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.