Lionel at 13
Lionel today

Could there be any more good news today? Lionel Tate has been freed from prison at the age of 16--after serving three years of a life sentence in Florida for killing a playmate.

You can find a recap of the case here.

This calls for a major celebration! The Supreme Court today reaffirmed the requirement of Miranda rights. The case is Fellers v. United States, 02-6320.

The full opinion in html is here. It was authored by Justice O'Connor.

Update: Lawyer jlk points out in an email that "Fellers is a Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel case a la Massiah, with all due respect to Ms. Holland (wire reporters are always on the tightest deadlines). If Fellers had been a Miranda case, Scalia would have dissented." We haven't had a chance to read the case yet, but we'll report back later. Feel free to put your analysis in the comments section.

From the Court's syllabus:

Don't miss this moving column on the Marcus Dixon case in the Houston Chronicle by Marian Wright Edelman, President and founder of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., titled Echoes of old South in teen's legal lynching.

Update: This just in from someone familiar with the case and players:

A new study in Florida shows that whites are more likely to be offered plea bargains than African-Americans.

White criminal offenders in Florida are nearly 50 percent more likely than blacks to get a ''withhold of adjudication,'' a plea deal that blocks their felony convictions even though they plead to the crime. White Hispanics are 31 percent more likely than blacks to get a withhold.

The disparity in outcomes has cost thousands of black offenders their civil rights, including the right to vote, serve on juries, hold public office, own a firearm. And the convictions carry an economic penalty: Felons can't be hired for many government jobs, and they can't apply for some student loans.

There are differing views on why the disparity exists. Reasons aren't the issue.

A Georgia defendant, Willie James Hall, set to be executed tomorrow is asking the court to change his sentence from death to life.

Update: Willie James Hall got his commutation today. He will not be killed tomorrow.

One day before Willie James Hall was scheduled to die by lethal injection, the death sentence of the 47-year-old convicted murderer was commuted to life in prison without parole.

On Monday, six of the jurors offered sworn statements to the parole board that they would have given Hall life without parole if that sentence had been an option at his trial, said Heather Hedrick, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan also told parole board members Monday during a two-hour clemency hearing that he was comfortable with a sentence of life without parole. The parole board also noted that Hall had excellent behavior in prison and no criminal record before the murder.

On a related note, an inmate in Chicago who was 14 at the time of his crime is seeking clemency:

The evidence that convicted Johnny Lee Savory of a Peoria double murder and sent him to prison in 1977, at the age of 14, has been debated ever since. Even the higher courts that have reviewed his case can't agree.

The Illinois Supreme Court, for instance, has said the physical evidence against Savory is weak and almost irrelevant compared with strong testimony from acquaintances who say Savory confided key details of the crime to them.

Savory is seeking DNA testing. His lawyers say it could prove his innocence. The state is objecting. Check out this comment by the prosecutor:

"Most prosecutors have been down this tired old road so many times that it has well-worn treads in it," he said. "The defense constantly takes their cup and scrapes it across the cage. They say: `Mr. Lyons, why won't you do this? Why won't you do this testing?' But even if we have testing in this, it wouldn't tell us anything. It would just be one more item. ... In this case it's not a pivotal issue." (emphasis our's).

What a great way to begin the week! The Supreme Court has agreed to revisit the constitutionality of the juvenile death penalty.

The justices agreed to return to the juvenile death penalty question after the Missouri Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to execute those who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crime.

The state's top court based its reasoning partly on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2002 that a national consensus had emerged to declare unconstitutional executions of criminals who are mentally retarded. In 1988, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the executions of offenders age 15 or younger at the time of their crimes.

But the next year the high court ruled that state executions of those who commit their crimes at age 16 or 17 do not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

It's time for this barbaric practice to go.

Update: The Virginia Assembly will also revisit the death penalty, including the issue of juvenile death penalties.

Martha Stewart's jury has been selected. There are eight women and four men. Among the alternates, four men and two women. Who's likely to convict Martha and who's likely to acquit? Here's our analysis:

A Juror likely to convict Martha:

Blue-collar worker from a working-class neighborhood with a young family. Someone with strong moral, religious or politically conservative views. One who is angered by the idea of a rich person buying her way out of trouble.

People who are very frugal, concerned about money and who are not financial risk takers. Somebody who has had bad investment experience, somebody who has been burned, somebody who thinks that corporate executives get away with murder.

A juror likely to acquit Martha

Canada is planning on providing free heroin to its addicts. A fix or folly?

Canada plans to follow the lead of other countries and start giving free heroin to the most desperate addicts. While the experiment seems outrageous to some, it actually revives a very old medical practice that met its demise early last century when law enforcement wrestled the issue of drugs away from doctors.

Link via Drug War Rant.

Here's the New Governor Arnie. He's willing to support parole, and is on track to review his first death penalty case.

Next month, he is likely to face his first decision on the death penalty, a practice that he has said he generally supports. The next convict in line to be put to death is seeking clemency and has the support of groups that oppose capital punishment. They are planning statewide demonstrations to urge Schwarzenegger to spare his life. And that is only the beginning of the pressures the new governor has begun to face on the issue of crime and punishment.

California runs the nation's largest penal system, housing more than 160,000 convicts. It also has some of the country's toughest and most controversial sentencing laws, including a "three strikes" measure that can put a third-time felony offender in jail for life even for a nonviolent crime such as theft. And by many accounts, the state agency that oversees prisons is mired with problems.

A federal report issued this month called it beset with management corruption and rogue prison guards. Last fall, state investigators also denounced California's parole policies as a "billion-dollar failure" because most released inmates end up back behind bars. At a hearing convened last week to examine the troubles plaguing prisons, state senators called California's penal system a "tarnished institution" in dire need of reform.

His administration, facing a $14 billion budget shortfall and desperate to find savings, may restructure parole policies in ways that would return fewer parolees to prison for minor violations of the terms of their release. It also is considering easing sentencing laws for some nonviolent offenders. Both of those moves could save California several hundred million dollars a year.

All good moves, Arnie.

Our congrats to Charlize Theron for winning Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her portrayal in the film Monster of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in October, 2002 in Florida. From our post at the time of her execution:

Aileen Wuornos, 44, one of the nation's first known female serial killers, was convicted of fatally shooting six middle-aged men along Florida highways in 1989 and 1990.

At the time of the killings, Wuornos was working as a highway prostitute. She said all of the men violentlyattacked her. She was only tried once for the murder of one of the men. Her lawyer had her plead guilty to the other five. Here are details of her case which some believe indicate she acted in self-defense and didn't receive either a fair trial or effective assistance of counsel. Her supporters also say sexism, anti-lesbian and anti-prostitute prejudice were used to condemn her to death.

Aileen wanted to die. In April, 2002 she asked for and received permission from the Court to drop her appeals and fire her lawyers. Her lawyers argued she was incompetent to make the decison. Jeb Bush granted a temporary stay for her to be examined by psychiatrists. She was judged competent to be executed and the stay was lifted.

Our comment on the execution:

The state of Florida should not engage in either state-assisted suicide or the killing of a mentally ill woman. Why are we still sinking to these levels?

We hope this award for Ms. Theron will raise public awareness of and condemnation for the execution of the mentally ill.

by TChris

Four jurors who voted to convict Kevin Cooper are joining Denzel Washington and other actors in asking Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to postpone Cooper's February 10 execution in order to hold a clemency hearing. Cooper was sentenced to death in 1985 after being convicted of murdering four people, including two children, in Chino Hills.

In its plea to the governor, Cooper's newly assembled defense team said there was evidence that could exonerate Cooper, including an alleged confession by a mental health patient and possible DNA evidence from hairs found in the hand of one of the victims.

Prosecutors dismiss the evidence as old news, but the question is whether Schwarzenegger will think it casts enough doubt on Cooper's guilt to warrant greater scrutiny of facts that the jury never considered. He may be influenced by the unusual effort jurors have made to communicate their concerns about unanswered questions in the case and the conduct of police detectives.

Cooper's defense team includes Lanny Davis, "the Washington, D.C., attorney who helped the Clinton White House with damage control during the Monica Lewinsky scandal," and "ex-boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who spent nearly 20 years in a New Jersey prison before his conviction for three murders was overturned." Interestingly, Cooper's request for a clemency hearing is supported by Denzel Washington, who portrayed Carter in the movie "The Hurricane," and by actors Sean Penn and Richard Dreyfuss. Will the pleas of his fellow actors capture the Governor's attention? If so, enlisting their support was a smart move.

by TChris

In a less depressing story from Houston than the one below, Judge Larry Standley has defended his decision to require a man who slapped his wife to attend yoga classes as a condition of probation. Noting that publicity surrounding the sentence had caused the case to take on a life of its own, Judge Standley (apparently concerned that he might be viewed as taking a lenient view of domestic abuse) emphasized that probation had been recommended to him by both parties as part of a plea agreement, and noted that he only tacked on the yoga class as an additional condition. Asked to explain why he required the Yoga class, Judge Standley responded:

I'll tell you what compelled me to do it, simply put, anger is a result of a feeling of a loss of control. And more and more I start seeing people that feel like they can control others around them. And the people that are really into yoga, just being in their presence, it is calming. And if it takes effect, I think it will help this individual. If not, then he will get revoked and do a year.

Asked whether he was worried that the sentence didn't send a sufficiently strong message to people who slap their spouses, Judge Standley assured CNN that he would be "tough on crime" in the appropriate case and pointed to offenders he had sentenced to the Harris County Jail for the maximum term of a year.