Texas Murderer Loses Appeal:  In a per curium opinion released Friday, the 5th Circuit has rejected an appeal for habeas relief brought by Anthony Bartee, a San Antonio man sentenced to death for the 1996 robbery and murder of a neighbor. AP writer Michael Graczyk reports that Bartee was on parole from two aggravated rape convictions at the time of the murder.  Evidence introduced at trial indicates that prior to the murder of his neighbor David Cook, Bartee asked a friend to help him kill Cook and steal Cook's motorcycle. On August 17, Cook's body was found by family members in his home.  He had suffered two gunshot wounds and his throat was slashed. Cook's motorcycle was also missing. On the day Cook died, Bartee showed up at a friend's house on a motorcycle matching a description of the one owned by Cook.   

Souter Worries About Dumbed-Down Citizenry:  In a speech before the American Bar Association Saturday, retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter decried the lack of civic knowledge by Americans.  A Chicago Tribune story by Rex W. Huppke quotes Souter telling the legal group, "We know from survey results that two-thirds of people in the United States cannot even name all three branches of the national government."   He warned that this poses a threat to judicial independence.  Unfortunately public education's deliberate dumbing down of our teachers and youth, noted in the early seventies by Senator Patrick Moynihan D-NY, has left many high-school and college graduates ignorant of far more than just the names of the three branches of government.