Criminal Law

Mother of Reginald Blanton Speaking at Rally Sept 26, 2009 to Stop His Execution (Texas Capitol)

Posted on September 28, 2009
http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#2fWLlN/www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCi-25uPPAU/Mother of Reginald Blanton Speaking at Rally Sept 26, 2009 to Stop His Execution (Texas Capitol)Added to Quicklist4:29Delia Perez Meyer speaking at Texas Capitol Rally6 viewsAdded to Quicklist0:5910th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty ...

Paul Flemming: Death needs more than a simple majority

Posted on September 25, 2009
You couldn't get spinach on your pizza after E. coli-tainted shipments of the leafy stuff killed a couple people. The Cardinals won the World Series. "Basic Instinct 2," "Ice Age 2" and "Jackass 2" played in theaters. Among those who died in 2006 was an odd musical trio: Buck Owens, Billy Preston and Syd Barrett...

De er kjent skyldige i drap. De er dømt til døden i Kongo. Vi har fått historiene fra familie, kjæreste og venner.

Posted on September 18, 2009
Kisangani sentralfengsel, september 2009: Gitterporten smeller igjen. Utenfor den tjue meter høye muren sitter seks vakter med hver sitt maskingevær. Innenfor er eimen av svette trykkende. Halvnakne menn ? dømt for voldtekt, drap og tyveri ? krangler og kjøpslår...

The impact of Willingham?s execution

Posted on September 17, 2009
One of the biggest news stories over the past week or so has been the wrongful conviction of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004. A state-sanctioned investigation (as well as several others conducted since the execution) has recently proven that there was no real evidence showing that the fatal fire for which he was killed was arsen and not an accident...

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Another innocent inmate freed in NC

Posted on September 17, 2009
Joseph Abbitt became a free man after spending 14 years for the rape of two teenagers, which DNA evidence has now proved him innocent of. In 1991, two sisters were preparing for school when someone broke into their home and raped them both. The girls believed that the intruder was a man who lived 2 doors down, and then picked Joseph out of a photo lineup...

Støre: - Holder Kongo ansvarlige for sikkerheten

Posted on September 08, 2009
Støre: - Holder Kongo ansvarlige for sikkerhetenUtenriksminister Jonas Gahr Støre er klar på at norske myndigheter har fått forsikringer om at Moland og French ikke vil bli henrettet.AVJON DAGSLAND HOLGERSEN KRISTJAN MOLSTAD Les også:Dømt til døden - retten krever 358 millioner av NorgeAdvokat: - Moland og French får dødsstraff- Ble tilbudt å kjøpe bort punkter i Kongo-tiltaleJonas Gahr Støre hadde bare fått referert dommen fra Kongo via mediene da han møtte pressen på en pressekonferanse tirsdag ettermiddag...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JANUARY

Posted on September 08, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - JANUARY 21, 2009George H. Ryan is nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Francis A. Boyle, long-standing Professor of International Law and Human Rights, has nominated retired Illinois Governor George H. Ryan for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize...

Trial by Fire

Posted on September 06, 2009
Did Texas execute an innocent man?Cameron Todd Willingham in his cell on death row, in 1994. He insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his children and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence. Photograph by Ken Light.The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas...

Petition to Protest Todd Willingham's Execution

Posted on September 02, 2009
Todd Willingham was innocent and Texas executed him. Texas should halt all executions.To: Texas Governor Rick Perry The State of Texas should halt all executions in light of the news that the investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission has concluded that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was accidental and not arson...

CONGO: Death penalty for 2 Norwegians

Posted on August 30, 2009
A military prosecutor in Congo asked a court to sentence to death 2Norwegians accused of killing their driver in the lawless east of thecountry in May this year.The Norwegians, Joshua French, 27, and Tjostolv Moland, 28, were chargedwith murder, attempted murder, espionage, conspiracy and armed robberyafter their driver was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head east ofthe city of Kisangani...

Tarnished justice

Posted on August 30, 2009
Misconduct trial of Judge Keller depicts a court of confusion.Being Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller apparently means never having to say you're sorry, even if your actions have brought worldwide scorn upon the state's highest criminal court...

Keller is unsuited for top court job

Posted on August 29, 2009
Even in Texas, the execution of a convicted murderer is not a commonplace occurrence. When the state is prepared to administer the ultimate, irreversible sanction of justice, its officials must ensure that the judicial process has functioned with meticulous care...

Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy on Death Penalty Information Center

Posted on August 29, 2009
WATCH IT on youtube :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhNy-fS5whg

Human Rights News: 8/29

Posted on August 29, 2009
This week, a report by the CIA inspector general called for a full criminal investigation into post-9/11 detainee abuse by the Bush administration. US Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Tuesday his plans for a preliminary review of torture allegations...

New Moratorium Hopes

Posted on August 29, 2009
An anti-death penalty group hopes new evidence that Texas may have executed an innocent man will finally put the death chamber on pause. The Chicago Tribune reports that an expert hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission says the fire that killed Cameron Todd Willingham?s three daughters was accidental, not arson...

Sharon Keller, Troy Davis, and the Duty of a Death Case Judge

Posted on August 25, 2009
That's the title of Steve Sheppard's FindLaw commentary, posted today. Sheppard is the Judge Enfield Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He's also the author of I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials. LINKNo obligation of a judge is more awful than to rule on who should live and who should die at the hands of the state...

Editorial: Judge Keller's disappointing testimony

Posted on August 25, 2009
It was impossible not to gasp last week when Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller addressed the question of what she would do differently if she had a do-over in the execution of Michael Richard.Nothing. That was the essence of Keller's answer at her misconduct trial...

My thanks to maligned Judge Keller

Posted on August 25, 2009
I'd like to express my gratitude to Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller.She has made Texas' supreme court for criminal matters into a better institution.Unfortunately, she didn't do it by bringing organizational skills to a court that must deal more than any other state court in the nation with the pressures of last-minute appeals in death penalty cases...

Calif. Assembly balks at early release of inmates

Posted on August 21, 2009
California Assembly Speaker Karen Bass plans to strip the most controversial provisions from a Senate-approved plan that would have trimmed the state's prison population by 27,000 inmates.The Assembly version would keep about 10,000 more inmates behind bars and leave the state with a new, nearly $200 million budget hole, Bass said early Friday...

Former Ohio executioner: EMT experience can be an asset

Posted on August 21, 2009
COLUMBUS -- While others debate the death penalty and lethal injection, Ohio's longest-serving executioner provided a personal perspective on carrying out the unwanted job, saying his experience as an emergency medical technician helped him handle the stress...

Research Links Historical Lynchings to Modern Murder Rates and Capital Punishment

Posted on August 21, 2009
Recent research has revealed a close correlation between the U.S. states that historically carried out the most lynchings and the states that today have the highest homicide rates and most death sentences. In a study led by sociologist Steven Messner of the State University of New York at Albany, county data from 10 southern states where historically reliable information on vigilante lynchings between 1882 and 1930 is available were examined (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee)...

EMT board ducks death-penalty flap

Posted on August 21, 2009
The Ohio EMS board has no authority over the emergency medical technicians who administer lethal drugs in state executions. That's the opinion board lawyer Heather R. Frient made public yesterday during the board's meeting. Board members asked Frient to determine whether these technicians were under their jurisdiction...

Ohio can't stop EMTs working as executioners

Posted on August 21, 2009
Ohio has no authority to stop certified emergency medical technicians from working as executioners in death penalty cases because they are not acting as EMTs when putting people to death, a state attorney ruled Wednesday.The EMTs are included on the state execution team because they possess skills such as inserting IV needles, not because they are working as EMTs under medical direction, according to the legal opinion by Heather Frient, a lawyer with the Ohio Department of Public Safety...

Take a direct approach to racial justice

Posted on August 21, 2009
State legislators and Gov. Bev Perdue should play it straight about the death penalty: Just put an end to it. There are too many problems with implementation, too much inconsistency in application. Public opinion is slowly turning against it and juries are more reluctant to impose it...

Interview with Dean

Posted on August 21, 2009
http://www.justice.eku.edu/courses/cor320/video/COR320_DeanInterview.htmlSource(www.justice.eku.edu)

Here's a good case for killing the death penalty

Posted on August 21, 2009
Opponents of the death penalty have reason for hope this week. Two high-profile cases are exposing the sick, barbaric folly of execution in America. When the U.S. resumed executions in 1977, only 16 nations had abolished the death penalty; the number has since grown to 92...

Executing John Marek for Senate

Posted on August 21, 2009
When I was looking for coverage of John Marek?s execution yet to see if there were any complications with the lethal injection, I ran across one of the more disgusting news stories I have ever seen. Governor Charlie Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate against arch-conservative and hero of the far right Fmr...

Scalia's Catholic Betrayal

Posted on August 19, 2009
The Supreme Court justice?s shocking remarks about capital punishment are not just a distortion of the Constitution, says Alan Dershowitz, they?re also an outrage against his church. I never thought I would live to see the day when a justice of the Supreme Court would publish the following words: ?This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ?actually? innocent...

Supreme Court says Georgia man should get hearing

Posted on August 17, 2009
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a new hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis, whose supporters say is innocent and should be spared from execution for killing a police officer 20 years ago.Davis has spent 18 years on death row for the 1989 slaying of Savannah, Ga...

Keller drags Texas through the mud

Posted on August 17, 2009
No matter the outcome of the hearing scheduled to begin today that could end in sanctions against embattled Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Chief Justice Sharon Keller, her already battered reputation will be pounded some more. While the judge's many detractors will find some satisfaction in that, the Texas way of administering criminal justice also will take a beating...

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