Sidebar With an Expert Capital Litigator
Today, streaming video will be provided online as the death penalty defense team continues presenting its mitigating evidence in the penalty phase of Jame Biela’s trial in a Reno, Nevada, courtroom.
They’re fighting to have James Biela sentenced to life without parole. The State is seeking the death penalty in what many refer to as…
Hank Skinner won a victory on Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will hear his arguments for additional DNA testing of evidence that was not tested at trial. How big of a big deal is the Skinner case?
Civil Rights Case – Not Habeas Corpus
Skinner has brought before the High Court an issue upon…
The decision made by the State of Florida attorneys today is making national news: prosecutors have decided that they will not seek the death penalty in their prosecution of Jason Rodriguez.
Mr.Rodriguez is accused of shooting several people in an Orlando office building last November, killing one person and wounding five others. Jason Rodriguez…
Mercy is the bottom line in a death penalty defense case, from the perspective of the sentencing phase of a case.
Mercy — that elusive concept.
So elusive, in fact, that the law has seen fit to have legislatures basically define what mercy will be in death penalty cases, as various mitigation factors ("mitigators") are…
After being unable to find a list that provided the full text of each state’s statutes defining that state’s mitigating circumstances in a death penalty case, there was an obvious need out there.
You can read the complete list of state statutes’ mitigating factors (mitigators) on JDSupra (it’s too long to list here). And, it’s an…
Over at Criminal Justice University, there’s an excellent post discussing the history of the electric chair as a method of execution in this country.
As Utah faces an execution by firing squad next month, and the media fills with the five recent hangings in Iran as capital punishment, there’s more of a focus upon…
This Monday, the United States Supreme Court declined review of Linda Carty’s case — which means that the State of Texas will be placing her name on its Death Row Execution List sometime this summer. The High Court’s decision not to hear Ms. Carty’s arguments is getting worldwide attention because Linda Carty is not an…
There’s a new judge in the Casey Anthony case — Judge Belvin Perry — and he looks to be running a tight ship. Despite defense counsel requests that hearings on defense costs be private, Judge Perry has ordered that an upcoming hearing on how Casey Anthony’s defense will be funded is to be a public…
As predicted, coverage is increasing on the impeding June 2010 firing squad execution of Utah’s condemned man, Ronnie Lee Gardner. The idea that a man will die by bullets instead of injected poison is shocking many – and there’s already chatter about a firing squad being unconstitutionally cruel.
Appeal Points to the Elephant in…
The American Bar Association has announced it will be studying how the state of Missouri implements capital punishment – and the study should be pretty thorough. It’s expected that the ABA Committee will delve into DNA evidence issues, indigent defense services, and the like.
The ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project
In past years, the ABA has…