Delma Banks Jr and Prosecutorial Misconduct

US Supreme Court overturned Delma Banks Jr's death sentence in 2004 based on prosecutorial misconduct. Now the same prosecutor is in charge of prosecuting the same case again after 30 years. Brandi Grissom of Texas Tribune reports:

For the second time in three decades, a Texas court is preparing to decide whether Delma Banks Jr. should be executed for the 1980 shooting death of 16- year-old Richard Whitehead.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Banks’ death sentence in 2004, finding that the Bowie County prosecutors who tried the case suppressed evidence and deliberately covered up their mistakes for decades. “It’s really a remarkable tale of misconduct — just about every kind of thing the prosecution could do that was improper,” said Robert C. Owen, co-director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas School of Law, who was one of Banks’ appellate lawyers.

Now, the same district attorney’s office — including one of the same prosecutors who was involved in the original trial — is again seeking the death penalty for Banks. Despite the Supreme Court’s rebuke, James Elliott, who has been a prosecutor on the case for more than 30 years, has maintained that he will pursue Banks until he “gets what he deserves.”
At a hearing Monday in a Bowie County state district court, Banks’ lawyers will ask Judge Nathan E. White to disqualify Elliott and the local district attorney’s office from the case and to assign different lawyers to represent the state. “Mr. Elliott’s misbehavior proves that he cannot serve as a disinterested prosecutor and is laboring under a conflict of interest that will prevent Mr. Banks from receiving a fair trial,” lawyers wrote in court documents.

Banks, who is black and was 21 when the crime was committed, was convicted of killing Whitehead, who was white, so he could take off with his car. The police found Whitehead’s body in a park near Texarkana and soon discovered that Banks had been with him on the last night he was seen alive. There were no witnesses to the killing and no physical evidence linking Banks to it. The prosecution’s case relied largely on the testimony of Robert Farr and Charles Cook, both admitted drug users; Cook also had convictions for robbery by assault and forgery.

Cook told the jury that he met Banks in Dallas the morning after the murder. He said Banks had blood on his pants and told him he decided to “kill the white boy for the hell of it and take his car and come to Dallas.”

Farr testified that he, Banks and another man drove to Dallas on the day that Banks was arrested so that Banks could retrieve a gun to use in armed robberies. Farr said Banks told him he would “take care of it” if any trouble arose.

Banks had no criminal history, and people who were with him and Whitehead on the last night that Whitehead was alive testified there was no ill will between the two. Nonetheless, an all-white Bowie County jury convicted Banks, who was sentenced to death.

In 1999 — almost 20 years after the trial — a federal judge forced Bowie County to open its case records, and Banks’ lawyers discovered a transcript showing that Cook’s testimony had been extensively rehearsed and coached. They also learned that the police had paid Farr, an informant who had an unreliable record, $200 for his role in the investigation.

Farr, in an affidavit, said he was afraid that the police would arrest him on drug charges. In exchange for the money, and to avoid jail, he agreed to set up Banks, he said, persuading him to drive to Dallas to get a gun. Prosecutors allowed Cook and Farr to lie in court and never told jurors that their information was false, the Supreme Court found. Cook denied on the stand that anyone had helped him with his testimony, and Farr said he had not been paid for his help in the case. During closing arguments, Elliott told jurors that they should believe the two witnesses.

In arguments before the Supreme Court, state lawyers did not dispute that Cook had been coached and that Farr was paid for his help. But they said Banks’ lawyers were at fault for not uncovering the information sooner.

The Supreme Court ruled that without the testimony of the two witnesses, Banks might not have been sentenced to death. “It has long been established that the prosecution’s ‘deliberate deception of a court and jurors by the presentation of known false evidence is incompatible with rudimentary demands of justice,’” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

Elliott, the prosecutor, declined to comment last week about the case. “We’re in litigation,” he said. “The newspaper is the wrong place to be trying cases — it just is. So I can’t give any comment.” He also declined to provide copies of his responses to the defense motion to disqualify him, and the Bowie County district clerk’s office said the responses had not been received.

Elliott did respond to newspapers in 2004, when the Supreme Court overturned the Banks sentence. He told reporters he was convinced that Banks was guilty. “I have not read the opinion, but it doesn’t matter,” he said in an interview with The Chicago Tribune. “We are going to pursue this case until Delma Banks gets what he deserves.”

At Monday’s resentencing hearing for Banks — one of death row’s longest-serving residents — his lawyers will argue that after more than two decades of misconduct, the Bowie County district attorney’s office should be precluded from participation.
Elliott’s remarks in the news media show that he cannot approach the case objectively, they argued in court documents. “The prosecution’s serial misconduct that has tainted these proceedings establishes that Mr. Banks cannot receive a fair trial if again prosecuted by the Bowie County district attorney’s office,” they wrote.

Banks’ lawyers are also asking the court to throw out the guilty verdict and order a new trial. They contend that the perjured testimony of Cook and Farr and the prosecutors’ withholding of facts also affected their client's ability to defend himself. “Because of the state’s purposeful suppression and misconduct, Mr. Banks was surely denied the full defense available to him,” his lawyers argue in court pleadings.

Owen, of the Capital Punishment Center, said police and prosecutorial errors raised serious questions about whether Banks had actually committed the murder. “In a case where the evidence of guilt is so very thin, and the misconduct by the prosecution is so far-reaching and well-documented,” he said, “there’s no reason for any court to have any confidence the conviction is solid.”

U.S. Supreme Court Issues Stay of Execution for Cleve Foster

From the New York Times:

The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday morning granted a temporary stay of execution to Cleve Foster, a former Army recruiter convicted of killing a woman he met in a Fort Worth bar who was scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening in Texas. It is the second time he has been spared hours before his appointed death by the Supreme Court.

The reprieve, in place while the court examines the case of Mr. Foster, 47, is based on whether he received adequate counsel during the course of the case, as well as questions related to his guilt, said Maurie Levin, one of Mr. Foster’s lawyers.

Ms. Levin has also challenged the execution of Mr. Foster based on one of the drugs that is to be used to kill him.

“I’m thrilled that the Supreme Court stayed Mr. Foster’s execution, and we hope they will be looking at the issues raised, including effective Habeus counsel and Mr. Foster’s claims of innocence,” Ms. Levin said. “I am also relieved that at least today that we will not be seeing an execution in the midst of the chaos surrounding questions about lethal injection.”

Mr. Foster, 47, a veteran of the Persian Gulf war of 1991, was convicted in 2004 of killing Nyanuer Pal, 28, a Sudanese immigrant who was known as Mary. Mr. Foster’s roommate, who was also convicted in the murder, died in prison last year
.

Stop Execution Protest back at the US Supreme Court

PRESS RELEASE--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 2011

CONTACT: Abolitionist Action Committee at 800-973-6548, aac@abolition.org

ANTI-DEATH PENALTY PROTEST CASE Appealed to US Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -
Thirty years after the execution of Gary Gilmore, the first person executed following the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States following the Gregg v Georgia decision of the US Supreme Court, nine concerned citizens from New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas and Vermont were arrested at the U.S. Supreme Court on January 17, 2007. The group peacefully and visibly called for an immediate cessation of all executions in the United States. They unfurled a 30-foot banner that read “STOP EXECUTIONS!” on the plaza of the US Supreme Court. All participants were jailed for more than 30 hours before being released by a Superior Court judge late the following day. Eight defendants continued their message of abolition at a bench trial on June 28, 2008 where they were found guilty of holding a banner on the grounds of the United States Supreme Court, in violation of US Federal Statute § 40 USC 6135, and sentenced to time served.

Six of the defendants, Brian Buckley, Anna Shockley, Ron Kaz, Thomas Muther, along
with Jack Payden-Travers and Rachel Lawler, appealed their convictions. Appellant
Lawler worked with the group’s attorney advisor, Mark Goldstone - a highly-regarded
First Amendment lawyer based in DC, in drafting the appeal brief that was filed in 2008.
Oral arguments were set to be heard on November 24, 2009 where appellants were to challenge their convictions based upon several issues under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Pro se appellants Jack Payden-Travers and Rachel Lawler were scheduled to argue the case in front of the DC Court of Appeals. But their 30-minute oral hearing was cancelled when the clerk of the DC Court of Appeals realized that the appellants would be arguing their own case rather than being represented by an attorney, and so the defendants were further denied their right to defend their case directly to the court.

Without being able to speak on their own behalf, their convictions were upheld by the DC Court of Appeals on December 16, 2010. As a result, the six defendants have filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari which is the mechanism by which their appeal may be considered by the US Supreme Court. The petition asks the Supreme Court of the United States to declare the statute forbidding “the people” from petitioning on the plaza of the Court unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. 

This case challenges precedent for expression of First Amendment rights on the
grounds of the United States Supreme Court and does so because appellants, out of
conscience, brought a clear and effective message against the death penalty to the nation’s attention, which they believe they had every right to do under the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

MEDIA: photographs, videos, and prior coverage of the event, arrest, and trial can be
found at http://www.abolition.org/jan17-2007.html.

To arrange for an interview with one or more of the defendants contact the Abolitionist Action Committee at 800-973-6548.

-30-

The appeal is featured on the National Law Journal’s website but one needs a subscription to view it. As such I have pasted a copy of the article by Tony Mauro below.

Brief of the Week: A First Amendment fight on the Court's steps

Tony Mauro

The National Law Journal

March 30, 2011

Free speech was on full display in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning.

On the Court's marble plaza, lawyers and advocates on both sides of the Wal-Mart v. Dukes civil rights case were holding forth for news media cameras and microphones at an impromptu press conference. A few feet away, on the public sidewalk, advocates for paycheck fairness for women at Wal-Mart were chanting slogans.

But under federal law, if the demonstrators had climbed the steps from the sidewalk onto the marble plaza itself, they would have probably been arrested, even as the press conference continued.

Solo practitioner Mark Goldstone of Bethesda, Md. sees a fairness issue in that fact of life, and it is one of the points he has made in a petition before the Court in Lawler v. United States.

The petition challenges a decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals that upheld the conviction of nine anti-death penalty protesters on the marble plaza of the Court in January 2007. They were arrested under 40 U.S.C. Sec. 6135, which makes it a crime to "parade, stand, or move in processions or assemblages" in the Supreme Court building or on its grounds. While waiting on line on the plaza to attend oral arguments, the defendants stepped out of line and unfurled a banner that said "STOP EXECUTIONS."

The law itself is overly broad, Goldstone asserts, creating an unnecessary and unconstitutional "First Amendment-Free Zone" at the nation's highest court. But he adds that the Court's allowance of some First Amendment activities – like press conferences – on the marble plaza, while barring peaceful demonstrators in the same place, "illustrates the arbitrary manner in which Court administrators enforce the statute, by permitting speech they deem acceptable to be voiced on the plaza but excluding other types of speech they view with disfavor."

In addition, Goldstone's petition invokes the Court's March 2 decision in Snyder v. Phelps, which gave First Amendment protection to virulent and controversial protests near funerals of U.S. soldiers "at a public place adjacent to a public street." Goldstone wrote, "The First Amendment rights of the petitioners, who merely unfurled a banner opposing the death penalty in a public area, deserve no less protection."

Goldstone, who has been defending protesters in Washington for more than 25 years, said the Snyder decision gave him new hope that "we can win now."

The justices have dealt with the issue of demonstrations in front of the Court before, in a 1983 ruling United States v. Grace. By a 7-2 vote, the Court struck down the law insofar as it barred demonstrations on the public sidewalk in front of the building. But it left the rest of the law, prohibiting demonstrations on Court grounds, undisturbed.

In the decision, the Court noted that one of the stated purposes of the law restricting protests near the Supreme Court was to keep the public from gaining the perception that the justices can be swayed by public demonstrations. "Courts are not subject to lobbying, judges do not entertain visitors in their chambers for the purpose of urging that cases be resolved one way or another, and they do not and should not respond to parades, picketing, or pressure groups," Justice Byron White wrote for the Court. But he said that purpose was not served by banning protests on the public sidewalk in front of the Court, which is traditionally an open public forum.

Goldstone argues that this stated purpose of the law is "insufficient to justify the blanket prohibition," and could also feed the perception that "the Court requires special protection from protesters because it is somehow uniquely vulnerable to public pressure." He notes that demonstrations are permitted on comparable grounds across the street at the U.S. Capitol.

"Why is the Supreme Court any different?" Goldstone said in an interview. "The First Amendment doesn't say you can just petition two branches of government."

The Court's security concerns, Goldstone said, are adequately protected by other laws such as 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1507, which outlaws obstructing or interfering with the administration of justice.

Even if the Court declines to strike down the law, Goldstone says in his brief, Court police have "an affirmative obligation" to tell demonstrators, before arresting them, that they could comply with the law by moving their protest to the public sidewalk.

"The Supreme Court stands as a special and unique institution in American life," Goldstone wrote. "It stands as the symbolic and substantive guarantor of this country's right to free expression enshrined in the First Amendment … A requirement that the Supreme Court police advise demonstrators where their First Amendment rights may lawfully be expressed would not burden police officers."

Tony Mauro can be contacted at tmauro@alm.com.

Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, wife of Hank Skinner, to Speak at 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty

Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner will be one of the speakers at the 11th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 30th at the Texas Capitol in Austin. Sandrine is a French national married to Hank Skinner, who is on Texas death row and is seeking to have DNA tested that could prove his innocence.

On October 13, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Hank Skinner to determine if he may seek testing of DNA evidence through a civil rights lawsuit. If he is not allowed to test the DNA evidence, then Texas may execute an innocent person.

Hank Skinner received a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court on March 25, 2010 only hours before his scheduled execution.

On March 18, 2010, Sandrine spoke at a press conference (watch video) to appeal for Governor Rick Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop the execution of Hank Skinner. The press conference was held by Texas Moratorium Network and Students Against the Death Penalty in the Texas Capitol with her and with six exonerated former death-row inmates: Ron Keine, Juan Melendez, Shujaa Graham, Perry Cobb, Curtis McCarty and Derrick Jamison (see photo). Some of them had come within days and even hours of being executed. The exonerees said they supported a moratorium on executions and called on Gov. Perry and Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to stay the upcoming execution of Hank Skinner to allow testing of the DNA evidence.



Video of Sandrine Ageorges-Skinner, wife of Hank Skinner, appearing on CNN's Larry King Live to speak about stay of execution received by Hank Skinner on March 24, 2010.



The annual march is organized by several Texas anti-death penalty organizations, including the Austin chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Texas Moratorium Network, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Texas Students Against the Death Penalty, Texas Death Penalty Education and Resource Center, Death Penalty Free Austin, and Kids Against the Death Penalty.

Holland v. Florida

Today the US Supreme Court ruled that courts should not rigidly enforce the one year statute of limitations in filing a federal habeas petition challenging a sentence or conviction.  The Court held that federal courts should favor allowing a petition to be filed late in some circumstances.

This may seem like a technical legal issue but it has far reaching implications for prisoners sentenced to death.  Indiana killed Gregory Scott Johnson without a federal court even looking at his claims because his attorney filed his federal habeas petition one day late.  If today's ruling had been in effect at the time Johnson's attorney filed his petition late, he would at least have the chance to argue that his attorney was negligent in missing the deadline.  At the time, no such exception existed.

 The name of the case is Holland v. Florida; the full text of the ruling is on the court's website: 
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx

Breaking News: The U.S. Supreme Court just decided to hear Hank Skinner's case

Breaking news: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner should have access to evidence for DNA testing that could clear him of three murders.
The justices said they will use Skinner’s case to decide whether prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to petition for DNA testing that was not performed prior to their conviction. Federal appeals courts around the country have decided the issue differently.

The high court previously blocked Skinner's execution while it considered his appeal. The case will be argued before the Supreme Court in the fall.

Texas Ahead of U.S. Supreme Court on Issue of Life Without Parole for Juvenile Offenders

The U.S. Supreme Court banned life without parole for juvenile offenders convicted of non homicide crimes today in a 5-4 vote. This is one criminal justice issue where Texas is ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court, because Texas has banned life without parole for juveniles even in cases in which a juvenile is convicted of a capital crime. Last session, the Texas Legislature passed and Governor Perry signed SB 839 authored by Senator Juan Hinojosa (photo) that banned juvenile offenders convicted of capital crimes from being sentenced to Life Without Parole, instead making them eligible for parole after 40 years.

More than 2,000 juveniles are serving life without parole for killing someone across the country. Those sentences are not affected by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Here is what The Texas Observer reported about why Senator Hinojosa filed his bill last session: 

One of the Legislature’s leading voices on criminal justice issues has decided that teenage killers too young to face execution should also be exempt from being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“To me it’s a matter of fairness and consistency,” said state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen. “If the U.S. Supreme Court said to Texas and all the other states, ‘You cannot give these juvenile offenders the death penalty’ [which the Supreme Court did in 2005], then I believe the state of Texas should not be sending them to prison for life without parole.”

Hinojosa, a long-serving lawmaker who sits on the Senate Criminal Justice Committee (and led the House Corrections Committee during his final years as an eight-term state representative), plans to introduce legislation this session that would cap sentences for youthful offenders convicted of capital murder at life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 40 years behind bars.

Such a sentence would be in line with non–capital punishment death sentences handed down before the 2005 Legislature’s enactment of the life-without-parole law. Hinojosa says he decided to push for the new legislation after reading a recent article in the Observer examining the effects of the law (“The Life Penalty,” Nov. 28, 2008).

That law draws no distinction between offenders who commit capital murder before turning 18 and those who kill as adults.

“I think, for someone so young, there is a chance to rehabilitate their lives,” Hinojosa said.

Four under-18 offenders are now serving life-without-parole sentences in Texas. All were sentenced before the 2007 Legislature required the state’s district courts to report demographic information on capital murder cases to the state Office of Court Administration.

Statements of Elena Kagan on the Death Penalty

“I am fully prepared to argue, consistent with Supreme Court precedents, that the death penalty is constitutional.”

"I can say that nothing about my personal views regarding the death penalty (relating either to policy or law) would make it difficult for me to carry out the Solicitor General’s responsibilities in this area."

Elena Kagan

SOLICITOR GENERAL CONFIRMATION HEARING, 2009

Written Questions for Solicitor General Nominee Elena Kagan from Senator Specter during her confirmation hearing in 2009 (page 303).

The Death Penalty 1. Justice Marshall, the justice for whom you clerked, maintained that the death penalty was always unconstitutional. Do you think that Justice Marshall had it right?

a. Do you support the death penalty?

b. Do you believe it is constitutional as applied in the United States?

c. If your answer is no, are you prepared to argue in favor of the constitutionality of the death penalty before the Supreme Court?

Answer: I am fully prepared to argue, consistent with Supreme Court precedents, that the death penalty is constitutional. As Solicitor General, I would represent the interests of the United States, as expressed in legislation and executive policy. Like other nominees to the Solicitor General position, I have refrained from providing my personal opinions (except where I previously have disclosed them), both because these opinions will play no part in my official decisions and because such statements of opinion might be used to undermine the interests of the United States in litigation. But I can say that nothing about my personal views regarding the death penalty (relating either to policy or law) would make it difficult for me to carry out the Solicitor General’s responsibilities in this area.

2. Last year, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty for the crime of child rape always violates the Eighth Amendment. Writing for a five-justice majority, Justice Kennedy based his opinion partly on the fact that 37 jurisdictions – 36 states and the federal government – did not allow for capital punishment in child rape cases. In reality, however, Congress and the President specifically authorized the use of capital punishment in cases of child rape under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, as reported first by Col. Dwight H. Sullivan in his blog and later by the New York Times.

a. Given the heinousness of the crime, as well as the new information on the federal government’s codification of capital punishment in child rape cases under the UCMJ, do you believe Kennedy v. Louisiana was wrongly decided? If not, why?

b. Following the Supreme Court’s decision, President Obama announced at a press conference: “I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes. I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime.” Do you agree with that statement?

c. Would you, as Solicitor General, encourage the Court to reconsider its decision?

Answer: I do not think it comports with the responsibilities and role of the Solicitor General for me to say whether I view particular decisions as wrongly decided or whether I agree with criticisms of those decisions. The Solicitor General must show respect for the Court’s precedents and for the general principle of stare decisis. If I am confirmed as Solicitor General, I could not frequently or lightly ask the Court to reverse one of its precedents, and I certainly could not do so because I thought the case wrongly decided. There are circumstances, however, in which the Solicitor General properly can petition the Court to reconsider a decision. Relevant to this inquiry are whether a rule of law has been found unworkable, whether subsequent legal developments have left the rule an anachronism, or whether premises of fact are so far different from those initially assumed as to render the rule irrelevant or unjustifiable. The last of these factors would seem the one most potentially relevant to the Kennedy v. Louisiana decision. But I currently do not know enough about this decision or the facts and circumstances surrounding it to say whether I would ask the Court to reconsider it if I were confirmed as Solicitor General; nor would I make this determination without going through the extensive process that the Solicitor General’s office typically uses in such cases.

Justice John Paul Stevens Co-wrote Opinion Re-instating Death Penalty, Then Later Became Strong Critic of Death Penalty

The Catholic News Service points out that retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is currently the court's strongest death penalty critic, but that was not always true. In 1976, he co-wrote the 7-2 majority decision that reinstated the death penalty and ruled it again constitutional after it had been ruled unconstitutional in 1972. He had not been a member of the Court in 1972. He later joined decisions banning the death penalty for juveniles and people with mental retardation.

On the death penalty, in 1976, months after he joined the court, Stevens co-wrote the main opinion that allowed the reinstatement of capital punishment. But in 2008 in an opinion that ultimately upheld Kentucky's method of lethal injection, Baze v. Rees, Stevens asked whether the time has come to reconsider "the justification for the death penalty itself." 

He also wrote rulings or concurring opinions in cases that found the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles and for people who are mentally retarded. 

Stevens joined the court after the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, but in subsequent cases he has consistently supported rulings to keep abortion legal and opposed efforts to regulate or limit the conditions for obtaining an abortion.

Breaking News: Stay of Execution for Hank Skinner

6:30 PM: AP has posted the following:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has blocked the execution of a Texas man who says DNA testing could clear him of the triple slaying that has sent him to death row.

The justices' order Wednesday could allow Hank Skinner access to evidence that he says could demonstrate his innocence. The 47-year-old Skinner faced lethal injection for the bludgeoning and strangling of his girlfriend, 40-year-old Twila Jean Busby, and the stabbings of her two adult sons at their home in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa on New Year's Eve in 1993.

6:15 PM: We were just informed from our friends in Huntsville that the US Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for Hank Skinner. More details to follow!

STARVIN' FOR JUSTICE 2010

June 29 through July 2, 2010

17th Annual Fast & Vigil

to Abolish the Death Penalty

at the U.S. Supreme Court

in Washington, DC

Read the who, what, when, where, why and how of this important annual abolitionist event by visiting our website.

The four-day Fast & Vigil takes place on the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, considered by many to be the heart of the legalized killing machines in this country.

This is a great experience and training ground for people who want to practice, or become very adept, at talking about the death penalty. Tens of thousands of tourists, from all over the U.S. and throughout the world, pass by our vigil and table, so the opportunity for dialogue and discussion at a real grass-roots level is invaluable to the movement.

In addition to the strong public witness, this is an excellent opportunity to meet other abolitionists and to "recharge your batteries" while engaging in public outreach and maintaining a physical presence at the Court.

As always, the liquid-only fast is optional, although many do participate and build community around it. This year, the small voluntary registration fee of $20 also includes a free t-shirt and a stainless steel water bottle. Housing within walking distance of the Court is provided at little or no cost. And since this event is a fast, meals are cheap! The only cost to participants is travel to Washington, DC. And even that can be covered by getting your own local sponsors through the pledge sheet on the website.

Please contact us to register, sponsor, or find out more.

The Abolitionist Action Committee can be reached at 800-973-6548 or aac@abolition.org.

The Abolitionist Action Committee (AAC) has held a four day vigil at the Supreme Court every summer since 1993, from the dates of June 29 to July 2, to mark two very important court decisions about the death penalty. The AAC is an ad-hoc group of individuals committed to highly visible and effective public education for alternatives to the death penalty through non-violent direct action. Visit them online at www.abolition.org.

Judge Sotomayor on the Death Penalty

From NYT's The Caucus blog:

Putting on the Greens | 12:10 p.m. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, lamented many decisions made by the Supreme Court over time that he said went well beyond the jurisdiction of the court. It has micro-managed the death penalty, he said, “relied on international law that the people have never even adopted. The Supreme Court has even taken on the rules of golf.”

Later, he says rather bluntly when talking about her speeches that no one would disagree with the widespread belief that she was candid, and said he hoped she would explain some of her many statements.

Supreme Court rejects death penalty for raping children

The Court has released the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana (07-343), on whether the Eighth Amendment prohibits states from imposing the death penalty for child rape, and, if not, whether Louisiana's statute fails to narrow the class of offenders eligible for the death penalty. The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to impose the death penalty for the crime of raping a child, when the victim does not die and death was not intended. The vote was 5 - 4 and the decision was written by Justice Kennedy. Dissenting were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia. SCOTUSblog has posted the decision online. You can read the New York Times article online. Also here is the AP article about today's ruling.

Court rejects death penalty for raping children
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer 38 minutes ago

The Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana law that allows the execution of people convicted of a raping a child.

In a 5-4 vote, the court says the law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in cases of child rape violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday also cut the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million.

The court ruled that victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., but not as much as a federal appeals court determined.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, about $500 million compensation.

Exxon asked the high court to reject the punitive damages judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident that fouled 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline.

A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages. A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half.

Major cases before the Supreme Court in the fall

-- Guantanamo: Do the foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a
right to plead their innocence before a judge? (Boumediene v. Bush)

-- Voter ID: Can states require all voters to show photo identification at
their polling places ? (Crawford v. Marion County)

-- Lethal injection : Does an inmate facing execution have a right to be
protected against the "unnecessary risk of pain?" (Baze v. Rees)

-- Mexican prisoners: Can the president require states to reopen
death-penalty cases in order enforce an international treaty? (Medellin v.
Texas)

-- Drug sentences: Can judges set lower prison terms for those convicted
of selling drugs, including crack cocaine? (Kimbrough v. U.S. and Gall v.
U.S.)

-- 401(k) plans : Can an employee sue to recover his money if his
retirement fund lost $150,000 after the plan administrator ignored his
request to move his money to a safer investment? (LaRue v. DeWolff)

-- Age bias: Does a fired manager who sues alleging age bias have a right
to tell the jury about others in the company who say they, too,
experienced age discrimination? (Sprint v. Mendelsohn)

-- Investor lawsuits: Can investors who lost money because of stock fraud
sue other companies that participated in a scheme to inflate earnings?
(Stoneridge v. Scientific-Atlanta)

-- Gun rights: Does the Second Amendment give individuals a right to own a
gun, despite a city's ban on handguns? (pending appeal in District of
Columbia v. Heller)

(source: Los Angeles Times)
h/t Rick Halperin

Breaking News: Supreme Court stops execution of Scott Panetti

High court blocks execution of mentally ill killer

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

Last update: June 28, 2007 – 9:32 AM

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.

Scott Louis Panetti shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his wife and young daughter.

Panetti knows what he did, but believes that he is on death row because he preaches the word of God, his lawyers say.

Panetti's lawyers wanted the court to determine that people who cannot understand the connection between their crime and punishment because of mental illness may not be executed. The court voted 5-4 to stop his execution.

The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars "the execution of a person who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing,'' they said in court papers.

Texas said the court should reject Panetti's appeal on procedural grounds. But it also argued that the court should set a tougher standard for mental illness exceptions to capital punishment. Only if a Death Row inmate "lacks the capacity to recognize that his punishment both is the result of his being convicted of capital murder and will cause his death'' should his execution be halted, the state said. Panetti is competent on that basis, it said.

The killings took place in September 1992.

A former ranch hand and native of Hayward, Wis., Panetti had a history of mental problems before his conviction, recording 14 hospital stays over 11 years.

Four courts have said he was competent when he fired his trial lawyers. A jury and two courts rejected his defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. He personally argued that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense, dressing in cowboy clothing and submitting an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.

Then-Justice Lewis Powell said 20 years ago that a person may not be put to death if he cannot perceive "the connection between his crime and his punishment.''