j u s t c r i m

Confederate flag in Shreveport key in death sentence appeal | Shreveporttimes | shreveporttimes.com

The Confederate flag - a flashpoint between Southern pride versus civil rights - is key in a Louisiana Supreme Court appeal of a death sentence handed down in the slaying of a retired Caddo fire captain.

Lawyers say the flag flying outside the Caddo Courthouse in Shreveport unduly influenced the outcome of the case of Felton Dorsey, who was convicted in the 2006 murder of Joe Prock.

Prock, a white man, was tied up, beaten and set on fire in his mother's Greenwood home.

via www.shreveporttimes.com

[ ht sentencing law & policy ]

Obama Long Form Birth Certificate [Above the Law]

I hope you are happy, Birthers.

In an amazing concession to the lunatic fringe in America, President Barack Obama has released his “long form” birth certificate from Hawaii.

Actually, check that, using the word “released” adopts the narrative of the crazies. It’s more accurate to say that the President of the United States successfully begged Hawaii for a document it doesn’t normally issue in an effort to appease the dumbest of his political rivals.

via abovethelaw.com

 

A justice’s blind eye to the truth - The Boston Globe

I’M NOT a regular reader of The New York Review of Books, but I wasn’t going to miss newly-retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’s essay on capital punishment in the latest issue. Last Sunday, The New York Times spotlighted the Stevens article as a “remarkable’’ piece of writing that finally settled a “legal mystery’’ — namely, why Stevens had changed his original view on the death penalty, and announced in 2008 that he now considered it to be unconstitutional.

via www.boston.com

[thru Sentencing Law  & Policy and How Appealing]