A Quite Life in Scotland: Raphael Satter of the Associated Press reports on the arrest of Scotsman Kenny Richey, who pled guilty to manslaughter last year and was released for time served after his murder conviction was overturned by a January 2007 Sixth Circuit ruling . In 1987 Richey was convicted and sentenced to death for the arson murder of his ex-girlfriend's 2-year-old daughter. In 2005 the United States Supreme Court rejected the Sixth Circuit's earlier holding that a lack of specific intent and a Strickland violation invalidated Richey's conviction. . Undeterred, on remand the Sixth re-decided the Strickland claim in Richey's favor, to the joy of the British Parliament, the Pope, and death penalty opponents worldwide who insisted that he was innocent. Less than a year after winning his freedom, Richey is facing charges in Scotland for burglary and beating a man with a metal rod. Once again, Richey says that he's innocent.
Holder Nomination Delayed: Senate Republicans have delayed the Judiciary Committee's confirmation vote on Attorney Nominee Eric Holder for one week. Evan Perez reports for the WSJ, "The one-week delay, Republicans said, would help address several concerns, including Mr. Holder's role in the pardon for financier Marc Rich at the end of the Clinton administration and the Obama administration's stance on whether to pursue criminal prosecutions over the treatment of terror detainees during the Bush administration."
Change? Maybe Not. From the Legal Times newsletter, "In his confirmation hearings last week, Eric Holder Jr. broke sharply with some of the Bush administration's controversial terrorist detention and interrogation policies, but the attorney general nominee embraced many, if not most, of the national security tools created in the last eight years." The full story by David Ingram and Joe Palazzolo is available here with registration.
Uganda Supreme Court Upholds DP: An appeal by condemned inmates, claiming that the death penalty and the use of hanging as an execution method were cruel and unusual, was rejected yesterday by a 6-1 vote of the Ugandan Supreme Court according to this story by Daily Monitor reporters Lominda Afedraru, Lydia Mukisa & Siraje Lubwama. The Court also affirmed a lower court ruling that found that the various laws that prescribe a mandatory death sentence are unconstitutional and that delays on death row, of more than three years after the sentence was confirmed by the appellant court, were "inordinate". The decision leaves the death penalty intact as the ultimate punishment for capital offenses and hanging as a form of execution. However, the ruling on the mandatory sentences is likely to lead to amendments of the relevant laws on cases such as murder and aggravated robbery which carry the mandatory death penalty.
Holder Nomination Delayed: Senate Republicans have delayed the Judiciary Committee's confirmation vote on Attorney Nominee Eric Holder for one week. Evan Perez reports for the WSJ, "The one-week delay, Republicans said, would help address several concerns, including Mr. Holder's role in the pardon for financier Marc Rich at the end of the Clinton administration and the Obama administration's stance on whether to pursue criminal prosecutions over the treatment of terror detainees during the Bush administration."
Change? Maybe Not. From the Legal Times newsletter, "In his confirmation hearings last week, Eric Holder Jr. broke sharply with some of the Bush administration's controversial terrorist detention and interrogation policies, but the attorney general nominee embraced many, if not most, of the national security tools created in the last eight years." The full story by David Ingram and Joe Palazzolo is available here with registration.
Uganda Supreme Court Upholds DP: An appeal by condemned inmates, claiming that the death penalty and the use of hanging as an execution method were cruel and unusual, was rejected yesterday by a 6-1 vote of the Ugandan Supreme Court according to this story by Daily Monitor reporters Lominda Afedraru, Lydia Mukisa & Siraje Lubwama. The Court also affirmed a lower court ruling that found that the various laws that prescribe a mandatory death sentence are unconstitutional and that delays on death row, of more than three years after the sentence was confirmed by the appellant court, were "inordinate". The decision leaves the death penalty intact as the ultimate punishment for capital offenses and hanging as a form of execution. However, the ruling on the mandatory sentences is likely to lead to amendments of the relevant laws on cases such as murder and aggravated robbery which carry the mandatory death penalty.
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