Death Penalty

Scheduled to Die Today, Inmate Seeks DNA Tests Shunned by His Trial Lawyer

A Texas death row inmate is seeking an 11th-hour reprieve from the governor or the U.S. Supreme Court so he can get DNA tests that had been shunned by his original lawyer. Hank Skinner is scheduled to be executed today, the Associated Press reports. He admits he was in the…

Mar 24, 2010 12:49 PM CDT

Movie Script Revision Needed? High Court Accepts Case of Exonerated Inmate

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the New Orleans District Attorney’s office may be liable for failing to turn over a crime lab report that could have helped an inmate avoid the death penalty. Touchstone Pictures has signed a deal to produce a movie on the case…

Mar 22, 2010 4:04 PM CDT

Texas Judge Backtracks After Striking Down Death Penalty

A Texas judge who declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional has rescinded his controversial ruling and asked for briefs on the issue. Judge Kevin Fine plans an evidentiary hearing on the matter, and has tentatively set an April 27 date, Texas Lawyer reports. Lawyers for both sides say they doubt…

Mar 10, 2010 4:02 PM CST

Complaint Against Judge Puts Ex-Prosecutor Back on Hot Seat re Claimed Ex Parte Contacts

A prosecutor who was earlier exonerated in a legal ethics case concerning his possible personal relationship with a South Florida judge around the time he presented a death-penalty case in her court is now back on the hot seat. Following news this week that the Judicial Qualifications Commission has opened…

Mar 6, 2010 12:44 AM CST

‘West Coast Ralph Nader’ Dies at 91, Kept Justice Frankfurter Note on Desk

After growing up during the Great Depression, William Bennett dropped out of law school to serve as a bomber pilot in World War II, flying 35 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe and returning with the Distinguished Flying Cross and four Bronze Star medals. By the time he graduated from University of…

Mar 5, 2010 8:17 PM CST

Judge: Death Penalty Unconstitutional; AG: ‘Unabashed Judicial Activism’

In what the attorney general of Texas is describing as a “legally baseless” act of “unabashed judicial activism,” a state trial-court judge has granted a pretrial defense motion that the death penalty be declared unconstitutional in the murder case of John Edward Green Jr., reports the Houston Chronicle. “It’s safe…

Mar 5, 2010 6:52 PM CST

Judge Accused, Prosecutor Cleared re 3,388 Calls & Texts During & After Death-Penalty Case

It isn’t just in Texas that a judge is accused of having presided over a capital murder trial while simultaneously having an inappropriate relationship with the prosecutor. In Florida, Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner was charged in a legal ethics complaint yesterday with having exchanged hundreds of phone calls and…

Mar 4, 2010 9:54 PM CST

Does Mini-Defense in Capital Case After Perjury Threat Merit New Trial?

Concerned that their client intended to perjure himself in a Nevada capital murder case, defense lawyers for Siaosi Vanisi sought to withdraw. Then, when the judge refused permission to do so, they put on an abbreviated version of a standard murder defense: They eliminated opening and closing arguments and the…

Mar 2, 2010 9:15 PM CST

Appeals Court Reverses Death Sentence, Doesn’t Mention Judge-Prosecutor Affair

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed the death sentence for a convicted double murderer who was nearly executed in 2008 before the state ran of out time to perform the lethal injection. But in determining that Charles Dean Hood should be resentenced, the court makes no mention of…

Feb 24, 2010 6:16 PM CST

Notorious Serial Killer Ted Bundy’s VW Goes on Display at ‘Murderabilia’ Museum

Perhaps there are legitimate reasons for displaying iconic items used in horrific crimes, such as the tan Volkswagen Beetle in which notorious serial killer Ted Bundy reportedly abducted a number of his actual and alleged victims. According to a National Museum of Crime & Punishment press release announcing the addition…

Feb 19, 2010 11:18 PM CST

Ethics Prosecution Blasts Report, Seeks Sanction of Top Texas Judge

Saying that a special master who evaluated the evidence in an ethics case against the top criminal judge in Texas missed the point, prosecutors in the ethics case are seeking sanctions for what they describe as her willful and incompetent disregard of established court procedure in a death penalty matter.…

Feb 19, 2010 10:18 PM CST

High Court Upholds Death Sentence, Despite Disparaging Defense

The U.S. Supreme Court has reinstated a death sentence for Frank Spisak, an Ohio neo-Nazi convicted of three murders after an unusual defense by his lawyer. Even if the lawyer’s conduct during closing arguments was deficient, a better closing would not have made a difference, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote…

Jan 12, 2010 3:58 PM CST

ALI Disavows Its Death Penalty Framework

The American Law Institute has disavowed the model framework it developed in 1962 for administering the death penalty, citing flaws in the system. The ALI decision last October was a compromise reached after some members asked the organization to take a stand against the death penalty, the New York Times…

Jan 5, 2010 1:31 PM CST

Top Ga. Court Halts Execution Today, Orders Judge to Mull DNA Testing

Four hours before a convicted murderer was scheduled to be put to death today, the Georgia Supreme Court halted the execution and ordered a trial judge to consider Carlton Gary’s request for DNA testing. The 59-year-old Gary, who was convicted in 1986 of raping and strangling three elderly women with…

Dec 16, 2009 11:09 PM CST

State Must Pay $150 a Day to Cover Up Murder Defendant’s Tattoos, Judge Rules

John Ditullio has a phrase tattooed on his neck that isn’t considered printable by a major Florida newspaper. But when the jury sees the 23-year-old at his upcoming first-degree murder trial, those words, as well as the swastika and the barbed wire design above his collar line will be difficult…

Dec 9, 2009 10:21 PM CST