Omissions in Judge Sotomayor's Senate Questionnaire: Wendy Long has a quick post a NRO's Bench Memos commenting on some "significant omissions" from Judge Sotomayor's Senate questionnaire. The Judicial Confirmation Network provides more information on some of the items Judge Sotomayor neglected to submit. According to the confirmation network, Judge Sotomayor failed to provide copies of law review publications, court decisions, reports and memoranda she might have edited or written throughout her career. Long believes that while these omissions seem small, "[t]here are likely to be more."
Juvenile Curfew. Eugene Volokh at VC reviews the NY Court of Appeals decision striking down a juvenile curfew ordinance and finds it quite unpersuasive.
Sex Offender Civil Commitment Program Scrapped in Louisiana: Sex Crimes Blogger Corey Rayburn Yung reported yesterday on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's decision to scrap a post-prison "civil commitment" program for sex offenders as too expensive. The bill would have provided treatment for certain sex offenders after their release from prison and would cost approximately $12 million over five years. Its intent was to mange offenders most likely to commit crimes after release. This AP story has more on the bill and Gov. Jindal's decision. At the end of his post, Yung comments that economic woes might slow the rate at which different governments adopt different restrictions to deal with sex offenders.
SCOTUS Recap of U.S. v. Denedo: At SCOTUSblog, Josh Friedman discusses the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Denedo, a case that addressed whether the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) had jurisdiction to reverse a former service member's court-martial when he learned, seven years later, that his lawyer was afflicted by severe alcoholism. In Monday's decision, the Supreme Court held that both the CAAF and the Navy-Marine Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA) had jurisdiction. Writing for a majority of 5, Justice Kennedy relied on United States v. Morgan (a 1954 decision upholding the ability of a federal district court to grant a writ of coram nobis) to hold that because the NMCCA had statutory subject-matter jurisdiction over appeals stemming from Mr. Denedo's original court-martial conviction, the court also could hear a coram nobis appeal. The majority further reasoned that under statute the CAAF is authorized to hear Denedo's appeal from the NMCCA decision. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the dissenting Justices. Friedman reports that the dissenters "[c]ritically" disagreed that coram nobis can be understood as an extension of the military courts' original jurisdiction, but believed that coram nobis fell outside any congressionally proscribed jurisdiction.
California's Death Penalty: At Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman provides a link to John Van de Kamp's L.A. Times Op-Ed, titled "California can't afford the death penalty." In his Op-Ed the former California Attorney General and district attorney argues that with California facing a severe financial crisis "it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books." Van de Kamp believes that since "it costs $125 million a year more to prosecute and defend death penalty cases and to keep inmates on death row than it would simply to put all those people in prison for life without parole," it is time to do away with California's death penalty. But these cost arguments are dubious, as is the report issued by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which Van de Kamp chaired and which we noted here. Read to the end of the Op-ed and you'll find Van de Kamp's real agenda, "It's time to convert the sentences of those now on death row to life without parole. Doing so would incapacitate some of the worst of the worst for their natural lives, and at the same time ensure that a person wrongfully convicted will not be executed." The families of the three people murdered by Clarence Ray Allen, who contracted out the job from within prison, do not agree with Van de Kamp's assertion that prison necessarily incapacitates.
Juvenile Curfew. Eugene Volokh at VC reviews the NY Court of Appeals decision striking down a juvenile curfew ordinance and finds it quite unpersuasive.
Sex Offender Civil Commitment Program Scrapped in Louisiana: Sex Crimes Blogger Corey Rayburn Yung reported yesterday on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's decision to scrap a post-prison "civil commitment" program for sex offenders as too expensive. The bill would have provided treatment for certain sex offenders after their release from prison and would cost approximately $12 million over five years. Its intent was to mange offenders most likely to commit crimes after release. This AP story has more on the bill and Gov. Jindal's decision. At the end of his post, Yung comments that economic woes might slow the rate at which different governments adopt different restrictions to deal with sex offenders.
SCOTUS Recap of U.S. v. Denedo: At SCOTUSblog, Josh Friedman discusses the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Denedo, a case that addressed whether the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF) had jurisdiction to reverse a former service member's court-martial when he learned, seven years later, that his lawyer was afflicted by severe alcoholism. In Monday's decision, the Supreme Court held that both the CAAF and the Navy-Marine Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA) had jurisdiction. Writing for a majority of 5, Justice Kennedy relied on United States v. Morgan (a 1954 decision upholding the ability of a federal district court to grant a writ of coram nobis) to hold that because the NMCCA had statutory subject-matter jurisdiction over appeals stemming from Mr. Denedo's original court-martial conviction, the court also could hear a coram nobis appeal. The majority further reasoned that under statute the CAAF is authorized to hear Denedo's appeal from the NMCCA decision. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the dissenting Justices. Friedman reports that the dissenters "[c]ritically" disagreed that coram nobis can be understood as an extension of the military courts' original jurisdiction, but believed that coram nobis fell outside any congressionally proscribed jurisdiction.
California's Death Penalty: At Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman provides a link to John Van de Kamp's L.A. Times Op-Ed, titled "California can't afford the death penalty." In his Op-Ed the former California Attorney General and district attorney argues that with California facing a severe financial crisis "it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books." Van de Kamp believes that since "it costs $125 million a year more to prosecute and defend death penalty cases and to keep inmates on death row than it would simply to put all those people in prison for life without parole," it is time to do away with California's death penalty. But these cost arguments are dubious, as is the report issued by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which Van de Kamp chaired and which we noted here. Read to the end of the Op-ed and you'll find Van de Kamp's real agenda, "It's time to convert the sentences of those now on death row to life without parole. Doing so would incapacitate some of the worst of the worst for their natural lives, and at the same time ensure that a person wrongfully convicted will not be executed." The families of the three people murdered by Clarence Ray Allen, who contracted out the job from within prison, do not agree with Van de Kamp's assertion that prison necessarily incapacitates.
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