The St. Louis Post Dispatch has a long analysis of the Missouri Supreme Court's decision this week throwing out a juvenile offender death sentence.

The text of the opinion in the case is here.

If the decision stands, prosecutors in Missouri will no longer be able to seek the death penalty against an offender who was under 18 at the time of the crime.

Here are the current statistics on executing juvenile offenders, from the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty ( NCADP):

Approximately 80 juvenile offenders are on death rows in the United States. Six of the past seven executed juvenile offenders have been from Texas and have been African American. Scott Hain, a white juvenile offender, was executed earlier this year by the state of Oklahoma.

Twenty-eight states now ban the execution of juvenile offenders – 16 states that permit the death penalty and 12 states that ban all executions. Hawkins argues that juvenile offender executions must be banned, just as the executions of people with mental retardation have been.

We need to get the remaining twenty-two states on board.

Ardmore, PA defense attorney Peter Goldberger (a frequent commenter on TalkLeft) has been working for ten years to overturn a death sentence in Pennyslvania through DNA testing. Finally, success! A Judge has ordered the death sentence to be vacated. A final order officially vacating the sentence should be forthcoming.

A man who has been on death row since 1983 for rape and murder was formally granted the right to a new trial, one week after DNA tests on key evidence showed no link to him.

Prosecutors would not say whether Nicholas James Yarris, 42, should be completely free from charges, but acknowledged they might not have enough evidence for a new trial.

If exonerated, Yarris will be the first person on Pennsylvania's death row to be cleared by DNA testing.

Congratulations, Peter--and Mr. Yarris.

The Missouri Supreme Court today vacated the death sentence of Christopher Simmons, holding that the imposition of the death penalty on those who were juveniles at the time of the crime violates the 8th Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment. Simmons was 17 at the time of the murder for which he was sentenced to death. His sentence will now become one of life without parole or release, except by an act of the Governor.

From the Court syllabus:

(1) In 1989, the United States Supreme Court declined to bar the execution of offenders who were 16 or 17 years old at the time of their crimes, holding that there was not then a national consensus against such executions. Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989). This Court is not bound by Stanford, however, because the determination of what is cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment must be interpreted in a flexible and dynamic manner. This determination must be considered by current standards, recognizing that society's standards of decency are fluid and evolving.

(2) In the 14 years since Stanford was decided, a national consensus has developed against the execution of juvenile offenders. No state has lowered the age for execution from 18 to 17 or 16, five more states have banned the practice of executing juvenile offenders through legislative action and a sixth state has banned such a practice through a judicial decision. Only six states have executed a juvenile offender in the past 14 years. Opposition to the juvenile death penalty by professional, social and religious organizations, both nationally and internationally, has grown since Stanford. Similar to the reasons set out in Atkins in regard to offenders who are mentally retarded, neither retribution nor deterrence provides an effective rationale for imposing the juvenile death penalty, and the risk of wrongful execution of juveniles is enhanced.

(3) This Court concludes that the United States Supreme Court would hold that the execution of persons for crimes committed when they were under 18 years of age violates the evolving standards of decency and is prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States constitution. This decision applies retroactively to persons whose cases are on collateral review.

You can read the syallbus and full opinion here.

Say hello to Capital Defense Weekly. Now in blog format, the site has been covering death penalty legal decisions since 1997.

The Texas Court of Appeals has stopped Wednesday's scheduled execution of Mark Robertson. Kudos to defense lawyer Randy Schaffer of Houston who obtained the stay.

The trial judge had refused to allow the jury to consider mitigating evidence concerning Robertson's childhood. Because the case had already been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, Shaffer looked for a way to get it back to the Texas Court of Appeals, and he succeeded:

Last Friday, the Supreme Court refused to overturn the appeals court decision and Schaffer returned to the state court with "the same issue in a different context," he said

In Robertson's case, appeals attorneys have argued his alcoholic father or childhood abuse or his own drug abuse also should have been considered by a jury as a special circumstance, also referred to as mitigating evidence.

If a jury finds there is such evidence, a life sentence is imposed. "I asked the court to stay the execution and permit me to argue the case when it reconvenes in September," Schaffer said.

Texecutions carried out this year: 20
Two more are scheduled for September.
A record of 40 was set in 2000.
There were 33 in 2002.

This is a very interesting article about the growing hostility of Jamaicans to the British Justice System with which it is entwined. The death penalty lies at the center of the disharmony, but as you'll see, it's Jamaica, not Britain, that wants to hold onto the archaic past.

The anatagonism began spreading after a Jamaican who was sentenced to death row for killing a policeman had his conviction overturned by Britain.

Poor, young and idle, Randall Dixon was one of the usual suspects when Det. Cpl. Phillip Gordon ended up dead in a chaotic firefight between four bank robbers and four policemen. Despite witness testimony that Dixon wasn't involved in the 1996 Western Union Bank robbery, he was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to die by hanging.

Dixon, now 37, has had his sentence struck down by the Privy Council in London on appeal because videotape from security cameras — suppressed by police for the last seven years — proved he wasn't there.

You would think the Jamaicans would be pleased that one of their own who turned out to be innocent was spared the ultimate penalty, right? Wrong.

A federal judge in Boston today expressed grave concern about the death penalty. While ruling that it is not yet time to declare it unconstitutional, Judge Mark L. Wolf said that time may be coming.

Judge Wolf said "substantial evidence has emerged" to show that innocent people "undoubtedly" have been executed. He referred to the 100 plus people exonerated from death row due to DNA and other evidence.

Most significant to us was the Judge's criticism of Ashcroft's failed attempts to obtain a death penalty conviction in 19 of his last 20 attempts. These 19 trials either resulted in life verdicts or straight-out acquittals. The Judge partially attributes this to Ashcroft's faulty policies in selecting cases for death penalty prosecution.

Executions are becoming so common these days, most are not big news. Some are not even news. All of us opposed to the death penalty must continue to pay attention. Here's a portion of an excellent news account of the execution yesterday of Tommy Jerry Fortenberry in Alabama who spent the last 17 years of his life on Death Row. He was 20 years old at the time of the murders for which he was executed.

"No last words" Fortenberry said seconds before he was administered the first of three different drugs that comprised a lethal injection that took his life in the death chamber at Holman prison. Fortenberry, 39, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m.

As the execution began at 6 p.m., Fortenberry lay mostly still on a white gurney in the stark white execution chamber. He said nothing else, but motioned twice to his spiritual adviser, Ben Sherrod of Kairos Prison Ministry, and another witness, showing them the international hand sign for "I love you."

Fortenberry nodded several times to the witnesses, but mostly lay still as the color slowly drained from his face. After a few minutes, his eyes closed and his chin quivered several times. Finally, he was still. There were no sounds in the death chamber.

"Punishment is not in the dying. It's in the 19 years of hell he's lived through," Sherrod said quietly as the curtain on the window separating the witness room from the death chamber was pulled shut, indicating that Fortenberry was dead.

Lethal injection may not be the painless, smooth death as has often been portrayed in the media--or communicated to death row inmates.

But Dr. Edward Brunner, an emeritus professor of anesthesia at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, said the information is critical. Dr. Brunner, who is a death penalty opponent, said injection can be painful, but it depends on the dosage and the training of those who administer it.

"The drugs, if not given properly, can cause a precipitate - like a solid gel - which will block the needle and not allow the flow of the medication. If the drug doses are not proper, the drug used to put the patient to sleep can wear off and the drug used to paralyze you can act, and the patient can be fully sensitive.

"The final drug is potassium chloride, which stops the heart. It is very caustic and burning if it is administered when the person is awake. It would be very devastating and painful," said Dr. Brunner, 74.

From the Kansas City Star:

One of the year's best country albums celebrates one of country music's longest and darkest traditions: the murder ballad. The album also is tied to one of the most potent political issues in the country -- capital punishment -- so you know it wasn't made in Nashville by commercial country stars. In fact, the album was made by a small label in Chicago and produced by a Welshman, and neither is the least bit worried about a backlash.

"It's all really a cheap one-liner," said Jon Langford, who produced "The Executioner's Last Songs: Vol. 2 and 3" for Bloodshot Records. "You know, death songs against death." A native of Wales and now a resident of Chicago, he began publicly associating himself with the anti-capital punishment issue last year, when Bloodshot released Vol. 1 of "The Executioner's Song," which raised $40,000 for the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project.

In the liner notes to that album, Langford wrote blithely: "Here's a little historical trawling and purging to aid and support the long, civilizing march against the death penalty in this earth's richest land."

....He succeeded in making a great album. Robert Moore has played several "Executioner's" songs on his weekly "Sonic Spectrum" show, broadcast from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturdays on KCUR-FM (89.3).

"It's easily one of the best country albums of the year," Moore said. "It revives a lot of great tunes, and not just the traditional country murder ballads but also some songs like `Gallows Pole,' a ballad that Led Zeppelin covered (on `Led Zeppelin III')."

Attorney General John Ashcroft was denied the ability to seek the death penalty in a trial in Puerto Rico Thursday when the jury acquitted the defendants of all murder charges.

How fitting! Ashcroft picks a case in which he thinks the crime is so bad and the defendants so awful that his intervention is warranted. So while the Puerto Rico Consitution does not allow for the death penalty, Ashcroft says tough, the feds will step in and make you have one. The case is tried to a jury the past few weeks, and after three days of deliberations, the jury finds both defendants not guilty. No conviction, no penalty....no death penalty.

Jurors in a closely watched federal death penalty case in Puerto Rico acquitted the two defendants yesterday, elating many Puerto Ricans who had bitterly opposed the trial and accused the Justice Department of callously betraying their culture and constitution, which outlaws capital punishment.

The jury of seven men and five women cleared the men, Joel Rivera Alejandro and Héctor Óscar Acosta Martínez, of all charges after three days of deliberation. Mr. Alejandro and Mr. Acosta Martínez had been accused of shooting to death and dismembering a grocery store owner in February 1998 after kidnapping him and not receiving the $1 million ransom they demanded. The two men were released from federal custody after the acquittal, while several dozen of the men's relatives wept in the courtroom after the verdicts were read.

This gives us serious concern about Ashcroft and his capital team's ability to assess cases.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich amended the death penalty reform bill passed by the Illinois legislature by vetoing one provision--one that lowered the standards for proving perjury against individual police officers.

As a result of his partial veto, the whole bill will return to the legislature in the fall. The bill is expected to be repassed then, with or without the police perjury provision.

With regard to the perjury provision, one lawyer just wrote us:

Personally, I would like to know what standard of proof was called for in the bill. I wonder if this was a legitimate concern by the Governor, or if he was just looking for excuses or playing to police lobbyist. It seems to me that any police officer that would give false testimony during such an important trial ought not be a police officer.

But, we praise the Governor for his signing another bill two weeks ago that mandates videotaping of interrogations. And for his refusal to lift the moratorium on Illinois executions despite the reform bills.