Monthly Archive: November 2021

Mississippi Murderer to be Executed

by · Nov 16, 2021 11:10 am

A Mississippi man who murdered his estranged wife in 2009, after several years of sexually abusing her daughter, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday (11/17).  Emily Wagster Pettus of the Associated Press reports that David Neal Cox was jailed in 2009 after his stepdaughter reported that he had been sexually assaulting her for years.  Even though Cox had been convicted of rape, sexual battery, child abuse and a drug charge, he was released from jail in April of 2010.  A month later Cox stormed into the house where his estranged wife, Kim Cox, was living and shot her in the arm and abdomen.  While she lay on the floor bleeding to death, Cox sexually assaulted her daughter in front of her.  After an eight-hour standoff, Cox surrendered to police.  He pled guilty to the murder in 2012.  UPDATE:  Cox was executed Wednesday afternoon as reported here.

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 . . .

The Unwoking Begins

by · Nov 12, 2021 3:13 pm

Voters in New York City elected Eric Adams, a former police captain who promised to restore law and order in the big apple, as Mayor earlier this month.  Rebecca Rosenberg and Bryan Lleans of Fox News report that Adams plans to restore the city’s Anti-Crime Unit, a plaincloths team targeting gangs and illegal guns.  The unit was disbanded in 2020 after years of complaints that it was racially biased.  In a recent interview, Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Hawk Newsome told reporters that if Adams brings back the unit “there will be riots, there will be fire, and there will be bloodshed.”    After claiming that his statement was not a threat, Newsome said that Adams would lead the city to another George Floyd incident.   The elections of Virginia’s Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General, all of whom promised to restore law and order, along with the rejection of the BLM demand to disband the police department in Minneapolis and the election of a pro-law enforcement Mayor, City Attorney and key City Council member in the progressive city of Seattle,  suggest that the people from both political parties have had enough of woke policing policies and BLM threats.

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 . . .

Even the Washington Post Gets It, Sort Of

by · Nov 9, 2021 7:57 am

The Washington Post is a predictably liberal newspaper very slightly to the right of the New York Times (in other words, not Maoist).  It woodenly goes along with whatever the liberal position du jour is, including opposition to the death penalty and an unfriendly skepticism toward the police and policing.

A week ago today, however, there was an election.  As has widely been reported, more liberal candidates took a pasting, running from 12 to 16 percentage points behind what Joe Biden won in 2020.  Crime and policing were issues across the country, including although not limited to Northern Virginia, just across the Potomac from the WaPo  —  which dutifully took note.

Continue reading . . .

Under Gascon, Gang Murderer Released After Six Years

by · Nov 8, 2021 11:57 am

A gang member convicted in adult court of the 2015 murder of a man in Palmdale will be released from LA County jail thanks to a policy announced last year by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.  Scott Schweble of the Los Angeles Daily News reports that because murderer Andrew Cachu was two months shy of his 18th birthday when he shot and killed 41-year-old Louis Amela, under Proposition 57, the Soros backrolled Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act of 2016,  he became eligible for a hearing to determine if he should have been tried in juvenile court.  Among the “special directives” Gascon announced days after his election, is one which prohibits his deputies from calling witnesses, including a victim’s family, or presenting evidence supporting the conviction of a juvenile murderer tried in adult court.  With no argument to support Cachu’s conviction, the judge had no choice but to transfer the case to the juvenile court.  Under California law a murderer convicted in juvenile court must be released from custody by age 25.  While Cachu received a 50 year prison sentence for the murder, according to the article, he will be released in a few days having served six years .  “The victim’s family is devastated,”  said Kathy Cady, a former prosecutor representing them.

Continue reading . . .

Why Voters Are Killing the Defund Movement

by · Nov 4, 2021 2:44 pm

As Kent reported Tuesday, voters in Minneapolis rejected a ballot measure proposing to eliminate the police department and replace it with social workers.  In a New York Post article Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald reports that Charter Amendment 4, which would address crime with a “comprehensive public health approach” received major support from progressives including $500,000 from George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center.  “Minneapolis voters didn’t need to imagine the results of Amendment 4’s utopian scheme:  they have been living though a preview of police abolition…..Traffic and pedestrian stops dropped at least 75 percent following the George Floyd riots, in response to the charge that police were racists for investigating suspicious activity in high-crime neighborhoods.”

Continue reading . . .

California Insists That Victim Suffering Must Continue Decades After The Crime

by · Nov 4, 2021 1:14 pm

Guest Post by David Boyd

Our California Constitution guarantees victims of crimes the following right (among others): “To a speedy trial and a prompt and final conclusion of the case and any related post-judgment proceedings.” In explaining the need for this right, our constitution says, “Victims of crime are entitled to finality in their criminal cases. Lengthy appeals and other post-judgment proceedings that challenge criminal convictions, frequent and difficult parole hearings that threaten to release criminal offenders, and the ongoing threat that the sentences of criminal wrongdoers will be reduced, prolong the suffering of crime victims for many years after the crimes themselves have been perpetrated. This prolonged suffering of crime victims and their families must come to an end.”

This right, and its foundational basis, is being routinely violated in its spirit if not its letter. Within the last several years our Legislature as well as our Governor through the secretary of the Department of Corrections has ignored our constitution. Instead of passing laws preserving finality, they have instead created new laws and programs to reopen tens of thousands of cases statewide, thus creating the very suffering that that the constitution directs must end. 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 . . .