j u s t c r i m

"southern states accounted for 95 percent of the executions in 2008"

"The United States does not practice capital punishment. Isolated parts of it do..."  ACLU Blog

on math

LATIMES.COM - Tim Rutten: California death row's dicey math ... "It'll cost the state about $1 billion to keep capital punishment on the books for the next five years. Is it worth it?"

5 "casual conversations" with saddam hussein

5"Casual Conversations" : "Washington, D.C., July 1, 2009 - FBI special agents carried out 20 formal interviews and at least 5 "casual conversations" with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein after his capture by U.S. troops in December 2003, according to secret FBI reports released as the result of Freedom of Information Act requests by the National Security Archive and posted today on the Web at www.nsarchive.org..." 

strip search illegal

Supreme Court Rules Strip Search of Girl Illegal (LATIMES.COM - Associated Press 8:12 AM PDT, June 25, 2009): "The Supreme Court ruled today that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal. In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford. Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills -- the equivalent of two Advils..." [The Safford opinion is available at the SCOTUS site: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-479.pdf]

american constitution society | sotomayor briefing

The American Constitution Society (ACS) [YouTube Excerpts (June 11 2009)] - " ... held a panel discussion at the National Press Club on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. The panel was moderated by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and included Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Policy Center, and Cristina Rodriguez, professor of law at the New York University School of Law, who engaged in lively discussion and debate..."

See also, National Journal Online, The Ninth Journal Online -- News and Analysis On The Search To Fill The The Supreme Court  [Thursday, June 11, 2009] - One Way Sotomayor Fails The Diversity Test,  By Amy Harder"

"Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic justice and the third woman on the court, but in at least one respect she would not bring diversity to the court. She will, if confirmed, continue a growing pattern of filling the Supreme Court with sitting appellate judges.

At an American Constitution Society discussion yesterday on the Sotomayor nomination, panelists debated the pros and cons of selecting potential justices in the mold of former Chief Justice Earl Warren (see video of the event below). Warren was governor of California before President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated him to the court in 1953..."

save the state $125 million a year ...

LATIMES.COM -- Opinion -- California can't afford the death penalty - Eliminating capital punishment, which is rarely carried out anyhow, would save the state $125 million a year.  [By John Van de Kamp, June 10, 2009]

"There are many reasons why people object to the death penalty. Opponents point to the ever-present risk of wrongful conviction. They note that there's bias against people of color and low-income defendants, as well as geographic disproportionality in its administration. And there's the fact that most other civilized societies around the world have concluded that it should be abolished.

But these days, there's also a strong economic argument for doing away with capital punishment. With California facing its most severe fiscal crisis in recent memory -- with draconian cuts about to be imposed from Sacramento that will affect every resident of the state -- it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books..."

juvenile justice

ACLU BLOG -- Let’s End Juvenile Life Sentences Without Parole Now! [from ACLU Blog by Nahal Zamani, Human Rights Program]

"Today at 3:00 pm [EST], the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will convene a hearing on H.R. 2289, the "Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009.” This legislation would deny funding to states that refuse to offer a parole option to juvenile offenders and authorize state grants to improve legal representation for youths charged with life sentences.

It’s hard to believe that the United States still sentences children as young as 13 to spend the rest of their lives in prison without any opportunity for release. Right now, there are approximately 2,570 children serving juvenile life sentences without parole in the U.S. — the only country that allows this cruel punishment to happen..."

sweet home alabama

New York Times - Sidebar - Death Penalty Case Reveals failings [Adam Liptak (June 8, 2009)] -

" ... Last month, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear Mr. Wood’s case. It will give the court a glimpse of Alabama’s capital justice system, which is among the most troubled in the nation. The state lacks a public defender’s office, elects judges for whom death sentences are a campaign promise, pays appointed lawyers a pittance and sometimes leaves death row inmates to navigate the intricacies of post-conviction challenges with no lawyers at all..."

aclu on sotomayor

ACLU BLOG -- "The ACLU today released a report summarizing the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The report was prepared in accordance with ACLU policy, and will be made available to the public and members of the Senate. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates for elective or appointive office. The full text of the report is online at: www.aclu.org/scotus/2008term/39769pub20090608.html.

ACLU BLOG -- "The ACLU today released a report summarizing the civil liberties and civil rights record of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The report was prepared in accordance with ACLU policy, and will be made available to the public and members of the Senate. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates for elective or appointive office. The full text of the report is online at: www.aclu.org/scotus/2008term/39769pub20090608.html.

"an important data point"

Conservative Group Criticizes Sotomayor on Death Penalty Memo [Washington Post, Opening Arguments, By Jerry Markon, June 5, 2009] -- "A conservative group is criticizing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for signing a 1981 memo that opposed the death penalty and said 'capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society.'’’

the voldemort of higher education ... u.s. news & world report

Chronicle of Higher Education - Researcher Offers Unusually Candid Description of University's Effort to Rise in Rankings [By Martin Van Der Werf, Wednesday, June 3, 2009] - "Clemson University is run in an almost single-minded direction, with nearly all policies driven by how they will help the land-grant institution rise in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings, according to a university official whose candid comments stirred debate among conference-goers here on Tuesday.

gloss a few?

I'm fairly certain Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will at least gloss a few Sotomayor opinions, just for fun, " ... before [they] end this." 

Sotomayor Visits Lawmakers on Capitol Hill [By Shailagh Murray, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, June 2, 2009]  Washington Post -- "Reid took a similar view of Sotomayor's towering case file. 'I understand that during her career, she's written hundreds and hundreds of opinions," he told reporters today. "I haven't read a single one of them, and if I'm fortunate before we end this, I won't have to read one of them...'" 

["... No matter how good the researcher is, there is no substitute for reading the opinion yourself ... Crime & Consequences blog, "Don't Confuse Us With The Facts," June 3, 2009 | Posted by Lauren Altdoerffer]

federal justice statistics, 2006 - statistical tables

Federal Justice Statistics, 2006 - Statistical Tables:  "Describes criminal case processing in the federal justice system, including arrest and booking through sentencing and corrections. These statistical tables present the number of suspects arrested and booked by the U.S. Marshals Service, suspects in matters investigated and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, defendants adjudicated and sentenced in U.S. district court, and characteristics of federal prisoners and offenders under federal supervision.

Data are from the Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP), which collects comprehensive information describing suspects and defendants processed in the federal criminal justice system, and annual data on workload, activities, and outcomes associated with federal criminal cases. The data presented in these tables were collected from  the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA), Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

The Urban Institute prepared these tables under the supervision of Mark Motivans, Ph.D., of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The tables were prepared under BJS grant number 2005-BJ-CX-K004. The BJS-sponsored Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center (FJSRC) provides online access to the federal justice database. Users may download data from the federal justice database for independent analysis or use the online query system to obtain customized statistics..."

Print version (PDF format 1.5M) | Spreadsheets (zip format 57K)

redesign ! scotus website long overdue

Sunlight Foundation:  "Redesigning the government: the U.S. Supreme Court" (Jen 2, 2009)

"President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sotomayor has brought increased attention to the U.S. Supreme Court. It also has led us to reexamine the Court’s web site, which is long overdue for an overhaul. In its current form, its web design is suggestive of the 1990s, and its functionality is similarly dated.

The Justices appear to agree. They’ve recently ask Congress for money to move control of the site in-house, taking over responsibility from the GPO. This move would allow them, in their words, to “better control and manage the web site and to be able to expand the data and services provided by the site more efficiently.”

The current web site has many shortcomings. It doesn’t contain briefs by the parties and omits all but a few relatively recent Court opinions. Its navigation is a nightmare and its design fails to incorporate modern techniques such as RSS feeds and XML. Much information is unnecessarily locked in PDFs. And yet, in January 2009 the nine-year-old site received 18 million hits.

To help the Court update its web presence, the Sunlight Foundation has put together the following mock-up..."

white collar crime - sotomayor

From the white collar crime prof blog ... "Sotomayor and White Collar Crime Opinions" ...

the u.s. government channel on youtube

@ http://www.youtube.com/USGovernment

"an honest conversation"

ACLU BLOG:  "An Honest Conversation about the Death Penalty " - "California remains on track to spend over $1 billion on the death penalty in the next five years, in the midst of the worst financial crisis in nearly a century. Incredibly, even as state officials announce that they must fill a deficit of $21.3 billion this year, and contemplate drastic cuts in the most basic services, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to support funding to pursue capital prosecutions — a breathtakingly expensive and ineffective policy that does nothing to promote public safety..."

sotomayor | point counterpoint | chemerinsky somin

LATIMES.com Sotomayor Debate -- "Do race and gender matter for the Supreme Court?"  "Today's topic: Much has been made of the fact that Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Latina justice, and sitting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said she feels "lonely" as the only woman on the bench. How much, if at all, does the ethnic and gender diversity of the Supreme Court bench matter?

Point Erwin Chemerinsky [Dean, UCI School of Law]

Counterpoint  Ilya Somin [Assistant Professor of Law, George Mason U  School of Law; Volokh Conspiracy blogger]

"o"

every now and then .... the big "o" ...

MONTEJO v. LOUISIANA. CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF LOUISIANA (No. 07–1529). Argued January 13, 2009—Decided May 26, 2009.  SYLLABUS:  Held:  Michigan v. Jackson should be and now is overruled. 

"[W]hen the marginal benefits of the Jackson rule are weighed against its substantial costs to the truth-seeking process and the criminal justice system, we readily conclude that the rule does not “pay its way,” United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897, 907–908, n. 6 (1984). Michigan v. Jackson should be and now is overruled..."

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, J., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER, J., joined, except for n. 5. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

BACKGROUND -- LIIBULLETIN (Cornell U Law School - LII / Legal Information Institute)

BACKGROUND -- Oyez U.S. Supreme Court Media

BACKGROUND -- SCOTUSWiki

capital punishment costs | people v. burgener

Professor Shaun Martin neatly sums up the fiscal realities of capital punishment in California @ his California Appellate Report blog - "People v. Burgener (Cal. Supreme Ct. - May 7, 2009)" (Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009):

"I'm telling you this right now: Michael Burgener will die in prison, but it won't be from an antiseptic needle in the arm. At this point, it'll be 40+ years after the conviction before there'd actually be an execution. And the justice of such a penalty -- though understandable in all its individual components -- seems far from clear.

Burgener shot and killed a 7-11 clerk an emptied the cash register of $50. He's not a nice man. He deserves to live the remainder of his life behind bars, and that's what will happen. Why -- at this point -- we're spending the millions and millions of dollars I'm sure is being spent to keep this one going is beyond me.

I know the counterarguments. They're not frivolous. I appreciate them. I truly do. But this one, in my view, you let go." 

15 seconds ... magnitude 4.7 ...

LATIMES.com -- "Seismologists suspect that the magnitude-4.7 earthquake that shook a large stretch of Southern California on Sunday night erupted along the Newport- Inglewood fault, which experts have long feared would produce a devastating temblor...

The quake hit at 8:39 p.m. and was centered near Lennox, a community between Inglewood and Hawthorne and east of Los Angeles International Airport. Lasting about 15 seconds, the temblor could be felt as far away as the high desert, Indio, Carpinteria and San Diego County... " [MORE]

USGS REPORT -- Magnitude 4.7 - Greater Los Angeles Area ... DID YOU FEEL IT?

Earthquake Details

Magnitude	4.7
Date-Time	Monday, May 18, 2009 at 03:39:36 UTC Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 08:39:36 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	33.937°N, 118.345°W
Depth	15.1 km (9.4 miles)
Region	GREATER LOS ANGELES AREA, CALIFORNIA
Distances	1 km (1 miles) ESE (107°) from Lennox, CA 2 km (1 miles) N (8°) from Hawthorne, CA 2 km (1 miles) S (178°) from Inglewood, CA 16 km (10 miles) SW (215°) from Los Angeles Civic Center, CA
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 0.2 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles)
Parameters	Nph=189, Dmin=6 km, Rmss=0.44 sec, Gp= 43°, M-type=centroid moment magnitude (Mw), Version=S
Source	California Integrated Seismic Net: USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR
Event ID	ci10410337

redemption song

Huffington Post:  Wayne Kramer (May 15, 2009) - "My Return to Prison: Views on the Failed Drug War from Inside Sing Sing"

"You would have to be living on the moon to not know what a disaster the "War On Drugs" has been. Twenty billion dollars a year for the last 30 years, two million Americans in prison -- 60% of them non-violent drug offenders ..."

"are we ready to move beyond our failed war on drugs?"

Huffington Post(May 14, 2009):  "Ending the War on Drugs: The Moment is Now" ...  "On the rhetorical front, all the president's men are saying the right things.  In his first interview since being confirmed, Obama's new drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said that we need to stop looking at our drug problem as a war. "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs" or a 'war on product,'" he told the Wall Street Journal, "people see war as a war on them. We're not at war with people in this country."" [emphasis added]

"robert blecker wants me dead"

petition for rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc are DENIED

Cooper v. Brown (9th Cir. - May 11, 2009).  W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judge, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc, joined by PREGERSON, REINHARDT, PAEZ, and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man ..."  [emphasis added]. See Cal. App. Report blog for explication.