CrimLaw

Death Cases:

(1) Argument over the killing of people by the State:

(a) Voices from both the Left and Right calling for Virginia's use of the death penalty to be stopped:

Sentencing disparities based on geography and race, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate representation by defense attorneys, and an appeals system that ignores evidence of innocence are some of the problems listed in a report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia.

While critics denounced the study as nothing new from a predictable source, the ACLU found an unlikely ally this year in its call for a moratorium - the Rutherford Institute, a conservative-leaning civil liberties group based in Charlottesville.

"Human life is too sacred to be taken away in a system as flawed as the commonwealth of Virginia's," Rutherford Institute Director John Whitehead said at a capital news conference.

"Whatever one's views of the merits of capital punishment may be, no one supports the execution of an innocent person."

(b) George Will has apparently broken from the orthodoxy and begun to wonder whether the system can be fair enough to justify the use of capital punishment.

(c) An editorial noting the inequity in the application of the death penalty across the U.S.

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(2) A serial killer caught in spite of the task force set up to catch him.

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(3) The U.S., the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are the countries on record as having executed minors since 1990 and the U.S. leads the pack with 17. And, of course, Texas leads the way.

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(4) Diary of a girl who killed. The excerpts are disturbing/fascinating.