Foreign Treatment: Mexican citizen Jose Medellin, on Texas' Death Row for murdering two teen-aged girls, may get a new sentencing hearing if the Supreme Court upholds a notification requirement of Vienna Convention on Consular Relations treaty, according to this editorial in the Los Angeles Times. Earlier this year the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals may have had the opportunity to settle Medellin's claim by announcing that its earlier review determined the lack of notification did not prejudice his case. Instead the TCCA made a separation of powers issue out of the case with one of its members accusing the administration of engaged in "unprecedented, unnecessary and intrusive" interference.

DNA to the Rescue: The Washington Post has an article out today by Darryl Fears about Jerry Miller, a black man convicted for the rape of a white woman in 1981 who proved to be innocent from DNA. He is the 200th person to be exonerated due to DNA evidence since 1989 and served 25 years in an Illinois prison for rape. It should be noted that DNA evidence has helped identify the guilty in may thousands of cases over the same eighteen year period including, for example, Dwayne Turner for the rape and murder of ten women in Los Angeles (see May 1 News Scan).

Drug Facility Dilemma: Insite, the first facility of its kind in North America (Vancouver, Canada) where drug addicts can shoot up their heroine and cocaine with clean needles with supervision of a nurse, may not be as successful as advertised. The Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice along with other medical publications assert that Insite's reputation for "reducing overdoses, crime, and HIV risk behavior among injection drug users" have been overstated. Reduced crime is attributed to more police presence and needle sharing is only reduced if the users go exclusively to Insite to shoot up. The full article can be found here.

MacArthur Park Disorder: Los Angeles Police are under fire for inappropriate action at an immigration rally in MacArthur Park on Tuesday. Police Chief William J. Bratton believes the use of force by officers was due to the "dispersal order" announced from a helicopter above the crowd in English only. The editorial in the Los Angeles Times faulted the English only announcement suggesting that it could not be understood or heard over a loud helicopter.