Capital Defense Weekly

Catching up

I think I’m likely to finally be coming up for air after about six weeks of work heck.  In the last few days there has been more than a few stories I’ve wanted to cover but time simply didn’t permit it.

• Smith v. Spisak, argued last week, appears to have gone to the executioner.  Biddish Sarma at A Criminal Enterprise notes   that “[w]hen the Court agreed to hear the case, those concerned with the rights of criminal defendants shuddered, particularly because the Supreme Court had already remanded the case once before in 2007.. . . By all accounts – before and after oral argument – it appears the defendant (and the Sixth Circuit) should brace for a ruling that puts him back under a sentence of death.”

• DPIC notes that “the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review recently published a symposium issue of Death Penalty Stories, highlighting the role of the narrative in the defense of death penalty cases. The compilation includes contributions from litigators who have used persuasive narrative in support of a life sentence. Russell Stetler’s The Unknown Story of a Motherless Child chronicles the case of Edgar H., who was convicted of killing four men in California.. . . Other articles in the volume include Michael Mello’s What Came Before We Killed Him: Deconstructing Execution #58,  and The Importance of Storytelling at All Stages of a Capital Case by Michael N. Burt.  Other authors include attorneys Sean O’Brien, John Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Mark Olive, Marc Bookman and Denny LeBoeuf. (77 University of Missouri-Kansas City Law Review 831, Summer 2009).”
• via Stand Down Texas “in the light of a life sentence in a notorious Chicago trial, reporters Daarel Burnette II and Stacy St. Clair have written, “Death-penalty holdouts: Experts intrigued by rare ability to withstand pressure,” for the Chicago Tribune.”

• The Innocence Projects notes that  Claude Simmons Jr. and Christopher Scott were freed today in Dallas after spending 12 years in prison for a murder that evidence now shows they didn’t commit.

• Doug over at Sentencing Law and Policy looks at the cost of the death penalty through the lens of one case where cost and the death penalty meet head on.

• The voices of Reginald Blanton’s family were loudly heard at last weekend’s annual march in Texas against the death penalty.

• Talk Left has an intriguing note on Killing While Ambien’ed.

• The Agitator notes:  “Man mistakenly ends up on state sex offender list.“

• Jeff Gamso examines insanity and the upcoming execution of John Allen Muhammad in Texas in a piece entitled Crazy Enough?

• The SCOTUSBlog looks at the next Supreme Court capital oral argument in Application of AEDPA to Review of State Determinations of Fact (Wood v. Allen Argument Preview)

• NYT notes that  Arizona may soon become the first state to have its death row taken care of by a private corrections corporation.

• Ohio can’t find doctors to help revise its lethal injection protocol.

• Finally, Somalian Children Forced to Watch Executions (‘nuf said).