California Execution Procedures have been posted for public review and comment as reported by Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times.  Interested parties have until June 30th to make public statements regarding the procedures.  After comments, the procedures may be modified or adopted by the state Department of Corrections.  While California had its revised lethal injection procedures when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's process in Baze v. Rees, attorneys for Michael Morales, the next murderer scheduled for execution, won a ruling from a Marin County judge, which held the new protocol illegal because the state had not allowed for public comment. The ruling was later upheld by a state appeals panel.  The protocol in question has already been identified as more humane than Kentucky's. In her dissent in Baze, Justice Ginsburg indicates that she (and Justice Souter) preferred California's protocol over Kentucky's, noting that due to "the importance of a window between the first and second drugs, other States have adopted safeguards not contained in Kentucky's protocol. See Brief for Criminal Justice Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae 19-23.... In California, a member of the IV team brushes the inmate's eyelashes, speaks to him, and shakes him at the halfway point and, again, at the completion of the sodium thiopental injection. See State of California, San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 0-770, Execution by Lethal Injection, §V(S)(4)(e) (2007), online at http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/docs/RevisedProtocol.pdf."   

Juvenile Sentences Challenged:  James Vicini of Reuters reports that next fall the Supreme Court will review appeals to two Florida cases in which juveniles are making Eighth Amendment claims against their sentences of life without possibility of parole (LWOP) for crimes other than murder.  Sullivan v. Florida involves Joe Sullivan, who at age 13, was convicted and sentenced to LWOP for the 1989 rape and burglary of a 72-yer-old Pensacola woman.  In Graham v. Florida, Terrance Graham who, at 16 had pleaded guilty to burglary and armed robbery while free on probation, is contesting the LWOP he received a year later for an armed home-invasion robbery. 

Progressive Vision: Professor Laurence Tribe is advising President Obama to pick someone for the Supreme Court "to build a progressive legal vision for the century ahead," reports Jess Bravin in the WSJ. Tribe's model for the ideal justice is (who else?) William Brennan. We knew that.

ACORN:  "Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto filed charges Monday alleging the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now had policies requiring employees in Las Vegas to sign up 20 new voters per day or be fired," reports Ken Ritter for AP. "Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller and Masto say that's voter registration fraud, and it violates state law banning quotas for registering new voters. A criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas Justice Court accuses ACORN and two former employees of 39 low-level felonies."