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Lots of ink spilled about denial of en banc review in California capital case

By Douglas A. Berman

Today the Ninth Circuit officially denied en banc review in a high-profile capital case from California, and some of the judge involved felt compelled to write over 100 pages of dense text about the decision.  All this discussion concerning the claims of defendant Kevin Cooper can be found at this link.   The leading opinion dissenting from the the denial of en banc review starts with this significant first sentence: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man."  Those who closely follow capital punishment in California know that this sentence cannot be quite right:  California has not been able to execute even an indisputably guilty man in over three years because of litigation over the state's lethal injection protocols...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 11, 2009 (boomark / email).