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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

Typepad

Posted on June 17, 2008
I understand from several readers that the site is not loading properly. Typepad indicates it is aware of the problem and working to correct it.

Texas Civil Rights Project Calls for Hood Stay

Posted on June 17, 2008
TCRP director Jim Harrington issued a statement earlier today. "Texas has more than its share of questionable conduct in its appetite to sentence people to death, and this previously undisclosed intimate relationship between the trial judge and prosecutor drops to...

Ronald Chambers

Posted on June 17, 2008
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram carries an AP report, "Inmate on death row 32 years wins at Supreme Court." The longest-serving prisoner on Texas' death row won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Monday that his case must go back to his...

Texas CCA Denies Stay to Charles Hood

Posted on June 17, 2008
Yesterday afternoon the Court of Criminal Appeals denied a stay request for Charles Hood. He is scheduled to be executed this evening in Huntsville. The Dallas Morning News has the editorial, "Stay the execution of Charles Dean Hood." The Texas...

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Dahlia Lithwick on the Supreme Court Term

Posted on June 16, 2008
"It Isn't Tilting in the Same Old Ways," is the title of Dahlia Lithwick's Washington Post commentary of the Supreme Court's term. Here are snippets from this must-read. With just two weeks left in the Supreme Court's term, everything we...

In Utah

Posted on June 16, 2008
The Sal Lake Tribune reports, "Jessica's Law aims to avenge raped children." State Rep. Carl Wimmer, who sponsored Jessica's Law legislation in Utah, wants to make the worst sex crimes against children punishable by death. The U.S. Supreme Court is...

Arizona Lethal Injection Challenge

Posted on June 16, 2008
The Sunday Arizona Republic reported, "Arizona execution protocol challenged." Federal public defenders have since filed a petition for post-conviction relief in Maricopa County Superior Court on Landrigan's behalf. It's a petition that provides an unprecedented, detailed look at how the...

Watchdog Needed for Criminal Justice

Posted on June 16, 2008
That's the title of a Sunday San Antonio Express-News editorial on the Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit. LINK Innocent people are locked up in Texas prisons for violent crimes they did not commit. We know this for a fact. We...

Blind Justice, or Blind Love?

Posted on June 16, 2008
That's the title of Rick Casey's latest column in the Houston Chronicle. LINK Father's Day may not be the best occasion to ask you to engage in this fantasy, but indulge me. Imagine that you recently went through a nasty...

At the Supreme Court

Posted on June 16, 2008
Neither Kennedy v. Louisiana, nor Rothgery v. Gillespie County was issued this morning. Thursday will be the next morning when opinions are issued by the justices.

Outrace of Plano HoodWink Continues

Posted on June 14, 2008
In today's Chicago Tribune, Steve Mills reports, "Judge's romance cited in bid to halt execution." In a highly unusual court filing, attorneys for a Texas Death Row inmate scheduled to be executed Tuesday are seeking a reprieve based on the...

More onthe Plano HoodWink

Posted on June 13, 2008
The confirmation that a trial judge and prosecutor were having an affair, before, during, and after a death penalty trial is getting a lot of scrutiny; it's another stain on Texas justice. At his State of Mine blog, Texas Monthly...

Lethal Injection Round-Up

Posted on June 13, 2008
With developments from Arizona and Florida. The Arizona Republic carries an AP report, "Inmate: Arizona death method still subject to challenge." Arizona's method of lethal injection is open to challenge as inflicting cruel and unusual punishment because it varies in...

The Hood Case - Updated

Posted on June 13, 2008
AP's Jim Vertuno writes, "Appeal based on rumors of affair between DA and trial judge," via the San Antonio Express-News. awyers for a convicted killer facing execution next week have filed an appeal asking the punishment be stopped, alleging a...

The Latest in Ohio

Posted on June 13, 2008
Brad Dicken reports, "Prosecutors may try to get Burge removed from death penalty case," in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. Prosecutors are considering asking the Ohio Supreme Court to remove Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge from a three-judge panel that...

Explosive Charges in Charles Dean Hood Case Backed Up

Posted on June 13, 2008
For years there have been lingering questions about an improper relationship in the Charles Dean Hood trial. Hood is scheduled to be executed next week, and a former prosecutor has stepped forward confirming rumors of an affair between the trial...

Ardor in the Court - More on the Plano HoodWink

Posted on June 13, 2008
"Ardor in the court," is the title of Alan Berlow's latest at Salon.com, another spotlight shined on the Charles Hood case. Rarely in the annals of criminal justice does a conflict of interest get more sordid or have greater consequences...

Update on the Nichols Case in Georgia

Posted on June 12, 2008
The Fulton County Daily Report today carries an AP dispatch, "State gets wish to examine Nichols." Prosecutors can have their own expert examine for up to 18 hours a man who plans to argue that he was mentally ill when...

A Courageous Commutation

Posted on June 12, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Washington Post. LINK VIRGINIA GOV. Timothy M. Kaine (D), a confidant of Barack Obama's and the first governor outside Illinois to endorse the senator's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, is routinely...

No Kennedy or Rothgery Ruling Today

Posted on June 12, 2008
For those who were not tracking SCOTUS Blog's fantastic live blogging of the Court this morning, neither Kennedy v. Louisiana, nor Rothgery v. Gillespie County was issued today. In a major case, the Court ruled that foreign detainees held at...

Anthony Graves Case Raises the Dead ... Again

Posted on June 12, 2008
That's the title of Jordan Smith's report on another long-running controversial Texas case, in the latest Austin Chronicle. LINK Adding to the string of dubious edicts delivered from her bench, on May 21 Burleson Co. District Judge Reva Tows�lee-Corbett denied...

Update on Yogurt Shop Murder Defendant

Posted on June 12, 2008
The Austin American-Statesman reports, "Yogurt defense lawyer lashes out at prosecutors." A lawyer for Robert Springsteen, facing retrial in the 1991 Austin yogurt shop slayings of four teenage girls, chided prosecutors Wednesday for failing to disprove his contention that DNA...

Voice of Death Testifies for Life

Posted on June 12, 2008
That's the title of a profile of Larry Fitzgerald, the retired TDCJ spokesman who witnessed more than 200 executions in Texas. The profile is by Steve Mills in today's Chicago Tribune. LINK For eight years and 219 executions, Larry Fitzgerald...

Texas Execution

Posted on June 11, 2008
Texas carried out its first execution of 2008, tonight in Huntsville. It's the first execution in the nation's most active execution chamber since September 25, 2007, the controversial execution of Michael Richard on the day the U.S. Supreme Court agreed...

At San Quentin, California

Posted on June 11, 2008
The Los Angeles Times reports, "Costs soar for new death row at San Quentin." Ground has not yet been broken on a new death row proposed at San Quentin State Prison, but the projected cost of the project has soared...

Arkansas Revises Execution Protocols

Posted on June 11, 2008
That the title of an AP report via the Baxter Bulletin. LINK Executioners administering lethal injections in Arkansas will check for fluttering eyelids and shake condemned inmates to assure they are unconscious before delivering the two final drugs to carry...

Texas Execution Scheduled Today

Posted on June 11, 2008
Following the CCA's opinions issued on Monday afternoon, including the denial of a stay for Karl Chamberlain, Texas is poised to carry out its first execution since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Baze, the Kentucky lethal injection case. It...

Judge Orders Ohio to Alter It's Method of Execution

Posted on June 11, 2008
That's the title of Adam Ellick's and Adam Liptak's article in today's New York Times. LINK Judge James Burge's ruling is here. Ohio must stop using a common combination of three chemicals to execute condemned inmates because they may produce...

Deborah Denno on the Ohio Lethal Injection Ruling

Posted on June 10, 2008
Here is Fordham Law School Professor Deborah Denno's initial thoughts on today's ruling: Rivera is a sophisticated and strongly worded opinion in which the court makes clear that an adequate dose of sodium thiopental (or other like anesthetic) is sufficient...

Judge Rules in Ohio Lethal Injection Challenge

Posted on June 10, 2008
Judge James Burge's opinion is here. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports, "Judge rules anesthetic must precede fatal injection." The way Ohio inmates are put to death is unconstitutional because drugs used in the lethal injection process can cause pain, Lorain...

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