The StandDown Texas Project

Double Jeopardy

That's the title of an article in the November 17 issue of the New Yorker, written by Paige Williams.  It's subtitled, "In Alabama, a judge can override a jury that spares a murderer from the death penalty."  Here's a brief excerpt from this must-read:

Most states with the death penalty require a unanimous vote of twelve in order to impose capital punishment. Alabama requires ten. In this case, the jury unanimously rejected the state’s request to send Jackson to the electric chair. The jurors were reluctant to condemn a teen-ager to death, especially in a case with such conflicting evidence. “I had concerns about whether Shonelle Jackson was the shooter,” a juror named Jan Burkes later said, in a sworn deposition, adding, “Other jurors also had concerns about whether Mr. Jackson was responsible.”

Judge Gordon thanked the jurors and sent them home.

In Alabama, though, a capital case doesn’t necessarily end there. The state’s judges can exercise an unusual power: they can “override” a jury’s collective judgment and impose the death penalty unilaterally.

Earlier coverage of Alabama's practice of judicial override begins at the link.

Rodney Reed's Case

The Austin American-Statesman posts, "Rodney Reed appeal rejected by U.S. Supreme Court," by Chuck Lindell.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not review an appeal by death row inmate Rodney Reed, putting the Bastrop man one step closer to a Jan. 14 execution date

Reed’s appeal argued that he deserved a new trial because he received incompetent legal help during his 1998 trial.

The Supreme Court declined, without comment, to review Reed’s case. The decision lets stand a January ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined that Reed’s claim of innocence lacked credibility and that his lawyers performed adequately during his trial.

Today's Supreme Court Orders list is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

Continuing Attention for 'Just Mercy'

Bryan Stevenson's essay, "The Man on Death Row Who Changed Me," appears in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

It was an old hymn they used to sing all the time in church where I grew up. I hadn’t heard it in years. Because his ankles were shackled and his hands were locked behind his back, he almost stumbled when the guard shoved him forward. But he kept on singing.

His voice was filled with desire. I had come into the prison with such anxiety and fear about his willingness to tolerate my inadequacy. I didn’t expect him to be compassionate or generous. I had no right to expect anything from a condemned man on death row. But that day, I could hear him as he went down the hall, until the echo of his earnest, soaring voice faded. When it had gone, the still silence of that space sounded different from when I entered. Even today, after 30 years of defending death-row prisoners, I still hear him.

Rob Warden writes the Washington Post book review, "‘Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption’ by Bryan Stevenson."  Warden is the executive director emeritus of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

U.S. criminal justice sometimes seems more criminal than just — replete with error, malfeasance, racism and cruel, if not unusual, punishment, coupled with stubborn resistance to reform and a failure to learn from even its most glaring mistakes. And nowhere, let us pray, are matters worse than in the hard Heart of Dixie, a.k.a. Alabama, the adopted stomping ground of Bryan Stevenson, champion of the damned.

Stevenson, the visionary founder and executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, surely has done as much as any other living American to vindicate the innocent and temper justice with mercy for the guilty — efforts that have brought him, among myriad honors, a MacArthur genius grant and honorary degrees from Yale, Penn and Georgetown. Now 54, Stevenson has made his latest contribution to criminal justice in the form of an inspiring memoir titled “Just Mercy.”

Earlier coverage of Bryan Stevenson's book begins at the link.

Supreme Court to Hear California Case

"Supreme Court To Review California Death Penalty Case," is the Ap report, via CBS Sacramento.

The Supreme Court will consider reinstating the conviction and death sentence for a California man in a 29-year-old triple murder in San Diego.

The justices said Monday they will hear California’s appeal of a federal appeals court ruling that overturned the conviction and sentence for Hector Ayala.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Ayala was denied a fair trial because prosecutors excused all seven black and Hispanic jurors who might have served.

The SCOTUSblog case file for Chappell v. Ayala is at the link.

Courthouse News Service posts, "New Death-Penalty Case Picked Up by Supremes," by Barbara Leonard.

California persuaded the Supreme Court on Monday to decide whether it should retry a death-row prisoner who was convicted by a minority-free jury.

The 9th Circuit first awarded Hector Ayala such relief in 2012 and has amended that opinion to the same effect twice more in as many years.

Its latest version, published this past February, clocks in at 137 pages with the addition of a new dissent to the 9th Circuit's denial of a rehearing en banc.

Seven judges joined Judge Sandra Ikuta in saying that the 9th Circuit had done an end-run around Supreme Court precedent.

Related posts are in the Supreme Court category index.

Continuing Coverage of Bryan Stevenson's 'Just Mercy'

The New York Times Sunday Book Review contained, "'Just Mercy,’ by Bryan Stevenson."  It's by Ted Conover, a journalism professor and nonfiction author.  Here's the beginning:

Unfairness in the Justice system is a major theme of our age. DNA analysis exposes false convictions, it seems, on a weekly basis. The predominance of racial minorities in jails and prisons suggests systemic bias. Sentencing guidelines born of the war on drugs look increasingly draconian. Studies cast doubt on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Even the states that still kill people appear to have forgotten how; lately executions have been botched to horrific effect.

This news reaches citizens in articles and television spots about mistreated individuals. But “Just Mercy,” a memoir, aggregates and personalizes the struggle against injustice in the story of one activist lawyer.

Bryan Stevenson grew up poor in Delaware. His great-grandparents had been slaves in Virginia. His grandfather was murdered in a Philadelphia housing project when Stevenson was a teenager. Stevenson attended Eastern College (now Eastern University), a Christian institution outside Philadelphia, and then Harvard Law School. Afterward he began representing poor clients in the South, first in Georgia and then in Alabama, where he was a co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.

TIME posts, "10 Questions With Bryan Stevenson," by Belinda Luscombe.

Just Mercy is about getting legal help for poor people in Alabama. What are the biggest impediments?

We have a criminal-justice system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent. I don’t believe that America’s system is shaped by culpability. I think it’s shaped by wealth. The poor are very vulnerable in a system that relies so heavily on skilled advocates, then doesn’t provide skilled advocates. Until recently, [court-appointed] lawyers in Alabama could only be paid $1,000 for their out-of-court time. A lawyer could make more defending a traffic ticket than a capital case.

You say that 1 in 3 black men in the U.S. under 30 is in jail, on probation or on parole. Is this the scariest stat?

I think the newer statistic that 1 in 3 black males born in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison during their lifetimes is more astonishing because it’s about the future. And 1 in 6 Latino boys. That wasn’t true in the 20th century.

The Huntsville Times posts, "'Slavery didn't end; it evolved,' Bryan Stevenson of Equal Justice Initiative tells 'Daily Show' host Jon Stewart," by Kay Campbell.

Because Americans have never understood the myths of their own history that made it possible to have slavery, "Slavery didn't end; it evolved," Alabama's Bryan Stevenson told Jon Stewart during the Oct. 16, 2014, "Daily Show."

Stevenson, the founder-director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, is one of the keynote speakers for the upcoming conference in Huntsville, Exploring Faith Intersections, Nov. 2-3, 2014. Stevenson is also the author of "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption," which will be released from Random House on Tuesday, Oct. 21. Stevenson told Stewart about a few of the cases he has been involved in with the EJI in freeing people who had been unjustly accused in were blatant disregards for legal procedure.

Earlier coverage of Bryan Stevenson's book begins at the link.

A multi-city book tour kicks off October 22nd, at Washington, DC's legendary Politics & Prose.  You can order a signed book, and they will be happy to mail it to you after the event.

Important Death Penalty Infographics

The Wahington Post GovBeat blog posts, "Four decades of death penalty executions by year, state, race and gender, in 1 chart," by Niraj Choksh.

We’ve written a lot about execution, but found the chart below by Alex Pudlin particularly efficient in conveying the variety of statistics related to its implementation in recent decades. Since 1976, white defendants have been executed more than any other racial or ethnic group. Texas has executed five times more individuals than second-ranked Oklahoma and, nationwide, death penalty executions peaked in 1999.

Thanks to Pudlin, who works in urban planning and creates charts as a hobby, for creating this chart and allowing us to republish it. The chart does not include Ringo’s execution.

The Los Angeles Times publishes,"Executions in the U.S. since 1976," by Kyle Kim, Thomas Suh Lauder, which contains a series of infographics.

The death penalty has long been a source of controversy in the United States. The practice has come under increased scrutiny across the country after botched executions in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona renewed calls for officials to either abolish capital punishment or to improve its procedures.

Here are a few key facts about capital punishment in the U.S.

Related posts are in the infographic category index.

Missouri Executes

"Missouri execution is 8th in the state this year," is the AP report filed by Jim Salter.

A Missouri inmate convicted in a 1998 robbery and double murder was put to death Wednesday, the eighth execution in the state this year and the 10th since November.

Earl Ringo Jr. and an accomplice killed delivery driver Dennis Poyser and manager trainee JoAnna Baysinger at a Ruby Tuesday in Columbia in the early hours of July 4, 1998. Poyser and Baysinger were shot to death at point-blank range.

Ringo's last words were a quote from the Quran that expresses belief and wishes for after death. He wiggled his feet as the process began, breathed deeply a few times, then closed his eyes, all in a matter of seconds. The Department of Corrections said Ringo was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 12:31 a.m.

Courts and Gov. Jay Nixon had refused to halt the execution over concerns raised by Ringo's attorneys, who, among other things, questioned Missouri's use of a pre-execution sedative, midazolam. Attorneys argued that the drug could dull Ringo's senses and leave him unable to express any pain or suffering during the process.

Ringo declined to take any sedative, including midazolam, the Corrections Department said.

The Guardian posts, "Missouri executes Earl Ringo Jr after rejecting concerns over drugs used," by Ed Pilkington.

A clemency petition to Nixon had also cited concerns about the fact that Ringo was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury.

When the case came to trial, 163 people formed the pool from which the final jury would be drawn. Only four were black.

Of those four, only one was asked questions to ascertain whether she was eligible to serve on the jury, and even she was struck out by the judge. That left a panel of 12 white jurors, together with a white prosecutor and a white judge, sitting in judgment over a black defendant.

The racial disparity in Ringo’s prosecution chimes with a general statistical imbalance in Missouri’s criminal justice system. Black people are five times more likely to be incarcerated in the state than people who are white.

St Louis University law school has been conducting research specifically on Missouri’s practice of the death penalty in the modern era with the assistance of an expert in this area, Professor Ray Paternoster. The preliminary results of the study have found that murder convictions are three times more likely to end with a death sentence in Missouri in cases, like Ringo’s, where the defendant is black and the victim white.

Such cases make up between 5 and 6% of all murders in Missouri since 1977, yet constitute about 25% of death sentences since that date. Three of the past nine executions that have taken place in Missouri over the past year have involved the same black defendant-white victim disparity.

There have been 28 executions in American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,387 post-Furman executions since 1977.  Texas is scheduled to execute this evening.

Earlier coverage from Missouri and Texas, at the links.

Editorial, Commentary, News From Missouri

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes the editorial, "Lies and secrets in administering the ultimate punishment."  It's a must-read.

Thanks to diligent reporting by Chris McDaniel of St. Louis Public Radio, we now know that Missouri uses two drugs in its “single-drug” execution process. Inmates get an intravenous dosage of the sedative midazolam after they’re taken to the death chamber at the Bonne Terre prison. They usually get the sedative a half-hour or so before the execution time at 12:01 a.m. on the date specified by the Supreme Court.

Two questions then: Does this mean Missouri is jump-starting its executions before the time set by the court? And why did Corrections Director George Lombardi specifically deny in February that midazolam is used as part of the execution process?

Either Mr. Lombardi didn’t know what midazolam was or he lied about it. Either way it doesn’t offer much confidence in the man charged with making sure that the ultimate punishment is administered according to law. Sadly, it’s part of a pattern at the Department of Corrections.

In part because of all the challenges made under the Ringo lawsuit, the state has become very furtive in the way it executes people — and the way it intends to execute Earl Ringo.

 "'Thorough justice' in execution process," is an OpEd by Joan Bray, also in today's Post-Dispatch.  Bray is a former member of the Missouri Legislature.  Here's the beginning:

Speaking in the aftermath of events in Ferguson, Gov. Jay Nixon stated: “To get justice it has to be transparent justice, it has to be thorough justice.”

He was right. His assertion should apply in all cases, including, maybe even especially, in the administration of the death penalty.

Missourians, as well as the men to be executed and their families, have an absolute right to know the truth about the execution process. Instead, Missouri’s Department of Corrections has misled the public and obstructed access to the truth. Appointed by the governor and represented by the attorney general, these public officials must be held accountable for transparent, thorough justice.

The Springfield News-Leader publishes, "Racial bias influences Missouri executions," by Cheryl Clay.  She is the President of the Springfield NAACP chapter.

For the past few weeks, citizens of the world have been questioning the equality of the criminal justice system in Ferguson. And yet, very few seem to be asking if racial bias affects how the most drastic, irreversible act of the law – executions – are carried out in Missouri, the state ranked fifth in executions since they were reinstated in1976.

On September 10, Earl Ringo is scheduled to be the fourth black man executed in Missouri this year. Mr. Ringo was sentenced to death as a result the robbery of a restaurant after-hours that resulted in the deaths of two employees. The one African-American from the Cape Girardeau county jury pool who was actually questioned about her qualifications to serve on Mr. Ringo's jury was struck for cause at the request of the Prosecuting Attorney and under dubious circumstances. Mr. Ringo was thus tried by an all-white jury in front of a white judge by a white Prosecuting Attorney. Both of the people who died on the night of the offenses were white.

The handing down of the death penalty in America is clearly affected by the color the defendant's skin. African Americans have always been, and continue to be, disproportionately put to death at the hands of the American "justice" system. Currently African Americans account for 42% of the nation's death row population, even though they make up only 13% of the nation's civilian population.

"Missouri, Texas plan executions Wednesday,"is by Jim Salter and Michael Graczyk of Associated Press.  It's also available from USA Today.

Two of the nation's most active death penalty states are planning executions Wednesday, even as attorneys for the condemned men try to save them.

Earl Ringo Jr. is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. for killing two people during a robbery at a Columbia, Missouri, restaurant in 1998. Hours later, Texas plans to execute Willie Trottie for fatally shooting his common-law wife and her brother in Houston in 1993.

The executions would be the eighth this year in both states. Florida also has performed seven executions in 2014. All other states have a combined six executions.

"Missouri Fights Lethal Injection Suit on Eve of Earl Ringo Execution," is by Tracy Connor of NBC News.

While Texas remains the leading capital-punishment state in America — 16 murderers were put to death in the state last year — Missouri could break its own state record for executions by January. If his appeals fail, Ringo will be the eighth prisoner to enter the death chamber in 2014, the most in 15 years.

State officials have shown no inclination to slow the pace. In fact, Attorney General Chris Koster suggested this year that the prison system should make its own lethal injections so it doesn't have to rely on suppliers that demand anonymity.

Ringo is a plaintiff in the suit the Eighth Circuit will hear en banc, meaning all the judges will weigh in as opposed to a select few. His lawyer said it was not clear if that would help him win a temporary reprieve, noting that courts have declined to issue 11th hour delays for most other inmates involved in the case.

Earlier coverage from Missouri and Texas, at the links.

Stay of Execution Sought in Missouri

St. Louis Public Radio reports, "Citing St. Louis Public Radio Report, Inmate Asks Court To Halt His Execution," by Chris McDaniel. It's via KBIA-FM.

Lawyers representing inmate Earl Ringo are asking a federal judge to halt his upcoming execution, citing new information uncovered in a St. Louis Public Radio investigation.

Earlier this week, we reported that Missouri has been using Midazolam in its execution process. Midazolam, a sedative, is a controversial execution drug that has been used in three botched executions in the United States this year.

Missouri officials said previously that they would not use the drug.

"Critical state actors have perjured themselves, including the heads of the Department of Corrections and the Department of Adult Institutions," Ringo's lawyers wrote. "Lawyers for [the state] have submitted highly misleading pleadings and false claims in various courts about Missouri’s administration of executions."

After our report aired, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections issued a statement to St. Louis Public Radio, writing that the officials did not commit perjury.

 The Columbia Missourian reports, "Man scheduled for execution in Columbia killings requests stay," by Jasmine Ye Han and McKenzie Pendergras.

A Missouri man sentenced to death filed a request Thursday that asserted race played a role in his sentencing and asked the governor's office to stay his execution for a review of the case.

Attorneys for Earl Ringo Jr. requested that Gov. Jay Nixon appoint a board of inquiry to examine if there was a racial factor involved in Ringo's trial and death sentence. The board would review Ringo's case and offer recommendations to the governor regarding a clemency decision.

Ringo received his death sentence in 1998 after being convicted in connection with a robbery at a Ruby Tuesday in Columbia that resulted in the death of two employees. The request states that race played a role in his sentencing because Ringo, who is black, was charged by a white prosecutor, tried by a white judge and sentenced by a white jury.

A study led by criminologist Raymond Paternoster could further the evidence that race was a factor, according to the release. The study, which is ongoing at the St. Louis University School of Law, provides preliminary evidence that there are many cases like Ringo's that involve a capitally charged black person and one or more white victims, the request stated.

Ringo, who is scheduled to be executed Sept. 10, asks for a stay of execution until the completion of the study.

"Ringo requests delay of execution while role of race in his case is studied," is by Mike Lear of MissouriNet.

Earl Ringo, Junior, is a 40-year-old African-American who was sentenced to death in 1998 for his part in the robbery of the Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Columbia that left two people dead. His attorney says Ringo was charged with the murder of two white victims by a white prosecutor, tried by a white judge, and sentenced to death by an all white jury.

His attorney asks Governor Jay Nixon to stay Ringo’s execution and appoint an independent board of inquiry to study the role race played in the case.

Ringo’s attorney also argues that the Supreme Court has never properly compared his case to others with similar circumstances to see if his sentence was proportional to judgments handed down in those.

The Memorandum filed in Earl Ringo's case is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Questionable drug given to condemned; Versed not part of executions, Missouri says, is AP coverage, via the Columbia Tribune.

As Missouri prepares for another execution next week, a new report suggests that the Department of Corrections quietly and repeatedly used a drug that has raised concerns in botched executions in other states.

Missouri’s written one-drug execution protocol allows only for use of pentobarbital. The state has said pentobarbital was the sole drug used in the deaths of nine condemned men since November.

St. Louis Public Radio reported yesterday that the sedative midazolam also was part of the process in all nine executions, despite Department of Corrections director George Lombardi’s comments under oath in January that the state “will not use” midazolam.

The report cites chemical log forms obtained through an Open Meetings and Records Law request showing that “Versed” was administered to each inmate. Versed is another name for midazolam.

Corrections Department spokesman David Owen said Missouri’s protocol allows for use of sedatives in advance of the execution, and they are not part of the actual execution. He declined to name the sedative used but confirmed that only pentobarbital is used for lethal injection.

Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.

In the 11th Circuit

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruling in Fults v. GDCP Warden is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"Racist Revelation Will not Lead to Habeas Relief," is by Deshayla Strachan for Courthouse News Service.

 former juror's comment that the death sentence he handed down eight years ago was "what that nigger deserved" does not justify habeas relief, the 11th Circuit ruled.

Kenneth Fults has been on death row in Georgia since 1997 after he pleaded guilty to the 1996 murder and kidnapping of his next-door neighbor, Cathy Bounds.

And:

Jurors found it an aggravating circumstance that the murder took place during a kidnapping and that it was outrageous.

It was not until April 2005, eight years after sentencing, that Fults claimed in an amended state habeas corpus petition that the "improper biases of jurors ... infected their deliberations," causing them to "improperly prejudg[e]" his case.

In support of that claim, Fults provided a handwritten, signed and notarized affidavit from one of the sentencing jurors, Thomas Buffington, dated two days before the petition was filed.

"I don't know if he ever killed anybody, but that nigger got just what should have happened," Buffington wrote. "Once he pled guilty, I knew I would vote for the death penalty because that's what that nigger deserved."

Both the state court and a federal judge found the claim procedurally defaulted, and the 11th Circuit affirmed Tuesday that the claim is barred.

Related posts are in the race category index.  Earlier, unrelated, coverage from Georgia begins at the link.

National Law Journal Interview with Justice Ginsburg

"Justice Ginsburg Laments 'Real Racial Problem' in U.S.," is by Marcia Coyle of the National Law Journal.  Here's teh beginning and her comments on the death penalty.

The turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., and the controversial stop-and-frisk policy in New York City illustrate a “real racial problem” in America, one that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have done little to help, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told The National Law Journal.

The high court was “once a leader in the world” in rooting out racial discrimination,” the justice said in a wide-ranging interview late Wednesday in her chambers. “What’s amazing is how things have changed.”

And:

NLJ: Towards the end of their tenure on the court, justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, and even later than that, Justice Lewis Powell Jr., decided they could no longer support the constitutionality of the death penalty. As we see increased problems with lethal injection, what are your thoughts now about the penalty?

GINSBURG: I’ve always made the distinction that if I were in the legislature, there’d be no death penalty. If I had been on the court for Furman [v. Georgia, 1972, invalidating the death penalty], I wouldn’t have given us the death penalty back four years later. Stevens and Powell were part of that. I think there wouldn’t have been a big fuss. There was a big fuss initially over the decision that stopped executions. If the court had stayed there, it would have been accepted. That was the golden opportunity. I had to make the decision was I going to be like Brennan and Marshall who took themselves out of the loop [by dissenting in every case upholding the penalty]. There have been some good death penalty decisions. If I took myself out, I couldn’t be any kind of contributor to those.

NLJ: After more than two decades on the court, what types of cases still vex or challenge you?

GINSBURG: Death penalty. For one thing, our jurisprudence is dense and then we have these contributions from Congress like AEDPA [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act]. Because we had no death penalty in the District of Columbia, my first year here, I asked my clerks to write a memo so I could become familiar with where the court was on the death penalty. It was dense then and it has gotten only worse.

Related posts are in the Supreme Court category index.  More on Furman v. Georgia, at the link.

Christian Science Monitor Conversation with Evan Mandery

"Death penalty ban: 'A Wild Justice' author Evan Mandery explains how the US adopted, and then discarded, it," by Randy Dotinga for the Christian Science Monitor.

Q: You focus on another case that – like Justice Goldberg – has been largely forgotten by history. This is the ruling in the case of McCleskey vs. Kemp, in which the court majority refused to heed statistics that suggested a pattern of racism against blacks in the use of the death penalty.

Why is this case vital to the story of the legality of the death penalty?

A: It was potentially the most important decision in history of Supreme Court other than Plessy vs. Ferguson and Brown vs. Board of Education.

Justice Lewis Powell wrote the majority opinion in the 5-4 ruling, although at the end of his life he said he opposes the death penalty and regrets his decision. It's a challenge based solely on the issue of racism: The court said you needed an individualized showing of racism to invalidate the death penalty, which is basically impossible.

If one vote in that decision had gone the other way, it would have fundamentally transformed the entire justice system in America. The Supreme Court would have been saying that you couldn't use a punishment if there were racially disparate patterns.How would the court have restricted that just to the death penalty? I believe that's why the court didn't do that, that they thought the wheels would fall off the justice system.

Earlier coverage of Mandery's excellent book begins a the link.  You can learn more about McCleskey v. Kemp at the link.

Former Judges Back Rodney Reed Appeal

Today's Austin American-Statesman reports, "Eight ex-judges support appeal of death row inmate Rodney Reed."  It's by Chuck Lindell.

Eight retired federal and state judges on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept an appeal by Rodney Reed, who faces a January execution in the 1996 rape and murder of 19-year-old Stacey Stites in Bastrop County.

The former judges said they were taking no position on Reed’s claim of innocence or his insistence that he should be granted a new trial because he received poor representation from his trial lawyers.

Rather, they said in a friend-of-the-court brief submitted Monday, that the Supreme Court should intervene because a lower appeals court did not follow the correct procedure when it rejected Reed’s appeal in January.

According to the retired judges’ brief, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should have ordered a district judge to review Reed’s claims — hearing live witnesses who were cross-examined by lawyers — but instead engaged in improper fact-finding based on a “cold record” of briefs and affidavits.

And:

The retired federal judges in the brief were Royal Furgeson of Texas, appointed by President Bill Clinton; U.W. Clemon of Alabama, appointed by President Carter; Lee Sarokin of New Jersey, appointed by Carter and Clinton; Stephen Orlofsky of New Jersey, appointed by Clinton; and W. Thomas Dillard, a nonappointed magistrate judge in Tennessee.

The state judges included Charles Baird, a Democrat who served eight years on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and four years as a district judge in Austin; Sol Wachtler, a Republican formerly with the New York Supreme Court; and Oliver Diaz Jr., formerly with the Mississippi Supreme Court in a nonpartisan position.

The amicus brief in Reed v. Stephens is available in Adobe .pdf format.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

Coverage of Rodney Reed Hearing

Today's Austin American-Statesman reports, "Rodney Reed’s execution set for Jan. 14, but more DNA tests to be done," by Wesley Gardner.

Death row inmate Rodney Reed, who was convicted of capital murder in the 1996 rape and slaying of 19-year-old Stacey Stites, received a Jan. 14 date of execution Monday morning from visiting Judge Doug Shaver.

Following a 30-minute delay, Reed, 46, was escorted into a Bastrop County courtroom around 11:30 a.m., wearing red-and-white striped prison garb. Friends and family members watched from across the aisle, sporting white T-shirts with bold, black letters saying “Free Rodney Reed.”

Defense attorneys and prosecutors agreed prior to the hearing that several pieces of evidence from the crime scene would be sent to the Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory Service in Garland for additional DNA testing, according to an order signed by Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz and defense attorney Bryce Benjet.

The crime lab will have ample time to analyze the evidence before the January date for the execution, Shaver said.

Earlier coverage of Rodney Reed's case begins at the link.

Bastrop Hearing in Rodney Reed Case

"Rodney Reed to be back in court for hearing on execution date," is by Chuck Lindell in today's Austin American-Statesman.

Death row inmate Rodney Reed will return to a Bastrop court Monday for a hearing to set his execution date.

Prosecutors will ask visiting Judge Doug Shaver to issue a death warrant scheduling a Nov. 19 lethal injection for Reed, convicted of capital murder in the 1996 rape and strangulation of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old who died 18 days before her wedding.

And:

During Monday’s hearing in Bastrop, defense lawyers and prosecutors with the Texas attorney general’s office are expected to present a joint motion calling for DNA testing on rape kit evidence and several hairs collected from Stites’ body.

Benjet said he also plans to submit a second request, opposed by prosecutors, for additional DNA tests on the murder weapon — Stites’ belt, which was broken in half during the attack — her clothing and other evidence that must have come into contact with the attacker.

Some of the items have not been tested, while others were tested before modern practices were developed that can find, and identify, skin cells and other sources of DNA, Benjet said.

Earlier coverage of the Bastrop County case begins at the link.   All coverage is in the Rodney Reed category index.

Race and the Execution Chamber

That's the title of Matt Ford's post at the Atlantic.  It's subtitled, "The national death-row population is roughly 42 percent black—nearly three times the proportion in the general population."  There is an infographic at the link.

After a seven-week freeze following Clayton Lockett's botched execution in Oklahoma, three states executed three death-row inmates in less than 24 hours last week. Georgia, Missouri, and Florida had tangled with defense lawyers for months over the secrecy surrounding their lethal-injection cocktails and where they were obtained, a key issue in Lockett's death. Florida also addressed concerns about its inmate's mental capacity; his lawyers claimed he had an IQ of 78. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected all appeals, however, and the three inmates—Marcus Wellons, John Winfield, and John Henry, respectively—were successively executed without apparent mishap.

In addition to their fates, Wellons, Winfield, and Henry have something else in common: They are among the disproportionate number of black Americans to have been executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

In the three states where they were executed, blacks constitute a disproportionate share of the death-row population relative to the state population. In Oklahoma and Missouri, black Americans are overrepresented on death row by nearly a factor of four.

Earlier coverage of last week's three executions, at the links.  Related posts are in the race category index.

George Stinney

"Today in History for June 16, 2014," is a daily feature of the Associated Press.  It's via the Daily Republic.

On June 16, 1944, George Stinney, a 14-year-old black youth, became the youngest person to die in the electric chair as the state of South Carolina executed him for the murders of two white girls, Betty June Binnicker, 11, and Mary Emma Thames, 7. (George Stinney’s family, who maintains his innocence, is seeking to overturn his conviction.)

Jesse Wegman writes the editorial column, "A Boy’s Execution, 70 Years Later," in today's New York Times.

On the first page of the official sentencing report for George Stinney Jr., the outline of a boy is visible in a short string of numbers. Age: 14. Height: 5-1. Weight: 95. His complexion is listed as Black, his religion as Baptist, his occupation as None. Next to Build one word is typed: Small.

On March 24, 1944, George was arrested and charged with the murder of two young white girls, Betty June Binnicker and Mary Emma Thames, who were found beaten to death in a ditch in rural Clarendon County, S.C.

One month later he was tried and found guilty. He was executed on June 16, 1944 — the youngest person to be put to death in the 20th century. He was so small that the guards struggled to strap him to the electric chair, and the jolt of electricity knocked the mask from his face.

The sentencing report states that George Stinney was “legally electrocuted.” But to call what happened legal is to say only that this boy’s fate was decided in a courtroom, by a judge and jury, rather than by a throng of angry men with a rope.

In truth, George Stinney was lynched in slow motion.

WLTX-TV posts, "George Stinney, Jr. Supporters Erect Headstone," by Dakarai Turner.  There is video at the link.

Supporters of Stinney say that justice was not served when he was executed in 1944 and 70 years later, residents still aren't quite sure what happened.

"We heard so many different stories," said 54-year-old Alcolu resident Jeanette McCall."I hope the truth comes out."

Shonda Blackwell, 40, also a resident of the small town, echoed those thoughts.

"I don't know the full story of it, just bits and pieces of it, and that's just from my parents because I wasn't born during the time," Blackwell said.

But historian George Frierson said he has his own way of keeping the memory of that story from fading.

"We want the story to be told, and this was an adequate way to do that and also to remember him," Frierson said, standing next to the headstone he had placed in Alcolu.

"Memorial being unveiled to youth executed in SC," is Bruce Smith's AP filing, via the State.

"We are doing this to make sure he is never forgotten," said George Frierson, a School Board member who has been pushing to clear Stinney's name for almost a decade. "This is a travesty in the American judicial system."

The memorial unveiling in the town where the slayings occurred comes two days before the 70th anniversary of Stinney's execution. The youth was led to the electric chair June 16, 1944, with a Bible in his arm, the youngest person put to death in the nation in the past century.

"We want to make sure he is remembered and his execution is remembered," Frierson said. "He never had an opportunity to grow up, get married and have children."

Earlier coverage of George Stinney's case begins at the link.

Remebering Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, 1937 - 2014

The New York Times obituary is, "Rubin (Hurricane) Carter, Boxer Whose Murder Convictions Were Overturned, Dies at 76," is by Selwyn Raab.

Rubin (Hurricane) Carter, a star prizefighter whose career was cut short by a murder conviction in New Jersey and who became an international cause célèbre while imprisoned for 19 years before the charges against him were dismissed, died on Sunday morning at his home in Toronto. He was 76.

The cause of death was prostate cancer, his friend and onetime co-defendant, John Artis, said. Mr. Carter was being treated in Toronto, where he had founded a nonprofit organization, Innocence International, to work to free prisoners it considered wrongly convicted.

Mr. Carter was convicted twice on the same charges of fatally shooting two men and a woman in a Paterson, N.J., tavern in 1966. But both jury verdicts were overturned on different grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

And:

He attracted worldwide attention during the roller-coaster campaign to clear his name of murder charges. Amnesty International described him as a “prisoner of conscience” whose human rights had been violated. He portrayed himself as a victim of injustice who had been framed because he spoke out for civil rights and against police brutality.

A defense committee studded with entertainment, sports, civil rights and political personalities was organized. His cause entered the realm of pop music when Bob Dylan wrote and recorded the song “Hurricane,” which championed his innocence and vilified the police and prosecution witnesses. It became a Top 40 hit in 1976.

The obituary notes Mr. Carter's autobiography, The Sixteenth Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, which is still in print.

"Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter's life story is a warning to us about racism and revenge," is by Geoffrey Robertson for the Guardian's Comment is free.  He was an attorney in the case.

In 1976, I was a junior lawyer on Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter's retrial defence team. His story has a significance that should outlive his death.

And:

I met Rubin Carter during his release on bail in 1976. He had, quite literally, written his way out of life imprisonment with a memoir, The 16th Round, which revived interest in his case. Selwyn Raab of the New York Times cracked Bellow and Bradley, who confessed to perjury. Bob Dylan, who years before had so movingly mourned the lonesome death of Hattie Carroll, now set the story of "the Hurricane" to a driving, angry beat. Mohammed Ali led protest marches, and an appeals court ordered a retrial.

"‘Hurricane’ Carter went to the mat for the wrongfully accused," is by David A. Love at the Grio.  He's the Executive Director of Witness to Innocence.

To the end, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter fought for the wrongfully convicted as he had once fought in the ring, with the type of passion that earned him his boxing nickname.  In February, Carter wrote an op-ed in the New York Daily News with his dying wish: He asked the new Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, also a black man, to release David McCallum, a man who has been in prison for murder charges since 1985, the year Carter became a free man.

Thank you, Hurricane, for opening our eyes.  Raised in this country to believe the system works for everyone, and accepting it without question, we simply did not know any better.

Andrew Cohen posts, "The Redemption Song of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter," at the Atlantic.

William C. Rhoden, the Times' venerable sports columnist, did better, writing in his tribute Sunday that "Carter offers a reminder that one’s deeds on the court or on the field will be quickly forgotten; contributions to society resonate across decades. Carter’s name endures not because he had a great left hook but because of the principles he represented until the day he died." Let us now spend a few minutes highlighting the ways in which those principles were distributed to countless men and women less fortunate than Carter, who had little of his natural charisma or talent or celebrity, and who desperately needed him to help bring their cases and their causes into light.

Related posts are in the exoneration and in memoriam category indexes.

Barry Scheck on Race and Racism

"Stunning new case highlights how race bias corrupts juries," is the title of Barry Scheck's commentary at Salon.  His is co-Director of the Innocence Project.  Here's the beginning of this must-read:

Last month, Glenn Ford, an African-American man, walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary after spending thirty years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. One of the most important contributing factors to his death sentence? Racial discrimination in the selection of his all-white jury. In a community that is almost half African-American, the prosecutor struck African-American jurors with the flimsiest of excuses.

That kind of bias not only contributes to guilty verdicts for the innocent, it tilts the playing field toward death, particularly for defendants of color.

In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court has a chance to show the country that race bias should not be allowed to corrupt our jury system. Yesterday, that court’s justices heard arguments about three African-Americans and one Lumbee Indian who are serving life without parole, thanks to a lower court ruling that the discrimination in jury selection was a significant factor in their death sentences. The State of North Carolina would like to erase those facts and send the prisoners back to death row. Now the court will decide whether to recognize or ignore the dangers of racial discrimination in jury selection.

The four prisoners in the case have uncovered a mountain of evidence of discrimination in their cases and county, including a prosecutor’s handwritten notes in one of their cases. In it, he described prospective jurors differently by race. The white “country boy” who “drank” was “ok,” in contrast to the “black wino” who was excluded. Another African-American juror was “ok” because she was from “a respectable black family.”

Earlier coverage of Glenn Ford's exoneration and the North Carolina Racial Justice Act, at the links.

Related posts are in the race category index.

News Coverage of the North Carolina Supreme Court Hearing

"Appeal to Return 4 to Death Row Is Heard," by Alan Blinder for the New York Times.

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments about whether it should reinstate death sentences for four inmates whose punishments were reduced under a law that allowed certain criminal defendants to challenge their sentences by raising claims of racial bias in their prosecutions.

The two arguments before the elected court were the latest chapter in a legal and political drama that has played out since 2009, when the state’s Racial Justice Act was signed into law, creating a path for new court challenges by scores of inmates awaiting execution. The law was repealed by the Republican-dominated legislature in June 2013, and the state is trying to reimpose death penalties that were overturned while it was in place.

The centerpiece of the session on Monday in Raleigh, the capital, was the case of Marcus Reymond Robinson, a black man who was the first person to have his punishment reduced under the Racial Justice Act.

The News & Observer reports, "NC Supreme Court hears arguments in Racial Justice Act cases," by Anne Blythe.

The arguments came almost two years after a Cumberland County judge issued the first ruling associated with the short-lived Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that was overturned last year.

The law allowed judges to consider statistics among other evidence when weighing inmate claims that race-based decisions played a role in the cases brought against them.

In 2012, Judge Gregory Weeks found that a pervasive racial bias had played a role in the cases of Marcus Robinson, Tilmon Golphin, Quintel Augustine and Christina Walters, four convicted killers who were sentenced to death.

Weeks weighed testimony and statistics from a Michigan State University College of Law study of North Carolina capital cases in all four cases and found “a wealth of evidence showing the persistent, pervasive, and distorting role of race in jury selection throughout North Carolina.”

On Monday, the N.C. Supreme Court justices heard arguments in the first four cases decided under two versions of the law — the original 2009 law and an amended version adopted in 2012.

"NC high court holds hearings on Racial Justice Act," is the AP coverage, via the Salisbury Post.

North Carolina’s highest court will determine whether a lower-court judge erred when he ruled that racism was so pervasive in the trials of four convicted murderers that their sentences had to be changed from death to life behind bars without parole.

The state Supreme Court held two hearings Monday on the Racial Justice Act, the first involving Marcus Robinson and the 2009 version of the law. The second hearing involved three convicted murderers whose cases weren’t related and whose sentences were changed based on the amended 2012 law.

"Commutations Under Racial Justice Act Being Reviewed by NC Supreme Court," by Danny Hooley for Chapelboro.com

The North Carolina Supreme Court is considering whether four convicted murderers whose death sentences were commuted under the Racial Justice Act will have to return to death row, now that the Act has been repealed.

Joe Hackney says there are even bigger issues at stake.

“What we did in passing the Racial Justice Act was not to say that there was anything definitive that we knew,” he says. “But we gave defendants an opportunity to show that there was racial bias in the system.”

Hackney, now a practicing attorney in Chapel Hill, retired from the North Carolina House of Representatives in 2012.

Hackney was still the Democratic Speaker of the House when the Racial Justice Act was passed in 2009. The law allowed convicted murderers to have their sentences commuted to life without parole if they could prove racial bias was involved in sentencing.

“You know, we use statistics to prove all kids of things in a court of law,” he says. “Employment discrimination, among other things. And I thought it should be tested according to the legal principles that would be applicable to it. And it was tested, and the judge found that it was solid, and entered an order based on it.”

Earlier coverage from North Carolina begins at the link.

North Carolina Supreme Court Hears RJA Case

"NC high court to review sentences changed under Racial Justice Act," is by Anne Blythe of the News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Racial Justice Act was repealed by state lawmakers almost a year ago, but questions about whether the short-lived legislation will have any life after its death go before the state’s highest court on Monday.

The N.C. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the cases of the four prison inmates who had their death sentences converted to life without possibility for parole under the act.

Though the justices will weigh arguments specific to the plights of Marcus Robinson, Tilmon Golphin, Quintel Augustine and Christina Walters – the inmates whose sentences were changed – the rulings could have an impact on cases of other death row inmates who filed racial-bias challenges before the repeal of the landmark act.

All but a few of the 153 death row inmates have cases pending in the court queues. Their challenges contend that racial bias had a role in their fate, and they plan to cull from studies showing, among other things, that African-Americans are systemically excluded from serving on death-penalty juries.

Earlier coverage of North Carolina's Racial Justice Act begins at the link.  Also available, more recent news from North Carolina.

New Public Opinion Reserch From Pew

"Shrinking Majority of Americans Support Death Penalty," is the summary webpage from Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project.  There are excellent infographics available.  Here's the beginning:

According to a 2013 Pew Research Center survey, 55% of U.S. adults say they favor the death penalty for persons convicted of murder. A significant minority (37%) oppose the practice.

While a majority of U.S. adults still support the death penalty, public opinion in favor of capital punishment has seen a modest decline since November 2011, the last time Pew Research asked the question. In 2011, fully six-in-ten U.S. adults (62%) favored the death penalty for murder convictions, and 31% opposed it.

Public support for capital punishment has ebbed and flowed over time, as indicated by polls going all the way back to the 1930s. But it has been gradually ticking downward for the past two decades, since Pew Research began collecting survey data on this issue. Since 1996, the margin between those who favor the death penalty and those who oppose it has narrowed from a 60-point gap (78% favor vs. 18% oppose) to an 18-point difference in 2013 (55% favor vs. 37% oppose).

The Washington Post highlights one of the infographics, "See where every execution has taken place since 1977, in one map," by Niraj Chokshi.

The Christian Science Monitor reports, "Why is public support for the death penalty declining?"  It's by Mark Guarino.

Why the decline in support?

The trend coincides with a drop in violent crime in most major cities ? something that also peaked in the early-to-mid-1990s, notes Drew DeSilver for the Pew Research "Fact Tank" blog. In 1991, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data, there were about 758 violent crimes reported per 100,000 people. By 2012, the rate had fallen to about 387 crimes per 100,000 - the lowest rate in more than four decades.

Researchers have also pointed to more awareness of wrongful convictions as a factor in declining support for the death penalty, Mr. DeSilver says. He cites data from the National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project by the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law schools, that indicate 1,339 people have been exonerated since 1989 - including 106 who were sentenced to death.

DNA evidence played a role in less than a third of those exonerations, with perjured testimony, false accusations, and some form of official misconduct also factors.

"Why Whites Support Capital Punishment," is by Jamelle Bouie at Slate.

We hear a lot about the racial disparity in death penalty sentencing, namely, that black Americans are dramatically overrepresented on death row.

Less remarked on is the disparity in death penalty support, as revealed in a new Pew Research Center survey. Overall, 55 percent of Americans support capital punishment, and 37 percent are opposed. Among whites, however, support for the death penalty jumps to 63 percent, compared to 40 percent for Hispanics and 36 percent for blacks.

Religion—or at least, Protestantism—seems to increase the divide. At 67 percent in favor, white evangelical Protestants are more likely than any other group to support the death penalty, followed closely by white mainline Protestants (64 percent). Catholics are the least likely among religious whites to support capital punishment, though 59 percent are still in favor. On the other end, religious blacks and Latinos are even less likely than their peers to support the death penalty.

"Death penalty supported by shrinking majority," is by Chad Merda at the Chicago Sun-Times.

The latest numbers from Pew show that 55 percent of adults are in favor of the death penalty, while 37 percent oppose it. In Nov. 2011, 62 percent of American adults supported it.

While data shows death penalty views have changed over the years, in addition to the methods used for executions, the support for capital punishment has been on the gradual decline for the past two decades.

Republicans are far more likey to support the death penalty (71 percent) compared to Democrats (45 percent).

"Fewer Americans want the death penalty, but more executions may come," is by Herb Scribner for the Deseret News.

Americans are finding themselves less and less in favor of the death penalty, according to the Pew Research Center, which published a new study that found 55 percent of the country’s adults are in favor. This is a drop from 62 percent in 2011, Pew said.

“Public support for capital punishment has ebbed and flowed over time, as indicated by polls going all the way back to the 1930s,” Pew reported. “But it has been gradually ticking downward for the past two decades, since Pew Research began collecting survey data on this issue.”

AL.com posts, "Alabama executed 6th most prisoners since 1977; survey finds declining support for death penalty," by Challen Stephens.

Alabama remains among a handful of states that account for the majority of executions. 

Alabama executed 56 prisoners since 1977. That's the sixth most nationwide.

Alabama leads all of its neighbors, save Florida. Texas by far leads the nation. Texas is followed by Oklahoma, Virginia, Florida, Missouri and then Alabama.

Related posts are in the public opinion polling category index.

Continuing Coverage of Glenn Ford's Exoneration

The Brennan Center posts, "The Meaning of the Exoneration of Glenn Ford," by Andrew Cohen.

There are dozens of reasons why capital cases take so long to resolve, only a few of them involve unreasonable delays by defendants, and almost all of them have a central theme: garbage in, garbage out. From the outset of these cases, judges and prosecutors too often fail to ensure basic fairness by giving capital defendants all of the due process rights to which they are entitled. Often these errors are so significant, and so obvious, that they demand aggressive appellate litigation on the part of defense attorneys. This litigation takes time and that time is compounded not, as Justice Scalia asserts, by wimpy procedural rules, but rather by the nature of judicial decision-making itself.

Let me take the most recent example, the exoneration of Glenn Ford in Louisiana, to illustrate this point. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1984 after a trial that was unconstitutional in virtually every respect. He was scheduled for execution in 1991. He was set free Tuesday. His case took three decades to resolve (fortunately without the execution of an innocent man) not just because his trial lawyers were incompetent, his prosecutor excluded blacks from the jury, and the evidence against him was woefully weak. It took that long because the Louisiana courts, aware of these manifest deficiencies, nevertheless failed to muster up the courage to remedy them.

At any point along the way, for decade after decade after decade, Louisiana’s judges could given Ford a new trial based upon the grave flaws that ruined his first trial. They could have said that the Constitution does not permit the conviction of a black man by an all-white jury after prosecutors systematically removed blacks from the jury pool. They could have said that the right to counsel necessarily includes a capital lawyer who has tried a case before and who knows how to hire a defense expert. They could have said that there were overwhelming concerns about the strength of the prosecution’s case.

"St. Paul lawyers play driving role in release of Louisiana death row inmate," is by Rochelle Olson for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

For years, when she’d walk into her downtown St. Paul office, criminal defense lawyer Deborah Ellis would see a photo of Louisiana death row inmate Glenn Ford perched at eye level on the reception desk.

It was “a reminder to fight the good fight,” she said.

On Tuesday night, Ellis watched on television as Ford, 64, walked out of Louisiana State Prison in Angola. He was one of the longest-serving death row inmates in U.S. history to be exonerated and released. “I’ve been crying ever since,” Ellis said.

Minnesota Lawyer posts, "Minnesota attorneys joyful at death row inmate’s release," by Elizabeth Ahlin.

The Minnesota criminal defense attorney who got her involved, Doug Thomson, died in 2007. Thomson underwrote the pro bono effort for years, until Ellis started her own firm in 1993 and took the Ford case with her. In the beginning, while working round the clock on a post-conviction relief petition, several other Minnesotans were by her side.

Elliot Olsen and Charles Jones both described joy at seeing Ford freed from prison this week. While the two attorneys did not stay with the case for decades like Ellis, they sunk many hours, over a couple years, pushing for serious consideration of Ford’s post-conviction relief petition, Olsen said. It’s rewarding, both said, to see Ford released.

“It’s just shocking that it took so long,” Olsen said.

The Shreveport Times reports, "Sheriff's detective credited with uncovering evidence freeing Ford," by Vickie Welborn.

Law enforcement’s job not only is to arrest the bad guys but to get at the truth of a crime. So when a Caddo sheriff’s investigator last year came across new information on a 30-year-old cold case, he went straight to the district attorney’s office.

Caddo Sheriff Steve Prator is crediting that investigator, Detective Terry Richardson, with uncovering information that ultimately led to freedom for former Shreveporter Glenn Ford, who at age 64 walked out of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on Tuesday after being sentenced to death row nearly 30 years ago.

“Cpl. Richardson developed this information while working on other homicides,” Prator said. “He came across information pertinent to this old case and, to his credit, he immediately notified the district attorney’s office and from there continued to follow up on information and work with the district attorney.”

"Death row inmate Glenn Ford released 30 years after wrongful conviction," is by Ed Pilkington for the Guardian.

Richard Dieter, an authority on capital punishment at the Death Penalty Information Center, said that Ford’s case “painfully reveals the fallibility of the death penalty and the risks we take with every death sentence. Some states are trying to speed up executions instead of addressing the underlying problems that have led to such mistakes.”

David Love, executive director of Witness to Innocence, an organisation of exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones, said that attempts to speed up the time from conviction to death showed that for some politicians “it’s more important to have finality than to have justice. I believe that’s a misguided approach. As we see more and more innocent people like Glenn Ford released from death row, that’s a wake up call that we have to look at our broken system.”

Ford will now go through the long process of trying to rebuild his life on the outside. Under Louisiana law he can apply for compensation of up to $25,000 for each year lost to detention, but only up to a ceiling of $250,000.

"After 30 years on death row, can a wronged man forgive?" is the Christian Science Monitor report by Lisa Suhay.

The news of the release of Glenn Ford after being released from a Louisiana prison after 30 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit, is a dialogue opener for parents to discuss with children how to get past feelings of resentment to forgive and move forward.

Additional coverage includes:

"Louisiana Prisoner Exonerated, Freed After 30 Years on Death Row," at Democracy Now.

"Release ordered for Louisiana death row inmate," in the Baton Rouge Advocate.

"Man Exonerated, Freed After 3 Decades On Louisiana's Death Row," by Scott Neuman at NPR.

Slate posts, "Louisiana's Longest-Serving Death Row Inmate Freed After Three Decades," by Kelly Tunney.

"Black Man Sentenced To Death By All-White Jury Freed After 30 Years," by Nicole Flatow at Think Progress.

WAFB-TV posts, "Ford's ex-wife: I knew he was innocent," by Fred Childers, and, "Death row inmate freed, family of victim looks for answers," by Sasha Jones.

Earlier coverage of Glenn Ford's exoneration begins at the link.

Initial Commentary on the Glenn Ford Exoneration

New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist James Varney writes, "Glenn Ford didn't commit murder, so after 30 years he's leaving Death Row at Angola."

The fact some innocent men languish on death rows is not the sole reason to get rid of the macabre death penalty once and for all. But it is a reason.

The truth of that was highlighted in Louisiana this week when Caddo Parish prosecutors dropped murder charges against one Glenn Ford. The same district attorney's office that sent Ford to Angola's Death Row in 1984 now acknowledges it did so for a crime he did not commit.

That's the only just course for them to take, of course, and good for Caddo Parish for righting a wrong. After thirty years, Ford will once again be a free man, albeit one who can never recover the three decades of his life stolen from him.

How do death penalty proponents square this case with their belief the state should be in the killing business?

The record shows Ford was ill-served at nearly every point in his laborious and terrifying trip through the Louisiana criminal justice system.

"Louisiana to free innocent man who spent 30 years on death row," is the Los Angeles Times Opinion LA post by Scott Martelle.

Ford was convicted based on testimony by what turned out to be incompetent scientific witnesses, evidence that went unchallenged by his two court-appointed lawyers, an oil-and-gas specialist and an insurance defense lawyer two years out of law school. Neither had ever tried a case before a jury before. And, it turns out, the prosecutor had hidden exculpatory evidence, including information from two informants that Ford was innocent, from those lawyers.

It's hard to have faith in a system that can fail so badly.

Earlier coverage of Glenn Ford's exoneration begins with the preceding post.

The Deep Shame of Capital Punishment in America

That's the title of Andrew Cohen's latest writing on the death penalty at the Week.  It's subtitled, "Even if you support the death penalty, you shouldn't support the flawed way our government enacts it."  Here's an extended excerpt of this must-read:

Last week was a memorable one in the annals of American justice. The national Exoneration Registry announced that 87 people were exonerated last year, a new record. From Brooklyn, The New York Times reported on a wrongful conviction scandal its editors called "a tidal wave that could dwarf other exoneration clusters." In Louisiana, Jerome Morgan walked out of prison after 20 years when a state judge found his murder conviction to be marked by "deception, manipulation, and coercion" on the part of the New Orleans Police Department. And an appellate court in Texas told death row inmate Larry Swearingen that he had no right to DNA test the murder weapon used in his case.

All of these stories, the good and the bad, remind us of the arbitrary and capricious nature of our nation's justice systems. Whether you are executed or not, whether you are wrongly imprisoned or not — it doesn't just depend on the evidence against you. It depends on your race and the race of the victim, on the political predilections of your prosecutor and your judge, on the honor of police detectives, on the accuracy of the eyewitnesses testifying against you, on the skill and competency of your defense attorney, and on the mercy of the governor who makes a judgment on clemency. Oh, and it depends on which state you live in and which county in that state.

No one knows any of this better than David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center who has handled hundreds of capital cases in Texas and who has written an excellent new book that helps us better understand the nature of the death penalty. Dow's Things I've Learned From Dying is actually three very personal narratives in one, all of them touching upon how we deal with death, whether it comes from a needle in an execution chamber, cancer, or anything else. "Which is better," Dow asks in his introduction, "to be able to circle the date on a calendar five years from today when your life will end? Or to get flattened by a truck crossing the street and never see it coming? Who had the easier death: Timothy McVeigh, or his victims?"

This is a book from a guy who spends an awful lot of time thinking about dying, and about what it takes to live, and how people cope in those moments when life and death intersect. The insider's view of some of his capital cases alone makes Dow's book compelling. And the lesson of these passages is clear: A person's life is always more than just the worst moments of it, a sentiment that Bryan Stevenson, another clear and eloquent voice in the nation's debate over capital punishment, has made in his speeches. Good for both of them. If there is one thing the debate over the death penalty needs, it's a better understanding of the difference between explaining why some people are moved to murder and excusing them for doing so.

Earlier coverage of David Dow's book is at the link.  You can also read more from Andrew Cohen, or look at his posts at the Atlantic.

Missouri Executes After Supreme Court Lifts Stays

"Missouri executes man for jeweler's 1991 death," is the AP report by Jim Salter, via the Kansas City Star.

Herbert Smulls, 56, was executed by a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre. He was convicted of killing Stephen Honickman and badly injuring his wife, Florence, during a robbery at their jewelry shop in suburban St. Louis on July 27, 1991.

Smulls did not have any final words. The process was brief, Smulls mouthed a few words to the two witnesses there for him, who were not identified, then breathed heavily twice and shut his eyes for good. He showed no outward signs of distress.

He was pronounced dead at 10:20 p.m., nine minutes after the process began.

And:

Smulls' attorney, Cheryl Pilate, had filed numerous appeals challenging the state's refusal to disclose where it obtained its execution drug, pentobarbital, saying that refusal made it impossible to know whether the drug could cause pain and suffering during the execution.

The U.S. Supreme Court had granted a stay late Tuesday, shortly before the scheduled 12:01 a.m. Wednesday execution, but the high court cleared numerous appeals on Wednesday night — even the one Pilate filed less than 30 minutes before Smulls was pronounced dead, though the final denial came about 30 minutes after his death.

When asked about the time between the appeal and the execution, Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Mike O'Connell said, "I'm not familiar that."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posts a different version of the AP report, "Long wait for Smulls' execution was 'travesty,' says wife of slain Chesterfield jeweler."

Missouri had used a three-drug protocol for executions since 1989, but makers stopped selling those drugs for executions. Missouri ultimately switched late last year to a form of pentobarbital made by a compounding pharmacy. The state claims that since the compounding pharmacy is part of the execution team, it is not required to disclose its name.

"Missouri Carries Out Execution After U.S. Supreme Court Removes Stays," is by Chris McDaniel of St. Louis Public Radio.

Missouri inmate Herbert Smulls was put to death late last night after the U.S. Supreme Court removed two stays. He was pronounced dead at 10:20 p.m.

It was the state's third execution in as many months. The pace of one a month is a sharp uptick from recent years past, when the state has had problems getting a hold of execution drugs.

One of the temporary stays pertained to the quality of the execution drug, as well as the secrecy surrounding the source. The Apothecary Shoppe, an Oklahoma compounding pharmacy, is making the drug. It is not licensed in Missouri.

Several lawmakers have called for investigations into how the state gets the drug.

“Again, this was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and it was carried out in a lawful manner," Mike O'Connell, with the Missouri Department of Public Safety, said after the execution.

The other stay pertained to Smulls' conviction, as he was an African-American man convicted by an all-white jury. That stay, too, was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

There have been six executions by American death penalty states this year; a total of 1,365 post-Furman executions since 1977.

Here are links to widespread news coverage of the execution:

"Missouri executes man for jeweler's 1991 death," by Mary Beth Marklein at USA Today.  It's via the Detroit Free Press.

"Missouri execution: Supreme Court lifts execution stay in lethal drug dispute," by Warren Richey at the Christian Science Monitor.

"Supreme Court denies stay of execution for inmate Herbert Smulls," by Bill Mears of CNN.

"Missouri killer executed after Supreme Court clears the way," by Pete Williams and Tracy Connor of NBC News.

The Pitch posts, "Missouri executed Herbert Smulls at 10:20 p.m. Wednesday," by Steve Vockrodt

"Convicted murderer executed in US," is AFP coverage, via Business Standard.

"Missouri executes Herbert Smulls as appeals fail," by Reuters, via the Guardian.

"Missouri man Herbert Smulls executed as appeal fails," at BBC News.

Earlier coverage from Missouri begins at the link.

Revisiting the RJA in North Carolina

"Support Grows as Racial Justice Act Goes to Supreme Court," is by Stephanie Carroll Carson for North Carolina Public News Service.

Although the State Assembly overturned the Racial Justice Act last year, efforts to protect inmates from racial bias in jury selection continue. In coming months the North Carolina Supreme Court will decide whether it will uphold the finding that race was a factor in the jury selection for the trials of three death-row inmates who have since had their convictions converted to life in prison without possibility of parole.

According to law professor Irving Joyner at N.C. Central University School of Law, who signed one of the briefs submitted Monday to the State Supreme Court, if the juries were tainted the problem continues.

"If the selection of those jurors is unfair, then it means that whatever decision that panel makes is also unfair," he stated.

In 2012 the state appealed the rulings that race was a factor in the jury selection of four state death-row inmates. Six retired judges - including two retired Chief Justices of the State Supreme Court - filed a brief Monday urging the Supreme Court to confirm the initial rulings. The N.C. NAACP also filed a brief in support. They join other briefs of support already on file.

WRAL-TV posts, "Retired judges say race-bias rulings should be upheld."

Six retired judges, including three who served on the North Carolina Supreme Court, filed briefs Monday urging the state high court uphold rulings that commuted the death sentences of three inmates because of racial bias in the selection of their juries.

Tilmon Golphin, Quintel Augustine and Christina Walters were re-sentenced in December 2012 to life in prison without parole under the Racial Justice Act. The state has appealed the move.

The Racial Justice Act, which a Democratic-controlled legislature passed in 2009, allowed death row inmates to use statistical evidence of bias to challenge their sentences. The General Assembly, now controlled by Republicans, repealed the law last year.

Retired Supreme Court chief justices Jim Exum and Henry Frye, retired associate justice Willis Whichard and retired Superior Court judges Melzer Morgan, Wade Barber and Russell Walker argued in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court that the Racial Justice Act provides key protections against racial discrimination, which are not provided by any other state or federal law currently on the books.

Earlier coverage from North Carolina begins at the link.  You can also jump to coverage of the RJA.

Related posts are in the race category index.

More on the Case of George Stinney

The Charleston Post and Courier of South Carolina reports, "69-year-old death penalty case against George Stinney set for Jan. 21."  It's by Robert Behre.  It's among the most detailed news articles on the case.

On Jan. 21, a circuit judge is scheduled to hold a hearing in Sumter County's new judicial center to decide if a 1944 death penalty conviction against George Stinney, a 14-year-old Clarendon County youth, should stand.

Both the lawyer seeking to open the case and the 3rd Circuit solicitor said they simply want to present the facts and let the judge decide if Stinney - the youngest American executed in a century - received a fair trial or was railroaded by a community understandably shaken by the violent killing of two young girls.

The case has more than its share of oddities and racial overtones. Stinney was black, and the victims were white. His defense attorney called no witnesses and never appealed. Stinney was strapped in the electric chair 83 days after the guilty verdict.

Earlier coverage of George Stinney's case begins at the link.  Related posts are in the juvenile and race category indexes.

Additional Coverage & Reflections on DPIC Report

Think Progress posts, "In 2013, Death Penalty Rarely Doled Out To Those Whose Crimes Include Minority Victims," by Nicole Flatow and Adam Peck.  There is an infographic at the link.

Of the 39 executions performed in 2013, the overwhelming majority involved a crime with a white victim. The statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center show the continued racial bias of death penalty imposition, even as it becomes a decreasingly common punishment. While 32 of the 39 executions involved a white victim, just one white person was executed for killing only a black man. This defendant, Robert Gleason, was one of just four people who “volunteered” to be executed by waiving his appeals.

The December 23 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times published the editorial, "Death penalty on decline — a positive trend."

The death penalty is on the decline in the U.S., an encouraging and humanizing trend for a nation in need of one.

Across America, citizens and politicians are learning a simple truth: The ultimate punishment cannot be fairly delivered by our flawed criminal-justice system.

And:

Illinois has already gone down that path. More than a decade ago, then-Gov. George Ryan commuted all existing death sentences to life in prison and placed a moratorium on further executions, saying he had lost confidence in the reliability of convictions in capital cases. That was followed by abolishment of the death penalty in 2011.

"The death spiral of the death penalty," is Dick Polman's post at WHYY-FM NewsWorks National Interest blog.

As the year-end stats suggest, capital punishment is slowly but inexorably on the wane. If current trends continue, the United States may well lose its eminent status as one of the top five execution nations, an award it currently shares with mixed company: Iran, Iraq, China, and Saudi Arabia. (Maybe we'd be better off leading the world in things like health care, life expectancy, and student proficiency in math and science - instead of being way back in the pack.)

And:

Evan Mandery, an attorney and author of Wild Justice, a new book on the death penalty, confirms the conservatives' complaint: "Only about one in 10 people who are sentenced to die are ever executed. This means that states are paying the up-front costs associated with capital punishment - longer, more expensive trials, more expensive confinement, more appeals, and only occasionally receiving the cost savings of not having to imprison a criminal for his natural life."

If only Pennsylvania would follow the example of its northeastern neighbors - New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland - all of whom have shelved the death penalty. If only Pennsylvania would heed Mandery's words: "If the past 40 years have proved nothing else, it is that creating a rational, predictable system for separating those who deserve to live from those who deserve to due may be beyond human capacity."

Pennsylvania hasn't killed an inmate since 1999, yet it currently houses 189 people on death row. That alone is the quintessence of irrational.

"Ohio executes inmates more than most states," by Jessie Balmert in the Zanesville Times-Recorder.

Fewer prisoners were executed nationwide this year as states struggle to find drugs for lethal injections and public support wanes.

Nine states executed 39 prisoners in 2013 — a 9.3 percent decrease from 2012 and a 60 percent decrease from 98 executed in 1999, the most since the death penalty was reinstated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s year-end report released Thursday.

Three of those executions occurred in Ohio, which ranked fourth in executions behind Texas, Florida and Oklahoma, according to the report.

Earlier coverage of the DPIC report begins at the link.  Also available, news from Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The Death Penalty Information Center's The Death Penalty in 2013: Year End Report is available at the link.  You can also find a news release, infographic, and a video at the link.

An End to Death Row?

That's the title of an editorial published in today's Washington Post.  It begins the latest round of coverage of the DPIC annual report.  Here's an excerpt:

The Death Penalty Information Center and other capital-punishment foes attribute the death penalty’s decline to waning public support amid concerns about possibly innocent defendants on death row and other flaws in the system. This is part of the story, but the decline in capital punishment also reflects the decline in commissions of the crime for which it is most often imposed: murder. The national murder rate in 2012, 4.7 per 100,000 population, was among the lowest recorded since 1963. Fewer murder cases mean fewer potential death sentences. In a safer society, there is less of the fear that often drives demand for harsh punishments. The rate at which U.S. juries sentence defendants to death has fallen from its post-1976 peak of 17.8 per 1,000 murders, in 1999, to 5.1 per 1,000 murders in 2013 — a 71 percent decline. Meanwhile, the murder rate dropped 25 percent during that time.

Supporters and opponents of capital punishment alike have reason to applaud the remarkable reductions in homicide, and other violent crime, that this country and its law enforcement agencies have achieved in the past quarter-century. Preliminary estimates from such cities as Chicago and Philadelphia, which are on course to record the fewest homicides this year since 1965 and 1967, respectively, suggest that 2013 brought further progress.

The Week reports, "The death penalty is going out of style," by Carmel Lobello.

It has been a slow year for state-sanctioned death.

In the U.S., there were just 39 executions in nine states this year, a 10 percent drop from 2012, and only the second time in the past 19 years the number has fallen below 40, the Death Penalty Information Center reported earlier this month. Judges handed down more than 80 death sentences, nearly the lowest number since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death penalty. In comparison, the number of sentences in 1996 was 315.

As the number of state-mandated killings has fallen, so has public support for them. A Gallup poll published this year shows that in 2013, support for capital punishment reached its lowest level in 40 years — down to 60 percent, compared with 80 percent in 1994. In addition, 52 percent of those surveyed said they believe the death penalty is used unfairly, down from 58 percent in 2010, and 60 percent in 2006.

"No executions in SC for more than 2 years," is the AP report from South Carolina by Meg Kinnard.  It's via the Spartanburg Herald Journal.

For the second year in a row, South Carolina saw no executions in 2013. The state had no new death sentences in the last year, either.

It's a downward trend that mirrors national patterns that are moving away from putting inmates to death. In a report that came out this month, the Death Penalty Information Center said that fewer and fewer people are being executed nationwide.

And:

At the end of June 2005, there were 72 people awaiting execution in South Carolina. Since then, there have been fewer than a dozen, and several inmates have left death row after winning appeals that ended in their sentences being overturned.

Forty-six inmates are on South Carolina's death row, all men who range in age from 30 to 69 years old, according to the state Department of Corrections.

South Carolina's last execution came in May 2011, when 36-year-old Jeffrey Motts was put to death by injection for strangling his cellmate.

In North Carolina, the Wilmington Star News reports, "Goolsby pushes forward with effort restart death penalty," by Molly Parker.

An annual national study recently released shows states declined use of the death penalty while Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover, pushes for North Carolina to rejuvenate it in this state that has seen a seven-year moratorium due to legal tangles.

"I have spent a great deal of time with the families of murder victims," said Goolsby, who is expected to face several challengers to the left in next year's elections. "I have felt their pain and seen their endless tears. For me it is very simple: Cold-blooded, first-degree murderers deserve the death penalty, and the families of murder victims deserve closure."

And:

Though it's unclear how or if Goolsby's efforts will restart the death penalty – that change itself is likely to get tangled in legal battles – a topic as emotional and divisive as this could become a wedge issue in his re-election bid next year.

Goolsby is joined by many of his fellow conservative Republicans in his push, but nationally the country seems to be moving in the opposite direction, some experts contend.

Earlier coverage of the DPIC report begins at the link; it also begins in North Carolina.

The Dallas Morning News on Dallas Death Penalty Prosecutions

"Dallas County’s dubious death penalty distinction," is the Dallas Morning News editorial.

Houston’s Harris County developed a mythic reputation over the years for pursuit of the death penalty.

That was then. Dallas County is now.

Today, no other Texas county is close to the 11 death sentences handed down by Dallas County juries over the past six years. The county accounts for one of every five Texas death sentences in that time, according to a year-end report by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Becoming the death penalty capital of the leading death penalty state is a gruesome distinction for a modern urban county. And it’s perhaps an unlikely distinction, considering the profile of District Attorney Craig Watkins.

A black man whose great-grandfather was executed in Huntsville in 1932, Watkins has exhibited sensitivity about the death penalty and voiced misgivings on the moral level. He has also kept a focus on ferreting out flawed convictions from years past, giving him a reputation as a reformer intent on righting wrongs.

Today's Morning News reports, "Dallas County DA Craig Watkins leads state in death penalty convictions."  It's written by Jennifer Emily.

Since taking office in 2007, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins — a man with a reputation for freeing people from prison — has won more death sentences for killers than any other DA in Texas during that time.

Historically, the state’s largest county, Harris County, has filled death row the most frequently. But from 2007 to 2013, Dallas County sent 12 to death row while Harris County sent nine. Tarrant County was third with seven.

These numbers are a stark contrast to Watkins’ evolving stance on whether he supports the death penalty and his revelation in 2012 that his great-grandfather was executed by the state. Whatever personal ambivalence Watkins has had about what he frequently calls “the ultimate punishment,” he has sought death sentences repeatedly since being elected.

And:

Elisabeth Semel, director of the University of California at Berkeley law school’s Death Penalty Clinic, said Dallas County’s “disproportionate pursuit of death sentences really stands out against this overall decline” nationally. Semel noted that only one of the defendants sentenced to death under Watkins was white. Three were Hispanic. Eight were black.

"Dallas County surges forward in new death penalty sentences," is the Austin Chronicle report by Jordan Smith.

Indeed, while the absolute number of new death sentences handed out in Texas remained low in 2013 – just nine new sentences were delivered, the same as in 2012 (up by one over the eight delivered in 2010 and 2011) – the use of the death penalty remains localized, and the imposition of the ultimate sentence on minority defendants remains high. In the last two years, five of the 18 people sentenced to death were from Dallas County. Travis County has sentenced just three persons to death since 2008, and none in 2013. And since 2008, two-thirds – or more – of all new death sentences were imposed on minorities. In Dallas County, for example, of the 11 men sentenced to die since 2008, eight are black and two are Hispanic. In Harris County, 12 of the last 14 defendants sentenced to death were black and the other two were Hispanic. Harris County last sent a white man to death row in 2004, according to the report.

More on the 1944 South Carolina Execution of George Stinney

The Associated Press reports, "SC's execution of 14-year-old riled people in 1944."  It's written by Jeffrey Collins.  It's also available from Huffington Post with the title, "Retrial For Executed 14-Year-Old George Stinney Would Be Unprecedented In South Carolina."

Leaving a judge to decide whether to throw out the conviction of a 14-year-old boy executed in South Carolina in 1944 reminds supporters of George Stinney of how the teen's fate was also in one man's hands nearly 70 years ago.

Gov. Olin Johnston could have commuted Stinney's death sentence to life in prison if he wanted. He had 54 days between the time the black teen was convicted of killing two white girls in the tiny mill town of Alcolu in Clarendon County and his march to the electric chair with a Bible in his arm.

But Johnston was running for U.S. Senate in 1944, facing a challenger who took a much harder line on segregation. He refused clemency for Stinney, saying he trusted the police, prosecutor and jury. At 14, Stinney was the youngest person executed in this country in the past 100 years, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Stinney's conviction is being challenged by a lawsuit filed by supporters asking for a new trial, a move unprecedented in South Carolina for someone already put to death. A hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 21.

Earlier coverage of the effort to win a posthumous new trial for George Stinney begins at the link.

Judicial Override in Alabama

"Politics, not justice, in Alabama death penalty cases," is the title of a Los Angeles Times OpEd by Andrew Cohen.  Here's the beginning:

A murder trial is held and the defendant is convicted. After hearing the mitigating and aggravating circumstances of the crime during the sentencing phase of the case, the jury concludes that the death penalty is not an appropriate punishment for the crime. The jury votes instead for a life sentence.

But after deliberations are over, the judge overrides the jury's verdict and sentences the defendant to death anyway. Afterward, on the campaign trail, the judge boasts that he is tough on crime, and a stoic supporter of capital punishment, and suggests the electorate should reward him for these positions with another term. He wins reelection — and the opportunity to preside over countless other death penalty cases.

If this were fiction — from a novel by John Grisham, say — we would shake our heads at the perverse incentives in play in this narrative. We might say to ourselves, "A judge can't do that, can he?" But it's not fiction. It's fact.

It's happening in Alabama, where judicial elections and legislatively sanctioned "judicial overrides" of jury verdicts in capital cases combine regularly to vitiate the constitutional rights of criminal defendants. Judges there have been given more power to make life-or-death decisions, and more incentives to politicize those choices to appease the electorate.

Earlier coverage of Alabama judicial overrides begins a the link. Related posts are in the race category index.

Also available, earlier writings by Andrew Cohen.

Andrew Cohen on the Buck Ruling & Dissent

"In Texas, Prosecutors Add Twitter Insult to Capital Punishment," is Andrew Cohen's follow-up on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opinions in Duane Buck's case.  Here's the beginning of another Cohen must-read:

Twice, as we’ve recounted here at The Atlantic, Texas has deprived convicted murderer Duane Buck of his constitutional right to equal protection. The first time came in 1997 when a now-notorious expert unlawfully told jurors under prosecution questioning that Buck would be more dangerous in the future because he was black. "Future danger" was an "aggravating" factor Buck's jury had to consider in imposing the death penalty on him, which those jurors quickly did after that explosive testimony.

And:

There has indeed been a great deal of unprofessional conduct in the Duane Buck case. It started with that now-disgraced expert and, as the dissent says, terrible defense work at trial and on the initial appeal of Buck's conviction. It continued years later with a broken promise by Texas officials to Buck that, like the others similarly situated, he would get a new sentencing hearing void of unlawful racial undertones. And it continues to this day in the effort by state attorneys, and these six judges, to diminish the import of what happened to Buck by precluding even a review of his case on its merits.

This man—this indigent black man in Texas with a low IQ who received inadequate assistance of counsel and whose trial was rocked by racial prejudice— deserves a new sentencing hearing. If Texas had given him one in 2000, this case would be long over (the five other men tainted by that "expert" were re-sentenced to death).  It's not only unprofessional, it's unjust that Texas is fighting so hard to prevent that new sentencing trial from taking place. And I'd be willing to bet that at least a few justices in Washington agree.

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins at the link.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund has more information on Duane Buck's case.

More 50,000 people from Texas and around the country have signed a Change.org petition calling on Texas officials to grant Mr. Buck a new sentencing hearing.

Related posts are in the race category index.

NPR 'Hear & Now' to Feature Duane Buck Case

Today's edition of Here & Now, the WBUR produced NPR program, will feature a report on the Duane Buck Case.  On Austin's KUT-FM, the program airs at 1:00 pm (CST.)  You can listen live at the link, or check your local NPR station for broadcast time.

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins at the link.

News Coverage of the Duane Buck Ruling & Dissent

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling in Ex Parte Buck is at the link.  Judge Alcala's Dissent was joined by Judges Price and Johnson.

The Austin American-Statesman report is, "Appeal dismissed in death row case with racial backdrop," by Chuck Lindell.

The state’s highest criminal court Wednesday dismissed an appeal by death row inmate Duane Buck, who claims his sentence is improper because it was based, in part, on a psychologist’s finding that he presents a greater danger to society because he is black.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Court of Criminal Appeals said that Buck had already filed his one guaranteed appeal, known as a petition for writ of habeas corpus, in 1999 and wasn’t legally entitled to another.

But the court’s newest member, Judge Elsa Alcala, submitted a blistering dissent that said Buck had been ill-served by previous lawyers and the court system.

“The record in this case reveals a chronicle of inadequate representation at every stage of the proceedings, the integrity of which is further called into question by the admission of racist and inflammatory testimony from an expert witness,” Alcala wrote in a dissenting statement joined by Judges Tom Price and Cheryl Johnson.

The upshot, Alcala said, is that no state or federal court has examined, let alone ruled on, Buck’s claim that his constitutional rights had been violated by the inclusion of inappropriate racial testimony and by the incompetence of previous lawyers.

“This cannot be what the Legislature intended when it (voted in 1995 to provide) capital habeas litigants ‘one full and fair opportunity to present all claims in a single, comprehensive post-conviction writ of habeas corpus,’” Alcala wrote.

"CCA Dismisses Buck Appeal," by Jordan Smith for the Austin Chronicle.

A divided Court of Criminal Appeals this morning declined an appeal from condemned inmate Duane Buck, who has asked to have a sentencing hearing free from racially biased testimony.

The majority of the state's highest criminal court, six judges, issued an unsigned opinion, dismissing the appeal outright without any elucidation beyond stating that it failed to meet the criteria set out in statute for the consideration of a subsequent writ.

Nonetheless, two judges – Tom Price and Cheryl Johnson – joined a dissent filed by Judge Elsa Alcala, who argues at length that the record in Buck's case "reveals a chronicle of inadequate representation [by counsel] at every stage of the proceedings, the integrity of which is further called into question by the admission of racist and inflammatory testimony from an expert witness at the punishment phase," she wrote. Buck's initial habeas attorney was "so incompetent," she continued, that he did not assert any cognizable claim for the court to review. As a result, "no Court has ever considered the merits" of Buck's appeals for post-conviction relief – including that racially-biased testimony tainted his jury. "This cannot be what the Legislature intended" to happen under the state's habeas laws, she wrote.

"Appeals court denies hearing in death penalty case where race testimony questioned," by Mike Tolson in the Houston Chronicle.

Buck, 50, was one of six condemned killers whose trials in the 1990s were marked by the testimony of Walter Quijano, a psychologist who often referred to statistics on race when assessing the extent of potential future dangerousness, one of the questions asked of juries in capital cases. Unlike the others' cases however, Quijano appeared on Buck's behalf and testified that his personality and the nature of the crime, committed in rage, made him less likely to repeat his violence.

During cross-examination, a prosecutor asked him about racial statistics and violent crime, then asked whether those statistics indicated blacks would be more likely to be a danger in the future. Quijano answered affirmatively. Prosecutors referred to the testimony during closing arguments.

"Texas Court Rejects Condemned Inmate's Appeal," is the updated AP report by Michael Graczyk.  It's via ABC News.

Buck was within a six-hour period set for his execution on Sept. 15, 2011, when the Supreme Court gave him a reprieve. The high court decided months later not to review his case and lifted its reprieve.

He does not currently have an execution date.

AFP posts, "Texas rejects death penalty appeal that argued racial bias."

Neither Buck's attorneys nor prosecutors dispute his conviction for the double-murder, but they have argued that racial considerations factored into the sentencing phase of his trial.

During the 1997 hearing, psychologist Walter Quijano testified that blacks pose a greater risk of "future dangerousness" than whites. The prosecutor cited this testimony in asking for the death penalty.

The Supreme Court intervened just hours before Buck's execution on September 15, 2011, with justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan arguing that the case needed to be reviewed because "our criminal justice system should not tolerate (a death sentence) marred by racial overtones."

But despite an outcry from some politicians, religious leaders, and judges calling for a new hearing, the nine justice-panel at Texas' highest criminal court rejected Buck's appeal.

"We are gravely disappointed," Buck's lawyers, Kate Black and Christina Swarns, said in a statement.

They said they will bring the case to the Supreme Court "and we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will intervene to right this unequivocal wrong."

Additional coverage includes:

"Texas court denies appeal to death sentence determined by race," by Natasha Lennard at Salon.

"Texas Court Rejects Appeal Of Death Row Inmate After Testimony That Blacks Are More Dangerous," by Nicole Flatow for Think Progress.

"Texas Man Denied New Trial Despite Evidence Of Racial Bias," by D.L. Chandler at News One.

"Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Denies Duane Buck a New Sentencing Hearing," by Dianna Wray in the Houston Press.

"Divided Court Denies Case Where Race Impacted Death Sentence," at the Orlando Advocate.

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins with initial news of the CCA ruling.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund has more information on Duane Buck's case.

More 50,000 people from Texas and around the country have signed a Change.org petition calling on Texas officials to grant Mr. Buck a new sentencing hearing.

Related posts are in the race category index.

Split Texas CCA Denies Relief to Duane Buck in Racially Tinged Sentencing

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling in Ex Parte Buck is at the link.  Judge Alcala's Dissent was joined by Judges Price and Johnson.

"Split Texas court rejects condemned man's appeal," is Michael Graczyk's AP report, via KDFW-TV.

A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected an appeal from a convicted killer in a Houston case where supporters contend his death sentence unfairly was based on race.

The state's highest criminal court Wednesday refused an appeal from 50-year-old condemned inmate Duane Buck. Buck was convicted of the slaying of his ex-girlfriend and a man at her Houston apartment in July 1995.

During the punishment phase of his 1997 trial, a psychologist testifying for the defense said black people were more likely to commit violence. Advocates for Buck, who is black, say that unfairly influenced the jury, is grounds for a new sentencing hearing and should have been pursued vigorously by lawyers early in the appeals process.

Three of the nine appeals court judges joined in a dissent.

Duane Buck's attorneys have issued the following statement:

“We are gravely disappointed that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has dismissed Duane Buck’s appeal and failed to recognize that his death sentence is the unconstitutional product of racial discrimination. As noted by three members of the Court, ‘[t]he record in this case reveals a chronicle of inadequate representation at every stage of the proceedings, the integrity of which is further called into question by the admission of racist and inflammatory testimony from an expert witness at the punishment stage.’  These judges recognized that this outcome ‘jeopardizes both the integrity of the underlying conviction and of this Court’s judicial processes’ and deprives Mr. Buck of ‘one full and fair opportunity to present his claims.’

“With today’s decision, Texas has once again reneged on its promise to ensure that Mr. Buck would not be executed pursuant to a death sentence that was the unfair product of a prosecutorial appeal to racial bias and stereotype. ,For this reason, more than one hundred civil rights leaders, clergy of various faiths, former judges, former prosecutors, and thousands of individuals in Texas and across the world, have joined our call for a new, fair, and colorblind sentencing for Duane Buck. We now urge the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to respect these calls and refrain from seeking an execution date for Mr. Buck. We will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the important due process and equal protection issues at stake in Mr. Buck’s case, and we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will intervene to right this unequivocal wrong.”

-- Attorneys Kate Black, Christina Swarns (Director of the Criminal Justice Practice at NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund), and Kathryn Kase (Executive Director of Texas Defender Service)

Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins at the link.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund has more information on Duane Buck's case.

More 50,000 people from Texas and around the country have signed a Change.org petition calling on Texas officials to grant Mr. Buck a new sentencing hearing.

Related posts are in the race category index.

Appeal Filed in Connecticut Racial Bias Case

"Lawyers for Conn. death row inmates appeal ruling that there are no biases in death penalty," is the AP reportt, via the Republic.

Lawyers for some of Connecticut's death row inmates have appealed a judge's ruling that said there are no racial or geographic biases in the way state prosecutors seek the death penalty.

The attorneys appealed last month's ruling by Rockville Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza (sfer-AH'-zah) to the state Appellate Court last week. It's not clear when the court will hear the case, or if the appeal will go directly to the state Supreme Court.

Five of the 10 men on Connecticut's death row are involved in the habeas corpus lawsuit filed in 2005. They say their constitutional rights have been violated because state prosecutors make arbitrary and discriminatory decisions on when to seek the death penalty.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut case begins at the link.

New Push for Review of 1944 South Carolina Execution

"George Stinney, Black Teen Executed In 1944, May Get New Trial," is by Jeffrey Collins for Associated Press, via Huffington Post.  It's also available at the Grio.  Here's an extended excerpt from the beginning of the report:

Supporters of a 14-year-old black boy executed in 1944 for killing two white girls are asking a South Carolina judge to take the unheard-of move of granting him a new trial in hopes he will be cleared of the charges.

George Stinney was convicted on a shaky confession in a segregated society that wanted revenge for the beating deaths of two girls, ages 11 and 7, according to the lawsuit filed last month on Stinney's behalf in Clarendon County.

The request for a new trial has an uphill climb. The judge may refuse to hear it at all, since the punishment was already carried out. Also, South Carolina has strict rules for introducing new evidence after a trial is complete, requiring the information to have been impossible to discover before the trial and likely to change the results, said Kenneth Gaines, a professor at the University of South Carolina's law school.

"I think it's a longshot, but I admire the lawyer for trying it," Gaines said, adding that he's not aware of any other executed inmates in the state being granted a new trial posthumously.

The request for a new trial is largely symbolic, but Stinney's supporters say they would prefer exoneration to a pardon.

Stinney's case intersects some long-running disputes in the American legal system — the death penalty and race. At 14, he's the youngest person executed in the United States in past 100 years. He was electrocuted just 84 days after the girls were killed in March 1944.

The request for a new trial includes sworn statements from two of Stinney's siblings who say he was with them the entire day the girls were killed. Notes from Stinney's confession and most other information deputies and prosecutors used to convict Stinney in a one-day trial have disappeared along with any transcript of the proceedings. Only a few pages of cryptic, hand-written notes remain, according to the motion.

Time posts, "Youngest Person Executed In 100 Years May Get New Trial," by Charlotte Alter.

Stinney was convicted by an all-white jury after only ten minutes of deliberation. The boy allegedly confessed to police, although no written confession has ever been found nor did he have a lawyer present. Some reports say that police gave him ice cream during the interrogation in order to make him cooperate. Stinney was not read his Miranda rights, his parents were not allowed to see him in jail, and a lynch mob forced the family to leave town before his trial. Stinney’s court-appointed lawyer was a tax commissioner who allegedly called no defense witnesses to testify, and the trial lasted just over two and a half hours. Recently, two of Stinney’s siblings have sworn that they were with him all day when the girls were murdered.

George Frierson, a Claredon county School District board member who has been advocating for Stinney’s innocence since he first heard about the case eight years ago, says that Stinney would have been physically incapable of murdering the girls because their wounds indicated that they were inflicted by someone extremely large. At just over 5 feet tall and 90 pounds, Stinney had to have a specially fitted electric chair for his execution.

Related posts are in the race category index.

New Hampshire Roundup - Commentary & Analysis

The Concord Monitor publishes an editorial, "It’s time to repeal the death penalty."

It is to the significant credit of the prosecutors in the capital murder case against Michael Addison that their arguments withstood numerous strong arguments from defense attorneys before the New Hampshire Supreme Court. It is to the significant credit of the lower court judge that the process was deemed fair.

But it is to the extreme detriment of New Hampshire as a whole that Addison is now one step closer to death. This week’s ruling should strengthen the resolve of those working to overturn the state’s death penalty statute, to keep New Hampshire government from ever again playing executioner in our name.

The Monitor also publishes an OpEd, "Violence in any form is never the answer," by Rev. Jonathan Hopkins.  He's president of the New Hampshire Council of Churches.

On Nov. 24, Christ the King Sunday, there will be a preach-in supported by Bishop Peter Anthony Libasci of the Roman Catholic diocese, Episcopal Bishop Rob Hirschfeld, Bishop James Hazelwood (my bishop) of the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Rev. Gary Schulte, conference ministry of the United Church of Christ.

On that day we will talk about the spiritual issues involved when addressing the death penalty – how the use of retaliatory violence only continues the cycle. The need for redemption, forgiveness, healing, compassion and reconciliation are all spiritual truths that should help us to come to conclusions about the death penalty. In 2014 we have a chance in New Hampshire to be the 19th state to abolish the death penalty. We have a chance to do away with an expensive, noneffective, nonspiritual way of fighting crime. We have a chance to send a real message that violence in any form is never the answer to the problems we face.

Foster's Daily Democrat publishes the editorial, "A weak case to end death penalty."

The decision last week by the N.H. Supreme Court to uphold the conviction of Michael Addison raises serious doubts about the efficacy of an effort being mounted in the Legislature to repeal the state’s death penalty.

In 2008 Addison was convicted of killing Manchester police officer Michael Briggs in 2006.

On Wednesday, the court unanimously turned back all 22 challenges raised by Addison’s defense team. Meanwhile, it is expected the next session of the Legislature will consider a bill to revoke the death penalty.

"Ruling on death row convict not the last word," is Lynne Tuohy's AP report, also via the Concord Monitor.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court’s ruling this week that upheld the conviction and sentence of the state’s only death row convict is far from the last word.

The court will next review the fairness of Michael Addison’s death sentence by comparing it with cases in other states where jurors had to reach life-or-death verdicts on convicted cop killers.

Defense attorney David Rothstein said Friday he doesn’t anticipate arguments to happen before 2015, and Senior Attorney General Jeffery Strelzin said there is still much more work to do before the appeal wraps up.

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.

New Hampshire Supreme Court Rules in Addison Case - Upholds Conviction

The New Hamprshire Supreme Court ruling in New Hampshire v. Michael Addison is available in Adobe .pdf format.

"We affirm the defendant’s capital murder conviction and will conclude our review of his sentence of death after additional briefing and oral argument as to comparative proportionality under RSA 630:5, XI(c). See Addison, 160 N.H. at 779-80."

The Concord Monitor reports, "N.H. Supreme Court affirms Michael Addison’s conviction, but no final decision yet on death sentence," by Ben Leubsdorf.

The state Supreme Court today upheld Michael Addison’s conviction for capital murder but did not pass final judgement on his death sentence, saying additional review is needed.

In a 243-page ruling released at 1 p.m., the high court affirmed Addison’s conviction for fatally shooting Michael Briggs, a Manchester police officer, in October 2006.

But the court said it requires additional time and information before ruling on whether the death sentence was a proportional penalty given other, similar cases.

The vote was 5-0.

“With respect to the issues raised by the defendant on appeal, we find no reversible error. Accordingly, we affirm the defendant’s conviction for capital murder,” the court wrote in its unsigned per curiam opinion. “Furthermore, we conclude that the sentence of death was not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice or any other arbitrary factor, and that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s findings of aggravating circumstances.”

But, the justices added, “We note that our review of the defendant’s sentence is not yet complete. Only after additional briefing and oral argument on comparative proportionality … will we conclude our review of the defendant’s sentence of death, at which time we will issue a further opinion.”

"Top NH court upholds death penalty for cop killer," is the initial AP report by Lynne Tuohy, via US News & World Report.

New Hampshire's top court has upheld the sentence of the state's only death row inmate.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court's ruling announced Wednesday opens the way for convicted cop killer Michael Addison to become the first person executed in New Hampshire since 1939.

Addison, who's 33 years old, was convicted of gunning down Michael Briggs in 2006. The 35-year-old Manchester police officer was attempting to arrest Addison on a string of armed robbery charges.

Addison's lawyers argued that holding the trial in a courthouse a stone's throw from the Manchester police department injected passion and prejudice into the jury's verdict.

Earlier coverage of Michael Addison's case begins at the link.

New Hampshire Supreme Court Ruling Expected Wednesday

"N.H. Supreme Court to issue ruling on death penalty, Addison appeal," is the AP report filed by Lynne Tuohy.  It's via SeaCoast Online.

New Hampshire's Supreme Court will release its ruling on the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law and whether the death sentence of the state's only death row convict will stand.

The court announced that it will release its ruling in the appeal of Michael Addison Wednesday at 1 p.m. Court officials say the ruling will be in excess of 100 pages.

Addison was convicted and sentenced to death in 2008 for gunning down Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs as Briggs attempted to arrest him after a violent robbery spree.

Earlier coverage from New Hampshire begins at the link.  You can also jump to coverage of Michael Addison's case.

What Americans Don't Understand About the Death Penalty

That's the title of Andrew Cohen's latest writing on capital punishment at the Atlantic.  It's subtitled, "Support for capital punishment has hit an all-time low, according to a new Gallup poll. But the public still has a lot to learn about how unjustly the sentence is applied."

Here's the beginning of this must-read:

The folks at Gallup released the results of a new poll yesterday about the death penalty in America under the headline: "U.S. Death Penalty Support Lowest in 40 Years." Given the arbitrary way in which capital punishment is administered today in America, that's the good news. Evidently it is dawning on more and more people that the death penalty, as now applied by our judges and juries, is broken, in ways large and small, and thus unworthy of support.

The bad news, however, is that public attitudes about the death penalty today remain wildly disconnected from the reality of the death penalty today. This represents a failure of our courts, and of journalists and advocates, to adequately explain the grim truths about capital punishment. And it represents a failure by millions of Americans to level with themselves, and with each other, about what the death penalty is and is not.

Let me focus briefly here on two of the more disheartening results from the Gallup poll. Here's one:

Fifty-two percent of Americans believe the death penalty is applied fairly in the United States -- a smaller figure than the 60% who favor the death penalty. Forty percent believe the death penalty is applied unfairly. Gallup first asked this question in 2000, when the Illinois moratorium on the death penalty made headlines. At that time, 51% said the death penalty was applied fairly, which remains the low point in the 14-year trend. In 2004, a high of 61% said the death penalty was applied fairly.

This means that more than half of those surveyed are—let me be delicate—still tragically misinformed about the nature of capital punishment in America in 2013. The truth is that race plays an enormous role in determining who is and who is not sentenced to death in America. If you are black you stand a far higher chance of getting the death penalty, especially if your victim is white. The evidence and analysis of this fact are so pervasive that it should be beyond debate: 52 percent of Americans are dead wrong in their perception of the fairness of the application of capital punishment.

The New Republic posts a great infographic in Jennifer Kirby's report, "Death Penalty Support vs. Violent Crime: Two Graphs With Very Similar Arcs."

Gallup released a poll Tuesday showing that 60 percent of Americans favor capital punishment—the lowest rate in nearly 40 years. This comes about a month after the FBI released its 2012 national crime statistics, the latest data point in a long-term reduction in violent crime since the early 1990s. As the two graphs below show, these two figures have similar trajectories. So does violent crime influence public support for the death penalty?

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation, of course. John Blume, director of the Death Penalty Project at Cornell University Law School, says declining support comes from a combination of factors, including recent high-profile exoneration cases and a growing awareness of its costs. But, he says, “historically there has been less support for capital punishment in times when rates of violent crime are lower.”

Earlier coverage of the lastest Gallup polling is at the link.  Related posts are in the public opinion polling category index.

Don't Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me

That's the title of a guest column by Larry Flynt published by the Hollywood Reporter.

On March 6, 1978, as I stood on the steps of the Georgia courthouse where I was fighting obscenity charges, a series of gunshots rang out. I remember nothing that happened after that until I woke up in the intensive care unit. The damage to my central nervous system was severe, and it took several weeks before doctors could stabilize me. From then on, I was paralyzed from the waist down, and have been confined to a wheelchair ever since.

Years later, a white supremacist named Joseph Paul Franklin was arrested for shooting and killing an interracial couple. He soon began confessing to other crimes, and that’s when he admitted to having shot me. He said he'd targeted me because of a photo spread I ran in Hustler magazine featuring a black man and a white woman. He had bombed several synagogues. He had shot Vernon Jordan Jr., the civil rights activist. He hated blacks, he hated Jews, he hated all minorities. He went around the country committing all these crimes.

And:

As far as the severity of punishment is concerned, to me, a life spent in a 3-by-6-foot cell is far harsher than the quick release of a lethal injection. And costs to the taxpayer? Execution has been proven to be far more expensive for the state than a conviction of life without parole, due to the long and complex judicial process required for capital cases. 

Franklin has been sentenced by the Missouri Supreme Court to death by legal injection on Nov. 20. I have every reason to be overjoyed with this decision, but I am not. I have had many years in this wheelchair to think about this very topic. As I see it, the sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.

Related posts are in the OpEd category index; also available, coverage of Missouri lethal injection issues.

Decision in Connecticut Racial Bias Case

"Judge: No racial disparities in death cases," is the AP report, via the Waterbury Republican.

There is no proof of a systemic racial disparity in the way Connecticut prosecutors have sought the death penalty, a judge ruled Friday, denying claims from five death row inmates who sought to have their sentences overturned.

Rockville Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza issued his ruling in a consolidated appeal filed by the inmates in 2005.

Not only did the inmates fail to offer sufficient proof of a racial component in pursuit of the death penalty, the judge wrote, it wouldn't be enough to force their sentences to be overturned.

"The salient question is not whether race may influence death penalty outcomes in Connecticut," Sferrazza wrote. "The critical issue is ... whether the death sentence of any of the petitioners in this case was the product of intentional discrimination."

Citing U.S. and state Supreme Court rulings, Sferrazza wrote that studies showing a systemic bias with the death penalty can be used as evidence during reviews of imposed death sentences. "However, such generic evidence, by itself, is insufficient to overturn a death sentence," Sferrazza wrote.

Six of the 10 men on death row are black, while blacks make up 10 percent of the state's population.

"Judge: No Racial Bias In Death Penalty," by Kelly Glista of the Hartford Courant.

The claim by five convicted killers that Connecticut's death penalty law is racially biased was rejected on Friday, almost a year after a trial in Superior Court ended and more than eight years after the case began.

In a 44-page decision in the habeas corpus lawsuit, Judge Samuel J. Sferrazza wrote that the inmates had failed to prove any racial, ethical or geographical bias in the state's application of the death penalty, either in specific cases or collectively.

Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane said on Saturday that while his office expects the men to appeal the ruling, he believes the court's finding is very important.

And:

During the trial, which ran for more than 10 days from September to December last year in a makeshift courtroom inside Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, the petitioners' case depended greatly on a study by Stanford Law School professor John J. Donohue III of the state's death penalty prosecutions.

Sferrazza wrote that not only is the generic statistical information provided by Donohue insufficient to prove racial disparity under the state's requirements, but that Donohue's conclusions were "questionable and lacked probative value."

The judge listed several issues with Donohue's data, including the fact that Donohue found a total of 205 cases prosecuted in the state between 1973 and 2007 that met the criteria for possible imposition of the death penalty. Of those cases, only 28 reached a penalty phase where the death penalty was considered, and of those 28, 12 murderers were sentenced to death — three of which were not considered in Donohue's final report because they were reversed on appeal.

Sferrazza wrote that the limited number of death penalty cases in Connecticut makes an over-arching judgment on a racial bias impossible.

"Doctor Donohue's testimony was a relevant starting point, but a far cry from the proof necessary to establish the invalidity of the death sentence imposed upon the individual petitioners," Sferrazza wrote.

Even without the issues found in Donohue's conclusions, the generic analysis of the death penalty in the state does not generate the proof needed under the state statute, Sferrazza wrote.

"The salient question is not whether race may influence death penalty outcomes in Connecticut," Sferrazza wrote. "The critical issue is the inverse question of whether the death sentence of any of the petitioners in this case was the product of intentional discrimination."

The Greenwich Time coverage is, "Judge: No racial disparity in death cases," by Daniel Tepfer.

Black criminal defendants are not more likely to get the death penalty in Connecticut than white defendants, a judge has ruled.

In a 44-page decision, Superior Court Judge Samuel Sferrazza rejected a lawsuit by death row inmates who claimed discrimination, not violations of the law, was responsible for their sentence.

"Constitutional and fair legal procedures may produce unequal results. Inversely, disparate outcomes standing along, do not necessarily mean the legal processes which preceded that outcome were unfair or unlawful," the judge wrote.

"We're pleased with the results, absolutely," said Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, although he added he expects the inmates to file an appeal of the decision.

Last year Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a law eliminating Connecticut's death penalty for any new cases but leaving the existing 11 inmates on death row. Meanwhile, five of them, Sedrick Cobb, Daniel Webb, Todd Rizzo, Richard Reynolds and Robert Breton, filed suit seeking to have their sentences converted from death to life in prison without parole.

Earlier coverage of the Connecticut racial bias trial begins at the link.

From Washington State

"Washington state's racist death penalty," is by Hubert G. Locke's OpEd for Crosscut.

There have been a slew of reminiscences and reflections on race in America in the last month, occasioned by the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington. Some have been nostalgic and most are well-meaning, but, only a few have focused on those arenas of American life in which little if any progress has occurred over the past fifty years. Of these, none is more glaring or critical in importance than what we have come to loftily refer to as the criminal justice system.

The criminal justice process is the proverbial canary in the racial coal-mine that is American society. Take a measure of how well or how poorly criminal justice is administered — how fairly and equitably it distributes its sanctions and punishments — and one has a pretty accurate picture of how far the scales of justice are either in or out of balance in the nation.

And:

Since 1981, the majority of those sentenced to death have been white, but only two of those white sentencees have been executed. The rest have had their death sentences vacated and a lesser sentence imposed or their cases ordered to be retried.

This leaves us with the current death row populace. There are eight men awaiting execution in Walla Walla. Four are black. All four were sentenced to death by all-white juries. In other words, one-half of Washington's death row populace is black in a state where black residents are less than four percent of the total population.

Earlier coverage from Washington begins at the link

Fresh Air's Interview with Evan Mandery

"Years After Historic Ruling, Execution Still A 'Random' Justice," is a segment from NPR's Fresh Air featuring an interview with the author of A Wild Justice, conducted by Dave Davies.  Audio is at the link.  The 37 minute interview is a must-listen.  A transcript is also available.

Here's the opening:

Evan Mandery, welcome to FRESH AIR. You know, you write in this book that the Supreme Court had addressed the death penalty only six times in its first 175 years. And then Justice Arthur Goldberg and a young clerk named Alan Dershowitz decided to do something about this. I guess this was in the '60s. Tell us how they proceeded.

EVAN MANDERY: Well, in 1963, when my book opens, there's basically nobody in the United States other than Goldberg and Dershowitz who thinks that the death penalty might be unconstitutional. This is unfathomable to us today, right. Regardless of whether you support the death penalty or not, you understand that that issue is debatable.

But in '63, no one had this position, and Goldberg proposed to take a case, to grant certiorari in a case and raise the constitutionality of the death penalty, even though it hadn't been raised by the litigants. It was an act without precedent in American judicial history.

Earlier coverage of the book begins at the link.  Related posts are in the books category index.

More on Evan Mandery's A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America, from the publisher - W.W. Norton - and from Amazon.

California Roundup

"Court overturns conviction, death penalty of Hector Ayala," is the AP report, via KGTV-TV.

A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction and death penalty of a man for three San Diego murders, saying he was denied a chance to argue the trial was tainted by racial prejudice.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered Hector Ayala freed unless prosecutors plan to retry him in a reasonable amount of time.

The killings occurred during a 1985 robbery. At trial, the prosecution excused all seven black and Hispanic jurors who might have served.

Ayala's counsel challenged those rejections but the judge found they were based on "race-neutral" reasons.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling in Ayala v. Wong is available in Adobe .pdf format.  Related posts are in the race category index.

Batson challenges grow from the 1986 Supreme Court ruling in Batson v. Kentucky: more via Oyez. 

Additional Batson resources includes coverage of a 2011 University of Iowa College of Law symposium, Batson at 25, as well as an Equal Justice Initiative 2010 report on race and jury selection.

Also from California, "Calif. Guard's Killing Becoming Test Case," by Michael Doyle of MCT News Service.  It's via the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The 2008 killing of a prison guard in the Central Valley prison in Atwater has prompted the latest challenge to the federal death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment.

The sweeping legal challenge seems like a long shot, especially with a conservative majority controlling the U.S. Supreme Court. The challenge, however, elevates the slaying of California correctional officer Jose Rivera by two intoxicated prisoners into the realm of constitutional conflict, a place where justices often struggle.

“There’s some value to alerting the judge to these constitutional issues,” Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said in an interview. “These broaden things, and get the court thinking about these other issues.”

And:

On Monday, defense attorneys for Joseph Cabrera Sablan asked a U.S. District Court judge to declare the federal death penalty in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Sablan and fellow inmate James Ninete Leon Guerrero are charged with first-degree murder in correctional officer Jose Rivera’s death. Sablan and Leon Guerrero have pleaded not guilty, although it’s really the potential punishment rather than the underlying crime they’re contesting.

“Persons convicted of the premeditated murders of (more than) 100 victims have received sentences less than death; contract killers with double-digit numbers of victims have received sentences less than death,” Sablan’s defense attorneys wrote. “To impose death in this case of an unpremeditated killing of a single man by two drunken inmates is arbitrary and capricious.”

Related posts are in the federal death penalty category index.

Earlier coverage from California begins at the link.

Aljazeera America Examines North Carolina RJA

"NC reversal on death penalty law reopens old discrimination wounds," is by Kimberly Johnson at Aljazeera America.  Here's the beginning of this solid overview:

When Benjamin McKinney found himself on the jury of a death penalty case in North Carolina in 1996, his focus was on the defendant and the evidence presented. He had no idea at the time the level of scrutiny prosecutors were placing on him, too.

McKinney had served in the military and worked for the same company for three decades. He has no criminal record and, by his own estimation, is an upstanding citizen. More than 15 years passed before McKinney, who is black and now 65, learned prosecutors attempted to strike him from sitting on the jury for the capital case because he was also a member of the NAACP.

“He's a member of an organization which I strongly associate with being anti-state and anti-death penalty,” the prosecutor then told the judge. The request to strike him, however, was found unconstitutionally discriminatory and McKinney was allowed to serve. The jury ultimately found the defendant guilty.

“Come to find out all of this happened behind closed doors,” said McKinney, who was informed of the statements by the ACLU while it looked into cases of racial discrimination in capital trials. “It didn’t really matter about my character, it was all about the color of my skin. It kind of makes you lose faith in the court system.”

Race continues to threaten the balance of justice in North Carolina, critics say, as a new law has gone into effect cutting off appeals of death row inmates charging racial discrimination.

Earlier coverage from North Carolina begins at the link; you can also jump to RJA coverage.  There is currently a moratorium on executions in North Carolina due to lethal injection issues.

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley on Pursuing the Dream

Today's Washington Post reports, "Md. governor says his state is realizing MLK’s dream," by John Wagner.

Legalizing same-sex marriage, abolishing the death penalty and raising the minimum wage are part of today’s “work of justice,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said Wednesday at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington.

O’Malley, who appeared early in a long program of speakers praising the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., used his remarks to make the case for a modern “calling of conscience to action.”

“The responsibility we consecrate today is not rooted in nostalgia or memory, it is rooted in something far deeper,” the governor said from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in remarks aides said he largely crafted himself.

"O'Malley: Abolishing death penalty, legalizing gay marriage part of pushing King's vision forward," is Justin Sink's post at the Hill.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) said that laws abolishing the death penalty, legalizing gay marriage and raising the minimum wage represented the modern "calling of conscious to action" while speaking Wednesday at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

O'Malley, who has strongly hinted that he plans to pursue the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said there was an "urgent" need to attend to the "work of justice."

And:

O'Malley added that "action that abolishes the death penalty and improves public safety in every neighborhood regardless of income or color" and "actions that create jobs and raises the minimum wage" would strengthen the country.

Earlier coverage from Maryland begins at the link; also available, jump directly to coverage of Maryland's repeal of the death penalty.