Time for the North Carolina Legislature to Address Its Death Penalty: The Winston-Salem Journal Staff is asking Governor Bev Perdue to encourage legislators to tackle an issue that has been plaguing North Carolina's death penalty since January 2007. In January 2007, the North Carolina Medical Board issued a statement threatening disciplinary action for any physician participation in an execution - other than
certifying the fact of the execution and simply being present at
the time of the execution. On May 1, 2009, the North Carolina Supreme Court finally decided the issue, declaring that the the Medical Board had overstepped its authority. (Kent's post on the decision can be found here.) The Winston-Salem Journal Staff has long regarded this to be an issue for the legislature, and not the courts to decide. This is especially true since a House select committee study of capital punishment underscored that "big questions" - regarding reforms to the legal discovery process, recording of interrogations and police lineup procedures (to name a few) - "have not gone away."'
Kevin Cooper Denied En Banc Review: As Kent noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit has finally denied en banc review for murderer Kevin Cooper. Doug Berman, at Sentencing Law and Policy, has this post commenting on the amount of ink (over 100 pages) "spilled" to issue the decision. Berman's post focuses on the leading opinion dissenting from the the denial of en banc review, and assures that this does not mean California might be about "to execute an innocent man[,]" because "California has not been able to execute even an indisputably guilty man in over three years because of litigation over the state's lethal injection protocols." Based on the gruesome nature of Cooper's killings, which occurred in 1983, further delay isn't exactly good news.
Justice Scalia - "May he never retire[,]" writes Adam Liptak for the New York Times. (hat tip Howard Bashman at How Appealing) Liptak's article reports on some comments made by the Roberts Court's most colorful Justice. Liptak writes that while Justice Souter's retirement will deprive the Court of a "careful" judge, Justice Scalia's recent comments, in Court and in speeches, have provided far more newpaper fodder. Of course, there are many other reasons to hope that Justice Scalia stays with the Court for the next several years...
Kevin Cooper Denied En Banc Review: As Kent noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit has finally denied en banc review for murderer Kevin Cooper. Doug Berman, at Sentencing Law and Policy, has this post commenting on the amount of ink (over 100 pages) "spilled" to issue the decision. Berman's post focuses on the leading opinion dissenting from the the denial of en banc review, and assures that this does not mean California might be about "to execute an innocent man[,]" because "California has not been able to execute even an indisputably guilty man in over three years because of litigation over the state's lethal injection protocols." Based on the gruesome nature of Cooper's killings, which occurred in 1983, further delay isn't exactly good news.
Justice Scalia - "May he never retire[,]" writes Adam Liptak for the New York Times. (hat tip Howard Bashman at How Appealing) Liptak's article reports on some comments made by the Roberts Court's most colorful Justice. Liptak writes that while Justice Souter's retirement will deprive the Court of a "careful" judge, Justice Scalia's recent comments, in Court and in speeches, have provided far more newpaper fodder. Of course, there are many other reasons to hope that Justice Scalia stays with the Court for the next several years...
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