The Connecticut Supreme Court has denied a request to halt Michael Ross's execution, which will be the first in New England in 45 years.

The high court upheld an earlier ruling that Ross was competent to make his own decisions, rejecting arguments that the waiver of his appeals was involuntary.

The Connecticut Law Blog is monitoring all developments as well as news coverage.

Dick Cheney came to Colorado today to raise money for Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, the chief architect of the constitutional ban against gay marriage.

Vice President Dick Cheney helped raise an estimated $200,000 Monday for the campaign of Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who is considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents in Congress.

Musgrave, one of the original sponsors of a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, has proved "to be exactly the right person for the job," Cheney told a crowd about 200 people who paid $500 to $4,000 to attend the luncheon in downtown Denver.

The money is raised through the Retain Our Majority Program, created in 1999 by Tom DeLay.

by TChris

This was written by a member of the Rhode Island Parole Board to describe his struggle to balance the horrific stories he hears from crime victims and the sincere appraisals of failed lives he hears from offenders who may deserve a second chance.

So, how do I administer justice? I believe that justice can’t be shaped by simplistic formulas. Rather, justice happens when real human beings sort through a jumble of laws, rules, conflicting stories, and plain old instinct.

While made in the context of parole decisions, his comments are an effective refutation to those who think "one size fits all" sentencing proposals have something to do with justice.

by TChris

After 29 hours of deliberations, a hung jury caused Judge Charles Schneider to declare a mistrial in the prosecution of Charles McCoy Jr. McCoy was charged with 24 crimes arising out of "sniper-style shootings" at vehicles in Ohio. He was facing the death penalty.

McCoy's lawyers argued that McCoy suffered from a serious mental illness that prevented him from appreciating the difference between right and wrong.

McCoy was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1996, and even prosecutors acknowledged the severity of his mental illness, in which he claimed to hear voices and believed cameras were watching him.

Psychiatrists for both sides agreed he suffered auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions that McCoy felt could only be silenced by carrying out the shootings.

Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron O'Brien said the state presented the best case it had, and may not pursue the death penalty if the case goes to trial a second time.

Over the winter, Defense Tech's Noah Shachtman spent a week and a half riding around Chicago with the police. After "2,250 spy cameras, 466,000 pieces of evidence, four suspected drug dealers, and one giant car chase," Noah has written this report for Wired magazine, in which he says,

Chicago's two-fisted street cops have a new kind of backup: a point-and-click surveillance network tied to a citywide crime-fighting database. (Smile for the camera.)

Liberal bloggers all know The Hamster. Eric Hananoki started the Hamster as a freshman at George Washington. We were early linkers to each other and got to know each other through e-mails. Now, Eric is graduating (already!) from GW and moving on....to Air America Radio and Al Franken's blog.

Congratulations, Eric. I'll miss The Hamster. Air America Radio is lucky to have you and I'm sure all your loyal readers will follow you over there.

Another shout-out today, this time to Democracy Rising, an anti-war site dedicated to finding an exit strategy from Iraq. Founding member Kevin Zeese (also President of Common Sense Drug Policy) writes today about the conscientious objector trial of Keith Benderman.

Last week, Kevin wrote about the problems in the Lynndie England guilty plea:

Now the prosecution of Private England may undo the damage control done by DoD to protect its officers and hold only a handful of scapegoats responsible.

Also say hello to our new advertiser, Raw Story Q and author Nancy Goldstein, who recently wrote Break Them Down on Abu Ghraib.

Crim Prof blog has a new link-rich post about the Ohio death penalty study that found racial bias in the state's application of the death penalty. TChris's post on the study from Saturday is here.

Death Penalty Information Center sums up the findings:

• Offenders facing a death penalty charge for killing a white person were twice as likely to go to death row than if they had killed a black victim. Death sentences were handed down in 18% of cases where the victims were white, compared with 8.5% of cases where victims were black.

• Nearly 1/2 of the 1,936 capital punishment cases ended with a plea bargain. That includes 131 cases in which the crime involved two or more victims; 25 people had killed at least 3 victims.

• In Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold, just 8% of offenders charged with a capital crime received a death sentence. In conservative Hamilton County, 43% of capital offenders ended up on death row.

The Huffington Post is off and running. It's a winner, and going right on our "blogwire" roll. In addition to the home page, there's a blog page and a newswire page. The blog and newswire pages have a clean and crisp look - no clutter. There are a lot of blog entries on a variety of topics. If it wasn't a work day, I would spend hours there. I will later, I'm sure.

A nice touch is that some posts have a "bio" link and/or a picture next to the authors' names. This helps with those you've heard of but don't remember why, and those you are clueless about. Others, of course, are household names.

It's not just about politics. Some of those posting have never blogged before but gamely are giving it a try. It will be interesting to see who becomes hooked.

A few blog posts that have grabbed my attention so far:

John Cusak on Hunter Thompson. He describes a t-shirt Hunter sent him a few months before he died. Hunter had written on it:

'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property -- or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.

Via Sentencing Law and Policy we learn that FAMM is sounding the alarm bell and urges everyone to click here and tell your Congressperson to vote no on H.R. 1279, the anti-gang bill.

"Sometime during the week of May 9th, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on H.R. 1279, an extremely harsh and unnecessary gang bill that includes many new and increased federal mandatory minimum sentences."

H.R. 1279, the "Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act of 2005," includes many new and increased mandatory minimum sentences. House members need to hear from their constituents that this bill is full of mandatory minimum sentences that will not help deter youth involvement in gangs; it will cost an estimated $7 billion dollars over the next 10 years; and it is an unnecessary federal intrusion into matters traditionally handled by the states.

Here is FAMM's short list of what's wrong with the bill:

Since 2001, Tennessee has issued a "certificate" to immigrants that allows them to drive even though they may not be legal residents. This may be a way out for states that don't agree with the Real I.D. Act.

Tennessee is one of only two states that issue two different driver's permits: a license, for citizens and permanent residents; and a certificate for driving, primarily for those who cannot prove they are here legally. To satisfy domestic security concerns, the state has tried to forbid the certificate's use as identification. Utah also has a two-tiered system.

With Congress preparing to require states to issue driver's licenses only to citizens and legal residents, other states that want to allow noncitizens to drive may begin looking to Tennessee's system as a model.

Two-tiered systems like Tennessee's are discriminatory. Since the certificate is so different in appearance from a driver's license, it's a red flag - a scarlet letter. It doesn't operate as an identification card which prevents many immigrant workers from opening bank accounts. It would be better for the Senate to refuse to pass the Real ID Act this week. Since that's not likely to happen, this may be the best alternative.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) jumped ship today in an appearance on This Week, by acknowledging that Republicans prevented 62 Clinton nominees from being voted upon by the Senate.

"The Republicans' hands aren't clean on this either. What we did with Bill Clinton's nominees - about 62 of them - we just didn't give them votes in committee or we didn't bring them up."

During Bush's first term in office, only ten of his nominees were filibustered. As of March, 2005, 204 of his nominees have been confirmed.

Crooks and Liars has a video of the soundbite.

Filibusters are constitutional and a necessary check on the party in power. They have been used by both parties. The radical right fringe in this country should not be allowed to change 200 years of history.