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Criminal Law

StandDown Texas Project

Texas-centric examination of conditions, reform initiatives, and emerging issues related to best practices in the indigent criminal justice system with particular attention to issues involving capital punishment and the administration of the death penalty.
By StandDown Texas Project

Post Frequency: 49.3/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:21:29

Wood Seeks Reprived

Posted on August 11, 2008
That's the title of an article in the Kerrville Daily Times regarding the case of Jeffrey Wood. LINK Jeffery Lee Wood does not deserve to die. That?s the plea made in an application to the Texas Board of Pardons and...

Texas's Disdain

Posted on August 11, 2008
That's the title of a Friday editorial in the Washington Post. The sub-head is:, "In carrying out two executions, the state endangers Americans detained abroad." THE STATE of Texas had an opportunity this week to display a victor's grace. Instead,...

Texas Lawyer Coverage of Integrity Unit Meeting

Posted on August 08, 2008
Mary Alice Robbins writes, "Spot Checks of DNA Labs on the Table at TCJIU Meeting," for Texas Lawyer. With the state Legislature's next regular session beginning in less than five months, lawmakers on the recently formed Texas Criminal Justice Integrity...

Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit Meets

Posted on August 08, 2008
In this very busy week Scott Henson provided a great service with his coverage of the group's initial meeting, in this post, at Grits for Breakfast. Here's beginning; you'll want to follow the link for the entire post: There was...

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Arkansas Governor Mulls Clemency Recomendation

Posted on August 08, 2008
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports, "Beebe: Still looking at facts in clemency case." He has said a court should determine whether a criminal defendant is mentally retarded, but Gov. Mike Beebe on Thursday left open the possibility that he?d evaluate...

A Web Conversation With Susan Kuklin

Posted on August 08, 2008
Kuklin is the author of No Choirboy, published Tuesday, as noted in this post. Q.What caused you to write No Choirboy? A. Why did I write No Choirboy? First, I wanted to address the topic of capital punishment and juvenile...

U.N. Concern at Fate of 50 Mexicans On U.S. Death Row

Posted on August 08, 2008
That's the title of a Reuters dispatch from the Hague. LINK The U.N. human rights office voiced concern on Friday for the fate of 50 Mexican nationals on death row in the United States after Texas defied a World Court...

The Chi Execution

Posted on August 08, 2008
In the New York Times, David Stout reports, "Texas Executes Inmate After High Court Steps Aside." An Honduran immigrant convicted of murder was put to death in Texas on Thursday evening after the Supreme Court declined to block the execution,...

Execution of Honduran Allowed

Posted on August 07, 2008
That's the title of Lyle Denniston's updated post at SCOTUS Blog. LINK UPDATE 4:30 p.m. Without recorded dissent, the Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon refused to delay the execution in Texas of a Honduran for a 2001 murder in Arlington,...

A Renewed Focus on Consular Notification and Heliberto Chi

Posted on August 07, 2008
With the clock ticking toward's a 6:00 p.m. death warrant and legal papers filed at the Supreme Court, there is a new focus on the Chi case. At The BLT, Tony Mauro posts, "Supreme Court Weighs Another Texas Execution." What...

More on Exonerations, With and Without DNA

Posted on August 07, 2008
The Washington Post reports, "Letters to Inform 400 Felons of DNA Evidence Retesting." Virginia is preparing to send letters to about 400 felons convicted in the 1970s and 1980s notifying them that genetic evidence in their cases has been reviewed,...

New Dallas County Exoneration

Posted on August 07, 2008
"Dallas man freed from prison after 25 years," is Diane Jennings report in the Dallas Morning News. Twenty-six years ago, Steven Charles Phillips was vilified as one of Dallas' worst sexual predators, someone who terrorized dozens of women in a...

Arkansas LI Procedue Constitutional

Posted on August 07, 2008
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports, "Judge rules executions by injection no violation." A federal judge on Wednesday upheld the constitutionality of Arkansas' lethal injection procedures, removing a legal barrier to the execution of four inmates who had challenged the procedures...

Chi Case at Supreme Court

Posted on August 07, 2008
Lyle Denniston reports, "New treaty-based challenge to execution," at SCOTUS Blog. A Honduran national, scheduled to be executed Thursday evening in Texas, asked the Supreme Court Thursday morning to delay that process and hear his claim that Texas violated a...

From UK's The Independent

Posted on August 07, 2008
David Usborne writes, "The Big Question: Why is the United States still imposing the death penalty?" from New York. Here's an excerpt: What America does in its own prisons is its own business, most of the time. That was not...

Mexico Protests Medellin Exeuction

Posted on August 07, 2008
"Mexican government protests Texas execution," is the CNN report. The United States violated international law by putting a Mexican national to death in Texas, the Mexican government said Wednesday. Protesters for and against Jose Ernesto Medellin's execution gathered before he...

Heliberto Chi

Posted on August 07, 2008
For the second time in two weeks a Texas execution threatens to violate international law. Like Jose Medellin, law enforcement officials failed to provide Heliberto Chi the consular notification that he had the right to contact the government of Honduras...

Statements of Attorneys in the Medellin Case

Posted on August 06, 2008
This is from Sandra Babcock, one of Jose Medellin's attorneys: Congress should act immediately to implement the Avena judgment and provide for judicial review in the cases of other Mexican nationals who were denied consular access. That?s the only way...

Clemency Recommendation in Arkansas

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports, "4-3 board vote urges killer be spared." In a 4-3 decision, citing ?unusual circumstances,? the Arkansas Parole Board recommended that Frank Williams Jr. should be granted clemency and spared from execution. Williams is scheduled to...

Maryland Study Commission Holds Second Meeting

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Baltimore Sun carries the AP report, "Panel hears case for, against death penalty." Yesterday's hearing was one of several that will be held before the panel issues recommendations to the Maryland General Assembly by Dec. 15. A third hearing...

Judge Denies Stay in Chi Case

Posted on August 06, 2008
Texas is preparing to execute another foreign citizen, Heliberto Chi, a Honduran. Like Medellin, Chi was not provided consular notification that he could contact his government. Chi is not covered by the International Court of Justice ruling in Avena, which...

Medellin, Kennedy, and the Meaning of Silence

Posted on August 06, 2008
That's the title of Lyle Denniston's must-read commentary at SCOTUS Blog this morning. LINK Here's the beginning: Many thousands of words about the death penalty have been written or spoken to or by the Supreme Court in recent months, but...

Medellin -- International News Coverage - Updated

Posted on August 06, 2008
The Guardian has, "Texas defies Hague and executes Jos� Medell�n." The state's Republican governor, Rick Perry, rebutted attempts to delay off the execution arguing that the state's courts were not bound by the rulings of the ICJ. The ICJ in...

Medellin -- Texas News Coverage

Posted on August 06, 2008
Dave Montgomery writes, "Texas executes Mexican national," from the Washington bureau of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Jose Ernesto Medellin, whose Death Row appeal provoked an international dispute over U.S. treaty obligations, was executed Tuesday night for his role in the...

Medellin -- National News Coverage

Posted on August 06, 2008
The New York Times reports, "Texas Executes Mexican Despite Objections." It's written by James C. McKinley, and a version also appears in the International Herald Tribune. Mr. Medell�n?s case has become the focal point of a dispute between Mexico and...

Medellin -- Wire Service Coverage - Updated

Posted on August 06, 2008
AP has two reports on the wires this morning. "Mexican-born killer put to death in Texas," is by Mike Graczyk. With the parents of his victims watching a few feet away, a Mexican-born condemned killer apologized before he was executed...

Medellin Execution Allowed -- UPDATED

Posted on August 05, 2008
That's the headline of Lyle Denniston's latest post at SCOTUS Blog. Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court refused Tuesday night to delay the execution in Texas of Mexican national Jose Ernesto Medellin. The majority?s unsigned opinion, and dissents by each of...

Awaiting Word...

Posted on August 05, 2008
Motions and responses have been at the Supreme Court for hours now. Justice Scalia is the Supreme Court Justice for the Fifth Circuit, but presumably the entire Court is involved in any decision on the Medellin execution. As of 9:00...

At the Supreme Court

Posted on August 05, 2008
Final pleadings in the matter of Jose Medellin are at the Supreme Court. Lyle Denniston has, "Final filings in Medellin case," at SCOTUS Blog. In what may be the last round of legal arguments on Texas? scheduled execution at 7...

No Choirboy

Posted on August 05, 2008
That's the title of a new book by author Susan Kuklin, available today. It's subtitled, Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row. Here's what Amazon has to say: No Choirboy takes readers inside America?s prisons, and allows inmates sentenced to...

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