Double Death Penalty: DNA evidence has linked California death row inmate Robert Rhoades to the 1984 murder and rape of 18-year-old Julie Connell of San Leandro. Rhoades "has been charged with murder and with the special circumstance of rape." Rhoades is already facing the death penalty for kidnaping, torturing, and murdering 8-year-old Michael Lyons in Yuba City, according to Henry K. Lee's article in San Francisco Chronicle. The article also explains that if convicted, jurors will not be told that he currently on death row until the penalty phase of his current trial.

Sentencing Reform: Fulfilling the prophecy that if the death penalty were abolished, the bleeding hearts would seek to abolish life without parole, a San Francisco Chronicle article by California Senator Leland Y. Yee discusses his bill (SB999) that would abolish LWOP for juvenile murderers. Instead, they would receive a 25 year prison sentence before qualifying for parole. Yee, a child psychologist, believes that LWOP is inappropriate for juveniles because the brain is not fully matured until children are adults; meaning "impulse control, planning and critical thinking skills are not fully developed." He, of course, cites Roper v. Simmons where the court overturned the death penalty for 17-year-old murderers due to brain development. The bill will be heard in Senate Public Safety Committee April 17.

16-year-old Kenneth Bartley is being tried as an adult for the shootings of the Principal and two Assistant Principals at his rural Tennessee school on November 8, 2005. According to this AP story by Duncan Mansfield. One of the shooting victims was killed. Bartley was called into the Principal's Office at the Campbell County Comprehensive High School for questioning about reports of a gun in his possession. The boy, undoubetdly suffering from an immature brain, pulled out the gun, loaded it, and fired. Bartley faces life in prison for the murder and shootings.

Washington D.C. is asking for an en banc review of an earlier panel decision overturning the district's ban on handguns. The court had found that the restriction of keeping handguns in homes was a violation of the Second Amendment as reported in this story by Henri E. Cauvin of the Washington Post. An interesting column by Steve Goldstein in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer discusses the impact the DC gun ban has had on crime.