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Harmless Error

By Michael Blankenship

In a rare move, the Supreme Court said it might reconsider its June decision that struck down the death penalty for crimes that fall short of murder, after a law blog revealed that the government left out a fact that would have bolstered its argument that executions for such offenses are constitutional.Read more...Among categories of death penalty cases, military executions are the rarest of the rare. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the last military execution was in 1961 for rape and attempted murder. There are currently nine offenders awaiting sentence compared to 3200 in state prisons.Law clerks, justices, and attorneys for both sides overlooked the fact that the U.S. military permits the execution of child rapists. But it is easy to see why the provision was overlooked - military executions are virtually non-existent...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Justice Gambit on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).