Missouri Injection Case: The Eighth Circuit has denied rehearing en banc in the challenge to Missouri's lethal injection procedure, according to this AP story. The panel opinion is here.

Do Consequences Matter?: The Los Angeles Times is running a series of articles debating crime and punishment in California. Today's exchange between Dr. Barry Krisberg, President of the Oakland based National Council on Crime and Delinquency, which opposes tough sentencing, and Mike Reynolds, the author of California's Three Strikes law, express their views on the relationship between sentencing and crime rates.

Terrorist surveillance legislation that passed Congress over the weekend is the subject of this editorial in the Wall Street Journal (free).

Differing Takes on the death penalty are presented in stories from four news sources published today. Pennsylvania's Lancaster News Era available here talks about that state's difficulties in enforcing its law. A piece from the Blogger News Network found here, addresses the early calls by abolitionists to spare the murderers of Jennifer Hawke Petit and her daughters. A story in the Hartford Courant here reports on the defense team which will represent the two suspects charged with the murders and a story the New York Post here reports that larger questions about how the criminal justice system is working are raised in a case like the Petit murders.

Global Positioning Bracelets, which are required for sex offenders and other criminals in some states, have little effect on reducing crime according to some experts such as Berkeley Criminologist Franklin Zimring. But many in law enforcement believe that such monitoring can help identify suspects and exclude the innocent as reported in this Sacramento Bee story by Dorsey Griffith.