Chicago Gang Leaders Unhappy with Police:  The AP has this story about Chicago's recent "gang summit," during which police met with the city's gang leaders in an attempt to crack down on gang violence.  At the summit, the police superintendent explained that if gang violence continued, police efforts would be directed straight at the gang's leaders, who "are in the position to stop the killing."  Some activists criticized Chicago's strategy by questioning whether the gang leaders should be held accountable for the actions of their subordinates, and the gang leaders themselves complained during a news conference held after the summit that the police tactics were unfair.

CA Court Reverses Juvenile's Sentence:  A California appellate court today reversed the 84-year sentence of a juvenile offender, finding the term to be the equivalent of LWOP and therefore unconstitutional under the circumstances.  Victor Manuel Mendez, who has an extensive criminal record dating back to age 10, was tried and convicted as an adult for a series of gang-related robberies and carjackings he committed when 16.  He was sentenced to 84 years in prison, which he claimed was a violation of his Eighth Amendment rights in light of Graham v. Florida (no LWOP for juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses).  The court agreed, finding that his sentence did not afford him "some meaningful opportunity to obtain release" as required under Graham, and was also unconstitutional under the traditional "proportionality" test.  The case was sent back to the trial court for resentencing.  Read the San Francisco Chronicle's article here.

Ohio Governor Spares Death Row Inmate:  Ohio convicted murder Kevin Keith, who also appeared in yesterday's news scan, was spared the death penalty today after Governor Ted Strickland commuted his sentence to life in prison, reports the AP.  The decision overrides last month's unanimous decision by the parole board to deny Keith clemency.  Although Governor Strickland made clear he believes Keith is guilty of the four murders that landed him on death row, the governor cited "legitimate questions" about evidence used at trial as a basis for his decision.

The LA Times has this unsurprising editorial about the California Assembly's recent defeat of SB399, or in their words, the Assembly's refusal "to lead California out of the Dark Ages by banning sentences of life without the possibility of parole for juveniles."  (Read Kent's previous posts about the bill here, here, and here.)  Characterizing the bill as "extremely modest," the article implores Senator Yee to push again for such a law in the future in the hopes that "[a]t some point, the Assembly with find the courage to do the just thing."  The article implies that LWOP for juveniles serves neither of the two functions of incarceration - punishment and protection of the public - based on general studies of juvenile delinquency patterns.  Notably, the article omits the fact, noted in Sacramento District Attorney Jan Scully's press release, that LWOP is only available to juvenile offenders ages 16 to 18, convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances - not, as the article seems to suggest, to "children ... capable of reform" who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Tony Mauro has a two-part interview, here and here, with Frank Wagner, who is retiring as the U.S. Supreme Court's Reporter of Decisions.  Among the esoteric topics discussed are whether there should be space between and word and a long dash.

Executions to Resume in California?:  According to California prison officials, new lethal injection procedures went into effect on Sunday for executions in the state.  After scheduling of executions in California was put on hold in 2006, the state was required to undergo a time consuming regulatory adopting process - which it completed on Sunday.  A superior court judge, however, ordered an indefinite ban on executions "unless and until" she says otherwise.  Prison officials claim they plan on going forward with any planned executions - the first of which has been scheduled for September 29th - but will honor the judge's order if it remains in effect at that time.  Read the AP's story here.

Solidarity on Ohio's Death Row:  One Ohio death row inmate is seeking to keep a fellow death row inmate alive long enough to testify on his behalf, reports the AP.  Inmate #1, Danny Lee Hill, was sentenced to death for raping and killing a 12-year-old boy in 1985.  He has argued - unsuccessfully - for years that he is mentally disabled and thus cannot be constitutionally executed.  He is now asking a federal judge to delay the execution of inmate #2, Kevin Keith, who is scheduled for execution on September 15th for killing three people, including a 4-year-old girl, in 1994.  (Read CJLF's previous post about Keith here.)  Hill claims that as his fellow inmate, Keith can attest to Hill's mental disability by providing information about Hill's infrequent bathing and cell-cleaning habits.

"Victims Visitors' Day":  The Daily Citizen (GA) has this story about Georgia's countywide "Victims Visitors' Days," at which crime victims and their relatives have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with members of the state parole board.  Victims can receive information about the offender's current status, "have input" into the parole process, and meet with victim service providers.  One former member of the state's pardons and parole board said that the events often provide some relief to victims and help them on their paths to recovery.  Since 2006, 13 Victims Visitors' Days have been held in Georgia.

The California Supreme Court yesterday issued a pair of companion cases addressing state habeas claims by death row inmates.  Despite the state's argument to the contrary, the court reaffirmed its practice of accepting "shell petitions" in order to toll the statute of limitations for federal habeas petitions.  

In both cases, the inmates were sentenced to death and shortly thereafter requested habeas counsel, for which there is a statutory right in California.  In both cases, the court's appointment of counsel took a significant amount of time - in one case (In re Jimenez), it took the court eight and a half years for the court to appoint counsel, and in the other (In re Morgan) the court still had "not found qualified counsel willing to accept the appointment" after 13 years.  The court stated that these delays are common because "[q]uite few in number are the attorneys who meet this court's standards for representation and are willing to represent capital inmates in habeas corpus proceedings."  (The court's standards are listed in a footnote on page 6 of the In re Morgan opinion.)  Until the court finds suitable counsel, the court reaffirmed that the inmate may file a cursory "shell petition" to preserve his right to seek later relief in the federal courts.  The court also upheld its practice of, upon appointment of counsel, allowing the counsel to amend the habeas petition for up to 36 months.

Justice Corrigan wrote separately against the practice, noting that the practice of allowing shell petitions only burdens the court and the public by permitting capital inmates to "languish without representation for several years."  Justice Corrigan also stated that while the court is charged with the obligation to provide habeas counsel to these inmates, it "is not, however, [the court's] proper role to help one class of convicted inmates evade a federal statute of limitations."

21 Life Terms... Plus 433 Years:  After being convicted earlier this month of 22 felony counts, a Los Angeles man was sentenced yesterday to 21 life terms (10 of which were stayed) and a base term of 433 years, reports the AP.  In 2008, Charles Juan Proctor's use of a razor blade during his attacks of six women in the Long Beach area gave him the nickname "box cutter."  One victim testified that Proctor dug a blade into her neck and cheek and twisted it to make the wound deeper.  During sentencing, presiding Judge Gary Ferrari referred to the Proctor's crime spree as "unconscionable" and told him "I can say absolutely ... you deserve each of these 433 years."

Federal Judge Holds Hearing in MA Death Penalty Case:  A federal judge yesterday held a hearing in the case of Gary Lee Sampson, the first person to be scheduled for execution in Massachusetts since 1947.  After Sampson pleaded guilty to the stabbing deaths of two men in 2001, a federal jury recommended a sentence of death - rejecting his proferred defense of mental disease or brain damage.  After imposing the sentence, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf angered some family members of the victims by stating that he believed Sampson was indeed mentally ill.  Judge Wolf is now also the presiding judge over Sampson's federal habeas proceeding, and family members are concerned that he will get a second chance to avoid imposing a death sentence for Sampson.  Read the Boston Globe's story here.

Well get used to it.  Those who enthusiastically support the death penalty and other forms of serious punishment for serious crime are just the latter-day Klan, according to one sort of thnking  -- the sort briliantly described in the "oikophobia" essay to which Kent made reference earlier today.

It's well worth the read, as is this column by Charles Krauthammer.  Krauthammer's piece is titled, "The Last Refuge of a Liberal."  You will not be surprised to learn that the refuge is the reflexive but still snarling charge of racism.

Krauthammer does not discuss the culture war about the death penalty, but he might as well have.  To abolitionists and a distressingly large number of other liberals, there is no such thing as principled or good faith support for capital punishment.  There is only the fact that blacks make up a much larger share of death row than they do of the population, and that suffices to show that, if you support the "barbarism" of capital punishment (as do two-thirds of the American people), you are a racist (as they are).

The fact that the great bulk of recent scholarship shows that the death penalty saves innocent lives by its deterrent effect (abstracts collected here), or that for some especially gruesome murders a mere prison term could not possibly be thought of as justice by a normal person  --  these things don't count.

As I said last week, abolitionism and the go-easy approach to crime in general can no longer be thought of as "arguments" as traditionally understood.  They have become a Test of Righteousness and a cult religion, and have a cult religion's certainty and venom. 

George Smithey murdered Cheryl Nesler in 1988. He was sentenced to death the next year. The California Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction and sentence on appeal in 1999, 20 Cal.4th 936.  Last week, "a Calaveras County Superior Court judge last week vacated Smithey's death sentence and resentenced him to life in prison without parole," AP reports.

Before the resentencing paperwork arrived at the Big Q, Smithey hanged himself with bedsheets.

The murder rate in the District of Columbia is down substantially.  The District's dismal schools (a "root cause") are getting better, though they still have a very long way to go.  So naturally the people of the District are poised to fire the mayor.  Robert McCartney reports for the WaPo on "Adrian Fenty, Vincent Gray and the politics of race and class in D.C."

At 39, [incumbent Mayor] Fenty is a post-civil-rights leader who prides himself on being color-blind. It doesn't matter whether you're black or white, rich or poor; the key is that your trash is picked up, your potholes are filled and your kid's teacher is qualified.

That doesn't sit well with some of the old-timers.

Part of the controversy is school chief Michelle Rhee.  She has taken on a very tough job and done it very well, but she's Korean.  Well, if the people dump Fenty, and the new mayor dumps Rhee, she can come to Sacramento.  She gets along pretty well with our mayor.

James Taranto at the WSJ has found a word for an attitude that often comes up in debates on crime, especially capital punishment, although the focus of Taranto's column is the Ground Zero mosque dispute. The word is "oikophobia."  It is the opposite of xenophobia.  It is contempt and loathing of the familiar.  The source is this essay at Civitas in England by Roger Scruton: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' "  Taranto explains the American variant of this attitude:

Yet the oiks' vision of themselves as an intellectual aristocracy violates the first American principle ever articulated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

This cannot be reconciled with the elitist notion that most men are economically insecure bitter clinging intolerant bigots who need to be governed by an educated elite. Marxism Lite is not only false; it is, according to the American creed, self-evidently false. That is why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting.

Tim Redmond at the San Francisco Bay Guardian is very upset with California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma for voting against the bill to effectively abolish life without parole for the very worst 17-year-old murderers.  We have a different take, of course.  We will put aside our disagreements with Ms. Ma on other issues and give her a Profile in Courage award on this one.  The pressure from the soft-on-crime crowd was intense, and the major newspapers had lined up, repeating Senator Yee's vignettes without verification.  Here is the statement from Ms. Ma's office, as quoted in the SFBG story:

I did not come to my decision on SB 399 easily - it's legislation that I have carefully reviewed and considered for months. While I acknowledge that some juveniles in the correctional system may have the capacity to be rehabilitated after decades of being incarcerated, I feel that we cannot reset a defendant's clock 25 years later expecting a victim's family will reset their hearts.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina today rejected a claim brought by dozens of North Carolina lifers that their life sentences must be reduced by good time credits.  See News 14 Carolina's story here.

The claims were filed by NC inmates who were sentenced to life terms between April 1974 and June 1978.  At that time, the relevant state statute defined a "sentence of life imprisonment" to mean a term of 80 years.  With earned good time and merit credits, the inmates claimed that they had completed their sentences and were entitled to immediate release.  The Department of Corrections countered that under their policy, credits earned by lifers was not for the purpose of reducing the inmate's sentence, but rather to calculate a release date in the event the sentence is commuted.  Alfred Jones - a convicted murderer originally sentenced to death and one of the complaining inmates - successfully challenged this policy in the state trial court.  After calculating his credits, the court ordered his immediate release.

Blago Holdout Juror Talks:  Juror JoAnn Chiakulas - the holdout juror in former Governor Rob Blagojevich's trial - recently told the Chicago Tribune that she stands by her decisions.  This AP story reports that Chiakulas found Blago's recorded statements about allegedly selling President Obama's former Senate seat too disorganized to constitute a criminal conspiracy.  Chiakulas also expressed concerns about the credibility of some of the government's key witnesses, who had cut deals with prosecutors before the trial.  A judge announced yesterday that Blago's retrial will begin the week of January 4th.  

Escaped NC Convict Charged with Murder in CA:   The San Diego Union Tribune reports prosecutors yesterday charged Michael Eugene Richardson with two counts of special-circumstance murder for the deaths of his wife and mother-in-law, who were found in a wrecked car in what appears to be a staged auto accident.  Before her death, Richardson's wife reported to authorities her discovery that Richardson had been maintaining a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old niece.  Richardson's run-ins with the law date back to the '80s and reach coast-to-coast - in 1982, he escaped from a North Carolina prison after serving only a few years of a 30-year sentence for armed robbery.  He was captured in 2000, but was paroled back to California after serving only a few years.  

AZ Governor Files Brief in Appeal:   Lawyers for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer yesterday filed their first brief in the appeal of last month's ruling putting the state's controversial immigration law on hold, reports the AP.  The state is appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the district judge improperly relied on speculation that the law would place an unconstitutional burden on legal immigrants in the U.S.

Trial for USS Cole Bomber Delayed:   Approaching the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack of the USS Cole, during which 17 sailors were killed and dozens more injured, the DOJ this week indicated that there "are not charges either pending or contemplated" for Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected bomber.  The Department of Defense claims, however, that prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions are actively investigating a case and developing charges against him.  In any event, friends and families of those killed aboard the Cole remain frustrated with the government's delay in seeking justice.  Read the Washington Post's article here.   

Felony Stupid:  The AP has this story about a Washington state man who appeared in court to face a methamphetamine charge... with a bag of meth in his pocket.  He now faces an additional felony possession charge after a guard discovered the drugs during a pat down.     

The California Supreme Court today decided Barnett v. Superior Court, resolving some questions regarding California's postconviction discovery statute, Penal Code §1054.9. The Court had previously rejected the attack on the statute itself by a couple of trouble makers in People v. Superior Court (Pearson) (2010) 48 Cal.4th 564.

In summary, we conclude that, to be entitled to receive discovery beyond merely recovering items that the prosecutor had provided to defense counsel before trial, defendants must show they have a reasonable basis to believe that the specific materials they seek actually exist. To obviate one concern that petitioner has expressed, we note that a reasonable basis to believe that the prosecution had possessed the materials in the past would also provide a reasonable basis to believe the prosecution still possesses the materials. Petitioner need not make some additional showing that the prosecution still possesses the materials, a showing that would be impossible to make. (However, as we explained in Steele, 1054.9 "imposes no preservation duties that do not otherwise exist." [Steele, supra, 32 Cal.4th at p. 695.].) We disapprove People v. Superior Court (Maury), supra, 145 Cal.App.4th 473, and Curl v. Superior Court, supra, 140 Cal.App.4th 310, to the extent they are inconsistent with this opinion.

*                            *                            *

Accordingly, we conclude the prosecution is not required to provide discovery of materials from the out-of-state law enforcement agencies of this case that the prosecution does not itself possess.

Congrats to Ward Campbell and Eric Christoffersen, who mostly won this case.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q:  What country is the new Workers Paradise of the Western Hemisphere, embodying compassionate socialist values?

A:  Venezuela, courtesy of Hugo Chavez.

Q:  What country was proudly the first to abolish the death penalty?

A:  Venezuela (1863, in its Constitution).

Q:  What country has the highest murder rate for any large nation in the world?

A:  You got it  --  Venezuela.

I'm no fan of these international "studies" relentlessly tossed out to show that the United States has a murder rate higher than countries (mostly in Western Europe) without capital punishment.  But since they're all the rage with the DPIC and similar outfits, I thought I would join the fun by noting this story from the New York Times:  "Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why."

Yes, why indeed.  You will not be surprised to hear that, among the numerous reasons the Times suggests, the absence of capital punishment nowhere appears.  Indeed the story omits this fact altogether.

This gem, however does appear, concerning the efforts of the National Police to "respect human rights."  The Times quotes a high police official remarking, "I'm not saying we'll be weak...but the idea is to use dialogue and dissuasion as methods of verbal control when approaching problems."  Gads, this guy must get his stuff from Amnesty International press releases.  I haven't heard as much mush since Eric Holder's last speech.

The whole thing, here  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html, is an eye-opener.  Bear it in mind the next time an abolitionist starts in on you with "the murder rate in the United States....." 

                                                                                                                             

 

And now, for something completely different. Peter Hecht reports in the SacBee:

The Canna Care medical marijuana dispensary has a truck driving around Sacramento with a sign telling people to vote "no" on the state ballot initiative that would legalize pot for recreational use.

George Mull, a lawyer for several Northern California pot shops, is fighting Proposition 19 on claims it threatens protections put in place for medical pot users with the 1996 passage of California's medical marijuana law.

And a Humboldt County dispensary operator complains that the new pot measure simply isn't needed. "They say they're legalizing marijuana," said Stephen Gasparas, who runs the iCenter pot dispensary in Arcata. "It's already legal. All they're doing is taxing it."

California's landmark initiative to legalize marijuana use for adults over 21 and permit local governments to tax retail pot sales is backed - and bankrolled - by leaders in California's medical cannabis movement.

And yet some of its more stubborn opposition comes from a vocal segment of the same community who worry their dispensary operations may be negatively affected.

On a more predictable note, six former "drug czars" from both Republican and Democratic administrations have this LA Times op-ed opposing the marijuana legalization proposition.  Politics makes strange bedfellows, as the saying goes.  Doug Berman at SL&P has this post on the op-ed.

Persuasive Appellant Now Triple-Homicide Suspect:  The Seattle Times has this story about John Allen Booth Jr., currently on the loose and wanted for three murders committed last weekend in Washington state.  Booth's life of crime began at age 13, and his record ranges from thefts and trespassing to witness intimidation and serious assault charges.  The article details Booth's successful journeys through the criminal appeals process, which almost always ended in an early release and an additional crime.  After his last stint in prison for two counts of first-degree assault for bludgeoning a man in the head with a crowbar, Booth was again released early and is now wanted for three point-blank gun murders.

Feds Dismissing Deportation Cases:  The Houston Chronicle reports that the Department of Homeland Security has begun reviewing thousands of pending deportation cases and moving to dismiss those against illegal immigrants with no serious criminal record.  A memo from an ICE official explains that the agency has the capacity to remove about 4% of the illegal immigrant population in the country annually, and the deportation of those with serious criminal records is the top priority.  Still, critics claim that dismissal of these other cases amounts to backdoor "amnesty" by the Obama administration and will leave local agencies with no choice but to pick up the slack.  

Federal Murder Convict Spared the Death Penalty:   A federal jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty for Timothy O'Reilly reports the AP. See prior post on this case here. Both the story and the defense lawyer quoted in the story erroneously say the jury decided against the death penalty.  No, they did not.  The jury could not decide, and the badly written federal death penalty law requires a life sentence as the result of nondecision.  In 2001, while robbing a federal credit union, O'Reilly murdered 30-year-old guard Norman Stephens.   

Those of you who follow Doug Berman's entertaining Sentencing Law and Policy will see that a hue and cry is being raised about the Davis opinion.  This was to be expected.  As I have noted there:

The abolitionist refrain about Troy Davis's "innocence" is identical in its shrill, superior and indignant character to the same claim they made about Roger Keith Coleman. And it's identical in one other respect as well, to wit, it's identically false.

Let's face it. Troy Davis's "innocence" was, in the abolitionist eye, never going to be a product of evidence. The district court's opinion could have gone on for 1000 pages and it would have made no difference. Davis's "innocence" has become an urban myth of the abolitionist Left, much in the way that George Bush's "complicity" in arranging the 9-11 attacks has become a Leftist myth. Davis's innocence must be assumed, no matter what the balance of the evidence or the care taken to parse it, because that assumption is the necessary predicate to slam the United States as a rogue country that willy-nilly executes people for the fun of it, especially if they're black.

This mindset is related to, though not exactly the same as, the one that insists OJ didn't do it. OJ was acquitted (by the criminal jury, although not the civil one), so he's not an adjudicated murderer, no doubt about that.  But is he the guy who stuck in the knife? No serious person -- except those who're serious about hating the country -- thinks he wasn't.

Again, to a certain turn of mind, these episodes have long since stopped being cases and started being icons. They are the Religion of the Left. That's the reason debates with abolitionists go nowhere. You can argue facts, but you can't argue religion.

Yesterday, the California Assembly voted down SB 399, Senator Leland Yee's attempt to create a possibility of parole for all 17-year-old murderers, regardless of how heinous the crime. The vote was 34-38, with 41 needed for passage. All the Republicans and 9 Democrats voted no. Another 6 Democrats abstained, which in California is effectively the same as voting no.

This was a hard fought battle, with victims' groups and prosecutors fighting uphill and with misleading and misinformed editorials in all the leading newspapers of the state.  Congratulations to those who worked so hard to defeat this ill-advised measure.

NOVJL's press release is quoted after the jump.

Bill Rankin reports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

A federal judge on Tuesday emphatically rejected condemned inmate Troy Anthony Davis' claims that he was wrongly convicted of killing a Savannah Police officer in 1989.

In a 174-page order, U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. said Davis had failed to prove his innocence during an extraordinary hearing this summer ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Ultimately, while Mr. Davis' new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors," Moore wrote. "The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains largely intact, and the new evidence is largely not credible or lacking in probative value."

*                                    *                               *

Moore did answer one question posed by the U.S. Supreme Court. He found that executing an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

"However, Mr. Davis is not innocent," Moore wrote.

For those who have been around the death penalty debate for a while, there is a sense of deja vu about all this. Eighteen years ago, the Supreme Court took up the case of Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 to address the monumental question of whether a strong case of actual innocence was sufficient to block an execution, even though there was no claim that any violation of federal law or the Constitution occurred in the the trial. Once they got their hands on the case, though, the Supreme Court discovered an inconvenient truth: Herrera was guilty as sin. "Oh, never mind."

Murder Charges For Shooting 15 Years Ago:  Two gang members will stand trial for murder in California after their victim died 15 years after being shot, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.  In 1994, Erwin Johnny Sanchez and Daniel Paul Cruz shot victim Scott Sittler, who became a quadriplegic as a result of the injuries and spent the rest of his life on a respirator.  At the time, Sanchez and Cruz pleaded guilty to attempted murder.  The two men now face murder charges after Sittler died last February from pneumonia.

Appeals Court Hears Argument on Student Drug Testing in CA:  The Sacramento Bee reports that a California Court of Appeal heard oral argument yesterday on a legal challenge to random drug testing of California high school students.  While random testing of student athletes is well-established, some claim that expansion of testing to students in other extracurricular activities violates the California constitution, which includes an explicit right to privacy.  A California trial court judge last year issued a preliminary injunction of random drug tests of students (other than athletes), finding it likely that these suspicionless searches were invasions of the students' state constitutional rights.  According to the article, the questions posed by the justices during argument indicated they might agree with the trial court judge. 

Chelsea's Law Approved by CA Senate:  In response to the deaths of two teenage girls at the hands of a convicted child molester, the California Senate today unanimously approved a bill allowing LWOP for predators who kidnap, drug, bind, torture or use a weapon while committing a sex crime against a child.  The AP has this story here.

Tortured Dog Key Witness in Parole Hearing:  The AP reports that after 8-year-old pit bull "Louis Vuitton" was led into the hearing room, the Alabama Parole Board unanimously voted to deny early release to Juan Daniels.  In 2009, Juan was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for dousing the dog in lighter fluid, setting him on fire, and beating him with a shovel.  Although one official called this case the worst case of animal cruelty he had ever seen, Louis Vuitton has fortunately recovered and found a new loving home. 

Due to the salmonella outbreak, Alexandra Petri at the WaPo's PostPartisan Blog has this post on 12 signs your eggs have turned. The one most pertinent to this blog is number 8:

One juror insists the eggs are "perfectly fresh" and that the government failed to make its case. Eggs go free.

The whole list is well worth reading.

We hear more and more that brutally tight state budgets require cutbacks in imprisonment.  Sentences for the much-heralded and apparently ubiquitous "low-level, first-time" offender should not include a jail term, and some  --  or many  --  of those already in prison should be released early.  The money just isn't there.

Those of us not born yesterday recognize this argument as a make-weight for the pre-existing position that sentences have been too harsh for years (roughly the years coinciding with a dramatic drop in the crime rate, although that last part is kept quiet).  The frugality argument is simply one that opponents of serious sentencing figure can gain some traction where their other arguments have deservedly failed. 

But as ever, the first thing you need to do with the argument is check its factual premises.  It sounds plausible because the economy in fact remains weak, as everyone but the President seems to know.  The problem is that not every plausible proposition is a true proposition.

Hence I want to call to your attention this news clip from California, one of the states where the release-early-to-save-money pitch is at its peak.  The story concerns the recent opening of a taxpayer funded half-billion dollar high school.

That's not a misprint.  It's half a BILLION.   Actually, several million more than that.  For a high school.

This high school doesn't sound a bit like the one I went to.  It does, however, sound a lot like the Acapulco Four Seasons. 

Moral of story:  It's not about money.  It's about getting serious.

9th Circuit Reversal #1:  The 9th Circuit last week reversed the death sentence of David Scott Detrich.  In 1989, Detrich sexually assaulted and stabbed to death Elizabeth Souter and dumped her body in the desert near Tucson.  He was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to death.  The 9th Circuit reversed, finding that Detrich's attorney provided ineffective assistance during the penalty phase of trial.

9th Circuit Reversal #2:  The AP reports that the 9th Circuit today reversed the convictions of Kurt Williams Havelock, who mailed to various media outlets letters containing violent threats and describing his planned massacre at the 2008 Super Bowl.  Havelock also drove to the stadium on the day of the Super Bowl armed with an assault rifle, but turned himself in before firing any shots.  He was convicted in federal court of six counts of mailing threatening communications, but the 9th Circuit reversed because the letters were addressed (i.e., on the envelope) to corporations - not natural persons as required for a conviction under the statute.

CA Teen Sentenced to 159 Years for Crime Spree:  A Sacramento judge on Friday sentenced Sammie Lee Nichols to a term of 159 years to life for 18 felonies Nichols committed during his teen years, reports the AP.  At age 17, Nichols went on a year-long home invasion crime spree, entering female victims' homes and ordering them at gun point to withdraw money from an ATM.  He also raped two of his victims.  Post-Graham v. Florida, Nichols is not eligible for LWOP. 

"A Conservative is a Liberal Who Got Mugged the Night Before"?:   The Miami Herald (FL) reports Marleine Bastien was robbed at gunpoint while waiting in a church parking lot for a campaign event.  Bastien is a Democratic candidate currently campaigning for a seat in the House.

It seems that the single most popular way to argue against the death penalty today is to put the defendant's parents on trial. Usually, the target is someone who isn't around any more.  The only people with personal knowledge of what happened inside the family are the defendant's family, and they usually want to help him and not the prosecution, so there is pretty much a green light to exaggerate or just make things up. The most extreme example was the Menendez case, where the defendants themselves eliminated their parents as witnesses, so they could say anything they wanted. 

A federal death penalty case being tried in Michigan starts off standard but has a twist, according to this story by David Ashenfelter in the Detroit Free Press. In this case, the father is still around.

Defense lawyers in the Timothy O'Reilly federal death penalty case have portrayed his father as an ogre -- an uncaring, domineering brute who verbally abused his son and put him on a path that resulted in a fatal 2001 armored-car robbery in Dearborn.

But O'Reilly may not agree.

During a 20-minute phone call from the federal prison in Milan in January, O'Reilly told his father that defense attorneys were off base in pursuing the bad-parent defense.

"Who are they to tell you that?" O'Reilly, 37, told his 61-year-old father, Patrick O'Reilly, during a phone call monitored by prison staffers. "I mean, some stuff is irrelevant and it doesn't need to be in the courtroom anyway."

Later in the story, "Legal experts said the tape could hurt O'Reilly." What would we do without legal experts?

Anyhow, O'Reilly's statement that "some stuff is irrelevant" may go down in judicial history next to that of civilly committed sex offender Hendricks, quoted by the Supreme Court for the proposition that "treatment is bull____."

Some stuff is indeed irrelevant. The perpetrator knows more than the learned judges.  The sentence should be based on the circumstances of the crime and the perpetrator's criminal record or lack of one. Get rid of everything else, and capital litigation would be faster, cheaper, and fairer.

Why fairer?  Because the present "bad parent" defense depends more on the advocate's skill in weaving a sob story than on the actual, minimal weight of this mitigating evidence.

Looks like today is the decision day on California Senator Leland Yee's latest attempt to prevent the families of persons murdered by 17-year-olds from ever resting completely sure that the perpetrator will not be released.  Sacramento TV station KCRA has this story.

After a six year investigation, the Justice Department decided last week that it had no prosecutable case against Tom DeLay, the Republican House Majority Leader from way back when.  On Saturday, the New York Times, ever a reliable voice for the convicted criminal (see, e.g., its crusade for lower sentences for crack dealers and its screeching opposition to the death penalty), took after the long-gone DeLay, reminding us in acid tones of the behavior Eric Holder's DOJ just found to be not criminal.

A suspicious person might whiff the aroma of double standards, or  --  dare I say it  --  partisanship.  The Times does manage to choke out that, "Others in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have put family members on the payroll," but that is the last we hear of anyone currently in power.  The Times instead reminds us of, inter  alia, Mr. DeLay's all-expense-paid trip to Saipan  --  13 years ago.

Well gosh.  While we're at it, I wonder what Monica is doing these days. 

But I digress.  The howler in the Times editorial is this:  "[M]any of Mr. DeLay's actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them."

No kidding!  The actions, even of the supposedly rancid Mr. DeLay, not to mention everybody else, are not illegal unless they're made illegal.  Wow.  You learn something new in the Times every day.  The editorial staff must all be Harvard Law graduates.  Maybe they got their degrees while Elena Kagan was Dean.

P.S.  What "lawmakers," exactly  --  currently holdiing a substantial majority  --  have "chosen not to criminalize" sleazy fundraising practices?  Might it be the ones raising dough like crazy in Hollywood and for whom the Times has been going goo-goo for the last three-plus years?

This poll from Rasmussen is only tangentially related to crime. (Voting fraud is a crime.) It is, though, a good example of how extremely out of touch academia and some elements in the judiciary are from regular folks. Among academics and judges, requiring voters to show some ID is a troubling and controversial practice. Not so for regular folks:

An overwhelming majority of Likely Voters in the United States think all voters in the country should be required to present photo identification in order to vote in U.S. elections.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that just 14% disagree and think the current identification system is sufficient. Just 4% are undecided on the issue.

This is a sentiment that spans demographics, as majorities in every demographic agree that photo identification should be required to vote.

For the mathematically challenged, that's 82% in favor.

Marisa Lagos has this post on the SF Chron Politics Blog. As reported earlier, Senator Leland Yee has made some amendments to his SB 399 to create possibilities of parole for 16- and 17-year-old murderers sentenced to life without parole.  "The amendments were apparently aimed at garnering enough support for the bill, which is strongly opposed by some victims rights groups and prosecutors (including GOP Attorney General candidate Steve Cooley, the District Attorney for Los Angeles County)."

CJLF sent this letter to members of the Assembly today.  The psychological studies referred to in the letter are described in our brief in Graham v. Florida.

Daniel Horowitz of NOVJL has this letter to Assemblyman Lieu with this attachment describing Mario Vitale's statement at the sentencing of his mother's killer.