death penalty

  • Remember that death penalty stay the Nevada Supreme Court ordered last October pending the U.S. Supreme Court's lethal injection decision? Back then I wrote:
    It was a tricky situation, because Castillo himself refused to file any appeals for his execution and was willing to die last night. The ACLU of Nevada decided to go forward anyway...
    Tricky no longer -- Castillo has decided to join the legal challenge. (4) #
    5/7/2008
  • Speaking of the death penalty, did you hear about the judge in Texas who disallowed a death penalty appeal because it came in 20 minutes late? This happened on September 25th, the day the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take the lethal injection case, and death row inmate Michael Richard's lawyers informed the court that they were throwing an appeal together. But a crashed computer prevented them from getting it in on time. Several judges were willing to stay late and receive the appeal, but Chief Justice Sharon Keller decided to keep strict 9-5 hours and disregarded the appeal. Richards was executed that night, and now newspapers in Texas are calling for Keller's removal from the court. (14) #
    10/17/2007

Nevada Supreme Court stays Castillo execution

Last night, 90 minutes before the scheduled time, the Nevada Supreme Court stayed the execution of convicted murderer William Castillo, pending a fuller review of the issues brought to the court by the ACLU of Nevada in an emergency hearing yesterday afternoon.

It was a tricky situation, because Castillo himself refused to file any appeals for his execution and was willing to die last night. The ACLU of Nevada decided to go forward anyway, with a two-pronged argument:

1) A lethal injection execution should not take place because the U.S. Supreme Court took a case several weeks ago to look into whether the three chemical cocktail used in such executions constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," as interpreted from the 8th Amendment of the constitution. There is no emergency reason why the execution cannot wait until that issue has been resolved by the highest court.

2) The second chemical used in lethal injection serves no purpose but to mask the effects (by muscle paralysis) of the third and lethal chemical. This violates the 1st Amendment right of the press to witness the full effects of lethal injection, especially in a time when its potential to be "cruel and unusual punishment" is in review. Courts in the past have prohibited such things as hiding executions with curtains, etc.

I think the arguments are sound, but the trickiness mostly lies in whether or not the ACLU of Nevada has legal standing to bring the issue to the court. Such determinations are beyond my legal understanding, but are what the court is hoping to work out during the upcoming briefings and further arguments. I'm hoping that Nevada continues to follow the examples of other states in not executing anyone until at least the Supreme Court has resolved their issue. (Although I personally would prefer that the death penalty be banned altogether.)

Lastly, I should mention that Flea was the one who argued this case for the ACLU of Nevada (along with her colleague Allen, who argued the 1st Amendment portion remotely from Las Vegas), and I went down with her to Carson City yesterday to watch. She did a tremendous job, especially considering that she's been licensed as a lawyer for less than a year, and more than held her own in front of all seven Nevada Supreme Court justices and the representatives of the state on the opposing side.

Rarely does a legal motion such as this get written, filed, argued, and decided within several days, and I was lucky to be a witness. Congratulations go to the entire ACLU of Nevada, and their allies, for making this happen. (And for having an emergency cert prepared for the U.S. Supreme Court ready to go in case of a loss.) The public has a right to ensure that its government is handling this grave and irreversible duty in an ethical, responsible, and constitutional manner.

Tue, 10/16/2007 - 12:58pm
  • With this being the last week of the current Supreme Court session, the final big decisions are starting to roll out. Slate has a clear and informative discussion going on about this crucial moment in the judicial world. E.g., today the court decided 5-4 that during death penalty sentencing, when factors favoring life and favoring death are exactly equal, the state can force the jury to choose death. (I.e., the "tie goes to Death" law of Kansas is constitutional.) And at 6-3 they ruled that Vermont's limitations on campaign expenditures is uncostitutionial. By next Monday at the latest, expect a huge decision on the use of military trials for "war on terror" cases. This is important shit -- do you think the results are just? (3) #
    6/26/2006
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