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Pinholster - Additional Coverage

By Steve Hall

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times carried the news article, "U.S. Supreme Court hears California death penalty appeal," by David G. Savage. The Supreme Court last week heard an appeal from a San Fernando Valley murderer that helps explain why death penalty cases in California are so prolonged. But if state prosecutors have their way, many of them could be shortened in the future. It is the latest chapter in a long-running dispute between state and federal judges over the death penalty. And the case of Scott Pinholster raises a potentially crucial issue with national impact: Can new evidence be used in federal court to upset an old and long-settled state court conviction? "It would be a dramatic change in the law" if the high court adopts California's no-new-evidence rule, said Sean Kennedy, a federal public defender in Los Angeles who represented Pinholster...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on November 15, 2010 (boomark / email).