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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

Kennedy Commentary at Bloomberg

Posted on April 18, 2008
Bloomberg columnist Ann Woolner writes, "To Help Raped Children, Don't Give Rapists Death." Here's an extended excerpt: Social workers who counsel raped children and nonprofit groups devoted to combating sexual assault say states do victims more harm than good when...

More on Carroll Pickett and 'At the Death House Door'

Posted on April 18, 2008
John Moritz reports, "Minister decries death penalty as 'unjust'," in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. On nearly 100 occasions spanning 15 years, it fell to the Rev. Carroll Pickett to provide whatever comfort he could summon to Texas prison inmates in...

Linda Greenhouse on Justice Stevens

Posted on April 18, 2008
In today's New York Times, Linda Greenhouse writes a must-read, "Justice Stevens Renounces Capital Punishment." Here are three excerpts, but I'd urge everyone to follow the link to read the entire report. When Justice John Paul Stevens intervened in a...

Lawsuits Test Crackdown on Sex Criminals

Posted on April 18, 2008
That's the title of the latest criminal justice report from Stateline.org. It's written by John Gramlich and includes several paragraphs on Kennedy v. Louisiana. LINK A death-penalty case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week marks the latest constitutional...

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Baze Editorial Round-Up

Posted on April 18, 2008
There are editorials today in the Austin American-Statesman, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, Kansas City Star , Des Moines Register, Charlotte (NC) Observer, and Roanoke (VA) Times. Let me start with the hometown Statesman, "The executions and the...

Return to the Yogurt Shop Case

Posted on April 18, 2008
A 1991 crime continues to haunt Austin. Four girls were killed in the yogurt shop murders. A troubled investigation led to controversial prosecutions of two men, both of whom have had their convictions overturned; they currently await new trials. Jordan...

The David Lee Powell Case

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Austin American-Statesman carries an AP dispatch, "David Lee Powell can appeal his third sentence to death row." As with the yogurt shop murders, this case has had a troubled history. A man sent to death row three times for...

Coverage of the Kennedy Oral Argument

Posted on April 17, 2008
FindLaw.com columnist Marci Hamilton writes, "The Supreme Court Considers Whether Imposing the Death Penalty for Child Rape Is Constitutional: The Arguments For and Against the Penalty." Opponents of the death penalty for child rape have argued that it is a...

National Coverage of Baze

Posted on April 17, 2008
Linda Greenhouse writes, "Justices Uphold Lethal Injection in Kentucky Case," in the New York Times. The legal question was what standard to apply in evaluating the risk. The appeal, brought by two men on Kentucky?s death row, Ralph Baze and...

Texas News Coverage of Baze

Posted on April 17, 2008
Kelley Shannon writes the Texas AP dispatch, "States' death row injections get OK after high court ruling," via the San Antonio Express-News. Shannon has an excellent roundup of news and quotes from other states in the report. Many states wasted...

Free to Kill Again

Posted on April 17, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Dallas Morning News. LINK The Supreme Court decision yesterday allowing execution by lethal injection eventually will free the nation's busiest death chamber ? the one in Huntsville, Texas ? to pick up...

Blog/Blawg on Kennedy

Posted on April 16, 2008
Lots of commentary on this important day. Let me start by highlighting Sex Crimes, which has a fantastic resource page, noted in this post., which Corey Yung has continued to update. Doug Berman has this post at his Sentencing Law...

Deborah Denno on the Baze Ruling

Posted on April 16, 2008
Fordham Law prof Deborah Denno, the leading scholar examining lethal injection issues, has this reaction to the Baze ruling: Baze v. Rees is a splintered plurality decision in which the Supreme Court puts forth an Eighth Amendment standard that an...

Adam Liptak on Baze

Posted on April 16, 2008
Adam Liptak has, "Litigation Assured in Wake of Decision." Executions in Texas, Alabama and other Southern states with high death-penalty rates are likely to resume shortly in the wake of the Supreme Court?s decision Wednesday upholding Kentucky?s method of putting...

Another DNA Exoneration in Dallas County

Posted on April 16, 2008
"DNA evidence clears another Dallas County inmate", is the Dallas Morning report written by Steve McGonigle and Jennifer Emily. A questionable identification process nearly 23 years ago helped strip away freedom from Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. Now the certainty of...

Supremes Whack World Court -- And Bush

Posted on April 01, 2008
That's the title of Stuart Taylor's latest Opening Arguments column in National Journal. LINK The Court issued two important rulings: 1) U.S. courts may not use vague treaty provisions to override state or federal laws without explicit authorization from Congress,...

Promoting Pro Bono Work

Posted on April 01, 2008
Lynne Marek files a National Law Journal web exclusive, "Illinois amends rules to fuel pro bono work." The Illinois Supreme Court has amended its attorney registration rules to allow retired and inactive attorneys as well as in-house counsel leeway to...

Elkie Lee Taylor

Posted on April 01, 2008
In today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, John Moritz reports, "Supreme Court rejects appeal by death row inmate from Fort Worth." The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the case of a Fort Worth killer whose lawyers said should...

Medellin Fallout

Posted on April 01, 2008
"Mexico protests U.S. ruling on death row case," is the Reuters headline in fallout from last week's Supreme Court ruling in Medellin v. Texas. Mexico protested on Monday a U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting the reopening of a dual-murder case...

News from the Methodist Church

Posted on March 31, 2008
First, congratulations to Sister Helen Prejean. The Dallas Morning News Religion Blog reports that she will receive the 2008 World Methodist Peace Award. Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun who has become a symbol of opposition to the death penalty,...

More on Death Penalty Cost in New Hampshire

Posted on March 31, 2008
The Nashua Telegraph carried an editorial Saturday from the Keene Sentinel, "Death penalty cases a costly enterprise." The New Hampshire Highway Department has had to pare back its highway construction plans severely and hope no bridges will collapse in the...

Legislators convene in Louisiana

Posted on March 31, 2008
The New Orleans Times-Picayune carries the AP dispatch, "Lawmakers return Monday for wide-open regular session." Gov. Bobby Jindal's agenda for the regular legislative session that begins Monday centers on a revamp of worker training, but lawmakers are offering a hodgepodge...

Alabama Legislation for Judicial Experience

Posted on March 31, 2008
The Birmingham News carried a Saturday editorial, "The Alabama House passes a much-needed bill that would set minimum qualifications for Alabama judges, sending it to the Senate, which needs to approve it." THE ISSUE: The House passes a much-needed bill...

California Panel Holds Final Death Penalty Hearing

Posted on March 31, 2008
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held its final hearing on Friday. The ACLU of Northern California used that venue to release two reports, The Hidden Death Tax: The Secret Costs of Seeking Execution in California, and...

Peckerwood Hill: An Artifact of the Death Penalty

Posted on March 31, 2008
That's the title of a lengthy article in today's Beaumont Enterprise. LINK A shroud of low, ashen mist cuts a swath across Peckerwood Hill on a corpse-cold day in Texas. No matter. The Rev. Carroll Pickett knows the spot he...

The Cost of Justice

Posted on March 31, 2008
That's the title of a Sunday editorial in the Amarillo Globe-News about the West Texas capital PD office. LINK Regionalism has its advantages, such as cost-sharing on the most expensive criminal cases - such as those involving capital murder charges....

'Medellin' Ruling May Be Bad for Business

Posted on March 31, 2008
That's the title of Marcia Coyle's report in this week's National Law Journal. LINK The international environment for American business is difficult today and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the unenforceability of World Court judgments doesn't make it...

New Study Links Schizophrenia and Genetic Mutations

Posted on March 28, 2008
People with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are significantly over-represented in jail and prison populations and among those on death row. Yesterday, I reported on developments in Scott Panetti's case, a severely mentally ill schizophrenic on Texas death row...

More on the Mumia Ruling

Posted on March 28, 2008
For those interested in more coverage of yesterday's federal court ruling in the Philadelphia case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, I want to link to Shannon Duffy's report in Law.com's Legal Intelligencer, "Mumia Abu-Jamal's Death Sentence Overturned, but Conviction Upheld...

New Hampshire Legislation

Posted on March 28, 2008
In the Nashua Telegraph, Kevin Landrigan reports, "Taxpayers could be out $2m for capital cases." Two pending murder trials, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, will cost at least $2 million ? and much more if either one is...

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