USA NEWS

FLORIDA – Carl Dausch – Judge sets date to decide on death sentence

march, 31 2012 source : http://www.dailycommercial.com

Dausch

A Sumter County judge has set a date to decide whether to approve the jury’s death recommendation given to a hitchhiker last year who stood trial on sexual battery and murder charges of a Lake Panasoffkee motorist.

Carl Dausch 53, of Indiana, will be sentenced April 26 at the Sumter County courthouse in the first-degree murder conviction in the 1987 death of Adrian Renard Mobley .

“I’m hoping everything will go as planned,” said prosecutor Pete Magrino, who started seeking the death penalty shortly after Dausch was brought back to Sumter County to face the charges.

A pre-sentencing hearing Tuesday included a letter submitted by Dausch’s daughter in support of her father’s character. Magrino said the court may give the letter some consideration but he doesn’t expect it to block the jury’s suggestion.

The hearing also comes after Judge William Hallman denied a list of motions by the defense in their arguments for a new trial.

The body of Mobley, 27, an electronics manager at the Walmart in Bushnell, was found stomped to death and hog-tied on July 15, 1987, off County Road 475 in Bushnell.

Mobley‘s legs were tied to his hands and arms behind him with a bed sheet. His jeans were partially pulled down.

And, Mobley‘s 1981 red Honda Accord and wallet were missing.

Sumter County Office sheriff’s detectives initially ran cold on the case. In 2004, a cigarette butt retrieved from the Honda was tested for DNA, which pointed to Dausch, an Indiana prison inmate at the time who was serving 60 years on an unrelated rape and battery convictions.

Magrino said DNA on anal swabs taken of the Mobley also linked Dausch to the crime.

The statue of limitations had run out for any robbery charges. But Dausch was indicted on murder and sexual battery charges. In December, a jury found Dausch guilty of murder, but downgraded the sexual battery charge to aggravated battery.

case  progress docket : read here 

CASE NUMBER FILE DATE CASE TYPE STATUS
602006CF000301XXAXFX
[06000301CFFA]		 05/10/2006 Circuit Felony CASE OPEN
CHARGE SEQ# STATUTE STATUTE TEXT DATE PHASE
1 782041a1 MURDER FIRST DEGREE 12/13/2011 Court: Adjudicated Guilty
2 7840451a1 AGGRAVATED BATTERY GREAT BODILY HARM 12/13/2011 Court: Adjudicated Guilty
[DEFENDANT=DAUSCH, CARL ]
[JUDGE=HALLMAN, WILLIAM H III]
LAST DOCKET DATE=03/28/2012
[Court Events | Finance Info | Docket Info]
CHARGE SEQ#: 1     Offense Date:
07/15/1987		 Trial Type:
Jury Trial
   INITIAL: Status Date:
08/18/2008		 Action:
Charged		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
   PROSECUTOR: Decision Date:
05/10/2006		 Action:
Filed		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
  COURT: Decision Date:
12/13/2011		 Action:
Adjudicated Guilty		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
CHARGE SEQ#: 2     Offense Date:
07/15/1987		 Trial Type:
Jury Trial
   INITIAL: Status Date:
08/18/2008		 Action:
Charged		 Statute / Text:
7940113 / SEXUAL BATTERY WITH DEADLY WEAPON
   PROSECUTOR: Decision Date:
05/10/2006		 Action:
Filed		 Statute / Text:
7940113 / SEXUAL BATTERY WITH DEADLY WEAPON
  COURT: Decision Date:
12/13/2011		 Action:
Adjudicated Guilty		 Statute / Text:
7840451a1 / AGGRAVATED BATTERY GREAT BODILY HARM

Oregon – High court again overturns death sentence – Robert Paul Langley Jr.

The Oregon Supreme Court, for the third time in two decades, has overturned a death sentence against Robert Paul Langley Jr. for a murder committed in 1987.

The decision announced Thursday sent the case back to Marion County Circuit Court for further proceedings. District Attorney Walt Beglau has not announced whether he will seek the death penalty for Langley.

Because four of the sitting justices have worked for the Oregon Department of Justice, which represents the state in death-penalty cases, they did not take part in Thursday’s decision. The three remaining justices were joined by a retired justice and a Court of Appeals judge to decide the case.

In essence, the justices decided that Langley was erroneously compelled to represent himself in court when he was sentenced to death again on Nov. 9, 2005.

Death sentences are automatically reviewed by the high court.

Langley, who now is 52, originally was tried in connection with two separate murders.

The body of Anne Gray, 39, was found buried in the backyard of Langley’s aunt in April 1988. Gray’s death dated back to Dec. 10, 1987.

On April 14, 1988, Larry Rockenbrant, 24, was killed and his body found buried in a cactus garden at Oregon State Hospital, where Langley lived while he took part in a program for mentally and emotionally disturbed prison inmates. Langley’s therapist consented to the cactus garden as a way to allow Langley to relax.

Langley was convicted of aggravated murder in separate trials in 1989 and sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court reversed the death sentences in 1992. It ruled that in Gray’s case, the jury was not allowed to hear mitigating evidence, and in Rockenbrant’s case, evidence from Gray’s murder was improperly admitted in the trial.

Langley was sentenced to death for a second time in a retrial for Gray’s murder. But in the Rockenbrant case, he was sentenced to life in prison with a 30-year minimum.

Upon appeal in 2000, the Supreme Court again reversed his death sentence, ruling that the jury failed to consider an option of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

After the case went through three circuit judges — Joseph Guimond, Terry Leggert and Joseph Ochoa, all now retired — Langley was sentenced to death for a third time in Marion County in 2005.

Langley had reshuffled his lawyers several times.

But the sentence came down only after Langley was required to represent himself in the proceeding without the court obtaining a valid waiver of his right to counsel. That self-representation occurred after Ochoa ruled that Langley’s other option was to accept representation by someone who Langley had complaints about — but Ochoa assumed those complaints were frivolous.

“That, too, was not a permissible choice,” said the court’s opinion, written by Justice Robert Durham.

“The record indicates that the court decided that defendant’s (Langley’s) refusal to make the offered choice entitled the court to make the choice itself in favor of compelled self-representation, rather than representation by counsel,” Durham wrote.

“That was (an) error. In our view, because submission of the choice to defendant was itself impermissible, defendant’s refusal to make the proposed choice was entirely proper. It follows that the trial court erred in requiring defendant to proceed to trial on the sentencing phase of a capital murder case without the assistance of legal counsel.”

Oregon Supreme Court   read the opinion ( media release) : click here 

Prison system appears to have bought $50,000 in execution drug last year

march 29, 2012  source :http://www.statesman.com

A year ago, facing a possible shortage of key drugs needed to keep the nation’s busiest execution chamber in business, Texas prison officials appear to have purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of the lethal drugs, new disclosures by state officials reveal.

While no detail is provided, records obtained by the American-Statesman hint that Texas could have enough of the drugs on hand to cover its executions for more than a year and perhaps the largest stockpile in the country — at a time when other states are scrambling to find suppliers for the same drugs.

The disclosure came this week, when the Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed paperwork seeking to keep secret all details of five purchases last May and June of “medical supplies” from Physician Sales & Service Inc.

Asked by the Statesman to make public details about those purchases made with taxpayer dollars, as the agency routinely does with other items it buys, prison officials appealed to Attorney General Greg Abbott to keep the information from public view.

“The requested copies of vouchers, invoices, purchase orders and other purchasing documents will reveal the identities of suppliers of the agency’s lethal injection drugs,” Patricia Fleming, an assistant general counsel for the prison system, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Abbott.

Although Fleming’s letter seems to state that the purchases were lethal drugs, a spokesman for the prison agency disputed that.

“We’ve not identified what the medical supplies are listed on the invoices,” prison spokesman Jason Clark said.

In seeking to keep the information secret, Fleming wrote that disclosure would allow death penalty opponents and others “to intimidate, harass and threaten the suppliers, forcing them to shut down production or blacklist correctional departments.”

She also accused an “abolitionist coalition” including death penalty opponents, human-rights organizations, criminal defense attorneys and the media of engaging in a campaign to cut off the supply of execution drugs.

At least twice recently, drugmakers facing pressure from death penalty opponents stopped selling one of the three drugs used in lethal injections in the United States — or stopped making it altogether, the letter says.

According to public state purchasing records, the prison agency on May 4 paid for $22,928.76 worth of “medical supplies” from Physician Sales & Service.

The following day, the agency paid for three additional purchases totaling $24,839 from the same firm — for 39 vials of the execution drug Nembutal, according to a copy of the invoice for that purchase. The American-Statesman obtained a copy of that invoice from a complaint filed last year by attorneys for two death row inmates who asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate the purchase.

On June 1, the agency paid for another $1,910.73 in “medical supplies” from the company, according to the records, which list no detail.

The nearly $50,000 in purchases are a tiny fraction of the agency’s $3 billion budget and comparable to the $19,000 a year it costs taxpayers to incarcerate a prisoner. And while the price of execution drugs has increased 15-fold over the past year, death penalty supporters and crime victims groups say the cost is well worth it to ensure public safety.

The purchases could presumably include other commonly used medical items such as syringes, gloves, saline solution and other items used in executions — although such items are unlikely to cost tens of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, the agency did not disclose redacted versions of the invoices — as most agencies, including the prison system, usually do in responding to public records requests when they want to keep some details secret.

State records reviewed by the American-Statesman show the purchases during 2011 were the only ones the agency has made in recent years from Physician Sales & Service, at a Houston address.

The company, headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., did not return calls for comment. On its website, it bills itself as “the country’s largest supplier of medical products to physician practices.”

The prison system buys its execution drugs directly, not through its separate medical providers as other states have done, documents previously made public have shown.

Regardless of how much stock the agency has on hand, Clark said “the agency has no plans to sell drugs to other states” — as some other states have done.

full article click here 

Why is Alabama opposing DNA testing?

March 28, 2012  source :http://socialistworker.org

why is Alabama opposing DNA testing?

Rebekah Skelton reports on a case where an Alabama man’s life is at stake.

March 28, 2012

Alabama death row prisoner Thomas ArthurAlabama death row prisoner Thomas Arthur

THOMAS ARTHUR has been on Alabama’s death row for 30 years. He was convicted of killing Troy Wicker in 1982, but has always maintained his innocence. Recently, a federal appeals court stayed Arthur’s March 29 execution date over an issue about lethal injection, though that stay could be lifted at any time.

The real question, however, remains this: Will Thomas Arthur be executed in Alabama without being allowed to have DNA testing that could prove his innocence?

There is a piece of evidence, an “Afro wig” worn by Wicker’s killer as a disguise, that could be tested for Arthur’s DNA. The wig has already been tested once for DNA, after another Alabama prisoner, Bobby Ray Gilbert, confessed to Wicker’s murder in 2008. However, the testing was inconclusive–there wasn’t a match for Gilbert or Arthur.

Ultimately, the original judge decided that Gilbert’s confession wasn’t credible, and despite a lack of other physical evidence tying Arthur to the crime, she recommended that the Alabama Supreme Court deny Arthur’s appeal, which it did.

Now, Arthur’s defense team is asking for a more advanced DNA test, called a mini-STR DNA analysis, on the wig, but Alabama’s attorney general is fighting the request–arguing that this test wouldn’t be any more accurate than the previous one. On top of that, there is no law guaranteeing Arthur the right to further DNA testing.

“I am outraged that there is physical evidence that, if DNA-tested, would prove my father’s guilt or innocence conclusively. This testing could be done prior to his execution and would be paid for by the law firm handling his case,” said Arthur’s daughter Sherrie Stone. “If we are to continue executions in this country, laws must be put in place in which DNA testing must be allowed at all stages of the process. There is a chance we are executing innocent people. I know because my father is one of those people.”

If the lawyers have offered to pay for the testing, what could possibly be the problem? If the test shows that Arthur’s innocent, the state of Alabama can rest easy knowing they didn’t condemn an innocent man to death. And if it show’s he’s guilty, it would only affirm what the state has already convicted him of, at no cost to them.

However, as Andrew Cohen pointed out in a February article in The Atlantic, the general consensus among prosecutors and judges is to value “finality” in cases, rather than “accuracy.” Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, outlined this position in a 2000 “Frontline” interview, saying, “We can’t give new trials to everyone who establishes, after conviction, that they might be innocent. We would have no finality in the criminal justice system, and finality is important.”

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

IT SHOULD be clear to anyone with a conscience that if there’s even a small chance that someone might be innocent after being convicted, the court should do everything in its power to ensure they have the right person–especially when someone’s life is at stake.

But lately, prosecutors have been fighting harder than ever to keep defendants from having access to post-conviction DNA testing. Hank Skinner has been on Texas death row since 1995. His case has many similarities to Arthur’s, such as DNA evidence the court is denying him the right to have tested and a heavy emphasis on an eyewitness who at one point or another recanted.

“Since these guys are on their electoral deadlines, their finality has nothing to do with accuracy,” said Skinner’s wife Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner. “You can’t rush justice.”

The goal of any justice system has to be to find the truth. As Sandrine said, since no justice system is ever going to be infallible–there have been 289 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the U.S., according to the Innocence Project–prosecutors and judges must be willing to admit that they might have convicted the wrong person.

Post-conviction DNA testing must be granted to prisoners whose guilt is questionable–o matter what the cost, and especially when it could be an innocent person who’s paying the ultimate price.

First published at The New Abolitionist.

Plea-bargain decision underscores right to justice

march 29, source :http://www2.journalnow.com

For those fortunate few who’ve never been exposed to the criminal justice system, it might seem odd to learn that more than 90 percent of all criminal convictions in federal and state courts are the result of plea agreements with prosecutors.

Because of the crushing volume of cases, the courts would not work without the use of “plea bargains” that avoid the necessity of time-consuming trials.

Now come two rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that underscore what should be obvious: Defendants have a constitutional right to effective counsel by their attorneys when considering plea negotiations, the Journal’s Michael Hewlett reported. The rulings are expected to change the way pleas bargains are handled, which may mean more work for defense attorneys but perhaps a better system of justice overall.

The revelation of so many wrongful convictions in recent years makes the idea that defendants have a right to a clear understanding of any plea offer a no-brainer — and long overdue. Criminal defense lawyers should be expected to do a thorough job briefing their clients when prosecutors offer plea bargains.

“This could affect every defendant in the system,” Ron Wright, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, told the Journal. It won’t bring the system to a halt, he said, but defense attorneys likely will have to file more paperwork and take more time to ensure their clients get the right legal advice regarding plea offers. That’s a worthy goal.

In one of the cases the high court ruled on, Anthony Cooper rejected a plea offer because his attorney told him that prosecutors could not prove the crime. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison instead of the seven years he could have received under the plea.

Cooper’s attorney “had no business practicing criminal law if he didn’t know better than that,” Pete Clary, Forsyth County’s public defender, told the Journal. Clary said defense attorneys have an ethical obligation to present all plea offers to their clients and advise them accordingly.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said plea offers are written down and placed in the public court file, and the defendant is informed of the plea offer in open court.

If that is accompanied by a defense attorney’s consultation with his client on the pros and cons of the offer, then the defendant has been treated fairly and equitably by our system of justice. That should be a given

Texas accuses anti-death penalty charity of fomenting violence

march 28, source :http://www.guardian.co.uk

Texas, America’s most prolific practitioner of the death penalty, has launched an extraordinary attack on the international anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, accusing it of intimidating and harassing drug companies and likening the group to violent prison gangs responsible for the eruption of prison riots.

The attack comes from the Texas department of criminal justice, TDCJ, which each year carries out the lion’s share of executions in America. In a letter to the attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott, the TDCJ accuses Reprieve of “intimidation and commercial harassment” of manufacturers of medical drugs used in lethal injections.

In astonishingly vivid language, the TDCJ says that Reprieve, which is headquartered in London, “crosses the line from social activists dedicated to their cause to authoritarian ideologues who menace and harass private citizens who decline to submit to Reprieve’s opinion on the morality of capital punishment by lethal injection”.

Reprieve’s tactics present the risk, the Texas prison service claims, of violence. “It is not a question of if but when Reprieve’s unrestrained harassment will escalate into violence against a supplier.”

In the most colourful accusation, the TDCJ compares the human rights organisation to gangs operating in Texas prisons. It writes that Reprieve’s methods “present classic, hallmark practices comparable to practices by gangs incarcerated in the TDCJ who intimidate and coerce rival gang members and which have erupted into prison riots”.

The Texas letter takes the war of words between US states still practising executions and anti-death penalty campaigners to a new level. Reprieve has long had fraught relations with states practising capital punishment in the US, but never before has it been accused of fomenting violence.

Maya Foa, Reprieve’s specialist campaigner on lethal injection, said the accusation was absurd. “Pharmaceutical manufacturers have been objecting to the use of medicines in executions since the lethal injection was invented – Reprieve didn’t create these ethical scruples! And far from harassing them, Reprieve defends these companies and their ideals and we have excellent relationships with them.

“Medicines are made to improve and save lives, not to end them in executions. This principle is at the core of the pharmaceutical profession, and companies have long objected to the misuse of their products by US departments of corrections.”

Texas makes its assault on Reprieve in a 15-page brief that it composed in response to a request for information from the Guardian relating to the quanitity of anaesthetic that the prison service had left in its supplies. The pool of anaesthetic – the first drug used in a cocktail of three chemicals that makes up the lethal injection – has been running low as a result of s boycotts in Europe and other countries.

In its brief, the TDCJ makes a case for withholding the information requested by the Guardian on security grounds. It says that to release information on drug stocks would help Reprieve identify the source of the medicines and that in turn would create “a substantial risk of physical harm to the supplier”.

As supporting evidence, the TDCJ cites the example of Lundbeck, a Danish drug company that is one of the world’s leading producers of the anaesthetic pentobarbital, trademarked as Nembutal. Last summer the firm placed strict restrictions on the distribution of Nembutal to prevent it being used in executions in the US.

Texas claims that Lundbeck imposed the restriction in response to intimidation by Reprieve. “Lundbeck acquiesced to Reprieve’s unrestrained harassment and agreed to deny orders from prisons located in those states active in carrying out death penalty sentences,” the brief says.

But Lundbeck has told the Guardian that its move to impose restrictions on the end use of Nembutal had nothing to do with Reprieve. “We acted because we are a company that wants to help save people’s lives and we are against the misuse of our drugs in prisons. We took our stance long before we were contacted by Reprieve.”

In a gesture that makes a mockery of the claim of intimidation, Lundbeck this week has signed a Hippocratic oath that pledges its commitment to advance the health of the public and avoid inflicting any harm. The oath was drawn up by Reprieve as part of its campaign to block the use of medical drugs in executions.

Texas is the powerhouse of the death penalty in America. Since executions began in the modern era in 1976, the state has put to death 480 people – four times more than the next most plorific practitioner, Virginia, with 109.
Last year, it executed 13 prisoners, again far more than any other state.

The enthusiasm of  Texas for judicial killings became an issue in the presidential race last September when its governor, Rick Perry, told a cheering TV audience at a Republican nomination debate that he never lost sleep over the thought that some of the 240 people who have been executed on his watch may have been innocent.

Death Row Inmates Win Order Banning Unapproved Anesthesia

source : http://www.sfgate.com

March 27 (Bloomberg) — Twenty-one death row inmates won an order barring use of sodium thiopental, an imported drug given as anesthesia prior to administration of lethal injections.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington today ruled that the federal Food and Drug Administration violated its own rules by allowing entry of the drug into the country without first ensuring its efficacy.

“Prisoners on death row have an unnecessary risk that they will not be anesthetized properly prior to execution,” Leon wrote in a 22-page ruling, adding that the agency had created a “slippery slope” for entry of other unapproved drugs.

In an accompanying two-page order, the judge banned the import of thiopental, calling it a misbranded and unapproved drug, and directed Arizona, California, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee and any others with stocks of the barbiturate to send them to the FDA.

Attorneys for the inmates had argued that use of the drug during execution could lead to so-called anesthesia awareness, in which they may experience suffocation, pain and cardiac arrest.

The shipments of thiopental entering the U.S. originated from an Austrian facility owned by Sandoz International GmbH, a German company, according to the complaint. The drug was shipped to the U.S. from a London wholesaler, Dream Pharma Ltd., the inmates said.

Dream Pharma bought the drug from a unit of Archimedes Pharma Ltd., a closely held company based in Reading, U.K., according to the complaint.

Imported Drug

The FDA countered that release of the imported drug within the U.S. was an act of enforcement discretion, and that “reviewing substances imported or used for the purpose of state-authorized lethal injection clearly falls outside of FDA’s public health role,” according to Leon’s ruling.

The judge heard arguments from both sides on Feb. 9.

Leon said there was no dispute that the FDA hadn’t reviewed foreign or domestic thiopental for safety and effectiveness. Because it was unapproved, the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act required the agency to bar its import, he said.

Shelly Burgess, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said she couldn’t immediately comment on the judge’s decision.

The case is Beaty v. Food and Drug Administration, 11-cv- 289, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Washington).

read  momerandum opinion  : click here

read order by Judge Richard J. Leon : click here 

The U.S. Supreme Court: How it works

march 26, 2012, source : http://edition.cnn.com

Washington (CNN) — Few Americans have any real idea how the Supreme Court operates, since cameras are barred, and the case arguments and opinions are often dry and confusing for nonlawyers.

That’s too bad because the high court’s impact on Americans is incalculable. When disputes arise, the nine justices serve as the final word for a nation built on the rule of law. They interpret the Constitution and all that it brings with it: how we conduct ourselves in society, boundaries for individuals and the government, questions literally of life and death.

As the late justice William Brennan once wrote, “The law is not an end in itself, nor does it provide ends. It is preeminently a means to serve what we think is right.” And whether right or wrong, when it came to deciding who won the 2000 presidential election, it was the court’s conclusions that ultimately ended the issue, but not the controversy.

Preview: ‘The implications … are impossible to overstate’

A similarly epic constitutional showdown is now before the court over challenges to the health care reform law promoted by congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama — and opposed by a coalition of 26 states.

Article Three of the Constitution says, “The Judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court … the judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior.”

Read a transcript of Monday’s court arguments on health care

Here’s a look at the history of the court, how it works and how you, the citizen, can interact with it:

Court goes back the late 1700s

The Supreme Court first met in 1790, as the ultimate part of the judicial branch of government. There are nine justices, led by the Chief Justice of the United States (that’s the official title). All justices — and all federal judges — are first nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate. They serve for as long as they choose. The court has occupied its current building in Washington only since 1935. Previously, it borrowed space in Senate chambers in the Capitol Building.Explaining the health c

The Constitution’s framers envisioned the judiciary as the “weakest,” “least dangerous” branch of government. And while the court has often been accused over the years of being too timid in asserting its power, there is little doubt when the justices choose to flex their judicial muscle, the results can be far-reaching. Just look at how cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954 — integrating public schools), Roe v. Wade (1973 — legalizing abortion) and even Bush v. Gore (2000) have affected the lives of Americans.

Blockbuster decisions by the high court over the years

Traditionally, each term begins the first Monday in October, and final opinions are issued usually by late June. Justices divide their time between “sittings,” where they hear cases and issue decisions, and “recesses,” where they meet in private to write their decisions and consider other business before the court.

Court arguments are open to the public in the main courtroom, and visitors have the option of watching all the arguments or only a small portion. Tradition is very important. You will notice the justices wearing black robes, and quill pins still adorn the desks, as they have for more than two centuries.

Where to sit? Seniority counts

The justices are seated by seniority, with the chief justice in the middle. The two junior justices (currently Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) occupy the opposite ends of the bench. Before public arguments and private conferences, where decisions are discussed, the nine members all shake hands as a show of harmony of purpose. In the past, all lawyers appearing before the court wore formal “morning clothes,” but today only federal government lawyers carry on the tradition. The solicitor general is the federal government’s principal lawyer before the federal bench.

As the gavel sounds and justices are seated, the marshal shouts the traditional welcome, which reads: “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”

Frequently asked questions about the court and the case

Arguments usually begin at 10 a.m. and since most cases involve appellate review of decisions by other courts, there are no juries or witnesses, just lawyers from both sides addressing the bench. The cases usually last about an hour, and lawyers from both sides very often have their prepared oral briefs interrupted by pointed questions from a justice.

This give-and-take, question-and-answer repartee can be entertaining, and it requires lawyers to think concisely and logically on their feet. And by the tone of their questioning, it often gives insight into a justice’s thinking, a barometer of his/her decision-making.

You can listen if you like

No cameras are allowed, but the public sessions are audio recorded, and are available for listening, usually several days later. The health care arguments — for this week — will be available only shortly after each of the four separate arguments end, at the court’s website.

After the arguments, conferences are scheduled, where justices discuss and vote on the cases. In these closed-door sessions, the nine members are alone. No clerks or staff are allowed. No transcripts of their remarks are kept, and it is the role of the junior justice (Elena Kagan for the past two years) to take notes and answer any inquiries from the outside.

Justices spend much of their time reviewing the cases and writing opinions. And they must decide which cases they will actually hear in open court. When asked just before her 2006 retirement what the jurists do most of the time, Sandra Day O’Connor said bluntly, “We read. We read on average 1,500 pages a day. We read. Sometimes we write.” Added Justice Antonin Scalia: “We try to squeeze in a little time for thinking.”

Read the full article : click here

California – Death penalty costs – Death Penalty Can’t be Fixed, Time to Replace

march, 27, 2012   source : http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com

by Donald H. Heller, former Assistant U.S. Attorney & Ron Briggs, El Dorado County Supervisor

As two staunch conservatives, we write in response to Sen. JoelAnderson’s attempt to “fix the death penalty” with Senate Bill 1514. Together, the two of us supported California’s current death penalty law and helped enact it in 1978. Today, we agree with Sen. Anderson that the system we helped create is hopelessly broken. But far from tinkering with that system, we have both concluded the solution is to replace it with life without parole by passing the SAFECaliforniaAct on this November’s ballot.

We did not come to this decision lightly, and NO, we are not soft on crime. Just the opposite. SAFE California replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison with absolutely no chance of parole as the maximum punishment for murder. This means convicted killers will remain behind bars forever – but without the exorbitant price tag, terrible toll on the family members of victims, or the risk of executing an innocent person. At over 720 inmates and with a $4 billion price tag, our state runs the nation’s costliest and most populous death row. Nonetheless California has carried out just 13 executions since 1978.

We were intimately involved in writing and promoting our current death penalty law in 1978. We believe that public safety is one of the primary purposes of a government predicated on the rule of law. Justice should be swift and certain. The structure that we helped create is legally sound, having withstood multiple appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. But, fiscallyspeaking, it has been disastrous. We never contemplated the staggering cost of implementing the death penalty: more than $4 billion to date and approximately $185 million projected per year in ongoing costs.

Source: “ExecutingtheWilloftheVoters?” by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Paula Mitchell, 2011

We thought we would bring California savings and safety in dealing with convicted murderers. Instead, we contributed to a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and enriches lawyers. Like Senator Anderson, our effort was intended to bring about greater justice for murder victims. Never did we envision a multi-billion dollar industry that packs murderers onto death row for decades of extremely expensive incarceration. We thought we would empty death row, not triple its population.

Having 34 years of firsthand experiences in this matter we feel the bill proposed by Sen. Anderson will not fix these problems. First and foremost, shortcutting the appeals process means risking innocent lives. Appeals are the safety net that keeps us from executing innocent people. States that shortchange the justice process have executed innocent people, like CameronToddWillingham in Texas.

Beyond the risk of executing the innocent, SB 1514 would simply move appeals from one court to another. That doesn’t alleviate the delay or the expense, it will just move it to a different courthouse.

It won’t eliminate the $1 million each county pays per death penalty trial, or the extra housing costs on death row over the general population – on average $100,000 per inmate per year – and it won’t change the fact that 99% of death row inmates in California die of old age rather than execution. History tells us any change to the death penalty has only added life to criminals, enhanced lawyers paychecks costing taxpayers more and more while appellate dates or new trials continue to torture victims’ families and survivors.

We believe that life without parole protects victims’ families and survivors at a greater savings to taxpayers. California’s best path for safety and savings is life without the possibility of parole.

Please join us in supporting theSAFECaliforniaAct with a “YES” this November. California has another chance at real justice. We should embrace it.

Amnesty International publishes its annual review of death sentences and executions

Amnesty International publishes its annual review of death sentences and executions worldwide, let’s begin with the good news: the death penalty is on the retreat.

Last year, only 20 out of 198 countries carried out executions ― a figure down by more than a third from a decade ago. And 90 percent of U.N. member states were execution-free, while 140 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

march 27, 2012 source : http://www.koreatimes.co.kr

Each execution is one too many

By Salil Shetty

Working for an organization whose job is to stand up for justice and freedom, and to expose abuses and injustices, I am often forced to highlight problems rather than progress.

So, as Amnesty International publishes its annual review of death sentences and executions worldwide, let’s begin with the good news: the death penalty is on the retreat.

Last year, only 20 out of 198 countries carried out executions ― a figure down by more than a third from a decade ago. And 90 percent of U.N. member states were execution-free, while 140 countries have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice.

It is worth pausing to consider these figures. When Amnesty International began its global campaign against the death penalty 35 years ago ― opposing it in all cases, regardless of the crime, offender, or method of execution ― the world’s 16 abolitionist countries were then the minority. Today, the poles are reversed and instead those states clinging to capital punishment are the exception.

In 2011, execution-free areas included all of Europe and the former Soviet Union, except Belarus; and all of the Americas, except the U.S. The Pacific region was death penalty free apart from five new sentences in Papua New Guinea.

This sea-change is testament to human rights campaigners with the courage to stand up to repression; to politicians and decision-makers with the courage to go against the political or popular grain; and to lawyers, journalists and academics with the courage to expose the truth.

They have shown that not only is the death penalty wrong ― a violation of the right to life ― but that once examined in any detail, the case for state-sanctioned murder collapses.

Does it deter violent crime? There is no convincing evidence for this. Countries that have abolished the death penalty often have lower murder rates than those that have not. State sanctioned killing endorses the use of force and can fuel cycles of violence and retribution.

What about popular support for executions? Such support is usually a mile wide and an inch deep. Once expedient reactions or a calculated desire by leaders and commentators to be “tough” on crime is replaced by considered discussion, and once alternative options are suggested, public support for execution recedes.

Don’t victims of crime deserve justice and closure? Yes, people who have suffered awful crimes deserve justice, but justice cannot be rooted in revenge. Murder is wrong, whether perpetrated by a person or by the state.

Some may find closure, but this is not self-evident ― sometimes victims of violent crimes oppose their attackers’ execution. In the U.S., Bangladeshi immigrant Rais Bhuiyan campaigned unsuccessfully for clemency for Mark Stroman, who had shot him during a series of violent crimes committed in reaction to the 9/11 attacks. Rais said: “My religion teaches that forgiveness is always better than vengeance.”

And of course there is no appeal from the grave. The U.S. state of Illinois abandoned the death penalty in 2011 following several wrongful convictions.

No wonder some argue that the true test of support for the death penalty isn’t a willingness to execute, but a willingness to accept the possibility of killing the innocent.

Others justify capital punishment for regional, religious or cultural reasons. But the abolitionist majority includes states from all major world regions, religions and cultures.

Yet a few states persist with capital punishment, and here we must address the bad news. A small group of isolated countries executed at an alarming rate last year. Whether by beheading, hanging, lethal injection or shooting, globally at least 676 people were executed and at least 18,750 people remained under sentence of death at the year’s end.

These figures exclude thousands of executions believed to have taken place in China, the world’s leading executioner. We no longer publish figures we collect from public sources on this country, as these are likely to grossly underestimate the true number. So far China has not accepted our challenge to publish the real figures, in order to confirm their claims that there has been a significant reduction in the use of the death penalty in the country over the last four years.

Neither do our figures include credible reports of large numbers of additional executions in Iran, which are not officially acknowledged. These would almost double the official tally there.

China and Iran were joined in their willingness to execute by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and ― alone in the Americas and in the G8 group of leading economies ― the U.S. Along with North Korea, Somalia and Yemen, these states are consistently among the highest executioners every year.

Regionally, the Middle East saw a sharp rise in recorded executions, up almost 50 percent on 2010. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen accounted for 99 percent of these cases.

We should also note that in most countries where people were sentenced to death or executed, it was after unfair legal proceedings. And in Belarus, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Saudi Arabia death sentences sometimes followed “confessions” extracted through duress or even torture. As so often throughout history, capital punishment was used by repressive states to remove the troublesome or unwanted.

So there is no room for complacency. Each execution is one too many. But 2011 reinforced the overall trend firmly toward abolition, and it is clear that this cruel and irrevocable punishment, which makes victims of us all, is heading inevitably toward the history books.

Salil Shetty is secretary general of Amnesty International.
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