Does this pass the smell test? The Missouri Supreme court has ruled that the payment of $250k from a killer's family to a victim's family, conditioned on the killer not getting the death penalty did not provide a basis for a challenge by other defendants who didn't have money to make such a payment. The opinion is here.

by TChris

An interesting (albeit brief and incomplete) review of diverse religious positions on the death penalty is compiled in this article, which focuses on the jury's remarkable decision to put Scott Peterson to death.

by TChris

The federal government has charged 14 people with playing a role in a smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants after they succumbed to heat in the back of a tractor-trailer. But prosecutors are only seeking the death penalty against one defendant, Tyrone Williams, who happens to be an African American. His lawyer is asking why.

"In this case, the discriminatory effect and discriminatory intent cry for justice," [Craig] Washington wrote in a motion submitted Thursday. "Moreover, every other similarly situated individual in the history of the death penalty as it relates to (immigrant) smuggling has been treated differently. Justice demands justice."

Washington told the court that, since 1994, 68 people have been charged with immigrant smuggling that resulted in death, but the government has pursued a death sentence only against his client.

To her credit, the judge would also like an explanation for the government's insistence on death. She may not be ready to accept the claim that Williams was the only defendant who had the ability to prevent the deaths from occurring.

During a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Roberts to provide her a letter from U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft explaining his office's refusal to "disclose why you sought the death penalty on this guy, the only black guy, and not on the others." Gilmore said she would hold Roberts in contempt if she didn't get the letter Friday.

by TChris

In a victory for death penalty opponents, the Kansas Supreme Court today (by a 4-3 vote) declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional.

The Kansas law as written requires jurors to vote for death if the “aggravating factors” offered by prosecutors and the “mitigating factors” offered by the defense balance each other out, the justices said. In essence the fact that a tie goes to the state renders the law unconstitutional, the court said.

The court declined to rewrite the statute in order to save it, concluding that it is the legislature's job to decide whether the statute should be amended to restore the death penalty. The court's decision is here.

The LA Times has an editorial on the cost to taxpayers of the Scott Peterson verdict, that includes information on the millions the state will spend because he was sentenced to death instead of life.

Notwithstanding the whooping cheers from the Redwood City crowd at the news of his death sentence, Scott Peterson is unlikely to die by lethal injection soon, if ever. Meanwhile, Monday's feel-good moment will cost Californians millions more than the price of locking Peterson away for life with no possibility of parole.

The Death Penalty Information Center will release a report tomorrow showing that the number of executions dropped 40% from 1999 to 2004.

The center also found that fewer Americans support capital punishment and that fewer prisoners are being sent to death rows.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Jose Medellin, a Mexican national on death row in Texas whose case was heard by the World Court (International Court of Justice in the Hague) last year. Medellin was denied the right to speak with the Mexican consulate after his arrest. The case has important international implications.

The question is whether the federal government can permit Texas to execute a Mexican whose rights under a binding international treaty were violated when he was tried and sentenced to death without Mexican officials being notified.

On March 31, the International Court of Justice ordered the United States to undertake "an effective review" of the convictions and sentences of the inmate, José Ernesto Medellín, and 50 other Mexicans under death sentences in nine states. The court, usually known as the World Court, ruled that all 51 had been deprived of their right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to meet with Mexican government representatives.

Mexico was not notified that Mr. Medellin had been sentenced to death until three years after he arrived on death row. Mexico then sued in the World Court. The World Court did not reverse the conviction, but ordered the U.S. to review each case individually.

Did Texas execute an innocent man in in 2004? An exhaustive investigation by award winning Chicago Tribune investigative reporters Steve Mills and Maurice Possley indicate the answer as to Cameron Todd Willingham may well be yes, based upon disputed forensics.

Texas continues to lead the nation in executions:

Texas has the dubious distinction in leading the nation in the number of people it has executed, the number of juvenile offenders on death row and the number of juvenile offenders it has executed. In addition, the state ranks second in the overall number of people on
death row and second in the number of women on death row.

The Texas Coalition Against the Death penalty aptly notes that Texas' death penalty is "an embarrassment beyond belief and repair."

Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day. Make your voice heard.

Attorney General John Ashcroft will go down in history not only as the chief salesman of the Patriot Act, but for his attempt to revitalize the federal death penalty, even to the extent of overruling his own prosecutors who recommended against it in specific cases.

The National Law Journal examines Ashcroft's legacy vis as vis the death penalty--and whether his likely successor, Alberto Gonzales, will continue down the same path.

Currently, 71 federal death penalty trials are pending nationwide, according to Kevin McNally, a lawyer at the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which assists capital defenders and functions as a clearinghouse. In at least 15 of the pending cases Ashcroft overruled local prosecutors, McNally said. All told he has overruled prosecutors on at least 42 of 128 capital defendants (33 percent). He overruled prosecutors the other way -- declining to request the death penalty -- on eight defendants. Though disagreements between the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys are not always disclosed, McNally said that his information comes from defense lawyers and public records.

Which way will Alberto Gonzales go? Hard to say. Gonzales wrote a lot of pro-execution clemency memos to Bush while Bush was Governor of Texas. But the Department does seem to be overruling its prosecutors less the past few months, so maybe Gonzales abandon Ashcroft's hard line stance. Stay tuned. It's bound to be an issue Gonzales is questioned about during his confirmation hearing.

by TChris

Is the Supreme Court fed up with Texas death penalty cases? More importantly, is it fed up with the Fifth Circuit?

In the past year, the Supreme Court has heard three appeals from inmates on death row in Texas, and in each case the prosecutors and the lower courts suffered stinging reversals.

Texas leads the nation in executions. The Supreme Court may have become impatient with the cursory review death penalties receive in the Texas appellate courts and in the Fifth Circuit. In a case that returns to the Court after the Fifth Circuit reinstated a death sentence by following the dissent in the Court's 8-1 decision rather than the majority opinion, the Court will have another opportunity to tell the lower courts to stop ignoring the Constitution -- and to tell the Fifth Circuit (again) to stop defying its decisions.

On Tuesday, 300 cities joined with Rome, Italy to say "no" to the death penalty. The chain of public events worldwide, "Cities for Life -- Cities Against the Death Penalty," was promoted by the lay Community of Sant'Egidio.

The Rome-based Catholic group has long focused part of its international involvement on the struggle against the death penalty. Sant'Egidio is also promoting the "Appeal for a Universal Moratorium," which has obtained some 5 million adherents in 150 countries, giving rise to an interreligious front against capital punishment.

In 2002, Sant'Egidio launched the first International Day of Cities Against the Death Penalty, on Nov. 30 of that year. [We wrote about the 2003 event here.] The date was chosen as a reminder of the first abolition of capital punishment in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany on Nov. 30, 1786.

Among the cities supporting the campaign against the death penalty are Amsterdam, New York, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Hiroshima and Paris. Here is the photo gallery of the events.

by TChris

TalkLeft reported yesterday that the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to recommend a stay of execution for Frances Newton to permit reexamination of the shaky evidence that supports her guilt. Today, hours before Newton was scheduled to die, Gov. Rick Perry granted the stay.

Newton's supporters charge she was the victim of poor work done by the Houston Police Department crime laboratory, which has been plagued by scandals in the past few years.

The stay will permit testing of residue on a dress that police viewed as proof that Newton had fired a weapon. Newton maintains that the residue is nitrate from fertilizer.