15-Year-Old Innocence Project Thriving

When Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld began the Innocence Project 15 years ago, their goals were relatively modest. Today their New York-based program has 38 employees, has exonerated 201 convicts and freed them from prison and is a model for similar efforts in 39 other states. The two one-time public…

Jun 8, 2007 7:50 PM CDT

Blogging Juror Booted in Murder Case

Here’s another category to add to the list of courtroom players who need to be told not to blog about an ongoing trial. Jurors. As the Miami Herald puts it, “If you are a juror told by a federal judge not to read newspaper stories about a case you are…

Jun 7, 2007 11:04 PM CDT

Death-Row Inmates Look to Kennedy

The U.S. Supreme Court has issued eight decisions in death penalty cases this term, ruling against inmates in half.

The liberal wing of the court sided with inmates in all eight cases, Associated Press reports. The swing vote is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

“In the late ’80s and early ’90s, you were a rare defendant who won a death penalty case at the Supreme Court,” Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told AP reporter Mark Sherman. “Now there’s a fair chance that if you can get Justice Kennedy, you’ll win.”

Jun 7, 2007 3:53 PM CDT

Lawyer Failure Helps N.J. Death-Row Inmate

The New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered a new trial for a black death-row inmate because his lawyers and the trial judge failed to pursue a juror’s potential bias. The court vacated the death sentence for Donald Loftin despite its conclusion there was “overwhelming evidence” that he killed a gas-station…

Jun 6, 2007 3:37 PM CDT

ACLU: Botched Executions Need Scrutiny

A recent execution in Ohio took so long that the convict reportedly needed a bathroom break before he died. That’s just one reason why people need to know more about how the death penalty is imposed, including the identity of the executioners, says the American Civil Liberties Union. The organization’s…

Jun 5, 2007 7:56 PM CDT

Missouri Lethal Injections Upheld

A federal appeals court has upheld Missouri’s lethal injection procedure. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis said yesterday that the three-drug cocktail did not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, according to the Los Angeles Times. “We find no evidence to indicate…

Jun 5, 2007 5:09 PM CDT

Kennedy Overturns Former Clerk

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy overturned his former law clerk in a decision yesterday saying that state courts are in the best position to make decisions on potential jurors. Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 5-4 ruling that said federal courts should defer to a state judge’s judgment that the…

Jun 5, 2007 12:51 PM CDT

Death Penalty a Killer Joke to Texas Man

The death penalty may be no laughing matter to many. But a condemned man in Texas is asking folks on the outside to send him jokes, so he can select the best to read just before his scheduled execution on June 26. “I know I’m not innocent,” says Patrick Knight,…

Jun 5, 2007 12:46 AM CDT

Kennedy Deciding Death Penalty Vote

The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated the death sentence of a man who argued a potential juror who expressed misgivings about capital punishment should not have been excluded. The court ruled 5-4 the state court judge was in a superior position to decide whether to seat the juror, and federal…

Jun 4, 2007 6:21 PM CDT

Peremptories Re-Examined

A black death-row inmate is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his challenge to a prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges to help keep blacks off his jury. In his Sidebar column for the New York Times (sub. req.), Adam Liptak writes about Allen Snyder, sentenced to death for killing…

Jun 4, 2007 4:48 PM CDT

Wash. Ruling Limits Capital Factors

A Washington Supreme Court ruling could limit death penalty prosecutions in the state. Yesterday the court limited the circumstances in which aggravating factors can be applied in murder cases, according to the Seattle Times. Aggravating factors are a requirement for the death penalty. The court ruled in the case of…

Jun 1, 2007 6:30 PM CDT

Execution for Tex. Woman in Baby Case?

An unusual execution of a woman may be about to take place in Texas. If so, it would be only the 12th in the entire country since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Well over 1,000 men have been executed during that time. Cathy Lynn Henderson,…

May 31, 2007 12:33 AM CDT

Top Official gets Death Sentence for Bad Chinese Food

Even for China, the sentence is an unusually harsh one. In the wake of international scandals over contamination of food products shipped from China, the former head of the country’s top food and drug safety agency was sentenced to death today. Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, commissioner of China’s Food and Drug…

May 29, 2007 10:09 PM CDT

Court Rejects Ineffective Assistance Claim

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal judge’s decision to deny an evidentiary hearing to a death-row inmate who refused to allow mitigating evidence at his trial. A federal judge properly determined that Jeffrey Landrigan, who had petitioned for habeas relief, could not make out a colorable claim of…

May 14, 2007 4:47 PM CDT

N.J. Bill to Ban Death Penalty Advances

A New Jersey Senate committee has passed a bill to make the state the first to abolish the death penalty after reinstating it. If the measure passes, New Jersey will be the 13th state without a death penalty, according to the New York Times. The committee chairman predicted the full…

May 11, 2007 2:36 PM CDT