Daryl Atkins, the subject of the Supreme Court's June 2002 ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, has won a Virginia Circuit Court ruling commuting his death sentence to life in prison according to this Associated Press story . Atkins was sentenced to death in 1996 for the kidnap, robbery and murder of a young Air Force recruit. While the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to execute a mentally retarded person in Atkins' appeal, it did not decide if Atkins himself was retarded. A new jury empaneled after the Atkins ruling found he was not retarded, but that verdict was overturned on appeal and a new hearing ordered. In this latest holding, Virginia Judge Prentis Smiley Jr. based his decision to commute Atkins' death sentence on the claim that prosecutors had withheld potentially favorable evidence from the defense. It is not known at this time if the state will seek review of this latest holding. Commuting a sentence is not normally an available remedy for a nondisclosure claim. Such a claim normally results in a new trial or a new sentencing hearing.

John Yoo has this op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on terrorist Jose Padilla's suit against him. This is one more example of why the law of attorneys' fees in civil rights suits needs to be reformed, as previously noted here.

Ted Cruz, the Solicitor General of Texas, and his role in death penalty cases are the subjects of this article by Jonathan Gurwitz in the WSJ.

Oakland mayor Ron Dellums, if he "wants to put a dent in crime, [is] going to have to develop long-term strategies and become a crime-fighting mayor, like his predecessor. It will not be popular, especially among liberal-minded Bay Area residents - and it will not reflect Dellums' long-held political beliefs," Chip Johnson writes in the SF Chronicle.