Split 5-4 capital punishment decisions will keep arising with the Supreme Court's hardcore death penalty greenlighters (Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch), the usual remaining members of that five (Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh) and the four more "liberal" justices who at least question the...
Rushing justice in criminal and civil court cases can be tempting to many trial judges, often facing crushing court dockets that keep getting piled with more and more cases. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I believe that the solution to the challenge of overloaded court...
Capital punishment in the United States has proceeded somewhat away from an arbitrary and capricious system that previously allowed judges rather than juries to decide a death sentence, and for people to be executed for crimes other than murder. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer, I...
Abolish capital punishment. As a Fairfax criminal lawyer and since long before, I have fully supported the abolition of the death penalty. Former prosecutor Helen Fahey is being touted for her pioneering DNA work as a prosecutor in the announcement of her upcoming Arlington bar...
Why allow inmate snitch testimony to cause an inmate's execution? Testimony from inmates serving substantial prison terms can too often be expected to be manufactured for seeking to improve their lot, with little concern about the truth. ...
One 2014 day when I entered a nearby courthouse, a sheriff's deputy lamented the backlash of public opinion against police after police shot dead Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The unjustified police killings continued, including Eric Garner's death on Staten Island following a police chokehold,...
Praised be Justice Stephen Breyer, apparently the United States Supreme Court's strongest skeptic on the death penalty's Constiutionality, who emphasized on April 24, 2017: "What legitimate purpose does it serve to hold any human being in solitary confinement for 40 years awaiting execution? What does...
The European Union does not have the death penalty, and the sky has not fallen. The United States, though, continues in the wild, wild west tradition of executions of those convicted of murder. In the wild west, populations were thin; law enforcement agents were few;...
In 1991, I was still yearning to re-direct my career from the 25-lawyer corporate law firm that I had joined two years later, to something more meaningful. Ever since finishing law school, I went out of my way to meet birds of a professional and...
For decades, Virginia has been a leader in sending people to death row and in executing them rather than delaying doing so, as is common in California. On April 21, 2017, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe took at least one action in the opposite direction, commuting...
example along with the constant execution machines of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. In all likelihood, Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will help allow the nation's death penalty machine to proceed virtually full speed ahead.This week, the Supreme Court denied relief to a...
In 2005, the United States Supreme Court decided 5-4 that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment to execute those who committed crimes when they were under eighteen years old. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005). Post-Roper, a criminal defendant charged with an otherwise...
Dylann Roof represented himself at his federal capital sentencing trial phase. He put forth no effort to prevent a death sentence, which helps explain how the jury quickly reached a death sentence verdict (within three hours of deliberation) at the sentencing phase The trial judge...
Even in states where judges ordinarily handle sentencing in criminal cases rather than having the jury recommend the sentence, currently all states but Alabama prohibit a death sentence unless the jury recommends such a sentence. Sadly, this effectively means that Alabama judges -- all elected...
Three years ago or so, I was waiting my turn to check in for my annual visit to a United States Supreme Court oral argument. There in front of me was David Bruck, a giant in a modest man's clothing and visage who greeted me...
Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts -- no champion against the death penalty -- for adding his vote to amount to five votes for staying the execution of Thomas Arthur, even though he does not agree that Supreme Court review of Mr. Arthur's case is merited....
Today's Bosse decision is more monumental than might first meet the eye. The United States Supreme Court has at least three justices that are very friendly to preserving the death penalty....
Eighteen people have been executed this year thus far in the United States. That is an average of one weekly. We have no signs that this pace will slow down. The National Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty's website does not list scheduled...
How much good was it, really, that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe earlier in April 2016 vetoed a bill to mandate electrocutions when lethal injection drugs are not available for executions, when all along he was advocating for shielding lethal injection drug manufacturers' identities, in the...
Dear fellow Virginia voters- Please contact Governor McAuliffe online to urge him to veto electric chair use before his April 10 midnight action deadline. The Bill's final text is here. ...
