John Couey, "the man convicted of kidnapping and raping 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford is not mentally retarded and is eligible for the death penalty, a Citrus County [Florida] judge ruled Tuesday" says this AP report. "The conclusion is inescapable and irrefutable that the defendant John Evander Couey, is not retarded by any legal or societal standard,'' Judge Ric Howard wrote in a 16-page ruling. Retardation litigation has followed a predictable pattern. The first step was to get the Supreme Court to draw a categorical line of exclusion. The second step is to blur the line to include within the excluded class people who would never previously have been considered retarded. Fortunately, it appears most judges and juries are rejecting the bogus retardation claims. Unfortunately, a few are buying it.

Death Penalty: The California Supreme Court has unanimously affirmed the death sentence given fifteen years ago to an Anaheim woman, according to this Orange County Register story by Larry Welborn. Maria del Rosio Alfaro murdered a nine-year-old girl by stabbing her 57 times during a residential burglary. The Court's opinion is available here.

Murderer Registry: The Chairman of Hawaii's Senate Public Safety Committee plans to introduce a bill which would post the names and addresses of convicted murderers who have been released from prison, according to a story by Honolulu Advertiser reporter Dan Nakaso. The idea for the registry, which would be patterned after the state's sex offender registry, follows the arrests of two convicted murderers who were free on parole. Peter Bailey was sentenced to life with parole for the murder of a 17-year-old girl in 1979. He was arrested last month for raping a 12-year-old girl. Darnell Griffin has been charged with the rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman. He had a previous conviction for murdering another woman and was released from prison in 1996.

Death of a Journalist is the subject of an editorial in today's San Francisco Chronicle. It focuses on Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, who was gunned down while walking to work last week. Bailey was doing investigative reporting on corruption at a black Muslim center when he was killed by shotgun fire. Seven other murders have occurred in Oakland since Bailey was killed. The Chronicle wants lawmakers to "get guns off the streets and bring perpetrators to justice and to get at the root causes of violence." This crime raises several serious questions about law enforcement policies in the Bay Area, which appear not to have changed much since the 1960s. The editorial reads like it was written then.