of dating someone else.  Spears hid in a closet in Holland's home and waiting for her to fall asleep, and then choked her, wrapped tape around her mouth and face, and put a plastic bag over her head.  Spears will be the eighth inmate executed in the state this year.

Jury Finds NE Man Eligible for Death Penalty:  A jury last week found a Nebraska man guilty of murder and determined that there are enough aggravating circumstances to make him eligible for the death penalty.  KETV reports that Anthony Garcia was convicted Wednesday of four counts of first-degree murder in the 2008 killings of Thomas Hunter, 11, his family's housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, and the 2013 slayings of Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife, Mary.  The murders were for revenge after Dr. William Hunter, Thomas' father, and Brumback fired Garcia in 2001.  The aggravating factors found on Friday by the jury were that the murders were especially heinous, more than one person was killed and the murders were committed to conceal the identity of the killer.  Garcia now faces a three-judge panel, which must agree with the jury on aggravated circumstances in order to impose a death sentence.  A death sentence, however, will only stand if Nebraska voters vote to bring back the death penalty in the November election.

Deadliest Weekend in Chicago this Year:  Chicago saw its deadliest weekend so far this year, with 17 killed and 42 wounded in shootings and homicides across the city.  The Chicago Tribune reports that among the 17 victims that were killed between Friday afternoon and Monday, seven were younger than 20 and included a 14-year-old honors student and twin 17-year-old boys.  The weekend toll surpassed that of Father's Day weekend, which had been the most violent up until now with 59 people shot and 13 killed, and also exceeded the numbers of the three long summer holiday weekends -- Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day -- which are typified by spikes in violence due to warmer weather.  So far this year in the city, 638 people have been killed, 217 more than this time last year, and at least 3,662 have been injured in shootings, 1,106 more than during the same period last year.  Update:  Shibani Mahtani has this story in the WSJ.

OK Fugitive Killed in Shootout:  A weeklong manhunt for an Oklahoma man wanted for murdering two relatives, shooting three law enforcement officers and multiple carjackings has ended in a police chase and shootout that left him dead.  The AP reports that Michael Dale Vance Jr., 38, began his crime spree on Oct. 23 when he shot and injured a woman for her car, which he drove to his relatives' home, where he killed them.  Vance also shot and wounded two responding police officers and fled, committing more carjackings in an effort to evade capture.  Police were finally tipped off on Vance's location on Monday.  In the process of trying to apprehend Vance, he shot a sheriff in the shoulder and arm, and then led police on a 30-minute chase before being fatally shot in an exchange of gunfire with a state trooper.  The sheriff's wounds were non-life threatening.  Authorities say that the deaths of Vance's relatives were "rage killings" connected to a pending sexual assault case filed against him by a 15-year-old girl.  He was scheduled to appear in court on the charge in one week.

Phil McCausland reports for NBC:

A group of Democratic senators on Saturday sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking for more details about the new development in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.

The letter signed by Sens. Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Thomas Carper and Ben Cardin called a letter sent to Congress about newly discovered emails that could be pertinent to the investigation "vaguely worded" and open for misinterpretation with just a little more than a week before the election.

Are you sure you want that, Honorable Senators?  A demand to replace vagueness with clarity this close to the election is like doubling down in blackjack.  If that card is turned over, do you really think it is more likely to give you a 21 than a 13?  I don't.

Why did Director Comey make this announcement?  Would he have made it if the emails in question are really no big deal?  That seems inconceivable to me.  Just look at the list of people who are now seriously ticked off at him:

Newspaper editorials contain both opinions and factual assertions supporting those opinions.  Editorial writers, like everyone else, are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts, as the saying goes.  Professionalism requires that the facts in an editorial be checked as carefully as those in a news story.

Last week the Los Angeles Times failed this standard and published an editorial that blatantly misrepresented the opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538 (1998).  In so doing, the Times defamed the Court and, even worse, misled its readers on a vitally important public issue they will be voting on shortly.

Did anyone at the Times actually read the opinion before publishing this editorial, or did they just regurgitate the propaganda fed to them by the anti-death-penalty lobby?  It is difficult to believe they read it.

Video of an hour-long conversation with Justice Clarence Thomas is available here.   The event is the annual Joseph Story lecture, presented in an unusual conversational form.  Former Attorney General Edwin Meese gives the introduction, and John Malcolm of Heritage conducts the interview.

From 1987 to 1991, U.S. Supreme Court precedents created an atrocious and unjust imbalance in the penalty phase of capital cases.  Under the dubious rule of Lockett v. Ohio (1978), the defendant had (and has to this day) the unlimited right to bring in "any aspect of a defendant's character or record ...  that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death."  So the defendant can bring in his family to offer real or fabricated stories of his childhood with little or nothing to do with the crime.  His mother can testify as what a very good boy he is (when he is not raping, torturing, and murdering children).  The Constitution requires this, the Supreme Court solemnly informed us, even though it never did prior to the 1970s and has not been amended in this respect.

Under the rule of Booth v. Maryland (1987), on the other hand, the victim's family was prohibited from testifying about the victim or about the impact of the murder on them.  The result was that they had to sit in silence as the defendant's family humanized him, while the victim remained nothing more than abstraction.

The high court saw the error of this injustice four years later and partially overruled Booth in Payne v. Tennessee (1991).  We at CJLF are proud to have played a rule in that badly needed correction.  However, Booth was not completely overruled.  Victim impact evidence is now admissible, but the opinions of the victim's family as to the appropriate sentence are not.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals apparently needed to be reminded of that latter proviso, and the U.S. Supreme Court did so this morning, without dissent, in Bosse v. Oklahoma, No. 15-9173.  Justices Thomas and Alito concurred:

OH Plans January Execution Using 3-Drug Combo:  Representatives for Ohio announced Monday of the state's plans to resume executions in January with a new three-drug combination, following a three-year moratorium brought on by drug shortages and legal challenges.  Andrew Welsh-Huggins of the AP reports that the drugs intended for use by the state are midazolam, which renders sleep, recuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.  The drugs have been approved by the FDA and are not compounded, says Thomas Madden of the Ohio attorney general's office.  The last time Ohio carried out a death sentence was January 2014, when Dennis McGuire was put to death in a procedure that took 26 minutes using a two-drug combo that had never been tried.  It was McGuire's execution which led to several complicating legal problems and changes to the state's death penalty system.  There are over two dozen inmates on Ohio's death row with firm execution dates, some of which are scheduled as far out as October 2019.  The next inmate in line to be executed is Ronald Phillips, who raped and murdered his girlfriend's three-year-old daughter in 1993. 

Video Shows Mob Attacking CHP Patrol Car with Officer Inside:  A newly released video taken on Sept. 25 in Fresno, Calif., shows a police officer who responded to several calls about illegal street racing and reckless driving become surrounded by a mob of people yelling at him and kicking his vehicle while he sat inside.  Kristine Guerra of the WaPo reports that the crowd of 30 to 40 people shouted, "F the police, we run the streets," as they violently kicked the sides of the officer's SUV and recorded the incident on their phones.  The officer, whose name has not been released, drove away unharmed, while his patrol car sustained $12,000 worth of damage.  Police have arrested three men in connection with the incident, two of whom are members of the Bulldog gang, and more suspects are being sought.  Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said during a Friday news conference that he believes this incident is a symptom of the current environment of riots and targeted attacks on police officers across the nation.

NY Community Reeling from Violent Impact of Immigration Policies:  A violence-plagued Long Island, N.Y., community is pointing a critical finger at federal and local immigration policies that have allowed illegal immigrants to flood Suffolk County and gangs to thrive.  Joseph J. Kolb of Fox News reports that over the past four years, 225,725 unaccompanied Central American children entered the U.S., 3,500 of them placed in Suffolk County between October 2013 and July 2016.  A federal policy allowing Central American children apprehended at the border to be placed with illegal immigrant sponsors has enticed thousands of unaccompanied minors to journey to the U.S., where they are often placed in homes with little supervision and government monitoring.  The HHS website indicates that in FY 2015, only 1,895 home visits were conducted out of 33,726 referrals made by DHS.  This means that young migrants are even easier to target for gang recruitment by the MS-13, a notorious El Salvadorian gang that is thriving under Suffolk County's sanctuary city policies.  Last month, two 15-year-old girls were brutally murdered and the skeletal remains of two teenage boys were discovered, all allegedly connected to MS-13. 

CA Murderer Avoids Death Penalty with Plea:  A California man who participated in the slaying of a teenage couple over eight years ago was sentenced Tuesday to 50 years to life, skirting a possible death sentence.  The AP reports that 28-year-old David Brian Smith's sentencing comes two weeks after he pleaded guilty to murder, and he is eligible for parole.  In January 2008, Smith and two other men, Cameron Thomason and Collin McLaughlin, ordered Christopher Thompson, 18, and Bodhisattva Sherzer-Potter, 16, out of their vehicle, which the couple had been sleeping in following a party at an abandoned Air Force bunker in the Mojave Desert.  The three men, who had targeted the couple for robbery, took the teens to the bunker, forced them to kneel and shot them in the backs of the heads with a shotgun and rifle when it was discovered they had no money.  Thomason, who served as the lookout during the murders, received a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and attempted robbery in 2011.  McGlaughlin pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping and robbery in 2013 and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

TN Man Will Face a Death Sentence:  A Tennessee man accused of fatally shooting a woman and her young son last year will face the death penalty if convicted.  The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that a notice to pursue a death sentence against accused killer Ross Anderson was filed Wednesday morning by Steve Crump, attorney general in the 10th Judicial District.  Anderson, a former firefighter, is charged with killing Rachel Johnson, 30, and her son Colton, 5, in their home last December.

CA Man Faces Possible Death Sentence:  A California man who has already served decades in prison for murder is facing a possible death sentence for another murder he committed 37 years ago.  Debbie L. Sklar of My News LA reports that Darrel Mark Gurule, 57, was found guilty last Wednesday for the rape and murder of Barbara Ballman, 23, who was shot in the abdomen and found naked inside her car in September 1979.  Gurule wasn't charged with Ballman's death until 2010 when his DNA was connected to evidence found on her body.  He has been serving a life sentence since 1987 for kidnapping and murdering a man in what detectives believe was a drug deal gone wrong.  Prosecutors also say he is responsible for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman in 1977, the assault of two brothers in 1979 and the robbery of a man in 1982.  Jurors began on Monday hearing evidence that will factor in to whether they will sentence Gurule to life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

AL Death Row Inmate Files Appeal:  An Alabama inmate just a few months away from his scheduled execution filed an appeal over the weekend asking an appellate court to review his claim that the state's lethal injection procedure is inhumane.  Kim Chandler of the AP reports that Thomas Arthur, 74, who was scheduled to be executed on Nov. 3 for the 1982 murder-for-hire of a businessman, filed the appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that his legal challenge was prematurely dismissed in July by a federal judge who misapplied a requirement for inmates to name an alternate execution method.  Arthur is arguing against the use of the sedative midazolam hydrochloride in his execution, citing the drug's unreliability and his health issues.  It as been over two years since Alabama regularly carried out executions.  The last person put to death in the state was Christopher Eugene Brooks in January for raping and fatally beating a woman in 1993.

CA Parolee Arrested for Murder:  A California parolee was arrested and booked on suspicion of murder early Sunday morning for killing a man over the weekend.  Lyndsay Winkley of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Richard Gunner, 23, is accused of killing Brandon Deguzman, 21, in front of the victim's El Cajon home on Saturday morning.  Deguzman was discovered with at least one fatal gunshot wound on the sidewalk.  Gunner was arrested the next day, initially on a parole violation and then later for murder, once police obtained sufficient evidence.  Gunner's father says his son has spent time in prison for carjacking and has a serious drug problem.

Akhil Reed Amar of Yale Law is a rarity -- a prominent legal academic who has his head screwed on straight when it comes to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.  He has this post at SCOTUSblog titled The Court after Scalia: The despicable and dispensable exclusionary rule.  No doubt about where he stands.

I agree with what Professor Amar says about the exclusionary rule, but not so much what he says about the Justices.  He begins by noting the difference between cases where the Court was focused on the substantive Fourth Amendment question and cases where it focused on the exclusionary remedy:

In countless cases over the last forty years, the Court has held that the Fourth Amendment was violated by the facts at hand, and has thus ordered or upheld evidentiary exclusion....   But whenever the modern Court has squarely focused on the exclusionary rule itself - giving express thought to whether the rule's contours should be widened or narrowed - the Justices have almost always ruled against the rule, and have done so in case after case dripping with implied or express contempt for it.

This contempt is well founded:

The exclusionary rule has no sound footing in any originalist legal source material. None. Nothing in the text as originally understood supports it; no framer ever endorsed it; no judge in America for the first century after independence ever followed the exclusionary rule or any genuine prototype of it. On one of the very few occasions when a lawyer tried to argue for exclusion before 1876, the lawyer was laughed out of court by America's preeminent jurists, led by Joseph Story.

A bit of rhetorical exaggeration there.  Laughing wasn't Justice Story's style.  But he did make very clear that the exclusionary argument had no basis in the law at that time.  My brief in Utah v. Strieff has more on this.

Mapp v. Ohio, the case that imposed the exclusionary rule on the states, was wrongly decided as an original matter.  A long string of decisions has chipped away at it, limiting the damage it does to some extent, but the case has not been overruled.  Why not, and what of the future?

Death Penalty Sought in PA Cookout Ambush:  Prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced Friday that they plan to seek the death penalty against two men charged in an ambush at a cookout five months ago that killed five adults, one of whom was pregnant.  The AP reports that Cheron Shelton, 29, and Robert Thomas, 27, will face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder for the March 9 shooting in suburban Pittsburgh that left five adults and an unborn child dead, and three others wounded.  Thomas allegedly fired 18 shots from a pistol into a group of 15 partygoers, who then ran toward the rear porch of the house.  Shelton was hiding behind a fence nearby and fired 30 shots from an AK-47-style rifle.  Prosecutors say the men's motive stems from the murder of Shelton's best friend in 2013, who is believed to have be killed by one of the wounded partygoers.  Shelton and Thomas both face six counts each of criminal homicide, as well as charges of criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

Illegal Immigrant Bus Driver Kills 2 in Crash:  A bus operated by an unlicensed illegal immigrant driver carrying flood recovery volunteers crashed into several vehicles, including a fire truck, on a Louisiana interstate Sunday morning, killing two people and injuring 36.  Fox News reports that the driver of the bus, Denis Yasmir Amaya Rodriguez, 37, of Honduras, hit the fire truck and then a car, veering behind the fire truck and into a pickup truck.  Three firefighters, who were there responding to an earlier crash, were knocked into the water below the interstate.  The two fatalities include Jermaine Star, 21, who was in the backseat of the car that was struck, and St. John the Baptist Parish district Fire Chief Spencer Chauvin.  Two other firefighters, 24 bus passengers and nine people in other vehicles were injured.  Rodriguez sustained minor injuries.  He faces two counts of negligent homicide, reckless operation and driving without a driver's license.  Police say there will be additional charges.

Man Faces 2 Capital Murder Charges in MS Nun Deaths:  A man suspected of murdering two Mississippi nuns last week has been arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder.  Emily Wagster Pettus of the AP reports that Rodney Earl Sanders, 46, is charged in the deaths of Sister Margaret Held and Sister Paula Merrill, both 68, whose bodies were discovered inside a residence Thursday after they failed to show up for work at a health clinic.  The home showed signs of a break-in and their stolen car was discovered a mile away.  Police haven't disclosed a motive for the slayings or the women's cause of death.  Sisters Held and Merrill were both nurse practitioners who worked at a clinic administering flu shots, dispensing insulin and providing other medical care for children and adults who couldn't afford it. 

Former KKK Member Convicted of Murder Up for Parole:  One of the three men responsible for killing four black girls in a church bomb blast during the civil rights movement in Alabama is up for parole this week.  Jay Reeves of the AP reports that as a young Ku Klux Klansman in 1963, Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., now 78, planted a dynamite bomb that exploded outside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing an 11-year-old and three 14-year-old black girls.  He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in 2001 after the FBI reopened its investigation and obtained recorded evidence by planting FBI bugs in Blanton's home and in the car of a former Klansman turned informant.  Two other men were convicted in the bombing, Robert Chambliss in 1977 and Bobby Frank Cherry in 2002, who both died in prison.  The three-person parole board has scheduled Blanton's hearing on Wednesday.  Blanton will not be permitted to attend, but several opponents of his release are expected to be there to address the board.  The former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Blanton on the state charge, Doug Jones, says Blanton neither accepted responsibility for the crime nor showed any remorse and should not be released.  Update:  The parole board denied the release of Blanton on Wednesday.

IL Officer Shot, Seriously Wounded:  A Carbondale, Ill., police officer was shot and seriously injured late Sunday during a police chase.  Kim Bell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Carbondale officers drove toward the sound of gunfire at 11:38 p.m. and, after spotting a vehicle speeding off, a chase ensued.  The fleeing vehicle refused to pull over and someone in the vehicle then fired several shots at the officers, hitting one police car and striking the officer.  Police did not return fire.  The officer, whose name has not yet been released, remained in serious condition Monday morning.  The gunman is still at large.

Black Lives Matter Release List of Demands:  For the first time since its emergence, the Black Lives Matter organization released its policy agenda Monday, outlining six demands and 40 recommendations on how to address them.  Errin Haines Whack of the AP reports that in seeking "radical transformation," BLM organizers stipulated that there be an end to militarized police presence at protests; that drug, sex work-related and youth offenses be retroactively decriminalized and all people convicted of those offenses be released immediately; and that federal legislation be passed creating a commission to study reparations for descendants of slaves.  The BLM movements spawned in 2012, but exploded in 2014 following the shooting death of Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who was later found to have rightly defended himself against an aggressive Brown.  Since then, BLM has been heavily criticized by groups who say the organization is "unfairly critical of -- an even endangers -- law enforcement."

Habeas corpus is the correct procedure for persons who claim they are wrongly imprisoned.  For any other civil rights claim in federal court by a state prisoner, the correct procedure is a suit under the civil rights law, 42 U.S.C. §1983.  The line between the two is not always clear.

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting sort of en banc, decided Nettles v. Grounds, No. 12-16935:

Damous Nettles, a prisoner serving a life sentence in California prison, appeals the district court's dismissal of his habeas petition for lack of jurisdiction. The petition challenged a disciplinary violation on constitutional grounds and claimed that the failure to expunge this violation from his record could affect his eligibility for parole. We conclude that because Nettles's claim does not fall within the "core of habeas corpus," Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 487(1973), it must be brought, if at all, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

Judge Ikuta wrote the opinion, joined in full by Judges Rawlinson, Clifton, Callahan, and Randy Smith.  Judge Hurwitz concurred in part.  Judge Berzon dissented, joined by Chief Judge Thomas and Judges Fletcher, Murguia, and Nguyen.

It should not be news that a federal court of appeals sitting "en banc" has corrected an erroneous decision by a three-judge panel.  That's what the en banc process is supposed to do.  However, in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit it has long been rare that a rogue panel decision wrongly overturning a death sentence was even reviewed en banc, much less corrected.  At times, petitioning for such a rehearing has been considered such an exercise in futility that some AG offices would not even bother but would instead go straight the Supreme Court.  (The Supremes don't like that.)

Today we have the Arizona case of Eric Mann.  Mann baited two men to his house to sell them cocaine for $20,000, took the money, and then shot them both.

From the "interesting things stumbled upon while looking for something else" file is this article by Melvin Konner in the June 30 WSJ.

One of the most persistent and foolish myths is that people are naturally wonderful, and it is only society that screws them up.  A lot of wrongheaded notions on a variety of topics from parenting to crime control stem from this fallacious but widespread belief. 

The notion goes back at least as far as French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his rhapsodizing about noble savages.  An earlier English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, got it right when he said that life before civilization was "nasty, brutish, and short."  One common reason for it being short was other humans.  Konner's article describes the archaeological evidence.

People have to be taught and conditioned to respect the rights of others.  It doesn't come naturally.  Failure to properly civilize the young is the true primary "root cause" of crime, and the varying degrees of that failure in different subcultures is the primary reason for "disparities" in offending rates and incarceration rates.

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court decided three consolidated cases involving the implied consent laws that all 50 states utilize in their efforts to combat the serious problem of drunk driving.  The implied consent laws imply a lawfully arrested motorist's consent to chemical testing as a matter of law and the state uses the test results as probative evidence of intoxication in a subsequent DUI prosecution.  Some motorists, usually repeat offenders, refuse requests for testing because they know that the Blood Alcohol Concentration ("BAC") results would impose harsher penalties than that of simply refusing a test.  The standard legal consequence in most states for test refusal is the suspension or revocation of a motorist's driver's license.  A refusal can also be admitted as evidence of intoxication in a DUI prosecution.  Based on recidivist drunk driver statistics, it does not matter if they have a driver's license or not.  The suspension or revocation of a driver's license does nothing to stop a person from drinking and driving if that person chooses to get into a car and drive while intoxicated.

Thirteen states gave some teeth to their implied consent laws and made it a crime to refuse testing.

The United States Supreme Court issued three decisions today, none with major implications.

In Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, No. 15-108, the Court decided that the "dual sovereignty" exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply to Puerto Rico.  That is, a person who has already been prosecuted for a crime by the United States (in this case, ending in a guilty plea) cannot be prosecuted by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for the same crime.  The Commonwealth, unlike like a State, is a creature of the federal government, not a separate sovereign.  As decided, the case is more about Puerto Rico's status than it is about the Double Jeopardy Clause.  Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justice Thomas, concurs but would undertake a broader reexamination of dual sovereignty, another blow to the simplistic, one-dimensional model of categorizing Justices.

Williams v. Pennsylvania, No. 15-5040, involves Ronald Castille, the District Attorney of Philadelphia who became the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania.  As DA, he signed off on his office seeking the death penalty against murderer Terrance Williams.  The Court holds that his failure to recuse himself from the case as Chief Justice when it reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated the Due Process Clause.  Opinion by Justice Kennedy.  Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito dissent.

Court watchers will remember that in the first few years after Justice Kagan moved to the Court from the Solicitor General's office she recused in every federal case where her office had been involved, a large number of cases.

In Dietz v. Bouldin, No. 15-458, the court holds that a "federal district court has a limited inherent power to rescind a jury discharge order and recall a jury in a civil case for further deliberations after identifying an error in the jury's verdict."  Probably limited impact on criminal cases, but I thought it was worth noting here.