Where Can President Obama Try KSM?: Today, on the Heritage Foundation's website, Charles Stimson posts his thoughts on why a U. S. Military Base [is] Not a Reasonable Option for [the] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Trial. Stimson writes that now that New York City has been ruled out as a viable option for the terror trials, the Administration look for a U. S.
military base where it can try the terrorist plotters without spending
tens of millions of dollars. According to Stimson, the former-committee chair in charge of upgrading and building the military compound at Guantanamo, no such base exists. He writes that no military base in the United States can accommodate the government's need for a "supermax" style prison, a state of the art courtroom, and nearby housing for every person that will participate in the trial. Stimson urges the Obama administration to consider other options for the terror trials -- including conducting the trials "under the auspices of a properly resourced military commission, where they belong."
Petitions to Keep on Your Radar: On SCOTUSblog, Erin Miller posts two "Notable Petitions" that have been recently filed with the U. S. Supreme Court. She writes that although the briefs in opposition have not been filed, Tom Goldstein has already deemed Simmons v. Galvin and Arar v. Ashcroft cert-worthy. Simmons is particularly interesting since it raises a claim similar to one recently decided by the Ninth Circuit in Farrakhan v. Gregoire. Simmons asks whether § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applies to state felon disenfranchisement laws that result in discrimination on the basis of race. The First Circuit held that Congress never intended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit states from disenfranchising incarcerated felons. The Ninth Circuit saw things differently.
Sentencing and the Death Penalty in Texas: Sentencing Law and Policy's Doug Berman posts a link to a publication from the Texas Public Policy Foundation detailing its success with alternatives to incarceration. The piece, by Mark Levin, reports that Texas has experienced lower crime rates and avoided "more than $2 billion in taxpayer costs that would have been incurred had Texas simply constructed more than 17,000 prison beds." Grits for Breakfast posts more of Levin's work on Texas crime and punishment policy, and also links to a series of death-penalty related stories that have caught his attention. One of the stories is David Pittman's article from the Amarillo-Globe News, which reports that given the high cost of pursuing the death penalty, some prosecutors will not pursue a death sentence unless they have a "dead-bang cinch guilt-innocence case ... one that you'll prove very easily the person on trial is the person who did it."
Thoughts on Prosecutorial Charging: At CrimProf Blog, Kevin Cole posts a link to Daniel S. Medwed's SSRN article Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision and the Innocence Revolution. In his article, the S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor examines a prosecutor's decision to charge a suspect with a crime, and proposes a series of reforms to the charging process that could reduce the possibility that an innocent person will face criminal charges.
"The Extreme Measures Taken to Hide Fingerprints": At Women in Crime Ink, Andrea Campbell reports on the extreme measures criminals will take to avoid identification through their fingerprints.
Petitions to Keep on Your Radar: On SCOTUSblog, Erin Miller posts two "Notable Petitions" that have been recently filed with the U. S. Supreme Court. She writes that although the briefs in opposition have not been filed, Tom Goldstein has already deemed Simmons v. Galvin and Arar v. Ashcroft cert-worthy. Simmons is particularly interesting since it raises a claim similar to one recently decided by the Ninth Circuit in Farrakhan v. Gregoire. Simmons asks whether § 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applies to state felon disenfranchisement laws that result in discrimination on the basis of race. The First Circuit held that Congress never intended § 2 of the Voting Rights Act to prohibit states from disenfranchising incarcerated felons. The Ninth Circuit saw things differently.
Sentencing and the Death Penalty in Texas: Sentencing Law and Policy's Doug Berman posts a link to a publication from the Texas Public Policy Foundation detailing its success with alternatives to incarceration. The piece, by Mark Levin, reports that Texas has experienced lower crime rates and avoided "more than $2 billion in taxpayer costs that would have been incurred had Texas simply constructed more than 17,000 prison beds." Grits for Breakfast posts more of Levin's work on Texas crime and punishment policy, and also links to a series of death-penalty related stories that have caught his attention. One of the stories is David Pittman's article from the Amarillo-Globe News, which reports that given the high cost of pursuing the death penalty, some prosecutors will not pursue a death sentence unless they have a "dead-bang cinch guilt-innocence case ... one that you'll prove very easily the person on trial is the person who did it."
Thoughts on Prosecutorial Charging: At CrimProf Blog, Kevin Cole posts a link to Daniel S. Medwed's SSRN article Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision and the Innocence Revolution. In his article, the S.J. Quinney College of Law Professor examines a prosecutor's decision to charge a suspect with a crime, and proposes a series of reforms to the charging process that could reduce the possibility that an innocent person will face criminal charges.
"The Extreme Measures Taken to Hide Fingerprints": At Women in Crime Ink, Andrea Campbell reports on the extreme measures criminals will take to avoid identification through their fingerprints.
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