Sidebar With an Expert Capital Litigator
An amicus brief was filed this week in the Evans v. McNeil by amici curiae NACDL, FACDL, and Florida Capital Resource Center. before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
To read the brief in its entirety, please go here.
This is the latest fight in the battle over whether or
…
For those that know Terry or have read his memoir, Heinous, Atrocious and Cruel (see it there in the left sidebar), you know that he is very concerned about mentally challenged individuals being sentenced to death not just in Florida but elsewhere in this country.
Which means we’ll be carefully following two cases that are…
One of the great things about the internet is its ability to educate and inform, and here’s yet another example of that: several excellent articles discussing aspects of the death penalty, and specifically, death penalty defense, have appeared this month.
All, available for free, online. Please consider reading the following:
Many have come to know about the AEDPA (Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ) because of the Troy Davis case (read our earlier post here). The AEDPA, however, impacts many, many capital punishment cases here in the United States, since it ties the hands of federal court judges to act…
Worth your time to read, this law review article just published by the Virginia Law Review in a continuing discussion of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as it relates to "cruel and unusual" punishment and the death penalty — was the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause originally meant to prohibit excessive punishments as…
The reality that individuals suffering from severe mental illness set on Death Rows all across the country today should not even be the subject for debate – the reality is too obvious. Whether they were mentally ill at the time of the crime for which they face a sentence of death is one issue. Whether…
Move over, habeas corpus. The United States Supreme Court has ruled (read the full opinion here) that Texas Death Row inmate Hank Skinner can indeed pursue a civil lawsuit brought under federal civil rights law as he tries to get certain evidence tested for DNA now, long after his criminal trial where…
Last month, two death row inmates had their sentences changed to life without parole after authorities confirmed each suffers from severe mental illness. In Oregon, Robert James Acremant had his sentence changed after state experts confirmed his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. (He still faces a death sentence in California on another charge.)
In North…
In Houston, Texas, a man named John Edward Green is on trial for the murder of a Houston woman and her sister during the commission of a robbery, and the State of Texas is seeking the death penalty. Presiding over this trial is state district judge Kevin Fine, and Judge Fine has become somewhat…
This Monday, without comment, the United States Supreme Court denied the petition for writ of certiorari filed by Bruce Carneil Webster, who sets on the federal Death Row. (See the docket sheet here.)
Mr. Webster had sought the High Court’s relief, arguing that courts should be able to consider evidence that one federal judge sitting…