Category: Death Penalty

Bonta and Gascón Collude to Overturn All Los Angeles Death Sentences

by · Nov 16, 2021 9:46 am

CJLF issued a press release with the above title this morning. Here is the text:

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón are working together to overturn the death sentences of every condemned murderer convicted in Los Angeles County, according to the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

On November 5, Bonta’s office issued Notices of Withdrawal in at least four death penalty cases before county judges to consider new claims by murderers challenging their sentences. Gascón’s office then told the court that it agrees with (concedes) the murderers’ claims and asked the judge to vacate the death sentences and re-sentence the murderers to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).

“The Constitution of California says that it is the ‘duty of the Attorney General to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced.’ Attorney General Bonta is doing exactly the opposite. He is facilitating collusive litigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney for the purpose of defeating the enforcement of the law,” said Foundation Legal Director Kent Scheidegger.

Update:  CJLF was on the Los Angeles drive time talk radio John & Ken show discussing this issue, available here.

Continue reading . . .

Justice Gorsuch as the “Swing Vote” on Executions?

by · Nov 10, 2021 9:07 am

Yesterday after listening to the oral argument in Ramirez v. Collier, the Supreme Court’s clergy-in-the-execution-chamber case, I noted that the most important question is not whether the State or the murderer wins on the details of this case but whether we are going to have a permanent new layer of litigation further delaying already badly delayed justice in these cases.

Now we have the transcript of the argument and Amy Howe’s characteristically thorough and unbiased report. What the justices said during the argument is interesting, but perhaps more interesting is what one justice did not say. Justice Gorsuch is usually active in argument, but in this case he said zilch. Given that the other justices may very well be divided 4-4, the decision in this case may rest on him. Continue reading . . .

A Permanent New Layer of Capital Litigation?

by · Nov 9, 2021 10:50 am

The anti-death-penalty crowd hit the jackpot some years back when they discovered that they could add a new layer of litigation to a capital punishment process that already has too many layers. Civil litigation over the method of execution has become routine. It has stopped executions in some states but not others. The promising new tool for obstruction is civil litigation over whether the state has gone far enough to accommodate the inmate’s real or fabricated religious needs during the execution process.

This is the real issue beneath today’s argument in the U.S. Supreme Court in Ramirez v. Collier, No. 21-5592. The case was discussed in this post on October 25. Continue reading . . .

Bring Back the Death Penalty in Virginia?

by · Nov 3, 2021 12:22 pm

Yesterday saw a small revolution in Virginia politics.  For the last few years, the Democrats have controlled both the Governor’s chair and both houses of the state legislature.  With that alignment, they repealed the state’s death penalty on an almost (but not quite) straight party line vote.  But with yesterday’s election, things have changed.  Is there now a way to restore the death penalty? Continue reading . . .

Does AAIDD Have the Power to Amend the Constitution?

by · Nov 1, 2021 4:05 pm

The President cannot amend the Constitution. Congress cannot by itself. The legislatures of the States cannot, by themselves. Only 2/3 of both houses of Congress and 3/4 of the state legislatures (or convention alternatives) can do that, according to Article V of the Constitution. The Founders made it very difficult on purpose, as our fundamental law should rarely change, and only if there is a genuine consensus to change it.

But does the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), a private organization that the people have no voice in selecting, have the power to amend the Eighth Amendment by itself and widen the class of people that amendment (the Supreme Court says) exempts from capital punishment regardless of how horrible the crime or how clearly premeditated it was? That is one possible interpretation of the Supreme Court’s misguided 2017 decision in Moore v. Texas. See this post. The Supreme Court today turned down a case, over the dissent of Justices Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan, presenting that question. Continue reading . . .

Murder Cases Bumped from SCOTUS Calendar

by · Oct 25, 2021 1:51 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court had scheduled two murder cases, both involving defendants named Ramirez, for argument on November 1. Last Friday, however, the Court bumped them and scheduled arguments on the controversial Texas abortion law for that date. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Supreme Court issue more controversial than capital punishment. Continue reading . . .

Is the Federal Death Penalty Act’s Evidence Rule Unconstitutional?

by · Oct 25, 2021 10:43 am

Is the Federal Death Penalty Act’s evidence provision unconstitutional? Does the defendant have a constitutional right to introduce evidence of marginal probative value outweighed by other considerations, which the statute says the trial judge may exclude?

These are the surprising implications of the defense argument in the Boston Marathon Bomber case, argued in the U.S. Supreme Court October 13. I suppose if you are defending the indefensible you have to argue something. But it is surprising when a lawyer barely mentions the primary ground of the decision she is asking to have affirmed. Continue reading . . .

SCOTUS Appears Poised to Re-Instate Death Penalty for Boston Marathon Bomber

by · Oct 13, 2021 3:11 pm

The Supreme Court today heard argument in one of the most prominent death penalty cases of the last few decades, that of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.  News reports from the Washington Post and CNN  —  neither outlet being friendly to capital punishment  —  suggest that the Court will reverse the First Circuit and re-instate Tsarnaev’s thoroughly earned death sentence.

Continue reading . . .

The Long List from the Long Conference

by · Oct 4, 2021 7:57 am

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its October 2021 Term today, the First Monday in October. As usual, it released an orders list from last week’s conference containing many denials of certiorari, a number of “vacate and remand” orders for lower courts to reconsider judgments based on decisions from last term, a few individual opinions regarding denial of certiorari, and no grants for full briefing and argument. The latter were in the short list issued last Thursday.

Among the notable denials is Deck v. Blair, No. 20-8333, denying review of the Eighth Circuit’s reinstatement of the death sentence of Carman Deck for the 1996 murder of an elderly couple, James and Zelma Long. Deck had to be sentenced to death three times in this case because of erroneous decisions by the Supreme Court itself, one in Deck’s own initial case and another that caused his second sentence to be overturned in state court. CJLF filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Long family in the Eighth Circuit. The State of Missouri may now proceed with long-overdue justice, absent any extraordinary interventions by the courts. Continue reading . . .