Death Penalty: A Second Circuit ruling last Friday upheld the federal convictions and life sentences of two New York murderers, rejecting their claim that the trial judge's dismissal for cause of potential jurors opposed to the death penalty, based only on their written answers on a questionnaire rather than through direct examination, was unconstitutional. This AP story discusses the case. In fact, these two defendants lucked out. In a new trial, the prosecution might have been able to seek the death penalty again with a new jury.

Gangs: An Associated Press story by Thomas Watkins reports how the Los Angeles-based Latino street gang F13 has targeted blacks caught in the neighborhood marked as their "turf" for murder in order to keep rival black gangs at bay. This information comes from a joint federal and state effort to prosecute 102 members in the largest federal case involving a single gang. For years, groups which sympathize with criminal defendants have claimed that the criminal justice system is biased against minorities, citing the fact that mostly blacks and Hispanics are arrested for drug dealing and violent crimes in many large cities. The inconvenient truth is that the dominant urban gangs that traffic in drugs, racketeering, and violence are either black or Hispanic.

Penn. DP: Emilie Lounsberry has this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer on efforts to have the death penalty carried out in Pennsylvania. The state high court has affirmed four death penalties in five days.

Candidates' Views: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has this summary of where the presidential candidates stand on the death penalty. Notably, not a single candidate with the proverbial snowball's chance is in favor of abolition of the penalty. (Nonfactors Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul are the only ones.) If the country really were turning away from the death penalty, as opponents claim, one would think that at least one major candidate would be trying to ride that wave.

More Candidate Views, this time on the International Criminal Court, reported by Bob Egelko in the SF Chron.