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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

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

Sara Hickman in Dallas Tonight

Posted on July 08, 2008
Austin-based singer-songwriter Sara Hickman continues her "Music for Life"series of concerts tonight in Dallas. The Dallas Morning News Religion blog has, "Sara Hickman to perform at Cathedral of Hope." The popular Austin-based singer and songwriter is part of a tour...

Mitigation

Posted on July 08, 2008
The Spring 2008 Hofstra Law Review is a special issue presenting, "Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams In Death Penalty Case." Congratulations to Hofstra Law's Eric Freedman for his leadership, scholarship, and diligent work...

In Ohio, Judge to Remain on Death Penalty Case

Posted on July 08, 2008
In today's Lorain Morning Journal, Matt Suman reports, "Burge set to hear death case." Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge can stay on a three-judge panel to hear the criminal case of murder defendant Manuel Nieves, who faces the...

New Execution Date in Chi Case

Posted on July 08, 2008
John Moritz reports, "Arlington killer given new execution date," in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. An Arlington killer whose date with the executioner was delayed last fall while the U.S. Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the lethal injection process will...

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Death Penalty and Race

Posted on July 07, 2008
That's the title of an OpEd in the Sacramento Bee by Claire Cooper, "Scales of justice may weigh heavily against Blacks." For Bill Babbitt, a black man, the question comes down to this: Why did Sacramento County condemn his brother...

Executions Get Go-Ahead, but Obsticles Still Remain

Posted on July 07, 2008
That's the title of a report in Saturday's Columbus (OH) Dispatch. LINK After more than a year of inactivity, the Death House at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility has been cleared to gear up for its grim activities once again....

Looking at Nebraska

Posted on July 07, 2008
In Saturday's St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, columnist Steve Booher wrote, "Finding a 'humane' method of execution proves a struggle." Monday morning probably isn?t the time to debate the question of whether a state should impose the death penalty on those...

In Missouri

Posted on July 07, 2008
MissouriNet has the article, "Preparing for 12:01 a.m., July 30." Missouri's first execution in almost three years is a little more than three weeks away. The corrections department is putting its people in place for the July 30th execution of...

The State of Indigent Defense in Texas

Posted on July 07, 2008
The current Texas Lawyer has a major article by John Council and Jonathan Fox, "Common Clashes: Politics, Pressure and the Public Defender's Office." Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the article: On June 10, the Task Force on Indigent...

Eyewitness Identification Reform

Posted on July 07, 2008
The National Law Journal reports, "Police lineups bring debate, litigation." A growing number of police departments are getting sued over how they conduct lineups, with some lawyers claiming that flawed procedures are landing too many innocent people behind bars...

Another Troubling Dallas Case

Posted on July 07, 2008
That's the title of Bob Ray Sanders' latest Fort Worth Star-Telegram column. LINK The case of Carlton Akee Turner, who is scheduled for the Texas death chamber Thursday evening, presents the state and its noble citizens a whole set of...

Stay issued in Bower Case

Posted on July 07, 2008
AP reports, "Questions raised about capital case 24 years later," via Google News. Three months after four bodies were found shot execution-style in an airplane hangar on the B&B Ranch north of Dallas in 1984, chemical salesman Lester Leroy Bower...

Next Term: A Fatter, Faster Calendar for Supreme Court

Posted on July 03, 2008
That's the title of Tony Mauro's look into the future in Legal Times. It's subtitled, "Chief justice is hastening the argument calendar to front-load the 2008-09 term." The current term is history, so what's up for the Supreme Court's next...

Waiting for an an act of racial justice in North Carolina

Posted on July 03, 2008
That's the title of a post at Facing South, the blog of the Institute for Southern Studies. LINK In North Carolina last week more than 300 clergy members signed onto a letter sent to lawmakers urging the passage of the...

Update on the Nichols Case in Georgia

Posted on July 03, 2008
There is a great deal of interest in the Brian Nichols case in Georgia because of its implications for indigent defense systems in other states. Today's Fulton County Daily Report has, "Nichols' lawyers want DA's office out." Eight days before...

In Florida

Posted on July 03, 2008
The Fort Myers News-Press reports, "Schwab's incident-free death encourages officials to expedite execution." Mark Dean Schwab's execution, Florida's first in more than 18 months, is the start of more lethal injections for the 386 prisoners on the state's death row...

Alabama Reaction to UN Report

Posted on July 03, 2008
Today's Birmingham News has the editorial, "Alabama on the world stage." If the report were aimed at some backwater on the other side of the globe, perhaps our reaction would be different. We'd read: "Government officials seem strikingly indifferent to...

Paul House

Posted on July 03, 2008
Nashville City Paper has the editorial, "House case shows more flaws in death penalty system." Given his death sentence, the mound of evidence supporting his innocence and a U.S. Supreme Court formal recognition of those facts, it is a mystery...

Justice Dept. Admits Error in Not Briefing Court

Posted on July 03, 2008
That's the title of Linda Greenhouse's report in today's New York Times. LINK In a highly unusual admission of error, the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday that government lawyers should have known that Congress had recently made the rape of...

Commentary on Kennedy v. Louisiana

Posted on July 03, 2008
Today's Lubbock Avalanche-Journal carries an OpEd by Texas Tech Law prof Arnold Loewy, "Death penalty should not be applied to cases of child sexual assault." Kennedy v. Louisiana, the recent Supreme Court decision outlawing the death penalty for convicted child...

Who Will Die?

Posted on July 03, 2008
Scientific American reports, "Who Will Die? Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be Executed." Capital punishment is legal in 36 states, but that does not necessarily mean all of the condemned will be executed. Some will languish behind bars...

In International Law

Posted on July 02, 2008
The ABA Journal reports, "Leaders in Vienna Seek Consensus; Rate Country Effectiveness of Rule of Law." Here's an extended excerpt: Even Vienna, a major European capital that counts plenty of diplomatic meetings, treaty conferences and academic gatherings in its history,...

J.R. Labbe on Justice Kennedy

Posted on July 02, 2008
Her latest column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is, "Court's end-term decisions are mixed." The Supreme Court?s decisions in recent weeks have casual observers scratching their heads trying to figure out the ideological bent of this bench. The focus of...

A Tricky Bid for More Federal Judges

Posted on July 02, 2008
That's the title of report in National Law Journal by Pamela MacLean. LINK The Senate is playing a delicate dance over the fate of a bill to expand the federal judiciary by 50 permanent judgeships -- including a dozen on...

Paul House Released in Tennessee

Posted on July 02, 2008
AP reports, "Tennessee inmate released after 22 years on death row," via Google News. A former death row inmate has been freed from a Nashville prison for the first time in nearly 23 years after an anonymous donor paid his...

An Update on the Nichols Case in Georgia

Posted on July 02, 2008
AP reports, "Nichols lawyers say Georgia prosecutor may have lied," via the Fulton County Daily Report of Law.com. Lawyers for a man charged with killing four people after escaping during his rape trial argued Tuesday that the district attorney may...

Editorial Response to California Commission - UPDATED

Posted on July 02, 2008
Today's San Jose Mercury News carries the editorial, "Death penalty system requires a major overhaul." California has the death penalty basically in name only. With 13 executions in 30 years and 673 inmates now on the nation's largest death row,...

On the Schwab Execution

Posted on July 02, 2008
Florida Today has an editorial, "Our view: Finally it's over." Justice has been served, closing out a painful chapter in Brevard County history. But Schwab's execution won't end the debate about the badly broken death penalty system in Florida. In...

In Court Ruling on Executions, a Factual Flaw

Posted on July 02, 2008
That's the title of Linda Greenhouse's report in today's New York Times. LINK When the Supreme Court ruled last week that the death penalty for raping a child was unconstitutional, the majority noted that a child rapist could face the...

Florida Execution

Posted on July 01, 2008
Florida carried out its first execution since a botched execution in December 2006. An AP report on tonight's execution of Mark Dean Schwartz is here. The execution is the initial test of Florida's new lethal injection procedure, which was instituted...

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