Swing Vote: An interesting story by Robert Barnes in Sunday's Washington Post discusses Justice Anthony Kennedy's pivotal role in many of the Supreme Court's close decisions this year.

New York Death Penalty: The New York Senate will vote today on a bill which would restore the death penalty for those who murder police officers, according to a story from Fox News by Chris Silveri. The bill, S319 (Golden) would fix the deadlock problem cited by the Court of Appeals to overturn the DP in 2004, by requiring a life without parole sentence if the case of a deadlock. Update: Newsday reports the bill passed the Senate, though it is not expected to be voted on in the Assembly.

Stay Denied The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stop the execution, scheduled for Wednesday, of Texas murderer Chris Edward Smith. Smith shot and killed a Pecos County Deputy Sheriff in 1988. The details come from a story in the Wichita Eagle by AP reporter Michael Graczyk.

New Jersey State Senator Gerald Cardinale has this article at NorthJersey.com. "Instead of proposing remedies, the [Death Penalty Study] commission recommended repealing the death penalty, claiming it was not a deterrent and too expensive to enforce. It is a circular argument. The lack of deterrence and escalating cost are the byproduct of the endless legal wrangling by death penalty opponents encouraged by sympathetic judges." "[J]udges have put their personal prejudices against the death penalty above the law and even the New Jersey Constitution. In 1992, by a three-to-one margin, the public approved a constitutional amendment that the death penalty is not 'cruel and unusual punishment.' The referendum was in response to the Supreme Court justices putting their personal beliefs ahead of the law."