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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

The Chicago Case of Alton Logan

Posted on January 25, 2008
In the ABA Journal, Martha Neil has, "Inmate?s Freedom Hinges on Lawyers? Revelation That Dead Client Killed Guard in '82." It's an ethical situation that bears similarity to the resolution of Daryl Atkins' re-sentencing. Almost 26 years ago, as two....

There Is No Fail-Safe in the Death Penalty

Posted on January 25, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in today's Virginian-Pilot. LINK Nearly a dozen years after participating in a murder, after IQ tests showed he was mentally retarded, after his case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and changed the nation?s...

TDCJ

Posted on January 24, 2008
As you would expect, Scott Henson has the latest on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice including a coming big change in prisoners' access to telephones and a shortage of doctors for the prison system. The Houston Chronicle reports, "Injured...

The Atlantic

Posted on January 24, 2008
PrawfsBlog notes that Atlantic.com has opened its site and archives for non-subscribers. Dan Markel highlights a number of excellent archived articles in his post. I'm adding it to the left column webroll under National Blogs. Over the years Atlantic has...

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DNA Frees Colorado Man, Awaits Full Exoneration

Posted on January 24, 2008
Tim Masters spent more than nine years in a Colorado prison before being released this week. I'm posting this because of the must-read Denver Post column by Gail Schoettler, "We should be ashamed." Imagine losing 10 years of your life...

Time for Texas to Try Death Penalty Without Executions

Posted on January 24, 2008
That's the title Steve Blow's local news column in today's Dallas Morning News. LINK I had the craziest dream. I dreamed that the famously conservative editorial pages of The Dallas Morning News kicked off the new year by announcing a...

In Maryland

Posted on January 24, 2008
Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks must-read latest is, "Death penalty fails on fairness." Some death penalty opponents believe they must win the argument on moral grounds - that they have to convince the Maryland General Assembly, for instance, that capital...

Physicians and Execution

Posted on January 24, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. LINK It's written by Gregory D. Curfman, M.D., Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D. We are concerned that, regardless of its...

News Coverage of Yesterday's Senate Hearing

Posted on January 24, 2008
C-SPAN3 will re-air the hearing today at 12:46 pm, (EST.) Marcia Coyle covered the hearing for the National Law Journal reporting, "DOJ upbraided over stalled DNA program." The Senate Judiciary Committee has challenged the U.S. Department of Justice on why...

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing on DNA Grants Oversight

Posted on January 23, 2008
Earlier today, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on DNA Grants Oversight held a hearing. It heard from the Justice Department Inspector General on his recent report and other witnesses. I just caught part of the hearing on C-SPAN2. It...

Death Be Not?

Posted on January 23, 2008
That's the title of an editorial in Virginia's Richmond Times-Dispatch. LINK Del. Frank Hargrove, one of the General Assembly's Don Quixotes, hopes the umpteenth time will be the charm. He wants to end executions in Virginia, which stands second only...

California's Death Row

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Marin Independent Journal reported earlier this month, "$136 million requested for new death row at San Quentin." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set aside $136 million to proceed with construction of a new death row at San Quentin State Prison....

Rothgery Set for Supreme Court March 17

Posted on January 23, 2008
Oral argument in Rothgery v. Gillespie County (07-440) has been set for March 17. Briefs and other documents, including an Amicus filed by a group of law professors, is at this page on SCOTUS Wiki. At issue is the timing...

Roiling Harris County

Posted on January 23, 2008
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal's problems continue to reverberate. Peggy O'Hare has, "DA aides, politicians will be called in Rosenthal lawsuit," in the Houston Chronicle. A lawyer seeking to have District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal held in contempt next week...

Mental Retardation Raised in 2003 Case

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Amarillo Globe-News reports, "Death penalty decried." An Amarillo man convicted in the 2003 shooting deaths of three people should be spared the death penalty because he is mentally retarded, his new attorneys say in court papers. Lawyers representing Jimmie...

Update on the West Texas Capital PD Office

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Midland Reporter-Telegram has, "Public defender offers to take accused killer's case." The ever-evolving case of a man charged with capital murder in the deaths of three Odessa police officers took a new turn Tuesday with a Lubbock-based public defender's...

Physicians Shouldn't Be Involved in Executions

Posted on January 23, 2008
That's the title of an OpEd in the Columbia University Spectator. LINK It's written by Dr. Paul S. Applebaum, Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Law at Columbia University. He is among the participants in today's symposium, ?The Supreme Court and....

Death Penalty Cases Can't Be Tried on the Cheap

Posted on January 23, 2008
That's the title of Cynthia Tucker's OpEd column in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution. LINK Brian Nichols, accused of killing four people after a March 2005 jail break, has been blamed for nearly bankrupting the state's indigent defense fund, established a few...

And in Connecticut

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Stamford Advocate has, "Lawmaker tries to abolish death penalty," reported by Brian Lockhart. The General Assembly's lengthy debate on criminal justice reforms was expected to be stretched a little longer last night by one lawmaker's crusade to abolish the...

More on the Nebraska Abolition Bill

Posted on January 23, 2008
The Omaha World-Herald has, "Death penalty repeal returns." State Sen. Ernie Chambers is hoping to take Nebraska's death penalty with him when he leaves the Legislature next January. Chambers, who has spent more than three decades trying to pull the....

In Nebraska

Posted on January 22, 2008
The Beatrice Daily Sun reports, "Death penalty bill signals Chambers' last chance at repeal." Ernie Chambers has introduced his bill to repeal the death penalty, a battle he's promised to make the priority of his last session as a state...

In Tennessee

Posted on January 22, 2008
The Tennessean carries an AP report, "Bredesen: 1-drug injection is no quick fix, would delay executions." Gov. Phil Bredesen said proposals to introduce a one-drug lethal injection method to navigate around the hazy legal future of Tennessee's three-drug procedure would...

Inmates Seek More Details on Executioners

Posted on January 22, 2008
That's the title of an article in Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch. LINK Lawyers for five death row inmates are pressing Missouri to provide more detail about members of its execution team after a Post-Dispatch investigation revealed that one was a...

In Harris County

Posted on January 22, 2008
In today's Houston Chronicle, Brian Rogers reports, "DA's office plugs onward." Although District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has struggled to maintain a business-as-usual atmosphere on the sixth floor of the Harris County Courthouse amid the fallout of the e-mail scandal that...

Less Pain, More Injustice and Pain

Posted on January 22, 2008
That's the title of an OpEd in Sunday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, written by James Abbott. He is the police chief of West Orange, New Jersey, and served on the state's death penalty study commission. LINK Last month, New Jersey's legislature...

More on Daryl Atkins

Posted on January 19, 2008
Adam Liptak has, "Lawyer Reveals Secret, Toppling Death Sentence," in today's New York Times. For 10 years, Leslie P. Smith, a Virginia lawyer, reluctantly kept a secret because the authorities on legal ethics told him he had no choice, even...

Texas and the Death Penalty

Posted on January 19, 2008
That's the title of an article in the Wall Street Journal written by San Antonio Express-News editorial board member Jonathan Gurwitz. He talks with Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz about two death penalty cases under consideration by the Supreme Court...

Paul Burka Is Watching

Posted on January 18, 2008
Texas Monthly's Paul Burka has a wonderful post on his BurkaBlog, "89 House Seats Will Be Contested in 2008." The speaker's race and the narrowing Republican majority gave both parties an incentive to field candidates in races that they might...

A Second Take Today on the Supreme Court

Posted on January 18, 2008
Earlier today I posted Joan Biskupic's USA Today article. FindLaw.com columnist Edward Lazarus has, "The Supreme Court and Public Opinion: Will They Soon Diverge If a Democrat Is Elected This Year?" Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has moved in...

Jessica's Law in California

Posted on January 18, 2008
Last night's News Hour on PBS had a report by Jeffrey Kaye, "Laws Restricting Lives of Sex Offenders Raise Constitutional Questions." JEFFREY KAYE: It's no surprise that sex offenders are critical of Jessica's Law, but so, too, are many police...

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